• Are Soaring Food Inflation And Rolling Blackouts The Start Of Next Emerging Market Meltdown?
  Are Soaring Food Inflation And Rolling Blackouts The Start Of Next Emerging Market Meltdown?

  A combination of shocks is rippling through emerging market economies and has sparked soaring food and energy inflation, power blackouts, and social unrest. Countries with the weakest balance sheets and high debt loads appear to be sliding first into turmoil. This could be the beginning innings of an emerging market crisis last seen in the 1990s when socio-economic distress toppled governments, according to Bloomberg. 

  Already, skyrocketing food and energy prices have caused turmoil in Sri Lanka, Peru, Egypt, and Tunisia. The chaos could broaden as some emerging market countries, heavily saturated with debt, could be shocked by higher debt-servicing costs as the Federal Reserve embarks on an aggressive tightening campaign. This couldn’t have come at the worst time for these developing nations, as many had large capital outflows and borrowed vast amounts of money during COVID. Now they’re being hit by food and energy shock due to the Ukraine conflict. 

  An example of this toxic cocktail that could easily topple a country is Sri Lanka has already been pushed to the brink of default. The South Asian island nation’s foreign exchange reserves have collapsed, and food and fuel shortages, plus high inflation, have sparked unrest. 

  Bloomberg Economics shows a handful of other emerging economies at risk of crisis because of high debt and soaring yields. Notably, Ethiopia, El Salvador, Tunisia, Pakistan, and Ghana rank are the most at-risk because surging bond yields create higher default risk. 

  

  The Washington-based lender, International Monetary Fund, raised concerns in a recent report titled “Emerging-Market Banks’ Government Debt Holdings Pose Financial Stability Risks,” which warned government defaults like what happened to Russia in 1998 and Argentina in 2001-02 could be imminent across emerging market economies. 

  The report warned of a possible return of a “doom loop”: 

  A sharp tightening of global financial conditions—resulting in higher interest rates and weaker currencies on the back of monetary policy normalization in advanced economies and intensifying geopolitical tensions caused by the war in Ukraine—could undermine investor confidence in the ability of emerging-market governments to repay debts. A domestic shock, such as an unexpected economic slowdown, could have the same effect.

  Bloomberg provides a set of gauges that shows emerging market risks are rising. 

  

  Bloomberg Economics created a list of the countries most exposed to the fallout from the Ukraine conflict. Turkey, Egypt, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Poland are ranked some of the highest at-risk. 

  

  Ziad Daoud, Bloomberg Economics’ chief EM economist, said if an emerging market crisis were to develop, it might spread well beyond its origin. 

  “In a cascade of emerging-market credit events, the negative impact of the whole could be larger than the sum of the parts,” Daoud said. 

  The former Goldman Sachs economist who coined the term BRICs, Jim O’Neill, said the current economic climate is the most uncertain since the early 1980s. 

  “If we get the inflation risk persisting and central banks have to tighten policy, for certain emerging markets it will be a disaster,” O’Neill warned.

  So far, turmoil is brewing in places where investors don’t pay too much attention. However, the crisis could broaden as the Fed hikes and pandemic debts become unpayable as soaring inflation triggers social unrest. If the dominos fall, then investors will care. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/22/2022 – 02:45

• French Presidential Election Preview: Macron Vs Le Pen… Again
  French Presidential Election Preview: Macron Vs Le Pen… Again

  Authored by Yves Mamou via The Gatestone Institute,

  • While Macron appears well on his way to being re-elected, it is appropriate first to draw a balance sheet of his actions as president. For five years, his term has been marked by political scandals that all had the same origin: the desire of this president, with his background in investment banking, to make the state work like a start-up — that is to say, to make the state work without the state’s services.

  • Macron has tried to create a private militia that works around the security organization of the presidency of the Republic… also in the name of efficiency, he has asked consulting firms (such as McKinsey; Boston Consulting Group, Accenture), in place of the large state institutions and ministries, to formulate polices on the environment, health, security, labor and retirement.

  • Distrust and contempt sparked the Gilets Jaunes (“Yellow Vests”) protest movement in 2019, when an increase in fuel prices provoked months of demonstrations by France’s working class — those whom globalization has relegated to the outskirts of large cities and who need their cars to go to work. This protest movement, despised and misunderstood, was repressed by the police with extreme violence.

  • Macron did not, however, despise everyone. He has given the greatest consideration to Islam and Muslim immigration. During his five-year term, immigration from Africa, North Africa and Asia was not considered a danger, but an “opportunity” for France.

  • Despite this catastrophic record, it is likely that Macron will be re-elected on April 24. By whom? Who are his voters? First of all, let us specify that one out of four voters did not even vote. Yet it is precisely Le Pen’s electorate who are suffering from this situation: namely, young people and the working classes.

  • Macron’s voters are mainly retired people, executives, and inhabitants of big cities. Executives benefit from globalization, and the elderly and retired people do not like what appears to a revolution; they are afraid of the radical changes proposed by candidates such as Zemmour or Le Pen.

  • The elderly are not the majority, but they vote.

  Marine Le Pen and the incumbent French President Emmanuel Macron will face each other in the second round of the French presidential election on April 24. The results of yesterday’s first round, with 97% of the votes tallied, show Macron coming out ahead with 27.6% of the vote, followed by Le Pen at 23.4%.

  

  (Photo by Lionel Bonaventure /AFP via Getty Images)

  The result is a kind of surprise. Four months ago, the journalist Éric Zemmour made a lightning breakthrough in the polls by forcing all his opponents to take up his favorite theme: the fight against mass immigration. Zemmour even appeared to be in a position to supplant Le Pen and to compete with Macron in the second round of presidential elections.

  Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, upset all forecasts. When Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February, Zemmour, apparently taken aback, was slow to condemn the Russian assault. The media then recalled that in 2013, Zemmour had named Putin “man of the year” and that the same Zemmour had dreamed in 2018 of a “French Putin” for France. Regarding Ukrainian refugees, Zemmour estimated that they would be better off in Poland than in France, a sentiment that was widely viewed as lacking in compassion. As the Christian Science Monitor wrote, “Europe’s far-right parties admired Putin. Now they’re stranded.”

  The war in Ukraine has led to another drawback: inflation. Increased prices for energy and food product have made purchasing power a major campaign theme, overshadowing the issue of Muslim immigration, which, until March, was at the heart of the debate.

  While Macron appears well on his way to being re-elected, it is appropriate first to draw a balance sheet of his actions as president. For five years, his term has been marked by political scandals that all had the same origin: the desire of this president, with his background in investment banking, to make the state work like a start-up — that is to say, to make the state work without the state’s services.

  For five years, Macron has tried, at the expense of the taxpayer, to build a parallel system that marginalizes intermediary bodies such as parliament, the mayors and the regions. In the name of “efficiency”, Macron has tried to create a private militia that works around the security organization of the presidency of the Republic (the Benalla Affair); also in the name of efficiency, he has asked consulting firms (such as McKinsey; Boston Consulting Group, Accenture), in place of the large state institutions and ministries, to formulate polices on the environment, health, security, labor and retirement.

  The Covid-19 crisis was the height of this functioning of the “State without the State”. Although France is one of the most organized countries in terms of healthcare, Macron chose to manage the pandemic directly with the firm of McKinsey. “[T]o manage this crisis (of covid), the political power, notably because of a lack of confidence in the institutions of the Republic, preferred to ignore the existing mechanisms and competences and entrust strategic missions to consulting firms,” explains François Alla, a professor of public health and deputy director of the Institute of Public Health, Epidemiology and Development.

  Barbara Stiegler, an associate professor of political philosophy and the director of the Soin, éthique et santé (“Care, Ethics, and Health”) master’s program at the University of Bordeaux Montaigne, also said:

  “[T]his recourse to consulting betrays the deep mistrust of these new leaders, who come from the world of business and enterprise, towards the State and academic knowledge. By locking himself up in his Defense Council, Macron has chosen to decide, both without the state and without researchers, all the major orientations of the health crisis.

  Macron’s distrust of the state also seems coupled with a distrust of the French people. Macron is a man who has regularly insulted the French. Before becoming president, while he was still Minister of the Economy, Macron called female workers at the Gad slaughterhouse in Finistère “illiterate.” Additionally:

  • In Lunel, on May 27, 2016, in the Hérault district, he insulted two striking workers, saying, “The best way to afford a suit is to work.”

  • In Hénin Beaumont (North), in 2017, he looked down on the working class people, saying, “in this mining basin (…) there is a lot of smoking and alcoholism.”

  • In 2017, in Athens, Greece, Macron judged that “France is not a country that reforms itself.”

  • In Denmark, he criticized the French, these “Gauls refractory to change…”

  Distrust and contempt sparked the Gilets Jaunes (“Yellow Vests”) protest movement in 2019, when an increase in fuel prices provoked months of demonstrations by France’s working class — those whom globalization has relegated to the outskirts of large cities and who need their cars to go to work. This protest movement, despised and misunderstood, was repressed by the police with extreme violence.

  Macron did not, however, despise everyone. He has given the greatest consideration to Islam and Muslim immigration. During his five-year term, immigration from Africa, North Africa and Asia was not considered a danger, but an “opportunity” for France. Seine-Saint-Denis, the closest district to Paris and probably also the most Islamized in France, is not perceived by Macron as a nerve center for arms and drug trafficking. Macron “has compared Seine-Saint-Denis to Silicon Valley.” During Macron’s five-year term, two million more Muslim migrants have settled in France, and the country has experienced a permanent debate about Islam and veiled women.

  During this same five-year period, insecurity has affected all strata of the country: in France, an assault occurs every 44 seconds and the police are confronted with a refusal to comply every 30 minutes. In France, the political left and the media are waging war on the police, while in the suburbs police patrols are violently attacked on a daily basis.

  According to figures from the Ministry of the Interior, assaults on police officers increased by 40% between 2009 and 2019, from 26,721 to 37,431. In 2020, Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin told the public that “more than 20 assaults per day of police officers” were recorded in France.

  Under Macron, the national debt has increased from 100% of GDP to 113% of GDP.

  Despite this catastrophic record, it is likely that Macron will be re-elected on April 24. By whom? Who are his voters?

  First of all, let us specify that one out of four voters did not even vote.

  Yet it is precisely Le Pen’s electorate who are suffering from this situation: namely, young people and the working classes.

  “Age and ‘social’ isolation actually feed abstention very significantly. Clearly, the social categories that benefit little from the current economic and social system — the poorest, the least educated — abstain,” according to polling specialist Paul Cebille.

  Finally, Macron’s voters are mainly retired people, executives, and inhabitants of big cities. Executives benefit from globalization, and the elderly and retired people do not like what appears to a revolution; they are afraid of the radical changes proposed by candidates such as Zemmour or Le Pen. So “it turns out that (the retired) seem to follow… the French as a whole, who intend… to vote as a majority for Macron.”

  The elderly are not the majority, but they vote.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/22/2022 – 02:00

• New World Disorder: What The UN Vote On Russia Really Reveals About Global Politics
  New World Disorder: What The UN Vote On Russia Really Reveals About Global Politics

  Authored by Ahmed Charai via The Gatestone Institute,

  • Fear and food are more important to many developing nations than democratic ideals.

  • In Latin America, a form of anti-Americanism among the educated classes has translated into a reluctance to openly criticize Putin. This is amplified by messages vocally propagated by Cuba and Venezuela.

  • China sees no reason to anger Russia, a major supplier of oil, gas, and coal, especially since Western nations are discouraging the production of the very fossil fuels that China needs. Policy-making circles in Beijing are not crowded with idealists, and its decisions are invariably self-interested and pragmatic.

  • Arab leaders are unhappy with the Biden administration for its precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, its ongoing negotiations with the threatening regime in Iran, and its laxity in the face of the Yemen-based Houthi terrorist and rocket attacks. For the first time, Arab leaders are asking questions, publicly, about the sustainability of the American political system and the coherence of American foreign policy.

  • On the Iranian nuclear dossier, Israel, one of the firmest allies of the US in the region, fears that the Biden administration wants at all costs to conclude an agreement with the Iranian regime without taking into account the possible impact on the regional aggression of Tehran.

  • What has been eroding for some years now is the commitment of American leaders to defend, maintain, and advance an international order in which states observe common rules and standards, embrace liberal economic systems, renounce territorial conquests, respect the sovereignty of national governments, and adopt democratic reforms.

  • In today’s increasingly complex global environment, the US can only achieve its goals by leveraging its strength through a cohesive foreign policy that responds to the challenges posed by Russia and China. To do this, the US must deliberately strengthen and cultivate productive relationships with its allies, partners, and other nations with common interests.

  • The US must offer attractive political, economic, and security alternatives to China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific, Africa, and beyond.

  • Rather than condemn the nations that abstained from voting against Russia at the United Nations, America must seek to understand why they thought sitting out the vote was their best option. Next, America must make clear that it still supports the rule of law and the ideal of democracy and put steel behind its ideals.

  The latest battle zone in the Russia-Ukraine war was in the quiet, mostly mannerly halls of the United Nations. There, in the UN’s iconic New York headquarters, the world voted on Russia’s largest invasion since World War II — revealing fractures and fissures in global support for democracy.

  

  Pictured: The results of the vote to expel Russia from the UN Human Rights Council, at the UN General Assembly in New York City, on April 7, 2022. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

  Suspending Russia from the UN Human Rights Council was technically the issue put before the delegates. But every diplomat knew it was really a vote on Russia’s assault on Ukraine. The consensus for democracy and self-determination was fragile: only 93 states (out of 193) voted for removing Russia from the UNHRC, and therefore condemning its actions against its smaller, weaker neighbor. Another 24 nations (including China) voted with Russia. Most worrisome, 58 countries abstained, refusing to take sides in what many see as a duel between the great powers. Others feared that energy, food, and fertilizer prices might continue to climb if the conflict escalates. (Both Russia and Ukraine are major producers of oil, gas, wheat, and fertilizing petrochemicals — all of which are a matter of life and death for developing nations.) Fear and food are more important to many developing nations than democratic ideals.

  American and European policy makers will have to face a hard truth: while Russia is diplomatically isolated, it is not entirely alone, and many countries do not side with Ukraine and its democratic hopes.

  The view from the rubble of Kyiv’s suburbs isn’t hopeful. Ukraine’s democratically elected leaders know that they could be captured, wounded, or killed. And they also know that the history of sanctions, the weapon of choice of the Western coalition, shows that they almost always fail to tame invaders. All of these facts were known to the UN delegates. Indeed, they would have heard them directly from Ukrainian diplomats. But high ideals and real desperation didn’t move them.

  Let’s look more closely at why 100 nations decided not to support Ukraine in the UN vote.

  In Africa, Russia has forged long-standing relations with Libya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mali, and often deploys a postcolonial pattern, which suggests that Russia supports the independent, emerging nations over their former colonial masters. This line of rhetoric is a continuation of the theme first promoted in the days of the Soviet Union, particularly from the 1950s onwards.

  In Latin America, a form of anti-Americanism among the educated classes has translated into a reluctance to openly criticize Putin. This is amplified by messages vocally propagated by Cuba and Venezuela.

  China‘s initial abstention is seen more as a sign of embarrassment in the face of the belligerent aims of its Russian partner, than as a show of their interest in a rapprochement with the West. In Western capitals, many want to believe that Beijing has an interest in an early ceasefire, so as not to hinder its economic growth. In reality, China sees no reason to anger Russia, a major supplier of oil, gas, and coal, especially since Western nations are discouraging the production of the very fossil fuels that China needs. Policy-making circles in Beijing are not crowded with idealists, and its decisions are invariably self-interested and pragmatic.

  India, for its part, is a long-standing ally of Russia, one of its major arms suppliers. New Delhi believes that it will need those weapons in the face of the Chinese military build-up in the region, as well as in the face of unresolved issues with Pakistan.

  Arab nations do not intend to abandon their relations with Russia, which has established itself as a force to be reckoned with when it saved Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad through its military intervention; nor with China, the largest buyer of oil and gas from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

  Indeed, Arab leaders are unhappy with the Biden administration for its precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, its ongoing negotiations with the threatening regime in Iran, and its laxity in the face of the Yemen-based Houthi terrorist and rocket attacks. For the first time, Arab leaders are asking questions, publicly, about the sustainability of the American political system and the coherence of American foreign policy.

  On the Iranian nuclear dossier, Israel, one of the firmest allies of the US in the region, fears that the Biden administration wants at all costs to conclude an agreement with the Iranian regime without taking into account the possible impact on the regional aggression of Tehran. The Israeli minister of defense even called for the implementation of a “solid plan B” to deal with the Iranian nuclear program. As a result, neither the Arabs nor the Israelis were enthusiastic about supporting the US at the UN — although they did line up in the end.

  What has been eroding for some years now is the commitment of American leaders to defend, maintain, and advance an international order in which states observe common rules and standards, embrace liberal economic systems, renounce territorial conquests, respect the sovereignty of national governments, and adopt democratic reforms.

  In today’s increasingly complex global environment, the US can only achieve its goals by leveraging its strength through a cohesive foreign policy that responds to the challenges posed by Russia and China. To do this, the US must deliberately strengthen and cultivate productive relationships with its allies, partners, and other nations with common interests.

  The US must offer attractive political, economic, and security alternatives to China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific, Africa, and beyond.

  At the same time, the US must maintain a productive strategic dialogue with China that will clearly communicate US concerns and strive to understand Chinese interests and objectives.

  Universal principles must be combined with the reality of other regions’ outlooks. Western leaders must recognize that non-Western leaders aren’t just living in another place, but rather, they are coming from another place intellectually. Henry Kissinger put it best in 2014: “The celebration of universal principles must go hand in hand with the recognition of the reality of other regions’ histories, cultures, and points of view on their security.”

  The UN vote showed that universal principles aren’t quite universal yet. Rather than condemn the nations that abstained from voting against Russia, America must seek to understand why they thought sitting out the vote was their best option. Next, America must make clear that it still supports the rule of law and the ideal of democracy and put steel behind its ideals.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/21/2022 – 23:40

• More Studies Highlight Medical Benefits Of 'Magic Mushrooms' Active Ingredient
  More Studies Highlight Medical Benefits Of ‘Magic Mushrooms’ Active Ingredient

  As we have reported numerous times in the past, psychedelic mushrooms are becoming increasingly popular in the US as a possible treatment for psychiatric disorders, with their main active ingredient, psilocybin, moving from the fringes of medicine, to become increasingly mainstream.

  

  Roland Griffiths, a professor who studies the neuropsychopharmacology of consciousness at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, received approval in 2000 to carry out the first experiments on psilocybin since the 1960s. He found in a survey of early study participants that more than half regarded it as one of the most meaningful experiences of their life.

  “The mystical experience itself does seem to be really important for therapeutic effects, but we published survey data to suggest it’s not actually the mystical experience itself, but the personal insights you can encounter or gain during that mystical experience that actually lead to therapeutic change,” Barrett said.

  “The idea here is that mystical experience can create the opportunity for personal insights.”

  Since then, for example, studies in recent years have shown promise in using psilocybin-assisted therapy to treat psychiatric disorders like depression. Some have been used to identify their usefulness in smoking cessation (alongside talk therapy). They have also shown some usefulness in alleviating anxiety in people with terminal cancer.

  But the big question for researchers now is: how can they show conclusively that hallucinating leads to alleviating symptoms in people suffering depression or other chronic ailments.

  Frederick Barrett, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, explained how depression works and how mushrooms help to disrupt these pathways.

  “One common feature of depression is something you can think of as cognitive or psychological inflexibility,” Barrett said.

  “You get stuck in a rut of rumination. You get stuck in negative self-attribution, negative self-thoughts, and this is a kind of characteristic of depression that helps people develop and maintain their depression,” he said.

  “It all boils down to a reduced capacity to think creatively or to think openly, and to think differently about yourself and your condition, situation and behavior. If it can increase our cognitive flexibility, if it can increase our neural flexibility, we think that essentially it gives people back the capacity to think broadly about how they fit into the world and reassess or reappraise things that might happen to them.” 

  A separate paper published just last week in Nature Medicine by researchers from the University of California, San Francisco and Imperial College London echoed similar findings, although Barrett notes there are several caveats associated with the study’s findings.

  “What we’re seeing in these data after psychedelics is that there’s an increase in the connectivity between systems, such that they are becoming less segregated from each other,” Robin Carhart-Harris, former head of the Imperial Center for Psychedelic Research who is now based at the University of California, San Francisco, told Changing America. 

  Meanwhile, Oregon became the first state to effectively legalize shrooms back in 2020.

  With more psychologists and psychiatrists suspecting that mushrooms do have a medical benefit, consumers should expect to see more cities/states legalize the drug for medical and/or recreational use.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/21/2022 – 23:20

• Bitcoin And A World Of Rules Without Rulers
  Bitcoin And A World Of Rules Without Rulers

  Authored by Hermann Vivier via Bitcoin Magazine,

  Bitcoin offers an opportunity for society to move toward systems of clear, easy-to-understand rules instead of our current system of rulers…

  

  Human beings, for the most part, all know what fairness means. Of course, we don’t agree with one another: Who’s to say what is and isn’t fair? We don’t even agree on whether we should strive for a fairer world or just accept that it isn’t fair and get on with it.

  But the vast majority of people have their understanding of the concept, even if it differs from everyone else’s. It’s the basis of what we generally refer to as our conscience and it forms part of our human nature.

  It gives us a sense of right and wrong and can serve as a strong motivating force, sometimes even overcoming the drive for self-preservation, despite the fact that it’s often impossible to explain conscientious conclusions in rational terms.

  

  (Source)

  Now, more than ever before, my conscience is telling me (with escalating urgency) that something is seriously wrong. And this thought isn’t new. It’s what led me to buy into bitcoin in the first place. Both financially and ideologically, perhaps before I even grasped the basics of the network. Some would call that irresponsible and perhaps it is, but it wasn’t the first time I made a decision based on conscience and it won’t be the last. More importantly, conscience is also what led me to dedicate myself to spreading the adoption of Bitcoin.

  There are more red flags than ever before, all over the place. Recent developments only serve to heighten the urgency of the feeling I almost started growing accustomed to, until it was ratcheted up by several notches in early 2020 and again early 2022. I’m reminded: “Do not become complacent. Stay focused on what you’ve come to understand about the problem.” That’s my conscience talking to me. And what it’s saying is summed up by what’s written between the lines of a recent article shared by the Bitcoin rock star president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, in his tweet. His questioning attitude toward the article’s conclusion that Bitcoin is “making the world that bit harder to police” is on point.

  

  (Source)

  The purpose of this article is to really try to elucidate and simplify that point, which is what I’ve come to understand about the problem we face. Because without an understanding of the problem, we’re just running around in circles.

  The problem is one of governance and the fact that, in its current form, it isn’t fair, but it’s not inherently so. The problem is a result of the dynamics of global players occupying untenable positions. And while we may not all agree on the specific meaning of that term “fairness,” including all its subtleties, I do believe there are some basic principles that are hard-coded into us.

  

  (Source)

  

  (Source)

  

  (Source)

  Now, take a deep breath and put your personal opinions on WikiLeaks aside. The problem (and solution) is neither WikiLeaks, nor the U.S. Government. In this context, it serves merely as an example to try and point at the problem, which is the dynamic at play: The people who have been put in the position of policing the planet also want to be a player in the game. And, if there’s one thing we can all agree on it’s this: When the referee starts kicking the ball around, the game has lost all meaning. Particularly if the referee is the strongest player on the field and, by virtue of being human, addicted to the most powerful drug of all, power itself.

  

  (Source)

  Clearly, the solution is not to replace that power with another different version of itself. Should the U.S. continue its decline on the world stage, China seems poised to take its place. As Lyn Alden pointed out on a recent “What Bitcoin Did” podcast, China is the only country that really stands to benefit from this current war. But no one wants to live in a world dominated by Communist China and its complete disregard for individual freedom and human rights.

  Instead, the solution can only be to adopt systems without rulers. “Wait. What?! You mean anarchy?!”

  Now again, take a deep breath and put aside what you think you understand about the idea of a ruler-less world. I am not suggesting any particular solution here. I am merely trying to frame the possibilities.

  Consider Bitcoin.

  I am not suggesting that Bitcoin fixes everything. And I am not suggesting that the technology used in Bitcoin is in any way applicable to any other system. I am not even suggesting that there is a solution to the problem of governance because I don’t think there is one. Not yet.

  What I’m suggesting is that the perceived need for rulers is the problem, and not the solution, as so many people seem to believe. Clearly the rulers can’t stick to the rules, and instead, they end up ruling according to their own best interest and not in the interest of keeping the game fair.

  While the solution may not be obvious, the direction we need to move in is clear. We have to move toward systems of rules instead of rulers. Thanks to Bitcoin such a system is no longer impossible to conceive of.

  Bitcoin is just a computer protocol designed to account for sending and receiving payments. Nothing more. But seen from a more abstract perspective, it should be clear that it’s also an example of the kind of systems that must be built if we want to survive and thrive.

  I don’t know what those systems are because they haven’t been built, not at scale anyway. But thanks to Bitcoin, I can hazard a guess at what they’ll look like when they are built. Their structures will be fair. It’ll be transparent. The rules will be clear, easy to understand but not easily changed. Participation will be voluntary. There will be enforceable rules, but those rules will not be enforced by individuals or small groups susceptible to the shortcomings of human nature.

  I truly hope we can build those systems, because the alternatives clearly don’t work. If anything is clear it’s this: Human nature cannot be trusted with the power to police.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/21/2022 – 23:00

• FAA Confirms YouTuber Purposely Crashed Plane Into California Mountain 
  FAA Confirms YouTuber Purposely Crashed Plane Into California Mountain 

  The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has terminated the private pilot license of former Olympic snowboarder turned YouTube influencer Trevor Jacob after determining he deliberately crashed his small plane into a mountain in Southern California, NYTimes reports. 

  Jacob’s received a letter from the FAA on April 11, indicating he violated the agency’s regulations and operated his small plane in a “careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another.” 

  FAA said Jacob’s private pilot certificate would be revoked, ending his ability to operate any aircraft. 

  The letter went on to say:

  “You demonstrated a lack of care, judgment and responsibility by choosing to jump out of an aircraft solely so you could record the footage of the crash. 

  “Your egregious and intentional actions on these dates indicate that you presently lack the degree of care, judgment and responsibility required of a certificate holder.”

  The incident occurred in Los Padres National Forest near Cuyama, California, in November. It wasn’t until December 24 that Jacob uploaded the video onto YouTube titled “I Crashed My Plane,” which has more than 1.7 million views and 19k up likes versus 117k down likes. 

  

  We questioned in early January: What stands out to us is why did Jacob strap on a parachute before taking off? That’s unusual among private pilots.

  

  And it appears the FAA agreed with our question. As per NYT:

  The FAA agreed about the parachute in its letter, which it released in response to a request from The New York Times, and pointed out other revealing details that officials had uncovered during an investigation.

  “During this flight, you opened the left side pilot door before you claimed the engine had failed,” the FAA wrote.

  Before jumping out of the plane, the agency said, Mr. Jacob made no attempt to contact air traffic control on the emergency frequency, did not try to restart the engine by increasing airflow over the propeller and failed to look for a place to safely land, “even though there were multiple areas within gliding range in which you could have made a safe landing.”

  Last week, Jacob released a video that addressed the plane crash controversy, saying, “I can’t talk about it, per my attorney.”

  “But the truth of that situation will come out with time,” he added, “and I’ll leave that at that.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/21/2022 – 22:40

• America's Fatal Dependency
  America’s Fatal Dependency

  Authored by David Goldman via AmericanMind.org,

  America’s increasing reliance on foreigners to lend us money could crater the dollar…

  

  The United States has borrowed $18 trillion from foreigners since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, a staggering sum that is nearly equal to America’s annual Gross Domestic Product. The notion that the dollar’s dominance in world finance might come to an end was a fringe view only five years ago, when America’s net foreign investment position was a mere negative $8 trillion. Notably, the net international investment position fell by $6 trillion between 2019 and 2022, roughly the amount of federal stimulus spent in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

  In a December 2021 report for the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life, I warned about the likely consequences of mounting U.S. deficits:

  The United States stock market now trades at nearly thirty times earnings, a multiple not seen since 2000, before a long and painful correction. The lofty valuation of the U.S. equity market is driven by the longest period of negative real interest rates in U.S. history. If the dollar’s reserve status is compromised, the United States will no longer be able to borrow at negative real rates, and rising bond yields will put pressure on equity markets, depressing the value of the U.S. stock market and reducing the value of pension and retirement funds.

  Dollar Dominance

  One used to read about the demise of dollar dominance in the newsletters of coin dealers and monetary cranks; now we read such forecasts in research reports by Credit Suisse. The research department of Goldman Sachs, possibly the most conventional of all commentators, warns that the dollar will go the way of the British pound, as “unsustainable current account deficits” lead to “high U.S. inflation” and “substitution into other reserve currencies.” Economists Cristina Tessari and Zach Pandl wrote on March 30:

  The Dollar today faces many of the same challenges as the British Pound in the early 20th century: a small share of global trade volumes relative to the currency’s dominance in international payments, a deteriorating net foreign asset position, and potentially adverse geopolitical developments. At the same time, there are important differences—especially less-severe domestic economic conditions in the U.S. today than in the UK in the aftermath of WWII. If foreign investors were to become more reluctant to hold U.S. liabilities—e.g. because of structural changes in world commodity trade—the result could be Dollar depreciation and/or higher real interest rates in order to prevent or slow Dollar depreciation. Alternatively, U.S. policymakers could take other steps to stabilize net foreign liabilities, including tightening fiscal policy. The bottom line is that whether the dollar retains its dominant reserve currency status depends, first and foremost, on U.S.’s own policies. Policies that allow unsustainable current account deficits to persist, lead to the accumulation of large external debts, and/or result in high U.S. inflation, could contribute to substitution into other reserve currencies.

  Credit Suisse analyst Zoltan Pozsar wrote on March 7:

  We are witnessing the birth of Bretton Woods III – a new world (monetary) order centered around commodity-based currencies in the East that will likely weaken the Eurodollar system and also contribute to inflationary forces in the West. A crisis is unfolding. A crisis of commodities. Commodities are collateral, and collateral is money, and this crisis is about the rising allure of outside money over inside money. Bretton Woods II was built on inside money, and its foundations crumbled a week ago when the G7 seized Russia’s FX reserves…

  Washington’s seizure of Russian foreign exchange reserves seems risky given America’s enormous and accelerating dependency on foreign borrowing. Paradoxically, America’s strength lies in its weakness: A sudden end to the dollar’s leading role in world finance would have devastating consequences for the U.S. economy, as well as the economies of its trading partners.

  In addition to the $18 trillion of net foreign investment in the U.S., foreigners keep about $16 trillion in U.S.D in overseas bank deposits to finance international transactions. That’s $34 trillion of foreign financing against a U.S. GDP of not quite $23 trillion. Foreigners also have enormous exposure to the U.S. stock and real estate markets.

  No one—least of all China with its $3 trillion in reserves—wants a run against the dollar and dollar assets. But the world’s central banks are reducing dollar exposure, cautiously but steadily. The trickle of diversification out of dollars could turn into a flood. What the International Monetary Fund March 22 called “the stealth erosion of dollar dominance” presages a not-so-stealthy exit from the dollar. Unlike Nebuchadnezzars’ handwriting on the wall, the king’s soothsayers can read the message as plain as day.

  New Solutions

  Notably, Russia’s central bank cut the share of U.S. dollar in its reserves from 21 percent a year ago to just 11 percent in January, while increasing its holdings in Chinese remimbi to 17 percent from 13 percent a year ago. Russia’s central bank has also bought more gold than any other institution in recent years.

  With just 8 percent of world export volume vs. China’s 15 percent, the reserve role of the U.S. dollar no longer reflects American economic strength. It derives, perversely, from the rest of the world’s desire to save. The people of the world’s high-income countries are aging rapidly. In 2001, 28 percent of their population was aged 50 years or older; by 2040 the proportion will reach 2045 percent. Aging populations save for retirement. The Germans and Japanese save nearly 30 percent of GDP, and the Chinese save 44 percent; America saves just 18 percent of GDP.

  For the past fifteen years, American consumers have bought roughly a trillion dollars more of goods each year than America exports. The import-led consumption boom, and the availability of cheap electronics from China and other Asian exporters, fed a digital entertainment boom that inflated the stock prices of Apple, Microsoft, Google, Meta and other U.S. software companies. Foreigners then invested their earnings from exports in U.S. tech stocks, as well as government bonds, real estate, and other assets. The tech boom harmed the U.S. economy far more than it helped it, turning American teenagers into risk-averse recluses addicted to smartphones and social media, while generating stock market valuations never before seen outside of classic economic histories of bubbles.

  The increase in American imports from China is shocking. Seasonally adjusted, Chinese exports to the U.S., as reported by China’s Statistics Bureau, have risen from an annual rate of about $409 billion in August 2019, when the U.S. imposed tariffs on a wide range of Chinese goods, to $674 billion in March 2022. The Chinese data are more reliable than U.S. import data, according to a study by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, because the U.S. data fail to distinguish between direct Chinese exports to the U.S. and exports “washed” through third countries to evade tariffs

  Big, Big Bubble

  The result is the biggest bubble in world financial history. When the COVID-19 pandemic threatened to collapse the bubble, the U.S. government added $6 trillion in stimulus to the economy. That shot of adrenaline reinflated the tech bubble, which explains why the U.S. net foreign investment position fell by another $6 trillion between 2019 and 2022, to today’s negative $18 trillion level.

  Overall, net imports of manufactured goods rose from about $60 billion a month prior to the COVID pandemic, to $100 billion a month as of February 2022.

  The bubble is so enormous that the entire world has a stake in it, and none of the world’s major economies can extract themselves from it without significant damage. China finds itself suffering from punitive American tariffs and sanctions on technology imports, while shipping more than $600 billion of manufactured goods to the U.S. each year—nearly a third more than it did before the Trump Administration imposed tariffs in 2019. China’s leaders want to encourage more domestic consumption and less net savings, but can’t persuade the Chinese to consume. China therefore continues to export to the U.S. and bank the proceeds.

  The world can easily get along without the dollar to finance trade. India and Russia can settle trade in their own currencies, with their respective central banks providing rupees and rubles as required through swap lines. Russia’s surplus with India will be invested in the Indian corporate bond market, according to news reports. India reportedly is gearing up to increase exports to Russia by $2 billion a year, a 50 percent increase from current levels.

  China meanwhile is paying for oil imports both from Russia and Saudi Arabia in its own currency. The RMB has appreciated against the U.S. dollar by more than 12 percent since September 2019, and continues to offer higher real yields than the dollar, as well as a range of investment opportunities, despite China’s exchange controls.

  Nothing prevents the 76 percent of the world’s population whose governments refused to join the sanctions regime against Russia from financing trade in local currency. Asian countries now have $380 billion of swap lines in place, more than enough to accommodate the whole of intra-Asian trade.

  All That Glitters

  To the extent that long-term imbalances emerge in trade, central banks can settle up by transferring gold. Several misleading media reports have claimed that the U.S. can prevent Russia from using its gold reserves. That is inaccurate; the U.S. can keep Russia out of public gold markets, but it can’t step Russia from trading gold with the central banks of India or China.

  By no coincidence, the same central banks who are bypassing the dollar financing system have bought the most gold over the past twenty years, according to the World Gold Council’s data. China and Russia were the biggest buyers of gold, followed by Turkey, India and Kazakhstan.

  Gold’s value relative to competing U.S. dollar assets stands at an all-time record high. In normal times investors get the same sort of protection from inflation-indexed U.S. government bonds, or Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) as they do from gold. In case of a sudden fall in the value of the dollar and a corresponding rise in the U.S. price level, TIPS will pay a bonus to investors in proportion to the rise in the U.S. Consumer Price Index. During the past 15 years, the co-movement of gold and TIPS yields has been remarkably steady 85 percent.

  But TIPS and gold diverged on three occasions. The first was the Lehman bankruptcy of 2008, which touched off the global financial crisis. The second was the near bankruptcy of Italy in 2011. And the third, and most extreme, occurred in the aftermath of the Ukraine war.

  At about $1970 an ounce, gold is now $437 “rich” to TIPS, as the above chart shows. The sharp rise in U.S. yields during the past two months would have toppled the gold price under normal circumstances. But the seizure of central bank assets by executive fiat is far from normal. Gold is trading right around its all-time high point despite the rise in interest rates.

  Another way to view the same data is in the form of a scatter chart of gold vs the 5-year TIPS yield. Today’s gold price, as noted, is $437 above the regression line.

  Gold’s premium against TIPS reflects a wide variety of risks. One risk is that the U.S. government’s measure of inflation may not keep up with actual inflation. For example, the rent component of the Consumer Price Index rose by 4.5 percent during the year through March 31, 2022, while the private-sector Zillow Index of rents rose by 17 percent. Another risk is that the dollar may depreciate against other currencies faster than the payout in TIPS. And for some investors, the threat of confiscation, as in the case of Russian Central Bank reserves and the personal assets of wealthy Russians, is a discouragement.

  Gold also represents an option on “Bretton Woods III,” a local-currency regime of trade financing in which some imbalances may be settled in gold. The value of the nearly 32,000 tonnes of gold now held by central banks is a bit over U.S.$2 trillion at the April 13, 2022 price of $1,980 an ounce. That represents about one-sixth of world central bank reserves of $12 trillion. If gold were to substitute for the dollar as a reserve instrument, the proportion of gold in central bank reserves would have to increase, which in turn implies a substantial increase in the gold price. Persistently high inflation in the U.S. and the Euozone, moreover, would lead to an increase in the gold price as well.

  If the United States finds itself unable to run large current account deficits financed by sales of assets, the outcome will be a sharp decrease in consumption. The indicated solution is aggressive preemptive action to restore U.S. manufacturing capacity and reduce America’s crippling dependency on imports. Unfortunately, current economic policies have led the U.S. into greater dependency. Without a policy change, this will not end well for the United States.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/21/2022 – 22:20

• World's Biggest Carnival Kicks Off In Rio After Two Years Of COVID Crackdown
  World’s Biggest Carnival Kicks Off In Rio After Two Years Of COVID Crackdown

  After two years of cancelations due to COVID-19, Rio de Janeiro held its famed carnival on Wednesday night, offering guests a glittering spectacle with parades filled with floats, dancers, musicians, and partygoers.

  “I proudly announce the greatest show on Earth is back – Long live, carnival,” Rio de Janeiro’s Mayor Eduardo Paes told a massive crowd at City Hall. 

  

  The Rio de Janeiro Carnival is considered one of the largest in the world. Before the pandemic, more than seven million people were partying in the streets, according to AP’s numbers. The festival is held every year before Lent and first began in 1723. However, this year, the carnival was postponed from Feb. 24 to this week due to the spread of the Omicron variant. 

  Canceled for two years because of surging COVID infections and deaths in Brazil, the massive carnival was only canceled for two other periods, between 1915–18 and 1940–45. 

  Here are some of the scenes from the Sambadrome, a stadium built for the carnival. 

  

  Here’s what’s happening on Sambadrome’s ground floor. 

  

  

  A lot of dancing…  

  

  

  AP quoted Mayor Paes as saying City Hall did not authorize street parties, but he’ll refrain from deploying the police. 

  “City Hall won’t impede people from being in public spaces, from celebrating, but it’s impossible that it happen at such (large) size,” he said. 

  Rio hotels are at 85% occupancy this week as a lot of post-pandemic partying is underway. The biggest party on Earth is expected to last through the end of the month. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/21/2022 – 22:00

• 'Al Qaeda Is On Our Side': How Obama/Biden Team Empowered Terrorist Networks In Syria
  ‘Al Qaeda Is On Our Side’: How Obama/Biden Team Empowered Terrorist Networks In Syria

  Authored by Aaron Maté via RealClear Investigations,

  Hours after the Feb. 3 U.S. military raid in northern Syria that left the leader of ISIS and multiple family members dead, President Biden delivered a triumphant White House address. 

  The late-night Special Forces operation in Syria’s Idlib province, Biden proclaimed, was a “testament to America’s reach and capability to take out terrorist threats no matter where they hide around the world.”

  

  Unmentioned by the president, and virtually all media accounts of the assassination, was the critical role that top members of his administration played during the Obama years in creating the Al Qaeda-controlled hideout where ISIS head Abu Ibrahim al-Qurayshi, as well as his slain predecessor, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, found their final refuge.

  In waging a multi-billion dollar covert war in support of the insurgency against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, top Obama officials who now serve under Biden made it American policy to enable and arm terrorist groups that attracted jihadi fighters from across the globe. This regime change campaign, undertaken one decade after Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. on 9/11, helped a sworn U.S. enemy establish the Idlib safe haven that it still controls today. 

  A concise articulation came from Jake Sullivan to his then-State Department boss Hillary Clinton in a February 2012 email: “AQ [Al Qaeda] is on our side in Syria.” 

  Sullivan, the current national security adviser, is one of many officials who oversaw the Syria proxy war under Obama to now occupy a senior post under Biden. This group includes Secretary of State Antony Blinken, climate envoy John Kerry, USAID Administrator Samantha Power, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, NSC Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk, and State Department Counselor Derek Chollet. 

  Their efforts to remake the Middle East via regime change, not just in Syria but earlier in Libya, led to the deaths of Americans – including Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. officials in Benghazi in 2012; the slaughter of countless civilians; the creation of millions of refugees; and ultimately, Russia’s entry into the Syrian battlefield. 

  Contacted through their current U.S. government agencies, none of the Obama-Biden principals offered comment on their policy of supporting an Al Qaeda-dominated insurgency in Syria.

  The Obama-Biden team’s record in Syria resonates today as many of its members handle the unfolding crisis in Ukraine. As in Syria, the U.S. is flooding a chaotic war zone with weapons in a dangerous proxy conflict with Russia, with long-term ramifications that are impossible to foresee. “I deeply worry that what’s going to happen next is that we will see Ukraine turn into Syria,” Democratic Senator Chris Coons told CBS News on April 17.

  Based on declassified documents, news reports, and scattered admissions of U.S. officials, this overlooked history of how the Obama-Biden team’s effort to oust the Assad regime – in concert with allies including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey – details the series of discrete decisions that ultimately led the U.S. to empower terror networks bent on its destruction. 

  Seizing Momentum – and Munitions – From Libya to Pursue Regime Change in Syria

  

  The road to Al Qaeda’s control of the Syrian province of Idlib actually started hundreds of miles across the Mediterranean in Libya.

  In March 2011, after heavy lobbying from senior officials including Secretary Hillary Clinton, President Obama authorized a bombing campaign in support of the jihadist insurgency fighting the government of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Backed by NATO firepower, the rebels toppled Gaddafi and gruesomely murdered him in October. 

  Buoyed by their quick success in Libya, the Obama administration set their sights on Damascus, by then a top regime change target in Washington. According to former NATO commander Wesley Clark, the Assad regime – a key ally of U.S. foes Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia – was marked for overthrow alongside Iraq in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. A leaked 2006 U.S. Embassy in Damascus cable assessed that Assad’s “vulnerabilities” included “the potential threat to the regime from the increasing presence of transiting Islamist extremists,” and detailed how the U.S. could “improve the likelihood of such opportunities arising.”

  The outbreak of the Syrian insurgency in March 2011, coupled with the fall of Gaddafi, offered the U.S. a historic opportunity to exploit Syria’s vulnerabilities. While the Arab Spring sparked peaceful Syrian protests against the ruling Ba’ath party’s cronyism and repression, it also triggered a largely Sunni, rural-based revolt that took a sectarian and violent turn. The U.S. and its allies, namely Qatar and Turkey, capitalized by tapping the massive arsenal of the newly ousted Libyan government.

  “During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the [Gaddafi] regime in October 2011,” the Defense Intelligence Agency reported the following year, “…weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya, to the ports of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria.”

  The redacted DIA document, obtained by the group Judicial Watch, does not specify whether the U.S. was directly involved in these shipments. But it contains significant clues. With remarkable specificity, it detailed the size and contents of one such shipment in August 2012: 500 sniper rifles, 100 rocket-propelled grenade launchers with 300 rounds, and 400 howitzer missiles.

  Most tellingly, the document noted that the weapons shipments were halted “in early September 2012.” This was a clear reference to the killing by militants that month of four Americans – Ambassador Christopher Stevens, another State Department official, and two CIA contractors – in Benghazi, the port city where the weapons to Syria were coming from. The Benghazi annex “was at its heart a CIA operation,” U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal. At least two dozen CIA employees worked in Benghazi under diplomatic cover.

  Although top intelligence officials obscured the Benghazi operation in sworn testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, a Senate investigation eventually confirmed a direct CIA role in the movement of weapons from Libya to Syria. A classified version of a 2014 Senate report, not publicly released, documented an agreement between President Obama and Turkey to funnel weapons from Libya to insurgents in Syria. The operation, established in early 2012, was run by then-CIA Director David Petraeus.

  “The [Benghazi] consulate’s only mission was to provide cover for the moving of arms” to Syria, a former U.S. intelligence official told journalist Seymour Hersh in the London Review of Books. “It had no real political role.”

  The Death of a U.S. Ambassador

  

  Under diplomatic cover, Stevens appears to have been a significant figure in the CIA program. More than one year before he became ambassador in June 2012, Stevens was appointed the U.S. liaison to the Libyan opposition. In this role, he worked with the Al Qaeda-tied Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and its leader, Abdelhakim Belhadj, a warlord who fought alongside Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. After Gaddafi’s ouster, Belhadj was named head of the Tripoli Military Council, which controlled security in the country’s capital.

  Belhadj’s portfolio was not limited to post-coup Libya. In November 2011, the Al Qaeda ally traveled to Turkey to meet with leaders of the Free Syrian Army, the CIA-backed opposition military coalition. Belhadj’s trip came as part of the new Libyan government’s effort to provide “money and weapons to the growing insurgency against Bashar al-Assad,” the London Telegraph reported at the time. On September 14, 2012 – just three days after Stevens and his American colleagues were killed – the London Times revealed that a Libyan vessel “carrying the largest consignment of weapons for Syria since the uprising began,” had recently docked in the Turkish port of Iskenderun. Once unloaded, “most of its cargo is making its way to rebels on the front lines.”

  The known details of Stevens’ last hours on September 11 suggest that shipping weapons was at the top of his agenda.  Although based in Tripoli and facing violent threats, he nonetheless made the dangerous trek to Benghazi around the fraught anniversary of 9/11. According to a 2016 report from the House Intelligence Committee, one of Stevens’ last scheduled meetings was with the head of al-Marfa Shipping and Maritime Services Company, a Libyan firm involved in ferrying weapons to Syria. His final meeting of the day was with Consul General Ali Sait Akin of Turkey, where the weapons were shipped. Fox News later reported that “Stevens was in Benghazi to negotiate a weapons transfer.”

  With the Libyan channel shut down by Stevens’ murder, the U.S. and its allies turned to other sources. One was Croatia, where Saudi Arabia financed a major weapons purchase in late 2012 that was arranged by the CIA. The CIA’s use of the Saudi kingdom’s vast coffers continued an arrangement from prior covert proxy wars, including the arming of the mujahideen in Afghanistan and of the Contras in Nicaragua.

  Although the Obama administration claimed that the weapons funneled to Syria were intended for “moderate rebels,” they ultimately ended up in the hands of a jihadi-dominated insurgency. Just one month after the Benghazi attack, the New York Times reported that “hard-line Islamic jihadists,” including groups “with ties or affiliations with Al Qaeda,” have received “the lion’s share of the arms shipped to the Syrian opposition.”

  Covertly Arming An Al Qaeda-Dominated Insurgency

  The Obama administration did not need media accounts to learn that jihadists dominated the Syrian insurgency on the receiving end of a CIA supply chain.

  One month before the Benghazi attack, Pentagon intelligence analysts gave the White House a blunt appraisal. An August 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency report, disseminated widely among U.S. officials, noted that “Salafi[s], the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency.” Al Qaeda, the report stressed, “supported the Syrian opposition from the beginning.” Their aim was to create a “Salafist principality in eastern Syria” – an early warning of the ISIS caliphate that would be established two years later.

  General Michael Flynn, who headed the DIA at the time, later recalled that his staff “got enormous pushback” from the Obama White House. “I felt that they did not want to hear the truth,” Flynn said. In 2015, one year after Flynn was forced out, dozens of Pentagon intelligence analysts signed on to a complaint alleging that top Pentagon intelligence officials were “cooking the books” to paint a rosier picture of the jihadi presence in Syria. (The Pentagon later cleared CENTCOM commanders of wrongdoing.)

  The Free Syrian Army (FSA), the main CIA-backed insurgent force, also informed Obama officials of the jihadi dominance in their ranks. “From the reports we get from the doctors,” FSA officials told the State Department in November 2012, “most of the injured and dead FSA are Jabhat al-Nusra, due to their courage and [the fact they are] always at the front line.”

  Jabhat al-Nusra (Al-Nusra Front) is Al Qaeda’s franchise in Syria. It emerged as a splinter group of Al Qaeda in Iraq after a falling out between AQI leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and his then-deputy, Mohammed al-Jolani. In 2013, Baghdadi relaunched his organization under the name of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Jolani led his Syria-based Al Qaeda faction under the black flag of al-Nusra.

  “[W]hile rarely acknowledged explicitly in public,” Charles Lister, a Gulf state-funded analyst in close contact with Syrian insurgent groups wrote in March 2015, “the vast majority of the Syrian insurgency has coordinated closely with Al-Qaeda since mid-2012 – and to great effect on the battlefield.”  As one Free Syrian Army leader told the New York Times: “No FSA faction in the north can operate without al-Nusra’s approval.”

  According to David McCloskey, a former CIA analyst who covered Syria in the war’s early years, U.S. officials knew that “al-Qaeda affiliated groups and Salafi jihadist groups were the primary engine of the insurgency.” This, McCloskey says, was “a tremendously problematic aspect of the conflict.”

  In his memoir, senior Obama aide Ben Rhodes acknowledged that al-Nusra “was probably the strongest fighting force within the opposition.” It was also clear, he wrote, that U.S.-backed insurgent groups were “fighting side by side with al-Nusra.” For this reason, Rhodes recalled, he argued against the State Department’s December 2012 designation of al-Nusra as a foreign terrorist organization. This move “would alienate the same people we want to help.” (Asked about wanting to help an Al Qaeda-dominated insurgency, Rhodes did not respond).

  In fact, designating al-Nusra as a terror organization allowed the Obama administration to publicly claim that it opposed Al Qaeda’s Syria branch while continuing to covertly arm the insurgency that it dominated. Three months after adding al-Nusra to the terrorism list, the U.S. and its allies “dramatically stepped up weapons supplies to Syrian rebels” to help “rebels to try and seize Damascus,” the Associated Press reported in March 2013.

  ‘There Was No Moderate Middle’

  Harvard 2014: Biden goes off-script, revealing the truth of U.S. support for jihadists in Syria.

  Despite being privately aware of Nusra’s dominance, Obama administration officials continued to publicly insist that the U.S. was only supporting Syria’s “moderate opposition,” as then-Deputy National Security Adviser Antony Blinken described it in September 2014.

  But speaking to a Harvard audience days later, then-Vice President Biden blurted out the concealed reality. In the Syrian insurgency, “there was no moderate middle,” Biden admitted. Instead, U.S. “allies” in Syria “poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad.” Those weapons were supplied, Biden said, to “al-Nusra, and Al-Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.”

  Biden quickly apologized for his comments, which appeared to fit the classic definition of the Kinsley gaffe: a politician inadvertently telling the truth. Biden’s only error was omitting his administration’s critical role in helping its allies arm the jihadis.

  Rather than shut down a CIA program that was aiding the Al Qaeda-dominated insurgency, Obama expanded it. In April 2013, the president signed an order that amended the CIA’s covert war, codenamed Timber Sycamore, to allow direct U.S. arming and training. After tapping Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar to fund its arms pipeline for insurgents inside Syria, Obama’s order allowed the CIA to directly furnish U.S.-made weapons. Just as with the regime change campaign in Libya, a key architect of this operation was Hillary Clinton.

  Obama’s upgraded proxy war in Syria proved to be “one of the costliest covert action programs in the history of the C.I.A.,” the New York Times reported in 2017. Documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed a budget of nearly $1 billion per year, or around $1 of every $15 in CIA spending. The CIA armed and trained nearly 10,000 insurgents, spending “roughly $100,000 per year for every anti-Assad rebel who has gone through the program,” U.S. officials told the Washington Post in 2015. Two years later, one U.S. official estimated that CIA-funded militias “may have killed or wounded 100,000 Syrian soldiers and their allies over the past four years.”

  But these militias were not just killing pro-Syrian government forces. As the New York Times reported in April 2017, US-backed insurgents carried out “sectarian mass murder.”

  One such act of mass murder came in August 2013, when the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army joined an al-Nusra and ISIS offensive on Alawite areas of Latakia. A Human Rights Investigation found that the insurgents engaged in “the systematic killing of entire families,” slaughtering a documented 190 civilians, including 57 women, 18 children, and 14 elderly men. In a video from the field, former Syrian army general Salim Idriss, head of the U.S.-backed Supreme Military Council (SMC), bragged that “we are cooperating to a great extent in this operation.”

  The Latakia massacres came four months after the U.S. ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, hailed Idriss and his fighters as “the moderate and responsible elements of the armed opposition.” The role of Idriss’s forces in the slaughter did not cancel the administration’s endorsement. In October, the Washington Post revealed that the “CIA is expanding a clandestine effort … aimed at shoring up the fighting power of units aligned with the Supreme Military Council, an umbrella organization led by [Idriss] that is the main recipient of U.S. support.”

  Officially, the upgraded CIA program barred direct support to al-Nusra or its allies in Syria. But once U.S. weapons arrived in Syria, the Obama administration recognized that it had no way of controlling their use – an apparent motive for waging the program covertly. “We needed plausible deniability in case the arms got into the hands of al-Nusra,” a former senior administration official told the New York Times in 2013.

  One area where U.S. arms got into al-Nusra’s hands was the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib. Al Qaeda leaders would ultimately control and – though the group disputes it – provide ISIS leaders sanctuary there.  

  ‘Al-Qaeda’s Largest Safe Haven Since 9/11’

  

  In May 2015, an array of insurgent groups, dubbed the Jaish al-Fatah (“Army of Conquest”) coalition, captured Idlib province from the Syrian government. The fight was led by al-Nusra, and showcased what Charles Lister, the D.C.-based analyst with contacts to insurgents in Syria, dubbed “a far improved level of coordination” between rival militants, including the U.S.-backed FSA and multiple “jihadist factions.”

  For Lister, the conquest of Idlib also revealed that the U.S. and its allies “changed their tune regarding coordination with Islamists.” Citing multiple battlefield commanders, Lister reported that “the U.S.-led operations room in southern Turkey,” which coordinated support to U.S.-backed insurgent groups, “was instrumental in facilitating their involvement in the operation” led by al-Nusra. While the insurgents’ U.S.-led command had previously opposed “any direct coordination” with jihadist groups, the Idlib offensive “demonstrated something different,” Lister concluded: To capture the province, U.S. officials “specifically encouraged a closer cooperation with Islamists commanding frontline operations.”

  The U.S.-approved battlefield cooperation in Idlib allowed al-Nusra fighters to directly benefit from U.S. weapons. Despite occasional flare-ups between them, al-Nusra was able to use U.S.-backed insurgent groups “as force multipliers,” the Institute for the Study of War, a prominent D.C. think tank, observed when the battle began. Insurgent military gains, Foreign Policy reported in April 2015, were achieved “thanks in large part to suicide bombers and American anti-tank TOW missiles.”

  The jihadist-led victory in Idlib quickly subjected its residents to sectarian terror. In June 2015, al-Nusra fighters massacred at least 20 members of the Druze faith. Hundreds of villagers spared in the attack were forced to convert to Sunni Islam. Facing the same threats, nearly all of Idlib’s remaining 1,200 Christians fled the province, leaving a Christian population that reportedly totals just three people today.

  In a 2017 post-mortem on the Obama administration’s covert war in Syria, the New York Times described the insurgents’ conquest of Idlib as among the CIA program’s “periods of success.” This was certainly the case for Al Qaeda.

