• Turkey, Iran & Pakistan Rapidly Bolster Border Security To Halt Afghan Refugee Wave
  Turkey, Iran & Pakistan Rapidly Bolster Border Security To Halt Afghan Refugee Wave

  Regional countries near Afghanistan are busy bolstering their border security and sending troops to halt an expected explosion of Afghan refugees across their territories seeking to escape new Taliban rule. 

  Turkey, for example, is rapidly expanding its three meter high wall it began constructing in 2017 along its over 330-mile long border with Iran, including adding razor wires, ditches, and thermal cameras along with additional troop presence. This after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan assessed last month as US troops were on their way out of Kabul that Turkey is “facing an increasingly intensifying Afghan migration wave coming via Iran.”

  

  Nikkei reports that by all indicators, regional governments are doing everything possible to keep the Afghan waves out: “Governments from Islamabad to Ankara and Tehran have bolstered border restrictions in anticipation of hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the new regime in Kabul,” the report says. 

  Historically, fleeing Afghans’ first stop en route to the West has been neighboring Iran, which shares a 570+ mile border with Afghanistan; however, the typically porous border was closed to all Afghans starting Aug.18 as it was clear the security situation inside the war-torn country was unraveling amid the US exit. Further some Iranian newspapers have reported that Iranian authorities are actively sending Afghans back to their country.

  And further, “Pakistan’s army claims to have sealed all irregular crossings from Afghanistan, though domestic media have reported increased human trafficking across the border,” Nikkei writes. “Reluctance or refusal to allow in large numbers of refugees is widespread. In some cases — Turkey again a prime example — allowing such an inflow can create a serious domestic political backlash.”

  Turkey is expected to feel the shock first of the beginning refugee wave coming out of Afghanistan, given it’s already long been for years a jumping-off point for Afghans making the arduous trip to Europe. The past decade alone has seen some 600,000 Afghans settle in Turkey – all the while a mass wave of Syrian refugees exited there as well, many which are still along Turkey’s southern border (over 3 million).

  

  Nikkei also documents some offers from other regional countries to accept a meager number of refugees, unlikely to blunt the problem given the millions that are looking to get out:

  Some countries in the region with interests in Afghanistan have offered limited, and short-term, help. The United Arab Emirates has agreed to temporarily host 5,000 evacuated nationals who will go to third countries, following a request from the U.S. The UAE, along with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, have called for peace and political stability in Afghanistan.

  Another country that’s been involved in rebuilding Afghanistan over the past two decades is India, which hosts more than 15,000 Afghan refugees from long ago. As of March 2021, a total of 41,315 refugees and asylum-seekers were registered with the UNHCR India, with Afghans making up the second-largest subgroup, at 37%, behind those from Myanmar, at 54%.

  All of this serves to highlight that the current climate of proclamations of international sympathy and support for the plight of Afghans is not resulting in any level of changed policies at borders on the ground, but is just stopping at mere rhetoric. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/09/2021 – 02:45

• "Housing Is A Human Right": Rent Activists Step Up Pressure Ahead Of German Elections
  “Housing Is A Human Right”: Rent Activists Step Up Pressure Ahead Of German Elections

  By Imogen Goodman of TheLocal.de,

  In a demonstration taking place in the German capital on September 11th, 2021, numerous campaign groups will take to the streets, among them the Berlin-based Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co. campaign, the national Rent Freeze campaign and the Mannheim-based Action Alliance Against Desperation and Rent Madness.

  

  They are demanding a national rent freeze for the next six years to halt rising rents, along with a focus on building more affordable homes and the transfer of property from private landlords into state hands.

  “With this rents demonstration, we’re protesting against the massive, persistent pressure that renters are facing in the whole of Germany,” campaigners said in a statement announcing the upcoming protest.

  “Whether it’s Frankfurt, Dresden, Munich, Leipzig, Berlin, Hamburg or Cologne, rents are incessantly rising or have already reached unreasonable levels – und not just in the big cities.

  “In many places, the availability of affordable living space has sunk dramatically for those entering a new housing contract. Homelessness is rising further and with it, the number of people who live on the streets without any shelter at all.”

  Sharp rise in rents

  Of all the cities in Germany, Berlin has by far the fastest rising rents: a recent study by housing portal Immowelt found that asking rents in the capital have soared by more than 40 percent over the past five years alone. However, the same study also found that middle-sized German cities like Heidelberg and Kaiserslautern were experiencing significant rent hikes over the same period, while the country’s priciest cities like Munich and Stuttgart continued to see rents go up – though not quite as steeply as in previous years.

  

  As Germany prepares to head to the polls on September 26th in both the federal and a number of state elections, the campaign is aiming to step up pressure on the next government to embark on a “radical change of course” in the country’s housing policy.

  In Berlin, people with German citizenship will also be given a vote in a referendum on whether the state government should buy out thousands of flats owned by for-profit landlords with 3,000 or more properties – including Vonovia and Deutsche Wohnen – in order to better control rents and living standards.

  “On September 26th, Berliners have a unique, historical chance to stand up against the selling off of our cities,” Rouzbeh Tehari, spokesman for the Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co. campaign, told The Local.

  “The referendum to nationalise large property firms offers the opportunity to remove hundreds of thousands of apartments from capitalist speculation and manage them as social housing.”

  Even if the referendum passes, however, the campaign expects to face a fierce battle with the newly elected Berlin Senate to see the policy put into law.

  “We won’t stop after the vote,” Tehari explained. “We know we’re facing strong opposition and it will be difficult to get it implemented.”

  Either way, the success of the campaign – which managed to collect well over the 170,000 petition signatures needed to call a referendum – will have sent a strong message to the venture capitalists that speculating on Berlin housing is a “high risk” strategy, he said.  

  A national rent cap?

  The national Rent Freeze campaign, one of the key activist groups involved in Saturday’s demo, is calling for a new six-year rental cap – but says it must be done on a national level. Earlier this year, attempts to impose a six-year rent freeze in Munich and Berlin were both rejected by Germany’s Constitutional Court on the basis that such as move couldn’t be done on a state or regional level.

  In the case of Berlin, the rent cap had been in place since 2018, but was removed after the court found the law to be unconstitutional.

  ++ Laut neuen Studien ist ein bundesweiter #Mietendeckel möglich.++
  Allein was fehlt, ist der politische Wille. Deshalb braucht es den Druck unserer Mieter*inennbewegung!
  So zum Beispiel bei der großen #Mietendemo am 11.09.
  in #Berlin #btw21 #Mieten https://t.co/T4Thu27MTH

  — Zwangsräumung Verhindern #Berlin (@BuendnisZRV) September 1, 2021

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

  At the time, renters were dealt a double blow as the court ruled that landlords also had the right to reclaim back-dated rent for the entire duration of the cap – leading some tenants to be presented with bills amounting to thousands of euros.  But the national Rent Freeze campaign, which started in Bavaria, has now amassed support from around 140 other organisations and activist groups, and is gaining momentum ahead of the elections.

  “Many tenants are desperate,” said Matthias Weinzierl of the Rent Freeze campaign. “They’re legitimately afraid of losing their homes because rents continue to rise and Covid-19 hasn’t changed a thing. “That’s why we’re calling for a national six-year rent freeze now, which must be brought in directly after the new government has been elected. Such a rent freeze would be an acute help for tenants – and it’s also urgently needed.”

  ‘Existential threat’

  The date of the demo is the national Day of the Homeless, and was selected to highlight what campaigners see as the real threat of the housing crisis.

  “In many places, high rents are becoming a genuine poverty risk and loss of housing is becoming an existential threat,” said Ulrich Schneider, CEO of the Parity Welfare Association, which is also supporting the demo.

  

  “It’s completely unreasonable to force single parents, people with disabilities or those in need of care, for example, to give up their homes and lose their entire social environment.” 

  The protest on Saturday has also received support from the National Working Group for Help for the Homeless (BAGWH), who have linked unaffordable rents to a rise in the number of employed people losing their homes.  In one recent study, BAGWH found that 15 percent of people classified as ‘homeless’ are currently employed – suggesting that rents in Germany are now outstripping wages, especially for lower earners. Commenting on the findings, Werena Rosenke, CEO of BAGWH, said that the figures were “proof of the precarious living conditions in which many people find themselves in this country and the trends that are emerging in our society”. 

  Any new government elected after September 26th must face this issue head on, she added. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/09/2021 – 02:00

• How The FBI's War On Drugs Helped 9/11 Happen
  How The FBI’s War On Drugs Helped 9/11 Happen

  Authored by Brian McGlinchey via Stark Realities,

  The story of 9/11 is filled with painful “what-ifs.” Among the most prominent:

  • What if the CIA hadn’t blocked two FBI agents from alerting Bureau headquarters that a future 9/11 hijacker had obtained a multi-entry US visa?

  • What if the FBI hadn’t nixed agents’ request for a warrant to search the computer of “20th hijacker” Zacharias Moussaoui after his arrest in August 2001?

  • What if the FBI hadn’t ignored a Phoenix agent’s July 2001 recommendation to contact aviation colleges across the country, on suspicion that Osama bin Laden was preparing extremists to “conduct terror activity against civilian aviation targets”?

  Those what-ifs give us all pause, but they weigh heaviest on those who were closest to them, such as retired FBI counterterrorism agent Ken Williams, author of the so-called “Phoenix memo.”

  Though his unheeded warning about extremists at flight schools looms large in the saga of 9/11, Williams is haunted by two more what-ifs that are lesser-known but equally gut-wrenching:

  • What if his request for a surveillance team to monitor bin Laden disciples at an Arizona aviation school hadn’t been declined in favor of the FBI’s pursuit of drug smugglers?

  • What if he hadn’t been ordered to suspend his investigation of those extremists for several months to help with an arson case?

  

  For Williams, the answer is all too clear: His investigation would have led to the scrutiny of two future 9/11 hijackers—and that scrutiny may have started unraveling the entire plot.

  Extremists at Embry-Riddle

  In April 2000, Williams received an important tip from a confidential informant who’d once been a member of a Middle Eastern terrorist organization. The informant had built a stellar reputation for providing valuable information. “I used to refer to him as my E.F. Hutton,” says Williams. “When he spoke, you listened.”

  The informant told Williams that two foreign students were attempting to recruit Phoenix-area Muslims to an organization called Al-Muhajiroun, or “The Emigrants.” Founded in Saudi Arabia and then banned by the kingdom in 1986, Al-Muhajiroun was unabashedly extremist. Before 9/11, the group referred to itself as “the eyes, the ears and the mouth of Osama bin Laden,” says Williams.

  In 1998, the group’s leader issued a fatwa, or religious decree, declaring jihad against the US and British governments and their interests—including airports. After 9/11, Al-Muhajiroun became notorious for organizing a “magnificent 19” conference in London in honor of 9/11’s 19 hijackers.

  The informant gave Williams one of the flyers the pair had been using in their recruiting drive. The phone number on the flyer belonged to Lebanese student Zakaria Soubra. Via surveillance of Soubra, Williams and his team identified his counterpart as a Saudi named Ghassan al-Sharbi. Both were students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona. Williams describes it as a prestigious school providing an “Ivy League” education in aviation and related sciences.

  Soubra was studying aviation security, while al-Sharbi studied engineering. The two were also making frequent, two-and-a-half-hour drives to Phoenix to recruit new members of Al-Muhajiroun from area mosques. Williams and another agent traveled to Prescott to interview them at the small room they shared at a cheap motor lodge. Williams quickly noticed it was decorated with photos of Osama bin Laden, Ibn al-Khattab of the Arab Mujahideen in Chechnya, and wounded mujahideen fighters.

  In his years of experience, Williams had grown accustomed to Middle Eastern students being “meek, mild and intimidated as shit when you show up at their door”—the product of growing up in countries with iron-fisted security forces. Soubra, however, was a jarring exception.

  “He told me he considered the FBI, the United States military and the United States government legitimate military targets of Islam, and he described bin Laden as a great Muslim brother,” says Williams. “He was raising his voice, and you could see the veins on the side of his temples start to pop out of his head.”

  “Trust me, I did everything in my power to get him to assault me or my partner…try to push us or do something so we could arrest him for assault on a federal officer,” says Williams. On the way out, he told them, “We know what you’re all about and we’re not going away. If you cross that line, you will go to jail. We’ll find you wherever you’re at.”

  “I don’t generally don’t make those kind of threats, because they’re idle, but I wanted to kind of up-it a notch with them,” says Williams.

  Links to Possible 9/11 “Dry Run”

  Williams discovered that Soubra and al-Sharbi were driving a car registered to Muhammad al-Qudhaieen, a Saudi student living three hours away at the University of Arizona. Months earlier, in November 1999, al-Qudhaieen and Hamdan al-Shalawi, a Saudi attending Arizona State, were involved in an incident that prompted an America West flight to Washington, D.C. to make an emergency landing in Columbus, Ohio.

  Crew members said the two had asked a variety of suspicious technical questions, and that al-Qudhaieen twice attempted to open the cockpit door. He told investigators in Columbus he’d mistaken it for the bathroom door.

  Noting that these were students at a top-notch university with experience traveling internationally, Williams says he finds the excuse ridiculous. “They were conducting an intelligence-collecting operation on board the aircraft, to see how the flight crew was going to react and see how far away they could get with doing things,” he says.

  US President Joe Biden’s order requires the US attorney general to publicly release the declassified documents over the next six monthshttps://t.co/oPnsA81g2h

  — Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) September 4, 2021

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  The America West incident has been cited in ongoing civil litigation in which 9/11 families, survivors and insurers allege various Saudi officials helped facilitate the al Qaeda plot. Al-Qudhaieen and al-Shalawi were traveling at Saudi expense to an event at the Saudi embassy. The pair were released after questioning. Immediately after the incident, Williams says, they held a press conference in Washington and claimed to have been victims of Islamophobia.

  Williams says the public relations move was likely part of al Qaeda’s strategy: Well-publicized, embarrassing accusations of bigotry against America West would make other airline and airport employees reluctant to react to future suspicious behavior.

  Al-Qudhaieen and al-Shalawi’s profession of innocence was undermined in November 2000, when the FBI received reports that al-Shalawi trained in Afghanistan to conduct attacks like the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers housing facility in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 American service members and injured hundreds.

  After being questioned by Williams, Al-Sharbi fled the United States. In the wake of 9/11, he was arrested in Pakistan with Abu Zubaydah, who was then one of the world’s most-hunted al Qaeda associates. Add it all up and Williams was clearly onto something big in the year 2000.

  However, since his investigation subjects hadn’t committed any overt criminal acts, building a case would require a lot of work, with an emphasis on visual surveillance—tracking comings and goings, identifying associates by photographing them and checking their license plates, noting places subjects and their associates routinely visit.

  It’s a highly labor-intensive undertaking. In the FBI, doing it well means calling in the agents of the Special Operations Group (SOG). “Surveillance is the only thing these agents do,” says Williams. “They’re given extensive training on the tradecraft of whatever enemy they’re looking at…(including) how al Qaeda functions. They study whatever we have in our intelligence quivers so they know what to look for when they’re out there,” says Williams.

  “Every agent can do some surveillance,” he continues, “but these guys have old beater automobiles, they have aircraft capabilities, electronic capabilities, photographic capabilities—video and still—and they’re trained how to use all this stuff.” Their observations are summarized in a daily report provided to the lead agent on the case.

  However, none of that would be available to Williams: Despite the disturbing set of facts and associations he’d uncovered, his request for SOG support was denied. Chalk it up to a warped set of institutional priorities: In the pre-9/11 FBI, counterterrorism often took a back seat to drug investigations.

  “I’ve got this threat I’ve identified through my training and expertise. I’m telling my command staff ‘these guys are the real deal, this is no bullshit,’ yet (my bosses are) still held accountable to meeting what headquarters has set as priorities for the southwest border states—and that’s drug interdiction and that’s taking down cartel members,” says Williams.   

  Williams says he doesn’t blame his Phoenix supervisors, because they were following priorities dictated in Washington. He does, however, resent that the FBI had to pursue drug cases at all.

  “What angers me about it and what I get upset about is—that’s what the whole Drug Enforcement Administration was created to counter. We were the only agency at that time that protected the United States from terrorists. You’ve got the DEA, every police agency and their mother looking at drugs. Why can’t the FBI get out of the drug trafficking arena and concentrate on protecting the national security of the United States of America in the areas where we have the sole purview to do it? If we don’t do it, nobody’s doing it at that time,” Williams says.

  America’s powerful post-9/11 marijuana legalization trend makes the de-prioritization of his counterterrorism case all the more aggravating in retrospect.

  “Some of the stuff we were competing with were marijuana smuggling cases. Now, for chrissakes, every other corner out here has a marijuana dispensary. They’re as frequent as Starbucks,” says Williams.

  Denied SOG support, Williams and his teammates soldiered on without it, conducting their own off-and-on surveillance as best they could. “I was doing it haphazardly. I was doing it by myself and maybe with a couple squad mates,” says Williams. “But there’s a huge degree of difference between having an SOG team on a target and a group of non-SOG-trained agents who do it part-time at best.”

  Even in well-resourced situations, pursuing such a case can take a lot of time. “Some people think 12 months in an investigation is a long time—not when you’re working these kinds of cases like Soubra and Al Sharbi,” says Williams.

  Collecting intelligence, trying to recruit informants, and amassing the information needed to obtain more investigative authority is a slow grind. The lack of SOG support made it all the more difficult. The prioritization of drug cases was a major drag on Williams’ investigation, but things were about to come to a screeching halt.

  An Arsonist Unwittingly Abets al Qaeda

  In December 2000, someone started setting fire to million-dollar houses under construction along the border of the Phoenix Mountains Preserve. One of them was even burned twice. Eleven structures were torched in all. The media speculated that the arson was the work of an eco-terrorist organization—perhaps the Earth Liberation Front or something akin to it. In messages at the crime scenes and elsewhere, the perpetrator started identifying as the “Coalition to Save the Preserves,” and seemed to revel in taunting police.

  The arson spree was racking up millions of dollars in damage and commanding high media attention. Between public pressure amid mounting concerns the fires could take a deadly turn, Phoenix police asked the FBI for help.

  Williams received a profoundly unwelcome order: He and every member of the Phoenix counterterrorism squad would have to shelve their current investigations and pursue the arson case full-time.

  “I went to my supervisor at the time, Bill Kurtz, and I said, ‘Bill, you can’t take me off this case. This is the real deal…these guys are with this al Qaeda group that we’re starting to learn about, that blew up the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania’.”

  The decision stood. And the timing couldn’t have been worse.The very month Williams was forced to turn his eyes away from Arizona’s network of al Qaeda sympathizers, Hani Hanjour and Nawaf al-Hazmi moved from Southern California to Phoenix.

  Nine months later, they would hijack American Airlines Flight 77. Hanjour himself would steer the Boeing 757 into the Pentagon.

  Williams is confident that, had he not been diverted to the arson case, Hanjour and al-Hazmi would have come under his scrutiny: “There’s no question in my mind. I’m convinced we would have crossed paths with them. Guarantee you.”

  “All these guys were in the same circle. We got the two guys on America West Airlines doing their dry run and collecting intel. We’ve got Ghassan al-Sharbi who was arrested with Abu Zubayda, so he was kind of a big shot. And then we’ve got these two guys getting ready to kill themselves on September 11th coming into our area. All these guys are living within miles of each other. They would’ve been bouncing off each other, I guarantee,” he says.

  Williams did help solve the arson spree, which turned out to be the work of a lone, thrill-seeking arsonist named Mark Warren Sands, who was indicted on June 14, 2001. By that time, Hanjour and al-Hazmi had left Arizona, arriving in Falls Church, Virginia in April.

  Williams gives his former supervisor Kurtz full credit for expressing regret to the 9/11 Commission about having taken Williams off the terror case. He holds lingering anger, however, for the arsonist who put Kurtz in a tough position.

  “I wish I could prosecute him for something tied to 9/11, because he really took our eyes off the guys in Prescott,” says Williams. With the arson case closed, Williams ramped his counterterrorism investigation back up, posting his now-famous “Phoenix memo” on July 10.

  With his investigation first slowed by a lack of surveillance assets and then halted for months by the arson investigation, his recommendation for a nationwide FBI campaign to contact civil aviation universities and colleges in search of extremist students was submitted just two months before 9/11—and then ignored until it was too late.

  A Reunion with al-Sharbi

  Having been arrested in Pakistan with Abu Zubaydah, Ghassan al-Sharbi—the quieter of Williams’ two Prescott investigation targets—is now detainee #682 at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A 2016 government profile said “he has been mostly non-compliant and hostile with the guards…his behavior and statements indicate that he retains extremist views.”

  You’ll recall that Williams closed his Prescott interview of al-Sharbi with a warning: “If you cross that line, you will go to jail. We’ll find you wherever you’re at.” Little did Williams know it would happen halfway around the world.

  After al-Sharbi was captured, Williams traveled to Gitmo to question him. When Williams entered the room, he says al-Sharbi’s face signaled his recognition—with an expression that said, “Oh, shit.”

  Williams greeted him by saying, “I told you we’d find you.” Recalling the scene with a chuckle, Williams says, “It was a Hollywood moment. You couldn’t script it any better.”

  A New Focus: Making a Case Against Saudi Arabia

  While that moment gave Williams something to smile about, 9/11 remains a constant and grim presence in his life. There’s no escaping the nagging question of how the world may be different had he received the surveillance support he’d requested, or if he hadn’t been reassigned to the arson case.

  “I what-if that every day of my life and I will til the day I die,” he says. “How close were we?”

  “My ex-wife used to say I was obsessed with it, but I’d say, ‘Well, how can you not be obsessed with it? There’s thousands of people dead and you’re somehow associated with this,” recalls Williams.

  In 2017, Williams hit the FBI’s mandatory retirement age of 57. He soon found a perfect outlet for his 9/11 obsession: He’s working with attorneys representing the families and survivors of the 9/11 attacks in their civil suit against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is still in the pre-trial phase.

  His work is done under a protective order that prevents him from sharing what he’s learned from depositions and from reviewing still-classified documents from Operation Encore, the FBI’s investigation of Saudi government links to 9/11. However, he’s unequivocal about what it adds up to: “The evidence is there.”

  His work on the case goes against the wishes of the FBI. As Williams told me in a 2018 story that broke the news, a lawyer from the FBI’s Office of the General Counsel told him not to join the plaintiffs’ legal team, saying it could impact “other pending litigation” and undermine the pursuit of warm relations with Saudi Arabia.

  This time, though, Ken Williams gets to set his own priorities.

  *  *  *

  Stark Realities undermines official narratives, demolishes conventional wisdom and exposes fundamental myths across the political spectrum. Read more and subscribe at starkrealities.substack.com

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/08/2021 – 23:40

• China Mulling Eventual Takeover Of Bagram Airbase In Afghanistan: Report
  China Mulling Eventual Takeover Of Bagram Airbase In Afghanistan: Report

  A new bombshell report in US News & World Report claims that China’s military is looking to move into what was previously America’s single most important and iconic airbase in Afghanistan – Bagram airfield. 

  “The Chinese military is currently conducting a feasibility study about the effect of sending workers, soldiers and other staff related to its foreign economic investment program known as the Belt and Road Initiative in the coming years to Bagram, according to a source briefed on the study by Chinese military officials, who spoke to U.S. News on the condition of anonymity,” the report says. 

  

  The sprawling airfield, which goes all the way back to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, lies an hour outside Kabul and was considered the busiest US base in the world during the two-decade long US war.

  The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday vehemently denied and condemned the allegation that China’s PLA military was poised to take the base over, essentially calling it ‘fake news’. “What I can tell everyone is that that is a piece of purely false information,” spokesman Wang Wenbin said.

  US News’ sources suggested any such move would be at least two years out, and would require the invitation and consent of the Taliban government.

  A week ago Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Italian newspaper La Repubblica that China will be Afghanistan’s “most important partner” as the new government is seeking infrastructure investments. “China is our most important partner and represents a fundamental and extraordinary opportunity for us, because it is ready to invest and rebuild our country,” Mujahid explained.

  The spokesman added that there are “rich copper mines in the country, which, thanks to the Chinese, can be put back into operation and modernized. In addition, China is our pass to markets all over the world.” It’s long been no secret that wherever China sees an opportunity to expand its Belt and Road Initiative projects across Asia, it seeks to boost its security presence in the host nation. 

  General Milley: Bagram “not much value added…”

  China: We will take it … https://t.co/9Ox85bhrtN

  — Jim Banks (@RepJimBanks) September 7, 2021

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  Despite Beijing’s denials, it’s clear that Chinese officials understand well the symbolic and strategic importance of possessing Bagram: 

  Beijing has already recognized the geostrategic importance of Bagram overtly. Its state media almost immediately hopped on the sudden and surprise U.S. departure from the key logistics hub in July, sending a video crew, which gained easy access to it, to document the aftermath of what it described as a “hasty withdrawal” and “humiliating defeat.”

  Indeed Chinese state media has taken every opportunity to point out that the US is an empire in retreat from the world stage, particularly after the chaos of the botched evacuation and final exit of last month. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/08/2021 – 23:20

• "COVID Zero" New Zealand Has Completed Its Transformation Into A Full-Blown Police State
  “COVID Zero” New Zealand Has Completed Its Transformation Into A Full-Blown Police State

  Authored by Jordan Schachtel via ‘The Dossier’ substack,

  New Zealand, the last of the dedicated “COVID Zero” nations on earth, has completed its transformation into a full-blown tyrannical regime, and shockingly, it has come with the consent of the vast majority of Kiwis.

  Meanwhile,
  A poll conducted by Kantar and published by The New Zealand Herald shows 85 percent of Kiwis support the elimination goal, compared with 13 percent arguing to “live with” the virus.<= Publicerad idaghttps://t.co/UKY9gSsQ4F

  — Trötter (@Trtter6) September 2, 2021

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  Once hailed as the media and “public health experts’” favorite COVID-19 managerial “success story,” the puff pieces have been increasingly hard to find, as Wellington has spawned a dystopian concoction of insane, despotic government edicts, claimed as an absolutely necessary part of their everlasting fight against a disease with a 99.8% recovery rate.

  Exclusive: Dr Anthony Fauci on why NZ ‘rose to the top’ in Covid battle https://t.co/c6FHHWGbja pic.twitter.com/RBAHaltFWA

  — nzherald (@nzherald) December 6, 2020

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  Just observe what has happened in the Five Eyes partner nation during this week alone:

  1) Virtually the entire country is once again under an indefinite lockdown, after a few COVID-19 cases were reported throughout the nation.  A single case necessitates a “snap lockdown,” in which all rights of millions of citizens are immediately restricted and indefinitely subject to the containment of a seasonal respiratory disease. The current lockdown has been extended over Auckland until at least mid September, with many predicting a much lengthier sentence. According to past precedent, Kiwis will not receive their freedom back until — this is the truly insane part of Zero COVID — there is zero community spread of COVID-19.

  And the second another case pops up on the radar, the entire country goes back to square one of the Zero COVID protocol.

  Covid 19 coronavirus Delta outbreak: Auckland lockdown could last ‘three to four weeks’, expert says, via @nzherald https://t.co/y5dK7T0Bm5

  — Nino Brodin (@Orgetorix) September 2, 2021

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  2) A man is being shamed by his countrymen for having the audacity to “escape” from a government-sanctioned COVID internment camp. The camps have been described in a more positive, but false light by the press and government officials as “quarantine hotels,” but it is most certainly an internment facility, as leaving is not allowed, and it carries a fine and lengthy prison sentence.

  The Hill reported: “The person was charged with failing to comply with New Zealand’s coronavirus health order. Under a new law passed last year, he could face a fine or up to six months in jail if convicted.”

  Man facing charges after escaping quarantine hotel in New Zealand https://t.co/6pzI6x3aTF pic.twitter.com/85iHWJICrc

  — The Hill (@thehill) September 2, 2021

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  3) The country’s police and military services are installing security checkpoints throughout New Zealand in an effort to make sure citizens are not traveling during the lockdown. Freely traveling during the lockdown now carries a massive fine and/or prison sentence as punishment.

  Police set up checkpoints across Auckland to prevent non-essential travel as New Zealand recorded 75 new cases of COVID-19. Auckland will remain in a strict level 4 lockdown for another two weeks, but restrictions for the rest of the country were loosened https://t.co/9BC92LkTRq pic.twitter.com/qipRa7dxds

  — Reuters (@Reuters) September 1, 2021

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

  Police checkpoints in Auckland as New Zealand records 75 new Covid cases https://t.co/Rt9ZZhtPba pic.twitter.com/m2Lg343WbU

  — City A.M. (@CityAM) September 1, 2021

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

  New Zealand is now the only country in the world left that is dedicated to COVID Zero, the pursuit of the total elimination of a virus from their nation, which has been under a government-sanctioned self-siege since the beginning of 2020. All of the other nations that attempted to pursue the pseudoscience behind COVID Zero have failed in catastrophic fashion. New Zealand has transformed from a highly-touted COVID “success story” to a full-fledged house of horrors, and sadly, there is no end in sight to the ongoing madness.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/08/2021 – 23:00

• ECB Preview: The First Taper, But Don't Call It That
  ECB Preview: The First Taper, But Don’t Call It That

  Summary

  • ECB policy announcement due Thursday 9th September; rate decision at 12:45BST/07:45EDT, press conference 13:30BST/08:30EDT
  • Consensus looks for a slowdown in the pace of PEPP purchases during Q4
  • A decision on the future of PEPP is not expected to take place at the upcoming meeting
  • Economic forecasts are set to see upgrades to 2021 growth and inflation. 2023 inflation is set to remain sub-target

  OVERVIEW: As Newsquawk writes in its ECB preview, the ECB is set to stand pat on rates whilst leaving the size of the PEPP envelope unchanged at EUR 1.85 tln. Focus for PEPP will instead fall on the Q4 pace of purchases which is set to be lowered from the current “significantly higher” level of EUR 80bln/month. Those looking for clues on the future of PEPP when it concludes in March next year are set to be disappointed with the matter seemingly not on the table for the upcoming meeting. The press conference will likely see President Lagarde caution that any slowing in the pace of purchases for PEPP will not be regarded as a “taper” as purchases are not on track to reach zero and policymakers will vow to maintain favorable financing conditions. Spoiler alert: it is a taper, as the recent blowout in bund yields has amply demonstrated. The accompanying economic projections are set to see upgrades to 2021 growth and inflation. 2023 inflation is set to remain sub-target.

  Nomura’s visual forecast of the ECB’s tapering is below.

  

  PRIOR MEETING: As expected, the ECB stood pat on rates and the sizes of its bond-buying operations (PEPP and APP). In its newly formatted policy statement, the Governing Council adjusted forward guidance on interest rates to reflect its new symmetric 2% inflation target vs. its previous “close to, but below 2%” approach. One of the more interesting nuances of the statement was that its inflation mandate will be targeted via actual inflation outcomes and that rates will remain at present or lower levels until “it sees inflation reaching two per cent well ahead of the end of its projection horizon and durably for the rest of the projection horizon”. Emphasis on the projection horizon and on a durable basis was received dovishly by the market, alongside the ECB stressing that the medium-term outlook for inflation is still well below the Governing Council’s target. Sources in the immediate aftermath noted dissent from Weidmann and Wunsch on the new guidance due to the length of the commitment and lack of clarity on a potential exit strategy. Those looking for any clues on the future of the PEPP and APP purchases were left disappointed, with the statement reaffirming that PEPP will run until at least the end of March 2022 and, in any case, until it judges that the coronavirus crisis phase is over whilst forward guidance was maintained on APP. That said, sources the following day noted that policymakers were not expecting to make a decision on the future of PEPP bond purchases in September given the persistent uncertainty posed by the pandemic. Instead, a decision in October or December was seen as more likely. On the economic outlook, the ECB judged that the recovery remains on track with activity seen returning to precrisis levels by Q1 2022, that said, the Delta variant posed a source of uncertainty for the outlook.

  RECENT DATA: On the inflation front, Eurozone Y/Y CPI in August rose to a ten-year high of 3.0% from 2.7% with a pronounced jump in the core (ex-food and energy) reading to 1.6% from 1.4%. Note, economists still anticipate inflation to slip back below the ECB’s 2% target in early 2022. Q2 GDP metrics released since the prior meeting revealed Q/Q growth of 2.0% vs. the 0.3% contraction seen in Q1. Survey data for August saw the Eurozone-wide IHS Markit Composite PMI reading slip to 59.0 from 60.2 with the report noting “.. another strong quarter-on-quarter rise in GDP is on the cards for the third quarter, and we’re certainly on track for the eurozone economy to be back at pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year, if not sooner”. Unemployment in the Eurozone fell to 7.6% in July from 7.8% as reopening efforts in the region continued to pick-up and furlough schemes suppress the headline metric. In terms of COVID milestones, the EU Commission recently announced that 70% of the EU population is now fully vaccinated against the virus.

  RECENT COMMUNICATIONS: Given the summer break at the ECB, rhetoric up until the past few weeks had been relatively light. However, more recently, interjections from officials have helped shape expectations for the upcoming meeting. Comments from Chief Economist Lane drew attention after noting that it is too early to discuss the conclusion of PEPP (a viewpoint echoed by Villeroy and Kazaks) at the upcoming meeting, adding that such a conversation should take place in the Autumn. Furthermore, Lane downplayed the decision for Q4 purchases under PEPP as a “local adjustment”. Lane also stuck to his assessment that upside pressures in inflation are transitory whilst citing the absence of large increases in wages; a viewpoint that was later echoed by Stournaras. Elsewhere, VP de  Guindos suggested that the accompanying economic forecasts could be upgraded whilst noting that the Delta variant is not having as great an impact as the Bank had projected four months ago. De Guindos went on to note that “If things start to return to normal, as is currently the case, the extraordinary measures will have to be gradually withdrawn. – We are not there yet, but we are gradually and continually moving towards that point”. Hawkish members of the GC have been vocal ahead of the meeting with Knot stating that the outlook may allow slower ECB stimulus and PEPP to conclude in March, whilst Holzmann suggested the central bank is in a position to think about reducing pandemic aid.

  RATES: From a rates perspective, consensus looks for the Bank to stand pat on the deposit, main refi and marginal lending rates of -0.5%, 0.0% and 0.25% respectively. Current forward guidance notes that rates will “remain at their present or lower levels until it sees inflation reaching two per cent well ahead of the end of its projection horizon and durably for the rest of the projection horizon, and it judges that realised progress in underlying inflation is sufficiently advanced to be consistent with inflation stabilising at two per cent over the medium term.”. Market pricing is not indicative of a move in rates by the ECB any time soon.

  BALANCE SHEET: Although the size of the PEPP envelope is set to be left untouched at EUR 1.85tln, market participants are focused on the level of purchases set to be carried out in Q4, and what will happen to the Bank’s emergency bond-buying when the program draws to a close. On the former, the June meeting saw a rollover of the level of purchases in Q2 into Q3 (at circa EUR 80bln/month), which were conducted at a “significantly higher pace than during the first months of the year.”

  This time around, a poll by Bloomberg News suggests that purchases could be slowed to around EUR 50bln/month. Such a reduction would see the ECB use up most of its EUR 1.85tln envelope with just EUR 70bln not used. In terms of specific house views, UBS expects the Executive Board will opt to slow the pace of purchases to EUR 50-60bln, which would be “roughly on par with the pace in Q1, which [chief economist] Mr Lane remarked was also ‘pretty high’.” Barclays (who expect purchases to slow to EUR 60-70bln/month) suggests that the “significantly higher” line within the statement could be replaced by something along the lines of ““slightly higher than during (or close to) the first months of the year”. The ECB has been given cover to make such a decision given that financing conditions in the Eurozone are perceived to be easier than at the time of the June meeting. Note, Lane has already downplayed the upcoming decision as a “local adjustment.” Furthermore, Lagarde will likely caution that any slowing in the pace of purchases for PEPP will not be regarded as a “taper” as purchases are not on track to reach zero and policymakers will vow to maintain favourable financing conditions. With regards to “life after PEPP,” those looking for any clues on this are likely to be left disappointed, with Lane already noting that it is too early to discuss the conclusion of PEPP, and discussion on the matter is set to take place in the Autumn. When the PEPP concludes, consensus expects the APP to be bolstered to a monthly purchase amount of EUR 40bln/month; this time around the pace of purchases is set to be held at EUR 20bln/month.

  ECONOMIC PROJECTIONS: For the accompanying economic forecasts, UBS looks for an upgrade to the 2021 GDP projection from 4.6% to 5.0% amid the strong performance seen in H1. Next year’s projection is set to see a modest downgrade to 4.6% from 4.7% amid softer-than-anticipated spill overs from H2 2021, whilst 2023 should remain at 2.1%. On the inflation front, UBS expects 2021 to be upgraded to 2.1% from 1.9% with 2022 and 2023 set to be raised by 10bps each to 1.6% and 1.5% respectively with the latter projection still below-target for the ECB.

  • Current Inflation Projections (Jun’21): 2021 at 1.9% (prev. 1.5%), 2022 at 1.5% (prev. 1.2%), 2023 at 1.4% (prev. 1.4%)
  • Current GDP Projections (Jun’21): 2021 at 4.6% (prev. +4.0%), 2022 at 4.7% (prev. +4.1%); 2023 at 2.1% (prev. +2.1%)

  Finally, courtesy of ING, here is a scenario analysis of what to expect tomorrow:

  

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/08/2021 – 22:40

• Media Liable For Comments Posted On Their Facebook Pages: Australian High Court
  Media Liable For Comments Posted On Their Facebook Pages: Australian High Court

  Authored by Daniel Y. Teng via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  In a landmark decision, Australia’s apex judicial body, the High Court, has dismissed an appeal from major media outlets claiming they were not responsible for comments posted by readers or audience members on their social media pages.

  

  Experts believe the judgement will have wider ramifications across not just media outlets but businesses, government entities, and community organisations, who will have to moderate comments even more stringently—or remove the option altogether—to ensure defamatory comments are not publicised.

  The case in question revolved around Dylan Voller, a former inmate at the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre.

  Voller sued the publishers of news outlets The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, and Sky News Australia over comments posted by individuals on their Facebook pages in 2016 and 2017.

  

  While the news stories posted online were not defamatory, Voller’s lawyers argued that the comments featured in the posts were defamatory and that the media companies were legally liable.

  An initial case was heard in 2019 by the Supreme Court of New South Wales (NSW), who found it in Voller’s favour. In 2020, the NSW Court of Appeal again ruled in Voller’s favour agreeing that the media outlets were the “publishers.”

  The media companies appealed once more to the High Court of Australia—the final appellate body in the country—which found in favour of Voller with a five to two majority.

  The news company’s lawyers had argued that they were not instrumental to—or were participants in—the allegedly defamatory third-party comments.

  However, the court disagreed and found that in creating a Facebook page and posting content, the news outlets facilitated, encouraged, and therefore, assisted in the publication of comments, meaning they should be deemed the publishers.

  

  The High Court also found that it did not matter that the comments function in Facebook could not be disabled at the time.

  “The appellants’ attempt to portray themselves as passive and unwitting victims of Facebook’s functionality has an air of unreality,” Justices Stephen Gageler and Michelle Gordon said in the judgement (pdf) on Sept. 8.

  “Having taken action to secure the commercial benefit of the Facebook functionality, the appellants bear the legal consequences,” they added.

  Dissenting Justice Simon Steward argued a more stringent standard needed to be applied to who was deemed a “publisher,” saying it should be established whether they “procured, provoked or conducted” the comments.

  His concern was that it could make all Facebook page owners liable for third-party comments.

  A later court hearing at the Supreme Court of New South Wales will determine whether the comments were defamatory in nature. The three media outlets were ordered to pay the costs of the action.

  David Rolph, professor of law and expert in defamation at the University of Sydney, said the decision had wider implications across all social media outlets—not just Facebook—including Twitter, Instagram, and even websites with comments sections.

  

  “Today’s ruling may mean if you post something to a social media platform and encourage or invite third party comments, you could be liable for any comments that follow,” he wrote in The Conversation on Sept. 8.

  “So, it could affect individuals, online community groups, neighbourhood Facebook pages, the local P&C Facebook page, and so on,” he added.

  David Flint, emeritus professor of law and former chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Authority, said the public debate would suffer as a result, with media outlets potentially closing off comments to unknown readers.

  “I think the analogy would be having a noticeboard on the wall around your property and inviting people to make comments there as a community facility—under this ruling, you would be liable for any defamatory comments,” he told The Epoch Times in an email, noting as well that a similar case under U.S. law would have been unsuccessful due to the “public figure” rule.

  “This decision will only encourage more litigation, including ‘ambulance chasing.’ Solutions other than damages should be considered,” he added.

  “For example, if a media organisation is not aware of a potentially defamatory comment, once its attention is drawn to this, it should be sufficient if it takes this down and, if requested, hands over known contact details with the person who posted the comment.”

  

  Rolph noted that under new defamation laws on July 1 in NSW, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, and the Australian Capital Territory, a “concerns notice” must be sent before any legal action is taken. In Voller’s case, his lawyers sued immediately.

  A concerns notice is a formal letter informing an individual or organisation of defamatory content and giving them an opportunity to make amends.

  Rolph also noted that a “serious harm threshold” existed, which could protect individuals from lawsuits.

  “This clause aims to rule out trivial defamation cases because while it’s true anyone can cause serious harm to a person’s reputation on social media, there is also a lot of banter and to-ing and fro-ing which might be offensive but might not cause serious harm to a reputation,” he wrote.

  Meanwhile, Nine media, who own The Sydney Morning Herald, hoped national defamation law reform would take into account the High Court’s decision.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/08/2021 – 22:20

• Credit Suisse Closes Account Of Chinese Dissident Ai Weiwei As Western Banks Fear Angering Beijing
  Credit Suisse Closes Account Of Chinese Dissident Ai Weiwei As Western Banks Fear Angering Beijing

  Credit Suisse has endured an onslaught of embarrassing headlines already this year following the collapse of Greensill and the blowup of Archegos, incidents that cost the bank billions of francs and damaged its reputation.

  But while this latest controversy probably won’t impact the bank’s bottom line, it does offer a glimpse of the conflicts and difficult decisions certain banks must make if they decide to grow their business in China. In a blog post published this week, Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei revealed that Credit Suisse had decided to close his foundation’s bank account because of his “criminal record” in China. Despite the fact that the dissident has never been convicted of a crime.

  

  Ai is one of China’s most well-known artists, who received acclaim for designing Beijing’s bird nest stadium from the 2008 Olympics, but eventually fell out of favor and fled the country because of his dissident politics. Ai now lives in Portugal, where he apparently wrote an opinion piece for Artnet decrying Credit Suisse’s decision to close his organization’s account, which was almost certainly made after being pressured by Beijing.

  Though, oddly, news of the decision was reported by the SCMP, which is owned by Alibaba founder Jack Ma is known for a subtle pro-CCP bias.

  Credit Suisse declined to comment to SCMP for its story. “Credit Suisse initially informed me that they had a new policy to terminate all bank accounts which are related to people with criminal records,” Ai said. The bank asked that the funds be moved by September.

  Ai was never formally charged with a crime, but he was detained for 81 days in 2011, an experience that featured into his later artwork.

  Ai said he was first contacted by the bank’s managers in June and asked about an interview he had done with a Swiss newspaper several days before, in which he criticized Swiss people for voting in favor of tighter “anti-immigrant policies”. Ai said this interview was cited as a reason for the closure. He added that some funds still remain in the account, but that they must be moved soon and that the account was mostly frozen.

  But that was most likely a ruse. As global megabanks jockey for favor with the CCP, they’re being extremely careful not to do anything that might lead to them being shut out of the extremely lucrative private wealth business in China. CS and others have already conducted reviews of all their clients in Hong Kong, looking for ties to the pro-democracy movement in the city. Any clients with ties were immediately let go.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/08/2021 – 22:00

• South Dakota Governor Restricts Access To Abortion Drugs
  South Dakota Governor Restricts Access To Abortion Drugs

  Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem issued an executive order on Tuesday to restrict telemedicine abortion and chemical abortions in the state.

  

  The executive order (pdf) states that abortion drugs can only be prescribed and dispensed after an in-person consultation with a doctor licensed in South Dakota.

  Under South Dakota law, doctors are already required to meet in person with a pregnant woman and carry out an examination before scheduling a surgical or chemical abortion.

  Noem’s order was made in anticipation that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) later this year will allow abortion drugs to be dispensed through the mail or virtual pharmacies.

  Subsequently, the order blocks abortion-inducing drugs from being delivered through delivery services and telemedicine, and also prevents the drugs from being provided in schools or on state grounds.

  In restricting chemical abortions, Noem’s order directs the state’s Department of Health to require licenses for abortion clinics that only prescribe abortion drugs. It also requires the department to collect data on how often chemical abortions are being carried out as a percentage of all abortions.

  The department is also required to collect data on any related health complications that need a medical follow-up. The department is required to enhance reporting requirements on emergency room complications related to taking abortion-inducing drugs.

  According to Noem’s office, the governor “plans to work with the South Dakota legislature to pass legislation that makes these and other protocols permanent in the 2022 legislative session.”

  ‘A Strong Pro-Life State’

  President Joe Biden issued a statement on Thursday in response to a ruling by the Supreme Court in favor of a Texas law (pdf) that bans abortions if the fetus has a heartbeat, with the exception of a medical emergency.

  Biden, a Democrat, said that he was seeking to launch a “whole-of-government effort” to respond, especially to “see what steps the Federal Government can take to ensure that women in Texas have access to safe and legal abortions.”

  Noem, a Republican, accused the Biden administration of moving to leverage telemedicine abortions to undermine state laws.

  “The Biden Administration is continuing to overstep its authority and suppress legislatures that are standing up for the unborn to pass strong pro-life laws. They are working right now to make it easier to end the life of an unborn child via telemedicine abortion. That is not going to happen in South Dakota,” Noem said in a statement.

  “I will continue working with the legislature and my Unborn Child Advocate to ensure that South Dakota remains a strong pro-life state.”

  Janna Farley, the communications director of the American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota, told The Associated Press, “Having an abortion is a private medical decision, one that is protected under the U.S. Constitution, and it’s disappointing that Governor Noem continues to insert herself into the patient-doctor relationship,” adding, “It’s clear that the attacks on our abortion rights are not letting up in South Dakota.”

  Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List, praised Noem for what she calls a “bold action that will save lives from dangerous chemical abortions, which have a fourfold higher rate of complications compared to surgical abortion.”

  “The Biden administration would turn every post office and pharmacy into an abortion center if they had their way, leaving women alone and at risk of severe heavy bleeding, physical, emotional, and psychological stress, and more. States must take action. Governor Noem is setting a courageous model today that we hope more state leaders across the nation will soon follow,” Dannenfelser added.

  Catherine Glenn Foster, president and CEO of Americans United for Life, also praised the governor.

  “I applaud Governor Noem’s action today to stop dangerous chemical abortion drugs from being mailed to South Dakota women,” she said in a statement. “This is no longer about ‘a woman and her doctor,’ but a woman—or girl—and a stranger on the internet. States can no longer depend on the FDA to regulate abortion drugs in any meaningful way, and I am pleased to see Gov. Noem step up for her state. Abortion is never safe, but it’s far more dangerous when women are abandoned by physicians and left to manage their complications alone.”

  South Dakota law currently also requires that a pregnant woman must wait 72 hours before the abortion procedure. Pregnant women seeking to undergo an abortion after the 12th week of pregnancy are required to have the procedure performed in a hospital. Abortions are outlawed after the 22nd week of pregnancy, with the exception of medical emergencies.

  The Associated Press contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/08/2021 – 21:40

• Australia Is Now Confiscating Booze Delivered To People Forced Into Lockdown
  Australia Is Now Confiscating Booze Delivered To People Forced Into Lockdown

  In but the latest sign that Covid locked-down Australia has abandoned all pretenses of a democratic society and has effectively become a police state, Aussies are now having their booze confiscated in the name of ‘health monitoring’.

  Apartment blocks subject to lockdown measures in New South Wales, which is home to Sydney and other large population centers, are reportedly being monitored by the government’s NSW Health agency. “Residents in apartment blocks locked-down by NSW Health are having their alcohol deliveries policed as part of a policy to limit the number of drinks being consumed each day,” according to https://news.com.au.

  

  Residents of one particular building have accused authorities of doing random searches of their private mail and care packages sent by family members and friends. “They are searching all bags and things coming into the building… They confiscated a series of gifts,” one resident of Mission Australia’s Common Ground building in Camperdown said. “So things like bottles of spirits, we weren’t allowed to have those and we still (aren’t).”

  The complaints came after NSW Health took control of select apartment buildings ostensibly in order to monitor and limit the spread of the coronavirus, which means in some cases where infections have been found, all residents were forced into isolation. These buildings are deemed under strict lockdown and have a police presence around them, apparently even intercepting mail.

  A statement in national media confirmed that health authorities are enforcing the following restrictions:

  Residents are allowed to receive a ration of one of the following: six beers or pre-mixed drinks, one bottle of wine, or one 375ml bottle of spirits.

  Excess alcohol is being confiscated until lockdown rules are lifted.

  Throughout most of the pandemic pubs in large cities like Sydney have remained close, along with other public venues like gyms, hairdressers, and restaurants.

  

  This fueled a rise in online alcohol sales and home deliveries. But apparently authorities are sweeping in to take this ‘option’ away too.

  Australian health authorities are promising that pubs will once again soon open, but only after they implement a state vaccine passport app which will enable clients to be screened at the door over whether they’ve been double-jabbed yet. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/08/2021 – 21:20

• White House Signals New COVID-19 Measures Coming For People Who Are Unvaccinated
  White House Signals New COVID-19 Measures Coming For People Who Are Unvaccinated

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

  Ahead of President Joe Biden’s announcement Thursday about new COVID-19 measures, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that there may be new measures that will be imposed on unvaccinated people.

  “There are six steps the president’s announcing, there will be new components,” Psaki told reporters on Wednesday.

  “Some of that will be related to access to testing, some will be related to mandates, some will be related to how we ensure kids will be protected in schools.”

  When asked about how the new steps would impact Americans’ lives, Psaki said that “it depends on if you’re vaccinated or not.”

  

  Psaki provided few details on what mandates could be imposed on unvaccinated Americans.

  On Tuesday, she told reporters on Air Force One that the federal government lacks the authority to mandate vaccines for everyone.

  “There will be new components that sure, will of course impact people across the country, but we’re also all working together to get the virus under control, to return to our normal lives,” Psaki also said, without elaborating, on Wednesday.

  Biden, who was scheduled to meet with his COVID-19 advisers on Wednesday, delivered a speech about six months ago saying the United States has “made real progress” against the virus.

  Since that date, about 142 million Americans have received COVID-19 vaccines and about 950,000 people are getting vaccinated each day, according to data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

  Data released daily by the CDC’s COVID-19 tracker suggests that the United States’ new cases and deaths may have hit a plateau or is on the decline. The seven day-average for cases as of Tuesday was 140,000 and deaths were 1,022, respectively, while as of Sept. 1, the seven-day average for cases was 156,000 and deaths were 1,141, respectively.

  The president’s speech on Thursday could make reference to a recent announcement from the heads of several federal health agencies that third doses of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, or booster shots, would be provided around Sept. 20. However, the Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve the booster doses.

  Already, Biden required all federal employees and contractors to get the COVID-19 vaccine or adhere to strict testing and social distancing protocols. He also ordered nursing homes to require their staff to get the vaccine to continue getting Medicare and Medicaid funding.

  One of Biden’s top confidants, White House chief of staff Ron Klain, during a CNN interview over the weekend, was reluctant to provide a specific date when the boosters would be made available to the public.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/08/2021 – 21:00

• Quebec Orders All Health-Care Workers To Get Vaccinated Or Be Suspended Without Pay
  Quebec Orders All Health-Care Workers To Get Vaccinated Or Be Suspended Without Pay

  The province of Quebec has become the latest local government (and the first in Canada) to decree that all nurses working in the province will need to get vaccinated by Oct. 15, or they will be suspended without pay, according to the province’s health minister, Christian Dubé, who made the announcement on Tuesday.

  The decision isn’t exactly a surprise. Dubé and Quebec Premier François Legault have said in recent weeks that they intended to make vaccination mandatory for health-care workers, but they didn’t specify a deadline or consequences for workers who didn’t follow the mandate until Tuesday, when Dubé made the announcement during a provincial update.

  

  For weeks, such events have been led by Dubé, accompanied by Public Health Director Dr. Horacio Arruda. But given the gravity of the announcement, Legault returned to lead the news conference himself for the first time in weeks.

  Legault noted the number of hospitalizations in the province had climbed to 171 from 55 a month ago. And when asked which workers will be affected by the mandate, Dubé responded: “Everybody … 100 per cent of employees.”

  Vaccine passports will also be required for visitors to hospitals, he added.

  It’s not just nurses who will be affected: doctors, midwives, professionals in private clinics and volunteers will all need to be vaccinated before entering a hospital.

  With COVID cases rising once again in the province, Legault said Tuesday that Quebec would need to reorganize its hospital system: “For a while, we’re going to have to accept a certain amount of risk. We don’t want another lockdown, so we’re going to have to accept that there will be hospitalizations for COVID-19 for a while.” “We are going to have to reorganize the health-care system.”

  One strategy is they are trying to convince people who have left the profession to return.

  Others criticized the policy, saying they’re not sure it’s the right call.

  Jeff Begley, head of the federation of health and social services union, said he wasn’t surprised by the government’s announcement, but he wasn’t sure they had made the best decision.

  “We’re not sure that it’s the best means going forward,” he said.

  Begley explained that most hospitals have eliminated their “hot” sections for COVID patients (since most people are vaccinated now). Begley believes this may have been a mistake, and that COVID patients must be quarantined in hospitals to avoid infecting others.

  As of Tuesday, 87% of Quebecers have had at least one dose of the vaccine. Legault pleaded with those watching to try and convince at least one person who hasn’t been vaccinated to get the jab.

  Still, if the province is trying to improve its ability to deal with the pandemic, suspending nurses and doctors from their jobs without pay doesn’t seem like the best way to go.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/08/2021 – 20:40

• Protein And Transpacific Power: China's Emergent Struggle For Food Security
  Protein And Transpacific Power: China’s Emergent Struggle For Food Security

  Authored by Fortis Analysis via Human Terrain,

  [Author’s Note: this is the first of two articles focusing on the factors impacting China’s food security and associated geopolitical maneuvers.]

  “The thoughts of the Chairman [Mao] are always correct. If we encounter any problems, any difficulty, it is because we have not followed the instructions of the Chairman closely enough, because we have ignored or circumscribed the Chairman’s advice.”
  Lin Biao, January 1962

  “When there is not enough to eat, people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.”
  Mao Zedong, 1959

  ”It was the greatest contribution towards the whole of human race, made by China, is to prevent its 1.3 billion people from hunger.”
  Xi Jinping, 2009

  When Hurricane Ida made landfall on Sunday, 29 August at southern Louisiana as a violent and dangerous Category Four storm, there were reasonable fears of total devastation of the petrochemical infrastructure in the region. Given its location astride the Mississippi River delta river transportation hub (Image 1), and the region’s vast hydrocarbon supply chain activities (Image 2), the seaboard of Louisiana has become an indispensible energy resource for the United States.

  

   

  

  Most of the attention post-Ida has thus focused on quantifying damage to the region’s energy industry, especially as Ida made landfall directly on top of Port Fourchon, the gateway hub for servicing the offshore drilling industry in the Gulf of Mexico. With the port now in absolute disarray, the offshore rigs are at a production standstill for up to several weeks, leaving refiners with reduced inventory to process into fuels and chemicals. Understandably, this makes policy-makers, refiners, and consumers extremely nervous about a spike in prices for a whole range of petrochemical products ranging from gasoline to polypropylene to resins.

  Overlooked in much of the mainstream analysis of Ida’s impact, however, is the critical role southern Louisiana plays in the United States’ agriculture industry. The various terminals (Image 3) in the lower Mississippi River (the 250-mile stretch of river from Baton Rouge to the Gulf of Mexico) are responsible for some 59% of US corn exports and 60% of US soybean exports, as of 2020.

  

  Further, volumes of corn exports via the region’s terminals skyrocketed in the most recent marketing year (1 Sep 2020 – 31 Aug 2021), with a 42% year over year increase for the first six months of 2021 versus 2020. We can adjust for the demand drag of those early months of the COVID-19 pandemic by comparing previous years:

  • Q1/Q2 2021 vs. 2019: 102% increase

  • Q1/Q2 2021 vs. 2018: 48% increase

  • Q1/Q2 2021 vs. 2017: 40% increase

    Data via Port of South Louisiana

  The story is a bit different for soybeans, however. Exports fell by 4% from Q1/Q2 2020, with a similar decrease versus previous years.

  • Q1/Q2 2021 vs. 2019: 9% decrease

  • Q1/Q2 2021 vs. 2018: 5% decrease

  • Q1/Q2 2021 vs. 2017: 7% decrease

    Data via Port of South Louisiana

  Some of the difference can be accounted for by the fact that the US exports a larger percentage of its soybeans via ocean container from the heartland than corn. This is due to corn requiring 40-foot containers, while soybeans can use 20- or 40-foot units, a feature of soybeans being able to pack more densely than corn, making more efficient use of the cargo weight limits per container (i.e. more bushels in less space). Further, many of the US’ non-China soybean customers prefer containers over bulk due to being able to purchase in smaller quantities, stabilizing their import supply chains.

  However, the pandemic-driven disruption to supply chains has had a major knock-on effect for containerized grain and oilseed exporters: lack of containers in the interior, and chassis to move the containers on the road. The extreme volume increase of imports – and resulting congestion – in such a relatively short time has caused ocean carriers to begin restricting container flow to major rail-served interior markets. This has particularly choked container availability in Chicago, from where a significant portion of the US’ containerized agri exports originate.

  Taken together, the hopes of farmers, exporters, and buyers were pinned on the ports and terminals of South Louisiana being able to pick up the slack for export capacity as the US enters harvest. Unfortunately, this will not be the case until at least October or even November. Both of Cargill’s terminals in the region impacted by Ida are offline, with the 6-million bushel capacity facility in Reserve suffering extreme damage that could take months to repair. CHS Inc.’s primary export terminal at Myrtle Grove also suffered damage to the power lines that serve the facility, along with water intrusion to the grain handling equipment. Similarly, Archer Daniels Midland, Zen-Noh, LDC, and Bunge have reported power interruptions and varying degrees of damage at their regional facilities. Lastly, navigation on the lower Mississippi River continues to be slowed by flotsam and power outages.

  Now, what does this have to do with China and the immediate future of the Transpacific power struggle?

  In short – China is desperately short of crucial grains and oilseeds needed for domestic human and animal consumption. Understand, food security is not an unknown issue in China. So too is it widely known that CCP media organs and official ministries routinely lie about a range of food-related issues, from grain and oilseed production to hog population and slaughter figures. The CCP even went so far as to engineer the collapse and takeover of Swiss agriculture and chemical conglomerate Syngenta several years ago to short-path China’s rise to being a tier one agriculture research powerhouse alongside the United States, Japan, and the European Union.

  The immediate causes of China’s food security woes are twofold:

  1. An ongoing, multi-year outbreak of African Swine Fever

  2. Two consecutive years of reduced grain and oilseed production due to widespread catastrophic flooding

  Despite China’s rosy claims about its 2020 production, its year-long buying binge for available global inventory of grains and oilseeds indicates significant flooding-related production woes in several major agricultural reasons in the Yangtze River and Amur River basins. 2021 is shaping up to be potentially as bad. Notably, the critical crop-producing province of Heilongjiang (16% of China’s total corn production, and 40% for soybeans) is showing significant excess moisture stress during the critical corn development stages between pre-tassel and silking, with excess moisture also being a major factor in yield drag for soybeans during seed-fill. The general time period for both crops to reach these reproductive stages are July through end of August.

  Closely related to the trade indicators for grain production, import, and consumption is the issue of animal feed. Contra its massive buying spree throughout 2020 and early 2021, China’s imports have now slowed a touch, ostensibly due to hog growers feeding cheaper available wheat in lieu of pricier soybeans, corn, and their various co-products. But as indicated by the article from The Economist linked above, it’s more likely a signal that pork production is falling dramatically due to the re-emergence of African Swine Fever. Note that at its peak in 2018-2019, ASF was estimated to have forced China to cull at least 50% of its hog population and store the infected carcasses in freezers all over the country.

  Bringing it full circle to the devastation to US agri export capacity wrought by Hurricane Ida, there is now an imbalance of supply and demand such as we have not seen in a long time. Whereas before, China was able to make up shortfalls in domestic production by sourcing from the US, Brazil, Ukraine, Europe and others, that optionality is gone. The US’ primary grain and oilseed export hub of southern Louisiana lies in disrepair, with US yields expected to be basically at trendline, with unknown impact to grain and oilseed quality due to drought stress in some regions. Early indicators of crop quality are a bit worrisome, with the most recent USDA Crop Progress Report released on 30 Aug 2021 showing corn conditions at 60% Good/Excellent (62% last year) and soybeans at 55% Good/Excellent (66% last year). What is available to China will likely be of reduced quality and more expensive to transport from alternate US origins.

  The news is not much better in China’s traditional breadbasket. Brazil’s safrinha (second corn crop) has historically been the export-maker for the country, with China a major buyer each year. However, due to disastrous planting conditions and weather challenges, production is expected be 20% lower versus last year, dragging corn exports down by 33% year-over-year. Though Brazil’s soybean production is about 9% higher than 2020, availability of bulk cargo vessels is constrained, with global dry bulk freight rates roughly 40% higher than the previous five-year peak (pre-2021) set in Q3 of 2019.

  It appears Ukraine and Russia will have to pick up the slack from the grains side, as both countries are projecting 29% and 19% production increases over 2020, respectively. In terms of overall cost on an “FOB” basis (Free On Board, a term of sale that reflects cost to purchase the product and transport it from an origin port), Argentina is still the most competitive source of corn for China, but only produces about half the volume as Brazil. Oilseed (especially soybeans) availability looks stable worldwide with no significant production issues noted so far, but logistics constraints impact the trade as much as it does for corn, as well as enduring worries about weather challenges to crop quality (if not quantity).

  An understanding on major grain trade factors is important to understanding the rest of the series of articles to come on this, as a significant portion of Chinese demand and consumption for corn and soybeans is tied to animal feed. A fantastic global overview of grain and oilseed trade flows prepared by Rabobank showcases just how much of a demand bull China is for these commodities (Image 4 – click here for a zoomable version).

  

  The simple reason is that China consumes enormous quantities of animal protein products. Though it is middle of the pack in annual per-capita consumption at 49.3 kg (compared to the US at 100.7 kg), the overall appetites of 1.41 billion people generates demand for more than 90 million tons of pork, poultry, and beef products. The US, with its population being roughly a quarter of China’s, uses around 44 million tons of the same proteins per year. Further, China is far and away the global leader in aquaculture production (“farmed” marine protein, vice “capture” fisheries in the world’s oceans) at 68.4 million tons produced annually, while the US checks in at 490,000 tons. Similarly, China’s capture fishing activities utilizing its massive commercial fishing fleet is reported to generate another 14.4 million tons of protein, while US fishing is comparatively much smaller at 5.35 million tons. And yet with all of that effort, China cannot catch a break as Brazil has been forced to temporarily suspend all beef exports to China over an outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or “mad cow disease”), cutting off China’s source of around 71,000 tons per month of beef.

  Adding all of this up, we see that China has an astoundingly large quantity of protein to produce and import for its population. Taken together with the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s fears of social upheaval due to food insecurity (and the stain upon the party from the Great Leap Forward), the impetus for much of China’s belligerence in global fishing and crackdowns on commodities trading become clear. Broadly speaking, the confluence of supply side and logistics disruptions has formed into a perfect storm, where China cannot as readily meet its current food demand through production, trade, acquiring foreign food manufacturers, and even illegal activities such as illicit fishing.

  Which begs the question – what can we extrapolate from this information to better-predict China’s behaviors in the coming months, the US’ responses, and the impact to global stability?

  The next newsletter will dive into that question.

  Thank you for reading.

  Dum spiro spero,

  -RK

  Follow the author on Twitter

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/08/2021 – 20:20

• Watch: Joe Rogan Says He May Sue CNN For "Making Sh*t Up" About Him "Taking Horse Dewormer"
  Watch: Joe Rogan Says He May Sue CNN For “Making Sh*t Up” About Him “Taking Horse Dewormer”

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  Podcast king Joe Rogan threatened to sue CNN on a broadcast this week, saying that the network is constantly spreading lies about him taking Ivermectin, after CNN claimed that the medicine is horse de-wormer, when it is not.

  

  “Do I have to sue CNN? They’re making sh*t up,” Rogan said during the episode of The Joe Rogan Experience.

  “They keep saying I’m taking horse dewormer. I literally got it from a doctor. But CNN keeps saying I’m taking horse dewormer. They must know that that’s a lie,” Rogan added.

  Rogan was prescribed ivermectin to treat COVID symptoms, along with monoclonal antibodies, Z-pak, prednisone, and an IV vitamin drip. Rogan says he got better in three days.

  While it hasn’t been officially approved to treat COVID, the medicine is on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines, and is FDA-approved as an antiparasitic agent.

  “What they didn’t highlight is that I got better,” said Rogan.

  “They’re trying to make it sound like I’m doing such wacky sh*t that’s completely ineffective. CNN was saying that I’m a distributor of misinformation.”

  “It’s an American company,” Rogan said of the manufacturer Merck.

  “They won the Nobel prize in 2015 for use in human beings,” he continued, adding “Multiple doctors told me to take it.”

  Rogan’s guest Tom Segura noted that he was inundated with messages from leftists wishing he had gotten sicker from the virus.

  Rogan responded, noting that the fact he got better so quickly was their “worse case scenario”, adding “They’re weak bitches.”

  Watch:

  *  *  *

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  In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here.Support our sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Also, we urgently need your financial support here.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/08/2021 – 20:12

• KFC Fried Over Lack Of Chicken, Can't Advertise Tenders On TV
  KFC Fried Over Lack Of Chicken, Can’t Advertise Tenders On TV

  The entire restaurant industry continues to face massive supply chain issues. Taco Bell, Starbucks, KFC, and McDonald’s have been some of the most recent fast-food chains to warn customers about limited menu items or shortages.

  KFC announced last month some menu items weren’t available for UK customers. Now the fried chicken chain has told Bloomberg that it cannot promote its breaded chicken tenders on US television because there’s a persisting chicken shortage. 

  “On chicken tenders, we have enough to supply demand, but we would love to have more to be able to aggressively promote it on TV,” KFC US President Kevin Hochman told Bloomberg’s Leslie Patton.

  “In terms of advertising and promotion, we’re going to focus on things we have abundant quantities of,” he said, noting that bone-in chicken is more plentiful now,” Hochman. 

  

  The poultry industry has been in tight supply all year due to labor shortages of workers at slaughterhouses, making it difficult for KFC and other fast-food chains to stock enough chicken. 

  While supply issues persist, the growing demand for chicken may force KFC to lose market share as customers seek chicken nuggets and sandwiches elsewhere. 

  During COVID, the most popular meat in the US was broiler chicken, at roughly 96 pounds per capita in 2020. Demand for on-the-go chicken snacks at KFC has been on the rise as well. The first news of a chicken shortage to impact the fast-food chain was in April. 

  However, there is some good news: Hochman notes the poultry supply chain for Yum! Brands Inc.-owned KFC is beginning to normalize. 

  Untangling complex supply chains appears to be a challenging task that may persist well into 2022. At one point, the KFC shortage in the UK got so severe that people started calling police about unavailable menu items. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/08/2021 – 20:00

• My University Sacrificed Ideas for Ideology. So Today I Quit.
  My University Sacrificed Ideas for Ideology. So Today I Quit.

  Op-Ed authored by Peter Boghossian via Common Sense with Bari Weiss,

  Peter Boghossian has taught philosophy at Portland State University for the past decade. In the letter below, sent this morning to the university’s provost, he explains why he is resigning.

  

  Dear Provost Susan Jeffords,

  ​​I’m writing to you today to resign as assistant professor of philosophy at Portland State University.

  Over the last decade, it has been my privilege to teach at the university. My specialties are critical thinking, ethics and the Socratic method, and I teach classes like Science and Pseudoscience and The Philosophy of Education. But in addition to exploring classic philosophers and traditional texts, I’ve invited a wide range of guest lecturers to address my classes, from Flat-Earthers to Christian apologists to global climate skeptics to Occupy Wall Street advocates. I’m proud of my work.

  I invited those speakers not because I agreed with their worldviews, but primarily because I didn’t. From those messy and difficult conversations, I’ve seen the best of what our students can achieve: questioning beliefs while respecting believers; staying even-tempered in challenging circumstances; and even changing their minds. 

