• 'Woke Warfighters': GOP Report Says Leftist Ideology, Gender "Insanity" Weakening America's Military
  ‘Woke Warfighters’: GOP Report Says Leftist Ideology, Gender “Insanity” Weakening America’s Military

  Authored by Naveen Anthrapully via The Epoch Times,

  Republican lawmakers have decried the Biden administration for policies that they say are weakening America’s military through leftist indoctrination and “woke” ideological posturing to appease “Ivy League faculty lounges or progressive pundits.”

  “Unfortunately, President Joe Biden and his administration are weakening America’s warfighters through a sustained assault fueled by woke virtue signaling,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) in a report titled “Woke Warfighters,” according to Fox News.

  “Our military’s singular purpose is to ‘provide for the common defense’ of our nation. It cannot be turned into a left-wing social experiment. It cannot be used as a cudgel against America itself.”

  The report cites several examples of the administration’s stance. One example was Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s first action after being confirmed by the Senate, which included signing a “racism” memorandum. The message directed all service members and Department of Defense civilian employees to conduct a “one-day stand-down” to discuss extremism within their ranks.

  

  This was despite the fact that in a force of more than 2.1 million active and reserve members, there were only 100 such cases of alleged “extremism,” according to data collected by the Biden administration.

  “The world is a dangerous place, and the Biden Administration’s insanity is eroding our greatest source of security in it,” said the report, citing the military’s promotion of Marxist critical race theory, sex reassignment procedures, and transgender ideology, as well as the punishment of those who oppose such things.

  Another example was that of Bishop Garrison, who currently serves as Austin’s senior adviser on human capital and diversity, equity, and inclusion issues. The report said that Garrison promoted the “1619 Project,” which is based on a falsified history of the United States and part of a revisionist education being taught in some schools across the country.

  Another case cited in the report was that of Kelisa Wing, the chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer at the Department of Defense Education Agency.

  “Wing also wrote a book to teach white children that they have white privilege and that ‘white privilege hurts a lot of people.’ The book comes with an exercise to help kids understand ‘what parts of my identity have provided me with privilege.’”

  Sex Reassignment Procedures

  Rubio and Roy pointed out that the U.S. military has historically not accepted candidates who do not meet certain physical and mental criteria, and some of the disqualifying conditions include allergies to peanuts or gluten, learning disorders, acute depression or anxiety, and skin diseases like eczema and psoriasis.

  “People cannot even enlist with Invisalign or braces until they are removed,” the report states. However, recent developments have the military forces “proudly promoting and celebrating sex reassignment procedures, which can have months-long recovery periods, with complete recovery taking ‘up to one year’ for some procedures.”

  Former President Barack Obama’s Defense Department in 2016 allowed unrestricted access to military service by transgender people. The GOP report argues that people with gender dysphoria suffer from mental health issues and are more likely to experience severe anxiety and poor mental health encounters, and “are eight times more likely to commit suicide.”

  The report cites Thomas Spoehr of The Heritage Foundation, who said that because people with gender dysphoria are more prone to mental health issues, other service personnel “will be reluctant to rely on them” because of these issues, which would result in a section of “non-deployable service members.” This could also lead to resentment within the ranks as some members will never be “called upon to deploy,” the report states.

  The Biden administration allows members to “transition” while on active duty, and allows individuals to use shower and bathroom facilities of their choosing. Military members are now being trained in the use of appropriate pronouns and “when to recommend their subordinates consider gender reassignment surgery,” said the report.

  Punishing Dissenters of Woke Ideology

  The report concluded with the Afghanistan withdrawal, which resulted in the deaths of 13 U.S. service members. The United States also left behind billions of dollars’ worth of equipment, including 2,000 armored vehicles and up to 40 aircraft, which the Taliban seized and paraded.

  “No one faced consequences. Rather, the Biden Administration continued undermining the military with woke ideology and ignored its failure. The only service member who received a reprimand from the Afghanistan debacle was a lieutenant colonel who criticized the way the withdrawal was executed,” the report stated.

  The GOP report accused the administration of hypocrisy for the lieutenant colonel’s treatment when compared to a junior medic in uniform who used the Chinese messaging app TikTok to criticize the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

  The medic asks in the video, “How am I supposed to swear to support and defend the Constitution and a country that treats its women like second-class citizens,” adding “I will not rest, and I will not be silent, because this is an attack on women in this country.”

  The report states that the medic has not received any disciplinary action for her remarks.

  Chiefs Push Back on Criticism

  In 2021, the service chiefs for the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard rejected the assertion that the armed services are getting progressively “woke.”

  “I think it’s an assertion that isn’t really grounded on facts,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said at a naval conference in 2021.

  “We know that there’s strength in diversity; that is a scientifically proven fact.’’

  The Epoch Times has reached out to the Department of Defense and its education agency.

  U.S. Army officials confirmed on Sept. 30 that the Army failed to meet its recruitment goal of 60,000 personnel as the service branch only recruited about 45,000 soldiers during the 2022 fiscal year.

  “In the Army’s most challenging recruiting year since the start of the all-volunteer force, we will only achieve 75 percent of our fiscal year 22 recruiting goal,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said in a statement.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/26/2022 – 23:30

• EV Charging Stations By 2035 Will Need More Power Than A Small Town
  EV Charging Stations By 2035 Will Need More Power Than A Small Town

  A new report from the electricity and gas utility National Grid (which serves parts of New York and Massachusetts) found a rapid increase in electric vehicles on the city streets and highways will require upgraded power grids to handle all the new demand. By 2035, a charging station could demand as much power as a sports arena or small town. 

  National Grid expects by 2035, large charging stations serving EVs, from SUVs and pickup trucks to delivery vans and semi-trucks, would require 19 megawatts of peak power — that’s approximately what a small town uses. In 2045, those large charging stations could demand upwards of 30 megawatts of capacity, with peak usage of a large manufacturing plant. 

  

  National Grid said current charging stations couldn’t serve the EV demand of the future, indicating significant power-grid improvements would be needed. It said expanding the charging infrastructure would take time:

  “Building these high-voltage interconnections and upgrades can take years, which is why it’s important to take action right now.

  “By making ‘no-regrets’ upgrades at ‘no-regrets’ sites, we can make sure fast-charging is there when drivers need it—and not a moment too late,” the report said. 

  Today, the impact of EV charging on the grid is small, and there is enough excess capacity to handle the current fleet of cars, SUVs, vans, and pickup trucks. 

  As EV adoption expands, so will the electricity demand, and as we’ve noted, nuclear power generation will be the best form of on-demand clean energy. The White House understands nuclear is the future for a sustainable clean grid, as they rush to secure a “large amount” of funding for a domestic uranium strategy. 

  Unreliable solar and wind won’t be enough to power the Biden administration’s ambitious plan for half of all new vehicles sold in 2030 to be electric. Meanwhile, California set a target of 2035 to phase out the sale of new gasoline-powered light-duty vehicles.

  Momentum is certainly building to electrifying vehicle fleets. In doing so, increasing investments in zero-emission nuclear power production and sourcing uranium domestically will be the key to sustainably powering future EV demand. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/26/2022 – 23:00

• The Left's Cynical "Speech Is Violence" Ploy
  The Left’s Cynical “Speech Is Violence” Ploy

  Authored by Ben Shapiro via The Epoch Times,

  This week, another evil mass shooter unleashed horror at a gay club in Colorado Springs, killing 5 and wounding another 25. The shooter – whose name I refuse to mention in order to disincentivize future shooters, who seek notoriety – was clearly mentally ill: Just last year, the shooter reportedly threatened his mother with a bomb, resulting in his arrest. Yet Colorado’s red flag law, which could have deprived him of legal access to weaponry, was not invoked by either police or relatives. The Colorado Springs massacre, then, is yet another example of a perpetrator with more red flags than a bullfighting convention, and no one in authority willing to take action to do anything about him.

  

  Yet the national conversation, as it so often does, has now been directed away from the question at hand – how to prevent mass shootings – and toward broader politics. Instead of seeking methodologies that might be effective in finding and stopping deranged individuals seeking murder without curbing rights and liberties for hundreds of millions of people, our political and media leaders have decided to blame Americans who oppose same-sex marriage, drag queen story hour, and “family-friendly” drag shows.

  Disagreement with the radical Leftist social agenda amounts to incitement to violence, they argue.

  Thus, NBC News senior reporter Brandy Zadrozny said, “there is a pipeline. It starts from some smaller accounts online like Libs of TikTok, it moves to the right wing blogosphere, and then it ends up on Tucker Carlson or ends up out of a right-wing politician’s mouth, and it is a really dangerous cycle that does have real-world consequences.”

  Michelle Goldberg of The New York Times wrote, “it seems hard to separate (these murders) from a nationwide campaign of anti-LGBTQ incitement …. They’ve been screaming that drag events … are part of a monstrous plot to prey on children. They don’t get to duck responsibility if a sick man with a gun took them seriously.”

  Brian Broome wrote in The Washington Post that the shooting could not be “blamed on mental illness”; no, he stated, “It’s right-wing rhetoric that sparks these nightmares …. The bottomless list of homophobes and transphobes on the right don’t need to throw the rock and then hide their hands. Instead, they use someone else’s hands entirely.”

  The Left’s attempt to lay responsibility for violence at the feet of anyone who opposes the transgressive social agenda doesn’t stop with blame—it extends to calls for full-scale censorship.

  “We’re living in an environment that’s driven by two things,” averred Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

  “Politicians who are using us to bolster their careers by creating division and hate, and number two is social media platforms that are monetizing hate, and especially against marginalized communities. They’re—they’re choosing profits over hate, and it’s killing, literally killing our community.”

  Social media, the logic goes, ought to shut down or demonetize any video disagreeing with the GLAAD agenda.

  This is cynical politics at its worst. It’s also nothing new. The Left routinely cites violent incidents as reason to crack down on free speech with which they disagree. As Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Instagram) tweeted, “After Trump elevated anti-immigrant & anti-Latino rhetoric, we had the deadliest anti-Latino shooting in modern history. After anti-Asian hate w/ COVID, Atlanta. Tree of Life. Emanuel AME. Buffalo. And now after an anti-LGBT+ campaign, Colorado Springs. Connect the dots, @GOP.”

  Yes, according to AOC, virtually every major mass shooting of the last seven years is the result of her political opponents—none of whom has called for violence. But in the world of the Left, disagreement is violence merely waiting to be unleashed. Which is why censorship, they believe, is the only way to achieve a more peaceful world.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/26/2022 – 22:30

• US Nuclear Reactors Among The Oldest In The World
  US Nuclear Reactors Among The Oldest In The World

  The United States’ 92 nuclear reactors currently in operation have a mean age of 41.6 years, the third oldest in the world.

  

  As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, the only nuclear fleets that are older are those of Switzerland (46.3 years) and Belgium (42.3 years). Also older are the singular reactors in use in Armenia and the Netherlands.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  The U.S. was among the first commercial adopters of nuclear energy in the 1950s, explaining the number of aging reactors today. A building boom between the 1960s and 1970s created today’s nuclear power plants in the United States. The five reactors completed in the 1990s and the one finished in 2016 were all holdovers of delayed construction projects from the 1970s experiencing roadblocks due to regulatory problems and mounting opposition to nuclear energy. The most recent construction start date of a completed U.S. reactor today is 1978 – one year before the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, which further cemented the public’s rejection of nuclear energy and the challenges of updating nuclear reactor infrastructure today. However, two reactors started at Vogtle power plant in Georgia in 2013 will join the grid soon as the newest additions to the U.S. fleet. They too experienced many regulatory and other delays, culminating in the bankruptcy of the reactor construction company. The U.S. government stepped in with a loan so that the project can now be finished almost 17 years after its initial proposal.

  The U.S. today is one of only 15 countries which the World Nuclear Industry Status Report lists as actively pursuing nuclear energy. This includes new nuclear programs in the United Arab Emirates, Belarus and Iran that were started in the past decade only, as well as a younger program in China that started producing power in 1991 and today has a mean reactor fleet age of just nine years. India, running a nuclear energy program since 1969, nevertheless saw much more recent construction than the U.S., achieving a current mean reactor age of 24.2 years. Many European countries which were early adopters of the technology are meanwhile phasing out their programs, at times before the end of reactors’ expected lifespans.

  Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing energy crisis, interest in nuclear energy has been renewed in many countries, but challenges for nuclear reactors construction persist today. One solution could be a pivot to small reactors like the ones company NuScale is expected to build in Idaho by 2030 using a new modular technology.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/26/2022 – 22:00

• Biden Admin Quietly Greenlights Plan To Build Huge Gulf Oil Terminal
  Biden Admin Quietly Greenlights Plan To Build Huge Gulf Oil Terminal

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Biden administration has quietly approved plans to build a new crude oil terminal in the Gulf of Mexico off Texas, seemingly in contradiction to the president’s climate agenda.

  

  The Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration approved the application (pdf) for Enterprise’s Sea Port Oil Terminal, one of four proposed offshore oil export terminals, on Monday.

  According to the application, the port will be located offshore of Freeport, Texas. It will have 4.8 million barrels of storage capacity and add 2 million barrels per day to the U.S. oil export capacity.

  In its 94-page decision (pdf), the Maritime Administration said that it had approved the application because the construction and operation of the port is “in the national interest and consistent with other policy goals and objectives.”

  “The construction and operation of the Port is in the national interest because the Project will benefit employment, economic growth, and U.S. energy infrastructure resilience and security,” the administration wrote. “The Port will provide a reliable source of crude oil to U.S. allies in the event of market disruption and have a minimal impact on the availability and cost of crude oil in the U.S. domestic market.”

  

  Protests Over Planned Oil Terminal

  The decision states that the project will expand on an existing Enterprise Crude Houston operated terminal located in Houston and will generate 62 permanent jobs over 30 years. Additionally, 1,400 temporary construction jobs will be created, with the majority of the workforce being hired from existing labor pools in Texas and Louisiana, according to the application.

  The Environmental Protection Agency quietly issued its approval (pdf) of the project in October but stressed that “more emphasis is needed to ensure that environmental justice and climate change considerations are included in the project for the protection of overburdened communities.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/26/2022 – 21:30

• Rocking Around The Plastic Tree
  Rocking Around The Plastic Tree

  For some families, the search for the right Christmas tree is an annual event.

  For large shares of Americans and Brits though, this search may have ended a long time ago – the perfect tree already sitting safely in the attic or garage, ready for its glorious but fleeting return to the living room.

  

  As new survey data from Statista’s Global Consumer Survey shows, it’s a different story in Germany.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  There, the home of the Christmas tree tradition, the practice is still very much alive – 43 percent of adults said they would be putting up a real tree this year, compared to 24 percent in the U.S. and just 17 percent in the United Kingdom.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/26/2022 – 21:00

• Thoughts On A Crypto Crisis
  Thoughts On A Crypto Crisis

  Authored by Omid Malekan,

  If you’ve never seen the movie “There Will Be Blood” starring Daniel Day Lewis, then now might be a good time. Based loosely on an Upton Sinclair novel that satirizes the early days of the oil industry, it portrays the life of an independent oil man who rises to great wealth and power at the expense of his humanity. While that character’s arc is predictable, what makes the movie is his back and forth interaction with a young pastor whose own lust for power turns out to be just as great, and just as corrupting. Lewis’ character, while evil, is at least self-aware about his greed and selfishness. The pastor is not, and in some ways turns out the more pathetic character.

  

  Welcome to the state of crypto in its thirteenth year, except that in our story the greedy entrepreneur and the morally bankrupt spiritual leader have turned out to be the same person. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, but also Do Kwon (of Terra), Su Zhu (of Three Arrows Capital), Alex Mashinsky (of Celsius) and a few others. All claimed to be working towards the greater good. All ended up obscenely wealthy in the process. All turned out to be frauds.

  Tempting as it might be to focus all of our energy into anger towards these men, this is a time for self reflection. As an industry, but also a community. Crypto has attracted millions of people from all over the world and the vast majority are good people who believe in this new way of building trust. But we are terrible at picking leaders (with a few exceptions) and have only ourselves to blame when they let us down.

  The great irony of the collapses we’ve experienced lately is that nobody has to use these firms. Unlike Wall Street, where consumer choices are always limited (by design) the censorship resistance of crypto often means nobody has to use any service. Most of FTX’s clients could have custodied their own coins and used DeFi, in the same way that people who wanted a more decentralized stablecoin could have used Dai.

  And yet, countless users who came to crypto to get away from traditional authorities ended up running into the arms of services offered by inexperienced leaders who act like they are running a cult. But why?

  The simplest answer is greed. The KwonZhuMashFried’s of the world all promised their followers a faster road to riches. Greed has an exponential function. The more money people make, the more they (paradoxically) want, despite the marginal utility of the next dollar declining quickly. Crypto has made a lot of people rich, but for every user who cashes out there seems to be two who double down. This compulsion for always making more drives some people to suspend disbelief and to seek out the quacks who make the most grandiose promises.

  But blaming everything on greed is too simple. There has to be more to this story, and true self reflection requires going deeper.

  Another explanation is the messy birthing process of a new industry. Director Paul Thomas Anderson chose the early days of the oil industry as the setting for his tale of human corruption for a good reason. There is something about transformative technologies and their early boom-bust cycles that pulls in certain kinds of people, and those people often end up hurting many others. There is a good amount of historical precedence to what is happening in crypto today in other industries. The early days of the railroad industry had the Crédit Mobilier scandal, the early days of the web had Worldcom, and the early days of securitization had Lehman.

  Ironically, even the early days of central banking included a spectacular bubble that led to a major collapse, as orchestrated by a cult-like figure who turned out to be a fraud.

  In each example, early adopters who believed that the world could be a better place — a place where central banking could work, railroads could crisscross the land, or electronic communication could be ubiquitous — had to suspend some level of disbelief. They also had to have faith in the face of great skepticism, for each new idea had its naysayers. But their open-mindedness also paved the way for grifters with a messiah complex to come in, take over, and almost ruin everything.

  Almost, because good ideas transcend the bad people who hijack them. This is a point that the crypto skeptics now basking in their schadenfreude tend to miss. Crypto didn’t become important because some mountebank mouthed off about it on twitter or because some charlatan testified about it to congress. It became important because it can solve important problems, and that importance enabled the rise of people like SBF. The collapse of FTX does not change that promise, in the same way that the collapse of countless railroad companies in the 1870s did not change the utility of trains.

  Blockchain is a technology invented to transform trust. In that sense, it is even more fundamental than oil, railroads or telecommunication, for trust is the alpha and omega of civilization. This transformation was always going to be messy and have many ups and downs, great moments of triumph followed by equally hard periods of despair.

  The fact that history is repeating itself doesn’t let the rest of us off the hook. We can and should do better. For me, I at least owe that much to my students and readers. For you, it might be something that you owe to your investors or customers. Governments owe it to their citizens and we all owe it to future generations.

  Here’s a short (but by no means definitive) list of how:

  First, we need to stop with the cults of personality. Even after everything that has happened we still have too many charlatans. The Michael Saylors and Max Keisers of the world only hurt the cause. Part of me is ashamed to work in an industry where people behave like this. (Side note: Bitcoin has lost half of its value since the time Keiser declared “we are not selling.” Not only are these people scummy grifters, they are also terrible investors).

  Second, success in this domain was, is and will always be about the tech, not the money, and certainly not the hype. Capital deployment, economic incentives and money legos are intricately involved with that tech, but doing well should only come to those who do good, and doing good means building something sustainable. The biggest tell of the impending doom of the KwonZhuMashFrieds of our world was their tendency to focus on flowery bullshit like super cycles and altruism, as opposed to the technology.

  How sad that the lineup for the next major Bitcoin conference consists almost entirely of hype people, even after everything that’s happened. For contrast, this is what real leaders like to talk about.

  Third, we need to stop the endless tribalism. Competition is healthy, believing your preferred project can only succeed if others fail is not. Tellingly, some of the industry insiders who just read my preceding paragraph have already jumped to false conclusions about my feelings towards Bitcoin and Ethereum, and will now filter the rest of my comments through that lens. This is not how serious people behave.

  Our tribalism is a direct result of our insecurity. If you are actually certain that your project is the best then you should welcome the competition.

  Fourth, we need a better approach to VC. I’ve worked in venture and have many friends who work in crypto VC, but something has gone wrong here, because the most sophisticated investors have somehow fallen for the biggest scams. I’m not sure what the solution is, but it probably starts with more diverse views within the venture community and more patience. Just because your fund can raise a billion dollars to deploy doesn’t mean that you should.

  As a corollary, we also need to do something about the entrance of so much “biased capital” into our domain. Why do otherwise conservative institutions (such as pension funds) who would never invest a dollar into Bitcoin plow hundreds of millions of dollars into companies that promise to do stuff with Bitcoin like Celsius and FTX? Anyone who wants to get capital exposure to crypto should invest directly in crypto, as opposed to startups run by inexperienced boys with bad hygiene.

  Fifth, we need better infrastructure. One reason major institutions prefer indirect equity exposure over directly owning the coins is custody. So we need better custody of all kinds, from safer self-custody to regulated centralized custodians. I find it telling that so many funds and protocols who obviously knew better still kept all their coins at FTX. They did that because it was easier.

  The crypto-originalist vision of a world where every participant practices strict self-custody was never going to scale. Human beings have always wanted the help of a trusted institution to protect their valuables. This was true in ancient times when people used bearer assets like gold and will be true in future times when people use digital bearer assets like Bitcoin.

  Sixth, we need better regulators. Naked ambition masquerading as “doing good” by people with a messiah complex doesn’t just infect the industry. It also infects some of the people who regulate it. Gary Gensler is a good example. He talks a big game, but his track record of actually preventing bad stuff from happening is abysmal. His agency directly looked at Terra & BlockFi, and dealt directly with Sam, but did nothing to protect their victims. This obsession with classifying tokens as securities is counterproductive.

  The SEC’s refusal to allow a basic Bitcoin ETF, while simultaneously approving garbage like the BITI short Bitcoin fund, is the ultimate proof that this is more about Gary than investor protection. (BITI isn’t bad because it is shorting Bitcoin, it’s bad because it is bad at being short Bitcoin. BTC is down over 20% since it launched but the ETF is up less than half that amount.)

  Gensler belongs to a family of regulators and government officials who seem to think industries exist to serve their needs, as opposed to the other way around. If they were in charge when YouTube came out they’d be fining kids who uploaded cartoon clips while demanding every YouTube channel get a federal broadcast license. Bad regulators are almost as harmful to a new industry as bad entrepreneurs.

  That said, the crypto industry needs to get over its childish views on regulations. The parts of crypto that are fully centralized should be regulated like any other intermediary. The parts that sit in the middle (as FTX did) should be regulated by a mix of traditional rules and new ones that take advantage of the underlying tech, like proof of reserves. Only after we concede these points can we make a credible case for why things like DeFi should only be regulated by code and economic incentives.

  Seventh, we need to start differentiating between good innovations and the inevitable get-rich-quick schemes that result. Ethereum (which only ever raised $16m) was a good innovation. The fifth smart contract platform based on the Move programming language (which has already raised a billion dollars) is not. Digital scarcity as applied to art and collectibles was a good innovation. Almost every BYAC clone is not.

  As a corollary, we need to refocus tokenomics on building sustainable economic security and adoption. Bitcoin did this, but countless projects that have launched since have not. If your project gives more tokens to insiders and early investors than users will ever get then you have the wrong priorities. If your project needs a hundred million dollars to launch then you are in the wrong industry. There’s a high correlation in crypto between projects that have raised a lot of money and those that have failed spectacularly.

  Eighth, decentralization is not binary and exists on a spectrum. So much time and energy is wasted on arguing the extremes in the abstract, but the real world is always gray. This is one of those areas where a bit of nuance goes a long way. Yes, Bitcoin is decentralized but no, mining and exchange are not. And that’s OK, because the underlying protocol is censorship-resistant so there will always be competition.

  As a corollary, we need to be better at engaging with our skeptics, and that can only come from taking a balanced approach. For example, we need to concede the fact that hacks are a drawback of DeFi. Only then can we point out that one reason why DeFi gets hacked is because everything is transparent, so vulnerabilities are easy to spot. (Our legal system works much the same way, but we don’t try to end due process every time a criminal gets off on a technicality.)

  Ninth, we need to stop rushing to embrace the next hot thing. I love DeFi, but I would never put all my money into a brand new protocol with an unproven economic model, even if I believe in the model.

  Ours is an industry that likes to experiment in production, which is great. But we need to recognize that experiments can (and do) end badly.

  Tenth, we need to stop relearning the hard lessons of history. Direct democracy doesn’t work, too much leverage is deadly, systems tend towards hierarchies, and financial institutions need to manage risk. Disrupting the old ways can only come from a place of awareness, not ignorance. If you haven’t studied the reasons why fiat currencies came to be, then you can’t have an informed opinion on Bitcoin. And if you aren’t an expert on banking, then you shouldn’t be building in DeFi.

  Eleventh, we are all going to make it. Well, most of us anyway. Next year will be my tenth in crypto and this is my fourth bear market. Each one has its low points, but none have shaken my belief that crypto will eventually re-architect the global economy because my thesis is based on history and a deep understanding of the technology, as opposed to prices and prophets.

  While it’s true that debacles like FTX now happen on a bigger scale, that’s only because the industry has grown. It will continue to do so, even if at an uneven pace.

  [UPDATE] A friend just pointed out something that was missing from my 10 bullet points, which is a need to diversify the talent pool. This is a very important point so I’m adding it here. Part of the problem with the crypto industry is the way it attracts a certain kind of person — young, male, risk-seeking and likely to buckle convention. This might have been beneficial in the early days but we need older people to take leadership roles, along with more women and more people with experience from other industries.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/26/2022 – 20:30

• Jeff Bezos Announces $123 Million In Donations To Combat Homelessness
  Jeff Bezos Announces $123 Million In Donations To Combat Homelessness

  It looks as though Jeff Bezos is following through on his promise to give away most of his fortune in his lifetime…

  The Amazon founder and billionaire announced last week on Instagram that he recently awarded 40 grants as part of his Bezos Day 1 Families Fund initiative, which will go to fight homelessness. 

  They make up a portion of a $2 billion commitment Bezos has made to fight homelessness, according to CNN. In an exclusive interview with the network, Bezos had previously said he “plans to donate the majority of his $124 billion net worth during his lifetime”. 

  “With these funds, the organizations will continue their compassionate, needle-moving work to help families move from unsheltered homelessness and shelters to permanent housing with the services they require to achieve stability,” a statement from Bezos said. 

  

  The causes Bezos will be donating to in the future, according to the report, include “fighting climate change and supporting people who can unify humanity in the face of deep social and political divisions”. 

  Bezos says that giving away his wealth is a question of how to do it in a “levered way”. He told CNN: “It’s not easy. Building Amazon was not easy. It took a lot of hard work, a bunch of very smart teammates, hard-working teammates, and I’m finding — and I think Lauren is finding the same thing — that charity, philanthropy, is very similar.”

  He continued: “There are a bunch of ways that I think you could do ineffective things, too. So you have to think about it carefully and you have to have brilliant people on the team.”

  Several weeks ago Bezos also made a $100 million grant to Dolly Parton’s charity to use towards her philanthropic efforts. Bezos’ ex-wife Mackenzie Scott also announced that she would be donating another $2 billion to charity after Bezos’ interview with CNN. She has given away almost $4 billion to 465 organizations, CNN wrote. 

   

   

   

   

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  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/26/2022 – 20:00

• Former Employee Sues United Furniture Industries Over Mass Firing
  Former Employee Sues United Furniture Industries Over Mass Firing

  By Clarissa Hawes of FreightWaves

  A former United Furniture Industries employee claims the furniture manufacturer, headquartered in Tupelo, Mississippi, violated federal law by failing to give 60 days’ notice of its abrupt shutdown to nearly 2,700 employees and truck drivers, who found themselves without jobs two days before Thanksgiving.

  

  Former UFI employees, operating under the Lane Furniture brand name, were blindsided early Tuesday morning after receiving either an email or text message instructing them not to report to work that day because their jobs were being immediately terminated “due to unforeseen business circumstances.”

  As of publication Wednesday, Todd Evans, CEO of UFI, failed to respond to FreightWaves’ requests seeking comment about what precipitated the mass firing.

  Toria Neal, a resident of Lee County, Mississippi, who worked for UFI for more than eight years, alleges in her proposed class-action complaint that the company violated the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act and did not provide at least 60 days’ written notice of a pending closure.

  In the suit filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi, Neal claims she and potentially thousands of other United employees received an email and/or text message “that it was terminating all of its employees effective immediately” just minutes before midnight on Monday.

  The message from UFI stated that the “terminations were expected to be permanent and that all benefits would be terminated without provision of COBRA.”

  Langston & Lott, based in Booneville, Mississippi, filed the first class action against United Furniture Industries, Inc., alleging it violated the WARN Act when terminating all 2,700 of its employees.

  “Under the WARN Act, the employees of United Furniture were entitled to either a 60-day notice or 60 days of severance pay — neither of those were provided,” Jack Simpson, attorney for Langston & Lott, told FreightWaves.  “If appointed class counsel, we look forward to vigorously investigating the actions of United Furniture and seeking as much compensation the terminated employees are legally entitled to.”

  Thousands fired by email, text

  “At the instruction of the board of directors of United Furniture Industries Inc. and all subsidiaries, we regret to inform you that due to unforeseen business circumstances, the company has been forced to make the difficult decision to terminate the employment of all its employees, effective immediately, on Nov. 21, 2022,” according to the statement to employees obtained by FreightWaves.

  One former employee said generations of her family had worked for Lane Furniture before United Furniture Industries bought the furniture manufacturer from Heritage Home Group in 2017.

  She said nothing prepared her and other family members who worked for the company that they would be fired via email or would no longer have health insurance.

  “We would go over to our friends’ houses and say, ‘Hey, that chair or that piece of furniture was made at our plant,’” the former employee, who didn’t want to be named for fear of retaliation, told FreightWaves. “We really took pride in our work — and this is how we are treated.”

  Some employees questioned the timing of UFI’s mass firing just before Thanksgiving.

  However, over-the-road truck drivers for furniture delivery division UFI Transportation who are currently making deliveries “will be paid for the balance of the week,”  the company stated in the letter to workers.

  According to the UFI statement, it directs truckers with loads to “immediately return equipment, inventory and delivery documents for those deliveries that have been completed to one of the following locations: Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Verona, Mississippi; or Victorville, California.”

  According to the Federal Motor Safety Administration’s SAFER website, UFI has 40 power units and 42 drivers. 

  In July, Pitchbook listed that the company had nearly 3,000 employees working in its 18 plants and distribution centers in North Carolina, Mississippi and California, as well as in Vietnam.

  Another former employee said she was aware the company was experiencing some difficulties but had no clue UFI would fire its entire workforce.

  In late July, the furniture manufacturer closed its plants in Winston-Salem and High Point, North Carolina, resulting in more than 270 workers losing their jobs, according to WARN Act notices filed at the time with the North Carolina Department of Commerce.

  Another 220 jobs were eliminated in late July at the company’s plant in Amory, Mississippi. “The new leadership had been working extremely hard to put new processes in place,” the former employee told FreightWaves. “There was too much effort being put in for anyone to really know they would close overnight.”

  While there was no communication from UFI executives as to what led to its abrupt closure, former employees did receive an update message late Tuesday about retrieving their belongings. 

  “As soon as the property manager can provide a safe and orderly process for former employees to come and gather their belongings, they will do so,” UFI/Lane Corporate Communications said in an email, which was obtained by FreightWaves. “We are not certain of the timeframe for this but will communicate proactively.”

  Retrieving their belongings is the last thing on former workers’ minds, one former employee said.

  “It is not fair to the laborers who seriously worked so hard to be blindsided like this,” the employee told FreightWaves. “It is not fair to the mom who just had a baby to wonder if she even has health insurance to cover it. It is not fair to the cancer patient in the midst of chemo about how to pay for her treatments.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/26/2022 – 19:30

• Biden's 'Buy American' Rules Undermining Infrastructure Spending
  Biden’s ‘Buy American’ Rules Undermining Infrastructure Spending

  The $1.2 trillion infrastructure package that Congress passed in November 2021 is touted as one of the signature accomplishments of the Biden administration. However, a fatal flaw in the law is gumming up the works and making it hard to turn all that money into new bridges and roads.  

  That flaw is a far more expansive “Buy American” provision than what’s been typically used previously. As state and local government “trade” publication Route Fifty explains: 

  “The law added more materials that must be produced in the United States on projects getting federal money. Before, for example, the Buy America provisions applied to iron and steel. Now, they’ll apply to construction materials such as copper wiring, glass, fiber optic cable, and plastics.”

  That’s causing a rising backlash from state transportation departments — in red and blue states alike.     

  This month, Roger Millar, Washington state’s secretary of transportation, sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Transportation on behalf of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials begging for relief from the red tape: 

  “The quick implementation of Buy America requirements for such a broad range of materials will cause delays in project delivery while states, contractors, manufacturers, and suppliers continue working to determine how best to track and verify these materials.“

  Thus, in trying to give favors to U.S. manufacturers, the Buy American rule in the Democrats’ infrastructure package undercuts construction firms that face project delays and disruptions for lack of compliant materials.  

  To the typical person, Buy American rules sound great. However, when the rubber hits the road, they’re garbage.

  Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, this year we will begin fixing more than 65,000 miles of highway. And when we use taxpayer dollars to rebuild America — we are going to Buy American. pic.twitter.com/uv7inLMCNE

  — The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 2, 2022

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  In addition to all the extra bureaucracy needed to scrutinize and track the materials being used, Buy American rules force government project managers to spend more for materials since their choice of vendors is drastically reduced. 

  “Given the current supply chain constraints, moving to all U.S.-sourced construction materials will inevitably lead to project sponsors paying a premium to meet the Act’s requirements,” wrote American Public Transportation Association President Paul Skoutelas in June. “The question then becomes whether the market/industry can absorb a doubling, tripling or even a quadrupling of costs for construction materials.” 

  That means that $1.2 trillion won’t go nearly as far as it could if project managers had unfettered access to the global market for materials. 

  Washington, D.C.’s transit system is a case study in these effects. Over a ten-year period, Buy American rules made the city’s revamp of its train fleet cost an extra $400 million, according to Reason. That’s the equivalent of an extra 150 train cars.  

  Buy American bureaucratic idiocy isn’t limited to infrastructure projects. It’s also showcased in food aid to other countries.

  “Americans dole out $2.5 billion annually in food assistance,” writes Katrin Park at Foreign Policy. “About 75 percent of that money is used to cover the cost for processing and shipping U.S.-grown food overseas…A 2013 study found that buying grains locally in recipient countries resulted in 50 percent savings and shortened the delivery time from about six months to three.”

  Then there’s the Jones Act, which blocks foreign vessels from transporting freight or people from one U.S. port to another, shaving tens of billions of dollars out of the American economy every year — with the costs ultimately borne by consumers, and the benefits reaped by politically influential shipbuilders, shippers and unions.  

  Bottom line: Like all Buy American rules, the ones in the Democrats’ infrastructure package force the government to spend more and get less. They do accomplish a principal purpose however: giving politicians something to boast about to ill-informed citizens who can’t see the unintended consequences.  

  The future is #AmericanMade, and it’s because Democrats passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the #CHIPSandScience Act. These bills are job creators, and they will make easier to Buy American!

  — Congressman Donald Norcross 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@DonaldNorcross) November 1, 2022

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  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/26/2022 – 19:00

• Gingrich: New Trump Special Counsel Is A 'Left Wing Hatchet Man'
  Gingrich: New Trump Special Counsel Is A ‘Left Wing Hatchet Man’

  Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The newly appointed special counsel to oversee probes related to former President Donald Trump is a “left wing hatchet man” in pursuit of a “witch hunt,” according to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

  

  Attorney General Merrick Garland’s pick for the role is Jack Smith, a registered independent and a veteran federal prosecutor who most recently served as the chief prosecutor of the special court in The Hague.

  Coming days after Trump officially declared his 2024 presidential candidacy, the appointment put Smith in charge of two investigations: one involving Trump’s handling of classified materials in Mar-a-Lago, and another on the alleged interference of the transition of power following the 2020 presidential election and the certification of electoral votes.

  

  While proponents of the move have applauded Smith’s appointment, pointing to his long career fighting corruption, Gingrich, an Epoch Times contributor, does not agree.

  “This guy is not an independent counsel. He’s a left wing hatchet man,” he said in an interview, describing Garland’s choice as “outrageous.”

  “I think the Justice Department figured out that when Trump announced for president that they couldn’t just continue the normal process, because they have always avoided prosecuting candidates,” he said.

  

  “But what they’re doing is it absurd,” he added.

  “Most Americans will rapidly figure out this is one more example of the kind of witch hunt that has been dealing with the whole process of the Trump candidacy, starting in 2015.”

  Following Garland’s announcement, the White House denied foreknowledge, saying that the Department of Justice “makes decisions about its criminal investigation independently.”

  While Smith, in a statement, pledged to carry out the investigations “independently and in the best traditions of the Department of Justice,” Gingrich remains skeptical, citing Smith’s record working under the Obama administration.

  During the five years serving as the Justice Department’s public integrity chief from 2010, Smith oversaw the conviction of former Virginia Governor, Republican Bob McDonnell, on bribery and extortion charges. The Supreme Court later unanimously reversed the conviction, ruling that the government’s “boundless interpretation of the federal bribery statute” was unconstitutional.

  The former speaker called Smith’s impartiality into question, citing his involvement in what Gingrich called the IRS scandal. The House Oversight Committee in 2014 found Smith to be responsible for arranging a meeting with an official in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to scrutinize nonprofits’ political activities. This meeting would set in motion the IRS’s campaign targeting Tea Party groups, which later resulted in a public apology from the agency and a $3.5 million Justice Department settlement for two lawsuits.

  Selective Prosecution

  Gingrich also pointed to the absence of similar treatment to Democrat politicians, such as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who used a private email server for government business, and the president’s son Hunter Biden, whose foreign business dealings are set to be a top focus of a new Republican House from January.

  “I think that it is strange that they can find one more excuse to go after Donald Trump even though he keeps getting found innocent, but neither Hillary Clinton nor Hunter Biden have gotten independent counsel, and it tells you how corrupted the system is,” Gingrich said.

  

  Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who is in line to chair the House Oversight Committee, said the committee Republicans have found business deals by the Biden family in more than 50 countries, including Russia and China which were often led by Hunter. They also allege that the elder Biden had knowledge of and was involved in some deals.

  Tony Bobulinski, Hunter’s former business partner, has welcomed Republicans’ plan to probe the Biden family’s business operations in the hopes that it will prove the senior Biden played a part.

  Trump’s Reaction

  Gingrich was at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort when the news of the special counsel appointment came out. Trump, he said, seemed “very balanced,” “positive, and cheerful.”

  “He knew what they were doing. He’s been through this now for six years,” he said.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/26/2022 – 18:30

• License Plates Could Be Printed On McDonald's Bags To Stop Littering
  License Plates Could Be Printed On McDonald’s Bags To Stop Littering

  There’s been talk about McDonald’s in southwest Great Britain could print car license plates on drive-thru bags to prevent customers from littering. 

  “It’s not clear exactly how the number plate would be printed on packaging, but it could be scanned onto the brown bags that contain the food,” Daily Mail noted. 

  Chris Howell, Swansea Council’s head of waste, parks and cleansing, told a climate change corporate delivery committee meeting: 

  “The Welsh Government has explored with McDonald’s, or their franchises, whether or not they could print number plates of cars collecting takeaways from their drive-throughs with a view that that would discourage people from discarding their materials (litter).”

  

  Howell said one of the biggest hurdles with fast-food companies is that if one chain adopts the climate initiative, customers will go to competitors that don’t print license plates on bags. 

  “If McDonald’s do it, then people will just go to Burger King instead of McDonald’s, because nobody wants to have their private details printed on that packaging.” He added: “I think it’s a really good idea but at the minute it’s fraught with some difficulties.” 

  The nationalist political party in Wales, Plaid Cymru, first proposed the idea more than two years ago during the pandemic lockdown when party leaders noticed a spike in fast-food trash along city streets and highways. 

  Welsh Government spokesperson told MailOnline:

  “There are no current plans to introduce a requirement for drive-through restaurants to add vehicle registration details to fast food drive-through packaging.

  “We are continuing to support Keep Wales Tidy with other initiatives to tackle roadside litter including their No Regrets campaign and their Adopt a Highway initiative.”

  Now ‘the cat is out of the bag’. It’s only a matter of time before governments start forcing fast-food companies to print license plate numbers on drive-thru bags. The dangers of this could be more surveillance, and who knows what corporations would do with license plate data if such a system were implemented. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/26/2022 – 18:00

• The Great Gold Robbery Of 1933
  The Great Gold Robbery Of 1933

  Authored by Thomas Woods via The Mises Institute,

  It’s been [89] years since the federal government, on the spurious grounds of fighting the Great Depression, ordered the confiscation of all monetary gold from Americans, permitting trivial amounts for ornamental or industrial use. This happens to be one of the episodes Kevin Gutzman and I describe in detail in our new book, Who Killed the Constitution? The Fate of American Liberty from World War I to George W. Bush. From the point of view of the typical American classroom, on the other hand, the incident may as well not have occurred.

  

  A key piece of legislation in this story is the Emergency Banking Act of 1933, which Congress passed on March 9 without having read it and after only the most trivial debate. House Minority Leader Bertrand H. Snell (R-NY) generously conceded that it was “entirely out of the ordinary” to pass legislation that “is not even in print at the time it is offered.” He urged his colleagues to pass it all the same:

  “The house is burning down, and the President of the United States says this is the way to put out the fire. [Applause.] And to me at this time there is only one answer to this question, and that is to give the President what he demands and says is necessary to meet the situation.”

  Among other things, the act retroactively approved the president’s closing of private banks throughout the country for several days the previous week, an act for which he had not bothered to provide a legal justification. It gave the secretary of the Treasury the power to require all individuals and corporations to hand over all their gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates if in his judgment “such action is necessary to protect the currency system of the United States.”

  The Emergency Banking Act reached back in time to amend the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, which had originally been intended to criminalize economic intercourse between American citizens and declared enemies of the United States. One provision of the act granted the president the power to regulate and even prohibit “under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe … any transactions in foreign exchange, export or earmarkings of gold or silver coin or bullion or currency … by any person within the United States.” In 1918, the act was amended to extend its provisions two years beyond the conclusion of hostilities, and to allow the president to “investigate, regulate, or prohibit” even the “hoarding” of gold by an American.

  After those two years elapsed, people generally assumed that the Trading with the Enemy Act had passed into desuetude. But the Supreme Court later explained that the act’s provisions were not limited merely to World War I and the two years that followed — it “stood ready to meet additional wars and additional enemies” and could be called into service once again under those circumstances. (Little did anyone suspect in 1917 that these “additional enemies” would turn out to be the American people themselves.) As amended by the Emergency Banking Act of 1933, the Trading with the Enemy Act no longer said that simply “during time of war” could the president prohibit the export of gold or take action against “hoarding” (i.e., holding on to one’s money). Now these actions could be taken during time of war or “during any other period of national emergency declared by the President.”

  A month later, claiming authority from the Emergency Banking Act and its amendment to the Trading with the Enemy Act, the president ordered all individuals and corporations in America to hand over their gold holdings to the federal government in exchange for an equivalent amount of paper currency. The paper currency they were receiving in exchange for the gold had always been redeemable in gold in the past, so few saw anything amiss in this coerced transaction, and most trusted the government’s assurances that this was somehow necessary in order to combat the Depression. Only later would they discover that they weren’t getting that gold back, and that the paper dollars they were being given in exchange would be devalued. Soon only foreign governments and central banks would be able to convert dollars into gold — and even that link to gold would be severed in 1971.

  On June 5, 1933, at the behest of the president, Congress took the next step, passing a joint resolution making it illegal to “require payment in gold or a particular kind of coin or currency, or in an amount in money of the United States measured thereby.” Any provision in a private or public contract promising payment in gold was thereby nullified. Payment could be made in whatever the government declared to be legal tender, and gold could not be used even as a yardstick for determining how much paper money would be owed.

  For the next six months President Roosevelt pursued an erratic monetary course. Every day a new gold price was declared, on a basis no one could figure out. Private lending in effect came to a halt, with the value of the dollar in constant flux amid the prospect of ongoing devaluation. As Senator Carter Glass (D-VA) put it, “No man outside of a lunatic asylum will loan his money today on a farm mortgage.” And thus the government could triumphantly announce that since the private sector was cruelly depriving Americans of credit, it would have to step in and provide relief.

  Meanwhile, Senator William Borah was assuring his countrymen that when it came to the nation’s monetary system, “there is no limitation upon the power of Congress. It is not circumscribed in any respect whatever. It is given full and plenary power to deal with that subject; and therefore it is the same as if there were no Constitution whatever.” Borah also tried to argue that “when an individual takes an obligation payable in gold” he does so “with the full understanding that the Government may change its monetary policy at any time and that he must accept whatever the Congress says at a particular time shall constitute money.”

  The general rule (to which there are occasional exceptions) that no senator should ever be listened to on anything holds here: the power of Congress over money is in fact very limited. It has the power to “coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.”

  Coining money simply refers to the process of taking a precious metal, converting it into coins, and stamping those coins with an indication of their metal content. The power to regulate the value of money does not involve a power to dilute the value of money by inflation, an absurd and self-serving rendering. Regulation of the value of money is a power of declaration and comparison, whereby some monetary standard is compared to other coins in circulation and an exchange rate for these various kinds of currency established according to the amounts of precious metals (with due allowance for the distinct values of different precious metals) in each. In other words, if Congress were to declare by statute what the prevailing market exchange rate between gold and silver was, and thus to “regulate” gold and silver coins vis-à-vis one another — or, more precisely, vis-à-vis the Spanish silver dollar that constituted the American monetary standard — then it would be properly exercising its constitutional power, which consists of nothing more than this.

  That is why this power appears in the same clause with the power to “fix the Standard of Weights and Measures,” which involves the measurement of fixed standards in order to assure uniformity throughout the nation. That power does not give Congress the power to declare that one-tenth of a pound shall now be declared a pound, but to take an already-existing standard and codify it. Every single monetary statute enacted from the ratification of the Constitution until the 1930s understood the congressional power to regulate the “value” of money not in the sense of declaring money to possess some arbitrary value that suits the whims of politicians or central bankers, but in the sense of establishing the relative values of gold and silver coins in terms of the ever-shifting relative values of those metals on the free market. (Needless to say, the market is perfectly capable of doing this on its own.)

  Moreover, the “dollar” was not an arbitrary term at the time the Constitution was drafted. In the late 18th century, everyone knew what the “dollar” referred to: the silver Spanish milled dollar, which was in widespread use in the United States. The Constitution twice refers to the dollar — in Article I, Section 9, Clause 1 (a clause that everyone understood to involve a tax on the import of slaves), and in the Seventh Amendment (which protected the right to a jury trial in civil cases involving at least twenty dollars). If the dollar had been something that Congress could manipulate at will, or if “dollar” had been merely a generic term to refer to whatever Congress should arbitrarily choose to recognize as currency, the South would never have accepted that clause — or the Constitution itself. Congress might have manipulated the dollar so as to make the tax on slave imports prohibitively expensive. It could also have effectively abolished trial by jury in civil cases by making twenty “dollars” an astronomically high amount of money.

  The Court never pronounced upon the constitutionality of the gold seizure (for reasons we speculate on in our book), the legality of which it simply took for granted. The cases it chose to hear involved the cancellation of gold clauses in public and private contracts. Known as the Gold Clause Cases, Norman v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co., Nortz v. United States, and Perry v. United States were argued in January 1935 and decided the following month. In each case Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes wrote the opinion for the Court; Justice McReynolds composed a single dissent that he applied to all three.

  The Court declared in the first two cases that the federal government had been entitled to cancel all private contracts in gold. The perpetuation of gold clauses would have amounted to the “attempted frustration” of “the constitutional power of the Congress over the monetary system of the country…. [T]hese clauses interfere with the exertion of the power granted to the Congress.” Not a stitch of evidence existed for any aspect of this argument.

  Perry, the third case, involved a man who had purchased in gold a US bond that was payable in gold, and was seeking payment either in gold or in the equivalent in paper currency. Since the government intended to pay in depreciated dollars, he believed he was receiving far less than he was entitled to under the terms of the bond. The bond’s face value was $10,000 in gold. In the inflated dollars of post-gold-standard America, it would have taken nearly $17,000 in paper currency in order to satisfy what the government had contracted to pay him.

  The Court declared that the plaintiff was indeed entitled to his gold, since the government had an obligation to live up to its promises. But in not paying him his gold, the government wasn’t really wronging him, since gold was now illegal to hold. In other words, if the government paid him in gold, it would then have to confiscate that gold from him anyway since holding gold was against the law.

  Speaking for the minority, Justice McReynolds declared:

  Just men regard repudiation and spoliation of citizens by their sovereign with abhorrence; but we are asked to affirm that the Constitution has granted power to accomplish both. No definite delegation of such a power exists; and we cannot believe that the farseeing framers, who labored with hope of establishing justice and securing the blessings of liberty, intended that the expected government should have authority to annihilate its own obligations and destroy the very rights which they were endeavoring to protect. Not only is there no permission for such actions; they are inhibited. And no plenitude of words can conform them to our charter.

  To the argument that the bondholder had suffered no damage in being denied payment in gold since it was now illegal for people to own gold, the dissent replied: “Obligations cannot be legally avoided by prohibiting the creditor from receiving the thing promised…. There would be no serious difficulty in estimating the value of 25.8 grains of gold in the currency now in circulation.” The contract to pay in gold having been broken, the holder was at least morally entitled to receive in currency not just the nominal amount of the bond but an amount in paper dollars equivalent to what he would have earned if the payment could have been made in gold. “For the government to say, we have violated our contract but have escaped the consequences through our own statute, would be monstrous. In matters of contractual obligation the government cannot legislate so as to excuse itself.” Suppose a private individual tried to do the same thing, “secreting or manipulating his assets with the intent to place them beyond the reach of creditors.” Any such attempt “would be denounced as fraudulent, wholly ineffective.”

  “Loss of reputation for honorable dealing,” the dissent concluded, “will bring us unending humiliation; the impending legal and moral chaos is appalling.”

  By the 1970s the federal government had once again permitted Americans to hold gold coins. But when it came time to actually mint them again, it made sure that gold coins could never circulate and displace the constantly depreciating paper currency printed by the US government: the law required that such coins could circulate with a face value only a tiny fraction of their market value.

  The full story of the gold confiscation is actually much worse than this, and we tell it in Who Killed the Constitution? What this episode teaches us is not so much that we need to “return to the Constitution,” though that would be an improvement over what we have now, but rather that pieces of paper that governments themselves interpret cannot be expected to prevent governments from doing what they think they can get away with.

  Lysander Spooner once said that he believed “that by false interpretations, and naked usurpations, the government has been made in practice a very widely, and almost wholly, different thing from what the Constitution itself purports to authorize.” At the same time, he could not exonerate the Constitution, for it “has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.” It is hard to argue with that.

  [Originally published August 13, 2008]

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/26/2022 – 17:30

• Crypto Facing A "Crisis Of Confidence" But Bitcoin "Is Not Going Away": Mike Novogratz
  Crypto Facing A “Crisis Of Confidence” But Bitcoin “Is Not Going Away”: Mike Novogratz

  Last week crypto investor Mike Novogratz took to CNBC in an attempt to help analyze the fallout from the FTX scandal. Speaking to Aaron Ross Sorkin, Novogratz – who suffered major losses (and humiliation himself) when Terra/Luna collapsed – laid out how trust has been lost in the asset class for the time being. 

  “This is about transparency and disclosure in a lot of ways. Our industry has failed to self-regulate. I think the money side of crypto, companies like ours, are going to get regulated and should be,” he says to start the interview. 

  “The tech side of crypto, the on-chain stuff, that has its own series of regulatory challenges. But that should be kept separately. Right now we’re in a deficit of trust – people think there’s a black swan around every corner,” he continues.

  “Isn’t this an indictment of crypto? The entire premise of crypto was to create trust,” Aaron Ross Sorkin asks. 

  

  “That still is the long-term goal. Why did companies like mine get set up? We are a bridge company to bridge people into this new economy. It accelerates the capital going in, it helps people understand it. All the capital that has moved into crypto has come from centralized companies. But just like a centralized company, they need to build trust…” Novogratz says.

  “This is not really an indictment of crypto, its an indictment of FTX and other companies that were poorly run or fraudulently run,” he continues. 

  “Do you feel like investors are going to take advantage of any crisis of confidence. Do we have a crisis of confidence in this market?”

  “We certainly do have a crisis of confidence in the industry and we’re not out of the woods yet. FTX was a major player so it’s going to take a few weeks for people to even get their balance back. Bitcoin’s not going away,” he concludes. 

  “I don’t think it’s going to be a ‘v’ recovery, it’s going to be a grind out of gaining trust.”

  You can watch Novogratz’s full interview on CNBC here. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/26/2022 – 17:00

• 'Redo The Arizona Election' Says Trump, Pointing To Voting Issues In Maricopa County
  ‘Redo The Arizona Election’ Says Trump, Pointing To Voting Issues In Maricopa County

  Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Former President Donald Trump suggests that Arizona redo its 2022 elections after a memo revealed widespread problems at voting sites in Maricopa County on Election Day.

  

  “This Election was a disgrace,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Nov. 22. “They should at minimum redo the Arizona Election,” Trump added, pointing to the memo written by attorney Mark Sonnenklar, who was one of 11 roving attorneys working with the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) Election Integrity program in Maricopa County.

  According to the memo, 72 of the 115 voting centers the attorneys visited, or 62.61 percent, witnessed “material problems.”

  The long lines negatively affected GOP candidates on election day, according to the memo.

  “Because Republican voters significantly outnumbered Democrat voters in the county on election day, such voter suppression would necessarily impact the vote tallies for Republican candidates much more than the vote tallies for Democrat candidates,” Sonnenklar added.

  Additionally, Sonnenklar disputed claims by county officials that printer/tabulator problems were resolved as of 3 p.m. local time and their impact was “insignificant.”

  “Collectively, I and the other 10 roving attorneys also reported that voters had to wait in significant lines at 59 of the 115 vote centers we visited (51.3 percent). In many cases, voters had to wait 1-2 hours before they received a ballot for voting,” Sonnenklar wrote.

  He added, “It is certainly safe to assume that many voters refused to wait in such lines, left the vote center, and did not return to vote later.”

  In response to Trump’s comments, Arizona Republican governor’s candidate Kari Lake took to Twitter to thank the former president.

  “It was nothing short of mass disenfranchisement for the entire Arizona First slate and the people of Arizona,” Lake added.

  

  Arizona 

  Lake currently trails Democrat Katie Hobbs by about 17,100 votes, 49.7 percent to 50.3 percent, according to the Arizona secretary of state’s office.

  Last week, Hobbs declared victory in the race, but Lake has not conceded yet.

  The Arizona Attorney General’s Elections Integrity Unit has sent a letter (pdf) to Maricopa County officials demanding answers to “myriad problems” that voters in the county had to deal with on Election Day.

  “The Elections Integrity Unit of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office has received hundreds of complaints since Election Day pertaining to issues related to the administration of the 2022 General Election in Maricopa County,” Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright wrote in the letter. “These complaints go beyond pure speculation, but include first-hand witness accounts that raise concerns regarding Maricopa’s lawful compliance with Arizona election law.”

  Wright is demanding a response from the county by Nov. 28.

  After the letter was sent, Lake told the Daily Mail that she “will become governor.”

  “The way they run elections in Maricopa County is worse than in banana republics around this world,” Lake told the outlet.

  On Nov. 21, Lake posted a video on Twitter, saying that “whistleblowers are coming forward” about voting issues on election day in Maricopa County and her attorneys are “working diligently to gather information.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/26/2022 – 16:30

• Iranian Protesters & Government Supporters Clash At World Cup
  Iranian Protesters & Government Supporters Clash At World Cup

  Rival sets of Iranian protesters have been confronting each other at the World Cup in Qatar, and a moment anti-government demonstrations and unrest has been raging inside Iran for over the past two months.

  Tensions spilled over in and outside the stadium for Iran’s 2-0 win over Wales on Friday. As the AP and ESPN reported, “fans supporting the Iranian government harassed those protesting against it and stadium security seized flags, T-shirts and other items expressing support for the protest movement that has gripped the Islamic Republic.”

  

  Stadium security reportedly cracked down on any flags or symbols seen as undermining the officially recognized Iranian state, including preventing fans from carrying Persian pre-revolutionary flags into the venue, Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium.

  In some cases pro-government supporters were seen trying to rip signs or imagery with protest slogans from the fans holding them. Some groups were heard chanting “Woman, Life, Freedom” during the match.

  Controversy was unleashed when during a previous game the Iranian team appeared not to participate in the singing of Iran’s national anthem, while during Friday’s game that changed as the players sang. 

  The Associated Press observed further of Friday’s scenes in the stadium: 

  Small mobs of men surrounded three different women giving interviews about the protests to foreign media outside the stadium, disrupting broadcasts as they angrily chanted, “The Islamic Republic of Iran!”

  Many women fans appeared shaken as Iranian government supporters shouted at them in Farsi and filmed them close-up on their phones.

  

  And according to more from the report:

  Inside the stadium, a woman with dark red tears painted from her eyes held aloft a football jersey with “Mahsa Amini – 22” printed on the back — a reference to the 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman whose death in police custody two months ago ignited the nationwide protests in Iran, a Reuters photo showed.

  A CNN report from earlier this month cited a human rights monitor to say that at least 326 people have been killed since the start of what’s been dubbed the “anti-hijab” protests. 

  Tehran says dozens of police and security services personnel have also been killed, and has accused “rioters” of being part of a foreign-backed plot to topple the government. 

  Meanwhile, there have also been tensions more broadly between local Arabs and the presence of Israelis at the World Cup: 

  A Saudi football fan confronting an Israeli journalist. The look on the journalist’s face should tell you everything about the situation. No amount of “Peace Deals” will normalize Israel in the region. It was, is and will forever be Palestine. pic.twitter.com/CgwDamLubL

  — Hadi Nasrallah (@HadiNasrallah) November 26, 2022

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

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/26/2022 – 16:00

• Oil Market Metrics Signal Sufficient Supply And Weakening Demand
  Oil Market Metrics Signal Sufficient Supply And Weakening Demand

  By Irina Slav of OilPrice.com

  Oil futures and swaps globally are increasingly showing signs of easing supply concerns and resurfaced concerns about further weakness in crude oil demand.

  

  The prompt spreads in the U.S. benchmark, WTI Crude, are already in contango, signaling enough near-term supply. Brent Crude front-month to second-month futures prices also dipped into contango earlier this week.

  Contango is the state of the market in which prices for delivery at later dates are higher than prompt prices—a market situation signaling oversupply and one which traders use to store oil for delivery at a later date. The opposite market situation—backwardation—typically occurs at times of market deficit and in it, prices for front-month contracts are higher than the ones further out in time.

  Another oil market metric closely followed for signs of demand in the key oil-importing region, Asia, is the premium of Oman futures over Dubai swaps. That premium dropped on Thursday to below $1 per barrel – compared to a premium of over $15 a barrel in March this year – signaling much softer demand. The premium has fallen by around 80% in November alone, according to Bloomberg’s estimates.

  So far this month, oil prices have dropped amid growing fears of economic slowdown and spiking Covid infections in China, where some forms of restriction on mobility have returned in nearly 50 large cities. 

  China is registering near-record numbers of new Covid infections daily—close to the April 2022 peak when the financial center Shanghai was under lockdown for weeks—likely depressing fuel demand as 48 Chinese cities currently have some form of restrictions on movements. 

  According to analysts at Nomura, as of Monday, areas accounting for almost 20% of China’s GDP were suffering from the latest Covid restrictions. China’s rising Covid cases and the return of restrictions have weighed on oil prices this month as the market fears another slowdown in Chinese economic growth and fuel demand, on top of global recession fears.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/26/2022 – 15:30

• The Santa Pause Rally
  The Santa Pause Rally

  Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

  People who have been reading my blog and listening to my podcast for years know that I hold a special disdain for the idea that markets can, and should, only go up. 

  On more than one podcast, and in more than one article, I’ve noted that this fallacy is just one of many nefarious concepts that I believe do a major disservice to the average investor.

  When these otherwise illogical concepts are dumbed down to be made digestible to the average investor, it casts a signal that the financial industry, and the media that peddles it, are simply too embarrassed or incapable of leveling with the American public about the innerworkings of monetary policy and markets.

  Rather than take concepts like the market only going up – which, when observed casually, sound ridiculous to even the most uninitiated market participants – and deliver them with a straight face, they are instead broadcast with a zany, sensational, insulting ethos that the industry thinks resonates better with the American public.

  This is how we wound up with Jim Cramer – and why Cramer’s deadpan admission of market manipulation, caught on video, has gone mostly unnoticed and without consequences – but his show where he routinely rings bells and whistles while screaming, panting loudly and sweating profusely, WWF-style, is celebrated.

  

  In addition to giving us the poor man’s stock market infotainment, financial media has also given us an unlimited number of “easily digestible”, yet equally as inane and useless acronyms, which conveniently help do away with critical thinking about investing when employed.

  For example, Jim Cramer coined the term “FANG” year ago, which was an acronym for “Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google”.

  

  While Cramer was trying to just be cute for beginner investors, the acronym – eventually adopted by mainstream media – sent another message: stock market investing is so easy, we don’t even need to decouple these names from one another anymore.

  After all, Cramer talked about these companies so much that it was just easier to refer to them by one name, saving him time whenever he wanted to recommend or talk about these securities, but not necessarily the entire NASDAQ (despite the fact that these are completely different companies with completely different valuations).

  But when referred to by their acronym, which is easy to remember by retail investors, where they went one, they went all.

  ---

  The market for retail investors has been so similarly dumbed down and gamified with acronyms like ESG, FOMO and BTFD and stock ticker symbols like YOLO, HERO, BOOM and FUN, it has never been easier for retail investors to dump their money into an overpriced flaming bag of dog shit with a clever name than it is now.

  But one of the most odious examples of dumbing down already idiotic Wall Street Keynesian thinking to retail investors has been the annual tradition of rooting for a “Santa Claus Rally”. Once used to describe the rally at the end of December heading into the new year, this term is now used by the financial media to describe any stock market rally that happens, for any reason, at the end of the year, on any given year.

  

  Rather than being used to describe a rally that is taking place for legitimate means, the term has now taken on a life of its own over the last decade and has gone from a label to a reason that markets rally. The tail, in other words, is wagging the dog, despite the fact that everybody knows there’s no really good reason to buy stocks just because it’s the end of the year.

  Everybody knows that companies are cyclical and everybody knows that holidays result in more sales for many companies. It’s safe to say that this century-old tradition has already been priced into stock markets.

  So what, exactly, is a “Santa Claus Rally”?

  In reality, it’s nothing – it’s a gimmick, like “FANG” – or to quote Chasing Amy – “a figment of your f*cking imagination!”

  

  The “Santa Claus Rally” is nothing more than an easily understood analogic vessel that Keynesians in the financial media use to continue to implant the idea that the market should always go up into the minds of novice investors. It’s the anti-fundamental analysis, and it’s all wrapped up with images of everybody’s favorite holiday – a time of joy, cheer, prosperity, family and friends: Christmas.

  That’s right: it’s a gimmick so nefarious, it invokes the time of year when people feel most complete. I mean, what do people look for from an investment? They look for financial security so as to live comfortably. And when do most people feel the most comfortable and secure? Around the holidays.

  ---

  Get 50% off: If you enjoy this article, would like to support my work and have the means, I would love to have you as a subscriber and can offer you 50% off for life: Get 50% off forever

  ---

  But this year I’m calling it the “Santa Pause Rally” – not just because of how toxic the saying is to begin with, but because, as we have been figuring out the hard way for the last 9 months, there really is no reason for random celebration in markets right now.

  Markets, and our economy, are in absolutely unprecedented waters right now, with our central bank stuck in a minefield of catch-22s that they can’t get out of without collapsing the economy or letting inflation run rampant. Thus, new paradigms in how investing and markets work are being written daily – and none of them include random stock rallies just because the financial media says so. That shit may have flown when volatility was at all time lows and the world financial and geopolitical order wasn’t in disarray – but that’s hardly the case today.

  If 2018 wasn’t a stark enough reminder that the “Santa Claus Rally” is complete and total bullshit (recall, markets collapsed after slow and steady 25 bps rate hikes totaling barely 3%), this year should be.

  

  Above: 2018’s “Santa Claus Rally”

  I’m not saying that the market won’t rally at the end of the year, but what I am saying is that any rally we undergo will more than likely be a bear market rally and be short lived. I am sticking by my analysis that, as we speak, there is a 400 basis point pipe bomb making its way through the economic plumbing of the nation, just waiting to blow up and tank markets on any given day.