  “Idlib Province,” Brett McGurk, the anti-ISIS envoy under Obama and Trump, and now Biden’s top White House official for the Middle East, said in 2017, “is the largest Al Qaeda safe haven since 9/11.”

  U.S. Allows ISIS Takeover

  

  Al Qaeda is not the only sectarian death squad that managed to establish a safe haven in the chaos of the Syria proxy war. Starting in 2013, al-Nusra’s sister-turned-rival group, ISIS, seized considerable territory of its own. As with Al Qaeda, ISIS’ land-grab in Syria received a significant backdoor assist from Washington.

  Before Al Qaeda captured Idlib, the first ISIS stronghold in Syria, Raqqa, grew out of a similar alliance between U.S.-backed “moderate rebels” and jihadis. After this coalition seized the city from the Syrian government in March 2013, ISIS took full control in November.

  When ISIS declared its caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq in June 2014, the U.S. launched an air campaign against the group’s strongholds. But the Obama administration’s anti-ISIS offensive contained a significant exception. In key areas where ISIS’s advance could threaten the Assad regime, the U.S. watched it happen.

  In April 2015, just as al-Nusra was conquering Idlib, ISIS seized major parts of the Yarmouk refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus, marking what the New York Times called the group’s “greatest inroads yet” into the Syrian capital.

  In the ancient city of Palmyra, the U.S. allowed an outright ISIS takeover. “[A]s Islamic State closed in on Palmyra, the U.S.-led aerial coalition that has been pummeling Islamic State in Syria for the past 18 months took no action to prevent the extremists’ advance toward the historic town – which, until then, had remained in the hands of the sorely overstretched Syrian security forces,” the Los Angeles Times reported in March 2016.

  In a leaked conversation with Syrian opposition activists months later, then-Secretary of State John Kerry explained the U.S. rationale for letting ISIS advance.

  “Daesh [ISIS] was threatening the possibility of going to Damascus and so forth,” Kerry explained. “And we know that this was growing. We were watching. We saw that Daesh was growing in strength, and we thought Assad was threatened. We thought, however, we could probably manage, that Assad would then negotiate” his way out of power.

  In short, the U.S. was leveraging ISIS’s growth to impose regime change on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

  The U.S. strategy of “watching” ISIS’s advance in Syria, Kerry also admitted, directly caused Russia’s 2015 entry into the conflict. The threat of an ISIS takeover, Kerry said, is “why Russia went in. Because they didn’t want a Daesh government.”

  Russia’s military intervention in Syria prevented the ISIS government in Damascus that Kerry and fellow Obama administration principals had been willing to risk. Pulverizing Russian airstrikes also dealt a fatal blow to the Al Qaeda-dominated insurgency that the Obama team had spent billions of dollars to support.

  From U.S. Enemy to ‘Asset’ in Syria

  With U.S.-backed fighters vanquished and one of their main champions, Hillary Clinton, defeated in the November 2016 election, the CIA operation in Syria met what the New York Times called a “sudden death.” After criticizing the proxy war in Syria on the campaign trail, President Trump shut down the Timber Sycamore program for good in July 2017.

  “It turns out it’s – a lot of al-Qaeda we’re giving these weapons to,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal that month.

  With the exit of the Obama-Biden team, the U.S. was no longer fighting on Al Qaeda’s side. But that did not mean that the U.S. was prepared to confront the enemy that it had helped install in Idlib.

  While Trump put an end to the CIA proxy war, his efforts to further extricate the U.S. from Syria by withdrawing troops were thwarted by senior officials who shared the preceding administration’s regime change goals.

  “When President Trump said ‘I want everybody out of Syria,’ the top brass at Pentagon and State had aneurysms,” Christopher Miller, the Acting Secretary of Defense during Trump’s last months in office, recalls.

  Jim Jeffrey, Trump’s envoy for Syria, admitted to deceiving the president in order to keep in place “a lot more than” the 200 U.S. troops that Trump had reluctantly agreed to. “We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there,” Jeffrey told Defense One. Those “shell games” have put U.S. soldiers in harm’s way, including four servicemembers recently wounded in a rocket attack on their base in northeastern Syria.

  While thwarting a full U.S. troop withdrawal, Jeffrey and other senior officials have also preserved the U.S. government’s tacit alliance with Idlib’s Al-Qaeda rulers. Officially, al-Nusra remains on the U.S. terrorism list. Despite several name changes, the State Department has dismissed its rebranding efforts as a “vehicle to advance its position in the Syrian uprising and to further its own goals as an al-Qa’ida affiliate.”

  But in practice, as Jeffrey explained last year, the U.S. has treated Al-Nusra as “an asset” to U.S. strategy in Syria. “They are the least bad option of the various options on Idlib, and Idlib is one of the most important places in Syria, which is one of the most important places right now in the Middle East,” he said. Jeffrey also revealed that he had communicated with al-Nusra leader Mohammed al-Jolani via “indirect channels.”

  Jeffrey’s comments underscore a profound shift in the U.S. government’s Middle East strategy as a result of the Syria proxy war: The Syrian branch of Al Qaeda, the terror group that attacked the U.S. on 9/11, and which then became the target of a global war on terror aimed at destroying it, is no longer seen by powerful officials in Washington as an enemy, but an “asset.”

  Since retaking office under Biden, the Obama veterans who targeted Syria with one of the most expensive covert wars in history have deprioritized the war-torn nation. While pledging to maintain crippling sanctions and keep U.S. troops at multiple bases, as well as announcing sporadic airstrikes, the White House has otherwise said little publicly about its Syria policy. The U.S. military raid that ended ISIS leader al-Qurayshi’s life in February prompted the only Syria-focused speech of Biden’s presidency.

  While Biden trumpeted the lethal operation, the fact that it occurred in Idlib underscores a contradiction that his administration has yet to address. By taking out an ISIS leader in Al Qaeda’s Syria stronghold, the president and his top officials are now confronting threats from a terror safe haven that they helped create.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/21/2022 – 21:40

• 62% Of Gen Z Says They Used Alcohol Before Their First Sexual Experience, New Survey Finds
  62% Of Gen Z Says They Used Alcohol Before Their First Sexual Experience, New Survey Finds

  Further proving that humans are constantly being anesthetized from actual feelings by the media, the internet and the company of other similarly situated individuals, a new study has shown that alcohol seems to be key to Gen Z’s sexual life. 

  A new study performed by EduBirdie found that sexual experience often ran concurrent with alcohol use for Gen Z. 

  “EduBirdie surveyed 1,511 participants from Generation Z. The analyzed sample was 52% female, 47% male with 44% ethnic/racial minority (15% non-Hispanic Black, 16% Hispanic, 13% other or multiple races) and an average age of 18.9,” the study reads. 

  

  The site’s findings were as follows:

  • 89% of Gen Z students felt stressed before their first sexual experience.

  • Reported average age of the first sexual interaction is 16.1

  • 68% used alcohol drinks at least 1 hour before their first sexual experience.

  • 42% said their first sexual experience was worse than expected.

  • 52% stated they never had a first sexual contact with a new partner without alcohol.

  • 31% believes that strong alcohol allows to build a more intimate and trusting approach to the first sexual interaction.

  • 8% reported drinking alcohol every time before every they have sex.

  • 14% find alcohol to be an essential part of the active sexual life.

  Avery Morgan, Chief Communications Officer at EduBirdie, commented: “In our earlier research, we found that nearly half of Gen Z students were victims of ghosting. After a bad experience, teens and young adults may be less open to building a trusting sexual relationship, which is why they turn to alcohol as a means of coping with their own fears. Such high rates of alcohol use in sexual life show the unpreparedness and insecurity of students in their sexual experience, despite all the available educational materials of the 21st century.”

  “We learned that more than half of our respondents had never talked to their partners about how satisfied they were with their overall sex life. Issues like these may cause generation Z to resort more to alcohol in their relationship with their partner,” Morgan continued.

  “At the same time, there are some promising results. So, almost every third student said that they can openly discuss sex with their parents. It’s impressive. It is an open discussion of sex, both in adolescence with parents and later with future partners, that helps to build a healthy sex life.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/21/2022 – 21:20

• Los Angeles County Fears RV Encampments May "Spill Over" Into Unincorporated Areas
  Los Angeles County Fears RV Encampments May “Spill Over” Into Unincorporated Areas

  Authored by Jamie Joseph via The Epoch Times,

  The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is concerned that homeless people from vehicle encampments in the City of Los Angeles will spill over into unincorporated county areas after the city resumed its parking enforcement policies earlier this month.

  

  During a board meeting on April 19, the supervisors passed a motion that will require the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works (DPW) in collaboration with the CEO Homeless Initiative to report back within two weeks “with recommendations to mitigate any potential spillover effects of the City of Los Angeles’s RV enforcement for unincorporated areas,” according to the motion.

  On April 6, the Los Angeles City Council, which operates separately from the county supervisors, directed the department of transportation to resume enforcement of parked vehicles that were suspended during the pandemic.

  The enforcement directive identified five categories of vehicles that would be subject to immediate removal: if they present a traffic safety hazard, environmental or public health threat, interfere with public works projects or special events, or if they are inoperable or unregistered.

  Enforcement for all other vehicles not following parking restrictions will begin May 15.

  “This is a very responsible and I think much needed motion about hopefully some coordination with some additional housing resources,” Supervisor Sheila Kuehl said during the meeting.

  “But it’s likely to [cause] an abrupt increase for us in RV encampments in our surrounding areas.”

  Kuehl said the board has been clear regarding past motions to address RV encampments that they don’t want to “see an increased criminalization of folks who simply have nowhere else to go.”

  The board attempted to address the RV encampments in 2018 and offer RV dwellers housing and resources, and those efforts were revisited in January to implement strategic outreach.

  Supervisor Kathryn Barger said she’s walked by some of the parked RVs that are not running and seen them dump waste into the street’s gutters.

  “I saw it firsthand, so if you look at it from an environmental impact standpoint, it is real,” Barger said.

  “I highly encourage the department’s report back to develop community outreach strategy for the counties unincorporated areas that are most likely to be impacted by the effects of this policy change.”

  Meanwhile, resident Lucy Han and founder of Friends of the Jungle—a local environmental advocacy nonprofit—has been sounding the alarm on the RV encampment in the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve, the city’s largest wetland in Playa del Rey.

  The unincorporated wetlands fall under the city’s authority. She told The Epoch Times that “the county is wiping their hands of the wetlands and marsh because it is the city’s jurisdiction.”

  “The city and county should work together to find spots and prioritize high category tows; they should work together but they’re not,” she said.

  The county’s move, she says, does not affect the city’s decision to enforce parking violations since the two authorities don’t work together.

  “Which is unfortunate because the wetlands are Indian burial grounds, and they are … dumping their propane tanks in this environmentally sensitive wetland,” Han said.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/21/2022 – 21:00

• David Einhorn: We Have War, Pestilence, Famine, And Plague
  David Einhorn: We Have War, Pestilence, Famine, And Plague

  There is a lot in the latest investor letter from Greenlights Capital (as usual available to professional subscribers) – which ended Q1 up 4.4%, a solid performance in a quarter when most of his peers, the S&P included, were deep in the red – including the usual updates on the hedge fund’s latest position changes, but what we found most notable was David Einhorn’s latest thoughts on the Federal Reserve.

  We excerpt these below:

  * * *

  To start with a quote for a change, Vladimir Lenin said: “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.”

  A lot happened this quarter, culminating in an unexpected bout of violence, which frankly, we thought society had evolved beyond and we would not witness again in our lifetimes. Millions are focused on analyzing what Will Smith did.

  We joke, of course. But if you look at everything happening in the world, it would just be pure tears without a little humor. Russia invaded Ukraine and we have war, pestilence, famine and plague. There is a decent risk that Pax Americana has come to an end, along with the 13-year-old bull market.

  The common refrain about COVID was that it sped up changes and trends that were already happening. We believe the same is true of the war. Inflation, supply chain problems, and shortages of energy, food, raw materials and labor were already issues that the war has now accelerated. Stocks had already begun to decline as well.

  There is some evidence that inflation is destroying demand, which is slowing the economy. For many, paying higher prices for food, gas and rent means fewer resources for discretionary purchases. The question isn’t whether the Federal Reserve will cause demand destruction and a recession; inflation is likely to do that all by itself. And while government policy is not responsible for every supply chain disruption, extremely aggressive monetary and fiscal policies have facilitated embedded inflation.

  Yes, the Fed now realizes it has an inflation problem. And it sounds serious about fighting it. But talk is one thing and actions are another. If the Fed was SERIOUS about stopping the inflation problem, it would be as aggressive and creative in tightening as it was when it was easing.

  In a 2018 speech, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell highlighted that “doing too little comes with higher costs than doing too much” when “inflation expectations threaten to become unanchored. If expectations were to begin to drift, the reality or expectation of a weak initial response could exacerbate the problem. I am confident that the FOMC would resolutely ‘do whatever it takes’ should inflation expectations drift materially up or down or should crisis again threaten.”

  But is the Fed doing whatever it takes or is it just talking tough, while in reality implementing a weak initial response that could exacerbate the problem?

  We think it is clearly the latter. In the Fed’s Monetary Policy Report to Congress from February 2021, it highlighted something called the “balanced-approach (shortfalls) rule” that is designed to calculate what an appropriate Fed Funds rate would be given various inputs including unemployment and inflation. Currently, this would indicate an appropriate rate of about 7%.

  There is endless debate about raising interest rates by a quarter percent or a half percent. With the Federal Funds Target Rate still at 0.25%-0.5%, this feels like trying to figure out whether it’s best to clear a foot of snow from your driveway with a soup ladle vs. an ice cream scooper. This certainly isn’t doing whatever it takes.

  The market is beginning to price in its doubts about the Fed’s resolve and likely failure to return inflation to its 2% target. Even as the Fed resets the market’s expectation to a faster tightening cycle, inflation expectations are increasing and long-term bond prices are falling.

  The good news, to the extent there is any, is that year-over-year inflation will likely fall for a bit from the current 8.5% rate. Some goods that saw prices spike rather dramatically, like used cars, are already declining. At the end of the quarter, the inflation swap market projected 5.3% inflation over the next year followed by 3.3% the year after. However, this is up from year-end expectations of 3.6% and 3.0%, respectively.

  We believe the policy response to high energy prices is likely to lead to even higher energy prices. The U.S. government has chosen to subsidize demand by granting gas tax holidays and releasing strategic oil reserves, while continuing to thwart supply by demonizing producers, criticizing windfall profits, stifling investment in energy infrastructure and threatening extra taxes. Notably, energy prices feed into food prices.

  Agriculture is quite energy intensive and natural gas – which is at elevated prices and in short supply – is a key input into fertilizer. So, we remain bullish on future upside surprises to inflation.

  * * *

  Much more in the full note available to pro subscribers.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/21/2022 – 20:40

• Chinese Military Tests New Hypersonic Missile Ahead Of Talks Between US–China Defense Leaders
  Chinese Military Tests New Hypersonic Missile Ahead Of Talks Between US–China Defense Leaders

  By Andrew Thornebrooke of The Epoch Times

  China’s navy has revealed a previously unknown test of a new hypersonic missile, footage of which emerged on Chinese social media just days ahead of the 73rd anniversary of the Chinese navy, and just before talks between U.S. and Chinese defense leaders.

  

  The missile depicted in the video is likely China’s YJ-21, also called the Eagle Strike 21, which is believed to have a maximum range of some 620 miles.

  While the characteristics of the missile are unknown, as no official launches have been documented, analysis by NavalNews suggested that the missile is a cold-launched ballistic anti-ship missile with a hypersonic glide vehicle.

  The test footage appears at a time of increased anxiety in the United States over the lack of a robust domestic hypersonics program. U.S. defense officials have said that the military will need to quickly develop new capabilities in order to counter China’s hypersonic weapons, which they warn could be used as a nuclear first-strike weapon.

  The missile was launched from a Type 055 cruiser, which is China’s most formidable surface warfare vessel and likely to be a key asset in China’s burgeoning aircraft carrier groups.

  The vessel, launched in 2017, also is the world’s largest surface combatant, boasting a displacement of around 13,000 tons, compared to the U.S. Navy’s 9,800-ton Ticonderoga-class cruisers.

  “If this missile turns out to be the hypersonic YJ-21, the Type 055 cruisers would arguably become the most heavily armed warships worldwide,” NavalNews said.

  The release of the video preceded a reportedly tense phone call between U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Wei Fenghe, on April 20, the first such call in Austin’s 15 months in the role.

  Following that call, the Pentagon released a short readout saying that the officials had discussed “regional security issues.”

  The Chinese regime, meanwhile, released a statement saying that Sino–American relations would be damaged if the United States undermined the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) claim that Taiwan is part of China.

  The CCP maintains that Taiwan, which has been self-governed since 1949, is a breakaway province of China, although the regime has never controlled Taiwan. CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping has vowed to unite Taiwan and the mainland, and hasn’t ruled out the use of force.

  The continued de facto independence of Taiwan, a democratic nation and the world’s largest supplier of semiconductors, is thus a sticking point in U.S. and CCP foreign policy.

  As such, the Type 055 ship and missiles such as the YJ-21 are fast becoming a key part of Chinese military strategy, insofar as the CCP hopes that the new capabilities will intimidate the United States away from defending Taiwan in the event of an invasion.

  To that end, Hu Xijin, the former editor of hawkish CCP-controlled media outlet Global Times, used the Austin–Wei call on April 20 as a pretext to demand that China “strengthen its military buildup” and use nuclear weapons to frighten the United States away from supporting Taiwan.

  “It is useless to reason with America,” Hu wrote in a lengthy post on the Chinese social media platform WeChat.

  “I have said this many times, but I will repeat it again: Don’t worry about how Western public opinion reacts and what other effects there will be. We must build more nuclear warheads and put them on advanced missiles like the DF-41 and JL-3,” he wrote.

  Similarly, Hu recently issued a series of threats against Taiwan and the United States on Twitter, vowing that the Chinese military would “smash the Taiwan army” with “thousands of missiles” in the event of an invasion.

  China is currently reported to have about 350 warheads, but a recent Pentagon report warned that the CCP was drastically increasing production and modernization of its nuclear arsenal, and might have 1,000 nuclear weapons by 2030.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/21/2022 – 20:20

• Shanghai Authorities Promise Better Oversight Of Emergency Supplies Amid Reports Of Rotten Food
  Shanghai Authorities Promise Better Oversight Of Emergency Supplies Amid Reports Of Rotten Food

  Now that local authorities have started to lift the lockdown on Shanghai, releasing 4 million people from being locked away inside their apartments yesterday, the true scope of the suffering is just starting to become apparent. 

  Following myriad complaints about shortages of food and other medicine, Shanghai’s market watchdog (which has mostly been focused on mitigating the impact of the shutdown on Shanghai’s factories and its all-important port) has reportedly pledged to investigate.

  

  Shanghai’s market watchdog has pledged to tighten oversight of pandemic supplies after residents complained that rotten food was being delivered by authorities, leaving them with little, or nothing, to eat. 

  The announcement comes as residents struggle to secure daily necessities as they remain stuck in their homes while the city battles its worst COVID outbreak in two years.

  Tao Ailian, an official at the municipal market regulator, told Caixin on Wednesday that the watchdog had directed authorities to ensure the quality of produce that is being distributed.

  In other Shanghai news, the Associated Press reported on Thursday that the low COVID death rates in Shanghai is raising ‘doubts’ (of course, there have been plenty of reports about the authorities covering up deaths in nursing homes and other places with large numbers of elderly residents). 

  In its report, the AP cited several pieces of evidence which appeared to suggest that death rates – especially among the elderly – were much higher than anticipated.

  Lu Muying died on April 1 in a government quarantine facility in Shanghai, with her family on the phone as doctors tried to resuscitate her. She had tested positive for COVID-19 in late March and was moved there in line with government policy that all coronavirus cases be centrally isolated.

  But the 99-year-old, who was just two weeks shy of her 100th birthday, was not counted as a COVID-19 death in Shanghai’s official tally. In fact, the city of more than 25 million has only reported 25 coronavirus deaths despite an outbreak that has spanned nearly two months and infected hundreds of thousands of people in the world’s third-largest city.

  Lu’s death underscores how the true extent of the virus toll in Shanghai has been obscured by Chinese authorities. Doctors told Lu’s relatives she died because COVID-19 exacerbated her underlying heart disease and high blood pressure, yet she still was not counted.

  The new standard being employed by Shanghai authorities assures that few, if any, COVID deaths would actually be counted as such.

  During this outbreak, Shanghai health authorities have only considered virus cases where lung scans show a patient with evidence of pneumonia as “symptomatic,” three people, including a Chinese public health official, told the AP. All other patients are considered “asymptomatic” even if they test positive and have other typical COVID-19 symptoms like sneezing, coughing or headaches.

  Of course, concealing deaths in the city’s nursing homes might strike a chord with Americans, who remember all too well former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s deliberate under-reporting of the number of deaths at nursing homes in the Empire State during the first months of the pandemic.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/21/2022 – 20:00

• Do Conspiracies Really Exist?
  Do Conspiracies Really Exist?

  Authored by Michael Rectenwald via The Mises Institute,

  It is also important for the State to inculcate in its subjects an aversion to any “conspiracy theory of history;” for a search for “conspiracies” means a search for motives and an attribution of responsibility for historical misdeeds. If, however, any tyranny imposed by the State, or venality, or aggressive war, was caused not by the State rulers but by mysterious and arcane “social forces,” or by the imperfect state of the world or, if in some way, everyone was responsible (“We Are All Murderers,” proclaims one slogan), then there is no point to the people becoming indignant or rising up against such misdeeds. Furthermore, an attack      on “conspiracy theories” means that the subjects will become more gullible in believing the “general welfare” reasons that are always put forth by the State for engaging in any of its despotic actions. A “conspiracy theory” can unsettle the system by causing the public to doubt the State’s ideological propaganda.

  —Murray N. Rothbard, Anatomy of the State

  This essay represents a “conspiracy theory” (or better, a conspiracy hypothesis) about the uses of the term “conspiracy theory” itself. I acknowledge that the term is one of the most potent epithets that can be hurled at a writer or speaker, that it is mostly used to delegitimize and dismiss its target, and that it serves not only to discredit the claim that a writer or speaker makes but also the very investigation into purported conspiracies. The phrase represents a condensed, shorthand means of labeling a claim negatively and humiliating the claimant, disqualifying the claimant and the claim a priori. Likewise, in writing of the “conspiracy” behind the use of the phrase, I am hereby opening myself up to the charge of “conspiracy theory.”

  I submit that the terms “conspiracy theory” and “conspiracy theorist” are used most frequently by those on the left, who usually associate the phrases with “right-wing” arguments and interlocutors. Therefore, in writing this essay, I am openly inviting the condemnation of leftists. But this is intentional.

  

  In the US, the term “conspiracy theory” is often credited to a disinformation or deflection campaign of the CIA in connection with the assassination of US president John F. Kennedy—to discredit all but the official narrative concerning that event. But the Oxford English Dictionary finds the first usage in a 1908 article in the American Historical Review and defines the compound noun as “the theory that an event or phenomenon occurs as a result of a conspiracy between interested parties; specifically, a belief that some covert but influential agency (typically political in motivation and oppressive in intent) is responsible for an unexplained event.”

  In The Open Society and Its Enemies (1952), Karl Popper was apparently the first to elaborate on the conspiracy theory idea, and the philosopher discussed it again in Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1962). In volume 2 of The Open Society, Popper introduced the phrase “the conspiracy theory of society” in his discussion of Karl Marx’s historicist method, which he believed was grossly mistaken for its assumption that the main task of sociology is “the prophecy of the future course of history” (306). He defined the conspiracy theory of society as follows:

  It is the view that an explanation of a social phenomenon consists in the discovery of the men or groups who are interested in the occurrence of this phenomenon (sometimes it is a hidden interest which has first to be revealed), and who have planned and conspired to bring it about. (306)

  Popper called the conspiracy theory of society “a typical result of the secularization of a religious superstition,” an explanation of historical causality that replaces the causal agency of the gods or God with that of “sinister pressure groups whose wickedness is responsible for all the evils we suffer from—such as the Learned Elders of Zion, or the monopolists, or the capitalists, or the imperialists” (306).

  Popper’s problem with the conspiracy theory of society was not that conspiracies do not exist but rather that they are seldom successful. The conspiracy theory, he suggested, grants too much credence to the power of the human actors involved. Instead of understanding conspiracy theory, Popper argued, the main task of the social sciences should be to explain why intentional human actions (including conspiracies) often result in unintended outcomes:

  Why is this so? Why do achievements differ so widely from aspirations? Because this is usually the case in social life, conspiracy or no conspiracy. Social life is not only a trial of strength between opposing groups: it is action within a resilient or brittle framework of institutions and traditions, and it creates—apart from any conscious counter-action—many unforeseen reactions in this framework, some of them perhaps even unforeseeable. (307)

  Actions, Popper noted, have unintended as well as intended consequences. This is because they take place in a social context that cannot be fully understood by social actors. The conspiracy theory of society is wrong because it claims that the results of actions are necessarily those intended by those interested in such results.

  I will return to Popper’s analysis below. But first I want to note a historical irony. That is, the first extended refutation of the conspiracy theory of society, Popper’s, came in the context of treating Karl Marx’s method and was associated with theories about “monopolists,” “capitalists,” and “imperialists”—leaving aside for the moment “the Learned Elders of Zion.” The charge of “conspiracy theory” is often levied by socialists and other leftists. Yet Popper suggested that historicism, or Marx’s method, is “a derivative of the conspiracy theory.” Popper’s claim that a genetic relationship exists between historicism and conspiracy theory begs the question: Is Marxism a conspiracy theory, and if so, how?

  A partial answer involves Marx’s idea of “class consciousness”—the notion that all members of an economic class share the same mentality, worldview, and intentionality—and particularly his claim that all members of the capitalist class entertain and act upon the same idea—namely, a secret, hidden intention to extract value from workers at the point of production, value which Marx measured (mistakenly) in terms of the socially necessary labor time embedded in a commodity. As Marx wrote in Capital, volume 1, chapter 7, section 2:

  The fact that half a day’s labour is necessary to keep the labourer alive during 24 hours, does not in any way prevent him from working a whole day. Therefore, the value of labour-power [what the capitalist pays the laborer to sustain his life], and the value which that labour-power creates in the labour-process [the value of the commodities he produces], are two entirely different magnitudes; and this difference of the two values was what the capitalist had in view, when he was purchasing the labour-power. (emphasis mine)

  In other words, all capitalists cheat all members of the working class of approximately half a day’s pay every single day. Marx called this methodical, routine theft “the production of surplus value,” which the capitalist extracts at the point of production and which is the sole source of the capitalist’s profit. That all capitalists hold this hidden intention and separately act upon it—a fact that supposedly awaited Marx to “reveal” to the world—involves a conspiracy that is breathtaking in its scope and effect, but no more breathtaking than Marx’s accusation that such massive, ongoing, intentional fraud is the basis of capitalism.

  The very idea of an economic class acting in concert to “exploit” workers is no less a conspiracy theory than the belief that a Jewish cabal runs the world. In fact, it is more suspect than the latter because it ascribes a collective, secret intention to the entire “capitalist class,” one that is not even voiced between the conspirators. This is simply something that every capitalist knows to do and does, regardless of any communication with other capitalists. It discounts the fact that capitalists do not, in fact, act collectively but rather in competition with each other, and that part of this competition is the competition for the resource of labor. This latter competition drives up the price of labor when it is in shorter supply, rather than depressing it.

  It cannot be overestimated how central this supposed phenomenon is to the Marxist project; “exploitation” is the basis of the Marxist requirement that the working class “unite,” rise up, and overthrow its capitalist overlords. It is the basis of the need for communist revolution. This need is based on a conspiracy theory (and the false labor theory of value).

  Yet curiously, socialists are probably the group most apt to level the accusation of “conspiracy theory.” As a contemporary example, take this 2017 essay in CounterPunch, written by an avowed Marxist, entitled “A ‘New Dawn’ for Fascism: the Rise of the Anti-establishment Capitalists.” Here’s the first paragraph:

  The world rests on a precipice. On the one hand is institutionalized exploitation and imperialist violence. The well-being of humanity continues to be severely hampered by the priorities of a small unstable capitalist class, who would prefer that the rest of us—those who must engage in a daily struggle to purchase the essentials for living (like food and a roof over our heads)—remain unorganized as a cohesive class. And on the other hand, there are those who believe that the fundamental class division between the rulers and the workers is both intolerable and unsustainable, and so seek to participate in and organize mass movements for social change that will bring an end to the domination of one class of people over another. (emphasis mine)

  We see Marx’s claim of surplus value extraction embedded in the first sentence, followed by the belief that “a small unstable capitalist class” intentionally aims at keeping “the rest of us … unorganized as a cohesive class.” Likewise, the conspiracy of the capitalists is largely, contra Popper, successful. The article goes on to complain about “problematic and conspiratorial, but ostensibly anti-establishment, ideas [that] have been able to sometimes temporarily supplant class-based analyses about how and why social change happens.” In the rant, these are “right-wing” and “fascist” ideas that are characterized no less than thirty-six times as “conspiracy theories” and “conspiratorial” thinking engaged in by “conspiracy theorists.”

  I could point to hundreds if not thousands of examples of Marxists leveling the charge of “conspiracy theory” and “conspiracy theorist” against those who hold opposing views. This is explicable in terms of the need on the part of Marxists to divert attention away from the fact that an unsubstantiated and illogical conspiracy theory lies at the heart of Marxism itself.

  I return now to Popper’s discussion in The Open Society and Its Enemies by noting that in referring to the conspiracy theory of society, Popper meant a thoroughgoing theory meant to explain all outcomes:

  The conspiracy theory of society cannot be true because it amounts to the assertion that all results, even those which at first sight do not seem to be intended by anybody, are the intended results of the actions of people who are interested in these results. (307, emphasis mine)

  It is clear from this formulation that Popper’s charge does not apply to all conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories that do not purport to explain everything are not included in Popper’s indictment. After all, Popper admitted, conspiracies “are typical social phenomena” (307). Popper claimed that most conspiracies fail, which implies that some conspiracies succeed. Further, conspiracy theories might explain not only conspiracies that are successful but also those that ultimately fail. Conspiracy theories, or better, conspiracy hypotheses, are merely attempts to explain outcomes in terms of attempted conspiracies. Those theories that do not aim at explaining everything in terms of a singular, overarching conspiracy are based on an acknowledgement that conspiracies do transpire and that some outcomes are the results of successful conspiracies. An attempted bank robbery is technically a conspiracy, and explaining the plot to rob a bank is technically a “conspiracy theory.” Likewise, conspiracy hypotheses cannot be dismissed in advance. They must remain one of the modes for understanding social reality.

  Why, then, are “conspiracy theories” and “conspiracy theorists” so categorically dismissed and denounced? As Murray N. Rothbard suggested, the campaign against conspiracy theories is a part of a conspiracy to protect conspiracists themselves. All those who conduct conspiracies, including bank robbers, have every reason to divert and deflect attention away from their activities; only some conspirators have the power to do so. The latter have invented the taboo against conspiracy theories and propagated it. Their vassals in academia, the media, and society at large obediently enforce the taboo and routinely denigrate offenders. This is one way of keeping conspiracies hidden and conspirators off the hook. Instead of exposing them, the enforcers of the conspiracy theory taboo exonerate their felonious lords and laud them to the ends of the earth. Thus, those who aim to destroy all conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists are servants of the powerful and the enemies of truth.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/21/2022 – 19:40

• Goldman Sachs Tattled To Regulators About Morgan Stanley's Block Trading Business
  Goldman Sachs Tattled To Regulators About Morgan Stanley’s Block Trading Business

  Many of Morgan Stanley’s Wall Street rivals had coveted the bank’s lucrative block-trading business for years, despite the fact that the business thrived even as many of the bank’s clients suspected it of front-running its trades. But after the disastrous collapse of Archegos, many of Morgan Stanley’s rivals had finally had enough. Roughly a year after Credit Suisse had been saddled with billions of dollars in losses during the Archegos collapse, reports emerged that the Swiss bank had ‘cooperated’ with the SEC and DoJ in their investigation of Morgan Stanley’s block-trading business. 

  Of course, there’s another, less kind, way to describe that type of behavior, as we pointed out here. 

  

  We also noted at the time that CS wasn’t alone, as many of Morgan’s clients (and many of its rivals as well) were all too eager to share their suspicions – and any proof they might have had – with the SEC. 

  Now, the FT reports that the list of cooperators included Morgan Stanley’s biggest rival in the block-trading business (and many of its other businesses): Goldman Sachs. 

  Of course, Goldman isn’t exactly a paragon of moral rectitude on Wall Street (see the 1MDB scandal for more on that). But we digress. 

  According to the report, Goldman complained to Hong Kong’s markets regulator, the Securities and Futures Commission, after witnessing suspicious movements in Hong Kong-listed stocks prior to Morgan bringing block trades to market. These suspicious trades involved the Chinese pharmaceutical firm WuXi Biologics. 

  The FT couldn’t say whether Hong Kong authorities had launched an investigation in response to Goldman’s claims. Nevertheless, the fact that they had been made shows that Morgan could face pressure from foreign regulators as the SEC and DoJ continue with their block trading probe. 

  The Goldman tip-off is the latest sign that the practices being investigated in New York could also affect Morgan Stanley in Asia. In February, the Chinese securities regulator ordered Morgan Stanley to provide information relating to the US block trades probe. Hong Kong’s financial regulator has also started asking banks about their block-trading practices since the US investigations were made public, according to two people close to the matter.

  Bloomberg data show Morgan Stanley executed 9 block trades involving shares of WuXi biologics between 2020 and 2021. Morgan Stanley has done little more than acknowledge the investigation in the US, with CEO James Gorman saying during a recent earnings call that the bank’s equities business and its performance speaks for itself. 

  Still, the investigation has reflected poorly on the bank’s block-trading franchise, which earned more money than any of its rivals between 2018 and 2021, when the US investigation began. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/21/2022 – 19:20

• Massachusetts Parents Sue School District For Hiding Child’s 'Alternate Gender Identity' From Them
  Massachusetts Parents Sue School District For Hiding Child’s ‘Alternate Gender Identity’ From Them

  Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A public school district in Massachusetts is facing a lawsuit over its efforts to encourage children to “experiment with alternate gender identities” at school and hide that information from their parents.

  

  In a complaint filed last week in a U.S. district court, two families alleged that administrators and several employees at Ludlow Public Schools have “exceeded the bounds of legitimate pedagogical concerns” and violated the parents’ right to make medical and mental health decisions for their children, as well as their right to “preserve family privacy and integrity.”

  The suing parents specifically target Ludlow’s de facto protocol that parents are not to be notified when their child “raise(s) issues of gender non-conformity or transgender status,” including when the child asks to be called by preferred opposite sex names and pronouns or to use restrooms designated for the opposite sex, unless the child consents.

  Parents Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri alleged that this protocol has kept them out of the loop on the mental health issues of B.F., their then-11-year-daughter at Baird Middle School in Ludlow.

  According to the complaint (pdf), B.F. in December 2020 disclosed to a teacher, Bonnie Manchester, that she had told a friend that she might be attracted to the same sex, that she was depressed, and that she was unsure about how to ask her parents for help. Manchester notified Silvestri, who then contacted Baird officials to let them know that she was retaining professional help for her daughter, and requested that they should “not have any private conversations with B.F. in regards to this matter.”

  Baird counselor Marie-Clair Foley, however, allegedly ignored the mother’s message and engaged in “regular communications” with B.F., directing the girl to affirm her new gender identity. She also allegedly allowed B.F. to change her name and referred to her in email exchanges as R.F., her preferred male name, all without her parents’ knowledge.

  On Feb. 28, 2021, B.F. wrote an email to Foley, then-Ludlow superintendent Todd Gazda, and all Baird teachers, declaring herself “a genderqueer” who would use the R name and “any pronouns other than it/its.” In a reply-all email to the girl and the other recipients, Foley appeared to ask that school staff follow the protocol and keep secrets from the girl’s parents about the changes.

  “R is still in the process of telling his parents and is requesting that school staff refer to him as B and use she/her pronouns with her parents and in written emails/letters home,” the counselor wrote, according to court filings.

  In addition, Foley allegedly referred B.F. to Baird librarian Jordan Funke, who regularly met with students one-on-one to discuss gender identity issues and provide resources promoting exploration of alternate gender identities. Funke had also instructed students to make a video in which they state their “gender identity and preferred pronouns.” B.F. was among the students given that assignment in 2019 when she ascended to sixth grade.

  Silvestri was not aware of the changes until March 1, 2021, when she received a copy of B.F.’s email from Manchester. On March 18, Baird principal Stacy Monette told Manchester that she was placed on leave because of “inappropriate contact with the parents of a student.” Monette officially fired Manchester about a month later, saying that she shared “sensitive confidential information about a student’s expressed gender identity against the wishes of the student.”

  “I did what any teacher would and should do: I told the parents,” Manchester told The Epoch Times earlier this year.

  Meanwhile, Silvestri’s and Foote’s son S.F. is also a student at Baird. According to the complaint, teachers and counselors “similarly disregarded the parents’ intent” by engaging in “regular conversations” with the boy, who had identified as transgender and requested to be called by a female name.

  “Baird Middle School staff did not notify Foote and Silvestri of these conversations, but instead followed the Protocol to conceal the information from them as they have for B.F.,” the court filings read.

  Parents Jonathan Feliciano and Sandra Salmeron are also listed as plaintiff. Although their children don’t attend Baird, they claimed that Ludlow violated their constitution-guaranteed religious rights because the protocol is being enforced at all schools across the district.

  Specifically, the couple argued that the school district’s conduct infringes their “sincerely held religious beliefs which include respect for parental authority, truthfulness, and adherence to a Biblical understanding of male and female and standards of behavior.”

  “We want to support our students the best we can,” Ludlow School Committee Chair James Harrington told state news station MassLive. “But we should bring parents to the table and hope they respond in a loving and supportive way as well.”

  The suing parents are represented by conservative Christian legal group Massachusetts Family Institute. The Epoch Times has reached out to the organization for comments and will update this story accordingly.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/21/2022 – 19:00

• Texas Sues Online Car Dealer Vroom For "Deceptive Trade Practices" 
  Texas Sues Online Car Dealer Vroom For “Deceptive Trade Practices” 

  Vroom is supposed to be a painless way to purchase a used car online, but it’s far from that. Thousands of Vroom customers have filed complaints in Texas about long delays in receiving the title, registration, and plates after purchase, prompting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to file a “deceptive trade practices lawsuit” against the company on Wednesday. 

  Vroom is an online used vehicle dealer operating under Texas Direct Auto. The lawsuit alleges that Vroom failed to disclose significant delays in transferring titles and vehicle registrations to customers within state law (a 30-day window). 

  Paxton also said Vroom misrepresented and failed to reveal vehicle history, condition, and financing terms to customers, which are violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Consumer Protection Act.

  More than 5,000 consumer complaints have been filed with the Better Business Bureau and the Office of the Attorney General against Vroom and Texas Direct Auto over the last three years. 

  The company also has a dealer license in Florida and has been hit with complaints. It conducts business around the country, so the title, registration, and plates problems are widespread issues for customers across the country. 

  Vroom’s latest SEC filing sheds light on what could be the issue. The company failed to manage growth adequately and didn’t have the backend systems to keep up with titles and vehicle registrations. 

  From time to time, we have been subject to audits, requests for information, investigations and other inquiries from our regulators related to customer complaints. As we have encountered operational challenges in keeping up with our rapid growth, during the past six months there has been an increase in customer complaints, leading to an increase in such regulatory inquiries. We endeavor to promptly respond to any such inquiries and cooperate with our regulators.

  On June 8, 2020, Vroom went public at $22 per share. Prices jumped to $73 by late summer of 2020 and have since collapsed 97% to a record low of $1.70 on Wednesday. Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, BofA Securities, Allen & Company LLC, and Wells Fargo Securities were the lead book-running managers and representatives of the underwriters on the offering. 

  

  Here are some of the countless horror stories Vroom customers have shared with the Better Business Bureau. 

  

  

  This Vroom customer has waited 10 months and still has no title, registration, or plates.

  Save yourself the pain and avoid purchasing a car from Vroom. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/21/2022 – 18:40

• South Florida Is Experiencing An Industrial Boom Unlike Any Other
  South Florida Is Experiencing An Industrial Boom Unlike Any Other

  By Matthew Rotolante of Wealth Management

  As a fourth-generation South Florida native in a family that has actively participated in the market for nearly a century, I have first-hand knowledge of the roller coaster nature of the region’s real estate cycles.  South Florida’s current industrial real estate boom is not the first of its kind, but it might be the most impervious to broader cycle downshifts than any comparable periods in the region’s history.

  

  In the 1920’s, “Binder Boy” salesmen traded properties as many as four or five times in a single day with the promise of sunshine and riches fueling a prodigious bubble that was traumatically popped in 1926 by the last major hurricane to hit downtown Miami. A hurricane might not even be enough slow down today’s South Florida real estate juggernaut, however.

  Despite over 8 million sq. ft. of new construction deliveries throughout 2021 and more delivering in 2022, South Florida’s rapid absorption has continued to leave vacancies at an all-time low of just 3 percent, compared with a national average of 4.3 percent, according to Lee & Associates National Quarterly Market Report. Rental rates have also seen a steady increase year-over-year, with the average for the South Florida tri-county area at $11.54 per sq. ft. per year. Several Miami submarkets are even seeing rates as high as $18 per sq. ft., especially for smaller flex product.

  Few U.S. markets benefited more from the pandemic. With a business- and tax-friendly regulatory environment and a temperate climate that didn’t favor a virus to begin with, Florida (and more specifically South Florida) has enjoyed a covetous position in the national marketplace and came out of the pandemic shining. 

  From multifamily to shopping centers, office buildings and land, property values are surging. However, industrial is the sector giving “irrational exuberance” a new definition. Or is it? Are the recent double-digit rates of inflation enjoyed by industrial land and warehouse based on pure speculation, or are the participants in this asset class paying record-breaking prices based on solid fundamentals? Let’s consider this further.

  Concepts such as supply and demand and price elasticity (or inelasticity) state that if there is ample demand with little supply, and if demand continues to grow while supply dwindles, then scarcity will drive prices skyward. Is South Florida industrial real estate easily substituted? Is it readily increased? Will the demand for it diminish over time?

  The answer to the above questions is a resounding no.

  Industrial real estate is not easily substituted nor readily increased. It is essential to the storing, distributing and manufacturing of goods. While over the last 20 years retail has been substituted by e-commerce’s pervasive form of direct to home delivery, the warehouses from where those goods are delivered have benefitted. We have also seen office be substituted in part by the work-from-home remote trend made essential by the pandemic. In short, while other asset classes, such as retail and office, have been easily substituted, industrial cannot be easily substituted.

  Industrial can be increased, but not easily. Industrial parks are noisy and heavily trafficked by large, fume-emitting vehicles. They can be tall, but not nearly as tall as a condo tower or office building. They also tend to be near major highways, airports and seaports. Sometimes, they store hazardous materials that are harmful to the environment or unsightly equipment.

  These challenges mean that any homeowners who get to vote on zoning changes for adjacent land will not willingly vote in favor of the industrial zoning classification. Second, because industrial is typically a single-story building (although vertical warehousing is starting to be introduced to the market) it is difficult to create significantly more storage square footage by going up.   

  Most U.S. counties and cities were master-planned at least 30 to 40 years ago or more, and often this planning did not properly contemplate the future demand for industrial real estate, leaving existing industrial inventory lacking. Furthermore, a large amount of industrial real estate, due to the fact that its rental rates per square foot are still commensurately much lower than office, retail and residential real estate, has been converted to these other uses that don’t face the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) hurdle.

  In markets like Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix or another ‘hub and spoke’ area with a core downtown and suburbs and highway veins and loops on the outside, it is easy to acquire a block of land further away from the core and rezone it before the NIMBY’s arrive. Many failed malls are also being converted to industrial use as a way of repurposing these grand, abandoned goliaths of eras past. However, South Florida does not have any abandoned malls, and its geography is not hub and spoke, but more like a banana sitting on a coral ridge that is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south and the Everglades to the west.

  That leaves the north to expand into. Two decades ago, only the land adjacent to major population centers, airports and seaports was in high demand. Today, we are seeing developers and companies venturing as far north as St. Lucie County. This area was considered no man’s land in years past, without an international airport, seaport or many major employers. However, we now see major Fortune 500 companies deciding to locate in parks here due to the lower rents and land prices and lower cost of living for their employees.

  In summary, South Florida is a land-constrained market that is even more scarce in industrial land, with high demand leading pricing to double over the last two years. Developers, and the region’s commercial real estate industry at large, will have to come together and identify creative solutions to accommodate the unprecedented demand.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/21/2022 – 18:20

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• China Doubles Russian Coking Coal Imports As Rest Of World Shuns Moscow 
  China Doubles Russian Coking Coal Imports As Rest Of World Shuns Moscow 

  It has been nearly two months since Russia invaded Ukraine, with no end in sight as Moscow gears up for ‘phase two’ of the conflict. In response to Russia’s invasion, Western countries have hit Moscow with a plethora of sanctions, though accomplishing very little to dismantle the country’s key energy sector. 

  Outbound shipments of Russian coking coal to China doubled in March to 1.4 million tons, compared with 550,000 tons for the same month last year, according to Bloomberg, citing Chinese customs data. 

  China has resisted Western sanctions on Russian energy products as it panic hoards heavily discounted coal used for steel-making. Russian coal trades well below market prices than what other top suppliers, like Indonesia and Mongolia, are offering. 

  

  We noted earlier this month that Chinese commodity firms purchased Russian coal and crude in yuan due to Western sanctions isolating Russian banks from the SWIFT payment system. This may suggest, and is just one example, of a new emerging economic order dubbed the “Bretton Woods III.”

  Reports China uses local currency to purchase Russian energy products only suggest that the path to a new world order is accelerating as commodity-based currencies become utilized for trading rather than dollars. 

  Moscow is also considering a rupee-ruble payment system for Indian oil traders, while Saudi Arabia could start pricing some of its brent in yuan for Chinese traders.

  And while the White House made sanction demands for G-20 nations not to buy Russian energy products, Biden’s sanctions are hitting a “BRIC+ wall” as Brazil, Russia, India, and China, widely known as BRICs, have not bowed to US pressure. Nor have Mexico, Saudi Arabia, or South Africa.

  Russia is offering deep discounts on its energy products as some countries find these cheap commodities irresistible and are trading outside of the dollar system (in local currency), ignoring the West’s sanctions on Moscow. 
   

   

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/21/2022 – 02:45

• To Fight Russia, Europe's Regimes Risk Impoverishment & Recession
  To Fight Russia, Europe’s Regimes Risk Impoverishment & Recession

  Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

  European politicians are eager to be seen as “doing something” to oppose the Russian regime following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

  Most European regimes have wisely concluded—Polish and Baltic recklessness notwithstanding—that provoking a military conflict with nuclear-armed Russia is not a good idea. So, “doing something” consists primarily of trying to punish Moscow by cutting Europeans off from much-needed Russian oil and gas.

  The problem is this tactic doesn’t do much to deter Russia in anything other than the short term because Russian oil can turn to numerous markets outside of Europe. Most of the world, after all, has declined to participate in the US and European embargoes and trade sanctions, opting for more measured approaches instead.

  By limiting energy sources for Europeans, however, Europe’s regimes are likely to succeed in pushing up the cost of living for Europeans while doing little to cut off Russia’s economy from global markets.

  

  Can Europe Totally Cut Itself Off?

  For understandable reasons, most European regimes have been reluctant to completely cut themselves off from Russian oil and gas. This is because Europe has become increasingly dependent on Russian natural gas as Europe’s regimes have increasingly committed themselves to unreliable “renewable” energy sources. This is especially the case in Germany—Europe’s largest economy—which faces a “sharp recession” if it cuts off Russian gas. There has been much talk of heavy sanctions against Russia, but this has stopped short of a full-on ban on Russian oil and gas imports.

  Nonetheless, the European Parliament last week began drafting a plan for a full embargo of Russian oil and gas.

  Yet, even as pressure mounts for Europe’s regimes to be seen as doing more to stymie Moscow, European politicians want to proceed slowly. This, however, only gives Moscow more time to adjust logistics to transfer oil exports to other parts of the world.

  If Europe were to fully ban oil immediately, this would send oil prices soaring for Europe and others. According to analysts at JP Morgan:

  A full and immediate embargo would displace 4 million barrels per day of Russian oil, sending Brent crude to $185 a barrel as such a ban would leave “neither room nor time to re-route [supplies] to China, India, or other potential substitute buyers,” the investment bank said in a note. That would mark a 63% surge from Brent’s close of $113.16 on Monday.

  This could trigger recessions across Europe’s economies, and policymakers know it. Hungary, for instance, has repeatedly opposed an embargo on Russian oil, out of concerns for ordinary Hungarians who already have a standard of living well below wealthier countries like Germany and France. Meanwhile, French policymakers have conveniently timed an embargo to occur after French elections this year.

  Even beyond the short term, oil woes for Europe would not necessarily end because OPEC has already stated that it cannot pump enough oil to replace Russian oil.

  In any case, Europe does not appear to be succeeding at convincing OPEC to do much to punish or isolate Russia in oil markets. The Saudi regime has only announced increased cooperation with Russia in recent months, and the Ukraine War does not appear to be an important topic for OPEC.

  This isn’t to say that none of this will hurt Moscow at all. Time will be necessary to modify Russian oil markets to serve other consumers outside Europe, and this will mean declining revenues, at least in the short term. Moreover, US financial sanctions make it more difficult for Russian merchants to do business globally.

  In spite of the West’s claim that it’s fighting some kind of war for democracy against authoritarianism, though, it looks like the biggest beneficiaries of growing European embargoes on Russian oil at some of the world’s most authoritarian regimes. Beijing will happily accept oil and gas supplies no longer sold in the West, and possibly at a discount as potential markets for Russian oil shrink in number. Moreover, if oil prices are driven up by dislocations caused by European embargoes, this is likely to benefit at least some of the oil-fueled dictators among OPEC’s members.

  Meanwhile, ordinary Europeans are likely to find themselves paying much more for energy—and consequently for other goods and services as well. Recession risk is also growing in Europe.

  The United States to the Rescue?

  As is so often the case, Europe has looked to the United States to bail it out yet again. Biden Administration has stated that it can send US liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe to largely replace Russia in meeting Europe’s energy needs. But, it’s not that simple. As David Blackmon has noted at Forbes:

  While committing the US to help Germany and other European nations wean themselves off of Russian natural gas seems to be a noble goal, there is just one problem: The President apparently didn’t talk the US LNG industry about it before he made the agreement. Reading the quotes from executives at Tellurian in the New York Times article linked here, it is apparent that they were caught off-guard by the President’s announcement. “I have no idea how they are going to do this…”

  In the Age of Covid, federal politicians have no doubt become accustomed to conjuring whatever they want through the “miracle” of printing money. But in the real world, it’s still necessary to produce oil and gas (and other commodities) through actual physical production. Also complicating matters is the fact oil and gas industries in the United States are still largely in private hands. This means Biden can promise whatever he wants, but the private sector will still have to do the work, and market incentives may not necessarily favor selling everything to Europe.

  Not even money printing can make oil and gas magically appear on the other side of the Atlantic.

  Ultimately, the frenzy of sanctions and embargoes pursued by “the West” may do little more than raise the cost of living for its own residents. Even worse are the side effects of these sanctions for poorer countries in Africa and Asia which are need Russian grain and Russian oil in many cases to keep those countries residents living above subsistence levels.

  These policies will make life more difficult to ordinary innocent people worldwide while failing to actually end the war in Ukraine. But that’s a price wealthy men like Biden and Macron are apparently willing to pay.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/21/2022 – 02:00

• Greenwald: Former Intel Officials, Citing Russia, Say Big-Tech Monopoly Power Vital To National Security
  Greenwald: Former Intel Officials, Citing Russia, Say Big-Tech Monopoly Power Vital To National Security

  Authored by Glenn Greenwald via Substack,

  When the U.S. security state announces that Big Tech’s centralized censorship power must be preserved, we should ask what this reveals about whom this regime serves.

  

  (l) An illustration of the CIA logo (Getty Images); (r) An illustration shows the logos of Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft displayed on a mobile phone and a laptop screen. (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP)

  A group of former intelligence and national security officials on Monday issued a jointly signed letter warning that pending legislative attempts to restrict or break up the power of Big Tech monopolies — Facebook, Google, and Amazon — would jeopardize national security because, they argue, their centralized censorship power is crucial to advancing U.S. foreign policy. The majority of this letter is devoted to repeatedly invoking the grave threat allegedly posed to the U.S. by Russia as illustrated by the invasion of Ukraine, and it repeatedly points to the dangers of Putin and the Kremlin to justify the need to preserve Big Tech’s power in its maximalist form. Any attempts to restrict Big Tech’s monopolistic power would therefore undermine the U.S. fight against Moscow.

  While one of their central claims is that Big Tech monopoly power is necessary to combat (i.e., censor) “foreign disinformation,” several of these officials are themselves leading disinformation agents: many were the same former intelligence officials who signed the now-infamous-and-debunked pre-election letter fraudulently claiming that the authentic Hunter Biden emails had the “hallmarks” of Russia disinformation (former Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Obama CIA Director Michael Morrell, former Obama CIA/Pentagon chief Leon Panetta). Others who signed this new letter have strong financial ties to the Big Tech corporations whose power they are defending in the name of national security (Morrell, Panetta, former Bush National Security Adviser Fran Townsend).

  The ostensible purpose of the letter is to warn of the national security dangers from two different bipartisan bills — one pending in the Senate, the other in the House — that would prohibit Big Tech monopolies from using their vertical power to “discriminate” against competitors (the way Google, for instance, uses its search engine business to bury the videos of competitors to its YouTube property, such as Rumble, or the way Google and Apple use their stores and Amazon uses its domination over hosting services to destroy competitors).

  One bill in the Senate is co-sponsored by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), and has attracted ample support in both parties, as has a similar House bill co-sponsored by House Antitrust Committee Chair David Cicilline (D-RI) and ranking member Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO). The amount of bipartisan support each bill has garnered — and the widespread animosity toward Big Tech reflected by this Congressional support — has shocked Google, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook lobbyists, who are accustomed to getting their way in Washington with lavish donations to the key politicians in each party.

  This letter by former national security officials is, in one sense, an act of desperation. The bills have received the support of the key committees with jurisdiction over antitrust and Big Tech. In the Senate, five conservative Republican Committee members who have been outspoken critics of Big Tech power — Grassley, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Josh Hawley (R-MI), Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) — joined with Democrats to ensure the passage of one bill out of the Judiciary Committee by a 16-6 vote, with a companion bill passing that Committee with the support of 20 of twenty-two Senators. As The Intercept‘s Sara Sirota and Ryan Grim report: “Both bills have Big Tech reeling” since “a floor vote would likely be a blowout for Big Tech.”

  The extreme animus harbored by large parts of the left and right toward Big Tech make it very difficult for any lawmaker to go on record in opposition to these proposed bills if they are forced to publicly take a position in a floor vote. Many Senators with financial ties to Big Tech — including the two California Senate Democrats who represent Silicon Valley and are recipients of their largesse (Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla) — have expressed reservations about these reform efforts and have refused to co-sponsor the bill, yet still voted YES when forced to vote in Committee. This shows that public pressure to rein in Big Tech is becoming too large to enable Silicon Valley to force lawmakers to ignore their constituents’ wishes with lobbyist donations. These politicians will work behind the scenes to kill efforts to rein in Big Tech, but will not vote against such efforts if forced to take a public position.

  As a result, Big Tech’s last hope is to keep the bill from reaching the floor where Senators would be forced to go on record, a goal they hope will be advanced by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York due to his close ties to Silicon Valley. “Both [Schumer’s] children are on the payroll of companies the proposals would seek to rein in,” reported The New York Post: “Jessica Schumer is a registered lobbyist at Amazon, according to New York state records. Alison Schumer works at Facebook as a product marketing manager.” Despite that, Schumer claimed to The Intercept that he supports both bills and will vote in favor of them, even though he has engaged in maneuvers to impede the bills from getting a full floor vote.