  I never once believed —  nor do I now —  that the purpose of instruction was to lead my students to a particular conclusion. Rather, I sought to create the conditions for rigorous thought; to help them gain the tools to hunt and furrow for their own conclusions. This is why I became a teacher and why I love teaching.

  But brick by brick, the university has made this kind of intellectual exploration impossible. It has transformed a bastion of free inquiry into a Social Justice factory whose only inputs were race, gender, and victimhood and whose only outputs were grievance and division.

  Students at Portland State are not being taught to think. Rather, they are being trained to mimic the moral certainty of ideologues. Faculty and administrators have abdicated the university’s truth-seeking mission and instead drive intolerance of divergent beliefs and opinions. This has created a culture of offense where students are now afraid to speak openly and honestly. 

  I noticed signs of the illiberalism that has now fully swallowed the academy quite early during my time at Portland State. I witnessed students refusing to engage with different points of view.  Questions from faculty at diversity trainings that challenged approved narratives were instantly dismissed. Those who asked for evidence to justify new institutional policies were accused of microaggressions. And professors were accused of bigotry for assigning canonical texts written by philosophers who happened to have been European and male.  

  At first, I didn’t realize how systemic this was and I believed I could question this new culture. So I began asking questions. What is the evidence that trigger warnings and safe spaces contribute to student learning? Why should racial consciousness be the lens through which we view our role as educators? How did we decide that “cultural appropriation” is immoral?

  Unlike my colleagues, I asked these questions out loud and in public. 

  I decided to study the new values that were engulfing Portland State and so many other educational institutions — values that sound wonderful, like diversity, equity, and inclusion, but might actually be just the opposite. The more I read the primary source material produced by critical theorists, the more I suspected that their conclusions reflected the postulates of an ideology, not insights based on evidence.

  I began networking with student groups who had similar concerns and brought in speakers to explore these subjects from a critical perspective. And it became increasingly clear to me that the incidents of illiberalism I had witnessed over the years were not just isolated events, but part of an institution-wide problem.

  The more I spoke out about these issues, the more retaliation I faced. 

  Early in the 2016-17 academic year, a former student complained about me and the university initiated a Title IX investigation.  (Title IX investigations are a part of federal law designed to protect “people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.”) My accuser, a white male, made a slew of baseless accusations against me, which university confidentiality rules unfortunately prohibit me from discussing further. What I can share is that students of mine who were interviewed during the process told me the Title IX investigator asked them if they knew anything about me beating my wife and children. This horrifying accusation soon became a widespread rumor. 

  With Title IX investigations there is no due process, so I didn’t have access to the particular accusations, the ability to confront my accuser, and I had no opportunity to defend myself. Finally, the results of the investigation were revealed in December 2017. Here are the last two sentences of the report: “Global Diversity & Inclusion finds there is insufficient evidence that Boghossian violated PSU’s Prohibited Discrimination & Harassment policy. GDI recommends Boghossian receive coaching.”

  Not only was there no apology for the false accusations, but the investigator also told me that in the future I was not allowed to render my opinion about “protected classes” or teach in such a way that my opinion about protected classes could be known — a bizarre conclusion to absurd charges. Universities can enforce ideological conformity just through the threat of these investigations.

  I eventually became convinced that corrupted bodies of scholarship were responsible for justifying radical departures from the traditional role of liberal arts schools and basic civility on campus. There was an urgent need to demonstrate that morally fashionable papers — no matter how absurd — could be published. I believed then that if I exposed the theoretical flaws of this body of literature, I could help the university community avoid building edifices on such shaky ground.

  So, in 2017, I co-published an intentionally garbled peer-reviewed paper that took aim at the new orthodoxy. Its title: “The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct.” This example of pseudo-scholarship, which was published in Cogent Social Sciences, argued that penises were products of the human mind and responsible for climate change. Immediately thereafter, I revealed the article as a hoax designed to shed light on the flaws of the peer-review and academic publishing systems.

  Shortly thereafter, swastikas in the bathroom with my name under them began appearing in two bathrooms near the philosophy department. They also occasionally showed up on my office door, in one instance accompanied by bags of feces. Our university remained silent. When it acted, it was against me, not the perpetrators.

  I continued to believe, perhaps naively, that if I exposed the flawed thinking on which Portland State’s new values were based, I could shake the university from its madness. In 2018 I co-published a series of absurd or morally repugnant peer-reviewed articles in journals that focused on issues of race and gender. In one of them we argued that there was an epidemic of dog rape at dog parks and proposed that we leash men the way we leash dogs. Our purpose was to show that certain kinds of “scholarship” are based not on finding truth but on advancing social grievances. This worldview is not scientific, and it is not rigorous. 

  Administrators and faculty were so angered by the papers that they published an anonymous piece in the student paper and Portland State filed formal charges against me. Their accusation? “Research misconduct” based on the absurd premise that the journal editors who accepted our intentionally deranged articles were “human subjects.” I was found guilty of not receiving approval to experiment on human subjects. 

  Meanwhile, ideological intolerance continued to grow at Portland State. In March 2018, a tenured professor disrupted a public discussion I was holding with author Christina Hoff Sommers and evolutionary biologists Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying. In June 2018, someone triggered the fire alarm during my conversation with popular cultural critic Carl Benjamin. In October 2018, an activist pulled out the speaker wires to interrupt a panel with former Google engineer James Damore. The university did nothing to stop or address this behavior. No one was punished or disciplined. 

  For me, the years that followed were marked by continued harassment. I’d find flyers around campus of me with a Pinocchio nose. I was spit on and threatened by passersby while walking to class. I was informed by students that my colleagues were telling them to avoid my classes. And, of course, I was subjected to more investigation.

  I wish I could say that what I am describing hasn’t taken a personal toll. But it has taken exactly the toll it was intended to: an increasingly intolerable working life and without the protection of tenure.

  This isn’t about me. This is about the kind of institutions we want and the values we choose. Every idea that has advanced human freedom has always, and without fail, been initially condemned. As individuals, we often seem incapable of remembering this lesson, but that is exactly what our institutions are for: to remind us that the freedom to question is our fundamental right. Educational institutions should remind us that that right is also our duty.  

  Portland State University has failed in fulfilling this duty. In doing so it has failed not only its students but the public that supports it. While I am grateful for the opportunity to have taught at Portland State for over a decade, it has become clear to me that this institution is no place for people who intend to think freely and explore ideas. 

  This is not the outcome I wanted. But I feel morally obligated to make this choice. For ten years, I have taught my students the importance of living by your principles. One of mine is to defend our system of liberal education from those who seek to destroy it. Who would I be if I didn’t?

  Sincerely,

  Peter Boghossian

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/08/2021 – 19:40

• "Public Health" Propaganda
  “Public Health” Propaganda

  Authored by Techno Fog via The Reactionary,

  Let me tell you about an under-the-table immunity deal:

  Dr. Fauci lied to Congress about US funding of gain of function research at Wuhan to protect US institutions. And to show their appreciation, the institutions will protect Dr. Fauci by declining to prosecute his lies.

  

  The Intercept Reporting.

  Revelations from The Intercept’s FOIA requests, which the US government took a year to release to the public (and only after litigation was pursued), show federal funds were used “to fund bat coronavirus research at the Chinese laboratory.” The Intercept continues:

  According to Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, the documents contain critical information about the research done in Wuhan, including about the creation of novel viruses. “The viruses they constructed were tested for their ability to infect mice that were engineered to display human type receptors on their cell,” Ebright wrote to The Intercept after reviewing the documents.

  The documents show the goal of the project, led by EcoHealth Alliance, was to “understand what factors increase the risk of the next CoV [coronavirus] emerging in people.” This included modifications to the coronaviruses collected by EcoHealth Alliance. As stated in the project summary:

  

  Enter Dr. Fauci

  If EcoHealth Alliance sounds familiar, it is because its president, Peter Daszak, led the effort to mislead the public about the origins of COVID-19 and the likelihood it leaked from the lab. It was Daszak who organized and signed an influential “scientific” statement in The Lancet disregarding the lab leak theory – while concealing his role in the research “and creating the impression of scientific unanimity.”

  It was also Daszak who worked in conjunction with the US Government – in particular, Dr. Fauci – to push the false narrative that COVID couldn’t have been leaked from a lab. In April 2020, Dr. Fauci was congratulated by Daszak for helping “dispel the myths being spun around the virus’ origins.”

  

  Remarkably, this came after Dr. Fauci was warned that COVID-19 had “unusual features” that “look engineered.” It also came after Dr. Fauci had been informed gain of function research had been approved by NIH.

  

  After the article from The Intercept published, Dr. Fauci has been (again) under fire for lying to Senator Rand Paul about the US government’s funding of gain of function research at Wuhan.

  Of course, Dr. Fauci wasn’t the only public official lying to the public. Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the NIH, was asked point-blank by radio host Hugh Hewitt about this funding. Here is what Dr. Collins said:

  Hugh Hewitt: But can you rule out, Dr. Collins, the United States having funded any sort of gain of function research in Wuhan?

  Dr. Francis Collins: We absolutely did not fund gain of function research in Wuhan.

  Understanding what this is.

  Properly understood, the two most powerful public health officials in the United States – Dr. Collins and Dr. Fauci – are running an intelligence operation against the American people. Assisting in the operation is the Biden Department of Justice, who apparently refuses to prosecute Dr. Fauci for his false statements to Senator Paul. Also providing help are those within the government who have been obstructing public and media FOIA requests into the funding of gain of function research.

  We observe, however, that their deceit, while effective, are also self-defeating, undermining their position that COVID-19 was of natural origins. You see, to an astute observer, the lies by Dr. Collins and Dr. Fauci are circumstantial evidence of guilt.

  The depth of that guilt is yet to be fully understood.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/08/2021 – 19:00

• Watch: White Woman In Gorilla Mask Assaults Larry Elder With Eggs
  Watch: White Woman In Gorilla Mask Assaults Larry Elder With Eggs

  Larry Elder was assaulted on Wednesday in Los Angeles by a bicyle-riding woman wearing a gorilla mask.

  The woman threw at least one egg towards the black gubernatorial challenger to Gavin Newsom, while verbally assaulting Elder and his staff.

  

  The woman’s cohorts then became physically aggressive – shoving Elder’s staff, slapping them, and hitting them with more eggs – before one begins ranting “Democrats control everything!”

  Watch:

  This Larry Elder assault video is deeply concerning.

  His attacker wears a monkey mask while the others call his staff “boy”. Then what looks like a reporter laughs. Then a man screams “DEMOCRATS RUN EVERYTHING!”

  Vengeful totalitarianism. pic.twitter.com/bWEUYZndUt

  — Raheem J. Kassam (@RaheemKassam) September 8, 2021

  The party of the KKK shows its true colors once again.

  The Left pic.twitter.com/dZRJVnpdmq

  — Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) September 8, 2021

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

  If white Republicans had done to a black Democrat running for office what white Democrats did to Larry Elder, you can bet major parts of the country would be afflicted by burning and looting by mostly peaceful protesters right now.

  — Rising serpent 🇺🇸 (@rising_serpent) September 8, 2021

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

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/08/2021 – 18:40

• Blinken Says US Getting 'Closer' To Giving Up On Iran Nuclear Deal
  Blinken Says US Getting ‘Closer’ To Giving Up On Iran Nuclear Deal

  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned Iran that Washington is getting ‘closer’ to giving up on hopes of returning to the restoration of the JCPOA nuclear deal. 

  This after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued two confidential reports Tuesday which charged Iranian officials with blocking access to sites, all the while allegedly expanding its nuclear activity. The IAEA said its inspection efforts are being “seriously undermined”.

  

  The Vienna talks have been on hold since June 20th, after they had been temporarily suspended reportedly by the Iranian side pending the entry into office of the newly elected president, Ebrahim Raisi.

  Blinken spoke to reporters while in Germany meeting with his German counterpart Heiko Mass: “I’m not going to put a date on it but we are getting closer to the point at which a strict return to compliance with the JCPOA does not reproduce the benefits that that agreement achieved,” after he was specifically asked about stalled negotiations and the point of no return. 

  Foreign Minister Heiko Maas condemned Iran’s delay as “far too long” and said he had urged Iran’s foreign ministry to demand that Iran “return more swiftly to the negotiating table,” according to AFP.

  Sensing the frustration of the West, on Monday Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh attempted to lay all doubts to rest: “We will definitely continue the negotiations,” Khatibzadeh said according to state media. 

  However, the Iranians have so far refused to set a date for the resumption of the next round of talks in Vienna. This is leading to suspicions that the new administration in Tehran is intentionally stalling as long as possible while covertly expanding its nuclear capabilities, as The Wall Street Journal explains:

  European and U.S. officials have said the period for reviving the nuclear deal isn’t open-ended. They are concerned that with Iran expanding its nuclear activities and knowledge, it may soon be impossible to recreate a centerpiece of the 2015 deal, keeping Iran at least one year from being able to accumulate enough weapons-grade enriched uranium for one weapon.

  Meanwhile the IAEA is still accusing the Islamic Republic of “stonewalling”. 

  Iran warns West of IAEA move as U.S says time running out to save nuclear deal https://t.co/00Bry2Y53p pic.twitter.com/cu6djD93gb

  — Reuters (@Reuters) September 8, 2021

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

  Tehran has consistently blamed the US for refusing to immediately provide sanctions relief, which the Iranians say is the reason for the collapse of the deal – after Trump initially took the US out of the deal in May 2018. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/08/2021 – 18:25

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• China Accuses NATO Of Inflating Its 'Purely Defensive' Nuclear Arms Program 
  China Accuses NATO Of Inflating Its ‘Purely Defensive’ Nuclear Arms Program 

  China on Tuesday reacted angrily to comments made the day before by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. The NATO chief while speaking before the military alliance’s annual arms control conference said that not only is China ‘irresponsibly’ refusing to join international arms control talks, but is recklessly pursuing nuclear arms “without any limitation or constraint.”

  Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin dismissed the comments as “hype”, emphasizing the “defensive” and deterrent nature of its nuclear program. “China expresses serious concern and resolutely opposes NATO’s constant hyping of the theory on Chinese nuclear threat,” Wang told a press briefing. 

  

  “China has always adhered to the defensive nature of its nuclear strategy and maintained its nuclear potential at the lowest level in line with the needs of state security“, Wang added.

  “China strictly adheres to its policy of never being the first to use nuclear weapons under any circumstances, Beijing has made a clear unconditional commitment not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states and nuclear-weapon-free zones,” he explained further.

  He also took the occasion to demand that NATO withdraw many of its nuclear warheads deployed across Europe, while seeking to emphasize that true comprehensive disarmament would begin with the United States reducing its own vast arsenal, which alongside Russia remains the largest in the world.

  Stoltenberg’s Monday comments singling out the “large number of missile silos” China is rapidly building…

  EARLIER: NATO Chief @jensstoltenberg has urged China to join nuclear talks in an effort to “limit the global spread of dangerous technology” pic.twitter.com/pgLRhIYw57

  — Bloomberg Quicktake (@Quicktake) September 7, 2021

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  “China is building a large number of missile silos, which can significantly increase its nuclear capability. All of this is happening without any limitation or constraint. And with a complete lack of transparency,” Stoltenberg said in the Monday speech.

  He also urged for Beijing to take full responsibility for arms control, which it so far has refused to do. “As a global power, China has global responsibilities in arms control.” However, China sees itself as unfairly singled out, especially given the large nuclear arsenal NATO possesses – again mostly through the United States.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/08/2021 – 02:45

• Experts Warn ISIS-K Planning To Exploit "Refugee" Wave To Send Terrorists To The West
  Experts Warn ISIS-K Planning To Exploit “Refugee” Wave To Send Terrorists To The West

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  Experts are warning that ISIS-K is preparing to exploit the refugee wave created by the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan to infiltrate terrorists into the west in a repeat of what happened following the previous migrant surge in 2015.

  

  While authorities are attempting to vet the thousands of Afghans entering western countries by holding them in interim countries like the UAE while checks are performed, many don’t have identity papers or have faked them.

  “It is to be expected al-Qaeda or Daesh-based Afghanistan would have tried and have some of their members obtain access onto the flights leaving Afghanistan to Europe and the counter-terrorism authorities will be aware of this,” said Dr David Lowe, a senior research fellow at Leeds Beckett University Law School and head of a consultancy business in terrorism and security.

  However, according to counter-terrorism expert David Otto, determined jihadists could still slip through the net and there is “little that is being done” to protect Europe from ISIS-K sleeper cells.

  “Europe and the West are at high risk of terrorist attack from individuals who have sneaked themselves into the country posing as affiliated to the US,” said Otto.

  Dr Jassim Mohamad, head of the European Centre for Counter-Terrorism and Intelligence Studies in Bonn, also pointed out that even if an individual is determined to be a threat, countries such as Germany are forbidden by law from sending them back to Afghanistan.

  “Dangerous persons may be subjected to supervision, but none of them will be imprisoned, and residency status may remain temporary or limited,” said Mohamad.

  “[One] can only rely on documents and previous records,” said Otto. “With the collapse of the Afghanistan government there has been concerns of people faking documents to make it through. This is one of the reasons the US has taken steps to process individuals from third party countries to control the risk. Despite these measures, groups like ISIS-K and al-Qaeda will encourage its sympathisers to beat the system”.

  Following the previous refugee crisis, when over a million mostly economic migrants entered Europe, ISIS bragged about how it had exploited porous borders to sneak jihadists into the west.

  This led directly to multiple mass casualty terror attacks, including the Paris massacre.

  The Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi was also rescued from Libya as a “refugee” by the British Royal Navy.

  As we previously highlighted, observers are expecting large numbers of people to continue to leave Afghanistan, with one diplomat warning “not even tanks” can stop them.

  A report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies also warned that the 2021 Afghan refugee crisis could make the 2015 refugee crisis look like a “geopolitical walk in the park” in comparison.

  Over a thousand boat migrants arrived in England yesterday alone, many of whom originated in Afghanistan.

  While the media laboriously focuses on the odd baby or child who arrives with the group, the vast majority of arrivals continue to be fighting age young men.

  Nobody knows who they are, most of them don’t have papers, and they are just allowed into the country and put up at taxpayer expense in 4 star hotels.

  Once saw a photographer in Dover put his camera down and walk away while a load of migrants were coming in. I asked why he wasn’t photographing it, he told me: “they’re all men, the papers only buy the pictures if there are women or children onboard.” https://t.co/JtYQNYYFAK

  — Benjamin Loughnane (@Loknayn) September 6, 2021

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  Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/08/2021 – 02:00

• Bring All The Troops Home: Stop Policing The Globe And Put An End To Endless Wars
  Bring All The Troops Home: Stop Policing The Globe And Put An End To Endless Wars

  Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “Let us resolve that never again will we send the precious young blood of this country to die trying to prop up a corrupt military dictatorship abroad. This is also the time to turn away from excessive preoccupation overseas to the rebuilding of our own nation. America must be restored to a proper role in the world. But we can do that only through the recovery of confidence in ourselves…. together we will call America home to the ideals that nourished us from the beginning.”

  – George S. McGovern, former Senator and presidential candidate

  It’s time to bring all our troops home.

  Bring them home from Somalia, Iraq and Syria. Bring them home from Germany, South Korea and Japan. Bring them home from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Oman. Bring them home from Niger, Chad and Mali. Bring them home from Turkey, the Philippines, and northern Australia.

  It’s not enough to pull American troops out of Afghanistan, America’s longest, bloodiest and most expensive war to date.

  

  It’s time that we stop policing the globe, stop occupying other countries, and stop waging endless wars.

  That’s not what’s going to happen, of course.

  The U.S. military reportedly has more than 1.3 million men and women on active duty, with more than 200,000 of them stationed overseas in nearly every country in the world.

  Those numbers are likely significantly higher in keeping with the Pentagon’s policy of not fully disclosing where and how many troops are deployed for the sake of “operational security and denying the enemy any advantage.” As investigative journalist David Vine explains, “Although few Americans realize it, the United States likely has more bases in foreign lands than any other people, nation, or empire in history.”

  Don’t fall for the propaganda, though.

  America’s military forces aren’t being deployed abroad to protect our freedoms here at home. Rather, they’re being used to guard oil fields, build foreign infrastructure and protect the financial interests of the corporate elite. In fact, the United States military spends about $81 billion a year just to protect oil supplies around the world.

  The reach of America’s military empire includes close to 800 bases in as many as 160 countries, operated at a cost of more than $156 billion annually. As Vine reports, “Even US military resorts and recreation areas in places like the Bavarian Alps and Seoul, South Korea, are bases of a kind. Worldwide, the military runs more than 170 golf courses.”

  This is how a military empire occupies the globe.

  After 20 years of propping up Afghanistan to the tune of trillions of dollars and thousands of lives lost, the U.S. military may have finally been forced out, but those troops represent just a fraction of our military presence worldwide.

  In an ongoing effort to police the globe, American military servicepeople continue to be deployed to far-flung places in the Middle East and elsewhere.

  This is how the military industrial complex, aided and abetted by the likes of Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and others, continues to get rich at taxpayer expense.

  Yet while the rationale may keep changing for why American military forces are policing the globe, these wars abroad aren’t making America—or the rest of the world—any safer, are certainly not making America great again, and are undeniably digging the U.S. deeper into debt.

  War spending is bankrupting America.

  Although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world’s population, America boasts almost 50% of the world’s total military expenditure, spending more on the military than the next 19 biggest spending nations combined.

  In fact, the Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety.

  The American military-industrial complex has erected an empire unsurpassed in history in its breadth and scope, one dedicated to conducting perpetual warfare throughout the earth.

  Since 2001, the U.S. government has spent more than $4.7 trillion waging its endless wars.

  Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $32 million per hour.

  In fact, the U.S. government has spent more money every five seconds in Iraq than the average American earns in a year.

  Future wars and military exercises waged around the globe are expected to push the total bill upwards of $12 trillion by 2053.

  Talk about fiscally irresponsible: the U.S. government is spending money it doesn’t have on a military empire it can’t afford.

  As investigative journalist Uri Friedman puts it, for more than 15 years now, the United States has been fighting terrorism with a credit card, “essentially bankrolling the wars with debt, in the form of purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds by U.S.-based entities like pension funds and state and local governments, and by countries like China and Japan.”

  War is not cheap, but it becomes outrageously costly when you factor in government incompetence, fraud, and greedy contractors. Indeed, a leading accounting firm concluded that one of the Pentagon’s largest agencies “can’t account for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of spending.”

  Unfortunately, the outlook isn’t much better for the spending that can be tracked.

  A government audit found that defense contractor Boeing has been massively overcharging taxpayers for mundane parts, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in overspending. As the report noted, the American taxpayer paid:

  $71 for a metal pin that should cost just 4 cents; $644.75 for a small gear smaller than a dime that sells for $12.51: more than a 5,100 percent increase in price. $1,678.61 for another tiny part, also smaller than a dime, that could have been bought within DoD for $7.71: a 21,000 percent increase. $71.01 for a straight, thin metal pin that DoD had on hand, unused by the tens of thousands, for 4 cents: an increase of over 177,000 percent.

  That price gouging has become an accepted form of corruption within the American military empire is a sad statement on how little control “we the people” have over our runaway government.

  Mind you, this isn’t just corrupt behavior. It’s deadly, downright immoral behavior.

  Americans have thus far allowed themselves to be spoon-fed a steady diet of pro-war propaganda that keeps them content to wave flags with patriotic fervor and less inclined to look too closely at the mounting body counts, the ruined lives, the ravaged countries, the blowback arising from ill-advised targeted-drone killings and bombing campaigns in foreign lands, or the transformation of our own homeland into a warzone.

  That needs to change.

  The U.S. government is not making the world any safer. It’s making the world more dangerous. It is estimated that the U.S. military drops a bomb somewhere in the world every 12 minutes. Since 9/11, the United States government has directly contributed to the deaths of around 500,000 human beings. Every one of those deaths was paid for with taxpayer funds.

  The U.S. government is not making America any safer. It’s exposing American citizens to alarming levels of blowback, a CIA term referring to the unintended consequences of the U.S. government’s international activities. Chalmers Johnson, a former CIA consultant, repeatedly warned that America’s use of its military to gain power over the global economy would result in devastating blowback.

  The 9/11 attacks were blowback. The Boston Marathon Bombing was blowback. The attempted Times Square bomber was blowback. The Fort Hood shooter, a major in the U.S. Army, was blowback.

  The U.S. military’s ongoing drone strikes will, I fear, spur yet more blowback against the American people. The latest drone strike reportedly killed seven children, ages 2 to 10, in Afghanistan.

  The war hawks’ militarization of America—bringing home the spoils of war (the military tanks, grenade launchers, Kevlar helmets, assault rifles, gas masks, ammunition, battering rams, night vision binoculars, etc.) and handing them over to local police, thereby turning America into a battlefield—is also blowback.

  James Madison was right: “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” As Madison explained, “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes… known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.”

  We are seeing this play out before our eyes.

  The government is destabilizing the economy, destroying the national infrastructure through neglect and a lack of resources, and turning taxpayer dollars into blood money with its endless wars, drone strikes and mounting death tolls.

  Clearly, our national priorities are in desperate need of an overhauling.

  At the height of its power, even the mighty Roman Empire could not stare down a collapsing economy and a burgeoning military. Prolonged periods of war and false economic prosperity largely led to its demise. As historian Chalmers Johnson predicts:

  The fate of previous democratic empires suggests that such a conflict is unsustainable and will be resolved in one of two ways. Rome attempted to keep its empire and lost its democracy. Britain chose to remain democratic and in the process let go its empire. Intentionally or not, the people of the United States already are well embarked upon the course of non-democratic empire.

  This is the “unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex” that President Dwight Eisenhower warned us more than 50 years ago not to let endanger our liberties or democratic processes.

  Eisenhower, who served as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, was alarmed by the rise of the profit-driven war machine that emerged following the war—one that, in order to perpetuate itself, would have to keep waging war.

  We failed to heed his warning.

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, there’s not much time left before we reach the zero hour.

  It’s time to stop policing the globe, end these wars-without-end, and bring the troops home.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/08/2021 – 00:10

• Chinese Coal Prices Soar To Record High Ahead Of Surge In Mining
  Chinese Coal Prices Soar To Record High Ahead Of Surge In Mining

  Remember when China vowed last year hit peak carbon emissions in 2030 and to reach carbon neutrality in 2060? Maybe it will (spoiler alert: it won’t)…

  

  … but long before we hit 2060, China plans on taking coal-based pollution to the next level.

  Overnight coal futures prices a hit record level and are almost +80% higher than a year ago, signalling a desperate need for China to increase domestic production in the short term, notwithstanding the government’s plan to reduce reliance on coal in the long term. As Reuters energy analyst John Kemp writes, “electricity consumption is surging and the country is struggling to import sufficient volumes of competitively priced spot LNG, boosting the need for coal for power generation.” 

  Prices for the most-traded thermal coal futures contract on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange hit $150 a tonne on Tuesday, up from $85 a year ago, which was also the five-year average before the COVID-19 pandemic.

  

  At the same time, coking coal on the Dalian Commodity Exchange jumped 4.3% to $448 per ton – both rose to intraday records.

  

  As Reuters notes, surging prices are an indication of the tension between the country’s surging electricity demand and the government’s stated aim to limit coal output and reduce it over time in favor of renewable energy sources.
   
  Coal production in the first seven months of the year was up at a compound annual rate of only 4.1% compared with the same period in 2019, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. But the country’s electricity generation increased at a compound annual rate of 7.4% over the same period in response to strong residential and industrial demand.

  
   
  The fastest growth came from wind farms (+25% compound annual rate) and solar power (+24%), with slower growth from nuclear (+10%) and thermal generators (+7%) and a fall in hydroelectric output (-2%).

  But both wind and solar are growing from a very low base so they have contributed only a small share of the extra generation required, with most of the extra generation coming from thermal sources, mainly coal.

  In the first seven months of the year, China’s power producers generated 4,645 terawatt-hours (TWh), which was 615 more than in the same period in 2019.

  

  But only a minority of the extra generation came from wind (+119 TWh) and solar (+36 TWh) sources, with most coming from thermal plants (+445 TWh). 

  While China is installing more wind and solar capacity than any other country, it is not enough to keep pace with surging electricity demand, forcing greater reliance on coal in the short term.  As a result, the country is having to run new and existing thermal power plants for more hours; the average thermal generating unit ran for 2,589 hours in the first seven months of this year, up 268 hours (+12%) from the same period in 2020, according to data compiled by the China Electricity Council.

  Reflecting the tightening coal supply situation, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country’s top economic regulator, this summer called for more coal output to help to meet peak demand for air-conditioning.

  “Key coal-producing regions such as Shanxi, Shaanxi and Mongolia should take the lead in … increasing production and supply,” the commission said in a circular issued on July 23.

  The NDRC directed all areas and coal mining companies to boost output from larger and more productive mines, accelerating capacity replacement and new construction. It also ordered them to make the production of thermal coal their top priority and do everything possible to help power plants with low stocks to increase their number of days of coal storage, meaning that a deluge of domestic coal production is coming.

  Indeed, Daiwa reported that thermal coal stockpiles at the port city Qinhuangdao located in the northern Hebei region, recorded a 12% decline for the week of Sept. 3 to less than 4 million tons. Chan said stockpiles of coking coal dropped 11% from last year. With coal imports sliding, China has just one option left: crank up its domestic coal-mining industry to 11.

  Commenting on the soaring prices, Bloomberg echoed Reuters’ observations that the ability to source coal has been challenging due to stricter safety policies imposed by the government following a series of deadly mine accidents. There have also been new measures to prevent mine flooding, which is also dwindling supplies. 

  “Under current high prices, miners have been incentivized to boost production. This poses higher risk of accidents, which in turn leads to more frequent examinations,” Morgan Stanley analyst Sara Chan said in a report. “Coal production is constrained as a result and this creates a circular loop for even higher prices.”

  The circular loop may persist for now, but it’s only a matter of time before China ramps up production as the alternative is an unacceptable surge in prices. This means much more pollution emerging from China in the coming year; this is happening as 23 of the world’s 25 most polluting cities are already in China.

  Like other countries in Asia and Europe, China’s coal shortages and surging prices reflect the contradiction between the long-term need to move away from coal and the short-term challenge of meeting power demand. In the short term, higher coal prices are signalling the need to boost production to meet power producers’ needs and build sufficient stocks ahead of the winter heating season.

  Meanwhile, demonstrating just how much of a straw man China’s promises to clean up its act truly are, also on Tuesday China’s carbon price slumped to a new low even as trading volumes increased. Emission allowances traded on China’s carbon market, the largest in the world, declined -0.2% Tuesday to close at 43.90 yuan ($6.80) a metric ton, the National Carbon Emissions Trading Agency said in a statement. Price is lowest since the market launched in July, with allowances closing Monday at 44 yuan a ton, signifying that virtually nobody on the mainland is actually serious about reducing the intensity of emissions generation.

  Meanwhile, with everyone across the Pacific thinking coal is trash, perhaps there is some material upside opportunity as coal prices rise. Take a look at the Dow Jones U.S. Coal Index has been basing since March.

  

  Is the index ready for an upswing on higher prices? And while we wait, we eagerly look forward to climate change messiah Greta Thunberg launching a critical tirade of China for the smog storm it is about to unleash.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/07/2021 – 23:50

• Taibbi: The Moral Majority Strikes Again
  Taibbi: The Moral Majority Strikes Again

  Authored by Matt Taibbi via TK News,

  Citing a report of Oklahoma emergency rooms so overwhelmed by ivermectin overdoses that gunshot victims were going untreated, MSNBC anchor Joy Ann Reid Sunday proposed sticking the swallowers of “horse paste” at the back of the line in order to prioritize the more deserving, “rather than allowing the ivermectin people” — she spoke the words as if holding a vile wriggling thing with tweezers — to “take up all the beds”:

  

  This was a network anchor despising a group of people so much that she itched to deny them medical care, not only despite having never met them, but despite the fact that they may not even exist. The “overwhelmed Oklahoma E.R.” tale later seemed to go sideways, the latest in a line of crackups by media lost in the throes of a moral panic.

  The tale of mobbed E.R.s originated with a September 1 print story in the Tulsa World, followed by a piece by Oklahoma City-based NBC affiliate KFOR. Both interviewed a Dr. Jason McElyea, who spoke in the KFOR piece of “gunshot victims having hard times getting to facilities.” Separately he spoke about both the overcrowding problem and of seeing ivermectin overdose cases, but we don’t actually hear him making the connection that it’s the “ivermectin people” causing the bed shortage. That was done by KFOR, whose chyron and tweet identically read, PATIENTS OVERDOSING ON IVERMECTIN BACKING UP HOSPITALS, AMBULANCES.

  The line spread the next day with a retweet by Rachel Maddow — the real patient zero of this mess — followed by tweet-pushes by MSNBC executive producer Lauren Peikoff, the Guardian, the Business Insider, the Daily Mail, Newsweek, the New York Daily News, Daily Kos, Occupy Democrats, Reid, moral mania all-star Kurt Eichenwald, the humorously dependable wrongness-barnacle Eoin Higgins, and of course my former employers at Rolling Stone. My old mag got most of the catcalls on social media, after adding a full written story that widened the scope beyond Oklahoma to note in a tsk-tsking tone that “even podcaster and anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Joe Rogan bragged” of taking ivermectin.

  The original report would have been sensational enough, if true. McElyea told stories of backed-up ambulances, patients “in worse conditions than if they’d caught COVID,” and “scariest” of all, “people coming in with vision loss.” Nonetheless, in the game of Twitter telephone that led from KFOR to the Stone, details were magically added. Reid somehow knew the hated overdosers not only swallowed “horse paste” but had done so “instead of taking the vaccine.” Occupy Democrats knew for whom the horse-pasters voted, noting that “so many Trumpers are overdosing” that emergency rooms are full. MSNBC contributor Dr. Jason Johnson even speculated Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe was somehow profiteering from the misery:

  Wonder if Inhofe (R-OK) has any financial ties to ivermectin. Wouldn’t be the first time he appeared to have profited off #Covid-19…

  Things appeared to go south when the Stone put out an “update” with a statement from Oklahoma’s Northeastern Hospital System Sequoyah, which said Dr. McElyea “has not worked at our Sallisaw location in over 2 months,” and, worse, that “NHS Sequoyah has not treated any patients due to complications related to taking ivermectin,” which “includes not treating any patients for ivermectin overdose.” Of course that was only one hospital system, and it wasn’t clear if it was relevant to McElyea’s story. However, Rolling Stone then put out a second update noting that, “Rolling Stone has been unable to independently verify any such cases,” adding:

  The National Poison Data System states there were 459 reported cases of ivermectin overdose in the United States in August. Oklahoma-specific ivermectin overdose figures are not available, but the count is unlikely to be a significant factor in hospital bed availability in a state that, per the CDC, currently has a 7-day average of 1,528 Covid-19 hospitalizations.

  Subscribers can read the rest here.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/07/2021 – 23:30

• Is Peter Thiel Building A Luxury Doomsday Mansion In New Zealand?
  Is Peter Thiel Building A Luxury Doomsday Mansion In New Zealand?

  New Zealand is becoming the ideal spot for high-net-worth people to ride out a societal collapse. 

  Billionaire Google co-founder Larry Page has been hiding out in private islands in Fiji to avoid COVID-19 and was recently granted New Zealand residency under a category for wealthy investors. 

  Long before Page, Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire who co-founded PayPal and Palantir, retained residency on the island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean and bought a $13.5 million estate in 2015. 

  According to CNBC, Thiel has filed plans to build a mansion buried into the hillside on the shores of Lake Wanaka. 

  Architecture drawings of the hillside mansion, designed by Tokyo Olympic Stadium architect Kengo Kuma and Associates, show what almost looks like a classy doomsday shelter, with enough liveable area for 24 people. 

  

  Kengo Kuma and Associates said the mansion was “designed as an organic architecture that fuses into the landscape.” 

  “The careful design and placement of buildings into the landscape is thoughtful and recognizes the landscape setting. The sympathetic design will use a green roof that will employ the same naturally rustic planting palette of the hillocks that they will be located within,” Jo Fyfe, senior planner at John Edmonds and Associates, who assessed the environmental impact of the future structural, said. 

  The idea that the southwestern Pacific Ocean island country is laden with luxury survival bunkers flourished during the early days of the pandemic when we noted, “New Zealand has become the ‘doomsday resort’ and #1 pandemic escape destination for America’s rich.” 

  It’s hard to say Thiel’s and Page’s motivation to avoid the largest population centers of the world and acquire citizenship in a country of just 5 million people, but it appears to be the ideal spot to ride out a future societal collapse.

  Billionaires are making long bets that New Zealand will be the safest place in the world to hunker down during a global crisis, such as the current COVID crisis that forced central banks and governments to go on a borrowing binge like nothing the world has ever seen before, creating what some refer to as the welfare state. When that collapses, the new Hamptons will be New Zealand. 

  … and it’s not just billionaires who are seeking shelter outside the US. Wealthy Americans with assets over $2 million who renounced their citizenship have surged amid socioeconomic despair, political firestorms, and an unrelenting virus pandemic sparking increasingly freedom-destroying mandates. 

  Wealthy folks are beginning to understand: they don’t want to be the last ones sticking around when the party ends in the US. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/07/2021 – 23:10

• "Default Appears Probable": Evergrande Drops Below 2009 IPO Price After Fitch Triple Downgrade To Near Default
  “Default Appears Probable”: Evergrande Drops Below 2009 IPO Price After Fitch Triple Downgrade To Near Default

  One of these days, someone will finally put China’s largest and most indebted property developer, Evergrande – which has been teetering on the verge of insolvency for months – out of its misery. While that day is not here yet, Fitch just hammered another nail in the coffin of “China’s Lehman” with a 3-notch downgrade which saw the company’s long-term foreign currency issuer rating drop from CCC+ to CC (D is just one letter away), and which saw the rating agency say that “default of some kind appears probable”  as the company struggles to address its worsening liquidity issues.

  “We believe credit risk is high given tight liquidity, declining contracted sales, pressure to address delayed payments to suppliers and contractors, and limited progress on asset disposals,” Fitch said in a statement.

  The Fitch downgrade came a day after Moody’s also cut Evergrande’s credit rating by three notches to Ca, which implies it is “likely in or very near default.” The conglomerate’s liquidity and default risk is “heightened,” Moody’s said in its third downgrade of the real estate giant since June.

  Of course, the rating agencies are late to the party: as we noted last week, Evergrande itself warned of default risks if its efforts to raise cash fall short. Its cash coverage to short-term borrowings worsened in the first half to 36% from 47% from six months earlier, according to Bloomberg calculations based on an earnings statement. The company hasn’t sold a dollar bond since January last year.

  The stock dropped 2.8% to HK$3.47 in Hong Kong trading, sliding below the 2009 IPO price of HK$3.5. Shares of the troubled developer have tumbled about 77% this year, while many of its dollar bonds are hovering below 30 cents.

  

  And speaking of an Evergrande default, one may have already taken place: earlier on Wednesday, Chinese paint producer Skshu said Evergrande has 101.7 million yuan of overdue commercial bills as of Aug. 31. At this point it’s just a question of when Beijing decides to pull the plug.

   

   

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/07/2021 – 22:59

• What Is The Goal Of Beijing's New Stock Exchange?
  What Is The Goal Of Beijing’s New Stock Exchange?

  By Jesse Turland of The Diplomat

  A new Beijing Stock Exchange was announced by Xi Jinping at the Global Trade In Services Summit in Beijing last Thursday.

  

  Xi said the exchange would “deepen reform of the New Third Board,” referring to the existing financing mechanism in Beijing for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). SMEs are firms with fewer than 500 employees. Traditionally they have struggled in comparison with larger companies to acquire loans from banks. The new stock exchange appears designed in part to make redress for that by connecting SMEs with retail investors. It comes against the backdrop of increased regulatory scrutiny of some of China’s largest existing publicly traded firms.

  China has curtailed the power of big tech companies with moves such as blocking ride-hailing firm Didi from app stores in July over data privacy issues and fining other e-commerce platforms including Alibaba over alleged monopolistic business practices.

  Xi made explicit that the beneficiaries of the new stock exchange are to be firms cut from a different cloth from these tech giants whose fortunes have cooled recently. “Service-oriented, innovative SMEs” are to be supported, according to Xi’s announcement.

  Many experts believe China is – or should be – seeking to use its SME support policy to replicate aspects of Germany’s Mittelstand or “Rhineland capitalism,” which is defined by networks of highly specialized firms contributing to the supply chains of world-leading advanced industrial products.

  “In the eyes of Chinese people, ‘Made in Germany’ represents high quality products. ‘Made in China’ should learn from ‘Made in Germany,’” stated an editorial on China Economic Net earlier this week, republished in The Paper.

  Some observers believe, however, that supporting SMEs is only part of the picture when it comes to the Beijing Stock Exchange’s creation.

  Cynics speculate that the move foreshadows encouraging – or coercing – major firms that are currently listed outside mainland China to return.

  “As for Ali, Didi and Tencent, these giants will inevitably have to return to Beijing to be listed on the Beijing Stock Exchange,” predicted finance-focused YouTuber Xiaocui. In the case of Didi at least, there are some indications that this process has already started.

  Bloomberg reported on Friday that Beijing’s city government had made a bid for a controlling stake in the rideshare firm, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.

  Didi flew in the face of regulators’ instructions by pushing ahead with an IPO on June 30 this year, coinciding with the centenary celebrations of the Chinese Communist Party. It was punished four days later on July 4 by the Cybersecurity Agency, which banned it from Chinese app stores citing concerns over users’ data privacy.

  “The nationalization of Didi would mean cutting American investors out,” said New York-based politics and finance-focused YouTuber Zhang Tianliang. He believes the setting up of the new exchange in the capital heralds more moves against businesses founded by private entrepreneurs.

  “If big companies are delisted in the United States and relisted in China, on the Shanghai or Shenzhen exchanges, the volatility caused to those existing exchanges will be too great. But on a new stock exchange that is not an issue,” Zhang said.

  “Beyond spreading the risks of financing SMEs … the exchange in Beijing will help with repatriating tech companies with minimal disruption.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/07/2021 – 22:50

• North America And Europe Lead Bitcoin ATM Charge
  North America And Europe Lead Bitcoin ATM Charge

  In what can only be described as a controversial move, El Salvador became the first country in the world elevating Bitcoin to the status of legal tender today, meaning businesses have to accept the cryptocurrency in day-to-day transactions from this day forward. Interestingly, as Statista’s Florian Zandt details below, El Salvador is only host to four Bitcoin ATMs, machines where users of the corresponding platform operators can buy or sell cryptocurrencies on the go.

  As Statista’s chart indicates, South America as a whole has a lot of catching up to do in this regard…

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  While declaring Bitcoin as a regular currency is still far off in the countries on the North American continent, it still leads in the number of Bitcoin ATMs with a whopping 24,669 machines available across the U.S. and Canada according to data by Coin ATM Radar.

  Europe, including the Russian Federation, comes in second with 1,263 crypto cash machines available in a total of 28 countries.

  South America, on the other hand, only offers its residents 89 machines across the whole continent. Next to El Salvador, the countries with the most cryptocurrency ATMs are Colombia, Brazil and Argentina.

  The introduction of Bitcoin as a workable currency in El Salvador was met with skepticism by its populace. According to a survey by the UCA El Salvador released in August 2021, nearly 83 percent of participants had little to no confidence in Bitcoin as a legal tender.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/07/2021 – 22:30

• Dallas Fed President Made Multiple Million-Dollar Stock Trades In 2020, Disclosure Shows
  Dallas Fed President Made Multiple Million-Dollar Stock Trades In 2020, Disclosure Shows

  Eleven of the 12 regional Fed banks have published disclosures of their leaders’ 2020 financial profiles, sharing information that gives insight into the holdings of officials who help set the central bank’s monetary policy and thus directly affect all capital markets, especially stocks. Their stocks too.

  What was notable is that while most regional Fed leaders reported modest financial holdings and smaller transactions, president of the Dallas Fed Robert Kaplan, a former vice chairman at Goldman who was responsible for the firm’s investment banking activities before leaving in 2006 and becoming a profressor at Harvard, who we now learn that at the same time that he was advocating for unlimited quantitative easing and “keeping interest rates at zero until well into 2022 or even 2023“, made “multiple million-dollar-plus stock trades in 2020” according to the WSJ.

  According to the disclosure form provided by the Dallas Fed, Mr. Kaplan had a total of 27 individual stock, fund or alternative asset holdings each valued at over $1 million. Mr. Kaplan’s stockholdings included Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Boeing Co., Alphabet Inc., Facebook Inc. and Marathon Petroleum Corp.

  Kaplan’s disclosure form shows the former Goldman vice chair made some combination of sales or purchases of over $1 million in 22 individual company shares or investment funds. These transactions included Apple, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. , Amazon, General Electric Co. and Chevron Corp.

  A closer look at Kaplan’s holdings shows a stake in the ‘Big Rub BBQ’ and the Kansas City Royals baseball team. He’s one of the 22 owners of the team, a stake he purchased in 2019.

  

  

  On the transaction side, there wasn’t much detail: transactions above one million dollars, which was most of them, were listed as “multiple” without further details. Amid the multiple transactions, we learn that stocks Kaplan bought exclusive, without any offsetting sales included Apple, Google, Oracle and a Latin America ETF.

  

  As ForexLive’s Adam Button notes, “Based on the holdings, it’s safe to say that he had a very good year last year even with the drag from energy shares. Of course, when you know the Fed will bail out the entire financial system and keep the party going no matter what, it’s easier to buy big.”

  Kaplan’s full disclosure form can be found here.

  Among the outraged responses to the realization of Kaplan’s conflicts of interest – after all, the Dallas Fed president personally stood to profit from monetary policy that encouraged capital markets – was that of Sven Henrich who observed that “the Fed guys are personally actively trading the markets they influence more than anything else. Go figure. When are we officially declaring a Banana Republic?”

  Well, well, well.
  The Fed guys are personally actively trading the markets they influence more than anything else. Go figure.
  When are we officially declaring a Banana Republic? https://t.co/gP0lKeWSQE

  — Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) September 7, 2021

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

  Slamming the Fed’s endless conflict of interest, Henrich blasted that it’s “bad enough that the Fed Chair position is a guaranteed multi million dollar speaking fee gig virtually ensuring the banks who dish out hundreds of thousand of dollars per zoom speech are kept happy and Fed supported. The conflicts of interest stink to high heaven.” Mocking the Fed’s desire to “avoid a taper tantrum”, he than said that “what might be the right economic policy gets shoved under the rug that is the personal financial interests of those that are tasked with the decisions.”

  He concluded rhetorically: “How about a true independent audit of all the conflicts with $ interests?”

  Obviously, that will never happen.

  While other Fed president were less active in capital markets, they too stood to benefit from favorable outcomes in the market they dominate: in the forms provided for the other bank presidents, most reported modest holdings of investment funds and little in the way of large stock trading. Boston Fed chief Eric Rosengren listed a number of stock trades under “joint” status in transactions that were each $50,000 or less, for example. Richmond Fed leader Thomas Barkin, who was a senior executive at management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. before becoming bank president, listed a number of financial holdings each in excess of $1 million.

  Atlanta Fed leader Raphael Bostic flagged on his form a number of property holdings that were associated with mortgages, while the Boston Fed leader also had a rental property. Kansas City Fed leader Esther George reported a stake in a farm.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/07/2021 – 22:22

• Chinese Apartment And Auto Sales Unexpectedly Tumble In August
  Chinese Apartment And Auto Sales Unexpectedly Tumble In August

  While China’s trade data published overnight may have smashed expectations, with both exports and imports coming far stronger than expected, and surprising China watchers who were expecting a far worse print amid the the disruptions to operations at Ningbo port in August (with Goldman pointing out that “the impact on trade activities was limited likely because lockdown restrictions at ports were relatively targeted and throughput volume was redirected to nearby ports”), the reality is that China’s economy continues to flounder as the most recent set of contractionary PMI prints indicated.

  The latest proof of China’s economic deceleration, came from the latest consumer spending data which showed that Chinese consumers cut back sharply on buying cars and apartments in August as stronger regulation of the property market and a broad Covid outbreak in the country further undercut the economy’s already slowing recovery.

  Property sales in the four first-tier cities declined 16% in August from a year ago, according to Bloomberg calculations based on weekly data.

  

  At the same time, total automobile sales (including to companies) plunged about 22% over the same period, the biggest decline since last March when the nation was still in lockdown to control the initial Covid cases.

  

  While China’s economic growth was already slowing in July, with private consumption weakening faster than industrial and export sectors, Bloomberg notes that that was made worse by the Covid outbreak in August as cities nationwide reintroduced lockdowns during the summer holidays, a time when consumers usually travel and spending on cars traditionally starts to pick up. 

  Economic activities slowed further in August on a year-on-year basis, especially consumption and service activities, partly due to the flood shocks and Covid restrictions, UBS AG economists wrote in a note last week. “We see property activities weakening further in the second half on continued hawkish property policies,” they said.

  The continued shortage of computer chips and weakening demand has hit vehicle output and sales this year. The slump likely undermined retail sales growth for August, which the government is due to release next week: and since cars make up about 10% of the value of retail sales each month, expect a very bad number.

  But it was the housing print that was the shocker: after all, unlike the US where the stock market is where the bulk of household net worth resides, in China it’s the opposite and housing represents the biggest household asset by far. As such “a rapid slowdown in property sector activities could lead to a significant spillover effect on both upstream industrial demand and consumption,” Bank of America economists wrote in a report this week. They estimate that more than 28% of China’s gross domestic product is related to the property sector, and said more policy stimulus in the housing sector is needed to support growth.

  In other words, while the latest service PMI prints hinted that far from growing, China’s economy is now in contraction, the next batch of economic data, and specifically retail sales, may confirm that after the trillions in stimulus injected into the economy, China’s economy is indeed on the verge of contraction, an unheard of development for a world desperate for China’s massive stimulus to kickstart the next reflationary cycle. However, as recent events with Evergrande clearly demonstrate – with China’s largest developer on the verge of collapse –  Beijing has vastly different plans for this particular economic cycle.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/07/2021 – 22:10

• World's Largest Nitrogen Plant Declares "Force Majeure," Sends Fertilizer Prices Sky High
  World’s Largest Nitrogen Plant Declares “Force Majeure,” Sends Fertilizer Prices Sky High

  Spot prices for nitrogen fertilizer on the US Gulf Coast skyrocketed to a near-decade high on a report the world’s largest nitrogen manufacturing plant declared force majeure. 

  CF Industries Holdings Inc. in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, closed its massive complex ahead of Hurricane Ida. The complex has 19 plants, including six ammonia and five urea facilities, producing nitrogen-based products for agricultural and industrial markets. 

  

  According to the letter seen by Bloomberg, CF Industries said, “due to these circumstances, CF Industries Sales, LLC has declared an event of force majeure affecting the production and shipment of product from the CF Donaldsonville, LA nitrogen complex.” 

  The letter was dated Sept. 3, and at that time, the facility remained closed. This stoked fears of production declines at a time when supplies are already tight. 

  As a result of the force majeure, US Gulf urea nitrogen fertilizer spot prices spiked 16.5%, according to Green Markets data. 

  

  Other major nitrogen fertilizer benchmarks remained mixed on the weekly change.  

  

  Scotiabank commodity analyst Ben Isaacson told clients that nitrogen fertilizer prices on the Gulf Coast are surging due to “uncertainty surrounding the restart of CF’s Donaldsonville plant.” He added there is increasing concern that other surrounding plants are down due to lack of electricity and possible storm damage. 

  Before Ida, there was surging demand for US fertilizer as soaring commodity prices allowed farmers to expand crop production, boosting demand for nutrients essential to producing food. 

  A recent Rabobank commodity note explained farmers are expanding plantings and dispensing more fertilizer on fields to increase crop yields. The Dutch bank warned, higher prices will curb purchases of fertilizers. 

  Besides fertilizer, Ida has disrupted crude oil production and critical infrastructure for exports. There are also fuel shortages across New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and power outages remain widespread. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/07/2021 – 21:50

• Get Ready For More Pain In China
  Get Ready For More Pain In China

  By George Lei, Bloomberg macro commentator and reporter.

  Lower growth, higher inflation and less stimulus.

  That’s the most-likely scenario over the coming months, and possibly years, if the ruling Communist Party presses on with its “common prosperity” drive to transform China’s economy. Things will get worse before they get better.

  The phrase “common prosperity” may sound like political jargon to foreign ears. Yet Beijing’s latest moves bear resemblance to left-wing policies practiced elsewhere: higher wages for gig workers, lower profits for corporations and efforts to control home prices and rent, just to name a few.

  Meituan, a Chinese equivalent of Doordash, has been ordered to guarantee minimum wages and pay for insurance for delivery workers. Internet giants including Alibaba and Tencent have coughed up billions in penalties and “donations” for social aid. Doesn’t that sound similar to the calls for “living wages” “tax big tech” and “spread the wealth” from American progressives?

  Similar to the West, the fruits of China’s growth over the past couple of decades have disproportionately benefited those with good education, political connections or capital to invest. Beijing’s attempts, if successful, should dampen growth in both housing prices, considered a sure-fire bet for the well-off, and the real estate sector, which together with related industries contribute almost 30% of the economy. Meanwhile, labor income is certain to rise at a time when demographic trends are already creating skilled worker shortages and pushing up wages.

  “The Great Demographic Reversal: Ageing Societies, Waning Inequality, and an Inflation Revival,” a book written by Charles Goodhart and Manoj Pradhan and referenced by Jerome Powell in his Jackson Hole speech last month, points to a future where China’s shrinking labor force, on top of a less globalized economic system, results in higher inflation and less inequality worldwide. China’s policy drive could accelerate such an eventuality.

  The crackdown on real estate and tech, combined with efforts to raise working-class pay, will “support the development of a healthier and more balanced economy,” according to analysts led by Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management. What they don’t mention, however, is that falling growth and rising prices could come first before the structural changes intended by policy makers run their course and the benefits kick in. Investors should be prepared to embrace more pain in the near future.

  China will be reluctant to cut policy interest rates under a new “cross-cyclical” policy framework that prioritizes long-term goals such as reducing inequality, according to ANZ Banking Group. Monetary policy “will be focused on supporting structural reforms” and interest-rate cuts “are not preferred,” wrote Raymond Yeung, the bank’s chief economist for Greater China.

  UBS remains optimistic on the prospects of China’s long-term consumption growth. The focus on “lifting disposable incomes … and supporting employment” is beneficial to the “general consumption upgrade,” favoring China’s consumer durables and services, according to the Swiss bank.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/07/2021 – 21:30

• "Surprise Surprise – Fauci Lied Again": Rand Paul Reacts To Wuhan Bombshell
  “Surprise Surprise – Fauci Lied Again”: Rand Paul Reacts To Wuhan Bombshell

  Senator Rand Paul weighed in Tuesday following a Monday bombshell from The Intercept which revealed that Dr. Anthony Fauci’s NIAID and its parent, the NIH, funded Gain-of-Function research in Wuhan, China. Recall that Fauci called Paul a ‘liar’ for accusing him of funding the risky research, in which viruses are genetically modified or otherwise altered to make them more transmissible to humans.

  “Surprise surprise – Fauci lied again,” Paul tweeted on Tuesday, including a link to Richard H. Ebright’s thread (below).

  Surprise surprise – Fauci lied again

  And I was right about his agency funding novel Coronavirus research at Wuhan.

  Read this thread and the papers released. https://t.co/zQizKXLdbd

  — Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) September 7, 2021

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  See their July spat below.

  *  *  *

  When Dr. Anthony Fauci confidently screamed at Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) in July – calling him a liar for accusing him of funding so-called “Gain-of-Function” (GoF) research in Wuhan, China to make coronaviruses more transmissible to humans, the argument ultimately faded due to Fauci’s unsupported claim that the research didn’t technically fit the definition of GoF.

  

  Now, thanks to materials (here and here) released through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by The Intercept against the National Institutes of Health (which were unredacted enough to toss Fauci under the bus), we now know that Fauci-funded EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based nonprofit headed by Peter Daszak, was absolutely engaged in gain-of-function research to make chimeric SARS-based coronaviruses, which they confirmed could infect human cells.

  

  

  

  While evidence of this research has been pointed to in published studies, the FOIA release provides a key piece to the puzzle which sheds new light on what was going on.

  “This is a roadmap to the high-risk research that could have led to the current pandemic,” said Gary Ruskin, executive director of U.S. Right To Know, a group that has been investigating the origins of Covid-19 (via The Intercept).

  

  And as Rutgers University Board of Governors Chemistry Professor Richard H. Ebright notes, “The documents make it clear that assertions by the NIH Director, Francis Collins, and the NIAID Director, Anthony Fauci, that the NIH did not support gain-of-function research or potential pandemic pathogen enhancement at WIV are untruthful.“

  In short, Fauci lied to Congress when he denied funding Gain-of-Function (GoF) research.

  “If anybody is lying here, Senator, it is you.”

  — Dr. Fauci to Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). pic.twitter.com/mrEQTCHgRN

  — The Recount (@therecount) July 20, 2021

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  Ebright summarized The Intercept‘s reporting in a Monday night Twitter thread:

  “The trove of documents includes two previously unpublished grant proposals that were funded by the NIAID, as well as project updates relating to the EcoHealth Alliance’s research, which has been scrutinized amid increased interest in the origins of the pandemic.”

  — Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) September 7, 2021

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  Continued (emphasis ours):

  “The trove of documents includes two previously unpublished grant proposals that were funded by the NIAID, as well as project updates relating to the EcoHealth Alliance’s research, which has been scrutinized amid increased interest in the origins of the pandemic.”

  The materials show that the 2014 and 2019 NIH grants to EcoHealth with subcontracts to WIV funded gain-of-function research as defined in federal policies in effect in 2014-2017 and potential pandemic pathogen enhancement as defined in federal policies in effect in 2017-present.

  (This had been evident previously from published research papers that credited the 2014 grant and from the publicly available summary of the 2019 grant. But this now can be stated definitively from progress reports of the 2014 grant and the full proposal of the 2017 grant.)

  The materials confirm the grants supported the construction–in Wuhan–of novel chimeric SARS-related coronaviruses that combined a spike gene from one coronavirus with genetic information from another coronavirus, and confirmed the resulting viruses could infect human cells.

  

  The materials reveal that the resulting novel, laboratory-generated SARS-related coronaviruses also could infect mice engineered to display human receptors on cells (“humanized mice”).

  The materials further reveal for the first time that one of the resulting novel, laboratory-generated SARS-related coronaviruses–one not been previously disclosed publicly–was more pathogenic to humanized mice than the starting virus from which it was constructed…

  …and thus not only was reasonably anticipated to exhibit enhanced pathogenicity, but, indeed, was *demonstrated* to exhibit enhanced pathogenicity.

  The materials further reveal that the the grants also supported the construction–in Wuhan–of novel chimeric MERS-related coronaviruses that combined spike genes from one MERS-related coronavirus with genetic information from another MERS-related coronavirus.

  The documents make it clear that assertions by the NIH Director, Francis Collins, and the NIAID Director, Anthony Fauci, that the NIH did not support gain-of-function research or potential pandemic pathogen enhancement at WIV are untruthful.

  *  *  *

  When asked in the replies where to find specific evidence on GoF research, user @SnupSnus replied:

  the same page is also numbered page 11- whoever made all those numberings set us up for lot’s of confusion, “3.3.c humanised mouse experiments”

  — Simon Lackner (@SnupSnus) September 7, 2021

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  there is an easy clue; the acknowledgments section of the paper attached in Fauci’s panicked e-mails obtained via FOIA. this is the work “expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone”. pic.twitter.com/WbLIGDouRE

  — counterpopp (@counterpopp) September 7, 2021

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  Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute, said the documents show that the EcoHealth Alliance has reason to take the lab leak theory seriously. “In this proposal, they actually point out that they know how risky this work is. They keep talking about people potentially getting bitten — and they kept records of everyone who got bitten,” Chan said. “Does EcoHealth have those records? And if not, how can they possibly rule out a research-related accident?” -The Intercept

  In response to inquiries from The Intercept, EcoHealth communications manager Robert Kessler replied: “We applied for grants to conduct research. The relevant agencies deemed that to be important research, and thus funded it. So I don’t know that there’s a whole lot to say.”

  Stay tuned, things should get really interesting for Fauci and Daszak in the near future.

  So we paid the CCP to develop the virus that they unleashed on the world…Not surprising…The media will probably dig into this now just to avoid the Afghanistan disaster but that’s not going away anytime soon either .. https://t.co/Ud9YKvmrTt

  — Marco Mazzocco, CFA (@MarcoMNYC) September 7, 2021

  To review the history of EcoHealth, Fauci and Gain-of-Function research which we noted in March: 

  In 2014, Peter Daszak, president of New York-based nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, received a grant from Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) to work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and others to research how bat coronaviruses can ‘evolve and jump into the human population.’

  

  The grant’s initial funding of $666,442 began in June 2014 with an end date of May 2019, and had paid annually to the tune of $3.7 million under the “Understanding The Risk Of Bat Coronavirus Emergence” project. Notably, the Obama administration cut funding for “gain-of-function” research in October, 2014, four months after Daszak’s contract began, while the Wuhan Institute of Virology “had openly participated in gain-of-function research in partnership with U.S. universities and institutions” for years under the leadership of Dr. Shi ‘Batwoman’ Zhengli, according to the Washington Post‘s Josh Rogin.

  One of the grants, titled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence,” outlines an ambitious effort led by EcoHealth Alliance president Peter Daszak to screen thousands of bat samples for novel coronaviruses. The research also involved screening people who work with live animals. The documents contain several critical details about the research in Wuhan, including the fact that key experimental work with humanized mice was conducted at a biosafety level 3 lab at Wuhan University Center for Animal Experiment — and not at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, as was previously assumed. The documents raise additional questions about the theory that the pandemic may have begun in a lab accident, an idea that Daszak has called “heinous.”

  …

  The grant was initially awarded for a five-year period — from 2014 to 2019. Funding was renewed in 2019 but suspended by the Trump administration in April 2020. -The Intercept

  After Rogin exposed diplomatic cables last April expressing grave concerns over safety at WIV, he says: “many of the scientists who spoke out to defend the lab were Shi’s research partners and funders, like the head of the global public health nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak; their research was tied to hers, and if the Wuhan lab were implicated in the pandemic, they would have to answer a lot of tough questions.”

  In short, Daszak – who has insisted the ‘lab escape’ theory is impossible, and that random natural origin via intermediary animal species is the only answer – has a massive conflict of interest.

  @PeterDaszak on Gain of Function-experiments, Dec. 2019:

  “You can manipulate them in the lab pretty easily”

  “… inserting the spike protein into a backbone of another virus”

  “[…] insert these other related diseases and get a better vaccine.”

  Peter?https://t.co/avEIWY1syg pic.twitter.com/vRTGMHgApA

  — Bobby Rajesh Malhotra ツ ψ (@Bobby_Network) February 28, 2021

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  Furthermore, the biggest clue to SARS2’s zoonotic origins are those closest virus relatives in bat caves in Yunnan, China that have been frequently sampled by various labs over the past decade.

  Why not search there first?

  — Alina Chan (@Ayjchan) March 10, 2021

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  Does this count as a form of self-investigation?

  If you’re charged with investigating data/records that you were a part of, and you tell the rest of the team they don’t need to audit the records because you already know there’s nothing relevant in there and can close the case? pic.twitter.com/9JDPjEMOtr

  — Alina Chan (@Ayjchan) March 10, 2021

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  Further reading:

  • Fauci In 2012: Gain-Of-Function Research ‘Worth Risk Of Lab Accident Sparking Pandemic’

  • Fauci-Funded EcoHealth Refuses To Give Wuhan Documents To Congress

  • ‘EcoHealth Alliance’ Orchestrated Key Scientists’ Statement On “Natural Origin” Of SARS-CoV-2

  • Video Of Live Bats In Wuhan Lab Reveals Daszak Lied In Now-Deleted Tweet

  • “Sadly, It Starts With Two Lies”: Peter Daszak’s Latest Wuhan Screed Shredded

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/07/2021 – 21:18

• WHO Calls Out Wealthy Nations For Hoarding COVID Treatments & Vaccines
  WHO Calls Out Wealthy Nations For Hoarding COVID Treatments & Vaccines

  The World Health Organization (WHO) has once again blamed wealthy countries for essentially hoarding coronavirus vaccines and treatments at the expense of poorer and smaller nations. 

  During a Tuesday Q&A session with the media the WHO’s technical lead for the coronavirus, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, blasted the current situation as “unfair” and “immoral” – even going so far as to accuse wealthy nations of adding to the global deaths with their policies.

  “This is not just unfair, it’s not just immoral, it’s prolonging the pandemic,” Dr. Kerkhove said. “And it is resulting in people dying.”

  

  “If we had used the vaccine doses that were available differently, we be in a very different situation right now globally,” she added. For weeks the WHO has argued against plans for several countries to initiate a booster program for their populations, which has lately included the US, given that places like the entire continent of Africa has only fully vaccinated 3% of the population. 

  According to CNBC, “Given the current pace of vaccinations, the WHO said almost 80% of Africa’s countries will be unable to vaccinate the 10% of their populations most susceptible to severe Covid symptoms by the end of the month.”

  In contrast, the US CDC has recently reported that over 62% of the entire American population has now received as least one vaccine dose, including 75% of US adults. US health officials have this week said they are confident boosters for US adults will begin September 20.

  The WHO’s other top epidemiologist, Dr. Mike Ryan, director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, said that the idea that the globe is sharing its resources is a sham. “The rhetoric is fine, it’s all about sharing, it’s all about fairness,” he said before bluntly stating, “But in reality, when push comes to shove, these products are available, they are hoarded in countries, and they’re not shared.”

  Last month the WHO called for a moratorium on boosters…

  In his latest plea for rich countries to stop hoarding Covid-19 vaccines, the head of the WHO said Wednesday that there should be a moratorium on booster shots. https://t.co/Nn9A4XaQVn

  — Forbes Asia (@ForbesAsia) August 5, 2021

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  Currently Israel is the most out front in terms of a large-scale booster program, with millions having received a third shot. Israel’s coronavirus czar, Salman Zarka, went so far as to begin telling Israelis to be ready for a fourth shot in statements early this week.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/07/2021 – 21:10

• Ron Paul Warns Pandemic Of Authoritarianism Is The Real Threat
  Ron Paul Warns Pandemic Of Authoritarianism Is The Real Threat

  Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

  Cook County, Illinois, Judge James Shapiro reached a new low in covid tyranny by forbidding Rebecca Firlit from seeing her 11-year-old son until she receives a covid vaccine.

  Judge Shapiro is not alone in abusing judicial power to force individuals to get vaccinated. Judges across the country have ordered defendants to get covid vaccines, sometimes as a condition of avoiding prison.

  This outbreak of judicial tyranny is a symptom of the authoritarianism pandemic that is the real threat to America.

  

  Corporations are imposing requirements, including that employees show proof of vaccination, pay more for health insurance if they have not had a covid vaccine, and undergo regular (in some cases weekly) covid tests. An increasing number of state and local governments are requiring their employees and even people working in some private jobs to take covid vaccines, as well as imposing vaccine passport requirements on people generally.

  President Biden has urged employers to implement vaccine mandates, and government is working with its big tech allies to develop “model” vaccine passports.

  Government approved model vaccine requirements combined with government officials encouraging their adoption send the message to businesses that imposing vaccine requirements on their employees, and maybe their customers as well, is a good way to stay in the politicians and bureaucrats’ good graces.

  An effective way for the US government to “encourage” adoption of vaccine mandates and vaccine passports is denying federal funds to businesses, states, local governments, and other institutions that refuse to require employees, customers, or other people to prove they are vaccinated. This will result in vaccine requirements while enabling government to claim it is not forcing vaccines on anyone.

  President Biden is already planning for the US government denying Medicare and Medicaid funding to nursing homes that do not require their employees to prove they are vaccinated. This could result in staff shortages at nursing homes. A short-staffed nursing home poses a much greater risk to residents than a nursing home with a staff comprised of healthy, unvaccinated individuals. Texas is experiencing a nursing shortage thanks in part to hospitals firing unvaccinated nurses.

  Health care workers have good reason to resist vaccine mandates. Many individuals have died or suffered other adverse effects — including miscarriages — after receiving a vaccine.

  Some people try to justify vaccine mandates and vaccine passports by saying that, by risking infecting others, unvaccinated individuals endanger other people. However, the federal Centers for Disease Control recently admitted that covid vaccines do not prevent the spread of infections. In addition, the claim that we are having a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” relies on data collected from early in the year — before many Americans had taken covid vaccines.

  An important objection is that, if government can force people to take a potentially dangerous vaccine to protect against a hypothetical harm to others, the same reasoning would support the imposing of many additional liberty violations. These could include, for example, “red flag” laws and other forms of gun control, restrictions on access to “extremist” ideas, or a system of mass surveillance to prevent possible future acts of violence. The argument that government can use force to prevent hypothetical harms renders restraint on government power meaningless.