  At the very least, hopefully this reminder of the idiocy not only of monetary policy, but of Wall Street naming conventions used to feed the hogs, serves to arrest any remaining mindless optimism mainstream media-watchers have heading into the end of the year.

  There’s no way to say it without playing into the criticisms that I’m nothing but a fear mongering permabear, but I honestly believe there isn’t really anything to look forward to heading into the end of 2022 with markets or the economy.

  ---

  All this market wants for Christmas is a soft landing, but instead, it’s almost certainly going to be getting a lump of coal over the next six months.

  When that happens – or the next time some lobotomized television anchor uses the “Santa Claus Rally” notion – I beg of you to return to this piece and read the following paragraph, provided in bold font for your visual convenience.

  Using cute names and anecdotal slogans does nothing to help educate mom and pop investors about monetary policy, which is the main driving force behind the nation’s current inflationary crisis. This dumbing down of markets and the economy will also be the reason behind any forthcoming panic in markets or economic depression for our country, as shock will be amplified due to investors believing things are better than they actually are. These terms are used as vessels in order to further an extremely misguided policy agenda that has gotten us into this mess to begin with – they put exceptional looking gift wrap on financial lumps of coal.

  For more on how I’m positioned heading into 2023, you can read my latest update here.

  Thank you for reading QTR’s Fringe Finance. This post is public so feel free to share it: Share

  

  QTR’s Disclaimer: I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. These positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/26/2022 – 14:30

• Foxconn Riot Could Cut China iPhone Production By More Than 30%
  Foxconn Riot Could Cut China iPhone Production By More Than 30%

  Apple’s top manufacturing partner, Foxconn Technology Group, is set to see November iPhone shipments from a massive factory in Zhengzhou, China, known as iPhone City, plunge after a week of unrest, Reuters said, citing a source with direct knowledge of the matter. 

  They said iPhone production would be slashed by more than 30% at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant in November versus an earlier estimate of up to 30% when problems at the factory began in late October. 

  Most of the 200,000-person workforce has been living in isolation since last month. New hires were brought in recently as management wanted to keep churning premium iPhone models, including the iPhone 14 and 14 Pro. 

  But Foxconn failed to live up to its promises of higher pay for new hires, which sparked a riot across the world’s largest iPhone factory earlier this week. To squash the violence, Foxconn began distributing 10,000 yuan ($1,400) to newly recruited workers to leave by Thursday.

  “The source said more than 20,000 workers, mostly new hires not yet working on production lines, took the money and left,” Reuters said. 

  The Zhengzhou plant accounts for 70% of global iPhone shipments, and a reduction in production will ripple through the supply chain. Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, is Apple’s top supplier, which means any manufacturing disruption in China could leave AT&T, Best Buy, and Verizon stores without iPhones.  

  

  Another source said it’s “impossible” for Apple to resume full iPhone production by the end of the month. 

  ODDO BHF, a Franco-German financial services group, said even if Apple shifts production to other plants, “the impact will probably be significant, as long as these protests are continuing in Zhengzhou, with significant delays to be expected for the iPhone 14.” 

  Foxconn acknowledged it made errors in managing new hires while blaming local officials for unpredictable health policies that impacted meal delivery and made maintenance nearly impossible, according to Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with the company.  

  “You see cases like Foxconn, and every company is now asking themselves, ‘Will that happen to me?’

  “Any company that depends on manufacturing has to consider alternatives. It will be costly, but it will be less costly than only relying on China and then China doesn’t open up,” Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief Asia Pacific economist at Natixis, said. 

  In early November, Foxconn revised its earning expectations down for Q4 on zero Covid disruptions at the assembly facility, while Apple warned iPhone capacity would be reduced. After chaos this week, more downward revisions could be ahead. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/26/2022 – 14:00

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• The Average Home Size In Every US State In 2022
  The Average Home Size In Every US State In 2022

  Over the last century, the average home size in the U.S. has skyrocketed. In 1949, the typical single-family home was just 909 square feet—by 2021, it had shot up to 2,480 square feet.

  However, as Visual Capitalist’s Carmen Ang details below, while U.S. homes are getting larger on the whole, they still vary drastically depending on the location. What areas in the U.S. have the largest homes, and which ones have the smallest?

  This graphic by American Home Shield uses data from the 2022 American Home Size Index to show the average home size in every U.S. state.

  

  The 2022 American Home Size Index

  The index uses data from 474,157 listings of both houses and condos for sale on Zillow as of May 2022. After the data was compiled, it was organized by state and city, and the median home size was then calculated for each area.

  According to the findings, there was a strong correlation with the average size of a home and the age of the area’s housing stock. For instance, Utah is the U.S. state with the largest average home size, with an average of 2,800 square feet. And since the state’s average home was built in 1989, it has the third-youngest home stock of any state across the country.

  This trend is apparent on a city-level as well. Here’s a look at average home size across America’s top 50 most populated cities (with available data):

  

  As the graphic shows, up-and-coming tech hubs like Raleigh and Colorado Springs have some of the largest homes.

  Colorado Springs in particular has seen a significant influx in employment over the last few years, which has attracted high-income tech workers to the area driven up demand for spacious single-family dwellings.

  The Price of Real Estate Compared to Average Home Size

  The data also showed a relationship between an area’s average price of real estate and the average home size. For instance, Hawaii has the smallest average home size of any state, as well as the most expensive at $743.86 per square foot.

  

  This trend is apparent in the state of New York as well, which had the second smallest average home size. New York’s average home costs were $421.49 per square foot, the third-most expensive of any state.

  Lot Size vs. Home Size

  Interestingly, while average home sizes in the U.S. have gotten larger over time, the average lot size has shrunk over the years.

  In 1978, the average lot size for a U.S. property was 18,760 square feet, but by 2020, this figure had dropped to a record low of 13,896 square feet.

  With lot sizes shrinking, will there come a point where home size growth across the country starts to plateau, or even shrink?

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/25/2022 – 23:30

• Escobar: Electric Wars
  Escobar: Electric Wars

  Authored by Pepe Escobar,

  Footfalls echo in the memory
  Down the passage which we did not take
  Towards the door we never opened
  Into the rose-garden. My words echo
  Thus, in your mind.
  But to what purpose
  Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
  I do not know.

  T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton

  Spare a thought to the Polish farmer snapping pics of a missile wreckage – later indicated to belong to a Ukrainian S-300. So a Polish farmer, his footfalls echoing in our collective memory, may have saved the world from WWIII – unleashed via a tawdry plot concocted by Anglo-American “intelligence”.

  Such tawdriness was compounded by a ridiculous cover-up: the Ukrainians were firing on Russian missiles from a direction that they could not possibly be coming from. That is: Poland. And then the U.S. Secretary of Defense, weapons peddler Lloyd “Raytheon” Austin, sentenced Russia was to blame anyway, because his Kiev vassals were shooting at Russian missiles that should not have been in the air (and they were not).

  Call it the Pentagon elevating bald lying into a rather shabby art.

  The Anglo-American purpose of this racket was to generate a “world crisis” against Russia. It’s been exposed – this time. That does not mean the usual suspects won’t try it again. Soon.

  The main reason is panic. Collective West intel sees how Moscow is finally mobilizing their army – ready to hit the ground next month – while knocking out Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure as a form of Chinese torture.

  Those February days of sending only 100,000 troops – and having the DPR and LPR militias plus Wagner commandos and Kadyrov’s Chechens do most of the heavy lifting – are long gone. Overall, Russians and Russophones were facing hordes of Ukrainian military – perhaps as many as 1 million. The “miracle” of it all is that Russians did quite well.

  Every military analyst knows the basic rule: an invasion force should number three times the defending force. The Russian Army at the start of the SMO was at a small fraction of that rule. The Russian Armed Forces arguably have a standing army of 1.3 million troops. Surely they could have spared a few tens of thousands more than the initial 100,000. But they did not. It was a political decision.

  But now SMO is over: this is CTO (Counter-Terrorist Operation) territory. A sequence of terrorist attacks – targeting the Nord Streams, the Crimea Bridge, the Black Sea Fleet – finally demonstrated the inevitability of going beyond a mere “military operation”.

  And that brings us to Electric War.

  

  Paving the way to a DMZ

  The Electric War is being handled essentially as a tactic – leading to the eventual imposition of Russia’s terms in a possible armistice (which neither Anglo-American intel and vassal NATO want).

  Even if there was an armistice – widely touted for a few weeks now – that would not end the war. Because the deeper, tacit Russian terms – end of NATO expansion and “indivisibility of security” – were fully spelled out to both Washington and Brussels last December, and subsequently dismissed.

  As nothing – conceptually – has changed since then, coupled with the Western weaponization of Ukraine reaching a frenzy, the Putin-era Stavka could not but expand the initial SMO mandate, which remains denazification and demilitarization. Yet now the mandate will have to encompass Kiev and Lviv.

  And that starts with the current de-electrification campaign – which goes way beyond the east of the Dnieper and along the Black Sea coast towards Odessa.

  That brings us to the key issue of reach and depth of Electric War, in terms of setting up what would be a DMZ – complete with no man’s land – west of the Dnieper to protect Russian areas from NATO artillery, HIMARS and missile attacks.

  How deep? 100 km? Not enough. Rather 300 km – as Kiev has already requested artillery with that kind of range.

  What’s crucial is that way back in July this was already being extensively discussed in Moscow at the highest Stavka levels.

  In an extensive July interview, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov let the cat – diplomatically – out of the bag:

  “This process continues, consistently and persistently. It will continue as long as the West, in its impotent rage, desperate to aggravate the situation as much as possible, continues to flood Ukraine with more and more long-range weapons. Take the HIMARS. Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov boasts that they have already received 300-kilometre ammunition. This means our geographic objectives will move even further from the current line. We cannot allow the part of Ukraine that Vladimir Zelensky, or whoever replaces him, will control to have weapons that pose a direct threat to our territory or to the republics that have declared their independence and want to determine their own future.”

  The implications are clear.

  As much as Washington and NATO are even more “desperate to aggravate the situation as much as possible” (and that’s Plan A: there’s no Plan B), geoeconomically the Americans are intensifying the New Great Game: desperation here applies to trying to control energy corridors and setting their price.

  Russia remains unfazed – as it continues to invest in Pipelineistan (towards Asia); solidify the multimodal International North South Transportation Corridor (INTSC), with key partners India and Iran; and is setting the price of energy via OPEC+.

  A paradise for oligarchic looters

  The Straussians/neo-cons and neoliberal-cons permeating the Anglo-American intel/security apparatus – de facto weaponized viruses – won’t relent. They simply cannot afford losing yet another NATO war – and on top of it against “existential threat” Russia.

  As the news from the Ukraine battlefields promise to be even grimmer under General Winter, solace at least may be found in the cultural sphere. The Green transition racket, seasoned in a toxic mixed salad with the eugenist Silicon Valley ethos, continues to be a side dish offered with the main course: the Davos “Great Narrative”, former Great Reset, which reared its ugly head, once again, at the G20 in Bali.

  That translates as everything going swell as far as the Destruction of Europe project is concerned. De-industrialize and be happy; rainbow-dance to every woke tune on the market; and freeze and burn wood while blessing “renewables” in the altar of European values.

  A quick flashback to contextualize where we are is always helpful.

  Ukraine was part of Russia for nearly four centuries. The very idea of its independence was invented in Austria during WWI for the purpose of undermining the Russian Army – and that certainly happened. The present “independence” was set up so local Trotskyite oligarchs could loot the nation as a Russia-aligned government was about to move against those oligarchs.

  The 2014 Kiev coup was essentially set up by Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski to draw Russia into a new partisan war – as in Afghanistan – and was followed by orders to the Gulf oil haciendas to crash the oil price. Moscow had to protect Russophones in Crimea and Donbass – and that led to more Western sanctions. All of it was a setup.

  For 8 years, Moscow refused to send its armies even to Donbass east of the Dnieper (historically part of Mother Russia). The reason: not to be bogged down in another partisan war. The rest of Ukraine, meanwhile, was being looted by oligarchs supported by the West, and plunged into a financial black hole.

  The collective West deliberately chose not to finance the black hole. Most of the IMF injections were simply stolen by the oligarchs, and the loot transferred out of the country. These oligarchic looters were of course “protected” by the usual suspects.

  It’s always crucial to remember that between 1991 and 1999 the equivalent of the present entire household wealth of Russia was stolen and transferred overseas, mostly to London. Now the same usual suspects are trying to ruin Russia with sanctions, as “new Hitler” Putin stopped the looting.

  The difference is that the plan of using Ukraine as just a pawn in their game is not working.

  On the ground, what has been going on so far are mostly skirmishes, and a few real battles. But with Moscow massing fresh troops for a winter offensive, the Ukrainian Army may end up completely routed.

  Russia didn’t look so bad – considering the effectiveness of its mincing machine artillery strikes against Ukrainian fortified positions, and recent planned retreats or positional warfare, keeping casualties down while smashing Ukrainian withering firepower.

  The collective West believes it holds the Ukraine proxy war card. Russia bets on reality, where economic cards are food, energy, resources, resource security and a stable economy.

  Meanwhile, as if the energy-suicide EU did not have to face a pyramid of ordeals, they can surely expect to have knocking on their door at least 15 million desperate Ukrainians escaping from villages and cities with zero electrical power.

  The railway station in – temporarily occupied – Kherson is a graphic example: people show up constantly to warm up and charge their smartphones. The city has no electricity, no heat, and no water.

  Current Russian tactics are the absolute opposite of the military theory of concentrated force developed by Napoleon. That’s why Russia is accumulating serious advantages while “disturbing the dust in a bowl of rose-leaves”.

  And of course, “we haven’t even started yet.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/25/2022 – 23:00

• San Francisco PD Proposes Letting Robots Kill Suspects
  San Francisco PD Proposes Letting Robots Kill Suspects

  A policy drafted by the San Francisco Police Department has sent a petition to the city’s Board of Supervisors which would allow police officers to deploy robots with the intent to kill suspects in situations where “risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other force option available to SFPD,” Engadget reports, citing Mission Local.

  

  Where have we seen this one before?

  

  According to Mission Local, the draft proposal has already received significant pushback from both within and outside of the Board – including supervisor Aaron Peskin, who initially resisted the idea until he inserted language which would completely neuter the death-bots.

  “Robots shall not be used as a Use of Force against any person,” he wrote, which the SFPD then removed in a subsequent draft.

  The police force currently maintains a dozen fully-functional remote-controlled robots, which are typically used for area inspections and bomb disposal. However, as the Dallas PD showed in 2016, they make excellent bomb delivery platforms as well. Bomb disposal units are often equipped with blank shotgun shells used to forcibly disrupt an explosive device’s internal workings, though there is nothing stopping police from using live rounds if they needed, as Oakland police recently acknowledged to that city’s civilian oversight board. -Engadget

  In short, if this proposal ever sees the light of day:

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/25/2022 – 22:30

• Musk: Exposing Twitter's Internal Discussion Of Hunter Biden Laptop Story "Necessary To Restore Public Trust"
  Musk: Exposing Twitter’s Internal Discussion Of Hunter Biden Laptop Story “Necessary To Restore Public Trust”

  Revealing Twitter’s internal discussions surrounding the censorship of the New York Post‘s Hunter Biden laptop story right before the 2020 US election is “necessary to restore public trust,” according to new owner Elon Musk.

  

  Musk was responding to a tweet by the recently-unbanned @alx, who said: “Raise your hand if you think @ElonMusk
   should make public all internal discussions about the decision to censor the @NYPost’s story on Hunter Biden’s laptop before the 2020 Election in the interest of Transparency.”

  This is necessary to restore public trust

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2022

  The Post had its Twitter account locked in October 2020 for reporting on the now-confirmed-to-be-real “laptop from hell,” which contains unprosecuted evidence of foreign influence peddling through then-Vice President Joe Biden – including a meeting between Joe and an executive of Ukrainian gas giant Burisma, in 2015.

  The laptop contained caches of emails detailing business dealings with Burisma and state-owned CEFC China Energy Co, from which his firms received $4.8 million in wire transfer payments from its founder, Ye Jianming, according to a Senate report. -Daily Caller

  Twitter had restricted any user from sharing links of the Post‘s coverage, both publicly or via direct message – while the social media giant also locked out former White House spox Kayleigh McEnany’s personal account, as well as former President Trump’s campaign account, for sharing the link.

  In the ensuing years, the authenticity of the laptop has been confirmed by both the Washington Post and the New York Times, while CBS News authenticated the laptop on Monday.

  Indeed: 

  ✋ https://t.co/KHFWshK9hz

  — Matt Orfalea (@0rf) November 24, 2022

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

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/25/2022 – 21:35

• US Bird Flu Outbreak Officially Becomes Worst On Record
  US Bird Flu Outbreak Officially Becomes Worst On Record

  The US outbreak of avian influenza or bird flu is now the worst on record, with 50.54 million birds culled, US Department of Agriculture data showed on Thursday. 

  Earlier this week, the outbreak at a commercial turkey farm in South Dakota resulted in tens of thousands of birds being culled to avoid spreading. This was enough to top the previous record of 50.5 million birds that died in the 2015 avian-flu outbreak. 

  Readers have been well-informed this year about the devastating bird flu outbreak ravaging commercial poultry farms nationwide. Here’s the latest map of the epidemic spreading across the US. 

  

  We cautioned at the start of this month of the “possibility of additional outbreaks” and noted ahead of Thanksgiving that supermarket egg prices were hyperinflating because a large swath of the nation’s egg-laying hens was wiped out. 

  

  “The virus has mostly impacted turkey and egg operations, sending prices to all-time highs and contributing to soaring food inflation. While the spread slowed during the warmer months, it continued to fester and now risks further spread as cooling temperatures prompt more birds to migrate,” Bloomberg said. 

  

  The outbreak began in February and has so far infected flocks of poultry and non-poultry birds across 46 states. 

  “Wild birds continue to spread HPAI throughout the country as they migrate, so preventing contact between domestic flocks and wild birds is critical to protecting US poultry,” Rosemary Sifford, the USDA’s chief veterinary officer, said. 

  Some experts have warned the highly pathogenic bird flu could easily continue spreading into 2023 and devastate even more commercial farms. This may only suggest egg prices are heading higher. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/25/2022 – 21:30

• FDA Approves World's Most Expensive Drug At $3.5 Million Per Dose To Treat Hemophilia
  FDA Approves World’s Most Expensive Drug At $3.5 Million Per Dose To Treat Hemophilia

  Authored by Naveen Anthrapully via The Epoch Times,

  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved CSL Behring’s hemophilia B gene therapy, a one-off infusion treatment with a list price of $3.5 million, making it the world’s most expensive medicine.

  

  The approval of CSL Behring’s Hemgenix “provides a new treatment option for patients with Hemophilia B and represents important progress in the development of innovative therapies for those experiencing a high burden of disease associated with this form of hemophilia,” said Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

  Hemgenix is used for treating hemophilia B patients who currently use factor IX prophylaxis therapy or suffer from serious spontaneous bleeding episodes or have had a life-threatening hemorrhage. Based on clinical trials, the infusion reduced annual bleeds and “94 percent of patients discontinued factor IX prophylaxis and remained prophylaxis-free,” said the company, opening the possibility for the drug to eliminate the need for lifelong routine treatment in adult patients.

  Arising from a single gene defect, hemophilia B is a rare, lifelong bleeding disorder with the current available treatment requiring patients to undergo strict, lifelong prophylactic infusions of factor IX. Although effective, patients are prone to experiencing spontaneous bleeding episodes, whereas Hemgenix allows people to “produce their own factor IX,” according to CSL Behring.

  Hemgenix treats patients at the genome level, with an engineered virus carrying the gene expressed in the liver to produce clotting factor IX. Gene therapies are touted to significantly improve medical conditions by resolving underlying causes.

  “While the price is a little higher than expected, I do think it has a chance of being successful because 1) existing drugs are also very expensive and 2) hemophilia patients constantly live in fear of bleeds,” said Brad Loncar, chief executive of Loncar Investments, to Bloomberg.

  “A gene therapy product will be appealing to some.”

  Hemgenix’s one-time treatment can enable people to bypass regular infusions from current treatment providers, Biogen and Pfizer. The list price is not necessarily what patients pay for the drug.

  Hemophilia Symptoms, Causes

  Hemophilia is a bleeding disorder that is characterized by the body’s inability to clot blood properly due to the absence of enough blood-clotting proteins or clotting factors. Almost always a genetic disorder, it is concerning when the bleeding occurs internally, and leads to life-threatening organ and tissue damages.

  Symptoms include excessive bleeding from cuts, blood in urine, and bleeding into the brain. Many people are born with the disorder, and the most common type is hemophilia A, associated with a low level of factor VIII, followed by hemophilia B with a low factor IX. Acquired hemophilia can happen from autoimmune conditions and adverse drug reactions.

  According to Mayo Clinic, hemophilia almost always occurs in boys, and is passed from mother to son through one of the mother’s genes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that hemophilia occurs in about 1 of every 5,000 male births.

  Hemgenix Trials, Results

  The FDA approved Hemgenix following findings from an ongoing, multinational, open-label, single-arm Phase III HOPE-B clinical trial that evaluated the safety and efficacy of the treatment.

  Based on one study which had 54 participants, Hemgenix increased factor IX activity levels, and decreased the need for routine replacement prophylaxis, while the participants were found to have a 54 percent reduction in annualized bleeding rate compared to baseline.

  The gene therapy allowed patients to produce mean factor IX activity of 39 percent at six months and 36.7 percent at 24 months post-infusion, said CSL Behring. Post-treatment, 51 out of 54 participants discontinued use of prophylaxis, and remained free of previous continuous routine prophylaxis therapy.

  The most common adverse effects following Hemgenix gene therapy were liver enzyme elevations, headache, elevated levels of a certain blood enzyme, flu-like symptoms, infusion-related reactions, fatigue, nausea, and feeling unwell.

  Patients should be monitored for adverse infusion reactions and liver enzyme elevations (transaminitis) in their blood, said the FDA.

  HEMGENIX is still currently under assessment by other regulatory agencies.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/25/2022 – 21:00

• GA Runoff: Why A 51st Senate Seat Matters So Much
  GA Runoff: Why A 51st Senate Seat Matters So Much

  In Georgia’s January 2021 runoff, control of the Senate was at stake. With Democrats already holding 50 seats plus Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote, that won’t the the case with the Dec. 6 runoff pitting GOP challenger Herschel Walker against incumbent Raphael Warnock. 

  Still, both parties are pouring millions into this race — because winning a 51st seat in Georgia would greatly ease Democrats’ rule over the Senate.

  

  A tied Senate “slows everything down,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told the Associated Press. “So it makes a big difference to us.” 

  That would be true right from the start of the next session of Congress. If Democrats are stuck on a 50-50 tie, Schumer will have to once again negotiate a power-sharing arrangement with the GOP’s Mitch McConnell, covering the composition of committees and rules for advancing legislation for a floor vote. Last time around, McConnell used that process to obtain assurances from Democrats that they wouldn’t kill the filibuster. 

  In the current Senate, committees have an equal number of Democrats and Republicans. If Warnock wins, expect Democrats to have a two-seat majority on each committee. Tied committee votes necessitate extra steps on the Senate floor to advance nominations and legislation.  

  A two-seat edge in the full Senate would dull the moderating power of Democratic Senators Joe Manchin (WV) Kyrsten Sinema (AZ). Today, each one effectively holds a veto power over Democratic proposals, and has used it to frustrate the most ambitious proposals of the progressive left. With both facing reelection races in 2024, they’ll be motivated to continue showcasing moderation for their respective states. 

  Fifty-one votes is all it takes to approve federal judicial nominations, so a Warnock win would free the Democrats to easily pump more leftist judges into the system. 

  Perhaps nobody’s as excited about the prospect of 51 Democratic senators than Kamala Harris. The Senate math forces her to stay close to Washington so she can cast her tie-breaking votes. Indeed, she’s a handful of votes away from breaking a nearly two-century-old record set by Vice President John Calhoun.

  Liberated from a beltway orbit, Harris would be free to travel the nation and the world, spewing her trademark word salads, empty blather and cringy cackles everywhere she goes. 

  All Kamala Harris does is get her silk presses and cackle all day. Love that for her 🤣 pic.twitter.com/pWOmCAEZ07

  — Skai (@skaijackson) November 14, 2022

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

  Kamala Harris blunders her way through a speech. Trips into a new word salad: “there is such great significance to the passage of time” pic.twitter.com/f3nTOJFxGt

  — Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 21, 2022

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

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/25/2022 – 20:30

• Reefer Madness: Demand For Illegal Pot Soars In California Due To High Taxes
  Reefer Madness: Demand For Illegal Pot Soars In California Due To High Taxes

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  It appears that illegal pot growers are giving thanks this holiday for California lawmakers who legalized pot only to fuel demand for illegal cannabis due to massive taxes.

  It is the same problem that I wrote about in New York’s program in an earlier Wall Street Journal column.

  Politicians continue to pile on taxes as if they have no impact on pricing and demand. It just seems like free money if you ignore every economic metric and principle. 

  Even with a recent recognition that they have killed their own market, California lawmakers are being criticized for offering too little too late in terms of tax relief.

  

  Sgt. James Roy of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department is quoted in Fox News as saying that “The illegal industry is competing with the legal industry and essentially putting them out of business.”

  Why? As with bathtub gin after Prohibition, few people would prefer bootlegged products rather than the safer lawful alternatives. The only reason is economics — and the refusal of the California lawmakers to recognize basic rules of supply and demand. Not only is pot cheaper due to the massive taxes imposed on lawful businesses, but it is also being sent to the East Coast where similar price differentials are also fueling the illegal trade.

  Despite being a relatively new industry, state and city officials imposed thick layers of regulations, charges, and taxes on the budding businesses. Some estimates put the taxes at 70 percent of current costs.

  Even with a recent recognition that lawmakers strangled the industry, a temporary tax cut is not expected to be enough to make lawful businesses competitive. There remain a host of other taxes, required regulatory obligations, and even bars on claiming certain expenses used by other businesses. The result, according to one study, is that “the effective tax rate on marijuana in California ranges from $42 to $92 per ounce, depending on the jurisdiction, compared to an estimated wholesale production cost of $35 per ounce.”

  So you have a high demand product that has been strangled out of the legal market by politicians who cannot resist adding their own taxes and demands on these nascent businesses. The result is a bonanza for illegal cannabis growers. The alternative was to show a modicum of restraint and allow this industry and market to stabilize and grow. It would then might produce greater revenue even with lower taxes. That, however, requires the one thing that is seemingly beyond our current political environment: restraint.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/25/2022 – 20:00

• "This Is Appalling": Major Tax Filing Services Have Been Sending Financial Information To Facebook
  “This Is Appalling”: Major Tax Filing Services Have Been Sending Financial Information To Facebook

  Major tax filing services, including H&R Block, TaxAct and TaxSlayer, have been covertly sending Facebook sensitive financial information when Americans file their taxes online, according to The Markup.

  

  The data includes names, email addresses, income, filing status, refund amounts and college scholarship information – which is sent to Facebook regardless of whether a person even has a Facebook account – or with other platforms owned by Meta. The company can then be used to fine tune advertising algorithms.

  It is sent through widely used code called the Meta Pixel.

  Of note, Intuit-owned TurboTax does use Meta Pixel, however the company did not send financial information – just usernames and the last time a device signed in. Beyond that, they have kept Pixel entirely off pages beyond sign in.

  Each year, the Internal Revenue Service processes about 150 million individual returns filed electronically, and some of the most widely used e-filing services employ the pixel, The Markup found. 

  When users sign up to file their taxes with the popular service TaxAct, for example, they’re asked to provide personal information to calculate their returns, including how much money they make and their investments. A pixel on TaxAct’s website then sent some of that data to Facebook, including users’ filing status, their adjusted gross income, and the amount of their refund, according to a review by The Markup. Income was rounded to the nearest thousand and refund to the nearest hundred. The pixel also sent the names of dependents in an obfuscated, but generally reversible, format. -The Markup

  TaxAct, which services around three million “consumer and professional users,” also sends data to Google via the company’s analytics tool, however names are not included in the information.

  

  “We take the privacy of our customers’ data very seriously,” said TaxAct spokeswoman Nicole Coburn. “TaxAct, at all times, endeavors to comply with all IRS regulations.”

  H&R Block embedded a pixel on its site that included information on filers’ health savings account usage, dependents’ college tuition grants and expenses. The company similarly claimed in a very boilerplate statement that they “regularly evaluate[s] our practices as part of our ongoing commitment to privacy, and will review the information.”

  While TaxSlayer – which says it completed 10 million federal and state returns last year – provided Facebook information on filers as part of the social media giant’s “advanced matching” system which attempts to link information from people browsing the web to Facebook accounts. The information sent includes phone numbers and the name of the user filling out the form, as well as the names of any dependents added to the return. Specific demographic information was also obscured, but Facebook was still able to link them to existing profiles.

  Another tax filing service, Ramsey Solutions, told The Markup that the company “implemented the Meta Pixel to deliver a more personalized customer experience,” but that they “did NOT know and were never notified that personal tax information was being collected by Facebook from the Pixel.”

  “As soon as we found out, we immediately informed TaxSlayer to deactivate the Pixel from Ramsey SmartTax.”

  Harvard Law School lecturer and tax law specialist Mandi Matlock said the findings showed that taxpayers have been “providing some of the most sensitive information that they own, and it’s being exploited.”

  “This is appalling,” she added. “It truly is.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/25/2022 – 19:30

• How To Manage Risk In Crypto
  How To Manage Risk In Crypto

  Authored by Conor Ryder via Kaiko.com,

  The FTX collapse was perhaps the single biggest risk management failure in the history of finance. Today, we provide a crash course in basic risk and liquidity metrics which should be required reading for anyone managing crypto investments.

  

  We’ve seen enough incidents over the last few months, let alone years, to conclude there is a complete lack of adequate risk management in crypto. Throughout the Terra collapse, crypto credit crisis, and spectacular implosion of FTX we have collectively witnessed the industry’s largest (and most opaque) firms become insolvent in an instant.

  This begs the question: where were the basic financial risk controls that are mandatory in any other industry?

  A neglect of proper risk and liquidity management in a market as volatile as crypto has proven to be a death sentence for any business or investor. Today, we will demonstrate why risk metrics such as VaR and expected shortfall, alongside CeFi and DeFi liquidity metrics, are an absolute necessity for any crypto firm in a post-FTX world.

  Part 1: Risk Metrics

  While commonplace (and required by law) in traditional finance, risk metrics have been neglected in crypto largely because most crypto businesses have been extremely profitable up until lately. When numbers go up, risk management gets swept under the carpet. But the industry’s inherent lack of transparency and regulation has also contributed to a culture of negligence that eschewed basic controls.

  Below, we explore three basic risk metrics: Value at Risk, expected shortfall, and implied volatility. 

  Value at Risk

  VaR is a risk indicator to quantify the extent and probability of potential losses in a portfolio. It is particularly useful in risk management as it can essentially assign a cash value to a confidence level. These confidence levels usually range from 90% – 99%. For example, if the 95% daily VaR of my portfolio is $30k, it means that:

  – My portfolio has a 95% chance of losing less than $30k over the next one day period.

  – On average I will lose more than $30k one day out of 20 (5 days out of 100 = 5%).

  VaR can be viewed as an acceptable loss, given a confidence level, which makes it a particularly useful metric for compliance purposes as well as capital requirement planning. Since the VaR for different confidence levels exhaustively describes the investment profitability, it can be used for investment management, allowing us to define limit-order levels to crystallize profits or cut losses. 

  Kaiko’s VaR estimator can be applied to any cryptocurrency portfolio to accurately track VaR over time. Below, we have charted the Daily VaR of an equally weighted $200k portfolio of BTC and ETH.

  Suppose I’m setting my risk budget for my portfolio, and I want a 95% probability of not losing more than $30k (-15%) each day. I would set my VaR confidence level to 95%, charted below, and monitor when my portfolio exceeds that $30k level. When the portfolio VaR exceeds that level I would look to de-risk my portfolio so that my Value-at-Risk is under that $30k threshold. We can see that in November as the FTX fallout began, VaR tripled in a matter of days to surpass the $30k max loss which would tell me to de-risk.

  

  For a more conservative risk budget, perhaps for an exchange or lender, VaR at a 99% confidence level would be more appropriate. 99% VaR will impose stricter risk measures as the max loss is higher, due to the degree of certainty that it requires. We can see in the chart below that in times of higher volatility or returns, such as this time last year when the bull market came crashing to a halt, the max loss using 99% VaR was nearly double that using 95% VaR. This results in more stringent liquidity management being put in place, which will give businesses a better chance to remain solvent in volatile markets.

  

  Expected Shortfall

  Expected shortfall (ES) is another useful metric, and particularly relevant for a volatile asset class like crypto where investors want to try and quantify their losses in the worst of cases. While VaR estimates a max loss 95% of the time, expected shortfall quantifies the average loss in the 5% of times. ES answers the question: If VaR is exceeded, how bad will our losses be?

  Distribution of returns in a crypto portfolio have historically had what are known as fat left tails, or black swan events, that alter the makeup of the return distributions. As we can see below, crypto markets exhibit more of the characteristics of chart 2. Both charts have the same VaR but result in different expected shortfalls: chart 2 losses are more extreme in the worst case scenario.

  

  Charting the expected shortfall, or the average loss in the worst 5% of scenarios, for the same $200k portfolio above, we observe a decline in the average loss this year as crypto volatility generally eased. However, we can see expected shortfall spike during the recent FTX collapse, doubling in a matter of days. ES compliments VaR and gives risk managers a sense of how bad things may get in the worst of scenarios. This allows business to determine a risk budget, ensuring solvency during market crashes. 

  

  Implied Volatility

  Risk managers can also turn to the options market to get a better idea of how much risk is being priced into markets. Volatility is one of the criteria that makes up an option price, and by calculating how much volatility the market is pricing into an option, it is possible to come to a conclusion as to how much volatility to expect until the option expiration date. Using the December 2nd expiry date as an example, the market is pricing in implied volatility of 81% for ETH options until the end of the month, decreasing from 98% since mid-November. Implied volatility can be one of the most useful metrics risk managers monitor when looking to adjust the risk of the portfolio.

  

  Part 2: Liquidity Metrics

  Market Depth on Centralized Exchanges

  Two of the black swan events this year, the collapse of Celsius and FTX, were directly related to liquidity issues surrounding stETH and FTT, respectively. Holders of either tokens could have seen that there was little to no liquidity available on spot markets and if everyone rushes to the exit at the same time, the price of the token crashes.

  We saw this happen with stETH, which hit a discount of +6% as liquidity dried up on exchanges as Celsius rushed to liquidate their holdings amid record redemption requests for ETH.

  FTT didn’t have many buyers apart from FTX themselves, and the bid side liquidity was not enough to support immense selling pressure of the token throughout the FTX scandal, despite Alameda’s best efforts to defend the price. Bid side liquidity within 2% of the mid price for FTT was only $6m pre-collapse. A fund engaging in adequate liquidity management would have flagged this and likely reduced exposure to FTT on the off-chance a rush to the exit happened.

  

  Looking at some other tokens which could be relevant from a liquidity management perspective, DOT, the token of the Polkadot ecosystem, had very similar bid depth to FTT pre-crash. Post-crash, DOT only has about $4m of bid side support within 2% of the mid-price across 12 exchanges it trades on, meaning a wave of sell orders could quickly crash prices.

  

  KCS is the native token of the Hong-Kong based exchange Kucoin. Kucoin is ranked 32 out of 42 exchanges in the latest Kaiko Exchange Ranking, largely thanks to a 42/100 score for Governance. According to recent proof of reserves releases from exchanges, the Block claims Kucoin holds nearly 20% of its reserves in its own token, KCS. Looking at 2% bid depth for KCS we can see there is only about $60k of bid side support for the token. A rush for the exit could see the KCS price crash and Kucoin taking a significant hit to their reserves.

  

  Understanding liquidity is thus a vital component in a robust risk management framework. The valuation of a fund’s balance sheet is only as strong as its ability to efficiently liquidate their holdings.

  DeFi Liquidity Data 

  As centralized and decentralized markets become increasingly integrated, CEX market depth is no longer enough to fully understand a cryptocurrency’s liquidity

  As mentioned earlier, staked Ether (stETH) played a large role in the liquidity issues faced by Celsius and Three Arrows Capital this summer. This caused market wide contagion at the time as investors scrambled to cash out of stETH and move into the more liquid ETH. In this case, the majority of liquidity for stETH wasn’t on centralized exchanges; rather, it was in DEX liquidity pools.

  Diligent monitoring of the Curve stETH/ETH pool would have flagged a drop in the total value locked in real time as stETH made up over 80% of the pool at the height of the rush for liquidity. That allocation has improved slightly since, but remains quite imbalanced as stETH now makes up 67% of the pool.

  

  Going forward, crypto firms will need to understand liquidity on both centralized and decentralized markets to be able to simulate large liquidations and price impact. 

  Part 3: Exchange Due Diligence

  The importance of exchange due diligence has never been more relevant than it is today. FTX was one of the most trusted names in all of crypto, but after Coindesk did a bit of digging the whole charade unraveled and FTX ended up insolvent. Not only did customers lose money, but many sophisticated hedge funds and trading desks had their funds stored on FTX and now have to explain that decision to investors.

  It is vital that going forward, as part of a robust risk management process, that businesses do their due diligence on exchanges, monitoring everything from liquidity to governance. Kaiko is aiming to assist investors in this vetting process for exchanges with our Exchange Ranking, which is structured around six criteria with a proprietary scoring methodology internally developed and maintained by Kaiko’s Indices team. Over the next few months, we will incorporate proof of reserves and other transparency metrics into this ranking.

  

  Conclusion

  When liquidity is plentiful, risk management is less of a concern as most companies’ balance sheets look healthy and liquid. However, when a bear market hits, the tide goes out and we see who was swimming naked. Those with significant positions in illiquid tokens, such as FTT or stETH, have paid the price for not monitoring the liquidity of those positions and not accurately assessing the outsized risk of their positions should prices go down.

  Risk management and crypto are two words that up until lately have rarely been mentioned in the same sentence. To quote the new CEO of FTX, John Ray III, he had never seen “such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information.”

  If businesses investing in crypto are to survive going forward, risk management must play a central role in the investment process. Liquidity metrics, combined with traditional risk metrics such as VaR or Expected Shortfall will allow investors to survive bear markets like these and reap the rewards of survival come the next bull market.

  *  * *

  Learn more about Kaiko’s Value at Risk, Implied Volatility, and liquidity data.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/25/2022 – 19:00

• California Mulls Ban On All Gas And Diesel Truck Fleets
  California Mulls Ban On All Gas And Diesel Truck Fleets

  California’s Air Resources Board has laid out a plan to ban all diesel-powered trucks that would cause inflationary ripples throughout the entire economy.

  

  The plan would mandate that all new trucks operating around busy railways and ports be zero emission vehicles by 2024 – while all diesel trucks would be phased out by 2035, and eventually, banishing every truck and bus fleet from California roads by 2045, where feasible, according to SFGATE.

  The proposed Advance Clean Fleets regulation first targets the busiest trucking areas in the state — around warehouses, sea ports and railways. The board says the pollution in these areas affects communities disproportionately.

  “Many California neighborhoods, especially Black and Brown, low-income and vulnerable communities, live, work, play and attend schools adjacent to the ports, railyards, distribution centers, and freight corridors and experience the heaviest truck traffic,” wrote the board, which asserts that this type of pollution creates health risks for those communities.

  Representatives from the trucking and construction industries were livid at a recent hearing on the issue – where over 150 public commenters voiced their opinions ranging from the state’s woefully inadequate grid, to a general lack of charging capacity to handle a massive shift to zero-emission vehicles so quickly (whose electricity would in part be generated by coal).

  “The infrastructure cannot be established in the timeframe given,” said American Trucking Association representative Mike Tunnell. “Fleets will have to deploy trucks that cannot do the same job as their current trucks.”

  Another speaker, construction company CEO Jamie Angus, pointed to logistical issues involved with charging electric vehicles.

  “This will do damage to us. We don’t really understand how to charge these vehicles,” he said, adding “Those pieces of equipment go home with those men every day, so they’ll need to be charged from home? How do you compensate that person for that?“

  On the other side of the fence, environmentalists – including the Sierra Club, argued in favor of an expedited timeline to rid California roads of internal combustion engines as quickly as possible.

  Maybe they can also figure out how to solve the massive logistical and economic issues that would surely ensue, as well as what to do with all that lithium when the batteries eventually go bad?

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/25/2022 – 18:30

• Qatar & The World Cup: Alcohol Ban Bad, Fueling War In Syria Good?
  Qatar & The World Cup: Alcohol Ban Bad, Fueling War In Syria Good?

  Authored by Gavin O’Reilly via The Ron Paul Institute For Peace & Prosperity,

  In the lead up to the 2022 Qatar World Cup, the hosting of the tournament by the conservative Muslim state has been the source of much controversy in Western media.

  On Thursday, less than 48 hours before the opening match between the host country and Ecuador, it was announced that alcohol would be prohibited from being sold in any of Qatar’s football stadiums. Controversy also arose on Monday afternoon when a plan for England captain Harry Kane to wear the rainbow-themed “OneLove” armband in his country’s match against Iran, was cancelled at the last minute due to an intervention from FIFA.

  What has received virtually zero-coverage or criticism in the run up to Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup however, has been Doha’s instrumental role in fueling the 11-year long proxy war on Syria, a conflict that has led to thousands of deaths, an exacerbated refugee crisis, and the rise of ISIS.

  

  In 2009, plans for the construction of a pipeline that would begin in the Qatari-managed North Dome gas field in the Persian Gulf, and which would then pass through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey on its way to Europe, were halted by the refusal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to take part, his close relationship with Russia being a deciding factor.

  With the Arab Republic being a long-time opponent of the US-NATO hegemony, in which the Gulf States behind the pipeline play a key role, this refusal would act as a final straw for the regime-change lobby. A plan was quickly put in place to remove Assad from power.

  To this end, the United States and a host of other countries would authorize a plan to provide arms, funding and training to Salafist militants in the hope that a sectarian conflict would topple Syria’s secular government, thus allowing a Western-friendly regime to be put in place.

  Timber Sycamore, the official codename for this regime change operation, would officially erupt in March 2011, when protests in Damascus and Aleppo calling for government reform would rapidly escalate into violence that soon swept the entire country.

  By 2013, the “Syrian Revolution” had seen vast swathes of the Arab Republic come under terrorist control, with Salafist groups from neighboring Iraq, itself having been destabilized following the 2003 US-led invasion, crossing over to form the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in April of that year.

  In order to counter this onslaught and avoid the same fate that had befell Libya following a similar regime change operation, a common defence agreement between Syria and key-ally Iran was enacted and the Islamic Republic and Hezbollah would launch a military intervention in June 2013, with Tehran being acutely aware that had Damascus fell, Iran would have been next in line for the regime-change lobby. 

  

  Though this Iranian intervention would play a key role in repelling the Western-backed terrorists, what would perhaps be the most decisive factor in turning the conflict in Damascus’ favour would come in September 2015, when a Russian air campaign was launched in defense of the Arab Republic, allowing it to retake territories that had come under the control of the militants, such as the key city of Aleppo, liberated in December 2016.

  Sensing that their regime change operation wasn’t going to plan, Washington’s Neocons would soon resort to desperate measures. In April 2017, a likely false flag chemical attack in the town of Khan Shaykhun was blamed on the Syrian government in the hope of triggering a US-led military intervention, something that almost came to fruition several days later when the then-Trump administration launched cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase.

  Just stopping short of the full-scale intervention that had been hoped for, the same strategy would be carried out almost a year to the day later in the Syrian city of Douma, this time resulting in the United States, Britain and France launching airstrikes against government targets, again just stopping short of a military intervention that would have triggered a wider conflict between Russia and NATO.

  We told you & told you again.

  “Al-Qaeda is on our side in #Syria.” – email from policy advisor to Sec. of State Hillary Clinton (Feb 2012). pic.twitter.com/EcYlpdeAgm

  — H. Sumeri (@IraqiSecurity) April 14, 2017

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

  Despite Qatar being a key player in the geopolitical impact of the Syrian war via its arming and funding of the terrorists who carried it out, a situation that almost led to a third world war, Doha has come in for little to no criticism from the Western media for its involvement amidst the 2022 World Cup coverage, Qatar’s banning of alcohol, and rainbow armbands, being a seemingly more pressing issue.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/25/2022 – 18:00

• As Negotiations Fracture, EU Postpones Talks On Russian Oil Price Cap To Monday
  As Negotiations Fracture, EU Postpones Talks On Russian Oil Price Cap To Monday

  Although today was the deadline for EU diplomats to determine the specifics of the Russian oil price cap, we pointed out earlier just how “great” discussions were going with Poland rejecting a proposed cap of $65 per barrel as being too soft, while Greece refusing to consider anything below $70.

  EU oil price cap discussions going great: Poland rejected proposed price of $65 per barrel as being too soft, while Greece doesn’t want to go below $70.

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 25, 2022

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

  Meanwhile, amid the growing discord, in typical European fashion – where nobody has even looked at the math ahead of time – the entire concept of a price cap was clearly meaningless as explained in “The Ridiculous Reality Of The Russian Oil Price Cap Debate In One Picture.”

  Which is why it wasn’t at all surprising that on Friday, European Union diplomats suspended talks on capping Russian oil prices, as Poland and the Baltic states objected to a proposal they consider too generous to Moscow.

  Confirming none planned over weekend. Nonetheless a variety of EU sources still think a deal will come in the coming days.

  — laurence norman (@laurnorman) November 25, 2022

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

  As Bloomberg reports, diplomats had expected a deal to be done on Friday night but positions remained entrenched and the talks were postponed to Monday.

  *EU DIPLOMATS POSTPONE OIL PRICE-CAP TALKS TILL AFTER WEEKEND

  they need 48 hours to learn math

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 25, 2022

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

  As previewed earlier this week, the bloc has been locked in a fight over how strict the Group of Seven-led price cap should be. Poland and the Baltic nations are outraged at a proposal to cap Russian oil prices at $65 per barrel limit, as the level is above the rates Moscow sells crude now, making the entire price cap discussion completely meaningless and purely an exercise in virtue signaling.

  Poland is demanding additional sanctions, a review mechanism, and a price below the market level, according to a senior diplomat.

  

  And as always happens when Europe has to reach a unanimous decision, with Poland and the Baltic states digging their heels in, the spat has laid bare the fundamental tension at the heart of the price cap idea. Countries are being forced to choose between two priorities that are almost impossible to resolve: trying to choke off revenue to Russia and avoiding potentially painful spikes in the oil price that could damage the global economy.

  “If you put the price cap too high, it doesn’t really bite,” European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said in an interview on Bloomberg TV. “Oil is the biggest source of revenue for Russian budget, so it’s very important get this right so it really has an impact on Russia’s ability to finance this war.”

  On the other end of the spectrum from Poland are shipping nations like Greece, which favor a higher level that will help keep trade flowing, and boosting state revenues derived from quietly helping Russia break the oil embargo by turning a blind eye to an entire industry of ship-to-ship transfers that has taken Greece by storm.

  The talks have been fraught because at $65, the cap is above the prices that Russia is already accepting for its crude from ravenous buyers such as China and India – a level which is heavily discounted to global benchmarks.

  Such a “cap” would allow Moscow to argue that it’s business as usual; at the same time, the Kremlin had said it would refuse to sell oil to anyone signing up to the cap – but on Thursday appeared to hint it could soften its stance.

  Still, Europe can only kick the can so long: the Dec. 5 deadline is looming, at which point EU sanctions on Russian oil are set to kick, and the disruption to the market will likely be greater if the price cap isn’t in place as all Russian oil exports would be suspended, unless of course Europe stops being a vassal state of the US State Department and decides to do away with the Russian sanctions entirely (for an objective assessment of who holds the upper hand in Europe, read Ambrose Evans-Pritchard with “Putin has another gas shock for us: the deindustrialisation of Europe “.

  The EU sanctions would bar access to insurance and services for any ship transporting Russian oil. The cap allows access to those services, but only if the crude is purchased below a certain price. The US proposed the price cap earlier this year as an alternative to EU sanctions that were so strict they risked shutting down swaths of production.

  The US argued that a spike in prices caused by EU sanctions could eventually help Putin — as well as being ruinous for the global economy.

  Oil prices have fallen in recent days, partly on signs a deal could keep Russian oil flowing, easing the pressure on the global market. Then again this is Europe, and anything that is seen as a consensus outcome will never happen…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/25/2022 – 17:30

• Newly Elected Conservative School Board Fires Superintendent, Bans Critical Race Theory
  Newly Elected Conservative School Board Fires Superintendent, Bans Critical Race Theory

  Authored by Jackson Elliott via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  In one meeting, Deon Jackson went from South Carolina’s Berkeley County school superintendent to unemployed.

  

  His firing came at the hand of a newly-elected school board, which appears to have declared a judgment day for woke practices in its district.

  In its first meeting after the Nov. 8 election, the board fired superintendent Jackson and school counsel Tiffany Richardson. Then it hired Anthony Dixon as superintendent and retained Brandon Gaskins as counsel. And before the day was over, the board banned teaching critical race theory and created a board to review library books for pornographic content.

  Moms for Liberty, an activist group that supports parental rights in education, endorsed six of the board’s nine members. Many Moms for Liberty candidates won school board elections this November, as reported previously. The group’s leaders say more aggressive school management decisions may soon be in order.

  In Berkeley, the candidates’ aggressive approach was a response to student discipline policies and slow learning post-COVID-19, said Christi Dixon, the Moms for Liberty chapter chair for Berkeley.

  “Parents were seeing that their children weren’t achieving at the levels that they had been previously. And there were a lot of changes,” Dixon said.

  

  Fire and Firings

  When Jackson left the board meeting at which he was fired, it appeared that not everyone supported the board’s decision.

  Some parents watching walked out with him in protest, video from local network Live 5 WCSC News shows. Others cheered.

  Former school board chair David Barrow called the firings a “travesty” and a “political witch hunt,” according to NBC.

  So far, the board has yet to explain its rationale for firing Jackson and Richardson.

  Board members Yvonne Bradley and Crystal Wigfall walked out of the room in protest after Jackson departed.

  Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice said the board might be newly-elected but that it knows exactly what it’s doing.

  “These are people that have watched the former board. They interacted and watched the former superintendent. They have watched and interacted with the staff attorney,” she said. “The newly elected school board members have been keeping a list and checking it twice.”

  According to Dixon, Jackson changed school discipline policies in ways that caused problems and usurped parental authority.

  Schools under his authority told parents that school staff should be able to discipline students for behavior outside the school, she said.

  “The example that they gave was that if a child and another student in their neighborhood got into some type of disagreement and it was going to spill over into the school environment, then they should be able to insert themselves into that situation,” Dixon said.

  Jackson also supported “restorative practices,” she said.

  According to the University of Florida, a “restorative” school justice system replaces suspensions and detentions with “restorative meeting circles” where offenders and victims practice “Restitution Planning.”

  The previous school board wanted to spend $1 million to hire five district-level administrators, said Dixon.

  “We don’t have teachers’ aides. Could that money not be better served to get down into the schools and into the classrooms to help the teacher than to hire more top-heavy district-level administrators?” she asked.

  Finally, the school district’s library included the book “Looking for Alaska,” which has sexually graphic language, Dixon said.

  Dixon added that she didn’t know exactly why the board moved so fast to fire Jackson and Richardson but that she trusted they had good reason.

  

  “I’m not a board member, and they have protected information that they can’t share,” she said. “I just have to trust that they made the best decision with the information that only they had.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/25/2022 – 17:00

• Hopes Rise For Cannabis Banking Relief During Lame Duck Session
  Hopes Rise For Cannabis Banking Relief During Lame Duck Session

  Federal legislators seeking to free state-legal cannabis businesses to use the country’s banking system have high hopes of finally pushing legislation across the finish line during the upcoming lame duck session. 

  After November’s latest batch of state referendums, recreational marijuana is now legal in 21 states — but remains illegal under federal law. As a result, current federal rules force even legal marijuana businesses to use cash instead of normal banking services. 

  That makes them prime targets for criminals, exposing owners, employees and customers to violent crimes and necessitating expensive security measures. 

  Ben Koltun, director of research at Beacon Policy Advisors, told MarketWatch that the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act has about a 70% chance of passing by year end: “There’s a lot of positive momentum. It’s just can they come to agreement over some of the details that are outstanding?”  

  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has struck his own optimistic tone last week:

  “I’m still holding productive talks with Democratic and Republican colleagues in the House and the Senate on moving additional bipartisan cannabis legislation in the lame duck. We are going to try very, very hard to get it done.”

  The SAFE Act would bar federal regulators from punishing banks for serving legitimate cannabis related businesses.

  It also stipulates that proceeds from a transaction involving activities of a legitimate cannabis-related business are not considered proceeds from unlawful activity — thus removing legit cannabis revenue from the scope of anti-money-laundering laws. 

  The SAFE Act has 180 cosponsors, including 26 Republicans. Despite the measure of bipartisan support, the looming Republican takeover of the House of Representatives is sparking urgency among the SAFE Act’s backers. 

  

  The House of Representatives has passed some form of the SAFE Act seven times, only for it to repeatedly die in the Senate. This key to finally enacting it is twofold, says Politico: 

  They must find a pairing of financial services and criminal justice reform-centered cannabis legislation that progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans can all accept. And then they must receive signoff from the leaders of the Senate Banking Committee, House Financial Services Committee, and the four corners of party leadership in both chambers.

  Demands for accompanying criminal justice measures have included grants for state expungement programs, various forms of help for communities damaged by marijuana prohibition.  

  “The parameters of a deal are pretty easy to imagine, but I am getting the sense that Republicans feel like Democrats are asking for too much in terms of concessions,” Tobin Marcus, senior U.S. policy and politics strategist at Evercore ISI, told MarketWatch. 

  Liberals have been making the perfect (in their eyes) the enemy of the good. Even the Drug Policy Alliance, which has backed cannabis reform, has opposed the SAFE Act, on the head-scratching premise that it “prioritizes marijuana profits over people.” 

  As Jacob Sullom wrote at Reason: 

  The bizarre implication was that marijuana merchants, who face an ongoing danger aggravated by the failure to approve banking reform, do not qualify as “people.” Michael Arthur, the 44-year-old Portland budtender killed in the 2020 robbery that Willamette Week mentioned, was a person. So was Jordan Brown, the 29-year-old employee who was killed last March during an armed robbery at World of Weed, a dispensary in Tacoma, Washington.

  If liberals keep their demands within the bounds of reason and the SAFE Act passes, it would still leave state-legal cannabis businesses with plenty of financial headaches courtesy of the federal government. For example, they can’t even claim business deductions on federal income tax returns, to say nothing of the fact that their every transaction is a federal drug felony.

  Of course, the federal government has no constitutional basis for criminalizing marijuana or any other intoxicant…but here’s hoping this particular chunk of the destructive prohibition regime get peeled back before New Year’s Day. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/25/2022 – 16:30

• The Doctor Who Can Rebuild Trust: Joseph Ladapo
  The Doctor Who Can Rebuild Trust: Joseph Ladapo

  Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

  If you are like me, you are exhausted of the lies. Every day seems to bring new revelations about how our lives came to be upended. The connections are becoming clearer between the pandemic response and the growing economic crisis, the ballooning debt, the growth of the surveillance state, the corruption and scams, chilling absence of integrity in public life, and, with the failure of FTX, the way in which an outright financial scam was integral to the calamity. 

  While we await new revelations, depositions, coverups, pleas for amnesty, and bad economic news, whom can we trust? Is anyone telling the truth? 

  Today was Anthony Fauci’s last White House press conference, and he spoke as if life is all normal and everything is fine. It’s as if the whole disaster never happened. He never locked anyone down, he says. He has happy for any investigations, he says, because he has nothing to hide. And then he ended with a final push for everyone to get booster #5 or whatever number we are on. 

  It’s like we live in two universes: our own lives in which we read true things in some places, and official life, in which shills and publicists keep repeating the same nonsense over and over without flinching or providing anything like an honest account of these last three years. 

  Perhaps for this reason – and also because by any historical standard this is a tremendous autobiography – reading Dr. Joseph Ladapo’s Transcend Fear is a welcome relief from the nonsense of our times. It is brutally honest. It is emotionally affecting. It is careful and precise but also deeply radical in its observations. If what’s called the “public health world” has lost touch with both the public and health, this book provides a path to restoring it. In short, it is a beautiful and inspiring experience. 

  

  Dr. Ladapo is the Surgeon General of the State of Florida, picked by Governor Ron DeSantis to forge and explain the state’s health decisions and priorities to the public in the midst of a grave crisis. He has faced down the national press time and time again with Zen-like wisdom. He seems emotionally unflappable while also sticking to the science as he understands it. He is the only public health official in the country who has been upfront about the limits of the vaccines and warned healthy young people that they don’t need them. 

  What we learn from this book is that he has been a warrior against pseudoscience from the very beginning of this pandemic and the government response. After the lockdowns, most scientists and health professionals fell silent, fearing reputational and financial loss. Dr. Ladapo was different, On March 24, 2020, still within the window of “15 Days to Flatten the Curve,” he wrote in USA Today:

  We are fretting and we are fuming. As a country, we have been caught miserably flat-footed after receiving warnings about what lay ahead when cases of Covid-19 began exploding in Wuhan, China. Messages from local and state leaders about how to respond to the pandemic change almost daily—a sure sign they have no idea what they are doing. Shutdowns are happening here in California and in New York, and will probably spread to the rest of the nation….

  Here’s the problem: Because of the (understandable) fear and hysteria of the moment, few US leaders are seriously talking about the endgame. The epidemiologic models I’ve seen indicate that the shutdowns and school closures will temporarily slow the virus’ spread, but when they’re lifted, we will essentially emerge right back where we started. And, by the way, no matter what, our hospitals will still be overwhelmed. There has already been too much community spread to prevent this inevitability. 

  We don’t have a totalitarian government like China, and we value our civil liberties too much to take the measures (i.e., total lockdown) that would be needed to rapidly decrease the infection rate to zero. This means that, even with shutdowns, the virus will still spread. Unfortunately, this also means that rates of “community immunity,” often referred to as “herd immunity,” will slow. As a result, we will always be vulnerable to the virus spreading rapidly again as soon as shutdown measures are lifted, unless they are immediately reimplemented—over and over and over again.

  Was he the first post-lockdown voice from public health profoundly to object in a public forum of this magnitude? Perhaps so. Consider the bravery and presence of mind it required to write those sentences. The entire country was on a wartime footing with unprecedented horribles taking place. The media was screaming “Run for your lives” but most of us weren’t even allowed out of our homes to do that. 

  These were utterly crazy times. The whole world was going bonkers. And yet this man kept his cool. 

  This book explains where his cool comes from. You see, he is the son of an immigrant from Nigeria, born 1979. A math and science whiz, he attended Wake Forest and then entered Harvard Medical School. While he was involved in his studies, he noted the existence of the Kennedy School of Government and enrolled there too. On graduation day, he was granted a MD plus a PhD in public policy. So essentially: the highest credentials in two fields that this country offers. He became professor of medicine at New York University and then the University of California, Los Angeles. 

  The trouble was that none of his training had prepared him to deal with medical issues closer to home, namely his wife’s unrelenting migraines that often landed her in the hospital and his own underlying psychological fears of social interaction. The details are very painful and told in this book with disarming detail. Long story short: his search for answers led him toward alternative medical paths that eventually fixed both issues, and burned a lesson in his mind. Health is individual, and the right path is not the same for everyone and not always found in expertise as codified in the textbooks and institutions. 

  It was soon after these difficult times that the pandemic broke and, along with it, the claims that the experts had all the answers in lockdowns and eventual universal mandates for vaccination. 

  Dr. Ladapo had meanwhile developed the self-confidence to speak about such matters truthfully and fearlessly. And he never stopped. He wrote for every venue he could, month after month, urging an end to the lockdowns, a focus on therapeutics, attention to the science we had, and genuine concern for the health of actual individuals, who are not lab rats but people with human rights and freedom. 

  Even though Dr. Joseph Ladapo is obviously a hero (and one for the ages, so far as I’m concerned), the prose here is remarkably lucid, humble, and precise. That’s why I say that the humane concern in this book is an inspiration. Moreover, reading it is a form of therapy because he connects with a common sense that we all had in 2019 before the world descended into utter madness. 

  What’s more, this book shows a path forward not only for public health but for all of us as individuals. He urges personal reflection as the first step in recovery, overcoming whatever hidden fears we had that caused too many among us to go along with the preposterous parade of dangerous nonsense that controlled our lives for so long. 

  In my own view, this book is a classic of our times. Its value added is not only the author’s credentials, though he has them galore, or even how it speaks so directly to issues that have profoundly affected all our lives. Its real value is as a model of autobiography that offers lessons for all of us without exception. 

  We at Brownstone are deeply honored that Dr. Ladapo will be our dinner speaker at our annual conference and gala in Miami, December 3, 2022. There is still time to attend. You can register here. 

  I write as Dr. Fauci just finished his last press conference without offering so much as a hint of apology for what has happened. Meanwhile, I’m sure Dr. Ladapo is tending to his work in Florida where he has been charged with dealing with public health policy with honesty, truth, and wisdom. I know who gets my vote for hero of the pandemic. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/25/2022 – 16:00

• Clothes Pile Up At Bangladesh Warehouses As Western Imports Collapse
  Clothes Pile Up At Bangladesh Warehouses As Western Imports Collapse

  Exactly half a year ago, on May 23, we warned that as the “bullwhip effect” was set to end with a bang, and as inventories were set to go from zero to massively overstocked, prices were “about to fall off a cliff.” Well, with purchase orders having fallen off a cliff, and with containership rates crashing at the fastest pace on record as demand for Chinese imports has evaporated in the US…

  

  … this is precisely what we are now seeing, and as the FT reports, with US inventories in freefall amid a collapse in domestic demand, clothing is instead piling up at warehouses in Bangladesh as consumers tighten belts in the US, Europe and other big markets.

  Citing manufacturers, the Financial Times notes that orders in the world’s largest garment exporter after China had been slowing since July because of the war in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia, and their impact on inflation, interest rates and mortgages across the world.

  “Everything has gone up, so the clothing budget has squeezed,” Faruque Hassan, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, told the Financial Times. “That’s why some of the brands, some of the importers have slowed down their orders.” Hassan said that some retailers had asked Bangladeshi suppliers to stop making garments or to delay shipments for up to three months.

  “That is having a huge impact because all our factories . . . have bought fabric to produce the garments and now they are having a serious crisis.”

  

  In other words, we are seeing not just the reverse bullwhip effect kick in, but smaller, secondary bull-whippets being unleashed as the butterfly of the coming global recession flaps its wings.

  And it’s about to have profound political consequences too: the downturn in global clothing demand comes as Sheikh Hasina Wazed’s Bangladeshi government, which faces an election next year, contends with higher prices for imported gas, leading to power cuts that have hit some garment producers. The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist party has staged large rallies in recent weeks in a bid to capitalize on discontent with a weakening economy ahead of the poll.

  In response, this month Bangladesh turned to the IMF for help, and secured a $2.3 billion credit facility and another $1.3 billion from its Resilience and Sustainability Facility, meant to help poorer countries address climate change and other long-term challenges.

  That good news is that for now, Bangladesh has not faced a full-blown liquidity crisis unlike its neighbours Sri Lanka and Pakistan.  But its foreign exchange reserves have fallen this year against the backdrop of a strengthening dollar and pressures on prices and consumer demand.

  And it’s about to get worse: clothing and textile production is by far the biggest industry in Bangladesh, which profited from surging sales when Covid-19 lockdowns eased and consumers indulged in “revenge buying”. The result was a burst in income and the south Asian country exported garments worth $42.6bn and textiles worth $2.6bn in the 12 months to the end of June, accounting for about 85% of total exports, according to the BGMEA exporters association.

  

  Making clothes for Walmart, Primark, H&M, Target and other global chains is a cornerstone industry that has helped lift many of its more than 160 million people, primarily women, out of poverty.

  According to Ranjan Mahtani, chief executive of Epic Group, which has a factory in Bangladesh and a large business in the US, clothing sales “really spiked post-Covid because there were so many stimulus cheques”, but were now falling again, leading to “huge” inventories at retailers; and unlike the US where so far collapsing inventories haven’t led to mass layoffs, in Bangladesh the lack of US stimmies means millions are about to be fired, leading to social instability.

  In the first months of the pandemic, Bangladesh’s garment makers were hit hard when many retailers cancelled orders. Some responded by pivoting to making masks and personal protective equipment as demand for those products climbed rapidly.

  “In a country that looks chaotic from the outside, everybody was really focused,” says Vidiya Amrit Khan, director of the family controlled Desh Garments, which supplies brands including Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger in the US, and Crew Clothing in the UK. “This was because we had to survive.”