  This is where these former intelligence and national security officials come in. While these former CIA, Homeland Security and Pentagon operatives have little sway in the Senate Judiciary and House Antitrust Committees, they command great loyalty from Congressional national security committees. Those committees, created to exert oversight of the U.S. intelligence and military agencies, are notoriously captive to the U.S. National Security State. The ostensible purpose of this new letter is to insist that Big Tech monopoly power is vital to U.S. national security — because it is necessary for them to censor “disinformation” from the internet, especially now with the grave Russian threat reflected by the war in Ukraine — and they thus demand that the anti-Big-Tech bills first be reviewed not only by the Judiciary and Antitrust Committees, but also the national security committees where they wield power and influence, which have traditionally played no role in regulating the technology sector:

  We call on the congressional committees with national security jurisdiction – including the Armed Services Committees, Intelligence Committees, and Homeland Security Committees in both the House and Senate – to conduct a review of any legislation that could hinder America’s key technology companies in the fight against cyber and national security risks emanating from Russia’s and China’s growing digital authoritarianism.

  Why would these former national security and intelligence officials be so devoted to preserving the unfettered power of Big Tech to control and censor the internet? One obvious explanation is the standard one that always runs Washington: several of them have a financial interest in serving Big Tech’s agenda.

  Unsurprisingly, Apple CEO Tim Cook has himself pushed the claim that undermining Big Tech’s power in any way would threaten U.S national security. And there is now an army of well-compensated-by-Silicon-Valley former national security officials echoing his message. A well-researched Politico article from September — headlined: “12 former security officials who warned against antitrust crackdown have tech ties” — detailed how many of these former officials who invoke national security claims to protect Big Tech are on the take from the key tech monopolies:

  The warning last week from a dozen former national security leaders was stark: An antitrust crackdown on Silicon Valley could threaten the nation’s economy and “cede U.S. tech leadership to China.”

  But the group was united by more than their histories of holding senior defense and intelligence roles in the Trump, Obama and George W. Bush administrations: All 12 have ties to major tech companies, either from working with them directly or serving with organizations that get money from them, according to a POLITICO analysis….

  Seven of the 12, including Panetta, hold roles at Beacon Global Strategies, a public relations firm that according to a person familiar with the matter counts Google as a client…Five of the former officials, including former director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Robert Cardillo and former National Security Agency deputy director Richard Ledgett, serve as advisory board members at Beacon. Panetta and Michael Morell, a former acting CIA director under President Barack Obama, are senior counselors for the firm….

  Frances Townsend, who was a counterterrorism and homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush, is on the national security advisory board for American Edge, a Facebook-funded group that opposes changes to strengthen antitrust laws….Townsend is also on the board of directors of the Atlantic Council, which counts Facebook and Google as funders; the board of trustees for Center for Strategic and International Studies, which counts Apple and Google as funders; and the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, which receives money from Microsoft and counts Facebook and Google in its highest membership category.

  As Rep. Buck, the Colorado House Republican who favors reform, put it: “It is not surprising that individuals who receive money from Big Tech are defending Big Tech. At the end of the day, Big Tech is harming U.S. competition and innovation through anticompetitive practices.” In other words, these former intelligence officials are exploiting their national security credentials to protect an industry in which they have a deep financial interest.

  The view that preservation of Big Tech is vital for national security is by no means a unanimous view even in that world. Retired Gen. Wesley Clark and others have vehemently argued that this claim is a “myth.” As veteran internet security expert Bruce Schneier observed: “These bills will encourage competition, prevent monopolist extortion, and guarantee users a new right to digital self-determination.” But the National Security State has enough True Believers combined with paid shills to make it appear as if Americans should be desperate to preserve and protect Big Tech’s power because this power is crucial to keeping America safe and, particularly, fighting Russia.

  There are indeed valid and rational reasons for these officials to view Big Tech monopoly power as a vital weapon in advancing their national security agenda. As I documented last week when reporting on the unprecedented censorship regime imposed in the West regarding the war in Ukraine, Big Tech censorship of political speech is not random. Domestically, it is virtually always devoted to silencing any meaningful dissent from liberal orthodoxy or official pieties on key political controversies. But in terms of foreign policy, the censorship patterns of tech monopolies virtually always align with U.S. foreign policy, and for understandable reasons: Big Tech and the U.S. security state are in a virtually complete union, with all sorts of overlapping, mutual financial interests:

  Note that this censorship regime is completely one-sided and, as usual, entirely aligned with U.S. foreign policy. Western news outlets and social media platforms have been flooded with pro-Ukrainian propaganda and outright lies from the start of the war. A New York Times article from early March put it very delicately in its headline: “Fact and Mythmaking Blend in Ukraine’s Information War.” Axios was similarly understated in recognizing this fact: “Ukraine misinformation is spreading — and not just from Russia.” Members of the U.S. Congress have gleefully spread fabrications that went viral to millions of people, with no action from censorship-happy Silicon Valley corporations. That is not a surprise: all participants in war use disinformation and propaganda to manipulate public opinion in their favor, and that certainly includes all direct and proxy-war belligerents in the war in Ukraine.

  Yet there is little to no censorship — either by Western states or by Silicon Valley monopolies — of pro-Ukrainian disinformation, propaganda and lies. The censorship goes only in one direction: to silence any voices deemed “pro-Russian,” regardless of whether they spread disinformation….Their crime, like the crime of so many other banished accounts, was not disinformation but skepticism about the US/NATO propaganda campaign. Put another way, it is not “disinformation” but rather viewpoint-error that is targeted for silencing. One can spread as many lies and as much disinformation as one wants provided that it is designed to advance the NATO agenda in Ukraine (just as one is free to spread disinformation provided that its purpose is to strengthen the Democratic Party, which wields its majoritarian power in Washington to demand greater censorship and commands the support of most of Silicon Valley). But what one cannot do is question the NATO/Ukrainian propaganda framework without running a very substantial risk of banishment.

  It is unsurprising that Silicon Valley monopolies exercise their censorship power in full alignment with the foreign policy interests of the U.S. Government. Many of the key tech monopolies — such as Google and Amazon — routinely seek and obtain highly lucrative contracts with the U.S. security state, including both the CIA and NSA. Their top executives enjoy very close relationships with top Democratic Party officials. And Congressional Democrats have repeatedly hauled tech executives before their various Committees to explicitly threaten them with legal and regulatory reprisals if they do not censor more in accordance with the policy goals and political interests of that party.

  Needless to say, the U.S. security state wants to maintain a stranglehold on political discourse in the U.S. and the world more broadly. They want to be able to impose propagandistic narratives without challenge and advocate for militarism without dissent. To accomplish that, they need a small handful of corporations which are subservient to them to hold in their hands as much concentrated power over the internet as possible.

  If a free and fair competitive market were to arise whereby social media platforms more devoted to free speech could fairly compete with Google and Facebook— as the various pending bills in Congress are partially designed to foster — then that new diversity of influence, that diffusion of power, would genuinely threaten the ability of the CIA and the Pentagon and the White House to police political discourse and suppress dissent from their policies and assertions. By contrast, by maintaining all power in the hands of the small coterie of tech monopolies which control the internet and which have long proven their loyalty to the U.S. security state, the ability of the U.S. national security state to maintain a closed propaganda system around questions of war and militarism is guaranteed.

  In this new letter, these national security operatives barely bother to hide their intention to exploit the strong animosity toward Russia that they have cultivated, and the accompanying intense emotions from the ubiquitous, unprecedented media coverage of the war in Ukraine, to prop up their goals. Over and over, they cite the grave Russian threat — a theme they have been disseminating and manufacturing since the Russiagate fraud of 2016 — to manipulate Americans to support the preservation of Big Tech’s concentrated power, and to imply that anyone seeking to limit Big Tech power or make the market more competitive is a threat to U.S. national security:

  This is a pivotal moment in modern history. There is a battle brewing between authoritarianism and democracy, and the former is using all the tools at its disposal, including a broad disinformation campaign and the threat of cyber-attacks, to bring about a change in the global order. We must confront these global challenges. . . . U.S. technology platforms have given the world the chance to see the real story of the Russian military’s horrific human rights abuses in Ukraine. . . . At the same time, President Putin and his regime have sought to twist facts in order to show Russia as a liberator instead of an aggressor. . . .

  The Russian government is seeking to alter the information landscape by blocking Russian citizens from receiving content that would show the true facts on the ground. .. . . . Indeed, it is telling that among the Kremlin’s first actions of the war was blocking U.S. platforms in Russia. Putin knows that U.S. digital platforms can provide Russian citizens valuable views and facts about the war that he tries to distort through lies and disinformation. U.S. technology platforms have already taken concrete steps to shine a light on Russia’s actions to brutalize Ukraine. . . . Providing timely and accurate on-the-ground information – and disrupting the scourge of disinformation from Russian state media – is essential for allowing the world (including the Russian people) to see the human toll of Russia’s aggression. . . . [T]he United States is facing an extraordinary threat from Russian cyber-attacks . . .

  In the face of these growing threats, U.S. policymakers must not inadvertently hamper the ability of U.S. technology platforms to counter increasing disinformation and cybersecurity risks, particularly as the West continues to rely on the scale and reach of these firms to push back on the Kremlin . . . . Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marks the start of a new chapter in global history, one in which the ideals of democracy will be put to the test. The United States will need to rely on the power of its technology sector to ensure that the safety of its citizens and the narrative of events continues to be shaped by facts, not by foreign adversaries.

  It is hardly controversial or novel to observe that the U.S. security state always wants and needs a hated foreign enemy precisely because it allows them to claim whatever powers and whatever budgets they want in the name of stopping that foreign villain. And every war and every new enemy ushers in new authoritarian powers and the trampling of civil liberties: both the First War on Terror, justified by 9/11, and the New Domestic War on Terror, justified by 1/6, should have taught us that lesson permanently. Usually, though, U.S. security state propagandists are a bit more subtle about how they manipulate anger and fear of foreign villains to manipulate public opinion for their own authoritarian ends.

  Perhaps because of their current desperation about the support these bills have attracted, they are now just nakedly and shamelessly trying to channel the anger and hatred that they have successfully stoked toward Russia to demand that Big Tech not be weakened, regulated or restricted in any way. The cynical exploitation could hardly be more overt: if you hate Putin the way any loyal and patriotic American should, then you must devote yourself to full preservation of the power of Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon.

  It should go without saying that these life-long security state operatives do not care in the slightest about the dangers of “disinformation.” Indeed — as evidenced by the fact that most of them generated one Russiagate fraud after the next during…

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/20/2022 – 23:50

• China & Russia Pledge Deepened Strategic Ties 'No Matter What'
  China & Russia Pledge Deepened Strategic Ties ‘No Matter What’

  China has remained undeterred by Washington threats over its deepening ties and closer cooperation with Russia even as the Kremlin commits to military takeover of the Donbas region of Ukraine. On Wednesday Beijing affirmed it will “continue strengthening strategic ties with Russia,” according to a top diplomat.

  This even as Washington has ramped up the rhetoric seeking to highlight horrific war crimes alleged in places like Bucha, or now Mariupol. While recently the Biden administration admitted it “has not seen” China providing Russia with military equipment, as some prior admin officials alleged was likely happening, the accusation and suspicion has lingered over Beijing, still under Western pressure to come out definitively against the Russian invasion (though it remains that Beijing officials have resisted even using the word “invasion” to describe the conflict). 

  “No matter how the international landscape may change, China will continue to strengthen strategic coordination with Russia for win-win cooperation, jointly safeguard the common interests of the two countries and promote the building of a new type of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind,” Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said in a late Tuesday statement.

  Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng on Mon met with #Russian Ambassador Andrey Denisov, saying no matter how the intl situation changes, China will enhance strategic cooperation with Russia to promote a new model of intl relations and a community with a shared future for mankind. pic.twitter.com/5lwWhDRiA3

  — Global Times (@globaltimesnews) April 19, 2022

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  The statement, issued via the Chinese Foreign Ministry, came after Le met with Russian envoy Andrey Ivanovich Denisov. The meeting was apparently full of optimism even as unprecedented Western anti-Russia sanctions seek to wreck its economy and bring Iran levels of isolation. According to Bloomberg:

  He said that a nearly 30% jump in trade between the nations during the first three months of 2022 demonstrate “the great resilience and internal dynamism of bilateral cooperation.”

  In return, the Russian envoy was quoted as saying that relations with China continue to be a top “diplomatic priority”. 

  “Russia always regards developing relations with China as its diplomatic priority and is ready to further deepen bilateral comprehensive strategic coordination and all-round practical cooperation in the direction set by the two heads of state, so as to continuously benefit the two peoples and safeguard international equity and justice,” Denisov said. 

  Bloomberg, meanwhile, notes the following: “While bilateral trade did grow in the first quarter, much of that was before the invasion of Ukraine, with Chinese exports to Russia slumping in March to the lowest level since mid-2020, according to data released last week.”

  “The increasing sanctions on Russia by many nations, the drop in the Russian currency and U.S. efforts to stop Russia from using the dollar probably pushed Chinese firms to hold back on exports,” the report adds.

  China more than doubled imports of coking coal from Russia in March, procuring the fuel at a discount as other nations ban deliveries
  🇨🇳🤝🇷🇺

  🪨 China imported 1.4 million tons in March, compared to 550,000 tons last year and 1.1 million tons in Februaryhttps://t.co/MBL7kW0TqX pic.twitter.com/pRRF82EARr

  — Stephen Stapczynski (@SStapczynski) April 20, 2022

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  The meeting and statements are without doubt only to reinforce NATO countries’ voiced suspicions of what’s being dubbed China’s “no-limits” ties with Moscow. China in return has said Russia’s security concerns of NATO expansion are legitimate and that Beijing sees the negotiating table as paramount to ending the fighting in Ukraine, which has killed thousands on both sides.

  Seeking to prove this point while flexing its diplomatic muscle, this week China announced it is sending a high-level diplomatic delegation to eight central and eastern European countries to discuss the Ukraine crisis. 

  “Huo Yuzhen, China’s special representative to China-Central and Eastern Europe Cooperation, will head a delegation to the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia and Poland, according to Wang Lutong, the director general of European affairs at China’s foreign ministry,” The South China Morning Post reported Tuesday.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/20/2022 – 23:30

• Taibbi: America's Intellectual No-Fly Zone
  Taibbi: America’s Intellectual No-Fly Zone

  Authored by Matt Taibbi via TK News Substack, (emphasis ours)

  From left to right, from Chomsky to Carlson, war-skeptical voices are being denounced at levels not seen since Iraq…

  

  In a 1979 essay called, “My Speech to the Graduates,” Woody Allen wrote:

  More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

  Allen was satirizing the notion that there are always good choices in life. Often, there aren’t.

  Sometimes the fork in the road ahead asks you to choose between different routes to hell. The late, great Gilbert Gottfried once made the same point in a standup routine about stranded missionaries just slightly less subtle than Allen’s bit.

  Indomitable public intellectual Noam Chomsky gave an interview to Current Affairs last week called, “How to Prevent World War III.” Regarding Ukraine, Chomsky revisited “My Speech to the Graduates”:

  There are two options with regard to Ukraine. As we know, one option is a negotiated settlement, which will offer Putin an escape, an ugly settlement. Is it within reach? We don’t know; you can only find out by trying and we’re refusing to try. But that’s one option. The other option is to make it explicit and clear to Putin and the small circle of men around him that you have no escape, you’re going to go to a war crimes trial no matter what you do. Boris Johnson just reiterated this: sanctions will go on no matter what you do. What does that mean? It means go ahead and obliterate Ukraine and go on to lay the basis for a terminal war.

  Those are the two options: and we’re picking the second and praising ourselves for heroism and doing it: fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.

  Immediate shrieking outrage of course ensued (why doesn’t Twitter have a special “torch” emoji for denunciatory mobs?). Chomsky was judged a genocide-enabling, America-hating Kremlin stooge. A tiny sample:

  Noam Chomsky’s position on war and peace depends on who is attacking whom. Against military actions by the U.S. he is a moralist soaked in anti-imperialism. In other cases he is an untra-realist telling the victims that this is how the world functions.

  — Reinhard Bütikofer (@bueti) April 17, 2022

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  I see we are on day two of pretending Chomsky is but a misinformed grandpa spouting off pro-Kremlin disinformation re: Ukraine rather than a man who has knowingly spent decades peddling bad faith, revisionist hokum, in defense of every murderous tyrant from Pol Pot to Milosevic.

  — Jasmin Mujanović (@JasminMuj) April 17, 2022

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  It’s been said a million times, but bears repeating: none of these people – Chomsky, Pilger, Sy Hersh – “went wrong”; they have always been exactly the same, driven by anti-Americanism and a sympathy for literally any force, no matter how gruesome, that could fight American power https://t.co/RBedY0xMFH

  — Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) April 18, 2022

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  I reached out to Chomsky about the brouhaha. The good professor was charmingly unaware he’d set off a social media meltdown, but commented in a general way.

  *  *  *

  TK News subscribers can click here to read the rest.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/20/2022 – 23:10

• The State Of Marijuana Legalization In The US
  The State Of Marijuana Legalization In The US

  After successful ballot measures in the 2020 U.S. election legalized recreational marijuana use in Arizona, New Jersey and Montana, state legislatures in New York, Virginia, New Mexico and Connecticut passed bills in 2021 to legalize weed.

  That means that, as the world celebrates ‘4/20’, Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes that this brings the tally of legal weed states to 18 (along with D.C.).

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  The new development is bringing recreational marijuana to more East Coast states, after the American West had long been the hotbed of legalization efforts. Colorado and Washington were the first states to legalize the drug in 2012.

  New Jersey is expected to actually start selling legal weed on April 21, while New York, Connecticut and Virginia haven’t set a start date yet. Sales have been up and running in Arizona and Montana as well as in New Mexico.

  While setting up a licensing system for dispensaries selling recreational weed usually takes more time, possession and consumption are already legal in all states that passed bills or had successful ballot measures.

  South Dakota actually gave the recreational and medical use of cannabis the green light at the same time in the 2020 elections, but the state’s Supreme Court ruled the ballot measure on recreational weed invalid for technical reasons after a complaint funded by Governor Kristi Noem. 

  There are currently 37 states that have medical marijuana laws, including all that allow recreational use.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/20/2022 – 22:50

• China On The Verge Of A Major Food Crisis – Part 1
  China On The Verge Of A Major Food Crisis – Part 1

  By Eric Mertz of the General Crisis Watch Substack

  A third of farmers in Jilin, Heilongjiang, and Liaoning report they can’t get the necessary inputs to begin farming.

  

  This report from the CCP administrations in those regions comes mere weeks before farmers were due to start planting, meaning they would at best miss the best time to plant – driving down yields – and at worst not be able to plant at all. The later seems likely, given the recent fertilizer shortage brought about by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

  The war in Ukraine will have a further impact for China, due to their reliance on roughly 2 million tons of corn from Ukraine each year, most of which is used as livestock feed for China’s pig farms.

  This disruption in corn to Chinese pig farmers comes as demand is increasing after three years of severe cuts due to African Swine Fever resulting in mass culling. Though its entirely possible China isn’t out of the woods yet. Chinese pig farmers are reportedly losing $75 per hog slaughtered, as opposed to a profit of $175 per hog last year. This is extremely significant for Chinese nutritional health, as pork makes up over 60% of the average Chinese meat consumption at ~54 pounds per person per year.

  The domestic situation is not helped by trucking volumes in rural areas dropping by 87% for the year. Vice-Premiere Hu Chunhua has already called on provincial authorities to adjust their Zero COVID policies to stop arresting farmers for working their fields during the lockdowns. This crisis seems to be driven by local officials implementing strict policies which results in truckers facing two-week quarantines. At a cost of ¥3360 ($556) for the 14 days spent in a camp, this amounts to half the annual average income for truck drivers in China. The situation linking rural areas to the cities aren’t much better as major cities, and even entire provinces, shut down highway travel to prevent becoming another Shanghai. Beijing has ordered provincial authorities to implement priority passes to get long-haul truckers in to deliver goods, but it is likely too-little too-late.

  Political Infighting

  To make matters worse, the political infighting between former party leader Jiang Zemin’s Shanghai Clique and Xi Jinping’s Tsinghua clique may have just broken into the open. Vice-Premiere Sun Chunlan – the woman responsible for implementing China’s COVID policy – has summoned a number of Shanghai officials before her to answer accusations of “lying flat”. This comes after reports of party and local government mismanagement began to circulate on Western social media websites.

  There have already been reports of assassination attempts against Xi in the past. And Xi hasn’t left China since his state visit to Myanmar 822 days ago. In that time, he has purged top leadership of China’s internal apparatus of oppression.

  Now, with the 14th National Party Congress convening in March of 2023 – and with it the selection of the next President of the People’s Republic of China – it appears Xi may be in a very real life-or-death struggle for control over the party.

  However, these are not the only issues facing China. There is more to come.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/20/2022 – 22:30

• Cause Of China Eastern Plane Crash Remains A Mystery One Month Later
  Cause Of China Eastern Plane Crash Remains A Mystery One Month Later

  One month after China Eastern Airlines Flight MU5735 plunged out of the sky while beginning its descent to a destination in Guangxi, killing all 132 people on board, a report issued by China’s Civil Aviation Administration of China claimed that no irregularities had been found regarding the plane or its crew – meaning that after a month of investigation, the cause of the crash remained a mystery.

  The report claimed that investigators are still trying to extract data from the heavily damaged black boxes and the cockpit voice recorder – data that might offer some insight into the plane’s condition and the crew’s actions in the final minutes of the flight. The US National Transportation Safety Board is helping Chinese investigators in their efforts to download information from the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, Fox News reports.

  

  Both black boxes are being analyzed by American experts at a government lab in Washington.

  The crew, including the flight’s pilots, made no mention of any malfunctions or other issues that might have caused the crash at any point during the flight.

  The crash left a crater measured to be 20 meters deep in the mountainside, shattered the plane and set off a fire in the surrounding forest. More than 49,000 pieces of plane debris were found. It took two days to find the cockpit voice recorder and six days for the flight data recorder, which was buried 1.5 meters (5 feet) underground.

  Flight MU5735 was headed from the city of Kunming in southwestern China to Guangzhou, the capital city of southwestern Guangxi, a critical export hub for China, when it dropped out of the sky. 132 people, including 123 passengers and 9 crew, died during the crash.

  As a precaution, China Eastern and its subsidiaries grounded all their Boeing 737-800s – the model of plane involved in the crash – which included more than 200 planes. But they have all since returned to service.

  During the accident, the plane was cruising at 29,100 feet and began a sharp descent after 1420ET, briefly recovering more than 1,000 feet before resuming its dive before losing contact altogether as it fell more than 25,000 feet in about two minutes. The incident marked Chian’s deadliest passenger plane crash since 1994.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/20/2022 – 22:10

• Former Democrat Lawyer Doesn't Want Clinton Tweet Admitted In Durham Case
  Former Democrat Lawyer Doesn’t Want Clinton Tweet Admitted In Durham Case

  By Jack Phillips of The Epoch Times

  The lawyer charged with hiding his work for the Clinton campaign from the FBI filed a motion requesting that special counsel John Durham not be able to use a Hillary Clinton Twitter post that made reference to alleged Trump–Russia collusion claims.

  

  Durham wrote last week that he wanted an October 2016 Twitter post from the Clinton campaign that promoted an allegation that there was a secret backchannel between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank. The campaign’s lawyer, Michael Sussmann, was charged last year with lying to the FBI by allegedly stating that he wasn’t working on behalf of any client when he pushed the Trump-Russian bank claim to then-FBI General Counsel James Baker.

  On Oct. 31, 2016, Clinton wrote on Twitter: “Donald Trump has a secret server … It was set up to communicate privately with a Putin-tied Russian bank.” She later wrote that “computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.”

  The claims about the alleged secret backchannel between the bank, reportedly identified as Alfa Bank, and former President Donald Trump’s business were ultimately refuted by the FBI.

  Durham also sought to preserve a Twitter post from Clinton’s campaign that included a lengthy statement from former adviser Jake Sullivan, who now works as President Joe Biden’s national security adviser. “This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow,” Sullivan claimed. “This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump’s ties to Russia.”

  Last week, Durham argued that these Twitter posts are material because Sussmann “had communicated with the media and provided them with the Russian Bank-1 data and allegations” before articles on the claims were published. He also kept Clinton campaign staff “apprised of his efforts” while they “communicated with the Clinton Campaign’s leadership about potential media coverage of these issues.”

  But Sussmann’s lawyers over the past weekend, in court, wrote that the Clinton campaign’s Twitter posts about the matter, including the Sullivan one, should not be preserved for Sussmann’s trial.

  “The Tweet, which was posted on October 31, 2016, does not reveal anything about Mr. Sussmann’s state of mind over a month earlier, when he purportedly made the alleged false statement,” his attorneys wrote. “There is no evidence that Mr. Sussmann’s meeting with Mr. Baker had anything to do with the Clinton Campaign’s broader media strategy.”

  They responded to Sullivan’s statement and touting of a Slate story on the Trump-Russian bank claim: “First, contrary to the Special Counsel’s misleading statement of the law, the Tweet is hearsay and it is plainly being offered for the truth: so that the Special Counsel can argue that the Campaign’s plan all along was to make a public statement about ‘federal authorities’ looking into the ‘direct connection between Trump and Russia.’”

  “Second, the Tweet—which Mr. Sussmann did not author, issue, authorize, or even know about—is irrelevant, prejudicial, and would only confuse and distract the jury from the single false statement charge it must decide,” they continued.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/20/2022 – 21:50

• YouTube Terminates Page Belonging To Hong Kong's Only Candidate For Chief Executive
  YouTube Terminates Page Belonging To Hong Kong’s Only Candidate For Chief Executive

  Citing the need to comply with US sanctions against John Lee Ka-chiu, Hong Kong’s sole candidate to succeed Carrie Lam following her decision not to seek another term, YouTube has erased his campaign page.

  

  In response, the city’s former No. 2 official said he was “disappointed” in the decision, but maintained the move wouldn’t affect his election campaign. He added he would do his best to communicate with the public using other channels so that people could know him better, according to the Washington Post.

  Lee was added to the US sanctions list in 2020 along with Lam and a host of other HK officials for their work in undermining the Democratic rights of the Hong Kong people, going against international law. Lee was cited for overseeing the creation of a special new police force designed to enforce the national security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing.

  In response to YouTube’s decision, Lee said that the US sanctions placed upon him (initially imposed in August 2020 by the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control under then-Secretary Steven Mnuchin) were unfair. “The so-called sanction imposed by the US government due to my work in safeguarding national security is unreasonable, bullying and deliberately wants to put pressure on me,” he said in a media briefing on Wednesday afternoon. “It would not make me hesitant, it only makes me believe what I am doing is correct.”

  In a statement given to the Washington Post, Google said that it “…complies with applicable US sanctions laws and enforces related policies under its Terms of Service. After review and consistent with these policies, we terminated the Johnlee2022 YouTube channel.”

  Meanwhile, a Meta (formerly known as Facebook) spokesman said Lee can continue to run his Instagram and Facebook campaign pages as a “de-monetized presence”, adding that it had also taken steps to prevent his use of payment services.

  The decision to censor Lee’s YouTube page probably won’t have much of an impact on his campaign, since he is the only candidate approved by China to run for the office on May 8.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/20/2022 – 21:30

• Californians Rally Against 'Infanticide Bill'
  Californians Rally Against ‘Infanticide Bill’

  Authored by John Fredricks via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  On the steps of the California State Capitol over a thousand people gathered in the shadow of the building complex while several California Highway Patrol officers scanned the surroundings for potential threats under the cloudy skies.

  “We are calling this a lobby day, not a protest,” Gina Gleason, director of Real Impact, a Christian activist organization, told The Epoch Times.

  “’Protest’ is too aggressive for what we are doing.”

  

  Many of those attending the rally had driven from Southern California, as well as flown into the Sacramento airport, to rally against the passing of Assembly Bill (AB) 2223.

  

  State Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), who introduced the bill, said at an April 5 Judiciary Committee meeting that the bill is meant to prevent pregnant women from being prosecuted for terminating their pregnancy or losing their baby.

  AB 2223 would prohibit holding a person—the mother or a health care provider—responsible for “miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion, or perinatal death” of a baby based on “their actions or omissions” related to the pregnancy, according to the state legislative information website.

  Although the bill doesn’t give a precise definition of “perinatal,” it commonly entails the time frame between 22 weeks of pregnancy and seven days after birth, according to the committee’s bill analysis.

  “We’re talking about a bill that will not only terminate a child’s life, [but also] post-birth up to 30 days or longer,” Pastor Jack Hibbs, of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, told The Epoch Times. “The law, if passed, prevents an investigation or an autopsy on why the child died. It is literally unbelievable, and that’s why yesterday when I was being interviewed by news crews from Australia, England, and Germany, they could not believe it either.

  

  “[Wicks’s bill] may be coming from the best intentions, but I am here to tell you in Sacramento that it is not only wrong, it is unlawful regarding our First Amendment, and most importantly, it is a violation of God’s word,” Hibbs said.

  “God is a God of life. It’s evident that the things that we enjoy in life are beautiful and precious, and we preserve them; but that you’re assuming the position of God—that you have no right.”

  Just hours before the demonstration, hundreds attending the rally gathered in a conference area within the Hyatt hotel, adjacent to Capitol Park, to discuss the process of an assembly bill, and a breakdown of the language used to describe AB 2223.

  “They say they are trying to protect women with this bill,” Gleason said. “But the bill describes the situation as ‘prenatal death’ as a result of pregnancy and birth as a ‘pregnancy outcome?’”

  “We are urging the senate health committee to help make the right decisions.”

  Greg Burt, of the California Family Council, a faith-based activist group, said to the large crowd that when he “heard the language of the bill, I could not believe how far they have gone.”

  “This is a bill supporting abortions after birth … It’s infanticide.”

  Burt, a former reporter, said though the bill itself does not mention the word “infanticide,” if passed, it would allow mothers the justification needed to end a child’s life after birth for “pregnancy-related causes.”

  Burt said a “pregnancy-related cause” is ambiguous because it is “not defined” in the text.

  “Postpartum depression is an example of a pregnancy-related [cause], meaning that a mother who’s depressed could kill her child, and there would be justification to do so,” he said.

  

  Back on the steps of the California State Capitol, ralliers began to softly sing in sync together Amazing Grace, Jesus Loves the Little Children, and God Bless America.

  “Some friends and I from church came up here today to oppose this bill together,” rallier Vanessa Le told The Epoch Times. “People need to be aware of how evil this bill is, and we need to do all that we can to stop it.”

  “We are praying for our lawmakers to have their hearts opened to see the evil in this bill and its prevention of human life.”

  When several members of California’s faith community approached the steps to speak out against the bill, the volume of the crowd decreased to hear them, as the audio equipment was outfitted for a rally of only 500 people.

  Those in favor of passing the bill have been referenced as coming to unsafe conclusions supported by “fact-checked” sources.

  “Despite the plethora of ‘fact check’ articles that have denied and downplayed the stark truth … the chief council for the pro-abortion majority of California State Assembly Committee on Judiciary stated that “the perinatal death language could lead to an unintended and desirable conclusion,” said attorney Olivia Summers with the American Center for Law & Justice, a politically conservative, Christian activist organization.

  “The analysis goes on to say the bill may not be sufficiently clear that perinatal death is intended to be the consequence of a pregnancy complication. Thus, the bill could be interpreted to immunize a pregnant person from all criminal penalties for all pregnancy-related outcomes, including death of a newborn for any reason during the perinatal period after birth including a cause of death which is not attributable to pregnancy complications.”

  The crowd was encouraged to be polite in sharing their grievances with AB 2223 at the 4 p.m. Assembly Health Committee hearing.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/20/2022 – 21:10

• Taiwanese TV Station Accidentally Broadcasts News Of Mainland Invasion
  Taiwanese TV Station Accidentally Broadcasts News Of Mainland Invasion

  In news that’s vaguely reminiscent of the time Hawaiians received a false alert warning of an impending nuclear strike, a TV station in Taipei has apologized after falsely reporting that the island was under attack from Beijing.

  

  During its morning news broadcast on Wednesday, the government-funded Chinese Television System warned on its lower-third news chyron that New Taipei City was under attack.

  “New Taipei hit by guided missiles from the Chinese Communist forces. Ships at the Taipei Port [in New Taipei] exploded, facilities and vessels all destroyed” read one ticker that ran just after 0700 local time accompanying footage of a worker in full COVID gear disinfecting a workplace at the Presidential Office, according to SCMP.

  There were other latest news ticker alerts that read “Banqiao Railway Station suspected under arson attack by enemy spies with explosives” and “New Taipei Government sets up joint emergency handling center as war is feared.”

  The broadcast continued to flash other apocalyptic warnings, including “Magnitude-7 powerful quake occurs in Taishan [New Taipei]”, “Quake causes No 2 Nuclear Power to stop operation”, and “Domestic airline plane crash-landed at Keelung River, fuselage breaks into two and many passengers trapped.”

  The TV station quickly apologized for the error and said it had accidentally broadcast captions from a fire department emergency drill.

  SETN television news network reported that even the island’s security authorities had been startled by the news and called the CTS news station director to ask what had happened.

  The massive mistake, which caused many viewers to panic before heading out to work during the early morning hours, prompted Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang, and its supporters to ask that the National Communications Commission – the island’s broadcasting media regulator – punish CTS, possibly by taking it off the air.

  Of course, the dry run might not be completely unjustified, since fears of an invasion by the mainland have intensified since Russia launched its incursion into Ukraine.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/20/2022 – 20:50

• "Taiwan Is Part Of China": Chinese Defense Minister Warns Pentagon Chief In 1st Call
  “Taiwan Is Part Of China”: Chinese Defense Minister Warns Pentagon Chief In 1st Call

  US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin held a call with his Chinese counterpart, Defense Minister Wei Fenghe, wherein Wei conveyed a warning that no one can change Taiwan’s status as part of China.

  The Wednesday phone call was the first that the two defense leaders have held. Wei informed Austin that “If the Taiwan issue were not handled properly, it would have a damaging impact on Sino-US relations,” according to Reuters.

  

  The call was intended as a follow-up between last month’s virtual meeting between presidents Biden and Xi, wherein Biden warned over China’s deepening cooperation with Russia it executes its war against Ukraine. 

  A Pentagon official later said the Austin emphasized that the US will continue to adhere to the ‘One China’ status quo policy, which is the typical response from Washington officials anytime Beijing warns over US officials stoking the pro-independence movement on the democratic-run island.

  Chinese state-run English language Global Times further described the importance of the call as one of Beijing conveying its unwavering resolve to Washington on the Taiwan issue. GT writes that Wei stressed “the importance of the Taiwan question, while demanding the US to stop its military provocations at sea, and not to throw mud or threaten China with the Ukraine issue.”

  Further, “Wei stated a solemn position over the Taiwan question, as he stressed that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, and this is a fact and a status quo no one can change.”

  Meanwhile, in the latest “scare” on the island…

  Bro! pic.twitter.com/Y61HbAvhBv

  — Carl Zha (@CarlZha) April 20, 2022

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  Without doubt part of the “provocations” Beijing has in mind is that the US has been increasingly sending high-level officials to Taipei. In the latest example, just a week ago:

  A delegation of United States lawmakers led by vocal China critics Bob Menendez and Lindsey Graham arrived in Taiwan on Thursday for a two-day trip as Beijing threatened “strong measures” in response.

  The group of six US legislators is making the latest in a string of visits by foreign politicians to Taiwan in defiance of Beijing’s efforts to isolate the island nation.

  Early this month there was talk that Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was set to visit Taiwan after an official trip to Japan – but the whole Asia trip was called off at the last minute due to her testing positive for Covid-19, after which she quarantined for a period. This would have made her the first House Speaker to visit Taiwan since 1997,when Republican Newt Gingrich did. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/20/2022 – 20:10

• US "Always Preparing The Next" Weapons Package For Ukraine: Biden Official
  US “Always Preparing The Next” Weapons Package For Ukraine: Biden Official

  Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute, 

  White House official Matt Miller said the US is planning multiple weapons packages for Ukraine in the coming weeks. President Joe Biden has already authorized the transfer of over $3 billion in arms to Kiev amid a war which American officials believe will last for years. 

  Speaking with MSNBC on Tuesday, Miller said, “The question about another package is really the easiest one you could ask me. The answer is yes, of course, we are always preparing the next package of security assistance to get into Ukraine.”

  

  Several top US officials have said the war will drag on for years. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley said, “I do think this is a very protracted conflict, and I think it’s measured in years. I don’t know about decade, but at least years for sure.”

  Several current and former high-level US officials believe Russia will face a bloody and costly insurgency fueled by American weapons in Ukraine. In January, James Stavridis, a retired four-star Navy admiral who was the supreme allied commander for NATO, said, “Putin should realize that after fighting insurgencies ourselves for two decades, we know how to arm, train and energize them.”

  On Tuesday, Biden responded affirmatively to a question asking if the next security package would include artillery. Last week, the White House authorized an $800 million arms transfer to Kiev that includes Howitzers. 

  Since Biden took office, the US has approved the transfer of over $3 billion in weapons to Ukraine. However, many US political leaders are demanding the White House give more support to Kiev, with Democratic Senator Chris Coons even calling on Biden to consider deploying American soldiers to Ukraine.

  “for Washington at least, concerns about supplying arms that Russia might consider “escalatory” have ebbed — as has the initial worry that Ukraine will use longer-range weapons, like jet fighters, to attack Moscow itself and set off a bigger war.” https://t.co/Zrab1zew3o

  — Shashank Joshi (@shashj) April 19, 2022

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  “Come to a common position about when we are willing to go the next step and to send not just arms but troops to the aid in defense of Ukraine… If the answer is never, then we are inviting another level of escalation in brutality by Putin,” Coons said.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/20/2022 – 19:50

• Bill Ackman Dumps Entire Netflix Stake, Loses $430 Million In 4 Months
  Bill Ackman Dumps Entire Netflix Stake, Loses $430 Million In 4 Months

  Back on Jan 27, and just days after NFLX crashed after its dismal Q4 2021 earnings (not to be confused with its even more dismal Q1 2022 earnings yesterday) we reported that with proceeds earned from his massive Treasury short, Bill Ackman had purchased 3.1 million shares of Netflix stock in the mid-$300s.

  We recently purchased more than 3.1m shares of @Netflix which makes us a top-20 holder. I have long admired Reed Hastings and the remarkable company he and his team have built. We are delighted that the market has presented us with this opportunity. https://t.co/BNx1EWUVGh

  — Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) January 26, 2022

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  Ackman said that “beginning on Friday and over the last several days, we acquired more than 3.1 million shares of Netflix… which makes us a top-20 holder.”

  Well not any more, because after NFLX stock crashed a record 35% today, Ackman today was less than delighted with the latest opportunity the market presented him with, in this case to lose some $430 million in less than four month, because unlike other investors who double down when presented with a real opportunity to invest in a name they believe in, Ackman decided to bail instead demonstrating yet again that for so many traders the real “strategy” is to buy high and sell low.

  In a release published after the close, Ackman’s Pershing Square said that it has sold its entire investment in Netflix, which was purchased in January. “The loss on our investment reduced the Pershing Square Funds’ year-to-date returns by four percentage points. Reflecting this loss, as of today’s close, the Pershing Square Funds are down approximately two percent year-to-date.”

  Here is how Bill Ackman, best known for such stellar investments as JCPenney, Herbalife, Valeant and so on, justified to his investor his latest cash bonfire:

  While we have a high regard for Netflix’s management and the remarkable company they have built, in light of the enormous operating leverage inherent in the company’s business model, changes in the company’s future subscriber growth can have an outsized impact on our estimate of intrinsic value. In our original analysis, we viewed this operating leverage favorably due to our long-term growth expectations for the company.

  Yesterday, in response to continued disappointing customer subscriber growth, Netflix announced that it would modify its subscription-only model to be more aggressive in going after non-paying customers, and to incorporate advertising, an approach that management estimates would take “one to two years” to implement. While we believe these business model changes are sensible, it is extremely difficult to predict their impact on the company’s long-term subscriber growth, future revenues, operating margins, and capital intensity.

  We require a high degree of predictability in the businesses in which we invest due to the highly concentrated nature of our portfolio. While Netflix’s business is fundamentally simple to understand, in light of recent events, we have lost confidence in our ability to predict the company’s future prospects with a sufficient degree of certainty. Based on management’s track record, we would not be surprised to see Netflix continue to be a highly successful company and an excellent investment from its current market value. That said, we believe the dispersion of outcomes has widened to a sufficiently large extent that it is challenging for the company to meet our requirements for a core holding.

  That’s a lot of words to say we did zero actual analysis when we bought over $1.2 billion in NFLX shares, and now that we have lost a third of our investment and finally did the analysis, we realized we had just wasted a lot of LP cash.

  Of course, saying that would be a little too truthy, so even the “lessons learned” was couched in corporate speak:

  One of our learnings from past mistakes is to act promptly when we discover new information about an investment that is  inconsistent with our original thesis. That is why we did so here.

  Here is the real “learnings”: while some traders double down when they have confidence in their investment, and having done their homework are able to take advantage of market dislocations and double down, others – who are only looking at price – buy high and sell low.

  It’s clear which type of investor Ackman is.

  And speaking of real investors, once again Carl Icahn mops the floor with Ackman: as a reminder, the venerable corporate raider made more than $2 billion on NFLX, after buying $321 million in 2012 and selling everything three years later to make a $2 billion profit.

  Sold last of our $NFLX today. Believe $AAPL currently represents same opportunity we stated NFLX offered several years ago.

  — Carl Icahn (@Carl_C_Icahn) June 24, 2015

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  Ackman, on the other hand, just lost nearly half a billion in less than 4 months.

  Needless to say, it would be delightfully ironic if Icahn was quietly buying up the shares that Ackman was selling.

  Did you buy Ackman’s stake? https://t.co/xuZ8wXl1CR

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 20, 2022

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  And yes, with the selling overhang now gone, expect NFLX stock to soar in the coming days and weeks.

  Here is the full Pershing Square letter (pdf link).

  

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/20/2022 – 19:30

• Russia Tests Nuclear-Capable ICBM As Putin Warns Enemies It's "Food For Thought"
  Russia Tests Nuclear-Capable ICBM As Putin Warns Enemies It’s “Food For Thought”

  In a new ‘message’ aimed at the West, Russia on Wednesday test launched a new intercontinental ballistic missile, the Sarmat, according to Interfax citing the Russian defense ministry.

  President Vladimir Putin said in a statement which accompanied the announcement that the new Sarmat missile will provide “food for thought for those who try to threaten Russia.” He congratulated the armed forces on the successful test launch. According to another translation, he said that the Sarmat will “make the madmen who attempt to threaten Russia think.”

  

  “Sarmat is the most powerful missile with the biggest hitting range in the world. It will significantly strengthen the combat power of the Russian strategic nuclear armed forces,” the Russian Defense Ministry said.

  The test took place in Russia’s far north, reportedly at the Plesetsk spaceport which lies about 800 km north of Moscow. 

  According to a state media description, “The missile was developed as a replacement for the ICBM R-36M2 (NATO Reporting Name SS-18 Satan). It is expected to be effective in destroying enemy strategic targets around the globe with kinetic impact energy and without the use of the nuclear warhead.”

  The Kremlin released footage of the Wednesday launch of the “Satan”…

  #BREAKING: Russia says it successfully test-fired its new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile. pic.twitter.com/P7GKAUZNhs

  — Moshe Schwartz (@YWNReporter) April 20, 2022

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  Lately there’s been widespread speculation over whether Putin would be “willing” to use tactical nukes in Ukraine – something which Foreign Minister Lavrov categorically rejected in Tuesday statements.

  On Tuesday Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was asked in an interview with India Today about the possibility of using nukes, to which he responded that Russia will only use conventional weapons in Ukraine.

  Meanwhile, in another alarming development picked up by Russia observers…

  Russian emergencies ministry site publishes “Recommendations in case of a retaliatory nuclear strike by NATO countries.”
  Retaliatory? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/jYZOlbz6XK

  — Alec Luhn (@ASLuhn) April 19, 2022

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  And in Washington…

  A half-senile gerontocrat is all that’s between us and a humanitarian nuclear holocaust. https://t.co/G2r6dREGxo

  — Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) April 18, 2022

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/20/2022 – 19:15

• Rubio: Biden's Child Allowance Made Tax Season Worse
  Rubio: Biden’s Child Allowance Made Tax Season Worse

  Authored by Senator Marco Rubio via RealClearFlorida,

  Tax season is always a stressful time, especially for working families. This year, however, it proved more stressful than usual.

  

  Over the last few weeks, many Americans came to the shocking realization that instead of getting a refund – a refund they’d been counting on to offset the last 12 months of rising prices – they would owe money to the federal government. Why? Because President Joe Biden’s now-expired government child allowance disrupted a longstanding tax benefit.

  For the year of 2021, President Biden replaced the child tax credit for working parents with a government child allowance for every parent, including those not working. The benefit was intended to provide monthly payments for every child in a residence. But because of delays and incompetence, those payments did not begin until July. The remainder of the payments were left to be claimed when families filed their annual tax returns.

  The decision to set up a new monthly payment regime midway through the year meant that many taxpayers unknowingly used half the refund they were expecting to see when they filed their taxes. The result has been either a smaller return than expected or, for many, the realization that they owed money. This result was entirely predictable, but the Biden administration did nothing to warn families, preferring to talk up how the new monthly payments allowed households to pay for the ever-increasing costs of groceries, gas, and rent.

  That’s not all. President Biden’s plan appears to have confused Washington bureaucrats, who overpaid a significant number of Americans. Some households didn’t have to pay that free money back, but others will be hounded by the IRS until they break even. Neither scenario is desirable.

  And good luck trying to get clarity from the IRS on this mess. The agency’s current return backlog is the largest in its history, the fruit of inefficient processing procedures and remote-work policies. Dealing with the issues produced by the government child allowance will probably lead to even more backlog and bureaucratic mess-ups.

  President Biden’s government child allowance was never a good idea. It should have been obvious from the beginning that giving American households with no working adults over $6,000 in cash welfare payments was neither pro-work nor pro-family. We’ve seen the workforce shortages and out-of-control inflation that resulted – consequences that are hurting everyone, but especially low-income parents. And now we’re seeing the program disrupt the lives of the very people it was supposed to help. It’s no wonder that popular support for the child allowance last year was middling at best.

  Fortunately, there’s a better way of helping families. In 2017, I worked with Ivanka Trump and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) to double the federal child tax credit. Over the three years following its implementation, that credit proved to be a lifeline for working families. Millions of parents claimed the credit annually on their tax returns, resulting in generous refunds that gave them the freedom to cover large purchases, pay off debt, or invest in their children’s education. Research from the Tax Foundation shows that the expansion benefited families in every income bracket – except the highest earners.

  This was no fluke. It was simply an example of what a well-crafted government program can accomplish. And we can do more. Congress should expand the child tax credit for working parents again, from $2,000 to $3,500 (and $4,500 for young children). This would put more dollars in working parents’ pockets, strengthening American families during an era of rising prices and global insecurity.

  For the time being, however, we are left with the fallout of President Biden’s government child allowance. It’s been said that the only things certain in life are death and taxes. For the next three years, at least, that list merits an addition: government mismanagement.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/20/2022 – 19:10

• Delta Slammed On Social Media After Calling COVID A "Seasonal" Virus
  Delta Slammed On Social Media After Calling COVID A “Seasonal” Virus

  Even with the end of the Federal travel mask mandate, Delta Airlines faced massive backlash with a statement it made about Covid being a “seasonal virus” this week. Because, as we all know, just because a virus intensifies in certain months doesn’t make it a “seasonal” virus, right? After all, we don’t just walk around saying “It’s flu season!”.  

  

  Wait, maybe we do. OK, scratch that.

  Delta wrote in an initial statement after the federal mask mandate was lifted: “We are relieved to see the U.S. mask mandate lift to facilitate global travel as COVID-19 has transitioned to an ordinary seasonal virus.”

  That one sentence set off a firestorm among passengers, medical experts and public health leaders, according to NPR, who promptly “turned to social media to dispute the claim and call out the lack of scientific evidence behind it.”

  Delta was forced to update its statement, telling NPR that it did so “for clarity and accuracy” and declining to comment further.

  Delta’s new statement now reads: “We are relieved to see the U.S. mask mandate lift to facilitate global travel as COVID-19 transitions to a more manageable respiratory virus — with better treatments, vaccines and other scientific measures to prevent serious illness.”

  But NPR seems to taking exception with the fact that Delta has used the idea of Covid being a seasonal virus in the past. They pointed out that CEO Ed Bastian said last week he had made certain decisions “given the fact that we really do believe that the pandemic has moved to a seasonal virus.”

  

  Yale epidemiologist and global health activist Gregg Gonsalves was one of the many representing “scientific” outrage over the completely meaningless and innocuous statement, taking to Twitter and writing: “I don’t care what you think about masking, but Delta’s comment that #SARSCOV2 has transitioned to become an ‘ordinary seasonal virus’ is just bonkers, has no basis in science and is outright misinformation misleading their customers (of which I am one!).” 

  “My source says that Delta did not consult with its senior medical advisor before releasing this misinformation. Hope Delta will correct ASAP!” wrote Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist. 

  Oh yeah Eric? Well our source says people are tired of arguing over pointless semantics and just want to get on with their normal, maskless, lives. Hope you will correct ASAP!

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/20/2022 – 18:55

• CDC Asks DoJ To Appeal Lifting Of Mask Mandate "To Protect Public Health"
  CDC Asks DoJ To Appeal Lifting Of Mask Mandate “To Protect Public Health”

  Having exhausted our incredulity glands and satire organs yesterday while discussing the possibility that the Biden administration will appeal the ruling that struck down the mask mandate for public transportation, we choose to just report the news and nothing but the news today.

  The CDC has asked the Justice Department to appeal a judge’s ruling that threw out a mask requirement for plane and air travel, setting up a court battle over the decision. 

  “CDC believes this is a lawful order, well within CDC’s legal authority to protect public health,” the agency stated.

  DoJ had said Tuesday that it stood ready to appeal the ruling, issued Monday by a Trump-appointed federal judge in Florida, but that it would do so only “subject to the CDC’s conclusion that the order remains necessary for public health.”

  Well, the CDC ‘deems’ it so…

  

  The full statement from The CDC reads as follows:

  To protect CDCs public health authority beyond the ongoing assessment announced last week, CDC has asked DOJ to proceed with an appeal in Health Freedom Defense Fund, Inc., et al., v. Biden, et al.

  It is CDCs continuing assessment that at this time an order requiring masking in the indoor transportation corridor remains necessary for the public health.

  CDC will continue to monitor public health conditions to determine whether such an order remains necessary. CDC believes this is a lawful order, well within CDCs legal authority to protect public health.

  CDC continues to recommend that people wear masks in all indoor public transportation settings. CDC’s number one priority is protecting the public health of our nation.

  As we have said before, wearing masks is most beneficial in crowded or poorly ventilated locations, such as the transportation corridor.

  When people wear a well-fitting mask or respirator over their nose and mouth in indoor travel or public transportation settings, they protect themselves, and those around them, including those who are immunocompromised or not yet vaccine-eligible, and help keep travel and public transportation safer for everyone.

  Forget all those videos showing cheering passengers… and screw all those airlines who made the decision – based on their customers demands – to lift the mask mandate… and ignore for one moment that there is no ‘science’, other than ‘political science’ behind the mandate for mask-wearing.

  Presumably, it is simply the fact that some ‘freedom‘ was given back to the American public that was just unacceptable.

  For all the blue-checks whose bloviation is so grandiosely amplified among the echo chambers of Washington, remember: “you are free to wear masks if you like… if they work, they will protect you, if they don’t why mandate them?”

  In the meantime, which airline will panic and signal all their virtue by re-mandating mask-wearing based on this CDC decision?

  We give the final word to Bill Maher who dropped some ‘science’ about vaccinated mask-wearers during a recent Real Time segment.

  “I don’t understand these people,” Maher said, adding “They say they’re going to continue to wear masks even after they sound the all-clear. It’s like having sex with a condom and then saying, ‘You know what? I think I’m going to leave it on for the rest of the night.’”

  He went on to explain “you’re never going to have a 100% COVID free atmosphere… there’s always going to be variants, we just have to live again.”

  It’s #CaliforniaReopening Day! Some vaccinated folks say they’re going to continue to wear masks even after they sound the “all clear.” It’s like having sex with a condom, and then saying, “You know, I think I’ll just leave it on for the rest of the night.” pic.twitter.com/nMaiwdDK3t

  — Real Time with Bill Maher (@RealTimers) June 15, 2021

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/20/2022 – 18:40

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• UK Energy Execs Tell MPs That "Fuel Poverty" Will Crush Households Into Debt 
  UK Energy Execs Tell MPs That “Fuel Poverty” Will Crush Households Into Debt 

  Living standards in Britain continue a death spiral as a large number of customers will go into debt due to soaring power bills, according to Bloomberg. 

  European electric utility executives told MPs on the business, energy, and industrial strategy select committee in parliament that emerging signs show an alarming number of customers have trouble paying their power bills. 

  

  European electric utility E.ON SE’s chief executive officer Michael Lewis told lawmakers that customer borrowings would increase by 50%.  

  “We are expecting a severe impact on customers’ ability to pay.

  “That will see a significantly larger number of people moving into fuel poverty … and a consequent significant increase in bad debt.

  “Government action won’t be nearly enough to mitigate the full impact of the price increase,” Lewis said. 

  Keith Anderson, CEO of Scottish Power Ltd, told a similar warning to the parliamentary panel:

  “Come October, that’s going to get horrific, truly horrific. 

  “The size and scale of this is beyond what I can deal with, beyond what I think the industry can deal with. It needs a massive shift, significant shift in the government’s approach to this,” Anderson said. 

  Chris O’Shea, CEO of the UK’s biggest supplier Centrica Plc, warned:

  “It will get worse without any further intervention in October, a lot worse,” O’Shea said.

  In Britain, living costs skyrocket as wages fail to outpace inflation amid rising energy costs. According to the Resolution Foundation, the average family will be paying 1,100 pounds more over the next 12 months to satisfy their energy needs. This will break the bank for lower-income households that will go into debt. To mitigate some of the stress on families, the government pledged a nine billion-pound rescue package for consumers. 

  High inflation has pushed the UK Misery Index, an economic indicator to gauge how the average person is doing, to three-decade highs. 

  

  Discontent is soaring across the country as the most significant living standards decline since the 1950s is underway as inflation crushes households. Energy prices could continue to rise if Europe bans all Russian oil. JPM warned Tuesday that crude could hit $185 a barrel if that happened.  

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/20/2022 – 02:45

• The Cost Of 'New Energy' In Europe, But Not In Money…
  The Cost Of ‘New Energy’ In Europe, But Not In Money…

  Authored by Giulio Meotti via The Gatestone Institute,

  • “When I left Nantes in 1984, it was tranquility itself, even in the traditionally more working-class neighborhoods… Today Nantes has become Lebanonized. And its history is that of France…” — Ivan Rioufol, journalist, Le Figaro, April 7, 2018.

  • One might even be forgiven for thinking that Qatar’s ultimate goal was to Islamize Europe. In the words of a television documentary, it is Qatar’s “war of influence”.

  • “[T]he Assalam mosque,” Le Figaro recounts, “was built on land sold by the municipality, benefiting from a ‘cultural’ contribution of 200,000 euros and a loan guarantee of 346,800 euros”. The city financed its own self-conquest. …

  • Russian gas is not free; Qatari gas as well.

  • The German website Tichys Einblick comments that “instead of Putin’s war, we will finance Islamic terrorism”. The unconditional will to shine morally has harmful consequences — all because nuclear power is “haram” (forbidden).

  As Europe turns from its masochistic energy dependence on Russia, and the potential blackmail that came with it, will it now fall into the open arms of other dictatorships that stand ready to pump gas into its markets, such as Algeria? Even more dangerous might be a new partnership formed between Germany and Qatar. They have just agreed on a huge long-term energy partnership to reduce dependence on Russian gas, according to German Economy Minister Robert Habeck, who last month visited the Persian Gulf and met with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. Italy was the first to negotiate with Qatar, a country that, according to Freedom House, numbers 25 out of 100 on its the freedom score, only slightly above Russia, at 19.