  It is imperative that we support the growing resistance to vaccine mandates and vaccine passports. We must also expand the resistance to covid authoritarianism to resistance to all forms of government infringements on liberty.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/07/2021 – 20:50

• Vaccine-Resistant "Mu" Variant Spreads To 49 States As Delta-Driven Summer Wave Peaks
  Vaccine-Resistant “Mu” Variant Spreads To 49 States As Delta-Driven Summer Wave Peaks

  Early signs that the summer COVID wave likely peaked late last month appear to have been confirmed, and recent nationwide data have also shown hospitalization rates roll over, though that trend is still in its naateel apparently been confirmed. Hospitalizations, which had reached their highest levels since early this year, have also slowed since their most recent peak, although they continue to trail cases.

  

  America’s summer wave may be diminishing, but fears about the delta variant linger, while America and the press has become obsessed with raising the alarm about any new potentially harmful variants coming down the pike.

  Dr. Anthony Fauci has weighed in on the risk posed by variants, offering dramatically different assessments of the Lambda variant – which saw him turn the fearmongering up to ’11’ – and the Mu variant – which he dismissed, claiming it was “not an immediate threat”.

  

  Unfortunately for Dr. Fauci – who endured perhaps the biggest blow yet to his credibility when the Intercept reported a cache of materials obtained via FOIA exposing him as a liar for his insistence that the NIH didn’t help finance dangerous gain-of-function research that may have led to the creation of SARS-CoV-2 – the good doctor might be headed for yet another COVID flip flop.

  Because it looks like Mu is spreading far more quickly in the US than the ‘experts’ had anticipated. The variant, which possesses several mutations that has scientists worried it might be wholly resistant to the first generation of vaccines, has now been detected in every state except for Nebraska.

  

  Additionally, since it was first identified in Colombia in January, the Mu variant has spread to 41 countries (including the US). Most prevalent in Hawaii and Alaska, the variant accounts for less than 1% of current US cases. But it’s potential to be more transmissible and resistant means it could rapidly supplant delta, especially as the next round of booster jabs are rolled out (while natural immunity in the population continues to build via natural exposure). The US’s ability to monitor the spread of variants is more limited than some of its western peers (like the UK), which means the picture of Mu’s spread that we have right now might already be outdated.

  California has reported the largest number of Mu variant samples (unsurprising since it’s the most populous state) at 384 cases, but that only accounts for 0.2% of the total samples sequenced in the state. As of Friday, LA County had identified 167 Mu variant cases. The cases were found in samples sequenced between June 19 and Aug. 21, with the bulk of the cases being found in July.

  “The identification of variants like Mu, and the spreading of variants across the globe, highlights the need for LA County residents to continue to take measures to protect themselves and others,” Dr. Barbara Ferrer, the SJW (she’s not a medical doctor) charged with directing LA’s COVID response, said in a statement. “This is what makes getting vaccinated and layering protections so important. These are actions that break the chain of transmission and limits COVID-19 proliferation that allows for the virus to mutate into something that could be more dangerous.”

  Maine, Connecticut and Florida round out the list of states with the highest prevalence of Mu cases. Florida’s had the second-highest number of samples, at 384 of the 60,475 samples that were sequenced being of the Mu variant. Additionally, while Alaska has only had 146 cases of Mu, the variant is significantly more prevalent in the state than others, since the number of confirmed Mu cases represents 4% of total cases sequenced.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/07/2021 – 20:30

• Is California An Economic Paradise? Paul Krugman Thinks So
  Is California An Economic Paradise? Paul Krugman Thinks So

  Authored by William Anderson via The Mises Institute,

  Paul Krugman is worried, very worried, that California voters will overturn all of the many progressive gains that the state has made in the past decade when they vote in the September recall election for Gov. Gavin Newsom.

  

  If polls are correct, there is the possibility that conservative Larry Elder might replace Newsom. He writes:

  What would make this outcome especially galling is that California is in many ways – with the glaring exception of housing, which I’ll get to – a progressive success story.

  He goes on to claim that the very policies that many believe would hold back economic growth, such as high taxes, a vast regulatory network, a heavy public sector burden, and the like have had no effect upon California’s economy and, in fact, probably enhance economic opportunities:

  The Golden State took a sharp left turn in 2010, with the election of Jerry Brown as governor. Two years later, Democrats gained a supermajority in the Legislature, giving them the power to enact many progressive priorities. California soon raised taxes on the rich, increased social spending and increased its minimum wage. It also enthusiastically implemented the Affordable Care Act.

  Conservatives predicted disaster, with some saying that the state was committing economic “suicide.” And California gets a lot of negative coverage in the business press, where one constantly finds assertions that business is moving en masse out of the state to lower-tax, less-regulated states, like Texas.

  The data, however, say otherwise. Given all the trash-talking of California and trumpeting of Texas’ prospects one reads, it’s a bit startling to look at trends in real G.D.P. and employment between 2010 and the eve of the pandemic and discover that California and Texas had essentially the same growth rates. It’s also startling, given all the talk about people fleeing high taxes, to learn that highly educated, high-income workers — who do indeed pay higher taxes in California than in most other parts of the U.S. — were continuing to migrate into the state.

  California’s experience, in other words, gives the lie to conservative claims that taxing the rich and spending more on social programs destroys prosperity. And the state didn’t just achieve rapid economic growth; its effective implementation of Obamacare helped it reduce the number of its residents without health insurance much more rapidly than the rest of the country.

  In other words, don’t believe your lying eyes. The fact that residents of California pay the highest income taxes (and the rich are not the only ones hit hard by the state’s income tax, as the rates that are higher than most states kick in a lower income levels), the highest sales taxes, the highest gasoline taxes, and some of the highest utility rates in the United States. (My wife and I have estimated that if we were to move to a non-income tax state such as Tennessee or Florida that we would save a minimum of $40,000 a year, excluding any quality-of-life issues.)

  Krugman goes on to admit that while California has the nation’s highest poverty rates, that situation has nothing to do with tax burdens (even poor people on average pay a tenth of their income to state and local governments in that state), but rather because of the high cost of housing. And why are California housing prices high? Krugman claims that those dastardly conservatives are behind that problem:

  What’s behind California’s housing nightmare? Runaway NIMBYism, which has blocked new housing construction. California’s economic performance matched that of Texas in the 2010s, but it issued far fewer building permits despite having a larger population. California gained three million jobs between 2010 and 2019 but added fewer than 700,000 housing units.

  NIMBYism, however, happens to be one of the few major issues that cut right across party lines. Conservatives are as likely as liberals to oppose housing construction; some progressives — among them Governor Newsom — are strong advocates of housing expansion. So California’s big policy failure shouldn’t be an issue in this recall election. What’s on the line are its policy successes.

  As usual, Krugman wraps a bigger lie around a kernel of truth. While local zoning regulations (and I’ve never seen Krugman speak out against zoning) have contributed to the problem, the larger issue, according to James Broughel and Emily Hamilton of the Mercatus Center, revolves around state housing regulations that choke off new construction. They write:

  …California’s state building code is also especially restrictive and deserves scrutiny from policymakers concerned about housing affordability. By itself, this section of the Code of Regulations contains more restrictive terms — more than 75,700 — than some states’ entire codes. The residential housing subsection alone has nearly 24,000 restrictions.

  Lest one believe that progressive ideology has nothing to do with the construction codes, read on:

  …California is also well known for its aggressive environmental and energy standards. Homes built in 2019 are required to meet energy standards that are 50% more stringent than the 2016 standards.

  These energy rules reflect an important priority for Californians, but they contribute to staggering construction costs and, in turn, higher house prices. Affordable housing builders spend $400,000 per unit, on average, for new housing in Los Angeles, more than any other city in the country. State energy standards contribute to this cost.

  These kinds of staggering numbers give the lie to Krugman’s argument that the NIMBY folks are to blame. Craig Eyermann of the Independent Institute lays the blame squarely where it belongs: California’s political culture:

  California’s problems have not arisen by chance. Its housing shortage is a political choice, just as are many of its other problems.

  As he often does, Krugman leaves out some important points as to why the recall gained momentum, failing to note the infamous French Laundry fundraiser that obnoxiously stated just how much California’s progressive elites despise everyone else. First, keep in mind that Newsom’s response to the COVID-19 surge in 2020 was one of the most restrictive in the nation, resulting in thousands of low-income workers losing their jobs as the governor shut down many of the businesses where they worked. (Note that during that same time, the state’s high-tech elites saw their income rising, as their economic fortunes were directly tied to the Internet and web-based commerce.) One Los Angeles television station reported:

  Newsom received high praise for his aggressive approach to the coronavirus last spring, when he issued the nation’s first statewide stay-at-home order. Now there is growing public angst over subsequent health orders that have shuttered schools and businesses and a massive unemployment benefits fraud scandal, while a public shaming continues for his ill-advised dinner at the French Laundry in Napa Valley, an establishment that features a white truffle and caviar dinner for $1,200 per person.

  Photos of the dinner — a birthday party for a Newsom confidante who also is a lobbyist — emerged showing the governor without a mask at a time when he was imploring people not to socialize with friends and wear a face covering when going out and around others.

  While trying to soften the criticism of Newsom’s actions, Politico noted that the governor clearly antagonized much of the voting base that saw his actions as “do and I say, not as I do.”

  The news came less than two ours after Newsom strongly discouraged residents from traveling for the holidays or bringing together multiple households for Thanksgiving.

  Regardless of the governor’s assertion that the meal abided by coronavirus restrictions, he faced an immediate backlash on social media over his decision to partake in an event at an opulent, multiple Michelin-starred restaurant as businesses around the state reel from the pandemic and Californians chafe under social limitations. Some drew a connection to the governor sending his four children to private school classrooms while most of the state’s public school students continue to do remote learning, as POLITICO reported last month.

  On top of the news that the high-tech billionaires that give massive amounts of political contributions to progressive candidates and their causes, voters also have found that while many Americans lost wealth during the pandemic restrictions, many of the billionaires tied to progressive politics gained, including Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, who made out very well.

  Then there are the quality-of-life issues that Krugman refuses to address, since they fall upon the kind of “deplorables” that rarely make personal contact with the multi-millionaire economist. The rise in street crime in California cities does not affect progressives, since they are more likely to live in wealthy (and often gated) communities and don’t have to worry about having the catalytic converters stolen from their vehicles or have their mansions burglarized. As I noted in an article last year about living in California, the quality of life for non-elites is rapidly deteriorating and much of it has to do with progressive governance, the very governance that Krugman effusively praises.

  Wealthy progressives like Krugman rarely are affected directly by street crime, so they tend to look at such problems only in abstract terms and refuse to see any connection between the rise in crime and the decline of quality of life of those that are most likely to become crime victims. If there is a rise in crime, then it only – ONLY – can be blamed on capitalism. Crime occurs because of capitalist-induced economic inequality, so, by definition, progressive government reduces crime, since progressivism seeks to replace that rapacious capitalism with something kinder and gentler.

  In Krugman’s world, capitalism is predatory while the state, through spending and regulation, improves the economy. California journalist Steven Greenhut, who (unlike Krugman) must pay out of his pocket for the excesses of the state’s government, noted more than a decade ago that government employees in California are outright plundering the taxpayers through bloated systems of pay, benefits, and pensions.

  However, as Krugman notes, the migration patterns of people leaving and moving into California favor wealthy people, as a recent think tank study showed. His point is that the wealthy people are moving in but the less-than-wealthy and middle-class people are the ones making up the exodus from the state.

  As usual, Krugman comes to the wrong conclusions. First, the higher-income people are not moving to California because the state has implemented Obamacare or because wealthy people pay the highest state income taxes in the country. Obamacare is something the rich can avoid; however, at the present time, much of the growing high-tech sector of the economy – with its extremely high pay and benefits – is located in California. Entrepreneurs – the kind of people Krugman tends to denigrate in his columns – are the engines of economic growth in that state, and as long as those companies are there and as long as the vast number of entrepreneurs that live there can churn out high-performing companies, talented and wealthy people will move there.

  In other words, entrepreneurs are not flocking to California because of the bloated state and local governments there. Instead, they are coming to California despite governmental excesses. However, those that are not going to command seven-figure incomes are the ones that leave the state. Many of them can sell their houses at prices substantially higher than the average cost of housing in most of the USA, and then move to lower-tax and lower-cost states, pay cash for homes they never could afford in California, and start a new life being nearly debt-free.

  The Krugman theme has always been that progressives create something this side of paradise whenever they have a free hand to govern, that is, can operate as a one-party state. Yet, Krugman cannot point to one thing as to how progressives have made life better in California for those ordinary people he claims to care about.

  It is not just the wealthy that pay a large portion of their incomes in taxes. There is no “graduated” gasoline tax, nor a special sales tax for the rich. California residents, the vast number of whom are not in that special group of entrepreneurs or are graduates of elite universities, receive little or nothing from the entitled bureaucrats that have life-and-death holds on the lives of those they rule, and the vast number of Californians do not receive the six-figure pensions enjoyed by many government workers.

  Progressives did not create the natural beauty that defines so much of the California landscape. They did not create the state’s spectacular coastline, the majestic Sierra Nevada, the Cascades, and the contours of the scenic San Francisco Bay. We do know that progressive policies of fire suppression and setting vast tracts of forest and brushland aside – the antithesis of sound forest management – have helped lead to massive conflagrations that now are becoming a regular occurrence in the state each summer.

  Yet, what is the progressive response to the wildfires? Force people to purchase expensive and inefficient electric cars, and require utilities to use extremely costly methods of producing electricity from renewables, all the while knowing that these measures will not contribute a whit to bringing down summer temperatures or bringing more rainfall to the state.

  Even if California voters throw out Newsom and even if (Krugman shudders) they put Larry Elder into the governor’s mansion, nothing will change in state government. The AFL-CIO government employee unions still will run the state government as their personal fiefdoms and the taxes will continue to be the highest in the nations. Not one iota of all these progressive “successes” that Krugman imagines will be changed. Elder will be there for a year, and then the Democrats that run California’s government and other institutions will choose another partisan who will prove to be unfit for the job.

  Paul Krugman is a very wealthy man, part of that one percent he regularly condemns. He has become wealthy by peddling inflation as sound economic policy and having a highly-paid perch at the New York Times to claim that the massive spending by California politicians and bureaucrats actually enhances wealth because, as every Keynesian knows, wealthy economies got that way by spending themselves into prosperity.

  And if California voters do what Krugman has begged them not to do, he can make money complaining about their bad choices and about the tyranny of minority government. But he won’t have to worry about the consequences of progressive rule; that is for the little people who are not part of the arrangement.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/07/2021 – 20:10

• Democrats Face SNAFU In September As Debt Ceiling, Spending Package Woes Come To A Head
  Democrats Face SNAFU In September As Debt Ceiling, Spending Package Woes Come To A Head

  Congressional Democrats are facing a perfect storm of political pressure this month. They will be juggling a Sept. 30 government shutdown which will require raising the debt ceiling, as well as $4 trillion in legislative packages they’re trying to pass by a razor-thin margin despite opposition from moderate Democrats.

  

  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has set a Sept. 27 deadline to vote on their $550 billion infrastructure bill – which progressive Democrats say they’ll vote down unless the $3.5 trillion budget blueprint – opposed by aforementioned moderate Dems – isn’t ready by then.

  What’s more, both chambers are still on recess.

  “The margin for error is razor-thin, the stakes are high, and Republicans have made clear they’ll be of no help,” Democratic consultant Matt House, a former Chuck Schumer aide, told NBC News. “That’s been true throughout the Biden administration, but September requires tackling the toughest issues yet, more of them, and with real deadlines attached.“

  Congressional committees have advanced some measures in recent weeks to fund the government. In the House, a group of Democrats joined Republicans to boost military spending by $23.9 billion.

  Raising spending on the Defense Department is a high priority for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who will be key to defeating a filibuster and securing 60 votes to pass any bill. But McConnell has said the GOP won’t support a debt limit increase, setting up a showdown.

  And Democrats, who are seeking to pass a transformative economic agenda with wafer-thin majorities, are squabbling among themselves about the way forward on the infrastructure and safety net packages, which are the linchpin of Biden’s domestic agenda. -NBC News

  Last week, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) threw the Democrats’ plans into disarray when he insisted on ‘hitting the pause button’ on the $3.5 trillion plan amid uncertainty over the botch Afghanistan pullout. 

  

  “Let’s sit back. Let’s see what happens. We have so much on our plate. We really have an awful lot. I think that would be the prudent, wise thing to do,” Manchin said at a Wednesday West Virginia Chamber of Commerce event.

  Manchin added that he’s unwilling to spend “anywhere near” $3.5 trillion until his inflation and debt concerns are addressed. Progressives, in response, threatened to tank the $550B infrastructure bill, which he co-wrote.

  Meanwhile, Democrats will also need to hammer out a series of tax increases on high-income individuals and corporations in order o help pay for the budget bill. A menu of options circulated by Sen. Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-RO) does not have party consensus.

  “Late September stands to be a train wreck for congressional Democrats, with their dual-track strategy on a collision course, but it also presents a faint silver lining in the form of a familiar foe,” said lobbyist and former GOP operative, Liam Donovan. “There’s virtually no way the reconciliation package can be ready in time to satisfy all the promises that have been made by leadership, meaning President Biden will have to play a more active role as peacemaker.“

  Good luck with that.

  “The question is whether the muscle memory of fighting Republicans on the debt limit and the rest of the policy cliff helps paper over the party’s divisions and heal intramural wounds,” added Donovan. “Either way, it’s the biggest inflection point left in what might be the last fruitful year of the Democratic trifecta.”

  More via NBC News:

  In addition to all that, Pelosi last week put a bill on the schedule to enshrine protections for abortion rights into federal law after the Supreme Court refused to block a new law in Texas that bans the vast majority of abortions.

  And the devastation wrought by Hurricane Ida, from Louisiana to New York, could spark a debate about authorizing new relief funding.

  There are also calls from progressive Democrats to extend the lapsed eviction moratorium, as well as unemployment benefits that expired over the recess, but neither appears to have the votes to pass.

  Democrats’ ability to handle these grueling tasks in September will shape their prospects to maintain control of Congress in the midterm elections next year, as history favors the party out of power to make gains.

  “It’s crunch time for Washington Democrats. Their odds of holding the House in the midterms are long, and campaign season will begin soon,” said House GOP aide Michael Steel. “They have the slimmest margin possible and no room for error.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/07/2021 – 19:50

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Heads Of Major German Auto Manufacturers Say Semi Shortage "May Not Just Disappear" In 2022
  Heads Of Major German Auto Manufacturers Say Semi Shortage “May Not Just Disappear” In 2022

  As if the auto industry needed more bad news about the ongoing semiconductor bottleneck, heads of major German automakers are speaking out and predicting that the shortage may not just disappear in 2022. 

  Volkswagen Chief Executive Officer Herbert Diess said on Bloomberg TV last week: “Probably we will remain in shortages for the next months or even years because semiconductors are in high demand. The internet of things is growing and the capacity ramp-up will take time. It will be probably a bottleneck for the next months and years to come.”

  Ola Kallenius at Daimler and Oliver Zipse of BMW also added to the pessimism. Kallenius said that the shortage “may not entirely go away” in 2022, according to Bloomberg. Zipse said there could be another 6 to 12 months left in the shortage.

  

  Kallenius noted that some are holding out hope for the shortage to let up in the fourth quarter. However, he also predicts that a “structural” demand issue will affect the industry in 2022. 

  Deiss said dealing with the Covid outbreak in Malaysia comes first, and that it may resolve “toward the end of this month, probably next month, and then recover in the last quarter of this year.” 

  Recall, we wrote days ago about how the Delta variant was stinging production in Malaysia. Malaysia is home to names like Infineon Technologies AG, NXP Semiconductors NV and STMicroelectronics NV, who all have operating plants in the country. With Covid infections soaring locally, plans for lifting lockdowns and re-opening production look as though they could fall by the wayside, according to Bloomberg.

  Daily infections are up to 20,000 per day, up from just 5,000 per day in late June. 

  Just last week, Ford cited “a semiconductor-related part shortage as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic in Malaysia” as a reason for temporarily suspending production at one U.S. plant. 

  

  Malaysian companies were allowed to operate at 60% of capacity during June lockdowns and they will be able to move to 100% capacity when more than 80% of their workforce is vaccinated, the report says.

  Despite this, factories have shuttered for weeks at a time for sanitation guidelines and the Delta variant is proving “difficult to stop”. 

  Samuel Tan, a semiconductor analyst with Kenanga Investment Bank, told Bloomberg: “This could be very disruptive for Infineon and other companies that have plants of a few thousand workers.”

  Lead times for chips increased by more than eight days to 20.2 weeks in July, from June. It is the longest wait time since Susquehanna Financial Group began tracking the data. 

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/07/2021 – 02:45

• UK Ticket Sales "Flatlining" As Rebellion Against Vaccine Passports Grows
  UK Ticket Sales “Flatlining” As Rebellion Against Vaccine Passports Grows

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  Ticket sales for events in the UK that could require vaccine passports are “flatlining” according to industry insiders, as the rebellion against the onerous system grows.

  

  The government has asserted that it will continue to pursue the policy despite multiple warnings that it will create a two tier society and put countless venues out of business.

  From the end of the month, people seeking to enter a nightclub in the UK will have to prove that they have been double jabbed.

  Proof of a negative test will no longer be accepted despite the fact that vaccinated people can still carry and pass on the virus.

  With nightclubs operating at a net profit margin of 15 per cent, and with around 25 per cent of young adults in the UK remaining unvaccinated, the industry faces potential financial ruin.

  The scheme is also expected to cover all venues where crowds of over 500 people gather, which includes some of London’s larger west end theatres.

  “There is a significant proportion of people who don’t want to use passports or are not vaccinated. It has settled at 20 per cent in France. We expect something similar here,” said Kate Nicholls, the chief executive of Hospitality UK.

  Nicholls noted that with the industry already struggling desperately as a result of lockdowns, the administrative costs combined with the loss of income as a result of people staying away will deliver “a further nail in the coffin of returning for many venues.”

  According to Michael Kill, of the Night Time Industries Association, ticket sales for events at the end of September and beyond are already “flatlining.”

  “We are seeing a lot of pushback from people who don’t want to come and have to show their health status on entry,” he told the Telegraph.

  Plans to introduce the passports are also going ahead despite Israel, which was the first major country to launch a similar scheme, now experiencing its highest COVID wave since the start of the pandemic.

  Numerous major European countries have also been rocked by weeks of protests and rioting against the measures, while many businesses in France have simply stopped enforcing them.

  As we highlighted earlier, the BBC is already reporting that vaccine passports are going to be rolled out with no mention of the fact that in a democratic society, such a scheme would require a Parliamentary vote.

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/07/2021 – 02:00

• The Houthis Are Pounding Riyadh's Positions As Fighting For Marib Continues
  The Houthis Are Pounding Riyadh’s Positions As Fighting For Marib Continues

  Submitted by South Front,

  The escalation of hostilities in Yemen is a fact, as Ansar Allah are attempting to capture Marib city once again. On September 5th, the Houthis (as Ansar Allah are known) claimed they had attacked several targets in eastern, western and southern Saudi Arabia as part of a large-scale operation.

  A total of 16 missiles and drones were launched during the course of the operation. Specifically, eight Samad-3 suicide drones and a Zulfiqar ballistic missile targeted vital facilities of oil giant Aramco at Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia’s main oil port on the Persian Gulf, in the Eastern province.

  Two Samad-3 suicide drones and five Badir artillery rockets were fired at different facilities of Aramco in the western Saudi province of Makkah as well as in the southern provinces of Jizan and Najran.

  The Saudi-led coalition claimed that its air-defenses had interpreted three ballistic missiles and three suicide drones, footage allegedly proving this fact was released.

  Still, explosions were reported on the ground in several areas. The usual, regular Houthi attack includes just a few missiles or one drone, but this is much more significant, after a lull in a fighting in August. The previous such operation took place in March 2021 and also boasted more than a dozen missiles and drones being launched by Ansar Allah.

  Meanwhile, in southern Yemen’s Aden, which serves as the capital of Yemen’s puppet government, a Saudi-led coalition commander was assassinated by an IED that struck his vehicle.

  It is unknown who was behind the attack that killed Major General Musa Mohsen al-Mashdali on September 4. Suspicions either point towards the Houthis or the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC). The STC is conditionally part of the Saudi-backed coalition but mostly operates towards its own interest and those of the UAE, as such clashes of interests and of forces have happened in the past.

  A final option is that an ISIS attack left him killed, as a result of the poor security measures in the areas under Saudi control.

  Around Marib city, fighting is almost constant, with a back-and-forth on the ground between Ansar Allah and the Saudi-led coalition. Riyadh’s forces continue carrying out at least 10 airstrikes on various Houthi positions each day, while Yemen’s movement responds with frequent drone and missile attacks on targets within the Kingdom.

  Neither are quite successful, as the airstrikes usually cause no casualties, while Saudi Arabia boasts of intercepting most, if not all of the Houthis projectiles.

  It is now just a matter of time until various international organizations, as well as NGOs begin calling for the Houthis to halt their attacks as a “humanitarian disaster” is looming over Yemen each time Ansar Allah has any success.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/07/2021 – 00:05

• Inside Lockheed's Super-Secret Skunk Works Factory
  Inside Lockheed’s Super-Secret Skunk Works Factory

  Over the years, we’ve mentioned Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works Advanced Development Programs (ADP), formerly called Lockheed Advanced Development Projects, for its production of highly classified war machines. Engineers at this top-secret campus have developed the U-2, SR-71 Blackbird, F-117 Nighthawk, F-22 Raptor, F-35 Lightning II, and there are rumors of sixth-generation fighter jets in development. 

  Located sixty-two miles north of Los Angeles, Skunk Works in Palmdale, California, opened its doors to a select group of reporters on Aug. 10, for the first time in eight years, according to Air Force Magazine (AFM). 

  For defense and aviation journalists, having the ability to tour the state-of-the-art factory was equivalent to receiving a Golden Ticket to Willy Wonka’s factory. 

  Skunk Works opened its doors to a select group of reporters during a ribbon-cutting ceremony of a new factory on its massive 539-acre campus. 

  

  AFM quoted Skunk Works Vice President and General Manager Jeff Babione, who expects the new facility will build “fighters; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft; hypersonic missiles; and other advanced projects, with possibly more than one project in series production at a time.” 

  Babione wouldn’t say if Lockheed would build Next-Generation Air Dominance fighters at the new plant.

  “This is a one-of-a-kind facility,” he told reporters, adding that: 

  One of four new factories to be opened by Lockheed Martin nationwide this year, it is an “intelligent, flexible” facility where there are “no permanent structures… there’s nothing drilled into the floor,” he said, allowing the plant to be reconfigured at will for efficient, flexible manufacturing. This flips the concept of most factories—such that for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter in Fort Worth, Texas—designed specifically to produce a particular product.

  “We have flexibility about where to put what you’re building within this massive floorplan,” he said. “Rather than the work coming to the robot, the robot will go to the work.” Robots will be able to perform one operation “on one end of the factory in the morning, and a completely different operation at the other end in the afternoon. So you’re going to see a significant increase in automation.”

  The robots are commercial machines that Lockheed Martin will program. The software to make them do an operation “does not have to be resident” in the system, Babione said. This reduces cost because the same equipment is not dedicated solely to a particular function or program but has application to many projects.

  The robots “will talk to each other,” Babione added. “How are we doing with cutter speed? Cutter sharpness … do we need to change things? How is the quality of the holes [being drilled]?” Other innovations include advanced test capabilities for wire bundles and laser systems that can spot out-of-tolerance part thicknesses to the thousandths of an inch.

  “This will be the first factory at the highest level of classification but has Wi-Fi inside,” to enable the speed of information and allow the “men and women working in that environment” to know the status of the equipment and processes at all times, he said.

  The new plant is a final assembly factory with parts from other campus areas and vendors infused by robots to produce war machines. 

  Byron Callan, managing director at Capital Alpha Partners, told Politico one of the main reasons Lockheed showed off its new facility is to one-up its competitors: Boeing and Northrop Grumman, all of which bid for Air Force contracts.

  “So many of these things are being done in classified program settings,” Callan said. “It’s probably really just a way to say, ‘Hey, we’re competitive, we’ve made investments in some of these areas.'”

  The reporters were escorted around the new facility and across the campus, sometimes in vans that moved in an underground network of tunnels. About 85% of the work completed on the campus is classified. One project where Skunk Works is open and is not considered unclassified is NASA’s X-59 supersonic flight demonstrator. 

  

  Like other companies, Lockheed is revamping how they do business to continue advancing their capabilities, such as fifth-generation aircraft, drones, and hypersonic weapons, to keep America dominant on the world stage. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/06/2021 – 23:30

• Goldman Cuts Its US GDP Forecast For The Third Time In The Past Month
  Goldman Cuts Its US GDP Forecast For The Third Time In The Past Month

  It’s official: while Q2 was the best quarter for the economy in decades, in Q3 it is now widely accepted that as we wrote a month ago, the wheels came off as a result of a “sudden negative change.”

  One doesn’t have to look too hard to find out why: between Friday’s catastrophic jobs report, the near record plunge in consumer confidence, the sharp contraction in retail sales where reports have missed expectations for 3 months in a row, whether it is due to the end of stimmies or the recent restrictions from the Delta variant, one bank after another took a machete, or in the case of Morgan Stanley, a nuke to their GDP Q3 forecast, with he bank on Thursday cutting its Q3 GDP to just 2.9% from 6.5% previously.

  It got so bad that the NY Fed on Friday unexpectedly announced that it was suspending its GDP Nowcast tracker, as the underlying numbers had gotten so bad volatile, the central bank’s economists were ashamed to use them for analysis as the product would have been ugly for the Biden admin:

  The uncertainty around the pandemic and the consequent volatility in the data have posed a number of challenges to the Nowcast model. Therefore, we have decided to suspend the publication of the Nowcast while we continue to work on methodological improvements to better address these challenges.

  But while the US central bank can pretend away bad numbers as if they simply don’t exist – or are “too volatile” – especially if their discussion would impair the fake recovery narrative said central bank is busy constructing, investment banks don’t have that luxury, and late on Monday – with the US on holiday – Goldman did precisely what we said it would do last week, and in a note titled “A Harder Path Ahead” published by its economics team, cut its Q3 GDP forecast for the third time in the past month. As a reminder, this is how Goldman reached the “startling” conclusion that the US economy was headed for a brick wall, which we first revealed to our readers back on August 13 when we said that “A Sudden Negative Change In The Economy”, something the big banks would then proceed to realize in the coming days, to wit:

  • On August 18, Goldman cuts its laughable Q3 GDP forecast from 8.5% to 5.5%, while expecting a “bigger inflation surge” (a clear warning that stagflation is coming), as “the impact of the Delta variant on growth and inflation is proving to be somewhat larger than we expected.” Yes, it’s al Delta’s fault that US consumers were all tapped out, as we warned one week earlier.
  • On Thursday, Sept 2, Goldman cuts Q3 GDP estimate for the second time from 5.5% to 3.5%, “to reflect the slower pace of manufacturing and trade inventory growth in July as well as the implications of sharply lower Auto SAAR in August.”
  • And then just 4 days later, on Sept 6, under the cover of the Memorial Day holiday, Goldman just cut its Q3 GDP forecast for the third time, and while the bank kept its Q3 GDP forecast at 3.5%, it is now starting to cut its outer forecasts, starting with Q4 GDP which it now sees at 5.5%, down from 6.5%, which means that on annual average basis, the bank’s GDP growth forecast is now 5.7% (vs. 6.2% consensus) in 2021 and 4.6% (vs. 4.3% consensus) in 2022, but as Goldman’s Jan Hatzius notes, “the annual average masks a sharp deceleration to below trend by end-2022.”

  

  While it hardly matters – after all, the bank will just find another goalseeked justification to cut its projections even more in a few weeks time as the economy slows down even more – here, for the first time, Goldman admits that it expects the Delta setback “to be brief”, while two longer-standing concerns pose challenges for consumption growth over the next few quarters:

  First, as we have been warning repeatedly in recent weeks, Goldman warns that “the fiscal impulse will fade sharply from its Q2 peak through end-2022.” Translation: no more stimmies. Fiscal support boosted disposable income to 9% above the pre-pandemic trend on average in 2021H1, but has already dropped off substantially. This decline will weigh on spending, though the impact should be offset by strong gains in labor income – which should keep disposable income modestly above its pre-pandemic trend- and by spending of excess savings built up during the pandemic, which amount to 18% of a year’s consumption.

  

  Second, consumers will need to rotate from a very elevated level of spending on goods back to a normal level of spending on services. Spending on goods will continue falling, though delayed purchases due to shortages of items such as new cars should slow the decline. But the rest of the service sector recovery will be much slower than the easy phase that followed vaccination, and with Covid fears likely to persist through the winter virus season, Goldman warns that it might take a while for spending to recover in still-depressed categories such as very high-contact and office-adjacent services.

  

  Bottom line, sophisticated sounding econobabble aside, simply judging by the frequency of its forecast “revision”, Goldman is totally clueless about what happens next and will thus keep revising its forecasts to comply with the narrative du jour. One thing we do know however is that stimmies are over, extended benefits are done, $2 trillion in excess savings have been mostly spent, profit margins are at all time highs and with stagflation on deck, can only slide, which means that either the Fed will soon do even more QE (it may of course taper first but that will simply accelerate the coming easing), or else we are looking at a major hit to both the economy and also the fake capital markets that now reflect just the Fed’s daily CTRL-P.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/06/2021 – 22:55

• NATO Chief Blasts China's Nuclear Arms Development "Without Any Limitation Or Constraint"
  NATO Chief Blasts China’s Nuclear Arms Development “Without Any Limitation Or Constraint”

  At NATO’s annual arms control conference on Monday Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg urged China to join international arms control talks, which would bring it into nuclear limitations dialogue with the United States and other major armed powers. 

  “China is building a large number of missile silos, which can significantly increase its nuclear capability. All of this is happening without any limitation or constraint. And with a complete lack of transparency,” Stoltenberg said. 

  

  He also said Beijing must take full responsibility for arms control, which it so far has refused to do. “As a global power, China has global responsibilities in arms control. And Beijing, too, would benefit from mutual limits on numbers, increased transparency, and more predictability,” Stoltenberg added. “These are the foundations for international stability.”

  While praising the US and Russia’s agreeing to extend their ‘New START’ agreement on limiting strategic nuclear arms, he underscored that future agreements will have to take into account rapidly developing and possibly unpredictable technologies, like A.I.

  Most Western estimates put China’s arsenal at about 320 warheads at the high estimate range, while the US and Russia each have over 1,500 deployed; however, the US is believed behind in terms of modernizing and updating its nuclear weapons systems, including ICBM capabilities. 

  Earlier this year the Pentagon briefed Congress on the faster than expected modernization rate of both China and Russia’s nuclear arsenals, strongly suggesting that Washington’s own modernization efforts have been outpaced. 

  

  Recall that during the prior Trump administration the former president had resisted quick extensions of landmark Cold War era treaties with Russia. The main rationale as expressed by the State Department at the time was that the old treaties didn’t account for new leaps in missile delivery technology possessed of Moscow and Beijing, and that they didn’t at all involve China.

  More recently, under the Biden administration the US disarmament Ambassador Robert Wood had accused China of “resisting” nuclear talks: “Despite the PRC’s dramatic build-up of its nuclear arsenal, unfortunately it continues to resist discussing nuclear risk reduction bilaterally with the United States,” Woods told a UN conference in May.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/06/2021 – 22:20

• The Appeal Of Chaos: How Politicians & Pundits Are Misconstruing The Supreme Court's Order On The Texas Abortion Law
  The Appeal Of Chaos: How Politicians & Pundits Are Misconstruing The Supreme Court’s Order On The Texas Abortion Law

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  Below is my column in The Hill on reaction to the refusal of the Supreme Court to enjoin the Texas abortion law. The order of the Court expressly did not reach the merits and certainly did not, as claimed, overturn Roe v. Wade. The Texas law is not even the greatest threat to Roe. Not only is there a pending case on the docket of the Court that has long been viewed as a serious threat to Roe, but the White House and the House of Representatives are threatening immediate actions that could also create new challenges for pro-choice litigants.

  

  Here is the column:

  It is often said that “in the midst of chaos, there is opportunity.” Widely attributed to Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu, that saying came to mind when President Biden declared this week that the Supreme Court “unleashed unconstitutional chaos” by declining to enjoin a Texas abortion law. In this self-described chaos, Democratic leaders moved to renew efforts to pack the court with a liberal majority, end the filibuster and federalize abortion laws.

  The problem with chaos, however, is that it can be easier to fuel than control. Indeed, Democrats may undermine abortion rights with plans for ill-conceived federal regulations and legislation.

  Just before midnight on Wednesday, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 not to grant an emergency injunction of a Texas law allowing citizens to enforce a highly restrictive abortion law. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) promptly declared that the court “overturned” Roe v. Wade, and she demanded immediate action; many media flogged the same narrative that conservative justices killed Roe in a midnight attack.

  

  Both were legally and factually wrong.

  The Texas law was enacted in May — but challengers waited until shortly before it was to take effect on Sept. 1 to demand emergency court intervention. It was a gamble that backfired when the court refused to intervene. However, the decision neither upheld Texas’s law nor reversed Roe.

  Not only was the court’s order removed from the actual merits of the law, but the majority expressly acknowledged that “the applicants now before us have raised serious questions regarding the constitutionality of the Texas law at issue.” The rejection of the injunction was because the challengers are suing a state judge and clerk who are not actually tasked with enforcing the law. They were virtually randomly selected in a challenge that seemed more improvisational than procedural. The majority stated that “federal courts enjoy the power to enjoin individuals tasked with enforcing laws, not the laws themselves.” Even in his dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts admitted it is unclear “whether, under existing precedent, this Court can issue an injunction against state judges asked to decide a lawsuit under Texas’s law.”

  It also is untrue that the court’s decision prevents the law from being challenged. The law can — and will — be challenged in both state and federal courts. (Indeed, it has already been enjoined by a state judge). If anyone seeks to use this law, it will be challenged and likely expedited on review. Moreover, lower courts are likely to find the law unconstitutional under existing law.

  The law’s drafters knew that setting the cutoff date before “viability” would conflict with the case law building on Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. It was designed to force a new review by the Supreme Court, the only body that can set aside or reverse its prior rulings.

  Future abortion rights do not run through Texas or Congress. Challenges to the Texas law will take months. But the most immediate threat to Roe is already on the docket.

  When Texas was enacting its law in May, the Supreme Court accepted a Mississippi case with a fundamental challenge in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The case was accepted for one unambiguous question: “whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.” That case will allow the court a direct, clear case to reconsider the basis for abortion. The final decision in Dobbs will likely long precede any final decision on Texas’s law.

  Of course, in some ways, the legacy of Roe is one of chaos.

  After that decision in 1973, there were widespread protests.

  Indeed, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a critic of Roe who saw it as too sweeping in supplanting state laws. She later blamed the case for reversing the trend toward more pro-choice states as the issue became a national political rallying cry.

  Ginsburg’s criticism is reflected in polls showing the country still deeply divided on the issue; Gallup’s most recent polling shows 49 percent for to 47 percent against abortion — largely unchanged from 2019, when it showed 49 percent to 46 percent. (Notably, the number of citizens who want to see Roe overturned is lower.)

  It is not just citizens but jurists and legal experts too who remain divided. For 50 years, the court has faced close votes on the issue. In 1989, a fractured court upheld a restrictive Missouri abortion law in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services. In 1992, Roe was barely saved by a simple plurality of the court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In 2000, a 5-4 vote in Stenberg v. Carhart struck down a partial-birth abortion law in Nebraska. But in 2007, the court voted 5-4 to uphold a ban on partial-birth abortion.

  Throughout this history, when abortion rights were upheld by a core of five liberal justices, it was called pure constitutionalism. Now, when a core of conservative justices threatens such rights, it is called pure chaos. When the court voted for pro-choice litigants, it was deemed “balanced.” Now, with a possible majority willing to curtail such rights, Biden is calling for action to “restore balance” to the court.

  That brings us to the pledge by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to codify Roe. Pelosi denounced the “Supreme Court’s cowardly, dark-of-night decision to uphold a flagrantly unconstitutional assault on women’s rights and health.” Putting aside that there was no vote on the merits of the law, Pelosi could be creating an opportunity for pro-life advocates in such a move. The House already has moved to federalize elections. This move could effectively federalize abortions if it mandated a single standard for abortions.

  Roe affirmed a federal constitutional right to an abortion. Yet the court has always recognized that states continue to exercise authority over abortion services subject to that constitutional standard. If the House just affirms the constitutional standard, it would be a meaningless exercise. Presumably, the House would federally enforce that standard, which could create a new basis for challenge. It could create additional federalism issues that might alienate some on the court, including Chief Justice Roberts, and improve the strategic position of pro-life litigators.

  Following a poorly crafted federal lawsuit with a poorly crafted federal law is hardly an improvement for pro-choice voters.

  Biden may magnify those problems by pledging a “whole-of-government response” to the court’s order. There is a real possibility that Democrats could lose ground in Dobbs. Moreover, the civil abortion provision may indeed be replicated in other states. However, the range of permissible state action is likely to be decided not by Congress but by the court, based not on a Texas law but on a Mississippi statute.

  Roe has long been the battlefield described by Napoleon as “a scene of constant chaos” in which “the winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemies.” The problem is that Biden cannot control that chaos any more than his predecessors and may, in fact, make it far worse.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/06/2021 – 21:45

• "A Big Extended Family": Oil Boom Turns Tiny North Dakota County Into Nation's Fastest Growing Populace
  “A Big Extended Family”: Oil Boom Turns Tiny North Dakota County Into Nation’s Fastest Growing Populace

  Maybe someone should alert the Biden administration that oil and gas isn’t 100% evil after all. 

  In fact, the industry has singlehandedly turned around a county in North Dakota, making it one of the fastest growing counties in the country, according to AP.

  In fact, after the motels of McKenzie County filled up, workers looking for steady wages and steady work “began sleeping in cars, tents, trailers”, just so they could make their way to the county. Families followed, helping boost the county to “the nation’s fastest-growing county during the past decade”.

  “Our little town just blew up at the seams,” said resident Dana Amon. The empty space Amon remembers as where she used to ride her horses is now “mile after mile of worker camps, shopping centers, subdivisions, hotels, truck yards and warehouses”.

  

  The county has been growing non-stop over the last decade, despite the fluctuations in oil prices. 

  Crude produced in the county was up 1,800% from 2010 to 2014. Over the course of the decade, the county’s population more than doubled to over 14,000 residents. 

  The median age over the county is 30, down from 39 in 2010. Median household income is up 61% to almost $78,000 over the same period of time. 

  The locals and the “imports” have started to co-exist, a decade later. Yolanda Rojas, an Arizona, native who followed her husband with their five children a year after he got a job in the oil fields, told AP: “I tell the locals, ‘If you guys kick me out, I’m not leaving. It’s my town,’”

  Rojas saved enough money to open a Mexican restaurant at the same time Covid hit. People in the community kept the restaurant afloat during Covid by ordering takeout. 

  

  10% of the county’s population is now Hispanic and about 10% is American Indian. Oil was first discovered in the area in the 1950s,  but the transition to fracking helped unlock crude reserves in North Dakota that were once inaccessible. 

  Howdy Lawlar, who chairs the McKenzie County Commission and has been in the area for five generations, said: “I feel like we’re becoming a big, extended family. It’s a good thing.”

  Farmhand Charlie Lewis, who came for oil field work but stayed to work on a farm, concluded: “People come for the work and stay for the community. The only time I think of going back is when it’s 40 below.”

  You can read AP’s full writeup here.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/06/2021 – 21:10

• World's Dirtiest Cities List Raises Issue: Why Don't Politicians Call Out China?
  World’s Dirtiest Cities List Raises Issue: Why Don’t Politicians Call Out China?

  Authored by David Holt via RealClearEnergy.org,

  Ponder this: A new tally of global cities’ emissions finds that the top 25 are responsible for 52% of the planet’s urban greenhouse gas emissions. Twenty-three of those are in China.

  

  New York City is the first American city to appear, at No. 26.

  Out of the top 75, just four other American cities are listed – San Diego, Houston, Chicago and Los Angeles – all of them ranked 41 or higher.

  In other words, the U.S. – including each of our major cities – is outperforming the world when it comes to emissions. 

  All this data begs a question of our elected leaders who say we have to do more for our environment, banking on the fact that many Americans hear “environment” and think only locally, as in their state or nation. The fact is that the environment – including carbon emission – is global, so what we do here matters but what happens globally matters as much, if not more.

  Unless we can use our U.S. innovation and leadership to spur other nations to make meaningful progress, then global environmental improvement will not happen. This is an indisputable fact.

  What we in the U.S. have been doing for the global environment is working, but trying to do more without the help of other nations will only hurt our economy and make life harder for families and small businesses – especially those in inner cities, on fixed incomes or at or below the poverty level. Many of have heard about environmental justice; well, energy justice is real and it has far-reaching consequences.

  Without a doubt, the U.S. must maintain its progress, which includes reducing emissions by more than any other nation for the last two decades – even as our record energy output made the U.S. the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas.

  There are those who argue, as they always do, that “we must do more” to show American environmental leadership to the rest of the world. For one, we could start by touting our current successes, and not self-flagellate to please a narrow world-view that starts with blaming America and relies heavily on socialist principles.

  We are already leading the world in terms of environmental regulations and controls, and again, we’ve – by far – reduced our emissions more than any country year after year for more than 20 years. By 2025, we will be more than two-thirds of the way to reaching our targeted emissions reduction of 28% from 2005 levels under the Paris Climate Agreement, according to Bloomberg Philanthropies. Part of that is owing to the good work we’ve done in our cities to reduce emissions.

  Contrast this with the facts about China, which recently won plaudits from many in the “we must do more” crowd for promising to stop increasing emissions before 2030. While we’re cutting our emissions, China’s pollution by then will have surged an estimated 14%-25%. On top of that, China’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 exceeded those of the entire developed world.

  Say that again: more than the entire developed world.

  Those are facts, undisputed by even the most hardcore anti-business zealot masquerading as an environmentalist.

  When facts don’t add up, you can count on activists and allied political figures to turn to fear as a sales tactic. Just look at the about-face on natural gas. After talking up natural gas as a “bridge fuel,” the big-money environmental lobby turned on it and, struggling to find a plausible reason for the 180-degree turn, warned of calamity over methane. The obvious solution, they posited in a fact-free manner, was stopping natural gas production and transportation.

  Natural gas is in large part responsible for our emissions reductions, as is our more recent and growing wind and solar power deployment. All of this ought to be applauded, not derided. It’s all good for our families, small businesses and farmers, and our economy. Energy is fundamental to a modern life, and it is essential to a healthy economy and population.

  Yet the “we must do more” gang is silent on China’s rapidly increasing emissions. This comes while the U.S. continues to rapidly reduce our emission – including carbon, volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides, and many, many more.

  However, the U.S. anti-energy activists are not so silent when it comes to asking the American government to go easy on China.

  More than 50 environmental groups recently sent a letter urging President Biden to be less aggressive toward Beijing, because it could risk Chinese cooperation. The groups, with no apparent sense of irony, wrote that doing so would build a “global economy that works for everyday working people.”

  We applaud their notion of supporting working people. But attempting to force the United States to curtail its affordable and reliable sources of energy is not supporting working people. It is harming them and taking away energy that ought to be the right of every American and indeed, everyone in the world. 

  If we want a forecast of the future as advocated for by activists, let’s look at our recent history. Barely eight months since a new presidential administration took over, we have seen what constraining American energy production does, through a moratorium on federal energy leases and the shutdown of the Keystone XL pipeline. Just look at the higher gas prices, lost jobs, proposed tax increases, and rising inflation and try not to have a flashback to the 1970s.

  American families, farmers and small businesses all benefit from safe, abundant, affordable, reliable and environmentally responsible energy. Without energy, we face job losses, economic opportunities and, some cases, the loss of life when energy is needed but not there.

  Government policies ought to start with the principle of delivering energy reliably and affordably to homes and businesses. The policies advanced by elected leaders who are expecting Americans to get used to going without energy – think planned blackouts due to inadequate energy supply – or to pay more for it when they need it most are wrong.

  When political leaders tell us we must ban certain energy sources to meet our emissions reduction goals, we should ask them why. Ask them about what they are doing about other countries, before they ask us to send our electrical grid backwards to the reliability and affordability levels experienced in the developing world.

  Americans should demand reliable, affordable and environmentally superior energy. We must accept nothing less, and tell our leaders we are watching what is happening in the rest of the world.

  We cannot meet our global environmental goals unless others follow America’s lead, not the other way around.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/06/2021 – 20:35

• 'AntiVaxMomma' Sold Fake Vaccination Cards That Got Verified In NY State Database
  ‘AntiVaxMomma’ Sold Fake Vaccination Cards That Got Verified In NY State Database

  In but the latest in the growing trend of fake vaccination card schemes and busts nationwide, a woman in New Jersey who was known to clients as “AntiVaxMomma” – which she goes by on Instagram – has been charged by police with offering false documents, criminal possession of a forged instrument and conspiracy.

  Police say she’s known to have sold some 250 fake COVID-19 vaccine cards over the past months for about $200 each in the New York City area. Communications were reportedly mainly done via Instagram direct messages.

  

  The scheme may have been one of the more elaborate ones uncovered of late, given that customers could offer $250 more for someone she was working with to enter the card buyer’s name into a New York state vaccination database, according to ABC News. This would then grant the ‘fake’ card verification status if checked against state health systems.

  New York state police had busted the pair by setting up a sting, which resulted in delivery of a fake vaxx card: 

  A New York state police investigator who became aware of the scam a few weeks later tested it by contacting Clifford to order a fake card and to be added to the state vaccine database, prosecutors said.

  In July, the investigator said in court papers, he received a package containing a CDC COVID-19 vaccination card marked with the name and date of birth he provided and a cellphone screenshot showing that the information he provided had also been added to the state database.

  Prosecutors said that among AntiVaxMomma’s clients included staff working in hospitals, nursing homes, and other health facilities who were attempting to dodge vaccine mandates for such facilities. It’s also believed the recent public school teacher mandate to get a first shot by September 27 is further fueling the black market demand for fake vaccine documents.

  Protip: if you are gonna run this scheme do not make your handle “AntiVaxMomma” https://t.co/yDZhbOsnwG

  — Duck Tale (@dakduffyj42) September 1, 2021

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

  The arrested woman, Jasmine Clifford, was said to be working with Nadayza Barkley, the latter who had access to state databases as a staffer for a Long Island medical clinic. 

  The case could suggest an increasing sophistication in how forgery and fake schemes operate, particularly given the conspirators had access to state shot records and could manipulate them from the inside. It appears the main reason they got caught was due to how prominently the schemers advertised the service on Instagram.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/06/2021 – 20:00

• Sky News Boss Lambasts YouTube For Suspension, "Opaque" Guidelines
  Sky News Boss Lambasts YouTube For Suspension, “Opaque” Guidelines

  Authored by Daniel Yang via The Epoch Times,

  Claims that Sky News Australia is spreading COVID-19 misinformation are “frankly ridiculous,” according to CEO Paul Whittaker, who issued a stinging criticism of video-sharing giant YouTube, at a parliamentary inquiry on Monday.

  

  Fronting the Standing Committee on Environment and Communications, Whittaker questioned why the Google-owned tech giant could be an arbiter of content.

  “There is no expectation that our viewers agree with every opinion expressed by every host, guest, or panellist,” he said.

  “But it now appears commonplace to discredit any debate on contentious issues as ‘misinformation’.”

  “YouTube’s actions make clear that it is not a neutral platform, but a publisher selectively broadcasting content and censoring certain views, while allowing videos that are patently false, misogynistic, and racist to proliferate,” Whittaker said.

  “Why does a tech giant, YouTube, and faceless, nameless individuals backed by an algorithm, based in California, get to decide that holding governments and decision-makers to account is ‘misinformation’? Why do they get to decide what is and isn’t allowed to be news?” he said.

  

  Paul Whittaker, CEO of Sky News Australia appearing via video link at a parliamentary inquiry into media diversity on Sept. 6, 2021 (Screenshot)

  The committee is investigating the state of media diversity and concentration in Australia.

  The inquiry was launched following a petition spearheaded by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to investigate the influence of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.

  In early August, YouTube suspended Sky News’ for one week for allegedly posting “COVID-19 misinformation,” issuing a “first strike” against the 24-hour news channel—akin to a warning under its three strikes policy.

  Lucinda Longcroft, Google Australia’s director of government affairs and public policy, told the inquiry earlier that the tech giant enforced its own code on COVID-19-related content, claiming to work with health and media authorities to combat false and harmful content.

  “Where there are videos that, without further context, assert that those drugs [ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine] are effective we remove them because of the danger and medical harm that could be caused to users,” Longcroft said.

  Over 5,000 “dangerous and misleading” videos were traced to Australian IP addresses and removed by YouTube between February 2020 to March 2021, including 23 videos posted by Sky News.

  Longcroft said Sky News’ content was removed due to violations of the code as well as two breaches of political integrity guidelines.

  However, Whittaker countered by saying that it was in the public interest for alternative drugs to be discussed, especially because no vaccines were available last year.

  

  A woman with a smartphone walks past a billboard advertisement for YouTube in Berlin on Sept. 27, 2019. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

  “Sky News Australia strongly supports vaccination. Any claims to the contrary are false and a blatant attempt to discredit and harm our news service,” he said.

  “It’s a scientific debate that continues to this day.”

  The CEO also said YouTube’s review process lacked transparency and was “incapable of compliance.”

  “Unlike other publishers’ policies, YouTube’s process for review and removal of content lacks transparency and a clearly articulated process which affords channel operators the opportunity to address concerns or to challenge an assessment prior to a suspension occurring,” he said.

  He claimed Sky News had attempted to seek confirmation from YouTube on whether historical content would trigger any further action but said no response was given.

  “With no transparency provided, Sky News took the proactive approach of removing a batch of videos all published during 2020 from online platforms to ensure ongoing compliance with YouTube’s arbitrary editorial guidelines,” Whittaker said, noting it was not an admission of failure to comply with YouTube’s regulations, but “merely an attempt to navigate opaque polices.”

  He also raised comparisons with authoritarianism.

  “If we’re saying that YouTube is the model that we want our regulator to abide by. That means we are saying they should be able to shutdown a major TV network with 30 minutes notice, with no complication, no explanation, no written justification, no procedural fairness. That to me sounds more like authoritarianism or a totalitarian state, rather than a liberal democracy.”

  

  Silhouettes of mobile device users are seen next to a screen projection of YouTube’s logo in this picture illustration taken March 28, 2018. (Dado Ruvic/Illustration/Reuters)

  Whittaker said it was “beyond debate” that YouTube should be deemed a publisher that selectively edited content for political and commercial reasons.

  “But unlike traditional media it does not accept any of the regulatory or legal burdens that being deemed a ‘publisher’ carries with it,” he said, calling for “vigorous debate” on treating YouTube as a publisher.

  Sky News has uploaded over 50,000 hours of content on YouTube and has garnered over 1.98 million followers.

  The channel has consistently covered updates on global efforts to track down the origins of COVID-19, some of which were initially dismissed as “conspiracy theories,” however, other news outlets have since recognised the viability of these explanations.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/06/2021 – 19:25

• End Of Summer? Above Average Temperatures This Week But Cooler Weather Ahead 
  End Of Summer? Above Average Temperatures This Week But Cooler Weather Ahead 

  This week, the US Lower 48 temperature outlook forecasts summer is not over for some parts of the country. 

  For the week ending Sept. 11, cooling degree days (CDD) are estimated to be around 60 CDD, 14 CDD above the 30-year long-term trend for this year, which is approximately 44 CDD, according to new data from the NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS).

  

  For readers who aren’t familiar with CDD, it’s a measure of demand for energy needed to cool a building structure. It’s the number of degrees that a day’s average temperature is above 65F. 

  CDD is generally used as a risk management tool for agriculture, construction, utility, and other firms that hedge activities dependent on weather activities. 

  In NOAA’s weekly CDD forecast, the most significant outliers on a regional and state basis were: 

  Regional: 

  • Mountain: 89 forecasts versus 47 normal
  • Pacific: 74 forecasts versus 34 normal
  • West South Central: 118 forecasts versus 95 normal

  States 

  • Utah: 93 forecasts versus 21 normal
  • Nevada: 145 forecasts versus 75 normal
  • California: 86 forecasts versus 44 normal

  By the second half of the month, around 17-19, the US Lower 48 temperature outlook is expected to revert to the 30-year mean. Looking at it another way, temperature highs are expected to begin plunging in the second half of the month. 

  

  As temperatures are expected to drop later this month, forecasted heating degree days are also rising, showing that colder weather may force some Americans to turn off their air conditioners for the year and turn up the thermostats. This would imply a rise in energy and electricity prices.  

  

  Already, the search term “propane heater” across the US has reached a new 30 day high.

  

  So expect above-average temperatures this week, but realize that cooler temperatures are on the way, may begin as early as Sept. 17-19. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/06/2021 – 18:50

• State Department, Then Taliban, Reportedly Blocking Private Rescue Planes From Departing Afghanistan
  State Department, Then Taliban, Reportedly Blocking Private Rescue Planes From Departing Afghanistan

  Several reports began to trickle in over the weekend about planes stuck in Afghanistan which are trying to evacuate stranded Americans and Afghan allies.

  

  While a ‘senior Congressional source’ told CBS News on Sunday that ‘the Taliban won’t let them leave,’ several new sources have come forward to blame the Biden State Department for preventing the flights from leaving earlier in the weekend.

  According to Fox News and former Trump admin official Emily Miller – both of whom have been in direct contact with Americans involved in a private rescue effort – including leader Rick Clay – the Biden administration put up red-tape roadblocks.

  “The State Department is the sole entity preventing their charter flights from leaving Afghanistan,” one of the rescuers told Fox.

  America: right now there is a private effort to get a plane of US citizens and allies out of Afghanistan. They need @SecBlinken to help get clearance to land in a nearby country.

  Biden’s State Department is refusing to actively assist.

  Their response: “just tell them to ask.”

  — Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) September 2, 2021

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

  “This is zero place to be negotiating with American lives. Those are our people standing on the tarmac and all it takes is a f****ing phone call,” one of the rescuers told Fox News. “If one life is lost as a result of this, the blood is on the White House’s hands. The blood is on their hands,” that individual said, adding: “It is not the Taliban that is holding this up – as much as it sickens me to say that – it is the United States government.” 

  That individual suggested that the State Department’s obstruction is motivated in part by embarrassment that private individuals are rescuing Americans that the U.S. government left behind. 

  Military command over Al Udeid Air Base in Doha, Qatar, have informed those seeking clearance to land that they must first go through the State Department to gain approval, an email reviewed by Fox News shows. 

  Clay has a manifest of 4,500 names of U.S. citizens, green card holders, SIVs and refugees trying to get state-side. So far, they’ve given the State Department 800 names for a first round of flights. Fox News has reviewed that manifest, which confirms Clay’s account.

  …

  Clay told Fox News that his organization is “having problems getting permission” from the Biden State Department “to land on the return flight” from Afghanistan in a neighboring country. –Fox News

  According to Clay, the State Department “is not allowing any private charters carrying refugees [to] land anywhere” in nearby countries, and has provided several “excuses” as to why – including a supposed lack of air traffic controllers and ‘radar issues.’

  “We still have Americans we can get out,” he added.

  The State Department, meanwhile, showed CBS News an email which allegedly says the flights out of Afghanistan can leave “if and when the Taliban agrees to takeoff.”

  Early Friday morn @RealClearNews was reporting on these 6 planes with American CITIZENS and Afghan allies waiting for State Dept clearance and now being blocked by the Taliban — @StateDept was telling me they had nothing to do with preventing them from taking off – that is wrong https://t.co/Etn0cu9xgA

  — Susan Crabtree (@susancrabtree) September 5, 2021

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

  “The Taliban is basically holding them hostage to get more out of the Americans,” a senior congressional source told CBS News. 3/

  — Ruffini (@EenaRuffini) September 5, 2021

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

  Former Trump admin official Emily Miller, who first reported the stranded rescue effort on Thursday, has been keeping a running blog of her direct communications with several individuals involved who are on the ground in Afghanistan, as well as provided a page with information for people who want to leave Afghanistan.

  The 6 planes are still on the tarmac at Mazar-i-Sharif International Airport, per “Sam”, who is the only source that has been accurate throughout this saga on the planes. #ProjectExodus Sam explains why…

  — Emily Miller (@emilymiller) September 6, 2021

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

  On Saturday, Miller wrote: “Sam in Project Exodus still says the planes aren’t leaving because the airline hasn’t gotten documents from the State Department for destination airfield. “I’ve been told things are stalled,” he texted me tonight.”

  There is no way they are not letting these people leave. They have no reason to detain them (other than money and negotiating leverage).

  With there already being internal fighting between Taliban leadership, Afghanistan bankrupt, inflation 80%, people starving; etc.; TB know they need legitimization and foreign aid. They are savages but they are not stupid.

  Here are the latest updates via Emily Posts News:

  Six planes Sunday — Status update from Sam, who is the only source that has been accurate throughout this saga!

  KAMAir is still grounded. I’m first on the list to call as soon as things get moving – so I’m told. I haven’t seen the news, so I’m not sure what’s being put out or if it’s helping/hurting.

  Nobody is actually sitting on the planes right now.

  I don’t have facts as to why the Taliban are delaying, but I’ve been told they want to verify manifests and don’t have the horse power to do so.

  My guess is they are coordinating with Turkey to help them run tower operations to activate the runway.

  Again, I’m drawing that conclusion by stitching several different sources together. As soon a people start getting up here, I’ll dig some more

  Six airplanes in the news— Today, the media elite finally decided to publicly report about the six charter planes and Americans that can’t get out of Afghanistan. I reported it first on Sept. 2 at 2:30 pm ET.

  The corporate media knew about the planes — at least since I reported it. They asked the White House and State Department about it. They were told information to keep “confidential”, and they obeyed the government.

  I spoke to the State Department Spokesman directly. His “confidential” information was not being withheld for safety of the people in the airport. It just shows that the government was incapable of getting Americans out of the country. The media elite withheld that from the public for that reason only.

  There are 6 aircraft in Afghanistan with American citizens onboard that have been sitting on the ground for 36 hours because the @StateDept won’t authorize them to take off with the citizens.

  The rest of the thread is text from retired SFO in UAE, part of #ProjectExodus

  — Emily Miller (@emilymiller) September 2, 2021

  Money- Toward the end of last week, people in Afghanistan who need to escape started running out of cash. Today, Mark went to Western Union to send $350 to one of the Afghan Special Forces who he has worked with for years. Western Union told him that, as of today, it is no longer authorized to send any wire transfers to Afghanistan.

  It costs just $200 for airline ticket to fly his whole family to fly within the country to a safer city. But the Afghanistan military stopped paying its forces two months ago so they don’t have cash.

  Also, the banks in Afghanistan put a limit on ATM withdrawals to just $200 a week.

  Big picture— I went on a twitterant today because I’m so frustrated with the incompetence and lies from the U. S. Government. Click below to read the thread.

  One week ago, I got this email from retired special forces operator (who is now a friend and partner). I didn’t believe him.
  Our government abandoned American citizens and longtime allies in Afghanistan to be killed by Taliban?
  Yes, and nothing has changed. (1/?) https://t.co/cPjQjeneum

  — Emily Miller (@emilymiller) September 5, 2021

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

  Follow along at Emily Posts News.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/06/2021 – 18:37

• Aussie Health Chief: COVID Will Be With Us "Forever", People Will Have To "Get Used To" Endless Booster Vaccines
  Aussie Health Chief: COVID Will Be With Us “Forever”, People Will Have To “Get Used To” Endless Booster Vaccines

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  Australian health chief Dr. Kerry Chant says that COVID will be with us “forever” and people will have to “get used to” taking endless booster vaccines.

  

  The New South Wales Chief Health Officer made the alarming comments during a recent press conference.

  “We need to get used to being vaccinated with COVID vaccines for the future … I can’t see COVID is not going to be with us forever,” said Chant said during a press conference last week.

  Dr Chant
  “We need to get used to being vaccinated with covid vaccines for the future “ pic.twitter.com/WKkvfvDOE9

  — Razorback1111 (@razorback11111) August 30, 2021

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

  “As a public health doctor we always want to have diseases go, to be totally eliminated, but that is not on the horizon in the near future,” she continued. “Booster doses and repeat doses will be part of it.”

  “I can assure you that the commonwealth government has purchased large quantities of vaccine into 2022 and this will be a regular cycle of vaccination and revaccination as we learn more about when immunity wanes.”

  In a separate answer to a reporter, Chant again asserted that people “will be getting vaccinated regularly” against COVID.

  Dr Chant ,
  “What I really need to do is get that second dose into people “ pic.twitter.com/qmvGTDGPKd

  — Razorback1111 (@razorback11111) September 2, 2021

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

  Given that Australians were previously told authorities “wouldn’t hesitate” to go door to door to carry out COVID tests, what’s to stop them doing the same thing for vaccines?

  As we previously highlighted, the infamously stern-faced Chant previously warned Aussies that they shouldn’t even be talking to their own friends and neighbors, even if they’re wearing a mask.

  “Whilst it’s human nature to engage in conversation with others, to be friendly, unfortunately this is not the time to do that,” said Chant.

  “So even if you run into your next door neighbor in the shopping center…don’t start up a conversation, now is the time for minimizing your interactions with others, even if you’ve got a mask, do not think that affords total protection,” she added.

  Australia continues to pursue a disastrous ‘zero COVID’ policy enforced via endless lockdowns that have characterized the country as a “prison island” with no escape anywhere on the horizon.

  Anyone who challenges the policy via protests faces fines of up to $11,000 dollars while police have also carried out home visits to people who merely promote anti-lockdown demonstrations via social media.

  *  *  *

  Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

  In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. I need you to sign up for my free newsletter here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Get early access, exclusive content and behinds the scenes stuff by following me on Locals.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/06/2021 – 18:15

• NYC Home Made Out Of 21 Shipping Containers Sells For $5 Million
  NYC Home Made Out Of 21 Shipping Containers Sells For $5 Million

  It’s looking like the shipping container shortage is far more real than anyone could have imagined.

  That’s because a “green” house made of shipping containers in Williamsburg just sold for $5 million. The house is made only of 21 shipping containers, according to the NY Post.

  

  It was completed in 2016 after being commissioned by Brooklyn-based restaurateurs Joe and Kim Carroll.

  Containers were “cleverly stacked” to create a slanted shape, which gives the home its unique shape. 

  

  “To assemble the dwelling on the 25-by-100-foot corner lot, the architects placed three containers side by side, and sliced them at an angle before they cleverly stacked them together in a manner that formed the four-floor home’s slanted shape,” the site notes state.

  The home is 3,500 square feet and sports five bedrooms.

  

  The listing for the home says it sports “New York City’s last permitted wood-burning fireplace,” and that it also comes with two driveways and a garage. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/06/2021 – 17:40

• Investigating The Mass Hysteria Over 1 Degree In Climate Change Since 1850
  Investigating The Mass Hysteria Over 1 Degree In Climate Change Since 1850

  Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

  Let’s discuss the Physical Science Basis for Climate Change and the media hype over the report.

  

  Inquiring minds are diving into the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

  Please consider the Climate Change 2021 Report, the Physical Science Basis.

  Key Snips 

  1. Global surface temperature was 1.09 [0.95 to 1.20] °C higher in 2011– 2020 than 1850–1900, with larger increases over land (1.59 [1.34 to 1.83] °C) than over the ocean (0.88 [0.68 to 1.01] °C). The estimated increase in global surface temperature since AR5 is principally due to further warming since 2003–2012 (+0.19 [0.16 to 0.22] °C). Additionally, methodological advances and new datasets contributed approximately 0.1ºC to the updated estimate of warming in AR6  

  2. The likely range of total human-caused global surface temperature increase from 1850–1900 to 2010–2019 is 0.8°C to 1.3°C, with a best estimate of 1.07°C. 

  3. Global mean sea level increased by 0.20 [0.15 to 0.25] m between 1901 and 2018. The average rate of sea level rise was 1.3 [0.6 to 2.1] mm yr between 1901 and 1971, increasing to 1.9 [0.8 to 2.9] mm yr between 1971 and 2006, and further increasing to 3.7 [3.2 to 4.2] mm yr between 2006 and 2018 (high confidence). 

  4. In 2011–2020, annual average Arctic sea ice area reached its lowest level since at least 1850 (high confidence). Late summer Arctic sea ice area was smaller than at any time in at least the past 1000 years (medium confidence). The global nature of glacier retreat, with almost all of the world’s glaciers retreating synchronously, since the 1950s is unprecedented in at least the last 2000 years (medium confidence).