  Hassan, the BGMEA president, said that in the latest slowdown, retailers were not cancelling orders outright. Instead they were asking for discounts or factoring warehouse charges into what they paid manufacturers whose clothing they could not sell immediately. He added that the industry had asked the Bangladesh Bank, the country’s central bank, to press lenders to defer suppliers’ loan payments so that factories could give priority to paying wages and utility bills.

  Additionally, the FT notes that power cuts have caused further problems at manufacturers. “Energy is a problem and because of that, a very large section of the industry is going through terrible months,” said Syed Naved Husain, chief executive of Beximco, one of Bangladesh’s largest companies, whose customers include Target and Zara owner Inditex. Husain said that he thought the industry should “buy energy at the cost it’s available”, even if it meant the cost of a garment shot up.

  The bottom line is that in a fiercely competitive industry with thin margins, clothing producers in Bangladesh are especially vulnerable to changes in global consumer tastes and demand. As clothing chains respond to pressure from shoppers and shareholders to improve their sustainability practices, garment-makers have invested in machinery and equipment aimed at reducing the use of water, power and other resources.

  “What’s happening now is that fashion is under attack,” said Husain, whose company has installed solar panels, new denim washing machines and other equipment.

  Tipu Munshi, Bangladesh’s commerce minister, confirmed the slowdown in clothing exports, but noted that people would “still have to wear garments”, even during leaner economic times.

  “Maybe you buy two out of four [garments], but you still have to buy it,” he said. “And no one can beat our price.”

  While we admire Munshi’s optimism, he has no idea just how low the price will have to fall to find buyers one the US recession collapses import demand across the world. And while Bangladesh and its clothing industry will be the first domino to fall as the reverse bullwhip effect hammers global supply chains, it’s only the first of countless other dominos that are about to topple over.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/25/2022 – 15:30

• Treasury Curve Inversion Has Even More To Come Than Feared
  Treasury Curve Inversion Has Even More To Come Than Feared

  By Ven Ram, Bloomberg Markets reporter and analyst

  One of the most-watched segments of the US yield curve is now caught in the throes of the biggest inversion since the 1980s.

  Ten-year Treasuries now offer a yield that is about 77 basis points lower than the two-year maturity. Still-to-come tightening from the Federal Reserve is holding front-end yields higher, while concerns about an economy losing momentum are spurring investors toward longer-dated notes.

  

  While it may be tempting to draw far-reaching conclusions about the depth of the inversion, the evidence is that it reflects that interim state of play where the economic narrative hasn’t yet gone completely pear-shaped. That is especially the case with the labor market, which is still extremely tight from all available evidence. Simultaneously, inflation in this economic cycle is a beast whose contours are yet hard to fully fathom, and it would be premature to equate a peak in price pressures with a headline print that is somewhere where the Fed would want it to be.

  While the markets have been quick to run ahead with the idea of an end to Fed tightening, the story just ain’t as simplistic. My two cents is that the Fed will pause on rates once it reaches circa 5%-5.25% and then watch how the economy evolves. If the inflation cookie crumbles, then the early birds may have something to show for their risk-taking ability, but if it doesn’t, the chance that we get into a second stage of further tightening from thereon can’t be ruled out. After all, history shows us that the Fed hasn’t been able to conclude its hiking cycle any time before inflation-adjusted policy rates reached a full 200 basis points. For the record, that rate is now -90 basis points.

  The import of all this is that the yield curve is likely to invert even more in the days to come as markets wait for that conclusive inflection point on the economy and inflation.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/25/2022 – 15:05

• For Thanksgiving, Biden Stuffs America's 401(k)s With ESG
  For Thanksgiving, Biden Stuffs America’s 401(k)s With ESG

  On Tuesday, the Department of Labor finalized a rule that provides regulatory cover for retirement plan sponsors who want to emphasize environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in plan management. 

  Since 1974, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) has rightly required that plan sponsors act “solely in the interest” of employees and beneficiaries when selecting and monitoring investments and casting shareholder votes.  

  The Trump administration reinforced that principle by prohibiting retirement plans from considering investment attributes that aren’t material to risk or performance. Trump’s DOL explicitly prohibited funds with ESG principles from being used as the default investment for plan participants.

  With Biden’s Thanksgiving week move, that’s all out the window, setting up tens of millions of Americans to have their retirement potential clipped as woke corporations corral their money into ESG-tainted investments. 

  The administration knows it’s doing something that a broad swath of society would find objectionable: In choosing Tuesday of Thanksgiving week to post the rule, the White House was clearly aiming to minimize reporting and public awareness.  

  In Orwellian fashion, Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh issued a statement declaring that “removing the prior administration’s restrictions on plan fiduciaries will help America’s workers and their families as they save for a secure retirement.”

  However, by its very nature, ESG reduces diversification by eliminating broad swaths of the investment universe. That means leaving money on the table. An ESG-managed 401k plan, for example, would have likely prevented employees from benefiting from the 79% year-to-date gain in Exxon Mobil.   

  As if that weren’t bad enough, the Biden ESG rule is also a handout to asset managers — with the expense borne by employees who are just trying to save for a comfortable future. As Kenneth P. Pucker and Andrew King wrote in the Harvard Business Review in August: 

  “ESG funds typically charge fees 40 percent higher than traditional funds, making them a timely answer to asset management margin compression.” 

  But there’s more at stake than dollars and cents. This is just one more scheme by which society is being force-marched into the depths of the broad progressive agenda.

  While the pursuit of green energy is often used as an example of ESG principles, don’t forget they also include pushing the diversity, equity and inclusion programs and mandatory “anti-racism” training sessions that stoke divisions rather than promote harmony.  

  

  To appreciate how brazenly leftist the Biden administration’s retirement plan move is, consider that the DOL’s official introduction to the new rule justifies it by saying it’s consistent with…

  “The policy of the Administration to listen to the science; improve public health and protect our environment; bolster resilience to the impacts of climate change; and prioritize both environmental justice and the creation of the well-paying union jobs necessary to deliver on these goals.”

  It’s one thing for a 401k to provide an ESG option for individual employees who want to invest their money that way — hopefully after being cautioned that doing could put a dent in their nest egg. It’s another thing altogether to let plan sponsors unilaterally impose ESG across the full spectrum of asset classes  — but here we go. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/25/2022 – 14:40

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• Cancel Culture's War On History, Heritage, & The Freedom To Think For Yourself
  Cancel Culture’s War On History, Heritage, & The Freedom To Think For Yourself

  Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “All the time – such is the tragi-comedy of our situation – we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible… In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

  – C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

  There will come a time in the not-so-distant future when the very act of thinking for ourselves is not just outlawed but unthinkable.

  We are being shunted down the road to that dystopian future right now, propelled along by politically correct forces that, while they may have started out with the best of intentions, have fallen prey to the authoritarian siren song of the Nanny State, which has promised to save the populace from evils that only a select few are wise enough to recognize as such.

  As a result, we are being infantilized ad nauseum, dictated to incessantly, and forcefully insulated from “dangerous” sights and sounds and ideas that we are supposedly too fragile, too vulnerable, too susceptible, or too ignorant to be exposed to without protection from the so-called elite.

  

  Having concluded that “we the people” cannot be trusted to think for ourselves, the powers-that-be have taken it upon themselves to re-order our world into one in which they do the thinking for us, and all we have to do is fall is line.

  Those who do not fall in line with this government-sanctioned group think—who resist, who dare to think for themselves, who dare to adopt views that are different, or possibly wrong or hateful—are branded as extremists, belligerents, and deplorables, and shunned, censored and silenced.

  The fallout is as one would expect.

  Cancel culture – political correctness amped up on steroids, the self-righteousness of a narcissistic age, and a mass-marketed pseudo-morality that is little more than fascism disguised as tolerance – has shifted us into an Age of Intolerance, policed by techno-censors, social media bullies, and government watchdogs.

  Everything is now fair game for censorship if it can be construed as hateful, hurtful, bigoted or offensive provided that it runs counter to the established viewpoint.

  In this way, the most controversial issues of our day—race, religion, sex, sexuality, politics, science, health, government corruption, police brutality, etc.—have become battlegrounds for those who claim to believe in freedom (of religion, speech, assembly, press, redress, privacy, bodily integrity, etc.) but only when it favors the views and positions they support.

  The latest victim of this rigid re-ordering of the world into one in which vestiges of past mistakes are scrubbed from existence comes from the New York Department of Education, which has ordered schools to stop using Native American references in mascots, team names and logos by the end of the current school year or face penalties including a loss of state aid.

  Citing concerns about racism and a need to comply with the state’s Dignity for All Students Act, which requires schools to create environments free of harassment or discrimination, New York officials are telling communities—many of which are named after Native American tribes—that longstanding cultural associations with their towns’ Indian namesakes are offensive and shameful.

  More than 100 schools in 60 school districts across New York State have nicknames or mascots that reference Native Americans. The cost to divest their communities of such branded names and images will be significant. One school district estimates that the cost to remove its Indians imagery from the gym floor alone will be upwards of $60,000.

  This drive to sanitize New York schools of “offensive” Native American logos and imagery comes on the heels of iconoclastic campaigns to rid the country of anything and anyone that may offend modern-day sensibilities.

  Monuments have been torn down, schools and streets have been renamed, and the names of benefactors stripped from prominent signage in the quest for a more enlightened age.

  These are not new tactics.

  Since the days of the Byzantine Empire, when “Emperor Leo III ordered the destruction of all Christian images on the grounds that they represented idolatry and were heretical,” political movements have resorted to destroying monuments, statues and imagery of the day as a visual means of exerting their power and vanquishing their enemies.

  We have been caught in this intolerant, self-righteous, destructive, mob-driven cycle of book-burning, statue-toppling, history-erasing iconoclasm ever since.

  As art critic Alexander Adams explains:

  “Iconoclasm is an activity evenly distributed between both left and right of the political spectrum, mainly at the extreme ends… The intolerant ideology, which refuses to accept the co-existence of alternative views, takes the stance that…the ideals within the art are no longer utterable or supportable: they are actually injurious and dangerous to the vulnerable… The political activist reserves to himself the right to retrospectively edit our history for his satisfaction by removing monuments, those fixtures of civic life, embedded in the memories of generations… Iconoclasm is an expression of domination and a demonstration of willingness to act—illegally and unethically—to impose the will of one group over an entire population. It asserts control over all aspects of society… The campaigner argues that public art, accumulated piecemeal over 1,000 years of history, must reflect our society and values today—even if that means altering or erasing stories of the values our past society expressed via its monuments, or suppressing evidence of how we arrived at our current situation… The iconoclast believes that it is only the values of today that count—that it is only her values that count. She takes it upon herself to correct history through monstrous acts of egotism. That correction, when it involves destruction, permanently alters the cultural legacy. It shrinks the breadth of human experience available to the generations which follow ours.”

  In such a world, there can be no debate, no journey to understanding, no chance to learn from one’s mistakes or even make mistakes that are uniquely your own; there is only obedience and compliance to the government, its corporate overlords and the prevailing mob mindset.

  Censorship, cancel culture, political correctness, woke-ism, hate speech, intolerance: whatever label you assign to this overzealous drive to sanitize the culture of anything that might be deemed offensive or disturbing or challenging, be assured they are sign posts on a one-way road to graver dangers marked by “suppression, persecution, expulsion and the massacring of people.”

  Whether those smashing monuments and erasing history are doing so for noble purposes or more diabolical reasons, the end results are the same: criminalization, confiscation, imprisonment, exile and genocide.

  “Look at mobs which gather to smash monuments,” says Adams. “These monuments may be the statues of deposed dictators who terrorized populations, causing untold death and suffering. They may be monuments to fallen soldiers who died defending causes that are no longer fashionable. The mob’s anger is the same. The viciousness and triumphant celebrations are the same. Only the causes differ in seriousness, topicality and justification.”

  Adams continues:

  “The Civil War statue destroyers think they are assaulting the posterity of slave owners, but they themselves are in the grip of ideological fervor. They are unaware that they are running a biological code, hardwired in their brains by evolution and activated by political extremists. The activists of today heedlessly erase history they haven’t yet learned to read. They act as the hammer that extremists use to deface the cathedrals and museums our ancestors built.”

  What’s different about this present age, however, is the use of technology to censor, silence, delete, label as “hateful,” demonize and destroy those whose viewpoints run counter to the cultural elite.

  “In the last few years,” writes Nina Powers for Art Review, “what is understood to be contentious has become increasingly broadly defined… The range of what counts as acceptable gets smaller and smaller… [W]e thus find ourselves… in the midst of a new culture war in which the freedom to think, feel and express ourselves comes at the risk of economic impoverishment, social ostracism and mob justice.”

  Where this leads is the stuff of dystopian nightmares: societies that value conformity and group-think over individuality; a populace so adept at self-censorship and compliance that they are capable only of obeying the government’s dictates without the ability to parse out whether those dictates should be obeyed; and a language limited to government-speak.

  This is what happens when the voices of the majority are allowed to eliminate those in the minority, and it is exactly why James Madison, the author of the Bill of Rights, fought for a First Amendment that protected the “minority” against the majority, ensuring that even in the face of overwhelming pressure, a minority of one—even one who espouses distasteful viewpoints—would still have the right to speak freely, pray freely, assemble freely, challenge the government freely, and broadcast his views in the press freely.

  Freedom for those in the unpopular minority constitutes the ultimate tolerance in a free society.

  The alternative, as depicted in Ayn Rand’s novella Anthem, is a world in which individuality and the ability to think for oneself independent of the government and the populace are eradicated, where even the word “I” has been eliminated from the vocabulary, replaced by the collective “we.”

  As Anthem’s narrator Equality 7-2521 explains, “It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. . . . And well we know that there is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone.”

  As I make clear in Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we are not merely losing the ability to think critically for ourselves and, in turn, to govern our inner and outer worlds, we are also in danger of losing the right to do so.

  The government’s war on thought crimes and truth-tellers is just the beginning.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 23:50

• Have Shopping Holidays Jumped The Shark?
  Have Shopping Holidays Jumped The Shark?

  After years of unabated growth, Black Friday and Cyber Monday online sales dipped for the first time last year, as many shops spread out deals over the entire Thanksgiving week or even further.

  “With early deals in October, consumers were not waiting around for discounts on big shopping days like Cyber Monday and Black Friday,” said Taylor Schreiner, Director at Adobe Digital Insights.

  As Statista’s Felix Richter notes, according to Adobe’s estimates, U.S. consumers spent $10.7 billion on Cyber Monday last year, slightly down from $10.8 billion in 2020. Black Friday spending also just missed the 2020 record, coming in at $8.9 billion in 2021 vs. $9.0 billion the year before.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  The fact that the dedicated shopping holidays didn’t beat spending records last year doesn’t mean that shoppers were cutting back on their holiday spending generally. They merely spread it out throughout the holiday season. Between November 1 and November 29, U.S. consumers spent $109.8 billion online, up 11.9 percent from the same period in 2020. Moreover, 22 days exceeded $3 billion in online sales in November 2021, up from just 9 days in November 2020 and further proof of shoppers spending their holiday cash more evenly than before.

  

  With all that said, do we even need Black Friday and Cyber Monday anymore? Well, it depends. While it certainly feels like the overabundance of discounts throughout the year has watered down the importance of special shopping days, people will always be willing to save money on genuinely good offers. So it’s up to the retailers to counter the deal fatigue with discounts that offer genuine savings instead of just marking down inflated original prices.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 23:15

• War On Cash: India Rolling Out Retail Pilot Program For Digital Rupee
  War On Cash: India Rolling Out Retail Pilot Program For Digital Rupee

  Via SchiffGold.com,

  We recently reported that the Federal Reserve plans to launch a 12-week pilot program in partnership with several large commercial banks to test the feasibility of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The US isn’t alone in experimenting with digital currency. India is working on developing a digital rupee and recently announced the second phase of testing.

  

  After successfully running a pilot program to test its digital currency at the wholesale level, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced it will test the digital rupee in a retail setting.

  According to the RBI, the central bank digital currency “is a legal tender issued by a central bank in a digital form. It is the same as a fiat currency and is exchangeable one-to-one with the fiat currency. Only its form is different.”

  Digital currencies are similar to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. They exist as virtual banknotes or coins held in a digital wallet on your computer or smartphone. The difference between a government digital currency and bitcoin is the value of the digital currency is backed and controlled by the state, just like traditional fiat currency.

  As the RBI put it, “Unlike cryptocurrencies, a CBDC isn’t a commodity or claims on commodities or digital assets. Cryptocurrencies have no issuer. They are not money (certainly not currency) as the word has come to be understood historically.”

  According to a report in the Economic Times of India, the National Payments Corporation of India will host the platform for the digital rupee payment system during the testing phase. The Reserve Bank of India wants each commercial bank in the pilot to test retail use of the digital rupee with 10,000 to 50,000 users.

  State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank will participate in the pilot program. If the pilot is successful, the RBI will roll out the program to the entire Indian banking system.

  “The e-rupee will be stored in a wallet, the denominations will be available as per the customer’s request, just like you request cash from an ATM. Banks are launching this only in select cities,” a person involved in the program told the Times.

  In a concept note, the RBI touted the benefits of digital currency.

  It is believed that retail CBDC can provide access to safe money for payment and settlement as it is a direct liability of the central bank. Wholesale CBDC has the potential to transform settlement systems for financial transactions and make them more efficient and secure. Going by the potential offered by each of them, there may be merit in introducing both CBDC-W and CBDC-R.”

  Government-issued digital currencies are sold on the promise of providing a safe, convenient, and more secure alternative to physical cash. We’re also told it will help stop dangerous criminals who like the intractability of cash. But there is a darker side – the promise of control.

  At the root of the move toward government digital currency is “the war on cash.” The elimination of cash creates the potential for the government to track and even control consumer spending, and it would make it even easier for central banks to engage in manipulative monetary policies such as negative interest rates.

  Imagine if there was no cash. It would be impossible to hide even the smallest transaction from government eyes. Something as simple as your morning trip to Starbucks wouldn’t be a secret from government officials. As Bloomberg put it in an article published when China launched its digital yuan pilot program, digital currency “offers China’s authorities a degree of control never possible with physical money.”

  The government could even “turn off” an individual’s ability to make purchases. Bloomberg described just how much control a digital currency could give Chinese officials.

  The PBOC has also indicated that it could put limits on the sizes of some transactions, or even require an appointment to make large ones. Some observers wonder whether payments could be linked to the emerging social-credit system, wherein citizens with exemplary behavior are ‘whitelisted’ for privileges, while those with criminal and other infractions find themselves left out. ‘China’s goal is not to make payments more convenient but to replace cash, so it can keep closer tabs on people than it already does,’ argues Aaron Brown, a crypto investor who writes for Bloomberg Opinion.”

  China launched its digital yuan pilot program last year. The Chinese government-backed digital currency got a boost when the country’s biggest online retailer announced the first virtual platform to accept the Chinese digital currency.

  Economist Thorsten Polleit outlined the potential for Big Brother-like government control with the advent of a digital euro in an article published by the Mises Wire. As he put it, “the path to becoming a surveillance state regime will accelerate considerably” if and when a digital currency is issued.

  Governments around the world have quietly waged a war on cash for years. Back in 2017, the IMF published a creepy paper offering governments suggestions on how to move toward a cashless society even in the face of strong public opposition.

  As with most things the government does, you should be wary of the digital dollar. It has a dark side that you can be sure the mainstream will mostly ignore.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 22:40

• Black Friday Chaos: Amazon Warehouse Workers Set To Strike Across 40 Countries
  Black Friday Chaos: Amazon Warehouse Workers Set To Strike Across 40 Countries

  Thousands of workers across approximately 40 countries are planning to take part in ‘Black Friday’ protests to demand better wages and working conditions in the company’s warehouses, as the global cost-of-living crisis increases

  

  The protests will coincide with the largest holiday shopping season of the year, which means Amazon warehouse workers are going to be very busy for the next week as consumers panic buy deeply discounted items, though there might be a huge problem: less than 24 hours before the big sale begins, Bloomberg reported Amazon warehouse workers across 40 countries are about to strike.

  We would note that the world’s biggest retailer has longstanding ambitions to automate its warehouses – with robots that don’t strike. 

  Amazon workers in the US, UK, India, Japan, Australia, South Africa, and across Europe are set to walk out of warehouses on Friday as they demand higher wages and better working conditions amid the worst inflationary environment the world has seen in decades. 

  The labor action is called “Make Amazon Pay” and is coordinated by an army of trade unions, with support from civil society and environmental groups. 

  “For workers and consumers, the price of everything is going up. And for everyone, the global temperature is rising and our planet is under stress. But instead of supporting its workers, communities and the planet, Amazon is squeezing every last drop it can,” Make Amazon Pay’s website said. 

  Make Amazon Pay is correct by outlining “real wages are going down”… and as we noted not too long ago, have been negative for 19 months — hence why labor unions have gained so much traction. 

  

  “It’s time for the tech giant to cease their awful, unsafe practices immediately, respect the law and negotiate with the workers who want to make their jobs better,” said UNI Global Union general secretary, Christy Hoffman.

  The group also outlines Amazon’s corporate greed, not paying taxes, and polluting the world. It also published a map of all the strike locations. 

  

  The company replied to the protests, saying “While we are not perfect in any area, if you objectively look at what Amazon is doing on these important matters you’ll see that we do take our role and our impact very seriously,” pointing to the company’s green ambitions to reach net zero status by 2040, which is “continuing to offer competitive wages and great benefits, and inventing new ways to keep our employees safe and healthy.”

  Ah, that settles it then.

  Unions in France and Germany – CGT and Ver.di – are spearheading the latest collective action, with coordinated strikes in 18 major warehouses, intended to disrupt shipments across key European markets.

  Monika di Silvestre, head of Ver.di’s Amazon committee in Germany, said that workers were particularly concerned about the way their productivity was closely monitored by computers, with algorithms determining targets, for example for the number of packages they need to handle per hour. -Stars & Stripes

  “The workers are under a lot of pressure with these algorithms,” said di Silvestre, adding “It doesn’t differentiate between workers, whether they are old or have limited mobility. Workers stay awake at night thinking only of their productivity stats.”

  Amazon warehouse employees have been speaking out against working conditions for years – notably complaining of low pay, pressure not to take sick leave when ill, and having to work so many hours they’re forced to urinate in bottles.

  It’s not clear how disruptive the strikes will be for Amazon, but it’s just another reason why the world’s biggest retailer is full steam ahead in automating warehouse (read: “Amazon Unveils Warehouse Robot To Replace Human Pickers Amid Unionization Threats”). 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 22:05

• MIT Reports Breakthrough In Solid-State Lithium Battery Development
  MIT Reports Breakthrough In Solid-State Lithium Battery Development

  By Brian Westenhaus of OilPrice.com

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s new discovery could finally usher the development of solid-state lithium batteries, which would be more lightweight, compact, and safe than current lithium batteries. The growth of metallic filaments called dendrites within the solid electrolyte has been a longstanding obstacle, but the new study explains how dendrites form and how to divert them. This is a goal that’s been pursued by labs around the world for years.

  The key to this potential leap in battery technology is replacing the liquid electrolyte that sits between the positive and negative electrodes with a much thinner, lighter layer of solid ceramic material, and replacing one of the electrodes with solid lithium metal. This would greatly reduce the overall size and weight of the battery and remove the safety risk associated with liquid electrolytes, which are flammable.

  But that quest has been beset with one big problem: dendrites.

  Dendrites, whose name comes from the Latin for branches, are projections of metal that can build up on the lithium surface and penetrate into the solid electrolyte, eventually crossing from one electrode to the other and shorting out the battery cell. Researchers haven’t been able to agree on what gives rise to these metal filaments, nor has there been much progress on how to prevent them and thus make lightweight solid-state batteries a practical option.

  The new research published in the journal Joule in a paper by MIT Professor Yet-Ming Chiang, graduate student Cole Fincher, and five others at MIT and Brown University, seems to resolve the question of what causes dendrite formation. It also shows how dendrites can be prevented from crossing through the electrolyte.

  Chiang said in the group’s earlier work, they made a “surprising and unexpected” finding, which was that the hard, solid electrolyte material used for a solid-state battery can be penetrated by lithium, which is a very soft metal, during the process of charging and discharging the battery, as ions of lithium move between the two sides.

  This shuttling back and forth of ions causes the volume of the electrodes to change. That inevitably causes stresses in the solid electrolyte, which has to remain fully in contact with both of the electrodes that it is sandwiched between. “To deposit this metal, there has to be an expansion of the volume because you’re adding new mass,” Chiang said. “So, there’s an increase in volume on the side of the cell where the lithium is being deposited. And if there are even microscopic flaws present, this will generate a pressure on those flaws that can cause cracking.”

  Those stresses, the team has now shown, cause the cracks that allow dendrites to form. The solution to the problem turns out to be more stress, applied in just the right direction and with the right amount of force.

  While previously, some researchers thought that dendrites formed by a purely electrochemical process, rather than a mechanical one, the team’s experiments demonstrate that it is mechanical stresses that cause the problem.

  The process of dendrite formation normally takes place deep within the opaque materials of the battery cell and cannot be observed directly, so Fincher developed a way of making thin cells using a transparent electrolyte, allowing the whole process to be directly seen and recorded. “You can see what happens when you put a compression on the system, and you can see whether or not the dendrites behave in a way that’s commensurate with a corrosion process or a fracture process,” he said.

  The team demonstrated that they could directly manipulate the growth of dendrites simply by applying and releasing pressure, causing the dendrites to zig and zag in perfect alignment with the direction of the force.

  Applying mechanical stresses to the solid electrolyte doesn’t eliminate the formation of dendrites, but it does control the direction of their growth. This means they can be directed to remain parallel to the two electrodes and prevented from ever crossing to the other side, and thus rendered harmless.

  In their tests, the researchers used pressure induced by bending the material, which was formed into a beam with a weight at one end. But they say that in practice, there could be many different ways of producing the needed stress. For example, the electrolyte could be made with two layers of material that have different amounts of thermal expansion, so that there is an inherent bending of the material, as is done in some thermostats.

  Another approach would be to “dope” the material with atoms that would become embedded in it, distorting it and leaving it in a permanently stressed state. This is the same method used to produce the super-hard glass used in the screens of smart phones and tablets, Chiang explained. And the amount of pressure needed is not extreme: The experiments showed that pressures of 150 to 200 megapascals were sufficient to stop the dendrites from crossing the electrolyte.

  The required pressure is “commensurate with stresses that are commonly induced in commercial film growth processes and many other manufacturing processes,” so should not be difficult to implement in practice, Fincher added.

  Fischer explained that in fact, a different kind of stress, called stack pressure, is often applied to battery cells, by essentially squishing the material in the direction perpendicular to the battery’s plates – somewhat like compressing a sandwich by putting a weight on top of it. It was thought that this might help prevent the layers from separating. But the experiments have now demonstrated that pressure in that direction actually exacerbates dendrite formation. “We showed that this type of stack pressure actually accelerates dendrite-induced failure,” he said.

  What is needed instead is pressure along the plane of the plates, as if the sandwich were being squeezed from the sides. “What we have shown in this work is that when you apply a compressive force you can force the dendrites to travel in the direction of the compression,” Fincher said, and if that direction is along the plane of the plates, the dendrites “will never get to the other side.”

  That could finally make it practical to produce batteries using solid electrolyte and metallic lithium electrodes. Not only would these pack more energy into a given volume and weight, but they would eliminate the need for liquid electrolytes, which are flammable materials.

  Having demonstrated the basic principles involved, the team’s next step will be to try to apply these to the creation of a functional prototype battery, Chiang said, and then to figure out exactly what manufacturing processes would be needed to produce such batteries in quantity. Though they have filed for a patent, the researchers don’t plan to commercialize the system themselves, he said, as there are already companies working on the development of solid-state batteries. “I would say this is an understanding of failure modes in solid-state batteries that we believe the industry needs to be aware of and try to use in designing better products,” he said.

  The research team included Christos Athanasiou and Brian Sheldon at Brown University, and Colin Gilgenbach, Michael Wang, and W. Craig Carter at MIT. The work was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the U.S. Department of Energy.

  ***

  Assuming the press release has adequate data for not being certain this work will yield a prototype battery, the odds are that there will be a successful prototype built. How many models are tried and what works in the end is very much in the air for now.

  On the other hand the mechanical formation research result looks quite compelling and actually makes reasoned sense now that it is explained. That raises questions. Does the dendrite formation greatly impede the battery capacity and function or does that added dendrite surface area increase it? Then one wonders how the dendrite formation impacts overall lifespan?

  This effort isn’t over yet. But this is a significant milestone with lots of clues and hints on where further research might go. It looks like solid state lithium metal batteries are just a matter of innovation, insight and creativity away from the market.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 21:30

• Is Mercedes Intentionally Detuning Its EVs To Charge $1,200 Yearly "Acceleration" Fee
  Is Mercedes Intentionally Detuning Its EVs To Charge $1,200 Yearly “Acceleration” Fee

  Mercedes-Benz is the latest auto manufacturer to unveil a subscription fee to unlock perks, such as the ability to boost acceleration. 

  The $1,200 yearly subscription is called “Acceleration Increase” and can be found on Mercedes’ online store. 

  “COMING SOON – Accelerate more powerfully: increase the torque and maximum output of your Mercedes-EQ,” reads the description on the online store. It’s available for all upcoming EQ electric models that will “improvement in acceleration of 0.8 to 1.0 seconds (0-60 MPH).” 

  

  According to The Drive, the performance improvements will only cost owners $1,200 a year. Here’s what owners get: 

  • Mercedes-EQ EQE 350 4MATIC (from 288 horsepower to 349 horsepower/0-60 mph from 6.0 to 5.1 seconds)
  • Mercedes-EQ EQE SUV 350 4MATIC (from 288 horsepower to 349 horsepower/0-60 mph from 6.2 to 5.2 seconds)
  • Mercedes-EQ EQS 450 4MATIC (from 355 horsepower to 443 horsepower/0-60 mph from 5.3 to 4.5 seconds)
  • Mercedes-EQ EQS SUV 4MATIC (from 355 horsepower to 443 horsepower/0-60 mph from 5.8 to 4.9 seconds)

  Is it worth it? Absolutely no. Those 0-60 mph times are awful when compared to other EVs. Plus, you don’t have to pay extra. This might prove that Mercedes intentionally detuned the EQ models to allow such a subscription. 

  This comes several months after BMW introduced the ConnectedDrive Store, a portal for existing owners can download various apps over the air to upgrade features on their vehicle, similar to how Tesla offers upgraded Autopilot subscriptions for a hefty monthly fee. 

  However, BMW sparked social media uproar by charging an $18 monthly subscription in some countries for owners to use heated seats already installed in the vehicle. 

  Subscription fees appear to be the new normal for the automotive industry to slap customers with to unlock extra technology or performance even though the vehicles already have capabilities. These fees sound like a scam. 

  The internet wasn’t too thrilled about this…,

  The most ridiculous part of this is that if you purchase the vehicle, you shouldn’t have to spend any additional money on performance for the BASE vehicle. I feel like this would have to be easy to get around through the ECU.

  — Tyler Sloboda (@A_Username_Here) November 24, 2022

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

  In case anyone forgot this is “their” plan for us pic.twitter.com/O0MCBRmhVn

  — A man has no name 🇨🇩 (@CaptainPree) November 24, 2022

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

  Microtransactions have come to destroy everything we enjoy https://t.co/oK7uiRsZhI

  — Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) November 24, 2022

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

  Imagine your airbags won’t deploy because you missed a subscription payment 💀

  — BalaSiva (@L3VIfps) November 24, 2022

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

  This type of stuff should be made illegal before it’s too late and we’re paying to use our seatbelts

  — AxoLofa (@AxoLofa) November 24, 2022

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

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 20:55

• "If You Don't Know What's On The Thanksgiving Menu, It's You"
  “If You Don’t Know What’s On The Thanksgiving Menu, It’s You”

  By Michael Every of Rabobank

  If you wanted to embody how the turkeys running things react when confronted with the fact that they voted for Thanksgiving and Christmas, it would be Bankman-Fraud being invited to speak at a New York Times event next week alongside Yellen, President Zelenskiy, and Ben Affleck/Batman. Alleged harems, billions of dollars in client money missing, and public accusations it was used as a personal and political piggy bank? Hey – have a seat alongside the global elite (and Batman) to say sorry and tell us about all the good things you did! Madoff obviously wasn’t available.

  

  If only this nonsense were a one-off, but the market heads into the US Thanksgiving holiday in fine mood because ‘the Fed minutes were dovish’, confirming their wrong-all-year view. Yet the compromise between Fed doves, who are there, and Fed hawks, who are running things, is that while the pace of hikes will slow, the ultimate level of rates will be higher. If I carve you with a smaller knife, but more times, is that ‘dovish’? Try ‘turkey-ish’! Philip Marey, well ahead of the Street in calling a 5% peak, has his view here: he thinks 50bp is coming in December, but rates aren’t going down at all until 2024. That’s a sour cranberry, or real stuffing for some turkeys given Treasury yields fell after the minutes, and the dollar sold off.

  Note the RBNZ flirted with 100bp yesterday before going a record 75, and are saying their overnight cash rate needs to hit 5.5%, even at the cost of 3-quarter recession. Yes, rates are contractionary there – and they want them to be: “Spend wisely this Christmas,” said Governor Orr as he signed off, literally encouraging Kiwis to not be turkeys, and to save, not spend. Likewise, the BOC governor just told parliament that Canadian rates need to rise even higher because inflation is not under control. Again, note the absence of turkeys.

  In China, there is buzz about another cut in banks’ reserve requirement ratios (RRR). There are still turkeys who think this matters despite umpteen RRR cuts already to no effect. As Covid cases soar, lockdowns intensify, and footage of unrest emerges at the world’s largest iPhone factory, Bloomberg asks, ‘Is a Wealth Tax How Xi Fills China’s Empty Coffers?’ Months ago Western investment banks were piling into ‘wealth management opportunities’; now, some are slashing jobs after seeing only ‘poultry’ returns. Relatedly, Bloomberg flagged ‘High-Yield Party Returns to Emerging Markets Too Cheap to Ignore’ earlier this week; how long until the ‘Oops, They Got a Lot Cheaper’ headline emerges?

  In Europe, ECB speakers were generally hawkish. However, European politicians said ‘yelp’ – which is what a turkey says, as well as having the more regular meaning of surprise/panic.

  From January, Germany will start a “double-kaboom” policy. Not losing to two late goals in football, which the rest of Europe would love, but a EUR200bn gas and electricity subsidy, which Europe won’t. Households and SMEs will see gas prices capped at 12 EUR cents gross/KwH for 80% of their previous consumption until April 2024, and electricity at 40 EUR cents/KwH. For industry, the gas cap is 7 EUR cents net for 70% of consumption, and electricity is 13 EUR cents plus taxes, levies, and surcharges. Notably, Germany has already faced EU anger over the fact that it can afford to save itself while others can’t: with Germans looking after Germans in this crisis, which Germans looking after Germans got the EU into, expect EU knives to be sharpened.

  Moreover, Politico says ‘EU plans subsidy war chest as industry faces ‘existential’ threat from US’, noting: “If it weren’t enough that energy prices look set to remain permanently far higher than those in the US thanks to Russia’s war in Ukraine, US President Joe Biden is also currently rolling out a $369 billion industrial subsidy scheme to support green industries under the Inflation Reduction Act. EU officials fear that businesses will now face almost irresistible pressure to shift new investments to the US rather than Europe. EU industry chief Thierry Breton is warning that Biden’s new subsidy package poses an “existential challenge” to Europe’s economy.

  The European Commission and countries including France and Germany have realized they need to act quickly if they want to prevent the Continent from turning into an industrial wasteland… the EU is now working on an emergency scheme to funnel money into key high-tech industries.”

  In short, the EU will resist US mercantilism; which is resisting Chinese mercantilism; which Europe has had no issue with for decades. Yet Europe overlooks that they are the least prepared bloc for such a realpolitik backdrop: talk about turkeys voting for Christmas! Indeed, they are saying they will push back against pro-EU President Biden while:

  • Running large twin deficits, as the German fiscal deficit is about to get much larger due to the “double-kaboom”, which smells like a potential market Cluster-Truss;
  • The EU energy crisis is only being tempered by imports of LNG from the US;
  • The EU are reliant on US weapons to fight the must-win war in Ukraine;
  • The EU are reliant on exports to the US; and
  • The EU are reliant on Eurodollar swaplines from the US to maintain financial stability at a time when the Fed is raising rates, which it still is.

  More realistically, the EU also announced a gas price cap that does not actually cap gas prices; and the G7 announced a Russian oil price cap that does not actually cap the price of Russian oil.

  On energy, gas prices are low now, but will only rise over 2023. Oil prices are sending a clearer signal, but wait and see what happens if the Fed does what the market wants for Christmas. I have kept saying that when we see long US yields go down and commodities tumble it will mean something: we are seeing that now.

  Yet yelp all you want, but that is not compatible with a weaker dollar. If the US is in trouble, try being everyone else with a lag. Mercantilism is a force very much on the US side, and is as much a story for 2023 as any ‘pivots’.

  As they say, if you don’t know what’s on the Thanksgiving menu – it’s you.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 20:15

• "They're Trying To Run Out The Clock": Kari Lake Files 1st Lawsuit After Election
  “They’re Trying To Run Out The Clock”: Kari Lake Files 1st Lawsuit After Election

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

  Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake on Nov. 23 filed a lawsuit against Maricopa County.

  

  Lake sued Stephen Richer, the county’s recorder, and other officials in Arizona Superior Court. She’s asking the court to compel the officials to promptly produce records on the administration of the midterm elections, which featured widespread issues in the state’s largest county.

  “Given instances of misprinted ballots, the commingling of counted and uncounted ballots, and long lines discouraging people from voting, as demonstrated in the attached declarations, these records are necessary for Plaintiff to determine the full extent of the problems identified and their impacts on electors,” the 19-page suit states.

  Maricopa County officials have acknowledged that tabulators across many polling sites stopped working properly on election day. Among the advised solutions was voters placing their ballots into a box to be counted later. Declarations attached to the new suit from poll observers say that workers mixed counted and uncounted ballots in the same container at the end of the night.

  Another solution to the tabulator problem was a voter checking out of a site and utilizing a mail-in ballot. To try to figure out the extent of the problems, the Lake campaign on Nov. 15 requested information such as all records related to voters who checked into a site and who also submitted a ballot by mail. The campaign sent another request on Nov. 16. None of the records have been produced yet, which violates Arizona law that public record requests must be fulfilled “promptly,” the suit states.

  “We need information from Maricopa County,” Lake said on Steve Bannon’s “War Room.”

  “They ran the shoddiest election ever, in history, and we want some information. We’re on a timeline, a very strict timeline when it comes to fighting this botched election. And they’re dragging their feet. They don’t want to give us the information, so we’re asking the courts to force them to give us the information.”

  At present, Lake’s opponent Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who serves as Arizona’s secretary of state, is ahead in the race. Maricopa County is scheduled to canvass the results on Nov. 28, with the state following on Dec. 5. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey this week said he’s working to help Hobbs transition to become governor.

  The suit asks the court to compel the county to produce the records prior to the canvassing. “This deadline (or its substantial equivalent) is, under the circumstances presented, necessary to ensure that vital public records are furnished promptly and that apparent deficiencies can be remedied before canvassing of the 2022 general election,” it says.

  Maricopa County did not return requests for comment on a different lawsuit filed this week by Abe Hamadeh, the Republican candidate for state attorney general, and the Republican National Committee. Its offices were closed on Thursday for Thanksgiving.

  

  An election worker carries trays filled with mail in ballots to open and verify at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center in Phoenix, Ariz., on Nov. 11, 2022. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

  Attorney General

  The office of Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, recently requested information from Thomas Liddy, the chief of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office’s Civil Division, after receiving hundreds of complaints about issues related to the midterms.

  “These complaints go beyond pure speculation, but include first-hand witness accounts that raise concerns regarding Maricopa’s lawful compliance with Arizona election law,” Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright wrote.

  “Furthermore, statements made by both Chairman Gates and Recorder Richer, along with information Maricopa County released through official modes of communication appear to confirm potential statutory violations of title 16.”

  The information indicated that the county did not uniformly administer the election, as is required by state and federal law, and that poll workers weren’t trained to check out voters who left sites where the tabulators weren’t working right, she added.

  Wright requested the information on or before the county submits its canvass to the secretary of state because the issues “relate to Maricopa County’s ability to lawfully certify election results.”

  Bill Gates, the Republican chairman of the county’s Board of Supervisors, said in a statement that the county would not delay the canvass.

  “Prior to the canvass, the County will respond to a letter from the Arizona Attorney General’s Office requesting information about the administration of the November General Election,” he said at the time.

  “Board members received this letter on Saturday night and had a team working on a response all day Sunday, even as staff continued counting votes. We look forward to answering the AG’s questions with transparency as we have done throughout this election.”

  Brnovich’s office has not indicated that the county has provided the information, nor has the county said it handed over the information.

  Lake said on “War Room” that the county is “trying to run out the clock,” referring to the looming canvass.

  Not the ‘Main Case’

  At least one other lawsuit is in the works, according to Lake.

  “This is not our main case. When our main case drops, they will hear it,” she said.

  Lake reiterated that whistleblowers are coming forward and that officials “better think long and hard” before certifying the election in light of the widespread issues that unfolded in Maricopa County.

  The forthcoming suit may cite findings from nearly a dozen Republican attorneys who observed the election at Maricopa County sites and attested to the tabulator failures being more widespread than county officials presented.

  The issues led to “substantial voter suppression,” attorney Mark Sonnenklar wrote in a memorandum summarizing the findings. Since Republicans voted in larger numbers on the day than Democrats, “such voter suppression would necessarily impact the vote tallies for Republican candidates much more than the vote tallies for Democrat candidates,” he added.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 19:10

• The Ridiculous Reality Of The "Russian Oil Price Cap" Debate In One Picture
  The Ridiculous Reality Of The “Russian Oil Price Cap” Debate In One Picture

  By Mish Shedlock of MishTalk

  Bloomberg reports EU Talks Stall Over Price Level for Proposed Russian Oil Cap

  The EU’s executive arm proposed a level of $65 a barrel, which Poland and the Baltic nations rejected as being too generous to Moscow, the people said. But several countries with major shipping industries, including Greece, don’t want to go below $70, the upper end of the range put forward by the EU earlier Wednesday.

  $70 is about where Russian oil known as Urals trades right now. 

  

  Reuters reports EU Split on Russian Oil Price Cap Level, Talks to Resume Thursday

  • Representatives of the EU’s 27 governments met in Brussels to discuss a G7 proposal to set the price cap in the range of $65-$70 per barrel, but the level proved too low for some and too high for others.
  • Poland, Lithuania and Estonia believe the $65-$70 per barrel would leave Russia with too high a profit, since production costs are around $20 per barrel.
  • Cyprus, Greece and Malta – countries with big shipping industries that stand to lose the most if Russian oil cargos are obstructed – think the cap is too low and demand compensation for the loss of business or more time to adjust.

  Enforcing the Cap

  The kicker is amusing: “EU diplomats said most EU countries, with G7 members France and Germany taking the lead, were supportive of the price cap, worried only about the ability to enforce it.”

  This brings us back to how any economist can possibly think such a cap might work.

  The Incentive to Cheat

  For further discussion of the obvious that many economists refuse to see, please consider the Carnegie article  The Flaw in the Plan to Cap Russian Oil Prices

  Whenever countries on sanctions lists face difficulties in selling their natural resources, creative minds will find a way to thwart the proposed measures with help from companies prepared to turn a blind eye to the shady elements of ostensibly legal transactions. Oil shipments could be bundled with some symbolic but pricey services, such as customs services, laboratory analysis, or document translation. Another scheme would involve loading a supposedly full 80,000-ton oil tanker with only 50,000 barrels of oil, bringing the cargo price per barrel closer to the market price.

  Such schemes would, of course, require some collusion on the part of intermediary countries, but that is unlikely to be a problem.  In recent months, Malaysia’s oil exports to China have exceeded the country’s actual oil production by one-third. Malaysia also cooperates with Iran and Venezuela in contravention of sanctions regimes. 

  Paradoxically, Russia may get some help from the OPEC countries here. For them, an emerging buyers’ cartel risks potentially manipulating the entire oil market and its prices. If the cartel succeeds in forcing Russia to obey its rules, the Arab countries may be next. If Russia counters the price cap by reducing its output, therefore, Saudi Arabia may be reluctant to increase its oil exports to compensate for the reduction, whether it has sufficient available production capacity or not.

  Finally, the jury is still out on whether India and China, the biggest new buyers of Russian oil, are prepared to join the price cap coalition.

  Western Allies Aim to Agree on Russian Oil Price Cap Wednesday

  The Wall Street Journal reports Western Allies Aim to Agree on Russian Oil Price Cap Wednesday emphasis mine.

  The aim of the plan, which was pushed hard by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, is to crimp Russian energy exports revenue while avoiding a surge in oil prices when a European embargo on Russian oil imports kicks in early next month. Despite European reluctance at the time, the G-7 first agreed on setting the oil price cap in June following Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.

  Aim of the Plan

  The aim of the plan is to not eat Russian cake while eating Russian cake.

  It’s quite amazing that anyone thinks the plan can possibly work, but president Biden, the EU, Janet Yellen and even prominent economists think the cap is a good idea.

  Q&A Why Not?

  Q: Why not cap the price of everything and end inflation?
  A: Figure it out.

  Q: Is it possible a cap might seem to work?
  A: Yes. If the cap is set high enough it will be meaningless.

  And if by some lucky fate a cap is set where the direction of oil is headed anyway, then the economic illiterates will be hooting and cheering their alleged success.

  Why Won’t Caps Work?

  • China, India and other countries will not go along. That’s enough right there to show the ridiculousness of the idea.
  • Countries in the EU have an incentive to cheat. 

  One of Two Things

  1. The cap will fail and do nothing.
  2. The cap fail spectacularly and drive up the price by re-routing oil headed to the EU to China and India instead. Then the EU will have to get oil from the US or OPEC over longer routes increasing the cost.

  The above two points are in isolation. But things should not be viewed in isolation. Given a pending global recession, oil prices are likely to drop anyway.

  If they do, then as noted above, the economic illiterates will be hooting and cheering the alleged success of caps.

  Related Articles

  • Wild Oil Price Swings on an OPEC Rumor Followed by a Denial
  • The Biden Oil Fiasco Continues With Export Control Threats
  • G-7 Agrees to Cap the Price of Russian Oil Using a Buyer’s Cartel

  That third bullet point is from June 27. The US and EU have been struggling since then trying to get agreement on price caps. The bloc still needs approval from all 27 nations on a precise cap.

  Many of the above points were also in my November 22 post Under Pressure From the US, EU Agrees to Cap the Price of Russian Oil.

  The struggle to get agreement stems from the impossibility of the goal to not eat Russian cake while eating Russian cake. That alone tells you the plan is doomed: this cap idea is so stupid that only economists and politicians are dumb enough to believe it can work. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 18:35

• EU Fails To Agree On Gas Price Caps
  EU Fails To Agree On Gas Price Caps

  By Alex Kimani of OilPrice.com

  

  Plans to introduce price caps on natural gas prices have hit a dead-end after EU energy ministers on Thursday failed to reach an agreement amid deep divisions. 

  Czech Industry Minister Jozef Sikela has, however, said that the ministers did manage to agree on other “important measures”, including joint gas purchases, supply solidarity in times of need and expediting the authorization process for renewable energy. Sikela has also revealed that the ministers will meet again In December to try and work out their differences.

  Earlier this week, the European Commission issued a statement whereby it declared what it called a “safety price ceiling” for gas prices set at 275 euros, or $283 dollars, per megawatt-hour.  

  The EC also planned to tie benchmark European gas futures prices to the price of liquefied natural gas on the spot market. The “safety price ceiling” would be triggered automatically, when “the front-month TTF derivative settlement price exceeds €275 for two weeks” and, second, when “TTF prices are €58 higher than the LNG reference price for 10 consecutive trading days within the two weeks”.

  Both moves have caused trepidation amongst gas traders, “Even a short intervention would have severe, unintended and irreversible consequences in harming market confidence that the value of gas is known and transparent,” said the European Federation of Energy Traders this week.

  Earlier in the year, Italy’s prime minister, Mario Draghi, hatched a radical plan to contain the oil price hike. The former European Central Bank president floated the idea of creating a “cartel” of oil consumers at a meeting with Joe Biden in order to increase their bargaining power similar to how the biggest oil-producing nations came together through OPEC to agree annual oil production quotas. The two met at the White House in order to coordinate their positions on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the economic fallout from the conflict.

  “We are both dissatisfied with the way things work, in terms of oil for the US and in terms of gas for Europe. Prices don’t have any relationship with supply and demand,” Draghi said.

  According to Brussels think tank Bruegel, since September 2021, Germany, France, Italy and Spain–four of the largest EU economies–have each spent €20bn-€30bn to artificially lower energy prices. However, these subsidies are viewed as less than ideal since they help to fund Moscow, drain public finances and harm the environment.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 18:00

• Fired AP Reporter Who 'Risked Triggering WWIII' Actually Did Nothing Wrong
  Fired AP Reporter Who ‘Risked Triggering WWIII’ Actually Did Nothing Wrong

  On Tuesday we reported that the Associated Press had fired reporter James LaPorta, two days before his birthday, over an erroneous report which cited a ‘senior US intelligence official,’ who claimed that a Russian missile fired into Poland had killed two civilians.

  If true, the bombshell development could have potentially triggered ‘Article 5‘ – the mutual defense agreement between NATO members, risking WWIII.

  

  AP later retracted the story after it was revealed that Ukraine fired the missile, and the outlet issued the following correction which pinned blame on the anonymous intelligence official;

  In earlier versions of a story published November 15, 2022, The Associated Press reported erroneously, based on information from a senior American intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity, that Russian missiles had crossed into Poland and killed two people. Subsequent reporting showed that the missiles were Russian-made and most likely fired by Ukraine in defense against a Russian attack.

  Five days after the report, LaPorta was fired. But Slack messages obtained by Semafor reveal that he did nothing wrong – aside from working for AP in the first place.

  The messages begin with LaPorta passing along a tip from a “senior American intelligence official” who was “vetted by Ron Nixon.” Nixon is an Associated Press vice president.

  

  Next, editor Lisa Leff asked if the wire service could run with the narrative despite having a single source – which is against AP‘s rules for anonymous sources.

  “that call is above my pay grade,” LaPorta replied.

  

  Another AP reporter, Vanessa Gera, suggests moving forward with the report, writing, “I can’t imagine a US intelligence official would be wrong on this.“

  

  Leff then asks PaPorta if he is “in position to work up an urgent” – to which he replies, “No, I’m actually at a doctor’s appointment. What I passed is all I know at the moment.”

  

  Then, Gera and Leff decide to run with it.

  

  In short, LaPorta – a former USMC infantryman, was fired after forwarding a tip from a vetted source, and then demurring when asked if he thought they should run with it.

  He has since been ordered not to comment on the situation, saying that he “would love to comment on the record, but I have been ordered by the AP to not comment.” As such, Zero Hedge has not reached out for comment.

  Oddly (or maybe there’s a perfectly good reason for it), journalist John Leichester’s name was also on the byline of the article in question despite being nowhere in the slack conversation – though he wasn’t fired.

  While LaPorta said Nixon had vetted his source, Nixon later said he did not know that the source was being cited for the missile story, according to people who spoke to David Bauder, an Associated Press reporter.

  The Associated Press has taken additional disciplinary action but declined to say against whom that action was taken. There have been no reports of any person besides LaPorta losing a job, including John Leicester, who was also listed on the byline.

  According to Bauder, Leicester was not involved with the anonymously sourced material being placed into the story. –The Epoch Times

  Most importantly, however, who was the anonymous ‘senior US intelligence official’ that fed LaPorta a false narrative which risked WWIII?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 17:45

• Epstein Accusers Sue JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank For Enabling Notorious Pedophile
  Epstein Accusers Sue JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank For Enabling Notorious Pedophile

  Multiple class action lawsuits filed by Jeffrey Epstein accusers accuses JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank of enabling Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse victims by turning a blind eye in order to “churn profits,” Bloomberg reports.

  

  The lawsuits, filed in a New York court, allege the banks had “knowingly benefited and received things of value for assisting, supporting, facilitating, and otherwise providing the most critical service for the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking organization.”

  JPMorgan was accused in the suit of “financially benefiting from participating” in the alleged sex trafficking through providing financial support from 1998 to August 2013. Deutsche Bank was accused of knowing that they would “earn million of dollars” from its relationship with Epstein. 

  Both suits are seeking unspecified damages and ask to be certified as a class action. A Deutsche Bank spokeswoman said the claim “lacks merit” and the bank will present its arguments in court. A spokesman for JPMorgan in London declined to comment. -Bloomberg

  “Epstein and his co-conspirators could not have victimized without assistance from wealthy individuals and financial institutions,” said Bradley Edwards of Edwards Pottinger, one of the firms representing victims. “We will not stop fighting for the survivors until everyone is held responsible.”

  And while Epstein’s client list has remained amazingly concealed during his – and sidekick Ghislaine Maxwell’s trials, the new class-action suits threaten to bring Epstein’s associations back into the spotlight – as a bevy of prominent financiers, entrepreneurs, celebrities, politicians and the British Royal Family have been associated with the dead pedophile (many of whom, like Bill Gates, had no problem hanging out with him after his first conviction).

  The UK’s Prince Andrew had to withdraw from public duties after a disastrous television interview about his ties to Epstein. Jes Staley abruptly stepped down as chief executive officer of Barclays Plc last year after UK regulators shared with Barclays the preliminary findings of their multi year probe into what he told the bank’s board about his relationship with Epstein.

  Staley has said that he knew Epstein since 2000 when he was head of JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s private bank and was told to strike up a professional relationship with the financial adviser. -Bloomberg

  “Staley made sure Epstein and his illegal sexual abuse organization was absolutely protected by the bank,” reads the lawsuit, filed Nov. 24.

  Meanwhile, anonymous accusers are being represented by David Boies of Boies Schiller Flexner, who represented Virginia Giuffre vs. Prince Andrew in a case which subsequently settled. We’re sure the prominent Democrat attorney wasn’t chosen to protect Epstein’s client list while ensuring Giuffre was also paid.

  Epstein, a prolific pedophile who was, by all appearances, running a honeypot operation on prominent men, “was found dead in his US jail cell in 2019,” Bloomberg reports – which omitted any suggestion that he committed suicide.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 17:25

• Biden Allocates $1.1 Billion To Keep California’s Nuclear Power Plant Operating
  Biden Allocates $1.1 Billion To Keep California’s Nuclear Power Plant Operating

  Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  California’s last operating nuclear power plant was given another funding boost Nov. 21 as operators seek to keep it running for another eight years.

  

  The U.S. Energy Department awarded Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant $1.1 billion from the Civil Nuclear Credit Program funded by an infrastructure bill passed by Congress in 2021.

  “This is a critical step toward ensuring that our domestic nuclear fleet will continue providing reliable and affordable power to Americans as the nation’s largest source of clean electricity,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said in a statement on Nov. 21.

  

  Nuclear power provides half of the nation’s carbon-free electricity, according to the agency. Since 2013, 13 reactors across the United States have shuttered.

  Final terms of the funding will need to be finalized by the Energy Department, officials said. The plant produces about 15 percent of California’s renewable energy.

  It produced about 9 percent of the state’s energy last year, according to the state’s energy commission.

  Politicians applauded the funding that will help extend the life of the once-doomed power plant located in central California near San Luis Obispo.

  “This investment creates a path forward for a limited-term extension of the Diablo Canyon Power plant to support reliability statewide and provide an onramp for ore clean energy projects to come online,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement.

  Newsom signed legislation Sept. 1 to reverse plans to terminate the plant, which was scheduled to close in 2025.

  The bill was essential to prevent rolling blackouts and increased electricity prices in California, according to author Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa). It allows Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) to continue operating the plant until 2030. It also authorized a forgivable loan of $1.4 billion from the state to help extend the operations.

  PG&E agreed six years ago to close the San Luis Obispo plant amid pressure from environmental groups and the local community.

  Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a statement she welcomed the news.

  “This short-term extension is necessary if California is going to meet its ambitious clean-energy goals while continuing to deliver reliable power,” Feinstein wrote. “This is especially critical as California’s electric grid has faced increasing challenges from climate-fueled extreme weather events.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 16:50

• "Amnesty Begins Next Week": Musk To Reinstate Suspended Twitter Accounts En Masse
  “Amnesty Begins Next Week”: Musk To Reinstate Suspended Twitter Accounts En Masse

  Elon Musk has given politically divided families all the ammunition they need for an epic pie fight this Thanksgiving – announcing ‘general amnesty’ for suspended Twitter accounts as long as they haven’t broken the law or engaged in egregious spam.

  

  On Wednesday, Musk asked in a poll whether Twitter should offer “general amnesty to suspended accounts,” to which 72.4% voted “Yes”.

  “The people have spoken,” Musk tweeted Friday, adding “Amnesty begins next week.“

  “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” he said in closing – a Latin phrase meaning “The voice of the People, the voice of God.”

  The people have spoken.

  Amnesty begins next week.

  Vox Populi, Vox Dei.

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2022

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

  Musk’s decision is sure to piss off even more advertisers, who have been pulling ad spending (as they underperform the market). Advertisers including Audi, General Mills, GM, United Airlines and Pfizer have all paused ads, leading to what Musk described as a “massive drop” in revenue.

  And… it looks like he gives exactly zero f**ks. (Though what of one Alex E. Jones?)

  Let the games begin!

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 16:15

• Socialism Sounds Good On Paper But It Was Deadly For The Pilgrims
  Socialism Sounds Good On Paper But It Was Deadly For The Pilgrims

  Authored by Michael Maharrey via SchiffGold.com,

  When I was a kid, we used to say some things only “sound good on paper.” In other words, they seem like good plans, but there is no way they’re going to work in the real world.

  That’s socialism in a nutshell.

  

  The Pilgrims found this out the hard way during their first couple of years in North America. Their experiment in socialism turned out deadly.

  Turns out, you can’t just ignore economics and human nature.

  Socialism really does sound good on paper though, right? We’re all going to own everything together and take care of each other. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.“

  It sounds so nice. And we all want to be nice, right? People are emotionally drawn to socialism because it sounds so good. It sounds fair. It sounds — nice.

  But do you know what’s not nice?

  Corpses.

  That’s exactly what happened the Pilgrims got when they took a stab at socialism.

  Most Americans don’t know that the Plymouth colony was originally an experiment in socialist utopianism and were it not for a complete 180 a couple of years in, we probably wouldn’t have enjoyed the bountiful feasts most of us will indulge in today. There would have been no Thanksgiving because there would have been nobody left to give thanks.

  When the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts on November 11, 1620, they placed all their food and provisions in a “common store.” These folks were forward thinkers. They didn’t even have Marx’s scribblings to appeal to. They set things up on the socialist principle of, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

  Things got off to a bad start in the new world. Conditions were miserable, as William Bradford described them.

  That which was most sad and lamentable was, that in two or three months time half of their company died, especially in January and February, being the depth of winter, and wanting houses and other comforts; being infected with the scurvy and other diseases, so as there died sometimes two or three of a day, in the aforesaid time; that of 100 and odd persons, scarce 50 remained.”

  Now, the Pilgrim’s initial struggles didn’t really have anything to do with socialism. They just had the misfortune of landing in Massachusetts at the onset of winter. If you live in New England, you understand their pain.

  But even after their first summer, things didn’t improve much. The following fall, the Pilgrims harvested their first crops and again, they all went into the common store.

  Now, wasn’t that nice? No greed. Nobody getting any more than they should. Of course, nobody was getting much of anything at all – but still – they had to feel good about themselves, right? Because, after all, the system was fair.

  So, in November the ship Fortune arrived with more than 30 new settlers, mostly young men. More manpower was welcome, but according to accounts, they brought “not so much as a bisket-cake” with them. Now they had a meager supply of food in the common store and even more mouths to feed. The future looked bleak as food supplies ran out and the “planned socialist” community faced starvation yet again.

  The following year, the harvest was poor in spite of the added manpower. Nevertheless, the pilgrims again put the meager harvest in the common store. Because, you know, it’s going to work this time!

  It didn’t.

  That winter, they starved.

  The colonists were learning economics the hard way.

  Richard Grant in his book The Incredible Bread Machine wrote:

  “For two years the Pilgrims faithfully practiced communal ownership of the means of production. And for two years nearly starved to death, rationed at times to “but a quarter of a pound of bread a day to each person.” Governor Bradford wrote that “famine must still ensue the next year also if not some way prevented.” He described how the colonists finally decided to introduce private property:

  [The colonists] began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. [In 1623] after much debate of things, the Gov. (with the advice of the chiefest amongst them) gave way that they should set down every man for his own … and to trust themselves … so assigned to every family a parcel of land. This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Gov. or any other could use, … and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little-ones with them to set corn, which before would allege weakness, and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.”

  Reflecting on the experience of the previous two years, Bradford goes on to describe the folly of communal ownership:

  “The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years, and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Platosand other ancients, applauded by some of later times; — that the taking away of property, and bringing in community into a common wealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young-men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children, without any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more indivision of victuals and cloths, than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice…”

  Woah! Some people resented doing all the work? They didn’t work as hard when they knew they weren’t going to directly benefit?

  Shocking.

  Actually, it’s not shocking at all. It’s human nature. And we all know it.

  Now, we can lament the fact. We can say it shouldn’t be that way. We can finger-point and talk about greed. We can get all holier-than-thou and say we wouldn’t act that way (in other words lie). But people will still be people.

  Here’s a harsh truth: good intentions and feel-good policies can’t trump basic economics. You can dream of unicorns and lollipops all day, but it won’t change reality.

  Scarcity. Human behavior. Incentives. The experience of the Pilgrims vividly demonstrates basic economic principles. Their good intentions could not overpower the cold hard realities of economic principles. They never have. They never will.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 15:40

• Musk Tweets "Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta Now Available To Anyone" In US
  Musk Tweets “Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta Now Available To Anyone” In US

  The wait is finally over for Tesla owners who paid $10,000, or as of recently $15,000, for the controversial driver-assistance system, also known as “Full Self-Driving.” 

  Twitter, SpaceX, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted Thursday morning, “FSD Beta is now available to anyone in North America who requests it from the car screen, assuming you have bought this option.”  

  Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta is now available to anyone in North America who requests it from the car screen, assuming you have bought this option.

  Congrats to Tesla Autopilot/AI team on achieving a major milestone!

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2022

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

  FSD is Tesla’s upgraded “Autopilot” driver-assist feature that allows vehicles to navigate highways and city streets autonomously. Until now, some customers who paid the fee were blocked from using it “because they didn’t score high enough on metrics Tesla uses to set insurance rates,” explained Bloomberg. 

  Over the last six months, about 100,000 drivers were granted access to FSB Beta. Musk has promised a broader roll-out of FSD several times, though his timelines were off. In the latest 3Q22 earnings call, he indicated FSD would be available to all North American users who paid the fee: 

  “This quarter, we expect to go to a wide release of Full Self-Driving Beta in North America. So, anyone who has ordered Full Self-Driving will have access to the FSD Beta program this year, probably about a month from now. So – and then obviously, anyone who buys a car and purchases the Full Self-Driving option will immediately have to that available to them,” Musk said.

  The world’s richest man first promised FSD in 2018. Only a small number of “expert and careful drivers” received FSD in July 2021. On the last FSD release, Tesla lowered the requirement for at least 100 Autopilot miles and an 80 safety score, and now anyone who wants it can click a few buttons, sign a waiver, and presto… 

  Just got FSD on a car with 54 score and less than 100 miles on autopilot ! 114 kms 🇨🇦 Wide release here we goo!! pic.twitter.com/57dtzJalQp

  — 🤖FSD & Chill⚡️ (@MateenOmair) November 24, 2022

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  Just got #FSD Beta 10.69.3.1 here in Toronto. Took it out for a drive in North York and this is the most confident FSD drive I’ve ever had. Zero takeovers within the ~30min drive.The turns are confident and navigation around parked cars on the roads are human-like.🤯10/10! #Tesla pic.twitter.com/JZzpvFqGDm

  — Ruiwen (@RuiwenHe) November 24, 2022

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  FSD Beta Highway Merge Construction 🚧 @elonmusk $TSLA $Tesla pic.twitter.com/XTn3ADZhWp

  — Kevin Chunilal (@KevinChunilal) November 24, 2022

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  FSD Beta 10.69.3.1 locked and loaded🙂
  Thank you team @Tesla pic.twitter.com/bSXKBHrmMK

  — Alicia Cryst  (@alicia_cryst) November 24, 2022

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  However, over the years, we have not just pointed out delay after delay for FSD but also safety concerns around Autopilot.  