  

  Qatar is now saying that it stands “in solidarity” with Europe.

  Solidarity?

  Qatar is an Islamist state where “Islam is the official religion… and Sharia is the main source of legislation”, claims its constitution. Qatar is governed as an absolute monarchy. Political parties are banned and elections are sham, and it is illegal to be homosexual. According to Open Doors, there are only 18 states in the world where a Christian is worse off than in Qatar. As for the billion euros that Qatar has spent on building mosques and Koranic schools in Europe, perhaps the champions of “progressivism” feel expansively “diverse” with that. However, even the newspaper of the French left, Libération, has referred to “Qatar, financier of European Islam”.

  “Qatar and Turkey are the two main supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood ideology in the world,” Elie Chouraqui told i24NEWS.

  “They presented themselves well and proclaimed themselves privileged interlocutors of the political world which welcomed them with open arms to the point of entrusting them with the training of imams of France”.

  At the same time as the economy minister of Germany went to the sheikh to implore him for more gas, in France the ambassador of Qatar was receiving an award from the mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi.

  Qatar has been extremely active in France. The emirate graciously financed the Islamic Center of Villeneuve-d’Ascq and France’s first state-funded Muslim faith school, the Lycée-Collège Averroès. Unfortunately, the Lycée Averroès soon became the center of a scandal. One of its teachers resigned after writing that the school was “a hotbed of anti-Semitism and ‘promoting Islamism’ to pupils”. Qatar, meanwhile, has financed many mosques in France, including the Great Mosque of Poitiers, which sits in the vicinity of the site of the Battle of Tours (also known as the Battle of Poitiers), where Charles Martel, ruler of the Franks, stopped the advancing Muslim army of Abdul al-Rahman in the year 732.

  The Assalam mosque in Nantes and the Grand Mosque of Paris are other examples of Qatari generosity. Qatar, in fact, has been funding many mega-mosques across Europe. One might even be forgiven for thinking that Qatar’s ultimate goal was to Islamize Europe. In the words of a television documentary, it is Qatar’s “war of influence“.

  “Woman’s month for the city of Nantes, a veiled woman on the streets of the city. Unacceptable complacency towards Islamism! This is the real threat that hangs over France!” is how Eric Ciotti, a senior leader of the Les Republicans party, described the municipal billboards in a large city that he sees as lost to Islamization.

  Nantes is the city of the Dukes of Brittany, steeped in history on the Loire estuary. Its story is emblematic of how Europe is sinking. Ivan Rioufol wrote in Le Figaro:

  “Having been a journalist in Nantes for a long time, I know this city where I was born very well. When I left Nantes in 1984, it was tranquility itself, even in the traditionally more working-class neighborhoods… Immigrants were a minority… Today Nantes has become Lebanonized. And its history is that of France…

  “The Malakoff mosque… seats 1,200 and has erected a 17-meter minaret. In addition to this ‘cathedral mosque’ there are four other mosques in the city, not to mention those in neighboring communities. This influence of Islam accompanied the new settlement of the working-class neighborhoods, under the encouragement of the socialist municipalities”.

  Today, in Nantes alone, there are ten mosques.

  The Assalam Mosque was constructed with Qatari money — but not only. The Assalam mosque,” Le Figaro recounts, “was built on land sold by the municipality, benefiting from a ‘cultural’ contribution of 200,000 euros and a loan guarantee of 346,800 euros”. The city financed its own self-conquest. And who was the mayor of the city at the time of the financing and the agreement with Qatar? Jean-Marc Ayrault, mayor of Nantes from 1989 to 2012 and socialist prime minister of France from 2021 to 2014 …

  Pierre Vermeren , in his book Déni français (French Denial), noted:

  “In Nantes, Jean-Marc Ayrault practiced a patronage that led to the construction of three, four, community mosques distributed among the Muslim Brotherhood, Morocco and Turkey, as well as a Salafi mosque on the outskirts of his city. He is accused, like the former mayor of Paris, of violating the religious funding law. In Bordeaux, Alain Juppé (former prime minister) canceled the Great Mosque project when it was discovered that the funds came from Qatar and Azerbaijan…”

  The magazine L’Incorrect explains how Qatari money is changing the French landscape.

  “When you think of Alsace, you imagine a thousand small flowered villages lost in the vineyards on the side of the Vosges mountains, whose names give you a headache. We are (for the moment) in Christian land, as evidenced by the chapels that line roads and paths. But mosques sprout like mushrooms after the rain, even in villages with a few thousand inhabitants. This phenomenon reveals a slow but sure Islamization of this region”.

  We are in the region where the other capital of the EU, Strasbourg, is located.

  “The European capital has among its buildings the most important mosque in Europe, the center of An-Nour. The largest building of its kind in France, this center is not just a place of worship, but a cultural and political one, funded by Qatar”.

  This is happening not only in France. The Great Mosque of Copenhagen received a donation of 30 million euros from Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, former Emir of Qatar, who is also a leading supporter of the Muslims in Belgium. Europe’s Parliament was also asked to investigate Qatari mosques in Kosovo.

  Russian gas is not free; Qatari gas as well.

  The German website Tichys Einblick comments that “instead of Putin’s war, we will finance Islamic terrorism”. The unconditional will to shine morally has harmful consequences — all because nuclear power is “haram” (forbidden).

  Former German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel provided a glimpse of the relativism that dominates our ruling classes:

  “Qatar does not threaten anyone, does not finance terrorist organizations, but hosts Hamas and the Taliban at the request of the USA (!) in order to be able to negotiate with them in Doha. Qatar is simply a reliable partner of the West.”.

  Shortly before his death, Christophe de Margerie, the late head of French oil giant Total, said: “Anything can be bought, including men, it’s just a question of price”.

  What is Europe’s price?

  “This tiny Persian Gulf kingdom is emerging as one of Europe’s best hopes for weaning itself off Russian natural gas, in another sign of how the war in Ukraine is changing the world’s energy relationships”, The Wall Street Journal reported. “Germany, France, Belgium and Italy are in talks with Qatar to buy liquefied natural gas on a long-term basis, said Qatari and European officials”. The EU last month dropped antitrust investigations into Qatar Petroleum, the state energy company, clearing the way for the country to pursue more long-term contracts with Europe.

  Le Figaro tells one of these extraordinary evenings in which Qatar supported the French cultural élite:

  “Dozens of guests flocked to Place de l’Étoile… home to the Qatari embassy. In the rooms with gilded panels with mosaics and frescoes of languid nymphs, His Excellency Mohamed al-Kuwari awarded cartoonist Jean Plantu and Amirouche Laïdi, president of the Averroes Club, with the ‘Doha Arab Cultural Capital’ award. The ambassador awarded André Miquel (famous Arabist from the Collège de France), Dominique Baudis (writer), Bernard Noël (art critic) and the poet Adonis. From former Culture Minister Jack Lang to Nouvel Observateur founder Jean Daniel, a total of 66 French cultural figures have been decorated by Qatar”.

  Making fun of the deal with Qatar, the German newspaper Die Welt ironically proclaimed:

  “The relief in Germany is enormous. They are finally no longer dependent on gas supplies from an autocratically-ruled country that makes life difficult for homosexuals and does not always take human rights very seriously.”

  Before the suspicion arises however, that German environmentalist-progressive-woke circles are throwing their noble principles overboard, it must be said that Qatar is willing to make major concessions to the German “Greens”. The emirate has promised to install wind turbines in the desert and to host the next COP26 conference about how to create a “sustainable world”.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/20/2022 – 02:00

• Woke Investors Threaten The West's Security
  Woke Investors Threaten The West’s Security

  Submitted by Rupert Darwall,

  Since Russia attacked Ukraine two months ago, Western governments have been learning the hard way about the critical importance of energy to their national security. Germany’s 20-year, trillion-dollar “Energiewende” (Energy Transformation) has made its economy totally dependent on supplies of Russian natural gas and paralyzed its response to Russian aggression. French president Emmanuel Macron faces a tougher re-election fight this month thanks to soaring energy prices and failure to replace the nation’s aging fleet of nuclear power stations. The Biden administration is tapping America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to tamp down energy costs as inflation heads toward double digits. 

  

  As the West grapples with the energy implications of a hostile Sino-Russian alliance, the steering group of the Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance, whose members manage over $10.4 trillion of assets, issued a statement urging Western governments not to sacrifice climate goals for energy security. “The world is still heading for an excess of fossil fuel-based energy use that will vastly exceed the carbon budget needed to meet the 1.5° Celsius Paris agreement goal. This trend must be halted,” the United Nations-backed alliance said in its April 8 statement, arguing that “the national security argument for accelerating the net-zero transition has strengthened considerably.”  

  What, one might ask, is the standing of asset managers to opine on national security matters? They have no expertise in this domain. It turns out that their understanding of the economics of energy policy is defective, too.   

  The Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance claims that development of new oil and gas reserves will lock in fossil fuel subsidies, exacerbating market distortions. In fact, the International Energy Agency (IEA) in its 2021 net-zero report states that under its net-zero pathway, tax revenues from oil and gas retail sales fall by about 40% over the next twenty years. “Managing this decline will require long-term fiscal planning and budget reforms,” the IEA warns. Similarly, Britain’s Office of Budget Responsibility estimates that net zero policies will result in the loss of tax receipts representing 1.6% of GDP. So much for the fossil fuel subsidy myth. If fossil fuels were heavily subsidized, eliminating them would mean fossil fuel subsidies disappear. Instead, it’s tax revenues that would melt away to zero. 

  The net-zero investors cite figures for the decline in solar and wind energy costs. These numbers are based on so-called levelized cost of energy (LCOE), a metric that aims to measure a plant’s lifetime costs. Wind and solar power are intermittent, but LCOE metrics exclude the costs of intermittency, which increase the more wind and solar are put on the grid. Because wind and solar output responds to weather and not to demand, the value of this output declines the more installed wind and solar capacity is available. It was for these reasons that MIT professor of economics Paul Joskow concluded in a foundational 2011 paper that using LCOE metrics to compare intermittent and dispatchable generating technologies, such as coal and natural gas, is a “meaningless exercise.” 

  Wind and solar investors don’t need to understand the economics of the grid to make money – they are shielded from the intermittency costs their investments inflict on the rest of the grid, which is one reason why their views on energy policy can be taken with a pinch of salt. Their economic illiteracy does, however, make it easy for them to subscribe to the green fairy tale of 100% renewables. They’re not responsible for keeping the lights on – that depends on traditional power plants staying fueled up and ready to spin, which is what Germany can’t do without Russian gas. Adopt the net-zero alliance’s call for no new fossil-fuel investment, and the cost of energy is bound to spiral. And if the lights go out, politicians – not woke investors – get the blame.  

  Investors’ opinions on energy and national security would matter less if they didn’t have political power. Bloomberg opinion writer Matt Levine argues that asset managers of giant funds form a parallel system of government that exercises overlapping legislative powers with those of governments. These government-by-asset-managers, as Levine calls them, tell companies to do things they think are good for society as a whole, “making big collective decisions about how society should be run, not just business decisions but also decisions about the environment and workers’ rights and racial inequality and other controversial political topics.” 

  Foremost among these areas is climate policy. Although the Biden administration has set a net-zero goal, Congress has not legislated it, and it lacks the force of law. The absence of legislation passed by democratically accountable legislators, however, presents no barrier to government-by-asset-managers legislating climate policy for the companies in which they invest. “Investors are making net zero commitments for themselves and demanding that companies issue greenhouse gas reduction targets and transition plans for meeting those targets,” says the Reverend Kirsten Snow Spalding of the not-for-profit Ceres Investor Network on Climate Risk and Sustainability.  

  Neither Spalding nor the Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance make a case that forcing net-zero targets on companies will boost investor returns, demonstrating that this is not about investors’ traditional concerns – making money – but about pursuing politics by other means. In this, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is working hand in glove with woke climate investors. Commenting on the SEC’s newly proposed rule on climate-risk disclosure, Spalding says that for investors who have committed zero emissions by 2050, “this draft rule is absolutely critical.”  

  It’s no coincidence that SEC chair Gary Gensler chose Ceres to make his first appearance to talk about the SEC’s proposed rule. Of course, Gensler didn’t justify it in the same terms as Spalding. To have done so would have heightened the risk of the courts striking down the rule in subsequent litigation. Instead, Gensler attempted to justify the rule as bringing “some standardization to the conversation” and putting material climate information – the SEC issued guidance in 2010 on how companies should disclose such risks – in one place, saving investors the bother of piecing together the information from different sources. Gensler’s explanation, to put it politely, is an implausible one for imposing on corporate America what amounts to a parallel climate-reporting regime to the established framework of financial reporting. Whatever Gensler might say in public, the effect of the SEC rule – if implemented – would be to empower investors to impose net-zero targets on companies, to monitor progress in meeting them, and to hold company boards to account for them.  

  Unlike elected politicians, woke climate investors are not accountable for the effects of their climate policies: They exercise power without responsibility. This arrangement weakens America’s ability to respond to the geopolitical challenges of a revanchist Russia and an expansionist China. “We are on a war footing – an emergency,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm declared at the CERA energy conference in Houston last month. “We have to responsibly increase short-term supply where we can right now to stabilize the market and to minimize harm to American families.” Addressing oil executives in the audience, Granholm told them: “I hope your investors are saying these words to you as well: In this moment of crisis, we need more supply . . .  right now, we need oil and gas production to rise to meet current demand.” 

  As Granholm suggested, woke investors have been trying to do the opposite. Despite the war in Ukraine, there has been no let-up in investor pressure on oil and gas companies to scale down their operations. Whatever criticisms might be made of the Biden administration’s handling of the war in Ukraine, it is responsible for taking the awesome decisions that war involves. Investors, by contrast, have no responsibility for the nation’s security and America’s ability to lead the West. By helping investors impose their desired energy policies on American oil and gas companies, the SEC is undermining the national security prerogatives of the Biden administration and eroding America’s ability to meet the challenges of a dangerous world. The SEC is playing in a domain that it has no business being in. 

  *  *  *

  Rupert Darwall, is a senior fellow at RealClearFoundation, researching issues from international climate agreements to the integration of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals in corporate governance.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/20/2022 – 00:05

• Cognitive Biases: Three Common Types Illustrated
  Cognitive Biases: Three Common Types Illustrated

  In a world of information overload, we can fall victim to all sorts of cognitive biases. Since they can lead us to generate false conclusions, Visual Capitalist’s Jamie Robinson notes that it’s particularly important to understand what these biases are and how they work, as the consequences can become quite drastic.

  Confirmation bias, sampling bias, and brilliance bias are three examples that can affect our ability to critically engage with information. Jono Hey of Sketchplanations walks us through these cognitive bias examples, to help us better understand how they influence our day-to-day lives.

  Confirmation Bias

  

  One of the most-commonly encountered and understood, you’re likely to have already heard about confirmation bias. This cognitive bias affects the way we test and evaluate hypotheses every day.

  In simple terms, confirmation bias is the tendency to seek out or interpret evidence in such a way that supports our own strongly-held beliefs or expectations. This means that, given access to the same set of data and information, different people can come to wildly differing conclusions.

  Feeding into confirmation bias can lead us to make ill-informed choices or even reinforce negative stereotypes. For this reason, it is important to remember to seek out information that both confirms and contradicts your presumptions about a certain topic.

  Sampling Bias

  

  Sampling bias is a kind of bias that allows us to come to faulty conclusions based on inaccurate sample groups or data. Generally, the cause of sample bias is in poor study design and data collection.

  When polling individuals for survey questions, it is important to get a representative picture of an entire population. But this can prove surprisingly difficult when the people generating the study are also prone to human flaws, including cognitive biases.

  A common example involves conducting a survey on which political party is likely to win an election. If the study is run by a professor who only polls college students, since they are around and therefore easier to collect information from, the poll will not accurately reflect the opinions of the general population.

  To avoid sampling bias, it is important to randomize data collection to ensure responses are not skewed towards individuals with similar characteristics.

  Brilliance Bias

  

  Brilliance bias is another common cognitive bias that makes us more likely to think of genius as a masculine trait. This is in part due to the lack of female representation in both traditional academic and executive positions.

  In fact, The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology published an in-depth study on brilliance bias in 2020. It suggests that a likely source of this bias is in the uneven distribution of men and women across careers typically associated with higher level intelligence.

  While this distribution is a remnant of historical factors that limited access to education and career choices for women in the past, its presence has made us (wrongly) conclude that women are less brilliant instead. Naturally, as the cycle perpetuates the uneven distribution of women in these careers, it only reinforces this bias.

  Other Cognitive Bias Examples

  These few examples from Jono Hey give a good overview of some of the biases we face when trying to understand the data given to us, but they are just the tip of the iceberg.

  It is important to be cognizant of these biases in an era where we are constantly engaging with information, especially if we want to combat some of the harmful consequences they entail.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/19/2022 – 23:45

• Is There A Case For The Pre-1914 Gold Standard? Yes, If You Believe Inflation Is A Bad Thing
  Is There A Case For The Pre-1914 Gold Standard? Yes, If You Believe Inflation Is A Bad Thing

  Authored by Vibhu Vikramaditya via The Mises Institute,

  The Russian central bank recently announced that it will stop buying gold at a fixed rate and will instead buy them at the negotiated rate from banks. Following the numerous sanctions which were imposed on Russia. The Ruble had fallen tremendously against the US dollar, to get out of such a situation it had announced that it would buy gold at a fixed price of 5,000 rubles a gram until June 30. Since that announcement, the ruble has strengthened sharply against the dollar for over one month. Five thousand rubles was worth around $52 on March 25 and around $63 on Thursday.

  The mechanism which led to the increase was to allow the markets to play themselves out, in order to combat sanctions, they asked the nations to transact in their currency which, due to the extensive and growing array of sanctions by the western front, was becoming devalued by each day. It was here, by demanding payment in rubles, are attempting to increase demand for their currency which led to its increase where being pegged to hard currency allowed the confidence of the markets to increase so ruble wasn’t dumped extensively

  But because once you allow for sound money such as gold pegged to your currency which is dictated by the effective allocating mechanism of the market you cannot ignore the market valuation any longer, therefore the bounce-back and effective strengthening of the ruble which took place more and earlier than expected has now forced them to abandon the fixed-rate currency and move towards a more flexible exchange rate mechanism which would allow them to set the rates effectively in line with the motivation of sellers while discounting for factors such as immediacy, global credit standing and the turns of the global economy.

  

  A classical gold standard requires the central bank to exchange by the process of both purchasing and selling gold and the national currency for each other and to do so according to a fixed weight or quantity of gold per unit of currency. Thus, while neither the pegged currency nor the negotiated rates of exchange comprise the classical gold standard, they nonetheless serve as a great case study into the commendatory effects of having hard money serving as the medium of change in the economy.

  In the much-celebrated book of his time, Tract on Monetary Reform, economist John Maynard Keynes urged the United States and Great Britain to abandon the gold standard, calling it a “barbarous relic.” In the decades that followed the book’s publication, countries around the globe heeded Keynes’ advice and relegated the gold standard to the dust bin. It is one of the great historical ironies that almost every advice of from Keynes was taken up by the world in the latter half of the 20th century and that none of the supposed benefits of stability, full employment have come to fruition.

  The Problem of Gold standard in the Keynesian system

   Keynes’s dictum on the gold standard has become the fountainhead of claims against a return back to the gold standard.

  Keynes in his analysis found the gold standard to be a barbarous relic of the past that was unscientific and unfit to meet the demands of a modern world.

  It is his arguments against the gold standard which have been repeated time and again, thus they serve as an excellent case for demonstration as to why the gold standard is superior based on the very allegations which are leveled against it.

  Inflation and Gold standard

  He wrote in his tract on monetary reform about the ills of inflation “ Inflation redistributes wealth…. Its most striking consequence is its injustice to those who in good faith have committed their savings to titles to money rather than to things…. Injustice on such a scale has further consequences…. Inflation has… destroyed the atmosphere of confidence which is a condition of the willingness to save….

  Reading this one might form the opinion that the author of such lines might be highly unsavory and unscrupulous towards a monetary regime which causes destruction of the price mechanism and people’s stored up wealth through the artificial increase in prices but unfortunately one cannot do so without committing a grave error as both instances in modern history when prices have run amok namely the stagflation of the 70s and the massive rise in prices of around 10% today are both a result of Keynesian economics.

  The most widely recognized virtue of the historical gold standard is its low average inflation rate. The rate of inflation was lowest, on average, under the gold standard when compared with the Bretton woods system of a pegged dollar and fluctuating system of fiat dollar reserve. (p. 30).

  This was the era of the classical gold standard which lasted from 1880 to 1914, Inflation over this time period, while it fluctuated on a year-to-year basis, was virtually zero, and as a result, prices whose proper role lies in giving signals about market scarcity ensured proper allocation of resources due to which real income per capita in the United States increased by over 60 percent in a generation and a half. This low inflation is not a coincidence but a direct effect that is to be expected when the money supply is bound to the supply of gold. While the central bank can create thousands of dollars out of thin air to increase the money supply with its high stock to flow ratio, gold has the lowest price elasticity of supply, which is calculated as the percentage increase in quantity provided over price rise.

  This implies the effects of the increased supply which would be prompted by increases in the price of gold through higher demand would be quite insignificant to cause changes in the absolute price level. For instance, the year 2006 witnessed a 36% rise in the spot price of gold. For any other commodity, this would be expected to increase mining output significantly to flood markets and bring the price down. Instead, annual production in 2006 was 2,370 tons, 100 tons less than in 2005, and it would drop a further 10 tons in 2007. (p. 34).

  With changes in money supply being largely unaffected by changes in prices of gold, the general rise in prices which are caused when the supply of money is greater than the demand to hold it doesn’t occur. An economy where price increases are not caused due to an increase in money supply experiences price rise as a function of scarcity based on underlying consumer preferences which lead entrepreneurs to allocate resources properly in line with consumer demand.

  Gold Standard and boom-bust cycles

  A fiduciary media such as paper currency or bank deposits which are effectively used as the medium of exchange which is redeemable in gold enjoys certain properties which create a mechanism whereby artificial increases in money supply are either discouraged or its effects are reversed.

  Suppose if commercial banks were to increase the supply of fiduciary media beyond what its coffers can handle, an increase in supply would first increase the cash balance holdings of its lenders who would when then start spending it on the various inputs of production thereby increasing its price, this increased price would accrue higher profits to the sellers of those inputs who would in-turn increase their output.

  The process where sellers of inputs increase their input would lead them to hire more labor and capital goods which in turn would put further inflationary pressures on wages and other consumer goods when the rise in input prices are materialized into higher consumer goods prices.

  Due to such an increase in prices, the goods of other economies would gain a competitive advantage over domestic ones which would lead to an increase in demand for gold to trade with other countries, as the demand for gold increases, the over-issued fiduciary media would find themselves back to banks who would then be put in dangers of bank runs and defaulting on their claim. This discipline of defaulting over time would root out banks that would have the habit of overissuing fiduciary media which is the source of an artificial unsustainable boom that eventually bursts and leads the economy towards a recession.

  The same restrictions apply to the central banks as well where they can’t run an easy money policy without running the risk of a run on their reserves, given if a central bank lowers its lending rate of interest on its gold reserves to commercial banks in order to create a boom.

  It would lead to capital outflows as investors would look to invest in countries where the interest rate is higher, this would mean that the demand for gold by investors to exchange it against foreign currency will increase. This outflow of gold reserves will decrease the quantity of money in the economy which will again lead to an increase in the rate of interest, therefore it not only means that the monetary policy would be rendered ineffective but also lead central banks to lose out on important gold reserves.

  The problems of the pseudo gold standard

  One of the greatest benefits of the gold standard lies in its ability to restrict and bind the hands of the government. This perhaps becomes most evident when one revisits the episodes of how the gold standard was one by one abandoned by all countries in line for preparation of war efforts of the first world war. Each country in order to build up reserves for arms and ammunition had to increase its defense spending which couldn’t take place under the restraining system which protects individual liberty. Once the war ended there were some attempts at coming back to the gold standard but since they were not based on the underlying dynamic of a market-based gold-currency exchange rate mechanism, it failed to restore the price stability and economic prosperity of the classical gold standard. Each of the countries that participated in the war thus spent huge amounts of money and had massively inflated their currencies, thus economic conditions had changed equilibrium exchange rates between national currencies, and hence gold parities should have been adjusted. If 1914 is taken as the base (= 100), wholesale prices in December 1918 were as follows: USA 202, France 355, UK 246.

  After the war in 1918, the USA immediately announced that it would maintain the dollar price of gold at its prewar level. That is, it is willing to export gold at $20.67 per ounce. It was thought that Britain’s national honor was at stake. Failure to restore the prewar parity of the pound would undermine confidence in the pound.

  Accordingly, Britain resorted to a deflationary policy and restored the value of the pound to its pre-WW1 levels, this turned out to be a disaster for the British economy and other economies connected to it. Artificially lowering the value of the pound despite the increased money supply during the war period distorted the entire structure of prices whose role is to guide entrepreneurs, it could be compared to a situation wherein amid congestion of traffic, the signals reflect guidance for coordinating yesterday’s traffic.

  The USA was able to survive the artificial deflation on the account of its massive gold reserves which had grown during the war and the piling up of debt that countries owned to the United States. This allowed the USA to pursue an easy money policy which first sparked a temporary boom and then characteristically culminated in a bust. This mechanism was explained most adequately by Rothbard in his seminal work America’s Great Depression. Had the currencies been allowed to change as per a fixed weight of gold units per unit of currency, the picture may well have been different.

  Conclusion

  Keynes began his mission to enunciate his system of economics where the invisible hand of the market will be replaced by the visible hand of policymakers where an increase in government spending through the increase in aggregate demand as a result of the multiplier mechanism will provide full or near full employment. But before such a project could be undertaken, it was important to show why the gold standard fails to provide an order to the society as the foundations of his economic system relies on the fact that a country has independence in monetary and fiscal matters where it is not directly affected by the policies of other economies. There can be no such thing as a Keynesian state on the gold standard, any more than a cocaine addict or compulsive gambler can be on a strict budget.

  But now on the backs of substantial evidence and analysis, it becomes quite clear that not only was Keynes incorrect about the question of instability of the value of money and on the gold standard as a monetary system. A stronger case has also been made to show the classical gold standard is superior on every front and a return to the gold standard will cure several economic ills of inflation, improper allocation of resources, and a continuous cycle of booms and busts. This now calls into question a reevaluation of the entire foundation of the fiat money system along with the Keynesian worldview.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/19/2022 – 23:25

• "I'm Done Talking" – MSNBC Analyst Quits To Fight Russians In Ukraine 
  “I’m Done Talking” – MSNBC Analyst Quits To Fight Russians In Ukraine 

  From virtue signaling to taking action, a former MSNBC foreign affairs analyst ditched the teleprompter for a full-body kevlar suit and rifle and allegedly joined an international legion to fight alongside the Armed Forces of Ukraine against Russia. 

  On Monday night, Malcolm Nance, a longtime analyst for the network and a former U.S. naval intelligence officer, appeared on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” hosted by Joy Reid. 

  Nance told Reid that he joined the International Legion of Territorial Defense in Ukraine.

  “The more I saw of the war going on, the more I thought, I’m done talking. 

  “It’s time to take action here. So, about a month ago, I joined the international legion here in Ukraine, and I am here to help this country fight, you know, what essentially is a war of extermination,” he said. 

  The international legion has more than 20,000 volunteers from 52 countries who enlisted to help Ukraine repel Russian forces from the war-torn country. 

  “I spent quite a bit of time here in the pre-war period and when the invasion happened, I had friends who were in Donetsk, who were in the Ukrainian army, who were writing to us and telling us, ‘We’re not going to survive tonight. We’ve been hit 500 times,'” Nance said. 

  He added: “This is an existential war, and Russia has brought it to these people and is mass-murdering civilians. And there are people here like me who are going to do something about it.”

  The 61-year-old has authored several books that accuse Russia of planning to “destroy democracy” and getting Donald Trump elected president to “betray America.”

  Reid asked Nance whether he was in “any special danger” because “you clearly are not Ukrainian when they see you.” He replied that Moscow had waged war against everybody. 

  Nance’s Twitter account appears to be very active with retweets and personal tweets for someone allegedly fighting in a war. One wonders how he makes the time to maintain a social media presence while dodging Russian bullets but also getting cellular reception since Ukrainians have needed Elon Musk’s Starlink space internet since infrastructure has been severely damaged. 

  I’m DONE talking. #JoinTheLegion #StopRussia #SlavaUkraini pic.twitter.com/ob3gL1cZ7P

  — Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) April 19, 2022

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  We’re looking forward to Nance tweeting his own combat footage, or maybe he’ll just be an MSNBC guest in a military outfit. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/19/2022 – 23:05

• The Dam Is Finally Cracking
  The Dam Is Finally Cracking

  Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via The Daily Reckoning,

  We all sense the global order has cracked. The existing order is breaking down on multiple fronts.

  

  Those who have benefited from this arrangement are doing everything in their power to patch the cracks, while those who chafed under the old order’s chains seek a new order that suits their interests.

  The task now is to make sense of this complex inflection point in history. Two statements summarize the transition from the existing global order to the next iteration:

  1. Finance dominated resources in the old order. Now the roles will reverse and real-world resources will dominate finance. We can’t “print our way” out of scarcities.

  2. Reshuffling currencies and credit will not stop the breakdown of the global order’s “waste is growth” Landfill Economy Model.

  Playing financial tricks has extended the life of an unsustainable economic model that glorified “growth” from wasting resources. By expanding credit “money,” the current global order fueled unsustainable consumption driven by unsustainable speculation.

  Stop expanding “money” and credit and the global order of “growth” implodes.

  The Dam Is Finally Cracking

  Unfortunately for all those who benefited from soaring wealth and income inequality, the trick of expanding “money” and credit has reached systemic limits. The dam holding all the toxic debt, leverage and fraud is finally cracking.

  The dominance of resources over finance leads to a multipolar global order, an order that has the potential to be far more stable and sustainable than the unsustainable, destabilizing “waste is growth” model that depends on financial fraud to maintain the illusion of “growth.”

  As I explain in my book Global Crisis, National Renewal, scarcity leads to either social disorder or rationing. This article explains how government’s role will shift from boosting demand (the Keynesian Cargo Cult) to limiting demand in ways that maintain the social contract.

  Nations that fail to adapt to the end of financialization and globalization will unravel. Every nation has a choice which path it takes:

  Cling on to the doomed existing order of financialization, globalization and the “waste is growth” Landfill Economy or embrace a multipolar world and a degrowth model of doing more with less and incentivizing efficiency and durability rather than the shoddy planned obsolescence of the debt-dependent Landfill Economy.

  Free Money Is the Solution

  Under various guises, labels and rationalizations, “free money” has now been established as the default policy fix for any problem. Stock market falters? The solution: free money! Economy falters? The solution: free money! Bankers face collapse from ruinously risky bets? The solution: free money! Infrastructure crumbling?

  The solution: free money!

  Inflation raging? The solution: free money! Ruh-roh. We have a problem free money won’t fix. Instead, free money accelerates the conflagration. Dang, this is inconvenient; the solution to every problem makes this problem worse. Now what do we do?

  Despite the apparent surprise of the policy-makers, pundits and apologists, this was common sense. Create trillions of dollars out of thin air and spread the money around indiscriminately (fraudsters and scammers getting more than the honest, of course) after global supply chains were disrupted and shelves were bare, then open the floodgates of speculative gambling in stocks, cryptos, housing, used cars, bat guano, quatloos, etc., and what do you think will happen?

  Supply can’t catch up with free-money-boosted demand, prices rise, people instinctively over-order and over-buy, and “don’t fight the Fed” speculative betting begets more betting: the inflation rocket booster ignites, wages soar as workers try to keep pace with rising expenses, speculative bubbles inflate to unprecedented extremes, and all this “wealth without work or productivity” gooses spending and gross domestic product (GDP).

  “Once the Bubbles Pop, GDP Crashes and the Ratio Blows Out”

  Forty years ago, the total debt-to-GDP ratio was 1.6: debt was $4.8 trillion and GDP was $3 trillion. Then the policy solutions of fiscal “borrow and spend” and Federal Reserve “balance sheet expansion.” a.k.a. free money, became the policy default.

  The ratio rose to 2.76 in 2000 and has wobbled around 3.7 for the past decade, a decade that just so happened to see the stock market quadruple and the housing bubble reinflate to new heights as the Federal Reserve kept interest rates near zero as part of the “free money” policy:

  If we’re going to borrow tens of trillions of dollars to squander, we need near-zero interest rates to keep costs of borrowing down.

  Though no one in a position of power or influence dares admit it, the ratio of debt to GDP hasn’t blown out for one reason: speculative bubbles have pushed GDP higher in a massive, sustained distortion of “wealth effect” and winner take most gains for those who knew how to extract the majority of gains from the bubbles.

  Once the bubbles pop, GDP crashes and the ratio blows out. The belief that adding trillions in debt magically adds GDP will be revealed as delusional fantasy.

  Two Paths

  Completely forgotten in the era of Free money as the solution to all problems is the discipline of frugality, which can best be defined as discipline over spending as a means of building long-term financial stability and general well-being.

  Financial discipline (frugality) has been set aside as a needless discomfort: why make difficult tradeoffs and sacrifices when the solution is just to borrow/create more free money? Indeed. Along the same lines, why bother with all the hassles of healthy food and fitness? Just pig out and swallow a couple handfuls of “free” (heh) meds.

  Discipline isn’t just about limiting waste. It’s about investing capital and labor wisely to secure future gains in productivity which is the only real source of income and wealth. Creating “money” out of thin air and spreading it around to satisfy every constituency doesn’t increase productivity. It destroys productivity by incentivizing waste – the waste is growth Landfill Economy – and speculative bets on bubbles never popping.

  Alas, all bubbles pop, and now that creating free money only makes costs rise faster, there is no solution other than – oh, dear, dear, dear – the unforgiving discipline of frugality and investing for productivity gains rather than for speculative bubble “wealth.”

  Which path leads to doom? Free money. Which path leads to revival? Frugality and discipline.

  That’s not what everyone wants to hear, but clinging to delusional fantasies of “free wealth” won’t lead to positive outcomes, any more than swallowing handfuls of meds leads to “free health.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/19/2022 – 22:45

• Rising Unaffordability Is Causing Renters To Abandon Hope Of Ever Owning A Home
  Rising Unaffordability Is Causing Renters To Abandon Hope Of Ever Owning A Home

  After two years of a buying frenzy that has become self-reinforcing as investors and speculators have sought to cash in on the trend, it looks like American homebuyers are getting ready to throw in the towel.

  The New York Fed’s 2022 SCE Housing Survey (readers can find a breakdown on the New York Fed’s blog, Liberty Street Economics), released Monday, showed the that respondents believe they would be less likely to buy if they were to move compared to the year-ago survey, marking the first annual decline since the series began in 2014. Compared with last February, the drop amounted to a decline of 10 percentage points.

  The drop was driven by the current renter segment; the Fed’s data showed renters were much less likely to buy compared to renters in the 2021 survey. The survey also showed that while respondents see prices for homes in their zip codes rising over the coming year, they expect that pace to cool five substantially over the next five years, slowing from an average of nearly 6 percentage points, to 2 percentage points, both on an annualized basis.

  What’s more, the share of respondents stating that they believe housing to be a “good” or “very good” investment fell slightly to 71% compared to its series high of 73.6% in February 2021.

  Put another way, this essentially confirms something that we have been warning about for months now. Housing affordability has been crashing by the most on record, as the surge in prices over the last two years has left first-time buyers at a tremendous disadvantage.

  

  The data confirm something that the NAR, BofA and others have warned about as well. For example, BofA in particular has warned that the housing-market euphoria seen last year seemed unlikely to continue. Their reasoning relies mostly on the pickup in mortgage rates, which have surged to one record after another as bond yields relentlessly moved higher.

  

  The drop in affordability has already corresponded with a drop in home sales.

  

  And for what it’s worth, consumers are bracing for rising rents both over the coming year and during the years to come.

  But of all the charts published by the Fed to illustrate the survey data, this probably does the best job: the percentage of renters who believe they will ever own a home has also fallen to the lowest level since the survey began.

  

  So, not only are renters bracing for surging rents in the years to come, but many are giving up hope of ever owning a home.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/19/2022 – 22:25

• Saudi Economic Growth To Double This Year On High Oil Prices
  Saudi Economic Growth To Double This Year On High Oil Prices

  By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com

  High oil prices will push Saudi Arabia’s economy into high-growth mode, more than doubling this year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which raised its growth forecast for the Kingdom on Tuesday. 

  

  The IMF is targeting 7.6% growth for the Saudi economy this year, raising its forecast by 2.8%. 

  While much of this was attributed to multi-year-high oil prices, the IMF has also noted growth and expected further growth in non-oil revenues. 

  “We raised our estimates of the growth rate of the Saudi economy by 2.8 percentage points, which reflects the increase in oil production in accordance with the OPEC+ agreement, in conjunction with the more non-oil output growth exceeding expectations,” the IMF said in its World Economic Outlook report.

  A Capital Economics report has Saudi oil production rising to 10.3 million barrels per day in March, for 26.7% year-on-year growth, which is classified as the fastest rate of growth for the kingdom in nearly two decades. 

  Capital Economics forecasts the Saudi economy will grow by 10% this year and by 5.3% in 2023. 

  At the same time, Capital Economics economist James Swanston remains optimistic that the Saudis will further increase output beyond what OPEC+ has agreed to, Arab News reports. 

  Capital Economic’s increased Saudi output projection comes despite the cartel’s recent report suggesting that global oil demand would be around 480,000 bpd lower than previously expected due to slower economic growth driven down by Russia’s war in Ukraine and China’s COVID restrictions. 

  The IMF’s double-growth projections for Saudi Arabia come as it slashes its forecast for overall economic growth from 6.1% in 2021 to 3.6% in 2022 and 2023. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/19/2022 – 22:05

• Tesla Has Reopened Its Shanghai Plant
  Tesla Has Reopened Its Shanghai Plant

  Tesla has resumed production at its Shanghai plant on Tuesday, according to local China media reports and Reuters. 

  The company’s factory had been shut down for about three weeks as a result of the ongoing Covid lockdowns in China. We also reported yesterday that the company was “sputtering” to re-open and dealing with supply chain issues that were holding it up. 

  “To prepare for the restart, Tesla has recalled workers to its Shanghai plant where they will need to live on site, in line with China’s ‘closed loop management’ process,” two sources told Reuters yesterday. 

  

  Barron’s documented what the re-open would be like for employees: 

  Employees had better bring along their toothbrushes. They could be there for a while, with no sign of China’s zero-Covid policy going away anytime soon. The plant, which has been shut since March 28, could reopen as soon as Monday afternoon, Bloomberg reported, citing an internal company memo.

  Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But the possibility of the workers coming back but not going home or anywhere else—called closed-loop manufacturing —has been building. Shanghai businesses have been in lockdown for weeks as China tries to control a new outbreak with its rigid policy.

  In Tesla’s bubble, Bloomberg reported, employees would sleep on the floor—a sleeping bag and mattress—since the plant doesn’t have a dorm. They also would get catered meals as well as a small daily stipend and have access to showers and entertainment.

  Sounds like paradise…

  Tesla had been preparing to re-open Monday but was forced to push its restart back by a day due “to logistic problems with its supplier”. We also noted yesterday that competitor Volkswagen has reportedly restarted production in China. General Motors is also considering plans for re-opening this week.

  At the same time as this re-open, China continues to extend its lockdowns across parts of the country creating not only chaos domestically, but another coming shock to the supply chain for countries like the U.S., who are highly reliant on importing Chinese goods. 

   

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/19/2022 – 21:45

• Texas Mayor Joins Chorus Urging Biden To Reverse Plan To End Title 42
  Texas Mayor Joins Chorus Urging Biden To Reverse Plan To End Title 42

  By Frank Fang of The Epoch Times

  Javier Villalobos, the mayor of the border city of McAllen, Texas, is imploring President Joe Biden not to end the Title 42 public health provision, telling the president to “prioritize the health and safety” of his community.

  “Although our community is giving, well-prepared, and proactive, no amount of preparation will allow for a local government such as the City of McAllen to respond to the dramatic rise in the undocumented migration that is anticipated as a direct result of the United States federal government announcing the end of Title 42 effective May 23, 2022,” Villalobos wrote in a letter to the president, dated April 13.

  

  The Trump-era public health provision was invoked in March 2020 as an order issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It was put in place to stop the spread of COVID-19, allowing illegal immigrants to be quickly turned away at the southern U.S. border rather than processed at immigration detention facilities under Title 8 immigration law.

  The Biden administration kept the measure in place after taking office. However, on April 1, the CDC announced that the provision would end on May 23, saying “public health conditions and an increased availability of tools to fight COVID-19” have rendered the measure unnecessary.

  Villalobos cited data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in his letter to highlight how COVID-19 infection has remained a serious concern for his city—over the past 12 weeks, 13.6 percent of the immigrants released by CBP officials into McAllen have tested positive.

  The mayor also stated that Hidalgo County, where McAllen is located, has been “disproportionately burdened” by COVID-19. Citing the Texas Department of State Health Services, he said the county ranks sixth among the state’s 254 counties in the number of fatalities and seventh in the number of infection cases.

  “With the BA.2 variant rapidly impacting the northeastern United States such that health and safety protocols are being reconsidered, and reimplemented, a delay in lifting Title 42 affords your administration additional time to mobilize a response to combat the new variant’s threat and protect the health and safety of all Americans,” the mayor wrote.

  BA.1, BA.1.1, and BA.2 are the three common lineages of the Omicron variant of the CCP virus found in the United States. BA.2 accounted for 85.9 percent of infection cases for the week ending April 9, according to CDC data.

  Biden’s decision to lift Title 42 has drawn concerns from both Republicans and Democrats.

  Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), in a recent interview with Epoch Times sister media outlet NTD, questioned why Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris haven’t come to the southern border to talk with Border Patrol officers before making the decision to end the health provision.

  Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), after a visit to the border city of Douglas, Arizona, told Fox News Digital that he believed there’s going to be a “crisis” if Title 42 is lifted without proper plans in place.

  A total of 21 states—including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, and Georgia—have joined in a lawsuit asking a federal court to block the Biden administration’s order to end Title 42. The lawsuit was initially filed by attorneys general in Arizona, Louisiana, and Missouri on April 4.

  “Ending Title 42 would be a disaster and further the chaos at the southwest border that is making it easier for drug cartels and human smugglers to advance their illicit practices in our country,” Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said in a statement.

  A bipartisan group of lawmakers has introduced legislation in both the Senate (S.4036) and House (H.R.7458), aiming to delay ending Title 42.

  “I implore you to prioritize the health and safety of my community, Texans and all Americans, and to reconsider the administration’s plan to lift Title 42,” Villalobos concluded. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/19/2022 – 21:25

• California Grocery Workers Score Double-Digit Raises After 'Unified And Militant' Threat To Strike
  California Grocery Workers Score Double-Digit Raises After ‘Unified And Militant’ Threat To Strike

  Some 47,000 Southern California grocery workers will receive their largest pay increase in decades, after they ratified a new union contract with the region’s largest food chains on Thursday, according to the LA Times.

  

  Passing with an 87% approval, employees at 540 Ralphs, Albertsons, Vons and Pavillions stores from San Luis Obispo to San Diego will receive raises of 19% to 31% over current levels, while part-time employees – around 70% of the workforce – were guaranteed 28 weekly hours, up from 24.

  The agreement came after four months of bargaining came down to a union-authorized strike – which would have compounded issues caused by inflation and supply chain woes.

  Across California and the nation, a pandemic-driven labor shortage has made it harder to retain and hire staff. Workers are quitting for higher-paying jobs and older employees, fearing infection, are retiring in droves. -LA Times

  “The companies were afraid of a strike,” said Kathy Finn, secretary-treasurer of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770 in Los Angeles. “Our members were more unified and militant than they’ve been in a long time.”

  Ralphs, owned by parent company Kroger, said in a statement that it was “pleased” with the agreement, while Albertsons described the pay raises – which are more than 2.5x what the chains originally proposed – as “fair and equitable.”

  The grocers had originally proposed a raise of just $1.80 per hour over three years for the highest-paid long-term employees, including cashiers. They ended up agreeing to $4.25, raising wages for those employees to $26.75. Those at the bottom-third of the workforce – baggers and clerk’s helpers – will receive a 95-cent raise to $16.34 per hour.

  “This is the best contract for the employees in 20 years, but also for the companies,” said retail consultant Burt Flickinger. “We have the most acute worker shortage since World War II. Higher wages and benefits are an investment in worker loyalty and productivity.”

  According to Flickinger, the new UFCW contract will help counter nonunion competition, as union membership in the Southern California grocery industry has dropped from 90% to around 35% over the last 25 years due to the growth of big-box stores.

  “Walmart and Target are running out of stocks in key categories because they don’t have enough workers at stores or warehouses. With the high cost of living in Southern California, this contract could bring back experienced workers to union stores — people who retired early because of COVID and now can’t pay their bills,” he said.

  Earlier this month, UFCW workers at Stater Bros., a chain with 15,000 Southern California employees, also gained hefty increases of $4.50 over three years for top-line cashiers, clerks and meat cutters, along with a 28-hour minimum guarantee for most part-timers.

  “Grocery workers and their union scored a big win,” said Occidental College politics professor Peter Dreier, co-author of a recent report by the nonprofit Economic Roundtable on Kroger. Polls showed the public was sympathetic to essential workers who suffered hardships during the pandemic, and the companies would have lost a lot of business in the event of a strike, he said. -LA Times

  In 1990, real wages for Southern California Kroger workers made them the highest-paid clerks at the time, earning $13.65 per hour – which would translate to $28.32 today.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/19/2022 – 21:05

• A Structurally Low-Yield Environment Isn't Over Yet
  A Structurally Low-Yield Environment Isn’t Over Yet

  By Michael Read, Bloomberg Markets Live Commentator and Reporter

  The scale of this year’s move in rates markets goes some way to dent a core thesis on which many macro portfolios are based: that of a structurally low-yield environment. While global rates may well remain elevated, it’s debatable whether or not markets are facing a full-blown regime change. Given the market-implied path of policy tightening and the unprecedented selloff so far this year, it may not be time to completely retire your Never-Sell-Bunds T-shirts.

  While the coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s attack on Ukraine have seen a broad-based and persistent snap higher in inflation, there are several factors at play that push against expectations for continued upward pressure on yields.

  Commodities are in backwardation: the vast majority of the constituents of the Bloomberg Commodity Index show a strong backwardation out to 12 months from now. The bulk of the war-driven supply fears have caused near-term contracts to rocket higher, and while there are solid reasons for prices remaining above pre-Covid averages, there will be a degree of normalization ahead.

  Inflation curves are inverted: whether that’s breakevens or zero-coupon inflation swaps, expectations are for lower inflation ahead. Naturally, lower inflation does not mean “low” inflation in pre-Covid terms by any means. But digging into the sub-components of the latest round of super-hot inflation prints gives some hope that we may be closer to cooler prices. Indeed, year-ahead inflation expectations have barely budged.

  While longer-dated inflation tenors remain comfortably above longer term averages (despite the downward-sloping term structure), this more than likely reflects a variety of step-change inflationary impulses ranging from protectionism to greenflation discussed elsewhere.

  Most developed-market meeting-dated OIS rates are pricing aggressively frontloaded, but ultimately rather short, hiking cycles to tackle their respective series of hot inflation prints.

  This is because ultimately it all comes down to economic growth — something that can be viewed as a function of credit creation. As such, an uncomfortable observation is the turnaround in a measure of the euro-area credit impulse. No credit to tackle unexploited productive investment means stifled growth; less growth means fewer reasons for yields to continue to march higher.

  Nowhere is this clearer than in Europe, whose disparate economies are relatively more exposed to the fallout of war. During the Fourth Phase of ECB monetary policy (blue box), namely ultra-low inflation and QE, we have become accustomed to radical actions with little inflationary impulse. Even as we emerge from that dynamic, much of the recoupling of inflation with yields should come from the inflation side in the months and quarters ahead.

  

  Indeed, we have already seen policy trial balloons suggesting the ECB is working on a crisis tool to deploy in the event of a blowout in the bond yields of weaker euro-zone economies in the event of shocks outside of the control of their respective governments.

  It’s clearly a long long way from the central bank put of a “Super Mario”-esque intervention that the market has become accustomed to. While the European bond space may remain in a sell-rallies-mode for some time to come as inflation cools, the dilution or outright absence of a calming central bank influence will not stop fixed income’s recent one-way street from moderating as we progress into 2Q

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/19/2022 – 20:45

• Biden Prepping Yet Another Huge Ukraine Arms Package As Total Military Aid Nears $3BN
  Biden Prepping Yet Another Huge Ukraine Arms Package As Total Military Aid Nears $3BN

  Coming off last week’s approved gargantuan $800 million military package for Ukraine, which the broader public and media seemed to not even bat an eye about (but quite the opposite: positively cheering it), what more is there for Biden to do except sign off on another massive weapons package for Kiev… 

  “The Biden administration is preparing to announce another substantial military aid package for Ukraine this week,” NBC News cited five US officials to report Tuesday evening. “Three officials said the package is expected to be similar in size to the $800 million one the administration announced last week.”

  

  Biden previewed the new aid package by answering a simple “yes” when asked by a reporter whether Washington will send more artillery to Ukraine.

  The new transfers are expected to include “tens of thousands more artillery rounds” – notes Bloomberg, and likely along with more anti-tank missiles, as has been consistently shipped stretching back even before Russia’s late February invasion kicked off. 

  It appears to be the administration’s response to Moscow launching a ‘new phase’ in the war: a major force buildup and push to take the Donbas region from Ukraine, which the Kremlin reportedly wants to see fully accomplished by May 9, Victory Day, which commemorates the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany.

  Without doubt these continual major weapons packages pledged to Ukraine will only push Russia and NATO into increasingly direct confrontation, given the Kremlin’s standing warning that it will target any inbound Western arms transfers.

  Meanwhile, on Monday a senior Pentagon official told Reuters of plans to begin training Ukrainian forces on how to use American-supplied howitzers. It was described, however, that the training would occur outside Ukraine, likely in a neighboring friendly country like Poland. 

  U.S. has sent $2.6 billion in military aid to Ukraine since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, with DoD weapons reaching the battlefield within 48 to 72 hours: senior U.S. defense official

  — Jack Detsch (@JackDetsch) April 19, 2022

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  White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki confirmed this week that so far the United States has successfully delivered new weapons to the Ukrainians on four flights – this as overall US aid pledged to Ukraine since Feb.24 has totaled about $2.6 billion and counting.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/19/2022 – 20:25

• Louisiana Asks SCOTUS To Block Biden Administration From Calculating 'Social Cost' Of Carbon Emissions
  Louisiana Asks SCOTUS To Block Biden Administration From Calculating ‘Social Cost’ Of Carbon Emissions

  Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry is vowing to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to prevent the Biden administration from recalculating and using the “social cost” of carbon emissions, a metric used in climate regulation that critics say needlessly drives up operating costs for businesses and prices for consumers.

  

  Critics have long said that the classification of carbon dioxide, the gas humans expel from their lungs when breathing, as a pollutant makes no sense. Carbon dioxide is essential to life on the planet and is used in the process of photosynthesis, which spurs plant growth. But environmentalists claim that human-created carbon dioxide contributes to climate change.

  The social cost of carbon, a measurement in dollars of the damages supposedly caused by releasing a metric ton of greenhouse gases, is used by policymakers to provide cost-benefit analyses and to write regulations. Placing a monetary value on the effect of the gases gives federal regulators ammunition to justify tougher environmental regulations.

  On Inauguration Day, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that resurrected an interagency working group on the social cost of carbon and temporarily set the cost at $51 per metric ton, the level used before President Donald Trump took office in 2017. During his presidency, Trump had reduced the social cost figure to as low as $1 per metric ton. Biden’s working group was studying the social cost with a view to establishing a new, presumably higher rate.

  In February, U.S. District Judge James D. Cain Jr. of the Western District of Louisiana, agreed with Louisiana and nine other states, issuing an order blocking the use of the interim metric. The states told Cain, who was appointed by Trump, that the metric was arbitrary and would boost the cost of producing energy and hike regulatory costs for states.

  At the time, Max Sarinsky, an attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU Law School, said Cain’s injunction might not survive.

  “This injunction is extraordinarily broad,” Sarinsky told Axios. “I think it will receive very, very close scrutiny on appeal.”

  In mid-March, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit stayed Cain’s injunction at the request of the Biden administration in an emergency application. The appeals court held that Louisiana and the other states challenging the metric had raised “merely hypothetical” claims of harm and that they probably didn’t have legal standing to take action in court.

  Greenwire reported that days later, the states asked the 5th Circuit to hear the case, arguing that allowing the use of the social cost metric “lets one of the most consequential regulations in history remain in effect … despite the irreparable harm it’s causing the states.” The appeals court denied the rehearing.

  “We are disappointed in the 5th Circuit’s decision, and we will appeal to the Supreme Court,” Landry’s office told E&E News, a trade publication. “Attorney General Landry will continue fighting the Biden administration’s attempts to inject the government into the everyday lives of Americans.”

  Landry’s comments come as the Supreme Court is considering West Virginia v. EPA, which the court heard on Feb. 28.

  West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey previously told The Epoch Times that he hopes the Supreme Court will use the case to rein in the far-reaching powers of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to shut down carbon dioxide-generating industries without regard to the economic well-being of those affected.

  The problem is that the EPA is trying to transform itself from “an environmental regulator into a central energy planning authority,” according to Morrisey, a Republican.

  West Virginia is a major producer of coal, natural gas, and crude oil. West Virginia and 18 other states are challenging the authority that the Clean Air Act provides to the EPA. The challengers hope the high court will resolve whether the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to delegate regulatory authority to the EPA to limit so-called greenhouse gas emissions.

  The challenge comes years after the Supreme Court ruled 5–4 in Massachusetts v. EPA (2007) that the agency can regulate greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide as “air pollutants” under the act. In the decision, the court called climate change “the most pressing environmental challenge of our time.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/19/2022 – 20:05

• Watch: Tonga Volcano Unleashed Once-In-A-Century Planetary Shockwave 
  Watch: Tonga Volcano Unleashed Once-In-A-Century Planetary Shockwave 

  An absolutely fascinating visual representation of how an underwater volcano near the Pacific island nation of Tonga in January erupted and unleashed a once-in-a-century planetary shockwave. 

  NYTimes published the shockwave simulation by Ángel Amores, a physical oceanographer at the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies in Majorca, Spain. 

  After the Tonga eruption, the shockwave took approximately 36 hours to circumnavigate the globe. 

  

  Amores first discovered the shockwave after checking data from local weather stations when he saw the radar signature of the wave. He said sudden pressure changes were seen at weather stations worldwide once the shockwave arrived. 

  “Then I was waiting and I said, OK, it should take like 36 hours to come back … And then it passed again. After another 36 hours it passed a third time.

  “This is the first time that I see something like that,” he said.

  Peter W. Brown, a physicist at the University of Western Ontario, said the shockwave circumnavigated the world several times at the speed of sound. He said the phenomenon was “super spectacular.” 

  “Everybody who studies atmospheric waves are all quite, I would say, awe-struck,” Brown said. 

  Here’s a visualization of weather stations across Japan experiencing a spike in air pressure as the shockwave passed. 

  

  Weather stations worldwide detected spikes in pressure, including in China, Australia, France, Britain, Germany, and the United States. NYTimes said, “the shockwave caused small disturbances in local atmospheric properties such as the temperature of water vapor, creating faint ripples that could be seen in satellite images.”

  So the question is, what produces the next planetary shockwave? Will it be another volcanic eruption, an asteroid, or a nuclear bomb? 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/19/2022 – 19:45

• DeSantis Signs Bill To Reform Higher Education
  DeSantis Signs Bill To Reform Higher Education

  By Jannis Falkenstein of The Epoch Times

  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a higher education reform bill on April 19 to hold faculty accountable, and ensure transparency with the curriculum.