  5. It is likely that the global proportion of major (Category 3–5) tropical cyclone occurrence has increased over the last four decades, and the latitude where tropical cyclones in the western North Pacific reach their peak intensity has shifted northward; these changes cannot be explained by internal variability alone (medium confidence). There is low confidence in long-term (multi-decadal to centennial) trends in the frequency of all-category tropical cyclones. 

  6. Global surface temperature will continue to increase until at least the mid-century under all emissions scenarios considered. Global warming of 1.5°C and 2°C will be exceeded during the 21st century unless deep reductions in CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades.

  7. It is very likely that heavy precipitation events will intensify and become more frequent in most regions with additional global warming. At the global scale, extreme daily precipitation events are projected to intensify by about 7% for each 1°C of global warming (high confidence).

  8. It is virtually certain that global mean sea level will continue to rise over the 21st century. Relative to 1995-2014, the likely global mean sea level rise by 2100 is 0.28-0.55 m under the very low GHG emissions scenario (SSP1-1.9), 0.32-0.62 m under the low GHG emissions scenario (SSP1-2.6), 0.44-0.76 m under the intermediate GHG emissions scenario (SSP2-4.5), and 0.63-1.01 m under the very high GHG emissions scenario (SSP5-8.5), and by 2150 is 0.37-0.86 m under the very low scenario (SSP1-1.9), 0.46- 0.99 m under the low scenario (SSP1-2.6), 0.66-1.33 m under the intermediate scenario (SSP2-4.5), and 0.98-1.88 m under the very high scenario (SSP5-8.5) (medium confidence).

  Changes in Global Surface Temperatures

  

  Key Snip Synopsis

  • Temperatures have risen a a best estimate of 1.07°C since 1850 due to man-made causes.

  • The sea rise between 1971 and 2006 was 1.3 mm per year. That’s 0.0511811 inches per year. 

  • The sea rise between 2006 and 2018 was 3.7 mm per year. That’s 0.145669 inches per year.

  • Under all emissions scenarios, global warming of 1.5°C and 2°C will be exceeded during the 21st century.

  Future Emissions Projections 

  

  Future Emissions Projections Table

  

  Future Emissions “What If?”

  • If by some miracle we follow the SSP 1-1.9 row in the table, the current best estimate is temperatures will rise anyway until 2100 by 1.4 degrees.

  • According to row SSP 2-4.5, if there is no further progress at all until 2050, temperatures would only rise an additional 1.3 degrees vs SSP 1-1.9.

  • Under SSP 1-2.6, there’s a mere 0.4 degrees difference from a very radical effort to cut emissions to 0 by 2050!

  Media Can’t Handle the Climate Truth

  Please consider the WSJ Op-Ed Media Can’t Handle the Climate Truth

  After 41 years of promoting a fuzzy and unsatisfying estimate of how much warming might result from a doubling of atmospheric CO2, the world’s climate science arbiter has finally offered the first real improvement in the history of modern climate science.

  The U.N. panel now says the dire emissions scenario it promoted for two decades should be regarded as highly unlikely, with more plausible projections at least a third lower.

  The report also notes, as the press never does, the full impact of these emissions won’t be manifested until decades, even a century, later. The ultimate likely worst-case effect of a doubling of CO2 might be 4 degrees, but the best estimate of the “transient climate response” this century is about 2.7 degrees, or 1.6 degrees on top of the warming experienced since the start of the industrial age.

  You might not wish this on your least-favorite planet, but compare it with media coverage of the U.S. National Climate Assessment in 2018, which paraded as a nearly foregone conclusion a temperature increase of 6.1 degrees.

  This week’s massive rainstorm in the Northeast reflexively was described as a consequence of climate change. Never mind that heavy rains always happened and, in any case, climate policy can’t be a solution for a New York City storm-drain system designed not to withstand a five-year storm, let alone a 100-year storm.

  Or take the U.S. government’s claim that July was the hottest month on record. Unmentioned in any news report that I could find, the margin of error in this measurement was 10 times as large as the purported difference over the previously claimed hottest month of July 2016.

  Code Red For Humanity?

  The words most quoted in the press weren’t found in the U.N. report or even its executive summary. They were the claims of a pair of U.N. officials that the report heralded a “code red for humanity” and, even more devoid of meaning, that “no one is safe” from a warming planet.

  Even if you believe the science, the one thing neither the media nor any panels like to discuss is costs.

  Economically Crazy

  

  Stunningly Absurd Green New Deal

  On February 7 2020, AOC unleashed her Stunningly Absurd “New Green Deal”.

  1. Upgrade all existing buildings in the US

  2. 100% clean power

  3. Support family farms

  4. Universal access to healthy food

  5. Zero-emission vehicle infrastructure

  6. Remove greenhouse gasses form the atmosphere

  7. Eliminate unfair competition

  8. Affordable access to electricity

  9. Create high-quality union jobs that pay prevailing wages

  10. Guaranteeing a job with a family sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States

  A think-tank led by a former Congressional Budget Office director has come up with a price of the New Green Deal: AOC’s Green New Deal Price Tag of $51 to $93 Trillion vs. Cost of Doing Nothing

  More $90 Trillion Solutions

  In 2015, Business Insider noted A Plan Is Floating Around Davos To Spend $90 Trillion Redesigning All The Cities So They Don’t Need Cars

  The $90 trillion proposal came from former US vice president Al Gore, former president of Mexico Felipe Calderon, and their colleagues on The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. 

  50 Years of Dire Climate Forecasts

  Let’s review 50 Years of Dire Climate Forecasts and What Actually Happened

  1. 1967 Salt Lake Tribune: Dire Famine Forecast by 1975, Already Too Late

  2. 1969 NYT: “Unless we are extremely lucky, everyone will disappear in a cloud of blue steam in 20 years. The situation will get worse unless we change our behavior.“

  3. 1970 Boston Globe: Scientist Predicts New Ice Age by 21st Century said James P. Lodge, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

  4. 1971 Washington Post: Disastrous New Ice Age Coming says S.I. Rasool at NASA.

  5. 1972 Brown University Letter to President Nixon: Warning on Global Cooling

  6. 1974 The Guardian: Space Satellites Show Ice Age Coming Fast

  7. 1974 Time Magazine: Another Ice Age “Telling signs everywhere. Since the 1940s mean global temperatures have dropped 2.7 degrees F.”

  8. 1974 “Ozone Depletion a Great Peril to Life” University of Michigan Scientist

  9. 1976 NYT The Cooling: University of Wisconsin climatologist Stephen Schneider laments about the “deaf ear his warnings received.”

  10. 1988 Agence France Press: Maldives will be Completely Under Water in 30 Years.

  11. 1989 Associated Press: UN Official Says Rising Seas to ‘Obliterate Nations’ by 2000.

  12. 1989 Salon: New York City’s West Side Highway underwater by 2019 said Jim Hansen the scientist who lectured Congress in 1988 about the greenhouse effect.

  13. 2000 The Independent: “Snowfalls are a thing of the past. Our children will not know what snow is,” says senior climate researcher.

  14. 2004 The Guardian: The Pentagon Tells Bush Climate Change Will Destroy Us. “Britain will be Siberian in less than 20 years,” the Pentagon told Bush.

  15. 2008 Associate Press: NASA Scientist says “We’re Toast. In 5-10 years the Arctic will be Ice Free”

  16. 2008 Al Gore: Al Gore warns of ice-free Arctic by 2013.

  17. 2009 The Independent: Prince Charles says Just 96 Months to Save the World. “The price of capitalism is too high.”

  18. 2009 The Independent: Gordon Brown says “We have fewer than 50 days to save our planet from catastrophe.”

  19. 2013 The Guardian: The Arctic will be Ice Free in Two Years. “The release of a 50 gigaton of methane pulse” will destabilize the planet.

  20. 2013 The Guardian: US Navy Predicts Ice Free Arctic by 2016. “The US Navy’s department of Oceanography uses complex modeling to makes its forecast more accurate than others.

  21. 2014 John Kerry: “We have 500 days to Avoid Climate Chaos” discussed Sec of State John Kerry and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabious at a joint meeting.

  World Will End in 12 Years 

  Also recall AOC’s shocking revelation World Will End in 12 Years if we don’t act on climate change.

  .@AOC on millennials and social media: “We’re, like, the world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change” pic.twitter.com/HjhbVyfFN4

  — Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 22, 2019

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

  AOC says that was “hyperbole”. Play the clip. She sure sounded serious, and got a huge round of applause to boot.

  Moreover, look at the absurd details of her plan that I outlined above. She sure acts serious as well.

  Cost Comparison

  The cost of following scenario SSP 1-1.9 would be in the tens of trillions of dollars if not higher. The alleged benefit is 0.4 degrees by 2100, phased in over roughly 80 years.

  The cost of following SSP 1-2.6 is arguably little. We may very well already be on a path to reduce emissions by 50% by 2050. 

  AOC wants an 80% reduction by 2030 and 100% by 2035. That is far more radical than SSP 1-1.9.

  It’s also economically crazy. I believe, anything beyond SSP 1-2.6 is economically crazy.

  New Prophets of Doom 

  Al Gore, AOC, president Biden, John Kerry, and Gretta are the new prophets of doom.

  Every decade has them. 

  AOC and Gretta are the new torch bearers.

  Mainstream media always goes along with the hype and the new torch bearers, no matter what the story.

  Code Red for the Opportunists!

  “Code Red” is the drumbeat of of the progressives and those who stand to stand to benefit from trillions of dollars of spending thrown at the impossible idea stopping of climate change. 

  The media is behind every “Code Red” story because it attracts eyes. “Code Red” on Iraq led most into believing the nonsensical “weapons of mass destruction” story got got us into Iraq and Afghanistan for 20 years.

  If we follow this “Code Red”, costs of everything will soar and GDP will sink. 

  How to Avoid a Carbon-Based Global Trade War in Simple Steps

  There are two plans that address how to avoid a carbon-based global trade war. 

  In How to Avoid a Carbon-Based Global Trade War in Simple Steps, World Trade Online presents one idea. I present another, far simpler idea.

  Stagflation Threat of Climate Hysteria

  The Stagflation Threat of Climate Hype is very real but Congress holds the key.

  Only two Democratic Senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona stand in the way of a real disaster. 

  Fortunately, Senator Manchin Seeks “Strategic Pause on Reconciliation” 

  Did Biden’s Green New Budget Just Die?

  Let’s hope so.

  Meanwhile, it’s futile to attack the science whether you believe it or not, so just accept it. 

  Instead, openly embrace the idea of 0.4 degrees by 2100. Alternatively, point to the chart of what happens if we delay further progress until 2050.

  Then attack the obvious economic stupidity of what those like AOC propose to do about it.

  *  *  *

  Like these reports? If so, please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/06/2021 – 17:05

• United Nations Vows To Keep Afghan Aid Flowing After Meeting With Taliban
  United Nations Vows To Keep Afghan Aid Flowing After Meeting With Taliban

  After a meeting between top UN officials and Taliban leaders on Sunday, including Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar – who is expected to be Afghanistan’s next president, the Taliban said the UN has vowed to keep aid flowing to the country, which ultimately means at least in part to the Taliban itself. 

  Representing the UN side was Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths. A Taliban spokesman said, “The UN delegation promised continuation of humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people, saying he would call for further assistance to Afghanistan during the coming meeting of donor countries.” 

  

  “The IEA delegation thanked the UN delegation, assuring them of cooperation and provision of needed
  facilities,” the spokesman Suhail Shaheen added.

  The UN’s Griffiths at the meeting “reiterated the humanitarian community’s commitment to deliver impartial and independent humanitarian assistance and protection to millions of people in need.”

  The UN also urged the Taliban to uphold gender equality and the rights of minorities: “He emphasized the critical role of women in the delivery of aid and called on all parties to ensure their rights, safety and well-being. He called for all civilians – especially women and girls and minorities – to be protected at all times. Mr. Griffiths expressed his solidarity with the people of Afghanistan,” a UN statement said.

  “Now more than ever, the people of Afghanistan need the support and solidarity of the international community,” the UN added. 

  The UN statement called the humanitarian catastrophe still gripping the country after two decades of war a “grim situation” and described the future bleak outlook for children as follows: “…more than half of all children under-five are at risk of acute malnutrition as the second severe drought in four years threatens to spark further hunger in the months ahead.”

  The UN delegation had been invited to speak to Baradar in Kabul, also at a moment the European Union is considering reestablishing offices inside the Afghan capital for the purpose of EU-wide representation to the Taliban.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/06/2021 – 16:30

• Economic War Comes Home: Portland Urges Imposition Of Sanctions Against Texas
  Economic War Comes Home: Portland Urges Imposition Of Sanctions Against Texas

  Via Southfront.org,

  The infamous U.S. sanction strategy in foreign policy now is now being used to ‘deal with’ internal issues…

  

  The controversial Texas law, that bans abortions as early as six weeks is now in effect.  It was signed into law back in May by Gov. Greg Abbott. It was widely criticized not only by women’s rights advocates, abortion activists and abortion providers, but also by other states’ officials.

  The Portland City Council is going to consider to adopt an emergency resolution next week that will be aimed to ban goods and services from Texas, because of the new abortion law there.

  The council will take up the emergency resolution on September 8.

  On September 3, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler claimed the intent “to ban the city’s future procurement of goods and services from, and city employee business travel to, the state of Texas.” 

  It should be in effect until Texas “withdraws it unconstitutional ban on abortion or until it is overturned in court.”

  “The Portland City Council stands unified in its belief that all people should have the right to choose if and when they carry a pregnancy and that the decisions they make are complex, difficult, and unique to their circumstances. Nearly 50 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled to protect safe, legal abortion. Late Wednesday night, the Supreme Court declined to block a Texas law banning abortions after only 6 weeks of pregnancy. This 5-4 decision allows Texas to outlaw an estimated 85% of all abortion procedures in the state.” – the mayor’s statement reads.

  He also called on other U.S. leaders join Portland’s effort to punish the state of Texas.

  Texas is one of the most conservative states in the U.S., which has not voted for a Democrat for president since 1976. The political split in the U.S. is deepening and the sides are close to using economic warfare.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/06/2021 – 15:55

• Singapore Braces For "Exponential Rise" In COVID Cases As More Asian Countries Embrace Incentives For Vaccinated
  Singapore Braces For “Exponential Rise” In COVID Cases As More Asian Countries Embrace Incentives For Vaccinated

  Finally, after a long summer of tight restrictions on movement and frantic vaccination campaigns, the COVID outbreak that accelerated rapidly across East Asia appears to be breaking. Cases have been falling in Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia (which has seen perhaps the most progress) for at least a week, while outbreaks in Singapore, the Philppines and Vietnam remain at or near their peak levels.

  With cases reaching a new daily peak, Singapore authorities – who have struggled to suppress the virus across the city state, where dormitories for migrant workers have proven potent staging areas for the virus – said they needed to “take quick action” to dampen the increasing likelihood of an “exponential rise” in COVID-19 cases, according to the Ministry of Health.

  Speaking to reporters on Monday, Lawrence Wong, co-chair of Singapore’s COVID multi-ministry task force, said the transmission rate of COVID-19 has to be slowed down.

  

  But first, Singapore will attempt to do so without going into another phase of heightened alert, he said.

  “What is of concern to us is not just the absolute number of cases, but the rate at which the virus is spreading. And that’s the reproduction rate, or R.”

  “Currently, the R is more than one. Cases are doubling every week. And if we continue on this trajectory of infection, it means we could have 1,000 cases in two weeks, or possibly 2,000 cases in a month.”

  Wong’s announcement comes three days after he said the country would start moving into a phase of “living with COVID” and there is no need to impose more restrictions, while also not immediately easing them, given the recent rise in cases.

  In other news, with the Paralympic Games now over, Tokyo authorities said they found 968 new coronavirus cases on Monday. That’s down by 947 cases (50%) from a week earlier. The number also shows cases falling below 1,000/day for the first time since July 19. However, the number of “serious cases” rose by 3 to 267. 6 of these cases were related to the Games, with volunteers set to leave on Monday. In all, 316 people have tested positive during the Paralympics, far less than what Japan saw during the main event.

  With the Olympics finally over, Japan’s Business Federation issued a set of proposals on Monday aimed at normalizing the nation’s economic activity now that vaccinations are making steady progress. They’re proposing that the vaccinated be excused from following quarantine lockdown rules. Then again, remember how well that worked out in the US?

  The Philippines government has faced growing pressure from the business community as cases have continued to rise. So, in order to try and experiment with a different strategy, authorities in Metro Manila, home to 13MM people, are preparing to try “localized lockdowns”, according to Nikkei.

  Metro Manila, home to 13 million people, has been under stricter community quarantine restrictions since Aug. 6 to fight the spread of the delta variant. The government has imposed stay-at-home orders, while businesses like salons and gyms have been forced to close and restaurants are limited to delivery service.

  The Department of Health on Monday also reported that the daily infection tally hit a record 22,415, the fourth consecutive day that daily cases have moved above 20,000. This brings the total cases to 2.1MM with 34,337 deaths. The department also reported increase in the 7-day moving average in Metro Manila. Guidelines for the lockdowns will be released Tuesday.

  Vaccination campaigns continue in all the aforementioned countries, with Japan and Malaysia administering the most jabs per day relative to their population.

  When it comes to offering more incentives to the vaccinated, a growing share of the ASEAN nations reopen their economies as the delta variant continues to drive new infections. Like in France and in certain parts of the US, vaccination status checks have become commonplace in Singapore. Indonesia and Malaysia are also hoping that more privileges for the vaccinated will help drive up vaccination rates.

  And as Singapore and its neighbors explore alternatives to economy-crushing lockdowns, some novel solutions are being considered – like Singapore’s new “robocop” that’s programmed to root out “undesirable behavior”.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/06/2021 – 15:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• State Department, Then Taliban, Reportedly Blocking Private Rescue Planes From Departing Afghanistan
  State Department, Then Taliban, Reportedly Blocking Private Rescue Planes From Departing Afghanistan

  Several reports began to trickle in over the weekend about planes stuck in Afghanistan which are trying to evacuate stranded Americans and Afghan allies.

  

  While a ‘senior Congressional source’ told CBS News on Sunday that ‘the Taliban won’t let them leave,’ several new sources have come forward to blame the Biden State Department for preventing the flights from leaving earlier in the weekend.

  According to Fox News and former Trump admin official Emily Miller – both of whom have been in direct contact with Americans involved in a private rescue effort – including leader Rick Clay – the Biden administration put up red-tape roadblocks.

  “The State Department is the sole entity preventing their charter flights from leaving Afghanistan,” one of the rescuers told Fox.

  America: right now there is a private effort to get a plane of US citizens and allies out of Afghanistan. They need @SecBlinken to help get clearance to land in a nearby country.

  Biden’s State Department is refusing to actively assist.

  Their response: “just tell them to ask.”

  — Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) September 2, 2021

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  “This is zero place to be negotiating with American lives. Those are our people standing on the tarmac and all it takes is a f****ing phone call,” one of the rescuers told Fox News. “If one life is lost as a result of this, the blood is on the White House’s hands. The blood is on their hands,” that individual said, adding: “It is not the Taliban that is holding this up – as much as it sickens me to say that – it is the United States government.” 

  That individual suggested that the State Department’s obstruction is motivated in part by embarrassment that private individuals are rescuing Americans that the U.S. government left behind. 

  Military command over Al Udeid Air Base in Doha, Qatar, have informed those seeking clearance to land that they must first go through the State Department to gain approval, an email reviewed by Fox News shows. 

  Clay has a manifest of 4,500 names of U.S. citizens, green card holders, SIVs and refugees trying to get state-side. So far, they’ve given the State Department 800 names for a first round of flights. Fox News has reviewed that manifest, which confirms Clay’s account.

  …

  Clay told Fox News that his organization is “having problems getting permission” from the Biden State Department “to land on the return flight” from Afghanistan in a neighboring country. –Fox News

  According to Clay, the State Department “is not allowing any private charters carrying refugees [to] land anywhere” in nearby countries, and has provided several “excuses” as to why – including a supposed lack of air traffic controllers and ‘radar issues.’

  “We still have Americans we can get out,” he added.

  The State Department, meanwhile, showed CBS News an email which allegedly says the flights out of Afghanistan can leave “if and when the Taliban agrees to takeoff.”

  Early Friday morn @RealClearNews was reporting on these 6 planes with American CITIZENS and Afghan allies waiting for State Dept clearance and now being blocked by the Taliban — @StateDept was telling me they had nothing to do with preventing them from taking off – that is wrong https://t.co/Etn0cu9xgA

  — Susan Crabtree (@susancrabtree) September 5, 2021

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  “The Taliban is basically holding them hostage to get more out of the Americans,” a senior congressional source told CBS News. 3/

  — Ruffini (@EenaRuffini) September 5, 2021

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  Former Trump admin official Emily Miller, who first reported the stranded rescue effort on Thursday, has been keeping a running blog of her direct communications with several individuals involved who are on the ground in Afghanistan, as well as provided a page with information for people who want to leave Afghanistan.

  The 6 planes are still on the tarmac at Mazar-i-Sharif International Airport, per “Sam”, who is the only source that has been accurate throughout this saga on the planes. #ProjectExodus Sam explains why…

  — Emily Miller (@emilymiller) September 6, 2021

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  On Saturday, Miller wrote: “Sam in Project Exodus still says the planes aren’t leaving because the airline hasn’t gotten documents from the State Department for destination airfield. “I’ve been told things are stalled,” he texted me tonight.”

  There is no way they are not letting these people leave. They have no reason to detain them (other than money and negotiating leverage).

  With there already being internal fighting between Taliban leadership, Afghanistan bankrupt, inflation 80%, people starving; etc.; TB know they need legitimization and foreign aid. They are savages but they are not stupid.

  Here are the latest updates via Emily Posts News:

  Six planes Sunday — Status update from Sam, who is the only source that has been accurate throughout this saga!

  KAMAir is still grounded. I’m first on the list to call as soon as things get moving – so I’m told. I haven’t seen the news, so I’m not sure what’s being put out or if it’s helping/hurting.

  Nobody is actually sitting on the planes right now.

  I don’t have facts as to why the Taliban are delaying, but I’ve been told they want to verify manifests and don’t have the horse power to do so.

  My guess is they are coordinating with Turkey to help them run tower operations to activate the runway.

  Again, I’m drawing that conclusion by stitching several different sources together. As soon a people start getting up here, I’ll dig some more

  Six airplanes in the news— Today, the media elite finally decided to publicly report about the six charter planes and Americans that can’t get out of Afghanistan. I reported it first on Sept. 2 at 2:30 pm ET.

  The corporate media knew about the planes — at least since I reported it. They asked the White House and State Department about it. They were told information to keep “confidential”, and they obeyed the government.

  I spoke to the State Department Spokesman directly. His “confidential” information was not being withheld for safety of the people in the airport. It just shows that the government was incapable of getting Americans out of the country. The media elite withheld that from the public for that reason only.

  There are 6 aircraft in Afghanistan with American citizens onboard that have been sitting on the ground for 36 hours because the @StateDept won’t authorize them to take off with the citizens.

  The rest of the thread is text from retired SFO in UAE, part of #ProjectExodus

  — Emily Miller (@emilymiller) September 2, 2021

  Money- Toward the end of last week, people in Afghanistan who need to escape started running out of cash. Today, Mark went to Western Union to send $350 to one of the Afghan Special Forces who he has worked with for years. Western Union told him that, as of today, it is no longer authorized to send any wire transfers to Afghanistan.

  It costs just $200 for airline ticket to fly his whole family to fly within the country to a safer city. But the Afghanistan military stopped paying its forces two months ago so they don’t have cash.

  Also, the banks in Afghanistan put a limit on ATM withdrawals to just $200 a week.

  Big picture— I went on a twitterant today because I’m so frustrated with the incompetence and lies from the U. S. Government. Click below to read the thread.

  One week ago, I got this email from retired special forces operator (who is now a friend and partner). I didn’t believe him.
  Our government abandoned American citizens and longtime allies in Afghanistan to be killed by Taliban?
  Yes, and nothing has changed. (1/?) https://t.co/cPjQjeneum

  — Emily Miller (@emilymiller) September 5, 2021

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  Follow along at Emily Posts News.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/06/2021 – 00:37

• Soros' Dream: To Turn China Into A Neoliberal Grabitization Opportunity
  Soros’ Dream: To Turn China Into A Neoliberal Grabitization Opportunity

  Authored by Michael Hudson via Counterpunch.org,

  In a Financial Times op-ed, “Investors in Xi’s China face a rude awakening” (August 30, 2021), George Soros writes that Xi’s “crackdown on private enterprise shows he does not understand the market economy. … Xi Jinping, China’s leader, has collided with economic reality. His crackdown on private enterprise has been a significant drag on the economy.”

  

  Translated out of Orwellian Doublethink, the “crackdown on private enterprise” means cutting back on what the classical economists called rent-seeking and unearned income. As for its supposed “drag on the economy,” Mr. Soros means the economy’s polarization concentrating wealth and income in the hands of the richest One Percent.

  Soros lays out his plan for how U.S. retaliation may punish China by withholding U.S. funding of its companies (as if China cannot create its own credit) until China capitulates and imposes the kind of deregulation and de-taxation that Russia did after 1991. He warns that China will suffer depression by saving its economy along socialist lines and resisting U.S.-style privatization and its associated debt deflation.

  Mr. Soros does recognize that China’s “most vulnerable sector is real estate, particularly housing. China has enjoyed an extended property boom over the past two decades, but that is now coming to an end. Evergrande, the largest real estate company, is over-indebted and in danger of default. This could cause a crash.” By that, he means a reduction of housing prices. That’s just what is needed in order to deter land becoming a speculative vehicle. I and others have urged a policy of land taxation in order to collect the land’s rising site value, so that it will not be pledged to banks for mortgage credit to further inflate china’s housing prices.

  Warning about the economic consequences of China’s falling birth rate, Soros writes: “One of the reasons why middle-class families are unwilling to have more than one child is that they want to make sure that their children will have a bright future.” This is of course true of every advanced nation today. It is most extreme in the neoliberalized countries, e.g., the Baltics and Ukraine – Soros’s poster countries.

  Soros gives his game away by stating that “Xi does not understand how markets operate.” What he means is that President Xi rejects rapacious rent-seeking, exploitative free-for-all, and shapes markets to serve overall prosperity for China’s 99 Percent. “As a consequence, the sell-off was allowed to go too far,” Soros continues. What he means is, too far to maintain the dominance of the One Percent. China is seeking to reverse economic polarization, not intensify it.

  Soros claims that China’s socialist policies are hurting its objectives in the world. But what he really is complaining about is that it is hurting America’s neoliberal objectives for how it had hoped to make money for itself off China. This leads Soros to remind Western pension fund managers to “allocate their assets in ways that are closely aligned with the benchmarks against which their performance is measured.” But the tragedy of financializing pensions is that fund managers are rated on making money financially – in ways that hurt the industrial economy by promoting financial engineering instead of industrial engineering.

  “Almost all of them claim that they factor environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) standards into their investment decisions,” Soros writes. At least, that’s what their public relations advisors advertise. Exxon claims to be cleaning up the environment by expanding offshore oil drilling in Guyana, etc. As for “social standards,” the neoliberal mantra is trickle-down economics: by making our stock prices rise, by stock buybacks and higher dividend payouts, we are helping wage-earners earn a pension, even though we are offshoring and de-industrializing the economy, de-unionizing it and “freeing” the economy from consumer and workplace protection laws.

  Soros has a radical solution, which he suggests “should obviously apply to the performance benchmarks selected by pensions and other retirement portfolios: … The US Congress should pass a bipartisan bill explicitly requiring that asset managers invest only in companies where actual governance structures are both transparent and aligned with stakeholders.”

  Wow. Such a bill would block Americans from investing in many American companies whose behavior is not at all aligned with stakeholders. What proportion: 50%? 75? More?

  “If Congress were to enact these measures,” Soros concludes, “it would give the Securities and Exchange Commission the tools it needs to protect American investors, including those who are unaware of owning Chinese stocks and Chinese shell companies. That would also serve the interests of the US and the wider international community of democracies.” So Mr. Soros wants to block the United States from investing in China. He seems not to see that this is President Xi’s objective also: China doesn’t need U.S. dollars, and is in fact de-dollarizing.

  George Soros is obviously upset that President Xi is not Boris Yeltsin, and that China is not following the kleptocracy dependency that warped Russia’s economy. Soros thought the ending of the Cold War would simply let him buy up the most lucrative rent-yielding assets, as he has aimed to do in the Baltics and Ukraine. China said “No,” so it is not deemed to be a “market economy,” Soros-style. It has not made its social organization marketable, and has avoided the financial dependency that makes “markets” a vehicle for U.S. control via sanctions and foreign buyouts.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/05/2021 – 23:30

• Robocop Is Here: Singapore Deploys Robots To Detect "Undesirable Behavior" Including Groups Of "More Than Five People"
  Robocop Is Here: Singapore Deploys Robots To Detect “Undesirable Behavior” Including Groups Of “More Than Five People”

  Slowly but surely, the world is transforming into a 1984-Robocop-Terminator-Minority Report–Judge Dredd fusion dystopia.

  And while we wait for Elon Musk’s dancing humanoid robot (wonder how much the deposit on that particular pipe dream will be), Singapore is wasting no time, and according to Mothership the small Asian nation is deploying ground robots on trial to patrol and survey a public area with high foot traffic, in a joint project involving five of the country’s public agencies: HTX (Home Team Science and Technology Agency), National Environment Agency, Land Transport Authority, Singapore Food Agency, and Housing & Development Board.

  According to a media release, an HTX robot will be deployed for a three-week period from Sep. 5 to patrol Toa Payoh Central, a planning area and matured residential town located in the northern part of the Central Region of Singapore

  The robot(s), called Xavier, will weave its way autonomously through the crowds to detect “undesirable social behaviors” including:

  • Congregation of more than five people (in line with prevailing Safe Management Measures)

  • Smoking in prohibited areas

  • Illegal hawking

  • Improperly parked bicycles within HDB Hub

  • Motorized active mobility devices and motorcycles on footpaths

  Upon detecting any of these terrifying activities, the robot will trigger real-time alerts to the command and control center, and display the appropriate message (depending on the scenario) to educate the public and “deter” such behaviors. The deployment of the ground robot is intended to support the work of public officers and reduce the manpower required for foot patrols.

  In other words, Robocop has officially arrived, and while it will be unarmed for now, we suspect it is only a matter of time before these robotic Judge Dredds will also be capable of using lethal force against such ‘terrorist’ activity as smoking or throwing away gum in a public space.

  According to Mothership, here is the robotic patrol route, configured in advance by public officers:

  

  And while the robotic nightmares made by Boston Dynamics are still being perfected, Singapore will instead use “Xavier.”

  According to the report, “Xavier is able to navigate autonomously as it is fitted with different types of sensors, including safety feature. It can avoid stationary and dynamic obstacles, such as pedestrians and vehicles.”

  

  Xavier is also equipped with cameras that can provide 360-degree video feed to the command and control center. Its cameras can also capture images and videos in dim light or the dark.

  Like any good drone, data captured from Xavier’s cameras are streamed to a video analytics system, with artificial intelligence capability developed by HTX’s in-house computer vision engineers. With an interactive dashboard, public officers can receive real-time information in a command and control center, and be able to monitor and control multiple robots simultaneously.

  The interactive dashboard allows officers to remotely respond to incidents on the ground via a two-way intercom or using pre-recorded audio messages.

  

  And like any good, obedient drone, the only thing missing is deadly force. We are confident that is coming next.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/05/2021 – 23:00

• Escobar: Why The Taliban Still Can't Form A Government
  Escobar: Why The Taliban Still Can’t Form A Government

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

  Internal Taliban divisions come to the fore as squabbling hinders the formation of Afghanistan’s new Islamic Emirate…

  

  It looked like everything was set for the Taliban to announce the new government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan after this Friday’s afternoon prayers. But then internal dissent prevailed.

  That was compounded by the adverse optics of a ragtag “resistance” in the Panjshir Valley that is still not subdued. The “resistance” is de facto led by a CIA asset, former vice president Amrullah Saleh.

  The Taliban maintain they have captured several districts and at least four checkpoints at the Panjshir, controlling 20% of its territory. Still, there’s no endgame in sight.

  Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, a Kandahar religious scholar, is expected to be the new power of the Islamic Emirate when it’s finally formed.

  Mullah Baradar will likely preside just below him as a presidential figure along with a 12-member governing council known as a “shura.”

  If that’s the case, there would be certain similarities between the institutional role of Akhundzada and Ayatollah Khamenei in Iran, even though the theocratic frameworks, Sunni and Shiite, are completely different.

  

  Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada posing for a photograph at an undisclosed location in 2016. Photo: Afghan Taliban via AFP

  Mullah Baradar, co-founder of the Taliban with Mullah Omar in 1994 and imprisoned in Guantanamo then Pakistan, has served as the Taliban’s top diplomat as the head of its political office in Doha.

  He has also been a key interlocutor in the protracted negotiations with the now-extinct Kabul government and the expanded troika of Russia, China, the US and Pakistan.

  To call the negotiations to form a new Afghan government fractious would be a spectacular understatement.

  They have been managed, in practice, by former president Hamid Karzai and ex-head of the Reconciliation Council Abdullah Abdullah: a Pashtun and a Tajik who have vast international experience.

  Both Karzai and Abdullah are shoo-ins to be part of the 12-member shura.

  As the negotiations seemed to advance, a frontal clash developed between the Taliban political office in Doha and the Haqqani network regarding the distribution of key government posts.

  Add to it the role of Mullah Yakoob, son of Mullah Omar, and the head of the powerful Taliban military commission overseeing a massive network of field commanders, among which he’s extremely well-respected.

  Recently Yakoob had let it leak that those “living in luxury in Doha” cannot dictate terms to those involved in fighting on the ground. As if this was not contentious enough, Yakoob also has serious problems with the Haqqanis – who are now in charge of a key post: security of Kabul via the so far ultra-diplomatic Khalil Haqqani.

  

  Mullah Yakoob in a file photo. Photo: AFP

  Apart from the fact that the Taliban amount to a complex collection of tribal and regional warlords, the dissent illustrates the abyss between what could roughly be explained as more Afghan nationalist-centered and more Pakistani-centered factions.

  In the latter case, the key protagonists are the Haqqanis, who operate very close to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

  It’s a Sisyphean task, to say the least, to create political legitimacy even in an Afghanistan that is bound to be ruled by Afghans who rid the nation of a foreign occupation.

  Since 2002, both with Karzai and then Ashraf Ghani, the regime in power for most Afghans was regarded as an imposition by foreign occupiers validated by dodgy elections.

  In Afghanistan, everything is about tribe, kin and clan. The Pashtuns are a vast tribe with myriad subtribes that all adhere to the common pashtunwali, a code of conduct that blends self-respect, independence, justice, hospitality, love, forgiveness, revenge and tolerance.

  They will be in power again, as during Taliban 1.0 from 1996 to 2001. The Dari-speaking Tajiks, on the other hand, are non-tribal and form the majority of urban residents of Kabul, Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif.

  Assuming it will peacefully solve its internal Pashtun squabbles, a Taliban-led government will necessarily need to conquer Tajik hearts and minds among the nation’s traders, bureaucrats and educated clergy.

  Dari, derived from Persian, has long been the language of government administration, high culture and foreign relations in Afghanistan. Now it will all be switched to Pashto again. This is the schism the new government will have to bridge.

  

  Taliban fighters stand guard in a vehicle along the roadside in Kabul on August 16, 2021, after a stunningly swift end to Afghanistan’s 20-year war. Photo: AFP

  There are already surprises on the horizon. The extremely well-connected Russian ambassador in Kabul, Dmitry Zhirnov, revealed that he is discussing the Panjshir stalemate with the Taliban.

  Zhirnov noted that the Taliban considered some of the demands of the Panjshiris as “excessive” – as in they wanted too many seats in the government and autonomy for some non-Pashtun provinces, Panjshir included.

  It’s not far-fetched to consider the widely-trusted Zhirnov could become a mediator not only between Pashtuns and Panjshiris but even between opposed Pashtun factions.

  The delightful historical irony will not be lost on those who remember the 1980s jihad of the unified mujahideen against the USSR.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/05/2021 – 22:30

• "This Is Big": 14-Mile Long Oil Spill In Gulf Of Mexico Investigated By Coast Guard
  “This Is Big”: 14-Mile Long Oil Spill In Gulf Of Mexico Investigated By Coast Guard

  The US Coast Guard is responding to a 14-mile long oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico discovered in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, officials said Saturday according to Bloomberg. The spill, which consists of a 4-mile black sheen and a 10-mile rainbow sheen, is located in federal waters off Port Fourchon, Louisiana, said Sam Jones, head of the Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator’s Office.

  “That’s big,” Jones said in an interview on Saturday. “It’s the biggest one out there.”

  The Coast Guard said in a statement that crude is believed to be coming from a pipeline owned by Houston-based oil and gas exploration company Talos Energy, adding the agency was in the preliminary stages of investigation. In response, Talos said that while it’s leading a response to the spill, it denied being responsible, saying the spill was coming from an unknown source in an area where it ceased production in 2017.

  

  “Extensive field observations indicate that Talos assets are not the source,” the company said in a statement. “Talos will continue to work closely with the U.S. Coast Guard and other state and federal agencies to identify the source of the release and coordinate a successful response.”

  Talos said it deployed two 95-foot response vessels to conduct oil recovery operations at the site as well as an additional vessel and divers to help locate the source.

  The “big” spill wasn’t the only one: Jones said his agency had received 265 reports of spills and other incidents related to Ida, including 32 that appeared to be serious. Among them were two underwater pipelines, apparently transporting gas, and a gas well that blew in Three Bayou Bay in Jefferson Parish. The agency is investigating who owns those assets, Jones said.

  Meanwhile, multiple releases of crude have been reported in the Gulf of Mexico, including one near an offshore rig in the gulf, according to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.  The agency has reported more than 100 incidents of spills and other toxic releases as Ida’s environmental impact in a petrochemical corridor packed with hazardous-chemical plants and refineries begins to become apparent.

  “The type of accident we are seeing is preventable and shouldn’t be allowed to happen,” said Naomi Yoder, a staff scientist at Healthy Gulf, a New Orleans-based environmental group that has reported several spills to authorities in the wake of Ida. “Is it something we are going to be able to repair or is it something that will be a very long-term process?”

  Hurricane Ivan in 2004 triggered an underwater oil spill that is still leaking, Yoder said.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/05/2021 – 22:00

• Doomsday For Evergrande Arrives As Creditors Demand "Immediate" Payment, Bonds No Longer Eligible Collateral
  Doomsday For Evergrande Arrives As Creditors Demand “Immediate” Payment, Bonds No Longer Eligible Collateral

  Just days after Evergrande’s bonds hit new all time lows after “China’s Lehman” warned that the company with over $300 billion in debt and which many view as systematically important for China, the selloff accelerated further following news of a mini bank run as i) several key creditors demand immediate repayment and ii) as Evergrande bonds are no longer accepted as collateral.

  As Bloomberg first reported last Friday, at least two of Evergrande’s largest non-bank creditors have demanded immediate repayment of some loans, adding a liquidity run to the growing insolvency strains at the world’s most indebted developer. The two creditors are trust companies which pool money from wealthy individual investors and have been a major source of “shadow” financing for Evergrande and other Chinese developers.

  The trusts sent repayment notices to Evergrande over the past two months after becoming concerned about the property giant’s financial health. Trust loans often include terms that allow creditors to demand early repayment if certain conditions are met, such as sales targets, ratings downgrades or lawsuits. One of the trusts has so far received only a small portion of the money owed by Evergrande, Bloomberg reported. The size of the loans involved couldn’t immediately be learned.

  The start of a bank run at Evergrande is the latest sign that China’s most indebted property developer will inevitably default on $305 billion of liabilities to banks, shadow lenders, suppliers and homebuyers unless Beijing bails it out similar to the last-minute rescue of China’s bad debt giant Huaron, which recently got a thumbs up from Beijing. However, in the case of Evergrande, so far authorities have yet to blink – despite the potentially cataclysmic consequences of a default – and as a result the developer’s bonds have plummeted to levels that suggest investors are bracing for a default.While Chinese regulators have urged the company to resolve its debt woes, the government has so far stayed silent on whether it will provide financial support.

  

  As Bloomberg adds, “shadow” trusts have been a significant source of funding for Evergrande, accounting for about 40% of borrowings at the end of 2019, the last year the company disclosed the figures. While trust lending to developers has slowed in the past year, Evergrande has about 46 billion yuan ($7.1 billion) of such loans maturing in 2021, according to data complied by Yongyi Trust Research. About 11 billion yuan is due in the fourth quarter, and another $7.4 billion is due in 2022. And should the company survive to 2023, that’s when it gets really tough.

  

  A failure to repay – which now appears inevitable – could prompt at least one trust to call back all its loans, though it’s unclear how Evergrande would respond. Court cases against the company and its affiliates are being centralized in Guangzhou, a city in Evergrande’s home province of Guangdong, making it more difficult for creditors to freeze assets or pursue repayment through other local courts.

  However, the bank run hammering the company’s dollar bonds is just the start.

  Also on Friday, Bloomberg reported that Evergrande’s yuan bonds are no longer accepted as collateral in the country’s key funding market, cutting it off from another critical source of funding – the repo market – and adding to signs of increasing default risk.

  Evergrande’s notes were absent from a list of securities accepted in return for cash in so-called repurchase agreements on Shenzhen’s exchange. They also couldn’t be pledged for cash on Shanghai’s exchange, according to a notice posted by the clearing house late Friday.

  The clearing house’s daily notice, which covers on-exchange transactions only, previously featured six of Evergrande’s onshore bonds for use in Shenzhen’s repo market, and three for transactions in Shanghai. Most pledged repo deals still occur in China’s interbank market, where there’s little transparency.

  The move came after China’s largest credit-rating assessor cut the developer’s onshore unit to AA (the functional equivalent of a A for China’s massively grade-inflated credit rating system) from AAA – as well as nine of its yuan bonds – and put them on a watch list for potential further downgrades. That makes Evergrande bonds issued after April 2017 ineligible as collateral, according to clearing house rules, though the China Securities Depository and Clearing Corp. has the final say.

  The latest set of catastrophic news for the Chinese property developer  – which has been struggling to convince investors, suppliers and creditors it can generate cash to make good on liabilities after payables rose to a record – was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back and on Friday, trading in several of Evergrande’s thinly-traded onshore notes was briefly halted on Friday to steep declines, while some of its dollar debt trades below 30 cents. The shares have lost 74% this year to the lowest since July 2015.

  

  Needless to say, the countdown to insolvency has begun even as Evergrande has been rushing to liquidate assets and raise funds – with the company’s core property business losing record amounts of money, construction on some projects halted by suppliers and freely available cash at a six-year low, the company warned of a potential default if asset-disposals fail to materialize, and reiterated plans to sell stakes in its listed electric-vehicle and property services units.

  None of that will help, and at this point the collapse of Evergrande is just a matter of time and the only questions are i) whether Beijing will step in, and ii) how bad the avalanche of adverse consequences will get.

   

   

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/05/2021 – 21:30

• When Is The Social Security Asset Fund Running Out?
  When Is The Social Security Asset Fund Running Out?

  A social safety net is synonymous with a failsafe for many, but, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes, in the case of the U.S. Social Security system, additional action is needed to ensure it stays that way.

  The annual OASDI trustees report by the Social Security Administration, covering old-age, survivors and disability insurance, shows that under the present circumstances, the asset reserve dedicated to the benefit program could be depleted sooner rather than later. Under the report’s intermediate scenario, asset funds would run out sometime in 2034, while this could happen as soon as 2031 if the administration was to shoulder a high volume of costs in the upcoming years. Under the low-cost scenario, the fund could remain solvent until 2052 or even longer, depending on the calculation. The intermediate date moved forward by one year since last year’s report as the COVID-19 pandemic seriously diminished Social Security’s income in payroll taxes.

  The system’s expenditures have been above its income for some time – with the difference being taken out of the asset fund and the interest it creates – but the gap has been widening over the years. While in the early 1980s, summarized OASHI costs only exceeded incomes by around 15 percent, that gap grew to almost 26 percent in 2021. As Baby Boomers retire and Americans are having fewer children, the balance between those who are working and funding social security and those who are receiving old age, survivor or disability benefits continues to tip. 2021 marked the first year when interest earned on the fund could no longer bridge social security’s spending gap, sending the asset reserve into a downward spiral.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Because Social Security services are funded by the payroll tax on a pay-as-you-go basis, the income-cost gap equals the amount the administration would no longer be able to pay out if the fund would in fact be depleted. In order to stop funds from running low, Congress would have to act to provide additional revenue to Social Security, for example by raising the dedicated payroll tax, to lower its cost by cutting benefits or attempt a combination of both.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/05/2021 – 21:00

• Milley Admits US Withdrawal From Afghanistan Will Lead To Civil War, Terrorism
  Milley Admits US Withdrawal From Afghanistan Will Lead To Civil War, Terrorism

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

  The U.S. military pullout from Afghanistan will likely lead to civil war and the resurgence of terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, said Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley in an interview.

  “My military estimate is​ ​…​ ​that the conditions are likely to develop of a civil war,” Milley ​told Fox News during an interview at Ramstein airbase in Germany.

  “I don’t know if the Taliban is going to [be] able to consolidate power and establish governance.”

  After the Taliban took over the country last month amid the U.S. withdrawal and the resulting chaos, terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda or ISIS could establish a foothold, the general said.

  “I think there’s at least a very good probability of a broader civil war and that will then, in turn, lead to conditions that could, in fact, lead to a reconstitution of al-Qaeda or a growth of ISIS or other myriad of terrorist groups,” Milley told the network.

  In late August, Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and President Joe Biden received flack for not anticipating the Taliban—itself a designated terrorist group by several federal agencies—taking over the country in just 11 days. They later defended the pullout, saying that the rushed and chaotic evacuation of thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Afghans was built into their contingency planning.

  

  When the Taliban captured areas in Afghanistan, the group also opened prisons while Pentagon officials later confirmed that thousands of ISIS-K terrorists may have been released from those facilities, including one at Bagram airbase. During the final phase of the evacuation in the Kabul airport, ISIS claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing attack that left 13 U.S. service members dead.

  “You could see a resurgence of terrorism coming out of that general region within 12, 24, 36 months. And we’re going to monitor that,”​ Milley added in the interview, published Saturday.​

  As a result, he said, the United States will have to “re-establish some human intelligence networks” and will have to “conduct strike operations if there’s a threat to the United States.”​

  

  Taliban members stand guard outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport after the U.S. military’s withdrawal, in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 31, 2021. (Khwaja Tawfiq Sediqi/AP Photo)

  The Taliban, meanwhile, has engaged in heavy fighting with a resistance group in the Panjshir valley, located about 100 miles northeast of Kabul. On Saturday night, the terrorist group posted a video online claiming to have entered the valley, according to the Wall Street Journal, which reported that a resistance fighter confirmed the Taliban entered.

  Emergency, an Italy-based nongovernmental organization, told the paper the Taliban made its way to the Panjshir village of Anabah.

  The police headquarters and district center of Rukhah, adjacent to the provincial capital Bazarak, had fallen, and opposition forces had suffered numerous casualties, with large numbers of prisoners and captured vehicles, weapons, and ammunition, Taliban spokesman Bilal Karimi also said on Twitter.

  But resistance fighters, including a spokesman, denied the Taliban’s claims.

  

  Men prepare for defense against the Taliban in Panjshir, Afghanistan, on Aug. 22, 2021. (Aamaj News Agency via Reuters)

  Fahim Dashti, spokesman for the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRFA), a group of anti-Taliban forces, told Reuters that the Taliban “propaganda machine” was trying to spread distracting messages.

  “The resistance forces are ready to continue their defense against any form of aggression,” he said.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/05/2021 – 20:30

• California Admits Grid At Risk Amid Push To Greenify Economy
  California Admits Grid At Risk Amid Push To Greenify Economy

  In an upcoming bond offering, California listed several risks that could have adverse impacts on its economy. Besides COVID-19, wildfires, increasing debts, and cybersecurity threats, what we found fascinating was the risk to the state’s power system.

  The State of California Investor Relations page recently published the bond offering summary that describes Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo as the joint senior managers on the $2.1 billion general-obligation bond deal on Sept. 14. 

  “The future fiscal impact of stresses to the energy grid caused by climate is difficult to predict, but could be significant,” the state said. “In recent years, California has taken on numerous steps to increase resiliency to be better prepared to meet the state’s electricity demands.”

  

  The warning comes as the state is greenifying its power grid system by ditching diesel and natural gas generation sources for wind and solar. Simultaneously, lawmakers in the state are incentivizing residents to purchase electric vehicles that require an enormous amount of energy. It’s a straightforward equation to understand. The more EVs on the road, the larger output the grid needs to produce or risk collapse. 

  Earlier this summer, California Independent System Operator told residents to conserve energy voluntarily, including asking residents to charge their EVs at certain off-peak times due to back-to-back heat waves straining the grid. 

  California’s plans to become an environmental and socialist utopia face the harsh reality that climate volatility and green energy sources may not be as reliable as once thought. 

  Texas found out the hard way when its wind-power generating capacity went offline because a massive deep freeze across the state in February contributed to the entire grid meltdown. 

  So far, liberal politicians who are chasing renewable energy as a means of mitigating “climate change” will have to soon wake up to the fact that renewable energy sometimes is unreliable energy. It would be challenging for California to upgrade its grid to accommodate zero-emissions vehicles on its highways by 2035 unless the grid was completely overhauled. 

  The latest example of fragile grids is Hurricane Ida destroying two thousand miles of transmission lines and knocking out power for nearly a million people in Louisiana that may not even fully be restored by the end of next week. 

  The consequence of unreliable grids and politicians increasing EV demand is a recipe for an unreliable grid. 

  Readers may recall that it cost Tesla users $900 per charge during the Texas cold snap in February. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/05/2021 – 20:00

• Victims Of US Drone Strike In Kabul That Wiped Out Children Want Answers
  Victims Of US Drone Strike In Kabul That Wiped Out Children Want Answers

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  Since the US carried out a drone strike in Kabul the prior Sunday (Aug.29) that witnesses say killed 10 civilians, the Pentagon and the White House have defended the bombing, claiming it targeted ISIS-K. But relatives of the victims strongly deny that any of them were affiliated with ISIS and want answers from Washington.

  “They have to give us answers. Is our blood so worthless, we don’t even get an explanation?” Ramal Ahmadi, a brother of one of the dead, told The Associated Press. Ahmadi said a missile hit his brother’s car as he pulled up to the family’s home and children ran out to greet him.

  

  The US claims the car was laden with explosives and a secondary blast is why there is such a high civilian casualty rate. But Ahmadi and other witnesses dispute Washington’s claim.

  Emal, another Ahmadi brother, told AP that if the car was full of explosives, the blast would have done much more damage and pointed to two undamaged gas cylinders. “If the car was filled with explosives like the Americans say, why didn’t these cylinders explode,” he said. “How could the wall still be standing if this car had been full of explosives?”

  Every person killed by the strike was related to Ahmadi’s. Emal lost a three-year-old daughter to the US drone and asked how the Americans could not see they were bombing a yard full of children. “They have such high technology they can see an ant on the ground, but they couldn’t see a yard full of children?” he said.

  Some of the Ahmadis have worked for the US-backed Afghan security forces and US-based NGOs in Afghanistan, including the oldest brother Zamarai and a nephew Nasir Haideri, who were killed in the strike. Nasir and Zamarai both applied for Special Immigration Visas to evacuate to the US.

  The slaughter of the Ahmadi family is not an anomaly for US drone strikes. In 2015, documents leaked by Daniel Hale, who was recently sentenced to 45 months in prison, revealed that during a five-month period between 2012 and 2013, 90 percent of the people killed by US drones were civilians.

  “Nine members of one family were killed in a US drone strike targeting a vehicle in a residential neighborhood of Kabul….Those killed included six children, the youngest being a 2-year-old girl”.

  *This* has been the war in Afghanistan for 20 years.https://t.co/qXIW0YEnBR

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) August 29, 2021

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  While Hale’s leaks were published over five years ago, US drone strikes still regularly kill civilians, and there is virtually no oversight. The slaughter of the Ahmadi’s has received wide media coverage because it happened in Kabul as the US was exiting Afghanistan. But US drone strikes are often carried out in remote villages, where there are no reporters.

  After the suicide bombing at the Kabul airport, the US launched a drone strike in a remote area of the Nangarhar province. The Pentagon claims the strike killed two “ISIS-K planners,” but their names or any other details have not been released.

  While the US has no more troops in Afghanistan, drone strikes could continue. During a speech after the withdrawal was completed, President Biden threatened more airstrikes against ISIS-K.

  “We have what’s called over the horizon capabilities, which means we can strike terrorists and targets without American boots on the ground, or very few if needed. We’ve shown that capacity just in the last week. We struck ISIS-K remotely,” Biden said, describing the strike that killed the Ahmadis. “And to ISIS-K, we are not done with you yet.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/05/2021 – 19:30

• Horse-Paste Hooey: How Left-Wing Lunatics Spread Yet Another Obvious Lie
  Horse-Paste Hooey: How Left-Wing Lunatics Spread Yet Another Obvious Lie

  If one wants to wrap their brain around why the leftist-establishment media complex has lost all credibility, this Tablet article by Konstantin Kisin from August is mandatory reading worth ten minutes of your time.

  A snippet:

  Imagine your outrage as you see news reports of a bunch of MAGA hat-wearing kids from a religious school contemptuously confront a Native American elder. Professional, adult commentators on TV tell you the kid has a “punchable face,” and while you abhor violence, it’s hard to disagree. Imagine that for days you watch coverage of these events, with expert after expert, pundit after pundit, sharing and fueling your outrage. Maybe your country really is racist. Maybe you’re racist. Were you always just blind?

  Imagine that soon after, however, the Jussie Smollett story turns out to be an attention-seeking hoax: He made it all up. Imagine you also quickly discover that the Native American elder was the one who confronted the kids, and not the other way around. “If this is such a racist country,” you ask yourself, “why would they need to make up stories of racism?” As you ponder this, you remember that for years now, you’ve been expected to go along with other, more elaborate make-believe stories.

  You’re expected to understand that gender is not as binary as school, your eyes, and your own experience have led you to believe. Whatever you learned about biology growing up is not only wrong, it’s pathological and harmful, according to the American Psychological Association. You no longer know how many genders you’re expected to be able to recognize. You do know that asking questions is dangerous.

  Imagine that you still want to believe the experts and the commentators, but now that requires you to believe your country is racist, that men are bad, and that gender is a social construct, which is an idea you still don’t really understand. -Tablet

  Fast forward to August 21. The FDA issues a tweet in response to people buying equine ivermectin due to systemic restrictions on the human-grade version which reads: “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

  This absurd tweet from the Democrat-run federal agency patently ignores the fact that Ivermectin has been prescribed for humans for over 35 years, while several studies have shown efficacy in treating early-stage Covid-19 infections.

  It didn’t matter. The message from the Biden administration was clear; ivermectin is a horse dewormer taken by idiots, and the left now had official license to make fun of ‘right-wing anti-vaxxers’ for using it to treat coronavirus.

  So when Joe Rogan revealed that Ivermectin was one of the drugs he used to beat Covid within a few days, the left went to town – with MSM outlets wasting no opportunity to convince people that the extremely influential host of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast is a nutcase.

  Which brings us to Rolling Stone magazine’s biggest debacle since the UVA rape story – after they aggregated a (still uncorrected) local media report out of Oklahoma claiming that people overdosing on ivermectin horse dewormer are causing emergency rooms to be “so backed up that gunshot victims were having hard times getting” access to health facilities. The claim was made by Dr. Jason McElyea, and the story went absolutely viral across a vast swath of left-wing influencers.

  

  Until the hospital refuted it – announcing on their website that McElyea hadn’t worked there in more than two months, and they haven’t treated any ivermectin overdoses.

  This failure of basic journalism wasn’t just committed by Rolling Stone. It was breathlessly repeated by large outlets, pundits, and doctors – all of whom failed to do a simple sniff test on an obviously suspicious story.

  Journalist Drew Holden has pieced together the anatomy of yet another viral hoax peddled to millions of people as fact.

  Take it away, Drew:

  First, for context, here’s the original piece from @RollingStone and the follow up from the actual hospital saying the story was BS and that the one (one!) person the story quotes doesn’t work at that hospital anymore (and hasn’t in months). pic.twitter.com/6k4FjaQWD3

  — Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

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  But the real champion of this tall tale was @MSNBC. @maddow had a tweet about it that went viral.

  She’s got an audience of millions of people and couldn’t be bothered to even look into a story that pretty obviously doesn’t pass the sniff test. pic.twitter.com/t6sFrXDzrt

  — Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

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  We even had an executive producer from MSNBC push the story that wasn’t. @laurenpeikoff

  You know what’s a good way to not be derisively referred to as “fake news”?

  Stop pushing fake news. pic.twitter.com/RwjjxslJ8U

  — Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

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  I just really don’t understand why seemingly real news outlets – like @Newsweek @NYDailyNews and @thehill – didn’t bother to even look into this story before they pushed this narrative?

  Didn’t it sound odd? Wasn’t it worth investigating? Maybe a single phone call? pic.twitter.com/ONStIZL87I

  — Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

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  This sentiment was pretty widespread because it just fit the narrative perfectly – “look at these dumb hicks and their horse medication!” right, @dabeard? pic.twitter.com/rLpox5yuK0

  — Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

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  And plenty of actual bad actors got involved in pushing this one, too. I don’t know how @DrEricDing hasn’t been kicked off of Twitter by now. He’s a bottomless well of misinformation. pic.twitter.com/8FA6ABNTTu

  — Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

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  Obligatory @kurteichenwald mention. pic.twitter.com/ABFdSXiEzP

  — Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

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  I don’t usually include people who aren’t verified but I couldn’t resist this one.@RVAwonk is a postdoc studying “mis/disinformation” and had a whole thread *actively pushing disinformation* pic.twitter.com/5qFL6OOqCK

  — Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

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  See what I’m saying?@mims @EoinHiggins_ (quickly becoming a thread favorite)@GidMK (“health nerd”)@AngryBlackLady (this is definitely an illustrative example of something, just not the thing that you think it is) pic.twitter.com/QTfwvJlAFD

  — Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

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  It should go without saying, but inventing a narrative out of thin air simply because it confirms your priors is not going to help rebuild trust in the media.

  It would’ve taken a single phone call to shoot this story down.

  Why didn’t that happen?

  — Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

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  You won’t hear any. Because this is the acceptable type of political lie.

  And none of these people or outlets will learn anything. They’ll keep doing this.

  Because they care more about scoring cheap dunks on their opponents than getting the truth.

  — Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

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  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/05/2021 – 19:12

• Fauci Talks Boosters: Pfizer First As Moderna Delayed
  Fauci Talks Boosters: Pfizer First As Moderna Delayed

  As Israel’s “coronavirus czar” called on the country to prepare for a fourth shot of the Covid-19 vaccine while virus variants continue to evade the first three, American’s top infectious diseases specialist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, prepares the ever-trusting general public for a domestic booster shot program.

  

  According to Fauci, the US booster shot program will begin exclusively with Pfizer and BioNTech SE jabs, after announcing that Moderna is still “getting their data together,” and would be delayed by “a couple of weeks – if any.”

  Biden has set a Sept. 20 target for kicking off the booster campaign, once the CDC and FDA sign off on it.

  Top U.S. infectious-disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said that officials were likely to soon get the regulatory go-ahead to administer COVID-19 vaccine booster shots made by Pfizer, although the Moderna booster could take a little longer https://t.co/fRIMXyWXmA pic.twitter.com/IKVtvZ3VO8

  — Reuters (@Reuters) September 5, 2021

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

  “The bottom line is very likely at least part of the plan will be implemented, but ultimately the entire plan will be,” Fauci told CBS‘s “Face the Nation.”

  Fauci’s comments may lead to more clarity on the administration’s stance after Biden ran into resistance by medical experts who advise U.S. regulators over what they view as political interference in the review process. 

  While Biden has set a Sept. 20 target for kicking off the booster campaign, safety and efficacy data require signoff by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. –Bloomberg

  On Friday, Moderna said it had completed its booster shot submissions to US regulators.

  Fauci’s comments come after weeks of flip-flopping on when Americans need booster shots – with critics suggesting that the Biden administration is rushing booster shots before scientific evidence can vouch for their efficacy.

  “We need clear guidance on these booster shots because it undermines the credibility of it,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) told “Meet the Press,” after calling out the administration for “mixed messaging.”

  “I guess they slipped and pre-leaked an announcement about booster shots with all three vaccines and then had to backtrack it and say you can only use Pfizer.”

  Last week two top FDA officials quit over disagreements with the White House over booster shots. According to reports, the two officials were frustrated that the Biden administration continued to take direction from the CDC and Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

  As Fox News notes, “Current guidance says that only individuals with moderately or severely compromised immune systems should receive a booster shot as such individuals might not build the appropriate immunity from the initial two shots. 

  Biden, however, suggested that individuals should receive a shot eight months after their final dose of vaccine. 

  The FDA supposedly did not endorse this plan.”

  Perhaps Moderna is frantically trying to make sure their booster shots don’t have detectable levels of metals ‘which react to magnets.’

  This is how Takeda/Moderna tried to spin the discovery of stainless steel in the Moderna vaccine: https://t.co/SBIZ3mjMtm pic.twitter.com/AJPyh4hdJt

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 3, 2021

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  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/05/2021 – 19:00

• Bad Ideas Tried Again: Pension Plans Borrow Money At A Record Pace To Invest
  Bad Ideas Tried Again: Pension Plans Borrow Money At A Record Pace To Invest

  Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

  Despite past failures at timing, cities and municipalities are borrowing money at a record pace to shore up pension plans.

  

  Pension obligation bonds contributed to the chapter 9 bankruptcies of Detroit, Stockton, Calif., and San Bernardino, Calif. 

  Nonetheless, expanding bubbled have lured government bodies into repeating past mistakes, this time at a new record pace.

  Hooray! We broke the pace of 2008.

  Main Street Pensions Take Wall Street Gamble

  

  Please consider Main Street Pensions Take Wall Street Gamble

  State and local governments have borrowed about $10 billion for pension funding this year through the end of August, more than in any of the previous 15 full calendar years, according to an analysis of Bloomberg data by Municipal Market Analytics. The number of individual municipalities borrowing for pensions soared to 72 from a 15-year average of 25.

  Among those considering what is known as pension obligation borrowing is Norwich, a city in southeastern Connecticut with a population of 40,000. Its yearly payment toward its old pension debts has climbed to $11 million in 2022—four times the annual retirement contribution for current workers and 8% of the city’s budget. The city will vote in November on whether to sell $145 million in 25-year bonds to cover the pensions of retired police officers, firefighters, city workers and school employees.

  Comptroller Josh Pothier said that spread helped him overcome his initial hesitation. “It’s pretty scary; it’s kind of like buying on margin,” he said he thought to himself. “But we’ve had a long run of interest rates being extraordinarily low,” he added.

  Here is how a pension obligation bond works: A city or county issues a bond for all or a portion of its missed pension payments and dumps the proceeds into its pension coffers to be invested. If the returns on pension investments are higher than the bond rate, the additional investment income will translate into lower pension contributions for the city or county over time. (The $10 billion in pension borrowing captured by the Municipal Market Analytics analysis also included some money used directly for pension benefits, rather than being invested, and at least one borrower directed some bond proceeds to other uses.)

  Take a Chance on Me! 

  The higher the market goes, the less likely the maneuver is going to work.

  I drew a dotted line in the lead chart at the place where I firmly believe the stock market will revisit at a future date. 

  That line holds no matter what the stock market does in the next few years. 

  And that is a likely best case scenario, not a worst case one.

  Musical Tribute

  Two-Way Bet

  This is the most insanely overvalued market in history.   

  But bear in mind that it’s a two-way bet. 

  Two Ways to Win

  1. The stock market keeps rising forever or at least long enough to cover the borrowing costs without a huge drawdown. 

  2. These maneuvers and a stock market plunge inspire Congress to bail out the boomers, the cities, and the states.

  Care to take a chance?

  *  *  *

  Like these reports? If so, please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/05/2021 – 18:30

• World Food Prices Jump In August To Near Decade High
  World Food Prices Jump In August To Near Decade High

  Central banks and mainstream media continue to peddle the notion that soaring food inflation is temporary and the average Joe and Jane should not worry about it. But in a new report via the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), global food prices are on the rise, once again, and back to near-decade highs. 

  FAO released a statement Thursday that detailed after two consecutive months of declines, world food prices in August jumped due to solid gains in sugar, vegetable oils, and cereals. 

  FAO’s food price index, which follows international prices of globally traded food commodities, averaged 127.4 points in August, up 3.9 points (3.1%) from July and 31.5 points (32.9%) from the same period last year. 

  

  In August, the most significant driver of food prices was FAO Sugar Price Index, which jumped 9.6% from July due to frost damage to crops in Brazil, the world’s largest sugar exporter. Readers may recall in “Frost Bites Brazilian Sugar Crop As Prices Zoom Higher,” we noted multiple weather disasters in Brazil severely damaged the sugar crop. 

  The second-largest jump in the basket was the FAO Vegetable Oil Price Index, which rose 6.7% last month, as international palm oil prices soared to historic highs because of below-potential production. 

  The FAO Cereal Price Index increased 3.4% higher in August versus July. The meat index edged up slightly in August, and the dairy index sunk. 

  A combination of global droughts, volatile weather, labor shortages, and supply chain disruptions persisting from COVID, among others, have contributed to the rapid rise in food prices over the last year. 

  Heading into fall, soaring food inflation shows no signs of abating and may worsen. This may cause socio-economic turmoil in emerging market economies, mainly because people in those countries allocate more of their daily budgets to food. 

  SocGen’s Albert Edwards first warned about soaring food inflation last December ahead of the big rally in food prices in a note that we titled “Why Albert Edwards Is Starting To Panic About Soaring Food Prices.” He said a driver of food inflation has been the global central bank’s ultra-loose monetary policy and warns about uprisings in underdeveloped countries. 

  In first-world countries like the US and Europe, surging food inflation hasn’t become a big deal yet, for consumers but may start to irritate the working-poor this fall when supermarket prices are expected to jump. 

  Food inflation globally has been ultra-low for the last few decades. Now food prices are soaring, and this could be an indication once the Federal Reserve begins tapering that bond yields will only go up. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/05/2021 – 18:00

• Snake Oil?! Brazilian Researchers Find Possible COVID Treatment In Viper Venom
  Snake Oil?! Brazilian Researchers Find Possible COVID Treatment In Viper Venom

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  We have previously discussed how people often do not consider the real costs of pollution or the loss of rainforest in our debates over environmental protection. The destruction of these rainforests will contribute to global warming and accelerate the loss of species.

  Those species will not only reduce diversity in this world but many likely hold medical and scientific breakthroughs.

  We have found key treatments for diseases and illnesses in such rare species.

  We have another reminder of that potential this week after Brazilian researchers found that a molecule in the venom the jararacussu pit viper may combat COVID-19.

  

  The point is not that the viper is going extinct but it is another reminder that much of our “miracle” drugs still come from rare species.

  

  The viper study appeared in the scientific journal Molecules this month and found that the molecule inhibited the virus’s ability to multiply in monkey cells by 75%.  This is specifically a a peptide, or chain of amino acids, that can connect to an enzyme of the coronavirus called PLPro, which is vital to reproduction of the virus.

  We should, of course, not protect the environment just because it benefits us as humans, but (if sheer environmentalism does not motivate some) self-preservation should. The rapid loss of species in places like Brazil means the loss of possible new drugs and science associated with those species. I have been in the Amazon and I have seen the tremendous density of rare and often fantastic species on display. However, under the government of Jair Bolsonaro, deforestation is continuing as a disastrous rate. With his government, it has surged to a 12 year high.

  The jararacussu can reach 6 feet in length and is found in Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina. Its name literally means “large snake.” This is not the first discovery of medical use of its venom. Researchers previously found angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors to treat hypertension and some types of congestive heart failure in the venom.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/05/2021 – 17:30

• Amidst Historic Labor Shortage, The Retail Race To Secure Tens Of Thousands Of Holiday Workers Has Officially Started
  Amidst Historic Labor Shortage, The Retail Race To Secure Tens Of Thousands Of Holiday Workers Has Officially Started

  On Thursday of this week Walmart decided to give more than half a million of its employees raises of “at least $1” in the latest move to try and shore up its employee base heading into the ever-important holiday season. 

  Big box retailers like Walmart routinely bring on tens of thousands of temporary workers for the holidays, but this year will see increased pressure to retain labor in the midst of a historic, country-wide labor shortage that has been spurred by 18 months of “free” government stimulus. 