  In June, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published the first report highlighting that Tesla vehicles running on Autopilot were involved in 273 reported crashes over the past year. 

  “These technologies hold great promise to improve safety, but we need to understand how these vehicles are performing in real-world situations,” NHTSA’s administrator, Steven Cliff, told reporters over the summer. 

  Perhaps Musk’s wide release of FSD should make every non-Telsa driver a little bit more cautious when they see a Model S, Model 3, Model X, and or Model Y coasting down the highway or city street while the driver is distracted playing video games on an iPad while the car drives itself. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 15:05

• How To Talk To Family Members About Bitcoin This Thanksgiving
  How To Talk To Family Members About Bitcoin This Thanksgiving

  Authored by Joakim Book via BitcoinMagazine.com,

  I don’t…

  That’s it. That’s the article.

  

  In all sincerity, that is the full message: Just don’t do it. It’s not worth it.

  You’re not an excited teenager anymore, in desperate need of bragging credits or trying out your newfound wisdom. You’re not a preaching priestess with lost souls to save right before some imminent arrival of the day of reckoning. We have time.

  Instead: just leave people alone. Seriously. They came to Thanksgiving dinner to relax and rejoice with family, laugh, tell stories and zone out for a day — not to be ambushed with what to them will sound like a deranged rant in some obscure topic they couldn’t care less about. Even if it’s the monetary system, which nobody understands anyway.

  Get real.

  If you’re not convinced of this Dale Carnegie-esque social approach, and you still naively think that your meager words in between bites can change anybody’s view on anything, here are some more serious reasons for why you don’t talk to friends and family about Bitcoin the protocol — but most certainly not bitcoin, the asset:

  1. Your family and friends don’t want to hear it. Move on.
      
  2. For op-sec reasons, you don’t want to draw unnecessary attention to the fact that you probably have a decent bitcoin stack. Hopefully, family and close friends should be safe enough to confide in, but people talk and that gossip can only hurt you.
      
  3. People find bitcoin interesting only when they’re ready to; everyone gets the price they deserve. Like Gigi says in “21 Lessons:”

  “Bitcoin will be understood by you as soon as you are ready, and I also believe that the first fractions of a bitcoin will find you as soon as you are ready to receive them. In essence, everyone will get ₿itcoin at exactly the right time.”

  It’s highly unlikely that your uncle or mother-in-law just happens to be at that stage, just when you’re about to sit down for dinner.

  1. Unless you can claim youth, old age or extreme poverty, there are very few people who genuinely haven’t heard of bitcoin. That means your evangelizing wouldn’t be preaching to lost, ignorant souls ready to be saved but the tired, huddled and jaded masses who could care less about the discovery that will change their societies more than the internal combustion engine, internet and Big Government combined. Big deal.

  2. What is the case, however, is that everyone in your prospective audience has already had a couple of touchpoints and rejected bitcoin for this or that standard FUD. It’s a scam; seems weird; it’s dead; let’s trust the central bankers, who have our best interest at heart. No amount of FUD busting changes that impression, because nobody holds uninformed and fringe convictions for rational reasons, reasons that can be flipped by your enthusiastic arguments in-between wiping off cranberry sauce and grabbing another turkey slice.

  3. It really is bad form to talk about money — and bitcoin is the best money there is. Be classy.

  Now, I’m not saying to never ever talk about Bitcoin. We love to talk Bitcoin — that’s why we go to meetups, join Twitter Spaces, write, code, run nodes, listen to podcasts, attend conferences. People there get something about this monetary rebellion and have opted in to be part of it. Your unsuspecting family members have not; ambushing them with the wonders of multisig, the magically fast Lightning transactions or how they too really need to get on this hype train, like, yesterday, is unlikely to go down well.

  However, if in the post-dinner lull on the porch someone comes to you one-on-one, whisky in hand and of an inquisitive mind, that’s a very different story. That’s personal rather than public, and it’s without the time constraints that so usually trouble us. It involves clarifying questions or doubts for somebody who is both expressively curious about the topic and available for the talk. That’s rare — cherish it, and nurture it.

  Last year I wrote something about the proper role of political conversations in social settings. Since November was also election month, it’s appropriate to cite here:

  “Politics, I’m starting to believe, best belongs in the closet — rebranded and brought out for the specific occasion. Or perhaps the bedroom, with those you most trust, love, and respect. Not in public, not with strangers, not with friends, and most certainly not with other people in your community. Purge it from your being as much as you possibly could, and refuse to let political issues invade the areas of our lives that we cherish; politics and political disagreements don’t belong there, and our lives are too important to let them be ruled by (mostly contrived) political disagreements.”

  If anything, those words seem more true today than they even did then. And I posit to you that the same applies for bitcoin.

  Everyone has some sort of impression or opinion of bitcoin — and most of them are plain wrong. But there’s nothing people love more than a savior in white armor, riding in to dispel their errors about some thing they are freshly out of fucks for. Just like politics, nobody really cares.

  Leave them alone. They will find bitcoin in their own time, just like all of us did.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 14:30

• Fired Twitter Moderator Reveals "Worries" Over Platform's Free Speech Future
  Fired Twitter Moderator Reveals “Worries” Over Platform’s Free Speech Future

  Take one look at some of the employees fired from Twitter the past two weeks by Elon Musk and it’s easy to understand why the company operated as a far-left echo chamber for so long.  Though company executives claimed that the platform was “politically neutral” for many years, evidence is coming to light which confirms what we already knew – There was a severe leftist bias that permeated every aspect of the social media site which specifically targeted and censored any viewpoints or facts that did not fit with their narrative.

  Hilariously, Musk posted on the discovery of a supply closet at Twitter HQ containing activist swag including stacks of t-shirts which have “#StayWoke” printed on them.  A neutral company?  Not a chance.

  Most interesting of all has been the absolute distress and in some cases rage expressed by long time employees over Musk’s free speech position.  The level of open authoritarianism on display by the political left in the past few years has been astonishing, if not predictable.  The reaction to changes at Twitter solidifies this obsession in crystalline detail.  Here, former contracted Twitter employee (a male identifying as a trans female) hired as a “moderator” (censor) tells NBC about his worries when it comes to the company’s future as a free speech based platform.

  Musk fired over 4000 outside contractors this past week, most of them employed as moderators.  NBC’s message is relatively clear:  Free speech is a negative.  And, such an ideal being applied at Twitter overshadows the great harm being done to the poor innocent leftist employees who were doing God’s work by protecting platform users from unfiltered discussions. 

  The problem is, anyone can block anyone else on Twitter at any time and filter their own social media feeds, which completely debunks the common argument that people will be “harmed” by surprise exposure to politically incorrect discussions.  The next most exploited argument is that “hate speech” will run rampant on the site – But the term “hate speech” has become so diluted by false leftist accusations and fraudulent hype that it is now meaningless.  Even the term “groomer” was banned on Twitter before Elon Musk took over.

  The corporate media has spent the better part of the past week predicting the implosion of Twitter after the firing of several thousand workers.  At any moment the company was going to shut down, they claimed.  This has not happened, revealing a stark truth – The company runs just fine without them.  Those several thousand regular employees and contracted moderators were useless dead weight.  The proof is right there for the world to see. 

  Has the Earth exploded because of less moderation on Twitter?  No.  Has the Third Reich returned because gender identity warriors aren’t sitting on their laptops at home banning people who say Lizzo’s obesity is unhealthy or that men cannot be women, cannot menstruate and cannot have babies?  Nothing has happened.

  This leads us to a singular conclusion – Leftist censorship is about power and control, not about safety  They know it, and we know it.  And now, with Twitter out of their hands their denials can be challenged in an open forum.  It’s the one thing they fear the most.      

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 13:55

• Incoming GOP Congressman Fears Democrats Will Downplay FTX Scandal, Calls for 'Thorough' Investigation
  Incoming GOP Congressman Fears Democrats Will Downplay FTX Scandal, Calls for ‘Thorough’ Investigation

  Authored by John Ransom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A newly-elected GOP representative from New York said that he worries that Democrats will try to downplay potential campaign finance and securities law violations by former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried using a lame-duck session of Congress before the new Congress is sworn in.

  

  Republican George Santos, 34, who won New York’s 3^rd Congressional District flipping the seat red, joined his congressional colleagues by calling for a “thorough investigation” when the new GOP Congress takes over next year.

  The spectacular collapse of FTX, a crypto-currency exchange that is headquartered in the Bahamas, which filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11 has left around million customers and other investors facing total losses of billions of dollars. Since then, reports have emerged that Alameda Research, a crypto hedge fund established by Bankman-Fried, was trading billions of dollars from FTX accounts without clients’ knowledge.

  

  The House Financial Services Committee said last week it plans to hold a hearing in December to investigate the FTX collapse. It said it expects to hear from companies and individuals involved, including Bankman-Fried, FTX, and Alameda Research.

  Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said in a statement that the United States needs “legislative action to ensure that digital assets entities cannot operate in the shadows outside of robust federal oversight.”

  But Santos is not convinced the Democrat-led committee will take robust action.

  “Waters has signaled that she’s not going to investigate Bankman-Fried and FTX as a class. So I’m a little concerned that the Democrats right now as lame-ducks in Congress, will deflect the issue between now and the start of the new Congress,” Santos, who is attending leadership meetings for the GOP this week, told The Epoch Times.

  “That’s something I’m very interested in investigating,” he added.

  Santos, who worked as a financial advisor and has asked for a Financial Services Committee assignment, said that “accountability is mandatory and absolutely necessary.”

  “Nobody should get away with this with impunity,” he added.

  Santos made news last week when he called some planned investigations by the House GOP, such probes of the COVID-19 origins, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s handling of the pandemic, and Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, “hyperpartisan” issues.

  When speaking with the Epoch Times, Santos clarified his remarks, saying he was fine with any investigations, but that as a freshman legislator from New York with a background in financial services, he thought he could leave those decisions in the hands of party leadership.

  “I’m not opposed to investigating. I don’t think you’ll find someone more interested in investigating Hunter Biden and Anthony Fauci, than I am” said Santos.

  “But I’ll leave that to the senior members of Congress who know how to do those things better than I do,” he added.

  Santos said that for him these weren’t his main issues, because he felt better versed in financial and economic matters. The incoming congressman confirmed that he has asked for assignments in both the financial services committee and foreign affairs committee.

  “We don’t have the power to just pass legislation, but we also have the power to hold people accountable,” Santos said of the FTX scandal.

  Donations to Democrats

  The FTX matter has taken on added urgency given that Bankman-Fried was the second-largest Democratic donor for the 2021–22 election cycle, donating over $38 million to various Democrat-aligned PACs with another $990,000 going to individual members of Congress.

  Many of the donations came from foreign addresses in Nassau, capital of the Bahamas, and Hong Kong, according to an analysis by the Epoch Times.

  According to data by the Federal Election Commission (FEC), of the 182 donations made by Bankman-Fried this election cycle, two donations came with no address, 16 donations came from a Hong Kong address, 68 came from U.S. addresses and 96 came from two addresses in Nassau, Bahamas.

  It’s legal for American citizens to donate to campaigns from foreign accounts, said attorney John Zakhem, whose practice areas includes federal election law.

  “If he tells you that he’s a U.S. citizen living in the Bahamas, there’s no prohibition against him making a contribution,” Zakem told The Epoch Times, adding that once a campaign checks that box they only worry about the funds clearing the bank.

  There is also no prohibition against Bankman-Fried having donated money to those in Congress who regulate the financial services arena.

  The Washington Free Beacon reported this week, citing FEC records, that Bankman-Fried and his colleagues at FTX donated $300,351 to nine members of the House Financial Services Committee, with “[s]ome of the largest contributions [made] to Democrats on the committee’s Digital Assets Working Group, which worked on regulation of the crypto industry.”

  An Ethics Issue 

  It’s this nexus between Bankman-Fried and the committee members that makes Santos concerned that the Democrats might try to downplay the scandal in the upcoming investigation.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 13:20

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• Liberty Is Worth The Fight
  Liberty Is Worth The Fight

  Authored by J.B.Shurk via The Gatestone Institute,

  “There comes a time,” Martin Luther King Jr. advised, “when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”

  Moral imperative, in other words, outweighs personal security, political correctness, and the psychological comfort of identifying with the crowd. During troubling times of human violence and suffering, it is always the lonely few — either blessed with innate courage or made resolute through private, grinding struggle — who dare to take a stand against encroaching evils tacitly accepted by the many. Such is the power of individual free will when man chooses principle as his guide.

  Today is a time for the voices of the few to coalesce. What is at stake is nothing less than individual control over one’s life, liberty, property, privacy, and pursuit of happiness. Freedom of speech hangs in the balance, as do freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. That many of these natural rights were recorded together in America’s First Amendment is not accidental. They are intimately interwoven. To weaken any one, weakens them all.

  To freeze the bank accounts of Freedom Convoy protesters demanding freedom from unwanted experimental “vaccines,” as was done in Canada, is to threaten speech, assembly, bodily autonomy, religious objection, property rights, and public resistance to government-caused harm.

  To forbid a football coach from publicly praying is to force him to sacrifice both his religious freedom and freedom of expression; if the very things that most define us are relegated to the home, then religious identity and freedom of speech do not have far to roam.

  Aside from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to create an official “Disinformation Governance Board” to “combat” free speech antithetical to the government’s point of view, reports show that DHS employees have regularly met with Facebook and Twitter to suppress and censor certain facts and opinions in online discussion of numerous issues dominating public debate — including such broad topics as the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Covid-19, and “racial justice.”

  To hand Western governments the power to decide what may or may not be published on social media deprives the public square of both unfettered free speech (within the bounds of Brandenburg v. Ohio) and a truly free press. To empower government actors with the authority to designate some thoughts as “mis-,” “mal-,” or “dis-” information — in other words, to permit politicians and bureaucrats to arbitrate what is true or false, helpful or harmful, protected opinion or malicious deception — is to abrogate entirely the protections of America’s First Amendment. To use private sector cutouts as the government’s implicit censors is not only a nefarious and cynical workaround — it is also illegal to act as a government agent to enable it to circumvent constitutional prohibitions, in this instance limiting who may participate in the modern-day equivalent of the traditional town square.

  To censor dissenting views on experimental, yet coerced, medical treatments, two-tiered economic shutdowns (during which “Big Box” stores are inexplicably “allowed” to operate while economically vulnerable neighborhood shops are not), is mass censorship in the name of public health, shielding from scrutiny monstrous tyranny draped in the false cloak of the “greater” or “common good.”

  

  When governments censor dissenting opinions from public debate, they serve no greater interests than their own. When governments claim to act for the people’s “own good” while banning contrary points of view, they all too often augment their own power at the public’s expense. When governments camouflage their orders behind claims of “good intentions,” then the most atrocious evils can be blissfully undertaken.

  If you allow yourself to be blinded by any government’s “good intentions,” your eyes may one day be flooded with the sights of unspeakable harms. Hugo Chávez’s socialist government made many such promises “for the good” of the people of Venezuela, while his government’s endless public betrayals have left that nation’s citizenry suffering immeasurably still today.

  This is a pivotal moment in human history, when centuries of steady progress toward human emancipation and individual liberty will either find new, urgent momentum or suffer regrettable retreat. Either freedom means something, or it does not. Either personal agency resides in the hands of every individual, or it disappears behind a view of people as nothing more than parts of collective groups. Either self-government demands each citizen have a voice, or the many must obey the edicts of an ever-expansive government run by the few. Either citizens are uniquely empowered to control the direction of their governments, or legal citizenship and nationality mean nothing at all. These are the simple yet serious stakes we face today. They are clear, unforgiving, and unavoidable.

  The reason we are here now at this intersection in the history of liberty is not complex: it is the outcome of human nature. For most people in the West today, war and its painful consequences are unknown or have been distorted by time. Although violence and bloodshed continue uninterrupted in many places around the world, most Westerners have long been spared the horrors of war directly outside their doors. The difficulty for humans to appreciate what they cannot see has made them careless in preventing what they do not intimately know.

  Many politicians cavalierly embrace totalitarianism once again. Citizens, once aware of the attendant dangers to peace when large corporations and national governments work hand in glove to push “politically correct” ideas upon society, are apparently so far removed from the twentieth century’s vivid lessons in fascist, communist, and Nazi propaganda that they fail to see the harm in bureaucrats and officeholders dictating to the public what it may believe.

  Many Westerners have forgotten that freedom of speech and personal liberty — far from menacing “microaggressions” deserving of sanction — are the surest safety valves for mediating animosities inherent within any society before outright violence is unleashed in their stead. For many people, decades of relative peace have transformed hard-fought Western freedoms into disposable inessentials. Governments and international corporations think little of the risks to social cohesion — and probably do not even care — when they purposefully manipulate populations with mass media propaganda meant to reinforce the elite agendas of the World Economic Forum covering everything from energy use and food production to medical mandates and health passports. The same allure of ultimate power and control that fueled both world wars remains all too enticing.

  Governments already acclimated to universal public surveillance and warrantless online tracking see central bank digital currencies, human tracking implants, and the imposition of social credit scores all on the horizon and believe the time for total control over citizens is near, so long as they are the ones doing the controlling.

  As always, technology’s liberating benefits are accompanied by its powers to threaten populations and to suppress information that its directors may abhor. Radio and television connected the world as never before, but mass communication also rapidly fueled the rise of dictators and the spread of public indoctrination to new heights. Nuclear energy has provided both abundant power and the potential for apocalyptic destruction. Personal computers, smartphones and the internet have given ordinary individuals megaphones through which to articulate new ideas, yet that same cyberspace has opened up a brand new battlespace for government surveillance, propaganda, and mass manipulation.

  Rather than ensuring citizens’ economic security and fostering freer markets, some governments appear to view technology as providing not only more efficient tools for redistributing wealth, limiting personal income, and levying taxes but also the means for creating a technocratic system of total surveillance in which bureaucratic control over what consumers buy and sell and the implementation of social credit scores can both reward “politically correct” behaviors and punish “wrong” points of view.

  Technological advancement provides the means for both greater human freedom and absolute human abasement. When governments are allowed to make that choice for us, they will often choose the latter. Their concern is not our personal liberty but their power. For human freedom to flourish, only the people are capable of keeping government power in check.

  It is therefore imperative that Westerners not lose sight of the most important battle already raging — one pitting individual freedom against total state control. Every other issue should be scrutinized through this lens. We are, indeed, at an intersection in the history of human liberty. Even if only a small minority comprehend what is now at risk, those few would do well to fight for preserving our individual freedoms against those governments and corporations working diligently to dilute them.

  Either the light of liberty is once again rekindled, or it will be extinguished until a later day.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/23/2022 – 23:55

• US Army Will Select Winner Of Next-Gen Assault Helicopter This Year
  US Army Will Select Winner Of Next-Gen Assault Helicopter This Year

  US Army officials are preparing to announce the winner of the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft. The contest comes down to Bell Textron and Lockheed Martin Sikorsky competing for the FLRAA contract to replace the Army’s decades-old Black Hawk.

  Bloomberg spoke with the Army assistant secretary for acquisition, Douglas Bush, who said the winner of the FLRAA contest would be announced “this calendar year.” And with only 40 days left until 2023, that decision is imminent. 

  Bell Textron has offered the Army a tiltrotor aircraft called the V-280 Valor, while the Sikorsky has produced the Defiant X with coaxial rotors. 

  V-280 Valor

  

  Defiant X

  

  Bush said the winner would need to build prototypes in the next fiscal year for flight tests in 2025. The new aircraft will replace the Black Hawk by 2030. 

  

  Besides the Army, the Air Force plans to reveal the B-21 Raider by Dec. 2. There have been rapid modernization efforts by the military as it prepares for possible conflict with either and or China. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/23/2022 – 23:30

• JFK Assassination: 59 Years Of Lies Still Haven't Buried The Truth
  JFK Assassination: 59 Years Of Lies Still Haven’t Buried The Truth

  Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

  President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was not assassinated with three shots from the book depository fired by Lee Harvey Oswald. And almost all of us know it.

  

  In opinion polls going back to November 29th 1963, just a week after the shooting, at least a sixty-percent majority has rejected the official line every single time.

  In short, regarding JFK, the “crazy conspiracy theorists” make up two-thirds of the population, and always have done.

  This is a good thing. A victory for truth in the face of stark odds, overcoming fifty-nine years of propaganda.

  It doesn’t matter what you think of JFK the man – whether you believe he was trying to change things, or hail from the Chomsky school of “he was just like Obama” – the simple facts reflect he was killed by state agencies of his own government.

  It was a coup.

  We don’t need to go into the details, it has been endlessly written about, on this site and a million others.

  Suffice it to say, nothing about the “official story” has ever made sense. You have to leave rationality behind to believe it.

  Much like mask-usage and the “safe and effective” vaccines during the “pandemic”, embracing the mainstream story of the “lone gunman” and his “magic bullet” has passed beyond the realm of thoughts and opinions and become a tenet of a modern-day religion.

  Blaming Lee Harvey Oswald is now an oath of fealty, a show of faith. A sign you are one of the initiated – the first and most debased commandment in the book of State Orthodoxy.

  Question it, and you question everything. Pull on that thread and six decades of carefully crafted narratives unravel in minutes.

  This is why – fifty-nine years after the fact – they are still lying about it.

  Those truly responsible are more than likely all dead. The vast majority of the people living on the planet weren’t even born when it happened…and yet the deceptions still come.

  Pathetic exercises in propaganda passed around by second and third generations of twisted servants of the establishment. Brainwashed children, repeating the lies their parents told them despite being surrounded by evidence of their delusion.

  It would be tragic if it wasn’t so insidious. Its only saving grace is its ineptitude. (See this from the New York Post, or this from The Express).

  It’s all painfully transparent. Exercises in saying, rather than believing.

  A common factor in every propaganda narrative is the repetition of “the big lie”. Over and over and over again. In the case of JFK the catechism is a simple one:

  Lee Harvey Oswald shot the 35th President in the back and head from the Texas School Book Depository.

  The Express even uses that sentence, word for word. Not one part of this mantra has ever been proven. It’s just what you have to say.

  Most tellingly it does not even reflect the official position of the US government, with the Church committee having found JFK’s death “a probable conspiracy” forty-six years ago.

  As with Covid, when official sources conflict with official “truth” they are written out of the consensus. Rejected by the modern-day Council of Nicea. Left to gather dust in the archives like the gnostic gospels.

  In 1992, following the release of Oliver Stone’s simply brilliant film JFK, the US Senate passed a new law, the Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act.

  This law “requires that each assassination record be publicly disclosed in full and be made available in the collection no later than the date that is 25 years [after the law was passed]”.

  As of October 2017 both the CIA and FBI are in breach of this law.

  Politico has a long article about it, carefully explaining to everyone that it’s definitely not because they have anything to hide and they totally didn’t do it, but also acknowledging that the secrecy does feed into “corrosive conspiracy theories”.

  In yet another betrayal of his “anti-establishment” image, The Donald let this slide. Biden is apparently going to pressure them to release something…but that’s just theatre.

  Nothing will come of it, save perhaps a few pages of token talking points that subtly reinforce the official story.

  Agencies like that won’t ever release real evidence of their own guilt, even supposing it wasn’t shredded, burned and buried next to Jimmy Hoffa decades ago.

  But you know what? It doesn’t matter.

  We don’t need official documents to corroborate the evidence of our own eyes, and we don’t need official permission before we can acknowledge the truth.

  Let the media tell their empty stories to their dwindling readership, let their aging lies echo forever in hollow headlines.

  None of us believe them. We all know what really happened, and we always have.

  *  *  *

  For a deep dive on the JFK assassination, we recommend JFK and the Unspeakable, you should also watch JFK by Oliver Stone which is a wonderfully engaging introduction to the topic. You can read all our past articles on JFK here, and Kit’s long essay on it here.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/23/2022 – 23:05

• CIA Seeking To Recruit Russians "Disgusted" By Putin's War
  CIA Seeking To Recruit Russians “Disgusted” By Putin’s War

  The Central Intelligence Agency is seeking to tap Russians as potential spies who are “disgusted” with Putin’s war in Ukraine, The Wall Street Journal reported this week, as part of a new push to bolster its ranks of Russian assets.

  The CIA’s deputy director of intelligence David Marlowe, who has been in the post since June 2021, said in a rare speech at George Mason University’s Hayden Center that the CIA is “looking around the world” for Russian who are unhappy with the invasion of Ukraine. It was Marlowe’s first public appearance while at post as deputy director. 

  

  This is “because we’re open for business,” he underscored. The attempt to gain dependable assets is said to include military officers and even oligarchs who are angry at being impacted by Russia’s extreme economic and political isolation on the world stage. 

  Offering his assessment on how the war is going for the Russians, Marlowe described, “Putin was at his best moment the day before he invaded.” Speaking of the potential for the Russian leader to put pressure on neighboring Ukraine and NATO before the decision to invade, Marlowe added: “He squandered every single bit of that.”

  At that point before the February 24 incursion, President Putin had “all the power that he is ever going to have,” according to the CIA #2 official. 

  Some international publications dubbed Marlowe’s speech, which happened last week but was first revealed on Tuesday, a “recruitment pitch”.

  “And so, for the director of operations, we’re looking around the world for Russians who are as disgusted with that as we are because we’re open for business,” Marlowe spelled out.

  As The Moscow Times wrote: 

  Despite wondering aloud if Marlowe’s comments were just an example of “CIA bravado,” The Wall Street Journal noted that the continuing war in Ukraine had unleashed an “intensified spy war” in Europe.

  Starting months ago it was widely reported that the CIA had set up a portal on the dark web for disgruntled Russians with government information or access wishing to make contact. 

  Below: the full video of the David Marlowe panel…

  “We are providing Russian-language instructions on how to safely contact CIA — via our Dark Web site or a reputable VPN — for those who feel compelled to reach us because of the Russian government’s unjust war,” a CIA official told CBS News back in May.

  At the time the CIA in the rare public disclosure indicated it is hoping that Russians, including soldiers and civilian officials, would utilize the encrypted methods to submit sensitive information to the US.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/23/2022 – 22:40

• Oregon Corrects False Information On Child COVID-19 Hospitalization Rates
  Oregon Corrects False Information On Child COVID-19 Hospitalization Rates

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  A report promoted by the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) has been corrected after falsely claiming nearly 50 percent of children aged 12 to 17 who contracted COVID-19 required hospital treatment.

  The Rede Group, which created the report for the authority, acknowledged the misinformation in a memorandum obtained by The Epoch Times.

  “There was an issue with the numerator for hospitalizations in Figure 40 on page 180. When we calculated the percent hospitalized for each age group, we mistakenly thought the weekly hospitalization data from OHA were unique; they are not,” Danna Drum with the Rede Group told OHA in the memo. “We should have noticed this earlier and apologize for the error. Figure 40 has been corrected in version 1.1 of the report using data provided directly from OHA.”

  “Thank you for your attention to the matter and we apologize again for this error,” Drum added.

  The old version of the report claimed that 47.4 percent of children aged 12 to 17 who contracted COVID-19 required hospital care.

  According to OHA data, that percentage is actually at or below 1 percent.

  The report also claimed that the hospitalization rates for all age groups were at or above 30 percent and portrayed the child hospitalization rates as higher than those of the elderly.

  The new version of the report (pdf) presents significantly lower rates.

  There was no indication in the report that it had been updated besides the addition of “(corrected)” to the graph’s title.

  The Epoch Times asked OHA about the false claim, which led to OHA asking the Rede Group to examine the paper.

  “The report has been updated with the correct data, and it has been reposted. You can find the new version of the report at the same link as before,” an OHA spokesman told The Epoch Times via email.

  The Rede Group did not respond to a request for comment on the correction.

  State Sen. Dennis Linthicum, a Republican, told The Epoch Times in an email that the false information showed “poor statistical analysis” and was part of a pattern “of using public money to stir-up vast quantities of statistics, data, and meaningless factoids which veils the malfeasance and parades the contempt which our bureaucratic elites exhibit toward Oregonians, and people in living in the United States.”

  

  

  State Senator Opposed Bill

  A bill passed by state legislators and signed into law by Democrat Gov. Kate Brown in March directed OHA to study how public officials in Oregon responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and produce three reports analyzing the response.

  The legislation, Senate Bill 1554 (pdf), allocated approximately $900,000 in taxpayer money to the OHA for the purpose.

  Proponents said the legislation would help identify how the public health response could be improved in advance of future crises.

  “By beginning the After Action Report work this year, we will be better able to support public health investments and pave the way for future legislative action in the 2023 session. We must use this opportunity to learn meaningfully from this experience through a shared, iterative quality improvement process. We have a lot to learn and we must start now,” state Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, a Democrat who sponsored the legislation, said in a previous statement.

  Linthicum was among the senators voting against the bill.

  Linthicum said on the Senate floor that the report should include an assessment of the repercussions for widespread testing, including the testing of people who lacked symptoms, and an examination of how many businesses were closed due to the restrictive measures ordered by top officials.

  Linthicum feels the entire first report, which runs 725 pages, was aimed at empowering the state by making it sound like the state did its best during the pandemic.

  The report goes along with the storyline “that says, ‘oh, we had some deficiencies, we had some areas that needed improvement, but this was a good investment for Oregonians and we did our best,’” Linthicum said. “And that’s how you when you read the report, and given that insight to what the bill actually demanded of this reporting agency, you realize this is just trying to put lipstick on a pig.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/23/2022 – 22:15

• Why China Will Win (In 1 Simple Chart)
  Why China Will Win (In 1 Simple Chart)

  Becoming an astronaut has seemingly lost some of its glamor, at least in the United States and the United Kingdom, where children are three times more likely to want to be a social media influencer than to jet off into space.

  However, in a potential sign of hegemonic things to come, Statista’s Anna Fleck notes that in China, the opposite is true, with more than half (56 percent) of 8 to 12-year-olds saying that they would most like to become an astronaut when they grow up and only 18 percent an influencer.

  The following chart shows the responses of some 3,000 children who were asked which profession they are most drawn to, out of an influencer/YouTuber, astronaut, teacher, professional athlete and a musician, as part of a 2019 study by The Harris Poll and Lego Group. They could choose up to three options.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  While the exact reason for the difference in aspirations is unknown, it likely comes down to a number of factors. Eric Berger from Ars Technica suggests that one possible reason could be that the education system in China places a higher emphasis on the value of science and space exploration.

  After all, the survey also found that children in China showed more interest in space subjects than in the other two countries, and when asked about whether humans would eventually live on other planets or in outer space, 95 percent of Chinese children said they would want to live beyond Earth themselves, whereas in the U.S. and UK it was still high, but under 70 percent.

  Or perhaps it is less to do with a lack of interest in space and more about the glamorization and relative exposure to social media per country. Where the United States and the United Kingdom have upped their social media usage in recent years, China has started to tighten its restrictions on such sites, especially when it comes to kids, citing the dangers of internet addiction and negative impacts on youths’ eyesight, concentration and mental health.

  Measures have tightened further in the years since the survey took place, with a “youth mode” added to Douyin, the version of TikTok available in China, which does not permit children under the age of 14 to use it for more than 40 minutes a day or between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. The app also reportedly shows more educational content (and more political censorship) than the international version. By contrast, social media has relatively few restrictions in the United Kingdom and the United States.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/23/2022 – 21:50

• Transgender Guaranteed Income Programs Discriminatory, Critics Say
  Transgender Guaranteed Income Programs Discriminatory, Critics Say

  Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  Guaranteed income programs for transgender residents in San Francisco and Palm Springs have raised the eyebrows of some critics, who say they are a misuse of public funds and discriminatory.

  Erin Friday, a co-leader of Our Duty, a group that protests the gender transitioning of minor children and young adults, told The Epoch Times the programs could indirectly promote prostitution and other crimes by prioritizing transgender convicts and sex workers.

  “Trans-identified people need mental health assistance, not unrestricted cash,” she said.

  San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced the launch of the Guaranteed Income for Transgender People (GIFT) program on Nov. 16 to provide “economically marginalized transgender people with unrestricted monthly guaranteed income as a way to combat poverty.”

  The city and county will provide $1,200 a month in guaranteed income for 18 months to 55 transgender residents at a cost of about $1.2 million.

  “The program will prioritize enrollment of Transgender, Non-Binary, Gender Non-Conforming, and Intersex (TGI) people who are also Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC), experiencing homelessness, living with disabilities and chronic illnesses, youth and elders, monolingual Spanish-speakers, and those who are legally vulnerable such as TGI people who are undocumented, engaging in survival sex trades, or are formerly incarcerated,” according to the GIFT website.

  

  Friday, an attorney, said Our Duty is exploring legal challenges to the program, which she says is “both racist and discriminatory on the basis of sex and gender.”

  With health insurance providers mandated to provide gender transition treatment to those who seek it, and nonprofit groups such as Planned Parenthood offering cross-sex hormones at a nominal fee, Friday said trans-identified people should not be entitled to more money than other impoverished segments of the population.

  The poverty rate in California was estimated at approximately 12 percent in the fall of 2021, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, with 29 percent living near or below the poverty line. The poverty rate for seniors 65 and older was 16 percent, “markedly higher” than younger adults at 12 percent and children at 9 percent.

  In addition, public funds should not be spent to promote “an ideology that supports cancer-and-sterility-causing experimental hormones on children and removal of healthy body parts,” Friday said.

  

  She urged parents in other states to “be on the lookout” for similar policies being implemented in their cities, since others may also be planning similar pilot programs in the hopes of starting a nationwide movement, she said.

  Greg Burt with the California Family Council, a religious organization based in Fresno, told The Epoch Times in a Nov. 18 statement the programs are discriminatory and counterproductive.

  “It implies transgender poor are more valuable and deserving of help than those who are not,” he said.

  Giving money to poor people who identify as transgender with no accountability or limitations on how the money is spent isn’t compassionate because it harms the people it seeks to help, he said.

  “The policy is foolish because it will incentivize the poor to identify as transgender to get the $1,200. There is no medical test or visual identifier to know who is transgender,” he said.

  Mayors for Guaranteed Income

  Aside from the GIFT program, Breed has led two other guaranteed income pilot programs, including the Abundant Birth Project for pregnant women who are black or Pacific Islanders, and a $6 million universal basic income program for local artists affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

  The initiatives are part of the California Guaranteed Income Pilot Program, which plans to provide grants totaling $35 million for pilot programs across the state. Each program must be funded with at least a 50 percent match by local governments or organizations.

  According to the City of Palm Springs, it’s also part of a broader plan by Mayors for Guaranteed Income, an organization founded by former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs in 2020 that now has more than 80 supportive mayors in at least 29 different states. The group includes 23 mayors in California, including San Francisco’s Breed and Palm Springs’ former Mayor Christy Holstege.

  “Between the pilots that have already started disbursements and those that are in the works, our coalition will provide more than $200 million in direct, unconditional relief to everyday Americans,” the organization states on its website.

  The organization lists as its donors Jack Dorsey’s #startsmall, California Community Foundation, Carol Tolan, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Arrow Impact, Bloomberg Philanthropies, The California Wellness Foundation, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and Wells Fargo Foundation.

  

  Palm Springs

  The Palm Springs City Council voted unanimously in March to set up a guaranteed income program that would pay transgender and non-binary residents up to $900 a month. The council allocated $200,000 to two organizations, DAP Health and Queer Works, to develop the guaranteed income plan and apply for a share of the state funding.

  Mayor Lisa Middleton, who is openly transgender, voted to support the program at a March city council meeting but expressed doubts about whether the city should fund it or not.

  “For the record, I strongly support reform of our poverty programs,” Middleton said. “I do not believe that guaranteed income programs as they are currently envisioned will be able to succeed and scale up to the level of the problem that they are attempting to address, nor do I believe that placing income maintenance programs within municipal government broadly is an appropriate public policy step. Notwithstanding that statement, I’m prepared to vote for the $200,000.”

  However, Jacob Rostovsky the founder and CEO of Queer Works, indicated the city is expected to provide an additional $1 million to $1.2 million, according to a city staff report. The anticipated state grant and financial support from donors will cover 40 to 50 percent of the $2 million project.

  Randy Economy, a Republican who resides in Coachella Valley, told The Epoch Times the mayor and council of Palm Springs have taken the city from “LGBTQ friendly” to a “much more radical place.”

  In 2017, Palm Springs became the first city in the nation with an all-LGBT city council.

  “Using the transgenderism situation as a political social experiment city by city is absolutely nonsensical and dangerous,” Economy said.

  An openly gay man “who happens to be a Republican in California,” Economy said he left the Democratic Party about 20 years ago because of its “bizarre obsession with sexuality and gender.”

  “What we’ve seen in cities with predominant majorities from one persuasion or the other, whether it be racially dominant … or in this case, dominated [by] … the LGBTQ community, just because they got elected, they feel they’ve been given a green light to be able to go ahead and promote their agenda, their will, their entire philosophy—on the entire community that they represent,” he said.

  Economy played a lead role in the recall effort against California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and he ran unsuccessfully in the June 7 primary election for the District 4 seat on the California State Board of Equalization.

  He also opposes subjecting children to gender identity issues inside or outside of the classroom.

  “It has gotten to the point where it’s socially acceptable and routine to take a 5-year-old or a 7-year-old and [allow] them to start [gender] transitioning,” he said. “To me, that’s reprehensible. It’s cruelty to the children to put them through such a horrendous situation until their minds mature and develop. I understand the issue because I’ve seen it happen, and kids need to be kids.”

  

  Drag Queen Laureate

  The day after San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced the GIFT program, she issued a press release requesting applications for the city’s first drag queen ambassador.

  The Drag Laureate program will support a drag performer to promote the city’s “LGBTQ+, arts, nightlife and entertainment communities,” according to the release.

  California state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) sponsored the program in his prior elected office as a county supervisor.

  “San Francisco’s Drag Laureate program is a wonderful celebration of our drag queens,” Wiener said in the release. “Drag performers are an amazing representation of the LGBTQ community and they contribute so much to our city. I’m thrilled about the launch of this program, and excited to see who is crowned Drag Laureate.”

  British feminist Kellie-Jay Keene recently staged a protest against Wiener’s promotion of drag queens at a pumpkin carving contest for families in San Francisco that Mayor Breed attended. Keene, who opposes the transgender movement, was in the city as part of her Let Women Speak U.S. tour.

  Wiener is the author of several controversial legislative bills supporting the transgender community and “gender-affirming care.” One of his bills, Senate Bill 107, will shelter parents of trans-identified youth who seek to avoid prosecution for child abuse in other states, making California a trans sanctuary state. Democrat California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the partisan bill into law in September despite widespread opposition and no support from Republicans in the legislature.

  Transgender and Non-Binary Population

  The Williams Institute at the University of California–Los Angeles studied data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and found about 42.7 percent of people in the U.S. who identify as transgender and nonbinary are teenagers or young adults, according to a report released in June 2022.

  Youth ages 3 to 17 currently comprise about 18 percent of the transgender-identified population, up from 10 percent in previous estimates.

  More than 1.6 million adults (18 years and older) and youth (ages 13 to 17) identify as transgender in the United States, or 0.6 percent of those ages 13 and older, the institute reports.

  In California, about 1.93 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds identify as transgender, compared to 0.7 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds, 0.5 percent of 24- to 64-year-olds, and 0.34 percent of people 65 and older. The number of adult Californians who identify as transgender is 150,000 or 0.49 percent of the total state population.

  The Williams Institute research also found the racial composition of people who identify as transgender generally reflects the racial makeup of the general population, though the estimates “mirror prior research that found transgender youth and adults are more likely to report being Latinx and less likely to report being White compared to the U.S. population.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/23/2022 – 21:25

• Sequoia's FTX Mea Culpa Tour Continues
  Sequoia’s FTX Mea Culpa Tour Continues

  The mea culpa tour for Sequoia Capital, who lost $150 million in the FTX blowup, continues. 

  The venture capital firm reportedly apologized to its fund investors yet again last Thursday in a conference call, vowing “to improve its due diligence process for future investments”, Bloomberg wrote this week, citing people familiar with the matter.

  Bloomberg called it a “rare moment of contrition for Sequoia”, who has had a successful track record investing in companies like Apple, Google and Airbnb. 

  

   

  And what a surprise: the firm said that now, post-FTX blowup, it “would be able to push harder to have even early stage startups’ financial statements audited by one of the Big Four accounting firms”, Bloomberg wrote.

  If only someone had thought about due diligence before FTX blew up…

  Regardless, recall that back on November 10, we reported Sequoia had written down the entire value of its stake in FTX, a little over $210 million.

  “We are in the business of taking risk,” Sequoia wrote in a message to investors seen by Bloomberg. “Some investments will surprise to the upside, and some will surprise to the downside.”

  For a larger list of investors that lost money in FTX, consult our November 10, 2022 writeup here. 

  Here is the note we sent to our LPs in GGFIII regarding FTX. pic.twitter.com/Cgp1Yxk1pz

  — Sequoia Capital (@sequoia) November 10, 2022

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

   

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/23/2022 – 21:00

• Top Arizona Election Official Moved To 'Undisclosed Location'
  Top Arizona Election Official Moved To ‘Undisclosed Location’

  Authored by Lorenz Duchamps via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Bill Gates, chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, confirmed that he was moved to an undisclosed location for safety reasons amid security concerns in connection to the 2022 midterm elections.

  While speaking on KTAR News 92.3 FM’s “Arizona’s Morning News” on Nov. 21, Gates noted that the condition hasn’t interfered with his work in the state’s election system.

  “I’m not in hiding … but I’ll put it this way. When the sheriff suggests that I spend the night somewhere else, I do it,” Arizona’s top election official told the station.

  

  Gates was asked on the show to describe what the incident has done to him and his family emotionally, and also if he’s considering leaving public office following threats of violence.

  “I’ve been an elected official since 2009 and here’s the reality: You’re not going to make everyone happy,” he said. “I was elected and was privileged to be reelected by my constituents in 2020 and I’m going to continue to serve.”

  Gates said disruption to his family “has been minimal,” adding that the issue has been “blown out of proportion.” He also underscored that the situation did not have any impact on his official duties.

  “This isn’t about me at all. I’m going to be fine. My family is going to be fine. This is not impacting me doing my work on the election, or generally, any one of the 50 lines of business that we’re in at Maricopa County,” Gates said.

  “Threats of violence should never be normalized, of course, and I am, in particular, more concerned with our elections workers who have been dealing with this … not only here in Maricopa County but, really, nationwide for the past two years,” he added.

  Jason Berry, a Maricopa County spokesperson, told CNN that Gates moved locations after there was a specific threat made against him on an undescribed social media platform. He was under the protection of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and stayed at the undisclosed location for just one night.

  The incident occurred as the state’s most populous county has been criticized after widespread problems with ballot-tabulation equipment were reported on Election Day at approximately 70 of the county’s 223 voting centers.

  A judge in Maricopa County who was asked to adjudicate an emergency motion (pdf) filed by the Republican National Committee (RNC), as well as GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters, said that the GOP did not “have evidence there was a voter who was precluded the right to vote” in connection to the tabulation problems.

  Arizona AG Investigation

  Lake, a candidate backed by former President Donald Trump, criticized the way Maricopa County ran the Nov. 8 elections, proclaiming on Nov. 19 that she will become governor after the office of Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich demanded explanations about Election Day problems in the county.

  

  Meanwhile, Republican Arizona Attorney General candidate Abe Hamadeh is suing his opponent and a slew of election officials over what he alleges were widespread “errors and inaccuracies.”

  Officials in at least 15 counties have “caused the unlawful denial of the franchise to certain qualified electors, erroneously tallied certain ballots, and included for tabulation in the canvass certain illegal votes in connection with the election for the office of Arizona Attorney General,” Abe Hamadeh, the candidate, said in the complaint.

  That includes Maricopa County officials improperly disqualifying ballots cast by people who, as a direct result of poll worker errors, were incorrectly listed as voting previously in the midterm election, Hamadeh added.

  “Immediate judicial intervention is necessary to secure the accuracy of the results of the November 8, 2022 general election, and to ensure that candidate who received the highest number of lawful votes is declared the next Arizona Attorney General,” the complaint states.

  The filing was lodged in Maricopa County court.

  The Arizona attorney general race is headed to a recount, according to Katie Hobbs, the state’s secretary of state, due to the slim margin separating Hamadeh from Democrat candidate Kris Mayes.

  Mayes is leading by just 510 votes out of more than 2.5 million cast, according to an unofficial tally from Hobbs’s office.

  Mayes and Hobbs, who were named as defendants in the new suit, did not respond to requests for comment. A Maricopa County spokesperson did not immediately return an inquiry.

  Problems

  Maricopa County officials have acknowledged problems with tabulation equipment, saying the problem affected 30 percent of all voting centers in the county and an estimated 17,000 ballots.

  On election day the officials said that voters could place their ballots in a secure box to be counted later. Other options included “checking out” of the poll site and casting a ballot at another location, or utilizing an early ballot if one was possessed.

  Both of the latter options required poll workers to properly list the voter as checking out, or leaving the site without casting a ballot, but some workers “were unaware of the process,” the new complaint alleges.

  “This pervasive and systematic error directly and proximately resulted in three recurring scenarios in which qualified electors were unlawfully and unconstitutionally disenfranchised,” it added.

  Hamadeh and the Republican National Committee, which joined in the legal action, say that at least 146 voters who should have been checked out and who later went to another location were required to vote using provisional ballots, which they say will not be counted because the voter was erroneously listed as having already voted.

  At least 273 other voters who should have been checked out utilized early ballots but those ballots will not count because of the same issue, the Republicans said.

  Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates, a Republican, failed to outline the steps voters had to take if they left the sites at which there were problems in a widely-viewed Election Day video that featured officials acknowledging for the first time the issues with tabulators, the complaint noted. He did not mention checking out but merely said people could “go to a nearby voting center.”

  “Chairman Gates’s instructions foreseeably resulted in the disenfranchisement of a significant number of qualified electors who followed his instructions,” it says. “By inducing voters to leave polling locations and then denying-through a consistent and erroneous practice of failing to properly implement ‘check-out’ procedures-these qualified electors their right to duly cast a ballot for tabulation, the Maricopa County Defendants engaged (through their election boards) in cognizable ‘misconduct,’ and wrongfully excluded valid and legally sufficient votes from the canvass line the race for Arizona Attorney General.”

  Other Issues

  Other issues include officials allegedly violating the law when they sought to verify early ballot signatures.

  Officials must, when receiving a mail-in ballot, compare the signature on the envelope containing the ballot with the signature of the voter on record. If the signatures don’t match, the ballot is invalid unless the voter “cures” the problem within three to five days, depending on the type of election.

  A number of the ballot envelopes had mismatched signatures but were still counted because county officials determined the signature matched the signature on a different document other than the registration record, which violates state law, the complaint alleges.

  The issue happened across multiple counties, the Republicans say.

  They also alleged that in the duplication process—triggered when a ballot is too defective to be read by a tabulator—officials incorrectly transcribed some of the selections in the attorney general race, which led to an inaccurate vote count.

  “Arizonans demand answers and deserve transparency about the gross incompetence and mismanagement of the General Election by certain election officials. I will not stop fighting until ALL voters receive justice. See you in court,” Hamadeh said in a statement.

  Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, said that the committee was “proud to join in this legal action.”

  “Maricopa County’s election failures disenfranchised Arizonans,” she said. “We’re going to court to get the answers voters deserve.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/23/2022 – 20:35

• The Rise And Fall Of Global Nuclear Energy?
  The Rise And Fall Of Global Nuclear Energy?

  The global energy crisis brought about by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has increased interest in alternative energy sources, including nuclear, around the world.

  However, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz explains below, the age of nuclear infrastructure, the fact that the technology had entered a phase-out mode in many nations, and the continued resistance to new nuclear projects complicates a quick u-turn for many nuclear programs.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  As seen in data by the World Nuclear Industry Status Report, most nuclear energy programs were started in the 1970s, a fact that reflects in the age of nuclear reactors today. Despite some nuclear programs having ended (and many more scheduled for phase-out), the number of nuclear programs in the world has plateaued for many decades as some nations still take up the technology, most recently the United Arab Emirates and Belarus in 2020. Poland at the end of October announced that it is looking to start using nuclear energy in 2033. Around that time, six other nuclear programs – among them the ones in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Spain – will be scheduled to have shut down, even though this could now be subject to change. Balancing out a dip in nuclear programs could be Italy, which is discussing taking up the technology again under its new right-wing government despite abandoning and even outlawing it after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. More u-turns are possible in Sweden and the Netherlands.

  Some small steps towards nuclear extension are happening in countries known for die-hard opposition to nuclear energy, but they are facing the expected roadblocks. Germany recently extended the ability to use its remaining three reactors until April 2023 among a lively public debate. Originally, the country had planned to shut off all reactors by the end of this year. In Japan, which reduced the number of operating reactors significantly since the Fukushima disaster in 2011, some reactors are approaching 60 years of age – the former lifespan cap that the country might now do away with due to the current circumstances. In Belgium, where mean reactor age is above 40 years, a petition to postpone the September shut-off of one reactor failed, while the government extended the end-of-life of three others from 2023 to 2025 after the invasion of Ukraine and might even run some until 2035.

  Despite the plateau in nuclear energy programs, the relative importance of the technology has still decreased as the capacity of other energy types outgrew nuclear. In 2021, the technology produced less than 10 percent of global electricity, down from a high of 17.4 percent in 1995 and 1996. Looking at all of the world’s energy needs, not just electricity, nuclear contributed just 4.3 percent.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/23/2022 – 20:10

• "Blueprint For Success": DeSantis Credits Florida's Red Wave To Leadership Against "Woke Mind Virus"
  “Blueprint For Success”: DeSantis Credits Florida’s Red Wave To Leadership Against “Woke Mind Virus”

  Authored by Katie Spence via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Nov. 19 acknowledged “underwhelming performances” by Republicans in the midterm elections and contrasted the losses elsewhere with what he called a “true Republican landslide” in Florida.

  “We added four new Republican Congressmen to the U.S. House of Representatives from the state of Florida,” DeSantis told attendees at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas on Saturday.

  “We secured supermajorities in the Florida legislature—the most Republicans we have ever had in Florida’s history.”

  

  At a time when Republicans are questioning what happened to the promised midterm elections’ “red wave” and what to do going forward, DeSantis clearly and elegantly stated that in Florida, Republicans are appealing to freedom, fighting against the “woke mind virus,” and implementing common-sense legislation. As a result, Republicans, Independents, and Democrats voted for a red wave in Florida.

  “We won, by double digits, Miami-Dade County!” DeSantis said of his Republican win in the previously Democrat stronghold.

  He added that if Republicans want to win future elections, they must follow his example in Florida.

  Blueprint to Win

  According to DeSantis, Republicans were successful in Florida’s midterm elections because “Florida really has a blueprint for success.” Specifically, he explained that his “blueprint” includes exercising authentic leadership that doesn’t bend to the shifting whims of society.

  “The job of a leader is not to stick your finger in the wind and try to contort yourself to wherever public opinion may be trending at any given moment. No, the job of a leader is to set out a vision. To execute that vision. To show people that it’s the right vision, and to deliver concrete results. And when you do that, the people respond,” DeSantis stated.

  

  He continued by giving the example that Florida has millions more people than New York, but New York’s budget is “over twice the size of our budget in Florida.” Despite that, DeSantis claimed that when New Yorkers move to Florida, they remark on Florida’s much better roads, services, and infrastructure.

  DeSantis added that in Florida, K-12 schools are performing better than in New York, Florida has a record budget surplus—and it does all of that without a state income tax and one of the lowest tax burdens in the country. He said that the government wants people to succeed in Florida, and they adopt legislation to make that possible and attract people to the state.

  Plus, DeSantis said, in Florida they don’t let red tape and bureaucracy prevent them from getting the job done.

  A Return to Sanity

  Expanding on why he thinks Republicans in his state did well in the midterms, DeSantis said Florida “stood out as the free state” over the past few years. He stated that during the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns, his administration refused to “descend into some type of Faucian dystopia” and instead respected people’s rights.

  That included refusing to force people to close their businesses, keeping schools open, and standing against vaccine mandates. DeSantis added that those decisions resulted in attacks from the mainstream media and government officials worldwide, but his administration stood firm.

  DeSantis went on to say that leadership requires standing against such attacks and said he was happy to take those “arrows” to protect his constituents. He said when people witnessed that, it drew them to Florida because it was a “refuge of sanity.”

  As part of that “refuge of sanity,” DeSantis said Florida chose law and order over rioting and disorder. He said that when riots broke out in 2020, he immediately called out the National Guard to quash them. Then he moved to enact legislation protecting the police and their funding and said that anyone who riots in Florida isn’t getting a “slap on the wrist” but instead gets the “inside of a jail cell.”

  

  DeSantis added that if any prosecutors try to pick and choose which laws to enforce, he immediately removes them from their posts.

  Further, DeSantis said to resounding applause that Florida has chosen “education over indoctrination” and noted that Florida protects parental rights over their children. He said his administration believes parents have a fundamental role in raising their children and, as a result, he’s expanded school scholarships, so parents have more choices in education.

  Pointedly, DeSantis stated that schools are not a place for “ideology” and said Florida banned Critical Race Theory in K-12 schools. He added that in Florida, they don’t teach children to hate themselves or each other and instead teach the history of the United States and what it means to “be an American.” The governor said he wouldn’t allow inappropriate content in elementary school, referencing the gender ideology curriculum.

  All of this, DeSantis said in conclusion, is his administration’s willingness to stand against the “woke mind virus” that’s destroying society. He said people see the insanity of “woke ideology,” his administration’s appeal and return to common sense, and his “courage to lead,” and that’s why Florida experienced a red wave.

  “Guess what? When you stand up for what’s right, when you show people you’re willing to fight for them, they will walk over broken glass barefoot to come vote for you. And that’s exactly what they did for me on Nov. 8 in record numbers,” DeSantis said.

  He finished by saying that people respond to “strong leadership,” and if Republicans want to win going forward, they need to remember that to attract voters from across the political sphere.

  Lost Red Wave

  Before the Nov. 8 election, many political models estimated a red wave of up to 45 House seats because of President Joe Biden’s unpopularity, the struggling economy, and the past precedent of the majority party losing seats in a midterm. That didn’t pan out, however.

  Instead, while Republicans managed to eke out a slim majority in the House, they lost at least one seat in the Senate—the Senate runoff results in Georgia could exacerbate that or return the Senate to a 50-50 split. Consequently, the 2022 midterms were considered a decisive win for Biden and his administration.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/23/2022 – 19:45

• Fired AP Reporter Who 'Risked Triggering WWIII' Actually Did Nothing Wrong
  Fired AP Reporter Who ‘Risked Triggering WWIII’ Actually Did Nothing Wrong

  On Tuesday we reported that the Associated Press had fired reporter James LaPorta, two days before his birthday, over an erroneous report which cited a ‘senior US intelligence official,’ who claimed that a Russian missile fired into Poland had killed two civilians.

  If true, the bombshell development could have potentially triggered ‘Article 5‘ – the mutual defense agreement between NATO members, risking WWIII.

  

  AP later retracted the story after it was revealed that Ukraine fired the missile, and the outlet issued the following correction which pinned blame on the anonymous intelligence official;

  In earlier versions of a story published November 15, 2022, The Associated Press reported erroneously, based on information from a senior American intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity, that Russian missiles had crossed into Poland and killed two people. Subsequent reporting showed that the missiles were Russian-made and most likely fired by Ukraine in defense against a Russian attack.

  Five days after the report, LaPorta was fired. But Slack messages obtained by Semafor reveal that he did nothing wrong – aside from working for AP in the first place.

  The messages begin with LaPorta passing along a tip from a “senior American intelligence official” who was “vetted by Ron Nixon.” Nixon is an Associated Press vice president.

  

  Next, editor Lisa Leff asked if the wire service could run with the narrative despite having a single source – which is against AP‘s rules for anonymous sources.

  “that call is above my pay grade,” LaPorta replied.

  

  Another AP reporter, Vanessa Gera, suggests moving forward with the report, writing, “I can’t imagine a US intelligence official would be wrong on this.“

  

  Leff then asks PaPorta if he is “in position to work up an urgent” – to which he replies, “No, I’m actually at a doctor’s appointment. What I passed is all I know at the moment.”

  

  Then, Gera and Leff decide to run with it.

  

  In short, LaPorta – a former USMC infantryman, was fired after forwarding a tip from a vetted source, and then demurring when asked if he thought they should run with it.

  He has since been ordered not to comment on the situation, saying that he “would love to comment on the record, but I have been ordered by the AP to not comment.” As such, Zero Hedge has not reached out for comment.

  Oddly (or maybe there’s a perfectly good reason for it), journalist John Leichester’s name was also on the byline of the article in question despite being nowhere in the slack conversation – though he wasn’t fired.

  While LaPorta said Nixon had vetted his source, Nixon later said he did not know that the source was being cited for the missile story, according to people who spoke to David Bauder, an Associated Press reporter.

  The Associated Press has taken additional disciplinary action but declined to say against whom that action was taken. There have been no reports of any person besides LaPorta losing a job, including John Leicester, who was also listed on the byline.

  According to Bauder, Leicester was not involved with the anonymously sourced material being placed into the story. –The Epoch Times

  Most importantly, however, who was the anonymous ‘senior US intelligence official’ that fed LaPorta a false narrative which risked WWIII?

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/23/2022 – 19:20

• Federal Court Strikes Down Another Provision Of New York's New Gun Control Law
  Federal Court Strikes Down Another Provision Of New York’s New Gun Control Law

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  I have previously written about how New York has proven time and time again as the gift that keeps on giving for the National Rifle Association (NRA) and gun-rights groups. New York Democrats continue to pass laws that are virtually guaranteed to be struck down and further reinforce Second Amendment rights. The latest provision involves the possible criminal prosecution for possessing a gun on private property if owner has not approved such possession on the premises.

  

  New York Democrats have passed a series of laws that led to catastrophic losses in federal court, including the recent major ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen. This includes openly gaming litigation to the irritation of individual justices.

  After each loss, the same politicians circle the firing squad again and pass the next round of questionable gun limits. New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul promised such legislation within an hour of the release of Bruen.  It passed with the help of a special session in the resumption of this inexorable cycle and has already resulted in court losses. Now there is a new such ruling against the law.

  In New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022), the Supreme Court rejected the prior New York law under the Second Amendment to publicly carry firearms for self-defense. The Court held that New York’s “proper cause” licensing regime unconstitutionally infringed this right. New York responded roughly a week later with Senate Bill S51001 (June 30, 2022, Extraordinary Session). The new law created a target rich environment for new challenges.

  The new decision comes from Judge John Sinatra (W.D.N.Y.) in Christian v. Nigrelli: where the court ruled that the private property exclusion violates the Second Amendment.

  The state might have been able to reinforce an important right of private business owners to exclude guns with a reasonable drafting of the law. Instead, it sought to use the issue to effectively ban guns from “sensitive” and privately owned areas.

  Gov. Kathy Hochul again made the case against her own state in ill-considered comments where she proclaimed that S51001 “makes ‘no carry’ the default for private property” by “establish[ing] that private property owners must expressly allow a person to possess a firearm, rifle, or shotgun on their property[.]” That default is the problem.

  The provision at issue is § 265.01-d:

  Criminal possession of a weapon in a restricted location.

  1. A person is guilty of criminal possession of a weapon in a
  restricted location when such person possesses a firearm, rifle, or shotgun and enters into or remains on or in private property where such person knows or reasonably should know that the owner or lessee of such property has not permitted such possession by clear and conspicuous signage indicating that the carrying of firearms, rifles, or shotguns on their property is permitted or has otherwise given express consent.

  Plaintiff Brett Christian complained that he is:

  “unable to carry firearms on his person throughout the State because of S51001’s designation of private property, even private property open to the public, as “restricted locations.” Christian Dec. ¶¶ 10, 11. Christian brings his firearm with him on private property open to the public, such as weekly visits to gas stations and monthly visits to hardware stores. Christian Dec. ¶ 10. He intended to continue to do so, but for the enactment and enforcement of S51001. Christian Dec. ¶ 10. Moreover, since S51001 bars even “entering” these locations, Plaintiff will need to disable and store his firearms before driving his vehicle or walking into parking lots, which means in some instances, Plaintiff will need to stop carrying for selfdefense before he can get physically close enough to see if any “clear and conspicuous signage” Case 1:22-cv-00695-JLS Document 19-1 Filed 09/28/22 Page 14 of 30 10 exists permitting him to carry. Christian Dec. ¶ 11. Not only does this put Plaintiff at risk of uncomfortable situations with passersby observing him disable and store his firearms, but the fact he has to constantly disarm greatly reduces his ability to defend himself throughout the State. Christian Dec. ¶¶ 11, 12.”

  The court found a sufficient injury and a substantial likelihood of prevailing on the constitutional violation.

  “In sum, the vast majority of land in New York is held privately, and it encompasses homes, stores, businesses, factories, vacant land, hotels, parking lots and garages, grocery stores, pharmacies, medical offices, hospitals, cemeteries, malls, sports and entertainment venues, and so on. These are places that people exercising their rights, frequent every day when they move around outside their homes. The exclusion here makes all of these places presumptively off limits, backed up the by the threat of prison. The Nation’s historical traditions have not  countenanced such an incursion into the right to keep and bear arms across all varieties of private property spread across the land. The right to self-defense is no less important and no less recognized on private property.”

  Unfortunately, there is no evidence that New York is committed to ending its historical use of a circular firing squad on Second Amendment rights. Hochul used the law to rally support from voters despite this likely outcome. It is all crushingly predictable. Hochul won the election and yet another provision in the law was found unconstitutional. As a result, New Yorkers have once again strengthened Second Amendment precedent in support of gun rights.

  There is the opinion granting the preliminary injunction: Christian v. Nigrelli

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/23/2022 – 18:55

• Beyond Disgusting: Former Beyond Meat Employee Shares Photos, Docs, That Appear To Show Mold, Dirty Conditions
  Beyond Disgusting: Former Beyond Meat Employee Shares Photos, Docs, That Appear To Show Mold, Dirty Conditions

  So much for skipping out on meat to get healthier…

  One of Beyond Meat’s “key” factories was “reportedly riddled with mold, bacteria and other health-related concerns”, the NY Post reported this week, citing evidence that was obtained from a former employee. 

  Leaked internal documents showed that the plant “tested positive for the harmful bacteria Listeria at least 11 times in the second half of 2021”. Both photographs and documents were provided by the former employee, who said they were “worried” about the conditions at the plant.

  

  Two other workers at the plant, which is located about an hour from Philadelphia, confirmed that Listeria had been found on the site. 

  Additional documents showed that contaminants like “string, metal, wood and plastic” had all been found in products that were produced at the plant as recently as last December. 

  Photographs posted by Bloomberg, who produced the original report, appear to show dirty conditions and mold. Bill Marler, a food-safety attorney, after viewing some of the photos, told Bloomberg: “Mold growth takes a while — that underscores a lack of cleanliness.”

  

  The company pushed back on the claims, however, telling Bloomberg that two inspections this year by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture had “found no instances of nonconformance with regulations.”

  But one spokesperson from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture said that one of those two visits, performed in September, wasn’t a “complete plant inspection”. Instead, they called it an “effort to address an unpaid registration fee, which has since been paid.”

  The spokesperson said that the company’s standards “go above and beyond industry and regulatory standards”.

  “External third-party audits, including our most recent third-party audit in May 2022, gave the plant the highest-possible rating in each of the last three years,” the company concluded.

  So, who are you we to believe – the company, or our own lyin’ eyes?

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/23/2022 – 18:30

• Billionaire Mike Bloomberg Begs Forgiveness For BoJo Speech Bashing Beijing
  Billionaire Mike Bloomberg Begs Forgiveness For BoJo Speech Bashing Beijing

  Authored by Dorothy Li via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Michael Bloomberg, chair of the Pentagon’s advisory panel, apologized to attendees at an economic forum hosted by his company after former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s speech that singled out the communist Chinese regime.

  

  Bloomberg issued the apology on Nov. 17 at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum hosted by his corporation in partnership with the Singapore government.

  “Some may have been insulted or offended last night by parts of the speaker’s remarks referencing certain countries and their duly elected leaders,” Reuters reported Bloomberg said.

  “Those were his thoughts and his thoughts alone, not cleared in advance by anyone or shared with me personally,” Bloomberg told the conference, referring to Johnson’s remarks.

  “To those of you who were upset and concerned by what the speaker said, you have my apologies,” he added.

  According to the version released by Johnson’s spokesperson, the former prime minister described China and Russia as “two former communist tyrannies” to the gathering of business leaders, academics, and government officials from dozens of countries.

  “Let’s look at Russia and China. The two former communist tyrannies in which power has once again been concentrated in the hands of a single rule, two monocultural states that have been traditionally hostile to immigration and that are becoming increasingly nationalist in their attitudes,” Johnson said, according to his spokesman.