  

  Under the new law, which takes effect July 1, tenured faculty will be reviewed every five years by a Board of Governors of the State University System of Florida, which will consider such things as accomplishments, productivity, performance metrics. and compensation.

  “Transparency and accountability is absolutely key,” DeSantis said as he signed the bill in The Villages. “We’re going to make sure that our institutions of higher education are committed to excellence, not ideology – we’re going to be even better than we have been, and we’ve been pretty doggone good over the last many years.”

  The Republican governor told a boisterous crowd that Florida’s higher education institutions were ranked No. 1 in U.S. News and World Report for the last five years, but, with these reforms, he wanted to make it even better.

  Senate Bill 7044 addresses three main issues that DeSantis’s administration sees as “eroding higher education,” he said. Accreditation, transparency in course descriptions, tenure reforms and allowing grandchildren of Florida residents in-state tuition.

  “It’s all about trying to make these institutions more in line with what the state’s priorities are and, frankly, the priorities of the parents throughout the state of Florida,” the governor said.

  The bill sponsored by Republican Senator Manny Diaz will also remove the “stranglehold that faculty unions and accrediting agencies have had on universities and colleges,” a written statement from the governor’s office said. It also “adds common-sense transparency requirements for tuition, fees and cost of materials.”

  Florida’s higher education institutions are required to seek accreditation, but the bill requires them to “seek accreditation from different accreditors in consecutive accreditation cycles.”

  The bill reads: “State Board of Education and Board of Governors (BOG) will identify regional accreditors that are recognized by the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) that are best suited for each institution. Institutions must seek accreditation from identified regional accreditors and if they are denied by the regional accreditor, they may seek accreditation from any USDOE-approved accreditor that is different from their current accreditor. Prior to this legislation, accrediting agencies had a monopoly on Florida colleges and universities and were able to hold a hand over the operations of educational institutions and remove objectivity from the process.”

  The bill also takes on tenured professors.

  “Tenure was there to protect people so that they could do ideas that maybe would cause them to lose their job, or whatever, and academic freedom. I think what tenure does is [that] … it has created more of an intellectual orthodoxy—and once you’re tenured, your productivity really declines,” DeSantis said.

  “The BOG will be authorized to adopt regulations for performance reviews of tenured professors to hold tenured faculty to the highest standards of accountability. These reviews will help ensure that tenured staff remain active and effective in educating Florida’s university students,” the bill said. “Previously, tenured faculty had to be retained despite repeated instances of political motivations, ineffective teaching practices and overall bad behavior in the classroom.”

  Dr. Michael Poliakoff, President of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni said that the bill is the “guardianship” of the future.

  “There is no doubt tenure without accountability is an invitation to abuse,” he said.

  Florida State University senior Taylor Walker was in attendance, and said she agreed with holding universities accountable.

  “As I go into my classes, my professors hold me to high standards, as they should—but this bill gives me the opportunity to hold them to the same high standards,” she said.

  Walker, a first-generation college student, said her conservative views were sometimes “stifled” and that “woke narratives” are thought by some to be the only narratives that should be taught.

  “When so many in this world, especially in academia, will put their own biased agendas over excellence, it is refreshing to see a government that applies standards to mitigate injustice,” the fourth-year history major said, calling the bill “excellent.”

  Current Florida Secretary of Education Richard Corcoran, with two more weeks before he returns to the private sector, quipped that he was on his “farewell tour.”

  The governor has kept his inaugural promise of making life better for the children of Florida, he said.

  Corcoran also took the opportunity to address the decision on rejecting the math textbooks for reasons of inserting critical race theory (CRT) into the content of the books, which violates Florida law.

  “It’s a math textbook you’re trying to teach two plus two equals four, and it’s like this whole hidden agenda of indoctrination,” he said of the books. “I don’t care how you feel when you’re doing the problem, just be able to solve it.”

  He continued to predict that because of making sure CRT is not “infiltrating” the content of textbooks that Florida will “shoot to the top in all education metrics.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/19/2022 – 19:25

• "These Are Incredible Moves" – Yen's Problem Is That Japan Will Also See Inflation In 2022
  “These Are Incredible Moves” – Yen’s Problem Is That Japan Will Also See Inflation In 2022

  As we discussed earlier today in “Why you should pay attention to the crashing JPY“, with the Japanese currency imploding at a never before seen pace, sliding on 13 consecutive days – an uninterrupted streak never once seen in history – things are starting to get scary for the BOJ and adherents of the lunacy that is MMT.

  

  And unfortunately for the BOJ, as Bloomberg’s resident FX experts Mark Cudmore writes, the yen has plenty more downside in 2022 as the BOJ is yet another central bank being lulled into misplaced complacency on inflation.

  Below, Cudmore explains why it about to get much uglier for any remaining yen bulls out there.

  Remember the 2021 idea that “inflation is transitory”?! That was laughable. And so is the idea that Japan won’t see above-target inflation in 2022. The problem is that too many people trust economists on this issue even though the only thing we know from the past year is that, in aggregate, economists, globally and also particularly in Japan, are very poor at forecasting inflation.

  When we suggested in December that consumer price inflation in Japan was a 2022 black swan to watch for, the reaction was extremely dismissive. At the time, the consensus forecast for full-year inflation was 0.7%. It now has jumped to 1.5% and will keep being revised higher by economists chasing the trend rather than looking at the real world around them:

  

  I’m told that Japanese companies struggle to raise prices in a country that hasn’t had inflation for so long. I get that. But reality will overtake them and force everyone to adapt, because the hard facts are that input prices are going parabolic in Japan, and to such an extent that it can’t be ignored any more.

  The Bloomberg Commodity Spot Index rose 8.2% in JPY terms over just the past week. It’s up 29% since end of Feb., more than 48% ytd and 177% over the past two years (all in JPY terms). These are incredible moves:

  

  With the BOJ sticking to its extraordinarily easy policy, the yen’s negative real yields will deepen. And the central bank is trapped because the country’s large sovereign debt pile means that higher rates create a new problem, where the stress outlet will again likely be the currency.

  This post isn’t making any particular call on the short-term price action, but, as outlined last week, any yen rally in 2022 won’t be sustainable without a global growth shock.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/19/2022 – 19:05

• Biden Having An Increasingly Difficult Time With G-20 Fissures
  Biden Having An Increasingly Difficult Time With G-20 Fissures

  Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

  Biden made sanction demands on G-20 nations. He hit a BRIC+ wall.

  

  Map of G-20 countries from Atlas Big, annotations by Mish.

  G-20 Pressure Failing 

  The G-20 members are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union. Spain is also invited as a permanent guest.

  The Biden administration wants to increase pressure on Russia, but finds increasing resistance to do more.

  Brazil, Russia, India, and China widely known as BRICs have not bowed to US pressure. Nor have Mexico, Saudi Arabia, or South Africa. 

  The 2022 G-20 meets in November but those nations are also at an IMF summit right now. 

  Treasury secretary Janet Yellen plans to avoid Russian officials at meetings this week, while engaging with countries that haven’t joined in sanctions. 

  Janet Yellen Faces Challenge to Keep Pressure on Russia, While Addressing Global Consequences

  The Wall Street Journal reports Janet Yellen Faces Challenge to Keep Pressure on Russia, While Addressing Global Consequences

  Hanging over gatherings of finance ministers from around the world at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington this week will be Russia’s war in Ukraine, as well as the sanctions campaign the U.S. and its allies have waged in response. As those sanctions efforts have brought the U.S. and its allies closer together, they are also laying bare deep differences in the broader Group of 20 major economies, which includes Russia, China and India, as well as European allies.

  Ms. Yellen is expected to boycott some G-20 meetings this week that include Russian officials, and she last week warned countries against deepening their economic ties with Russia after the sanctions, singling out China.

  In addition, Ms Yellen’s attempts to build support for an international tax agreement that was the focus of international economic diplomacy last year may not gain traction. Agreement on the deal still faces hurdles both in Congress and among European countries.

  US Boycott

  Yellen will IMF boycott meetings this week that include Russia. But what does that say about the G-20 summit in November. Will the US even go? 

  On March 22, Biden proposed booting Russia from the G-20. Reuters comments on the difficulty.

  “It’s impossible to remove Russia from G20” unless Moscow makes such a decision on its own, said an official of a G20 member country in Asia. “There’s simply no procedure to deprive Russia of G20 membership.”

  With Spain there are 21 G-20 nations so a US boycott would get the group size correct. 

  G-Whatever Meetings Are Useless

  These G-7, G-20, G-Whatever meetings have always been useless.

  G-Whatever meetings typically fail over agriculture, but with little fanfare. 

  Failure is again a given, but usually there is no spotlight on that failure. Now there is. 

  Seven G-20 nations, Brazil, Russia India, China, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa, refuse to salute US demands.

  Sanction Limits 

  We are at the limits of sanctions and they have failed. There is little else to do.

  The sanctions did nothing to deter Russia, they have only increased costs and added to inflation across the board. 

  WTIC Oil Price

  

  Meanwhile, oil prices remain well above the price at which Russia invaded Ukraine.

  I asked, Oil Prices Jump Again, Hello Mr. President, What Will You Do For an Encore?

  Biden’s Preposterous Claim 70 Percent of Inflation Jump is ‘Putin’s Price Hike’

  

  CPI data from BLS, PCE data from BEA, chart by Mish

  Also see Biden’s Preposterous Claim 70 Percent of Inflation Jump is ‘Putin’s Price Hike’

  Inflation woes started with supply chain disruptions and free money stimulus, not Putin.

  However, the invasion of Ukraine added to the woes, and so does sanction policy. The unfortunate irony is sanction policy has outright backfired, driving up costs and doing nothing to contain Russia.

  *  *  *

  Please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/19/2022 – 18:45

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Doctor Google Will See You Now
  Doctor Google Will See You Now

  For many people nowadays, the first port of call upon discovering an unusual rash or feeling a worrying pain is not the doctor, but rather Google.

  

  As Statista’s Martin Armstrong details below, figures from Eurostat show the countries which are relying the most on medical information from the internet. In Finland, 8 out of 10 respondents said that they had turned to the web for health-related information – an increase of 22 percentage points on 2011. Denmark recorded similar levels of reliance on Dr. Google – 75 percent.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  In Spain in 2011, just 38 percent of adults professed to seeking medical information online, but as statista’s infographic above  shows, there has been a huge increase, with 69 percent now saying they turn to Google et al for health advice. A similarly large increase was also recorded in Ireland.

  In Germany, however, reliance on the internet for these topics saw a decrease between 2011 and 2021 – from 54 to 45 percent.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/19/2022 – 02:45

• Explaining Germany's Russian Gas Problem
  Explaining Germany’s Russian Gas Problem

  Submitted by Jack Raines via Young Money,

  “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

  …You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.

  We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.”

  – 16-year-old Greta Thunberg at the U.N.’s Climate Action Summit, 2019

  *slow claps*

  

  Climate change. The existential crisis that has filled every Gen-Zer with dread since they entered grade school. Politicians, CEOs, and other powerful figures fly their private jets to summits around the world each year to condemn the fossil fuel industry as a vile plague that must be destroyed at all costs.

  To raise awareness about the climate issue, green technology exhibits have popped up in museums around the world. One such museum is the Futurium, located less than a mile from the Reichstag in Berlin, Germany.

  

  While backpacking across Europe last year, I spent 10 days in Berlin. After seeing an advertisement at my hostel for the Futurium, I decided to pay the museum a visit.

  While walking around this exhibit, and I saw all sorts of futuristic examples of climate technology. Green cities with gardens and forests growing on the roofs of skyscrapers. Windmills and solar panels supporting power grids. A future powered by zero-emission, renewable resources. It was certainly a pleasant vision.

  But there was one glaring omission from this exhibit on clean energy: nuclear power.

  I stepped aside to ask one of the museum’s curators if they had a nuclear energy section of the green exhibit.

  “I’m sorry to say that we don’t. This exhibit is meant to highlight Germany’s safe, sustainable green future.”

  “Oh really? That’s interesting bec-,” I bit my tongue. “Ah, okay thanks. I was just curious.”

  Back at the hostel that night, I couldn’t stop thinking about the feasibility of the whole thing. Sure, this green future sounded good. A world powered by sunlight and wind power, with no smog or pollution. Green cities with no carbon footprints.

  It matched the utopic vision that had been forced on me since I was a kid: if we drop fossil fuels tomorrow, the world becomes a better place.

  The thing is, reality doesn’t give a damn about what ‘could be’ and what ‘should be’.

  Reality doesn’t give a damn about utopia.

  Reality is reality.

  What happens when policy makers sacrifice reality for utopia?

  

  The above chart was from September, when supply chain disruptions wreaked havoc on energy prices.

  Now let’s fast forward a few months. In the wake of a brutal winter, Russia decided to invade Ukraine, and German gas and power prices have soared to new highs. A household using 20,000 kWh per year agreeing to a new annual contract in March had to pay a record $3,632, up 62% from just three months ago.

  Solar panels and windmills sound great when times are good, energy prices are low, and there’s not a care in the world. However, I can assure you of one thing: when winter sets in, supply chains are wrecked, and war is waging in eastern Europe…

  a climate crisis is the least of your worries, and tears at a UN podium aren’t going to keep your family warm.

  So how did Germany get here? Where did Europe’s most innovative nation drop the ball?

  Let’s go back to the 1950s.

  The Nuclear Dilemma

  German nuclear power began with the construction of research reactors in the 1950s and 1960s, and the first commercial plant came online in 1969. However, the anti-nuclear movement is nearly as old as the reactors themselves. As early as 1964, critics claimed that the “dangers and costs of the necessary final disposal of nuclear waste could possibly make it necessary to forego the development of nuclear energy.”

  As nuclear adoption increased in the 1970s, thousands of protestors would gather at proposed sites for new plants around the country. After the partial meltdown of a US reactor at Three Mile Island in 1979, 200,000 Germans took to the streets in Hannover and Bonn to demonstrate against the use of nuclear power. That being said, the anti-nuclear movement remained largely sporadic and unorganized until 1980.

  On January 13, 1980, a new political party, The Greens, was founded in the central European nation. The Greens emerged from a wave of new social movements including environmentalism, anti-war, and anti-nuclear power. Suddenly, the anti-nuclear movement had a face.

  Since the party’s inception, The Greens have been concerned with the immediate halt of construction and operation of all nuclear power stations. As an alternative, they have promoted a shift to non-nuclear renewable energy sources such and solar and wind power.

  In 1986, large parts of Germany were covered with radioactive contamination from the Chernobyl disaster, sparking widespread hysteria. Anti-nuclear protests broke out across the country, and the Green Party called for “the immediate shut-down of all nuclear facilities.” Support for this new party grew in the wake of Chernobyl, and The Greens increased their share of the vote to 8.3% in the 1987 federal election.

  Unlike the US, where we have a two-party system, the German legislature is a multi-party system. In 2021, for example, seven parties controlled at least 5% of the parliament’s voting power and seats. Given this structure, The Greens’ 8% voting share in 1987 was significant.

  After the Chernobyl disaster, the Greens became more radicalized and refused to compromise on the nuclear issue. Fearing public backlash, politicians across all parties began to stress that nuclear was a “transient technology”, but not the future. After 1989, no new commercial nuclear power plants were built in Germany.

  In 1998, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Greens led the nation as a joint coalition. Gerhard Schröder, leader of the SPD, was elected as Chancellor.

  In his first term, Schröder’s government decided to phase out nuclear power and instead double down on funding renewable energies. This phase out plan, known as the “nuclear consensus”, limited the lifespan of all nuclear plants to 32 years. Each plant was allocated an amount of electricity that it could produce before being shut down, with the end goal being the shutdown of all nuclear plants by 2022.

  The results after 20 years?

  Germany has certainly succeeded in cutting back its nuclear power production. However, it is far from a green utopia. The chart below from the IEA shows Germany’s electricity generation by source from 1990 to 2020:

  

  If colors aren’t your thing, I broke the data down into percentages below. Nuclear is highlighted.

  

  Color me shocked, I mean shocked, to see that the face of the green movement gets most of its electricity from… coal. It turns out that coal isn’t the most environmentally friendly fuel source either! It’s actually 273x more harmful than nuclear power.

  This reliance on coal will be important in a bit.

  

  Fascinating stuff, no?

  Now to Germany’s credit, they have done an excellent job of expanding their wind and solar power, growing them from less than 1% of electricity generation in 2000 to more than 31% in 2020. But that doesn’t answer the question:

  Why the reduction in nuclear power?

  According to Our World in Data, nuclear is the cleanest form of energy available. It is also 351x safer than coal, with only a rounding error separating it from wind and solar (and this includes Chernobyl and Fukushima).

  The shift away from nuclear has little to do with the dangers of nuclear reactors, nor the viability of other renewable energy sources.

  It has a lot to do with natural gas.

  Gas Me Up

  Notice that natural gas jumped from 9% to 17% of German electricity generation since 2000. While Germany was busy cutting its nuclear production, alternative forms of renewable energy couldn’t fill total output deficit left behind.

  Gas still produces 150x more emissions than nuclear, but it is cleaner than coal and oil. Having already committed to phasing out nuclear, Germany turned to natural gas to fulfill its energy needs. There was just one problem:

   Germany produces little natural gas of its own.

  However, Europe’s estranged neighbor to the east, Russia, happens to produce the second-most most natural gas in the world.

  So Germany bumped up its Russian imports. How much gas does Germany import from Russia?

  A lot.

  Germany’s economy and climate ministry said that in 2022, 55% of its gas imports came from Russia, 30% from Norway, and 13% from the Netherlands.

  Part of the reason that Germany is so reliant on Russian gas is that it doesn’t have its own liquified natural gas (LNG) import terminals, meaning that all of its gas has to come through pipelines.

  The Nord Stream 1 pipeline, owned and operated by Russian gas giant Gazprom, can transport up to 55B cubic meters of gas to Germany each year, and the recently completed Nord Stream 2 pipeline would have doubled this capacity. However, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Germany put the certification of Nord Stream 2 on hold.

  German has now made plans to build two domestic import terminals to reduce energy dependence on Russia in the future, but that does little to fix the supply crunch that the country is facing now.

  To recap: Germany shut down nuclear power, the cleanest form of energy available, and planned to replace it with other renewable energy sources. When demand couldn’t be satisfied by renewable energy alone, it turned to natural gas, a much dirtier form of energy. Germany doesn’t have import terminals for LNG, making it dependent on pipelines.

  Russia has the highest capacity pipeline network to Germany, making it Germany’s main suitor.

  Cool.

  Now let’s bake another layer into Germany’s energy problem.

  While Germany has reduced its dependence on coal by 50% since 2000, coal is still its primary source of electricity.

  There are two kinds of coal used for energy: hard coal and brown coal. Hard coal is notoriously bad for the environment, and Germany has ended all domestic mining of this product. However, while 16.9% of Germany’s electricity is generated from the “cleaner” brown coil, 7.4% of the country’s grid is still powered by hard coal. A product that it no longer produces domestically.

  So Germany now imports 100% of its hard coal, which is responsible for 7.4% of its electricity.

  And who does Germany import 45% of its hard coal from?

  Russia.

  Starting to notice a theme here?

  So this central European country, that is “leading the charge” against climate change, has terminated its greenest energy source. Germany is now reliant on Russia, a country that doesn’t give a damn about climate change, for two of its main power sources, which both happen to be terrible for the environment.

  Surprisingly, there wasn’t much information about this at that Futurium exhibit!

  There Are No Coincidences

  This must have been a miscalculation, right? Germany must have underestimated how long it would take to implement other renewable energy sources. They underestimated what their energy needs would be in 20 years. Maybe they falsely thought that coal was cleaner than nuclear power!

  Maybe, but probably not.

  Let’s circle back to Germany’s Chancellor in year 2000. Since 2017, Gerhard Schröder, the man who led the charge to shut down nuclear in the name of renewable energy, has been the chairman of Russian energy company Rosneft.

  In February 2022, just weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, Schröder, the man who led the charge to shut down nuclear in the name of renewable energy, was named to the board of Gazprom, the Russian state-owned multinational energy corporation that did $120B of revenue in 2019. You know, the same Gazprom that owns the Nord Stream Pipelines.

  Schröder also happened to be the man who authorized construction of this very Nord Stream Pipeline in 2005!

  It really shouldn’t be a surprise that Schröder has found himself in such an enviable position in the Russian energy industry. After all, he is a long-time friend of Russian president Vladimir Putin, spending several birthdays in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

  

  Germany, the most powerful country in the EU, is now at the mercy of Russian energy policy. Guess what product has been conveniently left out of sanctions against Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine?

  Energy.

  There are no coincidences.

  We knew back in 2014 that Russia was willing to influence foreign energy policy. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, then secretary-general of NATO, stated that he had reliable information that Russia was engaged with British environmental organizations working against shale gas. The UK proceeded to ban fracking in 2019.

  Why would Putin be anti-shale? Was he worried about the environmental impact of fracking? No.

  He wanted Europe to remain reliant on Russian gas.

  Best Story Wins

  It is the most ironic plot line, no?

  Russia, a country seemingly stuck in the 1980s era of pollution-heavy industrialization, was actively funding green movements in the United Kingdom. Schröder, the German chancellor who led the “green movement” in his country, who is both best friends with Putin and a board member on multiple Russian energy companies, played an integral role in building the pipeline network from Russia to Germany.

  Oh the irony.

  This happened because we humans aren’t moved by data, statistics, and probabilities. We are compelled by stories.

  I could show you data that zero Germans were adversely affected by the Chernobyl meltdown. I could prove to you that the radiation received from touring the Chernobyl zone is less than what a passenger receives on a NYC to London flight.

  Or I could bombard you with misinformation about radioactive waste, terrify you with stories of nuclear malfunction, and sow seeds of doubt into the mind of the general populace, “What if Fukushima happens here?”

  I could show you evidence that solar and wind power can’t generate enough power to fuel the world’s biggest economies, or I could extrapolate temperature “data” to forecast that climate change will destroy the world if we don’t shut down fossil fuels now.

  Data is no match for powerful stories.

  Stories tug at our emotions. Fear of nuclear fallout and global warming-induced existential threats, no matter how far-fetched, dominate public opinion.

  Stories are the reason that Americans are terrified of plane crashes, an event that happens 1 out of every 16 million flights, but we don’t think for a second about heart disease, a condition that kills 1 out of every 4 of us.

  Stories spread like wildfire, creating protests and demonstrations. The strongest stories make their way into parliaments and congresses around the world, warping public policy, data be damned.

  Stories helped the Green Party outlaw nuclear energy in Germany, despite it being the safest and cleanest form of energy in the world.

  Stories led Western European nations to sacrifice energy independence now, to guard against a vague potential threat at some point in the future.

  Stories made Russia, the silent enemy of the west for fifty years, Europe’s primary energy provider.

  Putin and company quietly mastered the art of storytelling by using the green energy narrative to increase foreign dependency on Russian gas:

  Make sure everyone is the world views climate change as a threat, vilify western oil and gas companies, encourage legislation that favors renewable energy, amplify unfounded fears about nuclear power, and profit as countries quietly realize that they need natural gas to keep the lights on.

  The green movement was, ironically, the most efficient way for Putin and Schröder to pad their pockets at Europe’s expense.

  But you know what, maybe it would be worth it if it made a difference. Maybe sacrificing energy independence would be a fair trade off if it made the world a cleaner place.

  But it didn’t. If anything, western energy policy managed to make the world a dirtier place.

  While western leaders pat themselves on the back for “doing their part”, for shutting down fossil fuel plants and nuclear reactors, for building windmills and solar farms, they don’t realize that they didn’t change a damn thing.

  The planet isn’t greener, because the pollution didn’t go away. It was simply outsourced with energy independence.

  Germany and England replaced nuclear reactors and domestic shale with Russian gas, and I doubt Putin is losing sleep over his carbon footprint. Believe it or not, the ozone layer doesn’t discriminate by geography, and outsourced fossil fuels are, in fact, still fossil fuels.

  The greatest two lies that the green movement ever told were that we could drop fossil fuels for renewables overnight, and nuclear didn’t need to be part of the solution.

  But these two lies have proven to be quite lucrative for certain Russian energy companies.

  Who knew that Vladimir Putin was renewable energy’s biggest cheerleader?

  – Jack

  If you liked this piece, make sure to subscribe by adding your email below!

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/19/2022 – 02:00

• Beijing's "Elite Capture" Strategy Was A Success: Peter Schweizer
  Beijing’s “Elite Capture” Strategy Was A Success: Peter Schweizer

  Authored by Masooma Haq and Roman Balmakov via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Peter Schweizer, author of the book “Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China,” said the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) entry into the WTO changed the global economic structure in large part because it unleashed the regime’s strategy of gaining control of America’s elite class so they would do Beijing’s bidding.

  

  Schweizer calls this strategy “elite capture,” and the CCP’s plan was to target the top levels of big tech, entertainment, education, Wall Street, as well as politics.

  “It’s going to give [the CCP] leverage over them [the elites] because once [the CCP has] sort of touched them and made them rich, or as some CCP officials have said, they’ve tasted the honey that they’ve been offered, they will not want to give it back, they will not want to give it up,” said Schweizer.

  “So that gives enormous leverage to Beijing over elements of our leadership class.”

  U.S. foreign policy and the conventional wisdom of the elite class was that if the West engaged with the CCP, it would become more liberal and less repressive of its own people, and it was this thinking that allowed the CCP to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) at the end of 2001.

  

  Schweizer said this strategy not only failed but has been disastrous for the globe.

  “The CCP has become more repressive, more aggressive on the global stage. So, I think that our political and corporate elites have a lot of accounting to do for their failure. Of course, they made a lot of money by pushing this position.”

  He likened the elite capture strategy to decapitating U.S. leadership, leaving U.S. citizenry suffering. “But in fact, the head has effectively been cut off, it’s been co-opted, it’s been bought, and then so the rest of the body, which is the United States and the average citizen, suffers.”

  Big Tech Working With the CCP

  He said the heads of some of the big tech companies, like Tesla, Google, Facebook, etc., have been taken in by the dictatorial regime’s “efficiency” and getting market shares in the world’s most populous country.

  “Elon Musk has said this, that the Chinese dictatorial regime is so efficient, they’re so quickly responsive to the needs of the Chinese people—which of course, if you have a dictatorship, you don’t have to worry about civil rights, property rights, an independent judiciary,” said Schweizer.

  “I mean, if you’re Bill Gates and you’re worth $100 billion, still, being able to access the Chinese market is important for the continued growth of your company.”

  Profit Over National Security

  In the past, Elon Musk used to criticize the Chinese regime but has changed his position after striking a deal with the CCP, Schweizer said.

  “So, the question is, what’s changed? And what’s changed is he became business partners with the Chinese Communist Party. They built him a large factory, Tesla factory in China, which is now churning out a large number of vehicles. He’s already said he’s going to take the design studios out of California and move them to China,” said Schweizer.

  Musk doing business in China also poses a security risk because some of the technologies that Tesla uses in its cars are the same technologies software that is being used on his company’s launch satellites.

  

  “Anyone who gets entangled in doing business with China that requires their good graces for their business to continue to operate is going to end up basically doing what Beijing wants, because if they don’t, Beijing is going to destroy their business.”

  Artificial intelligence (AI) is an important area of tech development, and it’s been said that whoever dominates there will have a global economic and military advantage, said Schweizer.

  “Our biggest and brightest companies, like Google and Microsoft, are actually subsidizing research laboratories in China that are linked to the Chinese military, so they’re helping them in the competition against us.” He called this “extraordinary” and “troubling.”

  “Google has plowed ahead, happily to do so. At the same time, Google employees submitted a petition to an executive saying they did not want to work on any Pentagon, that is U.S. military research contracts, at the same time. It’s really a stunning development.”

  U.S. laws have allowed these tech companies to become successful and profitable, “and yet, they don’t recognize the role that our system of governance has played, and they’re actually subsidizing our enemy,” said Schweizer.

  

  Google’s work with AI in China will help the CCP’s military to attack our own country.

  “You’re required by Chinese national security law—which means if you violate it, you’re going to go to jail for a very long time—you’re required to take any civilian technology or capability you have and find application to Chinese military,” said Schweizer. In addition, “if you are a business operating in China, anything that you have, that you own—whether it’s intellectual property, whether it’s data on citizens in China or overseas—that information is available to the Chinese state whenever they asked for it.”

  U.S. Big Tech only cares about their profitability and power instead of treating the CCP for what it is: a repressive, dictatorial regime that brutalizes its own people, said Schweizer. Facebook has attempted to link China with the United States via undersea cables a number of times, but the projects were halted after the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) made a recommendation against the projects due to national security concerns.

  Facebook’s Hong Kong-America project was first proposed in 2018 by a group made up of Facebook and a number of Chinese companies including China Telecom. The plan was for the fiber-optic cable to link up Hong Kong and a site in Taiwan with two sites in California.

  Another joint Facebook-Google undersea cable called the Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN) was withdrawn in September 2020 due to national security concerns from Trump’s DOJ.

  “Did somehow Facebook or Google not know that Chinese intelligence was going to use this as a massive gateway to spy on Americans? I want to believe and I think it’s pretty obvious that Facebook and Google knew that that opportunity existed. They certainly have more technical knowledge than the Department of Justice. But the bottom line is they didn’t care.”

  Wall Street Profits

  Schweizer said Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs was instrumental in helping the CCP access and profit from U.S. markets. “You don’t have to go very far at all on Wall Street to find a major firm that has contributed to where China is today in terms of its economic growth,” said Schweizer.

  “But at the end of the day, when push comes to shove, it’s the CCP that maintains control. Goldman Sachs started it; other big firms have perfected it. Blackstone and BlackRock invest regularly in Chinese companies. When the Chinese government was privatizing companies and giving away ownership stakes to either political families in Beijing or to favor Wall Street clients, these big firms benefited enormously.”

  Political Influence

  Schweizer said he knows of about two dozen former elected U.S. senators or congressmen who now lobby on behalf of Chinese intelligence and military-linked firms.

  “I’m just talking about military- and intelligence-linked firms, and they are petitioning our government, they want favors, they want to get off of restricted lists they might be on, they try to change the perception—Huawei is trying to convince people that no, we don’t have any links to, you know, the Chinese intelligence apparatus, which is absurd. And this is a huge problem.”

  “Elite capture has worked for a minimal investment. They’ve enriched members of our leadership class, and that leadership class has, in turn, done their bidding, effectively doing their lobbying, in the United States.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/18/2022 – 23:45

• Interest In Immigration Surges As Wealthy Chinese Look To Flee Shanghai
  Interest In Immigration Surges As Wealthy Chinese Look To Flee Shanghai

  As even many foreigners who live in Shanghai have been swept up in China’s strict quarantine measures, as we showed over the weekend, the FT reports that many wealthy residents of Shanghai are looking to leave, following the brutal lockdown measures that have forced millions of people to stockpile food and other necessary supplies – or even go without food or essential medical care, sometimes with deadly consequences. 

  

  Immigration consultants who spoke with the FT said requests from wealthy individuals looking to leave Shanghai have soared since the lockdown started three weeks ago. And many clients who had postponed previous plans to leave due to fears that they stood a higher chance of contracting the virus outside China have revived their efforts.

  And to show that there’s more than just anecdotal data behind this, the FT cited a surge in WeChat searches for “immigration” by people in Shanghai. These searches have reportedly increased 7x.

  “The authorities are making people sacrifice their basic needs to fight a disease that’s a bit more severe than seasonal flu,” said James Chen, a Shanghai-based consultant. “Our clients chose to vote with their feet.”

  “I have had so many inquiries over the past few weeks that I couldn’t reply to them in a timely manner,” said an agent at QWOS, a Shanghai-based immigration services company, who received more than 200 requests on Saturday.

  One immigration consultant told the FT that she hasn’t been this busy in “months”.

  Lucy Wang, the owner of an immigration consultancy in the south-western city of Chengdu, said she was working 12 hours a day fielding client requests. “I haven’t been so busy for many months,” she said.

  Some of the potential emigres who spoke with the FT cited the Shanghai lockdown as the primary motivation for their efforts.

  “I have never thought about being confined to my home for many days without enough to eat,” said Jane Wang, a 38-year-old Shanghai-based marketing researcher who contacted QWOS after more than four weeks of home quarantine. “What happened in Shanghai made me feel insecure,” she added. “I want to live in a place without worrying about being quarantined arbitrarily.”

  In terms of potential destinations, Singapore is one popular option, as another potential emigre pointed out.

  “I don’t feel welcome in the US when American politicians and media outlets keep saying negative things about China,” said John Li, a Beijing-based engineer who gave up his dream of moving to San Francisco and paid agents Rmb40,000 ($6,300) last week to obtain a Singaporean residence permit. “I want to move to a country where Chinese people are respected.”

  Still, international travel restrictions and other obstacles remain that could delay potential emigres’ plans by many months.

  “One who wants to reside in another country has to be accepted by that country and go through a complicated admission process,” said Cong Cao, a professor at the University of Nottingham Ningbo. “The current situation in Shanghai and many other Chinese cities may accelerate the exodus of some affected middle-class families but it’s too early to say whether it becomes a trend.”

  Whether or not their interest will cool once life returns to normal and Shanghai remains to be seen.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/18/2022 – 23:25

• Inside The Ukraine-Induced Defense Contractor 'Gold Rush' At The Pentagon
  Inside The Ukraine-Induced Defense Contractor ‘Gold Rush’ At The Pentagon

  Authored by William Hartung & Julia Gledhill via Common Dreams,

  The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought immense suffering to the people of that land, while sparking calls for increased military spending in both the United States and Europe. Though that war may prove to be a tragedy for the world, one group is already benefiting from it: U.S. arms contractors.

  Even before hostilities broke out, the CEOs of major weapons firms were talking about how tensions in Europe could pad their profits. In a January 2022 call with his company’s investors, Raytheon Technologies CEO Greg Hayes typically bragged that the prospect of conflict in Eastern Europe and other global hot spots would be good for business, adding that “we are seeing, I would say, opportunities for international sales… [T]he tensions in Eastern Europe, the tensions in the South China Sea, all of those things are putting pressure on some of the defense spending over there. So I fully expect we’re going to see some benefit from it.”

  In late March, in an interview with the Harvard Business Review after the war in Ukraine had begun, Hayes defended the way his company would profit from that conflict:

  “So I make no apology for that. I think again recognizing we are there to defend democracy and the fact is eventually we will see some benefit in the business over time. Everything that’s being shipped into Ukraine today, of course, is coming out of stockpiles, either at DoD [the Department of Defense] or from our NATO allies, and that’s all great news. Eventually we’ll have to replenish it and we will see a benefit to the business over the next coming years.”

  

  Arms to Ukraine, Profits to Contractors

  The war in Ukraine will indeed be a bonanza for the likes of Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. First of all, there will be the contracts to resupply weapons like Raytheon’s Stinger anti-aircraft missile and the Raytheon/Lockheed Martin-produced Javelin anti-tank missile that Washington has already provided to Ukraine by the thousands. The bigger stream of profits, however, will come from assured post-conflict increases in national-security spending here and in Europe justified, at least in part, by the Russian invasion and the disaster that’s followed.

  Indeed, direct arms transfers to Ukraine already reflect only part of the extra money going to U.S. military contractors. This fiscal year alone, they are guaranteed to also reap significant benefits from the Pentagon’s Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) and the State Department’s Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program, both of which finance the acquisition of American weaponry and other equipment, as well as military training. These have, in fact, been the two primary channels for military aid to Ukraine from the moment the Russians invaded and seized Crimea in 2014. Since then, the United States has committed around $5 billion in security assistance to that country.

  According to the State Department, the United States has provided such military aid to help Ukraine “preserve its territorial integrity, secure its borders, and improve interoperability with NATO.” So, when Russian troops began to mass on the Ukrainian border last year, Washington quickly upped the ante. On March 31, 2021, the U.S. European Command declared a “potential imminent crisis,” given the estimated 100,000 Russian troops already along that border and within Crimea. As last year ended, the Biden administration had committed $650 million in weaponry to Ukraine, including anti-aircraft and anti-armor equipment like the Raytheon/Lockheed Martin Javelin anti-tank missile.

  Despite such elevated levels of American military assistance, Russian troops did indeed invade Ukraine in February. Since then, according to Pentagon reports, the U.S. has committed to giving approximately $2.6 billion in military aid to that country, bringing the Biden administration total to more than $3.2 billion and still rising.

  Some of this assistance was included in a March emergency-spending package for Ukraine, which required the direct procurement of weapons from the defense industry, including drones, laser-guided rocket systems, machine guns, ammunition, and other supplies. The major military-industrial corporations will now seek Pentagon contracts to deliver that extra weaponry, even as they are gearing up to replenish Pentagon stocks already delivered to the Ukrainians.

  On that front, in fact, military contractors have much to look forward to. More than half of the Pentagon’s $6.5 billion portion of the emergency-spending package for Ukraine is designated simply to replenish DoD inventories. In all, lawmakers allocated $3.5 billion to that effort, $1.75 billion more than the president even requested. They also boosted funding by $150 million for the State Department’s FMF program for Ukraine. And keep in mind that those figures don’t even include emergency financing for the Pentagon’s acquisition and maintenance costs, which are guaranteed to provide more revenue streams for the major weapons makers.

  Better yet, from the viewpoint of such companies, there are many bites left to take from the apple of Ukrainian military aid. President Biden has already made it all too clear that “we’re going to give Ukraine the arms to fight and defend themselves through all the difficult days ahead.” One can only assume that more commitments are on the way.

  🚨 NEW REPORT: The pundits pushing for U.S. military intervention are being paid by military contractors that stand to make huge profits off a wider war — and corporate media isn’t disclosing that to viewers. https://t.co/YlqDAIxKnV

  — David Sirota (@davidsirota) April 12, 2022

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  Another positive side effect of the war for Lockheed, Raytheon, and other arms merchants like them is the push by House Armed Services Committee chair Adam Smith (D-WA) and ranking committee Republican Mike Rogers of Alabama to speed up production of a next-generation anti-aircraft missile to replace the Stinger. In his congressional confirmation hearing, William LaPlante, the latest nominee to head acquisition at the Pentagon, argued that America also needs more “hot production lines” for bombs, missiles, and drones. Consider that yet another benefit-in-waiting for the major weapons contractors.

  The Pentagon Gold Mine

  For U.S. arms makers, however, the greatest benefits of the war in Ukraine won’t be immediate weapons sales, large as they are, but the changing nature of the ongoing debate over Pentagon spending itself.  Of course, the representatives of such companies were already plugging the long-term challenge posed by China, a greatly exaggerated threat, but the Russian invasion is nothing short of manna from heaven for them, the ultimate rallying cry for advocates of greater military outlays. Even before the war, the Pentagon was slated to receive at least $7.3 trillion over the next decade, more than four times the cost of President Biden’s $1.7 trillion domestic Build Back Better plan, already stymied by members of Congress who labeled it “too expensive” by far.  And keep in mind that, given the current surge in Pentagon spending, that $7.3 trillion could prove a minimal figure.

  Indeed, Pentagon officials like Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks promptly cited Ukraine as one of the rationales for the Biden administration’s proposed record national-security budget proposal of $813 billion, calling Russia’s invasion “an acute threat to the world order.” In another era that budget request for Fiscal Year 2023 would have been mind-boggling, since it’s higher than spending at the peaks of the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam and over $100 billion more than the Pentagon received annually at the height of the Cold War.

  Despite its size, however, congressional Republicans — joined by a significant number of their Democratic colleagues — are already pushing for more. Forty Republican members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have, in fact, signed a letter to President Biden calling for 5% growth in military spending beyond inflation, which would potentially add up to $100 billion to that budget request. Typically enough, Representative Elaine Luria (D-VA), who represents the area near the Huntington Ingalls company’s Newport News military shipyard in Virginia, accused the administration of “gutting the Navy” because it contemplates decommissioning some older ships to make way for new ones. That complaint was lodged despite that service’s plan to spend a whopping $28 billion on new ships in FY 2023.

  Who Benefits?

  That planned increase in shipbuilding funds is part of a proposed pool of $276 billion for weapons procurement, as well as further research and development, contained in the new budget, which is where the top five weapons-producing contractors — Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman — make most of their money. Those firms already split more than $150 billion in Pentagon contracts annually, a figure that will skyrocket if the administration and Congress have their way. To put all of this in context, just one of those top five firms, Lockheed Martin, was awarded $75 billion in Pentagon contracts in fiscal year 2020 alone. That’s considerably more than the entire budget for the State Department, dramatic evidence of how skewed Washington’s priorities are, despite the Biden administration’s pledge to “put diplomacy first.”

  The Pentagon’s weapons wish list for FY 2023 is a catalog of just how the big contractors will cash in. For example, the new Columbia Class ballistic missile submarine, built by General Dynamics Electric Boat plant in southeastern Connecticut, will see its proposed budget for FY 2023 grow from $5.0 billion to $6.2 billion. Spending on Northrop Grumman’s new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, will increase by about one-third annually, to $3.6 billion.  The category of “missile defense and defeat,” a specialty of Boeing, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin, is slated to receive more than $24 billion.  And space-based missile warning systems, a staple of the Trump administration-created Space Force, will jump from $2.5 billion in FY 2022 to $4.7 billion in this year’s proposed budget.

  Among all the increases, there was a single surprise: a proposed reduction in purchases of the troubled Lockheed Martin F-35 combat aircraft, from 85 to 61 planes in FY 2023.  The reason is clear enough. That plane has more than 800 identified design flaws and its production and performance problems have been little short of legendary.  Luckily for Lockheed Martin, that drop in numbers has not been accompanied by a proportional reduction in funding.  While newly produced planes may be reduced by one-third, the actual budget allocation for the F-35 will drop by less than 10%, from $12 billion to $11 billion, an amount that’s more than the complete discretionary budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

  (Chris Coons is 58 years old. A graduate of Yale Law with $10 million net worth, he never served in the military. He has 3 children, all 18 or older, yet none serve in the military. So when he advocates that the US send troops to fight Russia in Ukraine, he means other families). pic.twitter.com/o0txYSvBo1

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 17, 2022

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  Since Lockheed Martin won the F-35 contract, development costs have more than doubled, while production delays have set the aircraft back by nearly a decade. Nonetheless, the military services have purchased so many of those planes that manufacturers can’t keep up with the demand for spare parts. And yet the F-35 can’t even be properly tested for combat effectiveness because the simulation software required is not only unfinished, but without even an estimated completion date. So, the F-35 is many years away from the full production of planes that actually work as advertised, if that’s ever in the cards.

  A number of the weapons systems which, in the Ukraine moment, are guaranteed to be showered with cash are so dangerous or dysfunctional that, like the F-35, they should actually be phased out.  Take the new ICBM.  Former Secretary of Defense William Perry has called ICBMs “some of the most dangerous weapons in the world” because a president would only have minutes to decide whether to launch them in a crisis, greatly increasing the risk of an accidental nuclear war based on a false alarm. Nor does it make sense to buy aircraft carriers at $13 billion a pop, especially since the latest version is having trouble even launching and landing aircraft — its primary function — and is increasingly vulnerable to attack by next-generation high-speed missiles.

  The few positives in the new budget like the Navy’s decision to retire the unnecessary and unworkable Littoral Combat Ship — a sort of “F-35 of the sea” designed for multiple tasks none of which it does well — could easily be reversed by advocates from states and districts where those systems are built and maintained.  The House of Representatives, for instance, has a powerful Joint Strike Fighter Caucus, which, in 2021, mustered more than one-third of all House members to press for more F-35s than the Pentagon and Air Force requested, as they will no doubt do again this year. A Shipbuilding Caucus, co-chaired by representatives Joe Courtney (D-CT) and Rob Wittman (R-VA), will fight against the Navy’s plan to retire old ships to buy new ones.  (They would prefer that the Navy keep the old ones and buy new ones with more of your tax money up for grabs.) Similarly, the “ICBM Coalition,” made up of senators from states with either ICBM bases or production centers, has a near perfect record of staving off reductions in the deployment or funding of those weapons and will, in 2022, be hard at work defending its budgetary allocation.

  Towards a New Policy

  Coming up with a sensible, realistic, and affordable defense policy, always a challenge, will be even more so in the midst of the Ukrainian nightmare. Still, given where our taxpayer dollars go, it remains all too worthwhile.  Such a new approach should include things like reducing the numbers of the Pentagon’s private contractors, hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom are engaged in thoroughly redundant jobs that could be done more cheaply by civilian government employees or simply eliminated. It’s estimated that cutting spending on contractors by 15% would save around $262 billion over 10 years.

  The Pentagon’s three-decades-long near $2 trillion “modernization” plan to build a new generation of nuclear-armed bombers, missiles, and submarines, along with new warheads, should, for instance, simply be scrapped in keeping with the kind of “deterrence-only” nuclear strategy developed by the nuclear-policy organization Global Zero.  And the staggering American global military footprint — an invitation to further conflict that includes more than 750 military bases scattered on every continent except Antarctica, and counterterror operations in 85 countries — should, at the very least, be sharply scaled back. 

  According to the Center for International Policy’s Sustainable Defense Task Force and a study of alternative approaches to defense carried out by the Congressional Budget Office, even a relatively minimalist strategic rethinking could save at least $1 trillion over the next decade, enough to make a healthy down payment on investments in public health, preventing or mitigating the worst potential impacts of climate change, or beginning the task of narrowing record levels of income inequality.

  Of course, none of these changes can occur without challenging the power and influence of the military-industrial-congressional complex, a task as urgent as it is difficult in this moment of carnage in Europe. No matter how hard it may be, it’s a fight worth having, both for the security of the world and the future of the planet. One thing is guaranteed: a new gold rush of “defense” spending is a disaster in the making for all of us not in that complex.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/18/2022 – 23:05

• Oil From Biden's Emergency SPR Release Is Heading For Europe
  Oil From Biden’s Emergency SPR Release Is Heading For Europe

  Joe Biden’s decision to release 180 million barrels of oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve – one million barrels per day for 180 days, ending just before the midterm elections which the Democrats will lose in an avalanche – was meant to help lower US gasoline prices “because Putin price hike.” Instead, it is heading for Europe.

  

  According to Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with the matter, the Suezmax ship Advantage Spring – sailing for Rotterdam, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg – received emergency SPR sweet crude from Energy Transfer’s Nederland oil facility around April 1 for export.

  

  The Suezmax also received SPR crude from Aframax Eagle Hatteras, which loaded at same terminal in first week of April.

  The Advantage Spring was chartered by Atlantic Trading, an affiliate of Total, ship fixtures data show.

  

  It appears that somehow the definition of emergency now includes making a profit at the expense of American consumers because sooner or later a real emergency will hit and then it will be too late, while easing the true energy emergency over in Europe.

  According to Matt Smith, oil analyst at commodity data firm Kpler, this is the first export of SPR crude since last November. Which means the oil was apportioned from Biden’s shock SPR release.

  One wonders what is behind Biden’s decision to make US emergency SPR oil available across the Atlantic; one can only hope that it doesn’t mean that in the coming midterms mail in ballots will also be made available to Europeans…

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/18/2022 – 22:45

• Experts Doubt Mexican States Will Stop Illegal Immigration Despite Texas Deals
  Experts Doubt Mexican States Will Stop Illegal Immigration Despite Texas Deals

  Authored by Charlotte Cuthbertson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  April 15 was quiet in Acuña, Mexico, which sits across the river from the Texas city of Del Rio—a hot spot for illegal immigration.

  

  A day earlier, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott inked a border security agreement with his counterpart in the Mexican state of Coahuila, in which Acuña sits. The deal included “enhanced border security enforcement measures” along the Rio Grande.

  In Acuña, The Epoch Times saw state and local police pull up to the Rio Grande and take photos of themselves for social media. They said they want to show tourists that it’s safe in Acuña during the Easter holiday and confirmed they haven’t been conducting extra river patrols since the agreement was signed.

  Local immigration agents said “everything is normal,” when asked if they had been given any new instructions over the past week.

  The agreements signed between Abbott and his counterparts in four bordering Mexican states have commercial trucks moving smoothly again through most ports of entry again, but critics say the border security part won’t last long.

  The three Mexican states have promised to patrol the Rio Grande and curb illegal immigration into Texas, as well as conduct safety checks on the commercial trucks preparing to enter Texas.

  “They’ll show a good faith effort, but it’s not going to be lasting—it never is,” Brandon Judd, president of the Border Patrol Union, told The Epoch Times.

  “There’s just too much corruption. The cartels are too embedded in the governments, the corruption is very widespread down there. But at least Governor Abbott was able to force their hand.”

  Over the previous two nights, Border Patrol agents apprehended 235 illegal immigrants who had crossed the river into the Eagle Pass area from the Mexican city of Piedras Negras, Coahuila state.

  Among the first group were 16 illegal aliens from Kyrgyzstan, seven from Kazakhstan, and a Russian, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which is responsible for border clearance into the United States.

  

  Texas had signed agreements with three of the four Mexican states: Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Nuevo León, before an agreement with Tamaulipas, the furthest eastern state, was announced on April 15.

  Abbott, a Republican, signed the first agreement with the governor of Nuevo León on April 13. That state shares just 8.6 miles of border with Texas, but Abbott immediately unblocked the ports in Laredo that had been clogged by Texas state police inspections close to the ports of entry.

  The next two agreements were signed the following day—with Chihuahua (unclogging El Paso) and Coahuila (across from Del Rio and Eagle Pass, where no slowdowns were recorded).

  The only reason the Mexican governors are signing the deals is because trade is being slowed down, Judd said.

  “They don’t do anything to stop the cartels, they could have done this before,” he said.

  But, he also said, ultimately the Biden administration has failed in border security.

  “It’s sad that the federal government isn’t doing its job. And you have to have state resources to step in and do what our federal government is supposed to do. That’s the saddest part of this entire equation,” he said.

  On April 6, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) was directed by Abbott to begin enhanced safety inspections on commercial vehicles entering Texas from Mexico.

  Almost immediately, the commercial ports of entry became jammed and commerce dropped by around 60 percent in some areas. In the Rio Grande Valley, the Pharr port of entry closed entirely after protestors blocked it on the Mexican side, according to CBP, which issued its own statement on April 12 calling the inspections “unnecessary.”

  White House press secretary Jen Psaki called Abbott’s inspection efforts a “political stunt” during a press conference on April 13.

  

  Abbott defended the inspections at a joint press conference with Nuevo León Gov. Samuel Alejandro García Sepúlveda in Laredo on April 13.

  “These inspections revealed that about 25 percent of the vehicles crossing into Texas were unsafe for Texas roads and were removed from service,” Abbott said.

  “At the same time, Texas has been overrun with a record number of illegal immigrants crossing from Mexico into Texas, with the assistance of cartels.”

  María Eugenia Campos Galván, governor of Chihuahua state, wrote in a memo to Abbott that she shares his concerns.

  “I am concerned about the same interests that the Texas government is worried about: drug trafficking, people smuggling, money laundering, and most of all migration,” Campos’s April 13 memo states.

  Campos said she intends to relocate the state’s public safety headquarters from Chihuahua City to Juarez, which sits directly across the border from El Paso.

  The memorandum of understanding between Texas and Chihuahua sets forth that the two states will “work cooperatively to stop the flow of migrants from over 100 countries who illegally enter Texas through Chihuahua—including providing resources to respond to hot spot areas as identified by the Texas DPS.”

  It also says the two states will “work cooperatively to reduce the cartels’ human trafficking and smuggling of deadly fentanyl and other drugs across and between ports of entry.”

  The deal with Coahuila was similar.

  “Until President [Joe] Biden decides to fulfill his constitutional duty to secure the border, we will continue to do whatever it takes to protect the safety and security of all Texans,” Abbott said in an April 15 statement.

  

  In the first three months of 2022, agents apprehended more than 318,000 illegal immigrants entering the state of Texas from Mexico, according to CBP data. Tens of thousands more evaded capture.

  Todd Bensman, national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the whole idea of forcing the agreements through jamming up the commerce routes “is really quite brilliant.”

  But, he said, “the devil is in the details. All of it’s just too vague.”

  “If Abbott’s serious about this, and he’s seeing migrants still coming over and he reinstates a bridge closure, that’s what it’ll take to show that he’s really serious about this,” Bensman said.

  “The only real measure that is going to matter is if they [Mexico] physically pick up migrants and drive them to Guatemala. That’s it. Nothing else matters.”

  The cartels control the Mexican side of the border, and so the governors are walking a fine line, Bensman said.

  “There’s this whole other issue that nobody’s really raising, which is that these agreements put the state governments in conflict with the cartels, which exercise a lot of influence with those governments, state governments,” he said.

  “They’re put in between a rock and a hard place between doing what Abbott wants and doing what they have to do to not get killed.

  “Especially the Tamaulipas agreement. Because you’ve got cartels there making just billions of dollars—most of the money is being made there.”

  Tamaulipas sits across from the Rio Grande Valley, which has long been the busiest sector for both illegal immigration and drug smuggling.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/18/2022 – 22:25

• US Imposes Ban On Anti-Satellite Weapons Tests To Highlight Russian Malfeasance In Space
  US Imposes Ban On Anti-Satellite Weapons Tests To Highlight Russian Malfeasance In Space

  The Biden administration is implementing a self-imposed ban on all anti-satellite weapons testing, in order to take the lead in highlighting what it says are the dangerous and irresponsible Russian tests in space, which have lately created a potentially disastrous field of space debris. China has also been accused of similarly reckless anti-satellite missile testing.

  NBC reported the initiative Monday based on admin sources, and a briefing provided to Congress indicates that the move is to address “the most pressing threats to the security and sustainability of space, as demonstrated by Russia’s November 2021 destructive direct-ascent ASAT missile test.”

  

  The new moratorium comes as Vice President Harris meets with Space Command and members of the US Space Force at Vanderburg Space Force Base in California, where she is reportedly emphasizing the need for “advancing norms for peaceful and responsible behavior in space.”

  The hope, however unlikely is that both Russia and China would follow Washington’s lead on this – but the reality is that Moscow and Beijing are likely to see it as an extension of the propaganda information war targeting especially Russia amid its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. 

  In mid-November, US officials were outraged after Russia used anti-satellite weapons, or ASATs, to destroy a defunct spacecraft which had long been in orbit:

  On Nov. 15, 2021, an interceptor missile launched in northern Russia struck a Soviet-era COSMOS 1408 satellite, generating a massive debris field in low-Earth orbit of more than 1,500 pieces of trackable debris, U.S. Space Command has said. 

  As a result the space junk is expected to continue orbiting for years, potentially colliding with other satellites. Some of the larger pieces are believed to be up to a few feet across – easily capable of causing severe damage, also to the International Space Station if there was a collision. 

  At the time in November, the Kremlin had defended its actions which the US State Department had slammed as reckless. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had said the missile test was “promising” due to its accuracy in striking the defunct satellite and that “The fragments that formed do not pose any threat to space activity.”

  However, State Department Spokesman Ned Price had countered by explaining that the “destructive satellite test of a direct ascent anti-satellite missile against one of its satellites” had “generated over 1,500 pieces of trackable orbital debris and hundreds of thousands of pieces of smaller orbital debris that now threaten” space assets of many countries. 

  Price condemned further at the time… “this test will significantly increase the risk to astronauts and cosmonauts on the International Space Station, as well as to other human spaceflight activities.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/18/2022 – 22:05

• Americans Should Put A Stop To The 'Biomedical Security State': Dr. Aaron Kheriaty
  Americans Should Put A Stop To The ‘Biomedical Security State’: Dr. Aaron Kheriaty

  Authored by Tammy Hung and Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  During the COVID-19 pandemic, stringent measures such as mandatory masking, vaccination, and “quarantining healthy populations” have turned the United States into a “Biomedical Security State,” Dr. Aaron Kheriaty told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program on April 9.

  “This welding of public health with digital technologies of surveillance and control and the police powers of the state allows for intrusions on our privacy, on our bodily autonomy, that are unprecedented in history,” said Kheriaty, a psychiatrist and medical ethicist.

  

  Kheriaty, chief of medical ethics at the Unity Project and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, added that a “probably north of 70 percent of Americans still got COVID in spite of almost a year of lockdowns,” and that the lockdowns have essentially brought on “massive collateral damage” in the form of a mental health crisis.