  Last year heading into the holidays, Target provided a coronavirus health plan and paid workers $15 an hour, Reuters reported. This year, retailers will try to one-up each other even further in order to draw the attention of a decreased labor pool. Walmart’s U.S. average hourly wage now stands at $16.40 per hour. The new raise goes into effect September 25.

  Walmart also said this summer it will pay 100% of college tuition and book costs for associates. 

  

  Greg Portell, lead partner in the global consumer practice of consultancy Kearney, told Reuters: “The biggest challenge for retailers going into the holiday season is going to be how do they get the sales associates and the warehouse workers in position to fulfill demand.”

  Cynthia Murray, 65, a 20-year Walmart worker from Laurel, Maryland, wasn’t impressed. She told Reuters: “When Walmart touts its average pay at $16.40 an hour, it distracts from the reality that its business model still relies on poverty wages.”

  Walmart’s raise comes days before the national end of federal unemployment benefits. Kenneth Dau-Schmidt, professor of labor and employment law at Indiana University Bloomington, concluded: “This is significant. I mean, if you look at it in percentage terms it’s not much, but this is Walmart – they don’t really do this. Companies are having trouble getting people back into the harness after being out for so long and this is another sign that the labor market is readjusting.”

  As we noted earlier this week, both Amazon and Walmart are about to make massive pushes to add more than 55,000 and 20,000 employees, respectively. Amazon is looking for corporate and technology employees while Walmart’s hiring is focusing on supply chain. 

  The move for Amazon to hire 55,000 employees is one of new CEO Andy Jassy’s first major initiatives since taking over for former CEO Jeff Bezos earlier this year. Positions will include engineering, research science and robotics roles.

  

  The monster hiring spree will see Amazon bring on employees equal to more than 33% of Google’s workforce and almost all of Facebook’s workforce, according to CNBC. It’ll also be a 20% increase to Amazon’s current tech and corporate workforce, which currently numbers about 275,000.

  But it’s not just Amazon’s in-house workforce that needs expanding. Bloomberg reported Wednesday that Amazon has found a unique solution for the labor shortage: recruit pot smokers.

  That’s right: despite the fact that driving while high on any substance is illegal, the company is advising its delivery partners to prominently advertise that they don’t screen applicants for marijuana use, according to emails between Amazon and contractors reviewed by Bloomberg.

  Doing so can boost the number of job applicants by as much as 400%, Amazon says in one message to its driver-contractors (without explaining where it got the number). Conversely, the company says, screening for marijuana cuts the prospective worker pool by up to 30%. One delivery partner who stopped screening applicants at Amazon’s behest says marijuana was the prevailing reason most people failed drug tests. Now that she’s only testing for drugs like opiates and amphetamines, more drivers pass.

  Other delivery companies are continuing to screen applicants, concerned about the insurance and liability implications in the many states where weed use remains illegal. They also worry that ending drug testing might prompt some drivers to toke up before going out on a route.

  “If one of my drivers crashes and kills someone and tests positive for marijuana, that’s my problem, not Amazon’s,” said one, who requested anonymity to discuss the issue because Amazon discourages delivery company owners from speaking to the media.

  And it doesn’t look like Amazon has any plans to drop marijuana screens from its own hiring procedures. CEO Jassey commented publicly that the hiring binge will help Amazon “keep up with demand in retail, the cloud and advertising, among other businesses” like the company’s plan to put satellites into orbit for broadband access.

  “There are so many jobs during the pandemic that have been displaced or have been altered, and there are so many people who are thinking about different and new jobs,” Jassey commented.

  The new CEO continued: “It’s part of what we think makes ‘Career Day’ so timely and so useful.”

  Addressing recent concerns about treatment of employees and deflecting pressure to unionize, Jassey continued: “Everybody at the company has the freedom – and really, the expectation – to critically look at how it can be better and then invent ways to make it better.”

  Amazon has been “very competitive on the compensation side,” Jassey said. “We’ve led the way in the $15 minimum wage,” and for some states on average that “really, the starting salary is $17 an hour.”

  Over 40,000 of the new jobs will be in the U.S., while others will be based in India, Germany and Japan. 

  

  Separately, Walmart also announced this week it was going on a massive hiring binge, bringing on 20,000 supply chain employees as the big box retailer heads into the holiday season. Jobs will be a “mix of full-time and part-time, but will be permanent positions,” according to CNBC. 

  The company’s blog said: “As our business continues evolving to meet the needs of today’s customers, having a robust supply chain is more important than ever. That’s why we’re excited to announce that our team is growing.”

  It continued: “We know that offering competitive pay is essential in order to build a network for the future. The average wage for supply chain associates is $20.37 per hour. We know that financial stability, health benefits, family support and career development opportunities are all critical factors to weigh when considering a job, and we aim not to just meet but exceed our associates’ expectations on each of these fronts. Every item on our store shelves and in our online inventory is there because of the combined efforts of our associates working in more than 250 supply chain facilities across the country.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/05/2021 – 17:00

• Experts Want Audit To Protect California Recall Against 'Cyberattack'
  Experts Want Audit To Protect California Recall Against ‘Cyberattack’

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

  Cybersecurity experts are urging California’s top elections official to conduct an audit of ballots cast in the recall election to ensure no problems occurred.

  The recent disclosure of binary images of the Dominion Voting Systems’ election management system boosts the risk of nefarious action against the state’s election system, the group of experts warned in a Sept. 2 letter to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber.

  The software versions shown in the images are not the same ones as those used in California, but the differences are relatively minor, they added.

  “The release materially elevates threats to the trustworthiness of the ongoing California recall election and to public trust in the election. We urge you to address the issue by taking one critical action–a statewide risk-limiting audit (RLA) of trustworthy paper ballots—which can substantially mitigate these threats,” Mustaque Ahamad, a professor at Georgia Tech’s school of cybersecurity and privacy, Philip Stark, professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s Department of Statistics, and the other experts wrote.

  Dominion, whose systems are used across more than half of the states in the nation, did not return a request for comment, nor did the office of Weber.

  Jenna Dresner, a spokeswoman for Weber, told The Associated Press that the version of Dominion’s system used in 40 California counties is different from the one referenced in the letter and said there are a range of security measures in place that protect against attacks.

  “California has the strictest and most comprehensive voting system testing, use, and requirements in the country, and it was designed to withstand potential threats,” Dresner said.

  A Dominion spokesperson told the outlet that the company had become aware of the reported release of images of its system and reported it to the authorities but that the release isn’t seen as boosting the risk to election security.

  

  Mail in ballots run through a sorting machine at the Sacramento County Registrar of Voters office in Sacramento, Calif., on Aug. 30, 2021. (Rich Pedroncelli/AP Photo)

  The images were allegedly made public at a cyber symposium on elections held in South Dakota last month.

  The experts said one image came from Antrim County in Michigan while two came from Mesa County in Colorado. The images were made available online and “have been widely downloaded,” they said.

  “While it is prudent to assume that other nation states have had that software for a long time, thousands of other people with unknown affiliations, motives, and physical access to voting systems now have it also. That increases the risk of undetected outcome-changing cyber-attacks on California counties that use Dominion equipment and the risk of accusations of fraud and election manipulation which, without rigorous post-election auditing, would be impossible to disprove,” they wrote.

  Stark, one of the experts, introduced the concept of risk-limiting audits in 2007. The process includes manually checking a sample of ballots, or other paper records, until the amount of evidence is sufficient to prove the reported outcome is correct, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

  Absentee ballots for the recall election, which presents voters with the choice of whether to remove California Gov. Gavin Newsom and who to replace him with if he is recalled, were sent out last month. Voters can also go to the polls on Sept. 14.

  Nearly a quarter of all registered voters in the state had returned ballots as of Thursday, according to Weber’s office. The bulk returned ballots by mail, with many others using drop boxes.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/05/2021 – 16:30

• Tesla Reportedly Targeting $25,000 "Model 2" With No Steering Wheel By 2023
  Tesla Reportedly Targeting $25,000 “Model 2” With No Steering Wheel By 2023

  Apparently having not lied enough over the last few weeks with the revelation of the “Tesla humanoid robot”, Elon Musk may be seeking to one-up himself by reportedly telling his employees that Tesla is going to release a $25,000 car in 2023.

  Landing hours after a report that Apple was seeking to have a mass market vehicle in production by 2024, electrek reported that Tesla is aiming to release the proposed $25,000 vehicle without a steering wheel. 

  Musk first announced the idea of a $25,000 vehicle at Tesla’s battery day last year, electrek notes. Musk is hoping to be able to hit the $25,000 price point by leveraging a new battery cell and manufacturing process, which eventually could reduce the costs associated with a battery by over 50%.

  

  There has been little in the way of updates as to how that battery effort is moving along since then.

  Musk is also hoping the new vehicle, which has been unofficially dubbed the “Model 2”, will be fully autonomous. “Do we want to have this car come with a steering wheel and pedals?” Musk reportedly asked his employees, suggesting the vehicle may not need them.

  Renderings show it as a compact style hatchback. 

  

  Last year, Tesla disclosed plans to establish a research and development center in China to help build a “Chinese style” electric vehicle, which may wind up being similar, or the same, as the proposed “Model 2”. 

  Sources told electrek production could start as soon as 2023. We’ll take the “over” on that timeline, as usual, when it comes to matters of Musk’s promises. The report concluded by stating that the company’s progress on Full Self Driving will dictate whether or not the Model 2 will be autonomous. With that being the case, not only do we think proposed goals about the timeline are likely misguided, but we’re not holding out hope for autonomy, either.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/05/2021 – 16:00

• Jerome Powell's Quest For Economic Stability Is Destabilizing
  Jerome Powell’s Quest For Economic Stability Is Destabilizing

  Authored by Richard Ebeling via The American Institute for Economic Research,

  When the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank speaks the financial markets listen, and this was no different with Jerome Powell’s virtual address to the annual meeting of central bankers at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. What they got is what Harry Truman complained about when hearing from his economic advisors: “On the one hand, ‘this,’ but on the other hand, ‘that’.” Truman said that he desperately wanted a one-handed economist.

  After a decade of general economic calm most of the time, with modest to reasonable growth, relatively low price inflation, and, at the beginning of 2020 before the Coronavirus lockdowns, unemployment at its lowest level in half a century, everyone is now worried about what to expect from the Federal Reserve in terms of monetary and interest rate policy in the months and years ahead in the face of all that has been happening for the last year and a half.

  

  Whipsaw GDP and Huge Government Expenditures

  After a staggering decline in real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from $19.2 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2019 to $17.2 trillion in the second quarter of 2020, or a 9 percent decrease of real GDP in a matter of a few months, the latest revised estimate by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) for the second quarter of 2021 is that real GDP reached $19.36 trillion. This was a 12.5 percent increase over its 2020 low, and a level now above its pre-Coronavirus high.

  It is worth keeping in mind, however, that all of these numbers are exaggerated in terms of real private sector vibrancy because in 2019, federal government expenditures came to $4.45 trillion, or 23 percent of that $19.2 trillion GDP total. By the end of 2020, due to the relaxing of the federal and state lockdown and shutdown mandates over much of the U.S. economy in the second half of last year, real GDP had recovered to $18.76 trillion, but federal government expenditures came to $6.6 trillion, or 35 percent of that total GDP. And just in the first half of 2021, out of that $19.36 trillion GDP, federal spending has already been $5.86 trillion of that total, or 30.2 percent.

  If government spending is even partly discounted from GDP as a false indicator of the economic “health” of the U.S., since Uncle Sam has nothing to spend other than what it either first taxes away from the private sector or has borrowed from the financial markets, the private economy is far from doing as well as the GDP numbers suggest.

  Lagging Unemployment and Rising Price Inflation

  After unemployment had reached a low of 3.5 percent of the labor force at the start of 2020, it rose to almost 15 percent in April of last year, due to the government-commanded halt of a huge amount of economic activity. In July 2021, unemployment had declined to 5.4 percent of the labor force; but this still left it almost 55 percent above its low at the beginning of 2020. 

  After the Consumer Price Index (CPI) mostly fluctuated in a relatively narrow range of between one and two percent, annually, over the last ten years, 2021 has seen the CPI increase to 5.4 percent in July of this year. Certain subgroups, such as energy and used car automotive sectors increased in double digit ranges on an annualized basis.    

  With unemployment still considered high, with the CPI increasing noticeably above the decade-long annual average, and question marks concerning how GDP will grow for the remainder of this year, given continuing supply-chain disruptions and uncertainties about the impact of variations and new mutations of the Coronavirus, all eyes and ears turned to Jerome Powell’s pronouncements about the future direction of Federal Reserve monetary and interest rate policy.

  Powell’s Maybe This, Maybe That, Policy Pronouncement

  And what he said was that the Federal Reserve Board of Governors has not decided what to do!

  On the one hand, the economy is improving so, perhaps, before the end of the year, the Fed will reduce its current monthly purchase of $120 billion worth of assets – $80 billion of U.S. government securities, and $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities. And it may decide that it is time to no longer use its policy tools to keep key interest rates close to zero.

  On the other hand, recent price inflation may only be a transitory spurt due to supply-side problems, so the concern about accelerating price increases may be misplaced. Therefore, it may be premature to reduce asset purchases too quickly and certainly it is necessary to be cautious in any nudging up of interest rates that might cut short the national economic recovery before unemployment has been reduced, once again, to a level closer to standard benchmarks of “full employment.”

  On the one hand, the worst of the Coronavirus may have passed, so there may be no new shutdown hurdles in the way of continuing improvement as reflected in the usual macroeconomic measurements. On the other hand, virus variants may prevent a smooth path to a fully restored and growing economy. So, it may be too soon to really specify when and by how much asset purchases will be reduced or by how much those interest rates will be raised from their current near zero levels.

  The Fed Chairman also said that, on the one hand, the Fed leadership has plenty of experience and policy tools to keep the economy on a sound and even path. On the other hand, such things as the impact of the Coronavirus and the threats facing the world from global warming are unique, making charting the Fed policy course a distinct challenge.

  Powell’s Reticence and the Political Business Cycle

  In other words, Jerome Powell evaded any straightforward policy program, and therefore offered something for almost everyone, in terms of easing fears and concerns that either the policy foot will stay too long where it is on the accelerator or will start putting on the brakes too quickly. Either he is being reticent due to honest doubts about what he thinks is ahead for the economy, or he knows how to play to the audience in the White House and in Congress who will decide whether or not he is appointed for a second term as chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. After all, you don’t want to seem to be planning any clear policy moves that might threaten the reelection of Senators or Congressmen in the 2022 elections, or antagonize a president who does not want to lose his thin majority in the national legislature.

  That politicians and central bankers are sensitive to the phases of the business cycle as they may impact the political electoral cycle in thinking about their policy decisions and directions has been understood by some economists at least since Johan Akerman’s (1896-1982) analysis of the “Political Economic Cycle” (Kyklos, May 1947), in which he traced out observed changes in those running governments in democratic societies resulting from the phases in the business cycle, and how those in government attempt to manage public policy to maintain their political positions.

  Historically, Akerman said, looking over the period from the mid-19th century to 1945 in countries like Great Britain, the United States, Germany, and Sweden, the result of the analysis could be summarized in the following way: “All general economic depressions in England . . . lead to cabinet crises and a change of the party in power . . . In the United States the presidential elections as a rule involve a change in party control when votes are cast during a depression and a maintenance of the party in office when the votes are cast during periods of prosperity,” in sixteen of the twenty elections between 1865 and 1945.

  Governments, Akerman also pointed out, try “to stabilize financial and economic conditions, and for a brief period may succeed in doing so.” While not pursuing it in his article, the fact is that the underlying circumstances that create “booms” that result in “busts” are usually of the government’s own policy. making. The “good times” monetary and fiscal policies finally create the economic crises that threaten the political policy-makers’ positions in authority. Hence, a government’s frequent demise in the next election when a recession or depression finally occurs. (p. 107)

  Interest Rates Should Coordinate Savings and Investment

  But this gets to the real essence of the dilemma in Jerome Powell’s statement of Federal Reserve policy and its possible future direction. The underlying presumption is that a central bank can and should be attempting to manage the monetary system and the level of interest rates in the financial markets and, therefore, trying to macro-manage the society as a whole.

  Let us start with interest rates. The role of market prices is to bring into coordinated balance the two sides of demand and supply. Prices do so by effectively informing those needing to know on the supply side what is it that demanders want and the value they place upon it in terms of what they are willing to pay to get it; prices, at the same time, inform demanders what suppliers can and are willing to produce and offer for sale, and at what price reflecting the producer’s opportunity costs of bringing a particular good or service to market. The competitive interaction of those two sides of the market brings about the balance between them.

  The role of interest rates is to do the same for borrowers and lenders. It is the trading of the use of resources across time between those who are interested and willing to defer the more immediate use of resources (expressed in money) in their possession or under their control, in return for a premium in the future from those interested in more immediate uses of those resources beyond their own capacity in exchange for paying such a premium in the future. That premium is the rate of interest, which may vary with the duration of the loan and risk elements in extending it.

  The role of the rate of interest is to coordinate the willingness of savers with the desires of borrowers. Any rate of interest above or below this results in, respectively, an excess of savings over investment demand or an excess of investment demand over available savings.

  Manipulating Interests Rates Distorts Markets

  The crucial difference between a price, say, for hats that is set below the market-clearing, or coordinating, level is that a shortage results with some willing buyers leaving the market empty-handed; but when the Federal Reserve, or any central bank, wishes to manipulate interest rates below the market coordinating level, it fills the gap with newly created money with which loans may be extended in excess of actual savings in the economy.

  This not only results in an increase in the number of units of the medium of exchange through which buyers can express their greater demand for desired goods and services, tending, in general, to place upward pressure on overall market prices. It also influences the structure of relative prices and wages, since increases in the supply of money can only enter the economy through the increased demand for the particular goods, resources, and services those borrowers of that new money wish to purchase and use. But the money is then passed to another group of hands; that is, those who have sold those goods, resources and services to the borrowers. This second group, in turn, spends the new money that they have received from sales on other goods, resources and services for which they wish to increase their demand.

  Step-by-step, in a patterned sequence through time, the newly created money increases the demands and the prices of one set of goods and services, and then another, and then another, until, finally, in principle, all prices for finished goods and the factors of production will have been impacted to one degree or another, at different times in the sequence, with changes in relative profit margins and employment opportunities for as long as the monetary inflationary process continues.

  This also means that whenever the monetary expansion stops or slows down, or even, perhaps, fails to accelerate, the resulting patterned use of labor, resources, and capital equipment brought into existence due to the way the money has entered into the economy and is being spent, period-after-period, begins to fall apart. This precipitates a readjustment process during which it is discovered that labor, capital and resources have been directed into allocated and applied for uses that are unsustainable once the inflationary process comes to an end.

  The Fed’s Monetary Expansion and Bank Reserve Tricks

  For over ten years, since the financial and housing crisis of 2008-2009, the Federal Reserve has been dramatically expanding the money supply. In January 2008, the Monetary Base (loanable reserves in the banking system plus currency in general circulation) equaled $837 billion; by August 2014, the Monetary Base had been expanded to over $4 trillion. In February 2020, just before the Coronavirus crisis impacted the U.S. in terms of the government mandated lockdowns and shutdowns, it still was historically high at $3.45 trillion; but by July 2021, the Monetary Base stood at $6.13 trillion, or a nearly 78 percent increase just in the last year and a half.

  Why has there not been the expected general price inflation from such a huge increase in the money supply through the banking system? Because the Federal Reserve has been paying banks not to fully lend the loanable reserves at their disposal. As a result, as of July 2021, banks were holding “excess reserves,” (that is, reserves above the minimum Federal Reserve rules require banks to hold against possible cash withdrawals by their depositors), of around $3.9 trillion, upon which the Federal Reserve pays those banks an interest rate of 0.15 percent. In other words, 63 percent of the Monetary Base is being held off the active loan market.

  Given that real GDP in the United States has increased by over 25 percent since 2010, and the velocity of circulation of money (number of times money turns over in transactions per period of time), has decreased by almost 40 percent over the last ten years or so, it is not too surprising that prices in general have not been rising more, or more rapidly, given these countervailing factors, plus the Federal Reserve’s “trick” of paying banks to not lend all the huge amount of bank reserves their open market operations have created during the past decade.

  Markets Still Distorted, Even with Low Price Inflation

  It is nonetheless the case, that through its continuing large purchases of U.S. treasuries and mortgage-backed securities, market interest rates have been artificially pushed significantly below any rates of interest that would prevail on financial markets not manipulated in this manner.

  It is not unreasonable to ask what informational role market interest rates have been even playing about the real underlying savings and investment borrowing relationship in the economy in such a setting. Federal Reserve monetary and interest rate policy has undermined any reasonably accurate intertemporal price to coordinate saving with borrowing.

  Another way of saying this is that the Federal Reserve’s monetary central planning has virtually abolished a market-based pricing system for the allocation and use of resources across time. How can anyone easily know what real savings is available to fund investment and other loan uses in a way that is not throwing the economy out of serious balance?

  In the name of trying to steer the economic “ship” to assure growing GDP, moderate price inflation, and “full employment” of the labor force, Jerome Powell and his fellow Fed Board members are, in fact, setting the stage for an eventual economic downturn by distorting a series of interconnected “microeconomic” relationships in the name of “macroeconomic” stability.

  When the Fed chairman cautiously suggests that the American central bankers are not sure what they are going to do, it is because they cannot do what they say they want to do. By trying to pursue their declared goals through the monetary and interest rate policy tools at their disposal, they are, in fact, continuing to imbalance and wrongly “twist” the real economy in ways that will result in the instability, and the eventual recession and likely price inflation they say they wish to prevent.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/05/2021 – 15:30

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• Is The US Intelligence Community Putting The World At Risk?
  Is The US Intelligence Community Putting The World At Risk?

  Authored by Pete Hoekstra via The Gatestone Institute,

  The recent release of an unclassified summary by the Intelligence Community (IC) of its investigation into China’s role in the COVID pandemic leaves one feeling that there is nothing there. Like Sergeant Schultz in the old TV series “Hogan’s Heroes,” the IC seems to be protesting “I know nothing! Nothing!” The report provided no real substantive insights into the origins of the pandemic. Yet the Intelligence Community’s COVID Summary is dangerous; infinitely more dangerous than it appears.

  

  Without saying so directly, it encourages us to discount China’s significant culpability in this disaster, downplaying its responsibility for the pandemic unleashed on its territory and its role in the deadly spread of COVID around the world.

  The summary comes to three relatively strong conclusions about Chinese actions and motivations.

  • First of all, the IC states its judgment that China did not develop the virus “as a biological weapon.”

  • Second, the IC assesses that “China’s officials did not have foreknowledge of the virus before the initial outbreak.”

  • Third, the report ends with a startling conclusion, stated so matter-of-factly that it could almost go unnoticed; it says that China’s “actions,” its “hindering” of the international investigation, its “resistance” to sharing information and its attempts to blame other countries, “reflect, in part, China’s government’s own uncertainty about where an investigation could lead as well as its frustration the international community is using the issue to exert political pressure on China.”

  The first two findings are probably correct. Taken together, they rule out the worst possible scenario: that China’s leadership developed a biological weapon and knowingly unleashed it on an unsuspecting world. These findings were never really in debate so nothing new. But we should not take undue comfort in that. As Gordon G. Chang outlined in these pages earlier this week, just because they didn’t do it this time, doesn’t mean they will not do it in the future. Chang was correct in identifying COVID was the “ultimate proof of concept.”

  What truly makes the IC summary dangerous is its third conclusion, implying China’s unacceptable behavior since the pandemic was unleashed can be explained away and thus ignored.

  How can the IC seriously believe that China’s active stonewalling of the international community’s attempts to get to the bottom of what happened and thus learn better how to combat the virus can be reduced to its “uncertainty about where an investigation might lead” or its “frustration” about outside political pressure? If our IC insists on promoting this rose-colored view of China, if this wishful thinking really reflects what our IC believes, the world is in deep trouble.

  Let me build on Chang’s exposure of China’s behavior and offer some findings that should have been in the Intelligence Community report:

  • We can assess with a high degree of confidence that China views the U.S. as its primary global adversary. In the short term China wants to achieve near peer status with the U.S. In the long term it wants to be the dominant world power.

  • We can assess with a high degree of confidence that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been actively involved in advanced virus research via improving genetic targeting capabilities.

  • We can assess with a high degree of confidence that the CCP facilitated the global spread of the COVID-19 virus.

  • We can assess with a medium degree of confidence that the CCP used its influence with the WHO to spread a major disinformation campaign.

  • In sum, we can assess with a high degree of confidence that while the origins and initial awareness of the virus by the Chinese government cannot be clearly ascertained, the Chinese government has been intimately involved in most everything since then. It has used the pandemic to further its global economic and political agenda. Its behavior has been ruthless and malicious.

  Americans, our international allies and enemies, and, of course, Chinese and CCP officials themselves, will read this intelligence summary carefully. Thus, the U.S. intelligence community’s whitewashing of China’s culpability puts us all at risk. In documents such as this report, there are no throwaway lines. Every word is weighed and considered. The implication that China is essentially innocent of any ill will is in the report only because some senior official wanted to include it.

  God help us if this signals the beginning of a Biden administration appeasement strategy. Judging from everything we have experienced over the last ten to twenty years, the attempt to placate China by writing off its malicious behavior as lightly as this report does is doomed to failure. It shows weakness. It rewards an aggressive China, and only invites more of the same.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/04/2021 – 23:30

• As If Millions Of Hollywood Celebs Suddenly Cried Out In Terror: China Bans "Effeminate Men" From TV
  As If Millions Of Hollywood Celebs Suddenly Cried Out In Terror: China Bans “Effeminate Men” From TV

  As if millions of woke effeminate Hollywood voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

  As part of Beijing’s sudden “neo-cultural revolution“, the Chinese government has issued new orders to its broadcasters in its continuing crackdown on culture, business and social mores. This time, it called for a ban on what it termed “effeminate men,” asking instead that “revolutionary culture” be touted. This, needless to say, is terrible news for an entire generation of woke, Hollywood snowflakes who know everything about virtue signaling – especially if it gets them lucrative Chinese production contracts – and who are absolutely clueless about anything within ten miles of a real of metaphorical revolution.

  

  The edict, as Deadline reported, is part of President Xi Jinping’s call for a “national rejuvenation,” with business and the public under orders to align with his vision for China. In recent months, the regime has expressed official concerns and cracked down on youth online gaming, boy band culture, gambling, cryptocurrency and sports. The moves are part of discouraging what it sees as unhealthy attention to celebrities and certain distracting activities.

  The China TV regulators called for “resolutely put an end to sissy men and other abnormal esthetics,” using an insulting slang term for effeminate men — “niang pao,” or literally, “girlie guns.”

  

  As Rabobank’s Michael Every put it, that’s a move which echoed the call of the “profound revolution” commentary from earlier this week, as did promised crackdowns on property and medical expenses. Interestingly, even the editor of the Global Times, often North Korean in his semantics according to Every, posted about the commentary (in Chinese):

  “I’m concerned that such language will evoke certain historical memories and potentially trigger a degree of ideological confusion and panic.”

  

  One wonders just how long Hollywood’s “sissy men” will continue to signal their “virtue” now if it means that millions of dollars in future movie and TV revenues are at stake as a result of their pandering to the lowest common liberal social denominator, and if – gasp – Hollywood may be on the cusp of turning conservative, because even in Hollywood – especially in Hollywood – money talks and virtue-signaling walks.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/04/2021 – 23:00

• Vaccine Voodoo
  Vaccine Voodoo

  Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

  Many everyday Americans probably believe that the COVID vaccines will keep them from getting COVID. That’s not true and never has been true.

  The vaccines do not prevent you from being infected with the COVID virus. They do not keep you from spreading the COVID virus.

  There have been many cases of so-called “breakthrough” infections where double-vaxxed citizens get COVID anyway. That’s not uncommon.

  There’s even new evidence that double-vaxxed individuals who get COVID will build up huge viral loads in their noses and sinuses, causing them to become super-spreaders and infect others.

  Do the vaccines do anything?

  

  Yes, they are effective at reducing severe symptoms of COVID.

  They also reduce the death rate among those who get infected.

  That’s advantageous for the most vulnerable, including those over 70 years old and those suffering from obesity, emphysema, diabetes and other conditions closely associated with fatalities due to COVID.

  That said, there’s almost no reason for children, teenagers and otherwise healthy individuals in their 20s or even 30s to take the vaccine.

  Among all individuals, vaccinated and unvaccinated, the global survival rate is 99.2%. Among those under 70, the survival rate is 99.97%. The survival rate for children is 99.995%.

  The Israel Conundrum

  The data indicate that the most vaccinated countries have the most cases and deaths per million people, while the least vaccinated countries have the fewest cases and deaths per million people.

  Israel is providing a useful case study in the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of vaccines.

  Israel is one of the most heavily vaxxed countries in the world, with over 60% of the population fully vaccinated and almost 100% of the elderly. But now Israel is experiencing a massive increase in infections, including cases among the fully vaxxed.

  The government has also determined that the vaccines wear off after six months or less and is recommending a third shot for everyone. The problem, of course, is that the third dose will wear off too, so a fourth, fifth or sixth dose will be needed.

  And with every new dose comes a new risk of dangerous side effects, including the small but real possibility of death. The vaccinated will be getting boosters for the rest of their lives, and the virus still won’t go away.

  How Many Lives Could Have Been Saved?

  Meanwhile, effective treatments, including ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamin D, zinc and other inexpensive measures, are being suppressed by the medical establishment.

  How many people died because they were denied access to these therapies, especially early on in the disease cycle when treatment is more effective?

  It’s impossible to say, but they could potentially run into the hundreds of thousands.

  A new study by the U.K.’s National Health Service and a Canadian biotech company revealed that a nitric oxide nasal spray slashed SARS-CoV-2 viral load by 95% within 24 hours and 99% within 72 hours.

  If further trials pan out, early treatment with a similar cheap therapeutic could cut serious cases down to almost nothing.

  But it doesn’t matter. The medical establishment will continue pushing the narrative that only universal vaccination will stop the virus.

  Media Spreading Panic

  The media continue to hyperventilate about “cases” but ignore the fact that death rates have declined since January. When one accounts for the 38 million Americans who have survived COVID and already have antibodies, then herd immunity is already here.

  Data indicate that people who had COVID between January and February of 2021 and recovered have 13 times more immunity to the Delta variant than vaccines provide.

  We’re at the stage where we can learn to live with COVID as we do with many other endemic diseases such as the seasonal flu. There’s no reason for fear.

  But the public health authorities insist that these people with natural immunity must also be vaccinated.

  It’s not “science.”

  The zero-COVID policies many governments have pursued are completely unrealistic. The virus goes where it wants. The only real solutions are patience, herd immunity and effective therapies.

  The time has come to stop living in fear and start treating COVID as an endemic disease that will be with us for a long time, like the seasonal flu or diabetes. Unfortunately, government authorities continue to insist they can control the situation with orders and mandates.

  Lockdowns Didn’t Work Before. Why Would They Work Now?

  But the evidence is clear that masks don’t work and lockdowns don’t work (but they do destroy economies — most lost sales were permanent losses, not temporary losses). Lockdowns don’t work to stop the spread of the virus because they keep people indoors where the virus can spread more easily.

  Outdoor activity is essential for fresh air, mental and physical health and exercise.

  People will find a way to gather and interact even with lockdown rules. This means that lockdowns impose all of the economic costs with few of the supposed public health benefits.

  This was recognized in a paper in 2006 by D.A. Henderson, the greatest virologist and epidemiologist of the 20th century who led the successful effort to eradicate smallpox and won the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom.

  He said lockdowns don’t work and provided detailed reasons why. Unfortunately, his award-winning work was ignored by politicians eager to appear to be doing something.

  Biden Repeats Trump’s Mistake

  Health officials should never have been put in charge of the economy. That was a huge mistake by Trump, and it’s been made worse by Biden.

  Immunologists saw some benefits from lockdowns, but these would have happened anyway because each viral outbreak runs a predictable eight–10-week course. What the experts ignored were the costs in terms of deaths from suicide, excessive alcohol consumption, drug abuse, domestic violence, depression, anxiety and other dysfunctional behaviors.

  The benefits of public health policy were minimal, but the economic, social and psychological costs were great and are still being paid. Meanwhile, the push for universal vaccination continues, despite the evidence that it’s not nearly as effective and necessary as the government claimed.

  Society is rapidly turning into a two-tier culture of the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.

  On Wall Street, where vaccination rates are as high as 90% in some firms, the unvaccinated are being treated like lepers. One investment banker said, “If you’re someone who is not vaccinated on Wall Street, you’re considered a loser.”

  Even firms that do not require full vaccination to return to work are forcing the unvaccinated to undergo weekly testing, sit apart from colleagues and wear masks while others are maskless.

  Vaccine Voodoo

  These rules are stupid, what might be called Vaccine Voodoo.

  Again, vaccination doesn’t stop infection. It doesn’t stop the spread. A fully vaccinated person can catch COVID and spread it to others. The unvaccinated have as much to fear in terms of catching the disease from the vaccinated as the other way around.

  There are ample reasons not to receive the vaccination, including being among the 38 million Americans who have recovered from COVID and have stronger antibody protection than the vaccinated.

  But they’re being treated like lepers too. This vaccination discrimination will do nothing to slow the spread of the disease, but it will do a lot to tear society apart. Investors can properly understand vaccination discrimination as one more drag on productivity and economic growth.

  But governments will keep imposing worthless mandates, and economies will continue on a trajectory of slow growth.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/04/2021 – 22:30

• China's Financial Regulators Pledge Tighter Control Of Economy, Closure Of "Loopholes"
  China’s Financial Regulators Pledge Tighter Control Of Economy, Closure Of “Loopholes”

  Over the past week, China has restricted minors to only three hours of video games a week, while erasing one of the country’s most popular actresses to kick off its reformation of China’s entertainment industry, which include reining in obsessive online ‘fandoms’ while asking that, from here on out, men in Chinese media avoid looking too “effeminate” while also avoiding even a hint of political controversy.

  

  Chen Yulu

  Now that the weekend has arrived, the focus is shifting back to the economy, as China’s economy. Chen Yulu, deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, said at the China International Finance Annual Forum in Beijing Saturday that the PBOC will close loopholes in its financial technology regulation, and include all types of financial institutions, services and products into its prudential supervision framework, Bloomberg reports.

  “We will enhance the effectiveness and professionalism of financial regulation, build all kinds of firewalls to resolutely prevent systemic risks,” Chen said.

  Meanwhile, the China Securities Regulatory Commission will tighten restrictions on companies seeking overseas listings, while enhancing the channel for foreign investors to participate in China’s onshore futures market, Vice Chairman Fang Xinghai said at the same forum.

  Back in July, Chinese regulators proposed rules that would require nearly all companies seeking to list in foreign countries to undergo a cybersecurity review.

  At the same time, Chinese officials expressed a wariness of western capital markets, implying that the central bank’s flood of capital injected into the economy since the start of the pandemic has undermined the strength of the dollar-based financial system. Perhaps this is why China is hedging its bets. While it continues to court international investment in certain markets, China’s banking regulators will focus on protecting the Chinese economy against any risks transmitted via “malicious” cross-border investment flows.

  Chinese assets are extremely unpopular right now, so there must be opportunity for an investor with the right risk tolerance.  Maybe Beijing could find some foreign dupes who might be willing to inject more capital in Evergrande?

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/04/2021 – 22:00

• Rolling Stone 'Horse Dewormer' Hit-Piece Debunked After Hospital Says No Ivermectin Overdoses
  Rolling Stone ‘Horse Dewormer’ Hit-Piece Debunked After Hospital Says No Ivermectin Overdoses

  After Joe Rogan announced that he’d kicked Covid in just a few days using a cocktail of drugs, including Ivermectin – an anti-parasitic prescribed for humans for over 35 years, with over 4 billion doses administered (and most recently as a Covid-19 treatment), the left quickly started mocking Rogan for having taken a ‘horse dewormer’ due to its dual use in livestock.

  Rolling Stone’s Jon Blistein led the charge:

  

  On Friday, Rolling Stone‘s Peter Wade took another stab – publishing a hit piece claiming that Oklahoma ERs were overflowing with people ‘overdosing on horse dewormer.’

  It was suspect from the beginning.

  The report, sourced to local Oaklahoma outlet KFOR‘s Katelyn Ogle, cites Oklahoma ER doctor Dr. Jason McElyea – claimed that people overdosing on ivermectin horse dewormer are causing emergency rooms to be “so backed up that gunshot victims were having hard times getting” access to health facilities.

  

  As people take the drug, McElyea said patients have arrived at hospitals with negative reactions like nausea, vomiting, muscle aches, and cramping — or even loss of sight.

  “The scariest one that I’ve heard of and seen is people coming in with vision loss,” the doctor said. -Rolling Stone

  Except, the article provided zero evidence for McElyea’s claims, causing people to start asking questions.

  Good stock photo though: gun shot victims standing in line at the hospital while wearing winter coates in August. Total horse shit.

  — Dave Collum (@DavidBCollum) September 4, 2021

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  And while neither KFOR or Rolling Stone mention the hospital McElyea worked for, NHS Sequoyah, located in Sallisaw, Oklahoma – just issued a statement disavowing McElyea’s claims, which pops up when you visit their website.

  It reads:

  Although Dr. Jason McElyea is not an employee of NHS Sequoyah, he is affiliated with a medical staffing group that provides coverage for our emergency room.

  With that said, Dr. McElyea has not worked at our Sallisaw location in over 2 months.

  NHS Sequoyah has not treated any patients due to complications related to taking ivermectin. This includes not treating any patients for ivermectin overdose.

  All patients who have visited our emergency room have received medical attention as appropriate. Our hospital has not had to turn away any patients seeking emergency care.

  We want to reassure our community that our staff is working hard to provide quality healthcare to all patients. We appreciate the opportunity to clarify this issue and as always, we value our community’s support.

  

  What about the rest of the state?

  According to Scott Schaeffer, managing director of the Oklahoma Center for Poison and Drug Information, “Since the beginning of May, we’ve received reports of 11 people being exposed to ivermectin,” he told the NY Daily News (which still pushed the ‘ivermectin overdoses’ story despite this fact).

  Meanwhile, this horseshit story has also been picked up by the far-left Business Insider and The Independent, as well as The Guardian, among other notable outlets.

  

  Nobody even bothered to call the hospital where this guy claims to work. https://t.co/rCbgcvOoOa pic.twitter.com/wXjncinhQX

  — jimtreacher.substack.com (@jtLOL) September 4, 2021

  If Rolling Stone had only called the hospital to verify. Shocking.

  — R. W. Evans (@RealAngelof) September 5, 2021

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  And of course, the story was breathlessly parroted:

  

  

  

  

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsMcElyea is also listed as working at Integris Grove Hospital in Grove, OK as a general family practitioner – not in the ER. A phone call to them provided no insight as to any ivermectin overdoses, however the gentleman who answered the phone sounded quite amused. What’s more, Grove, OK – with a population of 7,129, had just 14 aggravated assaults in all of 2019 according to the FBI’s latest data. We somehow doubt that ‘gunshot victims were lining up outside the ER,’ while just 11 ivermectin related hospital cases have been reported in the entire state since the beginning of May.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/04/2021 – 21:30

• Chinese Funds Trounce Wall Street Pay, Offer $300,000 To Graduates
  Chinese Funds Trounce Wall Street Pay, Offer $300,000 To Graduates

  With bank after bank rushing to hike its entry-level wages to incoming analysts and associates, Wall Street suddenly finds itself facing a much more aggressive competitor: China.

  Take the case of Peking University graduate Garen Zhou, who deferred his studies in the U.S. because of the pandemic, and instead applied for internships at China’s biggest internet companies. In the end, Bloomberg reports, the computing major chose Ubiquant, a local hedge fund managing $8 billion of assets which is offering top college leavers like Ph.D.s annual salaries of as much as $300,000. After a year, Zhou became a permanent employee, giving up his enrollment at Johns Hopkins University.

  “The benefits of staying in this job far outweigh those of studying in the U.S. both in terms of knowledge and financial return,” said 23-year-old Zhou.

  One doesn’t have to be a PhD to garner the highest wage – for elite undergrads in artificial intelligence and computer science, Chinese funds like Ubiquant offer triple the $100,000 entry price for freshly-minted college graduates on Wall Street, “illustrating a shift in global financial hiring driven by the pandemic and rising emerging market wealth.” As a result, Bloomberg notes that rather than aspire to an education in the U.S. that often leads to opportunities at global companies or even staying in America, some of the nation’s best and brightest are choosing to stay home. And once US grads learn that potential Chinese employers offer as much as 3x more than they could make in the US, they will rush to apply too.

  That said, it’s unclear just how much longer these stellar offers will  last: graduates are in particular demand at quant funds which use computer models to trade, which have been lifted by inflows from rich individuals in the world’s second-biggest economy. Assets at such funds in China have jumped tenfold compared with four years ago to exceed 1 trillion yuan ($155 billion), according to Citic Securities Co. estimates. Of course, now that China is actively hammering its stocks as it pursues a “profound revolution“, the upside for investors may be severely limited, which in turn will also limit how much funds can spend on new hires.

  For now, however, the spice flows, and as quant funds seek the best and the brightest, they are also competing for hires with internet titans from TikTok owner ByteDance to Alibaba and global hedge funds including Bridgewater and Citadel. The battle for talent even transcends business as China and the U.S. make technological superiority important national objectives, channeling increasing amount of support toward research and innovation, as well as data security.

  “It’s very important for us to identify talent early on, because once they go abroad to study, they’ll have more options and we’ll have to compete with global companies,” said Wang Chen, 39, founder of Beijing-based Ubiquant. “Their willingness to join has increased quite a lot compared with a few years ago.”

  Offering much higher wages than Wall Street certainly helps. While for many local students, seeking an elite education abroad is a well trodden path with the number of Chinese students pursuing computer science degrees in the U.S. steadily rising in the past decade, but now with more students deferring their studies as the global pandemic restricts travel, companies like Ubiquant have adjusted their hiring strategy by offering one-year internships.

  No surprise, that tactic is working. Ubiquant has seen an influx of talent, and not just because of the stellar pay but because China’s humbled tech industry is grappling with regulatory change. Applications have jumped six times this year to more than 300 compared with when the company was founded.

  Other Chinese hedge funds have also aggressively ramped up their hiring: Zhejiang High-Flyer Asset Management is also capitalizing on the changing priorities of graduates. The country’s largest quant fund managing more than $10 billion hired about 10 researchers over the past year, many of whom gave up overseas studies amid the pandemic, according to Chief Executive Officer Simon Lu. Shanghai Minghong Investment Co., which manages $8.5 billion in China, hired more than 10 experts in artificial intelligence and natural language processing in recent years, according to founder Qiu Huiming.

  Lingjun Investment, which manages about $7.7 billion, plans to expand its investment and research team by as much as a third to 140 people by the end of the year, the firm said. It plans to boost spending in the area, including salaries, to about 1 billion yuan in the 15 months through March next year, up from an annual average of between 200 million yuan and 300 million yuan in the past three years.

  Of course, getting the high-paying job is not easy: stationed near China’s prestigious Tsinghua University, Ubiquant tests people on everything from coding to statistics and examines their academic research papers, hiring about 10 fresh graduates last year. Wang says he has offered more experienced hires salaries of $1 million a year. The company also gives extra incentives to top staff like one-time bonuses of 10 million yuan or profit sharing from breakout trading strategies, as he gets more comfortable poaching talent from global corporations.

  “If we think someone is worth hiring, we will try to hire them, sparing no efforts,” said Wang.

  At Ubiquant’s headquarters, Zhou and his colleague Nathan Lin, who both joined last year, focused on studying natural language processing and the firm’s existing research for the first four months of their internships.

  “I like the fact that your code and work speaks for itself,” instead of having to socialize and meet clients, said 22-year-old Lin, adding that this combined with the better salary offer from Ubiquant was the reason he joined the company instead of ByteDance or a job in banking. 

  For the successful few, there are other perks, such as a remarkable work pace. Starting at 10 a.m. every day, they work for an hour and a half before heading for a lunch break and getting a quick nap at their desks. They resume at 1 p.m., writing codes and brainstorming strategies till about 7 p.m. or 9 p.m. before hitting the gym. Often they’ll play ping pong in the office with other colleagues.

  “Working here matches the spirit of being a self-branded geek,” said Zhou. “As long I’m still learning, I’ll be staying on.”

  Of course, the (shockingly) higher wages are in line with a broader global trend that goes beyond hedge funds, as business at financial firms is booming. In recent months, entry-level salaries at top investment banks have quickly shot up into six figures, even before bonuses, as executives responded to a rebellion against the demands of Wall Street life as an entire woke generation simply refuses to work hard after 7pm. And terrified of appearing unwoke to the liberal press, their managers have grudgingly rushed to hike wages.  One wonders if now that China’s wages are public, will the US rush to match these two over fears of appearing stingy when compared to their communist peers.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/04/2021 – 21:00

• Pentagon Won't Name ISIS Terrorists Killed In Airstrike
  Pentagon Won’t Name ISIS Terrorists Killed In Airstrike

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

  U.S. military officials are withholding the names of the ISIS terrorists allegedly killed by an airstrike in Afghanistan that was carried out in retaliation for the suicide bombing attack that left at least 13 U.S. troops dead.

  

  Pentagon spokesman John Kirby twice on Friday declined to provide the identities of the terrorists said to be killed in the strike.

  “I don’t believe we’ve refused to say who they are. We haven’t given you any names,” Kirby told reporters in Washington, responding to a question about the terrorist names.

  “We know who they are. I think at the time, we didn’t release the names because we were in the middle of a very fluid threat environment,” he added later. “Let me see if that’s information that can be provided now. I don’t know. I mean, we know who they are. I don’t know if it’s information that we’re going to be able to provide right now.”

  The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.

  The decision to withhold the identities has drawn some criticism.

  “This is bogus. Why not release the names?” former Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said on social media.

  Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col Brian F. Sullivan told the New York Post that the shielding of the names indicates that those who were killed weren’t high up in ISIS.

  “Normally if they get a high-profile guy they like to name him,” he said.

  The strike on Aug. 29 took place in Kabul, hitting what the U.S. military described as “an imminent ISIS-K threat” to the airport there, which was held by U.S. troops at the time.

  “We are confident we successfully hit the target. Significant secondary explosions from the vehicle indicated the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material. We are assessing the possibilities of civilian casualties, though we have no indications at this time,” Capt. Bill Urban, a CENTCOM spokesperson, said in a statement at the time.

  U.S. officials later confirmed that multiple civilians were left dead.

  Relatives of the deceased said 10 civilians were killed by the strike.

  Kirby has since repeatedly defended the retaliatory attack.

  Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this week that it was a “righteous strike” that followed proper procedures.

  “We absolutely had solid intelligence that this was ISIS individuals, who were in the act of imminently carrying out a direct threat to the airport and to our people, and potentially to innocent lives outside the airport,” Kirby added Friday.

  “The intelligence was very good. And we took the strike in as timely a fashion as we could to prevent this imminent threat. There’s no question, from the department’s mind, that it was a valid threat, valid target, and it related to ISIS-K.”

  ISIS-K is an affiliate of ISIS. The terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the Aug. 26 bombing of the Hamid Karzai International Airport, which killed 13 American service members and wounded scores of Americans and Afghans.

  The United States withdrew from Afghanistan on Aug. 30.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/04/2021 – 20:30

• Congress Stealthily Moves Closer To Making Women Register For The Draft
  Congress Stealthily Moves Closer To Making Women Register For The Draft

  On September 1st the House Armed Services Committee joined the Senate Armed Services Committee in voting 35-24 to expand registration for a possible military draft to include young women as well as young men.

  Following this House committee vote and an earlier Senate committee vote in July (before Congress’s summer vacation), the versions of the annual “must-pass” National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to be considered later this fall in both the House and Senate will include provisions requiring women to register for the draft within 30 days of their 18th birthday and report to the Selective Service System each time they change their address until their 26th birthday, as young men have been required to do since 1980.

  

  An alternative compromise amendment to suspend draft registration unless the President declared a national emergency and put the Selective Service System into standby was submitted before Wednesday’s committee session, but ruled out of order on the basis of arcane PAYGO procedural rules.

  Under the same rules, the amendment to the NDAA to expand draft registration to women was ruled in order, considered, and adopted without any antiwar opposition from members of the committee.

  Floor amendments may be proposed when the NDAA is considered by the full House and/or the Senate to repeal the Military Selective Service Act, end draft registration entirely, abolish the Selective Service System, or put Selective Service into “standby” as it was from 1975-1980.

  But even if such amendments are proposed and put to a vote, they have little chance of success in either the House or the Senate.

  Now you – including likely 28 GOP House members voting for an NDAA last night to do so – want to draft my daughter and just “trust you” not to put them into combat? All of DC – all of it – can go straight to hell. (9/9) #DontDraftOurDaughters

  — Chip Roy (@chiproytx) September 2, 2021

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  It’s now overwhelmingly likely that the Fiscal Year 2022 NDAA to be adopted in late 2021 or early 2022 will authorize the President to order women to register for the draft at age 18, starting in 2023 with women born in 2005 and after.

  Read the rest of the full report at AntiWar.com

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/04/2021 – 20:00

• China's Marxist "Profound Revolution" Is Here, And Nobody In The West Is Ready
  China’s Marxist “Profound Revolution” Is Here, And Nobody In The West Is Ready

  By Michael Every, global strategist at Rabobank

  Pro-Fund or Profound Revolution?

  Summary

  • Developments in China continue to confound market optimists, with new talk of a “profound revolution” towards a new target of “Common Prosperity”
  • Rather than simply react to these events, we analyze the history of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Thought to try to put current moves under Xi Jinping Thought in a larger context
  • This also provides a framework of a hypothetical Marxist policy path forwards
  • We briefly discuss the meaning of Common Prosperity over time, and how it is a bellwether
  • We conclude with likely market reactions to an economy not saying “because markets”

  “Profound Revolution”?

  Political developments in China have been front page news in the financial press over the past few months. Beijing’s crackdown on Ant Financial, largely dismissed by Wall Street, then spread to Didi and on to the broader sectors these championed, fin- and transport-tech; then it grew to encompass swathes of the economy, from tech to health to education to property to private equity to gaming.

  In terms of tech, there are now sharp limits on IPOs in the US (mirrored from the US side) and new algo/pricing and data regulations that require Beijing to hold on to it; the private tuition field was made non-profit; there has been a sharp reduction in credit to property developers along with the official message that “houses are for living in, not speculation”, and rental increase caps of 5% annually; under-18s have been limited to just 3 hours of computer gaming a week, in allotted slots; and private equity has been cut off from residential investment.

  Beijing has also called for curbs on “excessive” income, and for the wealthy and profitable firms “to give back more to society.” (Tencent already pledged $15bn.) This is also matched by: a social campaign against excessive business drinking, “unpatriotic” karaoke songs, and celebrity culture; ‘Xi Jinping Thought’ made obligatory at all schools and universities; and, as Bloomberg puts it, controls on social media financial commentary – “China to Cleanse Online Content that ‘Bad Mouths’ its Economy”.

  This has all taken place under the slogan of “Common Prosperity”. (And for those who need the market-facing implications of this first, please see What is to be done?)

  Going further, commentary reposted by Chinese state media on 30 August stressed these changes are a “profound revolution” sweeping the country, warning anyone who resisted would face punishment. It added: “This is a return from the capital group to the masses of the people, and this is a transformation from capital-centred to people-centred,” marking a return to the original intention of the Communist Party, and “Therefore, this is a political change, and the people are becoming the main body of this change again, and all those who block this people-centred change will be discarded.”

  Notably, a WeChat blogger originally made the post, but it was then reposted by major state-run media outlets such as the People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency, PLA Daily, CCTV, China Youth Daily, and China News Service.

  The author also wrote that high housing prices and medical costs will become the next targets of the campaign –which was backed by an official announcement on 1 September– and that the government needed to “combat the chaos of big capital,” adding “The capital market will no longer become a paradise for capitalists to get rich overnight… and public opinion will no longer be in a position worshiping Western culture.”

  Underlining a geopolitical element, the post also added that if China relied on “capitalists” to fight US imperialism it could suffer the same fate as the Soviet Union.

  Fund pros’ revelation

  Even ahead of the ‘revolution’ talk this had shocked markets – Chinese stocks have notably underperformed their US peers over 2021 despite an ostensibly better economic recovery (Figures 1, 2, and 3).

  

  Indeed, Bloomberg published an op-ed asking: “Is Capitalism Just a Phase? China Struggles With the Math” and investors quoted as asking if Chinese stocks were “uninvestable”.

  George Soros also ran an op-ed in the Financial Times titled “Investors in Xi’s China face a rude awakening”, concluding:

  “Foreign investors who choose to invest in China find it remarkably difficult to recognise these risks. They have seen China confront many difficulties and always come through with flying colours. But Xi’s China is not the China they know. He is putting in place an updated version of Mao Zedong’s party. No investor has any experience of that China because there were no stock markets in Mao’s time. Hence the rude awakening that awaits them.”

  However, thus far MSCI, which sets the benchmark for global portfolio allocation for EM equity investors, has not been moved to revise it China weightings. To them, this is all a technocratic policy adjustment and/or “periodic regulatory compliance measures”. The vast majority of Western market research also attempts to explain away what is happening in a similar fashion.

  Yet China is an unashamedly a deeply political economy with an openly-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist-Maoist–Xi Jinping guiding ideology.

  Reportedly, Western research analysts are now scrambling to read Xi’s past speeches to try to predict which sectors may be hit by a crackdown next. However, this still misses the larger key point: how can one correctly analyse likely future developments in a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist economy properly without having any knowledge of what Marx, Lenin, or Mao argued?

  By contrast, this report will underline the thrust of these political/economic/philosophical thoughts, as the backdrop for Xi Jinping Thought and Common Prosperity.

  This will allow us to:

  1) Frame a Marxist hypothesis of what may be occurring;

  2) Look at the shifting meaning of “Common Prosperity” over time as a bellwether, and what it means in this present context; and

  3) Consider what the global market and geopolitical implications of such a strategy might be.

  Note that this is by its very nature an ideological economic discussion, and that the necessity of doing so is very much in line with our late-2020 report that argued political-economy “-isms”, e.g., communism/capitalism, would soon be the key issue for markets to focus on, rather than the minutiae of fiscal and monetary policy shifts within a default neoliberal capitalism.

  Marx

  

  The collected works of Marx (with posthumous help from Engels) cover 50 volumes, and commentary on it thousands more. However, the relevant arguments today are simple to grasp.

  ‘The Communist Party Manifesto’ lays out a teleological, materialist conception of history: that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. In short, societal structures depend on the technology available and have always taken the form of an oppressed majority exploited by a minority.

  We started with “primitive communism”; moved to agricultural and craftsman feudalism; and then to industrial capitalism. Under capitalism, the proletariat engage in class struggle against the owners of the means of production, the bourgeoisie, who only pay workers the bare minimum to survive, and keep the excess profits for themselves – The Labor Theory of Value (LTV). This class struggle will ultimately end in a revolution that restructures society again – to communism. Indeed, the Manifesto proclaims international revolution as its goal: “Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!”

  Ironically, most of the policy demands made by it hardly seem radical today: a progressive income tax; abolition of inheritances and private property; abolition of child labor; free public education; nationalization of the means of transport and communication; centralization of credit via a national bank; and expansion of publicly owned land. Indeed, much of early Marxism looks a lot like the de facto policy drift we already see in ‘New Normal’ economies today.

  Notably, however, the Manifesto critiques socially-focused philosophies, noting: “A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society. To this section belong economists, philanthropists, humanitarians, improvers of the condition of the working class, organisers of charity, members of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, temperance fanatics, hole-and-corner reformers of every imaginable kind… The Socialistic bourgeois want all the advantages of modern social conditions without the struggles and dangers necessarily resulting therefrom. They desire the existing state of society, minus its revolutionary and disintegrating elements.”

  In short, Western social-democracy –put forward as a technocratic explanation of Common Prosperity– is fundamentally antithetical to Marxism.

  Marx went into far more detail in ‘Das Kapital’, which is still an important critique of modern economics today, in particular on the circulation of capital.

  At root of neoclassical macro-econometric modelling is the assumption one starts with a commodity (C), exchanges it for money (M), and then buys another commodity (C): the chain of C>M>C means money is only needed as a lubricant, not as an end-goal itself, and overlooks banks’ and central-banks’ ability to create credit.

  By contrast, Marx showed we actually start with Money (M), buy a commodity (C), add value via the ‘means of production’ (MP), creating a value-added commodity (C’) that is sold for M’, with M’-M being the gross profit. This is a realistic economic model that allows profit, money hoarding, (central) bank credit/capital, and *financial crises* to all be accounted for properly within capitalism in a way neoclassical economic and econometric models overlooking money/credit/banks cannot.

  Moreover, Marx went into detail on the various forms of capital that exist, in particular: productive (i.e., making things – by exploiting labor); unproductive (i.e., the managers, accountants, and sales people also needed, etc., who are paid from the profit arising from the exploitation of the workers physically increasing the stock of goods); and fictitious – by which Marx meant financial assets unrelated to physical production, which he saw could become destabilizing, inflationary bubbles, and which were prone to market manipulation by large players, and crashes.

  In short, to understand Marx is to understand the unstable dynamics of financial capitalism better than most capitalist economists even beyond the LTV.

  One other crucial thing needs to be made clear about Marx and communism: he never described what it would look like. In his view, the state would “wither away” after the revolution happened. Communism was also not supposed to co-exist with capitalism, or compete with it: rather, it would supplant it via natural laws.

  So, to very briefly summarise, Marx:

  • Saw all profit as stemming from exploitation of labor;
  • Foresaw dynamic global capitalism as doomed to fail;
  • Dismissed social reformers as subverting revolution; and
  • Explained the use of credit and the qualitative differences between productive and fictitious financial capital under capitalism.

  This all has a key bearing on China’s “profound revolution”.

  Lenin

  

  Lenin, leader of the Russian revolution, made vital contributions to both Marxist theory and practice.

  Crucially, Marx’s view of history meant that the communist revolution would occur in an industrialized economy: he had expected it to be Germany. Instead, it ended up happening in Russia, which was still only just emerging from feudalism.

  An important debate at the time was therefore between the Bolsheviks (“the majority” in Russian), and Mensheviks, (“the minority” – though this did not reflect their actual popular support).

  The Mensheviks believed they needed to develop Russia using capitalism first, in conjunction with more liberal forces and under parliamentary rules, and then have the revolution. Lenin disagreed, as had Marx, and it was his practical ruthlessness that saw the Bolsheviks seize power when it was “lying in the street”.

  Politically, Lenin also added to Marxist thought to create Marxism-Leninism in three ways:

  • A ‘vanguard party’ –the Communist Party– was necessary to raise the level of political consciousness and lead and guard the revolution
  • The (ruthless) Dictatorship of the Proletariat was needed to run the state, the polar opposite of it withering away (but what happens when a revolution occurs and the bourgeoisie fight back); and
  • Late-stage capitalism’s fusion of banks with industrial cartels, excess production, and need for new markets and profits, is a driver not only of revolution, but of geopolitical tensions and then war

  Economically, Lenin introduced War Communism (1918-1921) to win the Russian Civil War, which involved: the nationalization of all industries; strict centralized management; state control of foreign trade; strict discipline for workers, with strikes forbidden; obligatory labour duty by non-working classes; the requisition of agricultural surplus in excess of an absolute minimum from peasants for centralized distribution; rationing of food and most commodities; private enterprise bans; and military-style control of the railways.

  However, once the war was over, Lenin was forced to pivot to the New Economic Policy (NEP), under which there was a return to free market capitalism, subject to state controls, and state-owned enterprises operated on a profit basis -there were even “generous concessions to foreign capitalism.” In short, Lenin took the de facto Marxist/Menshevik position that he had to create “the missing material prerequisites” of modernisation and industrial development by falling back on a “centrally supervised market-influenced program of state capitalism”.

  To summarize, Marxism-Leninism was politically ruthless but economically pragmatic in order to attain the physical means to achieve socialism/communism (used interchangeably by Lenin, as by Marx.)

  Of course, the NEP came to an abrupt end in 1928 when Stalin assumed leadership of the USSR, at which point the traditional model of a Soviet economy, with agricultural collectivization, and a focus on heavy industry and 5-year plans, emerged.

  Notably, Stalin also began to differentiate between socialism, which was painted by him as the imperfect state being built, as the transition stage towards the higher socio-economic goal of communism, which would eventually be achieved. He also shifted the USSR’s foreign policy goals away from Marxist-Leninist global revolution to ‘Socialism In One Country’.

  That such swings in policy direction are possible under a Marxist-Leninist system is itself already a key lesson to be drawn for the present day.

  Mao

  

  Maoism, or Mao Zedong Thought, added to Marxism-Leninism in several ways:

  • It stressed Leninist realpolitik view of the role of a revolutionary party, e.g., with the key quote that “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”;
  • The peasantry are the revolutionary vanguard in pre-industrial societies –such as 1940’s China– rather than the industrial proletariat. Mao therefore differed from Marx on the theory of the inevitable cyclicality in the economic system.
  • Rather than waiting for industrial development, Mao’s goal was to unify the Chinese nation in order to realize the communist revolution;
  • Accordingly, Mao’s theory of the ‘mass line’ holds that the Chinese Communist Party must not be separate from the popular masses, like an elite vanguard, either in policy or in revolutionary struggle;
  • Mao’s theory of Cultural Revolution states that the proletarian revolution and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat does not wipe out bourgeois ideology. The class-struggle still continues and even intensifies during socialism, therefore a constant struggle against bourgeois ideologies and their social roots must be conducted;
  • Mao argued contradictions are natural and the most important feature of society. Since society is dominated by a wide range of contradictions, this therefore calls for a wide range of varying strategies, e.g., a revolution, to fully resolve antagonistic contradictions between labour and capital; and ideological correction to resolve contradictions arising within the revolutionary movement to prevent them from becoming antagonistic.
  • Mao also oversaw a Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s following the USSR’s break from Stalinism.

  Economically, Maoism co-opted so-called pro-CCP “Red Capitalists” such as Rong Yiren before embracing Stalinist collectivism and industrial development via 5-year plans – which ended in severe economic damage during the Great Leap Forward. Economic development was further set back by the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution.

  In summary, Maoism represents an extension of Marxism-Leninism to Chinese socio-economic conditions, focused on the link between the Party and the population, as well as resolving bourgeois tendencies and/or ideological contradictions. However, there was no room for Menshevik/NEP-style economic pragmatism.

  Post-Mao

  The starting point for most Western analysts looking at the Chinese political economy is Deng, who emerged as leader of the CCP following Mao’s death in 1976. Mao welcomed US President Nixon to China, but it was Deng who opened China up economically with the proverb that “it doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white, if it catches mice it is a good cat.” This was a stepping stone to the official adoption of “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”, a Leninist NEP-style program, where the “primary stage of socialism” required markets and private capital – while still stipulating that China needed growth before it pursued a more egalitarian form of socialism, which in turn would lead to a communist society.

  In 2000, when China joined the WTO, Jiang introduced “The Three Represents” to modernize the CCP’s links to a vastly-changed society. Rather than just the proletariat, the Party was now seen as representing: the development trend of China’s advanced productive forces; the orientation of China’s advanced culture; and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people, which covered far more political bases – including business. In 2003, Hu added “The Scientific Outlook on Development”, pledging scientific socialism, sustainable development, social welfare, a humanistic society, increased democracy, and, ultimately, the creation of a Socialist Harmonious Society, taken by many as further liberalization.

  Xi

  

  So to the present day.

  The now-shocked op-ed writers at Bloomberg and the Financial Times and the stunned Wall Street analysts all clearly regarded the 2000’s era, rapidly-growing, reforming, globalizing China as being either the final stage of its political-economic development or a staging post towards even further liberalization. However, this overlooked the fact that Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, or more commonly ‘Xi Jinping Thought’ (XJT), has been a growing body of work since 2017.

  At the 19th National Congress of the CCP, XJT was incorporated into the Party’s Constitution, and at the First Session of the 13th National People’s Congress in 2018, the preamble of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China was also amended to mention XJT, underlining its political significance given it joins only Mao and Deng Thought on that list of fundamental national doctrines.

  So, crucially, what does this body of work add to Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Thought?

  There is a simple 14-point basic policy list to follow:

  • Ensuring CCP leadership over all forms of work in China;
  • The CCP should take a people-centric approach for the public interest;
  • The continuation of comprehensive deepening of reforms;
  • Adopting new science-based ideas for innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development;
  • Following socialism with Chinese characteristics with people as the masters of the country;
  • Governing China with Rule of Law;
  • Practice socialist core values, including Marxism, communism and socialism with Chinese characteristics;
  • Improving people’s livelihood and well-being is the primary goal of development;
  • Coexist well with nature with energy conservation and environmental protection policies and contribute to global ecological safety;
  • Strengthen the National security of China;
  • The CCP should have absolute leadership over China’s People’s Liberation Army;
  • Promoting the one country, two systems framework for Hong Kong and Macau with a future of complete national reunification and to follow the One-China policy and 1992 Consensus for Taiwan;
  • Establish a common destiny between Chinese people and other people around the world with a peaceful international environment; and
  • Improve party discipline in the CCP

  The above combines technocratic goals that would be well-received in all economies, as well as specific honorifics to maintain CCP ideological continuity. As such, it is easy to see how a Western analyst with no interest in political economy or Marxism could, in 2019, see “reforms”, “people-centric”, “rule of law”, “improve livelihoods and well-being”, “energy conservation”, “environmental protection”, “global ecological safety”, and “peaceful international environment”, and feel entirely at ease.

  Yet a key 2013 speech and 2014 ‘The Governance of China’ book series together provide the intellectual spine of XJT – and they focus on China’s place in history, strategic competition with capitalist nations, and a plea to adhere to the goals of communism.

  In particular, it was “Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought that guided the Chinese people out of the darkness of that long night and established a New China.” – not Deng or the post-2000 economic reformers. Looking ahead, “the consolidation and development of the socialist system will require its own long period of history… it will require the tireless struggle of generations, up to ten generations.

  Fundamentally, “Marx and Engels’ analysis of the basic contradictions in capitalist society is not outdated, nor is the historical materialist view that capitalism is bound to die out and socialism is bound to win… The fundamental reason why some of our comrades have weak ideals and faltering beliefs is that their views lack a firm grounding in historical materialism.”

  Furthermore, as alluded to in the 30 August commentary quoted at the beginning, a very particular focus on the collapse of the USSR: “Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate? Why did the Soviet Communist Party fall from power? An important reason was that the struggle in the field of ideology was extremely intense, completely negating the history of the Soviet Union, negating the history of the Soviet Communist Party, negating Lenin, negating Stalin, creating historical nihilism and confused thinking. Party organs at all levels had lost their functions, the military was no longer under Party leadership. In the end, the Soviet Communist Party, a great party, was scattered, the Soviet Union, a great socialist country, disintegrated. This is a cautionary tale!”

  As noted, XJT is now the official curriculum at schools and universities across China – meaning that an understanding of its core messages and targets is of the utmost importance to markets.

  Presumably, at some point ahead Common Prosperity will be wrapped into XJT in a more formal manner too.

  

  Marx to Market

  Before looking at Common Prosperity specifically, it is time to “Marx to market”: that is to look at everything we have just shown the reader, and to try to draw out what this implies is now happening in China from a hypothetical Marxist perspective, i.e., the one the markets so clearly lack.

  The 14-point list of course shows which sectors are going to be favored going forward: green, the environment, science, and national security. However, the same list would arguably apply to almost any global economy today, from President Biden’s America to Boris Johnson’s Britain, which makes it far less useful. The 14-point list does not tell us anything about which sectors will not be favored by Beijing, or which will see harsh regulatory crackdowns, or what the overall operating environment for businesses and asset-managers in China will be like.

  Here we must stress that XJT openly draws from Marx, Lenin, and Mao. Using them as a guide, a hypothetical framework can be drawn in some respects.

  XJT holds to Marx’s historical materialism, which predicts capitalism will collapse due to its own internal contradictions, even if it also believes this is not imminent. However, even given the deep-rooted structural problems in most Western economies, it seems unlikely this view is purely based on the debunked Labor Theory of Value. Far more likely, is a Kaleckian critique of the LTV –i.e., falling labor share of GDP– with the circulation of capital –i.e., an addiction to debt– and of productive, unproductive, and fictitious uses of capital – i.e., as the West continues to lean on asset bubbles and QE rather than productive capital investment. Moreover, neoliberal capitalism has seen increasing economic concentration, as Marx predicted. Even much of the West sees this critique as valid, and worries about the future outlook.