  Johnson said China and Russia “are willing to show a candid disregard for the rule of international law, and two countries that in the last year have demonstrated the immense limitations of their political systems by the disastrous mistakes they have made.”

  The spokesperson said Johnson’s criticism was only against the Chinese authorities, not the country or Chinese people.

  

  The Epoch Times reached out to Bloomberg LP for comment.

  Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, didn’t specify whether his apologies were for the Chinese people or the communist regime.

  The billionaire has previously landed in the headlines for defending the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In 2019, the entrepreneur said the party’s top leader Xi Jinping “is not a dictator.”

  “The Communist Party wants to stay in power in China, and they listen to the public … Xi Jinping is not a dictator. He has to satisfy his constituents, or he’s not going to survive,” Bloomberg said in a television interview with Firing Line in September 2019.

  Bloomberg was asked several times about his comment when he ran for U.S. president in 2020, and the former New York mayor avoided pinning the label of “dictator” on Xi.

  Xi has become the country’s most powerful leader since the first ruler Mao Zedong. Last month, Xi secured a record-breaking third term in office and installed allies in the Party’s top decision-making body during the 20th National Congress, further tightening his grip over the party and the country.

  In the opening remarks at the conference last Thursday, Bloomberg praised China’s vice chairman Wang Qishan, who attended via video link, as a “troubleshooter” and “problem solver.” The billionaire noted he met Wang almost two decades ago, when Bloomberg served as mayor of New York and Wang was mayor of Beijing.

  Bloomberg’s apology raised concern among activists who pointed to his position in the U.S. Department of Defense.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/23/2022 – 18:05

• Thanksgiving Dinner Cost Soars 20% From 2021, Biden Admin Blames Climate Change & Putin
  Thanksgiving Dinner Cost Soars 20% From 2021, Biden Admin Blames Climate Change & Putin

  While spending time with family and friends at Thanksgiving remains important for many Americans, the cost of that indulgence has never been higher, up a stunning 20% from last year to $64.05 for the classic feast.

  

  The cost for the classic meal was the most affordable in the South – $58.42, followed by the Northeast – $64.02, Midwest – $64.26 and West – $71.37.

  “General inflation slashing the purchasing power of consumers is a significant factor contributing to the increase in average cost of this year’s Thanksgiving dinner,” said AFBF Chief Economist Roger Cryan.

  “Farmers are working hard to meet growing demands for food – both here in the U.S. and globally – while facing rising prices for fuel, fertilizer and other inputs,” said Cryan.

  Over the past two years, the grocery bill for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner has risen by 36.6%. All these changes are illustrated in the following chart from PoliticalCalculations blog:

  

  In the chart, we’ve ranked the cost of the individual items and groupings used by the Farm Bureau for their traditional turkey dinner menu from high to low according to their 2021 cost as you read from left to right. We’ve also tallied the cumulative cost of the meal, with the totals for each shown on the far right side of the chart.

  Ranking the data this way lets us see that the increase in the cost of turkey is once again responsible for most of the year-over-year increase in the cost of the meal. Here we see the cost of a 16-pound bird rose by 20.7% to $28.96 in 2022. This single item alone accounts for over 46% of the year-over-year increase in the total cost for the meal. Since 2020, the cost of turkey has increased by $9.57, making up 56% of the realized increase in Thanksgiving dinner ingredient costs over that time.

  Meanwhile, only the price of cranberries fell compared to last year, dropping by 13.8%. Every other Thanksgiving dinner items increased in cost during 2022.

  Among those items, a 1-pound veggie tray of carrots and celery registered the smallest year-over-year price increase of 7.3%. Every other item’s cost was up significantly, recording double-digit year-over-year price increases ranging from a low of 11.2% for sweet potatoes to a high of 69.4% for a 14-ounce package of cubed bread stuffing.

  During the last ten years, the cost of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner held steady within a relatively narrow range between $46.90 (2020) and $50.11 (2015). Thanks to the cumulative effect of President Biden’s inflation, celebrating Thanksgiving with a traditional turkey dinner has never been more costly for Americans.

  

  Of course, the Biden administration was quick to ascribe blame for this record surge in the cost of Americans’ most traditional meal.

  A USDA memo this month said turkey prices will be higher because of this year’s outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), which led to the death of 8 million turkeys in 2022. But USDA also said “Russia’s war on Ukraine and drought across the United States” are other factors that are “pushing up the price of Thanksgiving staples.”

  USDA told Fox News Digital that both the COVID pandemic and “Putin’s Price Hike” have boosted food prices around the world, and said Russia’s move against Ukraine cut off a “critical supply” of wheat, corn, barley and other grain. Russia’s war in Ukraine plus the pandemic have putt “pressure on food prices,” USDA said.

  As a reminder, a year ago, the St.Louis Fed offered this little beauty of a tweet, suggesting Americans switch from Turkey to Tofurkey to save some cash…

  As of the third quarter of 2021, a hearty Thanksgiving dinner serving of turkey costs $1.42.

  A tofurkey (soybean) dinner serving with the same amount of calories costs $0.66 and provides almost twice as much protein.

  

  Keep in mind that this plant-based meal would be almost 3 times larger by weight than the poultry-based meal and may either keep you at the dinner table longer or provide you with more leftovers.

  Remind us again who was responsible for soaring poultry and soybean prices back then?

  Spot the turkey…

  

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/23/2022 – 17:40

• Why Isn't Sam Bankman-Fried In Handcuffs Yet?
  Why Isn’t Sam Bankman-Fried In Handcuffs Yet?

  Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

  To be honest, it’s kind of hard to try and entertain the innuendo and rumors that Democrats and the media are working to do damage control on behalf of Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, because the idea is just so reprehensible.

  But they sure do keep giving us ammunition to make that suggestion, don’t they?

  

  Bankman-Fried and House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters

  Bankman-Fried – the second biggest donor to Democrats behind George Soros – has all but admitted that he squandered billions of dollars of other people’s money carelessly, writing “I fucked up” on Twitter in a mea culpa about two weeks ago, days after a run on his exchange exposed it to be a shell of what many perceived it to be.

  Institutional investors in FTX have written their stakes in the firm to $0.

  

  The $5 billion bank-run on FTX that started it all has many everyday crypto investors worried that their “investments” with FTX are total losses. For many, it was their life savings.

  Since then, Bankman-Fried’s former company continues to be at the center of extremely shady circumstances. It has seen a “substantial amount” of its assets go missing in the days after its blowup.

  The lawyer hired to oversee the liquidation of FTX, who also was in charge of the same task for Enron, has said “he’s never seen a company in worse shape than FTX.”

  “I have over 40 years of legal and restructuring experience. I have been the chief restructuring officer or chief executive officer in several of the largest corporate failures in history. . . . Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here.”

  ---

  Get 50% off: If you enjoy this article, would like to support my work, I would love to have you as a subscriber and can offer you 50% off for life: Get 50% off forever

  ---

  To add insult to injury, Bankman-Fried has also admitted that his entire persona of being an altruist was a ruse, calling it a “dumb game we woke westerners play.”

  Now widely accepted by the public and most in the financial industry to have committed a massive $30 billion fraud that has spawned innumerable comparisons to Madoff and Enron, it’s unclear to me what more of an admission of guilt is needed to extradite Bankman-Fried to the United States and place him under arrest.

  I know I’m not the only one who can hear the drumbeat of potentially covering up for Bankman-Fried beating a little louder with every day that goes by and he isn’t shown being paraded off somewhere in handcuffs.

  Instead, the only photo I have seen of Bankman-Fried since his firm’s blowup has been one of him meandering around a grocery store in the Bahamas.

  

  ---

  For historical reference, Bernie Madoff was arrested on December 11, 2008.

  On December 11, 2008, financier Bernard Madoff is arrested at his New York City apartment and charged with masterminding a long-running Ponzi scheme later estimated to involve around $65 billion, making it one of the biggest investment frauds in Wall Street history.

  His arrest came two days after he admitted to his brother that he was running a fraud.

  “On December 3, he told longtime assistant Frank DiPascali, who had overseen the fraudulent advisory business, that he was finished. On December 9, he told his brother Peter about the fraud.”

  Between the beginning of December and his arrest on the 11th, he also confessed to his sons, who “turned him in”.

  This means, at the maximum, it was 11 days between Madoff being “turned in” and being arrested.

  For reference, FTX collapsed around November 8, 2022 and Binance turned down the company’s bailout on November 9, 2022. Bankman-Fried admitted to “fucking up” on November 10, 2022 and FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11, 2022, which means it has already been 11 days since the bankruptcy filing – and nearly 2 weeks since the firm’s collapse.

  In the interim, instead of Bankman-Fried being brought to justice in the United States, we find out that “members of the House are requesting testimonies from Bankman-Fried, top executives from FTX and Alameda at a hearing in December.”

  “The fall of FTX has posed tremendous harm to over one million users, many of whom were everyday people who invested their hard-earned savings into the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, only to watch it all disappear within a matter of seconds.

  Unfortunately, this event is just one out of many examples of cryptocurrency platforms that have collapsed just this past year. That’s why it is with great urgency that I, along with my colleague ranking member McHenry, announce the Committee’s intention to hold a hearing to investigate the collapse of FTX.”

  Rep. Maxine Waters

  Not at a criminal court – at a congressional hearing. Not anytime soon – in December.

  In the interim, we are being treated to a cushy response from the media, who has hailed Bankman-Fried as anything other than a criminal. The New York Times wrote a widely criticized puff piece on Bankman-Fried 3 days after FTX filed for bankruptcy.

  The Washington Post’s take was that he was a pandemic fighter:

  

  ---

  For a party that seems to absolutely loathe billionaires, Democrats and their friends in the media sure are taking it soft on Bankman-Fried.

  Key democrats also took it soft on Theranos founder and former billionaire Elizabeth Holmes. After she drove an $8 billion fraud into the ground and was found guilty in a court of law, Democrat Cory Booker even wrote a letter pleading for a light sentence for her. Try to keep your lunch down while reading this:

  

  Now, what do these two frauds have in common?

  

  —

  Thank you for reading QTR’s Fringe Finance. This post is public so feel free to share it.: Share

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/23/2022 – 17:15

• US Unveils $400M More In Weapons, Generators For Ukraine
  US Unveils $400M More In Weapons, Generators For Ukraine

  The White House has unveiled another $400 million in defense aid to Ukraine, which is also to include urgently needed generators as the national energy grid has been severely degraded by Russian airstrikes, leaving at least 10 million people without power. 

  This brings military aid committed thus far to more than $19 billion in weapons. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Wednesday in a statement, “Pursuant to a delegation of authority from the President, today I am authorizing our twenty-sixth drawdown of U.S. arms and equipment for Ukraine since August 2021. This $400 million drawdown includes additional arms, munitions, and air defense equipment from U.S. Department of Defense inventories.” 

  “This drawdown will bring the total U.S. military assistance for Ukraine to an unprecedented level of approximately $19.7 billion, since the beginning of the Administration,” the statement continued.

  

  Blinken underscored that the US coordinated the new aid with partner nations, “including the £50 million in air defense systems offered by UK Prime Minister Sunak,” according to the State Dept. readout.

  Meanwhile, there remain growing concerns over the US and Western partners greatly depleting their own stockpiles, as The Independent observes: 

  The continued push of weapons to Kyiv is raising questions about how long the U.S. and partner nations can continue to sustain the fight without an impact to military readiness. Many European nations have already expressed that they have pushed forward all the excess they can afford to send.

  The White House push for more defense aid comes as the administration grows nervous about GOP objections. “The flow of weapons comes as the Biden administrations seeks to pass an additional $37 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine during the post-election session of Congress, before Republicans take over control of the House in January,” The Independent writes.

  The Pentagon has lately emphasized it is prioritizing getting the Ukrainians ready for the harsh winter months. There’s also a push to keep providing advanced anti-air systems to protect against attacks on the electricity stations and facilities…

  Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says the 2 NASAMS air-defense systems provided to Ukraine by the US have “a 100% success rate” against Russian missiles thus far. Delivery was this month. (Remarks from the start of another meeting of Ukraine’s partners to source arms for the war.) pic.twitter.com/rhIgXIRzIk

  — Andrew deGrandpré (@adegrandpre) November 16, 2022

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  Currently an estimated half the national electricity grid has been degraded or destroyed due to repeat waves of Russian airstrikes. Parts of the capital on Wednesday were even said to lack water, which emergency services are working hard to restore.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/23/2022 – 16:50

• Howls Of Outrage After New York Times Confirms SBF To Speak Alongside Zelenskyy, Yellen
  Howls Of Outrage After New York Times Confirms SBF To Speak Alongside Zelenskyy, Yellen

  As we discussed last night, Sam Bankman-Fried has now demonstrated that he is both a pathological liar and a sociopath, the kind who in “explaining” to his employees how he stole billions (over $4 billion according to new FTX CEO John J. Ray) from the now bankrupt FTX, an act which left it insolvent and without liquidity, called it “loans” which were “generally” not used for “large amounts of personal consumption” (just “small amounts” used for such trivial items as $40 million penthouses and private jets).

  

  And the only reason we don’t officially call him a criminal just yet, is because he has not yet confirmed he used client money from his exchange to fund his personal hedge fund, an act which would cost any other individual decades in jail… but not prominent democrats like SBF or Jon Corzine, of course. Plus it’s the US legal system’s job to do that, not ours. Although we are growing increasingly skeptical this prominent Democratic donor will ever see the inside of a courtroom.

  It’s not just us: with much of the entire world demanding to know how this corpulent 30-year-old still has not been thrown in prison, or at least charged with a variety of crimes, the NYT just confirmed to the entire world what a farce the one-time paper of record has become, and how it is willing to whore itself out for clicks – not to mention prominent Democrat donors – because moments after SBF tweeted that he will be speaking with Andrew Ross-Sorkin moderated NYT “summit” on Nov 30…

  I’ll be speaking with @andrewrsorkin at the @dealbook summit next Wednesday (11/30). https://t.co/QocjPtCVvC

  — SBF (@SBF_FTX) November 23, 2022

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

  … Sorkin quickly confirmed as much.

  A lot of folks have been asking if I would still be interviewing @SBF_FTX at the @nytimes @dealbook Summit on Nov 30…

  The answer is yes. 👇

  There are a lot of important questions to be asked and answered.

  Nothing is off limits.

  Looking forward to it… https://t.co/lShAqXLKGS

  — Andrew Ross Sorkin (@andrewrsorkin) November 23, 2022

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  And so, instead of being under arrest, SBF will instead be treated like a luminary alongside other such other Democrat icons as Zelenskyy (who according to some may have been intimately familiar with FTX fund flows in the past year) and of course the woman who along with Ben Bernanke and Jerome Powell, made it all possible by blowing the biggest asset bubble of all time: Janet Yellen.

  And while we are certain that the NYT – which we assume is done writing puff pieces on behalf of SBF after it became a laughing stock last week – would be quick to mercilessly cancel and expel from its “prestigious” conference anyone who had misgendered some post-op transsexual, it is willing to give this thieving pathological liar and sociopath a forum in which to profess his innocence to the entire world, and by association with other Democrat “celebrities” such as this one…

  

  …  to boost his standing within a legal system that is clearly as much as joke as the venue that he will be sharing with the following individuals:

  

  Here are all the other “top business and policy leaders” at the NYT whitewashing summit:

  • Eric Adams, New York City mayor
  • Ben Affleck, Artists Equity C.E.O.
  • Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX founder
  • Gerry Cardinale, RedBird Capital Partners founder, managing partner and C.I.O.
  • Shou Chew, TikTok C.E.O.
  • Larry Fink, BlackRock chairman and C.E.O.
  • Reed Hastings, Netflix founder and co-C.E.O.
  • Andy Jassy, Amazon president and C.E.O.
  • Van Jones, CNN host, author and Dream.Org founder
  • Scarlett Lewis, Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement founder and mother of Sandy Hook shooting victim, Jesse
  • Mike Pence, 48th vice president of the United States and author of “So Help Me God”
  • Benjamin Netanyahu, former Prime Minister of Israel, current leader of the Likud party
  • Priscilla Sims Brown, Amalgamated Bank president and C.E.O.
  • Secretary Janet L. Yellen, U.S. Department of the Treasury
  • President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine
  • Mark Zuckerberg, Meta founder, chairman and C.E.O.

  The shocked, stunned and simply disgusted reactions are still coming in:

  “SBF needs to go to jail!”

  The New York Times: pic.twitter.com/ynSzdFdl0Q

  — Dr. Parik Patel, BA, CFA, ACCA Esq. (@ParikPatelCFA) November 23, 2022

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  The @nytimes event right? Makes sense. 😂😂😂 https://t.co/mgMhc0YNrA

  — Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) November 23, 2022

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  I’ll be speaking with @SBF_FTX at the @dealbook summit next Wednesday (11/30) by hiding in one of the bathroom stalls and surprising him while he’s using the urinal.

  What questions should I ask him?

  — davis 🐺🦊 (@basedkarbon) November 23, 2022

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  How did this dude steal billions of dollars and is now speaking at a summit as a free man?

  Make it make sense.

  — Chairman (@WSBChairman) November 23, 2022

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

  let’s hop on a spaces right now.
  Just me and you, 1 on 1.

  — Bitcoin Archive 🗄🚀🌔 (@BTC_Archive) November 23, 2022

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

  That CNBC, the NY Times and far-left extremist Andrew Sorkin would be protecting, apologizing for and promoting this guy is zero surprise. https://t.co/xhGh0gePV0

  — John Tuld (@BradHuston) November 23, 2022

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  FTX SBF is scheduled to speak at a @nytimes business summit with Andrew Sorkin, after defrauding clients billions of dollars. More proof that paid off politicians grant you amnesty.

  — TaraBull (@TaraBull808) November 23, 2022

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  SORKIN: “Internet trolls are scapegoating Sam, but we should celebrate entrepreneurs even when they fail. There’s nothing illegal about taking big risks.” https://t.co/mB9KkFsRdt pic.twitter.com/FKyTtdsfl9

  — Bitcoin is Saving (@BitcoinIsSaving) November 23, 2022

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  My theory is that Andrew Sorkin is a sensible guy disgusted by the ruling class who tries to insult it by showing how bad it’s leading figures are. He’s surprised no one gets it but at least he makes a lot of money until that happens. https://t.co/ii9pGTz3R0

  — P.C. Outsider (@PhilOutsider) November 23, 2022

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  PERFECT—ANDREW ROSS SORKIN IS MORE FULL OF SHIT THAN SAM IS. https://t.co/Y5PsRaRgVu

  — INVESTMENT HULK (@INVESTMENTSHULK) November 23, 2022

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  “So, what’s your favorite color lol”

  — litquidity (@litcapital) November 23, 2022

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  Damage control is in overdrive. We can’t be the only ones observing this? This is outrageous. https://t.co/OCTOMeOY3D

  — Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) November 23, 2022

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  “This can’t get any worse!”

  Universe: “LOL, watch me!”

  — Helin ULKER (@beautyofhelin) November 23, 2022

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  Hey @andrewrsorkin, can you also please invite AG Merrick Garland to the summit: we’d love to see him shake hands with SBF https://t.co/twLcOLQUtP

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 23, 2022

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

  When SBF flies safely back to the Bahamas after attending the @dealbook summit pic.twitter.com/qgYCyQMlUA

  — Ramp Capital (@RampCapitalLLC) November 23, 2022

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  Is this really still happening @nytimes?

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2022

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  In 2008, Bernie Madoff was arrested within 24 hours of his fraud being revealed.

  In 2022, Sam Bankman-Fried will be attending the NYTimes dealbook summit after his fraud was revealed.

  — Fintwit (@fintwit_news) November 23, 2022

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

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/23/2022 – 16:22

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• SBF Issues Another Rambling Apology And "Description Of What Happened", Comes Off As Disturbed Sociopath
  SBF Issues Another Rambling Apology And “Description Of What Happened”, Comes Off As Disturbed Sociopath

  He just can’t help himself: disgraced sociopath, record-breaking fraudster and prolific Democratic donor – not necessarily in that order – Sam Bankman-Fried, has issued another apology to his staff in a letter that outlined a crash in “collateral” to less than $9 billion from $60 billion.

  “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, and I would give anything to be able to go back and do things over again,” the corpulent 30-year-old who may or may not be in the Bahamas apologized yet again in the message sent to employees Tuesday, although he really should be apologizing to the millions of clients whom he wiped out. Alas, like the recurrent ramblings of a psychopath, Sam’s takeaway was that the implosion at FTX was the side-effect of an unfortunate bank run, and had nothing to do with SBF’s actions; that’s because SBF still refuses to take any responsibility for what happened and makes zero admission that the factors that led to this historic bankruptcy were in his control all along. Sam claims that he didn’t “realize the magnitude of risk.” His main remorse – like that of any pathological individual – is that he got caught.

  Still don’t believe us he was a sociopath? Read this:

  I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, and I would give anything to be able to go back and do things over again. You were my family. I’ve lost that, and our old home is an empty warehouse of monitors. When I turn around, there’s no one left to talk to. I disappointed all of you, and when things broke down I failed to communicate. I froze up in the face of pressure and leaks and the Binance LOI and said nothing. I lost track of the most important things in the commotion of company growth. I care deeply about you all, and you were my family, and I’m sorry.

  No he isn’t, and if it wasn’t his fault, whose fault was it? Well, as he “describes” the sequence of events, you see it was all the market’s fault as a slide in digital-asset markets in spring roughly halved collateral from $60 billion to $30 billion, while liabilities were $2 billion. A combination of a credit squeeze, a further selloff in virtual coins and a “run on the bank” left collateral at $9 billion ahead of FTX’s Nov. 11 bankruptcy, he wrote. The estimate for liabilities had reached $8 billion by then. Here is how, in his words, what was initially a $58 billion overcollateralized balance sheet ended up having more liabilities than assets.

  

  “I did not realize the full extent of the margin position, nor did I realize the magnitude of the risk posed by a hyper-correlated crash,” Bankman-Fried said. He didn’t give exact details on the makeup of the collateral or the liabilities. If he did, it would look something like this chart from Morgan Stanley:

  

  What happens next is what any sniveling sociopath posing as a CEO would say: I had no idea any of this could happen:

  I did not realize the full extent of the margin position, nor did I realize the magnitude of the risk posed by a hyper-correlated crash.

  And it is here, that we get the first admission that something nefarious happened: i.e., loans  – to related parties, such as the $4 billion “given” from FTX to SBF – and the “secondary sales” which we now knows SBF pocketed some $300 million for personal use.

  The loans and secondary sales were generally used to reinvest in the business—including buying out Binance—and not for large amounts of personal consumption.

  And so, ladies and gents of the jury, would you consider a $40 million penthouse to be a “large amount of personal consumption.” And what about a private jet: in this day and age everyone needs one, how can one possibly define that as “large amount of personal consumption.” As for the meaning of “generally”, we are confident SBF’s close buddy Bill Clinton will give him the proper definition of that word.

  

  Prudently, there was zero mention in Sam’s meandering word salad that FTX had illegally commingled and sent billions in customer funds to SBF’s personal hedge fund, Alameda, which despite frontrunning virtually every crypto transaction still lost $3.7 billion before 2022. That’s ok, Sam can discuss that in court.

  There was, however, the usual lies, including SBF’s increasingly warped representation of reality, which is to be expected: as noted above, he is after all, a sociopath.

  We likely could have raised significant funding; potential interest in billions of dollars of funding came in roughly eight minutes after I signed the Chapter 11 docs. Between those funds, the billions of dollars of collateral the company still held, and the interest we’d received from other parties, I think that we probably could have returned large value to customers and saved the business.

  Narrator: none of this happened, and none of this will happen either:

  Maybe there still is a chance to save the company. I believe that there are billions of dollars of genuine interest from new investors that could go to making customers whole. But I can’t promise you that anything will happen, because it’s not my choice.

  That’s right: it is now all in the hands of the person who presided over the Enron bankruptcy and who thinks your fraud is way worse.

  And speaking of fraud, there was one sentence in the whole letter where this pathological liar may have told the truth, if inadvertently:

  … None of this changes the fact that this all sucks for you guys, and it’s not your fault, and I’m really sorry about that. I’m going to do what I can to make it up to you guys—and to the customers—even if that takes the rest of my life. But I’m worried that even then I won’t be able to.

  No, you won’t be able to, but when it comes to “the rest of your life”, both the “guys” and the customers who you left with nothing because of your infinite greed, fraud and incompetence, they all have an idea where you can spend it.

  Whether or not that happens will depend on just how broken the US legal system is, where a few million in donations to prominent democrats may be all it takes to get a lifetime “get out of jail” card.

  SBF’s full letter to his now former employees is below

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 23:20

• Sperm Count Among Men Has Dropped 60 Percent Globally Over Past 45 Years: Study
  Sperm Count Among Men Has Dropped 60 Percent Globally Over Past 45 Years: Study

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Sperm counts worldwide have halved over the past 45 years, according to a study published on Nov. 15 in the journal Human Reproduction Update.

  

  The study was conducted by an international team of researchers led by professor Hagai Levine of Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Hadassah Braun School of Public Health.

  They aimed to examine trends in sperm count among men from all continents and analyzed 223 studies based on sperm samples taken from over 57,000 men across 53 countries including the United States, Europe, and Australia between 1973 to 2018.

  Previously, a 2017 study conducted by the same team of researchers reviewed sperm count data in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. The new analysis updates that review to include data from Central and South America, Asia, and Africa for the first time.

  Researchers in the latest study found an “appreciable decline” in sperm count during that time period.

  Specifically, researchers found that men in South America, Asia, and Africa shared a similar decline in total sperm counts and concentration as was previously observed in their study concentrated across Europe, North America, and Australia.

  Sperm Counts Fall Over 62 Percent

  Overall, results showed the mean sperm count fell by 51.6 percent between 1973 and 2018 across men from all continents, dropping on average by 1.2 percent per year from an estimated 101.2 million per milliliter to 49 million per milliliter from 1973 through 2018.

  Total sperm counts fell by 62.3 percent during the same period.

  Men are considered to have a low sperm count if they have less than 15 million sperm per milliliter or less than 39 million sperm total per ejaculate, according to the Mayo Clinic.

  Additionally, they found that data from the year 2000 showed a decline in sperm concentrations of more than 2.6 percent per year, doubling compared to the previous decline of 1.16 percent annually from 1972.

  Researchers said the “substantial and persistent decline is now recognized as a significant public health concern” and that further research on the causes of the decline is urgently needed to prevent further disruption of male reproductive health.

  “We hope that the new evidence provided here will receive attention not only from clinicians and scientists but also from decision-makers and the general public,” the researchers wrote.

  Men who suffered from infertility were excluded from the study.

  Researchers did note limitations to their study, however, including how the data was collected and reported as standards and methods for counting sperm have changed markedly over time. That makes it harder to compare the latest sperm counts to historical data. Additionally, researchers noted that complete elimination of all selection/recruitment bias was impossible because they were not able to collect semen samples at random.

  ‘Not a Cause for Panic’

  “I think this is another signal that something is wrong with the globe and that we need to do something about it. So yes, I think it’s a crisis, that we [had] better tackle now, before it may reach a tipping point which may not be reversible,” Levine, the leading author of the research, told The Guardian.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 23:00

• Russia Threatens To Slash Gas Exports Over Ukraine Theft Of Moldova Supplies
  Russia Threatens To Slash Gas Exports Over Ukraine Theft Of Moldova Supplies

  Russia’s energy giant Gazprom on Tuesday accused Ukraine of stealing natural gas supplies intended for Moldova by siphoning it off during transit. Gazprom is now threatening to halt deliveries via the key the Sudzha route. 

  “The volume of gas supplied by Gazprom to the ‘Sudzha’ gas measuring station (GMS) for transit to Moldova via Ukraine exceeds the physical volume transmitted at the border of Ukraine with Moldova,” Gazprom’s statement said.

  

  The allegation further specified that the Ukrainian government stole 52.52 million cubic meters of gas which was intended for Moldova. Gazprom said that amount of gas never left Ukraine’s territory while in transit.

  According to the fresh statement as presented in state media: 

  The Russian energy company further warned that if the transit imbalance persists then it would begin slashing gas supply to the Sudzha GMS for transit via Ukraine from 10 am (7am GMT) on November 28, “in the amount of the daily underderlivery.”

  Ukraine has a sprawling network of natgas transmission pipelines from Russia that feed into Europe, which now ironically enough remain the only key supply route to western and central European countries following the Nord Stream sabotage blasts. 

  Despite the raging war which has been on for nine months, some 42 million cubic metres (mcm) per day still transits through Ukraine via the Sudzha route.

  Gas inflow for transit from Russia to Europe in Ukraine from February 1 to November 14, 2022, by entry point(in million cubic meters):

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Moldova is very heavily dependent on Russia for its energy supplies, and has been suffering rolling blackouts of late. On Monday donor countries gathered in Paris where they pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to help salvage Moldova’s energy infrastructure, and to prevent political destabilization at such a sensitive time. Moldova has recently applied for EU membership.

  Western officials have long accused Russia of seeking to takeover Moldova amid its “special operation” in Ukraine. International media has tended to blame tiny Moldova’s energy woes on Moscow and its ‘weaponizing’ energy.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 22:40

• The US Pledges "Climate Reparations" To Other Countries While Americans Freeze And Become Homeless
  The US Pledges “Climate Reparations” To Other Countries While Americans Freeze And Become Homeless

  Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

  More people than ever are facing dire circumstances, and we’re just getting started with this economic disaster. And what is our government doing?

  Why, they’re giving our money away.

  To other countries, no less.

  

  The U.S. government agreed to pay “climate reparations.”

  But the plight of our own countrymen seems to be less important than those in other countries affected by climate change. The United States has just agreed to pay up to a billion dollars to poor countries for “climate reparations.” As per an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal:

  The use of climate policy to soak Americans keeps getting worse, and the United Nation’s climate conference in Egypt ended this weekend with agreement on a new fund to pay reparations to poor countries. Welcome to the latest climate shakedown.

  The 2015 Paris accord suggested rich countries compensate poor countries for climate damage—the rationale being that industrialization has increased temperatures and led to natural disasters. Poor countries finally forced discussion of a formal mechanism to pay climate reparations onto this year’s U.N. conference agenda.

  …on Thursday Europe abandoned the U.S. by proposing a deal, and Mr. Kerry rolled over.

  Wealthy countries will now set up a fund to cover climate damage for the least developed countries—i.e., not China or middle-income nations. This will be financed from “a broad donor base” and “mosaic of solutions,” such as international development banks and taxes on aviation, shipping and fossil fuels.

  Some reports suggest that the US will be on the hook for up to a billion dollars. In October, it was reported that the total amount due would be $4.3 trillion.

  That’s the sum the US and other major carbon polluters will face at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt next month.

  Well, other polluters except for China.

  China is not contributing jack sh*t. It’s essential to note that out of all the polluters in the world, China is the worst offender, creating 30% of the world’s carbon emissions.

  Yet, they’re exempt from this outrageous bill. Not one thin dime shall they pay. I’m not a fan of China’s dystopian policies and government, but at least they aren’t causing shortages and suffering in their own country in order to virtue signal how green they are.

  In the end, it’s just the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Says the WSJ:

  Countries might also shake down U.S. fossil-fuel producers in their own courts. Climate reparations will merely serve as another form of global income redistribution. The Biden Administration’s surrender shows again that the religion of climate change is progressive penance for the sin of being prosperous.

  In doing this, they ignore the plight of everyday Americans who can’t afford to run their heat or keep their homes.

  Meanwhile, Americans are truly suffering.

  We’ve repeatedly discussed the effects our current economic crisis is having on Americans. We talked about how they’re skipping meals and how they can’t afford medical care. We’ve been warning for years that they are struggling to meet their most basic needs. We live in a nation that destroyed itself during the Covid pandemic and has left its people hanging out to dry, with no jobs, no money, and no hope.

  This isn’t some abstract concept about the planet.

  This is real. And it’s happening to folks in our own communities.

  Read these personal statements about how the economy is crushing Americans.

  Here’s how the economy is affecting housing.

  Sheba Everett is a single mother living in Durham, North Carolina, an area that is facing massive increases in the cost of living due to new companies coming to the region. Lower-income people are rapidly being displaced. She works full-time as a teacher with multiple side gigs to keep a roof over the heads of herself and her daughters. They were making ends meet until she got an eviction notice. A local newspaper shared her story:

  The September eviction letter caught them by surprise, she said, even though all the annual leases were converted in the last two years to month-to-month leases. Everett asked about it in March when her lease changed and said she was told it was to help tenants struggling in the post-pandemic economy. Now, everyone is in dire straits, trying to find affordable housing when the only units available are condemned or too small, she said.

  “It will be three years in March (since they moved into their current home), so the prices were still somewhat reasonable (before), and so I tried to find something similar, and it’s just like double the price, so there’s just no way I can survive or stay in Durham or any of that.

  I don’t know what I’m going to do, and I tried to get a loan to buy a house. Actually, in my neighborhood that I grew up in, I found a house — a five-bedroom house; it was (roughly) 1,400 square feet — in my old neighborhood that I grew up in; I was ecstatic. It was $300,000 (but) I didn’t get approved for enough to buy that house. We’re basically stuck right now. … I just couldn’t believe I’m a teacher, and I can’t afford to even live in the neighborhood that I grew up in.

  I’ve reached out to the housing agencies, but since we’re in a crisis right now — one of the worst that we’ve seen in our lifetime — they’re backed up. I am one of many numbers. I’ve gotten on a couple of waiting lists, and even those things, they definitely will keep a roof over our head, but it’s not anything that actually fits my family’s needs. It’ll keep us from being homeless.

  I’ll work five jobs and pay for a super-expensive place where I literally can barely breathe, but I can’t uproot my children from their home without giving it my all, because like I said, it’s way more than just a house.

  As a single mom myself, I know exactly how difficult it is to have to uproot your children in the midst of financial problems. It’s heartbreaking to see them suffer because of money. When you don’t have much money, a home is the one thing that you strive to provide, no matter what.  Losing that security is almost unbearable.

  (Disaster comes in many forms. Check out our free QUICKSTART Guide to better understand the four levels it can reach.)

  Here’s how the economy is affecting utilities.

  The high cost of energy is causing exorbitant heat bills as we move into winter.

  As the first frigid weather of autumn chills the Northeast, many people are faced with a tough decision: deal with the surging costs of heating their homes or live without it.

  Home heating prices are skyrocketing yet again this winter, up 18% nationwide on top of last year’s 17% spike, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA).

  Charmaine Johnson works in the call center at Philadelphia’s Heater Hotline, part of a non-profit that assists low-income families with their heating systems and bills. Johnson, 63, can relate to the concerns she’s hearing all day. She, too, is struggling to afford her heating bills…

  …Johnson says she doesn’t qualify for government assistance with her heating bills. As inflation also pushes up her food budget and other expenses, she is bundling up and keeping the heat turned down, hoping to stretch that oil for as long as possible.

  “It’s miserable,” she said. “It’s like living in an igloo.”

  The elderly and children are the most likely to suffer when folks can’t afford to turn their heat to a reasonable level. Some senior citizens living on fixed incomes are talking about keeping their thermostats at a nippy 50-55 degrees.

  It doesn’t matter how you heat, this year, you are going to pay more. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts that:

  …heating a home with natural gas will cost an extra 25% this winter, and heating with electric will run 11% higher. The steepest hike will be on heating oil, which is expected to be 45% more expensive than last winter, squeezing roughly 5 million households, mostly in the Northeast.

  Many of our most vulnerable citizens are facing a long cold winter.

  But by all means, let’s stash a billion dollars or so in a fund for other countries.

  Imagine what we could do with a billion dollars here at home. Imagine the people who could be fed, housed, and sheltered. Sure, it wouldn’t solve all of our problems. It wouldn’t undo the damage done to our economy by disastrous lockdown policies.

  But wouldn’t it be better to help the folks at home before pledging tons of money to others?

  I don’t hate other countries. I don’t hate poor countries. I’ve spent a lot of time traveling the world, and I want to see other countries be prosperous too. But it cannot come at the expense of our own people, who have paid tax after tax after tax but still can’t turn their heat above 5o degrees in the winter.

  Is it just me? Do you feel that this is a terrible use of American money, or do you think it’s a good call? If you could decide where to distribute a billion dollars as a government official, where would you direct it? And how the heck does China get off scot-free?

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 22:20

• Goldman's Q3 Hedge Fund Monitor: Like A Herd Of Deer In Headlights
  Goldman’s Q3 Hedge Fund Monitor: Like A Herd Of Deer In Headlights

  Goldman’s Ben Snider has published his latest quarterly Hedge Fund Trend Monitor report, which is one of Goldman’s most widely followed research reports (and mercifully, it doesn’t include any forecasts, so there is no way Goldman can be catastrophically wrong unlike its year-ahead forecasts). This year, Goldman analyzed the holdings of 786 hedge funds with $2.3 trillion of gross
  equity positions at the start of 4Q 2022 ($1.5 trillion long and $730 billion short). It’s available in the usual place for pro subscribers.

  What the report found is that as the Fed attempts to navigate the US economy toward a soft landing, hedge fund portfolios were in a “holding pattern” with quarterly position turnover dropping to a new low during 3Q as PMs had literally no idea what to do or how to trade so they just stood there like deer in headlights (see more below).

  The total magnitude of changes to sector tilts was the smallest since 2019, and most tilts sit near their 10-year averages. Hedge fund exposure to Growth vs. Value returned to its 20-year average. Net leverage remained at low levels, with funds using ETFs and futures to manage their exposures to a macro-driven market characterized by elevated correlations. Single stock short interest remains close to the record lows reached in 2000 and last year.

  In contrast with light market exposures, hedge fund long portfolios carried an unusually large tilt away from Momentum. Momentum has recently been very negatively correlated with the direction of the equity market, as reflected by the sharp Momentum reversal alongside the market rebound in early November. While the Hedge Fund VIP basket of the most popular long positions has declined by 29% YTD…

  

  … funds appear convicted in their favorite stocks, while aggressively shorting the year’s best S&P performer: the energy sector in general and Exxon in particular. Eventually they will figure out what the right trade is.

  

  The average hedge fund holds 71% of its long portfolio in its top 10 positions, the highest concentration on record outside of 4Q 2018. Tech and Comm Services account for nearly half of the VIP list and 8 of the top 10 stocks. While funds paused their shift away from China ADRs during 3Q, BABA is still the only representative in the VIP list

  although in contrast with light market exposures, hedge fund long portfolios carry an unusually large tilt away from Momentum.

  Below, we summarize some of the key findings:

  MSFT supplanted AMZN as the most popular hedge fund long position, while UBER and NFLX entered the top five. META fell out of the top five for the first time since 2014.

  

  The VIP list contains the 50 stocks that appear most often among the top 10 holdings of fundamental hedge funds. While the basket has outperformed the S&P 500 in 58% of quarters since 2001 with an average quarterly excess return of 34 bp, the past two years have been a complete disaster.

  

  There were 15 new constituents to the HF VIP list: APG, CEG, ET, FLEX, LBRDK, LLY, LSXMK, NVDA, PGR, SPGI, TDG, TMO, UTHR, VMW, WDAY.

  But what we found more remarkable is that in the VIP mirror list, the Very Important Short Positions (VISP) for hedge funds, the top name was none other Exxon – our favorite long since the summer of 2020 when it dropped to the $30s – which has doubled this year (and quadrupled since it was kicked out of the Dow Jones). And judging by how much short covering XOM still faces, not to mention how much more buying lies in stock as hedge funds rotate from being short to going long energy, Exxon may very well double again from here.

  

  Going back to hedge fund flows in Q3, Goldman notes that a rotation from Consumer Discretionary to Consumer Staples was the largest shift among sectors (for the reason why, just as Target which saw an exodus of clients who ended up going to “cheaper” WalMart for their purchases).

  Industrials remains the largest net overweight relative to the Russell 3000, though only one stock (TRU) ranked among Goldman’s Rising Stars list of the stocks with the largest increase in hedge fund popularity during 3Q (which of course is negative for reasons we have explained every single year since 2013). Four Industrials (GXO, RHI, JCI, IAA) appeared on the list of Falling Stars

  Here are some of the most notable charts from the report (which is available to pro subs in the usual place)

  Hedge fund equity market exposure is exceptionally low…

  

  And yet, short interest for the typical stock remains extremely low…

  

  But not so at the index level: hedge funds are extremely short equity futures…

  

  … which they are doing by shorting ETFs: there is more short activity in ETFs than usual

  

  As a result the average stock correlation is very elevated…

  

  Funds entered 4Q 2022 with long portfolios tilted away from Momentum…

  

  The tilt away from Momentum has been a headwind to fund returns for most of this year, but was rewarded during the sharp Momentum reversal this month. As we noted after the CPI miss, Goldman’s long/short S&P 500 Momentum factor (GSMEFMOM) returned 20% in 2022 through November 3rd but this month experienced a sharp reversal ranking in the 1st percentile since 1980

  

  The hedge fund tilt away from Momentum is particularly notable in light of the negative recent correlation between Momentum and the broad equity market. Momentum has also outperformed in other major periods of market stress in recent years, including 2009, 2012, 2016, and 2020. In light of this relationship, it is unlikely that Momentum will fully unwind its recent outperformance unless the market and economic outlooks improve substantially. While light hedge fund net leverage suggests funds are not optimistic about the near-term path of the market, their tilt away from Momentum appears to conflict with this view.

  

  In a time of record uncertainty, hedge fund are doing the only thing they know: doubling down on their existing positions and praying for the best: as shown below, HF portfolio density has recently risen to near record highs.

  

  A logical extension: portfolio turnover decreased to new record lows in 3Q as traders froze, terrified to buy or sell anything.

  

  Funds remain tilted toward “real economy” sectors and away from tech…

  

  More in the full Hedge Fund Tracker note available to pro subs.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 22:00

• Illinois Has Created No Net New Jobs In 20 Years
  Illinois Has Created No Net New Jobs In 20 Years

  Authored by Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner via Wirepoints.org,

  Illinois has many deep, structural issues that continue to be ignored by those in power. Among them is one that impacts people’s lives deeply – Illinois’ lack of job creation. 

  A Wirepoints review of employment growth across the 50 states shows Illinois’ economy hasn’t created any net new employment in more than 20 years. In fact, Illinois has lost 106,697 net jobs since 2000, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

  Those job losses put Illinois third-last in the country when comparing employment in 2022 vs. employment in 2000. Only Michigan, which suffered massive auto industry losses during the Great Recession, and Mississippi fared worse than Illinois. 

  In contrast, a state like Florida grew its employment rolls by 2.9 million, or 40 percent. Texas has grown employment by over 4 million, the most in the country.

  

  Illinois stands out even among its neighbors, which many might expect to fare poorly as Midwestern states. But aside from Michigan, all created jobs. Missouri, Wisconsin, Kentucky and Iowa all increased employment by more than 100,000 each. Indiana led Illinois’ neighbors with an increase in employment of more than 250,000, or a growth of 9 percent.

  

  Compared to the nation’s five largest states (Illinois only recently fell to the 6th-largest state in the country), Illinois’ problems stand out even more. Struggling states like New York and Pennsylvania managed to increase employment by 4 to 6 percent since 2000.

  

  Texas and Florida, meanwhile, blow everyone else out of the water with employment growth of around 40 percent. Their stellar numbers are a function of their focus on pro-business, pro-growth policies.

  Employment growth in the short term

  With Gov. Pritzker’s big win this November, it’s worthwhile to see how well employment has fared under his tenure. As the numbers show, the negative has trend continued.

  Illinois failed to create any net new jobs and in fact employment is down by 156,000 compared to when the governor took office in January 2019.

  

  Illinois ranks 44th in the nation with worse numbers than all of its neighbors – including Michigan.

  A problem of jobs

  Wirepoints recently reported that Illinois’ unemployment rate was the nation’s highest for the second month in a row in October. Compared to Illinois’ 4.6 percent rate, all of its neighbors are faring far better – most notably Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa and Missouri where unemployment rates are 1 to 2 percentage points lower.

  

  Illinois’ status as the extreme outlier in unemployment makes sense considering just how poor it’s been at creating employment over the last several years and even decades.

  The nation’s highest property taxes, crippling pension debts, the increased powers of government unions, constantly expanding red tape, chronic corruption and an increasing outflow of key companies and residents all make the creation of jobs impossible.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 21:40

• Inflation-Shocked Americans Plan To Cut Back On Christmas Gifts, Donations To Charity
  Inflation-Shocked Americans Plan To Cut Back On Christmas Gifts, Donations To Charity

  As Americans feel the Grinch of inflation and wages struggle to keep up with consumer prices, retailers and charities nationwide are preparing for a light holiday season, the Wall Street Journal reports.

  

  U.S. consumers and businesses have trimmed spending plans for gifts, charitable contributions and holiday events, data show. The penny-pinching threatens to spoil the year-end for many, especially firms and nonprofits that tally their largest share of sales and donations in November and December. -WSJ

  According to an October Census Bureau survey of households, 41% of Americans, or around 95 million people, said they were having difficulties paying for essential household expenses, vs. 29% a year earlier.

  “We’re hopeful for a strong giving season, but we’re not counting on it,” said said Thomas Tighe, chief executive of Direct Relief, a medical-assistance nonprofit that typically takes in around $2 billion per year in donated medicine, cash and supplies which they distribute around the world.

  Despite a strong job market, a little cushion in savings accounts, and early signs that inflation may be slowing, the high cost of living has unnerved Americans. According the Deloitte consulting’s 37th annual holiday shopping survey, people plan to buy an average of nine gifts this year v s. 16 last year, and plan to spend less time shopping than they did last year.

  According to the University of Michigan, household sentiment over the past six months is comparable to the credit-crisis, when unemployment was off the charts and the financial system was at the precipice. The Journal notes that the index “echoes wary levels of the 1970s, when inflation climbed to double digits.”

  

  In an August Bankrate survey of 2,415 adults, 84% of holiday shoppers will employ tactics to save money this year using coupons, discounts, buying less, and shopping for cheaper items or just making presents themselves.

  Meanwhile, the Toy Association – which represents companies that make 96% of all toys sold in the US, says this will be a season of price cuts. What’s more, analytics firm DataWeave predicts apparel prices are set to fall for thousands of retail items. Of note, Gap Inc. is offering discounts as high as 60%.

  High inflation seemed to restrain holiday-season shopping over the past eight decades. Eleven times since World War II, the consumer-price index has equaled or exceeded 6% around holiday time; this year it was at 7.7% as of October. Consumer spending had an average growth rate of 1.2% in those years, compared with a rate of 3.4% in years with lower inflation, Commerce Department data show.

  American consumer spending has been on a downward trend for months. After jumping by more than 8% last year, adjusted for inflation, consumer spending grew less than 2% during the first nine months of this year. -WSJ

  Wells Fargo financial planning specialist Michael Liersch, who heads up the bank’s local advisers in branches around the US, said he was taken aback by just how many families are talking about scaling back this year.

  “If you recall 10, 20 to 30 years ago, there was a notion where families had relatives give essential items. Moving back into that. Less discretionary items, more needs,” he said.

  Charity slowing

  While the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas typically accounts for 20-30% of charitable donations according to the Giving USA Foundation, Salvation Army officials are worried. Commissioner Kenneth G. Holder told the Journal that people are facing a tough holiday season, “particularly those who have to make choices between buying toys, putting food on the table or paying utilities.”

  Meanwhile, requests for assistance with people in need are up 25% to 50% from last year, Holder said.

  

  According to a survey of 2,000 Americans by crowdfunding platform Kiva, 44% blamed a lack of funds for giving less to charity, while 42% said donating was for “the privileged.”

  Both the Association of Fundraising Professionals and nonprofit GivingTuesday say that despite fundraising totals overall were up 6.2% (which didn’t keep pace with inflation), the number of donors fell steely in the second quarter, primarily driven by declines in donations of less than $500.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 21:20

• "Inverse" Migration: Why Are So Many US Citizens Moving To Mexico?
  “Inverse” Migration: Why Are So Many US Citizens Moving To Mexico?

  Authored by Nick Corbishley via NakedCapitalism.com,

  As life gets prohibitively expensive for many people living in the US (and other rich countries), relatively cheaper countries like Mexico are becoming increasingly attractive. But for local people the costs are growing.

  

  Between January and September of 2022, Mexico issued 8,412 Temporary Resident Cards (TRT) to US residents, 85% more than in the first three quarters of 2019, according to a Mexican government migration report. Many are choosing to live in Mexico City. Such rapid growth rates have not been seen since comparable data became available in 2010. The number of Americans receiving permanent residency during that period has also risen sharply (48%), to 5,418.

  But this may be just a fraction of the real number of American expats choosing to settle in Mexico. As the Mexican government has said for years, the number of Americans moving to its shores is likely far greater than the official figures suggest. According to data from the Ministry of Tourism (Sectur), over 10 million US citizens arrived as visitors through September this year, 24% more than in the same period of 2019. However, the Mexican authorities do not know exactly how many of those chose to stay.

  A Growing Trend

  In 2020, the US State Department estimated that 1.5 million USians were living in Mexico, more than double the number a decade earlier. That was before Usians began moving to Mexico at an even faster pace.

  But why are so many choosing to move across the Southern border in the first place?

  One reason is that it is remarkably easy. Mexico is at most a four- or five-hour flight away from most US cities. It has also been one of the most welcoming countries since the COVID-19 pandemic began, having implemented fewer COVID-19 travel restrictions than just about any other country on the American continent. Nor has it introduced vaccine passports. This has made it particularly attractive to digital nomads looking for affordable destinations with few COVID-19 restrictions.

  Mexico is also remarkably cheap, as long as you are earning dollars, euros or some other hardish currency.

  “Obviously, if you can earn in dollars and spend in pesos, you can triple your income,” Marko Ayling, a content creator and writer living in Mexico City told El País. “And that is very attractive to a lot of people who have the luxury of being able to work remotely.”

  Unlike Mexicans in the United States, Americans can work in Mexico for up to six consecutive months on their tourist visas as long as they are paid from overseas. And, although technically not allowed, many choose to return to the US for a short period, then return to Mexico and renew their six-month period in the country, and that way continue working.

  But it is not just Americans that are opting to live in Mexico. In fact, Mexico is apparently now the preferred destination for those moving abroad, beating off the likes of Indonesia, Vietnam, and even the popular expat hub Thailand. That’s according to this year’s edition of Expat Insider, an annual report published by InterNations, an expat community founded in 2007 that has been gathering data on expat/rich migrant flows and experiences for more than a decade.

  Among the biggest draws highlighted by the survey are ‘the ease of settling in’ and ‘finances’. Of vital import to many people choosing to move abroad are how acccessible visas are to live and work in the countries, safety, and how expensive daily life is. Mexico may have not topped the ranking in all aspects, but it still came out on top with a higher average score.

  The country also placed third on International Living‘s list of the best places to retire, just behind Panama (#1) and Costa Rica (#2). The accompanying report highlighted one of the key attractions for many retiring Americans: affordable heathcare:

  A big part of the lower cost of living in Mexico is the healthcare. There are two government-run programs, including one (INSABI) that is basically free to Mexican citizens and foreigners with residence (there can sometimes be some small out-of-pocket expenses). This system is designed for those without the means to pay for any other healthcare and has facilities all around the country. Another government option is called IMSS, which costs about $500 per year per person. However, with IMSS pre-existing conditions are not covered.

  There is also private healthcare, with clinics and hospitals with all the modern equipment and technology, and doctors of every specialty trained in the latest techniques and procedures. In fact, Mexico is a major medical and dental tourism destination for that reason. You can pay cash at a private facility (costs are a fraction of the U.S.—try $50 to $70 for a specialist visit, $300 for an MRI) or use local or international insurance.

  Of course, Mexico has been a popular retirement destination for USians for decades, with places like San Miguel de Allende, Puerto Vallarta, Oaxaca, Cabo San Lucas and Chapala/Ajijic particularly in demand. But as life grows more expensive and more precarious for working- and middle-class USians, this trend is likely to intensify.

  As a Brit living in Barcelona and married to a Mexican woman, I can understand the lure that draws people to Mexico. It is a beautiful, vibrant, exotic country with a bewitching color scheme, a rich culture and a diverse geography. The food is delectable and the people by and large warm, welcoming and supportive (in Spanish we would use the word “solidario,” meaning they have solidarity with others). The weather in the Valley of Mexico is temperate all year round. The biggest concern I personally would have about living in Mexico, which is something my wife and I are seriously considering, is its escalating water crisis.

  The decision to switch one’s country of residence is usually a deeply personal one and is often triggered by both pull and push factors. Not only are you moving to somewhere new but you are also moving away from somewhere established and familiar, where many of your friends and family live. Speaking as someone who has spent the best part of his adult life living abroad, it is a huge step. I would be very interested to know from US readers who, live Yves, are thinking of leaving the US what their main motives are for doing so.

  Security Concerns

  Ironically, this gathering exodus to Mexico is happening at the same time that the US Federal Government is issuing blanket travel warnings for many Mexican states. In August the State Department issued alerts for 30 of Mexico’s 32 states, six of which (Colima, Guerrero, Michoacán, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas and Zacatecas) it warned US travelers against visiting altogether, due to the high risk of being kidnapped or attacked.

  There is no doubt that security remains the primordial issue in Mexico, as it does in many other Latin American countries. Although the number of people dying in the war on and for drugs has ebbed slightly in the past two years, the country still boasts some of the highest homicide rates on the planet, with Zamora de Hidalgo at 196 per 100,000 people, Zacatecas at 107, and Tijuana at 103. Also, regions that were traditionally relatively safe, such as Puebla or Quintana Roo, have recently been caught up in the spiral of violence.

  But for the most part, the danger zones are in small pockets of states close to the US border, where most of the drugs are trafficked, or parts of the Sierra Madre Occidental, where many of the drugs are grown. They are not, as the US travel alerts suggest, uniformly sweeping across states.

  Another common misconception is that Mexico City, being one of the largest conurbations in the world, must also be one of the most dangerous places in Mexico. Yet in reality, Mexico City has largely escaped the worst of the cartel violence, for a slew of reasons outlined in a recent article by British expat journalist Ion Grillo. They include the fact that while the drug gangs have a presence in the capital, they do not control it:

  [W]hile the mobsters are certainly here, they do not operate as they do in their strongholds. Mexico City is not a strategic turf to produce drugs (like in the Sierra Madre), or to traffic drugs to the United States (like on the border).

  In Culiacán, gangsters exert an immense control of their territory, with lookouts on every corner and gunmen lurking in safehouses. In the capital, however, Sinaloa operators can disappear into the urban sprawl. It’s more a place to make deals, meet with contacts in the federal government, and launder money.

  There’s also talk of a pax-mafiosi in the capital, an agreement between the big narcos not to fight here. I haven’t heard this straight from the mouth of crime figures, but this is possible, even perhaps as an informal understanding that they do business and not go to war like back in Tijuana.

  Another factor is that Mexico is a heavily centralized country and all the federal agencies are here, along with the bulk of the governing class of politicians and heads of big business. These powers-that-be don’t want a mess on their own doorstep. The federal forces won’t allow a convoy of a hundred hitmen to blaze up Insurgentes avenue like they get away with doing in Zacatecas.

  The extensive use of cameras and the mobilization of one of the largest unified city police forces in Latin America have also helped to keep a check on the violence. As Grillo documents, not only is Mexico City one of the less dangerous cities in Mexico; it is getting safer and is already less dangerous than some US cities:

  The Mexico City [murder rates] don’t refer to the whole urban sprawl of 22 million but to the official capital district, now called CDMX, which has about 9.2 million people. The Mexican government keeps a database of the murder numbers from police and prosecutor records, and there is another database from morgues and death certificates.

  The police count recorded a peak of 1597 murder victims here in 2018, dropping to 1006 last year. That gives Mexico City a murder per capita rate of about 10.9 per 100,000 in 2021. This year the number has dropped further still.

  Comparing the 2021 figures, Mexico City still has a higher murder rate than New York (which had about 5.7 homicides per 100,000), but it is lower than Portland (12.9), Dallas (14.6) or Minneapolis (22.1).

  The most murderous U.S. cities include Baltimore (57.5) and St Louis (65.3), which have extremely high levels considering the wealth and power of the United States.

  Both Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador (aka AMLO) and Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, who is hotly tipped to succeed AMLO in 2024, have seized on this success to try to attract yet more visitors and expats to the city.

  “How much we have advanced on the issue of security,” said AMLO in a recent daily press conference. “Because of this, thousands of foreigners have arrived to live in Mexico City…They are welcome.”

  The Downsides

  But not everybody is so thrilled. As many national and international newspapers have reported in recent months, the continuous arrival of digital nomads from the US, the EU and other rich economies is making life more expensive in Mexico City neighborhoods such as La Condesa and La Roma, as well as in Guadalajara, Puerto Vallarta, San Miguel de Allende and Oaxaca.

  In the verdant and unusually walkable barrio of La Condesa, a popular spot among well-heeled foreigners, apartment rents surged by 32% between January and June alone, according to a report from real estate marketplace Propiedades.com.

  As many locals complain, living in Mexico may seem incredibly cheap to the new arrivals but only because they’re getting paid in dollars, euros or some other relatively hard currency. For those paying in pesos life is getting more and more expensive as the digital nomads drive local rents and prices vertiginously higher. For local landlords and real estate investors, the pickings are rich.

  “What is happening is the people who can no longer to afford to live in the cities of their own countries end up moving to where they can afford to live,” Sandra Valenzuela, a Mexico City-based activist and artist, told El País. “In the end, it is a problem that is moving as the people move.”

  For the moment, Mexico’s government is keeping the welcome mat out. In late October, Mexico City’s government unveiled an alliance with Airbnb Inc. and the country’s UNESCO office to promote the capital as a choice destination for remote workers. Mayor Sheinbaum said the city council wants to promote it even more and that the economic benefits of the influx would reach communities beyond the traditional tourist hubs.

  It is a story that has already unfolded in many other places, including my home city of Barcelona. As happened here, tenants rights groups are up in arms, denouncing the alliance with Airbnb as part of an “aggressive touristification” of Mexico City and calling for tough regulation of the home rental company.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 21:00

• MSNBC Guest Calls Musk Man-Child, Says Existence Of Billionaires 'Inconsistent With Democracy'
  MSNBC Guest Calls Musk Man-Child, Says Existence Of Billionaires ‘Inconsistent With Democracy’

  An MSNBC contributor says that the existence of billionaires is a “policy choice” that is “antithetical” to democracy, and called Elon Musk a man-child.

  

  In a Monday appearance on “Morning Joe,” author, political analyst and Hunger Games host cosplayer Anand Giridharadas suggested that people simply shouldn’t be allowed to accumulate that much money.

  “I think something we often forget as Americans is that billionaires exist as a class of people who have that much money at our collective pleasure, right?” he said, adding “It is a policy choice to allow some people to accumulate that much money, hundreds of billions of dollars, in the case of people in the United States before everybody has the chance to live with dignity, right?”

  Then he opined on Elon Musk.

  “Elon Musk is — is you know, is a sort of adolescent in his 50s,” continued the guy with platinum hair. “Everybody can see that. I don’t think anybody would say Elon Musk is a normal 51-year-old man, who has bought this platform that he himself calls a global Town Square, certainly functions has that kind of social importance,” he continued. “And because of what is so evidently his own feeble limitations, he’s just not — he’s a limited man. His limitations become all our problem.”

  Watch:

  As the Daily Caller notes:

  Giridhardas also criticized Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who announced he would be giving away most of his fortune, over planned layoffs at the online retail giant, and CEO Samuel Bankman-Fried of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, who was a donor to Democratic causes and officials. He also took note of former President Trump’s announcement that he would seek the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election.

  “Trump, who I always have appreciated — he’s not even necessarily an actual billionaire — but I’ve always appreciated the nakedness. Unlike some of these other guys he doesn’t do a very good job of pretending that he’s for the public benefit,” Giridharadas continued. “He certainly ran on a campaign of smashing the system in 2016, but — but he is very nakedly revealing what I think is true of this group in general, which is that their existence as — as billionaires is sort of antithetical to our flourishing as a democracy.”

  May the odds be ever in your favor.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 20:40

• Special Counsel Investigating Trump Is 'Tool To Attack A Political Enemy': FBI Veteran
  Special Counsel Investigating Trump Is ‘Tool To Attack A Political Enemy’: FBI Veteran

  Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  In appointing a special counsel to investigate former President Donald Trump, the Justice Department (DOJ) has turned its law enforcement apparatus into a “tool to attack a political enemy,” according to FBI veteran Marc Ruskin.

  

  Attorney General Merrick Garland, a Biden administration appointee, on Nov. 18 made the announcement in Washington, handing former DOJ prosecutor Jack Smith the task to oversee investigations related to Trump’s handling of classified records and parts of the probe into the events surrounding Jan. 6, 2021.

  Trump has denied wrongdoing and characterized Garland’s move as a “horrendous abuse of power” and the “latest in the long series of witch hunts.”

  The timing of the appointment is significant, Ruskin said, noting how it dovetailed with pledges by House Republicans to investigate President Joe Biden and his administration once the GOP takes the gavel in January.

  “Using the legal system in baseless investigations and prosecutions has been a hallmark of the anti-Trump campaign since before 2016,” Ruskin, who served 27 years with the FBI and is a contributor for The Epoch Times, said in an interview.

  

  ‘Bait-and-Switch’

  Ruskin believes that the special counsel investigation serves a particular purpose.

  “It’s an old trick,” he said. “They’ll be hoping to divert attention from the congressional investigations and focus instead on a baseless special counsel investigation, because there’s no question that the legacy media is going to jump on board and give this front page attention, while the investigations being conducted by Congress will either be ignored or relegated to the back of the newspaper.”

  U.S. Code 28 CFR § 600.1 prescribes that the DOJ should appoint a special counsel in an investigation where there is a conflict of interest or other extraordinary circumstances, under which it would be in the public interest for an outside special counsel to step in.

  In the Friday press conference, Garland described the appointment of Smith, a registered independent, as a matter of public interest, citing Trump’s presidential candidacy and Biden’s interest in entering the race. Ruskin, however, didn’t feel convinced that there were sufficient grounds to warrant such a move.

  “They really haven’t articulated facts which justified the appointment of any kind of counsel,” he said.

  

  Some Trump critics have argued that the special counsel appointment suggests that the Justice Department is intent on bringing the case to indictment. Ruskin dismissed this claim as “a fabrication in order to justify a difficult-to-justify investigation.”

  “The argument is the old ‘where the smoke there must be fire’ reasoning, which is fallacious reasoning,” he said. “It’s a fallacy which has been propagated in order to justify what is arguably a politically motivated investigation seeking to create an advantage for the Democratic Party in the upcoming elections.”

  With the Jan. 6 probes dragging on for nearly two years, Ruskin said that he doesn’t expect anything tangible coming out of the continuing investigations.

  “They’ve come up with basically nothing. It really defies credibility to even suggest that this is a bonafide, legitimate investigation,” he said.

  Ruskin said that the news from Friday confirmed his belief that the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid was a “fishing expedition to obtain anything related to January 6.”

  Such a tactic, which Ruskin called a “bait-and-switch,” is no different from using “tainted evidence” in his view.

  “It’s like the fruit of the poisonous tree,” he said. “You shouldn’t be able to use facts obtained via subterfuge in order to accomplish [something] unrelated to the goals.”

  Hunter Biden Probe

  Having won back the House with a slim majority, Republicans have wasted no time flagging a raft of probes they plan to unleash in the new year, with a top focus being Biden’s alleged involvement in his son Hunter’s foreign business deals.

  “This is an investigation of Joe Biden, the president of the United States, and why he lied to the American people about his knowledge and participation in his family’s international business schemes,” Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the incoming chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told reporters on Nov. 17. The announcement prompted a retort from the White House, which called it politically-motivated rehashing of “long-debunked conspiracy theories.”

  Republicans on the committee on the same day released a report claiming to have uncovered evidence of federal crimes tied to the Biden family, which include conspiracy to defraud the United States, wire fraud, violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Action, tax evasion, money laundering, and violations of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

  But Republicans looking into the possible abuses by the DOJ and FBI could face strong resistance from the agencies, according to Ruskin. This is especially so if the House GOP wants to look into ongoing matters like the FBI Trump raid, in which case the bureau could cite the ongoing investigation to refuse disclosing information.

  But Ruskin sees the FBI’s handling of Hunter Biden laptop as a potential starting point.

  An “obvious avenue of inquiry,” he said, is “why Justice [Department] and the bureau have sat on for two years without making any progress.”

  Earlier this year, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) revealed claims from FBI whistleblowers, alleging that the bureau leadership at the local level purposely delayed an examination of the Hunter Biden laptop until after the 2020 election, around a year after the FBI obtained the laptop in December 2019.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 20:20

• Egg Prices At Grocery Stores Hyperinflate Ahead Of Thanksgiving
  Egg Prices At Grocery Stores Hyperinflate Ahead Of Thanksgiving

  Egg supplies are tightening nationwide as more than 37 million egg-laying hens have died this year due to the severe bird flu outbreak, accounting for a whopping 10% of production. The result has been soaring egg prices at the supermarket ahead of the holiday season. 