  He cited the pre-pandemic opioid crisis accounting for a total of 70,630 drug overdose deaths in 2019 in the United States, according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.) The lockdown has only “poured gasoline on [the] fire” of the existing drug overdose crisis, resulting in the skyrocketing of drug overdose deaths to over 100,000 last year, said Kheriaty.

  An August 2021 study published on Pub Med found that “state lockdown policies precede greater mental health symptoms,” and that many “non-heavy drinkers” turned to alcohol during lockdowns as a coping mechanism for “anxiety and depressive symptoms.”

  The results may warn against “greater addiction following the pandemic warranting further investigation into utilization of substance use treatment,” the study reported.

  Furthermore, one insurance company has reported a 40 percent rise in death rates during the third quarter of 2021 compared to pre-pandemic rates, which is the highest rate the company has ever seen.

  J. Scott Davison, CEO of insurance company OneAmerica, said during a news conference in December 2021 that the deaths of working-age people between 18 and 64 years of age are on the rise, and are being consistently seen in all insurance companies offering life insurance.

  “Just to give you an idea of how bad that is, a one-in-200-year catastrophe would be a 10 percent increase over pre-pandemic,” Davison said during a health care conference organized by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce in December 2021.

  Given that 2021 was the year a “mass vaccination campaign” was implemented and that the 18–64 year age group has relatively low COVID-19 mortality rates compared with the over 65 age group, Kheriaty said that “we ought to be very concerned” and dig deeper into whether the deaths were the “effects of the lockdowns that were emerging the following year,” or whether the deaths were due to “vaccine adverse events that may have gone unreported or under-reported,” or a combination of those factors and others that require further investigating.

  “This is a very pressing question that public health authorities need to contend with,” Kheriaty said.

  Since Feb. 1, 2021, the CDC has reported 1,109,851 cases of excess deaths nationwide from all causes. The number of excess deaths excluding COVID-19 related deaths is 220,902; due to other respiratory diseases, circulatory diseases, or other causes such as diabetes, kidney disease, or cancer.

  “Estimated numbers of deaths due to these other causes of death could represent misclassified COVID-19 deaths, or potentially could be indirectly related to COVID-19 (e.g., deaths from other causes occurring in the context of health care shortages or overburdened health care systems),” the CDC stated.

  “For the majority of deaths where COVID-19 is reported on the death certificate, COVID-19 is selected as the underlying cause of death,” the CDC added on its website.

  However, the New York Times had recently reported that the CDC still had not published large amounts of the data they collected during the pandemic.

  In comments to The New York Times, a CDC spokesperson said the data were “not yet ready for prime time,” that the information may be misinterpreted to mean the vaccines are ineffective, and that the data they have is based on 10 percent of the U.S. population, which the Times pointed out is the same sample size used to track influenza each year.

  Kheriaty pointed out that there appears to be a “conflict of interest” within the CDC, whereby “rather than releasing the data that American taxpayers have paid for and obviously have the right to see, and independent researchers have the right to scrutinize, they’re keeping that information from the public, because they think it may be harmful to some of the recommendations that they’ve made.”

  He added that there should be a stronger “firewall” between the scientific and political department of an organization such as the CDC to allow for more transparency, otherwise “you end up in a situation in which you have the control of information and basically, giving people only the information that you want them to hear in order to do what you want them to do,” which is essentially propaganda characteristic of “totalitarian regimes.”

  The first step in allowing the “separation of legislative, judicial and executive powers” to resume normalcy, is to put a stop to the state of emergency declared at the start of the pandemic, Kheriaty stated, adding that Americans need to “demand and take back” their “right of informed consent and the right of informed refusal.”

  The state of emergency declaration enables the CDC and other health agencies to take certain actions, including tapping into financial reserves and waiving some requirements from the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. In a pandemic-era bill, Congress also ordered all laboratories that perform or analyze COVID-19 tests to report the results to the federal government until the declaration ends.

  In a March 16 email statement to The Epoch Times, a CDC spokesperson stated that it has “no general statutory authority to direct what and how public health data are reported. Data authorities related to COVID-19 test results and hospitalizations are available now because of a public health emergency declaration. When that declaration lapses, so do the federal legal authorities to require the reporting of this important information.”

  Joseph Mercola and Zachary Stieber contributed to this report. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/18/2022 – 21:45

• Apple Includes "Pregnant Man" Emoji In Latest Software Update
  Apple Includes “Pregnant Man” Emoji In Latest Software Update

  Far be it for us to predict whether or not history will laugh at us, but it feels like we’ve officially crossed the rubicon of…well, something.

  Apple’s latest software update for its iPhone includes with it a “pregnant man” emoji, according to a new report from Fox News. The new emoticon sets also include “a number of other gender neutral cartoons,” the report says. 

  The update, made available in March, included the pregnant man, as well as a gender neutral “person with crown” emoji, in addition to 35 other emojis. 

  

  The pregnant man and “pregnant person” emoji first debuted back in January as part of an optional update, but now they are being included in iOS 15.4, which is an update that goes to all iPhone users. 

  Fox News Host Greg Gutfeld said the emoji was a “step toward acceptance for men with ‘beer guts.’”

  “Yes, thank God finally, it’s here. A beer gut emoji has arrived to Apple iPhones with its latest voluntary update. This new emoji comes in five different skin tones, so someone with a massive beer gut can be any shade that he, she or they want,” Gutfeld chriped. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/18/2022 – 21:25

• Bill O'Reilly: Blame Putin!?
  Bill O’Reilly: Blame Putin!?

  Authored by Bill O’Reilly via RealClearPolitics.com,

  “You did it, you did it,

  you did it in a minute.”

   – Hall & Oates

  Putin caused inflation. That’s what Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Jen Psaki told the nation. We are dealing with the “Putin price rise.”

  Of course, all the stats say consumer prices were going up fast before Russia invaded Ukraine but damn those pesky facts. It was Putin, for sure. Just as the devil made Flip Wilson do it a long time ago, Bad Vlad is the instigator today.

  And it’s not just inflation. Not even close.

  Did you know that Putin made Will Smith slap Chris Rock?

  Didn’t you know that? Old Will simply channeled Vlad, and boom, the Oscars stage was invaded.

  Jennifer Lopez reunited with Ben Affleck because of Putin.

  No lie. Jen is so frightened of the diminutive Vlad that she sought protection from Big Ben. The actor, not the clock.

  Rumor is Jen Psaki will soon blame the chaotic southern border on Putin.

  People in Honduras believe their country is on Vlad’s invasion list, so they are getting the heck out while the getting is good.

  Putin is also responsible for the rise in violent crime in America.

  Criminals are apparently under his spell and want to violate innocent civilians like Vlad’s forces are doing in Mariupol.

  

  President Biden sees this Putin thing clearly and knows his adversary is directly responsible for every single failure of his administration, and it’s a long list that I can tell you.

  Massive airline delays – Putin’s fault.

  Trans restrooms – Vlad did it.

  Critical Race Theory – invented by Putin.

  MSNBC – the dictator secretly runs it.

  The Los Angeles Lakers – Putin.

  Tom Brady coming out of retirement – Vlad ordered him to do it.

  Hunter Biden? Don’t even ask.

  With Vlad having so much power over everything that happens in America, it is only a matter of time before the following occurs.

  Vlad will be appointed CEO of Disney.

  He will partner with Elon Musk to take over Twitter.

  He will be a substitute host on The View.

  He’ll run Ocasio-Cortez’s next campaign.

  Vlad will make Kamala Harris stop giggling.

  He will tour with the Rolling Stones.

  And finally, The New York Times will discover, through anonymous sources, that Putin forced that bird to poop on Biden’s suit.

  I know all that sounds incredible. But it’s not nearly as unbelievable as blaming the Vlad-meister for the nearly ten percent inflation rate now battering the USA.

  Is it?

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/18/2022 – 21:05

• Tesla's Planned Shanghai Reopening For This Week Pushed Back Due To "Logistics Problems With Supplier"
  Tesla’s Planned Shanghai Reopening For This Week Pushed Back Due To “Logistics Problems With Supplier”

  All weekend, articles were posted about how Tesla’s Shanghai factory was finally going to be re-opening in the coming days. For example, Reuters reported that the company was “sputtering” to reopen its Shanghai plant after 3 weeks of lockdown.

  Pro-Tesla blog electrek also reported that Tesla was aiming to restart production “on Monday, April 18 after roughly three weeks of being shut down and missing out on the production of over 40,000 electric vehicles”.

  “To prepare for the restart, Tesla has recalled workers to its Shanghai plant where they will need to live on site, in line with China’s ‘closed loop management’ process,” two sources told Reuters.

   

  But hopes of a restart may have been dashed almost as soon as they came to be, according to a Monday morning report by Street Insider. The company was preparing to re-open on Monday but has been forced to push its restart back by a day due “to logistic problems with its supplier”. 

  Competitor Volkswagen, meanwhile, has reportedly restarted production in China. General Motors is also considering plans for re-opening this week, the report says. 

  Meanwhile, China continues to extend its lockdowns across parts of the country creating not only chaos domestically, but another coming shock to the supply chain for countries like the U.S., who are highly reliant on importing Chinese goods. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/18/2022 – 20:45

• Rabobank: We Won't Get Bretton Woods 3 But What We Do Get Won't Be Peaceful Or Painless
  Rabobank: We Won’t Get Bretton Woods 3 But What We Do Get Won’t Be Peaceful Or Painless

  By Michael Every of Rabobank

  Bancor, Rancor, and Rancour

  What lies beneath

  As usual, just over two weeks into the new quarter, and well in advance of the developed economies, GDP-giant China told us exactly what happened there in Q1. When I say ‘exactly’, I mean to the usual degree of decimal-place detail, but the same lack of any useful breakdown: and despite lockdowns so hard that China’s Weibo is allegedly censoring the first line of the Chinese national anthem (“Stand up! Those who refuse to be slaves”) after it was used to vent frustrations.

  Somehow, the expectation was for a 0.7% q/q GDP print, 4.2% y/y, up from 4.0% in Q42021: we got a far stronger print to show Covid, and Chinese data, don’t matter – GDP rose 1.3% q/q and 4.8% y/y.

  • Does one celebrate the resilience of the economy?
  • Does one ask how that was possible when March data saw retail sales -3.5% y/y, below consensus of -3.0%, down from 1.7%… and yet higher than expected at 3.3% y/y year-to-date (YTD) vs. a 6.7% print in February that already did not match what *any* retailer is seeing? When fixed asset investment, albeit above consensus, slowed to 9.3% from 12.2% y/y even as property investment was weaker than seen at just 0.7% from 3.7% y/y? And industrial production rose to 5.0% from 4.3% y/y – which must have been via net exports… despite port closures!
  • Does one ask why monetary policy was eased last week anyway, with the reserve requirement ratio cut 0.25% again? (That’s a move which will be as ineffectual for the real economy as all the previous cuts were: the only thing it perks up is enthusiasm from analysts who don’t understand how the real economy works.)
  • Does one ask why China just announced details-free economic stimulus measures? (e.g., “Reform will be deepened to remove consumption constraints. Sound and steady development of consumption platforms will be advanced.” How so, when rumours are that we are soon to see bank deposit rates cuts to make room for lower lending rates, which follows the same financial-repression/demand-destruction path seen in the ‘new normal’ elsewhere?) Probably not.
  • Does one ask how local-government debt to build more infrastructure is ‘consumption’? (e.g., “consumption-related infrastructure development may be funded by local government special-purpose bonds, to leverage the catalytic role of investment in expanding consumption.”)
  • Does one note an easily achievable stimulus floated is a de facto export subsidy? (e.g., “Export rebates will be better utilized as an inclusive and equitable policy tool that is consistent with international rules, and the business environment for foreign trade will be improved on multiple fronts.”) Yet if China thinks it can grow its way out of a structural crisis by flooding the world with more goods *again*, then it is in for a real shock.

  Making that point, Bloomberg warns: ‘Global Investors Flee China Fearing That Risks Eclipse Rewards’. All the more reason for a 1.3 % q/q print then(?) The article notes, “Russian sanctions raise concerns the same could happen to China… a growing list of risks is turning China into a potential quagmire for global investors. The central question is what could happen in a country willing to go to great lengths to achieve its leader’s goals.” This is hardly news to those who wanted to see it: but a South China Morning Post politics podcast this weekend in which one of their correspondents stated he had heard directly from an EU source that in recent discussions over Russian sanctions, US officials stated they are already gaming-out the same measures for China – and using language such as “when we sanction China”, not “if”.

  Imperialism and realism: Bancor and Rancor

  Meanwhile, in Ukraine, hopes of peace talks appear forlorn: Mariupol appears close to falling, as the city of 400,000 stands in ruins; and despite talking of risks of a Russian tactical nuke, President Zelenskiy defiantly states his country won’t give up the Donbas and can keep fighting for 10 years, if needed. If supported by the West, perhaps it can – and the EU’s Von der Leyen is pushing for Europe to accelerate arms shipments to Kyiv, talking about an oil boycott, again, and sanctioning Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank. Markets were thinking 10 days and none of the above when this all started.

  On another front, as Finland and Sweden race towards NATO membership, Russia is moving forces towards the Baltic. Is this a bluff, as some felt it was over Ukraine? Or is Moscow going to engage in some form of limited confrontation with either or both Scandinavian states to ensure that if they enter NATO they do so already in a conflict with Russia?

  Taking things to a more meta level, last week I argued ‘Bretton Woods 3’ (BW3) — a new global FX and financial architecture– is a fancy name for militarized mercantilism; that the West used to be good at it; that it will be again, even if it means lots of neoliberal norms have to go; and anyone who thinks a BW3 emerges painlessly hasn’t read any history. Usefully, one of the key proponents of ‘anti-American imperialism’ just made the point for me in depth.

  (NB For these thinkers, American imperialism is the only imperialism: everything else is ‘realism’. That was underlined by humanist and coffee-table intellectual’s intellectual —and long-time believer that the auto-genocidal Khmer Rouge get a bad press— Noam Chomsky, who explained this weekend that Ukraine should surrender, because that’s ‘just the way the world is’.)

  In an interview, Russian politician Sergey Glazyev talks about “the imminent disintegration of the USD-based global economic system, which provided the foundation of the US global dominance… the new economic system [unites] various strata of their societies around the goal of increasing common well-being in a way that is substantially stronger than the Anglo-Saxon and European alternatives. This is the main reason why Washington will not be able to win the global hybrid war that it started. This is also the main reason why the current dollar-centric global financial system will be superseded by a new one, based on a consensus of the countries who join the new world economic order.”

  So far, so gold-bug, crypto-nite, Chomskyite, Russian/Chinese nationalist, US billionaire hedge-fund manager, or general Down With This Sort of Thing. But we get details:

  “In the first phase of the transition, these countries fall back on using their national currencies and clearing mechanisms, backed by bilateral currency swaps. At this point, price formation is still mostly driven by prices at various exchanges, denominated in dollars.”

  That’s what I have been flagging: things remain priced in USD and, for a few, at the margin, and inefficiently, USD are netted out via bilateral, geopolitical barter. However, “This phase is almost over.” That seems ambitious: it isn’t even a month old! Regardless, next comes “a shift to national currencies and gold,” and then:

  “The second stage of the transition will involve new pricing mechanisms that do not reference the USD. Price formation in national currencies involves substantial overheads, however, it will still be more attractive than pricing in ‘un-anchored’ and treacherous currencies like USD, GBP, EUR, and JPY. The only remaining global currency candidate –CNY– won’t be taking their place due to its inconvertibility and the restricted external access to the Chinese capital markets. The use of gold as the price reference is constrained by the inconvenience of its use for payments.”

  So, as I pointed out, nothing really works; which, alongside final consumption being in the West, and lots of aircraft carriers, is a strong argument for the USD status quo, imperialist or not. But not to worry if you disagree, because after that:

  “The third and the final stage on the new economic order transition will involve a creation of a new digital payment currency founded through an international agreement based on principles of transparency, fairness, goodwill, and efficiency.” Which the international community is of course famous for. “A currency like this can be issued by a pool of currency reserves of BRICS countries, which all interested countries will be able to join.”

  Except India is questionable, and even Brazil might be shaky given where it sits geographically, near the source of all those aircraft carriers. And so we have Russia, China, and South Africa. That doesn’t even make a good acronym, let alone bloc.

  “The weight of each currency in the basket could be proportional to the GDP of each country (based on purchasing power parity, for example), its share in international trade, as well as the population and territory size of participating countries.” So, it will be dominated by China; and so India is definitely out. “In addition, the basket could contain an index of prices of main exchange-traded commodities: gold and other precious metals, key industrial metals, hydrocarbons, grains, sugar, as well as water and other natural resources. To provide backing… relevant international resource reserves can be created in due course. This new currency would be used exclusively for cross-border payments and issued to the participating countries based on a pre-defined formula. Participating countries would instead use their national currencies for credit creation, in order to finance national investments and industry, as well as for sovereign wealth reserves. Capital account cross-border flows would remain governed by national currency regulations.”

  So, he is talking about a new ‘gold standard’ based on everything from precious metals to base metals, to water, to one of the key ingredients for cakes, to the GDP of China, questionable data and all. Somehow these back a new global reserve currency which somebody will manage, and provide emergency liquidity in, despite *ALMOST EVERYONE IN THE NEW BLOC RUNNING TRADE SURPLUSES* – and most so with the West, who are not going to join. As such, this is not so much a proposed Bancor, as Keynes floated at the original Bretton Woods before the US insisted on the global role of the USD; nor a monstrous Rancor to devour Wall Street; it’s just plain rancour (“bitterness or resentfulness, especially when long standing”). Indeed, here is the coup de grace:

  “Transition to the new world economic order will likely be accompanied by systematic refusal to honor obligations in USD, EUR, GBP, and JPY. In this respect, it will be no different from the example set by the countries issuing these currencies who thought it appropriate to steal foreign exchange reserves of Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Afghanistan, and Russia to the tune of trillions of USD…. Even if they were to default on their obligations in those currencies, this would have no bearing on their credit rating in the new financial system. Nationalization of extraction industry, likewise, would not cause a disruption.”

  In other words, adopt the new world order and you get to default on all your FX debt and nationalise all your foreign-owned businesses! That is precisely what I also argued: bet on the new and bet on the default of the old. That is not going to be peaceful or painless – and it will be vigorously resisted.

  You want to ensure that even vampire-squid on Wall Street and global-not-local US billionaire hedge-fund managers agree to dump neoliberalism for Western mercantilism and a bifurcated Cold War world of tariffs, capital controls, and naval blockades? Keep talking about mass nationalisations and organised debt defaults in the Eurodollar markets.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/18/2022 – 20:25

• Shanghai Finally Confirms First COVID Deaths Since Start Of Lockdown
  Shanghai Finally Confirms First COVID Deaths Since Start Of Lockdown

  After weeks of allegedly covering up COVID-related deaths in senior-living facilities, Shanghai has curiously picked Monday – just hours after releasing stronger-than-expected (and likely goalseeked) Q1 GDP figures – to confirm the first COVID deaths in the city of 26 million, where more than 100K people have been confirmed positive with the virus over the past month alone.

  To be sure, the official figures are still pretty small: the city confirmed that people have died as of Sunday, the city said, attributing the deaths to preexisting health conditions. The official announcement noted all three people were elderly and were also not vaccinated.

  Shanghai authorities have been doing everything they can to try and force more older Chinese to accept its vaccines, which have been said to be less effective than their western counterparts.

  

  To be sure, about 224.8 million people over the age of 60 have already been vaccinated, which represents about 85% of that age group.

  But for those who haven’t yet received the vaccine, local authorities are trying another novel tactic: bribing them.

  According to CNBC, at least one neighborhood in the capital city of Beijing has said that anyone over the age of 60 getting their first COVID shot could receive a reward worth the equivalent of about $70 to $80, citing anecdotal reports.

  Case numbers have started to cool, per the official data, as authorities hope to be able to start rolling back restrictions in the country’s largest city (which is 3x the size of NYC) by Wednesday: On Sunday, Shanghai reported 19,831 cases with no symptoms, and 2,417 new confirmed COVID cases with symptoms. Meanwhile, outside of Shanghai, another 300 newly confirmed cases with symptoms were reported across the rest of mainland China.

  Shanghai’s lockdown has been particularly brutal, as local residents describe running low on food and essential supplies while being effectively sealed inside their homes. Many who took to social media – or their balconies – to protest the lockdown were ordered to cease and desist by the authorities, who haven’t hesitated to crack down on all dissent, even while the CCP’s policies have led to unnecessary and otherwise preventable deaths.

  One memorable video, which made the rounds on western social media, depicted Shanghaiers taking to their balconies to chant in protest, as CCP drones ordered them to halt and go back inside.

  As seen on Weibo: Shanghai residents go to their balconies to sing & protest lack of supplies. A drone appears: “Please comply w covid restrictions. Control your soul’s desire for freedom. Do not open the window or sing.” https://t.co/0ZTc8fznaV pic.twitter.com/pAnEGOlBIh

  — Alice Su (@aliceysu) April 6, 2022

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

  As we have previously noted, analysts at Nomura estimated last week that 45 cities responsible for about 40% of China’s GDP were under complete or partial lockdowns, and said the country was at “risk of recession.” As a result, prices of commodities both agricultural and industrial, have tumbled in China, leading to some speculation that the CCP is using the lockdowns to manipulate commodity prices and prevent the levels of inflation afflicting western economies from ever being imported to China.

  Keep in mind: China is desperately in need of crude oil, LNG, food, basic materials, base metals, and other commodities. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has created additional energy scarcity, inflation, and skyrocketing food inflation. While China hasn’t had any material problems with the virus from Wuhan in the past, it’s interesting that their draconian lockdowns (in conjunction with telegraphing the purchase of fewer cargoes of LNG and crude) are forcing global economists to ratchet growth expectations lower while concurrently blunting future demand projections.

  And as the impact of China’s broken supply chains reverberate across the world (from Europe, to North America, and beyond), we can’t help but wonder if the CCP secretly wants to country’s supply chains to remain broken.

  *SHANGHAI REPORTS FIRST DEATHS DURING CURRENT COVID OUTBREAK

  China really wants those supply chains to stay broken.

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 18, 2022

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

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/18/2022 – 20:05

• Hunter Biden's China Business Deals Should Raise "Alarm Bells"
  Hunter Biden’s China Business Deals Should Raise “Alarm Bells”

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

  As federal investigation into Hunter Biden moves forward, his tangled business dealings, in particular those related to China, are drawing greater scrutiny.

  

  Author Peter Schweizer, who wrote the book “Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win,” recently told The Epoch Times that there is one simple way people can look at Hunter Bidens’ business activities.

  During the Cold War, It would have raised “alarm bells” if Jimmy Carter’s or Ronald Reagan’s family, were found to have received millions from Russian businessmen connected to the KGB, according to Schweizer.

  “That’s what happened here. All we’re doing is replacing the KGB with the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS). It’s the exact same story and it ought to be setting off the exact alarm bells,” he said, referring to the Chinese regime’s top intelligence agency.

  Recent attention has been on a damaged laptop that was dropped off at a repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware in April 2019. The owner of the shop, who said the customer of the laptop never came back to retrieve it, made a copy of the hard drive for former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliano’s lawyer Robert Costello.

  

  Ahead of the November 2020 presidential election, the New York Post and Senate committees were among the first to obtain and review emails on the hard drive, revealing how Joe Biden, his brother James, and his son Hunter Biden, were involved in various foreign business ventures, in countries such as Ukraine, Russia, and China. At the time, many media outlets discredited the revelations as “Russian disinformation” and the news was blocked by social media platforms.

  The Washington Post and the New York Times authenticated the emails and published their own reports relating to Hunter’s laptop only last month.

  “We’re very clear that the Bidens got some $31 million, based on the laptop, from a series of deals that happened beginning when Joe Biden was vice president of the United States. And those deals happened courtesy of four Chinese businessmen,” Schweizer said.

  All four Chinese businessmen were “directly linked” to the highest levels of Chinese intelligence, he added.

  The fact that these Chinese businessmen would want to talk to the Bidens was interesting, Schweizer said, since the latter did not bring any capital or investors to the table, something financial investment firms would do.

  Surely, the Chinese businessmen weren’t philanthropies either, he added, the question then became what they wanted in return.

  “When you look at the cluster of who provided the funds to the Bidens, and the fact that the Bidens did not really provide anything tangible in return, this has all the markings of elite capture and of a Chinese intelligence operation,” he said.

  Ties 

  According to his book, one of the Chinese businessmen was a Chinese tycoon named Che Feng, who helped Hunter Biden and his associates secure a deal involving a Chinese investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). Schweizer said the deal netted him about $20 million.

  Rosemont Seneca Partners, a U.S. investment and advisory firm Hunter Biden co-founded, became one of the shareholders of BHR, which was incorporated in Shanghai in 2013. Hunter gained an unpaid board seat on BHR as a result. In October 2019, George Mesires, Hunter Biden’s attorney, issued a statement saying that the younger Biden had decided to resign from his seat on the BHR board of directors.

  Hunter Biden held a 10 percent stake in BHR but divested as of November last year, his lawyer told The New York Times.

  Che was business partners with Ma Jian, who was then-vice minister of China’s MSS and was reportedly headed the ministry’s No. 8 bureau, which targeted foreigners with its counterintelligence apparatus, according to the book.

  

  when he was placed under Party investigation for corruption, amid a sweeping anti-corruption campaign initiated by Chinese leader Xi Jinping in 2012. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in December 2018, after being found guilty of accepting bribes, insider trading, and making “coercive” business deals.

  Before his political downfall, Ma was a key member of a political faction loyal to former Chinese regime leader Jiang Zemin. The so-called Jiang faction is known for opposing Xi’s leadership.

  Che, who is also the son-in-law of Dai Xianlong, the former governor of China’s central bank, was also named in the 2017 Paradise Papers for making about $14.6 million in preferred stocks through his offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands between 2009 and 2013.

  According to Chinese media, Che was placed under investigation in June 2015.

  “[Che] would fade from the [BHR] deal after both he and Ma were arrested and charged with money laundering and bribery, respectively. But the partnership between Hunter and Chinese officials was off and running,” according to his book.

  Deals

  Schweizer said he wrote in his book how some deals made by the BHR were “benefiting the Chinese state in its competition with the United States.”

  One such deal allegedly involved BHR buying an “anchor investment” stake in a Chinese state-owned nuclear company called China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN). The investment was made “within a year” before the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) accused CGN of nuclear espionage.

  In April 2016, the DOJ unsealed an indictment against CGN and its engineer Allen Ho for conspiracy to unlawfully engage and participate in the production and development of special nuclear material outside the United States, without the required authorization from the U.S. Department of Energy.

  Ho, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China who held dual residency in Delaware and China, was sentenced to two years in prison for violating the U.S. Atomic Energy Act in August 2017.

  

  Another deal involved the BHR and its Chinese partner AVIC Auto acquiring Henniges in 2015, a U.S. maker of anti-vibration technologies with civilian and military applications. AVIC Auto is a subsidiary of China’s state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC).

  Schweizer said the acquisition was “suspicious” given that AVIC “has a long history of engaging in espionage in the United States.”

  The Pentagon has identified both CGN and AVIC among many Chinese companies having ties to the Chinese military. AVIC is currently also on the U.S. investment blacklist.

  AVIC was the beneficiary of a hacking campaign from 2010 to 2015 carried out by hackers associated with MSS, during which several U.S. companies, including Honeywell and General Electric, were breached, according to a 2019 report. The campaign allowed AVIC’s shareholding company AECC to domestically produce an aircraft engine similar to a foreign design.

  “So the bottom line is, there are very serious implications for these deals,” Schweizer said. “I’ve never seen anything like this involving a political family this prominent.”

  The White House and Hunter Biden’s attorney Chris Clark didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

  Discoveries

  Recently, more information about Hunter Biden’s overseas business activities has come to light.

  He was found to have tried to broker a $120 million oil agreement in 2014 and 2015 between a Chinese state-owned oil company and Kazakhstan’s prime minister at that time, the Daily Mail reported in February, citing emails obtained from his alleged abandoned laptop. The Chinese company, the State China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), has also been named by the Pentagon as having ties to the Chinese military and is also currently on a U.S. investment blacklist.

  In March, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) presented bank records on the Senate floor showing CEFC China Energy, a now-defunct company, made payments to Hunter Biden.

  Leaked emails recently reviewed by Fox News and the New York Post showed that James J. Bulger, the nephew of now-deceased Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger, played an active role in Hunter Biden’s business activities in China. One 2014 email discussed a potential meeting between Bulger, Hunter Biden, Rosemont Seneca co-founder Devon Archer, and the Chinese ambassador to the United States at that time, to talk about a Chinese fund.

  U.S. Attorney David Weiss is currently investigating Hunter Biden for possible tax violations,  but little has been revealed to the public other than that he has not been charged with any crime.

  

  On April 13, 16 Republican House lawmakers sent a joint letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, calling on the Department of Justice to brief Congress on Weiss’s investigation into Hunter Biden.

  “Congress has a constitutional obligation to conduct oversight of the Executive Branch and a moral obligation to examine if the President of the United States or any senior official in his administration is ethically compromised or injured​,” the letter stated.

  Schweizer said the key to the investigation is finding out what China has gotten out of Hunter Biden.

  “They could have leveraged him and used him for intelligence source [and] blackmailed him,” he said. “Those are the areas where I think the investigation needs to proceed.”

  “Now, the next question is, what were they [China] getting for their money?” he added.

  Roman Balmakov contributed to this report. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/18/2022 – 19:45

• Corn Exceeds $8 A Bushel For First Time In Decade On Shortage Fears
  Corn Exceeds $8 A Bushel For First Time In Decade On Shortage Fears

  A combination of factors has sent corn futures in Chicago to the highest level in a decade as investors fret over dwindling supplies. 

  Corn futures haven’t exceeded $8 a bushel since September 2012, following a devastating drought that damaged crops across the U.S. Midwest. Now supply risks return but for different reasons. 

  

  The global outlook for corn supplies has plunged since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in late February. The war-torn country supplies a fifth of the world’s corn and could experience a 50% decline in output this year. 

  

  Soaring fertilizer costs have forced some farmers in the U.S. to increase plantings of soybeans this growing season versus corn as the crop requires fewer nutrients. 

  

  Fertilizer prices are at record highs because of rising natural gas costs and Russia limiting fertilizer exports to ‘unfriendly‘ countries. Russia is one of the biggest exporters globally — the U.S. just so happens to be a large importer of nitrogen and potash from Russia. 

  

  And the latest development pushing corn prices to the stratosphere is the Biden administration’s announcement of emergency measures last week to expand biofuel sales to curb soaring gasoline prices. The problem with this move is that the ethanol industry absorbs a larger share of the corn crop, which would curb supplies to the food industry. So ultimately, it would increase prices. 

  This is happening as global food prices jumped a stunning 12.64% MoM in March – almost double the previous record monthly surge…

  

  Global food prices have exceeded levels only seen during the inflation riots of 2010/11, known as Arab Spring. 

  

  Investors appear to be pricing in a corn shortage. It’s never been a better time to start growing your own garden

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/18/2022 – 19:25

• Florida School Chief Rejects Math Textbooks Over 'Attempts To Indoctrinate Students'
  Florida School Chief Rejects Math Textbooks Over ‘Attempts To Indoctrinate Students’

  Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Florida’s Department of Education has rejected dozens of K–12 mathematics textbooks after officials said they include “indoctrinating concepts,” such as critical race theory (CRT).

  

  According to Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran, his department reviewed 132 submitted textbooks and found that 54 of them, or 41 percent, didn’t meet Florida’s K–12 curriculum standards or contained prohibited topics.

  “Reasons for rejecting textbooks included references to Critical Race Theory (CRT), inclusions of Common Core, and the unsolicited addition of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in mathematics,” the department said in an April 15 statement. “The highest number of books rejected were for grade levels K–5, where an alarming 71 percent were not appropriately aligned with Florida standards or included prohibited topics and unsolicited strategies.”

  Specifically, 28 rejected textbooks “incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies” including CRT, 12 don’t properly align with Florida standards, and 14 were rejected for both reasons.

  “It seems that some publishers attempted to slap a coat of paint on an old house built on the foundation of Common Core and indoctrinating concepts like race essentialism, especially, bizarrely, for elementary school students,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said. “I’m grateful that Commissioner Corcoran and his team at the department have conducted such a thorough vetting of these textbooks to ensure they comply with the law.”

  Under current Florida law, public schools are prohibited from teaching key concepts of CRT, such as that one should feel guilt or shame because of his or her race or that the United States is inherently racist. Florida parents can sue school districts they suspect of incorporating CRT concepts and recover attorney fees if they prevail.

  In 2020, Florida officially removed Common Core and adopted the Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking (BEST) standards. The state plans to fully implement the new standard after 2023, giving school districts approximately three years to familiarize their teachers with the new benchmarks and purchase new textbooks and other instructional materials.

  DeSantis called the new standards a “return to the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic.”

  When it comes to math, the BEST standards promote a simplified approach and focus on the usefulness of content. The Florida framework also has an emphasis on getting the correct answer, rather than using the required method, meaning that students won’t lose points for the method they use as long as the answer is correct.

  By contrast, Common Core math has long been criticized for expecting students to master several different new experimental methods to solve the same math problem. Following these methods, some teachers have created questions that are confusing or otherwise have no practical meaning, causing frustration among students and parents.

  “It really goes beyond Common Core to embrace common sense, something that’s long been necessary,” DeSantis said in 2020, when he unveiled the new education standards.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/18/2022 – 19:05

• Pakistan Hit With Power Blackouts As It Struggles With Fuel Shortages And Technical Problems
  Pakistan Hit With Power Blackouts As It Struggles With Fuel Shortages And Technical Problems

  A once-in-a-generation inflation shock is rippling worldwide and has become a significant source of social and political instability in the weakest countries. Pakistan is the latest country to experience paralyzing inflation. 

  Bloomberg reports almost a fifth of electricity generation capacity is offline in the South Asian country because some power plants struggle to purchase liquefied natural gas and coal due to record high prices. 

  Pakistan’s energy costs have doubled to $15 billion in the last nine months ended February from a year earlier. The country has struggled with purchasing energy products to fuel its power plants since the conflict in Ukraine exacerbated commodity shortages, sending prices to record highs. 

  

  Miftah Ismail, appointed as finance minister by new Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, tweeted that 3,500 megawatts worth of power capacity are offline due to fuel shortages, and a similar amount is due to technical faults. The total capacity offline is 7,000 megawatts or about a fifth of the country’s total generation capacity. 

  On April 13, 7140 MW capacity plants were shut either due to fuel shortage or technical faults. Is it due to PTI’s incompetence or corruption or both? pic.twitter.com/XUoj7b9laV

  — Miftah Ismail (@MiftahIsmail) April 14, 2022

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  The poor South Asian country is heavily dependent on imported energy, making it highly sensitive to price swings. 

  “Pakistan’s situation will not change in the near term since global dynamics are still the same.

  “There have been forced outages to deal with the energy shortages,” said Samiullah Tariq, head of research at Pakistan Kuwait Investment Co. 

  High inflation has already led to a recent government change (so far peaceful). Still, it raises near-term policy turmoil even as the country faces fiscal challenges from soaring commodity prices. 

  It could only be a matter of time before rolling power blackouts, soaring food and fuel prices incite unrest. This is already happening around the world in the weakest of countries. 

  The tiny island nation of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean and Peru have already experienced unrest because of rapid inflation. It appears the dominos are already falling. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/18/2022 – 18:45

• The Monopoly On Your Mind: These 6 Companies Control 90% Of What You Read, Watch, & Hear
  The Monopoly On Your Mind: These 6 Companies Control 90% Of What You Read, Watch, & Hear

  Authored by Rebecca Strong via ‘Down The Rabbit Hole’ Substack,

  In a recent Twitter survey I conducted, nearly 90% of people rated their trust in mainstream media as either “very low” or “low.” And is it any surprise? Ever-mounting media consolidation has narrowed the perspectives the public is privy to, ownership and funding of these corporations are riddled with conflicts of interest, crucial stories keep suspiciously getting buried, and big tech companies are outright censoring and demonetizing independent outlets trying to break through the noise. The media is supposed to function as a power check — and a means of arming us with vital information for shaping the society we want to live in.

  It’s never been a more important industry.

  And it’s never been more at risk.

  In this series, I’ll tackle each factor threatening the media’s ability to serve our democracy — with input from journalists, media critics and professors, and other experts.

  TL;DR:

  • As regulations around ownership have continued to loosen over the last 40 years, the power over the media has become increasingly concentrated. A major culprit is the Telecommunications Act signed by then-President Bill Clinton in 1996, which 72% of the public didn’t even know about and no one voted on.

  • Today, Comcast, Disney, AT&T, Sony, Fox, and Paramount Global control 90% of what you watch, read, or listen to. These companies spend millions on lobbying each year to sway legislation in their favor.

  • Local news is dying out, with more than 2,000 U.S. counties (63.6%) now lacking a daily newspaper.

  • Interlocking directorates — which describe situations in which a board member at a media company also sits on the board at other companies, also create conflicts of interest. Publicly traded American newspapers are interlocked by 1,276 connections to 530 organizations, including advertisers, financial institutions, tech firms, and government/political entities. These interlocks are only disclosed to readers about half the time.

  • More than 30% of editors report experiencing some form of pressure on the newsroom from their parent company or its board of directors. Pressured editors admit to taking a more relaxed approach in reporting practices when covering interlocked individuals or organizations in the news.

  • Half of investigative journalists say newsworthy stories often or sometimes go unreported because they could hurt the financial interests of their organization, and 61% believe corporate owners exert at least a fair amount of influence on decisions about which stories to cover.

  

  “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” — Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis

  On a crisp November day in 2014, as I hustled through Boston’s Downtown Crossing at rush hour, I got a call that would change the course of my career: I was offered my first full-time journalism job, as a tech and startups reporter for a local online outlet called BostInno. When I look back on that moment and recall the dizzying rush of excitement that set in, I see an idealistic young woman who has yet to understand the way the media machine really works. I wish I could somehow temper her expectations. I wish I could protect her from the crushing disappointment that comes with realizing this industry she’s chosen isn’t what she naively thinks it is.

  Not too long before I was hired, BostInno had been acquired by American City Business Journals, the largest publisher of metropolitan business newsweeklies in the U.S. In my early conversations with colleagues, it was apparent they were still adjusting to post-acquisition life. Sure, there were perks that came with being acquired — but the pressure to hit lofty traffic goals meant writers now had to prioritize certain clickbaity stories over others. Moreover, I distinctly remember a fixation on quantity. Writers were expected to churn out at least three or four stories a day in an effort to reach as wide an audience as possible, which frustratingly, meant we often didn’t have time to cover complex topics in the depth required. Our experience, as it turns out, is not exactly a unique one.

  In a recent survey I conducted, 60% of journalists said they’d worked for a publication that got bought by a larger company while they were there — and 40% of that group admitted to witnessing negative changes in their job expectations or work environment after the acquisition.

  If you examine the history of countless media mergers and acquisitions over the last several decades, you’ll come to an unsettling discovery: local, independent outlets are dying out in droves. The result? The vast majority of the news you digest is tailored to serve the interests of corporations and their leaders, rather than citizens.

  The Great Media Consolidation continues:

  – NYT buys The Athletic
  – BuzzFeed buys Complex
  – VOX buys GroupNine
  – Axel Springer buys Politico
  – Dot Dash buys Meredith
  – Minute Media buys Player’s Tribune

  What’s next? https://t.co/P435ij5Zxc

  — Cristian Nyari (@Cnyari) January 6, 2022

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  It may go without saying, but the media plays an almost nauseatingly prominent role in our everyday lives, especially here in the United States. In fact, Americans spend an average of 12 and a half hours per day consuming news via the television, Internet, newspapers, magazines, and radio. The media molds our society in a myriad of ways. It tells us which world events deserve our attention. It has the power to affect what we buy. In shaping our opinions on everything from immigration, healthcare, education, and the environment to individual political candidates, it can also have significant sway when it comes to elections. Studies have shown that media coverage sometimes has a strong impact on criminal court decisions, particularly for violent crimes. And by influencing consumers and investors, our current 24-hour real-time news cycle can impact our economic climate, driving the market values of certain industries and companies (this is known as “the CNN effect”).

  But have you ever noticed that so much of what you’re reading, seeing, and hearing has started to sound — well, exactly the same? You’re not imagining things. There’s even a name for this phenomenon: “the illusion of choice.” We’re presented with what feels like an endless array of options for where to get our news. But in reality, the information from most of those sources trickles down from the same few conglomerates. Year after year, economic power has become increasingly concentrated across numerous industries — including tech, healthcare, banking, airlines, and pharmaceuticals. In fact, mergers reached a record high of $5.8 trillion in 2021. If you ever took Economics 101, you’re probably well aware that monopolies are great for the providers and bad for consumers — by eliminating competition, they give corporations in control no incentive to improve, innovate, or otherwise meet our needs, desires, and expectations.

  So, how did we get here? During the 1940s, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted a number of rules to limit ownership of multiple local radio stations and television stations, as well as multiple national broadcast networks. Then in the ‘70s, the FCC banned one company from owning both a newspaper and TV or radio station in the same market. But during the ‘80s, major deregulatory moves made by Congress and the FCC under then-president Ronald Reagan’s administration increased the number of TV stations any single entity could own, triggering a wave of media mergers.

  The real kiss of death to local news happened in 1996 when President Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act, which allowed large corporations already dominating the media market to further expand their control via acquisitions and mergers. Only 3% of Congress voted against this bill, including then House of Representatives member Bernie Sanders. In the years following, more and more small outlets and stations either got gobbled up by the big guys or outright failed because they simply couldn’t compete with them.

  Then, in 2017, the FCC reversed a regulation that opened the floodgates on consolidation even further. That regulation had prevented one company from owning multiple television stations in markets that didn’t have at least eight independent stations, and prevented one company from owning both a newspaper and broadcast station or TV and radio station in the same market. Finally, in 2021, the Supreme Court overturned an appeals ruling asking the FCC to study the potential impact on female and minority ownership in the media industry before loosening restrictions on ownership. At the time, Justice Brett Kavanaugh — who wrote the ruling — claimed that not only was there zero evidence that relaxing these rules would cause any harm, but that consolidation could benefit consumers.

  As for the consequences of all this deregulation — whereas 50 companies dominated the media landscape in 1983, that dwindled to nine companies by the 1990s. It got worse from there.

  Today, just six conglomerates — Comcast, Disney, AT&T, Sony, Fox, and Paramount Global (formerly known as ViacomCBS) — control 90% of what you watch, read, or listen to. To put this into perspective: that means about 232 media executives have the power to decide what information 277 million Americans are able to access. In 2021, the “big six” banked a total of more than $478 billion in revenue. That’s more than both Finland’s and Ukraine’s GDP combined.

  The issue extends to print media and radio giants, too: iHeartMedia owns 863 radio stations nationwide, while Gannett owns over 100 daily U.S. newspapers and nearly 1,000 weeklies.

  As the pool controlling the media keeps shrinking, so does the breadth of the information reported. Hence why today’s thousands of news outlets often churn out embarrassingly duplicative content.

  One glaring issue with these sweeping regulatory changes is that they passed with little publicity, meaning citizens had little to no opportunity to push back. In fact, a 2003 Pew Research study found that a whopping 72% of Americans heard absolutely nothing at all about changing rules for media ownership. But when asked how they felt about relaxing the rules for how many media outlets corporations can own, far more Americans said they thought it would have a negative impact than a positive one.

  According to Jeff Cohen, founder of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) and RootsAction and author of “Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media,” the Telecommunications Act progressed largely under the radar.

  “The public didn’t vote on it, or know about it,” he told me in an interview. “Conglomeration and the shrinkage of media diversity happened because of backroom legislation and rule-making, out of sight of the public.”

  In fact, when a consumer group tried to buy ad space on CNN to criticize the Telecommunications Bill, Cohen says CNN wouldn’t sell them the time. It’s not all that surprising when you consider how powerful Big Media lobbyists are: An OpenSecrets report shows that NCTA – The Internet & Television Association (which represents more than 90% of the U.S. cable market) spent more than $14 million trying to influence government policy in 2021, while Comcast shelled out $13.38 million, putting them both in the top 15 spenders for lobbying.

  Not only were Americans kept mostly in the dark about these regulatory moves, but information about their implications may have been intentionally hidden. In 2006, former FCC attorney Adam Candeub claimed the FCC allegedly buried a federal study proving more concentration of media ownership would hurt local news coverage. Senior managers ordered staff to destroy “every last piece” of the report, according to Candeub. Still, other research has since revealed the same worrisome findings: a 2019 study showed that stations newly acquired by Sinclair increased their focus on national politics by around 25% — at the expense of covering local politics.

  Nowadays, there are entire cities and towns across the country with no local coverage. According to a 2018 study, more than 2,000 U.S. counties (63.6%) have no daily newspaper, while 1,449 counties (46%) only have one. Meanwhile, 171 counties — totaling 3.2 million residents — have zero newspapers whatsoever. These areas are known as “news deserts,” and studies have shown they have fewer candidates running for mayor, lower voter turnout, and more government corruption. When citizens are left with a colossal information gap, they’re forced to turn to social media to get their news.

  One of the media giants responsible for this trend is Sinclair Broadcast Group, which now owns or operates 185 television stations across 620 channels in 86 U.S. markets. In the above compilation video, the anchors parroting the same exact script about the dangers of “fake news” all worked for Sinclair-owned stations. While expressing concerns about the negative effects of media consolidation in a 2017 interview with Democracy Now!, former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps called Sinclair the “most dangerous company out there that people have never heard of” due not only to the scope of its control but also its well-known ideological agenda.

  In his book “The New Media Monopoly,” the late author Ben Bagdikian asserts that today’s big six have amassed more communications power than was ever wielded by any dictatorship in history. Worse yet, he notes that close-knit hierarchies like these find ways to “cooperate” to keep expanding their power.

  “They jointly invest in the same ventures, and they even go through motions that, in effect, lend each other money and swap properties when it is mutually advantageous,” Bagdikian writes.

  I’m old enough to remember when those who warned against the dangers of media consolidation were ridiculed as alarmists. Score one for the alarmists. 🔥

  — Eliot Rosewater (@SteveSchindler9) April 6, 2022

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  Christopher Terry, an assistant professor of media law at the University of Minnesota, started his career in the radio industry as a producer for Hearst and ClearChannel in the mid-’90s — during the height of this consolidation frenzy.

  “I saw what it did for the stations that I worked for, and I didn’t like it,” he told me in an interview.

  Terry had been working for a conservative talk station in Milwaukee when it was acquired by ClearChannel, triggering drastic staff cuts.

  “Prior to consolidation, we were a legitimate source with a fully operational newsroom,” he explained. “I didn’t necessarily agree with our politics all the time, but I liked that it was focused on the things people need information about, and it had local ties. It was an operation that was contributing to the public good.”

  Experts like Terry and Cohen will tell you there are numerous reasons why media consolidation is bad for our democracy. In the documentary “Is The Press Really Free?” sociology professor and former Project Censored director Dr. Peter Phillips points out that as a direct result of the staff cuts caused by consolidation, reporters often become increasingly dependent on PR people for stories. He calls this a form of structural censorship — when a large portion of the news has been pre-written by a PR professional who works for a public or private bureaucracy, that means the stories are spun to meet the needs of corporations or the government in advance.

  Nolan Higdon, a media studies and history lecturer and author of “The Anatomy of Fake News,” also notes that this concentration of power has meant fewer checks and balances — without the pressure that comes with competition, conglomerates aren’t likely to be challenged for their questionable practices.

  “When most of the news is controlled by six corporations, and Internet traffic is controlled by five or six companies that privilege those companies under the auspices of fighting ‘fake news,’ you can lie with impunity,” Higdon told me. “And worse, because we’re a fragmented audience, if I’m being lied to every single day by The Washington Post, I’m not going to turn on Fox or read The Wall Street Journal to hear I’m being lied to. I’m going to be in my little information bubble.”

  As these media corporations continue to expand their power, they rake in ever-growing profits — which then translates to more political influence. Not only do owners of media giants contribute money directly to campaigns, but their outlets control the discourse around them. And the larger the conglomerate, the more easily and effectively they can lobby to kill regulations and pass laws that further their domination.

  But this consolidation of power extends beyond just monopolies and mergers galore — compounding the issue are shared board members. All media corporations have a board of directors, which is responsible for making decisions that support the interests of stakeholders. When someone sits on the board at multiple companies, that creates an “interlock.” Scroll through The New York Times board of directors, for example, and you’ll find a certain member is also on the board for McDonald’s and Nike and is chairman of Ariel Investments. Up until last year, a Disney chairwoman happened to be on the board for private equity giant The Carlyle Group.

  A 2021 study published in Mass Communication & Society (MCS) revealed that publicly traded American newspaper companies were interlocked by 1,276 connections to 530 organizations. The data showed that about 36% of these connections were to other media organizations, 20% to advertisers, 16% to financial institutions, 12% to tech firms, and 2% to government and political entities.

  More specifically, a 2012 list compiled by FAIR revealed the following interlocks:

  • CBS/Viacom: Amazon, Pfizer, CVS, Dell, Cardinal Health, and Verizon

  • Fox/News Corp: Rothschild Investment Corporation, Phillip Morris, British Airways, and New York Stock Exchange

  • ABC/Disney: Boeing, City National Bank, FedEx, and HCA Healthcare

  • NBC: Anheuser-Busch, Morgan Chase & Co., Coca-Cola, and Chase Manhattan

  • CNN/TimeWarner: Citigroup, American Express, Fannie Mae, Colgate-Palmolive, Hilton Hotels, PepsiCo, Sears, and Pfizer

  • The New York Times Co: Johnson & Johnson, Ford, Texaco, Alcoa, Avon, Campbell Soup, Metropolitan Life, and Starwood Hotels & Resorts

  (And those are just a few examples of the more than 300 crossovers FAIR discovered.)

  Some say it would be naive not to suspect that interlocking directorates don’t cause a major conflict of interest — allowing news content to potentially be shaped by profit-driven motives. As former Walt Disney chief executive Michael Eisner put it in an infamous leaked internal memo: “We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make a statement. To make money is our only objective.”

  As it turns out, there’s evidence to legitimaze this concern. In a 2021 MCS study, more than 30% of editors reported experiencing some form of pressure on the newsroom from their parent company or its board of directors. And 29% said they knew reporters had “self-censored” due to such interference. Pressured editors admitted to taking a more relaxed approach in reporting practices when interlocked individuals or organizations were the topics of news coverage. They also admitted to lowering their expectations for balance in coverage of board members.

  Higdon noted that it can be especially problematic when media board members also happen to sit on the boards of defense companies — because such an interlock can lead to an increasing push for pro-war narratives. (As of 2011, before U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq, Raytheon interlocked with The New York Times, and Lockheed Martin interlocked with The Washington Post). The Intercept’s recent video of a White House Press briefing on the Ukraine-Russia conflict illustrates this perfectly. In the video, members of the media are shown repeatedly asking questions framed around why President Biden isn’t providing Ukraine with more military support. If you know what questions they’re asking, you can pretty much guess what angle their story will be taking. And in this case, every journalist is laser-focused on what needs to happen to escalate this into U.S. war involvement with Russia. The Intercept’s Ryan Grim is quite literally the only member of the media asking what the U.S. is doing to encourage negotiations for peace.

  What makes all this particularly troublesome is the lack of transparency.

  A 2021 MCS study found that interlocks between newspapers and other companies were only disclosed to readers about half of the time, and never appeared in articles published by certain conglomerates, like Gannett and Digital First.

  The Society of Professional Journalists, along with most respectable media organizations, has a code of ethics. That includes avoiding conflicts of interest whenever possible and revealing them when they’re unavoidable. Sometimes, when a writer initially neglects to do this and they’re called out for it, they’ll update the article after publication. For instance, a 2016 Business Insider article singing Jeff Bezos’ praises for “revitalizing” The Washington Post now includes an important addition: “Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions. An earlier version of this article failed to disclose this in an editorial error.” (While we’re on the subject of transparency — a disclosure: I write for Insider.)

  But that particular case seems to be an exception to the rule. According to Higdon, the outlets at large don’t typically disclose conflicts of interest in the way writers are expected to.

  “When you hear that the title of a channel is ‘Russia Today,’ it’s very clear that the Russian government is funding it,” Higdon explained. “It’s right in your face. But when I turn on CNN, I don’t know who’s funding that network. I have to do some digging to figure it out.”

  In a 2003 Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) report, author Aaron Moore expressed concerns that independent reporting could be undermined when a board member is linked to other businesses that its newsrooms cover. According to Higdon, most journalists adamantly claim no one tells what to write and what not to write. But whether they know it or not, he says many may engage in a form of self-censorship: skipping certain stories in order to avoid getting fired.

  In a 2000 Pew Research and CJR survey of more than 300 journalists at local and national outlets, 41% admitted to either purposely avoiding newsworthy stories, “softening the tone” of stories to benefit the interests of their news organizations, or both. Half of investigative journalists said newsworthy stories often or sometimes go unreported because they could hurt the financial interests of their organization, and 61% stated they believe corporate owners exert at least a fair amount of influence on decisions about which stories to cover.

  Here’s how this form of self-censorship works. Say you work for ABC, but you want to pursue an investigative report on the labor practices of Disney — which owns ABC.

  “You know you’re risking your job at ABC, so you may stay away from it,” explained Higdon. “Also, there are organizational studies on the ways that they institutionalize these policies. So, it’s not that ABC says, ‘you can’t report on that story about Disney.’ It’s that once you pitch the story on Disney or collect initial interviews, the editor says something like, ‘yeah, we don’t think that story is interesting enough. We’d rather have you cover this instead.’”

  While some intervention from media owners is direct, most of it is subtle and subconscious, according to Bagdikian — like when writers learn to conform to their owner’s ideologies in order to ensure they aren’t overlooked for a raise or a promotion.

  “Corporations have multimillion-dollar budgets to dissect and attack news reports they dislike,” writes Bagdikian. “But with each passing year, they have yet another power: They are not only hostile to independent journalists. They are their employers.”

  Case in point: A 1991 FAIR investigation revealed that General Electric (GE) — which owned NBC from 1986 to 2009 — designed, manufactured, or supplied parts for essentially every major weapon system the U.S. military used during the Gulf War. In other words, as the authors stated, when NBC brought on correspondents and consultants to praise the performance of U.S. missiles, bombers, and spy satellites, they were applauding products made by the corporation cutting their paychecks. During the time that GE owned NBC, there was plenty of evidence that the news outlet was underplaying big stories about its parent company — particularly around GE plants dumping hazardous chemicals into the Hudson River, and safety issues in GE-designed nuclear power plants.

  In their book “Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media,” Martin Lee and Norton Solomon detailed how GE insisted that an NBC program remove any references to GE in reports on substandard products. NBC also seemed to shy away from exposing GE’s poor environmental record and banned televised commercials urging a boycott of GE products. NBC also remained mysteriously silent on the bombshell story that GE didn’t pay federal taxes in 2010. Apparently, the network thought the addition of “OMG” and “muffin top” to the Oxford English Dictionary was more of a newsworthy priority at the time.

  Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has been an early and frequent critic of media consolidation. Like Sanders, Victor Pickard — a professor of media policy and political economy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication and author of “Democracy Without Journalism?: Confronting the Misinformation Society”, argues that as a result of this consolidation, we may miss out on pivotal issues because we’re only exposed to topics that serve those corporations in control.

  “There are a number of important issues that are given too little attention in our mainstream news media,” Pickard told me in an interview. “Oftentimes this isn’t a direct consequence of corporate censorship but instead what might be called ‘market censorship.’ These issues do not attract the eyeballs that advertisers covet or generate the revenues that owners and investors privilege above all else. Consequently, issues like climate change, mass incarceration, and other structural inequalities do not get nearly as much coverage as, say, the latest celebrity scandal.”

  Cohen adds that for all the discussion of systemic racism, there’s very little exploration or analysis of the actual system in place fueling the exploitation — especially when the finger of blame might point to powerful corporate forces.

  “That’s why coverage of racial injustice is so often victims, without victimizers,” he said. “Not surprisingly, victimizers are often powerful sponsors of the news — banks, big pharma and healthcare, and oil and gas corporations. If Sanders had not run for president twice, how often do you think class inequality would have been in the news? Or CEO compensation compared to the average worker? Or the fact that roughly 70 or 80 million people in our country were uninsured or underinsured even when Obamacare was at its peak performance? Or the wealth of big pharma execs while people can’t afford medicines?”