  Of course, we could see a burst of OECD ‘Build Back Better’ that reshapes economies and supply chains – but Leninist theory suggests this leads to growing geopolitical tensions and the risk of war. Xi Jinping has openly warned the PLA of the need to be ready for war on several occasions in recent years, as one would from a Leninist perspective.

  For China, this therefore suggests that rather than embracing a destabilizing neoliberal, monopolistic, unproductive financial capitalism, with all of its resultant socio-economic problems, just to build capital stock, it needs to pivot back towards more state-direction within a Leninist-NEP mixed economy – and with a far larger national-security focus at the same time, just in case.

  If that means making for-profit education non-profit to make education cheaper, so be it. If it means to “prevent the irrational expansion of capital” and “barbarous growth” of private monopolies, as Xi Jinping declared on 31 August, then that is a problem for those sectors.

  If that involves telling under-18s they cannot play computer games for more than 3 hours a week, so be it. Children addicted to computer games are not goals of a communist society, or any healthy society.

  If that involves rental caps, then that is what will have to happen too.

  In short, more productive capital, please; less unproductive or fictitious capital, thank you very much. Far more productive consumption (i.e., made in China goods), please; far less unproductive (i.e., “Western” services like gaming), thank you very much.

  This does not mean that market forces are about to be wiped out. Marx argued for their dynamism, and XJT embraces a “socialist market economic system”. However, these need to be corralled into the right areas – which does imply a higher degree of central planning. At the same time, it means accepting the ‘right’ level of return – that ensures a harmonious outcome for Chinese society as a whole, not just that of a portfolio.

  Indeed, as XJT draws from Marx and Lenin, it also draws from Mao. Recent developments point to a thrust to get the CCP back in touch with the masses, not just the several hundred million who have benefited so handsomely from the NEP economy of the past few decades. Moreover, XJT talks about wavering ideological faith in the party, which smacks of the need to overcome contradictions with ideological correction. The same argument –and the 30 August “profound revolution” commentary– suggests the need to deal with ‘bourgeois elements’ in the economy who may reject the necessary medicine.

  So the above is a hypothetical Marxist perspective on what is happening. It may come as a shock to Western investors who assumed China was capitalist, and try to ascribe purely technocratic intentions to every development everywhere.

  However, if they had read Marxist theory or history they would have recognized that ‘NEPs’ are used to help move the economy up the development ladder towards a higher stage of socialism and then to communism; and meanwhile neoliberal capitalism is growing unwieldy, unwelcome, and unpopular even within the West itself, as we see from constant talk of the need to Build Back Better – which China seems willing to act on.

  The Zhejiang example

  But do we have any actual evidence from the ground to support this Marxist theory? Perhaps, yes. Bloomberg recently carried an article looking at the province of Zhejiang (population 65m, and home to Alibaba), which has an existing pilot experiment with Common Prosperity.

  Crucially, what is being seen there is not a tax-and-spend or a welfare state shift, which are again Western, market conceptions of how political-economy should work; nor is it seeing a return to state ownership of the means of production, i.e., nationalization, which is the final stage of communism. Rather we see a strategy to force capital to flow to areas previously starved of it, alongside huge efforts to bring down living costs – which is entirely in line with the Marxist theory just put forward. Specifically, we see:

  • Direct targeting of inequality (of intra-provincial GDP per capita gaps between rural and urban areas);
  • Aiming to increase the labor share of GDP to > 50%;
  • More urbanization;
  • Property taxes (on private housing) and building new state-owned rental properties (i.e., social housing);
  • Letting people without official hukou residence access state services, which is a genuine revolution;
  • More spending on social services – and “donations” from local billionaires collectively worth $236bn;
  • Lower cost business loans for favored sectors, including manufacturing, agriculture, and tourism;
  • SOEs building more infrastructure, “even if it generates low returns”; and
  • Breaking up monopolies.

  As such, we get a ‘Build Back Better’ picture of a “socialist market economic system with Chinese characteristics”: potentially higher growth, but lower returns; less luxury and more mass-market; and far more state regulation. This is something neoliberal markets currently don’t understand and presumably won’t like: they clearly prefer lower growth and higher returns; less mass-market and more “premiumisation”; and far less regulation.

  However, significant obstacles still need to be tackled. Most obviously, even using markets to enforce centrally-planned goals still assumes that such central planning can guide them towards generating the productivity gains that will be needed – an issue non-NEP Marxist economies struggled with in the past in the absence of markets.

  Importantly, the CCP has announced it will hold a key plenum in November – what policy changes this portends against the current backdrop remains to be seen.

  Capital problem to labor with

  Another obstacle to increasing the labor share of GDP to over 50% to boost consumption must also be stressed.

  

  According to most data, China’s labour share of GDP is already over 50% (Figure 4), but this this does not capture China’s very low share of household (HH) spending in GDP, which is even lower than the share to gross fixed capital formation (GFCF, Figure 5).

  

  Does Common Prosperity mean lower investment and higher consumption? That runs counter to the imperative for more “productive” capital and for more lending (at low rates) to new SMEs and sectors. It would also suggest an employment shift towards more “unproductive” sectors.

  Yet if household spending rises and investment spending stays the same, or rises, then national savings will fall, and China will run an external deficit (and debt will rise further). The PBOC recently stressed this was a sign of economic weakness, and it would open the door to major market volatility over time – something that is clearly not desired.

  How can these inherent contradictions be resolved? Logically, only with an unrealistically-high net export surplus, creating major trade/geopolitical problems.

  What is to be done?

  What we need to do now is summarize the major underlying arguments made so far:

  1. First, while many in the West/markets approach China as having a de facto neoliberal capitalist system, this view is not just overly simplistic, it is arguably wrong. While many of the things China says may sound “Western” or easily-recognizable, e.g., “green”, “sustainable”, “people-centred”, etc., this does not mean that the underlying political economy is Western.
  2. Second, while the West considers economic thinkers of the past to be exactly that…of the past…China is not just paying lip-service to Marxism: it is taking cues from the roots of Marxist thought traditions, while adding modern-day interpretations in order to choose its own path. With the Western capitalist system clearly in trouble, China’s leadership feels emboldened to push ahead in this regard.
  3. Third, whereas in the West change is gradual, or non-existent, and usually part of a democratic model in which consensus is required, in China far more dramatic changes can happen suddenly if needed for the perceived greater good. Such changes are happening, and are currently speeding up, not slowing down.
  4. Fourth, while we can perhaps see the ideal destination to Common Prosperity, the journey itself is likely to be extremely bumpy, and involve many more major zero-sum trade-offs. However, the political imperative appears to be there to continue to move down this path.

  So, given this backdrop, what does it mean for the economy? What does it mean for markets? What does it mean for geopolitics?

  In terms of the economy:

  1. The current policy shift may add to pre-existing downward pressures on Chinese growth by reducing business confidence and scaring off foreign investors, while also failing to square the circle between the needs for a trade surplus, higher household spending, and sustained high investment.

  2. …or it may lead to sustained high growth of a more balanced kind, e.g., more social housing and less private housing; more high-tech/green manufacturing jobs, and fewer gig economy/services jobs.

  3. Western exporters to China focused on the higher-income/luxury sectors may be unhappy in either case.

  In terms of markets:

  4. Chinese equities may continue to struggle to keep up with those of the US, particular in sectors the government focuses its sights on. Risks to the housing sector also loom large if comments about too-high prices are followed up on.

  5. It is an ironic positive for global bonds, and most so government bonds in China – although as a one-way street for those who get in early to the latter, and with realization that they are there for the duration of the political and FX ride, wherever it eventually leads.

  6. On balance, it is more likely to be a long-run negative for CNY than a positive. In the short-run, however, the rhetoric on capital markets suggests no appetite in Beijing for FX volatility. If we were to see a universal move in USD higher ahead, e.g. by Fed tapering, then CNY will move lower – while staying largely unchanged against every currency except the Dollar, no doubt; and

  7. While the Fed and ECB have not made any mention of developments in China so far, this is going to matter to the US and EU economies too. It may mean even more “fictitious capital” (QE) for them, just as China tries to focus on the “productive” side even more.

  In terms of geopolitics:

  8. Geopolitical and trade tensions, which flow back to the economy and markets, are only going to worsen.

  9. For the West, this poses a major challenge. The risks for investors in China are clear, and to Western net exporters if China sees slower growth, or more domestically-focused and sourced growth. However, a whole different set of political-economy problems would be created if China’s new state intervention policies work well – on what basis would a struggling West be able to then reject them at the ballot box?

  So, “Pro-Fund” or “Profound”?

  To conclude, this report represents an opinion that deliberately steers away from a traditional ‘Street’ view to try to present an alternative way of seeing things. There are of course many other views: yet the one here would have prevented a lot of concern and surprise among Western investors in China this year, and may yet prove a guide for what comes next.

  Is the ultimate future of China pro-fund or profound revolution? It depends – and perhaps ultimately on if one sees there are observable laws to the progress of history or not!

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/04/2021 – 19:30

• Biden Orders Declassification Of 9/11 Documents & Possible Saudi Links
  Biden Orders Declassification Of 9/11 Documents & Possible Saudi Links

  Amid ongoing pressure from the families of 9/11 victims, President Biden on Friday ordered the declassification of FBI documents related to the September 11, 2001 attacks, now set to be released over a period of the next six months.

  The families have long moved through US courts to seek accountability for the Saudi government. They accuse multiple US administrations of seeking to cover up close US-ally Saudi Arabia’s involvement in supporting the al-Qaeda hijackers. 

  

  The ordered declassification comes just days before the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks which took the lives of almost 3,000 Americans in New York, Washington D.C., and over Pennsylvania with the downing of United Airlines Flight 93.

  Last month about 1,700 family members of the victims wrote a scathing letter to President Biden urging him to skip 9/11 memorial events unless he’s willing to release the documents immediately. “Since the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission in 2004 much investigative evidence has been uncovered implicating Saudi government officials in supporting the attacks,” the letter said.

  Biden’s Friday executive order stated that “Information collected and generated in the United States Government’s investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks should now be disclosed, except when the strongest possible reasons counsel otherwise.”

  “When I ran for president, I made a commitment to ensuring transparency regarding the declassification of documents on the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America. As we approach the 20th anniversary of that tragic day, I am honoring that commitment,” Biden said in announcing the move.

  “Today, I signed an executive order directing the Department of Justice and other relevant agencies to oversee a declassification review of documents related to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s September 11th investigations. The executive order requires the Attorney General to release the declassified documents publicly over the next six months.”

  The language of the executive order still leaves room to potentially restrict some documents or sections…

  You will have a better chance of striking it rich by panning for gold in your bathtub than having any substantial 9/11 documents declassified and released to the public. https://t.co/iubx5XfwqR

  — NYC EMS Watch (@NYCEMSwatch) September 3, 2021

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

  Previously in 2016, Trump had declassified the so-called “28 pages” – a reference final section of the December 2002 report of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 – which had long remained classified.

  The contents of those pages pointed further the Saudi Embassy foreknowledge as well as contacts and monetary support to some of the terrorists who conducted the attacks.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/04/2021 – 19:00

• DHS's E-Verify Authorizes Thousands Of Illegal Immigrants To Work In US
  DHS’s E-Verify Authorizes Thousands Of Illegal Immigrants To Work In US

  Via JudicialWatch.org,

  The government’s pricey system to verify that employees are authorized to work legally in the U.S. is somewhat of a joke that has approved thousands of illegal immigrants and hundreds of thousands of foreigners without using its own photo-matching process to confirm identities. Additionally, the system, which is operated by the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), deemed around 4,000 foreign-born applicants as “employment authorized” based on employer-sponsored visas without verifying that candidates were actually hired by the employers that sponsored them.

  

  The famously inefficient program is known as E-Verify, a costly database that screens new employees using records from various government agencies to confirm the candidate is in the country legally. It is a web-based system that supposedly matches information provided by new hires against DHS and Social Security Administration (SSA) records. USCIS operates it because the agency is responsible for administering the nation’s lawful immigration system. The program is available to employers in every state as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands. For private businesses it is voluntary but federal contractors and subcontractors must use it to vet workers.

  The government claims E-Verify is “currently the best means available to electronically confirm employment eligibility.”

  That is distressing considering the lapses that have been well documented over the years. The most recent E-Verify problems are the focus of a lengthy federal audit published just a few days ago by the DHS Inspector General. In its report, the watchdog blasts USCIS, identifying “deficiencies” that illustrate the program needs “additional capabilities” to “more effectively confirm that individuals are eligible for employment in the United States.” The document identifies weaknesses in E-Verify’s process for confirming identity during employment verification and discloses that the system’s photo-matching mechanism is not fully automated, but rather, relies on employers to confirm individuals’ identities by manually reviewing photos.

  “We also determined that in fiscal year 2019, E-Verify returned an ‘Employment Authorized’ result for about 280,000 non-U.S. citizens without using the photo-matching process to confirm their identities,” the report says.

  “Additionally, although the majority of individuals submit a driver’s license to prove identity, E-Verify’s process does not use photos to ensure that individuals match the license submitted.”

  It gets better. Investigators reveal they “found errors in E-Verify’s license verification process that resulted in E-Verify deeming about 613,000 individuals ‘Employment Authorized’ without meeting USCIS’ own identification system use requirement.”

  The probe further determined that E-Verify returned an “Employment Authorized” result for almost 3,000 non-U.S. citizens who did not meet USCIS’ verification requirements. Those are considered illegal immigrants. E-Verify also authorized 4,000 non-U.S. citizens to work based on an employer-sponsored visa without verifying that the individual was hired by the employer that sponsored them. “Lastly, USCIS has not completed full testing of E-Verify’s capabilities to determine whether the system can handle the projected increase in users,” the report states, attributing the problems to USCIS’s failure to develop or evaluate internal controls necessary to detect, track and investigate system errors.

  “Until USCIS addresses E-Verify’s deficiencies, it cannot ensure the system provides accurate employment eligibility results,” the watchdog writes.

  Since it was launched in 1996, E-Verify’s efficiency has come under fire despite receiving generous funding from Congress. This fiscal year, the system got $118.7 million from American taxpayers. Around 909,000 employers throughout the nation use it to verify the employee work authorization of more than 40 million hires, making it an important tool to curb illegal immigration since jobs are a huge lure for migrants. For years undocumented immigrant workers have been able to pass an E-Verify check with fake identification documents. In fact, an audit conducted for the federal government more than a decade ago revealed that around 54% of illegal immigrants workers are approved by E-Verify to work legally in the U.S. It seems that little has changed to assure the system is more efficient.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/04/2021 – 18:30

• India Approves World's First DNA-Based COVID Vaccine
  India Approves World’s First DNA-Based COVID Vaccine

  Shortly after Taiwan announced that it had successfully produced its own vaccine as it seeks to bolster its domestic COVID response, India has followed up on its promise to create its own homespun DNA-based COVID jab.

  

  The DNA vaccine uses circular strands of DNA to prime the immune system against a virus – in this case, SARS-CoV-2. Researchers welcomed news of the first DNA vaccine’s approval, saying it could be a major step forward in the battle against COVID. The jab, called ZyCoV-D, is administered into the skin without an injection, and has been found to be 67% protective against symptomatic COVID-19 in clinical trials.

  Now that India has approved the jab and manufacturing is ramping up, ZyCoV-D will likely start to be administered in India later this month. Although the efficacy is not particularly high compared to that of many other COVID-19 vaccines, the fact that it is a DNA vaccine is significant, say researchers.

  Close to a dozen DNA-based vaccines against COVID-19 are in clinical trials globally, and at least as many are in earlier stages of development. To be sure, DNA vaccines are also being developed for many other diseases. They have many advantages over mRNA vaccines that make them particularly useful in environments like India.

  

  While mRNA vaccines were quicker to show strong immune responses in clinical trials, DNA vaccines are better suited for many economies because they are easy to produce, and the finished products are more stable than mRNA vaccines – allowing them to be stored at higher temperatures.  They also don’t need to be injected deep into the muscle tissue.

  “If DNA vaccines prove to be successful, this is really the future of vaccinology” because they are easy to manufacture, says Shahid Jameel, a virologist at Ashoka University in Sonipat, India.

  The urgency of combating COVID-19 has fast-tracked the development of vaccines that use more experimental genetic technology, such as mRNA and DNA vaccines.

  The only question now is will India’s DNA vaccine exhibit fewer rare (but harmful) side effects than the mRNA and adenovirus-vector jabs?

  With that in mind, we’d just like to note: at this point in the pandemic, tampering directly with DNA and RNA is totally fine, but taking a drug that has been approved by the FDA since 1998 (ivermectin) is blasphemy.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/04/2021 – 18:00

• Oregon Police And Firefighters Sue Governor Over Covid Vaccine Mandate
  Oregon Police And Firefighters Sue Governor Over Covid Vaccine Mandate

  By Tom Ozimek of the Epoch Times,

  A coalition of Oregon police officers and firefighters have sued Gov. Kate Brown over a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for state employees.

  

  The plaintiffs—including the Oregon Fraternal Order of Police and the Kingsley Firefighters Association—argued in a lawsuit filed Friday in a Jefferson County court (pdf) that Brown’s executive order violates a number of laws and want it blocked.

  “Plaintiffs seek an order declaring EO No. 21-29 is unenforceable because it conflicts with Oregon statutes, would result in a common law wrongful discharge of the Plaintiffs, conflicts with the Oregon Constitution’s guarantee of free expression, and conflicts with the United States Constitution guarantee of equal protection, free exercise, and due process,” the complaint states.

  Brown issued an executive order (pdf) on Aug. 13 that imposed a mandatory vaccine requirement on all executive branch employees. In the order, Brown said that, to date, around 70 percent of the state’s executive branch employees had taken the vaccine voluntarily, prompted in part by state efforts like organizing onsite vaccine clinics and financial incentives.

  Citing the rise in COVID-19 infections and noting that both private and public employers across the United States have imposed mandates, Brown said it was time for tougher measures in Oregon.

  “With the Delta variant raging in Oregon, with the state’s ability to fully return to in-person work continuing to be hampered by the risks from COVID-19, having implemented a series of incentives aimed at achieving voluntary compliance, and with full FDA approval of the COVID-19 vaccine expected within weeks, the time has come for any remaining state employees and those who work alongside them in state government to get vaccinated,” she wrote in the order.

  The order gives Oregon state workers until Oct. 18 to provide proof of vaccination or face consequences that could include dismissal.

  Ten days after Brown’s order, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave full regulatory approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

  The plaintiffs argued in the complaint that enforcement of the order would result in wrongful termination, and they have asked the court to declare it unlawful and block its enforcement.

  “The individual plaintiffs are Executive Branch employees … who want to exercise control over their own medical treatment and are being forced to choose between their rights privileges and liberties as citizens on the one hand and their employment, careers, and financial futures on the other,” the complaint states.

  The Epoch Times has reached out to the governor’s office for comment on the suit.

  Brown’s spokesperson Liz Merah defended the executive order in a statement to The Associated Press.

  “Given the seriousness of the situation, employer vaccine requirements have become an important tool, and state government plays a part. It’s critical to protect state workers, workplaces, and facilities, as well as members of the public who use state services,” she told the outlet.

  The lawsuit comes as Oregon has faced a sharp rise in COVID-19 infections in recent weeks, with a seven-day average of 2,222 daily cases on Sept. 2, compared to fewer than 500 in mid-July, according to state health authorities.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/04/2021 – 17:30

• One Bank Spots A Bizarre Market Divergence: Stocks Are At All Time Highs Yet Investors Are Bracing For Crisis
  One Bank Spots A Bizarre Market Divergence: Stocks Are At All Time Highs Yet Investors Are Bracing For Crisis

  Something strange is going on.

  On one hand stocks are trading at all-time highs, levitating every day without an apparent care in the world, with traders seemingly complacent that any air pocket in the market will simply mean more accommodation by the Fed which may not taper and which, according to some, may even to more QE. On the other, traditional bear-market signals such as the CNN fear and greed indicator, are deep in neutral territory, having dipped in “fear” territory as recently as one month ago…

  

  … while the SKEW index which many view as an indicator of crash preparation, is near all time highs, prompting a warning from none other than Goldman Sachs.

  

  Picking up on this apparent schism in the market, last observed just last August when a marketwide gamma-squeeze orchestrated by SoftBank spooked traders who were fearful that the economy was nowhere near enough to support the market’s epic ramp, SocGen strategist Arthur Van Slooten and Alain Bokobza ask if what we are seeing is a “qarning signal or excessive caution?” 

  As the SocGen duo puts it, the bank’s Multi Asset Risk Indicator (SG MARI) is currently hovering just above deep risk off territory despite ever rising markets, which raises several questions:

  • Are investors really deeply risk off?
  • How unusual is the latest low?
  • How did we get here?
  • Was it equities, bonds, FX or commodities that triggered the dip?
  • Most importantly, what’s the ‘message’ – a warning signal of major trouble ahead (= Sell) or are investors being overly cautious (= Buy)?

  The SocGen strategists then cover each point one by one:

  Risk on or Risk off? With the S&P 500 up +20.4% year to date and Euro Stoxx 50 at +19.2%, investors appear to be bristling with confidence, “perhaps even to the point of complacency” which was SocGen’s first impression when its market strategist came back from vacation and took the pulse of the markets. But surprisingly, the bank’s SG MARI tracker of investors’ risk positioning in futures and options is giving exactly the opposite signal, indicating that investors are remarkably risk off (see chart below). Just three days before Jay Powell’s ‘tapering’ speech at Jackson Hole, SG MARI touched the lower bound of its normal trading range at -1.06, almost one standard deviation below its long-term average.

  

  How unusual is the latest SG MARI reading? Very. SocGen has only seen such a low reading in just 9% of all observations since 2000. In the past, any drop below the current SG MARI level has been typically trigged by a major crisis such as the TMT bubble, the subprime crisis and the ‘taper tantrum’. The current level is below even the Covid-19 blighted March 2020 reading! Conversely, whenever SG MARI has bounced back from current levels, it has typically heralded the start of a more positive tone, which is good for risky assets such as equity and commodities but not for rates.

  How did the shift into risk off mode transpire? Since the COVID-19-induced lows at end March 2020 (-0.85, after a sell-off that lasted only 14 weeks), quick policy initiatives sent SG MARI higher, peaking at 0.56 on 15 January 2021. Since then, the indicator has gradually moved deeper into risk off territory, with the drop moderately accelerating in the last three months. The two charts below indicate that the current low (LH chart below) is far more unusual than the latest drop (RH chart).

  

  Did any asset class in particular move the dial? No. SG MARI’s current low is the result of relatively weak readings from each of its four components – the weighted average of indicators for equities, bonds, FX and commodities – without a single metric standing out. Arguably, this is exactly what a good aggregate indicator should do: highlight a trend that is not immediately obvious from simple observation of its underlying variables.

  Cautious signals from equities and bonds. For SG MARI, net shorts from the bank’s equity positioning indicator (SG EPI) come into the equation directly but net longs from the rates positioning indicator (SG RPI) are inverted first. Hence, the latest rise in SG RPI contributes to SG MARI’s low reading – which makes sense as SG RPI signals increasingly strong expectations of a further fall in rates, implying a bearish outlook for growth that would justify investors taking a risk-off stance.

  

  Also cautious FX and Commodities positioning. The latest drops in SocGen’s Foreign Exchange Positioning (SG FXPI) and Commodity Positioning (SG COPI) indicators have fed directly through to the SG MARI multi asset risk indicator, albeit with lower weightings than for equities and bonds. The drop in SG FXPI indicates generally shorter positions in cyclical currencies versus USD. In the case of the Australian dollar (AUD), this is largely explained by the drop in copper prices related to the slowdown in China’s economic growth. But as copper is not formally part of the bank’s commodity indicator, the latest drop in SG COPI is 100% due to the equilibrium between crude oil and gold.

  Does a low SG MARI reading spell major trouble ahead? According to SocGen, “the jury is still out.” The chart below shows the longest available history of SG MARI, with arrows indicating periods of major financial crisis. An important observation is that crisis can arise regardless of the level of SG MARI just before they are triggered. In all cases, SG MARI then corrects strongly, with the length of correction indicating the severity of the crisis at hand. By extension, the current low level does not necessarily spell major trouble ahead… but it very well could.

  

  Alternatively, are “spooked” investors sending a clear Buy signal? No. Here SocGen tries to preempt any accusations (ostensibly from its clients) that it is starting a market panic, noting that as illustrated by the chart above, whenever SG MARI’s shifts -1 standard deviation below its normal trading range – a point it has just crossed – it signals the start of a decent bounce higher, and the bank asks “Barring major trouble ahead, is there any reason why this is not the case now? If so, the latest drop in SG MARI could be interpreted as a Buy signal.” Well sure… but the problem is that usually by the time its risk index is at -1, markets are tumbling. Only this time they are at all time highs. So extrapolating the past to the present situation seems naive at best and manipulative at worst.

  Spin aside, SocGen is correct that after many months of exceptional market performance, we are now on the brink of an important shift, however gradual it may turn out to be in practice. The bank thinks that the pace of policy change that includes monetary and fiscal adjustments could be largely dependent on how fast COVID restrictions can be lifted, including in emerging markets. Meanwhile, peak growth has already been reached, first in China, where less restrictive policy may even be needed later this year.

  In short, the French bank summarizes that “as markets transition from ‘goldilocks’ territory and heady valuation levels to a more testing environment with the prospect of decelerating earnings and rising bond yields, this is hardly the appropriate time to conclude that SG MARI is giving an outright Buy signal. Indeed, the relief over the announced gradual nature of Fed tapering and the decoupling with rate hikes thereafter may prove short-lived.” And that’s the non-spun version of reality.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/04/2021 – 17:00

• Buchanan: Cacophony And Confusion In Foreign Policy
  Buchanan: Cacophony And Confusion In Foreign Policy

  Authored by Pat Buchanan,

  When President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed Congress on Dec. 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the country was united behind him.

  The America First Committee, the largest anti-war movement in our history, which had the backing of President Herbert Hoover and future Presidents John F. Kennedy and Gerald Ford, was closing its doors and enlisting.

  When President George W. Bush stood atop the ruins of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan after the attack of 9/11, the country was united behind him.

  President Joe Biden, however, knows no such unity. Any foreign policy coalition he once had, any consensus he enjoyed, is gone.

  Following the evacuation of 6,000 Americans and 118,000 Afghans from Kabul airport — a remarkable feat over two weeks by the U.S. military — Biden and his foreign policy team are taking fire from all sides.

  Interventionists in both parties believe Biden’s decision to pull out all U.S. forces by Aug. 31 precipitated the collapse of the Afghan army and regime, which led to disaster and defeat in the “forever war.”

  To the War Party, Biden “lost Afghanistan.”

  Though the Trump wing of the GOP favored an earlier pullout, it has seized on the debacle of the withdrawal to inflict maximum damage on the president and party that “rigged” the vote and “stole” the election of 2020. Among the major media, Biden has sustained major defections.

  Demands are being heard for the resignation or firing of his entire security team: Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

  Their credibility is shot. Yet, as the country still supports the pullout from Afghanistan, what shattered the foreign policy consensus?

  Answer:

  • The initial panic at Karzai International Airport.

  • Afghans clinging to the sides of departing planes.

  • A teenage boy caught in the wheel well.

  • Desperate Afghan friends trying to crash the gates.

  • The U.S. reliance on the Taliban to vet our citizens and allies at the airport.

  • The ISIS massacre of 13 American soldiers and wounding of 20 others, and the deaths of 150 Afghans by a suicide bomber.

  • Video of Biden checking his watch as coffins of the fallen were carried out of the plane at Dover. The U.S. drone strike on ISIS-K that killed 10 members of an extended Afghan family.

  • Finally, the “left behinds” — hundreds of U.S. citizens and tens of thousands of Afghans, all now potential hostages of a triumphant Taliban, with the Afghans facing the prospect of torture and murder.

  All these stories, photos and videos are indelibly fixed in America’s mind and inextricably linked to Joe Biden. They will forever define his legacy. And they have created a coalition of opponents and critics that may be sufficient to block or impede any bold foreign policy decision Biden chooses to take.

  This coalition, and what lies ahead for America, could cripple Biden’s capacity to conduct foreign policy and so discredit his team as to make it unable to speak for America on the world stage.

  Has the ongoing Afghan debacle, by shattering the consensus on which Biden depended, induced a foreign policy paralysis?

  Consider. Should al-Qaida or ISIS, energized by the U.S. humiliation in Afghanistan, choose to attack the 900 U.S. troops in Syria, or the 2,500 in Iraq, what would Biden do?

  Retaliate? Send in more troops as needed if the fighting escalates? Or get out and end the U.S. involvement in these other forever wars?

  What decision would be acceptable to Biden and his critics?

  The shock of the U.S. defeat and retreat in Afghanistan has surely shaken Ukraine and Taiwan, if they believed they had some guarantee from America to come to their defense.

  But would the American people be prepared to intervene militarily and assist Ukraine in a war with Russia over the Donbas or Crimea?

  

  Would we be willing to face down China over its claim to Taiwan?

  We are not obligated by treaty to come to the defense of either of those nations. And many Americans do not believe either cause is worth the cost of a war with a nuclear power such as Russia or China.

  Bottom line: If Joe Biden, as commander in chief, draws a red line, what reason is there to believe the country will back him up if it comes to enforcing it?

  President Barack Obama drew a red line against Syria’s use of chemical weapons in its civil war. When Syrian President Bashar Assad appeared to cross it, Obama called on the country to back him up in enforcing his red line.

  Country and Congress refused. They wanted no part of Syria’s civil war, no matter what Assad was doing while fighting it.

  And Obama? He did nothing.

  August in Afghanistan may have shattered irredeemably the foreign policy consensus and coalition Biden could rely upon.

  There is no guarantee today that the country will back up its commander in chief in doing what he deems necessary to the national security.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/04/2021 – 16:30

• Facebook Apologizes After Labeling Black Men As "Primates"
  Facebook Apologizes After Labeling Black Men As “Primates”

  Facebook rushed to apologize on Friday after it labeled black men as “primates”. A Facebook spokesperson told The New York Times, which first reported the story, that it was a “clearly unacceptable error” of its auto-generated recommendation system and said the software involved was disabled.

  “We apologize to anyone who may have seen these offensive recommendations,” Facebook – whose senior management team is completely white – said in response to an AFP inquiry. “We disabled the entire topic recommendation feature as soon as we realized this was happening so we could investigate the cause and prevent this from happening again.”

  Facebook users in recent days who watched a British tabloid video featuring Black men were show an auto-generated prompt asking if they would like to “keep seeing videos about Primates?“

  A screen capture of the recommendation was shared on Twitter by former Facebook content design manager Darci Groves, who said a friend sent her a screenshot of the video in question with the company’s auto-generated prompt. The video, dated 27 June 2020, was posted by UK’s Daily Mail.

  It contained clips of two separate incidents, which appear to take place in the US. One shows a group of black men arguing with a white individual on a road in Connecticut, while the other shows several black men arguing with white police officers in Indiana before being detained. “This ‘keep seeing’ prompt is unacceptable,” Groves tweeted, aiming the message at former colleagues at Facebook. “This is egregious.”

  Um. This “keep seeing” prompt is unacceptable, @Facebook. And despite the video being more than a year old, a friend got this prompt yesterday. Friends at FB, please escalate. This is egregious. pic.twitter.com/vEHdnvF8ui

  — Darci Groves (@tweetsbydarci) September 2, 2021

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

  ​In response, a Facebook product manager said the company was “looking into the root cause”. The company later said the recommendation software involved had been disabled.

  “We disabled the entire topic recommendation feature as soon as we realised this was happening so we could investigate the cause and prevent this from happening again,” a spokesperson was cited by The New York Times as saying.

  Twitter users were split in their response to the AI-generated Facebook prompts. Some were shocked at how the platforms continued to fail addressing the issue.

  Again?! How did we not learn this after Google?! They have a much larger data set, are they not training it any better?! Argh

  — Bulbul Gupta (@bulbulnyc) September 4, 2021

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

  And to think, this is the same AI that Zuck says will replace human content moderators…

  — Chelsea 🙌🏻 (@thatchelseagirl) September 3, 2021

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

  ​Others proceeded to directly accuse Facebook of being racist, incompetent and evil.

  They’re apologizing because their AI tagged Black men as primates,
  even though they won’t rewrite the system? They keep making it obvious that the whites are coding and training the AI to be as racist as they are.

  — TaryntheRealtor (@TaryntheR) September 4, 2021

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

  Facebook is equal parts incompetent and evil.

  — Chilly Freezesteak (@freezesteak) September 4, 2021

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

  A third group saw nothing wrong with the AI algo that triggered the outrage.

  This doesn’t happen because Facebook or any other tech company is racist. It happens because AI still isn’t very “smart”. I do this for a living and the tech is getting better, but it’s not there yet, which is why I still don’t own an auto driving vehicle.

  — anton (@perchedfalcon) September 4, 2021

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

  Humans are primates biologicaly. So what’s wrong on it? pic.twitter.com/NWPwYjPa9b

  — David Michal (@DavidMi52138016) September 4, 2021

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

  This is not the first time facial recognition software and “racist” AI has gotten in trouble. The latest AI fiasco comes as tech companies have come under fire for perceived biases displayed by their artificial intelligence software, despite the companies’ solemn pledges to the woke cause. Last year, Twitter investigated whether its automatic image cropper may be racially biased against black people as it selected which part of a picture to preview in tweets.

  A faculty member has been asking how to stop Zoom from removing his head when he uses a virtual background. We suggested the usual plain background, good lighting etc, but it didn’t work. I was in a meeting with him today when I realized why it was happening.

  — Colin Madland, PhD(c) (@colinmadland) September 19, 2020

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

  ​In 2015, Google’s algorithm reportedly tagged two Black people’s faces with the word “gorilla”, prompting the company to say it was “genuinely sorry that this happened,” in a statement to The Wall Street Journal.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/04/2021 – 16:00

• Why All The Fuss About Ivermectin?
  Why All The Fuss About Ivermectin?

  Authored by Brian C. Joondeph via AmericanThinker.com,

  First hydroxychloroquine, now ivermectin, is the hated deadly drug de jour, castigated by the medical establishment and regulatory authorities. Both drugs have been around for a long time as FDA-approved prescription medications. Yet now we are told they are as deadly as arsenic.

  As a physician, I am certainly aware of ivermectin but don’t recall ever writing a prescription for it in my 30+ years’ medical career. Ivermectin is an anthelmintic, meaning it cures parasitic infections. In my world of ophthalmology, it is used on occasion for rare parasitic or worm infections in the eye.

  Ivermectin was FDA approved in 1998 under the brand name Stromectol, produced by pharmaceutical giant Merck, approved for several parasitic infections. The product label described it as having a “unique mode of action,” which “leads to an increase in the permeability of the cell membrane to chloride ions.” This suggests that ivermectin acts as an ionophore, making cell membranes permeable to ions that enter the cell for therapeutic effect.

  

  Ivermectin is one of several ionophores, others including hydroxychloroquine, quercetin, and resveratrol, the latter two available over the counter. These ionophores simply open a cellular door, allowing zinc to enter the cell, where it then interferes with viral replication, providing potential therapeutic benefit in viral and other infections.

  This scientific paper reviews and references other studies demonstrating antibacterial, antiviral, and anticancer properties of ivermectin.

  This explains the interest in this drug as having potential use in treating COVID.

  Does ivermectin work in COVID?

  I am not attempting to answer that question, instead looking at readily available information because this drug has been the focus of much recent media attention. For the benefit of any reader eager to report this article and author to the medical licensing boards for pushing misleading information, I am not offering medical advice or prescribing anything.  Rather, I am only offering commentary on this newsworthy and controversial drug.

  What’s newsworthy about ivermectin? A simple Google search of most medications describes uses and side effects. A similar search of ivermectin provides headlines of why it shouldn’t be taken and how dangerous it is.

  

  YouTube screen grab

  The Guardian describes ivermectin as horse medicine reminding readers considering taking the drug, “You are not a horse. You are not a cow”, saying it’s a medicine meant for farm animals. The FDA echoed that sentiment in a recent tweet, adding “Seriously, y’all. Stop it,” their word choice making it obvious who the tweet was directed to.

  Perhaps the FDA didn’t realize that Barack and Michelle Obama often used the term “y’all” and that some might construe the FDA tweet as racist.

  The FDA says ivermectin “can be dangerous and even lethal,” yet they approved it in 1998 and have not pulled it from the market despite it being “dangerous and lethal.” Any medication can be “dangerous and lethal” if misused. People have even overdosed on water.

  It is true that ivermectin is also used in animals, as are many drugs approved for human use.

  This is a list of veterinary drugs with many familiar names of antibiotics, antihypertensives, and anesthetics commonly used by humans. Since these drugs are used in farm animals, should humans stop taking them? That seems a rather unscientific argument against ivermectin, especially coming from the FDA.

  And healthcare professionals are not recommending or prescribing animal versions of ivermectin as there is an FDA-approved human formulation.

  Does ivermectin work against COVID? That is the bigger question and worthy of investigation, rather than reminding people that they are not cows.

  A study published several months ago in the American Journal of Therapeutics concluded,

  Meta-analyses based on 18 randomized controlled treatment trials of ivermectin in COVID-19 have found large, statistically significant reductions in mortality, time to clinical recovery, and time to viral clearance. Furthermore, results from numerous controlled prophylaxis trials report significantly reduced risks of contracting COVID-19 with the regular use of ivermectin. Finally, the many examples of ivermectin distribution campaigns leading to rapid population-wide decreases in morbidity and mortality indicate that an oral agent effective in all phases of COVID-19 has been identified.

  To my knowledge, these 18 studies have not been retracted, unlike previous studies critical of hydroxychloroquine which were ignominiously retracted by prestigious medical journals like The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine.

  Yet the medical establishment refuses to even entertain the possibility of some benefit from ivermectin, castigating physicians who want to try it in their patients. 18 studies found benefit. Are they all wrong?

  Podcaster Joe Rogan recently contracted COVID and recovered within days of taking a drug cocktail including ivermectin. Was it his drug cocktail, his fitness, or just good luck? Impossible to know but his experience will keep ivermectin in the news.

  Highly unvaccinated India had a surge in COVID cases earlier this year which abruptly ended following the widespread use of ivermectin, over the objections and criticism of the WHO. In the one state, Tamil Nadu, that did not use ivermectin, cases tripled instead of dropping by 97 percent as in the rest of the country.

  This is anecdotal and could have other explanations but the discovery of penicillin was also anecdotal and observational. Good science should investigate rather than ignore such observations.

  The Japanese Medical Association recently endorsed ivermectin for COVID. The US CDC cautioned against it.

  There is legal pushback as an Ohio judge ordered a hospital to treat a ventilated COVID patient with ivermectin. After a month on the ventilator, this patient is likely COVID free and ivermectin now will have no benefit, allowing the medical establishment to say “see I told you so” that it wouldn’t help.

  By this point, active COVID infection is not the issue; instead, it is weaning off and recovery from long-term life support. The early hydroxychloroquine studies had the same flaw, treating patients too late in the disease course to provide or demonstrate benefit.

  These drugs have been proposed for early outpatient treatment, not when patients are seriously ill and near death. Looking for treatment benefits in the wrong patient population will yield expected negative results.

  Given how devastating COVID can be and how, despite high levels of vaccination in countries like the US, UK, and Israel, we are seeing surging cases and hospitalizations among the vaccinated, we should be pulling out all the stops in treating this virus.

  Medical treatment involves balancing risks and benefits. When FDA-approved medications are used in appropriate doses for appropriate patients, prescribed by competent physicians, the risks tend to be low, and any benefit should be celebrated. Instead, the medical establishment, media, and regulatory authorities are taking the opposite approach. One has to wonder why.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/04/2021 – 15:30

• Young Girls Forced To "Marry" Older Men To Escape Afghanistan Are Alleging Sexual Assault And Rape
  Young Girls Forced To “Marry” Older Men To Escape Afghanistan Are Alleging Sexual Assault And Rape

  Buried deep in the ongoing mess that is the Afghanistan evacuation, another ugly problem is rearing its head: older Afghan men have reportedly been admitted to intake centers with young girls they have claimed as their “brides”.

  The problem has surfaced at intake centers in the United Arab Emirates and in Wisconsin, a new report from AP says. There have been “numerous” incidents where Afghan girls have been presented to authorities as the “wives” of much older men, the report says. Some girls at a transit site in Abu Dhabi have even told authorities they had “been raped by older men they were forced to marry in order to escape”, the report says.

  A cable sent from the United Arab Emirates to Washington described allegations by girls that they had been sexually assaulted by their “husbands”.

  The normalcy of child marriage in Afghanistan stands at odds with strict child trafficking laws that the U.S. has, catalyzing the State Department to seek “urgent guidance” on how to handle the situation, specifically in Fort McCoy in Wisconsin.

  

  Some of the men being taken in at Fort McCoy claim to have more than one wife, the report says. 

  “Intake staff at Fort McCoy reported multiple cases of minor females who presented as ‘married’ to adult Afghan men, as well as polygamous families,” an August 27 situation report sent to all U.S. embassies and consulates abroad as well as military command centers in Florida read. 

  No immediate action has been taken by the military or the departments of homeland security and health and human services, AP noted. 

  The State Department didn’t offer a comment, except to say that many allegations “are anecdotal and difficult to prove”.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/04/2021 – 15:00

• College Graduate Starting Salaries At All-Time High Despite Pandemic: Report
  College Graduate Starting Salaries At All-Time High Despite Pandemic: Report

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

  Starting salaries for college graduates are at an all-time high despite the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).

  

  The average starting salary for the college class of 2020 was $55,260, a roughly 2.5 percent increase from the starting salary of $53,889 for the class of 2019, according to NACE’s Summer 2021 Salary Survey (pdf). The report also shows that the new average represents a gain of about 8.5 percent from the class of 2018’s final average starting salary of $50,944.

  Technical majors were the highest-paid among the 2020 graduates earning bachelor’s degrees, with the list of the 10 majors offering the highest average starting salary being dominated by those in technical areas.

  Petroleum engineering came out on top with an average starting salary of $87,989, followed by computer programming at $86,098, computer engineering at $85,996, computer science at $85,766, and electrical, electronics, and communications engineering at $80,819.

  The figures reported are for base salaries only and don’t include bonuses, commissions, fringe benefits, or overtime rates. The data is based on the 249 schools that provided salary data by specific program or major.

  “In some cases, salary increases most likely reflect these unique times,” said Shawn VanDerziel, NACE executive director.

  “For example, the increased demand for nurses as frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic may have fueled the 2.1 percent increase in the average starting salary for registered nursing majors from $57,416 for these graduates from the class of 2019 to $58,626 for class of 2020 registered nursing graduates.”

  The report comes despite many employers facing work shortages and hiring difficulties as the pandemic upended job market dynamics, even as 8.7 million people are officially unemployed.

  U.S. employers posted a record 10.1 million job openings at the end of June, the most ever recorded by the Bureau of Labor Statistics since it began tracking job openings in December 2000.

  The National Federation of Independent Business jobs report in July found that 49 percent of small-business owners reported job openings that couldn’t be filled—a 48-year record high.

  Lack of affordable child care, pandemic-related retirements, fears of contracting COVID-19, and generous federal pandemic unemployment benefits have all been cited as reasons behind the disconnect.

  However, with pandemic restrictions being eased, COVID-19 vaccines being rolled out, and federal pandemic unemployment benefits set to expire on Sept. 6, labor shortages could potentially ease.

  In an effort to counteract shortages and attract workers, numerous companies, particularly those in the dining and hospitality sector, as well as small-business owners, are increasing pay for employees.

  “Small-business owners struggled to find qualified workers for their open positions, which has impaired business activity in the busy summer months,” NFIB chief economist Bill Dunkelberg said in a statement. “Owners are raising compensation to the highest levels in 48 years to attract needed employees.”

  Companies such as McDonald’s, Chipotle, and Walgreens Boots Alliance—which will see its starting pay rise to $15 per hour beginning in October—have all opted to raise salaries.

  In August, Pittsburgh-based PNC Bank, one of the country’s largest financial services companies, said it was raising its minimum wage to $18 per hour, while also giving higher-paid workers a bump in pay, in what the company described as an “accordion effect” across its branches.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/04/2021 – 14:30

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• The Covidian Cult (Part III): There's Reality & There's "Reality"
  The Covidian Cult (Part III): There’s Reality & There’s “Reality”

  Authored by CJ Hopkins via The Consent Factory,

  In The Covidian Cult (Part I) and (Part II), I characterized the so-called “New Normal” as a “global totalitarian ideological movement.” Since I published those essays, more and more people have come to see it for what it is, not “insanity” or “an overreaction,” but, in fact, a new form of totalitarianism, a globalized, pathologized, depoliticized form, which is being systematically implemented under the guise of “protecting the public health.”

  

  In order to oppose this new form of totalitarianism, we need to understand how it both resembles and differs from earlier totalitarian systems. The similarities are fairly obvious — the suspension of constitutional rights, governments ruling by decree, official propaganda, public loyalty rituals, the outlawing of political opposition, censorship, social segregation, goon squads terrorizing the public, and so on — but the differences are not obvious.

  Whereas 20th-Century totalitarianism (i.e., the form most people are generally familiar with) was more or less national and overtly political, New Normal totalitarianism is supranational, and its ideology is much more subtle. The New Normal is not Nazism or Stalinism. It is global-capitalist totalitarianism, and global capitalism doesn’t have an ideology, technically, or, rather, its ideology is “reality.” When you are an unrivaled global ideological hegemon, as global capitalism has been for the last 30 years or so, your ideology automatically becomes “reality,” because there are no competing ideologies. Actually, there is no ideology at all … there is only “reality” and “unreality,” “normality” and “deviations from the norm.”

  Yes, I know, reality is reality … that’s why I’m putting all these terms in scare quotes, so, please, spare me the lengthy emails conclusively proving the reality of reality and try to understand how this works.

  There is reality (whatever you believe it is), and there is “reality,” which dictates how our societies function. “Reality” is constructed (i.e., simulated), collectively, according to the ideology of whatever system controls society. In the past, “reality” was openly ideological, regardless of which “reality” you lived in, because there were other competing “realities” out there. There aren’t anymore. There is only the one “reality,” because the entire planet — yes, including China, Russia, North Korea, and wherever — is controlled by one globally hegemonic system.

  A globally hegemonic system has no need for ideology, because it doesn’t have to compete with rival ideologies. So it erases ideology and replaces it with “reality.” Reality (whatever you personally believe it is, which of course is what it really is) is not actually erased. It just doesn’t matter, because you do not get to dictate “reality.” Global capitalism gets to dictate “reality,” or, more accurately, it simulates “reality,” and in so doing simulates the opposite of “reality,” which is equally if not more important.

  This global-capitalist-manufactured “reality” is a depoliticized, ahistorical “reality,” which forms an invisible ideological boundary establishing the limits of what is “real.” In this way, global capitalism (a) conceals its ideological nature, and (b) renders any and all ideological opposition automatically illegitimate, or, more accurately, non-existent. Ideology as we knew it disappears. Political, ethical, and moral arguments are reduced to the question of what is “real” or “factual,” which the GloboCap “experts” and “fact checkers” dictate.

  Also, because this “reality” is not a cohesive ideological system with fundamental values, core principles, and so on, it can be drastically revised or completely replaced more or less at a moment’s notice. Global capitalism has no fundamental values — other than exchange value, of course — and thus it is free to manufacture any kind of “reality” it wants, and replace one “reality” with a new “reality” any time that serves its purposes, like stagehands changing a theatrical set.

  For example, the “Global War on Terror,” which was the official “reality” from 2001 until it was canceled in the Summer of 2016, when the “War on Populism” was officially launched. Or, now, the “New Normal,” which replaced the “War on Populism” in the Spring of 2020. Each of which new simulations of “reality” was rolled out abruptly, clumsily even, like that scene in 1984 where the Party switches official enemies right in the middle of a Hate Week speech.

  Seriously, think about where we are currently, 18 months into our new “reality,” then go back and review how GloboCap blatantly rolled out the New Normal in the Spring of 2020 … and the majority of the masses didn’t even blink. They seamlessly transitioned to the new “reality” in which a virus, rather than “white supremacists,” or “Russian agents,” or “Islamic terrorists,” had become the new official enemy. They put away the scripts they had been reciting verbatim from for the previous four years, and the scripts they had been reciting from for the previous 15 years before that, and started frantically jabbering Covid cult-speak like they were auditioning for an over-the-top Orwell parody.

  Which brings us to the problem of the Covidian cult … how to get through to them, which, make no mistake, we have to do, one way or another, or the New Normal will become our permanent “reality.”

  I called the New Normals a “Covidian Cult,” not to gratuitously insult or mock them, but because that is what totalitarianism is … a cult writ large, on a societal scale. Anyone who has tried to get through to them can confirm the accuracy of that analogy. You can show them the facts until you’re blue in the face. It will not make the slightest difference. You think you are having a debate over facts, but you are not. You are threatening their new “reality.” You think you are struggling to get them to think rationally. You are not. What you are is a heretic, an agent of demonic forces, an enemy of all that is “real” and “true.”

  The Scientologists would label you a “suppressive person.” The New Normals call you a “conspiracy theorist,” an “anti-vaxxer,” or a “virus denier.” The specific epithets don’t really matter. They are just labels that cult members and totalitarians use to demonize those they perceive as “enemies” … anyone challenging the “reality” of the cult, or the “reality” of the totalitarian system.

  The simple fact of the matter is, you can’t talk people out of a cult, and you can’t talk them out of totalitarianism. Usually, what you do, in the case of a cult, is, you get the person out of the cult. You kidnap them, take them to a safehouse or wherever, surround them with a lot of non-cult members, and deprogram them gradually over the course of several days. You do this because, while they are still inside the cult, you cannot get through to them. They cannot hear you. A cult is a collective, self-contained “reality.” Its power flows from the social organism composed of the cult leaders and the other cult members. You cannot “talk” this power away. You have to physically remove the person from it before you can begin to reason with them.

  Unfortunately, we do not have this option. The New Normal is a global totalitarian system. There is no “outside” of the system to retreat to. We can’t kidnap everyone and take them to Sweden. As I noted in Part I of this series, the cult/society paradigm has been inverted. The cult has become the dominant society, and those of us who have not been converted have become a collection of isolated islands existing, not outside, but within the cult.

  So we need to adopt a different strategy. We need to make the monster show itself, not to those of us who can already see it, but to the New Normal masses, the Covidian cultists. We need to make Jim Jones drop the peace-and-love crap, move into the jungle, and break out the Kool-Aid. We need to make Charles Manson put down his guitar, cancel orgy-time, and go homicidal hippie. This is how you take down a cult from within. You do not try to thwart its progress; you push it toward its logical conclusion. You make it manifest its full expression, because that it when it implodes, and dies. You do not do that by being polite, conciliatory, or avoiding conflict. You do that by generating as much internal conflict within the cult as you can.

  In other words, we need make GloboCap (and its minions) go openly totalitarian … because it can’t. If it could, it would have done so already. Global capitalism cannot function that way. Going openly totalitarian will cause it to implode … no, not global capitalism itself, but this totalitarian version of it. In fact, this is starting to happen already. It needs the simulation of “reality,” and “democracy,” and “normality,” to keep the masses docile. So we need to attack that simulation. We need to hammer on it until it cracks, and the monster hiding within in appears.

  That is the weakness of the system … the New Normal totalitarianism will not work if the masses perceive it as totalitarianism, as a political/ideological program, rather than as “a response to a deadly pandemic.” So we need to make it visible as totalitarianism. We need to force the New Normals to see it as what it is. I do not mean that we need to explain it to them. They are beyond the reach of explanations. I mean that we need to make them see it, feel it, tangibly, inescapably, until they recognize what they are collaborating with.

  Stop arguing with them on their terms, and instead directly attack their “reality.” When they start jabbering about the virus, the variants, the “vaccines,” and all the other Covid cult-speak, do not get sucked into their narrative. Do not respond as if they were rational. Respond as if they were talking about “Xenu,” “body thetans,” “Helter Skelter,” or any other cultoid nonsense, because that it is exactly what it is. Same goes for their rules and restrictions, the “face coverings,” the “social distancing,” and so on. Stop arguing against them on the grounds that they don’t work. Of course they don’t work, but that is not the point (and arguing that way sucks you into their “reality”). Oppose them because of what they are, a collection of bizarre compliance rituals performed to cement allegiance to the cult and create a general atmosphere of “deadly pandemic.”

  There are many ways to go about doing this, i.e., generating internal conflict. I have been doing it my way, others are doing it theirs. If you’re one of them, thank you. If you’re not, start. Do it however and wherever you can. Make the New Normals face the monster, the monster they are feeding … the monster they have become.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 23:40

• Meanwhile In Canada, Rural Shack Sells For 37% Above Asking Within Days
  Meanwhile In Canada, Rural Shack Sells For 37% Above Asking Within Days

  Canada’s housing crisis worsens as bidding wars become more intense as shortages persist. A combination of people leaving cities and seeking rural properties mixed with a housing shortage has resulted in skyrocketing prices that are not sustainable. 

  According to The Globe and Mail, home prices in Canada surged 22% over the past year, and the median home price is at record highs. Cheap loans from the Bank of Canada (BoC), housing shortages, and people exiting cities have resulted in bidding wars. 

  Take, for example, Palgrave, a small town 31 miles northwest of Toronto. A rancher built in the 1970s had an asking price of $998,000 in June and sold later that month for $1,365,000. Just days on the market, a fierce bidding war broke out with 13 bidders who ultimately bid up the price 37% above list. 

  “There wasn’t a lot of inventory, and there was another property that had sold recently in multiple offers, so we wanted to take advantage of any leftover buyers,” Toronto-based agent Luisa Piccirilli said.

  The house is nothing special and appears to be a typical rancher with 3,000 square feet and a three-car garage. But what attracted bidders is the backyard, a solid 2.4 acres. 

  

  Piccirilli described the bidding war mainly between those who wanted to escape city life and wanted a backyard. 

  “There’s an exodus of people leaving the city and wanting more property and land,” Piccirilli said.

  As we noted over the summer, the housing investment boom was one of the biggest in years but has since cooled from its March peak as property prices are expected to come off the highs next year. 

  This means the Bank of Canada might not be “eager to raise interest rates” should a slowdown in housing activity continue, said Stephen Brown, senior Canadian economist at Capital Economics

  For the year-over-year change in new home prices, the current levels are typically associated with periods of instability. In other words, the growth rate of prices cannot be maintained. 

  

  BMO’s Doug Porter told clients in July Canada is one of the largest housing bubbles in the world. 

  Meanwhile, Canadian liberal leader Justin Trudeau has promised: “to put an end to speculative housing growth.” 

  Trudeau said Canada’s real estate market had fallen victim to “instability” and “uncertainty,” which have led to “soaring prices, bidding wars, rampant speculation, and too many vacant properties.” 

  If Trudeau were really up for the task to “fix” his country’s housing bubble, then a price correction would weigh on GDP. In 2Q, residential construction was around 10% GDP. 

  

  So any intervention by Trudeau to tame housing prices is unlikely ahead of the Canadian federal election later this month. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 23:20

• Luongo: Breaking The Empire Means Breaking With The Saudis
  Luongo: Breaking The Empire Means Breaking With The Saudis

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

  To say that Saudi Arabia has been the lynchpin to U.S. foreign policy objectives in the Middle East and central Asia is to engage in massive understatement.

  

  For more than fifty years the Saudis have helped prop up U.S. foreign policy by exporting their oil to the world and taking only dollars in return.

  Their currency, the Riyal, has been pegged to the U.S. dollar since then Secretary of State under President Nixon, Henry Kissinger, brokered that deal that built the so-called petrodollar system.

  Now, in the intervening decades the petrodollar has been a buzzword thrown around by many, including myself, to explain the architecture of the U.S.’s imperial ambitions. In many ways, it has served a crucial part of that, at times. But, it was most needed during the early years of the dollar reserve standard, helping to legitimize this new currency regime and provide a market for U.S. debt around the world to replace gold.

  After that it was just one aspect of a much bigger game built on the ever-expanding Ponzi scheme of fake funny money. In reality, the eurodollar shadow banking system is just a lot bigger than the petrodollar.

  That said, I don’t discount it completely, as I understand this is real money changing hands for real goods, rather than the vast quantities of dollars out there supporting an increasingly creaky financialized system. Real trade matters and what currency that trade occurs in, also matters.

  The U.S. closely defended the petrodollar famously going to war with any country that dared to offer oil on international markets in any currency other than the dollar, c.f. Iraq under Saddam Hussein. But, times change and so do the structure of capital markets.

  So, when evaluating the health of the petrodollar system and its importance today it’s important to realize that the oil market is far more fragmented in payment terms than its been since the early 1970’s.

  As a system, the petrodollar was always going to die a death of a thousand cuts. To my reckoning the first inklings of this began in late 2012 after President Obama finally used the financial nuclear weapon, expulsion from the SWIFT payment system, on Iran for pretty much no reason.

  Earlier this year I wrote a piece describing why in negotiations you never go nuclear and how Obama made the biggest strategic blunder, possibly in U.S. history, by first threatening the Swiss over bank secrecy and then Iran.

  The fact that the Obama administration politicized SWIFT when it did ended an era of international finance. The world financial system ended any illusions it had over who was in charge and who dictated what terms.

  The problem with that is once you go there, there’s no going back, which was {Jim} Sinclair’s point over a decade ago.

  Threatening Switzerland with SWIFT expulsion wasn’t a sign of strength, however, it was a sign of weakness. Only weak people bully their friends into submission. It showed that the U.S. had no leverage over than the Swiss other than SWIFT, a clear sign of desperation.

  And that’s what the U.S. did when it pushed the big red ‘history eraser’ button.

  The Swiss knuckled under. Its vaunted banking privacy is now a part of history.

  Iran, however, in 2012, facing a similar threat from Obama, didn’t knuckle under and forced Obama to make good on his threat. Once you uncork the nuclear weapon you can’t threaten with lesser weapons, they have no sway. This is a lesson Donald Trump would learn the hard way since 2018.

  Iran bucked the petrodollar to sell its oil by making a goods-for-oil swap arrangement with India. Iran was laughed at by U.S. foreign policy wonks at the time. Then we found out that Turkey was laundering oil sales for Iran through its banks using gold.

  Its currency, the Rial, since then has been under constant attack by the U.S., most viciously under President Trump who sought to do what Obama couldn’t do, drive Iran’s oil exports to zero. The goal was regime change.

  I chronicled this in detail, over these past four years, saying explicitly that the strategy was stupid and short-sighted. It didn’t work. It couldn’t work.

  Iran’s resistance to Trump’s bullying only further entrenched the existing power structures there and hardened the Iranian people to become more disagreeable, more disdainful of America and, likely, Americans.

  All it did was force Iran to develop alternate plans and find new markets. Those alternatives meant courting better relations with China, Russia and Turkey, which the U.S. tried hard to sabotage. As long as Iran was as good as its word, supplying oil and acting as a reliable partner in diplomacy, eventually deals would come to them.

  Last year’s $400 billion, 20-year investment from China is the culmination of that resistance and ingenuity. That’s the whirlwind wrought by Trump’s pro-Israel, anti-Iran and confused Syria/Afghanistan policies.

  In the intervening years, the U.S. sanctioned Russia who sells their oil, a lot of it, in a number of different currencies, some of which are still dollars. China began a yuan-denominated oil futures contract a few years ago, which is ultimately convertible to gold in Shanghai.

  The U.S. still trades with China and Russia and yet no one who called for the death of the petrodollar then was right. These things are a process, not a step-function. The point being that the petrodollar isn’t dependent on it being a monopsony in oil trading. The system has been leaking for nearly a decade now.

  Iran is an example of why Davos will fail to pull off anything more than the most limited form of their Great Reset. So is Russia. Necessity is the mother of innovation. Putin makes this point all the time. And he, like the Mullahs in Iran, were laughed at by the U.S. foreign policy wonks on K Street.

  But, this article isn’t about Iran or Russia or China. It’s about Saudi Arabia.

  Now that Afghanistan is all but settled in the geopolitical sense now the question is all about the fallout from it. For years we’ve seen the coalition that intended to atomize Syria splinter, bit by bit. First it was Qatar, who defied Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), who was isolated just like Iran. Qatar survived.

  Then it was Turkey, constantly flipping and flopping around under President Erdogan trying to fill the power voids left as Russia’s military successes in Syria and diplomatic successes around the region frustrated U.S., NATO and Israeli plans there.

  Slowly, bit by bit, Russia and China moved into those spaces while Erdogan tried and failed…. over and over and over again.

  So, with the U.S.’s presence in Afghanistan now, officially, part of history, big changes are coming to the entire region fast and furious.

  And the biggest one was the vague but significant defense coordination deal between Russia and Saudi Arabia. Because now, after having wormed its way into control over the marginal barrel of oil produced globally Russia controls OPEC+. It’s a nominal power-sharing agreement with the Saudis, but ultimately, with Trump out of the picture, the Saudis realized they have very few, if any, friends left in the world.

  I went on this history lesson to remind you that this moment didn’t just happen. It was built over a decade of U.S. foreign policy mistakes. Mistakes that tried to extend the benefits and the narrative of the petrodollar for far longer than it should have.

  The system should have died years ago. But it’s limped along indulging MbS’s bloodlust in Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. Rather than subsidizing U.S. foreign policy goals, it subsidized the Saudi Royal family’s continued delusion that it was a global power broker.

  That continued until Trump was overthrown and Biden was installed. Since then MbS and the rest of the House of Saud understood what their future looked like and in whose hands it was.

  Russia’s.

  We’ve seen negotiations behind the scenes between Riyadh and Tehran, between Riyadh and Damascus. Syria is coming back into the Arab League. Iran and the Saudis are winding down the disastrous conflict in Yemen.

  The time to sue for peace was at hand and to find a way forward that ensured relative stability. So, how does the petrodollar fit into this?

  For now it doesn’t. Those thinking that the petrodollar is dead because of this deal are getting way ahead of themselves. With oil prices in the $70’s (Brent crude) there is no immediate threat to the future of the Saudi government. They can handle a mild budget deficit at these prices for a long time. There is no pressure on the Riyal peg at these prices.

  What they cannot handle is oil in the $30’s or $40’s for any length of time. That is what blows out the budget deficit.

  So, for now, as long as the U.S. doesn’t further antagonize MbS there is no reason why what’s left of the petrodollar can’t remain in place.

  to that end, that bane of Davos’ existence, Southfront.org whose distribution is heavily censored by Big Tech, is speculating that the U.S. could sanction Saudi Arabia for this agreement with Russia.

  The United States is urging its allies to avoid major defense deals with Russia, a State Department spokesman said, commenting on the signing of a military cooperation agreement between Russia and Saudi Arabia.

  “We continue to urge all our partners and allies to avoid major new deals with the Russian defense sector, which we have made clear with … the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA),” the spokesman told Russian state outlet RIA.

  While this is speculation, it is on target however, because this statement from the State Dept. came before the Saudis sat down and signed an agreement with the Russians during the height of the U.S.’s shameful and shambolic retreat from Kabul.

  As insults go in geopolitics, this was a pretty big one.

  So, that will be the next shoe to drop here. If I’m right and the goal of those behind the Biden Administration (itself with a use-by date similar to that of the petrodollar) is to dismantle the U.S. as much as possible, then we will see Lindsey Graham and others wring their blood-soaked hands in grief lamenting the necessity of sanctioning our long-term friends in Saudi Arabia.

  It will be as nauseating as it is predictable.

  And that will be a willful act of destruction of a still-significant portion of foreign demand for the U.S. dollar. This, of course, plays directly into the hands of Davos who are actively undermining confidence in the U.S. politically, economically, culturally and socially. Because the minute the U.S. does this MbS’s only rational move is to break the Riyal’s peg to the dollar and allow it to float freely.

  At $70 per barrel the effect on the Riyal will be minimal.

  That said, it would allow for a sharp drop in oil prices internationally as the Saudis, who have needed a strong oil price to fund its domestic welfare state, will no longer need as many dollars for its oil to do that. So, expect Davos to try to help this along. Well, they already tried when the UAE tried to torpedo OPEC+’s solidarity a few weeks back.

  If oil were to drop sharply, say into the $40’s, it would create massive inflation in Saudi Arabia due to a sharp drop in the now-exposed-to-market-forces Riyal. And the Saudis would then have to go through the same painful adjustment that Russia went through in 2015-17, when it finally ended its strong ruble policy.

  This is why Biden is told to beg publicly for lower oil prices. It has nothing to do with helping American consumers and has everything to do with baiting out the Arab countries to de-peg their currencies from the petrodollar and hope to crash oil prices in the confusion.

  So, cue the Mu variant of COVID-9/11.

  The Saudis, however, for their part have learned the lessons well what happens when you get into a price war with Russia. You lose. So, instead of fighting Russia for market share, they’ve decided to coordinate production for the big win-win for everyone while the U.S. continues to grapple with the reality that its empire is not only crumbling, but being actively dismantled from within.

  And given where we’re headed, I’d say that the ones laughing now aren’t at the State Department.

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 23:00

• Chinese Regulators Close VIE Loophole That Allows Domestic Firms To IPO In US, Hong Kong
  Chinese Regulators Close VIE Loophole That Allows Domestic Firms To IPO In US, Hong Kong

  The prospect for future Chinese IPOs in the US just grew even more dim on Friday when Chinese officials in Shanghai followed through on their promise to close a popular route for bringing domestic firms public on foreign exchanges.

  

  Startups that have recently applied to Shanghai’s National Development and Reform Commission for permission to inject money into affiliated shell companies incorporated in places like the Cayman Islands are being turned away by Chinese regulators, Bloomberg reports, citing anonymous sources familiar with the issue. Injecting money into these entities is typically the first step toward setting up a Variable Interest Entity, which are used to facilitate IPOs of Chinese firms in the US, Hong Kong and elsewhere (since Chinese law forbids foreign ownership of any Chinese assets).

  The shutdown isn’t a complete surprise. Beijing has quietly chafed as the biggest and most successful Chinese firms have sought to list on foreign exchanges. And a few weeks ago we reported that Beijing was changing the rules, requiring firms to get permission from regulators before trying to form their own VIEs. It was all part of a broader crackdown that could mean the end of Chinese firms listing in the US. For now, at least, no Chinese firms are planning to go public in the US.

  On the US side, the SEC has frozen applications for Chinese firms looking to list in the US over demands for more stringent auditing standards, which Beijing is loathe to agree with.

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  American analysts and investors have long been wary of the VIE structure, which received a lot of skeptical press coverage in the US back in 2014 ahead of Alibaba’s historic public offering. As Globescan explains, almost every listed Chinese company trading outside of China is listed through a VIE structure. The structure ensures that investors – many of whom don’t realize what’s going on – don’t actually own any part of the underlying Chinese company. While that might sound ridiculous, sadly its true. Investors who buy shares in Chinese stocks such as JD.com, Alibaba, Tencent, etc do not technically have any ownership of the underlying business whatsoever.

  Globescan continues:

  The reason is that under Chinese law, foreign ownership in certain (most) Chinese industries is prohibited. As a result, it is illegal for Chinese companies like JD.com and Alibaba to have any non-Chinese shareholders. Back in the early 2000s, as the China growth engine was really beginning, Chinese companies growing quickly looked longingly at the huge amounts of capital available in the US and wanted to access it. At the same time, US investors and Wall Street firms looked longingly at the huge growth rates in China and wanted to access that. But Chinese law prevented them both from doing so. So, a structure was developed to circumvent Chinese law: the VIE (Variable Interest Entity). This is a structure that has been around for decades, first popularized here in the US by Enron to obfuscate assets and liabilities on its balance sheet (there is the first alarm bell…). The VIE structure achieves the dual purpose of giving Chinese companies access to Western capital, whilst simultaneously allowing Western investors access to Chinese stocks. It does so by effectively saying two different things to each side: the VIE says to the Chinese regulator that the company in question is wholly owned by Chinese nationals, while the same VIE simultaneously tells the Western shareholders that they legitimately own that Chinese company.

  To explain exactly how the VIE structure works, Globescan offered Tencent as an example:

  We will use Tencent as an example to explain the basic structure of a VIE. Tencent operates in a sector on the ‘restricted list’ issued by the government. This list outlines which sectors are prohibited from having any foreign ownership. It is a very broad list, with general wording such that in reality the majority of Chinese companies are barred from any outside ownership.

  So as a result, Tencent cannot sell its shares to any non-Chinese investors. But it can circumvent this law using that VIE structure. Without getting into complex legalities, the VIE works as follows; Tencent creates a Cayman Islands listed shell company (no real business, no office, no employees), which it also calls Tencent. (For simplicity from here onwards we will refer to the actual Tencent as ‘Real Tencent’, and the Caymans shell company as ‘Fake Tencent’) Once Fake Tencent has been setup, Real Tencent then creates a complex web of legal agreements that serve to give Fake Tencent a claim on the profits and control of the assets that belong to Real Tencent.