  “Prices for eggs climbed more than 10% from September to October, according to the latest Consumer Price Index data. Prices in October were 43% higher than the same month a year ago. Eggs had the biggest jump by far on a monthly and yearly basis in any category in the US Department of Agriculture’s food price outlook,” Bloomberg reported. 

  Consumers paid an average of $3.42 for a dozen Grade A, large eggs last month — up from $1.82 a year earlier. 

  

  Readers have been well-informed this year about the devastating bird flu outbreak ravaging commercial poultry farms nationwide. 

  

  “The recent spike is extraordinary in the shell-egg as well as egg-product markets,” Bill Lapp, president of Advanced Economic Solutions, a consulting firm specializing in food economics, told CNBC. 

  Besides eggs, food inflation remained at the highest levels since the late 1970s, crushing the pocketbooks of Americans as they drain their savings and rack up credit card debt to buy essentials. Breakfast was the cheapest meal of the day but has since become expensive, thanks to soaring egg, bread, meat, and orange juice prices. 

  

  The last bird flu outbreak was in 2015. This current outbreak appears much worse in terms of just egg prices. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 20:00

• Kari Lake Gives Update, Says "Whistleblowers Are Coming Forward"
  Kari Lake Gives Update, Says “Whistleblowers Are Coming Forward”

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Arizona Republican governor’s candidate Kari Lake issued a Monday update, saying her attorneys are working to obtain more information and “whistleblowers are coming forward” after reports of poll issues on Election Day in Maricopa County.

  “Attorneys are working diligently to gather information,” said Lake, a former local news anchor who was backed by former President Donald Trump. “Whistleblowers are coming forward and the curtain is being lifted. Whether done accidentally or intentionally. It is clear that this election was a debacle that destroyed any trust in our elections.”

  

  Authorities Maricopa County are, according to Lake, “still counting ballots” after “printer problems, tabulation errors, three-hour-long lines and even longer and confusing instructions given by election officials made this election day the most chaotic in Arizona’s history.”

  For the past several days, Lake has been posting videos of voters complaining about their experiences during Election Day to her Twitter page.  She’s said that Republican voters were disenfranchised when they tried to cast ballots in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county.

  Officials in Maricopa County said on Nov. 8 there were problems with vote-tabulation machines and asked voters to drop their ballots inside dropboxes. Later that day, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates and county Recorder Stephen Richer blamed an issue with printers for the problem and later said that the glitch would not stop anyone from voting.

  Letter

  Over the weekend, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s office sent a letter asking Maricopa County for answers about the apparent voting problems. The memo said that it has fielded hundreds of complaints about how authorities conducted the election during the in-person voting phase.

  “These complaints go beyond pure speculation, but include first-hand witness accounts that raise concerns regarding Maricopa’s lawful compliance with Arizona election law,” the letter said, asking for a response before Nov. 28. Gates, in an interview with local media, said his office would comply.

  “We’re reviewing this with our attorneys right now and I don’t have anything further to say at this point, but we will certainly before we hold the canvass,” he told KTAR on Monday.

  Gates stated that around 70 of the county’s 223 vote centers suffered problems on Nov. 8. Technicians were able to solve the problem by the same afternoon, he remarked.

  

  The letter said that Maricopa needs to provide a “full report” for the “myriad problems that occurred in relation to Maricopa County’s administration of the 2022 General Election.”

  Hobbs Declares Victory

  Last week, Democrat gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs, the Arizona secretary of state and chief election official, declared victory. Lake has not conceded yet and it appears that she will not do so anytime soon, according to her video.

  “Arizonans who choose to make their voice heard on election day should not be disenfranchised or punished for choosing to vote in person,” Lake said Monday. “Yet they were I want you to know Arizona. I will continue fighting until we restore confidence and faith in our elections.”

  And Lake, in reacting to the attorney general’s recent letter to Maricopa County, told the Daily Mail on Sunday she still believes “I will become governor, and we are going to restore honesty to our elections.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 19:40

• "Concerns Have Abated": FalconX Resumes Use Of Silvergate Network As Crypto Bank Amasses Large Short Interest
  “Concerns Have Abated”: FalconX Resumes Use Of Silvergate Network As Crypto Bank Amasses Large Short Interest

  Like almost every other equity related to crypto this month, Silvergate Capital has been punished badly. 

  As we noted last week, the stock has had a triumphant fall from grace, plunging from highs of $160 per share in early 2022 to lows near $24 over the last few trading sessions, as each day new ugly crypto-related headlines cross the wires.

  But for Silvergate, which is known as the largest and most well known regulated crypto bank in the United States that also can allow customers to send cash in real time, it looks as though business may be returning to normal…somewhat.

  This morning it was announced that institutional cryptocurrency platform FalconX would be resuming its use of the Silvergate payment network. It had suspended use of the network last week. 

  

  “Concerns have abated,” the platform told its clients in a memo. The halting of use of Silvergate was consistent “with our standard process to pause and reassess operations in these scenarios,” the company wrote, according to a Tuesday morning Bloomberg note. 

  Meanwhile, Silvergate Chief Executive Officer Alan Lane said earlier this year that the bank “remains committed to supporting customers during a challenging period for the digital-asset industry,” Bloomberg reported. 

  On his LinkedIn page Monday, Lane wrote: “I’ve said before that our business was built to support our customers during growth and market transformation. And we remain steadfast in that commitment to you, our customers.”

  In the interim, as Silvergate continues to weather the storm, its stock has amassed a massive 12% of its float short, even despite the plunge in shares, according to S3.

  Recall, about a week ago Silvergate confirmed it had little exposure to the FTX blowup. 

  Lane, Chief Executive Officer of Silvergate, said:

  “In light of recent developments, I want to provide an update on Silvergate’s exposure to FTX. As of September 30, 2022, Silvergate’s total deposits from all digital asset customers totaled $11.9 billion, of which FTX represented less than 10%. Silvergate has no outstanding loans to nor investments in FTX, and FTX is not a custodian for Silvergate’s bitcoin-collateralized SEN Leverage loans. To be clear, our relationship with FTX is limited to deposits.“

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 19:20

• Joe Biden & The "Transformational" Presidency
  Joe Biden & The “Transformational” Presidency

  Authored by William Anderson via The Mises Institute,

  Much is made of the failure of Republicans to make predicted gains in the recent midterm elections, but, as Ryan McMaken has pointed out, Congress plays a much-diminished role in national governance to the point that even had the so-called red wave actually occurred, it is doubtful that much would have changed regarding Joe Biden’s presidency. In fact, most of what Biden has done in his two years in office has been outside of congressional legislative matters.

  

  McMaken points out:

  This all combines to mean we should expect very little change on policies at the federal level. For example, we can expect to keep hearing plenty about the evil of fossil fuels. The administration will continue to press for less drilling for oil and gas, and the war on coal will continue. The administration will continue to issue new edicts for “fighting global warming.” 

  As McMaken notes, Biden has used executive orders liberally, sometimes using a twisted interpretation of federal law, and then unleashing his regulatory and law enforcement agencies to get his desired results. For example, federal banking regulators and the Securities and Exchange Commission have pressured banks and other lenders not to led to the oil and gas industry, citing the fealty to fighting climate change as the reason.

  Note that the administration is doing this not via congressional authorization, but rather through its own self-serving “interpretation” of existing federal law. Likewise, Biden’s infamous student loan forgiveness order was not through such relief passed by Congress, but rather using a 2003 federal law that permits the US secretary of education to employ “expansive authority to alleviate the hardship that federal student loan recipients may suffer as a result of national emergencies.” What constitutes a “national emergency” must be in the eyes of the beholder, as any reason will do—and, so far, the courts have signed off on this vast expansion of executive power. This is reminiscent of Franklin Roosevelt’s perverse interpretation of the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act to undergird his gold seizure from Americans and devaluate the dollar.

  (Biden has not been the only recent president to liberally employ executive orders for questionable reasons. Donald Trump used existing law to raise tariffs against Chinese products, claiming that his actions meant that the Chinese were now helping to pay for their exports to the USA. Once upon a time—before turning over some of its authority to the executive branch—Congress had sole authority to set tax rates.)

  Biden’s reckless actions have come in part because progressives in the 1930s convinced Congress to give away much of its authority to the executive branch, the action well described by Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence Stratton in their book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions. The authors described a scene in which Congress was passing bills not even yet written and acceding their authority to the president as a response to the economic calamity of the early 1930s.

  The New Deal, which was Franklin Roosevelt’s set of policies ostensibly to combat the Great Depression (although one easily can argue that the New Deal was the main reason the depression lasted for a decade), made FDR a “transformational” president, a title that Biden actively is seeking for himself. Encouraged by historical writers such as Jon Meacham and Doris Kearns Goodwin, Biden wants to become an icon like Roosevelt, although the “hook” today is not economic depression (yet) but rather the so-called climate emergency.

  Unfortunately, becoming a presidential icon requires that the executive branch impose severe economic damage to the country. Roosevelt’s New Deal, far from pulling the USA out of the Great Depression, left it mired it in what economist Robert Higgs called “regime uncertainty,” which resulted in high unemployment and a dearth of capital investment. Biden’s version of the so-called Green New Deal points the economy in the same direction. Writes Thomas Woods:

  In the old days, progressives claimed to be trying to improve the standard of living of the ordinary person. Everything they advocated would have had the opposite effect, but at least they claimed to be making his life better.

  Now they’re not even claiming that.

  You will be poorer, they’re telling you. Your electricity bills will be higher. The price of your car will be higher. And according to them, higher prices are in fact a good thing, because they’re supposedly a sign of a strong economy.

  His claims notwithstanding, Biden’s objective to have a “transformational” presidency is to make Americans worse off now in exchange for the remote possibility that the Green New Deal will allow for future generations to have better weather. Biden’s grandiose view of himself and his policies are egged on in part by Meacham’s flattery:

  He has been described as Joe Biden’s “historical muse”, an occasional informal adviser to the US president and contributor to some of his major speeches including the inaugural address.

  In March, Jon Meacham put together a meeting between Biden and a group of fellow historians at the White House that lasted more than two hours. What did he learn about the 46th president?

  “He’s like an upside down iceberg,” the Pulitzer prize-winning historian says by phone. “You see most of it and that’s not spin: there’s just not a lot of mystery to Joe Biden. The last four or five minutes of his press conference in the East Room [on 25 March] when he talked about democracy and autocracy, that was pretty much it.”

  As the average American family struggles to keep up with inflation and the Biden administration deliberately makes it more difficult for them to live a semblance of normal lives, historians such as Meacham are telling Biden to expand his reach and his authority in fundamentally changing how Americans live. Indeed, in Biden’s first two years, he has brought about fundamental change to American life, but that change has been harmful.

  Robert Higgs in his article “No More Great Presidents” lays out the modern historians’ standard for “greatness”:

  The lesson seems obvious. Any president who craves a high place in the annals of history should hasten to thrust the American people into an orgy of death and destruction. It does not matter how ill-conceived the war may be. 

  So far, Biden has not launched the USA into a foreign war, although he has almost single-handedly financed (with US tax dollars, of course) the proxy war between Ukraine and Russia, using the Russian invasion as his justification for doing everything he can to prolong the fighting. However, by shackling the energy industries, blaming businesses for the inflation his government created, and doing whatever he can to make daily life difficult for ordinary people, one can say that Biden is at war with people who have no means by which to fight back.

  Even had the red wave passed over the electorate earlier this month, it would have changed the Biden presidency very little, if at all. That is how powerful the executive branch under Biden has become. And Biden will continue to listen to the “historians” who fawn over his every word and tell him that he, too, can be a “great” president.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 19:00

• China Pauses Purchases Of Some Russian Oils Ahead Of Price Cap
  China Pauses Purchases Of Some Russian Oils Ahead Of Price Cap

  While we wait for the US and EU to unveil details of the Russian oil price caps which will be implemented in two weeks (we may have a lot to to wait after John Kirby said that “It’s not just about the dollar figure. It’s about the implementation, of course, making sure as many countries as possible can sign on to that,” he tells reporters, clearly stalling as nobody in the west knows just how badly such a price cap could backfire and send prices soaring), China is not taking any risks as its crude buyers – who have emerged as the biggest buyers of Russian oil in 2022 taking advantage of western sanctions and buying up Russian oil with discounts as large as $30 below spot – have paused purchases of some Russian oil as they too wait for details of a US-led cap to see if it presents a better price.

  As Bloomberg reports citing “traders with knowledge of the matter”, several cargoes of Russian ESPO crude for December-loading remain unsold and there’s hesitation among sellers and Chinese buyers to close deals before more clarity on the exact price cap level is known, according to traders with knowledge of the matter.

  The Russian oil price cap is set to be implemented alongside European Union sanctions on Russian crude on Dec. 5, with those adhering to the measure gaining access to insurance, banking and shipping services from the bloc. The cap is designed to keep crude flowing from the OPEC+ producer to prevent a global supply shock but crimp the Kremlin’s revenues as it wages war in Ukraine.

  However, Russia has reiterated that it won’t sell to nations that implement the cap, potentially sending oil sharply higher (back in July JPMorgan said that “Oil Price Could Hit “Stratospheric” $380 If Russia Retaliates To G7 Oil Price Cap“). Instead, Moscow will redirect supply to “market-oriented partners” or reduce production, according to Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak. In other words, the status quo will continue, since to this day Russian oil makes its way to European markets, only instead of being bought directly from Russia, it comes by way of China or India instead, with Europe paying a substantial premium to where oil would trade if all these artificial trade barriers did not exist.

  ESPO, or Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean oil is popular with China’s independent refiners due to the high diesel yield and short shipping distance. Traders said many market participants appear open to referencing the price cap — even if they don’t officially support it — provided the level isn’t too dislocated from current prices.

  Should the level be set too low, however, the party responsible for shipping and insurance coverage — which can be the seller or buyer, depending on contract terms — may need to seek services from non-EU providers, thereby complicating the process and drastically changing the economics of the deal.

  At the same time, and as Zoltan Pozsar explained back in March, adding to buyers’ concerns is that banks that finance crude purchases are wary of the looming sanctions and soaring freight rates. Service providers are weighing their possible exposure to the EU penalties and how best to navigate restrictions when they take effect in less than two weeks.

  Ahead of the price cap, Russian seaborne fuel exports soared to the highest since at least 2017 as the nation’s refiners rushed to do deals before EU restrictions on imports and shipping come into force. The nation’s average daily exports of oil products from Nov. 1 to 10 jumped 22% from the prior month to around 3.17 million barrels, according to estimates from data and analytics firm Kpler.

  

  Ironically, Bloomberg also reported previously that the largest oil companies in China – whose dependence on cheap Russian oil has soared this year – are seeking help from Beijing to keep Russian imports flowing after new sanctions on Moscow that are set to kick in next month. State-owned oil refiners are worried about their ability to work out the payment channels, logistics and insurance needed to keep buying from the OPEC+ producer after Dec. 5.

  

  China and India have become key outlets for Russian crude after most other buyers shunned the OPEC+ producer following its invasion of Ukraine. Both China and India have, in turn, become major sources of Russian oil to Europe, only instead of calling it Russian oil they sell it as – drumroll – China and Indian oil. And that allows Europe’s virtue signalers to sleep at night.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 18:40

• How Money From Gates And FTX Bought Scientific Silence
  How Money From Gates And FTX Bought Scientific Silence

  Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

  Looking back, it’s utterly bizarre how the world of science could have gone so silent even as the world locked down and lives were shattered by the billions by governments the world over. The silence was deafening. We went from a March 2, 2020, letter signed by 800 public health experts associated with Yale University—which warned against quarantines and closures—to a strange disappearance of nearly all clear voices a few weeks later. And so things stood for the better part of two years.

  

  Governments were allowed to create vast carnage based on a novel experiment with absolutely no precedent in history and no scientific literature that backed it. Even the World Health Organization’s pandemic plan included nothing like lockdowns as a solution to a widespread pathogen. At the time, it was obvious to me and others that the silence was due not to broad agreement with the policies but to something else.

  That something, sad to say, was money.

  We are more and more discovering the heightened role that the crypto exchange FTX played in funneling money to major public health outposts and academics at Johns Hopkins and Stanford University, as well as its family connections to the Columbia University department of public health. And before that funding spigot opened up, there was the Gates Foundation which had clearly pivoted from seemingly nonpartisan research to full support for the lockdowns.

  To be sure, there is no one explanation for the disaster. The whole profession had already been infected by the intellectual virus of mechanistic rationalism and modeling. The idea was that if you slap some math and equations together and let the computer take over, you can gain a picture of disease outcomes under various scenarios. Such models are easily manipulated with small changes in variables.

  Deborah Birx relied on these entirely in her push to get the Trump administration to greenlight the lockdowns. And there can be no doubt about that history now that Trump’s Twitter account is alive again. The end of the censorship allows us to see how he was pressured to throw out his best instincts and instead adopt a lockdown policy, not just for two weeks but for months after, even to the point of criticizing Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia for opening up that Trump considered to be “too soon.”

  (As an aside, the restoration of Trump’s account also allows us to see that his last two tweets urged all Jan. 6, 2021, protesters on Capitol to stay peaceful and respect the blue. It’s no wonder the ancien régime at Twitter wanted his account blocked and blasted away.)

  Having studied this trajectory closely, it seems impossible to overlook the political motives here. No question that many elites in many places had whipped themselves up into a frenzy to the point that they were willing to crush the whole of society and even give up two years of education for kids in order to drive Trump from office. The plot was to get him to make the initial call himself based on telling him lies about virus severity and the effectiveness of lockdowns. No question that he was hornswoggled.

  However, in addition to these factors, one cannot neglect financial factors. Quite plainly, the grant money at the time and for two years later was clearly on the side of lockdowns and the Democrat Party, plus the elite media and their narrative line that openness equals death and lockdowns/masking/mandates were public-spirited.

  Vast numbers of scientists who could have and should have spoken out remained silent, or, worse, lent their voices in support of the outrage. Much of the reason has to do with how science is funded at the university level. It’s all about getting the next grant. It’s tragic but there is a strong motivation here to curate one’s opinions in a way that paves the way for future funding sources.

  This is why it is not necessary that every sellout scientist be in receipt of direct funds from Gates, FTX, or the pharmaceutical industry. All that needs to happen to control a whole sector of opinion is for the word to get out on the streets that a funding source is there with countless millions and is ready to fork over.

  As a result, even the smartest and most credentialled people can be easily made to fall in line. And no question that FTX quickly picked up the reputation of somehow being concerned about “pandemic planning” and so the whole of the industry lined up with their palms out. After all, FTX promised $100 million in grants!

  This is why, the Washington Post reports, “The shock waves from FTX’s free fall have rippled across the public health world, where numerous leaders in pandemic-preparedness had received funds from FTX funders or were seeking donations.”

  The seeking part is key here. But so is the money trail. FTX funded the later stages of the single biggest trials for repurposed therapeutics for COVID. Countless lives hung in the balance on these trials. Many physicians the world over had experienced great outcomes in dire circumstances from generic drugs such as HCQ, Ivermectin, fluvoxamine, and others, especially when used with other vitamins and zinc. Testing them was crucial.

  The results were backed by a predictable media blitz: such therapeutics don’t work. Meanwhile, the study has been severely criticized not only for poor study construction but also for the conflicts of interests of top researchers who also consulted with pharmaceutical companies.

  This is all very significant because there is a strong sense that the reason for the neglect of therapeutics—by the National Institutes of Health, Gates Foundation, and also major media, which smeared anyone who suggested there might be a better way—might all trace to the economic motive of shutting down cheap alternatives to vaccines.

  Independent journalist Alexandros Marinos has mapped out the timeline of the study:

  

  The Gates Foundation was first in, followed by Rainwater and FastGrants. FastGrants is a program established by the Charles G. Koch Foundation that also ended up giving money to Imperial College modeler Neil Ferguson, who first drove lockdown propaganda in the UK and United States. FTX modeled its own grant-giving program on FastGrants and then picked up the funding burden later in the process. (There is supreme irony here: the lie all over the internet was that the Great Barrington Declaration was funded by Koch, whereas in fact that money stream was going to the opposition!)

  In addition, the Post notes, FTX “awarded $1.5 million to Stanford University’s Center for Innovation in Global Health in July for seed grants intended ‘to catalyze research and innovations that prepare for and help prevent the next pandemic.’”

  Also: “The Future Fund’s commitments included $10 million to HelixNano, a biotech start-up seeking to develop a next-generation coronavirus vaccine; $250,000 to a University of Ottawa scientist researching how to eradicate viruses from plastic surfaces; and $175,000 to support a recent law school graduate’s job at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.”

  We don’t know how much money Gates/FTX gave to JHU’s Center for Health Security (which had sponsored Event 201) but it was enough to cause the Center’s head Tom Inglesby to completely reverse his earlier position against lockdowns to become a leading champion of them.

  “Overall, the [FTX] Future Fund was a force for good,” Inglesby told the Post. “The work they were doing was really trying to get people to think long-term … to build pandemic preparedness, to diminish the risks of biological threats.”

  Following the money trail from FTX to the public health establishment will undoubtedly reveal more in the way of information, especially considering that Sam Bankman-Fried’s brother Gabe ran a lobbying organization entirely devoted to “pandemic planning.”

  No question that this whole machine became an industrial behemoth over two years. When I first started Brownstone Institute, my phone and email began to blow up with offers of money and funding, but always with a proviso. I had to connect our scientists with their network of scientists in an already established system.

  There was no question in my mind what was going on: I was being told to play ball in exchange for large checks to make this fledgling nonprofit work. In some way, this astonished me: I was being offered a path to riches provided I would gut the whole mission! And this was happening even before we had published any of our research!

  So, yes, I saw how this system works firsthand. Of course I completely rejected the idea simply because going along would defeat the whole point of founding an institute in the first place. And yet the presumption on the part of the contacts was that surely this was just another racket in a space full of them and I would be happy to give up all principles for generous funding. I never considered it even for one instant.

  There is a grotesque tragedy to all of this. Great people gave up all their principles and integrity in exchange for grants and grease from big shots who used their money and power to wreck the world over two years, and they were able to do it with very little professional opposition. And yet here we are today. Who are the real stars in the world of science today? Not those on the Gates/FTX gravy train. It is the men and women who stuck their necks out to do the right thing.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 18:20

• Humans Could Live On The Moon "This Decade": NASA Official
  Humans Could Live On The Moon “This Decade”: NASA Official

  The NASA official in charge of the Orion lunar spacecraft program says humans could live on the moon for lengthy periods this decade.

  

  Speaking with the BBC, Howard Hu told host Laura Kuenssberg that Wednesday’s launch of the Artemis rocket, which carries Orion, was a “historic day for human space flight,” according to the BBC.

  Orion is currently about 134,000km (83,300 miles) from the Moon.

  The 100m-tall Artemis rocket blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center as part of Nasa’s mission to take astronauts back to Earth’s satellite.

  Sitting atop the rocket is the Orion spacecraft which, for this first mission, is uncrewed but is equipped with a ‘manikin’ which will register the impacts of the flight on the human body.

  Wednesday’s flight followed two previous launch attempts in August and September that were aborted during the countdown because of technical woes. -BBC

  “It’s the first step we’re taking to long-term deep space exploration, for not just the United States but for the world,” said Hu, adding “And I think this is an historic day for Nasa, but it’s also an historic day for all the people who love human space flight and deep space exploration. “

  “I mean, we are going back to the Moon, we’re working towards a sustainable program and this is the vehicle that will carry the people that will land us back on the Moon again.”

  Program manager for Orion at NASA, Howard Hu, tells #BBCLauraK they believe humans will be living on the Moon by the end of the decadehttps://t.co/Z1BCKTGMHl pic.twitter.com/hSuELrAnrK

  — BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) November 20, 2022

  According to Hu, if the current Artemis flight was successful, the next one will be manned, while a third would be where astronauts could actually land on the Moon.

  The current mission was proceeding well, he told the BBC, with all systems working and the mission team preparing for the next firing of Orion’s engines (what is known as a burn) at lunchtime on Monday to put the spacecraft into a distant orbit of the Moon.

  Mr Hu admitted that watching the mission from Earth was not unlike being an anxious parent, but he said seeing the images and the videos coming back from Orion “really gives that excitement and feeling of, ‘wow, we are headed back to the Moon'”. -BBC

  Recommended reading for life on the moon…

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

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 18:00

• California Workers Win $125,000 After Vaccine Discrimination Lawsuit
  California Workers Win $125,000 After Vaccine Discrimination Lawsuit

  Authored by Juliette Fairley via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Five months after filing a lawsuit against the Goleta Water District in Santa Barbara, attorneys have secured a six-figure award in favor of five plaintiffs resulting from the utility’s restrictive COVID-19 employee vaccine mandate.

  “This was fairly early on that they offered this judgment that the plaintiffs were the prevailing parties, which means they did not want to litigate this case clearly and go to discovery,” said Mariah Gondeiro, an Advocates for Faith & Freedom lawyer.

  “I believe that we can use it in other cases as a precedent.”

  

  Advocates for Faith & Freedom, a nonprofit law firm, filed their lawsuit in June alleging that the mandate discriminated against their clients who have religious beliefs that prevented them from submitting to the injection.

  The settlement resulted not only in Goleta Water District paying $125,000 to five plaintiffs, plus attorney’s fees, but also in agreeing to a judgment in which the plaintiffs prevailed.

  

  “It’s not really surprising because the reality is we’re starting to see this across the country,” Gondeiro told The Epoch Times. “Government officials are being held accountable for their discriminatory policies and I am hopeful that we’re going to continue to see these types of decisions because what they did was wrong, and they hurt a lot of people’s lives.”

  Two of the employees remain water district workers. Three have moved on.

  “They didn’t want to have to pay for testing and the ones that have already left don’t want their jobs back,” Gondeiro said.

  Because they requested and were granted religious exemptions, the five plaintiffs had to choose between unpaid leaves of absence or paying for bi-weekly COVID-19 tests on their own time.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 17:40

• Biden Extends Student Loan Repayment Freeze Until June 30
  Biden Extends Student Loan Repayment Freeze Until June 30

  The Biden administration has extended the payment pause on student loan bills yet again. The relief has been in place since the start of the Covid pandemic and was set to expire at the end of the year. 

  Bloomberg reported the White House extended the student loan repayment freeze until June 30, 2023. This allows tens of millions of borrowers to skip out on payments, as restarting repayments early next year would’ve been messy for the administration, which has promised forgiveness. 

  I’m confident that our student debt relief plan is legal. But it’s on hold because Republican officials want to block it.

  That’s why @SecCardona is extending the payment pause to no later than June 30, 2023, giving the Supreme Court time to hear the case in its current term. pic.twitter.com/873CurlHFZ

  — President Biden (@POTUS) November 22, 2022

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  Any restart of repayments would’ve unleashed a student debt default wave for millions of borrowers. 

  “Unless the [Education] Department is allowed to provide debt relief, we anticipate there could be a historically large increase in the amount of federal student loan delinquency and defaults as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic,” James Richard Kvaal, Department of Education undersecretary of education, said in a recent court filing.

  Biden’s student loan forgiveness program calls for $10,000 cancellation of federal loans per borrower who made less than $125,000 in 2020 or 2021, which is now at the mercy of the courts.

  Around 16 million people have been approved for federal student loan forgiveness — and some have already been emailed – though no debt cancellation has been completed due to litigation. Biden has asked for the Supreme Court to intervene.  

  Currently, tens of millions of borrowers don’t have to make a payment until June of next year while the Biden administration is trying to fulfill its promise to cancel debt and avert a massive default wave that would surely hurt the president’s ratings ahead of the 2024 elections. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 17:20

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• The Truth About Ivermectin
  The Truth About Ivermectin

  Authored by Marina Zheng via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Ivermectin has been hailed as a “wonder drug” and, according to the UNESCO World Science Report, a critical component of “one of the most triumphant public health campaigns ever waged in the developing world.”

  

  However, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and affiliated health authorities have vociferously recommended against ivermectin as a potential treatment for the virus.

  Though the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved ivermectin for human use in treating conditions caused by parasites, it has also insisted that ivermectin “has not been shown to be safe or effective” when it comes to treating COVID-19.

  In a social media message that has gone viral, the FDA labeled it as a drug for horses and not fit for human consumption: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”

  You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it. https://t.co/TWb75xYEY4

  — U.S. FDA (@US_FDA) August 21, 2021

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  The post made headlines and was one of the FDA’s most successful social media campaigns. Yet, research findings seem to contradict the public health organization’s recommendations.

  A growing body of research shows that ivermectin is an essential treatment for COVID-19. Many doctors have praised the drug for its broad yet effective antiparasitic, antiviral, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, and autophagic properties.

  Ivermectin: Antiparasitic Beginnings

  Ivermectin made its name through its significant benefits in treating parasitic infections.

  In 1973, Satoshi Omura and William C. Campbell, working with the Kitasato Institute in Tokyo, found an unusual type of Streptomyces bacteria in Japanese soil near a golf course.

  In laboratory studies, Omura and Campbell discovered that this Streptomyces bacteria could cure mice infected with the roundworm Heligmosomoides polygyrus. Campbell isolated the bacteria’s active compounds, naming them avermectins, and the bacteria was thus called S. avermitilis.

  Despite decades of searching worldwide, researchers have yet to find another microorganism that can produce avermectin.

  It was changing one of the bonds of avermectin through a chemical process that produced ivermectin, which was proven successful in treating onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis, both of which are debilitating diseases common in the developing world.

  

  Though its broad antiparasitic functions are not well understood, it is known that ivermectin penetrates parasites’ nervous systems, turning off their neurons’ actions, possibly deactivating and killing them.

  As part of a donation campaign launched in 1988 by Merck & Co., Inc., the manufacturer of ivermectin, the drug was used in Africa to treat river blindness. Also called onchocerciasis, river blindness is a tropical disease caused by Onchocerca volvulus worms. It is the second-most common cause worldwide of infectious blindness.

  The Onchocerca worms mature in the skin of an infected individual (“the host”). After mating, female worms can release into the host’s skin up to 1,000 microfilariae a day; the female worms live for 10 to 14 years. The presence of these worms can lead to scarring in the tissues and, when microfilariae invade the eye, can cause visual impairment or complete loss of vision.

  The World Health Organization estimates that 18 million people are infected globally, and 270,000 have been blinded by onchocerciasis.

  When Merck distributed ivermectin in areas hardest hit by the disease, treatment benefited the residents’ overall health and led to economic recovery. Ivermectin replaced previous drugs that had devastating side effects.

  “Ivermectin proved to be virtually purpose-built to combat Onchocerciasis,” Omura wrote in a study he co-authored in 2011.

  Ivermectin has also proven effective against lymphatic filariasis, known as elephantiasis. Parasitic worms transmitted through the bite of an infected mosquito can grow and develop in lymphatic vessels, which regulate the body’s water balance. When certain vessels are blocked, the areas—typically the legs and genitals—can swell, with the legs enlarging to elephant-like stumps.

  Worldwide, more than 120 million people are infected, 40 million of whom are seriously incapacitated and disfigured.

  The World Health Organization listed ivermectin as an essential drug and has advised many countries to run annual campaigns to rid people of these parasites. Such recommendations are a solid testament to ivermectin’s safety.

  For their work, including the discovery of avermectin, in 2015, Omura and Campbell were among three recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

  It is an indispensable drug for the underdeveloped world, with about 3.7 billion doses administered as part of global campaigns during the past 30 years. To this day, ivermectin remains a staple drug of tropical areas and an essential drug in treating onchocerciasis, lymphatic filariasis, strongyloidiasis, and scabies.

  Ivermectin and COVID-19

  Analyses of studies on ivermectin have found it effective as a prevention, a treatment for acute COVID-19, and in advanced stages of infection by the virus.

  1. Ivermectin as a Prophylaxis

  Prophylaxis intervenes in the first phases of COVID-19 infection, which is mainly asymptomatic, when the virus replicates to increase its viral load—symptom onset occurs after the viral load peaks.

  Ivermectin can be effective in the early stages of infection. Outside the cells, ivermectin can attach to parts of the virus, immobilizing it and preventing it from entering and infecting human cells.

  Ivermectin can also enter the cell to prevent the virus from replicating. SARS-CoV-2 needs cell replication machinery to make more of the virus; ivermectin attaches and blocks a protein critical to this process, preventing viral production.

  Additionally, ivermectin can be absorbed from the skin and stored in fat cells for a long time.

  “Because it’s lipid soluble, it is stored and slowly released, [so] once you’ve taken a prophylactic dose, and I think it’s like the cumulative dose of about 400mg, that your risk of getting COVID is close to zero and you can actually stop it for a while,” said Dr. Paul Marik, a widely published critical care specialist with 500 peer-reviewed papers to his name, in an interview with The Epoch Times.

  

  Marik co-founded the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), a group of physicians formed in the early days of the pandemic and dedicated to treating COVID-19. According to interviews, many of the group’s doctors have successfully treated COVID-19 with ivermectin. The organization’s other co-founder, Dr. Pierre Kory, has written a book about ivermectin’s use and controversy during the pandemic.

  Dr. Sabine Hazan, a gastroenterologist with 22 years of experience in clinical research, told The Epoch Times that she would advise ivermectin use for only a short time in critical patients rather than recommending the use of it as a prophylaxis.

  Continuous use of ivermectin—as with all drugs—can make the body dependent on the drug rather than working to fix itself.

  2. Ivermectin for Early and Acute COVID

  Many peer-reviewed studies have found that ivermectin, when used by itself or in conjunction with other therapies in symptomatic patients, reduces ventilation time, time for recovery, and the risk of progressing to severe disease. (pdf 1, pdf 2, pdf 3)

  This is likely due to ivermectin’s anti-inflammatory role in multiple pathways, achieved by clearing out the viral particles by immobilizing them, reducing inflammation, and improving mitochondrial action.

  Suppose the early viral replication is not controlled and cleared out soon enough by the body’s immune system. In that case, the infection can become severe or even hyperinflammatory, possibly leading to systemic organ failures.

  Ivermectin can also directly interact with immune pathways, suppressing inflammation and reducing the chances of developing a cytokine storm. A cytokine storm occurs when the immune system is hyperactive and hyperinflammatory. Though ivermectin can help to clear out the virus and its particles, the inflammatory state of the tissues and the organs can often cause more damage than the virus itself.

  Ivermectin also likely improves gut health, which plays an essential role in immunity by preventing bacteria and viruses from infecting people via the gut.

  In a published study, Hazan hypothesized that ivermectin helps COVID-19 patients by increasing the levels of Bifidobacteria—a beneficial bacteria—in the gut.

  As the CEO and founder of her own genetic sequencing research laboratory, ProgenaBiome, Hazan noticed that the Bifidobacteria levels in her stools would increase after she took ivermectin. Critical COVID patients would have “zero Bifidobacteria,” which can often be a sign of poor health.  

  In her peer-reviewed study on hypoxic patients, she observed that COVID patients with low oxygen levels from the cytokine storms in their lungs would improve within hours of administering ivermectin.

  “When people die of COVID, they die from the cytokines—they couldn’t breathe anymore. It’s almost like an anaphylactic reaction. So when you give them ivermectin at the moment they’re about to crash, you’re boosting the Bifidobacteria [and increasing their oxygen],” Hazan said.

  She explained that ivermectin is a fermented product of Streptomyces bacteria. Streptomyces are within the same group Bifidobacteria are from, which may explain why ivermectin temporarily boosts Bifidobacteria.

  Ivermectin also helps with mitochondrial function. During severe COVID-19, patients often experience pulmonary dysfunctions due to lung inflammation, reducing oxygen flow. This can cause stress to the mitochondria, leading to fatigue, and, when severe, may cause cell and tissue death. Ivermectin has been shown to increase energy production, indicating that it is beneficial to the mitochondria.

  Furthermore, ivermectin can bind to the spike protein—a distinctive structural feature of the COVID virus which has a crucial role in its pathogenesis. In systemic disease, the spike protein can enter the bloodstream and bind to red blood cells to form blood clots. Ivermectin can prevent blood clots from forming in the body.

  3. Ivermectin for Long COVID and Post-Vaccine Symptoms

  The number of studies supporting ivermectin to treat long COVID and post-COVID-19 vaccine symptoms is limited. However, doctors treating these conditions have observed successful results with ivermectin.

  An Argentinian study published in March 2021 is the only peer-reviewed study evaluating ivermectin for long COVID.

  Researchers found that in patients reporting long COVID symptoms—including coughing, brain fog, headaches, and fatigue—ivermectin alleviated their symptoms.

  Mechanistically, ivermectin can improve autophagy. This process is usually switched off during COVID-19 infections. By switching autophagy back on, ivermectin can help cells clear remnant viral proteins out, returning stability to the cell.

  Like acute and severe COVID-19, chronic spike protein triggers inflammation, and ivermectin can reduce such responses by suppressing inflammatory pathways and lessening the damage to tissues and blood vessels.

  The Changing Public Health Messaging on Ivermectin

  The NIH’s stance on ivermectin has changed several times.

  Early in the pandemic, there was little information on ivermectin as a potential treatment for the virus.

  The first study that mentioned ivermectin as a potential COVID-19 treatment came from Australia in April 2020. Researchers administered ivermectin to SARS-CoV-2-infected monkey kidney cells in the laboratory and found the drug beneficial in very high doses. However, the researchers concluded that further study was needed. Many health agencies, including the NIH, the CDC, and other global health regulators concluded that ivermectin could kill the virus only at toxic levels.

  Even now, NIH’s statement on ivermectin for COVID-19 reads: “Ivermectin has been shown to inhibit replication of SARS-CoV-2 in cell cultures. However, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies suggest that achieving the plasma concentrations necessary for the antiviral efficacy detected in vitro would require administration of doses up to 100-fold higher than those approved for use in humans.”

  In October 2020, the first clinical study showing the benefits of ivermectin was published by the journal CHEST. The study found ivermectin to reduce mortality rates in COVID-19 patients and garnered immediate attention.

  The study’s lead author, Dr. Jean-Jacques Rajter, is a critical care doctor specializing in pulmonary medicine.

  Rajter gave a testimony (pdf) of his findings to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs in December 2020.

  The day after he saw the Australian study, one of his COVID patients dramatically deteriorated from breathing normally at room oxygen levels to requiring intubation. The patient’s son pleaded with Rajter to save his mother using whatever options available. Rajter recognized that  hydroxychloroquine would be ineffective in the advanced stages of COVID. After much deliberation, he tried ivermectin.

  “The patient deteriorated as expected for about 12 more hours but stabilized by 24 hours and improved by 48 hours. After this, two more patients had similar issues and were treated with the ivermectin-based protocol. Based on experience, these patients should have done poorly, yet they all survived,” the testimony read.

  More clinical studies were published, showing the benefits of ivermectin as a prophylactic treatment. (pdf 1, pdf 2).

  The findings encouraged the use of ivermectin among doctors desperate to find a cure.

  Meanwhile, by October 2020, research into COVID-19 vaccines and the use of remdesivir to treat the virus was already in full swing.

  According to the FDA, specific criteria should be met for the EUA (Emergency Use Authorization) to be granted for vaccines and medications, including that there are “no adequate, approved, and available alternatives.”

  Some doctors say that if ivermectin’s use for COVID had been approved, it would have made the EUAs for vaccines and remdesivir null and void.

  Following the Australian study, the FDA published a statement, “FAQ: COVID-19 and Ivermectin Intended for Animals,” highlighting the use of ivermectin in animals and advising against the use of ivermectin for COVID-19.

  The NIH also discouraged the use of ivermectin, albeit briefly. On Jan. 14, 2021, the NIH changed its statement, writing that there was no evidence to recommend or disapprove the use of ivermectin. However, in April 2022, the statement changed to strongly disapproving of using ivermectin.

  “We [Marik, Kory, and Dr. Andrew Hill, a virologist and consultant to the WHO] had a conference with NIH in January of 2021. We presented our data, and Andrew Hill presented the data he had done…there were a number of studies at that point, which were very positive,” said Marik.

  Health Authority Overreach

  Despite the NIH’s neutral statement on ivermectin for most of 2021, the FDA actively campaigned against using ivermectin in COVID-19 patients. On Aug. 26,  2021, the CDC sent an emergency warning against using ivermectin; a few weeks later, the American Medical Association and affiliated associations called for an end to ivermectin use.

  Many doctors were thus discouraged from using ivermectin, and pharmacies refused to prescribe it. State health agencies warned against using ivermectin, and medical boards removed the medical licenses of doctors who prescribed ivermectin, alleging misinformation.

  Yet using the FDA’s statement against ivermectin to ban its use in COVID-19 cases would be considered an overreach. Since the FDA approved ivermectin in 1996, this made the drug acceptable for off-label use.

  “The fact that it’s not FDA approved for COVID is irrelevant because the FDA endorses the use of off-label drugs at the clinician’s discretion,” said Marik.

  As an ironic side effect of the messaging on ivermectin, people suddenly found themselves unable to access ivermectin, and some turned to veterinary-grade ivermectin.

  Though veterinary ivermectin is the same product as medicinal ivermectin, the manufacturing standard is not the same as it is for human-grade pharmaceuticals.

  Contradictory Research and Campaigns

  Though the initial research in 2020 showed promising results for ivermectin, published studies reported conflicting findings by the following year.

  The NIH has funded many studies on the effectiveness of ivermectin, the most recent being ACTIV-6.

  Individuals can participate in the study once they develop COVID by selecting ivermectin from four other drugs. The drug was sent to them via mail. This method means that some people in the study could have recovered by the time they received the ivermectin.

  There are some controversies regarding this study.

  The first is that the authors changed the primary endpoints during the study, which is heavily frowned upon as it can affect the validity and reliability of the outcome.

  Initially, the primary endpoint was the number of deaths, hospitalizations, and symptoms reported at day 14.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 00:00

• AP Fires Reporter Who Risked Triggering WWIII With Polish Missile Misinformation
  AP Fires Reporter Who Risked Triggering WWIII With Polish Missile Misinformation

  Five days after the Associated Press cited an anonymous ‘senior US intelligence official’ in a story that claimed a Russian missile killed two Polish civilians, one of the two reporters behind the story was fired.

  

  Reporters James LaPorta (fired) and John Leichester (not fired) share the byline on the now-retracted report, which sparked an entire news cycle that included talk of invoking ‘Article 5‘ – the mutual defense agreement between NATO members – and which would have obligated other members to engage in collective defense, aka WWIII.

  As the day went on, President Biden popped out of a NATO / G7 briefing, and mumbled that “it’s unlikely” the projectile was fired from Russia. NATO then chimed in, saying it was more likely that the missile was fired by Ukrainian forces in self-defense (or was it?).

  AP later retracted the story, and issued the following correction which pinned blame on the anonymous intelligence official;

  In earlier versions of a story published November 15, 2022, The Associated Press reported erroneously, based on information from a senior American intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity, that Russian missiles had crossed into Poland and killed two people. Subsequent reporting showed that the missiles were Russian-made and most likely fired by Ukraine in defense against a Russian attack.

  According to Mediaite, AP requires two sources for confirmation on this type of reporting when both are anonymous. No word on who edited the piece or what their fate might be.

  On Monday, the Daily Beast reported that LaPorta had been sacked for erroneous reporting, while Leicester has, as of this writing, kept his job with the wire service.

  Remember when AP cited anonymous US intelligence officials to suggest that ZeroHedge was spreading Russian disinformation? Same energy, and wouldn’t be the first time ‘anonymous officials’ turned out to be bullshit.

  Meanwhile on James LaPorta’s Twitter feed…

  

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 23:40

• These Are The Most Stolen Vehicles In The US
  These Are The Most Stolen Vehicles In The US

  The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) has released its annual Hot Wheels report which details the most stolen vehicle models in the United States.

  Notably, as Statista’s Martin Armstrong points out, while technology has reduced car theft over the past decades, it is experiencing something of a resurgence, primarily due to complacency from drivers.

  Thousands of cars are stolen across the U.S. every year because owners leave their keys or fobs inside their vehicles, inviting theft.

  In 2021, like in previous years, Honda has the undesirable reputation as the most-targeted car manufacturer. Interestingly, the Hondas most commonly stolen are far older than a lot of the other automobiles on this list. A 1997 Accord, for example, is the most commonly taken of that model, while the 2000 vintages of the Civic and the CR-V are seemingly the most vulnerable.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  At the top of the list overall though are two pickups: from Chevrolet and Ford with a combined 96,000 thefts recorded last year. Here, the 2004 and 2006 models, respectively, are stolen the most.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 23:20

• Victor Davis Hanson: The Strange Morality Of The Bay-Area Billionaire Left
  Victor Davis Hanson: The Strange Morality Of The Bay-Area Billionaire Left

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via AmGreatness.com,

  “Ya. Hehe. I had to be. It’s what reputations are made of, to some extent. I feel bad for those guys who get f—ed by it, by this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shibboleths and so everyone likes us.”

  – Sam Bankman-Fried

  

  The FTX Bitcoin empire of 30-year-old CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is in shambles. Or more specifically, his “dumb game” cryptocurrency exchange has destroyed thousands of lives. Electronically, he may have robbed perhaps a million investors, and along with them hundreds of large institutional investors. 

  Mysteriously, only after the conclusion of the midterm elections, did we suddenly learn that this left-wing “philanthropist” and benefactor of Democratic politics, this megadonor to the quid pro quo puff-piece media, this con artist protected from federal securities regulators, had drained off, lost, hidden, or spent billions of dollars of other people’s money. 

  As a result, the Bahamas-basking, tax-avoiding, polyamorous sybarite, and heartthrob of progressive moralists, now claims he has no wherewithal to honor his financial commitments to his own investors. Preliminary postmortem auditors sigh that they have never encountered a greater financial mess than what Bankman-Fried has left in his wake. 

  How does the most sophisticated financial system in the history of civilization allow a virtue-signaling nerd to nearly wreck it? Where were the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, the IRS, and all the other alphabet soup agencies that supposedly exist so that someone like Bankman-Fried does not? Where is Merrick Garland and his special prosecutors, the FBI with its televised SWAT swoops and leg irons?

  For all the performance-art boasts of simply doing good for others by doing far better for himself, Bankman-Fried may soon be revealed to be one of the great, dissolute con artists in American history. Like the infamous Charles Ponzi, “Bankman” may become our eponymous word in the 21st century for electronically driven, pyramid-scheme theft. 

  His Stanford-Silicon Valley moral veneer was shiny but otherwise razor thin. Yet Bankman-Fried told at least one truth when he explained to obsequious media what his ilk easily does to fool purported suckers who send him cash, while he avoided federal and media oversight: “This dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shibboleths and so everyone likes us.” 

  Well, not everyone. Instead, he might qualify his “everyone” as the like-minded, cynical, left-wing politicos, the kindred media hacks at the Washington Post and New York Times, and brethren investor toadies who helped him render Bernie Madoff a small-potato sinner in comparison.

  Bankman-Fried had showered Joe Biden in 2020 with millions of dollars in campaign donations and did so again with larger sums to congressional candidates in 2022. His public relations arm of FTX exuded the usual virtue speak—including promised impending multibillion-dollar gifting—for utopian, Democratic, and progressive causes. And the media on spec gushed about their pet grunger as he sought to buy protection from Democratic fixers. 

  “Effective Altruism,” Ponzi-Style

  Yet Bankman-Fried is merely one in a long line of Bay Area social-justice hypocrites and frauds. They share in common loud but cynical left-wing politics. They choreograph their personas to win exemption from left-wing government regulators, to guarantee puff pieces from a toady media, and to romance the rich, left-wing elite. Consider how the Washington Post gushed of the scam artist: 

  Harnessing the enormous wealth created by FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange that Sam Bankman-Fried had founded, they undertook a project to spend potentially billions of dollars on pandemic prevention, a long-neglected priority on Capitol Hill even amid the coronavirus crisis. The plan, drawn from the brothers’ adherence to a philosophy called effective altruism, sought to maximize philanthropic giving in ways that can have the most impact.

  Bankman-Fried surely has had “the most impact.” If he had worn a suit, and said the wrong “shibboleths,” he would now be behind bars. 

  What were the moral seeds of FTX? Bankman-Fried grew up on the progressive, moralistic Stanford campus, the son of two crusading Stanford law professors who often wrote about morality and the dispossessed. 

  SBF, as he is known, was groomed and prepped at an exclusive nearby Hillsborough private academy before being packed off to MIT. Progressive souls like Bankman-Fried distrust capitalism so much that, in his case, he retreated to the Bahamas to maximize its rewards. There he embraced a hedonistic lifestyle, tax breaks and lack of regulations, all in order to better short taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars in income tax revenue. 

  Such vulture capitalism is predicated on the presumption that young, loudly left-wing Bay Area hipsters in ratty clothes are the cool “good guys” if they have deep Democratic pockets and talk of “equity” and “fairness.” And so, they use the system to defeat the system—defined in their view as toxic traditional mores and values.

  Indeed, Bankman-Fried’s mother, Stanford Professor Elizabeth Fried was a “utilitarian,” perhaps best defined as advocating any means necessary to achieve what she felt were the best ends for everyone. She moonlighted from her supposedly full-time job by running “Mind the Gap,” a central collection agency for Silicon Valley dark money to be funneled secretly to the “right causes.” The means of getting the millions was always excused by the ends of how it was used.

  Apparently, some of her fund’s wherewithal was dripped in by some in her son’s stash circle—or rather his investors’ cash. Mind the Gap’s specialty was funding “to get out the vote.” To understand these dark-money operations in 2020, simply reread Molly Ball’s obnoxious Time magazine story of February 2021—a long boast of how stealth left-wing money, a toady progressive media, an army of lawyers, and social media combined to change voting laws, modulate the Black Lives Matter/Antifa street protests, and warp dissemination of news to craft a good utilitarian “conspiracy” that saved us from Donald Trump. 

  Will the Bankman-Fried family now atone, and try to give back to the robbed and deluded any of the real money that was funneled into Democratic candidates from the massive fraud? Does the water flow uphill?

  So how can the progressive embryos of Silicon Valley, Stanford University, Bay Area prep schools, and progressive humanitarian politics birth such an utter fraud who destroyed so many? Rather the question might be reversed, how could all that not?

  Performance Art Grifting

  In the context of Bankman-Fried, we recall another kindred Bay-Area erstwhile momentary billionaire charlatan. Do we remember the now felonious and prison-bound young prodigy and Hillary-Clinton aficionado Elizabeth Holmes? She, too, was birthed and swam in similar Stanford-Silicon Valley waters. 

  

  GLENN CHAPMAN/AFP via Getty Images

  Her scheme was Theranos. That was the pretentiously named fake-blood testing corporation that duped some of the most powerful investors in the United States to fork over billions of dollars to a twentysomething con artist. Holmes, like Bankman-Fried, was sired in the orbit of Stanford. She eschewed the slob props of Banksman-Fried, and instead preferred copy-catting Steve Jobs’ slicker all-black outfits.

  Holmes assembled on her fake corporate board some of the biggest names associated with Stanford University and Silicon Valley, whose brands masked what was likely the greatest corporate medical fraud in American history.  

  There is a pattern here of the “good” people doing “good” things with their “good” money that turns out very badly for everyone else. 

  Silicon Valley multibillionaire and fellow leftist Mark Zuckerberg prefers T-shirts, sneakers, and jeans to the Bankman-Fried bum-look or Holmes’ Apple black-draped getup. He is now laying off thousands of Facebook employees as his Meta disaster erodes his stock value and takes his net worth down tens of billions of dollars. 

  But it was just two years ago that Zuckerberg answered the utilitarian call of fellow leftists to use his mega money and power to stop the prince of darkness, Donald Trump. So Zuck, as he is known, poured $419 million into pro-Biden left-wing activist groups. That unprecedented sum was used to absorb the work of state election officials in key precincts to ensure the right people voted in the right way to ensure the right winner.

  Leftists still brag how the good mega-money sandbagged dullard Republicans and helped to give Biden the election.  

  Zuckerberg recently confessed that his left-wing company had also worked with the FBI to suppress online social media expression. Translated, that meant that the FBI partnered with Facebook to quash news deemed not helpful to the Biden election cause, such as the all-too-true revelations from the incriminating Hunter Biden laptop that was falsely passed off as “Russian disinformation.”

  Is that a very liberal, civil libertarian thing to do—to weld the state and the media to punish political enemies and censor the news? Was the FBI-Facebook fusion a sort of “electronic insurrection” designed to warp democracy—absent the buffoonish cow horns and face paint? Might Zuckerberg have passed on channeling his dark money to “nonprofit” leftist organizations, and instead banked it to save a few of his now laid-off employees?

  This column could become endless if it referenced all the Silicon Valley and Stanford progressive politico saints with feet of clay. Do we remember Tom Steyer, the Silicon Valley zillionaire, Stanford University board member, and former left-wing green presidential candidate, who spent $191 million without winning a single delegate? 

  At least candidate Michael Bloomberg got a few delegates at roughly $18 million a pop for the hundreds of millions of virtuous dollars he blew up in 2020. Steyer used his 2020 campaign to lecture us on ending the fossil fuel economy—but only after he had made a fortune in financing dirty coal burning plants in the impoverished Third World. 

  Posh Virtue

  What is going on? 

  The 21st-century globalized economy saturated the corridor between San Francisco and San Jose with wealth never before seen or imagined. Its beneficiaries discovered a number of things about the arts of becoming and staying ultra-rich.

  One, they never needed to worry about the essentials of life that troubled the other 99 percent of the country—affordable fuel, food, and housing, safe streets, and a fair and legal immigration system. 

  Or to put it another way, they could pose as progressive utopians—preening their moral superiority to the media, pouring money into the Democratic Party, funding foundations and PACs devoted to woke causes, climate change, and diversity, equity, and inclusion—and all the time never subject to the ramifications of their own exalted agendas. 

  They could not have cared less about crippling $6 a gallon gas, the exorbitant kilowatt cost of air conditioning, out-of-reach $1,000-a-square foot bungalow housing, the mayhem on San Francisco streets, or the reparatory elite university admissions policies that drastically curtailed working-class male admissions. Their wealth guaranteed them leverage, and leverage ensured exemptions. 

  But Bay Area morality was not just a pragmatic matter of the exempt elite force-feeding utopia down the throats of others who had no such immunity. Boutique, rich leftism also provided penance for the anointed, a mechanism that alleviated any residual guilt of talking like Eugene Debs while living like Marie Antoinette. 

  The multimillionaire, social justice warrior House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) assumed, as one of the Bay Area’s liberal icons, that she had a right to break quarantine and sneak off to her private hairdresser, or cluelessly boast of her $13 a pint ice cream, home delivered to her $24,000 twin imported refrigerators—all in the midst of a near depression as the national COVID-19 shutdown ruined millions of small business and devastated the educations of tens of millions of children. 

  As a member of the classy Bay Area elite, she knew the bankrupt political morality of the Left all too well: acts like tearing up the Trump State of the Union speech on national television veneered her privilege and made her one of the proverbial good people fighting for us from one of her various mansions. 

  Bay Area ZIP codes have produced the now-familiar rich, liberal politicians whose exempt lives are not damaged by the ideology that damages others. Consider the billionaire Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who for two decades was chauffeured by a Chinese spy while head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, or multimillionaire former Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), now ensconced in Rancho Mirage as a registered foreign agent for a Chinese surveillance firm, or multimillionaire Gavin Newsom, who bragged how the COVID lockdowns might greenlight “progressive capitalism,” as he pushed social distancing and mask-wearing—while he palled around with lobbyists, maskless, at the French Laundry.

  Sam Bankman-Fried is the ultimate dangerous and ridiculous expression of the most toxic and creepy culture in America. If he did not exist, someone like him would have to be invented.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 23:00

• Do These Documents Prove That Call Of Duty Is A Government PsyOp?
  Do These Documents Prove That Call Of Duty Is A Government PsyOp?

  Authored by Alan Macleod via MintPressNews.com,

  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II has been available for less than three weeks, but it is already making waves. Breaking records, within ten days, the first-person military shooter video game earned more than $1 billion in revenue. Yet it has also been shrouded in controversy, not least because missions include assassinating an Iranian general clearly based on Qassem Soleimani, a statesman and military leader slain by the Trump administration in 2020, and a level where players must shoot “drug traffickers” attempting to cross the U.S./Mexico border.

  

  The Call of Duty franchise is an entertainment juggernaut, having sold close to half a billion games since it was launched in 2003. Its publisher, Activision Blizzard, is a giant in the industry, behind titles games as the Guitar Hero, Warcraft, Starcraft, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Crash Bandicoot and Candy Crush Saga series.

  Yet a closer inspection of Activision Blizzard’s key staff and their connections to state power, as well as details gleaned from documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that Call of Duty is not a neutral first-person shooter, but a carefully constructed piece of military propaganda, designed to advance the interests of the U.S. national security state.

  In the first five minutes the new Call of Duty has you pilot the missile that kills Soleimani lol

  — sad because the female faceapp of me isnt fuckable (@websiteidi0t) October 20, 2022

  MILITARY-ENTERTAINMENT COMPLEX

  It has long been a matter of public record that American spies have targeted and penetrated Activision Blizzard games. Documents released by Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA, CIA, FBI and Department of Defense infiltrated the vast online realms such as World of Warcraft, creating make-believe characters to monitor potential illegal activity and recruit informers. Indeed, at one point, there were so many U.S. spies in one video game that they had to create a “deconfliction” group as they were wasting time unwittingly surveilling each other. Virtual games, the NSA wrote, were an “opportunity” and a “target-rich communication network”.

  However, documents obtained legally under the Freedom of Information Act by journalist and researcher Tom Secker and shared with MintPress News show that the connections between the national security state and the video game industry go far beyond this, and into active collaboration.

  In September 2018, for example, the United States Air Force flew a group of entertainment executives – including Call of Duty/Activision Blizzard producer Coco Francini – to their headquarters at Hurlburt Field, Florida. The explicit reason for doing so, they wrote, was to “showcase” their hardware and to make the entertainment industry more “credible advocates” for the U.S. war machine.

  “We’ve got a bunch of people working on future blockbusters (think Marvel, Call of Duty, etc.) stoked about this trip!” wrote one Air Force officer. Another email notes that the point of the visit was to provide “heavy-hitter” producers with “AFSOC [Air Force Special Operations Command] immersion focused on Special Tactics Airmen and air-to-ground capabilities.”

  “This is a great opportunity to educate this community and make them more credible advocates for us in the production of any future movies/television productions on the Air Force and our Special Tactics community,” wrote the AFSOC community relations chief.

  Francini and others were shown CV-22 helicopters and AC-130 planes in action, both of which feature heavily in Call of Duty games.

  Yet Call of Duty collaboration with the military goes back much further. The documents show that the United States Marine Corps (USMC) was involved in the production of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Call of Duty 5. The games’ producers approached the USMC at the 2010 E3 entertainment convention in Los Angeles, requesting access to hovercrafts (vehicles which later appeared in the game). Call of Duty 5 executives also asked for use of a hovercraft, a tank and a C-130 aircraft.

  This collaboration continued in 2012 with the release of Modern Warfare 4, where producers requested access to all manner of air and ground vehicles.

  Secker told MintPress that, by collaborating with the gaming industry, the military ensures a positive portrayal that can help it reach recruitment targets, stating that,

  For certain demographics of gamers it’s a recruitment portal, some first-person shooters have embedded adverts within the games themselves…Even without this sort of explicit recruitment effort, games like Call of Duty make warfare seem fun, exciting, an escape from the drudgery of their normal lives.”

  Secker’s documentary, “Theaters of War: How the Pentagon and CIA Took Hollywood” was released earlier this year.

  The military clearly held considerable influence over the direction of Call of Duty games. In 2010, its producers approached the Department of Defense (DoD) for help on a game set in 2075. However, the DoD liaison “expressed concern that [the] scenario being considered involves future war with China.” As a result, Activision Blizzard began “looking at other possible conflicts to design the game around.” In the end, due in part to military objections, the game was permanently abandoned.

  FROM WAR ON TERROR TO FIRST-PERSON SHOOTERS

  Not only does Activision Blizzard work with the U.S. military to shape its products, but its leadership board is also full of former high state officials. Chief amongst these is Frances Townsend, Activision Blizzard’s senior counsel, and, until September, its chief compliance officer and executive vice president for corporate affairs.

  Prior to joining Activision Blizzard, Townsend spent her life working her way up the rungs of the national security state. Previously serving as head of intelligence for the Coast Guard and as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s counterterrorism deputy, in 2004, President Bush appointed her to his Intelligence Advisory Board.

  As the White House’s most senior advisor on terrorism and homeland security, Townsend worked closely with Bush and Rice, and became one of the faces of the administration’s War on Terror. One of her principal achievements was to whip the American public into a constant state of fear about the supposed threat of more Al-Qaeda attacks (which never came).

  

  Before she joined Activision Blizzard, Frances Townsend worked in Homeland Security and Counterterrorism for the Bush White House. Ron Edmonds | AP

  As part of her job, Townsend helped popularize the term “enhanced interrogation techniques” – a Bush-era euphemism for torturing detainees. Worse still, Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, the officer in charge of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, alleged that Townsend put pressure on him to ramp up the torture program, reminding him “many, many times” that he needed to improve the intelligence output from the Iraqi jail.

  Townsend has denied these allegations. She also later condemned the “handcuff[ing]” and “humiliation” surrounding Abu Ghraib. She was not referring to the prisoners, however. In an interview with CNN, she lamented that “these career professionals” – CIA torturers – had been subject to “humiliation and opprobrium” after details of their actions were made public, meaning that future administrations would be “handcuffed” by the fear of bad publicity, while the intelligence community would become more “risk-averse”.

  During the Trump administration, Townsend was hotly tipped to become the Director of National Intelligence or the Secretary of Homeland Security. President Trump also approached her for the role of director of the FBI. Instead, however, Townsend took a seemingly incongruous career detour to become an executive at a video games company.

  ENTER THE WAR PLANNERS

  In addition to this role, Townsend is a director of the NATO offshoot, the Atlantic Council, a director at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a trustee of the hawkish think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a group MintPress News has previously covered in detail.

  Funded by weapons companies, NATO and the U.S. government, the Atlantic Council serves as the military alliance’s brain trust, devising strategies on how best to manage the world. Also on its board of directors are high statespersons like Henry Kissinger and Conzoleezza Rice, virtually every retired U.S. general of note, and no fewer than seven former directors of the CIA. As such, the Atlantic Council represents the collective opinion of the national security state.

  Two more key Call of Duty staff also work for the Atlantic Council. Chance Glasco, a co-founder of Infinity Ward developers who oversaw the game franchise’s rapid rise, is the council’s nonresident senior fellow, advising top generals and political leaders on the latest developments in tech.

  Game designer and producer Dave Anthony, crucial to Call of Duty’s success, is also an Atlantic Council employee, joining the group in 2014. There, he advises them on what the future of warfare will look like, and devises strategies for NATO to fight in upcoming conflicts.

  Anthony has made no secret that he collaborated with the U.S. national security state while making the Call of Duty franchise. “My greatest honor was to consult with Lieut. Col. Oliver North on the story of Black Ops 2,” he stated publicly, adding, There are so many small details we could never have known about if it wasn’t for his involvement.”

  Oliver North is a high government official gained worldwide infamy after being convicted for his role in the Iran-Contra Affair, whereby his team secretly sold weapons to the government of Iran, using the money to arm and train fascist death squads in Central America – groups who attempted to overthrow the government of Nicaragua and carried out waves of massacres and ethnic cleansing in the process.

  REPUBLICANS FOR HIRE

  Another eyebrow-raising hire is Activision Blizzard’s chief administration officer, Brian Bulatao. A former Army captain and consultant for McKinsey & Company, until 2018, he was chief operating officer for the CIA, placing him third in command of the agency. When CIA Director Mike Pompeo moved over to the State Department, becoming Trump’s Secretary of State, Bulatao went with him, and was appointed Under Secretary of State for Management.

  There, by some accounts, he served as Pompeo’s personal “attack dog,” with former colleagues describing him as a “bully” who brought a “cloud of intimidation” over the workplace, repeatedly pressing them to ignore potential illegalities happening at the department. Thus, it is unclear if Bulatao is the man to improve Activision Blizzard’s notoriously “toxic” workplace environment that caused dozens of employees to walk out en masse last summer.

  After the Trump administration’s electoral defeat, Bulatao went straight from the State Department into the highest echelons of Activision Blizzard, despite no experience in the entertainment industry.

  

  Trump stands with then-CIA Chief Operations Officer Brian Bulatao at CIA Headquarters, May 21, 2018, in Langley, Va. Evan Vucci | AP

  The third senior Republican official Activision Blizzard has recruited to its upper ranks is Grant Dixton. Between 2003 and 2006, Dixton served as associate counsel to President Bush, advising him on many of his administration’s most controversial legal activities (such as torture and the rapid expansion of the surveillance state). A lawyer by trade, he later went on to work for weapons manufacturer Boeing, rising to become its senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary. In June 2021, he left Boeing to join Activision Blizzard as its chief legal officer.