  The mission of Project Censored, a media watchdog nonprofit founded at Sonoma State University in 1976, is to shed a much-needed spotlight on these underreported issues. Since 1993, the organization has published an annual book of the top stories that were ignored or misrepresented that year titled “Censored: The News That Didn’t Make the News.” The 2021 edition includes the following:

  • YouTube inexplicably demonetized independent news sources or removed entire videos or channels without any explanation as to how/why they violated community guidelines.

  • A study showed that corporate media consistently sidelined independent health experts during the COVID-19 pandemic, instead featuring mostly government appointees as guests.

  • A report revealed journalists investigating financial crimes are being threatened by global political and business elites.

  • A study found that more than 1.1 million seniors on Medicare could die prematurely over the next decade simply because of the astronomical costs of prescription medications. This would make unaffordable drugs a leading cause of death in the U.S., ahead of diabetes, influenza, pneumonia, and kidney disease by 2030.

  • A report alleged that Google hired an outside firm to collect personal data on its employees — a surveillance effort that was aimed at preventing them from unionizing.

  • Dangerous newly proposed domestic terrorism laws could be used to “repress legitimate political protest and to target activists and religious or ethnic minorities.”

  • An investigation is uncovering mounting evidence that Black men are being specifically targeted by police dogs.

  If none of these stories ring a bell, maybe it’s time to ask yourself why the corporate media didn’t deem them worthy of coverage. Mainstream outlets will often cite time constraints as an excuse for why they’re failing to tackle crucial stories. But is it possible that maybe their silence is by design? After all, in 2021, they apparently had ample time to report on the murder investigation for a travel blogger, gossip about Melania Trump, and a maskless Rudy Giuliani leaving a New Year’s Eve party. (And don’t get me started on the Oscars #SlapGate).

  In 2017, Senator Sanders wrote that the more important the issue is to the working class masses, the less interesting it is to corporate media. But if we aren’t leveraging the press to put pressure on the legal system, how can it ever fulfill its potential for driving positive change? That’s the question Mickey Huff — director of Project Censored, president of the Media Freedom Foundation, and co-author of “United States of Distraction: Media Manipulation in Post-Truth America (and what we can do about it)” — asked me toward the end of our interview. “How do we get people informed? And to understand the problems? That’s why journalism matters. It does matter what they do and don’t report.”

  Reversing the aggressive media consolidation would require undoing decades of legislation that loosened restrictions on ownership. That probably won’t happen in the immediate future. So, as journalist and media commentator Jim Fallows wrote in 2005: “The remaining hope is to acknowledge the existence of this disorder and use that knowledge to offset or limit its most damaging effects.”

  As with any problem, recognizing that it exists is the first step to handling it. And all hope is not lost, because remember: you get to choose where you get your information. Across the board, experts recommend deliberately seeking out independent, nonprofit news channels. Just a few of these organizations that don’t accept corporate backing or funding from advertising include: Democracy Now!, FAIR, ProPublica, Media Roots, The Lever, MintPress News, Truthout, The Conversation, The Nation, The Intercept, The Grayzone, Citizen Truth, and Common Dreams.

  “It’s not healthy to be so cynical about it that you give up,” added Huff. “And turning off corporate media is only one step. But I would argue that once you’re media literate, you need to watch it to understand why everyone else is walking around like a zombie repeating the same thing.”

  As Jim Morrison once said, “whoever controls the media controls the mind.” Taking that into consideration, it’s high time to ask yourself: who are you granting the power to control your mind? And given that any profit-making company’s ultimate goal is to make money, how might their motives mean keeping you distracted or in the dark?

  […to be continued.]

  *  *  *

  Down The Rabbit Hole is a reader-supported publication. Consider becoming a free or paid subscriber below so you never miss out on future content.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/18/2022 – 18:25

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• Former Swiss "Banker Of The Year" Sentenced To 4 Years For Misusing Company Expenses
  Former Swiss "Banker Of The Year" Sentenced To 4 Years For Misusing Company Expenses

  A Swiss banker once dubbed “banker of the year” is now on his way to serving 4 years in prison for millions of dollars of misuse of company expenses. 

  Former Raiffeisen Switzerland Chief Executive Pierin Vincenz was sentenced last week after a fraud trial that exposed his lavish spending of his company’s money, according to SCMP. 

  SCMP called it “one of Switzerland’s highest-profile corporate crime trials in decades”. 

  Vincenz was also aquitted on several other counts, was fined 840,000 Swiss francs and was ordered to pay 1.6 million francs in damages. He was found to have used business expenses for private purposes.

  Vincenz’ lawyer attests his innocence and said they would appeal the verdict.

  

  During trial, Vincenz explained that a 200,000 franc expense bill, mostly for strip clubs, was “largely business related”. He also defended a 700 franc dinner he had with a woman he met on Tinder, claiming he was considering her for a real estate job. 

  But the judge had other thoughts, stating: “[His] understanding, whereby practically all expenditures of a business person fall under disposable company expenses so long as any remote connection to the business activity exists, clearly went too far.”

  The judge continued: “The relationship maintenance he carried out in cabarets, strip clubs and contact bars was no longer in the primary interest of Raiffeisen.” 

  Vincenz was also ordered to pay Raiffeisen more than 260,000 Swiss francs and another firm 1.3 million francs for “damages incurred by another firm over a corporate transaction”. 

  Is that a nice way of saying the checks he wrote at the strip club never cleared?
   

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/18/2022 – 02:45

• Germany's Economic Minister Warned Of Unrest If Russian Gas Is Immediately Cut Off
  Germany's Economic Minister Warned Of Unrest If Russian Gas Is Immediately Cut Off

  Authored by Andrew Korybko,

  Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck confirmed Russian assessments that Germany’s immediate cutoff of that country’s gas would provoke unrest in heart of that European leader. He revealed in an interview that “An immediate embargo on [Russian natural] gas would threaten social peace in Germany”, though such a scenario is indeed seriously being considered due to the immense pressure being put upon the EU by its American overlords as of late.

  

  Another contributing factor is the bloc’s reluctance to comply with President Putin’s geo-economic judo move late last month that newly designed unfriendly countries such as EU’s members pay for gas with rubles.

  All of this goes to show just how fundamentally Russia’s ongoing special military operation in Ukraine changed the geostrategic situation in Europe. Prior to the onset of that campaign, the bloc was already experiencing massive unrest driven by its population’s refusal to continue complying with what many of them regarded as the politically motivated epidemiological policies imposed by their governments. Now, however, Germany might descend into an even more intense crisis in the event that the US successfully pressures it to immediately cutoff imports of Russian gas. This prediction that was just made by none other than its own Minister for Economic Affairs should lead to a rethinking of Russia’s assessment.

  Up until this point, it was considered to be nothing more than so-called “Russian propaganda” for anyone to make such a prediction, but now it’s literally the official position of the German government itself. Given the “politically correct” standards imposed upon the population by their leaders, society cannot openly ask why Germany is now “parroting Russian propaganda” since Moscow can never be extended credence under any circumstances. Nevertheless, those among the population who remember the prior narrative that was just recalled will likely start questioning what’s really going on and potentially distrust the “official narrative” even more than they already do.

  The lesson to be learned is that even so-called “adversaries” like Russia are sometimes correct in their assessments even if some suspect that they might be making them for partially ulterior motives such as to provoke panic and/or influence policymaking. In this particular example, however, Russia and those who share its multipolar worldview were simply trying to make the masses aware of the interconnected humanitarian and political consequences connected with Germany’s potentially immediate cutoff of gas from that country. The self-inflicted destabilization of the EU’s largest country would only serve American interests by weakening its economic rival, though that’s likely why it wants that scenario.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/18/2022 – 02:00

• Alex Jones Mulls Strategic Bankruptcy For Media Empire
  Alex Jones Mulls Strategic Bankruptcy For Media Empire

  Media host Alex Jones is being advised by restructuring advisers on how to proceed after being hit with several lawsuits related to statements Jones made following the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre.

  

  Options for Jones’ businesses – including Infowars and Free Speech Systems – include a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which would allow them to continue operating while pausing civil litigation against them, according to Fortune, citing an anonymous source with knowledge of the matter.

  Jones and his companies last year were found liable in a defamation lawsuit brought by relatives of children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre after Jones called the shootings a hoax. A trial in Connecticut to determine the size of the damages has yet to take place. He was also found liable in similar proceedings in Texas. -Fortune

  Attorneys for Jones claim the defamation lawsuit was filed as part of a strategy to silence Jones’ free speech on matters of public interest, according to court documents.

  “[T]his suit is only the latest in Plaintiffs’ efforts to silence those who openly oppose their very public ‘herculean’ efforts to ban the sale of certain weapons, ammunition and accessories, to pass new laws relating to gun registration and to limit free speech,” reads Jones’ motion to dismiss.

  Jones was slapped with default judgements in Connecticut and Texas, after he failed to turn over financial information and other documents, which his legal team compared to a “collections action” and a “fishing expedition.”

  In March, Jones appeared for a deposition rather than pay hefty fines, after lawyers representing the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims sought his arrest for skipping a court-ordered deposition.

  A Connecticut trial to determine the size of damages Jones faces has yet to take place.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/17/2022 – 23:00

• China To Deploy Most Advanced Fighter Jet To Disputed East And South China Seas
  China To Deploy Most Advanced Fighter Jet To Disputed East And South China Seas

  By Andrew Thornebrooke of The Epoch Times,

  The Chinese military is deploying its most advanced fighter jet to hotly contested regions in the East and South China Seas, according to Chinese state media.

  

  The J-20 stealth fighter jet will begin its deployments as part of training sessions, per Chinese state-owned media outlet Global Times.

  A Chinese colonel said that the deployments ensured China’s military was “ready and capable of wielding its sword.”

  The J-20 was originally built using Russian parts, namely engines, which have since been reverse engineered and improved upon in China. This has allowed the regime to domestically produce the jet. It appears designed to contend with the U.S. F-22 and F-35.

  Relatively little is known of the aircraft, popularly referred to as the “Mighty Dragon.” It entered service in 2017, and is a stealth fighter like the American F-35. It is unclear, however, whether it will fulfill an all-purpose and multi-mission role, or if it will specialize in one domain, such as air superiority.

  Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, commander of the U.S. Pacific Air Forces, said in March that an American F-35 had a close encounter with the J-20 over the South China Sea last year, but that it was still too early to tell what role the aircraft would play in a large-scale military conflict.

  “We recently had, I wouldn’t call it an engagement, but we got relatively close to the J-20s with our F-35s in the East China Sea and were relatively impressed with the command and control that was associated with the J-20s,” Wilsbach said.

  “It’s a bit early to tell exactly what they want to do with the J-20,” Wilsbach said. “All we’ve really seen it do is air superiority.”

  The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has made innumerable territorial claims to various parts of the South and East China Seas in the past, and has even gone so far as to construct artificial islands containing military outposts to expand its footprint in the South China Sea. Thus, the deployment will likely support the regime’s expansionist ambitions.

  A report by the State Department published in January found that the methods used by the CCP to artificially inflate its territorial claims had “no coherent legal basis” in international laws or norms.

  The expansion, and now the J-20s deployment, will likely continue to heighten tensions between the United States and the CCP, as experts warn that the communist regime is the most likely actor to engage American forces in a military conflict.

  The deployment of the J-20s might in this regard be seen to mark a continued effort by the CCP to escalate military tensions and demonstrate its own prowess as a global military power.

  Earlier in April, for example, the regime made a similar effort when it delivered new missile systems to Serbia. On that occasion, six Chinese military aircraft flew through NATO airspace. Some of them had removed the coverings of their chaff and flare countermeasures—defensive systems to help evade missile attacks—in an apparent effort to signal that they were ready to engage in conflict.

  The CCP’s chest thumping is not without its risks, however. The deployment of the J-20 likely means longer deployments and further-reaching patrols by the Chinese forces, which could see them come into more close encounters with the U.S. military.

  On the reverse of the coin, the opportunity will also present the United States and its allies with the opportunity to collect vital diagnostic data on the J-20 in the wild, thus providing valuable insights to uncovering its weaknesses and ultimately defeating it, if necessary, in combat.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/17/2022 – 22:30

• Easter Miracle: Ever Forward Cargo Ship Freed From Chesapeake Bay 
  Easter Miracle: Ever Forward Cargo Ship Freed From Chesapeake Bay 

  The Ever Forward container ship was freed on Easter Sunday morning after being stuck in the Chesapeake Bay for more than one month. 

  Bloomberg vessel data shows the massive 334-meter-long container ship was pulled free from 24 feet of mud around 0700 ET and embarked on a journey down the bay around 0720 ET. By 0900 ET, the vessel crossed underneath the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and is currently outside of Annapolis.

  

  This was the third attempt to free the vessel after dredging crews worked endlessly for a month to remove 84,000 cubic yards of mud from around the ship that strayed off course, out of a shipping lane, and got stuck on March 13. Last week, 500 of the nearly 5,000 containers were unloaded off the vessel to lighten the weight. 

  Maritime news website gCaptain provided details of how Ever Forward was refloated: 

  “Two anchor barges and five large tugboats pulled the ship astern and sideways until she was dislodged. The salvage crews received help from a full moon and a spring tide to release the ship that had been stuck for more than a month.”

  Maritime expert Sal Mercogliano tweeted the vessel will have its “hull surveyed and assessed for damage” off Annapolis, Maryland. 

  

  Mercogliano added: “Looks like Ever Forward was not using her engine and instead is under tow by Atlantic Salvor and Atlantic Enterprise … We saw some black smoke when the ship backed off the shoal. Not sure if there is not some sort of damage.”

  After 30 long days, Ever Forward has risen as an Easter miracle was witnessed on the Chesapeake Bay. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/17/2022 – 22:00

• US, EU Sacrificing Ukraine To "Weaken Russia": Former NATO Adviser
  US, EU Sacrificing Ukraine To "Weaken Russia": Former NATO Adviser

  Authored by Aaron Maté,

  Former Swiss intelligence officer and NATO adviser Jacques Baud on the roots of the Ukraine-Russia war and its growing dangers.

  As the Russia-Ukraine war enters a new phase, former Swiss intelligence officer, senior United Nations official, and NATO advisor Jacques Baud analyzes the conflict and argues that the US and its allies are exploiting Ukraine in a longstanding campaign to bleed its Russian neighbor.

  Guest: Jacques Baud. Former intelligence officer with the Swiss Strategic Intelligence Service who has served in a number of senior security and advisory positions at NATO, the United Nations, and with the Swiss military.

  TRANSCRIPT

  AARON MATÉ:  Welcome to Pushback.  I’m Aaron Maté.  Joining me is Jacques Baud.  He has served in a number of senior security and advisory positions at NATO, the UN, and with the Swiss military.  He is also a former strategic intelligence officer with the Swiss Strategic Intelligence Service.  Jacques, thank you for joining me.

  JACQUES BAUD:  I thank you for inviting me.

  AARON MATÉ:  Let me just start by asking you to talk more about your background and how it has informed your visibility into the crisis in Ukraine.

  JACQUES BAUD:  Well, as you just said, I’m a strategic intelligence officer.  I used to be in charge of the Warsaw Pact forces in strategic…that was during the Cold War, but still, I have a good visibility on what’s going on in Eastern Europe.  I used to speak and read Russian as well, so that gives me some access to some documents.  And recently I had been seconded to NATO as head of the struggle against proliferation of small arms.  And in that capacity, I was involved in several projects from 2014 onwards with NATO in Ukraine.  And so, I know the context quite well.  I was also monitoring the possible influx of small armaments in the Donbas in 2014.  And I have also worked—because in my previous assignment in the UN, I used to work on the restoration of armored forces, so when the Ukrainian armed forces got some problems with personnel issues, with suicide, with all these kind of things that you had in 2014, also problems in recruiting military—I was asked to participate on the NATO side on several projects in restoring Ukrainian armed forces.  And so that’s a little bit, in a nutshell, my background regarding this area.

  AARON MATÉ:  You’ve written a lengthy article which I will link to in the show notes for this segment, and you lay out the causes of the Ukraine conflict in three major areas.  There is the strategic level, the expansion of NATO; the political level, which is what you call the Western refusal to implement the Minsk agreements; and operationally, the continuous and repeated attacks on the civilian population of the Donbas over the past years and the dramatic increase in late February 2022.

  Let me ask you to start there.  Talk about what you call the dramatic increase on civilians inside the Donbas in February, the period that led to the Russian invasion, immediate period, and how this escalation of attacks, as you say, helped lead to this war, this Russian invasion.

  JACQUES BAUD:  Well, I think we have to understand, as you know, that the war in fact hasn’t started on 24 February this year.  It started already in 2014.  But I think that the Russians always hoped that this conflict could be solved on a political level, in fact; I mean the Minsk agreements and all that.  So, basically what led to the decision to launch an offensive in the Donbas was not what happened since 2014.  There was a trigger for that, and the trigger is two things; I mean, it came in two phases, if you want.

  The first is the decision and the law adopted by [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy in March 2021—that means last year—to reconquer Crimea by force, and that started a build-up of the Russian armored for…not the Russian, [rather] the Ukrainian armored forces in the southern parts of the country.  And so, I think the Russians were perfectly aware of this build-up.  They were aware that an operation was to be launched against the Republics of the Donbas, but they did not know when, and, of course, they were just observing that, and then came the real trigger.

  You may remember that—I think it was on the 16th of February—Joe Biden, during a press conference, told that he knew that the Russians would attack.  And how would he know that?  Because I still have some contacts, and nobody actually thought that the Russians—before end of January, beginning of February—I think nobody thought that the Russians would attack Ukraine.  So, there must have been something that made Biden aware that the Russians would attack. 

  And this something, in fact, is the intensification of the artillery shelling of the Donbas starting on the 16th of February, and this increase in the shelling was observed, in fact, by the [Border] Observer Mission of the OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe], and they recorded this increase of violation, and it’s a massive violation.  I mean, we are talking about something that is about 30 times more than what it used to be, because the last eight years you had a lot of violations from both sides, by the way.  But suddenly on the 16th of February you had a massive increase of violation on the Ukrainian side.  So, for the Russians, Vladimir Putin in particular, that was the sign that the operation—the Ukrainian operation—was about to start.

  And then everything started; I mean, all the events came very quickly.  That means that if we look at the figures, you can see that there’s, as I said, a massive increase from the 16th-17th, and then it reached kind of a maximum on the 18th of February, and that was continuing.

  And the Russian parliament, the Duma, also was aware of this possible offensive, and they passed a resolution asking Vladimir Putin to recognize the independence of the two self-proclaimed Republics in the Donbas.  And that’s what Putin decided to do on the 21st of February.  And just after adopting the decrees, the law recognizing the independence of the two Republics, Vladimir Putin signed a friendship and assistance agreement with those two Republics.  Why did he do that?  So that would allow the Republics to ask for military help in case of attack.  And that’s why, on the 24th of February when Vladimir Putin decided to launch the offensive, it could invoke Article 51 of the UN Charter that provides for assistance in case of attack.

  AARON MATÉ:  And as you noted, the OSCE documented a big increase in ceasefire violations, artillery firing on the rebel-held side, but do you think, based on what you observed of the positioning of Ukrainian troops, do you think that the threat of an imminent invasion or assault by the Ukrainian forces was real?  Can you gauge that from how they were positioned on the other side of the front line?

  JACQUES BAUD:  Yes.  Absolutely.  I mean, we had reports, and those reports were available during the last couple of months.  Since last year we knew that the Ukrainians were building up their forces in the south of the country, not on the eastern border with Russia but on the border with the contact line with Donbas.  And, as a matter of fact, as we have seen from the 24th of February, the Russians had almost no resistance in the start of the offensive, especially in the north.  And so, they could, what they have done since then, they could surround the Ukrainian forces in the south, in the southeast part of the country—that means between the two Republics of the Donbas and the Ukraine mainland, if you want.  And that’s where the bulk of the Ukrainian forces are today.  And according to the…that’s exactly the Russian doctrine to fight, I mean operational doctrine.  Their main offensive was on the south, clearly, because the objective stated by Vladimir Putin—we can probably come back on these details later on—but this was demilitarization and denazification.

  Both objectives, in fact, were about to be done or to be reached in the south of the country, and that’s where the main efforts of the offensive was done.  In the offensive order, the effort against Kiev is a so-called secondary effort, and it had, as a fact, you had two functions basically.  First of all, to put some pressure on the political leadership in Kiev because the name of the game is to bring the Ukrainians to the negotiations.  That was the first objective of this second effort.

  The second objective of this second effort was to bind or to pin down the rest of the Ukrainian armored forces so that they could not reinforce the main forces which are in the Donbas area.  And that worked quite well.  So that means that the Russians could surround, as I said, the main forces, the bulk of the armed forces—the Ukrainian armed forces.  Once they have achieved that they could withdraw some troops from Kiev, and that’s what they have done since end of March.  They have pulled several units in order to reinforce what they want; I mean their own forces to carry on under the main battle in the Donbas area.  So now they are pulling, and they have pulled these troops from the Kiev area, and these troops will now help to flank for the vanguard, the offensive against the main forces in the Donbas.  And that’s what some called the ‘mother of all battles’ that is currently going on in the Donbas area, where you have—nobody knows exactly the number of Ukrainian troops; estimates vary from sixty thousand to eighty thousand who are surrounded—and the forces would be cut in smaller cauldrons and then destroyed or neutralized.

  AARON MATÉ:  It’s pretty clear to me that Zelenskyy’s government had no interest in serious diplomacy on all the critical issues that could have avoided a war, and I think the main factor is what I presume to be US pressure behind the scenes, which we can’t fully prove now.  But I imagine evidence of that might come out later.  And certainly, the open hostility of Ukraine’s far right, who essentially threatened Zelenskyy’s life if he made peace with Russia.  And these threats have dogged him throughout his presidency and continued right up to the eve of the invasion, and it led to people like his top security official saying in late January that the implementation of the Minsk accords would lead to Ukraine’s destruction—after Zelenskyy was elected on a platform of implementing Minsk—and that carried over to the final talks on implementing the Minsk accords that were brokered by Germany and France.

  At those talks in February, Zelenskyy’s government all of a sudden refused to even speak to the representatives of the rebels, which makes an accord possible.  And meanwhile you had developments like this, which we just learned about from The Wall Street Journal, which was that the German chancellor [Olaf] Scholz on February 19th told Zelenskyy that, quote, “Ukraine should renounce its NATO aspirations and declare neutrality as part of a wider European security deal between the West and Russia.”  And this pact Scholz proposed would be signed by Biden and Putin, but Zelenskyy rejected this—rejected out of hand.

  But my question is, because I think it’s pretty conclusive that the Zelenskyy-Ukraine side sabotaged diplomacy, but what about Russia?  Do you think Russia exhausted all of its diplomatic options to avoid a war?  For example, why not go to the UN and ask for a peacekeeping force in the Donbas?  And second of all, if the aim is to protect the people of the Donbas, why invade far beyond the Donbas and not just go there?

  JACQUES BAUD:  Well, I think the Russians have totally lost faith in the West.  I think that’s the main thing.  They don’t trust the West anymore, and that’s why I think now they rely on a total victory on the military side in order to have some benefits in the negotiation.

  I think Zelenskyy…I’m not sure exactly if he’s so reluctant to have peace.  I think he cannot do it.  I think from the very beginning he was caught between his…remember that he was elected with the idea of achieving peace in the Donbas.  That was his objective; that was his program as president.  But I think the West—and I would say the Americans and the British didn’t want this peace to occur.  And of course, the Germans and the French who were the guarantors of the Minsk agreement for the Ukrainian side, they never really implemented this—their function.  I mean, they have never done their job, clearly.  And especially France, which is simultaneously a member of the Security Council.  Because I will just remind you that the Minsk agreements were also part of a resolution of the Security Council.  So, meaning that they have not only the signature of the different parties that was done in Minsk, but you have also the members of the Security Council who were responsible for implementation of the agreement, and nobody wanted to have this agreement made.  So that means that, I think, there was a lot of pressure on Zelenskyy so that he wouldn’t even talk to the representatives of the two breakaway Republics.

  And after that we have seen, by the way, that we have several indications that Zelenskyy was not completely, or is not completely, in control of what’s going on in Ukraine.  I think the extreme, let’s say, nationalist extreme right—I don’t know exactly what is the right term because it’s a mixture of everything—but these forces definitely prevent him, or prevented him, so far to do anything.  And we can see also that he’s back and forth regarding peace.  As soon as he started, you may remember that at the end of February, as soon as Zelenskyy indicated that he might be willing to start negotiations, this was the time where these negotiations were to take place in Belarus.  Within hours after Zelenskyy decided that, the European Union came with a decision providing for half a billion arms to Ukraine, meaning that the Americans, certainly, but I think the West as a whole, made every possible effort to prevent a political solution to the conflict, and I think the Russians are aware of that.

  Now we have also to understand that the Russians have a different understanding of how to wage a war on the Western powers, especially the US.  That means that in the West we tend to, if we negotiate, we negotiate up to a certain point and then negotiations stop, and we start war.  And that’s war, period.  In the Russian way of doing things, it’s different.  You start a war, but you never leave the diplomatic track, and you go on both ways, in fact.  You put mental pressure and you try to achieve an objective, also with diplomatic means.  This is very much a Clausewitzian approach to war—when [Prussian general and military theorist Carl von] Clausewitz, as you know, defined war as the continuation of politics with other means.

  That’s exactly how the Russians see that.  That’s why during the whole offensive, and even at the very beginning of the offensive, they started, or they indicated they were willing, to negotiate.  So, the Russians certainly want to negotiate, but they don’t trust the Western countries—I mean the West at large—to facilitate that negotiation.  And that’s the reason why they didn’t come to the Security Council.  By the way, they know that, probably, because, as you know, this physical war that we witness now is part of a broader war that was started years ago against Russia, and I think, in fact, Ukraine is just…I mean, nobody is interested in Ukraine, I think.  The target, the aim, the objective is to weaken Russia, and once it will be done with Russia, they will do the same with China, and you can already see.  I mean, we have seen that now, the Ukrainian crisis has overshadowed the rest, but you could have a very similar scenario happening with Taiwan, for instance.  So, the Chinese are aware of that.  That’s the reason why they don’t want to give up their, let’s say, relationship with Russia.

  Now, the name of the game is weakening Russia, and you know that there have been several studies done by the Rand Corporation on extending Russia, overextending Russia, and so on, and where the whole scenario is…

  AARON MATÉ:  Just to explain that for people who aren’t familiar with it, Rand is a Pentagon-type think tank, and they did a study in 2019 looking at all the different ways in which the US could overextend and unbalance Russia, and the top option was to send weapons to Ukraine to fuel a conflict there that could draw Russia in, which is exactly what’s happened.

  JACQUES BAUD:  Absolutely.  And I think that this is a complete design for weakening Russia, and that’s exactly what we see unfolding right now.  We could have anticipated that, and I think Putin anticipated that.  And I think he understood that, if on the end of February, I mean, on the 24th of February, or let’s say just before because he had to make the decision before, but in the days before deciding on the offensive, he understood that he could not do nothing.  He had to do something.  The Russian public opinion would never have understood why Russia would remain just observing the Donbas Republics being invaded or destroyed by Ukraine.  So, nobody would have understood that.  So, he was obliged to go.  And then, I think…and that’s what, if you remember what he said on the 24th of February, he said regardless of what he would do, the amount of sanctions he will receive would be the same.  So basically, he knew that the slightest intervention in the Donbas would trigger a massive launch of sanctions, so he knew that.  So, then he decided, ‘Okay, then I have to go for the maximal option,’ because one option would have been just to reinforce, don’t mess with the Republics and just defend the Republics on the line of contact.  But he decided to go for the larger option, which is to destroy those forces that threatened Donbas.

  And that’s where you have those two objectives.  Demilitarization, which is not the whole demilitarization of all Ukraine, but it was to suppress the military threat that was on the Donbas; that’s the main objective of that.  There’s a lot of misunderstanding of what he said and, of course, he was not very clear, but that’s part of the Russian way of communicating and doing things.  They want to keep options open, and that’s the reason why they say the minimum things and they just say what’s necessary.  And this is exactly what Putin meant on the 21st, what he said about suppressing the military threat against the Donbas.  Denazification had nothing to do with killing Zelenskyy or destroying the leadership in Kiev.  That was definitely not the idea, and, as a matter of fact, as I said, the main way they conceive war is to combine a physical action and diplomatic action.  So that means that in such a way of doing you have to keep a leadership and you have to keep them in order to negotiate, and that’s why there was no way you would kill or destroy the leadership in Kiev.

  So, denazification was basically not about the 2.5 percent of the extreme right in Kiev.  That was about the 100 percent of Azov people in Mariupol and Kharkov, and this kind of thing.  So, we tend to misunderstand because some people said, ‘Well, but, you know, why denazify?  Because there is only 2.5 percent of political rightwing parties, only 2.5 percent or something like that, so it’s meaningless.  So, why denazify?  It makes no sense.’  But it was not about that.  It was definitely about those groups that were in fact recruited from 2014 by the Ukrainians in order to, let’s say, I would say pacify or control.  I don’t know exactly what’s the right word for that, but to fight in Donbas.  These people were extremists, fanatics, and these people were dangerous.

  AARON MATÉ:  And one of the points you make in your article, which I didn’t know, is that part of the reason why Ukraine had this need for militias, far-right militias and foreign mercenaries, is because of a high rate of defection inside its own military ranks, people not wanting to serve, and even defecting to the other side of the rebellion in the Donbas.

  JACQUES BAUD:  Exactly.  In fact, I noticed that, as I told you, I was in NATO and was monitoring the influx of weapons in the Donbas, and what we noticed is that we couldn’t identify import of weapons or export of weapons from the Russian side to the Donbas.  But what we could see is that you had a lot of Ukrainian units who defected, in fact, and complete battalions.  And in 2014, most of the heavy artillery that the Donbas gained were from defectors.  The whole units defected with ammunition and people and all that.  The reason is that the Ukrainian army was based on a territorial…was manned and organized on a territorial way.  That means you had a lot of Russian-speak[ers] in the armed forces.  Once they were sent to fight in the Donbas, they didn’t even want to fight their own colleagues and Russian-speaking people, so they preferred to defect.

  And in addition to that you had in 2014, I mean in 2014 to 2017, in that period the leadership of the Ukrainian army was extremely poor.  You had a lot of corruption.  I’m not sure that the military was prepared for such a kind of war, in fact, because the war that was fought at that time by the rebels was very similar to what you can see in the Middle East today, or in the last years.  That made very mobile units moving around very rapidly, much faster than the heavy units that the Ukrainian army had, and, as a result, if we see the pattern of the different battles that were fought in 2014, 2015, you could see that the Ukrainians could never lead.  They had never the initiative.  The initiative was always with the rebels.  And it was not guerrilla.  That’s important to say.  It was kind of extremely mobile warfare.  And in addition to that you had, I think, the army was not really prepared to fight in general.  So, you had a lot of suicides, you had a lot of alcohol problems, you had a lot of accidents, you had a lot of murders within the Ukrainian army.

  And that led a lot of young Ukrainians to leave the country, because they didn’t want to join the army.  And what I’m saying is, I mean, it was recorded and reported by official reports in the UK and the US, I think.  They made some very interesting reports on the low rate of recruitment of individuals, because people didn’t want simply to join the army.  And that’s the reason why NATO was involved, and I was involved in such a program, trying to reshuffle the image of the army and find solutions to improve the recruitment condition of the army, and things like that.

  But the solutions that were provided by NATO were in fact institutional solutions that would take time, and in order to compensate with lack of personnel and probably to have more aggressive military personnel, they started to use internationalists and mercenaries, as a matter of fact.  Nobody knows exactly the number of these paramilitaries or extreme rights militias.  Reuters put the figure at one hundred thousand.  I’m not able to verify that, but that was a figure given by Reuters.  And that seems to fit what we can observe now in the different regions of the country.  So, these paramilitaries took a major role not in mobile warfare, and I would say [not in] the normal field warfare, but they were used in maintaining order within cities.  And that’s exactly what you have today in Mariupol, for instance, where you had those people, because they are not equipped for field operations.  They are equipped for urban warfare.  They have light equipment, they have some armored vehicles, but they don’t really have tanks, anything like this.

  So, this is definitely units that are meant for urban warfare.  That’s what they do in major cities.  And these guys are extremely fanatic, we can say, and they are extremely dangerous.  And that explains the way Mariupol, the battles and the extremely brutal fights that you have in Mariupol as an example, and we probably will see the same thing in Kharkov, for instance.

  AARON MATÉ:  As we wrap, I want to ask you about some of the recent atrocities that we’ve seen reported.  There were reports of mass civilian killings by Russia inside the town of Bucha and also killings of Ukrainian forces, and then you had the attack on the train station in Kramatorsk.  I’m wondering if you’ve evaluated both of these incidents and what you make of them.

  JACQUES BAUD:  Well, there are two things in that.  And the first is that the indication we have on both incidents to me indicates that the Russians were not responsible for that.  But, in fact, we don’t know.  I think that’s what we have to say.  I mean, if we’re honest, we don’t know what happened.  The indications we have, everything, all the elements we have tends to point at Ukrainian responsibilities, but we don’t know.

  What disturbs me in the whole thing is not so much that we don’t know, because in war there’s always such situations, there are always situations where you don’t know exactly who is really responsible.  What disturbs me is that Western leaders started to make decisions without knowing what’s going on and what happened.  And that’s something that disturbs me quite deeply, that before having any result of any kind of inquiry, of investigation, and I mean international, impartial investigation, without having that we start already to take sanctions, to make decisions, and I think that illustrates how the whole decision-making process in the West was perverted.  Since February or even before, in fact, because we had a similar thing after the hijacking—or not hijacking, by the way, it was not a hijacking—but the incident in Belarus with this Ryanair flight.  You may remember last May, last year, that people started to react just minutes after the incident was reported in the press, even they didn’t know what was going on!  So, that’s this way of doing from the political leadership in Europe, I mean the European Union, but also in European countries.  That disturbs me as an intelligence officer.  How can you make a decision with such impact on populations or on whole countries that disturbs even our own economies?  So, it tends to backfire on us.  But we take decisions without even knowing what’s going on, and that, I think, indicates an extremely immature leadership that we have in the West in general.  That’s certainly the case in the US, but I think in this example of the Ukraine crisis shows that the European leadership is not better than what you have in the US.  It’s probably even worse, I think, sometimes.  So, that’s what should worry us, that you have people deciding based on nothing, and that’s extremely dangerous.

  AARON MATÉ:  Jacques Baud, he is a former strategic intelligence officer with the Swiss Strategic Intelligence Service, also served in a number of senior security and advisory positions at NATO, the UN, and the Swiss military.  Jacques, thank you very much for your time and insight.

  JACQUES BAUD:  Thank you for everything.  Thank you.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/17/2022 – 21:30

• First Photos Of Sinking Russian Moskva Warship Emerge Online
  First Photos Of Sinking Russian Moskva Warship Emerge Online

  Update(2115ET): The first purported image of the sunken Moskva missile cruiser has emerged online late Sunday and began circulating widely. The photograph taken by an unknown source, likely in the Russian Navy aboard one of the emergency assisting ships, purports to be from the morning after it was distressed – as it began to sink reportedly off the coast of Odessa. 

  Newest photo from 15 April 2022. Damaged Moskva. pic.twitter.com/BSgnS2mJXg

  — Мike Right (@BormanIke) April 17, 2022

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  The Ukrainians said they scored a direct hit on the Russian Navy’s Black Sea flagship vessel with two Neptune anti-ship missiles, while the Kremlin version is that an overnight fire broke out, igniting munitions and that it sank in the process of being towed after over 500 crew were safely evacuated. 

  #war Photo of the damaged cruiser Moskva in the Black Sea in 15 April 2022.⚠️
  First impressions of this shocking photo. Life-saving equipment (rescue rafts) on board are missing, which means they were dropped into the water during the rescue operation./1 pic.twitter.com/WREeqmSvtA

  — Capt(N) (@Capt_Navy) April 17, 2022

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  The inflatable liferaft containers abeam the radar unit (white canisters) are missing, presumably used in evacuation of the ship. Fire nozzles running unattended. Comparison image from 2012. pic.twitter.com/4zQgQDa9xP

  — Andy Hall (@AndyHal15523851) April 17, 2022

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  The photo remains unconfirmed, but so far among a number of military and maritime analysts a consensus is emerging that it appears genuine. 

  Below is another photo which is also now being circulated…

  

  * * *

  Update(1618ET): At least a couple thousand Ukrainian troops are still said to be surrounded and holed up in the giant Azovstal steelworks in the decimated city of Mariupol. 

  UK media is also reporting that a second British soldier has been captured in Mariupol by Russian forces. This after 28-year old Aiden Aslin from Nottinghamshire had reportedly surrendered last week as Russian forces advanced. And now The Guardian reports Sunday that a former UK soldier was just captured, and is being paraded before Russian media cameras: 

  Shaun Pinner said he had been fighting alongside Ukrainian marines when Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded nearly eight weeks ago.

  The 48-year-old former British soldier appeared tired and bruised in a short propaganda video aired by Russian media on Saturday night.

  He says: “Hi, I’m Shaun Pinner. I am a citizen of the UK. I was captured in Mariupol. I am part of the 36 Brigade First Battalion Ukrainian Marines.”

  “I was fighting in Mariupol for five to six weeks and now I’m in Donetsk People’s Republic.”

  Breaking: former British soldier Shaun Pinner who previously served in Royal Anglian Regiment has been captured by Russian forces in Mariupol. pic.twitter.com/xPkyS2K7d8

  — Global Thinker (@talkrealopinion) April 16, 2022

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  The details of Pinner’s capture remain unclear, but he had already been living in Ukraine for four years with his wife in Donbas. “The former Royal Anglian Regiment soldier said in January that he was based in trenches 10 miles outside Mariupol,” The Guardian noted. 

  UK’s foreign office has said it is seeking to get in contact with Pinner via his family members to arrange his release from Russian custody, but say their options are extremely limited due to wartime conditions. His being shown on Russian state media has stirred outraged among UK officials.  

  British fighter Shaun Pinner has been captured by Russian troops and paraded on state TV https://t.co/AmsJlhXIeQ

  — LBC (@LBC) April 16, 2022

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  Earlier a Ukrainian official said that Mariupol was totally destroyed, describing that the once proud port city had been “wiped off the face of the earth” after weeks of relentless shelling and bombing. 

  * * *

  Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s governor over Mariupol, has said Friday that the city of Mariupol has been “wiped off the face of the earth” after weeks of relentless shelling and missile strikes from Russian forces. 

  “The enemy may seize the land Mariupol used to stand on, but the city of Mariupol has been wiped off the face of the earth by the Russian Federation, by those who will never be able to restore it,” he said. “To restore Mariupol, that is something only Ukraine can do.”

  

  As to the fate of the city, he described that at this point it is “no more” and that in reality the Russians have nothing left to seize. Meanwhile, Reuters is reporting that “Russia gave holdout Ukrainian soldiers an ultimatum to lay down arms on Sunday in the pulverised southeastern port of Mariupol, which Moscow said its forces almost completely controlled in what would be its biggest capture of the nearly two-month war.”

  All of this comes just after Ukrainian defense ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said that for the first time Russia used long-range bombers to attack Ukrainian positions in the port city. 

  “On April 14, two Russian strategic heavy bombers Tu-95/-160 have launched cruise missiles hitting the territory of Ukraine from Krasnodar Krai of Russian Federation airspace,” he said. “Also for the first time from the start of the armed aggression bombs were dropped by a long-range bombers Tu-22M3. This airstrike took place, hitting Mariupol.”

  Earlier last week Mariupol mayor’s estimated that over 10,000 civilians had died over the course of the war which had seen the city on the Sea of Azov attacked and besieged from nearly the start of the invasion.

  #MARIUPOL

  Footage shows airstrikes from Tu-22M3 long range strategic bomber targeting the Azovstal factory in which the last remains of Azov are holding themselves up. pic.twitter.com/GC7zTs8cTC

  — UkraineMaps (@MapsUkraine) April 15, 2022

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  He had described that dead bodies “carpeted the streets” – though it was impossible for outside observers to verify the high death estimate given.

  The AP had reported, “The mayor of the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol said Monday that more than 10,000 civilians have died in the Russian siege of his city, and that the death toll could surpass 20,000…”

  On Sunday Bloomberg reports that Russia could be contemplating a naval landing of forces to overwhelming the final holdout Ukrainian troops in and around the city:

  Ukraine warned of a possible Russian naval landing operation at Mariupol in addition to new air strikes. Russia called on remaining forces in the besieged city to surrender. Many are thought to be within the massive Azovstal steelworks; Moscow said “foreign mercenaries” are among them, citing intercepted conversations.

  #RUSSIA

  Footage from earlier today shows Tu-22M3 long range strategic bomber refueling in-air above Vyazma, Russia. pic.twitter.com/Hdm4AZV93Y

  — UkraineMaps (@MapsUkraine) April 15, 2022

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  Recently United Nations officials warned that the true civilian death toll in the country may never be known, that it’s likely significantly higher than current official estimates.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/17/2022 – 21:15

• Boise's Pandemic-Driven Housing Boom Begins To Crack
  Boise's Pandemic-Driven Housing Boom Begins To Crack

  Cracks in one of the nation’s hottest housing markets could be an early indication that the virus pandemic work-from-anywhere housing boom could cool as mortgage rates soar and affordability become an issue.

  In a weekend op-ed, Bloomberg’s Jonathan Levin wrote, “If you’re wondering where the U.S. real estate market might start to show its first cracks, keep an eye on Boise, Idaho.” 

  

  Levin is right. During the pandemic, Boise saw a massive influx of Californians purchasing homes in the region. Now the rush could be stalling. 

  Zillow data shows the average home price in Boise rose just 0.4% in March, down from 4.1% in June. 

  

  “The slowdown is hitting some Western mountain towns now, but it’s also likely to catch up with Austin, Texas; Phoenix; and Tampa, Florida, among others,” Levin noted. 

  He spoke with Oxford Economics economist Oren Klachkin about Boise home prices being a staggering 70% over what prices are deemed affordable to the median household income in the area. Thank Californians for this bubble. 

  “It’s making it harder for first-time homebuyers and locals to afford houses,” Klachkin said. 

  The incredible pace of gains is not sustainable, and slowing demand could suggest prices will eventually reverse. 

  Zillow Senior Economist Jeff Tucker said the cities that experienced the largest house price gains due to migration flows would be hit the hardest in a downturn. 

  Last week the average 30-year mortgage rose above 5% for the first time in a decade, threatening to cool the nation’s red-hot housing market by inducing an affordability crisis. 

  

  BofA economist Alex Lin recently showed clients that housing affordability is now at the lowest level since 2007, about a year before the housing bubble imploded.

  

  The National Association of Realtors recently estimated that 9 million homebuyers had been priced out of the market this year because of higher interest rates. 

  In March, we discussed the “Housing Affordability Is About To Crash The Most On Record“ and “Biggest Housing Affordability Shock In History Incoming.” 

  We even pointed out that cracks have already shown up in overall markets as sellers reduced asking prices this spring season. There’s also a slowdown in pandemic-driven second-home buying. 

  Maybe mortgage rates provide some insight into what may happen next to housing prices…  

  

  Boise’s cooling may suggest some of the hottest housing markets post-pandemic could be due for a slowdown, or worse: a reversal in prices. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/17/2022 – 21:00

• Chinese Slowdown, Much More Than COVID
  Chinese Slowdown, Much More Than COVID

  Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

  The most recent macroeconomic figures show that the Chinese slowdown is much more severe than expected and not only attributable to the covid-19 lockdowns.

  

  The lockdowns have an enormous impact. 26 of 31 China mainland provinces have rising covid cases and the fear of a Shanghai-style lockdown is enormous. The information coming from Shanghai proves that these drastic lockdowns create an enormous damage to the population. Millions of citizens without food or medicine and rising suicides have shown that the infamous “zero covid” policy often disguises mass population control and repression.

  It is easy to use the covid-19 lockdowns as the reason for the weakening of the Chinese economy but that would be a gross simplification. The problem is deeper.

  China is going through a severe slowdown caused by the burst of the enormous real estate bubble and the crackdown on the private sector, which has led to a cut in investment growth.

  According to Nomura Research, China faces the worst slowdown since the covid outbreak in 2020 and the world should be worried about a further slide, as the challenges persist. Official GDP figures may be massaged to deliver the government’s target, but all other macro figures point to a much weaker growth.

  We must remember that there are two ways in which the Chinese government “boosts” real GDP: By publishing a low inflation and GDP deflator figure and by massively increasing credit and infrastructure spending. However, those two cannot disguise the importance of the weakening of the Chinese economy, because it is now structural.

  The collapse of the real estate bubble is the biggest problem. A research paper by Kenneth Rogoff and Yuanchen Yang estimated that the real estate sector accounts for around 29% of China’s GDP. It is impossible for the Chinese government to offset the impact of such a massive part of the economy with other high-growth sectors. Furthermore, real estate’s impact on the job market is hard to substitute. Economist George Magnus warned that the impact of the real estate collapse would last for years.

  To add to a difficult real estate problem, the government intervention on the private sector, called “crackdown”, makes it even more difficult to boost growth with other industries and businesses. The fear of constant political intervention is leading to a massive slowdown in foreign direct investment growth as well as fear of deploying capital and taking risks in the Chinese economy only to suffer grave penalties from the authorities when profits arrive.

  The extent of the deterioration of the Chinese economy is evident in the recent leading indicators. The Caixin China General Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) slumped to 25-month low of 48.1 in March 2022, signalling contraction. The Caixin Services PMI plummeted to 42.0 in March from 50.2 in February, dropping below the level that separates growth from contraction. This reading indicates the sharpest activity decline since February 2020.

  The political intervention on the technology sector, which is one of the leading job creators in China, has sparked fears of frozen headcounts and layoffs, according to various media reports. Additionally, the decision of the central bank of cutting reserve requirements for banks has not avoided a significant decline in credit growth, as reported by JP Morgan.

  To all this we must add a currency, the yuan, which is used in less than 3% of global transactions, according to Reuters, due to the extreme capital controls and the exchange rate fixing imposed by the central bank. Confidence in the local currency is low due to the extreme intervention on the currency market, which is preventing China from having a truly international means of payment.

  China’s high debt is also a problem. Total debt stands above 300% of GDP, according to the IIF. The ECB points out that China’s debt-to-GDP ratio for the entire private sector now stands at over 250% and the corporate component of this debt is the highest in the world. The ECB points also to the risk created because a “significant proportion of funding is supplied to the corporate sector by non-bank financial institutions” leading to higher risk-taking and a shadow banking system that leads to large inefficiencies and solvency challenges.

  The aggressive and misguided lockdowns are affecting supply chains and activity, but the structural problems of rising intervention in the currency and industries as well as a heavily indebted economic model are likely to drag on real growth and jobs for a long time.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/17/2022 – 20:30

• Value Of Jack Dorsey's First Tweet Plummets 99% As NFT Market Craters
  Value Of Jack Dorsey's First Tweet Plummets 99% As NFT Market Craters

  A man who paid $2.9 million last March for an NFT of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s first tweet is set to lose almost everything on the digital investment.

  Crypto entrepreneur Sina Estavi made headlines last year after snapping up Dorsey’s tweet, which reads: “just setting up my twttr.”

  The Iranian-born Estavi expected to make more than 15x on the investment, listing it on popular NFT marketplace OpenSea last week for $48 million. He vowed to send 50% of the proceeds to charity.

  I decided to sell this NFT ( the world’s first ever tweet ) and donate 50% of the proceeds ( $25 million or more ) to the charity @GiveDirectly
  ‌‌‌‌‌‌
  🖇 https://t.co/cnv5rtAEBQ pic.twitter.com/yiaZjJt1p0

  — Estavi (@sinaEstavi) April 6, 2022

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  Unfortunately for Estavi, the top bid as of this writing is just $30,739 – a loss on paper of roughly 99% what he paid.

  

  NFTs exist on the blockchain alongside cryptocurrencies, and serve to authenticate digital assets.

  “My offer to sell was high and not everyone could afford it,” Estavi told Reuters, adding that he’s not sure he’ll sell it anymore. “It’s important to me who wants to buy it, I will not sell this NFT to anyone because I do not think everyone deserves this NFT,” he said.

  Prices for NFTs have cratered in recent months after last year’s digital ‘tulip mania’ saw incredible activity in the space – with monthly sales of NFTs totaling almost $5 billion last August, according to the WSJ, citing NFT data aggregator CryptoSlam. In March, sales dropped to $2.4 billion.

  At the market’s peak, over 200,000 NFT sales were taking place each day, dropping to 10,000 – 30,000 daily trades most recently.

  

  “I don’t think it’s surprising that we’re seeing a little cooling off like we’re seeing in other markets as well,” said Jonathan Victor, NFT and gaming lead at Protocol Labs in a statement to the Journal, adding that some of the NFTs which have sold for millions of dollars are akin to high-end art.

  “There isn’t a clear formula to say ‘this is how much this should cost,” he said.

  When it comes to Dorsey’s first tweet, “You have a price that’s set by one person who thought this was a fair value.” Sometimes, others just don’t agree.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/17/2022 – 20:00

• The Bond Market Is Calling For A Recession In Mid-2023… But That Has Not Eased Inflation Expectations
  The Bond Market Is Calling For A Recession In Mid-2023… But That Has Not Eased Inflation Expectations

  By Marcel Kasumovich,head of research at One River Asset Management and Paul Ebner, digital portfolio manager

  1/ Market sentiment is a curious thing. For any idea to win the day, it needs to become a consensus opinion. Yet, once any idea is the consensus, investors fear being part of the herd. Asset manager surveys are useful guideposts for being alert to such cycles. None does it better than the long, rich, independent history of the Fund Manager Survey (FMS) from BofA. And at a time of unprecedented macro crosscurrents, it is worth taking stock of positioning.

  2/ Are you part of the herd? Investors are demonstrating strong conviction in the latest survey. Uncertainty be damned. Yes, fund managers have built an above-average cash cushion in response to future unknowns. But that is where the indecisive investor mindset ends. Investor expectations for growth and corporate profits are the worst since 2008. Recession risk is the greatest concern. A conventional allocation to such a backdrop would be short stocks, long bonds, and long the US dollar. Instead, the consensus is powerfully positioned long commodities and an extreme short in bonds.

  3/ Structural inflation. That is the central theme in the positioning of asset managers. The surveys do not foresee recession curing current inflation ills. It is also not a message unique to market sentiment surveys. Bond markets are emphasizing the same point. The curvature of short-term interest rate futures provides one of the most precise indicators of the business cycle. Expectations have shifted to a more rapid monetary tightening, with rate cuts in the second half of next year (Figure 1). The interpretation is simple – the wisdom of the bond-market crowd is calling for US recession to start in the middle of next year. But this has not eased market inflation expectations – to the contrary, they have quietly risen to cycle highs.

  

  4/ Where does digital fit into the consensus equation? Interestingly, surveys say that it doesn’t. Investors are trading with a recency bias. And most recently, digital assets have been linked to equity markets, not inflation. The correlation between the S&P 500 and our Core Digital Index jumped to an all-time high on a one-month rolling basis, up nearly four times since the end of last year. Investors are steering portfolios to guard against inflation and don’t see a role for digital. It is also evident in perceptions of crowded trades by fund managers. Bitcoin was considered the most crowded three times in the BofA FMS since 2013, twice since the start of last year. Today, it doesn’t crack the top five of importance.

  5/ But investors are forgetting the longer, cyclical properties of digital assets. Correlations are easy to calculate. They also change a lot and often depend on time-specific circumstances. One way to humanize the historic properties of digital assets is through the lens of relatable macro episodes. To that end, we classify 12 macro episodes into four themes since the start of our
  indices in 2017: gold cycles, credit tightening, economic downturns, and rising inflation expectations. Figure 2 illustrates the average daily returns for our digital indices filtered through those macro periods. There are two striking results.

  6/ First, digital does not follow gold cycles – at all. There is always Twitter excitement when gold is outperforming digital assets and vice versa. It’s noisy entertainment. We parsed gold cycles into positive and negative cycles to be sure that the result was robust. It is. In fact, digital asset performance was the strongest during downturns in the price of gold. There is a lot more to digital than the yellow metal.

  7/ Second, the cyclicality of digital assets is more geared to inflation. Periods of rising inflation expectations have disproportionately higher returns for broader digital assets. Our Size-Tilt Index averaged a daily return of 162 basis points in those periods compared to bitcoin’s average daily return of 28 basis points since our Indices began. These gains also dwarf the average daily decline in periods of credit tightening and economic downturns, where the Size Tilt Index was down 60 basis points and 54 basis points for bitcoin on average per day.

  

  8/ The dynamic path of our indices in cyclical episodes is also enlightening (Figure 3). In the negative scenario, the average performance across the benchmarks is not very different. The distinction across drawdowns, however, is notable, and much larger with Size Tilt, that leans to smaller assets. It is a critical reminder that high-volatility assets and leverage do not mix. To benefit from the upward drift in Size Tilt seen in the inflationary growth scenario, you cannot get stopped out in the negative drawdown. Volatility is best managed with unleveraged exposure.

  

  9/ Historic analyses provide a foundation for discussion – no more, no less. Investors are charged with the far more creative and difficult task of understanding how things will be different. Investor sentiment provides a glimpse – inflation will be persistent, and investors are skeptical of the role digital will play. But investors are focused on a meaningful shift from recent history – a long period of persistent inflation and weaker real activity. Can digital assets perform in that world? The short answer is yes. The same recency bias impacting sentiment is constraining expectations on the role the digital ecosystem plays in a new macro environment.

  10/ Consider the role of digital in generational austerity. The good fortune of the older generation is imposing austerity on the younger one. Asset prices, housing costs, student debt, and higher taxation are obstacles to the next generation of entrepreneurs. Austerity is a matter of survival. The “Young and Austere” can innovate in the digital ecosystem in a far more efficient manner. From design to architecture and financial services, the cost of operating in the digital world is far less than the ‘real’ world and there are fewer barriers to entry. Fashion week in Decentraland becomes the headline act, not the footnote that it was last week. Digital assets and their role in portfolios can’t be reduced to a 3-year or 30-day correlation. It is an ecosystem that will flexibly adjust to its  environment, including the new macro world order. So, too, will our indices.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/17/2022 – 19:30

• Bird Flu Outbreak "Above And Beyond Rate Of Spread" Observed In 2015, Warns Industry Expert 
  Bird Flu Outbreak "Above And Beyond Rate Of Spread" Observed In 2015, Warns Industry Expert 

  The bird flu outbreak has only been spreading around the US for two months, and some industry experts are warning the rate of spread could be worse than the devastating 2015 outbreak. 

  On Friday, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced yet another state where the contagious strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza has been detected. Idaho is the 27th state where the virus has been found since February. 

  WaPo spoke to Gro Intelligence (ag data experts) senior research analyst Grady Ferguson who tracked the last outbreak in 2015, saying this one could be more disruptive to the poultry and egg markets. 

  Ferguson said that 66 days into the outbreak, 1.3% of all US chickens had been affected, and 6% of the US turkey flock. In 2015, he said, only .02% of total chickens were affected at this same time. The number rose to 2.5% of chickens infected at the outbreak’s peak, and more than 50 million were culled. 

  So far, the bird flu tsunami wave across 27 states has infected 27 million chickens and turkeys, forcing farmers to “depopulate” or cull flocks to prevent spreading. 

  “We are above and beyond the rate of spread, we saw in 2015. 

  “Last time, 81 percent of the cases were in the fourth and fifth month, as things exploded. What chicken egg prices did last time affected the market for years. We are two months into the outbreak now, and the safety protocols haven’t worked. I don’t want to be a Chicken Little, but I think it’s going to be worse than last time,” he said.  

  National egg prices are off the charts for this time of year. The average retail cost for a dozen large eggs across the country has jumped to nearly $3, up from $1.20 in early January. 