  (Note that there is no recognition of any actual ownership, just a claim on the profits and indication of an element of control)

  Fake Tencent now owns as its only asset these contracts and agreements. Fake Tencent then lists itself as a company on the NYSE, selling shares to investors under the name ‘Tencent’. Wall Street banks take in millions of dollars in fees to list Fake Tencent, and hundreds of investment firms and investors invest billions of dollars into buying shares of Fake Tencent. Bear in mind, the whole time the Western investors are buying stock in a company called ‘Tencent’ that appears to simply be the Chinese company. Fake Tencent appears to have control over the assets and a right to the profits of the real Tencent in China, even though in reality it is just a shell company with no real assets or business.

  Since Chinese first discovered the loophole, it has been technically illegal in China. But a loophole embraced by regulators allowed firms to continue to list in the US using the structure. Now, Beijing is looking to close that loophole after Chinese firms raised $76 billion via new offerings in the US over the last decade.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 22:40

• No Path For Confirmation To ATF For Chipman? Biden Admin: "Not Over 'Till It's Over!"
  No Path For Confirmation To ATF For Chipman? Biden Admin: “Not Over ‘Till It’s Over!”

  Op-Ed via The Machine Gun Nest (TMGN). 

  In late May, Biden’s pick to head the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, David Chipman, sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee and was questioned why his nomination should move forward to the Senate for a full vote to confirm him to lead the agency.

  During this, Chipman spoke on his willingness to ban average semi-automatic sporting rifles that are in common use. He was also questioned about his time as a lobbyist for most of the major anti-gun organizations.

  

  Since that hearing took place in late May, Chipman’s nomination has worked itself out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a contentious party-line vote. But since being out of committee, there has not yet been a full senate vote on Chipman, and we’re now at the beginning of September.

  It seems like a long time to wait for a vote. There’s a reason for it, though. David Chipman is an anti-gun activist who’s been tapped to lead the agency that focuses on America’s gun laws. Think of it like this: An inverse would be a Republican president nominating Wayne LaPierre (the head of the NRA) to lead the ATF.

  In fact, David Chipman’s nomination is so controversial that some moderate Democrats won’t vote for him. Specifically, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Jon Tester of Montana, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and Angus King of Maine.

  All these Senators are under significant pressure from pro-gun groups nationally and local ones and their constituents. With the midterms coming up, many are worried that a vote for Chipman could be the action that loses them their seat.

  The most telling thing over time has been the attitude of the corporate media. In July, headlines read: “David Chipman is the Right Choice for ATF,” but as time passed, even CNN has had to admit that “Biden’s ATF Pick faces grim confirmation prospects.”

  Most recently, anti-gun activists have urged Biden to bypass Congress and create an office on gun violence, giving Chipman a job without having the Senate confirm him. Earlier this year, we saw a similar situation when Neera Tanden, who was up to be Biden’s budget director, withdrew her nomination after combative tweets about lawmakers in both parties resurfaced. Two months after she withdrew her nomination, Biden appointed her to a senior adviser position.

  This is becoming likely as Chipman’s nomination becomes more imperiled as the days go by. Most recently, Sen. Angus King signaled to the Biden administration that he is not supportive of Chipman.

  Only time will tell what will happen with Chipman, but now more than ever, it is essential for gun owners to keep calling their Senators and making their voices heard. If Chipman makes it into the ATF, it pushes us all one step closer to the goal of the anti-gun lobby, total disarmament of the population.

  TMGN’s Steph Krop explains it’s looking like the hard work of gun owners is paying off with media and news reports since David Chipman’s confirmation hearing becoming increasingly agitated and negative. She provides a recap of the last few months of what’s been going on with the nomination of Chipman to head the ATF.

  * * * 

  … and if readers want to learn more about possible future gun policy via TMGN, they’ve laid out the “puzzle pieces” of how the ATF has plans to classify semi-automatic rifles, such as the AR-15, as “machine guns.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 22:20

• China Decrees No 'Sissy Men' Allowed On TV
  China Decrees No ‘Sissy Men’ Allowed On TV

  China’s ongoing battle with feminized men has accelerated – with Beijing recently restricting access to online video games, and trying to discourage ‘unhealthy’ attention towards celebrities after President Xi Jinping called for a “national rejuvenation.”

  

  Now, China’s government has banned effeminate men on TV, and told broadcasters on Thursday to instead promote “revolutionary culture” across all aspects of Chinese culture, according to the Associated Press.

  Broadcasters must “resolutely put an end to sissy men and other abnormal esthetics,” the TV regulator said, using an insulting slang term for effeminate men — “niang pao,” or literally, “girlie guns.”

  That reflects official concern that Chinese pop stars, influenced by the sleek, girlish look of some South Korean and Japanese singers and actors, are failing to encourage China’s young men to be masculine enough. -AP

  In January, China’s education ministry called for more physical education as an antidote to male feminization – vowing to recruit better gym teachers and introduce fitness-based incentives such as free college education.

  The response came after a delegate of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a top political advisory body, had suggested that Chinese schoolboys are “weak, self-effacing, and timid,” and may be unduly influenced by so-called little fresh meats — handsome, well-groomed, delicate-featured celebrities in the vein of K-pop stars. The proposal also described the feminization of Chinese boys as “a threat to the development and survival of our nation.” -Sixth Tone

  “Finally, the education ministry does something right,” wrote one user on Weibo who claimed to be a teacher. “Boys now are in dire need of more exercise so they can be manlier. They’re too gentle these days.”

  China is also promoting masculinity within their military ranks, as opposed to the USA’s more ‘inclusive’ approach.

  On Saturday, China ‘unpersoned‘ billionaire actress Zhao Wei – removing her content from streaming platforms without explanation. Her name was removed from all television series, films, short videos and promotional materials from platforms including Tencent Video, iQiyi and Youku.

  Per SCMP, Zhao shot to fame for her role in My Fair Princess, one of the most successful Chinese television shows of all time. It ran from 1998 to 1999.

  The West, meanwhile, is ‘terrified‘ at images of Chinese schoolchildren undergoing mortar training, while preadolescent boys twerking for adult men is simply… progressive.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 22:00

• Fitful 48 Hours For Americans, Afghans Trying To Escape
  Fitful 48 Hours For Americans, Afghans Trying To Escape

  Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics.com,

  One of several private charter planes carrying dozens of U.S. citizens, at-risk religious minorities and Afghan allies was granted State Department clearance to leave Afghanistan early Friday morning after an unsettling 48 hours in limbo as those desperately trying to leave waited for the U.S. government to sign off on the evacuation, according to knowledgeable sources on Capitol Hill and Washington’s foreign policy community.

  

  Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Texas Republican who served on a SEAL team in Afghanistan, issued a flurry of tweets over the last 24 hours blaming the State Department for keeping multiple private chartered planes grounded in Afghanistan, a charge the department has publicly denied without specifically mentioning Crenshaw’s assertions.

  Late Thursday night, Crenshaw tweeted about a breakthrough.

  “Good news, just got word that State Department now helped us get clearance for at least one of these private efforts to land in a nearby country,” he tweeted.

  In several previous tweets, Crenshaw angrily lashed out at department officials, blaming them for blocking an effort “to get a plane of U.S. citizens and allies out of Afghanistan.”

  “They need @SecBlinken to help get clearance for the plane to land in a nearby country,” he tweeted Thursday.

  “Biden’s State Department is refusing to actively assist.”

  In previous Thursday tweets, Crenshaw provided only limited details about his interactions with State and negotiations with third-party countries to accept the passengers. His office did not respond to requests for elaboration on why the department had a role to play in a private flight to a third-country destination. Other unconfirmed reports have indicated that the private organizations funding the travel were working to secure landing commitments from nearby countries.

  “Even worse, State Department agreed to give me the contact info for US embassies in these countries so we could go point to point,” Crenshaw tweeted.

  “That was hours ago. I’ve followed up multiple times, and they’ve provided nothing.”

  A source with first-hand knowledge of the grounded planes said American citizens and Afghan allies waiting to depart experienced a chaotic 48 hours, especially the last 24, when a State Department official gave a verbal okay for the plane to leave without providing the necessary written authorization, then rescinded the clearance just hours later.

  Several other planes in the same group – each carrying at least a dozen American citizens – are still awaiting an okay from U.S. officials to leave, the source said. RealClearPolitics is not reporting where the planes are located in Afghanistan and which third-party country or countries they are trying to reach because of security concerns.

  The State Department on Thursday denied playing a role in preventing private chartered planes from leaving Afghanistan. Spokesman Ned Price told reporters that before the Aug. 31 deadline for American withdrawal, the U.S. government “facilitated the evacuation of thousands” of U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and at-risk Afghans aboard chartered aircraft leaving Kabul airport.

  But now, Price said, “we’re in a different phase,” one in which the U.S. has no assets in Afghanistan and therefore cannot control the airspace – in that country or elsewhere in the region. Still, he said, State is trying to expedite and facilitate landings in third-party countries, although he insisted it’s not something the American government can control.

  “The idea that we could prevent a charter flight from taking off is simply not true,” he said. Still, he indicated that State is preventing private flights from heading to U.S. military installations out of concerns for the security of personnel who work there, as well as the security of Afghan refugees already airlifted to those locations.

  “We know that ISIS-K, as we have seen of late, has a keen interest in attacks and a keen interest in attacks against aviation targets,” Price told reporters.

  The apparently new concern about allowing passage of planes with American citizens and unvetted Afghans on them has some members of Congress scratching their heads. Since the last U.S. troops left Afghanistan three days ago, the Biden administration has boasted about its historic airlift operation that evacuated more than 120,000 people since mid-August.

  But State Department officials have not fully explained why agency officials have maintained that the evacuation efforts have been aimed at helping U.S. citizens and Afghans who assisted in the war effort — and are eligible for a special visa — but have allowed the vast majority of Afghan evacuees to be brought to U.S. military bases under a status known as parole. The homeland security secretary can provide instant parole status as a blanket way to admit people by considering humanitarian concerns or reasons benefiting the U.S. national interest. Normally, achieving a Special Immigration Visa, or SIV, can take 18 to 24 months.

  Some 20,000 Afghans were airlifted to military installations in the United States in recent weeks while another 43,000 were evacuated to overseas U.S. bases in hopes of eventual resettlement in the U.S., according to Pentagon officials.

  Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican and longtime human rights champion, spent Thursday touring the Afghan refugee facilities at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in his district, along with U.S. Northern Command Gen. Glen VanHerck. Smith lauded the compassion and dedication that servicemen and women have displayed in assisting the thousands of Afghan refugees who have arrived there this week.

  “There is both a compelling need and moral obligation to provide immediate safe haven and humanitarian aid to those who have fled unspeakable cruelty, violence and terrorism perpetrated by the Taliban and ISIS-K,” he said.

  But Smith also expressed deep concerns about the vetting process, or lack thereof, which he said allowed 70% of those being housed at the base to arrive here on parole without documentation that they ever assisted U.S. in Afghanistan. The congressman, who has served in the House for 40 years, found the statistic particularly troubling considering news that the majority of interpreters and other visa applicants were left behind in Afghanistan, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

  “While we welcome them as we should — these are people who have suffered so much — we have to make sure they are who they say they are to the best of our ability,” he said, stressing the importance of protecting those who work on the base, as well as other refugees now housed there, from a terrorist attack or other criminal behavior.

  Smith recalled an incident during the war in Kosovo when he was on hand at the same New Jersey base to welcome 4,400 refugees. One of those refugees, Agron Abdullah, was apprehended years later and sent to jail in 2008 for supplying guns and ammunition to the “Fort Dix 4” – a group of terrorists who were imprisoned for plotting to kill American soldiers at the installation.

  “Despite the vetting process used then, he was missed,” Smith told RCP.

  “We cannot allow that failure to happen again.”

  The Washington Times reported Wednesday that a previously convicted rapist who was deported from the U.S. in 2017 was among the Afghan refugees who recently landed at Dulles Airport outside Washington, D.C. The man was flagged by border officials at Dulles and then sent to a detention facility in Bowling Green, Va.

  Smith, one of the most ardent human rights champions in Congress, also said he recently tried to push senior Biden administration officials to establish humanitarian corridors in Afghanistan, with NATO allies’ support, as a way to continue the evacuation of both U.S. citizens and Afghans who assisted the U.S. government. Such safe havens also could help provide shelter, food and health care to displaced Afghans and those seeking to leave. Smith said senior U.S. officials rebuffed him without explaining why it couldn’t be done.

  Smith is not the only one with deep concerns about the chaotic and deadly exit from Afghanistan. He and several other current and former members of Congress argue there’s little evidence so far that the State Department prioritized the evacuation of religious minorities, such as Christian converts, Sikhs, Shiites  and other sects who are facing death sentences from the Taliban and ISIS. 

  Sam Brownback, the former senator and governor of Kansas who served as ambassador for religious freedom during the Trump administration, is part of a loose cadre, including Christian charities, veterans and former special operators, trying to secure safe passage out of Afghanistan for thousands of religious minorities who remain in hiding after the U.S. troop withdrawal.

  “I’ve got a list of hundreds of individuals desperate to get out … now being hunted by the Taliban or other groups,” Brownback told RCP in an interview earlier this week.

  The Nazarene Fund, an organization founded by Glenn Beck that seeks to help persecuted Christians abroad, has said it has successfully rescued 5,100 Christians and other at-risk people from Afghanistan. The fund has managed to raise some $30 million in recent weeks in response to the crisis.

  So far, Brownback says, there have been no firm commitments from the State Department to make evacuating religious minorities a priority despite recent history in Iraq demonstrating the need to protect these communities. In fact, it was the ISIS slaughter of Christians and Yazidis in northern Iraq seven years ago that forced President Obama to send thousands of U.S. troops back into the region after pulling all troops out of Iraq in 2011. Then-Secretary of State John Kerry declared the ISIS slayings a genocide in 2016.

  “This is not a new phenomenon to us,” Brownback said. “Most genocides happen to religious minorities.”

  A State Department spokesperson pushed back at Brownback’s assertions.

  “Our commitment to individuals at-risk in Afghanistan will not end,” the spokesperson told RCP in a statement Thursday.

  “The United States is working vigorously with the international community to explore all options to support vulnerable populations in Afghanistan, including — but not limited to — women, children, journalists, persons with disabilities, and members of ethnic and religious minority groups and other extremely at-risk populations, as well as additional movements of persons who wish to leave Afghanistan in the coming weeks and months.”

  A bipartisan group of senior foreign policy leaders on Capitol Hill is questioning that commitment after the U.S. was unable to evacuate journalists working for the U.S. Agency for Global Media. Many of the 500 members of that group, including their Afghan families, were turned away at the gates of Kabul airport before the withdrawal deadline even though senior Biden administration officials had told top USAGM official that the journalists would make it through.

  “It is absolutely disgraceful the U.S. State Department claimed they evacuated their local employees when in reality they abandoned hundreds of USAGM journalists and their families. Some of these journalists were given express assurances by the Biden Administration that they would be treated as locally employed staff – but were not,” Rep. Michael McCaul, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday. 

  Former Rep. Frank Wolf, a Republican from Virginia, predicted a “very dark period ahead” for America’s credibility on human rights if the U.S. doesn’t fulfil its commitment to evacuate all at-risk Afghans. Wolf spent more than three decades in Congress advocating for human rights, fighting for persecuted religious minorities and warning about the terrorist threat emanating from the Middle East before 9/11.

  Wolf pointed to Blinken’s remarks in late March, in which the new Cabinet secretary took issue with the Trump administration for what he said was an “unbalanced” emphasis on religious liberty over other concerns, such as victims of human trafficking, treatment of LGBTQ individuals abroad and women’s access to abortion, birth control and other reproductive options.

  “Human rights are also co-equal. There is no hierarchy that makes some rights more important than others,” Blinken said at an event unveiling the State Department’s 45th annual report on the status of human rights around the world. 

  “… At my confirmation hearing, I promised that the Biden-Harris administration would repudiate those unbalanced views. We do so decisively today.”

  If the U.S. doesn’t shift gears and make evacuating religious minorities a top priority, Wolf says it could not only spur a new genocide but also destroy U.S. credibility in condemning other countries’ persecution of ethnic and religious groups. Wolf specifically mentioned the U.S. ability to call out China’s treatment of the Uyghurs, the longtime persecution of Christians in Iran, the slaughter of Christians by Boko Haram and other Nigerian terrorist groups, as well as the efforts to help rebuild Christian and Yazidi areas in northern Iraq decimated by ISIS.

  “It will be a disaster for America, not only in Afghanistan. … America’s credibility has been devastated worldwide,” Wolf told RCP Thursday evening. “I’ve never seen American look so weak and ineffective.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 21:40

• Binance Told It Is "Required To Cease Providing Payment Services" In Singapore
  Binance Told It Is “Required To Cease Providing Payment Services” In Singapore

  In the latest chapter in the ongoing Binance saga, Singapore’s Central Bank has told the cryptocurrency exchange that it “could be in breach of local laws” and needs to stop providing services to Singapore’s residents. 

  The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said this week: “MAS has reviewed Binance.com’s operations and is of the view that Binance, the operator of Binance.com, may be in breach of the Payment Services Act.”

  It continued: “Binance is required to cease providing payment services … to Singapore residents and cease soliciting such business from Singapore residents.”

  The MAS has also placed Binance.com on its “Investor Alert List”, according to the South China Morning Post. The list alerts local consumers that Binance is not allowed to provide payment services in the country. 

  Binance Singapore told the SCMP that its “Singapore operations are conducted by a separate legal entity from Binance.com, with its own local executive and management team”.

  Binance Asia Services has applied for a license is “is currently exempted from holding a license for the provision of digital payment token services,” according to the MAS. The application remains under review. 

  

  Recall, this past summer, Binance was banned in the UK when Britain’s financial watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority, imposed stringent requirements against it. 

  “A significantly high number of cryptoasset businesses are not meeting the required standards under the money laundering regulations, which has resulted in an unprecedented number of businesses withdrawing their applications,” an FCA spokesperson said at the time. Of the firms assessed, more than 90% had withdrawn applications following the FCA’s intervention.

  The move represented the UK’s most substantial regulatory crackdown on the cryptocurrency sector amid concerns about its potential involvement in money laundering and fraud. Binance withdrew an application related to the 5MLD – an anti-laundering directive – on May 17 following “intensive engagement from the FCA,” according to the watchdog, which said the action had been in train for some time.

  Binance is one of the most important operators in the fast-emerging crypto market, offering a wide range of services to customers around the world, including trading in dozens of digital coins, futures, options, stock tokens, as well as savings accounts and lending.

  As the FT reminded us, Germany’s financial watchdog also warned investors in April that Binance had probably violated securities rules over its launch of trading in stock tokens, something the exchange tried unsuccessfully to appeal against.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 21:20

• Taliban Says China Will Be Afghanistan's "Most Important Partner"
  Taliban Says China Will Be Afghanistan’s “Most Important Partner”

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a recent interview that China will be Afghanistan’s “most important partner” as the new Taliban-led government is seeking infrastructure investments.

  “China is our most important partner and represents a fundamental and extraordinary opportunity for us, because it is ready to invest and rebuild our country,” Mujahid told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

  

  Mujahid said there are “rich copper mines in the country, which, thanks to the Chinese, can be put back into operation and modernized. In addition, China is our pass to markets all over the world.”

  Afghanistan faces a potential economic crisis, and the new government is strapped for cash. After 20 years of waging war in the country, the US is now withholding billions in Afghan reserves to use as leverage over the Taliban.

  With the US using its control over the global financial system as a weapon against the Taliban, China is an obvious partner for them to turn to. China is a regional country and is seeking to expand its global infrastructure project, known as the Belt and Road Initiative.

  One of China’s few requests of the Taliban is that they cut ties with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a Uyghur Muslim group Beijing accuses of carrying out terrorist attacks in Xinjiang.

  

  But Beijing appears to be ready to recognize the new Taliban government and has kept its embassy open in Kabul.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 21:00

• Amazon Air Delivery Now Runs 164 Flights A Day Despite 'Commitment' To Carbon Neutrality
  Amazon Air Delivery Now Runs 164 Flights A Day Despite ‘Commitment’ To Carbon Neutrality

  If you want more proof that corporate America’s promises about achieving carbon neutrality are just more empty virtue signaling, take a look at this.

  As Amazon works to bring the entire delivery process from warehouse to doorstep under its control, allowing it to wrest business away from FedEx, UPS and USPS while gearing up to launch its own delivery service, the e-commerce giant is increasingly relying on its private fleet of cargo planes to shuffle packages across the country quickly. According to an FT report, Amazon’s presence in the skies has continued to grow rapidly since the start of the pandemic, according to a new report. Recently, Amazon was running 164 flights a day in the US.

  

  This represents a 17% increase over the prior year. What’s more, the report found that 70% of Americans now live within 100 miles of an airport with an Amazon Air presence, up from 54% just over a year ago. Amazon Air now has a fully operational fleet of more than 70 planes, and in the wake of the COVID pandemic, it’s taking air transport more seriously.

  

  Source: FT

  Eventually, it could fill a niche as the third competitor in the package delivery space – with itself as its biggest customer.

  “There is no sign of Amazon slowing down their gearing up for expanded next-day delivery,” said the report’s lead author, Professor Joseph Schwieterman, from the Chaddick Institute at DePaul University. “There’s demand, by lots of businesses, to have more than two options for package delivery, with the US Postal Service seeming to be receding in the past few years,” the report said. Such a move “could change the landscape of a sector long dominated by FedEx, UPS, and USPS.”

  Since February, Amazon Air has added services to and from seven additional airports, bringing the total number of airports hosting Amazon flights to 42. It has a major 800K sq foot hub in Cincinnati, and a 700K sq ft facility at San Bernardino airport, near Los Angeles, has become Amazon Air’s hub on the West Coast. Some groups have accused Amazon of racism for setting up these hubs in areas with large minority populations.

  Such developments have proved controversial, with campaign groups accusing Amazon of engaging in “environmental racism” by placing its hubs in areas where surrounding communities are predominantly made up of people of colour. A proposal to investigate the impact of such developments was voted down at Amazon’s most recent shareholders’ meeting in May.

  It’s also not exactly compatible with Amazon’s pledge to achieve “net zero carbon emissions” by 2040.

  Amazon has pledged to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2040, a task complicated by its van delivery fleet and its aircraft roster, which contains mostly older aircraft. In July 2020, Amazon announced it had bought 6m gallons of biofuel, which it said would reduce emissions from its old fleet by 20%.

  Nevertheless, Amazon is pushing ahead with Amazon Air’s international expansion, which centers around its European hub in Liepzig.

  On top of this, researchers said, were more than a dozen active international locations, though air traffic at a proposed European hub in Leipzig had been quieter than anticipated. In Europe, said Schwieterman, Amazon was “quietly growing without revealing their long range intentions”. “It could be just a matter of time before Leipzig becomes a hotspot for Amazon.”

  The first big test for Amazon Air will be the coming holiday season, as the company seeks to reliably offer two-day, next-day and same-day delivery, Amazon Air is forming the backbone of the strategy.

  Eventually, the company will likely need to hire more pilots. Let’s hope they don’t take their own advice to hire potheads.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 20:40

• 7 Examples That Show How Completely And Utterly Insane Our Society Has Become
  7 Examples That Show How Completely And Utterly Insane Our Society Has Become

  Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

  Reading the news has become like going to a freak show.  You never know what you are going to see each day, but it is almost certainly going to be nutty.  Some of the things that I am going to share with you in this article are weird, others are infuriating, but they all point to the same conclusion.  From the very top to the very bottom, America is going crazy.  And I mean that in the worst way possible.  We truly have become an “idiocracy”, and it seems like those that are the most incompetent of all are often rewarded by being elevated to the top of the food chain.  Meanwhile, those of us that still try to approach things rationally are increasingly being pushed to the fringes of society.

  

  If you don’t understand the point that I am trying to make, hopefully things will become clearer by the time you complete this article.

  The following are 7 examples that show how completely and utterly insane our society has become…

  #1 At a time when global food supplies are getting tighter and tighter, Joe Biden wants to pay farmers to not grow anything in order to fight climate change…

  President Joe Biden wants to combat climate change by paying more farmers not to farm. But he’s already finding it’s hard to make that work.

  His Agriculture Department is far behind its goal for enrolling new land in one program that has that goal, with participation being the lowest it’s been in more than three decades.

  Thankfully, relatively few farmers are grabbing the cash that Biden is offering, because prices for agricultural commodities have soared as global supplies have tightened.

  So in a desperate attempt to get more farmers to sign up, the Biden administration has “more than doubled key incentive payments”…

  Even though the USDA this summer more than doubled key incentive payments for the program that encourages farmers and ranchers to leave land idle, high commodity prices are keeping it more worthwhile for growers to raise crops.

  On top of that, the plan, known as the Conservation Reserve Program, takes land out of production for only 10 to 15 years — so those acres could release carbon into the atmosphere if the land is planted again and thus cancel out its environmental benefit.

  Considering where global trends are heading, paying farmers not to produce food is one of the stupidest things that our government could possibly be doing at this moment.

  #2 We are now learning that the chaotic evacuation in Afghanistan could have been conducted much, much differently.  According to the Washington Post, the Taliban actually offered a deal to the Biden administration that would have allowed the U.S. to secure the entire city of Kabul…

  In a hastily arranged in-person meeting, senior U.S. military leaders in Doha – including McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command – spoke with Abdul Ghani Baradar, head of the Taliban’s political wing.

  “We have a problem,” Baradar said, according to the U.S. official. “We have two options to deal with it: You [the United States military] take responsibility for securing Kabul or you have to allow us to do it.”

  Can you imagine how much more orderly the evacuation of Americans and allied Afghans could have gone if U.S. forces had actually secured all of Kabul?

  Needless to say, ISIS forces would have likely never gotten close enough to bomb the airport.

  But instead of accepting the opportunity to secure all of Kabul, U.S. officials decided to hand Kabul to the Taliban and crowd everyone that needed to be evacuated into the airport…

  On the spot, an understanding was reached, according to two other U.S. officials: The United States could have the airport until Aug. 31. But the Taliban would control the city.

  It is hard to believe that our officials could actually be this incompetent, but nobody will even be held accountable for this decision because we really do live in an “idiocracy”.

  #3 One of the hottest new social media trends is to show off the fact that your body is inhabited by multiple “beings”…

  Several TikTok and YouTube accounts of such broken people, who refer to themselves as a “host” or “system” of multiple beings, have millions of online followers. They exhibit their various personalities for online notoriety in the guise of “educating” and “promoting awareness.”

  One TikToker who says she has DID explains in a Q&A about her personalities, “I can’t force anyone [inside me] to come out but I can communicate very well within the system and ask someone to come out, but sometimes it’s very involuntary.”

  Why in the world would “millions of online followers” want to watch these people manifest their various “personalities”?

  And can’t most of those “followers” actually understand what is really going on with these people?

  #4 A 43-year-old man took his parents to court after they threw out his porn collection.  Instead of laughing the case out of court, a judge in Michigan has awarded him more than $30,000 in damages…

  A judge has ordered a western Michigan couple to pay $30,441 to their son for getting rid of his pornography collection. U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney’s decision this week came eight months after David Werking, 43, won a lawsuit against his parents.

  According to NBCDFW, He said they had no right to throw out his collection of films, magazines, and other items. Werking had lived at their Grand Haven home for 10 months after a divorce before moving to Muncie, Indiana. The judge followed the value set by an expert, MLive.com reported.

  The value of the collection was “set by an expert”?

  What kind of sick credentials does someone need to become “an expert” in that field?

  #5 After denying a transgender student the ability to use a particular bathroom, a school board in Virginia has been forced to pay out over 1.3 million dollars…

  A Virginia school board will pay more than $1.3 million to the American Civil Liberties Union after losing a court battle involving a transgender student who sued the school over its bathroom policy.

  According to the Virginian-Pilot, the Gloucester County School Board on Thursday agreed to pay the ACLU the full amount of costs and fees associated with its representation of one of its former students, Gavin Grimm, marking the end of a lengthy six-year legal fight.

  As word of this case spreads around, schools all over the nation will be deathly afraid to ever tell anyone what bathrooms they can or cannot use.

  Nobody will want to be the next victim to get hit with a million dollar lawsuit, and it probably won’t be too long before the “boys” and “girls” signs on school bathrooms disappear entirely.

  #6 When I was growing up, the American flag was proudly displayed in our classrooms and we said the Pledge of Allegiance every day.

  But today the American flag is being taken down in classrooms all over America, and one public school teacher in California is urging her students to pledge allegiance to a new flag…

  A Southern California public school teacher was caught admitting to encouraging her students to pledge allegiance to the LGBT pride flag as an alternative to the American flag, bragging of the indoctrination on her own TikTok account.

  The teacher, identified as Kristin Pitzen of Newport Mesa School District in Orange County, recounts taking down the American flag, an then pointing to the LGBT flag as an alternative.

  “We do have a flag in the class that you can pledge allegiance to,” said Pitzen when a student asked about the American flag that she had removed from the classroom “because of COVID.”

  #7 In recent days, Joe Biden has been encouraging officials all over the country to impose extremely strict vaccine mandates.  Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin is insisting that “no one should be forced to get a jab”…

  “Vaccination is the main weapon against the spread of the virus. Importantly, no one should be forced to get a jab. Pressure, where people may lose their jobs, is even less acceptable. People must be convinced of the need to get the vaccine,” he said.

  When even Vladimir Putin is significantly less tyrannical than the guy that is running your country, you have got a major problem on your hands.

  When I was growing up, people would risk everything to flee the Soviet Union so that they could experience true freedom in the western world.

  Could we soon get to a point where Americans are actually fleeing to Russia so that they can “live free”?

  It seems like such a bizarre question to ask, but this is how bad things have gotten in the United States.

  We live in a society where up is now down, good is now bad, and lies are now truth.

  Our nation has become a giant circus, and the crazies are running the show.  It will be entertaining to watch for a little while, but it won’t be too long before the entire thing comes crashing down on top of all of us.

  *  *  *

  It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 20:20

• Taliban To Announce "Inclusive" Government Saturday, With 'Commander Of The Faithful' On Top
  Taliban To Announce “Inclusive” Government Saturday, With ‘Commander Of The Faithful’ On Top

  The Taliban is expected to announce its new government on Saturday, Sept.4, after postponing the announcement from Friday, according to a spokesman. 

  “The movement’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, is expected to have ultimate power over a new governing council, with a president below him, Taliban officials have said,” according to The Guardian. The hardline cleric Akhundzada would exercises total control over all spiritual and temporal affairs as ‘Commander of the Faithful’ over the ‘Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’ – akin to the Ayatollah in Iran. 

  

  The president, however, is expected to handle the day to day affairs. Taliban sources are being widely cited as saying the president will be Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.

  Baradar has been generally seen in the West as a relatively “moderate” figure when compared to the ‘alternatives’. He was the Taliban’s chief negotiator in Doha stretching back into the Trump administration.

  Since easily conquering Kabul a couple weeks ago, Taliban has been in intense deliberations over who will govern and has now reached a consensus, a spokesman said earlier in the week. 

  The Taliban has previously floated the word “inclusive” government, perhaps as some sort of soft trolling aimed at mocking the West. Here’s what “inclusive” is going to look like, apparently:

  Haibatullah, a religious scholar from Kandahar whose son was a suicide bomber, is expected to play a theocratic role similar to that played by Iran’s supreme leader. Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a co-founder and deputy leader of the movement who was imprisoned in Pakistan, is likely to be appointed head of government.

  Other Taliban officials expected to hold senior positions include Sirajuddin Haqqani, another deputy leader, and Mohammad Yaqoob, the son of the Taliban’s founder Mullah Muhammad Omar, who died in 2013.

  It remains that some Taliban officials are actually still on America’s designated terror list, with bounties on their heads.

  As Taliban leaders in Kabul worked to form a government, humanitarian organizations have warned of impending catastrophe as many Afghans struggle to feed their families amid severe drought https://t.co/BrHu05J8Bw pic.twitter.com/EjFRusql3D

  — Reuters (@Reuters) September 3, 2021

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

  The new Afghan government will immediately face multiple crises: “The UN has warned of a looming humanitarian catastrophe across the country of 40 million people amid a severe drought, growing food insecurity and the upheavals of a 20-year war that forced thousands of families to flee their homes,” The Guardian writes.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 20:00

• Florida To Fine Businesses $5,000 For Violations Of Vaccine Passport Ban
  Florida To Fine Businesses $5,000 For Violations Of Vaccine Passport Ban

  By Tom Ozimek of The Epoch Times

  The Florida Department of Health has issued a notice indicating it will start issuing $5,000 fines to businesses, schools, and government agencies that require Floridians to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination.

  

  The health department rule, which goes into effect on Sept. 16, details the penalties that businesses and other entities, including nonprofits, face for violating section 381.00316 of the 2021 Florida Statutes, which prohibits them from requiring customers or patrons to provide any documentation certifying COVID-19 vaccination or postinfection recovery in order to gain access to their premises or services.

  “Each violation of Section 381.00316, F.S., will result in the imposition of a $5,000 fine per individual and separate violation against the business, governmental entity or the educational institution. Fines imposed are due and payable to the Department within 30 days of entry of the final order unless otherwise stated in the final order,” reads the Florida Department of Health notice.

  Health care providers are exempt from the fine, which also does not apply to vaccine requirements businesses or other entities impose on their own employees. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order in April that banned vaccine passports.

  “No COVID-19 vaccine is required by law,” the governor’s order stated, adding that “vaccination records are private health information” that shouldn’t be shared via a mandate. The passports, DeSantis said at the time, would infringe on personal liberties and harm patient privacy.

  “A requirement to show a passport to take part in everyday life such as a sporting event, going to a restaurant or going to a movie theater would ‘create two classes of citizens,’” DeSantis stated.

  Reacting to the Florida health department’s announcement that it would start imposing fines on entities demanding patrons show proof of vaccination, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, the state’s only statewide elected Democrat and a candidate hoping to challenge DeSantis for governor next year, was critical.

  “Governor DeSantis is retaliating against Floridians who are trying to protect themselves and their communities from COVID-19,” Fried told The Associated Press in an emailed statement. “This not only goes against common sense—it’s also an insult to the free market principles that he claims to champion.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 19:40

• Don't Expect An Easy Life And Be Ready To Struggle, China's Xi Warns Officials
  Don’t Expect An Easy Life And Be Ready To Struggle, China’s Xi Warns Officials

  China’s president-for-life (so technically dictator) warned party officials to “discard their illusions” about having an easy life and “dare to struggle” to protect the country’s sovereignty and security

  “The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation has entered a key phase, and risks and challenges we face are conspicuously increasing,” Xi said, according to state news agency Xinhua, in words that ominously hint at a coming military conflict. “It’s unrealistic to always expect easy days and not want to struggle.”

  He told an event on Wednesday to mark the new semester at the Central Party School, where cadres are trained, that: “[We] must not yield an inch on issues of principle, and defend national sovereignty, security and development interests with an unprecedented quality of mind.”

  

  His remarks to hundreds of mid-level cadres from around the country did not elaborate on the need to struggle but were made amid growing tension with the United States on a range of fronts, including geopolitics, the economy and technology, SCMP reported.

  Beijing has reacted strongly to what it sees as provocations that touch on its core interests, including staging military drills near Taiwan last month in response to US expressions of support for the island. The growing international criticism of Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang, where it is accused of the use of mass detention and forced labor, have seen it exchanging sanctions with Washington, London and Brussels – freezing a trade deal with the European Union that had taken seven years to negotiate.

  And yes, the military is involved too: senior Chinese officials and generals have signaled they expect the competition with the US to deepen, despite recent visits by senior White House officials such as deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman and special climate envoy John Kerry, a meeting which ended in embarrassment for the private-jet flying Heinz family heir after he was rebuffed by China.

  According to SCMP, the party school curtain raiser has been used by Xi in the past to set the tone for training sessions for hundreds of cadres from across the country; here, in the past two years, he has called on officials to “struggle” against threats to China’s development.

  The tone of his remarks have been consistent with Beijing’s messaging since last year, said Shi Yinhong, an international relations professor with Renmin University in Beijing. “China’s stance has been tough since the outbreak of Covid in the US last year and the tensions that followed,” he said and although it wasn’t clear if he explicitly blamed the US for starting the covid outbreak, it certainly wouldn’t be surprising. “Standing firm on China’s position in the competition with the US is never only the job of the foreign affairs departments, but something the entire country is mobilised to do,” he said. Shi added that the same tone is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

  Xi has previously highlighted the need to struggle to ensure China’s rise. At the same event in 2019, he warned that this would continue until the centenary of the founding of the People’s Republic in 2049, at which point supposedly China will have emerged victorious from World War III or the communist will have finally destroyed the US from within.

  On Wednesday the Chinese leader urged all officials to stand firm on matters of principle, saying: “People who play the nice guy think only of themselves but not the public.” He added that failing to fight for matters of principle was letting down the people and may even be a crime.

  Xi also told the cadres to toe the party line and said they should feel proud to be sent to work in remote parts of the country and tackle problems at the grass roots level.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 19:20

• Chase Bank Apologizes For Canceling Michael Flynn’s Credit Card, Claims It Was A Mistake
  Chase Bank Apologizes For Canceling Michael Flynn’s Credit Card, Claims It Was A Mistake

  Via Human Events,

  In a move possibly triggered by news and social media pressures, Chase Bank has walked back its cancelation of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s credit card. 

  

  As previously reported by Human Events News, Flynn, former Trump National Security Adviser and director of the Defense Intelligence Agency during the Obama administration, shared to Telegram a letter from Chase Bank notifying him that his credit cards will be cancelled. 

  “After careful consideration, we decided to close your credit cards on September 18, 2021 because continuing the relationship creates possible reputational risk to our company,” the update read.

  

  “Chase Bank has gone full-blown woke!” Flynn posted.

  

  Now, just days after Flynn let the internet know, Chase is walking their virtue-signaling move back, claiming the letter was sent by mistake. The account holder was Flynn’s wife, Lori, the Daily Mail reports. 

  “We’ve contacted our customer to let her know that we made an error,” a spokesperson for the bank said.

  “And we apologized for any inconvenience this caused.” 

  Flynn addressed the situation again on Telegram Monday, per Yahoo News. 

  “I pray Chase Bank and all their cancel culture partners think twice about what they are doing to destroy the fabric of our constitution,” he wrote.

  “Trust me, the heart and soul of America will NEVER be broken. We the people will prevail.”

  As a reminder, the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was able to use his accounts with the same bank after he was convicted of soliciting child prostitutes.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 19:00

• Millions To Lose Benefits As Pandemic Jobless Aid Expires
  Millions To Lose Benefits As Pandemic Jobless Aid Expires

  When Congress passed the American Rescue Plan in March, extending pandemic-related unemployment aid until Labor Day, millions of Americans breathed a sigh of relief.

  Back then, almost 14 million people depended on the emergency programs (and job openings continued to soar).

  

  And while the labor market situation has improved significantly since then, Statista’s Felix Richter notes that the new cut-off date is almost here, leaving millions in doubt of what is possibly their only income.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  In addition to the $300 weekly supplement to state unemployment benefits, both the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which is available to individuals who are self-employed or who otherwise would not qualify for regular unemployment compensation, and the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, which extends benefits by up to 24 weeks for those who have exhausted regular unemployment aid, are due to expire on September 6.

  According to data published by the U.S. Department of Labor this week, 12.19 million Americans still received unemployment benefits in the week ended August 14. And while the number of people receiving help through regular state programs has fallen to 2.8 million, from a peak of more than 22 million in May 2020, more than 9 million Americans still relied on aid provided through either of the two aforementioned programs, as many who lost their job during the first wave of the pandemic have exhausted their regular unemployment insurance benefits or never qualified in the first place.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 18:40

• There's A Problem In The Upper Reaches Of Our Military
  There’s A Problem In The Upper Reaches Of Our Military

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

  It is the beginning of a never-ending bad dream. Joe Biden and the Pentagon have managed to birth a new terrorist haven, destroy much of U.S. strategic deterrence, and alienate our allies and much of the country.

  

  In the hours after the horrific deaths of 13 service members, we have been reassured by our military that our partnership with the Taliban to provide security for our flights was wise. We were told that the terrorist victors share similar goals to ours in a hasty American retreat from Kabul. We were reminded that Afghan refugees (unlike U.S. soldiers) will not be forced to be vaccinated on arrival. Such statements are either untrue or absurd.

  On the very day of the attack that killed American troops, the sergeant major of the U.S. Army reminded us in a tweet that diversity is our strength, commemorating not the dead but Women’s Equality Day. If so, then is the opposite of diversity — unity — our weakness? Will such wokeness ensure that we do not abandon the Bagram air base in the middle of the night without opposition?

  The chief of staff at the Office of Naval Intelligence warned the ONI’s active duty and retired service members that they must not criticize Biden, their commander in chief, over the Afghanistan fiasco. The office correctly cited prohibitions found in the Uniform Code of Military Justice barring any disrespect shown to senior government leadership.

  

  Indeed, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps was relieved of his command for posting a video accurately blaming military and civilian leadership for the Afghanistan nightmare.

  Yet until Jan. 20, retired top brass had constantly smeared their elected commander in chief with impunity.

  • Recently retired Gen. Michael Hayden retweeted a horrific suggestion that unvaccinated Trump supporters should be put on planes back to Afghanistan, where they presumably would be left to die.

  • Other retired high-profile military officials variously called their president an emulator of Nazi tactics, a veritable Mussolini, a liar, and deserving of removal from office sooner than later. None of these retired four-stars faced the sort of repercussions that the Office of Naval Intelligence just warned about.

  • Hayden earlier had compared Trump’s border facilities to Nazi death camps.

  • More than 50 former intelligence officials on the eve of the November election signed a letter suggesting that incriminating emails found on Hunter Biden’s missing laptop might be “Russian disinformation.” They used their stature for political purposes to convince the American people that the story was a lie.

  • Retired Gen. Joseph Dunford and retired Adm. Mike Mullen recently blasted retired brass who had questioned Biden’s cognitive ability. OK. But they should have issued a similar warning earlier, when the violations of fellow retired officers were even more egregious in election year 2020.

  • Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, apologized for doing a photo op with Trump, erroneously buying into the narrative that Trump had ordered rioters cleared from Lafayette Square for the staged picture. Worse, he leaked to journalists that he was so angry with Trump that he “considered” resigning. Think of the irony. If Milley considered a politicized resignation to rebuke Trump over the false charge, then surely he could consider a real resignation after overseeing the worst military disaster of the last half-century in Kabul.

  • Milley had promised to root out white supremacy from the ranks while recommending that his soldiers read Ibram X. Kendi’s racialist diatribes.

  Something is terribly wrong in the ranks of America’s top commanders that reflects something wrong with the country.

  

  The Pentagon needs to stop virtue-signaling about diversity days and culturally sensitive food for Afghan refugees. Instead, can it just explain why the Bagram air base was abandoned by night, or why Taliban terrorists are our supposed “partners” in organizing our surrender and escape?

  Which general allowed more than $85 billion in American weapons to fall to the Taliban — a sum equal to the price of seven new U.S. aircraft carriers?

  Who turned over to the Taliban the lists of Americans and allied Afghans to be evacuated?

  Who left behind biometric devices that the Taliban are now using to hunt down our former Afghan friends?

  Somehow our new woke Pentagon is hell-bent on losing the trust of the American people — along with the wars it fights abroad.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 18:20

• Florida Chiropractor Signs Mask Exemption Slips For Hundreds Of Students
  Florida Chiropractor Signs Mask Exemption Slips For Hundreds Of Students

  In a sign of how desperate school children (and their parents) are to avoid being forced to wear masks all day while in school, one Florida chiropractor is doing so much business signing medical exemption forms for students seeking to circumvent the mask requirement that it has attracted media attention.

  

  Dr. Dan Busch of Twin Palms, Fla. insisted in an interview with a local ABC News affiliate that he was only signing exemption slips for qualified patients. Though what those “qualifications” are exactly isn’t clear. Having a medical exemption form signed by a doctor is the only way students can opt out of wearing a mask under the current mandate in the Sarasota County School District.

  “The people that I will sign exemptions for are the people that qualify for conditions within my scope of practice,” Dr. Dan Busch, a chiropractor with Twin Palms, told WWSB.

  […]

  “The parent and child come in, we evaluate what their conditions are, see if they have a valid legitimate condition that would warrant a mask exemption,” Busch said. “If they do not, they have to go on their way.”

  Parents of some of the children also spoke with the TV reporters, and told them that they believe their children should have a choice whether to mask up or not.

  “Parents have every right to look at their child and say, ‘I don’t want that mask on my child, I know what it does to him or her,'” said parent Chad Dion.

  Unfortunately for these kids, it looks like the media attention may have led to the closure of this loophole. Officials from the Sarasota school district say they are accepting these medical exemptions for now, but are looking into their legitimacy, and could revoke them in the future.

  “When there’s suspicion behind them, we do have to do our due diligence in the end,” said Craig Maniglia, director of communications for the Sarasota County School District.

  Add that to the list of duties that school administrators are now being forced to handle (in addition to their normal workloads) in the age of COVID: they’re tasked with deciding which medical conditions are “legitimate” enough to get around the mandate.

  That’s not to say that the school district won’t recognize legitimate medical conditions: a district representative said the schools will promise to be sensitive to students’ needs, while at the same time doing everything in their power to prevent outbreaks.

  Fortunately for them, school children aren’t especially vulnerable to COVID (In fact, it’s more like the opposite: they have much higher chances of being asymptomatic) while studies have shown that schools aren’t a locus of spread during community outbreaks.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 18:00

• Taliban No Longer Feels Washington's Love As Iran Gains US Ground Hardware
  Taliban No Longer Feels Washington’s Love As Iran Gains US Ground Hardware

  Submitted by South Front,

  The feelings of betrayal in Afghanistan are all-encompassing and complete. Not a single person was likely left feeling un-abandoned, except for former President Ashraf Ghani who escaped with millions of dollars. Even the Taliban felt the terrible sting of being left behind.

  To their disappointment, and even horror, Taliban fighters felt “angry” and “betrayed” after discovering that US troops had disabled dozens of aircraft before completing their withdrawal from the Afghan capital of Kabul.

  In many other bases throughout Afghanistan, the Taliban was glad to find that the combat aircraft that had been left behind was perfectly serviceable. The issue is that the Taliban are lacking pilots, but a quick recruitment program throughout Afghanistan itself, as well as its allied countries could easily solve this.

  Currently, at least 48 aircraft of the former Afghan Air Force (AAF) are now in the hands of the Taliban. Over the last few weeks, the Taliban was only able to operate few Russian Mi-8 and US UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. 

  The US had provided billions worth of military equipment, including modern counter-insurgency warplanes, to the AAF. Yet, it failed to stop the Taliban. Not only did it not succeed, but it even made it so the equipment wasn’t easily usable, truly despicable.

  A large share of the US hardware, weaponry and warplanes ended up in Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, but not all of it.Some of the ground hardware was spotted in Iran, so Tehran is also a winner from the US weaponry thrift store that Afghanistan has evidently become.

  It is unknown if the Taliban can operate these assets by themselves. Russia could extend a “helping hand” or the US could partially return under the pretext of co-operation against ISIS in Central Asia.

  After all, the Republicans and Democrats in Washington have shown that they cannot cooperate with one another, but can coordinate operations with the Taliban whom they deem as terrorists.

  The Taliban currently need all the weaponry they can get their hands on, as the Northern Resistance Front (NRF) still occupies the Panjshir valley.The resistance pushed back several advances and according to reports the Taliban lost from 30 to 350 fighters in the clashes.Several rounds of negotiations have entirely failed, and the Taliban have attempted to capture the region by force, but to no avail.

  Former Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh said that the resistance is “based in Panjshir” but it fights for all Afghans.The resistance held a military exercise as a show of force to the Taliban, with men carrying heavy logs on their shoulders crossing chest-deep icy rivers in heroic fashion.The NRF have set up machine gun nests, mortar and surveillance posts fortified with sandbags in anticipation of a Taliban assault.

  It is unlikely that the resistance can hold Panjshir for long, as the Taliban swept over the entire country in less than two months. However, all the promises of a “different” governance come with the limitations that the Islamic movement needs to show restraint and handle situations such as these in a “civil manner”.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 17:40

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• Aluminum Prices Hit Fresh Decade High As China Pledges More Support For Ailing Economy
  Aluminum Prices Hit Fresh Decade High As China Pledges More Support For Ailing Economy

  Aluminum prices on the London Metal Exchange and Shanghai Futures Exchanges reached fresh decade highs on Wednesday after the Chinese government pledged more support to keep the economy from slumping, according to Bloomberg. 

  The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) is expected to expand credit to small- and medium-sized businesses and allocate credit to other parts of the economy to prevent a downturn. The latest news of credit expansion to cushion the economy was released in a statement by the State Council. 

  PBoC’s credit expansion scheme comes as no surprise that the country’s all-important credit impulse turned negative earlier this year. On a laggard basis, we suggested China was set to unleash a deflationary wave across the world…

  

  According to the country’s economic surprise index, economic data in China has been missing to the downside all year and eventually went negative in April. 

  

  This week, China’s official Services (non-manufacturing) PMI Index collapsed, an ominous sign the economy is slowing. 

  Many are perplexed why Beijing is taking so long to address the sharp slowdown in its economy. But while the latest China credit – and now PMI – data is flashing a bright red alarm light that the global reflationary wave may be over or about to reverse. However, Beijing has come to the rescue with new pledges to aid their ailing economy. 

  Of course, this means that stimulus-fueled demand will boost commodity prices and will be a boon for industrial metals – however temporary and misallocated that may eventually become.

  Colin Hamilton, managing director for commodities research at BMO Capital Markets, told clients the latest “credit support would boost near term financial market sentiment towards commodity exposure in China. But we expect the impact on underlying physical demand to be more of an H1 2022 story.” 

  Aluminum prices on the London Metal Exchange rose at 1.7% to $2,734.50 per ton, the highest level in more than a decade. Besides government support for the floundering economy, investors have been piling into the metal because of supply woes that may develop as China reduces power to smelters to cut carbon emissions. 

  

  The Bloomberg Industrial Metals Index has also reached decade highs. 

  

  China unleashing more credit, stoking what could be another round of commodity inflation, may further dent the Federal Reserve’s narrative that inflation is “transitory.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 02:45

• Germany Interior Minister Warns Of New Wave Of Migrants Incentivized To Reach Europe
  Germany Interior Minister Warns Of New Wave Of Migrants Incentivized To Reach Europe

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  Germany’s interior minister has warned that putting a number on the amount of Afghan refugees Europe should accept will incentivize more waves of migrants to attempt to reach the continent.

  

  Following the Taliban’s takeover of the country, untold numbers of economic migrants are trying to blend in with genuine refugees in an effort to reach the welfare havens of Europe.

  The UK even announced that it wouldn’t be checking identity documents of Afghans entering the country despite the glaring security risk that such a policy entails.

  While British authorities have pledged to settle at least 20,000 “refugees,” despite record numbers of migrants already arriving illegally on boats, EU countries have been more careful in avoiding putting a figure on how many they will take in.

  Horst Seehofer, Germany’s interior minister, warns that signaling borders are open once again will act as an incentive for large numbers of migrants to flood into Europe.

  “I don’t think it’s wise if we talk about numbers here, because numbers obviously trigger a pull effect and we don’t want that,” he said.

  The previous refugee crisis, which saw over a million migrants from North Africa and the Middle East flood into Europe, led directly to huge spikes in violent crime, sexual assaults and numerous mass casualty terror attacks carried out by jihadists who exploited the refugee wave to enter European countries.

  Given the debacle that happened in 2015, the prospect of Germany accepting a significant number of refugees is unlikely to be welcomed by conservative voters ahead of a national election on September 26.

  Angela Merkel has said that Germany will help resettle between 10,000 and 40,000 Afghans who have family ties to Germany or worked with German military or aid organizations.

  When humanitarian development worker Sybille Schnehage asked Afghan migrants why they didn’t go to nearer Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, most of them responded by saying, “No – Germany is better.”

  As we previously highlighted, a top diplomat in Kabul warned that “not even tanks” can stop a potentially large wave of Afghan refugees heading to the continent.

  A report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies also cautioned that the 2021 Afghan refugee crisis could make the 2015 refugee crisis look like a “geopolitical walk in the park” in comparison.

  *  *  *

  Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

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  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 02:00

• Luongo: The Unintended Consequences Of COVID-9/11
  Luongo: The Unintended Consequences Of COVID-9/11

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

  One of the fundamental problems of central planning of any kind is what we systemic thinkers call the ‘Law of Unintended Consequences.’ It’s not really a law but it should be.

  You know you’re dealing with an ‘unintended consequence’ of a policy when the politicians, bankers, regulators and their apologists in the media say something like, “well, you know, no one could have foreseen {fill in the blank}.”

  Some of those blanks are:

  • The Housing Bubble of 2005-07 which caused the financial crisis of 2008.

  • The election of Donald Trump after decades of offering false choices to the American Electorate.

  • Most recently the collapse of the Afghan government to the Taliban and the U.S.’s ignominious retreat.

  These are all events, and there are dozens more in your everyday life if you just begin looking for them, which nobody in charge would ever admit to having considered possible when they embarked on a particular policy but in hindsight were inevitable.

  Policies of collective action under the rubric of the State, defined as that entity with the power to point guns at people to enforce their edicts, always result in these unintended consequences. But it’s not because those outcomes weren’t predictable but rather because they weren’t important to the people who implemented them in the first place.

  They weighed the benefits as absolute and ignored the costs as trivial things they could, like a bad movie producer, fix in post-production.

  So, with that in mind and looking at the saturation of fear porn and relentless march towards a locked-down, totally-controlled and regimented society as a result of COVID-9/11, I give you this note the other day from TASS, the Russian State’s news service.

  Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Public’s attitude to globalization underwent shift during pandemic

  People’s attitude to free trade and globalization has changed a lot since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Support for barrier-free trade has considerably declined. Russia is one of the global leaders in terms of people’s negative view of globalization, Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes, citing a poll conducted by the Ipsos company and the World Economic Forum. Only 48% of those surveyed in 25 countries agree that globalization is good for their countries. In Russia, one in three people stated that they reject the notion that globalization facilitates an effective economic policy.

  Experts are not surprised by the declining interest in globalization. “People in large economic powers can see their daily expenses increase. Consumer prices used to be more stable before globalization began and free-trade zones were created,” economist Andrei Loboda said, pointing out that the change of sentiment had been sparked by rising inflation affecting economies worldwide.

  Globalization has reached its limits and stopped boosting economic growth, BCS Chief Investment Strategist Maxim Shein pointed out. “The population’s income is falling, hence the decline in support [for globalization idea],” he said.
  “A high level of consumption, easy access to any goods at relatively low prices, good wages, high pensions and access for businesses to foreign markets – all this used to be associated with globalization. However, in the late 20th and early 21st century, the global economy started to face crises, rising unemployment, a decline in the middle class and increasing income inequality. All these issues are also directly related to globalization,” Associate Professor with Department of Enterprise and Logistics at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics Igor Stroganov emphasized. Besides, large transnational companies and retail chains enter foreign markets, destroying small and medium-sized businesses and local agriculture. “In addition, labor migration increases competition on the labor market. People in many countries feel that way,” the economist stressed.

  While we are bombarded daily by new polls suggesting that a majority of Americans love their mask or believe their neighbors should be held down and forcibly injected with an experimental gene therapy, the Russians have looked upon the face of the New Normal and rejected it.

  This is the unintended consequence of pushing for Globalism, people see it for what it is and reject it.

  The big question is why and to answer that I want to discuss what’s not discussed in the TASS note.

  

  The Toxic Spread Trade

  What’s not covered here is the role that central banking and the Cantillion Effect have on prices. The Cantillion Effect is where price rises from monetary inflation have a delayed effect as the new money spreads out through the society. Those that receive the money first get to spend that money at today’s prices which, over time, raises everyone else’s bid for the good or service that money then procures.

  In reality, government is only in control of that first spend — from its coffers to the supplier. After that they money flow is chaotic based on the marginal utility needs of the person who receives it. But, what you can be assured of is no matter what, those closest to the source of the money have a massive advantage over those at the economic fringes.

  This is why I find all the hand-wringing modern Progressives do over government spending so thoroughly repulsive. They argue for the very thing to help ‘poor people’ which impoverished them in the first place.

  Their argument is instead of giving the money to the banks or the corporations but directly to the people then that would equalize the previous theft, a kind of reparations for past monetary sins. Of course, this is patent nonsense. Giving people money rather than just stop stealing from them is not the way back to a moral and sustainable economy.

  But it is their path to more permanent power. Ah Ha!

  So, the effect of central banks around the world printing money is to create a constant Cantillion effect at the national level. In the case of the U.S., The Fed gives the U.S. government and its member banks preferred access to capital at the lowest costs to borrow, while you get access at the highest cost, i.e. higher interest rates.

  This subsidizes overseas investment while overstating the strength of the U.S. dollar, because those dollars can be spent to more effectively procure overseas labor and property than buying those same things here.

  This exports the monetary inflation overseas while keeping a lid on domestic prices at home. It’s why it’s also so disingenuous of economic commentators to use domestic CPI as a measure of inflation to invalidate the Quantity Theory of Money, which I’ve written about before. If the money goes overseas, something’s price is getting inflated, just not that thing we’re measuring.

  Using the CPI to measure inflation is like trying to measure a board with a stopwatch. It’s the wrong tool for the job.

  As the Fed pushes and pulls the money supply through ‘monetary policy’ over time it greatly exaggerates the natural boom and bust cycle of the economy.

  Now let’s take this one step further and think on the arguments made by Jeff Snider at Alhambra Partners who argues that with the creation of the offshore Eurodollar shadow banking system, the Fed itself isn’t even in control of its own monetary policy, those markets are.

  This is another example of unintended consequences of major policy changes, turning over the role of new money creation to a central bank, versus basing it on a hard reserve asset like gold. It spawns a rough beast the central bank can’t control anymore than the government can control how you spend the money it pays you.

  So, when those titanic forces want to enter into new markets through cheap money they demand it from the Fed and eventually the Fed accommodates them lest it get blamed for causing a global depression… sound familiar?

  I’m simplifying Jeff’s arguments here, but the fundamental point he makes is valid.

  At the same time it’s also irrelevant to the current argument because it doesn’t matter if the Fed or the Eurodollar depositors control the rate of new money creation. The Cantillion Effect of how that new money spreads globalism is the same, only the points of origin are different.

  The Imperial Marsh

  Large scale producers take advantage of the situation by investing overseas during the busts and repatriating their capital during the booms. In effect, they are reloading and waiting for the next Fed-induced cycle to commence. As those closest to the Fed, if not telling the Fed what to do, then they will also be best prepared when the policy shifts to take advantage of it.

  This dynamic has played out at an accelerating pace during the 21st century as these boom/bust cycles become more and more erratic and the ‘monetary policy’ employed to support them more and more reckless.

  In the end, it is the countries that begin rejecting this scheme by de-dollarizing that are the ones who insulate themselves from the effects of this capital in-and-out flow.  That’s why I’ve been bullish on Russia since 2013, ignoring people calling it a ‘value trap’ early on because of low equity market multiples.

  Putin rejected globalism as an economic weapon and, in effect, turned globalism on itself by doing this. At the same time, he maneuvered Russia to control the marginal barrel of oil produced in the world.  This gave Russia the unique position of inserting the ruble into global trade while improving its regional relevance as the rebirth of central Asia can now commence with the collapse of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan and the final nail in the coffin of the remnants of the British Empire.

  From here the ruble’s fortunes look bright as long as the Bank of Russia doesn’t revert to its old ways.

  Rejecting globalism is a real problem now for the Great Reset as individual countries can now move to regain control over transnationals who were told they would be allowed to run the world. Martin Armstrong has banged his shoe on the table about Big Tech getting the roles of the money-center banks for nearly two years.

  Today I see the signs of the titanic struggle between the central banks and the shadow banking system complicating the plans of The Davos Crowd’s Great Reset everywhere as Big Tech makes good on its promises assist in the COVID-9/11 operation to destroy and remake the world.

  In recent months, the clear policy from Premier Xi Jinping is for China to move rapidly to lockdown its domestic economy, cut down its tallest poppies, and send foreign capital packing. It never gave the Western banks the access they wanted. It was always globalism on China’s terms, not the West’s.

  Now that Xi is making his moves, Davos is making theirs, attempting to blame them for COVID-9/11 and turn Americans into raving anti-China hawks willing to salve a bruised national ego by blowing shit up in China’s backyard.

  Let’s hope this is the one aspect of the Great Reset that fails to materialize completely.

  Rejecting western Globalists was Russia’s sin as well. Putin’s biggest challenge in his 20+ years in power has been to gain control over his central bank and the Russian financial system such that their inherent corruption worked for Russia and not for Davos. Russia, out of necessity, is much farther along in its quest to reverse/arrest globalism than China is.  

  You can clearly see the hand of Davos at the legislative level trying to keep forcing this to work. The EU still enters trade negotiations demanding a country give it veto power over its “partner’s” local governments in bilateral trade…. and notice how many of these deals they’ve signed in the past couple of years.

  Zero.

  Globo-Homo-Economicus

  COVID-9/11 is globalism’s last stand. It’s goal is explicitly to burn the world down to ‘build back better.’ I’m sure Davos asked both Xi and Putin many times to join the big club for the big win and they both said, “No.” This is where culture and history asserts itself.

  Seriously, do these people have no memory of how Europe and the U.K. have treated China and Russia?

  So, the WEF is now accelerating its scorched earth strategy. It’s clearly using what leverage it has in U.S. institutions to expend the last of the U.S.’s political capital with diplomatic and geopolitical ‘gaffes’ that even an amateur wouldn’t make. When you see government policy an order of magnitude more incompetent than can be explained by internal squabbling and petty corruption, you are dealing with something willful.

  This is always what I’ve envisioned the ‘failure’ of the Great Reset to look like whenever I’ve invoked that idea.  They’ve taken their shot at it.  Where they have the most control and favorable laws/infrastructure — i.e. the English Commonwealth, France, Italy, Germany, Spain — they are ramping up the tyranny.

  In the U.S. they are moving rapidly to liquidate as much of the U.S. as possible after having already reversed most of the good things done under Trump.  Pelosi first moved back the deadline on the Budget/Infrastructure/Debt Ceiling until October. Now she’s really twisting arms behind the scenes while Afghanistan takes all the attention trying to shoehorn them all through in the confusion.

  If she can’t get that done then the House and Senate could get quickly bogged down in Afghanistan hearings, if not impeachment/25th Amendment talks. This is part of the reason why I think Powell was surprisingly dovish the other day at Jackson Hole. He’s got to stay on D.C.’s good side to get re-confirmed. He can afford, right now, to let the pressure off the global financial system until another funding crisis emerges in the domestic money markets.

  So, the USDX falls a little, the euro backs away from oblivion and we look ahead at the German elections and the next FOMC meeting.

  None of this is good news for globalists and globalism since they need that nearly $5 trillion to complete their takeover of the U.S. financial and political system.  You don’t have to be a dog to smell the rising fear.  It’s palpable now.

  Pelosi needs these bills passed or her leadership of the Dems will collapse. The Squad is barking about getting rid of Powell while Pelosi begins to realize the whole administration is collapsing faster than Biden’s cognitive function.

  The globalists need perpetual war in ‘shitholes’ around the world to keep laundering the easy Fed Funny Bucks to keep the entire Ponzi Scheme alive. With Afghanistan now off the table, where are we sending the military next to export inflation democracy?

  But Powell, like the rest of them, know that globalism is failing and pushing any further for it will only accelerate the creation of what Vaclav Havel called “parallel systems.” Systems that exist outside of their control. So, I think he’s treading carefully here with monetary policy on purpose.

  It’s Davos that is getting desperate. The more they grasp for total control the easier it becomes to see the Law of Unintended Consequences rearing its head as new solutions to age-old problems proliferate.

  Don’t believe me?

  The best and brightest in the U.S. stopped being engineers and scientists two generations ago when we stopped ‘building things.’ They became financiers and lawyers. This was an unintended consequence of the money flowing from D.C. and The Fed to those jobs to feed the growing regulatory state. Their kids learned to code because that’s where the growth was as the cheap money was funneled to subsidize the creation of today’s Big Data and AI systems they believe they will use to control the flow of everything the world over.

  Today, however, those best and brightest have left Google and Facebook and are working in crypto to solve the very problem which started all this pernicious globalism in the first place. I’m not the only one seeing it. It’s clear where the innovation is and what these people’s motivations are — to reverse the Cantillion effect of privilege granted to those close to the King and let capital flow to where the people need it not where the tyrants do.

  The Russians may be leading the way, if the polls are correct. Reject empire and ‘greatness,’ they are telling us. Our leadership is trying to shame us over Afghanistan. Don’t let them. Be contrite but internalize the lesson of humility and get back to work rebuilding what’s been lost. Opportunities for new systems abound.

  Because the final consequence of Cantillion’s observations about prices is that eventually you run out of ways to squeeze people through fear and inflation. When that happens they squeeze back. 

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  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 00:00

• President Xi Announces New Stock Exchange For SMEs In Beijing
  President Xi Announces New Stock Exchange For SMEs In Beijing

  As Beijing pressures domestic companies to launch their IPOs on domestic exchanges instead of New York or Hong Kong, Beijing announced Thursday that it’s preparing to open a new stock exchange in Beijing that will host shares of “innovation-focused” small and medium-sized industries.

  The new exchange will join China’s other exchanges in Shanghai and Shenzen. Reuters first reported that a new exchange was being discussed as a strategy to strengthen China’s capital markets, as financial authorities are being forced to rein in debt levels and shift their focus to equity financing instead.

  

  President Xi announced the new exchange during a video address at the China International Fair for Trade in Services on Thursday. In other comments he pledged that China would “create more possibilities for cooperation by scaling up support for the growth of the services sector in Belt and Road countries.”

  He plans to accomplish this “by deepening the reform of the New Third Board and setting up the Beijing stock exchange as the primary platform serving innovation-oriented SMEs.'”

  Following Xi’s statement, China’s securities regulator issued a statement affirming that a stock exchange in Beijing would help deepen financial supply-side structural reforms and improve capital market systems. The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said its leadership was “excited” at the prospect, would study the president’s proposal in depth and resolutely implement it. “Small and medium-sized enterprises can do great things,” the CSRC said.

  The announcement comes at a time when the future of Chinese firms listing in the US is in doubt. The SEC has paused all applications from Chinese firms until they agree to meet heightened American auditing standards which Beijing has adamantly opposed, per the FT.

  The launch of the new exchange comes as President Xi’s government has rolled out a series of regulatory and policy reforms in recent weeks. A crackdown that initially targeted fintech lending and antitrust and personal data abuses has expanded to embroil companies across the economy, from education and gaming to ride-hailing and food deliveries. During his speech, Xi also focused on his plans to benefit the “common prosperity”, which benefited from a $15 billion pledge from Alibaba. This is the refocus on the “redistribution of wealth” that President Xi is rolling out (supposedly) to boost the numbers of China’s middle class.

  They are Communists, after all.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 23:40

• The Orwellian Vaccine Passport Agenda Relies On The Lie Of The "Social Contract"
  The Orwellian Vaccine Passport Agenda Relies On The Lie Of The “Social Contract”

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

  There is a fundamental question that needs to be asked when examining the vaccine passport issue, and what I find is that almost no one in the mainstream is tackling it directly. The question is this:

  Is it legally and morally acceptable to constrict the rights and economic access of people in order to force them to submit to an experimental “vaccine”, or any other medical procedure for that matter?

  

  Furthermore, who gets to decide what medical procedures are acceptable to enforce? Who gets to be the all powerful and benevolent overseer of every human being’s health path. I ask this because I don’t think many people realize the future repercussions of allowing governments or corporations (the same thing these days) to dictate covid vaccinations. It doesn’t stop there; in fact, we have no idea where this stops once the Pandora’s box is opened.

  For example, the primary argument of the covid cult and the establishment in favor of vaccine passports is the “social contract” fantasy. They claim that because we “live in a society”, everything we do affects everyone else in some way, and because we are all interconnected in our “collective” we are thus beholden to the collective. In other words, the collective has the “right” to micro-manage the life of the individual because if the individual is allowed to make his/her own decisions they might potentially cause harm to the whole group.

  In case you are not familiar with this philosophy it is an extension of socialism and cultural Marxism, and it stands at the very core of vaccine passport propaganda. I have actually had public debates with pro-socialist people in the past who have tried to defend the merits of socialism and every single time the argument comes down to one singular disconnect – I say that if a group of people want to go off and start their own little socialist community they have every right to…as long as it is VOLUNTARY. Then if it fails and collapses it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t affect me or anyone else who did not want to participate.