  Other Activision Blizzard executives with backgrounds in national security include senior vice president and chief information security officer Brett Wahlin, who was a U.S. Army counterintelligence agent, and chief of staff, Angela Alvarez, who, until 2016, was an Army chemical operations specialist.

  That the same government that was infiltrating games 10-15 years ago now has so many former officials controlling the very game companies raises serious questions around privacy and state control over media, and mirrors the national security state penetration of social media that has occurred over the same timeframe.

  WAR GAMES

  These deep connections to the U.S. national security state can perhaps help partly explain why, for years, many have complained about the blatant pro-U.S. propaganda apparent throughout the games.

  The latest installment, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, is no exception. In the game’s first mission, players must carry out a drone strike against a character named

  The latest installment, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, is no exception. In the game’s first mission, players must carry out a drone strike against a character named General Ghorbrani. The mission is obviously a recreation of the Trump administration’s illegal 2020 drone strike against Iranian General Qassem Soleimani – the in game general even bears a striking resemblance to Soleimani.

  

  The latest Call of Duty game has players assassinate a General Ghorbrani, a nebulous reference to Iranian General Qassem Solemani, pictured right

  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II ludicrously presents the general as under Russia’s thumb and claims that Ghorbrani is “supplying terrorists” with aid. In reality, Soleimani was the key force in defeating ISIS terror across the Middle East – actions for which even Western media declared him a “hero”. U.S.-run polls found that Soleimani was perhaps the most popular leader in the Middle East, with over 80% of Iranians holding a positive opinion of him.

  Straight after the assassination, Pompeo’s State Department floated the falsehood that the reason they killed Soleimani was that he was on the verge of carrying out a terror attack against Americans. In reality, Soleimani was in Baghdad, Iraq, for peace talks with Saudi Arabia.

  These negotiations could have led to peace between the two nations, something that the U.S. government is dead against. Then-Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi revealed that he had personally asked President Trump for permission to invite Soleimani. Trump agreed, then used the opportunity to carry out the killing.

  Therefore,, just as Activision Blizzard is recruiting top State Department officials to its upper ranks, its games are celebrating the same State Department’s most controversial assassinations.

  This is far from the first time Call of Duty has instructed impressionable young gamers to kill foreign leaders, however. In Call of Duty Black Ops (2010), players must complete a mission to murder Cuban leader Fidel Castro. If they manage to shoot him in the head, they are rewarded with an extra gory slow motion scene and obtain a bronze “Death to Dictators” trophy. Thus, players are forced to carry out digitally what Washington failed to do on over 600 occasions.

  

  A mission from “Call of Duty: Black Ops” has players assassinate a hostage-taking Fidel Castro

  Likewise, Call of Duty: Ghosts is set in Venezuela, where players fight against General Almagro, a socialist military leader clearly modelled on former president Hugo Chavez. Like Chavez, Almagro wears a red beret and uses Venezuela’s oil wealth to forge an alliance of independent Latin American nations against the U.S. Washington attempted to overthrow Chavez and his successor, Nicolás Maduro, multiple times. During the sixth mission of the game, players must shoot and kill Almagro from close range.

  The anti-Russian propaganda is also turned up to 11 in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019). One mission recreates the infamous Highway of Death incident. During the First Iraq War, U.S.-led forces trapped fleeing Iraqi troops on Highway 80. What followed was what then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell described as “wanton killing” and “slaughter for slaughter’s sake” as U.S. troops and their allies pummeled the Iraqi convoy for hours, killing hundreds and destroying thousands of vehicles. U.S. forces also reportedly shot hundreds of Iraqi civilians and surrendered soldiers in their care.

  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare recreates this scene for dramatic effect. However, in their version, it is not the U.S.-led forces doing the killing, but Russia, thereby whitewashing a war crime by pinning the blame on official enemies.

  

  A mission in “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare” has players recreate the infamous highway of death

  “Call of Duty, in particular, has been flagged up for recreating real events as game missions and manipulating them for geopolitical purposes,” Secker told MintPress, referring to the Highway of Death, adding,

  In a culture where most people’s exposure to games (and films, TV shows and so on) is far greater than their knowledge of historical and current events, these manipulations help frame the gamers’ emotional, intellectual and political reactions. This helps them turn into more general advocates for militarism, even if they don’t sign up in any formal way.”

  Secker’s latest book, “Superheroes, Movies and the State: How the U.S. Government Shapes Cinematic Universes,” was published earlier this year.

  GAME OVER

  In today’s digitized era, the worlds of war and video games increasingly resemble one another. Many have commented on the similarities between piloting drones in real life and in games such as Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Prince Harry, who was a helicopter gunner in Afghanistan, described his “joy” at firing missiles at enemies. “I’m one of those people who loves playing PlayStation and Xbox, so with my thumbs I like to think I’m probably quite useful,” he said. “If there’s people trying to do bad stuff to our guys, then we’ll take them out of the game,” he added, explicitly comparing the two activities. U.S. forces even control drones with Xbox controllers, blurring the lines between war games and war games even further.

  The military has also directly produced video games as promotional and recruitment tools. One is a U.S. Air Force game called Airman Challenge. Featuring 16 missions to complete, interspersed with facts and recruitment information about how to become a drone operator yourself. In its latest attempts to market active service to young people, players move through missions escorting U.S. vehicles through countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, serving up death from above to all those designated “insurgents” by the game.

  Players earn medals and achievements for most effectively destroying moving targets. All the while, there is a prominent “apply now” button on screen if players feel like enlisting and conducting real drone strikes on the Middle East.

  U.S. Armed Forces use the popularity of video games to recruit heavily among young people, sponsoring gaming tournaments, fielding their own U.S. Army Esports team, and directly trying to recruit teens on streaming sites such as Twitch. The Amazon-owned platform eventually had to clamp down on the practice after the military used fake prize giveaways that lured impressionable young viewers onto recruitment websites.

  Video games are a massive business and a huge center of soft power and ideology. The medium makes for particularly persuasive propaganda because children and adolescents consume them, often for weeks or months on end, and because they are light entertainment. Because of this, users do not have their guards up like if they were listening to a politician speaking. Their power is often overlooked by scholars and journalists because of the supposed frivolity of the medium. But it is the very notion that these are unimportant sources of fun that makes their message all the more potent.

  The Call of Duty franchise is particularly egregious, not only in its messaging, but because who the messengers are. Increasingly, the games appear to be little more than American propaganda masquerading as fun first-person shooters. For gamers, the point is to enjoy its fast-paced entertainment. But for those involved in their production, the goal is not just making money; it is about serving the imperial war machine.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 22:20

• Taibbi: YouTube Censors Reality, Boosts Disinformation – Part 1
  Taibbi: YouTube Censors Reality, Boosts Disinformation – Part 1

  Authored by Matt Taibbi via TK News,

  As subscribers by now are aware, I’m very upset about YouTube’s recent decision to censor a factually accurate video about “rigged election” comments produced for this site by Matt Orfalea. The company has given Matt a strike and labeled his/our work “misinformation,” an insult I’ve decided not to take lying down. I’m going to search for new ways to embarrass the company until they reverse their decision. As it happens, today offers an excellent opportunity.

  CBS This Morning today came out with a story claiming they obtained a copy of Hunter Biden’s laptop, sent for an “independent forensic review,” and determined it “appears genuine.” This follows up confirmation from The New York Times back on March 16th, and more importantly, the exhaustive earlier work of Politico reporter Ben Schreckinger confirming key emails in his book, The Bidens.

  Matt did an exceptional job back in March in the video above, compiling clips of people who went on air and with absolute certainty proclaimed the laptop “a lie,” “altered or fake,” “pure distractions,” and of course, “RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION.”

  Whether or not you thought the actual content of the story was important, the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop affair was a crossroads moment in the history of modern censorship. YouTube played a major role in this event.

  This was a case in which major news media — including CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and countless other outlets — actively embraced disinformation, in the form of a group letter from 50-plus former intelligence officials saying the laptop story (they referred to a “laptop op”) had the “classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” All the aforementioned news agencies fell for this, as did Twitter (which blocked access to it, in what then-CEO Jack Dorsey later admitted was a “total mistake”) and Facebook (whose increasingly adrift founder Mark Zuckerberg later told Joe Rogan the story was throttled down at the suggestion of the FBI).

  YouTube also pushed this disinformation campaign. It still does. Despite the total absence of evidence ever existing that the laptop was either fake or part of a Russian “information operation” and a growing pile of evidence that the laptop is real, YouTube continues to leave unmolested on its site countless videos promoting the conspiracy theory — that’s what it is, let’s be clear — that the laptop story is both bunk and an intelligence op.

  Here’s a brief sample of materials they still have up, unmarked as “misinformation” or “disinformation”:

  1. Are Trump allies peddling Russian disinformation about the Bidens? PBS October 16, 2020 Judy Woodruff: “Today we learned more about concerns expressed by the President’s most senior advisors, that the President’s personal attorney was peddling Russian disinformation.” Nick Schifrin: “The bottom line is we cannot confirm the story, Judy, but… the Biden campaign says that this is Russian disinformation, and disinformation experts I talk to tell me that pro-Russian actors have been packaging their disinformation next to apparently legitimate information.” The irony, of course, is that PBS and YouTube were the ones pushing disinformation here.

  2. Hunter Biden tabloid story raises disinformation campaign fears, CBS October 15, 2020 “Experts say it has all the hallmarks of information laundering…,” said correspondent Norah O’Donnell, before quoting former FBI agent Eric O’Neil saying, “This looks like your classic disinformation campaign.”

  3. US investigating if emails connected to Russia disinformation against Biden, CNN October 16, 2020 This is a beauty. Wolf Blitzer introduces correspondent Alex Marquardt by talking about how there are “fears that [the laptop story] could actually be part of Russia’s latest and very massive disinformation campaign in the US presidential election.” To which Marquardt answers, “Massive indeed Wolf,” before going on to “report” that “we are being told by two people who’ve been briefed on what the FBI is doing, that they’re looking into whether these unverified emails about Hunter Biden that were published earlier this week by the New York Post… are part of this bigger Russian disinformation effort in the 2020 election.” We have no proof this campaign existed, no proof this story was connected to it, and no proof of it being “bigger” than any other campaign. Unflagged by YouTube.

  4. Bash On Pushing Of Disinformation On Biden: This Looks, Walks, & Talks Like Russian Intelligence, MSNBC October 19.2020 This piece is extraordinary because it’s almost exactly the same message as the one written by the 50 “former” intelligence officers. Nicolle Wallace starts off humorously, scoffing at the idea that someone is “suggesting somehow that Joe Biden is a corrupt politician — one of the most vetted politicians in this country.” Jeremy Bash, a former CIA chief of staff now posing as a media figure, concurs. “This looks like Russian intelligence. This walks like Russian intelligence,” adding that the laptop story “looks like a classic Russian playbook, disinformation campaign.” If you go back and look, you will find countless instances of reporters using words like classic, hallmarks, earmarks, and disinformation campaign.

  5. Joe Biden on 60 Minutes, CBS. October 26, 2020 Remember, CBS just did a story contradicting their own earlier 60 Minutes piece in which Lesley Stahl berated then-President Trump that the laptop story “can’t be verified.” Indeed, CBS just by doing its new story proved that its previous position — that verification was impossible — was a lark. In their other 60 Minutes interview from that season, they soft-balled Joe Biden on the laptop story. CBS: “Do you believe [Hunter’s laptop] is part of a Russian disinformation campaign?” BIDEN: “It’s just what it is. It’s a smear campaign.”

  There are plenty more of these. If you want to widen the criticism to Google, these “Russian disinformation” stories still pop up high in searches (see here, here, here, here, and here, for instance). YouTube and Google now become exhibit A in the ultimate truth about any attempt to “moderate” content at scale. If you make even a good-faith effort to weed out “disinformation,” relying on official bodies to help, what you’ll be left with is… official disinformation.

  But this isn’t a good-faith effort to weed out untruths. YouTube has become a place that censors true content but traffics in official and quasi-official deceptions. It’s become indistinguishable from a state censorship bureau. If they feel they’re right about their decisions, they should be happy to explain themselves to people me. Until then, they can expect more love letters from this address.

  Subscribers should know I don’t believe in letting things like this go, but I also don’t believe in annoying faithful readers. In the future, if there are similar entries in this campaign, I’ll make them public but won’t clog your email with notices. The idea is to be a pain in Google’s backside, not yours.

  Subscribe to TK News

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 22:00

• Carriers In "Panic Mode' As Recession Bites, China Bookings Plummet
  Carriers In “Panic Mode’ As Recession Bites, China Bookings Plummet

  Byh Mike Wackett of The Loadstar

  Ocean carriers are said to be in “panic mode” as bookings from China to North Europe and the US west coast tank, causing FAK rates to plunge to new depths.

  Despite aggressive blanking that has reduced weekly capacity on the tradelanes by more than a third, the lines have failed to slow the precipitous fall in short-term rates and, are arguably fuelling the fire by offering sub-economic spot rates via their digital platforms.

  For example, rates from Shanghai, Tianjin and Shenzhen to the Le Havre-Hamburg range of container hubs in North Europe, of $1,000 per 20ft and $1,800 per 40ft are now widely available for prompt shipment.

  And some carriers are said to be prepared to reduce rates further for volume, and relax or even waive demurrage and detention conditions.

  The speed of the rate erosion on the Asia-North Europe tradelane is making a mockery of the spot market indices, which have been unable to keep pace; for instance, the lowest reading this week is Drewry’s WCI, which recorded a 14% decline, to $2,687 per 40ft, for its North Europe component.

  “The westbound market seems like it’s in panic,” a UK-based forwarding executive told The Loadstar this week.

  “I am getting approximately 10 emails a day from random agents offering very low rates. Today, I had $1,800 into Southampton, which is crazy; it seems to be panic,” he said. “There hasn’t been a Christmas rush on westbound and I put that down to the recession. As a country, we are not buying like we used to during the pandemic.”

  He said he was hearing that carriers were blanking sailings right up to Chinese New Year, which falls on 21 January, to drive up rates, but, he added, “personally, I don’t think that the volume is there”.

  He continued: “This is all reflected in the number of hauliers contacting us asking for work – again, emails every day saying they have capacity from all ports.”

  Meanwhile, on the transpacific, short-term rates from China to the US west coast are sinking to sub-economic levels, dragging down long-term rates as carriers are forced to offer customers temporary reductions on contract rates.

  

  Indeed, Israeli carrier Zim told The Loadstar this week it had been obliged to agree pricing reductions with transpacific contracted customers to protect its business.

  “The demand and volume was not there, so we had to deal with a new reality and engage with our customers,” said CFO Xavier Destriau.

  According to the latest reading of Xeneta’s XSI spot index, its US west coast component was flat this week, at $1,941 per 40ft, having declined by 20% so far this month, while east coast rates were down 6% on the week, according to Drewry’s WCI, at $5,045 per 40ft.

  The one bright spot for carriers remains the transatlantic, where lines continue to enjoy short-term rates of between $6,500 and $7,600 per 40ft from North Europe to the US east coast, according to the spot rate indices.

  However, the outlier tradelane is showing signs of succumbing to the general rate demise, as port congestion unwinds on the US east coast, the port of Liverpool resumes normal working after industrial action and, not least, that carriers are deploying more capacity.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 21:40

• NY Times Takes Rare Look At Apparent Ukrainian War Crimes
  NY Times Takes Rare Look At Apparent Ukrainian War Crimes

  The New York Times has in an extremely rare moment (or perhaps more like unprecedented) conducted an in-depth visual investigation of a likely war crime against surrendered Russian troops conducted by Ukrainian forces. Multiple videos from different angles, including drone footage, emerged last week showing the incredibly disturbing scenes as Ukrainian forces were recapturing the village of Makiivka in the Luhansk region. 

  The videos show ten apparently unarmed Russian soldiers lying facedown on the ground, who early on are seen moving and in a position of surrender as at least four Ukrainian troops stand nearby outside of a house in a farmyard. 

  By the end of the footage, eleven Russians had been shot dead at close range, in what Russia says was a summary execution of people who at that point (based on their surrender) effectively become non-combatants based on accepted international laws of war. 

  

  The Russian Defense Ministry has said the videos confirm “deliberate and methodical murder” of its soldiers by the Ukrainian side, also with the Russian Foreign Ministry calling the act “merciless” and “shocking”.

  Surprisingly, the videos were initially made public by Ukrainian news sources and soldiers themselves, and were shared widely on social media, as they purportedly showed the ‘heroism’ of Ukrainian soldiers as they clawed back territory in eastern Ukraine. 

  But The New York Times described, “The videos show the grisly before-and-after scenes of the encounter earlier this month, in which at least 11 Russians, most of whom are seen lying on the ground, appear to have been shot dead at close range after one of their fellow fighters suddenly opened fire on Ukrainian soldiers standing nearby.”

  The United Nations has called for a formal investigation into the videos, with a statement from the UN Human Rights Office quoted in Reuters saying, “We are aware of the videos, and we are looking into them.”

  “Allegations of summary executions of people hors de combat should be promptly, fully and effectively investigated, and any perpetrators held to account,” the statement continued, in reference to people legally designated “outside of combat”.

  The Times report details the sequence of events beginning as follows:

  One soldier, with his rifle drawn, tentatively approaches the structure where the Russian soldiers are sheltering. The soldier with the machine gun provides cover. Several gunshots are heard — though it’s not clear from where — and the soldier slowly backs away from an outhouse, drawing out the Russian soldiers at gunpoint.

  

  The report comments that soon after the Russian soldiers emerge from the building, it is clear that an orderly surrender has taken place, with many of the prone Russian solders moving around on the ground after giving up their arms, clearly alive. 

  But soon after the entire scene turns to carnage:

  Two of the Ukrainians standing by appear to be relaxed and are pointing their rifles toward the ground…

  As an 11th Russian soldier emerges from the outhouse, he opens fire, aiming at one of the Ukrainian soldiers. The Ukrainians are taken by surprise. The cellphone camera jolts away as the Ukrainian soldier filming the scene flinches. A frame-by-frame analysis of what happens next shows the Ukrainian soldier standing beside him raise his rifle and aim toward the Russian gunman.

  By the time the dust settles, all of the Russian soldiers – and not just the gunman who emerged from the outhouse – lie dead, apparently shot in the head at close range, pools of blood forming around them.  

  “The video ends and it’s unclear what happens next. But a second aerial video of the location shows the bloody aftermath,” the NYT writes. “The Russian soldiers are lying motionless, apparently dead, most of them positioned as they were when they surrendered. Blood is pooling around them, and some appear to be bleeding from the upper body or head. The soldiers are dressed in the same uniforms with the distinctive red straps and blue marking.”

  

  The footage, as well as the NY Times’ confirmation of the event, is now going viral inside Russia, causing fury and an angry denunciations, while at the same time Ukrainian officials have suggested the initial surrender had been “staged” by the Russian side in order to set a trap for the Ukrainian soldiers. Kiev has rejected the charges of war crimes from Moscow.

  Russia has consistently complained that the West routinely ignores clear evidence of Ukrainian war crimes, while only putting Russian forces under the microscope. This NY Times investigation is an almost unprecedented moment where the “paper of record” is actually hinting that the Kremlin has a valid point.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 21:20

• Hunter Biden Laptop Repairman Reveals "Chilling" Warning From FBI Agent
  Hunter Biden Laptop Repairman Reveals “Chilling” Warning From FBI Agent

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

  John Paul Mac Isaac, the laptop repairman who allegedly found Hunter Biden’s laptop, revealed Monday that he is working with Republican lawmakers as they prepare to investigate the younger Biden after taking the House majority during this month’s midterms.

  

  Mac Isaac alleged in a Monday interview with Fox News that an FBI agent gave him a “chilling” warning when he first interacted with the bureau after finding the laptop. The Delaware-based laptop repairman said he recalled telling one agent that he would change their names when he published his book.

  “That’s when Agent Mike turned around and told me that, in their experience, nothing ever happens to people that don’t talk about these things,” Mac Isaac said, claiming that it was a veiled threat to keep silent.

  “I have been dealing with retaliation from multiple fronts for the past two years when what I did was leaked to the country. I’m expecting it, and I’m going to expect it to continue,” he added to Fox News while promoting his book.

  Republicans, he said, should hold “the FBI accountable for colluding with our mainstream and social media to block a story, a real story with real consequence,” and they should “get to the bottom of what the Biden family was up to when Joe Biden was vice president.”

  On Monday, a lawyer for Hunter Biden, Chris Clark, told CBS News that Mac Isaac did not have Hunter’s “consent to access his computer data or share it with others.” Some analysts said that it may have been the first time one of Hunter Biden’s lawyers confirmed that he left the laptop at the Delaware computer repair shop.

  Earlier this year, Mac Isaac recalled to the New York Post about how Hunter Biden arrived at his shop in Wilmington, Delaware, in April 2019.

  “I’m glad you’re still open,” Hunter Biden allegedly told him. “I just came from the cigar bar, and they told me about your shop, but I had to hurry because you close at seven.”

  “I need the data recovered off these, but they all have liquid damage and won’t turn on,” Mac Isaac recalled him saying.

  Other Details

  It came as CBS cited an independent expert as saying that the data sourced from Hunter Biden’s laptop is genuine, coming about two years after the NY Post and other news outlets, including The Epoch Times, reported on it. It’s not clear why CBS decided to publish its report Monday.

  

  U.S. President Joe Biden (L) waves alongside his son Hunter Biden after attending mass at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Johns Island, South Carolina on Aug. 13, 2022. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)

  The Epoch Times has contacted the FBI’s press office for comment.

  After Republicans recaptured the majority in the House, top GOP lawmakers indicated that they will investigate bank records and claims by whistleblowers that show connections between Hunter Biden and President Joe Biden.

  With weeks to go before the 2020 General Election, the New York Post published information sourced from the laptop, showing what Republicans and other critics say are shady business deals between the Biden family and individuals linked to the Chinese Communist Party and Ukrainian energy firms. The younger Biden, in a 2019 interview, has denied that he did anything wrong but acknowledged that such deals created a negative outward impression.

  Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who is expected to chair the House Oversight and Reform Committee, told reporters last week that the committee will investigate not just Hunter Biden but also President Biden.

  “I want to be clear. This is an investigation of Joe Biden. That’s where the committee will focus in this next Congress,” Comer told reporters.

  “This committee will evaluate the status of Joe Biden’s relationship with his family’s foreign partners and whether he is a president who is compromised or swayed by foreign dollars and influence,” Comer said, adding that his committee has acquired suspicious activity reports filed by major banks.

  In response, the White House said in a statement last week House Republicans are engaging in partisan attacks against Biden’s family members. The administration accused the GOP of trafficking in “long-debunked conspiracy theories,” without elaborating.

  “President Biden is not going to let these political attacks distract him from focusing on Americans’ priorities,” Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House Counsel’s office, told news outlets.

  Weeks after the 2020 election, the younger Biden said that Delaware prosecutors were investigating his tax affairs, although he hasn’t been charged with a crime. Since then, few details have been publicly disclosed about that investigation.

  As Republicans conduct their investigation, it’s not clear how many Americans will consider it a top priority.

  Fewer than 30 percent of voters said in a recent poll that Hunter Biden should be a top priority for the next Congress, with about 52 percent of Republicans expressing an interest in investigating him. For months, other polls showed that President Biden’s approval rating has remained largely underwater amid high inflation, fears of a recession, and a surge of violent crime nationwide.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 21:00

• What Reopening? China's Covid Restrictions Are Actually Tightening
  What Reopening? China’s Covid Restrictions Are Actually Tightening

  By Ye Xie, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and analyst

  After the initial market euphoria over China’s reopening from Covid lockdowns, reality is settling in. Reopening isn’t as easy as turning on a water tap. It takes months of preparation to increase hospital resources, put jabs in the arms of senior citizens and shift the public narrative about the pandemic.

  In fact, instead of loosening, China’s restrictions on social activities have strengthened in recent weeks. That should argue for investors to curb their enthusiasm.

  

  Confusion. Chaos. More than a week after Beijing fine-tuned its Covid Zero strategy, local governments are struggling to balance the need to control the pandemic while also limit the economic damage. Shijiazhuang, a closely-watched city that had experimented with a version of “living with the virus,” has reversed course, suspending schools and asking residents to stay at home for five days. As infections multiplied, subway rides in some big cities such as Beijing, Guangzhou and Chongqing have tumbled.

  The result is that Goldman Sachs’s Effective Lockdown Index has increased in recent weeks, despite Beijing’s new order to reduce the need for mass testing and citywide shutdowns.

  

  The reality is that conditions are just not there yet to allow Beijing to live with the virus.

  For example, officials have told hospitals designated to treat Covid patients to strengthen their capabilities, including increasing the share of ICU beds to 10%. To reach the target, China needs to add 30,000 ICU beds, a 50% increase from current levels, according to the estimate of Capital Economics’ Julian Evans-Pritchard. To put the number in perspective, only 6,370 ICU beds were added to hospitals nationwide in 2020.

  Reported severe cases and deaths remain low. The three deaths acknowledged over the weekend were all people over 87 years old with pre-existing illnesses. The bad news is that this is the most vulnerable part of the population Beijing is struggling to get vaccinated.

  Among those 80 years and older, only 66% have been fully vaccinated, and 40% have taken a booster, which provides comparable protection to two mRNA does. That’s considerably lower than the vaccination rate of at least 95% among other Asian countries, such as Singapore and South Korea, when they fully reopened the economy, according to Evans-Pritchard.

  China’s current vaccine coverage among this group of 36 million people is closer to Hong Kong’s when it suffered a deadly and disruptive reopening earlier this year.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 20:40

• Qatar And China Make History With 27-Year LNG Supply Deal
  Qatar And China Make History With 27-Year LNG Supply Deal

  By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

  Qatar’s state firm QatarEnergy signed on Monday the longest-term contract in the history of the LNG industry in a deal to supply LNG to Chinese state energy giant Sinopec for 27 years.

  

  QatarEnergy will supply China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) with 4 million tons per annum (MTPA) of LNG to China from the North Filed East (NFE) expansion project, just as global competition for LNG intensifies amid a European rush to secure non-Russian gas supply.

  “This is the first long-term SPA from the NFE project to be announced, and marks the longest gas supply agreement in the history of the LNG industry,” said Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, Qatar’s Minister of State for Energy Affairs and President and CEO of QatarEnergy.  

  Qatar has traditionally preferred long-term supply deals with customers, at which Europe balked earlier this year. But more recently, even European companies have started negotiations for longer-term supply with LNG providers. 

  China, for its part, is looking to secure LNG to avoid more spot buying amid uncertainties over the Asian spot prices in the coming years. 

  Today’s sale and purchase agreement (SPA) also represents the first long-term LNG offtake agreement from the NFE Expansion project. Qatar’s North Field East and North Field South (NFS) projects are expected to come online in 2026 and 2027, respectively.

  Qatar announced last year the world’s largest LNG project, which is set to raise its LNG production capacity from 77 million tons per annum (mmtpa) to 110 mmtpa. The Gulf gas and oil producer also plans another expansion phase at the North Field, the world’s largest natural gas field, which it shares with Iran. The second expansion phase will be the North Field South Project (NFS), set to further increase Qatar’s LNG production capacity from 110 mmtpa to 126 mmtpa, with an expected production start date in 2027.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 20:20

• "Users Have A Right To Know": Class Action Lawsuit Sheds Light Onto Google's Opaque Data-Mining Practices
  “Users Have A Right To Know”: Class Action Lawsuit Sheds Light Onto Google’s Opaque Data-Mining Practices

  It turns out that big tech companies may not be as committed to your privacy as their PR departments would have you believe – go figure.

  The latest example of this reality appears to be Google, who was revealed last week by MarketWatch to have data-mining practices that employees say that they sometimes “don’t understand and can’t describe”.

  The report cited a class action lawsuit alleging that Google “violated promises not to collect data of those using the browser without signing into their Google accounts”. Documents recently became unsealed in the case, offering a look into how privacy is discussed internally at Google. 

  In the lawsuit, one unnamed employee seemed to make it clear that Google’s privacy policies are opaque, stating: “I don’t have the faintest idea what Google has on me. The fact what we can’t explain what we have […] on users is probably our biggest challenge.” 

  

  “Users have a right to know,” one employee said. Another commented: “The reasons we provide are so high level and abstract that they don’t make sense to people.” A third employee said: “Consent is no longer consent if you think of ads as a product.”

  Additional employees seemed to solidify the ethos within the company. A former employee who recently left the company said: “I am more than willing to believe this is how executives talked to each other.”

  “Even people I was organizationally close to, knew well, and respected, were finding ways to justify that stuff to themselves,” they said about the company’s privacy teams. “The individual contributors [on Google’s privacy teams] are always idealistic people. Some of these quotes [from the case] look to me like things that idealistic people would say; others look like things management would say when the idealistic people aren’t around.”

  When asked by MarketWatch, Google responded to the report by stating that “privacy controls have long been built into our services and we encourage our teams to constantly discuss or consider ideas to improve them.” 

  As the report notes, ads are a material revenue generator for Google, making up $209.5 billion in sales for the company in its 2021 fiscal year. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 20:00

• What Elephant? AP Denies that There Is Any Evidence That Joe Biden Discussed Hunter's Business Dealings
  What Elephant? AP Denies that There Is Any Evidence That Joe Biden Discussed Hunter’s Business Dealings

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  For those of us who have written about the Hunter Biden scandal and the family’s influence-peddling operation for years, it is routine to read media stories denying the facts or dismissing calls to investigate the foreign dealings. However, this weekend, the Associated Press made a whopper of a claim that there is no evidence even suggesting that President Joe Biden ever spoke to his son about his foreign dealings. I previously discussed how the Bidens have succeeded in a Houdini-like trick in making this elephant of a scandal disappear from the public stage. They did so by enlisting the media in the illusion. However, this level of audience participation in the trick truly defies belief.

  

  The statement of the Associated Press at this stage of the scandal is breathtaking but telling: “Joe Biden has said he’s never spoken to his son about his foreign business, and nothing the Republicans have put forth suggests otherwise.”

  For years, the media has continued to report President Biden’s repeated claim that “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.” At the outset, the media only had to suspend any disbelief that the president could fly to China as Vice President with his son on Air Force 2 without discussing his planned business dealings on the trip.

  Of course, the emails on the laptop quickly refuted this claim. However, the media buried the laptop story before the election or pushed the false claim that it was fake Russian disinformation.

  President Biden’s denials continued even after an audiotape surfaced showing President Biden leaving a message for Hunter specifically discussing coverage of those dealings. The call is specifically referring to these dealings:

  “Hey pal, it’s Dad. It’s 8:15 on Wednesday night. If you get a chance just give me a call. Nothing urgent. I just wanted to talk to you. I thought the article released online, it’s going to be printed tomorrow in the Times, was good. I think you’re clear. And anyway if you get a chance give me a call, I love you.”

  But who are you going to believe, the media or your own ears.

  Some of us have written for two years that Biden’s denial of knowledge is patently false. It was equally evident that the Biden family was selling influence and access.

  There are emails of Ukrainian and other foreign clients thanking Hunter Biden for arranging meetings with his father. There are photos from dinners and meetings that tie President Biden to these figures, including a 2015 dinner with a group of Hunter Biden’s Russian and Kazakh clients.

  People apparently were told to avoid directly referring to President Biden. In one email, Tony Bobulinski, then a business partner of Hunter’s, was instructed by Biden associate James Gilliar not to speak of the former veep’s connection to any transactions: “Don’t mention Joe being involved, it’s only when u [sic] are face to face, I know u [sic] know that but they are paranoid.”

  Instead, the emails apparently refer to President Biden with code names such as “Celtic” or “the big guy.” In one, “the big guy” is discussed as possibly receiving a 10 percent cut on a deal with a Chinese energy firm; other emails reportedly refer to Hunter Biden paying portions of his father’s expenses and taxes.

  Bobulinski has given multiple interviews that he met twice with Joe Biden to discuss a business deal in China with CEFC China Energy Co. That would seem obvious evidence. In addition, the New York Post reported on a key email that discussed “the proposed percentage distribution of equity in a company created for a joint venture with CEFC China Energy Co.” That was the email on March 13, 2017 that included references of “10 held by H for the big guy.”

  The Associated Press later revised the line after an outcry from some of us. It now ends “there is no indication that the federal investigation involves the president.”  The revision creates a new problem. Rather than simply stating the fact, AP seems to struggle to shield the President. There is every indication that “the federal investigation involves the president.” Not only is the President discussed in key emails under investigation, but the grand jury heard testimony that the “Big Guy” is Joe Biden.

  That brings us back to Houdini’s trick of making his 10,000 pound elephant Jennie disappear every night in New York’s Hippodrome. He succeeded night after night because the audience wanted the elephant to disappear even though it never left the stage.

  I previously wrote about how the key to the trick was involving the media so that reporters are invested in the illusion like calling audience members to the stage. Reporters have to insist that there was nothing to see or they have to admit to being part of the original deception. The media cannot see the elephant without the public seeing something about the media in its past efforts to conceal it.

  The media is now so heavily invested in the trick that they are sticking with the illusion even after “the reveal.” The Associated Press story shows that even pointing at the elephant — heck, even riding the elephant around the stage — will not dislodge these denials. This is no elephant because there cannot be an elephant. Poof!

  N.B.: This column was revised to add discussion of the AP revision of the line on the investigation.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 19:40

• A Shocking 37% Of Real Estate Agents Couldn't Afford October Office Rent
  A Shocking 37% Of Real Estate Agents Couldn’t Afford October Office Rent

  The Federal Reserve has hiked 375bps in just six meetings this year. Mortgage rates have followed suit, skyrocketing from a low of 2.7% in February to 7.35% earlier this month. The aggressive tightening of monetary conditions has sparked an affordability crisis — sidelining millions of potential homebuyers while existing home sales crash to the worst level since 2008. 

  Higher borrowing costs triggered a sharp drop in mortgage applications and home sales in the back half of the year. Deal flow is drying up for many real estate agents, resulting in financial duress that may worsen into early 2023. 

  In October, a shocking 37% of real estate agents struggled to pay office rent — a 10% increase from the prior month, according to Yahoo, citing a new report via Redfin. The figure could worsen as the housing market rapidly cools via the Fed-induced demand side crunch. 

  Such rapid heating of the housing market during the pandemic era brought in an influx of new agents. The National Association of Realtors said membership hit an all-time high of 1.56 million in 2021 (pandemic boom year) — up from 1.49 million the year before. 

  While we don’t expect a similar 2008-09 housing crash, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas warned last week that home prices could plunge 20% next year due to affordability woes. 

  In October, existing home sales tumbled to 28.4% – its worst since 2008. 

  

  Absent the nadir of the COVID lockdowns, this is the lowest existing home sales SAAR since Dec 2011…

  

  Deal flow slump for agents comes as lagged Case-Shiller Index showed US housing prices dropped 1.3% from their June 2022 peak in August. This is the most significant monthly decline since the Lehman collapse.  

  

  The national home price index growth has slowed for five straight months (below 13% YoY for the first time since Feb 2021). The absolute drop in the growth rate of 2.62 percentage points is the largest ever…

  

  Researchers at Goldman Sachs aren’t as bearish as the Dallas Fed, expect a 5-10% slump from peak to trough in home prices — with their official forecast model predicting a 7.6% decline. 

  

  The unprecedented explosion in mortgage rates and freezing of the housing market is terrible news for all those newly minted agents during the pandemic. Mounting financial hardships and slumping deal flow, with the inability to service office rent, could result in many leaving the industry, perhaps, returning to their old bartending jobs. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 19:20

• Authorities Looking Into Oregon Report That Falsely Claims Sky-High Child COVID-19 Hospitalization Rates
  Authorities Looking Into Oregon Report That Falsely Claims Sky-High Child COVID-19 Hospitalization Rates

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

  Authorities in Oregon say they’re looking into a report they published that falsely claims sky-high COVID-19 hospitalization rates among children.

  “We are working with the company that completed the report, Rede Group, to look into that data question,” Jonathan Modie, a spokesman for the Oregon Health Authority, told The Epoch Times in an email on Nov. 19.

  Modie said authorities would be able to provide an update as early as Monday.

  The report in question was produced by a firm called the Rede Group as a contractor to the health authority, as outlined in a Senate bill that was passed this year.

  The bill says that the authority “shall study the state’s public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic” and prepare various reports, including one that includes “a broad review of the COVID-19 pandemic” and identification of areas in the public health response to the pandemic that need improvement.

  

  The 725-page report includes multiple instances of misinformation, including the false claim that COVID-19 hospitalization rates among children were as high as 47.4 percent.

  In a graph, the report depicts the hospitalization rates as above 30 percent for all childhood age groups, with the highest being 47.4 percent among children aged 12 to 17 as of June.

  According to Oregon Health Authority (pdf), the hospitalization rate in 2021 among children aged 0 to 9 was just 0.9 percent and the hospitalization rate among those aged 10 to 19 was 0.6 percent. A report issued in July (pdf) looking at the first six months of 2021 had the percentages at 0.6 and 0.3, respectively.

  Hospitalization rates are the percentage of people who test positive for COVID-19 who were admitted to a hospital.

  Robb Hutson, a spokesman for the Rede Group, told The Epoch Times via email that he would have the company’s data team look into the matter.

  States across the country, as well as federal officials and media outlets, have repeatedly put forth COVID-19 misinformation during the pandemic, including exaggerating the risk the disease poses to people and hyping vaccine effectiveness.

  Eric Happel, a Nike employee who has criticized Oregon’s COVID-19 restrictions, flagged the false information in the new report.

  He said the graph on hospitalization rates “is so wrong that everyone in OHA should know it’s wrong,” adding that “this is just so incompetent it is beyond embarrassing.”

  Happel also said he did not appreciate how the report does not address how school closures, which took place in many U.S. states in 2020 and into 2021, affected children apart from saying health officials had to “balance the potential benefit” of such measures “against the serious ramifications,” including “creating social isolation.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 19:00

• 9-12 More Months: How Long US Consumers Have Before The Bottom Falls Out
  9-12 More Months: How Long US Consumers Have Before The Bottom Falls Out

  During the Covid-19 pandemic, consumers socked away an unprecedented amount of cash thanks to government stimulus and a locked down economy. There was such a surplus that people were able to also pay down debt, buy new appliances, and take vacations once draconian lockdowns were lifted. And of course, businesses raised prices and hired more workers to meet the flood of demand.

  

  Now that we’re ‘enjoying’ inflation while wages have struggled to keep up, the question becomes – how long can consumers maintain this level of spending with their “excess” savings, which was estimated at $1.2 – $1.8 trillion heading into Q3 of this year?

  Around nine to twelve months, according to the Wall Street Journal.

  What’s more, consumers have already been loading up credit cards to supplement their incomes.

  

  A brief history of recent savings trends via the Journal;

  In 2019, before the pandemic hit, households saved 8.8% of their disposable income. That saving rate jumped to 16.8% in 2020, the highest annual saving rate on record, as government stimulus and unemployment benefits left many consumers flush with cash but with few opportunities to spend during lockdowns.

  In 2021 the saving rate moderated to 11.8%, and it has fallen further during 2022. The rate has been below 4% for seven straight months and in September it stood at 3.1%, near its lowest level since the 2008 financial crisis.

  In short; consumers are spending more and saving less of their monthly income thanks to inflation.

  

  What’s more, there are signs that consumers aren’t using their savings to pay down credit card debt like they used to – with the Federal Reserve Bank of NY reporting that credit card balances increased 15% YoY in the third quarter – the largest increase in more than two decades. Delinquencies, meanwhile, rose across all income groups.

  According to JPMorgan, at this rate the excess savings could be ‘entirely spent by the second half of next year.’

  Goldman economists estimate that households have depleted around 25% of their excess savings, and will have spent around 60% of it by the end of 2023.

  “The growth boost from strong balance sheets is probably mostly behind us but … elevated wealth levels will provide a backstop to spending for households that are hit with a negative economic shock,” they wrote last week.

  Analysts say a feature of this holiday spending season will be the divide between high-income households that still have savings and low-income households that have spent most of their rainy-day funds and are being squeezed by food, gasoline, and shelter inflation.

  Economists at the Federal Reserve last month said households in the top half of the income distribution held the lion’s share of excess savings in mid-2022 at $1.35 trillion, and the lower half of the income distribution held about $350 billion. -WSJ

  According to Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM US LLP, “It’s going to be an upscale holiday season, with strong spending in luxury names, experiential travel, upper-end resorts—and a more modest holiday season in bottom [income] quintiles.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 18:40

• CEO Of Ukrainian Crypto Firm Denies FTX–Ukraine Money-Laundering Allegations
  CEO Of Ukrainian Crypto Firm Denies FTX–Ukraine Money-Laundering Allegations

  Authored by Andrew Moran via The Epoch Times,

  Everstake, a Ukraine-based cryptocurrency firm, has been caught in the crosshairs of a controversial relationship involving Kyiv, Democrats, and the beleaguered FTX exchange that has captured the attention of Washington officials.

  

  As part of efforts to generate more funds for the war effort, the Ukrainian government launched “Aid for Ukraine,” a website that accepted cryptocurrency donations that would be converted into fiat money and then deposited at the National Bank of Ukraine. The contributions would be used to purchase a wide range of essential items, from medical supplies to military clothing.

  The Ministry of Digital Transformation partnered with FTX, Ukraine’s Kuna exchange, and Everstake to help facilitate crypto-denominated donations, which have totaled between $60 million and $100 million.

  Because of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s immense donations to Democrat lawmakers and the timing between the creation of the fund and President Joe Biden’s billions in financial and military assistance to Kyiv, there has been speculation of wrongdoing. Critics allege that Ukraine invested in FTX to funnel money to the Democratic Party.

  According to Everstake CEO Sergey Vasylchuk, it is a ridiculous assertion to think that the Ukrainian government would invest in private companies at a time of war and utilize critical resources for political payoffs, noting that Kyiv is “investing in the needs of families” with the aid it receives.

  “Technically, the Ministry of Digital Transformation mostly supported the information point of view,” he told The Epoch Times, adding that it was chaotic in the early days of the war, requiring the use of backups to receive funds.

  “It was messed up at the time,” the head of the staking service platform noted. “I never felt this was like a wonderful cheat. For me, when they say Ukraine invests in companies, I just ignore it.”

  Vasylchuk confirmed that he was never in contact with Bankman-Fried during the process, explaining that FTX maintained only a small role in the fundraising effort.

  “We have six people who were part of the compliance legal team” who helped get the Aid for Ukraine project off the ground, Vasylchuk averred.

  

  Sergey Vasylchuk, CEO of Everstake, a Ukraine-based cryptocurrency firm. (Courtesy of Everstake)

  Crypto has turned into a vital tool in the military conflict in Eastern Europe.

  In recent months, pro-Russia organizations have been accepting donations through cryptocurrency exchanges, raising millions of dollars in digital currencies that are then used to support Moscow’s military campaign.

  In the aftermath of the FTX collapse, there have been widespread concerns this would trigger a contagion effect. Cryptocurrency prices have plummeted, crypto-related firms have tumbled, and many parties that have been exposed to Bankman-Fried’s empire have experienced financial pressures.

  But Vasylchuk says that Everstake is weathering the storm because it maintains diversified assets and, depending on a treasure trove of web reports, the company uses various wallets to ensure the safety and security of its holdings.

  ‘UNITED24’

  Ukraine officials have also addressed the recent allegations, including Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation Oleksandr Bornyakov, who described the latest rumors as “nonsense.”

  “A fundraising crypto foundation @_AidForUkraine used @FTX_Official to convert crypto donations into fiat in March. Ukraine’s gov never invested any funds into FTX. The whole narrative that Ukraine allegedly invested in FTX, who donated money to Democrats is nonsense, frankly,” he wrote in a tweet last week.

  Aid for Ukraine was recently taken down and replaced with “UNITED24.”

  “UNITED24 was launched by the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, as the main venue for collecting charitable donations in support of Ukraine. Funds will be transferred to the official accounts of the National Bank of Ukraine and allocated by assigned ministries to cover the most pressing needs,” the new website states.

  The website also informed visitors that “we are looking for companies or enterprises that can help Ukraine with specific needs.”

  

  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a meeting with the U.S. secretary of state in Kyiv on Sept. 8, 2022. (Genya Savilov/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

  Washington Probing FTX-Ukraine Connections

  A growing number of U.S. officials are not convinced by these explanations.

  In a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, several House Republicans, led by Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), wrote that it had recently come to their “attention that billions of taxpayer dollars sent to Ukraine to assist with their war efforts were potentially invested in a crypto exchange that then made massive donations to Democrats” during the 2022 midterm election campaign.

  “While this partnership was touted as a way to assist Ukraine in cashing out crypto donations for ammunition and humanitarian aid, we have serious concerns that the Ukrainian government may have invested portions of the nearly $66 billion of U.S. economic assistance into FTX to keep Democrats in power—and keep the money coming in,” the lawmakers explained in a letter (pdf) exclusively obtained by FOX Business.

  “We sincerely hope the primary driver behind the billions in congressional assistance to Ukraine was not Democrats attempting to keep themselves in power, and that none of the missing funds were used as a passthrough to avoid campaign finance laws or end up in Democrat pockets.”

  A State Department spokesperson told the business news network that there is “no reason to believe that these reports are anything but pure falsehoods and misinformation.”

  The House Financial Services Committee, led by Reps. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), announced a bipartisan hearing into the FTX debacle and what it could mean for the digital asset economy. The committee plans to hear from Bankman-Fried and individuals involved in Alameda Research, Binance, and FTX.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 18:20

• Iran Launches More Large-Scale Missile Attacks On Northern Iraq
  Iran Launches More Large-Scale Missile Attacks On Northern Iraq

  Iran has launched another round of attacks on Kurdish groups in northern Iraq in connection with ongoing anti-government protests inside the Islamic Republic. This as Iran’s own neighboring Kurdistan region has continued to be a hotbed of the now two-month long “anti-hijab” protests sparked by the death in police custody of a 22-year old Iranian Kurdish woman from Saqqez. 

  Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced early Monday that it struck three areas of the northern Iraqi Kurdish region with drones and missiles the day prior, causing “heavy damage” on the camps. Tehran has said that “terrorist groups”.

  

  Iranian statement media said that 26 members Komala and the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan were killed as a result. 

  Iran had first carried out a similar cross-border attack in September, which was said to have killed an American citizen who was a dual national. There were more reported Iranian strikes last week.

  The IRGC claims that the groups being targeted are behind weapons smuggling operations, as well as sabotage actions inside Iran, which aim to destabilize the country. 

  Like with the last major cross-border attack, the US Central Command condemned the fresh Iranian military aggression, saying the strikes violate Iraq’s sovereignty and “jeopardize the hard-fought security and stability of Iraq and the Middle East.”

  ⚡️Consequences of Iranian strike in Northeastern Iraq pic.twitter.com/CLYTNoK3K5

  — War Monitor (@WarMonitors) November 20, 2022

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  Tehran has meanwhile been demanding that Baghdad take concrete action to disarm the outlawed Kurdish militia groups while holding open the possibility of more cross-border strikes.

  A Monday Iranian foreign ministry statement said its military had no choice to act to “protect its borders and security of its citizens based on its legal rights.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 18:00

• The Lords Of War: The Perils Facing Trump, Garland, & Smith In Washington's Legal Arms Race
  The Lords Of War: The Perils Facing Trump, Garland, & Smith In Washington’s Legal Arms Race

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  Below is my column in The Hill on the appointment of a special counsel to investigate former President Donald Trump. All of the three main players – Trump, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Special Counsel Jack Smith – will face immediate challenges in the legal arm’s race unfolding in Washington.

  

  Here is the column:

  There seemed to be enough torpedoes in the water in Washington this week that you could walk across the Potomac without getting your feet wet. On Capitol Hill, the new House Republican majority announced a series of subpoena-ready investigations of President Biden and administration officials. At the Justice Department, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate former President Trump for possible crimes ranging from the 2020 election to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot to the Mar-a-Lago documents controversy.

  It was all reminiscent of the movie “The Lord of War,” in which a fictional arms dealer warns that “the problem with gunrunners going to war is that there is no shortage of ammunition.” The same appears true of rival government officials having no shortage of subpoenas.

  In this atmosphere of politically and mutually assured destruction, there are some immediate threats for the three main combatants:

  Attorney General Garland

  When he announced the appointment of Jack Smith to investigate Trump, Garland explained that “based on recent developments, including the former president’s announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election, and the sitting president’s stated intention to be a candidate as well, I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel.”

  In making that case for a Trump special counsel, however, Garland may have made a case against himself for refusing to appoint a Biden special counsel in the Hunter Biden scandal. Garland’s department is investigating potential wrongdoing that could involve the other referenced candidate, President Biden, in the Hunter Biden matter. That investigation should be looking at numerous alleged references to the president using code names such as “the Big Guy” in the context of receiving percentages on foreign deals and other perks. Yet Garland has refused to appoint a special counsel in an investigation that not only could prove highly embarrassing to the president but, in the view of some of us, could implicate him as well.

  Congressional Democrats repeatedly voted to block an investigation of this alleged multimillion-dollar influence peddling by the Biden family. House Republicans are now poised to look into these foreign deals — and how the Justice Department may have stymied or slowed any investigation before the 2020 election.

  While the special counsel appointment helps insulate Garland from claims about the use of his department for political purposes on any Trump charges, he may soon face new challenges, including possible contempt referrals if Biden officials or Democrats refuse to supply information or testimony to Republican House investigators. Garland has sharply departed from prior cases in which the Justice Department largely refused to prosecute such contempt referrals; he has been very active in pursuing Trump officials who failed to cooperate with Congress. He now may be asked to show the same willingness to pursue those who obstruct or defy House Republican investigations.

  Former President Trump

  The greatest threat clearly faces Trump himself. His announced intention to run for the presidency in 2024 may have expedited the appointment of a special counsel. With the expectation of a possible indictment, Trump may have wanted to frame the optics as a vendetta against a declared Biden opponent before his administration took any major step toward prosecution. Instead, it likely sealed the need for a special counsel.

  Trump already has declared the move to be political and says he will not “partake in” an investigation.

  A special counsel could make fast work of controversies such as Mar-a-Lago, which have been investigated for months and already have secured grand jury testimony. For Trump, having a special counsel in control, rather than an attorney general, may prove even more precarious. Some of the potential charges for unlawful transfer or possession of classified material historically have resulted in relatively minor charges. If this investigation produces the basis for an obstruction charge or misdemeanors, Garland might have been inclined to use his discretion to forgo prosecution and avoid political disruption or questions of bias. In contrast, after the expense and effort to create his office, a special counsel may feel less inclined to overlook a chargeable offense. The majority of people charged by former special counsel Robert Mueller faced relatively minor charges and served short terms in jail.

  Trump also will face practical barriers. Prosecutors usually start with the low-hanging fruit in an organization, to coerce people to cooperate by threatening criminal charges. On issues such as obstruction, Trump did not allegedly act alone; there were staff and lawyers who made what the FBI claims were knowingly false or misleading representations. Those individuals must now be viewed by Trump’s counsel as having potential conflicts of interest, including his former counsel. The only way to avoid conflicts or vulnerabilities is to assemble a largely new staff that was not involved in either the Jan. 6 or Mar-a-Lago episodes.

  That is the difference between “partaking” in a personal excursion and a criminal investigation: The latter does not depend on your participation.

  Special Counsel Smith

  Smith faces the unenviable task of investigating a presidential candidate less than two years before the election. Given the advanced stage of prior investigations, he could bring charges before Sept. 5, 2024 (or roughly 60 days before the election under Justice Department guidelines for election year filings). It is unlikely, however, that a charge against Trump could be tried in that time.

  However, Smith’s first test will be to avoid the initial mistakes of a predecessor, Mueller.

  Like Smith, Mueller was considered a natural choice as special counsel, given his extensive experience as a career prosecutor. However, Mueller’s investigation was undermined by his selection of a team — starting with his top aide, Andrew Weissmann, a controversial prosecutor who was accused of political bias. The investigation was further undermined by FBI personnel, including Special Agent Peter Strzok, who was later removed from the team and fired by the Justice Department; Strzok has since filed a wrongful termination lawsuit.

  Smith can avoid tripping a similar explosive wire by selecting a team that is defined by its prior professional expertise, not its prior political views or associations.

  He also needs to be wary of creative avenues to indict Trump. Smith was part of the prosecution team that convicted former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell (R) on federal corruption charges in 2014. The Supreme Court unanimously overturned that conviction as having stretched the law beyond its breaking point. If Smith is going to be the first prosecutor to indict a former president, he needs to do so with unimpeachable evidence of an unchallengeable crime.

  Only one thing is certain in any of this: It will not end well.

  With both sides loading up staff and subpoenas, the start of the 2024 campaign season has all of the makings of an utter bloodletting. There will be ample support for both sides to fulfill their respective narratives — and no shortage of legal weapons — in this political war of attrition.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 17:40

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• They Will Lock You Down Again
  They Will Lock You Down Again

  Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

  The lords of lockdown barely escaped their worst possible fate, namely that the topic would become the national and international source of scandal that it should be. And let’s add the vaccine mandates here too: even if such had been morally justified, which they were not, there is absolutely no practical reason for them at all. 

  

  To have imposed both of these within the course of one year – with zero evidence that they achieved anything for public health and vast amounts of unfolding evidence that they ruined life quality for countless millions – qualifies as a scandal for the ages. It was in the US but also in nearly every country in the world but a few. 

  Might that have huge political implications? One would suppose so. And yet today it appears that truth and justice are further off than ever. The most passionate of the anti-lockdown governors – those who never locked down or opened earlier than the rest of the country – won on their record. Most of the rest joined the entire political establishment in pretending that all of this is a non-issue. Tragically, this tactic seems to have worked better than it should have. 

  Meanwhile, a few points to consider:

  The US government, through the Transportation Safety Administration, has signed yet another order extending the ban on unvaccinated international visitors until January 8, 2023. This means that no person who has managed to refuse the shot is allowed to come to the US for any reason. This is 30% of the world’s population, banned even to enter the US on their own dime. Something like this would have been inconceivably illiberal three years ago, and been a source of enormous controversy and outrage. Today, the extension hardly made the news. 

  The Biden administration has once again extended the Covid emergency declaration another 90 days, which continues to grant government vast powers without Congressional approval. Under a state of emergency, the Constitutional structure of the US is effectively suspended and the country remains on a wartime footing. This announcement was not controversial, and, like the above, it barely made the news. 

  Many colleges and universities, and also other schools and public agencies, continue to enforce the vaccine mandate even without any solid science behind the approval of the bivalent shots or any real rationale behind the push, given that most people have long ago been exposed and acquired natural immunity, and, moreover, it is very well established that the shots do not protect anyone from infection nor stop transmission. They just keep doing this anyway. 

  Masking is not in disrepute because we never really obtained anything like an honest admission of their failure to control the spread. Even today, there is a percentage of people out there permanently traumatized. On travels, I’m seeing perhaps 10-20% but in some Northeastern cities, regular wearing of masks is also very common. Once they became a symbol of political compliance and virtue, that sealed the deal and the culture was changed. Now we face the threat of mask mandates whenever government deems it necessary because the Transportation Safety Authority has been given the go-ahead by the courts. 

  The end of vaccine mandates in most areas of life, and hence also the drive for a passport to distinguish between clean and unclean people, is a good sign. But the infrastructure is still in place and becoming more sophisticated. It is hardly a final victory. It might only be a temporary respite, while all the ambitions are still extant. 

  More than that, the Biden administration (and all that it represents, including the World Economic Forum, the World Health Organization, and everything else called the establishment) has its own pandemic plans in place. The idea is not to dial back the mandates or cool it on them. It’s the reverse: centralize all pandemic planning to make a South Dakota, Georgia, and Florida experience impossible the next time. Also, spend tens of billions in more money. 

  The principle seems to have emerged among the agencies, intellectuals, and politicians who did this. Whatever you do, never admit to having made any major mistakes. And never connect the economic, cultural, health, and educational disasters all around us to anything the govenrment did in 2020 or 2021! That would be nothing but a conspiracy theory. 

  The pandemic racket is so huge at this point that it is even embroiled in the FTX meltdown over the weekend. Sam Bankman-Fried’s brother Gabe actually founded a nonprofit solely for the purpose of providing “support” for the $30 billion that the Biden administration has allocated to pandemic planning. The institution “Guarding Against Pandemics” is very obviously a honeypot for such funding, complete with on-the-record endorsements from many Democrat Party candidates who won election. 

  Meanwhile, yes, there have been many successful court challenges to many features of the pandemic response. But not enough. The main machinery that took away liberty and property in the name of virus control is still in place in all its essentials. The CDC to this day brags of its awesome quarantine powers that it can deploy any time government deems it necessary. Nothing about that has changed. 

  In the big picture and rendered in a philosophical sense, humanity seems to have lost its ability to learn from its own errors. Put in more gritty terms, too many people among ruling-class interests gained financially and in terms of the lust for power during the pandemic to prompt any serious rethinking and reform. 

  In any case, that rethinking and reform is now put off for another day. Anyone seriously concerned about the future of humanity and the civilizations it built must throw themselves into the long-term battle for truth and reason. That will require that we use every bit of what remains of free speech and what remains of the longing for integrity and accountability in public life. The group we have come to call “they” want a demoralized population and a silent public square. 

  We cannot allow that to happen.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/20/2022 – 23:30

• Texas Prepares Military Tanks For Southern Border After Governor Abbot Declares Invasion
  Texas Prepares Military Tanks For Southern Border After Governor Abbot Declares Invasion

  Three days after Texas Governor Greg Abbott invoked the state’s “Invasion Clauses” to tackle the record-setting influx of migrants illegally crossing the southern border, a new planning document obtained by Army Times and The Texas Tribune reveals Texas Military Department officials are planning to deploy a fleet of fully tracked armored personnel carriers and National Guard troops. 

  Texas Military Department officials issued the order Thursday to the headquarters leading Operation Lone Star reveals. It detailed the deployment of ten M113 armored personnel carrier vehicles to the border. 

  By Friday, the Texas Military Department released a statement that “aircraft flights and security efforts” will also be ramped up. 

  “These actions are part of a larger strategy to use every available tool to fight back against the record-breaking level of illegal immigration.

   “The Texas National Guard is taking unprecedented measures to safeguard our border and to repel and turn-back immigrants trying to cross the border illegally,” the department said.

  

  Governor Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in March 2021, deploying soldiers and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers to counter the influx of illegals crossing the border while the Biden administration turned a blind eye to the migrant crisis they sparked. 

  Fox News reporter Bill Melugin tweeted a shocking video from Eagle Pass, Texas, via drone outfitted with a thermal imaging system. He said the drone “shows a large group of migrants crossing illegally into private property early this morning [Thursday morning].”

  Melugin said, as reported by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, “there have been over 1,400 illegal crossings in the Del Rio sector in the last 24 hours & 69,000 since 10/1.”

  NEW: Thermal drone video from our team in Eagle Pass, TX shows a large group of migrants crossing illegally into private property early this morning.
  Per CBP source, there have been over 1,400 illegal crossings in the Del Rio sector in the last 24 hours & 69,000 since 10/1. pic.twitter.com/N1FjKVVuDa

  — Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) November 17, 2022

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  Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz quoted Melugin’s tweet, stating that “5,000,000 illegal aliens have crossed the border since Joe Biden was elected,” adding “over 230 illegal aliens crossed last month alone.”

  5,000,000 illegal aliens have crossed the border since Joe Biden was elected.

  Over 230,000 illegal aliens crossed last month alone.

  And STILL Joe Biden doesn’t secure the border. https://t.co/BBSJadktHB

  — Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) November 17, 2022

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  Melugin has shown that migrant inflows were relatively low during the Trump years but have since erupted under Biden. 

  BREAKING: CBP reports there were 230,678 migrant encounters at the border in October, the first month of fiscal year 2023. It is an enormous increase over recent Octobers.

  OCT FY’23 : 230,678
  OCT FY’22 : 164,837
  OCT FY’21 : 71,929
  OCT FY’20: 45,139
  OCT FY’19: 60,781 @FoxNews

  — Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) November 15, 2022

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  The near-term deployment of the M113s comes as no surprise. These tanks are designed to carry infantry troops and or haul equipment. Each tank can be outfitted with a variety of weapons, heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, and antitank missiles. What weapons will be on Texas Guard’s M113s at the border is unclear. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/20/2022 – 23:00

• No Evidence Freedom Convoy Donations Were From Criminal Origins: GoFundMe Exec
  No Evidence Freedom Convoy Donations Were From Criminal Origins: GoFundMe Exec

  Authored by Peter Wilson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  An executive from the online crowdfunding platform GoFundMe said in testimony before a parliamentary committee that there is no evidence suggesting that any of the funds raised for the Freedom Convoy protest through the platform were illegal or acquired through criminal means.

  

  Conservative MP Larry Brock asked GoFundMe general counsel Kim Wilford if she agreed that there was “no evidence that any of the funds originating to your platform were proceeds of crime.”

  “That is correct,” Wilford told the parliamentary joint committee on the declaration of emergency on Nov. 18.

  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in the House of Commons on Feb. 9 that there was a “flow of funds through criminal activities” being sent to the convoy.

  Just over a week later, the prime minister also told the House that the convoy was “being heavily supported by individuals in the United States and from elsewhere around the world.”

  “We see that roughly half of the funding that is flowing to the barricaders here is coming from the United States,” he said on Feb. 17.

  Wilford said Thursday that 88 percent of the funds donated to the convoy through GoFundMe originated in Canada and 86 of the donors were from Canada.  The convoy’s fundraising page raised over $10 million before GoFundMe removed it on Feb. 4 on the grounds that it violated their service terms.

  Wilford confirmed that of the total 133,000 donors who gave to the fundraiser, only 18,000 originated from outside of Canada, with 14,000 of that total coming from the United States.

  ‘Perhaps A Handful’

  A CBC broadcasting host said on Jan. 28 that there was “concern that Russian actors could be continuing to fuel things as this protest grows or perhaps even instigating it from the outside.”

  The national media outlet’s ombudsman later called the comment “too bold” and said it should’ve been backed by more evidence.

  Wilford told the House finance committee on March 17 that the largest single donation made to the convoy through GoFundMe totalled $30,000 and that it was from Canada.

  GoFundMe’s president Juan Benitez told the committee on the same day that “there was virtually no, perhaps a handful at most, of donations from Russia.”

  “In our opinion, and from the evidence that we see, there was no coordinated effort there to have any kind of contribution or impact,” he said.

  On Nov. 18, Liberal MP Rachel Bendayan asked Wilford to provide the joint committee on with GoFundMe’s numbers outlining where convoy donors originated.

  “Can you confirm to the committee that no donations were received from China?” Bendayan asked.

  “I do not believe that any donations were received from China,” Wilford said, adding that she didn’t have the exact information at hand and couldn’t “confirm with 100 percent certainty.”

  “Can you similarly confirm with respect to any donations coming from Russia?” Bendayan asked.

  “Correct, yes,” said Wilford.

  David Wagner contributed to this report. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/20/2022 – 22:30

• Worst Chinese Bond Drop Since 2016 Is Coming To An End
  Worst Chinese Bond Drop Since 2016 Is Coming To An End

  By Ye Xie and George Lei, Bloomberg Markets Live commentators and reporters

  Three things we learned last week:

  1. Good policy news is bad news for Chinese bonds. Bonds tumbled the most in six years earlier in the week amid growth optimism following the government’s loosening of Covid restrictions and support for the housing market. The selloff prompted retail investors to pull money from wealth-management bond products, which fueled a spiral of price declines and accelerating withdrawals. While redemption remains a wild card, it’s unlikely that rates will keep shooting up. The interbank borrowing costs have already converged with the central bank’s benchmark after persistently staying below. That limits the scope for further tightening unless the PBOC shifts its policy stance. On Friday, the PBOC added liquidity to the banking system for a second day, suggesting that it doesn’t want to see borrowing costs rise much further.

  

  After the selloff, five-year swap rates are about 80 bps above the PBOC’s policy rate, surpassing levels seen in the second half of 2020. The market looks as if it is pricing in a V-shaped recovery  similar to the one two years ago. Those expectations may be misplaced. “We believe the valuation is getting stretched,” Bank of America’s strategists, including Janice Xue, told their clients.

  

  2. That’s because Covid reopening takes time. A little over a week since Beijing issued 20 new guidelines for easing Covid controls, fear and confusion lingers. With daily cases near record highs, China’s largest cities saw dramatic declines in subway traffic due to movement curbs, infection and quarantine worries. That said, there have been only 61 severe cases across the country out of hundreds of thousands of infections in recent weeks. Both authorities and the public may feel more confident in resuming a normal life if severe cases stay low.

  

  3. Tech companies still trade with lower valuations than utilities. The three large Chinese tech firms reported mixed earnings last week. Alibaba posted a surprise loss, while Tencent saw revenue shrink for the second straight quarter. JD.com fared better, reporting higher sales.  Even after the recent rally, Alibaba and Tencent are trading at valuations below utility companies in China and the US, underscoring investors’ skepticism toward big tech’s future  under Beijing’s “common prosperity” drive.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/20/2022 – 21:30

• The No Normal
  The No Normal

  By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

  The No Normal:

  “Restoring price stability will take some time and requires using our tools forcefully to bring demand and supply into better balance,” reminded Powell this past summer, on Aug 26. The equity market had just jumped 15% from the lows on hopes of a gentler Fed. The Fed doesn’t tighten into weaker equity markets and a contracting economy. Ever. It’s a rule. Powell changed the rule, an opportunity to win back inflation credibility. And the market listened. The swap market anticipates inflation will collapse to an average of 2.28% next year from 7.02% this year.

  Hard landing. Soft landing. No landing. Investors are dusting off playbooks from the past. There is a little bit for everyone.

  • Hard landing? Housing demand has fallen off a cliff. Prospective homebuyer traffic is down 49 points since the start of the year, the largest decline ever.

  • Soft landing? Credit markets are showing almost no sign of strain, even in areas where activity is weak.

  • No landing? There are too many job openings to talk about landings. Real wages have a lot of room to rise, and this could allow the global economy to fumble along.

  The Fed keeps hiking until policy rates are above inflation. It’s a bear market until credit cracks. The Fed pivots when something breaks, and nothing has broken yet. Equity valuations are bloated, and earnings-per-share are too high. EPS always declines sharply in recession. S&P 500 EPS is tracking growth of 6% in 2022 and consensus expected to rise another 4% next year. When the Fed is easing into recession, equity markets are usually in decline. Bear-market rallies are noise, not signal. This is the hard-landing playbook.

  The soft-landing playbook sees 2022 markets anticipating a recession that never comes. Inflation was driven by temporary supply constraints. The US has withstood three quarters of housing contraction. Credit markets are fine because nominal GDP is running 7.3% annualized for the year, whereas real GDP is flat. The rapid rise in the US dollar is typically tied to foreign credit events. None have occurred. The fall in inflation will give a big boost to real incomes. Policy returns predictable path. All is forgiven – global risk climbs the wall of worry.

  These are normal debates in a world that is far from normal. There is no tidy fundamental equilibrium. Balance sheets add complexity, the blind spot of most investors and policymakers. Balance sheets mostly don’t matter. Those who care about them are often in the shadows of institutions, fretting over left tails being underwritten when buying credit. The Fed’s balance sheet is merely a window into deeper challenges. Reserve balances with Fed district banks are $3.13trln. It is the symbol of decades of policy preventing financial failure.

  

  Capital was drawn to duration assets of all varieties in that world. This came at the expense of real investment. Emerging market countries were charged with filling that gap – an epic geopolitical miscalculation. And now, whatever the type of landing that lies ahead, decades of financial imbalances need to be reconciled. Markets need to incentivize a shift to tangible investment. People will hold on to their iPhones longer, keep that ThinkPad an extra year or two. You see, the landing isn’t the problem – it’s that we need to rebuild the runway.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/20/2022 – 21:00

• Freight Demand Has Not Found The Floor
  Freight Demand Has Not Found The Floor

  By Zach Strickland of FreightWaves,

  Container imports, rail intermodal shipments and truckload demand have fallen from their lofty peaks during the pandemic era and may be a better indicator of how inflation will be tamed in the coming months than the Consumer Price Index (CPI) itself.  

  

  Container import bookings measured by FreightWaves’ Inbound Ocean TEUs Index (IOTI) are now only roughly 6% higher than they were in November 2019 after averaging 80% above pre-pandemic levels through most of 2021.

  Loaded intermodal container volumes on the rails (ORAILL) are down 7% versus mid-November 2019 levels. 

  The Outbound Tender Volume Index (OTVI), a measure of shipper requests for truckload capacity, is now only 9% higher than it was the week before Thanksgiving in 2019 after averaging nearly 50% above pre-pandemic norms from July 2020 to March 2022. 

  

  Demand destruction has occurred at a much more significant level than suggested by the dollar figures that drive a lot of the macroeconomic data. Dollar values are noisy and measure emotion as well as supply and demand imbalances. The scarcity effect is a prime example of this and has been one of the main drivers of inflation over the past two years.  

  The CPI that is representative of inflation, the Fed’s No. 1 enemy, is still moving higher from an annual basis thanks to rising supply costs and companies still passing along upstream cost increases that occurred over the past two years.

  

  Looking at the Producer Price Index (PPI), which is focused more on upstream production costs, that direction has already changed and has been slowing since June. Transportation costs are a portion of this figure. 

  The point is that scarcity is diminishing. Supply chain congestion is easing. Consumer conditions have diminished from a purchasing power perspective. It takes time for this all to fully work its way into macroeconomic figures and behavior to change fully. 

  The transportation sector has been on the front end of both the economic boom and its recent decline. The reason for this is that transportation is the backbone of the goods economy. All goods, unfinished and finished, need to be moved at some point.

  Raw materials move ahead of production and represent the furthest upstream view of aggregate demand. Finished goods moving to brick-and-mortar stores and fulfillment centers are also represented in transportation data. 

  While truckload and import demand may not have fully eroded back to pre-pandemic levels, the direction and time of the year suggest that it won’t be long until we are there. Seasonally speaking, retail volumes tend to spike just prior to and around the holidays, but there is little evidence of that at this point.

  

  December and January are the slowest months of the year for domestic freight movements, meaning that it will probably get worse for transportation providers this winter without some sort of black swan event. 

  It is hard to tell how long this downward trend will last, as a lot of it will hinge on fiscal policy and investment sentiment. There is some surprising strength in labor numbers, which the Fed cites as a reason for continued rate increases, but this is a lagging figure that may still be reflecting past conditions.

  About the Chart of the Week

  The FreightWaves Chart of the Week is a chart selection from SONAR that provides an interesting data point to describe the state of the freight markets. A chart is chosen from thousands of potential charts on SONAR to help participants visualize the freight market in real time. Each week a Market Expert will post a chart, along with commentary, live on the front page. After that, the Chart of the Week will be archived on FreightWaves.com for future reference.

  SONAR aggregates data from hundreds of sources, presenting the data in charts and maps and providing commentary on what freight market experts want to know about the industry in real time.

  The FreightWaves data science and product teams are releasing new datasets each week and enhancing the client experience.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/20/2022 – 20:30

• Trump-Era Treasury Secretary Calls G7 Russian Oil Price Cap "Ridiculous"
  Trump-Era Treasury Secretary Calls G7 Russian Oil Price Cap “Ridiculous”

  Authored by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times,

  Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has called the Group of Seven’s plan to place a price cap on Russian oil “ridiculous.”

  

  The veteran cabinet member from the Trump administration was speaking with CNBC’s Hadley Gamble on a panel at the Milken Institute’s Middle East and Africa Summit.

  In addition to being a former Goldman Sachs partner, Mnuchin now works in private equity investing.

  Mnuchin panned the proposal to cap prices as “not only not feasible, I think it’s the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard.”

  He explained that that imposing sanctions on Russia and its officials now would have far less of an impact than if they were implemented before the war started.

  “Sanctions would have had a big impact back then. I think the problem now is that there’s limited options … there’s parts of the world that are now buying Russian oil outside of U.S. sanctions,” Mnuchin said.

  “But look, a price cap, the market is going to set the price. So if you put sanctions on at higher prices, in a way, you’re just making the situation worse, in my opinion.”

  The G7, which includes the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom, are trying to set a fixed price cap on Russian oil from Dec. 5. Australia will also participate.

  Meanwhile, American and European officials are still trying to decide upon the exact cap level, which has delayed the implementation of the plan.

  The price caps, which were first proposed in July, would restrict shipping-related services that involve oil, including maritime transport, insurance, and financing to buyers of Russian oil supplies, unless it was sold at or below the limit.

  The scheme is intended to hurt Russia financially, while protecting Western businesses and households from the effect of skyrocketing energy prices.

  G7 Continue Stepping Up Sanctions on Kremlin

  The United States and its allies have repeated that they are fully committed to rolling out more sanctions on Russia due to the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

  Additional sanctions by the European Union will also take effect in early December and will terminate Russian crude oil deliveries to the bloc by sea, in time for a ban on all refined energy imports from Moscow next year.

  The EU is imposing the energy sanctions in solidarity with President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government in Kyiv, despite the hardship it will cause on already suffering European residents and businesses.

  The Kremlin has been pressed to look for new customers in Asia, and has since boosted its oil exports to countries like India and China, as it loses its main export base in Europe.

  However, analysts have said that the price cap plan will not work without cooperation from the Asian nations, which both have strong ties with Moscow.

  If the Indians and Chinese agreed to follow the price caps, American policymakers anticipate a relaxation in global oil prices, while hitting Russian oil export revenues where it hurts.

  The United States said that it has no problem with India still buying oil from Russia, as long as it agrees to abide by the G7 price caps, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said, while visiting her counterparts in New Delhi last week.

  Indian energy companies “can also purchase oil at any price they want as long as they don’t use these Western services and they find other services. And either way is fine,” Yellen told Reuters.

  The Russians have threatened retaliatory measures against any country that imposes price caps on its energy exports and will terminate oil shipments to them.

  Peace Negotiations Long Overdue

  It currently looks uncertain that the two Asian giants would even go along with the proposed price caps, due to major political and economic factors.

  Mnuchin stated that negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv were “long overdue,” and that the best case scenario to avoid an escalating crisis for now would be a truce between both combatants.

  Ukraine has repeatedly expressed it will only enter negotiations following the “restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity,” financial reparations, and the handing over of Russian soldiers and officials for alleged war crimes.

  The Russians have outright rejected those offers.

  A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government said on Nov. 18, that “one thing is for sure: the Ukrainians do not want any negotiations,” CNBC reported.

  Biden Administration Should Push For Energy Self-Sufficiency

  Mnuchin also criticized President Joe Biden for having an “extreme focus on the issue of global warming.”

  He said that while he was “not minimizing” climate change, he stated that the White House should not “discourage investment in the carbon economy.”

  “With approvals, and again this stuff doesn’t need legislation, there are things the current administration could do, you know, there’s a need for pipeline, there’s a need for infrastructure, there’s a need for more drilling,” Mnuchin said.

  He then stated that cheap and secure domestic energy supplies still remain critical to U.S. national security interests.

  Mnuchin called for a return to the years of energy self-sufficiency under his former boss, President Donald Trump, and blasted Biden for hypocritically complaining about insufficient oil supplies from exporting nations.

  “We can’t turn around and say to OPEC+, ‘Why are you not producing more oil?’ when we’re not doing it ourselves,” the former treasury secretary said.

  “There’s plenty of shale oil and at these numbers, it’s very economic to produce,” he said, while noting that the U.S. energy sector was being “starved of capital.”

  Mnuchin said that when he was still Treasury Secretary, he wanted to acquire more funding to fill up the National Petroleum Reserve, when prices were still low in the first months of the pandemic.

  That oil reserve since has been severely depleted by a decision of the Biden administration to tap it in order to lower U.S. gas prices.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/20/2022 – 20:00

• "You Can't Put It Back Together" – Jim Rickards Warns Of 'Unstoppable Crisis Worse Than 2008'
  “You Can’t Put It Back Together” – Jim Rickards Warns Of ‘Unstoppable Crisis Worse Than 2008’

  Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

  Six-time, best-selling financial author James Rickards says the upcoming book “Sold Out” lays out the case why a huge crash is already a certainty sometime in 2023. 

  

  In a nutshell, broken supply chains have already caused big inflation, and the Fed is raising rates to tamp it back down.  On top of the perfect storm of inflation and prolonged supply problems, we have the recent meltdown of the FTX crypto currency exchange.  Rickards says,

  “It is definitely going to cause sequential collapses in the crypto world, but will it jump the fence into the broader financial world?  My expectation is it will, but it can take six months or more to play out…

  We probably have an acute global financial crisis coming anyway.  If FTX never existed, I would say we are staring at a worse financial crisis than 2008.  Throw FTX on top of that, and it’s like throwing gasoline on a fire.  It will accelerate the fire.  So, we’re probably going to have problems anyway, but the FTX implosion just makes it worse.”

  As far as the dwindling supply chains, Rickards says, “The old supply chain has collapsed.  A new supply chain will emerge, and I talk about that in my book and what it will look like…”

  ”  Right now, we are in a very messy middle period where things don’t work well.  It’s like a vase.  You knock over a vase, and it breaks into 5,000 pieces.  You can’t put it back together.  You’ve got to go get a new vase.  We broke the vase, and we are shopping for a new one.  We are not there yet.  We are just cleaning up the mess. . . . Russia invades Ukraine.  The Ukrainian plastic conduit factory shuts down, and all of a sudden, the BMW production lines are shut down because they cannot get a part.  Again, this is another example of how this is all falling apart, and it’s not going to be put back together quickly.  There will be a new supply chain, and I call it supply chain 2.0, but we are in that in between time, and it’s going to be just a mess.”

  Rickards says the Fed is going to keep raising rates because that is what they keep telling the public.  Rickards says, “They are telling us what they are going to do, and you should believe them.”

  Rickards says we do have inflation, and it’s going to be with us for awhile, but we are also going to get deflation too.  Rickards points out,

  “Why does Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway have $130 billion in cash?  Buffett is one of the greatest investors of all time.  Why isn’t he out there buying stocks?  Again, why does he have $130 billion in cash?  It’s because Buffett sees what I see.  Yes, this thing is going to completely crash. 

  It’s a really good idea to have cash because you can go shopping in the wreckage and pick up some bargains.  My point is, we don’t have to guess.  Look at the Treasury yield curve.  Look at the euro/dollar futures yield curve.  Look at other metrics, and guess what it looks like?  It looks like 2007.  Everything I am describing, but not quite as extreme by the way, was true in 2007…

  These euro/dollar futures were behaving then exactly as they are now.  Except now, the inversion is even worse, which means we are in for a worse crisis than 2008.  It’s coming.  Everything I said has nothing to do with FTX.  Throw FTX on top, and as I said, you are throwing gasoline on a fire.”

  After the inflation, Rickards says count on big deflation.  He will explain exactly how that happens in the 58-minute interview.

  Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with six-time, best-selling author James Rickards.  Rickards’ new book “Sold Out” will be coming out in early December.

  *  *  *

  To Donate to USAWatchdog.com Click Here

  If you want to pre-order a copy of “Sold Out,” click here.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/20/2022 – 19:30

• What's Behind The Explosion In 0DTE Option Trading
  What’s Behind The Explosion In 0DTE Option Trading

  In recent weeks there has been much discussion of the unprecedented explosion in 0DTE (0-days to expiry), or options with less than 24 hours to maturity, which have become an extremely levered way to bet on even the smallest market gyrations (of course, the past month has seen some very major market gyrations, so imagine those magnified by 100x or more when it comes to P&L impact).

  Just last week we quoted Goldman’s derivative strategist Rocky Fishman explaining that “the strongest area of volume growth has been ultra-short-dated” options, and that “measured in notional volume terms, S&P options with less than 24 hours to maturity now represent 44% of the index’s trading volume, and have been averaging $470BN notional per day over the past month.”

  

  Roughly around the same time, JPMorgan quant Peng Cheng also picked up on this fascinating topic, writing that the increase in the volume of 0 day to expiry (0DTE) options on the S&P 500 (SPX) has attracted a lot of questions.

  To analyze the topic, he published two reports (both available to pro subs), the first of which focused on 0DTE SPX index options and found that 1) the flow is not retail driven; 2) the order flow is biased towards seller initiated; and 3) proposed a framework is proposed for measuring the market impacts of 0D options. The second report looked at the tradability of 0D options.

  Let’s start at the top with Peng’s response to several client questions:

  Q1: Are retail traders driving up the volume?

  Based on JPM’s retail classification algorithm, around 5.6% of all market volume on 0DTE options is attributable to retail market orders. This may be higher than the average for all SPX options (3.3%), but far from dominating the flow.

  According to Peng, it is tempting to overestimate the retail activity in 0DTE options, given one observes a large number of small trades in 0DTE options. However, due to the proliferation of algo trading, trade size is no longer a good classifier for retail vs. institutional. Moreover, the average 0DTE trade size is not smaller than regular options, for the most part. To illustrate, the average trade size of 0DTE options is 3.6 contracts vs 5.7, for all SPX options. However, as Figure 2 shows, the distributions of 0DTE and regular option trade sizes are largely indistinguishable besides the very right tail (largest trades).

  

  Q2: Are these options bought or sold, and are they held to maturity?

  After estimating the directions of all +trades on 0DTE options, Peng does not observe an overwhelming bias toward either buying or selling. Despite the large volume traded, only a small percentage of the trades result in imbalances, and most of them are in fact net sold. Moreover, JPM estimates that only around 6% of the options are kept open until maturity.

  

  Q3: Do 0DTE option trades move markets?

  Since 0DTE options are traded at such a high frequency, their delta hedging behavior becomes much less predictable. Therefore, the gamma on 0DTE options is less meaningful than gamma on longer dated options. Instead, the JPM strategist looks at the market impact of delta: he partitioned market trading hours (9:30AM – 4:00PM) into 5-minute intervals. All 0DTE option trades are assigned an estimated trade direction, and their deltas at trade initiation are aggregated into the 5-minute bars. These aggregated deltas are then merged with the S&P 500 returns over the same interval. A regression between these two quantities tells us the market impacts emanating from 0DTE option delta imbalance. The relationship can be seen in Figure 5, whose positive slope suggests that there is indeed some market impact on the SPX from 0DTE delta. To wit, JPM estimates that market impact in any 5 minutes is between [-0.6%, +1.1%] over the last month.

  

  With that background in mind, Cheng next looks at a transaction cost analysis and profitability of trading 0DTEs.

  Transaction cost analysis

  Q4. Is it more expensive to trade 0D options than longer-dated options, and if so, by how much?

  Using tick level data during regular trading sessions from the month of October, JPM measured the cost of trading at-the-money 0D options. Specifically, it filtered for options with |delta| between [0.45, 0.55] at trade inception and eliminated those that are traded exactly at the mid. For comparison, we run the same analysis on 1 day to expiry options. The chart below shows the average effective spread, defined as the difference between traded level and mid, by trade size. For trades that are 10 contracts or fewer, the transaction costs are relatively invariant with respect to size. However, the transaction cost for 0D options is 3 times as much as 1D options on these trades.

  

  Specifically, for 0D options, the volume-weighted effective spread is approximately 0.35 vega for trades 10 contracts or fewer (95% of all trades). For the 5% largest trades, the effective spread is 0.65 vega. In comparison, for 1D options, the average effective spread of is only about 0.11 vega for the lower 95% of all trades (11 contracts or less), and 0.66 vega for the 5% largest trades.

  In terms of the intraday profile, there is significant volatility in the 0D option effective spread throughout the day. Notable volatility is observed at the market open, and again after 15:00 as time to expiry approaches 0. The profile of 1D options is much better behaved and exhibits little intraday seasonality.

  

  Profitability

  As pointed out in Q2 above, most of the 0D options are net sold by end users. This begs the question, who are the end users, and how are they using these options? In our view, these options are likely to be used by high-frequency directional traders, rather than volatility arbitrage traders. This is based on our analysis below, for which we find outright option returns to be profitable, but volatility premium strategies to be unprofitable.

  First, consider the outright performance of the end users of 0D options, who are assumed to pay the bid-ask spread to enter into these trades. Let’s limit the analysis to ATM options (|delta| between 0.45 and 0.55 at the time of trade). Figure 4 shows the performance of estimated P&L shortly after trade initiation, based on the best bid or offer of the traded option 1 and 10 minutes later. These trade level P&Ls are then aggregated into a daily volume weighted average. It’s notable that not only is the performance strong, but also that 2/3 of the 10-minute P&L is earned in the first minute. Moreover, profitability disappears if these trades are held to expiry. It further supports the hypothesis that 0D options are unlikely to be held to expiry.

  On the flip side, assume the market makers supply liquidity to the order flow and hedge out delta, their estimated P&L is 1 and 10 minutes after trade initiation is shown in Figure 5. They also show a strong performance, implying that volatility premium is captured by taking on the opposite positions of the order flow. The difference between delta hedged and unhedged performance suggests that end users of 0D options are unlikely to be volatility arbitrage traders.

  

  In summary, JPM finds that trading 0DTE options cost up to three times as much as trading 1D options. However, it appears that the end users of 0D options profit from directional, high-frequency trading strategies even after incorporating the wider bid-ask spread. In other words, in a time when conventional HFT frontrunning of orderflow is far less profitable than it was a decade ago, HFTs are forced to resort to such market reflexivity schemes as 0DTE to boost their returns. At the same time, market makers are willing to supply liquidity thanks to the wider bid-ask and are able to systematically profit from delta hedged positions.

  More in the full 0DTE notes available to pro subs.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/20/2022 – 19:00

• Entire Gender Industry Is Based On A Failed Study That Disproved Scientist’s Theory: Psychiatrist
  Entire Gender Industry Is Based On A Failed Study That Disproved Scientist’s Theory: Psychiatrist

  Authored by Jan Jekielek and Masooma Haq via The Epoch Times,

  With schools teaching sex and gender ideology beginning in kindergarten, the Biden administration encouraging early medical treatments for gender dysphoria, and social media influencers discussing the topic, a record number of adolescent girls believe they are transgender and are transitioning to live as males.

  

  Concerned adults are sounding the alarm on the lack of scientific studies to support transgender medical treatments that permanently alter a young person’s physiology and leave their mental health issues unresolved.

  Child and adolescent psychiatrist Miriam Grossman, who has been a mental health professional for 40 years, said the gender industry is built on the lies of one troubled psychologist.

  “The person who came up with the theory was Dr. John Money, and he came up with this idea that a person’s biology—their body, their chromosomes—is completely separate from their feeling of whether they are male or female,” Grossman said during a Sept. 23 interview for EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program.

  Grossman said the industry surrounding gender ideology—from gender clinics and hospitals to transgender pride flags and the emergence of a transgender civil rights movement—is based on a concept that was never proven to be true.

  “In fact, the opposite was proven,” she said. “This whole concept of having an identity as male or female being completely separate from your biology has actually been proven incorrect by John Money’s experiment.”

  Money was instrumental in establishing the first clinic to perform gender reassignment surgeries on children and adults at the Johns Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic.

  In the 1960s, Money set out to prove his theory of gender identity to the world, and the perfect case study showed up in his office, Grossman said. But instead, his theory was disproven, and it was later revealed that his gender theory came from a study that was seriously corrupted.

  The Canadian Twins

  Grossman told the story of Janet and Ron Reimer, a Canadian couple with twin boys who consulted Money in the mid-1960s after one of the twins, Bruce, suffered a botched circumcision as an 8-month-old that permanently disfigured his genitals.

  After seeing Money speak on a TV program about his research, the parents thought their grievously injured son could—like Money was promoting—change the sex he was born with and live a happy life as a girl.

  Money’s hypothesis was that humans are born with a blank slate in terms of gender.

  “He told the parents that they must immediately change Bruce’s name to a girl’s name, put him in girl’s clothing, tell everybody that he’s a girl, and never, ever tell him the truth about his birth and what happened to him,” Grossman explained.

  Money advised the parents to have Bruce castrated and for doctors to construct an elementary female genitalia for the boy, Grossman said. Bruce was renamed Brenda and raised as a girl.

  However, after many years of being treated by Money, at about the age of 10 the twins refused to see him again. It was later revealed that Money sexually abused the twins during their appointments. Bruce was reportedly never happy as a girl and had masculine inclinations that disturbed him throughout his life.

  When the parents finally revealed the truth to the twins as they were entering puberty, Bruce (who was living as Brenda at that time) chose to revert to living as a male and took the name David.

  “We have to acknowledge the unbelievable arrogance of a professional high-standing academic—widely respected, accomplished—the arrogance that he had to exploit this family in order to hold them up as proof of his theory,” said Grossman.

  Money received a slew of awards during his treatment of the twins, including 25 years of continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health, Grossman said.

  “His ideas about gender were institutionalized, were immediately adopted within an entire field of medicine—within mental health, psychiatry—and outside of medicine as well,” she said.

  Indoctrination

  Children have been indoctrinated with Money’s gender ideology, and now most young people do not believe there is a fundamental connection between biology and gender, which Grossman said is troubling.

  She cited a poll published in September by The New York Times which found that over 60 percent of respondents aged 30 and older said they believe gender is determined by a person’s biological sex at birth, but 61 percent of respondents aged 18 to 29 said they believed that gender identity is distinct from biological sex.

  The different between the younger and older group is directly due to the spread of gender ideology, Grossman said. This is because children as young as 5 years old have been indoctrinated with Money’s gender ideology in schools.

  

  Kids are repeatedly being told that gender identity is separate from biology and that one can choose one’s gender identity, and it’s being presented as fact in the same way children are taught that the capital of California is Sacramento, she said.

  Children are being told that a person can choose their own gender and that “gender-affirming care” is available for them if they want to become a different sex.

  The “care” starts with puberty blockers and later progresses to opposite sex hormones and finally sex reassignment surgeries, at which point there is no room for the children to change their minds, Grossman said.

  Researchers at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, published a study in JAMA Pediatrics (from the Journal of the American Medical Association) and reported that the number of gender-affirming chest surgeries performed in the United States on adolescents aged 13 to 17 years—the majority of which were elective mastectomies on girls—increased from 100 surgeries in 2016 to 489 surgeries in 2019, a difference of 389 percent.

  Adolescents are constantly changing and trying to discover who they are, so allowing them to make a drastic change to their bodies during or before puberty is having a devastating impact on many young people and families, said Grossman.

  

  Dutch Protocol Run Amok

  Prior to the 1990s, the majority of those seeking medical treatment for gender dysphoria were men in their 30s and 40s, Grossman said. Doctors were finding that opposite-sex hormones and surgeries were less effective after puberty, so they thought if they started these treatments before puberty, the patient might have better outcomes in the sex change.

  Researchers in Holland came up with a study that’s now referred to as the Dutch protocol. Children were only chosen to participate in the study if they had discomfort with their biological sex from an early age and their discomfort became worse when they reached puberty. They also could not have any other mental health issues.

  “They took those kids and they put them on puberty blockers at age 12. And those puberty blockers had never been used before for that purpose, and to this day, puberty blockers are not licensed or FDA approved in any country to be used with gender dysphoria,” said Grossman. They are only approved for disorders or medical conditions like precocious puberty, she said.

  The researchers then gave opposite-sex hormones to the 55 children in the study, and later the children could have surgeries if they wanted them. There were problems with this study, including the fact that there was no control group alongside the transitioning kids, said Grossman.

  Grossman said there is a lot of evidence to suggest that if the kids who were uncomfortable with their sex at adolescence had been left alone, the majority of the cases of gender dysphoria would have resolved on their own after puberty.

  “This Dutch protocol was immediately adopted in other countries, including in the U.S., as ‘this is the solution for these kids,’” said Grossman.

  

  ‘Gender Affirming Care’

  The phrase “gender-affirming care” is a euphemism for radical medical experiments that are leaving patients with long-term physical health problems, and they don’t address the more important mental health issues these young people have, Grossman said.

  “You’ll have to note, again, the manipulation of language and the Orwellian use of language, when the term ‘gender affirming’ is used. They’re experimenting on the body, and people are paying a massively high price for these medical experimentations,” she said.

  “Gender-affirming care means that whatever the child comes up with in terms of their identity, no matter how old they are or what other conditions they may suffer from, that is their identity and we accept it. We affirm it. And we give them the treatment that they would like to get,” said Grossman.

  President Joe Biden and Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine are promoting these treatments, and the majority of U.S. professional organizations are backing it, leaving parents to fight an uphill battle should they oppose their child’s wishes to change their gender, said Grossman.

  Further, there are not enough long-term studies regarding the impact of “gender-affirming care” on children, but there is evidence about the dangerous outcomes, including being left sterile and developing blood clots, heart attacks, cancers, kidney failure, and early menopause, said Grossman.

  Even with all the adverse effects of “gender-affirming care,” the Biden administration is trying to mandate that all medical professionals participate and support children to get these types of treatments, Grossman said.

  

  Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria

  The Tavistock gender clinic in London has seen an exponential increase in kids seeking sex changes, most with rapid onset gender dysphoria.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/20/2022 – 18:30

• Heavy Shelling At Ukraine's Largest Nuclear Plant: "You Are Playing With Fire!"
  Heavy Shelling At Ukraine’s Largest Nuclear Plant: “You Are Playing With Fire!”

  Concerns are mounting over the potential for radioactive fallout and disaster at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine following large explosions heard at the site over the weekend. 

  Like with prior incidents of shelling and fighting coming near the sensitive facility, each warring side is blaming the other for these latest attacks. “Explosions shook the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine over the weekend in what appeared to be renewed shelling of the facility and the surrounding area, according to the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),” The Hill reports Sunday. 

  The BBC cites local sources who say over a dozen powerful explosions were heard Saturday night at or in the vicinity of Zaporizhzhia plant, which remains Europe’s largest nuclear facility.

  

  IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi called the reports “extremely disturbing” and “completely unacceptable”. He urged for fighting to halt there immediately. “Whoever is behind this, it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!”

  The IAEA said that in prior weeks there had been a “period of relative calm” in the area, which has now ended. “I’m not giving up until this zone has become a reality. As the ongoing apparent shelling demonstrates, it is needed more than ever,” Grossi stated.

  The UN atomic watchdog still has a team of experts on location at the plant, but there’s been no definitive word on which side was behind the renewed shelling which risks destabilizing the plant. 

  Most Western media reports have blamed Russia for the powerful explosions which reportedly continued into Sunday, despite Russian troops still being the ones to occupy and oversee the actual site. Ukrainian state energy company Energoatom charged that Russia is “once again… putting the whole world at risk.”

  “This morning on Nov. 20, 2022, as a result of numerous Russian shelling, at least 12 hits were recorded on the territory of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” Energoatom said.

  “You are playing with fire!”

  Director General of the international Atomic Energy Agency reacted to reports that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is being shelled and said: “whoever is behind this, it must stop immediately.”

  Latest: https://t.co/X3flQUBL0r

  📺 Sky 501 pic.twitter.com/L9897zapHB

  — Sky News (@SkyNews) November 20, 2022

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

  Russia fired back, with its own nuclear agency Rosatom saying the following: 

  Kyiv “does not stop its provocations aiming at creating the threat of a man-made catastrophe at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” the Russian army said in a statement on Sunday. 

  Despite the shelling, radiation levels “remain normal,” the army added.

  It said missiles exploded around a power line that feeds the plant, the fourth and fifth power units and “special building number 2.”

  Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the Russian nuclear agency Rosatom, told state-run agency TASS that the “special building” contained nuclear fuel.

  As for assessed damage as a result of the weekend explosions, the IAEA said at this point the damage to the buildings is not “critical.”

  However, there fears this means escalation in fighting around the plant, with the IAEA statement underscoring the shelling is “abruptly ending a period of relative calm at the facility and further underlining the urgent need for measures to help prevent a nuclear accident there.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/20/2022 – 18:00

• Hedge Fund CIO: This Isn't The 1920s Or The 1970s… Today's Starting Points Are Like None We Have Ever Seen
  Hedge Fund CIO: This Isn’t The 1920s Or The 1970s… Today’s Starting Points Are Like None We Have Ever Seen

  By Eric Peters, CIO of One River ASset Management

  “Buyer traffic is becoming increasingly scarce,” explained the Chairman of the National Homebuilder Association. “Even as home prices moderate, building costs have yet to follow.”

  

  When prospective homebuying is this weak, the Fed is typically cutting rates. Yet markets are prepared for another 100bps of rate hikes through next Spring.

  US existing home prices were down each of the past four months across all four regions. Price discounts aren’t enough – inventory ratios are higher as nobody wants to move unless they must.

  Bond markets are convinced that inflation is going to fall hard – higher real rates, a weaker economy, a stronger US dollar, and a massive deflationary impulse from global trade make it a safe bet.

  But there are oddities in the background. Labor is gaining strength. This doesn’t usually happen with a weaker economy and falling inflation. But it is happening.

  “Overtime and minimum wage violations are common violations found in food service industry investigations,” said the Department of Labor. Krispy Kreme quickly settled damages filed by 516 workers on Nov 7th. Starbucks workers staged their largest labor action on Red Cup Day, one of their busiest of the year.

  “If the company won’t bargain in good faith, why should we come to work,” the mood captured by a shift manager.  US rail strikes are scheduled to start on Dec 5 – key chemicals shipments will stop days before. “Congress must quickly intervene to ensure a disruption does not occur,” the National Retail Federation warned. And it isn’t just the US – labor tensions are rising in the UK, Canada, Finland. Central bank balance sheets make unusual the new normal.

  The QT theme continues; the “T” for tightening bit has paused. Fed excess reserves rose again last week, having bottomed seven weeks ago. It’s a complication that policy has never experienced. Demand for US dollars has declined as investors fish for an equity bottom, pushing excess liquidity back onto the Fed’s balance sheet.

  

  Warren Buffet is one of those investors on the hunt for value. Berkshire’s 13F focused on cyclical infrastructure – semiconductors, energy companies, transportation over banks and technology stocks.

  What to make of this mix of marbles?

  There is a thirst to place current circumstances into a package that resembles the past, to give some comfort that the future isn’t as unknown as it seems. But it isn’t the 1920s or the 1970s, pre-war or post-war. There is no analog. Today’s starting points are like none we have seen.

  The biggest risk is extrapolating to the future from a past that feels comfortable, confirmed by recent data. Disequilibrium is the new equilibrium.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/20/2022 – 17:30

• Top Contender To Replace Kuroda As BOJ Head Urges Removal Of Emergency Central Bank Support
  Top Contender To Replace Kuroda As BOJ Head Urges Removal Of Emergency Central Bank Support

  Central banks must remove emergency support measures once financial crises are over to avoid causing moral hazard in the market, former Bank of Japan deputy governor Hiroshi Nakaso said on Thursday. Which is ironic coming from the one central bank that not only institutionalized moral hazard and MMT, keeping rates at or below zero for the past 30 years, but also ushered in QE and now owns more than half of the entire JGB market, and even the merest hint of a pull back in BOJ support would spark financial armageddon for Japan where the country’s pensions would be wiped out in a millisecond should a central bank backstop ever be removed.

  According to Reuters, Nakaso, who is considered one of the top candidates to become next BOJ governor, also said that once an economy was running below potential capacity, a central bank could more easily normalize ultra-loose monetary policy. Which is easy for him to say now that he is in the running for next BOJ head: we just somehow doubt he will demonstrate the same conviction if and when he becomes the next BOJ head.

  

  Echoing what we have said for the past 13 years, Nakaso said that investors had come to (correctly) assume that central banks would always come to the rescue when financial markets destabilized because of the massive monetary support deployed during the COVID-19 crisis, Nakaso said.

  “This moral hazard must be removed once the crisis is over, though this is easier said than done because it’s a contradictory issue,” Nakaso said in a seminar hosted by the University of Tokyo and International Monetary Fund. And yet he said it, because the wave against relentless central bank intervention – which sparked record inflation across the world in the aftermath of the Covid crisis – is turning. Then again, it will promptly make another U-turn the moment tens of millions are left without a job as the financial tightening spawned by central banks in the past year finally hits the economy instead of just markets.

  “Crisis management is like creating … artificial moral hazard,” he said. “It shouldn’t stay forever.” Yes it shouldn’t, which is precisely what we said in 2009, and yet no official or politician will ever have the guts to pull the plug knowing very well that the alternative is overnight collapse of the financial system.

  None of this fazed Nakaso who continued citing what monetary policy should look like, not what it looks like now: to avoid moral hazard, central banks could design their lending facilities so they were less costly to tap for investors in crisis situations but became more costly when the market normalised. Oh you mean like ending QE 2, 3, Twist and so on, instead of holding on to them for years and for dear life. Yes, well, we tried suggesting that pretty much every single year since 2009 and it didn’t work. It won’t work now either, and it’s why – as Elliott correct predicted – we are facing tens of trillions more in monetary stimulus as the alternative is total collapse.

  “Maybe this is something we can revisit and study” in preparing tools to combat the potential next financial crisis, Nakaso said. Maybe. Or maybe not, because once it is up to Nakaso to pull the plug on Japan’s unprecedented easing and collapse what’s left of Japan’s economy and market – as it is now far too late to try and “normalize” – he will never dare to do it.

  Nakaso’s remarks come amid growing debate about how and when the next BOJ governor will reduce its massive stimulus, considered by some to be distorting market pricing.

  “Inflation pressure that proved persistent … can be attributed at least … to generous monetary and fiscal support by the authorities,” Nakaso said, debunking relentless lies by central bankers in Europe and the US who have feigned ignorance and claimed none of the galloping inflation observed today is the result of their actions.

  Nakaso and incumbent BOJ deputy governor Masayoshi Amamiya are considered among top candidates to succeed BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, whose current term will end in April.

  Nakaso was speaking at the online symposium from Bangkok, where he was joining a meeting of national economic leaders along with Kishida. Their being there together may stoke speculation about Nakaso’s closeness to the premier.

  Of course, all of this is just posturing and jawboning: as analysts quoted by Reuters note, neither would rush into tightening monetary policy, given the fragility of Japan’s economy and the need to keep low the cost of funding its huge public debt. And if they don’t tighten now, they never will.

  Still, compared with Amamiya, Nakaso is seen more in favor of dialing back Kuroda’s radical stimulus. In a book published this year, he laid out in detail how the BOJ could end ultra-loose policy. What he left out is how JGBs go bidless, how trillions in Japanese pensions evaporate overnight, and how a global financial shockwave crushes the western financial system which is inextricably linked to the continued stability of the Japanese bond market.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/20/2022 – 17:00

• Don't Make Taylor Swift Fans Angry
  Don’t Make Taylor Swift Fans Angry

  By Matt Stoller, author of the BIG Substack

  “It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.” – Taylor Swift

  

  Over the past week, there has been fiasco in the sale of Taylor Swift tickets, with millions of angry fans despondent at not being able to see their favorite singer, and frustrated at the incredibly poor service, inexplicable pricing, and high fees of the Ticketmaster software system used to sell them.

  Swift is the most popular artist in America, and hadn’t done live shows for four years. When she announced a tour, Ticketmaster was the ticketing agent. Due to under-investment in its platform, the corporation’s site and app crashed, unable to handle the demand for tickets. Somehow, though, scalpers managed to get plenty of tickets and put them on sale for much more than the original list price.

  

  Why was Ticketmaster’s system so poorly structured? To answer that it helps to look at the firm’s stock price. In the face of such a high-profile embarrassment, a firm without market power would suffer in the marketplace. Investors would assume that customers would switch to a competitor’s services, much as, say, Ford’s stock drops when it has to do a recall of a line of cars. But Live Nation’s stock didn’t move at all. No investors were afraid that artists or venues would use a competitor’s software system. Because they can’t. There aren’t any meaningful rivals.

  The problem, as this new generation of fans is learning, isn’t just that Ticketmaster is a bad system. The problem is Ticketmaster is the only system. It’s a monopoly.

  And so Swifties, as they are known, demanded answers. These kinds of bitter cries tend to go into the void, just one more piece of evidence we have too many greedy people at the top and a government that cannot act. But this time, something different happened. Yesterday, David McCabe reported that the Department of Justice Antitrust Division has been investigating Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, for antitrust violations. And THAT revelation caused the stock to drop.

  Members of the antitrust division’s staff at the Justice Department have in recent months contacted music venues and players in the ticket market, asking about Live Nation’s practices and the wider dynamics of the industry, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is sensitive. The inquiry appears to be broad, looking at whether the company maintains a monopoly over the industry, one of the people said.

  The Ticketmaster monopoly story goes back to the 1990s. It started with a merger. In 1991, Ticketmaster acquired its main rival in computerized ticketing, Ticketron, which put 90% of the ticketing business in the hands of one firm. This was a milestone. Indeed, Ticketmaster brags about this unlawful merger on its own website.

  

  Three years later, the fees for ticketing had gotten out of hand. So Pearl Jam, then the biggest band in the world, got mad. The band was angry at the high prices and hidden fees the firm charged their fans, and they wanted a straightforward ticket price – $1.80 service fees clearly spelled out on $18 tickets, which was lower than what Ticketmaster sought. But Ticketmaster refused. So the band boycotted what was the then-new Ticketmaster monopoly. They ran a pressure campaign, testifying to Congress, embarking on a lobbying campaign, and pointing to the firm’s acquisitions of rivals and other underhanded tactics in its attempt to control the industry.

  Ticketmaster struck back, bribing music venues to only accept Ticketmaster as a booking system, which meant that Pearl Jam couldn’t play at most normal locations. Pearl Jam’s 1995 tour was thus a catastrophe, because they had to play in places like sporting fields which couldn’t hold concerts, so most of their shows were canceled. The cost to Pearl Jam was in the millions, and it devastated the band. This was a remarkable potential moment for antitrust enforcement, with the biggest music act in the world brought to its knees by a ticketing monopoly.

  And yet, enforcers did nothing. Under Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump, Ticketmaster grew, buying up rivals, becoming more and more powerful. Then, enter the other major powerhouse of the industry, Live Nation, a firm that rolled-up live events until it ultimately became the world’s largest concert promotion company. Live Nation was sick of paying Ticketmaster’s fees, and the two firms had been battling at the bargaining table. Finally Live Nation simply built its own ticketing software and threatened to compete directly with Ticketmaster. Competition would have hit profits for both firms. So instead the two worked out a deal to merge, so the combined entity could have all the fees – and more – to itself.

  This new giant of the industry would open the door to an array of opportunities to grab cash. The merger combined the biggest owner of venues, the monopolist of ticketing software, and Front Line Management, a roll-up of artist management firms that came to control most of the biggest names in the business, making Live Nation the most powerful live entertainment firm America had ever seen.

  

  The deal was so outrageously arrogant that the combined firm was to be chaired by Irving Azoff, who – in a New York Times profile – confessed himself a serial liar and talked about how he put pictures of himself giving the middle finger on his own stationary. Initially, people thought Obama, who had talked tough on antitrust on the trail, would block the merger. Not doing so would look weak. If you weren’t going to go after Ticketmaster, the scourge of the 1990s, then would you go after anyone?

  But the Obama administration approved the merger, with Antitrust Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney leading negotiations over what concessions Live Nation would have to offer. Immediately after the merger, Live Nation began violating its consent decree with the Antitrust Division, charging outrageous fees, and not stopping the sale of tickets to bots. It suppressed competitors who had developed ways of blocking scalpers, like Songkick. Live Nation acted in such bad faith that the Trump Antitrust Division eventually had to rework the consent decree.

   

  Today, the choice by the Obama administration looks inexplicable. “The people who came in to oversee this transaction were very interested in doing everything imaginable to create more competition in ticketing in the marketplace,” said former Antitrust Division chief counsel Gene Kimmelman, who worked on the deal. “We were frustrated that the options were unbelievably limited.”

  The concerns of Obama-era enforcers weren’t outlandish. From the 1980s onwards, it had become increasingly hard to prevail in antitrust claims. This ideological turn is one reason Clinton didn’t act despite Pearl Jam’s advocacy, and why the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations allowed it to fester and worsen.

  The post-1982 model used in antitrust cases, known as the consumer welfare standard, made it hard to show harm, because large firms could claim they were large not because they engaged in predatory behavior, but because they were efficient. And plenty of bought-off people in the industry would validate Live Nation, and very few opponents – after seeing what had happened to Eddie Vedder – would be willing to speak out publicly for fear of retribution. By the Obama administration, antitrust enforcers had come to see themselves as deal-makers, working with merging firms to help them make deals, rather than law enforcers trying to constrain corporate power.

  But then something changed. Starting in the early 2010s, but then picking up steam over the decade, a new anti-monopoly movement began challenging the standard by which dominant firms such as Google and Amazon acquired their power. A range of writers, lawyers, businesspeople, workers, and ordinary citizens began learning, reading, researching, and talking. While a lot of people assumed that big tech was the only focus, the target was much broader. In 2021, my organization released a report called Courage to Learn, in which we highlighted a litany of Obama antitrust failures, including allowing the Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger. We recommended that the incoming Biden administration appoint new enforcers and engage in a far more aggressive strategy, including “unwinding” that merger.

  Joe Biden listened. He appointed Jonathan Kanter to the Antitrust Division, and Lina Khan to the Federal Trade Commission. And they embarked on a series of new choices within the agencies, sparking controversy and in some cases bitterness within the white collar antitrust bar. A month ago, we published a research report on Live Nation, and were part of a coalition of fans and artists called Break Up Ticketmaster. 40,000 people have since asked for action.

  And then came the Taylor Swift fiasco. It’s deeply embarrassing for the antitrust enforcers who facilitated the Live Nation merger, because the premise of their merger was that bigness begat efficiency. And yet the firm couldn’t handle an easily predicted demand spike that it induced by sending out marketing codes to Swift fans.

  Politicians began speaking out, such as the state attorneys general of Tennessee and North Carolina, who pledged investigations. Members of Congress wrote letters to the Department of Justice, and Senators Amy Klobuchar and Mike Lee said they would hold hearings. And yet, the firm itself acted as a monopolist would, treating the fiasco as something of a joke. The first words out of a Live Nation executive at the Liberty Investor meeting two days ago was “Everyone has a Taylor swift ticket underneath their seat.” The harm Live Nation caused was irrelevant to its owners, who profited mightily regardless. Then, when the Chair of Live Nation, Greg Maffei, was asked on CNBC about the ticketing fiasco, he blamed… Taylor Swift.

  Finally, Swift herself spoke out. On Instagram, she expressed anger at the exploitation of her fans. “It’s really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties,” she said, “and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse.” The statement was mostly heartfelt and personal, but the ‘no recourse’ phrase suggests something else. ‘Recourse’ is not the word choice of a songwriter, but of a lawyer trying to make a point about market power. Swift – or perhaps Swift’s lawyer – is saying that Ticketmaster is, as it was when Pearl Jam was the biggest act in the world, a monopoly. “We asked them,” she said, “multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could.” Even Swift, as the most powerful artist in music, could not prevent her fans from being cheated by Ticketmaster.

  And now we know the Antitrust Division is on the case. It’s going to take time for this suit to move forward. They’ve been doing interviews for months, but there’s more work needed to put together a complaint. To some extent the lawyers can short-circuit the process since there’s a consent decree, but a judge will still drag it out. There are many more wrinkles to the Live Nation antitrust case. But that’s the gist of it.

  It’ll be interesting to see if Live Nation decides to throttle back a bit on its fees, alleged coercive practices, and rumored retaliatory behavior. Firms in the crosshairs often do, and that’s probably why the stock went down, an expectation from investors that Live Nation might have to eat some margin loss for PR purposes. Somehow, though, I suspect they won’t. Live Nation is still guided by its original chairman’s love of putting up a middle finger to the world.

  That’s what at least two generations of music fans have experienced.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/20/2022 – 16:30

• FTX Hacker Starts Dumping Massive Haul Of Ether Tokens
  FTX Hacker Starts Dumping Massive Haul Of Ether Tokens

  Last weekend, we reported on the mysterious $662 million outflow of tokens that suddenly hit FTX.

  At the time, Nansen’s Alex Svanevik said, “It’s unclear exactly who’s making the transactions, but you wouldn’t expect to see these on-chain trades at this time.”

  He said FTX’s main wallet was entirely drained of FTT.

  Additionally, Reuters reported that SBF had a “backdoor” in FTX’s book-keeping system, which allowed him to move customer money around without triggering internal compliance or accounting red flags.

  During the week, more details came out that suggested at least some of this outflow was in fact an apparently sanctioned transfer from FTX to Bahamian regulators – who rejected the exchange’s US bankruptcy filing and took possession of some of the assets.

  “[There is] credible evidence that the Bahamian government is responsible for directing unauthorized access to the Debtors’ systems for the purpose of obtaining digital assets of the Debtors—that took place after the commencement of these cases,” read the filing, signed by new FTX CEO John Ray, famous for handling the liquidation of Enron.

  The company went on to say that its co-founders Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang were recorded saying that Bahamanian regulators instructed the pair to make “certain post-petition transfers” and that such assets were “custodied on FireBlocks under control of [the] Bahamian government.”

  Securities Commission Addresses FTX Statement on Bahamian Withdrawals pic.twitter.com/OZKWwicSuN

  — Securities Commission of The Bahamas (@SCBgov_bs) November 12, 2022

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  However, although initial reports suggested that all of the funds in question might be in the custody of securities regulators in the Bahamas, Chainalysis poured cold water on this theory however, stating:

  “Reports that the funds stolen from FTX were actually sent to the Securities Commission of The Bahamas are incorrect. Some funds were stolen, and other funds were sent to the regulators.”

  And as Bloomberg reported earlier in the week, the hackers who stole the funds have become one of the world’s largest holders of the Ether token.

  According to security specialists PeckShield, a wallet linked with the exploit swapped about another $49 million of stablecoins – mainly Dai – for Ether on Tuesday. That lifted the attacker’s Ether haul to 228,523 or about $288 million – the 35th largest stash of the coin, according to data from analytics platform Etherscan.

  #PeckShieldAlert FTX Accounts Drainer has swapped 48.27M $DAI (~$48.36M) to 37.57k $ETH (~$47.69M) on Ethereum
  Arbitrary loss: -$671,424.25
  FTX Accounts Drainer currently holds 228,523.83 $ETH (~$288M) and makes the address become the 35th largest holder of ETH pic.twitter.com/8oukNomdDf

  — PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) November 15, 2022

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  The hacker reportedly transferred some funds using the crypto exchange operated by Kraken, which said it had been in touch with law enforcement about the matter.

  But now, as Coinpedia.org reports, the FTX hacker has begun to liquidate those holdings creating significant downward pressure on Ethereum’s price.

  

  As PeckShield further detailed earlier today, the FTX hacker is swapping ETH for BTC via renBTC bridge protocol…

  #PeckShieldAlert FTX Accounts Drainer 1 currently holds 200,735.1 $ETH (~$235.5M) & drops to the 37th largest holder of $ETH (from 27th)
  FTX Accounts Drainer 1 has transffered 50k $ETH (~$58.5M) to 0x866E, then 0x866E swapped these $ETH for ~3,517 $renBTC and bridged out pic.twitter.com/Qokr8bQrvg

  — PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) November 20, 2022

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  You can monitor the FTX Hacker’s moves here…

  You can keep an eye on the ren bridge here: https://t.co/8Lqjtt1W34

  I assume that each time Hacker Wallet 1 transfers fresh ETH to Wallet 2, we should expect continued dumping shortly thereafter

  Hacker Wallet 1: https://t.co/q2bl56LoKQ

  Hacker Wallet 2: https://t.co/189Yk9lwXY

  — kamikaz ΞTH 🦇🔊 (@kamikaz_ETH) November 20, 2022

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  Notably, renBTC liquidity is not deep enough for the FTX Hacker to dump all his ETH. If renBTC minting is disabled, the liquidity can’t be refilled, so the hacker may speed up.

  Which is perhaps why, as @kamikaz_ETH notes, the FTX Hacker is now steadily dumping ETH on-chain – which is why we are seeing the sudden purges in Ethereum’s price.

  It’s hard to know how sophisticated the FTX Hacker is, but Ren protocol announced earlier (completely by coincidence with no connection to the ongoing ETH dump) that they will be disabling renBTC mints soon

  That gives the hacker an incentive to dump the ETH asap https://t.co/YKBSD1KWyY

  — kamikaz ΞTH 🦇🔊 (@kamikaz_ETH) November 20, 2022

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  This could be a problem for ETH as if 50k ETH drove the drop from $1220 to $1160, the remaining 200k ETH could do some more serious damage to price.

  FTX itself has tweeted to urge exchanges to block these transfers from the FTX Hacker…

  (2/2) Exchanges should take all measures to secure these funds to be returned to the bankruptcy estate.

  — FTX (@FTX_Official) November 20, 2022

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  Finally, one source suggested that perhaps the FTX Hacker realized that The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) can sanction the address where they are holding the hacked ETH and thereby make the ETH worthless…

  As 76% of validators (and rising) enforce OFAC sanctions – accordingly they wouldn’t include ETH transactions from sanctioned addresses…

  The FTX exploiter, who has been dumping all other drained assets for ETH, is now one of the largest holders in the world, with 228,523 ETH ($284.82m) currently in their wallet.

  Everyone should keep an extremely close eye on what happens next… pic.twitter.com/SAP3UkyVaa

  — Dylan LeClair 🟠 (@DylanLeClair_) November 15, 2022

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  Hence the sudden urgency to discard the ETH for bitcoin via RenBTC bridge …

  Probably they had a tip off that OFAC is planning to do this tomorrow…

  Now who would have the political connections with the administration to know that info in advance?

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/20/2022 – 16:00

• What We Know About Jack Smith, Special Counsel Appointed In Trump Probes
  What We Know About Jack Smith, Special Counsel Appointed In Trump Probes

  Authored by Cathy He via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Jack Smith, who on Nov. 18 was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to be special counsel in two probes involving former president Donald Trump, is a veteran prosecutor with the Department of Justice (DOJ).

  

  Most recently, Smith was the chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague responsible for investigating and adjudicating war crimes in Kosovo. Prior to the Hague, he was the vice president of litigation at HCA Healthcare, one of the largest health providers in the United States.

  In a statement following Garland’s announcement, Smith said he intends to conduct the investigations and any prosecutions that may arise from them “independently and in the best traditions of the Department of Justice.”

  “The pace of the investigations will not pause or flag under my watch. I will exercise independent judgement and will move the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate,” Smith said.

  Smith graduated from Harvard law school in 1994, and from there started his prosecutorial career as an assistant district attorney at the New York County District Attorney’s Office. From 1999, he served as assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of New York for nine years, a position which included leading the criminal litigation unit prosecuting cases involving public corruption, violent crime and gangs, and white collar and complex financial fraud, according to the DOJ.

  From 2008 to 2010, he worked at the Office of the Prosecutor with the International Criminal Court, where he conducted investigations of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

  In 2010, he returned to the DOJ to serve for five years as the chief of the Public Integrity Section in Washington overseeing prosecutions of public corrections cases across the United States, according to the department. During this time his unit secured bribery and extortion convictions of former Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell and Arizona U.S. Representative Rick Renzi.

  Smith in 2015 was appointed first assistant U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee before becoming the acting U.S. attorney in 2017.

  In a speech announcing the special counsel appointment, Garland described Smith as the “right choice to complete these matters in an even-handed and urgent manner.”

  “Throughout his career, Jack Smith has built a reputation as an impartial and determined prosecutor, who leads teams with energy and focus to follow the facts wherever they lead,” Garland said.

  Garland said that Smith will begin his work as special counsel immediately and return from The Hague to the United States.

  As special counsel, Smith is charged with overseeing the ongoing investigation into Trump’s handling of classified and presidential records at Mar-a-Lago, as well as the Washington-based probe into whether there was unlawful interference with the transfer of power after the 2020 election or the certification of the electoral college vote on Jan. 6, 2021.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/20/2022 – 15:30

• Just Kidding! CBS News Resumes Twitter Posts After 40-Hour Tantrum
  Just Kidding! CBS News Resumes Twitter Posts After 40-Hour Tantrum

  It only took 40 hours for CBS News to realize what absolute morons they’d been to stop posting on Twitter over “security concerns” with the platform.

  

  “After pausing for much of the weekend to assess the security concerns, CBS News and Stations is resuming its activity on Twitter as we continue to monitor the situation,” the news organization’s communications team tweeted Sunday morning.

  After pausing for much of the weekend to assess the security concerns, CBS News and Stations is resuming its activity on Twitter as we continue to monitor the situation.

  — CBS News PR (@CBSNewsPress) November 20, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsThe outlet announced on Friday that they would be pausing its activity on the social media platform “out of an abundance of caution,” which was apparently no longer an issue by Sunday morning. The massive virtue signal marked perhaps the most significant organization to protest the threat of free speech at the Musk-owned social media giant – after multiple advertisers announced that they would be pausing ad spending amid the chaos of locked-out employees and fired executives.

  Musk took Twitter private on Oct. 27 – firing the senior management team and appointing himself as CEO, before then firing 50% of the company. On Nov. 17, hundreds of Twitter employees resigned after Musk set a deadline for workers to agree to “extremely hardcore” working conditions.

  According to Variety, CBS News was particularly concerned about the security of information on Twitter, as key personnel related to that area had departed.

  The news outlet has been closely watching the situation to see if any of Twitter’s critical functions break down and whether Twitter is susceptible to hacking attacks.

  The mass employee exodus from Twitter — now with a headcount estimated to be less than 2,500, down from 7,500 prior to Musk’s $44 billion acquisition — has escalated fears that the platform may start to break down operationally. -Variety

  The decision by CBS News comes after Musk reinstated former President Donald Trump’s account following a 24-hour poll.

  The responses, as expected, have been hilarious.

  https://t.co/hyNeBg9hbg pic.twitter.com/FJCS3VUCQ1

  — Dr. DW (@ZombyWoof2022) November 20, 2022

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  Your heroism will not go unrewarded.

  — 🫃🏼🇺🇦💉Hollaria Briden, Esq. (@HollyBriden) November 20, 2022

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  During that pause, everyone on this app was safe from misinformation.

  — Chef Andrew Gruel (@ChefGruel) November 20, 2022

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  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/20/2022 – 15:00

• Judge Orders Unsealing Of Names Of 8 Anonymous Individuals Relating To Jeffrey Epstein
  Judge Orders Unsealing Of Names Of 8 Anonymous Individuals Relating To Jeffrey Epstein

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A federal judge on Friday ordered the unsealing of documents featuring the real names of some of the “John Does” relating to deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, according to multiple media outlets.

  

  Judge Loretta Preska ruled on Friday to disclose the identities of a number of previously anonymous individuals in documents filed by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre against the convicted pedophile’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell in a defamation case, according to Insider.

  Epstein died in jail awaiting trial while Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking and sentenced to 20 years behind bars.

  Giuffre’s civil lawsuit against Maxwell has generated a trove of documents relating to Epstein, which contain a number of redacted names, some of which Preska ordered unsealed on the premise that public interest outweighs the right to privacy, according to Daily Mail.

  

  Already Disclosed to the Public

  Eight “Non-Party Does” referred to in documents as Does 12, 28, 97, 107, 144, 147, 171, and 183, sought to remain anonymous amid concerns that their disclosure would harm their reputations, Fox News reported.

  Preska disagreed in some cases, saying that much of the “purportedly sensitive information” had already been disclosed to the public during Maxwell’s trial, per Daily Mail.

  While a timeline for the release of the documents and names has not been set, Preska identified some of the Epstein-linked individuals during the hearing.

  The judge identified Doe 147 as Epstein victim Sarah Ransome, who testified publicly at Maxwell’s sentencing and published a book about her experience, and granted numerous interviews, according to Insider.

  

  Another individual Preska identified was Emmy Tayler, a former personal assistant to Maxwell who was accused of playing a role in the sexual abuse of some of the victims, according to Daily Mail.

  Tayler, who has denied any wrongdoing, was named in a batch of publicly available documents from another lawsuit, Preska said and ordered its release, according to Daily Mail, though it’s unclear which of the Does is used in reference to Tayler.

  ‘Intense Media Coverage’

  Preska also ordered documents relating to Doe 183 unsealed as the individual has been the “subject of intense media coverage” and their name was disclosed during Maxwell’s trial. But in order to allow Doe 183 an opportunity to appeal her decision, Preska put a stay on the release until Nov. 28.

  She also ordered the name of Tom Pritzker, billionaire executive chairman of the Hyatt Hotels, to be unsealed, according to Insider. Preska said Pritzker had only a marginal connection to Epstein as his name came up in a deposition in which a witness said they didn’t recognize him.

  Pritzker argued against the disclosure on the premise that it could harm his reputation but Preska overruled his objection.

  The judge did concede to some of the individuals who raised objections, however.

  Doe 12 will remain anonymous as they were a “classic outsider,” the judge said, describing them as “neither victim nor associated with Epstein or Maxwell,” according to Daily Mail.

  The name of Doe 28 will also remain sealed as they’re a sexual assault victim who the judge said “continues to experience trauma,” per Daily Mail.

  Meanwhile, Maxwell recently alleged that a fellow inmate plotted to kill her in her sleep.

  She also said that she found Epstein’s death, which was ruled a suicide, to be “profoundly suspicious” and that she doubts he really killed himself.

  When he died, Epstein was awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges. He was convicted in 2008 on similar charges but received a light sentence.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/20/2022 – 14:45

• Morgan Stanley: These Were Our Key 2023 Outlook Debates
  Morgan Stanley: These Were Our Key 2023 Outlook Debates

  By Vishwanath Tirupattur of Morgan Stanley

  Our 2023 Outlook – What We Debated

  This has been our outlook week. We published our year-ahead global economics and strategy outlooks last Sunday, and the more detailed asset class and country-specific outlooks have been streaming out during the week, with more to follow. At Morgan Stanley Research, the outlooks are the culmination of a process involving much deliberation and spirited debate among economists and strategists across all the regions and asset classes we cover. In a highly interconnected world with myriad uncertainties, we are convinced that this collaborative exercise in which we challenge each other’s views is critically important. In last week’s Sunday Start, my colleague Andrew Sheets summarized the outcome of the process – our outlook for 2023 across markets and economies. This week, I will focus on some of the key debates we engaged in during the process.

  Unsurprisingly, we spent a lot of time on inflation. Given the many upside surprises to inflation through much of the year, there was understandable skepticism around our forecast that US inflation will show a steady decline. Our economists acknowledged the uncertainty but took some comfort in base effects, normalizing supply chains, and weaker labor markets. They also saw deflation (not just disinflation) in certain core goods such as autos and a reset in medical services prices exerting a steady drag on core inflation. To be clear, our US inflation forecast takes into account that while shelter inflation will slow, it will remain a persistent driver of above-target inflation for a few more quarters.

  

  Our FX strategists changed their bullish stance on USD to neutral, a notably out-of-consensus call. With our outlook debates taking place against the background of a hawkish-sounding post-FOMC press conference at which the Fed chair signaled the policy rate peaking higher than previously thought, this change was vigorously debated. Our strategists argued that a decline in inflation as our economists forecast would limit upside potential for US rates. Furthermore, monetary policy in the US is now in restrictive territory, implying that we will see more downside surprises in individual data points. Also, the outlook for China, while still challenging, appears to be shifting, with a decent chance that the authorities take steps toward ending the Covid-zero policy. This would help to bring greater balance to the global economy, with less upward pressure on the dollar.

  

  Our economists’ base case expectation that the Fed will stop hiking in January led to a discussion of how markets would behave following the end of a hiking cycle. In some cases, the end of a hiking cycle was good for markets over the following 12 months (February 1995) but not in others (May 2000). We noted that the key to the outcome for markets seems to be whether a recession follows the end of a hiking cycle.

  

  While our forecast for the US is a ‘soft landing’ (no recession), our economists pointed out that the landing won’t feel all that soft and the margin for error is small. This makes the risk/reward for US stocks challenging. It is worth highlighting that in both 1995 and 2000 the 10-year US Treasury yield rallied, consistent with what our rates strategists expect by the end of 2023.

  There was debate around why we only see high yield default rates rising to ‘long-term average’ levels (4-4.5%), given slower growth and higher borrowing costs. Our credit strategists contended that the modest maturity walls over the next two years, cash on balance sheets, and healthy coverage and leverage ratios will mitigate near-term default pressures. However, they did note the potential for a longer default cycle, as maturities start to matter more in 2024.

  Another topic of discussion was our housing strategists’ view that US housing will experience a significant decline in activity (sales, starts, and permits) comparable to the steep declines seen in the aftermath of the GFC, yet only a modest drop in home prices, unlike what we saw post-GFC. The divergence in activity and prices is rooted in the prospect of much lower forced sales through foreclosures due to tight mortgage lending standards post-GFC, the substantial equity in many existing homes, and the lock-in effect of existing mortgages.

  

  The future of the Fed’s quantitative tightening (QT) was also much debated, particularly when it might end and its sequencing with a rate cut. History is really no guide here since we only have one data point to go by. As our chief global economist Seth Carpenter noted, the Fed sees the two policy tools as independent, and stopping QT depends on money market conditions and bank demand for reserves. Thus, QT could end before or after December 2023, when we anticipate gradual rate normalization to start. That said, QT could stop abruptly for two reasons:

  1. A recession that forces the Fed to contemplate rate cuts of 100bp or more; or
  2. Dysfunctional markets along the lines of March 2020 or the recent episode in the gilt market.

  More in the full note available to pro subscribers.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/20/2022 – 14:30