  The problem is that these Socialists/communists/Marxists/collectivists simply do not grasp the notion of voluntarism. They believe that people need to be forced into doing the right thing or helping others, and they are the people that get to decide what the right thing is and who gets the help. They are the people that get to decide what freedoms are acceptable and what freedoms are inconvenient to their agenda. When they say “We live in a society…”, what they really mean is “You live in OUR society, and WE will determine what is best for you.”

  When I argue that a socialist community should be voluntary, they inevitably argue that people will not commit to such a system voluntarily so they must be forced to do what is best for the “greater good”.

  In terms of vaccine passports, the collectivist social contract is a key element. They claim that being unvaxxed is not a personal freedom because the unvaxxed are a risk to the lives of everyone else. The social contract is therefore violated because by making a personal life choice you are endangering the rights of others.

  It’s interesting though how the covid cult is made up of people that do not apply the same logic to other health issues like abortion. I mean, there is zero substantiated evidence to support the claim that unvaccinated people are any more of a threat to the lives of others than vaccinated people are, and we will get into that in just a moment. But, when we talk about an abortion, we are talking about a personal medical decision that leads to the direct and observable death of another innocent human being with his/her own rights. Abortions end the lives of over 800,000 unborn people per year in the US, far more than covid supposedly does.

  “My body my choice” apparently only applies to killing babies, but not to people who do not want to become guinea pigs for a mRNA cocktail with no long term testing to prove its safety.

  Imagine though if we reversed the scenario and applied the broad social contract argument to something like children and population? A collectivist/leftist member of the global warming cult could also argue that abortion should be legally mandated, because having a child or “too many children” increases carbon emissions and this puts society “at risk” even further (again, with no proof to support the claim). By allowing the social contract narrative to go unchecked, we open the door to horrific new oppressive measures and a complete erasure of our autonomy.

  I think it’s safe to say that the “social contract” ideology is highly selective and hypocritical. The covid cult does not care about saving lives, they only care about their ideological narrative and the power to make people submit to it. But let’s dig even further into the reasoning behind the social contract claim. Who is actually dying because of unvaccinated individuals, which according to state vax statistics make up around 50% of the US population?

  The average Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of covid is a mere 0.26% according to dozens of studies and the government’s own numbers. Meaning, unvaxxed people are not even a remote threat to 99.7% of the population. Around 40% of all covid deaths are made up of people in nursing homes with preexisting conditions, which means that we do not know if they actually died of covid or due to the health problems they were already suffering from. The pool of people who might be affected by the unvaxxed grows smaller and smaller…

  And what about the ridiculous contradiction that arises when we talk about the mandate narrative verses the passport narrative? If masks and vaccines actually work, then how is an unvaxxed or unmasked person a threat to a vaxxed person? If the vaccines and masks don’t work, then why use them at all, and why demand forced vaccinations through passport measures?

  Mainstream propaganda asserts that the unvaxxed will somehow become petri dishes for new mutations that will harm vaccinated people. There is no evidence to support this claim. In fact, there is more evidence that suggests it is vaccinated people that will trigger mutations and variants. The media says that this is not cause for any concern, but if it’s not then neither should we be concerned about mutations that gestate in the unvaxxed population, if there are any.

  The fact of the matter is that more and more scientific evidence is proving that the experimental vaccines are NOT effective and that the unvaxxed are actually safer from covid regardless of the variant or mutation.

  The true infection numbers within the US are impossible to know because up to 59% of people that catch covid and spread it are asymptomatic according to the CDC. They never know that they have it so they are unlikely to test for it. That said, it is clear that many millions of Americans have dealt with the virus and now have a natural immunity to it (I happen to be one of them). Establishment elitists like Anthony Fauci refuse to acknowledge natural immunity as a factor, and they say that ONLY people who are vaccinated are qualified to receive a passport. Why?

  Multiple studies are being released from countries with high vaccination rates like Israel that completely contradict Fauci’s narrative on natural immunity. Israel has a vax rate of around 63% according to government stats, but scientific evidence they have released shows that vaccinated people are 13-27 times more likely to contract covid and 8 times more likely to be hospitalized when compared with people who have natural immunity. It almost appears as if the mRNA vaccines make people MORE susceptible to the virus rather than less susceptible.

  Recent data released from the state of Massachusetts supports this concern. In the month of July, MA reported at least 5100 covid infections, all people who were fully vaccinated. Over 80 of them died, which is a much higher death rate than among the unvaccinated. In my county of 20,000 people, which has a low vaccination rate and no mask mandates, there were only 17 total covid deaths in the first year year of the pandemic.

  This begs the question: Why take the mRNA cocktail at all? What is there to gain? Well, there is nothing to gain in terms of health safety. Even if you happen to be part of the 0.26% of people at risk from covid, you are better off in the long run taking your chances with natural immunity than getting the jab.

  The answer to the question is not about health, but about denial of access. Government’s and their corporate partners are trying to make it so you MUST take the vaccine in order to participate in normal social activities, or even to keep a job. Not only that, but the process goes on forever because every year there will be new variants and new booster shots. The only reason to take the vaccine is to keep at least a handful of your freedoms and to avoid poverty and starvation.

  Here is where we must go back to the original query presented at the beginning of this article:

  Is it legally and morally acceptable to constrict the rights and economic access of people in order to force them to submit to an experimental “vaccine”?

  The covid cult will say that private business rights trump individual rights so companies should be allowed to discriminate against employees based on their vaccination status. But then again, what we are facing in most cases are NOT private businesses but conglomerates that are funded by government bailouts and that are colluding directing with governments to enforce the passport agenda. So I would have to say no, these businesses do not have a legal right to feed on public tax dollars and then claim they are private entities that have the freedom to invade the medical privacy of employees and customers.

  And since when do collectivists actually care about private business rights, anyway? More hypocrisy…

  If we are talking about small and medium business with no government stimulus then the issue gets more tricky. In many states and other countries the businesses are only enforcing passports because if they don’t they will be punished by the government. In this case the private business rights argument goes out the window. The covid cult respects business independence only when it suits them.

  Frankly, it is small businesses that are being hurt the most by the covid mandates and the extra costs involved just in enforcing the passports in their own establishments is going to bury them. Any small business owner that voluntarily supports the passport rules must have a financial death wish.

  In terms of government, the covid cult will claim that there are Supreme Court precedents for legal enforcement of vaccinations. Honestly, I don’t care, and neither do millions of other Americans. A bunch of high priests in black robes do not get to dictate my independent health decisions; I make those decisions and there’s nothing that they can do about it. This is where we have to come to terms with the morals and principles involved – The lives of others are in no way affected by my decision to refuse to comply with vaccine passports. And just because a group of people have irrational fears about the threat of covid does not mean people with more discernment about the facts should be required to make them “feel better” or feel safer.

  The bottom line is this: Our freedoms are more important than your paranoid fears, and we will not comply. We do not subscribe to your false social contract, and you are in no position to dictate the terms of our “society”. Don’t like it? You are more than welcome to leave the country and start a vaccinated Utopia somewhere else. We’ll see how that works out for you in the long run.

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 23:20

• California Nurse Shortage Reaches "Crisis Level" As Vaccine Mandate Wards Off Traveling Nurses
  California Nurse Shortage Reaches “Crisis Level” As Vaccine Mandate Wards Off Traveling Nurses

  As America’s hospital beds have again filled with sick COVID  patients, nurses and other healthcare workers have been quitting at the fastest rate since the early days of the pandemic, when nurses in some NYC hospitals were using garbage bags instead of PPE. Across the Internet, on subreddits and in Facebook groups, nurses have gathered to commiserate.

  

  But it’s not just remote areas of Arkansas and Mississippi that are having problems. Local media in California have reported that across the Golden State, low staffing levels have reached a “crisis point”.

  According to a story published by a newspaper in Bakersfield, in the past month, no fewer than four emergency room nurses have quit at one Eureka hospital.

  And aside from the burnout and the pressure and the stress, nurses have also cited California’s mandatory vaccination rule as one reason they’re thinking about leaving the state. Traveling nurses have been turning down assignments in the Golden State at record rates  because they don’t want to get vaccinated – and the mandate hasn’t even taken effect yet.

  Cole of Scripps Health said the state’s testing requirement, imposed last week, already has discouraged some out-of-state, traveling nurses from taking temporary jobs at California hospitals.

  “If they don’t want to get vaccinated, they are turning down California assignments,” he said.

  Here’s more according to Bakersfield.com:

  Hospitals are struggling to comply with the state’s nurse staffing requirements as pandemic-induced burnout has exacerbated an already chronic nursing shortage nationwide.

  But burnout isn’t the only thing compounding California’s nursing shortage: The state’s new vaccine mandate for health care workers is already causing headaches for understaffed hospitals before it is even implemented. Some traveling nurses – who are in high demand nationwide – are turning down California assignments because they don’t want to get vaccinated.

   With more people coming in for routine care that can’t be delayed any longer, hospitals are nearing a “crisis point” as the staffing shortages leave them in danger of not meeting the state’s legal minimum staffing requirements.

  Hospitals say they are reaching a crisis point, straining under the dual forces of more people seeking routine care and surging COVID-19 hospitalizations driven by the Delta variant.

  “Oftentimes at hospitals there are long waits and long delays,” said Dr. Tom Sugarman, an emergency physician in the East Bay and senior director of government affairs at Vituity, a physicians’ group. “There’s not enough staff to keep beds open, and patients can languish waiting.”

  Nursing shortages were common in California even before the pandemic. But now resources are nearing “the breaking point”. Every time case numbers seem like they’re finally about to subside, a new wave of cases rises up.

  Emotional and physical exhaustion is the primary reason nurses are fleeing the bedside, experts say. It has been a long and brutal 18 months.

  “We thought the pandemic would be over soon and could take time later to deal with our emotions,” said Zenei Triunfo-Cortez, president of National Nurses United, the largest nursing union in the country, which has more than 100,000 members in its California association. “Then the second surge hit, and the third and now it’s the fourth.”

  Mary Lynn Briggs, an ICU nurse in Bakersfield, said of the dozens of COVID-19 patients she has treated since the pandemic began, only three have survived.

  “Some days coming home from the hospital I yell at God, I yell at myself, I yell at COVID and cry. And that’s all before I pull into my driveway,” Briggs said.

  A surprising number of nurses are wary of the vaccines, so Gov. Newsom’s requirement that nurses and hospital staff must get vaccinated could end up being the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

  Hospital administrators worry that the state’s vaccine mandate for health care workers, which goes into effect Sept. 30, could drive some of their workers out. Already, some report resistance among employees.

  “One hospital told us they had 474 unvaccinated employees. They did a big education and incentive push. Only 12 people signed up,” said Richardson, the hospital association’s attorney.

  Administrators are particularly concerned about low vaccination rates among support staff like janitors and food service workers. However, some nurses also are wary of the COVID-19 vaccine. Some nurses with large social media followings have participated in protests in Southern California, arguing that the mandates violate their personal freedom.

  With staffing levels low across the US, traveling nurses working in temporary roles have been critical to help shore up hospital staff. But they’re also allowing nurses who don’t want to comply with vaccine mandates to simply pick up and leave. One expert said traveling nurses in Texas and Florida might be coming from California.

  Nationwide more than 52,000 temporary health care jobs are posted, and Aya is only able to fill about 3,000 per week, she said.
  “In the 16 years I’ve been in this space, I have never seen this high a need,” Morris said.

  That need is creating intense competition for a limited pool of nurses nationwide.

  “Nurses are getting paid premiums to work in Texas and Florida where it’s surging right now,” Sugarman said. “Those nurses have to come from somewhere, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some are coming from California.”

  In short: vaccine mandates for health-care workers (most of whom have already been infected with COVID) are probably doing more harm than good as far as creating a safe and stable health-care system in the Golden State. Maybe Gov. Newsom (or his successor) should give it a rethink?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 23:00

• BOJ's "Turbo Kuroda" Calls For Even More QE And Even More Negative Rates
  BOJ’s “Turbo Kuroda” Calls For Even More QE And Even More Negative Rates

  Imagine you are a central bank which has done QE for 30 years, kept rates negative for almost a decade, purchased more than 100% of the country’s GDP in bonds, and is actively propping up the stock market by buying billions in ETFs and REITs, and still your economy remains stagnant? Well, if you are Kuroda you stay the course and hope for a miracle, but if you are Goushi Kataoka, the BOJ governor who is rapidly emerging as Turbo-Kuroda and perhaps angling to be the next head of the Japanese central bank, the answer is simple: you do even moar.

  Speaking in a briefing Kataoka, who joined the BOJ in 2017, said on Thursday that the coronavirus pandemic may weigh on the economy – which had never managed to stabilize ever since Kuroda unleashed monetary hell in 2012 – longer than initially expected, warning of heightened risks to the central bank’s forecast of a moderate, export-driven recovery. Kataoka also stressed the BOJ’s readiness to ramp up stimulus if needed, reinforcing market expectations Japan would lag other countries in exiting crisis-mode policies.

  “Given recent domestic and global economic developments, the need for bolder steps is heightening,” Kataoka said.

  In a speech, Kataoka said Japan’s economic outlook was bound with uncertainty with consumption seen remaining in a “severe state” due to state of emergency curbs to combat the pandemic. “Risks to consumption are heightening,” with a spike in Delta variant cases forcing Japan to maintain curbs on economic activity, he said. “There’s a good chance the impact of the pandemic may last longer than expected.”

  Underscoring the likelihood the Japan may soon see even more monetary easing, Fumio Kishida – who is challenging Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to become ruling party chief – said Japan must “not fall behind” other countries in supporting their economies with expansionary fiscal and monetary policies.

  An advocate of aggressive monetary easing, Kataoka has been a consistent, sole dissenter to the BOJ’s decision to keep its interest rate targets unchanged, saying the bank needs to improve its credibility by showing a stronger commitment to achieving its 2% inflation target, i.e., even moar QE, ETF buying, even more negative rates, etc.

  “It’s desirable to cut negative interest rates further and lower long-term rates through bond buying,” Kataoka told reporters Thursday, adding that the bank will be watching climate change issues, while making efforts to hit its price goal. As a reminder, “climate change” in addition to “covid” have become the two scapegoats by central bankers giving them a green light to do whatever they want to boost their asset buying in the name of higher inflation, even when inflation is already soaring.

  “Personally, I believe the BOJ must strengthen monetary easing” as inflation will remain distant from the bank’s 2% target for years even if the economy were to recover, he said.

  His calls for bolder monetary easing steps have not gained support from the rest of the board at the BOJ’s policy meetings.

  Under a policy dubbed yield curve control, the BOJ guides short-term interest rates at -0.1% and 10-year bond yields around 0% through massive asset purchases.

  While inflation remains well below its 2% target, the rising cost of prolonged easing has forced the BOJ to steadily slow bond buying and focus on measures to mitigate the hit to bank profits from years of ultra-low interest rates.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 22:20

• Australia Could Force Citizens To Report Their Location On-Demand Via Government Tracking App
  Australia Could Force Citizens To Report Their Location On-Demand Via Government Tracking App

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  The government of South Australia is running a trial for a system that could eventually force citizens to take a photo of themselves via a government app to report their location on demand within 15 minutes of authorities requesting it, or face a police investigation.

  

  Yes, really.

  The revelation was highlighted in an Atlantic piece by Conor Friedersdorf which questions whether Australia can still call itself a liberal democracy in light of the crippling restrictions it has placed on its own population.

  With no end in sight for the lifting of the country’s brutal lockdown, Aussies could face even more invasive state intrusion into their private lives under the justification of stopping the spread of the virus.

  The South Australian government is preparing to roll out an app that “will contact people at random asking them to provide proof of their location within 15 minutes,” according to reports.

  If people refuse to report their location or are unable to do so, police are then dispatched to hunt them down.

  “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random basis they have to reply within 15 minutes,” said Premier Steven Marshall.

  This is barely much different from literally fitting people with electronic ankle bracelets that track their every movement like prisoners under home arrest, a policy that was actually considered by Australian authorities earlier this year.

  No matter your views of COVID, what’s happening in Australia is alarming, extreme and dangerous. https://t.co/Ep7fOqiHUJ

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) September 2, 2021

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

  “No matter your views of COVID, what’s happening in Australia is alarming, extreme and dangerous,” remarked journalist Glenn Greenwald.

  As we have exhaustively highlighted, Australia has enforced one of the most draconian lockdowns in the world in an effort to pursue a disastrous ‘zero COVID’ strategy.

  Last month, the Premier of Victoria asserted that authorities “won’t hesitate” to go “door-to-door” to carry out mandatory COVID tests on Australians.

  Aussies were also ordered not to talk to each other, even while wearing masks, while people who merely post anti-lockdown information online could also face fines of up to $11,000 dollars under an absurdly authoritarian new law.

  *  *  *

  Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

  In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. I need you to sign up for my free newsletter here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Get early access, exclusive content and behinds the scenes stuff by following me on Locals.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 22:20

• Our 20-Year War In Afghanistan Comes To An Ignominious End
  Our 20-Year War In Afghanistan Comes To An Ignominious End

  Authored by Buck Sexton via American Consequences,

  They didn’t even wait until their August 31 deadline was up…

  And the Biden team still left Americans behind.

  The U.S. military is no longer in Afghanistan, and we are left to wonder: How did our final hours in America’s longest war turn into such a debacle?

  Despite the frenzied nature of the exit, the Biden White House is surely just relieved that a weeks-long news cycle focused on their extreme incompetence is over.

  It was impossible to put a proper public-relations spin on the unbelievably fast collapse of the Afghan National Security Forces after Biden said they were 300,000-plus strong and as well-equipped as any army in the world (also not true).

  The American people saw one of the biggest intelligence and policy failures in living memory unfold in real time… And the mythology of Biden as the steady hand who could steer America through tough times evaporated with it.

  In July, Biden’s team thought they would have many more months to plan for the U.S. to exit Afghanistan – in reality, it was just days.

  Without any way to explain the stunningly inept withdrawal plan, Biden’s Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, gave a speech on Monday, August 30 at the State Department, officially declaring that the U.S. evacuation of Kabul had finished ahead of schedule:

  Now U.S. military flights have ended. And our troops have departed Afghanistan. A new chapter of America’s engagement with Afghanistan has begun. It’s one in which we will lead with our diplomacy. The military mission is over.

  Maj Gen Chris Donahue was the last man out? No, Americans were left behind Afghan allies were left behind Military & other working dogs were left behind (even many dogs left at the airport)Shame on the communist Democrats pic.twitter.com/QfTOrIojwn

  — 🇺🇸Trump47U.S.Code § 230 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@DrPol7) August 31, 2021

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

  Americans Abandoned 

  But there’s one glaring problem… While the withdrawal mission was accomplished, there are still Americans stuck in Afghanistan, left to the mercy of the Taliban. Secretary Blinken insists the number is low, and not to worry – there will be continued efforts to get them out of the country:

  We believe there are still a small number of Americans, under 200 and likely closer to 100, who remain in Afghanistan and want to leave. We’re trying to determine exactly how many. We’re going through manifests and calling and texting through our lists, and we will have more details to share as soon as possible.

  What is said much more quietly in policy circles is that the evacuation of these remaining Americans will be up to the Taliban’s consent. It has not yet turned into a full-blown hostage crisis, but it very well could.

  The Taliban’s new leadership could easily decide to leverage the remaining Americans for concessions on our side. To deepen America’s humiliation at leaving behind our own on a foreign battlefield, the Taliban could even demand an exorbitant “exfiltration” fee for any American whom it allows to escape.

  GOP lawmakers have since blasted Biden and his administration for withdrawing troops despite not having all Americans evacuated… Sen. Ben Sasse called the evacuation a “national disgrace” and a “direct result of President Biden’s cowardice and incompetence.”

  Sen. Bill Hagerty also said that Biden “will forever be remembered for leaving American citizens and U.S. legal permanent residents behind and in harm’s way in Afghanistan.”

  Joe Biden: Jimmy Carter, But Worse

  The optics here would certainly strengthen the comparisons already being made between Biden and Jimmy Carter – though they are becoming increasingly unfair to Jimmy Carter, who for all his shortcomings was smarter and more capable than Biden has ever shown himself to be.

  Another major challenge for the Biden team is going to be the ramifications of arming and equipping what is now the largest terrorist army in the world.

  The Taliban has seized billions of dollars of military equipment, including Black Hawk helicopters, armored Humvees, attack planes, and even some C-130 cargo aircraft. They have enough small arms to equip a military several times larger than their current standing force.

  To say it’s an embarrassment for the U.S. taxpayer to have armed up our terrorist foes is a gross understatement…

  Will the Taliban end up playing host again to major international Jihadist entities like Al Qaeda? That’s the critical question right now for which no one can offer a clear answer.

  That the Taliban recently hanged someone from a Black Hawk helicopter in broad daylight flying over Kabul is a pretty strong indicator that they are not some kinder, gentler terrorist group. There are also plenty of early reports of gruesome reprisal killings against any Afghan who worked with the U.S. military.

  Whether the Biden administration pays a political price for the debacle of the drawdown remains to be seen…

  Former U.S. Senator Jim Webb just wrote in The National Interest magazine:

  Perhaps we should look at the calamitous blunderings in Afghanistan as an opportunity to demand a true turning point. Americans know that a great deal of our governmental process is now either institutionally corrupt or calcified… The military itself is increasingly being used by leftist activists as a social laboratory to advance extreme political agendas.

  Recent polling puts the president’s approval rating in the low 40s, but the midterms are still more than a year away… That’s plenty of time to change, lie, misdirect, and alter public perception of Joe’s Afghan calamity.

  And the perfidious media will go into overdrive to help him…

  Give it a week or two, and the Democrat corporate journalists will be talking about Biden’s “genius” in ending the war and the amazing improvisation his team showed under pressure – and they will look at anyone who questions this Soviet-style rewriting of recent history like they’re the crazy one.

  * * * 

  Read our latest issues of American Consequences.

  Love us? Hate us? Let us know at feedback@americanconsequences.com.

  * * * 

  … and a reminder to the completely botched withdraw of Afghanistan by the Biden administration, encrypted text messages between an Army colonel and a former Special Forces soldier working on a private effort to extricate stranded Americans from Afghanistan reveal that the US evacuation was anything but the ‘extraordinary success’ President Biden declared on Tuesday.

  “We are fucking abandoning American citizens,” said an Army colonel assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division in an encrypted Sunday text message to Michael Yon, who revealed the message to Just the News.

  Yon told Just the News that a group of Americans were abandoned at the Kabul airport, pleading for help as military officials told them they were finished with evacuations.

  “We had them out there waving their passport screaming, ‘I’m American,'” Yon said Tuesday while appearing on the John Solomon Reports podcast. -Just The News

  “People were turned away from the gate by our own Army,” said Yon, the former Special Forces soldier and war correspondent.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 22:00

• China Warns US "Wrongdoings" Will Imperil Climate Cooperation
  China Warns US “Wrongdoings” Will Imperil Climate Cooperation

  Despite the US long wanting ‘climate diplomacy’ to remain a separate issue apart from its wider disputes with China, such as on trade and human rights, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is now warning deteriorating ties threaten joint efforts to tackle global warming and climate change.

  Wang informed Biden’s US climate envoy John Kerry during the latter’s visit to the Chinese city of Tianjin on Thursday that “climate cooperation cannot be separated from the wider environment” of US-China relations.

  

  The Chinese top diplomat likened the potential for close US-China cooperation on climate to an “oasis” and explained, “But surrounding the oasis is a desert, and the oasis could be desertified very soon.”

  That’s when he concluded while speaking by video-link: “China-U.S. climate co-operation cannot be separated from the wider environment of China-U.S. relations.”

  “Everyone who met with you will have to spend two weeks in quarantine, but we’re willing to pay that price, to discuss co-operation with the U.S. on affairs of mutual concerns,” he was quoted further as saying.

  It’s widely perceived that if one side or the other links climate with the broader tensions besetting US-China relations, it would greatly slow any substantive climate action.

  

  According to Reuters:

  Though Wang warned that climate change could now be tied to other diplomatic issues, China has said its efforts to cut emissions and adopt cleaner forms of energy are vital to its ambitious domestic agenda.

  “Chinese leaders have long said they are engaged in climate action not because of outside pressure, but because it benefits China and the world at large,” said Alex Wang, a climate expert and professor at UCLA.

  And additionally Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission called on the US to “correct its wrongdoings” and make efforts to “bring bilateral ties back on the right track.”

  On the US side, Kerry urged China to do more while also vowing willingness to improve communication with China.

  “Secretary Kerry affirmed that the United States remains committed to co-operating with the world to tackle the climate crisis, which must be addressed with the seriousness and urgency that it demands, and encouraged the PRC to take additional steps to reduce emissions,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 21:40

• Federal Use Of Facial Recognition Technology Expanding: GAO Report
  Federal Use Of Facial Recognition Technology Expanding: GAO Report

  Authored by Ken Silva via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) survey shows that at least 10 federal agencies have plans to expand their use of facial recognition technology over the next two years—a prospect that alarms privacy advocates who worry about a lack of oversight.

  The GAO released the results of a survey of 24 federal agencies, finding that 18 of them use facial recognition technology. Fourteen of those agencies use the tech for routine activity, such as unlocking agency-issued smartphones, while six reported using facial recognition software for criminal investigations and five others use the technology for surveillance, the Aug. 24 report found.

  “For example, [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] reported that it used an FRT system (AnyVision) to monitor its facilities by searching live camera feeds in real-time for individuals on watchlists or suspected of criminal activity, which reduces the need for security guards to memorize these individuals’ faces,” the GAO said. “This system automatically alerts personnel when an individual on a watchlist is present.”

  According to the GAO, at least 10 government agencies plan to expand their use of facial recognition technology through 2023. To do so, many agencies are turning to the private sector.

  For example, “[the] U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations reported it began an operational pilot using Clearview AI in June 2020, which supports the agency’s counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigations,” the GAO said.

  “The agency reported it already collects facial images with mobile devices to search national databases and plans to enhance searches by accessing Clearview AI’s large repository of facial images from open sources to search for matches.”

  The GAO’s Aug. 24 report follows June research that focused specifically on law enforcement’s use of facial recognition technology. The GAO’s June report revealed the vast troves of data held by federal law enforcement, including 836 million images held by the Department of Homeland Security alone.

  The June report also revealed the lack of oversight regarding facial recognition technology. According to the report, 13 of the 20 federal law enforcement agencies that use the technology didn’t know what systems they use.

  “For example, when we requested information from one of the agencies about its use of non-federal systems, agency officials told us they had to poll field division personnel because the information was not maintained by the agency,” the report said.

  “These agency officials also told us that the field division personnel had to work from their memory about their past use of non-federal systems and that they could not ensure we were provided comprehensive information about the agency’s use of non-federal systems.”

  The lack of oversight of the government’s use of surveillance technology is an issue that has drawn the attention of lawmakers from both sides of the aisle. Democrats have largely focused on the racial disparities in the accuracy of facial recognition, while some Republicans have expressed concerns about domestic surveillance.

  Michigan resident Robert Williams, a Black man who was wrongly arrested in January after Detroit police incorrectly identified him as a felon based on shoddy facial recognition technology, testified about such problems at a U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing.

  “Why is law enforcement even allowed to use such technology when it obviously doesn’t work?” Williams said to lawmakers July 13. “I get angry when I hear companies, politicians, and police talk about how this technology isn’t dangerous or flawed or say that they only use it as an investigative tool.

  “If any of that was true, I wouldn’t have been arrested.”

  Williams said he supports the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act, which would halt the use of facial recognition technology by federal agencies until that use was authorized by Congress. However, little action has been taken on the measure—though Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) reintroduced the legislation in June.

  With inaction on the federal level, states and localities have taken to curbing the use of facial recognition technology.

  The state of Washington enacted a law in March 2020 that requires government agencies to obtain a warrant to run facial recognition scans. Local jurisdictions such as Oakland, San Francisco, and King County, Washington, have also banned government use of the technology.

  Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) support such efforts, arguing that the expansion of facial recognition technology must be halted until lawmakers can enact safeguards.

  Others have cautioned against banning useful technology in the zeal to protect privacy.

  “Critics miss the fact that the benefits of law enforcement use of facial recognition are well-proven—they are used today to help solve crimes, identify victims, and find witnesses—and most of the concerns about the technology remain hypothetical,” the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a largely pro-tech industry think tank, stated.

  “In fact, critics of the technology almost always make a ‘slippery slope’ argument about the potential threat of expanding police surveillance, rather than pointing to specific instances of harm. Banning the technology now would do more harm than good.”

  Ken Silva covers national security issues for The Epoch Times. His reporting background also includes cybersecurity, crime and offshore finance – including three years as a reporter in the British Virgin Islands and two years in the Cayman Islands. Contact him at ken.silva@epochtimes.us

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 21:20

• August Payrolls Preview: It Will Be A Miss, The Question Is How Big
  August Payrolls Preview: It Will Be A Miss, The Question Is How Big

  Summary: The consensus looks for the pace of hiring to cool in August, especially after Wednesday’s disastrous ADP report, although the short-term trend rates are still likely to improve; if the consensus is correct, it may offer further accumulated evidence that the labor market is making progress towards the Fed’s ‘substantial’ threshold where it will feel comfortable in scaling back its asset purchases, according to Newsquawk..

  Key expectations:

  • Headline non-farm payrolls are expected to print 725k (prev. 943k).
  • The unemployment rate is expected to decline by 0.2% to 5.2%, although this figure may not give a true reflection of the labor market;
  • Analysts will be focused on the participation rate (which rose to 61.7% in July from 61.6% in June vs 63.2% pre-pandemic), the U6 measure of underemployment (which fell to 9.2% in July from 9.8% in June vs 7.0% pre-pandemic), and the employment-population ratio (which rose to 58.4% in July from 58.0% in June vs 61.1% pre-pandemic).
  • Average hourly earnings are expected to rise 0.3% M/M, down from 0.4% in July, and 4.0% Y/Y.

  Labor market gauges have been mixed in August: while ADP’s private payrolls disappointed expectations (again), the weekly initial jobless claims and continuing claims fell to a new post-pandemic low. Other metrics, however, offer a gloomier assessment: the ISM and Markit manufacturing surveys allude to a cooling in labor market conditions, with the Delta variant being cited as a reason for the softer pace of hiring. Given that the jobs data will be framed within the context of the Fed’s policy reaction, many analysts have been suggesting a ‘good data is bad for the prospects of further accommodation’ playbook, and vice versa; however, this strategy was not seen in wake of the disappointing ADP data this week. Many argue that the market has already moved on from the timing of the taper announcement – assumed to be in Q4 before implementation late this year or early next – and focus is on the pace of the reductions and the duration of the taper, and the August jobs data is not likely to inform the latter two meaningfully.

  While Consensus remains surprisingly bullish, Goldman’s forecast was recently slashed to just 500K, about a third lower than consensus of 725K. As the bank explains, “while the seasonal hurdle is relatively low in August, the monthly pace and cross-section of Big Data employment indicators are consistent with a sizeable drag from the Delta variant.” Specifically, the bank notes that high-frequency data on the labor market were disappointing between the July and August survey weeks with all of the indicators we track consistent with a slowdown from the 943k July pace. Only one of the five measures Goldman tracks indicated an underlying job gain in excess of consensus (Census Small Business Pulse, +0.8mn). On the positive side, Goldman expects the reopening of schools to boost job growth by around 150k in tomorrow’s report.

  POLICY FOCUS: Many Fed officials want to see further accumulated evidence that the labor market is progressing towards its ‘substantial further progress’ threshold for tapering asset purchases before they commit to a timeline for scaling back these purchases, as well as the modalities of how the taper will look. The August jobs data will be eyed within this context, with analysts suggesting that a weak reading will allow the Fed more time to shape its views, while a stronger-than-expected report will add urgency to a process that some Fed officials want wrapped-up by mid-2022. The Fed has been framing the post-pandemic upside in inflation as transitory, although not everyone is convinced.

  SLACK: Headline non-farm payrolls are expected to print 728k (prev. 943k) in August; private payrolls are seen at 665k (prev. 703k), and government payrolls are seen at 25k (prev. 27k). The unemployment rate is expected to decline to 5.2% from 5.4%; many officials do not think that the headline unemployment rate is truly indicative of the health of the labour market, and in recent months, have been monitoring measures like the participation rate (which rose to 61.7% in July from 61.6% in June vs 63.2% pre-pandemic), the U6 measure of underemployment (which fell to 9.2% in July from 9.8% in June vs 7.0% pre-pandemic), and the employment-population ratio (which rose to 58.4% in July from 58.0% in June vs 61.1% pre-pandemic) which all offer better insight into the progress being made in eroding the slack seen since the pandemic.

  TREND RATES: There are still 5.7mln fewer Americans in employment compared to pre-pandemic levels in February 2020. The Fed does not specifically quantify what ‘substantial further progress’ means; market participants have argued that, at minimum, it should mean a continuation of current trends, if not an improving trend rate. The short-term trends improved in the July data; the 3-month trend rate stood at 832k in July (vs 607k trend in the 3-months through June); the 6-month trend rate stood at 681k in July (vs the 563k in the 3-months through June); but the 12-month trend rate was 605k in July (vs 670k in the 12-months through June). If the August consensus expectation of 728k was realised, the 3- month and 6-month trend rates would improve again, possibly giving Fed officials evidence of accumulated progress towards the ‘substantial further progress’ threshold.

  WAGES: Average hourly earnings are seen rising +0.3% M/M (prev. +0.4% M/M), though the annualized measure is seen unchanged at 4.0% Y/Y; the average workweek is expected to be unchanged at 34.8hrs. Analysts will be carefully monitoring the average hourly earnings measures; the argument is that higher prices may stoke consumer inflation expectations, as seen in recent consumer confidence reports, and will result in higher compensation as workers demand more cash amid rising prices; analysts say that this would add to evidence that inflation is more persistent than the Fed is currently admitting to.

  ADP: The private payrolls survey by ADP disappointed expectations, showing just 374k jobs were added to the US economy in August; analysts were expecting 613k, following the (also) disappointing 326k it reported in July. ADP attributed the weak August report to the Delta variant; Moody’s Analytics said “the Delta variant appears to have dented the job market recovery,” but “job growth remains strong, but well-off the pace of recent months, and job growth remains inextricably tied to the path of the pandemic.” Fed officials have recently been more sanguine on the impact of Delta, although some officials have argued that the Fed is still capable of tweaking policy if the pandemic once again became more persistent. NOTE: The ADP data uses previous official BLS data within its methodology; that July BLS data was strong relative to expectations, so does allude to a more tepid pace of hiring in August, although desks continue to note the tenuous relationship that the ADP data has in signalling the official BLS data; last month, for instance, the ADP flagged a weaker jobs report, although the official data surprised to the upside.

  INITIAL JOBLESS CLAIMS: Weekly claims data that coincides with the traditional BLS survey window showed claims falling to a post-pandemic low at 349k; the four-week moving average also declined relative to the July survey window, both boding well for the official jobs report. The continuing claims data which coincides with the traditional BLS survey window also fell to a post-pandemic low at 2.862mln (vs 3.296mln heading into the July jobs data). Pantheon Macroeconomics said that the claims numbers are now finally free of the distortions caused by the automakers’ retooling shutdowns and the trend is still falling, which suggests that the surge in COVID cases had not yet triggered an increase in layoffs. “These data, however, tell us nothing about the pace of gross hiring, and it’s entirely possible that firms’  first reaction to the Delta wave has been to slow the pace of recruitment, before taking the more difficult decision to let go existing staff,” Pantheon said, “still, these data are encouraging.” Other desks also point out that the claims data only gives insight into workers being laid off (and is essentially corroborated by Challenger’s lay-offs data, which fell to the lowest since June 1997), whereas some argue that the labour market weakness seen of late is likely a function of slowing hiring amid the spread of the Delta variant, which is more reflected in surveys.

  BUSINESS SURVEYS: The business survey data only offers a partial glimpse of the labour market this month, given that the Services ISM and Markit’s Final Services PMI for August are both set for release after the jobs report (NOTE: the flash services data from Markit showed employment falling by 2.5 points to 50.8). The ISM manufacturing report saw its employment sub-index tumble by almost 4 points into contractionary territory at 49.0, with the survey noting that new surges of COVID-19 were adding to pandemic-related issues, like worker absenteeism, short-term shutdowns due to parts shortages, as well as difficulties in filling open positions and overseas supply chain problems. That said, the report also said that companies were still struggling to meet labour-management plans, but despite a contracting index, there were positive signs compared to recent months, partly mitigating the gloom implied by the index itself. Meanwhile, Markit’s manufacturing PMI alluded to employment growth easing as firms struggled to retain staff and find suitable candidates for current vacancies.

  ARGUING FOR A WEAKER-THAN-EXPECTED REPORT:

  • Delta variant. Unlike in the first month of the covid resurgence, the Delta variant now appears to be affecting services consumption and the labor market. The revival of the CDC’s mask recommendation on July 27 occurred after the July payroll survey week had ended, which would be consistent with a drag in tomorrow’s report despite the strong gains in the previous one. As shown in the left panel of Exhibit 1, restaurant seatings on Open Table pulled back at the turn of the month, falling to 89% of their 2019 levels during the August survey week, compared to 95% in the July survey week. This would argue for a pause or pullback in US leisure and hospitality employment in tomorrow’s report. Additionally, as shown in the right panel, rising infection rates were associated with weaker employment growth in the state cross-section of the Homebase dataset, consistent with a negative Delta impact on labor demand, labor supply, or both.

  

  • Big Data. High-frequency data on the labor market were disappointing between the July and August survey weeks (see Exhibit 2), with all of the indicators we track consistent with a slowdown from the 943k July pace. Only one of the five measures we track indicates an underlying job gain in excess of consensus (Census Small Business Pulse, +0.8mn), though we acknowledge that the track record for Big Data indicators during the crisis has been mixed.

  

  • ADP. Private sector employment in the ADP report increased by 374k in August, below consensus expectations for a 625k gain. Because the statistical inputs to the ADP model probably boosted their jobs estimate, we believe the underlying ADP sample showed only modest gains in the month.

  ARGUING FOR A STRONGER-THAN-EXPECTED REPORT

  • School reopening. We expect a roughly 150k boost from the reopening of schools, as many teachers and support staff return for the fall school year (some of whom were not working at the end of the prior one). While a pace of reopening similar to August 2020would contribute nearly 300k jobs (mom sa), the level of education employment is 600khigher a year later, and we believe some janitors and support staff did not return due to capacity restrictions and hybrid teaching models.
  • Wind-down of Top-ups. The expiration of federal benefits in some states has boosted labor supply and job-finding rates. Federal benefits were partially or fully curtailed in half of US states (representing 29% of the outstanding job losses since the start of the pandemic) in June and early July. And encouragingly, continuing claims have continued to decline more quickly in these states (by roughly 150k relative to the trend in all other states in the August payroll month).
  • Seasonality. The August seasonal hurdle is relatively low: the BLS adjustment factors generally assume a 100-200k decline in private payrolls (which exclude public schools),compared to +0.5mn over the previous four months.
  • Job availability. The Conference Board labor differential—the difference between the percent of respondents saying jobs are plentiful and those saying jobs are hard to get—decreased by 1.3pt to +42.8 in August but remains at a high level. Additionally, job openings increased by 590k to a record high in June, according to the JOLTS report.
  • Jobless claims. Initial jobless claims edged down during the August payroll month,averaging 355k per week vs. 393k in July. Continuing claims also decreased, averaging2,840k in August vs. 3,140k in July. Across all employee programs including emergency benefits, continuing claims remained roughly unchanged between the payroll survey weeks.

  

  NEUTRAL/MIXED FACTORS:

  • Employer surveys. The employment component of the ISM Manufacturing Index fell into contractionary territory (-3.9pt to 49.0). The employment component of our manufacturing survey tracker also decreased (-0.8pt to 58.3), but the employment component of our services survey tracker increased (+0.1pt to 54.9). The employment component of the GSAI increased by 2.8pt to 70.0.
  • Job cuts. Announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas decreased by1% in August after decreasing by 13% in July (mom, SA by GS). Layoffs were at the lowest level since 1993.

  

  REACTION: Citi argues that given still net-long broader USD positions, any miss relative to the consensus may buoy Treasuries (as traders reason that the Fed would remain accommodative for longer), and any decline in yields would likely accelerate the Dollar’s recent underperformance. “A ‘goldilocks’ release that entails a slight miss would be most ideal for risk assets heading into an extended weekend,” but the bigger picture Citi says is that “the broader taper narrative will not have long-lasting market implications given broad expectations for a Q4 conclusion; nonetheless, the interim run-up will see taper talk as a persistent albeit fading influence on market moves.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 21:00

• Quantitative Brainwashing
  Quantitative Brainwashing

  Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

  We’re all familiar with the term, “quantitative easing.” It’s described as meaning, “A monetary policy in which a central bank purchases government securities or other securities from the market in order to lower interest rates and increase the money supply.”

  Well, that sounds reasonable… even beneficial. But, unfortunately, that’s not really the whole story.

  

  When QE was implemented, the purchasing power was weak and both government and personal debt had become so great that further borrowing would not solve the problem; it would only postpone it and, in the end, exacerbate it. Effectively, QE is not a solution to an economic problem, it’s a bonus of epic proportions, given to banks by governments, at the expense of the taxpayer.

  But, of course, we shouldn’t be surprised that governments have passed off a massive redistribution of wealth from the taxpayer to their pals in the banking sector with such clever terms. Governments of today have become extremely adept at creating euphemisms for their misdeeds in order to pull the wool over the eyes of the populace.

  At this point, we cannot turn on the daily news without being fed a full meal of carefully-worded mumbo jumbo, designed to further overwhelm whatever small voices of truth may be out there.

  Let’s put this in perspective for a moment.

  For millennia, political leaders have been in the practice of altering, confusing and even obliterating the truth, when possible. And it’s probably safe to say that, for as long as there have been media, there have been political leaders doing their best to control them.

  During times of war, political leaders have serially restricted the media from simply telling the truth. During the American civil war, President Lincoln shut down some 300 newspapers and arrested some 14,000 journalists who had the audacity to contradict his statements to the public.

  As extreme as that may sound, this practice has been more the rule in history than the exception.

  In most countries, in most eras, some publications go against the official story line and may very well pay a price for doing so. But, other publications go along with the official story line to a greater or lesser degree and are often rewarded for doing so.

  It should come as no surprise, then, that media outlets often come to report the news in a less than accurate manner.

  Mark Twain is claimed to have said, “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you’re misinformed.” Quite so.

  Still, only fifty years ago, much of the then “Free World” enjoyed a relatively objective Press. Even on television, reporters such as Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, etc. presented the news in a bland manner. It wasn’t very exciting, but at least it was relatively balanced and, to this day, most people who were around then still have no idea as to whether reporters like Walter Cronkite were liberal or conservative. Although he was a committed Democrat, he never allowed that to significantly colour his reporting.

  But today, we have a very different corporate structure as regards the media. The same six corporations hold the controlling interest of over 80% of the media. And those same corporations also own a controlling interest in the military industrial complex, Wall Street, the major banks, Big Pharma, etc.

  What we’re witnessing today is media having been transformed into something more akin to a three-ring circus than journalism of old. This is no accident.

  The present travesty that is the 21st century media, is journalism in name only.

  So, why should this be so?

  Well, as it happens, people tend not to like governments dominating their lives – simple as that.

  And yet, the primary objective of any government is to increase its size and power as rapidly as the populace will tolerate it. The only reason that they rarely do this quickly, is that they can’t get away with it. Like boiling a frog, it takes time to lull the populace into submission, bit by bit.

  Once having had enough time to do so, there comes a point at which the government becomes woefully top-heavy, as well as unworkably autocratic. At such times, all that’s necessary to make people rebel is an economic crisis.

  Such is the case in much of the world today – the EU, the US, Canada, etc.. Even in their arrogance, the powers that be have to be aware that they’re right at the tipping point. An economic crisis would almost certainly push the situation over the edge.

  When truth threatens to undermine machinations for self-aggrandizement, individuals tend to obfuscate in order to delay the inevitable fallout. Governments are no different.

  So it was that, in 1999, the largest banks entered into a massive lending scam that would most certainly collapse within a decade. However, before putting the scam in place, they arranged for a “bailout” by the government, which would effectively pass the bill to the taxpayer, while the banks themselves simply increased their own wealth massively.

  Of course, QE, as massive as it was, was a mere Band-Aid solution. All those involved (big business and the government) understood that it would hang like a sword of Damocles over the economy until it inevitably came crashing down – a fate far worse than if QE had never been implemented.

  And so, for those entities to have invested into the domination of the media was, in fact, essential. Had they not done so, it’s entirely likely that, with a free press, the man on the street would, by now, have figured out that he’d been hoodwinked.

  Thus do we see the journalistic equivalent of Quantitative Brainwashing, in which the inevitable realization is delayed for as long as possible.

  And, in order to make sure that the public do not figure out what’s been done to them, the news reporting becomes Orwellian in its endless repetition of a false narrative.

  It is, however, true that, “You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” Eventually, the Band-Aid peels back to reveal an infection that’s far beyond what had been generally perceived. It then falls away in layers, as increasing numbers of people become aware that they’ve been scammed – that the media is entirely corrupt and that the media’s owners – big business – have, with the enthusiastic compliance of the government, robbed them on a wholesale basis.

  Historically, that’s when the jig is up. What happens then is a matter of historic record.

  *  *  *

  It’s clear the Fed’s money printing is about to go into overdrive. The Fed has already pumped enormous distortions into the economy and inflated an “everything bubble.” The next round of money printing is likely to bring the situation to a breaking point. We’re on the cusp of a global economic crisis that could eclipse anything we’ve seen before. That’s precisely why bestselling author and legendary speculator Doug Casey just released this urgent video. Click here to watch it now.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 20:40

• Tesla Halted Production In China For 4 Days In August Due To The Semiconductor Shortage
  Tesla Halted Production In China For 4 Days In August Due To The Semiconductor Shortage

  Production output for Tesla in China has reportedly once again been halted and is being (once again) blamed on the global semiconductor shortage.

  Short of the pandemic, the semi shortage has become a very convenient scapegoat, especially for the auto industry, for numerous manufacturers who have shut down production temporarily and idled plants throughout 2021.

  Tesla’s Shanghai plant was halted “for about four days” in August, according to a new report from Reuters. 

  Production is reportedly now “back to normal” and the halt was blamed on shortages with the availability of electronic control units, mainly for the company’s Model Y.

  

  In China, Tesla sold 32,968 China-made vehicles in July – this includes vehicles sold in China and vehicles exported – according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). This was below the 33,155 vehicles sold in June; a number that we pointed out could have been a sign that the ship had steadied between Tesla and China – and that demand was once again rising.

  But July’s numbers seem to indicate little, if any, growth in demand between June and July. 

  Shipments of locally made vehicles sold in China plunged, to 8,621 cars from 28,138 in June. There is generally cyclicality for automaker sales wherein the beginning of a quarter (July) comes in markedly lower than the end of the previous quarter (June).

  

  24,347 of the 32,968 cars made in China were manufactured for export. 

  Tesla fell between BYD, who sold 50,387 China-made EVs and GM/SAIC, who sold 27.347 EVs.

  Recall, other automakers have slowed production due to the semi shortage, too. We reported last month that Toyota had slashed global production for September by 40% from its previous outlook. The production cut will reduce Toyota’s global production for September from 900,000 automobiles to 500,000.

  As a result, Toyota’s global production for the month will be below that of last September, when demand was beginning to recover from the initial stages of the coronavirus pandemic and Toyota turned out 840,000 units.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 20:20

• Stakeholder Capitalism Is A Trojan Horse For China
  Stakeholder Capitalism Is A Trojan Horse For China

  Authored by Vivek Ramaswamy via Common Sense with Bari Weiss (emphasis ours),

  “Stakeholder capitalism” may not be a phrase you are intimately familiar with, or it may be a phrase that makes your eyes glaze over. But it’s definitely something you’ve witnessed.

  

  Let me give you an example:

  This May, when the actor John Cena was promoting the latest movie in the “Fast and Furious” franchise, he called Taiwan a country. This, needless to say, displeased China — and Cena offered a groveling apology. “I love and respect China and Chinese people. I’m very very sorry for my mistake,” he said in Mandarin on Chinese social media. 

  Here’s another:

  Last summer, while Uber was putting out soaring statements about becoming an anti-racist company — it promised, among other pledges, to implement anti-racism education for riders and drivers in California — the company was pushing for Prop 22, which allowed the company to continue to classify its drivers as independent contractors rather than employees.

  So “stakeholder capitalism” is the kind of gauzy expression that suggests a freer, fairer, more diverse, environmentally and LGBTQ-friendly world. But in reality it is something far different. It looks, in the case of Cena, like an American movie star doing the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party. In the case of Uber, assurances about “antiracism” allowed the company to distract the public from a political issue with real economic stakes.

  This corporate hustle is the subject of a new, bestselling book called Woke Inc: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam by biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy makes the compelling case that “stakeholder capitalism” sounds like a good thing, but is in fact deeply damaging our democracy. He explains why in the essay below. — BW

  ---

  There is nothing more important to progressives today than to apologize: Antiracists apologizing for being racist. Electric-vehicle drivers apologizing for having polluted the planet. And devotees of “stakeholder capitalism” saying sorry for, well, capitalism.

  Joe Biden has called conventional, or shareholder, capitalism a “farce,” saying corporations “have a responsibility to their workers, their community, to their country.” Elizabeth Warren’s “accountable capitalism” calls for higher wages, and greater employee involvement in selecting boards of directors and making political contributions. Al Gore has said that, as the value of socially conscious capitalism gains traction, “investors who fail to take it into account may be at risk of violating their fiduciary duty to their clients” — and, presumably, vulnerable to a lawsuit.

  Nor is stakeholder capitalism limited to politicians or progressive activists: America’s most powerful CEOs have embraced it. In late 2019, the Business Roundtable, a lobbying group representing the country’s biggest corporations, announced it was revising its statement of purpose with an eye toward “stakeholders.” Jamie Dimon, the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan and the chairman of the Business Roundtable, wrote in a follow-up article in Time: “Capitalism has been the most successful economic system in history. But we can improve upon it to help solve society’s problems and lift up more people.”

  Here’s what “stakeholder capitalists” miss: Once corporations become vehicles to further an agenda other than shareholder value, they become vehicles to advance any agenda, including those of foreign adversaries. 

  Case in point: In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party has become a key stakeholder of many American multinationals — from Nike to Visa to BlackRock. It’s now flexing its muscle in ways that — no surprise — strengthens China’s interests at the expense of American ones.

  The case of Airbnb is illuminating. 

  In May 2019, the Silicon Valley darling hired Sean Joyce, a former FBI deputy director, to be its first chief trust officer. Joyce’s job was to protect users’ safety — limiting data breaches, fraud and the many risks, online and off, that come with hundreds of millions of users spread across 5.6 million rental properties in 100,000 cities worldwide.

  By October of that year, Joyce had left Airbnb. According to The Wall Street Journal, Joyce quit because he was concerned that Airbnb was secretly sharing data on millions of guests and hosts — who, presumably, are among Airbnb’s most important “stakeholders” — with Chinese officials. This data included phone numbers, email addresses and the content of messages between users and the company. After authorities in Beijing asked Airbnb for even more “real-time data” — which, Joyce feared, would enhance the regime’s surveillance of minority ethnic groups — Joyce took his concerns to Airbnb’s CEO, Brian Chesky, among other senior executives. Nathan Blecharczyk, the company’s chief strategy officer, reportedly told Joyce: “We’re not here to promote American values.”

  Soon after, Joyce resigned, citing “a difference in values.”

  Three months later, Airbnb announced, with great fanfare, that it had embraced a new philosophy of doing business. “Serving all stakeholders is the best way to build a highly valuable business and it’s the right thing to do for society,” a January 2020 blog post from the company declared. Instead of the conventional shareholders’ meeting, Airbnb would now hold Stakeholder Day, and it would even change its pay structure, linking bonuses to key social targets and creating a “stakeholder committee” on the board of directors. The blog post added: “The stakeholders who make up the Airbnb community are Guests, Hosts, Communities, Shareholders, and Employees.” It did not mention the Chinese Communist Party.

  The stakeholder rebrand isn’t just a sideshow; it’s an essential tool for powerful companies. Airbnb has amassed a huge millennial user base in no small part by portraying itself as a forward-looking, stakeholder-oriented company — one that embraces diversity, equity and inclusion, and proudly aligns itself with #BlackLivesMatter while quietly allowing Chinese users to discriminate against ethnic minorities. (According to Wired, many Airbnb listings in China contain language meant to ward off Uighurs, Tibetans and other minority groups. One such listening read: “We do not have the permission of the police station” to host Uighurs, so “please do not book.”)

  So Airbnb gets credit for being “progressive” while turning a blind eye toward real repression. 

  No doubt, more traditional, “shareholder” corporations do all kinds of terrible things to curry favor with unsavory, foreign regimes. Consider pretty much every international energy company that has tapped into Russia’s massive oil and gas reserves. But those companies aren’t trading on their reputation for being forward-looking or right-minded or stakeholder-ish. Airbnb is.

  Nor is this just about Airbnb or any other American corporation. It’s also about the countries those companies do business in.

  The net effect of companies like Airbnb bemoaning every microaggression committed against every black, brown or trans person in the United States while staying silent when it comes to genuine human-rights atrocities in China — cramming more than one million Uighurs into concentration camps; forcibly sterilizing them; and criminalizing the practice of Islam — is to create the impression that China is our equal when it comes to civil liberties.

  Sure enough, when E.U. officials, in late 2020, pressed Xi Jinping about human-rights abuses in Xinjiang, the home to most of China’s Uighurs, Xi shot back that the very existence of Black Lives Matter is proof that the United States is no better than China. When State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus criticized Beijing for its crackdown on Hong Kong demonstrators, in late May 2020, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying tweeted: “I can’t breathe,” a not so subtle allusion to Black Lives Matter. In March, China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, lambasted the United States for “slaughtering” black Americans, adding that China hopes America will do better on human rights. 

  Disney, too, has bent over backward to avoid doing anything that might ruffle Chinese officials.

  In 2019 Disney’s CEO that it would be “very difficult” for Disney to film movies in any state in the United States that restricts abortion access. But the company’s respect for women’s rights did not prohibit it from filming “Mulan” in Xinjiang, where Chinese authorities have embarked on a program of systemic rape — part of an effort to dissolve ancient family and communal bonds, and transform Uighurs into what Beijing regards as full-fledged, non-Muslim Chinese. Not only that: In the credits of “Mulan,” Disney gave “special thanks” to those same authorities.

  Then there was the Ancient One, a character in Disney’s 2016 hit “Dr. Strange.” The Ancient One was supposed to be a Tibetan monk, but this upset Beijing, which, no doubt, worried audiences might think Disney was saying something good about another Tibetan monk: the Dalai Lama. So Disney made the monk white. Progressives, in the United States, howled that Disney had replaced an Asian character with a white one. So Disney did what it had to do to assuage the progressives: It made the monk a woman. This did the trick. White-woman-washing the Ancient One was good for China and Disney. Not so much for Tibet.

  Consider Apple. The $2 trillion giant now hides the Taiwanese flag emoji from users in Hong Kong and Macau. It has removed songs from iTunes that refer to Tiananmen Square. All the while, it relentlessly scolds America for its “systemic racism.”

  Then there’s the NBA, considered the wokest professional sports league in America. When Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted, in October 2019, from his personal account, “Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong,” and the Chinese consulate in Houston denounced Morey, the Rockets’ owner followed suit, nearly firing him. Rockets star James Harden publicly apologized to China. LeBron James suggested Morey had abused his First Amendment rights: “I believe he wasn’t educated on the situation at hand, and he spoke, and so many people could have been harmed not only financially, physically, emotionally, spiritually. So just be careful what we tweet and say and we do, even though, yes, we do have freedom of speech, but there can be a lot of negative that comes with that, too.”

  To make sure Chinese authorities knew that it, too, was very upset with the Rockets, Nike pulled its Rockets gear from stores in China. In June, during a call with Wall Street analysts, CEO John Donahoe told investors, “Nike is a brand that is of China and for China.” Donahoe did not mention that some Chinese Uighurs serve as forced labor in factories employed by Nike. This from the same company that, in 2019, canceled its Betsy Ross Flag sneaker ahead of the July Fourth holiday after Colin Kaepernick declared that the flag was linked to nation’s history of slavery.

  China may be the most prominent example of stakeholder capitalism gone awry, but it is hardly alone.

  Any number of American corporations now lavishing untold sums of capital on diversity, inclusion and equity initiatives in the United States are eager to do business in countries with reprehensible human-rights records: Citigroup, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where extrajudicial killings and violence against women are rampant; Hilton, in Abu Dhabi and Sri Lanka, where it’s illegal to be gay; the pharmaceutical giant Merck, in Russia, where democratic activist Alexei Navalny is in prison; and BlackRock, the world’s No. 1 investment-management firm, in Latin America, southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where companies that BlackRock has invested in have razed forests and exacerbated greenhouse-gas emissions. And so many more.

  So persists an inescapable contradiction of stakeholder capitalism: All of these corporations have successfully rebranded themselves as good citizens, global stewards and combatants in the war against systemic racism, which has obviously proven good for business, but very bad for America, blurring the moral distinction between democracies and closed societies, between the free West and fear-based societies like China.

  And because this business strategy is dressed in the garments of justice, it only compounds our innumerable confusions about what makes us us.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 20:00

• "This Isn't What We Were Promised" – Critics Slam $10BN Purdue Pharma Opioid Settlement For Letting Sacklers 'Off The Hook'
  “This Isn’t What We Were Promised” – Critics Slam $10BN Purdue Pharma Opioid Settlement For Letting Sacklers ‘Off The Hook’

  A federal bankruptcy judge has signed off on a settlement between OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and thousands of creditors and litigants participating in a mountain of lawsuits filed against the company over its role in developing and marketing OcyContin in ways that plaintiffs say violated laws and knowingly exposed millions to an extremely addictive substance.

  

  Under the settlement reached with creditors, including individual victims and thousands of state and local governments, the Sackler family will give up ownership of the company and contribute $4.5 billion, some of which will be used for a victims’ compensation fund. In exchange, members of the family will be freed from liability for any future opioid-related lawsuits, allowing them to retain much of their family fortune, even if their cash cow is now no longer under their control. In total, Purdue values the plan at $10 billion.

  The new company will be reorganized under a board chosen by public officials. Profits will go to government efforts to prevent and treat opioid addiction.

  Judge Drain said Wednesday after speaking from the bench for more than six hours that he would approve the plan as long as two technical changes were made. Once made, he plans to enter the final order on Thursday.

  Opioids have killed roughly half a million Americans over the last decade, according to CDC data.

  

  Source: WSJ

  One party to the settlement said the deal “isn’t what we were promised.”

  “It isn’t what we were promised or what we were hoping for,” said Ryan Hampton, an author and activist who had represented victims during the bankruptcy. Hampton resigned from his post on the victims committee the day before the judge’s decision, in part because he believed the compensation for victims was inadequate, especially compared with the proportion of the fund set aside for the cities, counties, states and other public entities suing Purdue.

  At least three parties, led by Washington AG Bob Ferguson, objected to the plan, and are appealing its approval. Ferguson said the settlement as it stands lets the Sackler’s “off the hook”

  “This order lets the Sacklers off the hook by granting them permanent immunity from lawsuits in exchange for a fraction of the profits they made from the opioid epidemic — and sends a message that billionaires operate by a different set of rules than everybody else,” Ferguson said.

  The chairman of Purdue’s board praised the settlement.

  Steve Miller, chairman of Purdue’s board of directors, praised the judge’s decision, saying it was “an outcome that is truly in the public interest.”

  “Instead of years of value-destructive litigation, including between and among creditors, this Plan ensures that billions of dollars will be devoted to helping people and communities who have been hurt by the opioid crisis,” he said in a statement.

  Once effective, the bankruptcy plan will set aside funds for cities, counties and other entities. Individuals, including those who suffered from addiction, families of people who died of overdoses and babies exposed to opioids in the womb and born with neonatal abstinence syndrome, or NAS, would be entitled to payments ranging from $3,500 to $48,000. The claims would still need to be adjudicated, an effort that could be complicated by that fact that years-old medical records may no longer exist.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 19:40

• ACLU Says The State Forcing People To Take Vaccines Is A Victory For Civil Liberties
  ACLU Says The State Forcing People To Take Vaccines Is A Victory For Civil Liberties

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  The ACLU has published an article in the New York Times followed up by a tweet which asserts that the government forcing people to take vaccines is a victory for civil liberties.

  

  No, this isn’t out of the Babylon Bee.

  “Far from compromising them, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties,” the organization’s tweet ludicrously claimed. “They protect the most vulnerable, people with disabilities and fragile immune systems, children too young to be vaccinated, and communities of color hit hard by the disease.”

  Far from compromising them, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties. They protect the most vulnerable, people with disabilities and fragile immune systems, children too young to be vaccinated, and communities of color hit hard by the disease. https://t.co/UYfQY2EEqj

  — ACLU (@ACLU) September 2, 2021

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

  The tweet linked to a New York Times opinion piece written by ACLU staffers which further amplified claims that the government forcing people to take a vaccine under threat of them losing their jobs, social lives and potentially in the future the right to buy and sell was actually a boon for civil liberties.

  What’s next? Maybe the ACLU will call for the government to forcibly incarcerate Americans for their controversial political opinions because it might ‘prevent harm’.

  Respondents on Twitter were swift to ridicule the organization’s absurd hypocrisy.

  “The government forcing a needle in your arm is actually them furthering your civil liberties” is quite the take even from Marxists like you. Thank you for dropping the mask to reveal yourselves though,” remarked Robby Starbuck.

  “The government forcing a needle in your arm is actually them furthering your civil liberties” is quite the take even from Marxists like you. Thank you for dropping the mask to reveal yourselves though.

  — Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) September 2, 2021

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

  “Look at that stretch!” commented Charlie Nash.

  look at that stretch! pic.twitter.com/qS5F0zbdrv

  — Charlie Nash (@CharlieNash) September 2, 2021

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

  “It is so sad to see how much leftism has destroyed your organization. Any real civil liberties union needs to be actively against the left and you are example #1 as to why,” tweeted Steven Kolln.

  It is so sad to see how much leftism has destroyed your organization. Any real civil liberties union needs to be actively against the left and you are example #1 as to why

  — Steven Kolln (@stevenkolln) September 2, 2021

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

  Perhaps the best summary was tweeted by journalist Glenn Greenwald.

  “Having the state force citizens to inject their bodies with a medicine they don’t want is a victory for civil liberties actually, says the @ACLU.”

  Having the state force citizens to inject their bodies with a medicine they don’t want is a victory for civil liberties actually, says the @ACLU: https://t.co/Y5exMaCWcJ

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) September 2, 2021

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

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 19:20

• Huarong Finally Got Its State-Backed Bailout, But Future Chinese Firms May Not Be So Lucky
  Huarong Finally Got Its State-Backed Bailout, But Future Chinese Firms May Not Be So Lucky

  Distressed Chinese asset manager China Huarong Asset Management is getting its bailout.

  Citic Group, in conjunction with China’s Ministry of Finance, has stepped in at the urging of the state to prevent the asset manager from becoming a massive Lehman-style blowup in China for the time being. Defaults have been avoided, according to a new Bloomberg article. While bondholders can breathe a sigh of relief, equity holders likely won’t be as lucky. 

  The rescue of the company was announced on August 18th after months of the state trying to pin down exactly who would step in, where, to help the distressed entity. 

  “Beijing didn’t allow a systemically important financial institution directly owned by the central government to default on its debt, an event that had the potential to upend debt markets and possibly precipitate a financial crisis,” The Wall Street Journal wrote earlier this month.

  The bailout took the form of a “recapitalization” with government funding, Forbes noted, calling it “a financial infusion (unspecified in form or amount) from a group of Chinese state-owned enterprises. It is a straight bailout, as per precedent (although many had feared precedent might not hold).”

  

  But the bailout comes against the backdrop of President Xi reining in China’s major internet and tech companies with regulations that have collectively erased more than $1 trillion in shareholder value from names like Alibaba and Tencent. 

  Thanks to this shift in tone, Sergey Dergachev, a senior portfolio manager at Union Investment in Frankfurt, told Bloomberg he believes that after Huarong, the days of guaranteed bailouts are over: “This assumption is not valid anymore.”

  Huarong borrowed extensively since the late 1990s to help it expand and safeguard other Chinese banks. The company’s longtime chairman Lai Xiaomin eventually wound up being caught in a corruption scandal and finally left the asset manager this January. By the summer, it was obvious the asset manager needed help. From there, it became months of arguing and infighting amongst the state and private investors to try and organize a bailout. 

  

  Citic was eventually engaged, according to Bloomberg:

  For nearly two months, a Citic team pored over the books at Huarong’s headquarters. Even at Citic, a Chinese company as connected as they come, the political nature of the task raised eyebrows. Huarong’s finances were so troubled and past dealings so fraught that some members of the Citic team worried they might be blamed for the mess. They wanted assurances that they wouldn’t be held responsible should higher ups take issue with any rescue plan later on, one of the people said.

  The numbers, audited by Ernst & Young, were dire. Huarong had lost 102.9 billion yuan ($15.9 billion) in 2020, more than its combined profits since going public in 2015. It wrote off 107.8 billion yuan in bad investments. 

  Then, in August, the company’s bailout was officially announced:

  At last, terms were drawn up and the State Council, long silent about Huarong, gave its blessing to a rescue that combines a government bailout with a more market-driven recapitalization. Huarong will get about 50 billion yuan of fresh capital from a group of investors led by Citic, which will assume the Ministry of Finance’s controlling stake, people familiar have said. Huarong is expected to raise 50 billion yuan more by selling non-core financial assets. On August 18, Huarong went public with its huge losses and quickly followed up with news of its rescue.

  Recall, in April we had noted that China’s central bank was considering a plan to “assume more than 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) of assets from China Huarong Asset Management, helping the state-owned company clean up its balance sheet and refocus on its core business of managing distressed debt.”

  With Huarong out of the way, China Evergrande Group now becomes to the country’s largest worry…

  And for those who think these entities are all too big to fail, David Loevinger, a former senior coordinator for China affairs at the U.S. Treasury, concluded:

  “Now, you cannot say that with 100% certainty,”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 19:00

• "We're All Ruined": Biden Drone Strike In Kabul Kills 10 Civilians, Family Says
  “We’re All Ruined”: Biden Drone Strike In Kabul Kills 10 Civilians, Family Says

  10 civilian members of an Afghani family including seven children were killed in a US drone strike on Sunday, according to NBC News (!?), which spoke with relatives of the Ahmadi family who said they were hoping to make it onto an evacuation flight out of Kabul before the United States ended its withdrawal from the country.

  

  “They were 10 civilians,” said Emal Ahmadi, whose 2-year-old toddler, Malika was among those killed. “My daughter … she was 2 years old,” he said.

  

  More via NBC News:

  That day, Ahmadi’s cousin, Zemari Ahmadi, 38, had just pulled up at home from work, with his 13-year-old son, Farzad, his youngest of three, racing to greet him. (Other reports have said Farzad was 12, but both Ahmadi and another relative told NBC News he was 13.)

  Farzad, who had just learned to drive, wanted to park his father’s car, a wish Zemari was happy to oblige as other family members gathered around.

  It was in that moment that Ahmadi said an explosion tore through the vehicle, killing Zemari, Farzad and eight other family members, as was first reported by The New York Times and The Washington Post.

  According to Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, Washington is “not in a position” to dispute reports that the Sunday drone strike killed civilians, however he claimed that one of the family members belonged to radical Islamic group, ISIS-K.

  Malika and two other toddlers were the youngest family members killed, along with Ahmadi’s nephews Arwin, 7, and Benyamin, 6, and Zemari’s two other sons, Zamir, 20, and Faisal, 16, Ahmadi said.

  Zemari was a technical engineer for Nutrition and Education International, a nonprofit working to address malnutrition based in Pasadena, California.

  Just a day before his death, he had been helping to prepare and deliver soy-based meals to women and children at refugee camps in Kabul, Steven Kwon, president of NEI, told NBC News in an email.

  One colleague and friend of six years to Zemari said he was devastated, while also describing Ahmadi as a “good man with good ethics.”

  

  Also killed in Biden’s drone strike was Ahmad Naser – a former officer in the Afghan Army and contractor with the US military, according to his cousin. Naser was days away from his wedding when he was killed.

  Instead, there will be a funeral.

  “They were all buried,” said 31-year-old Yousef. “We’re all ruined. The family is gone.”

  

  According to an evidence-free statement by US Central Command, however, there “were substantial and powerful subsequent explosions resulting from the destruction of the vehicle,” suggesting that there was a “large amount of explosive material inside that may have caused additional casualties.”

  That said, we tend to doubt that that a car full of children would be headed to the airport to set off another suicide bomb, following the previous week’s attack that left 169 Afghan civilians and 13 members of the US military dead.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 18:40