  

  Ferguson warned soaring egg prices “will make higher prices for all baked goods and a wide variety of processed foods from cupcakes to salad dressing. Restaurants will have a harder time justifying why they should give you a three-egg omelet for a dollar. And on the chicken meat side, the situation is also worse than it was last time.”

  Besides sky-high egg prices, retail chicken breast prices per pound have surpassed a decade high. 

  

  The emerging poultry crisis will feed into record-high food inflation that will continue decimating households’ budgets. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/17/2022 – 19:00

• Shades Of Gray In The Russia-Ukraine War
  Shades Of Gray In The Russia-Ukraine War

  Authored by Sheldon Richman via The Libertarian Institute,

  If you’re looking for morality tales — clashes between the clearly good and the clearly bad — I suggest you look elsewhere than to the geopolitical theater. There we find only conflicts between shades of darker gray.

  This seems to have been the case throughout history. Empires and would-be empires vied with rival empires and would-be empires for territory, resources, taxpayers, and soldiers. No surprise: governments will be governments, and that’s not good. This is not to say the shades of gray did not differ at all, perhaps even significantly on occasion, but the objective was always, first and foremost, booty and control of people. The interests of commoners were rarely if ever the cause.

  We see this in Russia’s war on Ukraine. Let’s be clear: Vladimir Putin and his Russian government freely chose to send military forces across the border into Ukraine. Their military personnel complied. They ultimately are responsible for their choices and therefore the death, injury, and mayhem that is taking place. (I make an exception for proven false-flag operations on the Ukrainian side, should any come to light.)

  

  Now that the issue of primary culpability is out of the way, we can go on to talk about contributory culpability. I hope I’ve left little room for anyone to argue assigning contributory culpability to others is intended to let the Russian government personnel off the hook.

  What sort of culpability do I have in mind? It’s on the order of setting a trap and loading it with bait in order to lure a target. Russia had to choose to step into it, but those who set the trap did not have to do what they did. Hence, they contributed to a terrible situation.

  Many experts analysts have long pointed out that the U.S. government at least since the late 1990s has knowingly been provoking Russia by expanding NATO up to the country’s western border, incorporating most of the allies and some of the republics of the late Soviet Union. For years the U.S. government and other NATO officials have talked publicly about inviting the former republics Ukraine and Georgia to join. Everyone knew that Ukraine was an especially sensitive matter because it had long been a buffer between Russia and states to the west, Poland in particular. The Soviet Union had been invaded three times in the 20th century, twice by Germany and once by Poland, both NATO members since the demise of the USSR.

  The warnings against NATO’s march eastward were too many to count and came from people as diverse as Henry Kissinger and Noam Chomsky, Soviet-rollback guru Paul Nitze and Soviet-containment architect George Kennan.

  The current director of the CIA, William J. Burns, warned in 2008, when he was George W. Bush’s ambassador to Russia, that no Russian leader — conservative or liberal — would ever stand for the admission of Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. Burns’s leaked memo was written shortly after publicly NATO declared that it welcomed applications for membership from those states.

  That was 14 years ago and six years before the U.S. State Department helped foment a Nazi-backed coup that drove a Russia-friendly but democratically elected president from power — even though he had been making concessions to the opposition in the streets, including a call for early elections. What motivated the U.S. government was that president’s intention to reject an exclusive economic and political relationship with the European Union in order to accept a loan with liberal terms from Russia.

  “One of Poland’s most prominent journalists, Konstanty Gebert, said he is quitting what many regard as the country’s newspaper of record after it demanded that he describe Ukraine’s controversial Azov Battalion as ‘far-right’ instead of ‘neo Nazi.'”https://t.co/JAvbzD7N5l

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 16, 2022

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  Aside from the overt NATO talk, there’s the matter of the U.S. government’s putting missile launchers in Poland and Romania. As outfitted, they are for defensive anti-missile missiles, but that could be changed. Moreover, defensive missiles obviously can be useful in an offensive campaign. Remember that Donald Trump, the reputed Russian agent, had earlier denounced the Reagan-era treaty that banned intermediate-range nuclear weapons from Europe and elsewhere. No one could have been surprised when all this was worrisome to the Russians. (Recall what happened in 1962 when the Soviet Union tried to put missiles in Cuba. John F. Kennedy imposed a naval blockade on the island and was ready to launch a nuclear war if the missiles were not removed.)

  Since the Russian invasion, Joe Biden and his foreign policy people have denounced Russia sanctimoniously for its violations of international law and brutality, including the inexcusable deaths of noncombatants. It is not inappropriate to ask when an American president has ever respected international law when it was inconvenient for U.S. objectives. In the 21st century alone, American presidents have launched illegal aggressive wars in the Middle East and other places to effect regime change and other geopolitical objectives even partially on behalf of other states, such as Israel. In the process Americans have killed untold noncombatants. They have tortured prisoners. They have wreaked sickening destruction, creating hordes of refugees — and so on. Yet day after day, lying American officials — but I repeat myself — admonish Putin for his bad behavior. There’s nothing like setting a good example.

  The Ukrainian leaders must also share in the blame. Those leaders who have been West-leaning have not been shy about aspiring to join NATO, knowing full well how the Russians would interpret those words. Since the 2014 coup — in response to which Russia annexed a long-standing security area, the Crimea with its Russian naval base, to keep it out of NATO hands — Ukrainian presidents could have made overtures to Russia, assuring that they would not seek NATO membership and offering to make Ukraine neutral in the manner of Austria since 1955. They did not do that, even though the current president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a former comedian and actor, was elected on a peace-with-Russia platform.

  Superficially, Zelensky is an appealing figure. He’s young and charismatic, and he wears t-shirts. His country has been invaded, which of course puts him in a sympathetic light when he appears on television. But is that the whole story of the man? It also seems that despite the terms of the Minsk agreements, he has been unwilling to talk to leaders in the heavily Russian-ethnic Donbas region, in the far east of Ukraine, about home-rule. Two provinces there, Luhansk and Donetsk, have since declared their independence, which Russia has recognized. The Ukrainian military has been shelling the area since the 2014 coup, and Donbas forces have fought back. The casualties on both sides have been high.

  Moreover, as Jacques Baud, an intelligence expert who has worked for NATO, the UN, and Swiss strategic intelligence  writes:

  On [March 24, 2021], Volodymyr Zelensky issued a decree for the recapture of the Crimea, and began to deploy his forces to the south of the country. At the same time, several NATO exercises were conducted between the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea, accompanied by a significant increase in reconnaissance flights along the Russian border. Russia then conducted several exercises to test the operational readiness of its troops and to show that it was following the evolution of the situation. [Aaron Mate’s video interview with Baud is here.]

  Baud also writes, “In violation of the Minsk Agreements, the Ukraine was conducting air operations in Donbass using drones, including at least one strike against a fuel depot in Donetsk in October 2021. The American press noted this, but not the Europeans; and no one condemned these violations.”

  It begins to look as though Zelensky has cavalierly used the Ukrainian people for his own ends: instead of seeking peace, he sought or was willing to risk war with Russia, assuming the U.S. government and other NATO states would back him up with perhaps more than arms shipments. He still demands a NATO no-fly zone, which would all but assure a new world war and perhaps an all-out nuclear war. So he also shares in the responsibility.

  As usual, there’s blame aplenty to go around.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/17/2022 – 18:30

• Portable Nuclear Device Missing In Eastern Pennsylvania
  Portable Nuclear Device Missing In Eastern Pennsylvania

  A portable nuclear device used in construction was reported missing Friday, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). 

  DEP said the missing nuclear gauge contains “sealed sources of radioactive material” belonging to a construction company in Harleysville, a suburb of Philadelphia. The device was secured in a car when it was stolen. The vehicle has been recovered, but the device “was no longer inside and may have been discarded,” DEP said. 

  The state agency warned if the device is “badly damaged,” there is “potential for damage to the radioactive source and spread of contamination.” 

  The nuclear device is a Troxler Model 3440. Construction companies use it to evaluate if there are radioactive materials at job sites. The Troxler gauge contains Cesium-137 and Americium-241. 

  DEP tweeted an image of the missing device. 

  Norristown, PA – DEP Urges Public to Report Missing Portable Nuclear Gauge:https://t.co/2vft9YSf9g pic.twitter.com/j17SOAL3jt

  — PA Department of Environmental Protection (@PennsylvaniaDEP) April 15, 2022

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  “Anyone who finds the gauge should not handle it directly, but rather maintain distance, limit time of proximity, and immediately contact local authorities or the DEP’s Southeast Regional Office at 484-250-5900,” DEP tweeted. “A trained individual will recover the gauge.”

  Anyone who finds the gauge should not handle it directly, but rather maintain distance, limit time of proximity, and immediately contact local authorities or the DEP’s Southeast Regional Office at 484-250-5900. A trained individual will recover the gauge.

  — PA Department of Environmental Protection (@PennsylvaniaDEP) April 15, 2022

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  This is the second time in about six months that a Troxler Model 3440 has gone missing in Pennsylvania. In Oct., DEP said another device was “inadvertently” left at a job site. It was later recovered, but for these issues to reoccur in a short period raises many eyebrows. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/17/2022 – 18:00

• China's Digital Yuan, Biggest Threat To The West, Is Overshadowed By Russian War, Kyle Bass Warns
  China's Digital Yuan, Biggest Threat To The West, Is Overshadowed By Russian War, Kyle Bass Warns

  Authored by Frank Fang and Jan Jekielek va The Epoch Times,

  Russia’s war in Ukraine is obscuring one very alarming threat posed by the Chinese regime: its system of paperless money, warned hedge fund manager Kyle Bass.

  “It is, I think, the single largest threat to the West in the last 50 years. And it’s being overshadowed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Bass said during a recent interview on EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program.

  The Chinese digital currency, variously known as the digital yuan, digital renminbi, e-CYN, and e-yuan—is currently being developed by the Chinese regime through its central bank. Since the e-yuan is backed by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), it is a central bank digital currency (CBDC) or simply the digital version of China’s fiat currency.

  

  So far, pilot tests of the e-yuan are being carried out in more than 20 different Chinese cities and the money was made available to visiting foreigners through a mobile app for the first time during the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

  “This isn’t a simple digital payment app. This is an app that tracks where you are, what your name is, what your social security number is, [and] what all of your identifiers are. It has the geo-locating ability,” he explained.

  Bass explained once the Chinese digital money is fully-developed and is made available to everyone outside of China, the Chinese regime could seek out certain e-yuan users, such as those in financial trouble, and corrupt them.

  “Image if the Chinese government had access to every Tom, Dick, and Harry in America, and in Europe, and in Canada,” he said. “Imagine if they could cross-run an algorithm that says, let’s look for U.S. government employees that have Tinder that are short on cash—and maybe they’re married—and we can corrupt them immediately.”

  “It gives them the ramp to corrupt anyone and everyone around the world that’s corruptible, which is a real national security problem,” he added. “So it’s a way they can export digital authoritarianism.”

  China’s global rollout of its e-yuan has a very specific agenda, Bass said, which is to reduce its dependence on the U.S. dollar.

  “About 87 percent of global transactions that China settles are settled in dollars,” he said. “They’re desperately short energy, they’re desperately short food, they’re desperately short basic materials, they have to go buy these things every day around the world, and no one trusts their currency, and they still have a closed capital account.”

  “And so what do they have to do? They have to use their [U.S.] dollars to do so,” he said.

  More than 80 countries in the world, including the United States, are exploring the issuance of CBDC, according to tracking by the Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council. So far Nigeria is among nine countries that have launched digital forms of their currencies.

  In March, the White House issued an outline of President Joe Biden’s executive order on digital assets. The president was “placing urgency” on research and development of a U.S. CBDC, and issuing one was “deemed in the national interest.”

  Several U.S. lawmakers have been keen to see the threat posed by the e-yuan properly addressed. In May last year, Reps. French Hill (R-Ark.) and Jim Himes (D-Conns.) introduced the 21st Century Dollar Act (H.R.3506), which would require the U.S. Treasury Department to include in a report for Congress any risks to the U.S. dollar posed by the digital yuan.

  In March, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and eight of her Republican colleagues introduced the Say No To the Silk Road Act (S.3784). If enacted, the legislation would require the U.S. Commerce Department and U.S. Trade Representative’s office to file reports on the e-yuan.

  Additionally, the U.S. State Department would be required to put a warning on its website, warning U.S. citizens traveling to China “about the dangers of the digital yuan,” according to the text of the bill.

  “There are some senators that you’ll see in the coming weeks are going to launch legislation to outlaw its use. And I believe that, that those that legislation must happen,” Bass said.

  “The West needs to convene, and we need to ban it immediately,” he added. “You can’t have a little bit of cancer, you either have cancer, you don’t have cancer.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/17/2022 – 17:30

• "The Light Is Killing Me" – Ukrainian Woman Describes Brutal Conditions Inside Shanghai Quarantine Center
  "The Light Is Killing Me" – Ukrainian Woman Describes Brutal Conditions Inside Shanghai Quarantine Center

  Facing an unprecedented level of backlash and widespread condemnation from the international press, Beijing said Sunday that it’s hoping to have localized COVID outbreaks in Shanghai under control by Wednesday. This would allow them to scale back COVID lockdown measures…but then again, that’s a big “if”.

  

  The report also noted that the lockdown in Shanghai (which has been the focal point of China’s latest outbreak for weeks) has prompted locals to take to social media with tales of outrage and woe.

  Here’s more from Reuters:

  The target will require officials to accelerate COVID testing and the transfer of positive cases to quarantine centres, according to a speech by a local Communist Party official dated Saturday, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.

  Ending community-level transmission has been a turning point for other Chinese localities that locked down, such as Shenzhen city which last month reopened public transport and let businesses go back to work shortly after achieving that target.

  Shanghai has become the epicentre of China’s largest outbreak since the virus was first identified in Wuhan in late 2019, and has recorded more than 320,000 COVID infections since early March when its surge began.

  Some of the complaints have even made it to the mainstream western media, thanks to the cooperation of a Ukrainian woman living in Shanghai. According to WSJ, she was taken to a government quarantine center, where she spent nearly three weeks, and was forced to remain even after testing negative for the virus – twice.

  She described conditions that sounded more like a prison – perhaps in some ways worse. For example, she wasn’t allowed to shower for her entire stay.

  Lights were kept on in the facility 24-7. She said the experience made her feel like a “COVID criminal”. Shanghai has built more than 100 makeshift hospitals with a total capacity of more than 160,000 beds, and the Ukrainian woman was situated in the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center complex.

  “The light is killing me—it’s my main enemy here,” she said in an interview, the day before her release.

  Despite being crammed in with thousands of strangers, and left without showers or much sanitation, she said there was at least one advantage to her situation when compared to that of her boyfriend, who remained free: at least she was getting three warm, decent meals per day at the facility, while her boyfriend was constantly worried about his shrinking food stockpile.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/17/2022 – 17:00

• 'Inflationary Psychology' Has Set In – Dislodging It Won't Be Easy
  'Inflationary Psychology' Has Set In – Dislodging It Won't Be Easy

  Authored by Richard Curtin via University of Michigan,

  There is a high probability that a self-perpetuating wage-price spiral will develop in the next few years. Households have already become less resistant to paying higher prices and firms have become less resistant to offering higher wages. Prices and wages will continue to spiral upward until the cumulative erosion in inflation-adjusted incomes causes the economy to collapse in recession. It is like the children’s game of musical chairs: Everyone knows the game will end, but they feel compelled to keep racing around the circle at an ever-faster pace hoping their forced exit will leave them in the best possible position—even if it still means an inflation-adjusted loss.

  

  This situation has been termed “inflationary psychology.” Consumers purposely advance their purchases in order to beat anticipated future price increases. Firms readily pass along higher costs to consumers, including the future cost increases that they anticipate. That’s what happened in the last inflationary age, which started in 1965 and ended in 1982: Expected inflation became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Many commentaries assert that the current situation is nothing like the situation faced in 1978-80. That’s true, but irrelevant. The more apt comparison would be to the five to ten years prior to that period, when inflation had not yet reached crisis levels. Government officials claimed they had the policy tools that could easily reverse inflation, just as they claim now.

  Those policies, however, repeatedly failed across administrations, from Lyndon B. Johnson’s surtax, to Richard Nixon’s wage and price controls, to Gerald Ford’s public relations “Whip Inflation Now” campaign, and Jimmy Carter’s fireside pleas to diminish material aspirations. Only after Paul Volcker was appointed Federal Reserve chair and raised the fed funds rate to 20% in 1980 did inflation begin to fall. He pushed up rates aggressively, by 10 percentage points in just six months. The resulting 10% unemployment rate was needed to reduce inflation by 10 percentage points.

  Today’s mantra is, “This time is different.” Supply disruptions were said to be transient, and the inflation rate would soon fade. The University of Michigan’s survey confirmed that shortages were important, and those shortages played an initial role in raising inflation expectations. Awareness of shortages has remained high, mentioned by half of all consumers in the past nine months. Nonetheless, shortages are no longer associated with higher inflation expectations—their inflation expectations now differ by less than one-tenth of a percentage point.

  Consumers quickly adopted the notion that inflation had multiple causes, focusing on the growth in federal spending and expansionary monetary policy as the dual driving forces. Pandemic transfers and relief payments produced extraordinary increases in household incomes. The income gains meant that household budgets could easily withstand higher prices. These transfers meant survival for many households, with some quickly exhausting their funds. Most workers still remained employed and boosted their spending. A good deal of those funds were added to their savings and reserves, which will constitute a more-lasting offset to higher prices.

  Several other associated findings from the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey are also relevant. Although consumers have increasingly expected higher inflation, they have also expected a strong job market and rising wages, especially among consumers under age 45. In the year ahead, wage gains will continue to reduce resistance to rising prices among consumers, and the ability of firms to easily raise their selling prices will continue to reduce their resistance to increasing wages. Thus, the essential ingredients of a self-perpetuating wage-price spiral are now in place: rising inflation accompanied by rising wages.

  The Federal Reserve has the difficult task of balancing reductions in inflation against job losses. When consumers were recently asked which was the more critical problem facing the nation, nearly nine-in-ten cited inflation. The erosion in living standards due to rising inflation was the most common complaint when consumers were asked to describe in their own words how their finances had recently changed. While the initial rise was among the lowest-income households, those complaints have rapidly spread to middle- and upper-income households. Surging gas, food, and housing prices have forced nearly all families to go through the painful process of deciding which normally purchased items they could no longer afford.

  Importantly, the majority of today’s consumers did not experience the accelerating inflation of the 1970s. Most have personally experienced only very low inflation, with a few short-lived spikes in oil prices. This lack of experience has magnified their reactions to the higher inflation rate that now prevails. Another critical characteristic of the earlier inflation era was frequent temporary reversals in inflation, only to be followed by new peaks. That same pattern should be expected in the months ahead.

  Most consumers expect the government to undertake policy actions to curb inflation. Indeed, the largest proportion of consumers in the past half-century have expected the Fed to hike interest rates. Given that the fed funds rate had lingered for an extended period near zero, that was not a hard call to make. What was perhaps more surprising was that the quarter-point hike the Fed adopted in March was simply too small to signal an aggressive defense against rising inflation. Instead, it signaled the continuation of a strong labor market along with an inflation rate that would continue to rise.

  Much more aggressive policy moves against inflation may arouse some controversy. Nonetheless, they are needed. Adam Smith’s legendary invisible hand describes how individuals acting in their own self-interest can create unintended benefits for the entire society. Unfortunately, the country now faces the potential for an inflationary hand that can transform self-interested decisions into losses for the entire economy.

  *  *  *

  Richard Curtin is a research professor at the University of Michigan and has directed the consumer sentiment surveys since 1976.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/17/2022 – 16:30

• Drug And Alcohol Abuse Slowing Labor Force Participation Rate, Fed Study Finds
  Drug And Alcohol Abuse Slowing Labor Force Participation Rate, Fed Study Finds

  Drug and alcohol abuse are starting to negatively effect the labor force participation rate, according to a new study by Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta researcher Karen Kopecky, Jeremy Greenwood of the University of Pennsylvania and Nezih Guner of the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona.

  The study was reported last week by Bloomberg in this writeup. 

  What it found was that between 9% and 26% of the decline in prime-age labor-force participation between February 2020 and June 2021 was due to “increased substance abuse”. 

  Labor force participation between ages 25 and 54 has yet to full recover since March 2020’s plunge, the report says. So far, the Fed has blamed that on “issues with child care and elder care, in-person schools being closed, concerns about getting sick and extra unemployment benefits.”

  

  The labor force participation rate remains one of the key factors that the Fed is hoping to influence as they move to raise rates throughout the year. 

  The study noted: “Once started, drug and alcohol abuse is difficult to stop for many people…an increase in substance abuse during the pandemic would mean lower labor-force participation rates even after the pandemic has ended.”

  The decline in participation was disproportionately helped along by Americans without a college degree, the report says. 

  The news comes despite the participation rate rising to 62.4% last month, which marks a two year high. But, as Bloomberg notes, this remains 1% lower than prior to the pandemic. 
   

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/17/2022 – 16:00

• The Greatest Danger To The Political-Corporate-Media Triumvirate Is That Musk Is Right
  The Greatest Danger To The Political-Corporate-Media Triumvirate Is That Musk Is Right

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  Twitter’s board of directors gathered this week to sign what sounds like a suicide pact. It unanimously voted to swallow a “poison pill” to tank the value of the social media giant’s shares rather than allow billionaire Elon Musk to buy the company.

  The move is one way to fend off hostile takeovers, but what is different in this case is the added source of the hostility: Twitter and many liberals are apoplectic over Musk’s call for free speech protections on the site. 

  Company boards have a fiduciary duty to do what is best for shareholders, which usually is measured in share values. Twitter has long done the opposite. It has virtually written off many conservatives — and a large portion of its prospective market — with years of arbitrary censorship of dissenting views on everything from gender identity to global warming, election fraud and the pandemic. Most recently, Twitter suspended a group, Libs of Tik Tok, for “hateful conduct.” The conduct? Reposting what liberals have said about themselves.

  

  The company seemingly has written off free speech too. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal was asked how Twitter would balance its efforts to combat misinformation with wanting to “protect free speech as a core value” and to respect the First Amendment. He responded dismissively that the company is “not to be bound by the First Amendment” and will regulate content as “reflective of things that we believe lead to a healthier public conversation.” Agrawal said the company would “focus less on thinking about free speech” because “speech is easy on the internet. Most people can speak. Where our role is particularly emphasized is who can be heard.”

  Not surprisingly, selling censorship is not a big hit with most consumers, particularly from a communications or social media company. The actions of Twitter’s management have led to roller-coastering share values. While Twitter once reached a high of about $73 a share, it is currently around $45. (Musk was offering $54.20 a share, representing a 54 percent premium over the share price the day before he invested in the company.)

  Notably, Musk will not trigger the poison pill if he stays below 15 percent ownership of the company. He could push his present stake up to 14.9 percent and then negotiate with other shareholders to take greater control.

  Another problem is that Twitter long sought a private buyer under former CEO Jack Dorsey. If Musk increases his bid closer to $60, the board could face liability in putting its interests ahead of the company’s shareholders.

  Putting aside the magical share number, Musk is right that the company’s potential has been constrained by its woke management. For social media companies, free speech is not only ethically but economically beneficial — because the censorship model only works if you have an effective monopoly in which customers have no other choice. That is how Henry Ford could tell customers, back when he controlled car-making, that they could have any color of Model T “as long as it’s black.”

  Of course, the Model T’s color was not a critical part of the product. On the other hand, Twitter is a communications company selling censorship — and opposing free speech as a social media company is a little like Ford opposing cars.

  The public could be moving beyond Twitter’s Model T philosophy, however, with many people looking for access to an open, free forum for discussions.

  Censorship – or “content modification,” as used in polite company – is not value maximizing for Twitter, but it is status enhancing for executives such as Agrawal.

  It does not matter that consumers of his product want less censorship; the company has become captive to its executives’ agendas.

  Twitter is not alone in pursuing such self-defeating values. Many in the mainstream media and many on the left have become some of the loudest advocates for corporate censorship.

  The Washington Post’s Max Boot, for example, declared, “For democracy to survive, we need more content moderation, not less.” 

  MSNBC’s Katy Tur warned that reintroducing free speech values on Twitter could produce “massive, life- and globe-altering consequences for just letting people run wild on the thing.” 

  Columnist and former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich went full Orwellian in explaining why freedom is tyranny. Reich dismissed calls for free speech and warned that censorship is “necessary to protect American democracy.”

  He then delivered a line that would make Big Brother blush:

  “That’s Musk’s dream. And Trump’s. And Putin’s. And the dream of every dictator, strongman, demagogue and modern-day robber baron on Earth. For the rest of us, it would be a brave new nightmare.”

  The problem comes when you sell fear for too long and at too high a price.

  Recently, Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) agreed with MSNBC analyst John Heilemann that Democrats have to “scare the crap out of [voters] and get them to come out.”

  That line is not selling any better for the media than it is for social media, however. Trust in the media is at a record low, with only 7 percent expressing great trust in what is being reported. The United States ranks last in media trust among 46 nations. 

  Just as the public does not want social media companies to control their views, it does not want the media to shape its news. In one recent poll, “76.3% of respondents from all political affiliations said that ‘the primary focus of the mainstream media’s coverage of current events is to advance their own opinions or political agendas.’”

  Thus, an outbreak of free speech could have dire consequences for many in the political-corporate-media triumvirate. For them, the greatest danger is that Musk could be right and Twitter would become a more popular, more profitable company selling a free speech product. 

  Poison pill maneuvers are often used to force a potential buyer to negotiate with the board. However, Twitter’s directors (who include Agrawal and Dorsey) have previously limited their product to advance their own political preferences. This time, federal law may force them to fulfill their fiduciary duties, even at the cost of supporting free speech. The problem for the board will occur when the “nightmare” of free speech comes in at $60 a share.

  *  *  *

  Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/17/2022 – 15:30

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• China Threat Grows As Beijing's 'Tech-Based' Plans Dominate Washington's 'Finances-First' Approach
  China Threat Grows As Beijing’s ‘Tech-Based’ Plans Dominate Washington’s ‘Finances-First’ Approach

  Authored by John Mac Ghlionn via The American Conservative (emphasis ours),

  During the Reagan administration, Michael Sekora helped establish Project Socrates, a classified U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency program. The aim of the program was twofold: first, to identify the reasons why the U.S. was struggling to maintain its economic advantage; and second, to remedy the situation as quickly as possible.

  

  In 1979, two years before Reagan became the 40th president of the United States, Sekora had been recruited by the CIA. He worked as an intelligence officer within the Office of Technical Services. He was a physicist by training, having entered the University of Michigan at the age of 15 and then attended Miami University for graduate studies. In 1983, Sekora transferred from the CIA to the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Project Socrates was born.

  Although he and his colleagues at Project Socrates had identified the China threat for Reagan, Sekora told me, and were working on strategies to contain that threat, when President Bush came into office, his administration “abolished Socrates to appease certain allies.”

  Sekora agreed to answer a few of my questions, and presented his view that the United States is mistakenly focused on finance-based rather than technology-based planning and strategy in addressing the challenge posed by China. Our conversation is presented in an edited form for the sake of length and clarity.

  The China threat has only grown. Today, Sekora said, China is winning because it is putting strategic technologies first.

  [It] is executing an offensive/defensive adroit game of worldwide technology exploitation chess. As a result, China will continue to out maneuver the U.S. R&D no matter how much money we spend. That is what has enabled China to become a superpower faster than any country in the history of the world. China’s rise to power is not based on cheap labor, currency manipulation and a little theft of U.S. technology as all the experts maintain. If that was all that China was doing, China would still be only producing hand assembled trinkets, as they did in the 1950s, instead of beating the U.S. in quantum, AI, biotech, et cetera.

  While he has dealings with Congress, the Department of Defense, and the intelligence community, Sekora said he is deeply frustrated by what he sees and hears, because “none of what is being executed or proposed by these organizations has any chance of countering China.”

  In some cases, he said, the responses proposed will “actually accelerate the decline of the U.S. and the rise of China.” I asked why.

  Because they are based on some very faulty core assumptions. One is that the U.S. is in an R&D footrace with China. Both sides hunker down in their respective labs to address the “key” technologies and whoever gets to the R&D breakthrough finish line first has the competitive advantage and wins!

  American leadership believes the way to beat China to the finish line is to spend more money than the opponent, Sekora said. “In actuality, increasing U.S. spending on R&D will increase not decrease or reverse the rate of U.S. decline,” he explained.

  Of course, that seems rather counterintuitive; I pressed Sekora to clarify.

  If the U.S. continues to execute its present approach to rebuilding U.S. economic health and military might to remain a superpower and counter China, the U.S. will be a poor debtor nation in a world where China is the sole world superpower, and this will occur in much less than 10 years. The underlying cause is that at the end of WWII, the U.S. began shifting from technology-based planning to finance-based planning.

  Today, he went on to say, finance-based planning is still pervasive throughout the entire U.S. economy and military ecosystem, from private industry to the Department of Defense and the White House.

  The difference between the two is that in finance-based planning, “the foundation of all decision making is the optimization of the funds,” or how to manipulate money to achieve a financial objective, such as staying within budget.

  Meanwhile, in technology-based planning, “the foundation of all decision making is exploiting the technology more effectively than the competition/adversaries to generate a true competitive advantage in the marketplace or on the battlefield.”

  Technology-based planning helped the U.S. became a superpower before WWII, Sekora said, and was also what Japan used after WWII to transform itself into an industrial giant in 20 short years. Our rivals use it, too.

  “[It’s] what the Soviets used in the Cold War to match the U.S. militarily from a much smaller economic base,” he said. And China, not surprisingly, “has been using it for decades to become a superpower faster than any country in history.”

  Today, Sekora said, the U.S. uses finance-based planning for economic strength and military might, which forms the basis of our political actions and strength. China, on the other hand, uses technology-based planning. Because of this, he argues, “China will continue on its rise, and the U.S. will continue in its rapid decline.”

  As is already obvious, Sekora is not optimistic about the chances of success of America’s current strategy. What is the current administration doing wrong? I asked.

  “A better question is, ‘What is the current administration doing right?’” Sekora said. “Everything that this administration and Congress are doing and proposing is based on finance-based planning.”

  By focusing on the financial system, the current administration is further enabling China at the expense of the United States.

  “China can literally neutralize a U.S. multi-billion-dollar R&D initiative for pennies on the dollar,” Sekora said, “while ensuring that they have the competitive advantage on the battlefield or in the marketplace.”

  Sekora and his colleagues are currently working for the reestablishment of Project Socrates.

  John Mac Ghlionn is a researcher and essayist. His work has been published by the likes of National Review, New York Post, South China Morning Post, and the Sydney Morning Herald. He can be found on Twitter at @ghlionn.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/16/2022 – 23:30

• Visualizing The Yuxi Circle: The World's Most Densely Populated Area
  Visualizing The Yuxi Circle: The World’s Most Densely Populated Area

  If you wanted to capture over 55% of the global population inside a circle with a 4,000km radius, which city would you place at its epicenter?

  In 2013, a post appeared on Reddit marking a circular area of the globe with “more people living inside this circle than outside of it.” The circle had a radius of 4,000 km (just under 2,500 miles) and was named the Valeriepieris circle after author Ken Myers’ username.

  As Visual Capitalist’s Trixie Pacis details below, acknowledging that the Valeriepieris circle is not actually a circle (it was drawn on a two-dimensional map rather than a globe) and is based on data that has become outdated, mapmaker Alasdair Rae went digging and discovered what he calls The Yuxi Circle, the world’s most densely populated area.

  Introducing the Yuxi Circle

  Rae traced circles around 1,500 cities worldwide to find out how many people lived within a 4,000 km radius, just like the original Valeriepieris circle. He based his calculations on WorldPop data from 2020, based on a global population of 7.8 billion people.

  Of the 1,500 circles that Rae made calculations for, 148 contained populations of 4 billion or more. He found many examples in Asia including in China, Myanmar (Mandalay), Laos (Vientiane), Bangladesh (Chattogram), India (Agartala), Bhutan (Thimpu), and Vietnam (Hanoi) to name a few.

  But of them all, Yuxi, a city in the Yunnan province of China, has the largest population living within a 4,000 km radius: 4.32 billion.

  Put another way? The circle encompasses over 55% of the world’s population, despite including desolate areas like the Taklamakan Desert, the Tibetan Plateau, Mongolia, and Southern Siberia.

  

  Densely Populated Areas Around the Globe

  Rae’s search for densely populated clusters also turned up notable circles beyond Asia. They surrounded cities like Cairo, Paris, and Mexico City.

  Note: Keep in mind that the white lines on the flat maps are equidistant circles but will only look like circles when plotted on a globe.

  

  Circling Hanoi yields a population of 4.27 billion (54% of the global population). It was the runner up city circle in Rae’s original search.

  

  Circling Cairo yields a population of 2.29 billion. This circle reaches most of Europe while still containing populated areas of India, Pakistan, and Africa.

  

  Comparatively, circling Paris yields a population of 1.19 billion. This Euro-centric circle contains large tracts of water and scarcely populated islands such as Iceland and Greenland.

  

  Across the Atlantic, circling Mexico City yields a population of 0.73 billion. It’s significantly smaller than the other circles, as the total population in the Americas is concentrated in just three countries, the U.S., Mexico, and Brazil (not included in this circle).

  It’s worth noting that the Valeriepieris circle also inspired other people to look at population density in different ways. In 2015, Danny Quah of the London School of Economics looked more closely at the Valeriepieris circle and was inspired to find the smallest circle with more people living inside of it than outside. He determined that a circle with a radius of 3,300 km centered near Mong Khet, Myanmar was “the world’s tightest cluster of people.”

  While the Yuxi Circle contains the largest population using Rae’s approach as of early 2022, global populations are constantly changing. Who knows where the next Yuxi Circle will be?

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/16/2022 – 23:00

• Former Clinton Campaign Lawyer Made False Statements To Second Government Agency: Durham
  Former Clinton Campaign Lawyer Made False Statements To Second Government Agency: Durham

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman, who is accused of lying to the FBI when he claimed he was not handing over information about then-candidate Donald Trump in 2016, made false statements to CIA officers in a meeting after Trump was sworn into office, according to new filings by Special Counsel John Durham’s team.

  

  Sussman told James Baker, at the time the FBI’s general counsel, that he had “time-sensitive (and sensitive)” information to share before the pair met, according to a text message recently disclosed by prosecutors. In the same message, Sussman claimed he was “coming on my own—not on behalf of a client or company,” even though he’d been directed to deliver the information by Rodney Joffe, a technology executive, and billed the Clinton campaign for the work, according to prosecutors.

  Sussman provided Baker in a Sept. 19, 2016, meeting with white papers that alleged Trump’s business had a secret channel with a Russian bank, allegations the FBI later determined were untrue.

  On Feb. 9, 2017, Sussman met with CIA officers—where he also made false statements, according to the new filings.

  A memorandum introduced by the special counsel’s team and penned by a CIA official said that Sussman provided documents and thumb drives that he claimed contained data related to potential Russian activities linked with Trump.

  Sussman “advised that he was not representing a particular client,” according to the notes. Instead, he said he was conveying information from “contacts” who he believed “were acting in good faith and out of a sense of loyalty to the USG,” or U.S. government.

  That contradicts how Sussman told a former CIA employee, who was said to have helped set up the February meeting, that he “represents a client who does not want to be known,” according to notes of the meeting taken by the former employee.

  It also contradicts testimony Sussman delivered to the House Intelligence Committee. Under oath, Sussman said (pdf) he received the information “from a client of mine.”

  Sussman said he learned of the information by the summer of 2016 but only came forward months later because President Barack Obama ordered an intelligence review of possible Russian interference in elections.

  “This information seemed to fall roughly within that, and so I thought that might be—or my client thought that that might be something that was relevant for those that were gathering information regarding foreign-based actors,” Sussman said.

  

  Another apparently false statement relates to what Sussman said during the meeting with the CIA concerning his previous meeting with the FBI.

  Sussman gave the same information regarding the alleged secret channel to the CIA that he had to Baker. Sussman told the officers he had previously contacted Baker but on a “similar, though unrelated, matter,” according to the memo.

  In front of the congressional panel, Sussman said he had already passed on the information to the FBI before he met with the CIA.

  “In context, the defendant’s statement that he had provided the FBI with ‘similar, though unrelated’ allegations is false, or at best, misleading,” Durham’s team said in one of the new filings.

  Further, the CIA later concluded both the claim about the secret channel and a separate allegation, which was brought to the CIA and not the FBI, concerning Russian-made phones was “technically plausible,” did not “withstand technical scrutiny,” “contained gaps,” and “conflicted with [itself],” according to the special counsel’s office.

  Sussman’s lawyers in a separate filing said their client’s statement to the CIA “cannot possibly be part of the charged offense (concerning a single, different statement), and it was not made contemporaneously with the charged crime,” adding, “In fact, it was made five months later, in different circumstances, to a different agency, in a way that conflicts with the Special Counsel’s theory that Mr. Sussmann lied to Mr. Baker to help Hillary Clinton win the election—because the election was long since over.”

  The lawyers are not objecting to the admission of one of the statements Sussman made to the House panel concerning the CIA meeting but are objecting to the introduction of any evidence concerning the accuracy of the data he provided to the CIA.

  They also reserved the right “to introduce evidence rebutting the Special Counsel’s claims, including evidence that will demonstrate that Mr. Sussmann disclosed to CIA personnel that he had a client and that he had worked with political clients.”

  According to the CIA memo, Sussman did mention that his law firm was involved with Democrats, including Clinton, but also said that work was unrelated to his reasons for contacting the CIA.

  Sussman’s trial is slated to start on May 16 at federal court in Washington.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/16/2022 – 22:30

• Viral Tesla Video Flying Through Los Angeles Air Inspires Others 
  Viral Tesla Video Flying Through Los Angeles Air Inspires Others 

  Being a social media influencer isn’t always a good thing, especially when the content is dangerous. This causes vulnerable young people who see online content to copy those destructive behaviors. 

  Such as the TokToker in March, who decided to launch his Tesla Model S off the steepest roadway in Los Angeles at a high rate of speed and soared through the air before crashing into other cars. 

  For readers who don’t remember this insane video. Here you go:

  Now others are copying the idiot TikToker and making videos of their own, jumping vehicles through an Echo Park neighborhood. 

  According to automotive magazine Carscoops, the street has an insane 32% grade initially used to test cars. The copycats jumped a BMW X2 on the same roadway and set fire to the road this time around. 

  Seeing videos like these online normalizes dangerous behavior for younger folks and makes them prone to repeat such stupidity. This type of copycat behavior could give rise to even more stupid behavior in the area. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/16/2022 – 22:00

• COVID-19 Linked To Alzheimer's-Like Brain Changes, Study Suggests
  COVID-19 Linked To Alzheimer’s-Like Brain Changes, Study Suggests

  Authored by Jennifer Margulis via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  For some, it’s just a sniffle. But for others, COVID-19 can hit hard. Either way, some people who get COVID-19 will suffer from long-term effects. This is known as “long COVID,” and its sufferers are often referred to as “long haulers.” Chances are you already know about long COVID and you may even have been affected by it or have friends or family who are. What is less well known, however, is that neurological issues are common in long COVID.

  

  Broken Brains

  Brain inflammation, stroke, chronic headache, disturbed consciousness, cognitive impairment, and “brain fog” (an all-encompassing phrase to describe a condition that usually manifests as slow thinking, memory lapses, and difficulty concentrating) can all result after infection with the virus known as SARS-CoV-2.

  Even the illness’s unusual hallmarks, hyposmia, and hypogeusia—better known to us non-scientists as loss of smell and taste—are thought to be due to changes in nervous system function.

  But while both clinicians and patients have noticed a myriad of brain issues post infection, scientists don’t know very much about how SARS-CoV-2 infections can lead to impaired brain function.

  That may be changing.

  A study published on Feb. 3 in Alzheimer’s & Dementia sheds light on a potential physiological mechanism behind the neurological problems COVID-19 survivors experience.

  While the deeper insight into what is going on is good news, unfortunately, there’s bad news, too.

  The new study, “Alzheimer’s-Like Signaling in Brains of COVID-19 Patients,” includes some disturbing findings.

  Attacking ACE2 Receptors

  The study, led by Andrew R. Marks, a cardiologist and chair of the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in Manhattan, consisted of analysis of brain tissue collected from 10 people who died from COVID-19.

  Marks’s team looked posthumously at the brains of four women who ranged in age from 38 to 80, and six men, ages 57 to 84.

  It’s already known that the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 binds to ACE2 receptors all over the body, including in the heart, lungs, kidneys, and epithelial cells that line the blood vessels.

  Scientists also believe that the multi-system failure that can result in death from COVID-19 is likely due to this invasion of heart and lung cells via these ACE2 receptors.

  Since the receptors have been invaded by the virus, the activity of the enzyme associated with the receptors (angiotensin-converting enzyme) is reduced, as scientists explained in a 2021 article published on The Conversation.

  The damage to the lungs and heart is usually uppermost in doctors’ minds when patients are experiencing severe illness. But, it turns out, there are also ACE2 receptors in the brain.

  Unless you’re a neuroscientist, this is pretty technical. Stay with me anyway. Decreased ACE2 activity is associated with increased activity in transforming growth factor-beta (“TGF-beta”). And high levels of TGF-beta in the brain are associated with irregularities in the “tau” proteins that stabilize nerve cells, specifically due to something called “hyperphosphorylation.”

  Phosphorylation, a normal biological process, is the addition of phosphate to an organic molecule, in this case, the tau protein.

  Hyperphosphorylation is the addition of too many phosphate groups at too many sites.

  Hyperphosphorylation can result in proteins with excess filaments that get tangled up. And these tau filament “tangles” are associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

  Leaky Brains

  Marks and his five colleagues at Columbia University investigated whether people who died of COVID-19 exhibited evidence of tau protein irregularities that are associated with Alzheimer’s.

  A significant body of recent research suggests that calcium ions “leaking” from certain ion channels in the brain, known as ryanodine receptors, may cause these tau irregularities.

  Ion channels enable the flow of ions through cell membranes, including brain cells (neurons). In a nutshell, ions enable the flow of electrical charges throughout the body and this flow is critical to the function of all cells. It’s, in one sense, the communication system of the body and one of the primary mechanisms of brain function.

  Healthy brain function relies on ion channels, such as the ryanodine receptors just mentioned, operating as they should. Just as there are dangers when an electrical wire is “leaking” electricity due to a short, there are risks when these ion channels leak ions. Oxidative stress may be responsible for depleting calbindin, a protein that helps keep these channels closed, preventing them from leaking. When the levels of calbindin are low, channels that should remain closed may start to leak calcium.

  Too many calcium ions floating around in the brain or anywhere else in the body can cause a number of health problems.

  Marks’s team examined the brain tissue of the 10 people who died from COVID to see if there was evidence of leaks.

  More specifically, they analyzed the contents of the brain tissue for markers of TGF-beta activity. They found evidence of increased TGF-beta activity in both the cortex and the cerebellum. They also found evidence of increased oxidative stress.

  Cerebellum Concerns

  People who suffer from Alzheimer’s show evidence of tau filament “tangles” only in the cortexes of their brains, not in the cerebellum.

  However, this Columbia University research indicated that, unlike with Alzheimer’s, COVID may cause disturbances in the cerebellum as well.

  The cerebellum is involved in balance, coordination of movement, language, and posture, according to the University of Texas Health Science Center.

  Other recent research has shown that 74 percent of hospitalized COVID patients have had coordination problems. If COVID is compromising the cerebellum as well as the cortex, this may help explain the coordination issues clinicians have observed.

  Interestingly, though this was a small study, all the people who died had evidence of brain pathology. The TGF-beta marker was found in all the brains, even those of the younger patients who had exhibited no sign of dementia prior to coming down with COVID-19.

  Most people have heard that the presence of beta-amyloid plaques in the brain is an indication of Alzheimer’s. Even though lowered ACE2 activity is also associated with an increase in beta-amyloid plaques, the Columbia team didn’t find any changes in the pathways that lead to the formation of amyloid beta in the brains of the patients who died from COVID (with the exception of one 84-year-old male who was previously suffering from dementia). This is one notable distinction between the pathology of COVID-19 and Alzheimer’s or dementia.

  Treating Neurological Symptoms

  Marks’s interest in the ryanodine ion channels is long-standing, and his recent COVID-related research may lead to financial benefits should other researchers affirm his findings. In 2011, a research team led by Marks demonstrated that a class of drugs, Rycals, may be effective in treating heart failure and muscle disorders by stabilizing the same ryanodine ion channels this new research indicates may be affected by COVID-19 infections.

  One drug from this class, ARM210, has been in the clinical-trial stage but has been officially classified as an orphan drug because the illness it was intended to treat was so rare.

  Marks told ScienceDaily that his study indicates a potential target for therapeutic interventions for the neurological symptoms of COVID.

  “My greatest hope is that other laboratories will look into our findings, and if they are validated, generate interest in a clinical trial for long COVID,” he said.

  Both Columbia University and Marks own stock in ARMGO Pharma, Inc., the company that has been developing drugs to target ryanodine channels. They also own patents on Rycals, according to a conflict of interest statement at the bottom of this study. Another of the study’s co-authors, Steven Reiken, has been consulting for ARMGO. While conflicts of interest like these are fairly typical for published scientific research, and they don’t invalidate the research, they are an important part of the overall picture that shouldn’t be ignored.

  It also isn’t unusual for a drug created for one purpose to find new life treating other conditions. In some cases, these new uses prove more important than the original intended use of the drug.

  In their paper, the Columbia team wrote that “ex vivo treatment of COVID-19 patient brain samples with the Rycal drug ARM210 … fixed the channel leak.”

  While that may suggest a promising avenue for further investigation, applying a drug to brain tissue in the lab is a long way from giving it to living patients.

  Vaccine-Linked Neurological Damage

  While COVID is linked to neurological issues, the same also appears to be true with the vaccine itself. My colleague Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of the book “Toxic Legacy,” is concerned that COVID-19 vaccines also have the potential to cause brain damage.

  “Vaccines produce the spike protein, which is the part of the virus that binds to the ACE2 receptors,” said Seneff, who wasn’t involved in the Columbia research. “I suspect this means that the vaccine could also disable the receptors and cause the same neurological damage.”

  In fact, Seneff said, brain damage from the vaccine may be more common than brain damage from the naturally acquired infection. Vaccine-induced spike proteins “get into the brain more easily than the virus does,” she said. “The virus only gets into the brain when a person has a compromised immune system. But the vaccine is injected into the muscle, which means it bypasses natural barriers that would normally keep the virus out of the brain.”

  In May 2021, Seneff and her colleague Dr. Greg Nigh, an oncologist based in Portland, Oregon, published a paper in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research explaining their hypothesis that the mRNA vaccines may be worse than the disease itself.

  Since then, she said, she has been studying the reports of vaccine adverse events that are collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In this new research, Seneff has found that 96 percent of all of the reported adverse outcomes in the year 2021 that have been related to neurological issues are connected to COVID vaccines. These adverse neurological events include memory disorders, mobility issues, difficulty swallowing, and loss of sense of smell.

  “All these things that are showing up in VAERS are striking,” Seneff said. “Overwhelmingly, the events that show neurological issues are following COVID-19 vaccines. I honestly don’t know why people aren’t absolutely shocked by these numbers. Compared to the other vaccines, these vaccines seem tremendously dangerous.”

  *  *  *

  Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D., is an award-winning journalist and author of “Your Baby, Your Way: Taking Charge of Your Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Parenting Decisions for a Happier, Healthier Family.” A Fulbright awardee and mother of four, she has worked on a child survival campaign in West Africa, advocated for an end to child slavery in Pakistan on prime-time TV in Paris, and taught post-colonial literature to non-traditional students in inner-city Atlanta. Learn more about her at JenniferMargulis.net.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/16/2022 – 21:30

• Canada Can't Find Enough Workers To Fulfill Trudeau's Promise To Build More Houses
  Canada Can’t Find Enough Workers To Fulfill Trudeau’s Promise To Build More Houses

  The Bank of Canada has committed to trying to cool off the country’s housing market (and stem inflation more broadly) with a 50 bp rate hike, but PM Justin Trudeau’s efforts to try and undercut housing prices no matter the cost as mortgage debt surges has run into another obstacle that policymakers should have perhaps anticipated: in the country of nearly 40 million people, there simply aren’t enough workers to deliver on the Liberal Government’s plans.

  

  Interestingly, this remains true despite the Trudeau government’s best efforts to try and spur immigration. Maybe they shouldn’t have alienated all of those blue-collar workers during the “Freedom Truckers” episode.

  As for the government’s promises, boosting housing supply (via generous federal subsidies: the largest housing measure in the new budget is a C$4 billion – $3.2 billion) has been the centerpiece of the government’s plan.

  Boosting supply was the centerpiece of the housing plan laid out in the Trudeau government’s spring budget. It said Canada has averaged around 200,000 new housing units annually in recent years and pledged to “double our current rate of new construction over the next decade.”

  Unsurprisingly, a handful of analysts quoted by BBG have poured cold water on the government’s promises. Given the current rate of housing construction, doubling it simply isn’t feasible due to two primary reasons: skilled blue-collar labor is “scarce”, and municipal governments are prepared to fight any efforts to combat increased housing density (text courtesy of Bloomberg).

  • The plan quickly prompted skepticism from analysts. “Dollars to doughnuts this won’t happen, and not for lack of good intentions,” Robert Kavcic, senior economist with the Bank of Montreal, wrote this week in a note to investors.
  • Avery Shenfield, chief economist at CIBC World Markets, also doubted the feasibility of the plan given labor constraints: “Without a targeted immigration plan, or a concerted effort to convince young residents to consider taking up a hammer rather than a laptop, we’re going to continue to struggle to ramp up supply enough to allow more Canadians to own their own castle,” he wrote Thursday.

  Trudeau appointee Ahmed Hussen, who is the current Canadian housing minister, has offered a feeble defense of the government’s promises, while trying to slough off blame on municipal governments. Here are some highlights from an interview he did with Bloomberg.

  • “The issue of housing supply is critical to our future success as a country,” Hussen said in an interview with Bloomberg. Hussen said he knows this skepticism is out there, but argued his government has already shown it can deliver on ambitious programs. Last year the Liberals pledged to get every province to sign on to a universal child care program, and they got the final piece in place last month when Ontario agreed.
  • “Skepticism can be expressed, but the fact is we have shown a track record and an ability to build and collaborate with other orders of government,” he said.
  • “You have to demonstrate the political will to tackle those barriers,” Hussen said of municipalities. As examples, he pointed to zoning changes to allow for more density near transit stations and requiring affordable housing in new developments.
  • “If they’re not willing to do any of those, or even present a credible plan to tackle these barriers, then we simply will not engage,” Hussen said. “But I believe that all municipalities will welcome this,” he added. The program has support from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the big city mayors’ caucus, Hussen said.

  Canadian housing prices were already high before the pandemic, but they rose more than 50% during the past two years due to similar factors that drove US housing prices higher as well.

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  The price surge has become a critical political issue for Trudeau, and his conservative opponents are already seizing on it to hammer him and his Liberal government. The big question now is whether he will be able to tackle it before the next federal election in October 2025.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/16/2022 – 21:00

• Debt Saturation: Off The Cliff We Go
  Debt Saturation: Off The Cliff We Go

  Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

  When the system can’t borrow more and distribute the insolvency, it implodes

  I started writing about debt saturation back in 2011. The basic idea is we can continue to borrow and spend as long as one of two conditions hold: 1) real (inflation-adjusted) income is rising, so there’s more income to service additional debt, or 2) the cost of borrowing declines so the same income can support more debt.

  

  After 13 long years of declining interest rates and stagnant incomes for the bottom 90%, we’ve finally reached debt saturation: after dropping to near-zero, interest rates are now rising, pushing the cost of debt service higher, while wages are losing purchasing power (a.k.a. inflation), so there’s less disposable income left to service debt.

  The game plan for the past 13 years was to fund “growth” today by borrowing vast sums from future incomes: the $1.6 trillion in student loan debt, for example, was supposed to be paid by the soaring wages of all those student-loan-serfs, and all the sovereign debt was supposed to be paid by the soaring tax revenues from rapidly expanding economies.

  

  These fantasies have now run aground on the unforgiving shoals of reality. There’s no way to expand debt if income is losing ground and the cost of borrowing is soaring.

  As I observed in 2012, Spreading Insolvency Around Does Not Create Solvency (August 23, 2012). In 2011, I used a different analogy: The World Is Drowning in Debt, and Europe Laces On Concrete Boots (November 14, 2011).

  Saturation is an interesting phenomenon. You keep adding more and more to a system that seems to absorb “more” with no ill effects, and then suddenly the whole mountainside gives way and rumbles off the cliff.

  There’s a runaway feedback loop aspect to debt saturation. Think of a planetary atmosphere where you keep adding greenhouse gases. The atmosphere keeps absorbing more greenhouse gases with little effect until a saturation point is reached and then the atmosphere loses its negative feedback mechanisms that kept the system stable.

  At that point, the feedback is all positive, i.e. every additional unit of greenhouse gases doesn’t just trap an additional unit of heat, it multiplies the effect. (The atmosphere of Venus is hot enough to melt lead–900 F or 475 C.)

  We see this same dynamic in debt saturation: the breakdown is accelerating rapidly. Since households burned through their stimulus bonanza, the savings rate has fallen and credit card balances are soaring. But this is not low-cost debt, it’s high-cost debt, so those additional credit card balances will soon stripmine disposable income, leaving less for additional spending or debt service.

  The “temporary debt forgiveness” ploy is staving off the day of reckoning in student loan serfdom. Rather than admit the student loan scam is unsustainable, the status quo plays an absurd game of pushing the date that student loan interest will have to be paid forward. This works until it doesn’t.

  Meanwhile, with mortgage rates over 5% for the first time in a decade, the housing bubble is popping. The runaway feedback of higher mortgages and slowing sales will accelerate price declines and mortgage delinquencies far faster than the mainstream anticipates.

  Rising bond yields will push the cost of government borrowing higher, too. Borrowing money to pay the interest on borrowing money is another feedback loop of doom: it’s downright inconvenient when most of the income tax revenues are devoted to servicing government debt, leaving little for the rest of the government’s vast spending.

  There’s a lot of shuck and jive in income and wealth statistics to mask the doom-loop of debt saturation. Oh, the household is still doing just fine, we’re told: look at all the luscious wealth and income available to service more debt.

  What punctures the pretty fantasy is the reality that only the top 5% have plenty of income and wealth. The top 1% collect around 20% of all income and own 50% of all financial wealth, and the top 10% collect over 50% of all income and own roughly 90% of financial assets.

  

  The bottom 50% of households own less than 1% of financial wealth and the bottom 90% will discover how much of their “wealth” is phantom when the stock and housing bubbles pop.

  

  The point is wealth and income are highly concentrated in the U.S., so claiming households have plenty of wealth and income is a gross distortion. Yes, the top 5% (7 million households) could borrow more, but they have enough wealth and income that they don’t need to borrow more.

  

  Those who need to borrow more to survive can’t borrow more: households, zombie corporations, and local znd national governments.

  Top 1% of U.S. Earners Now Hold More Wealth Than All of the Middle Class

  The U.S. Income Distribution: Trends and Issues

  

  There’s no tricks left to keep expanding debt: rates are rising, not falling, and wages are losing ground to the soaring costs of rent, adjustable mortgages, healthcare, childcare, food, energy, junk fees, property taxes, etc. As for the phantom wealth of bubbles: as rates rise and the Federal Reserve trims its stimulus, all the bubbles will pop.

  When the system can’t borrow more and distribute the insolvency, it implodes. And so off the cliff we go.

  

  *  *  *

  Tip of the hat to Adam Taggart of wealthion.com for suggesting it was an appropriate moment to revisit this topic–thank you, Adam.

  My new book is now available at a 10% discount this month: Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $8.95, print $20). If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/16/2022 – 20:30

• Central Bank Digital Currencies Are Doomed To Fail – And Here's Why
  Central Bank Digital Currencies Are Doomed To Fail – And Here’s Why

  As central banks including the Fed, the ECB and (of course) the PBOC (along with some 85 others) scramble to roll out their own digital currencies, some naive crypto bros might assume that the financial establishment and the government have completely embraced cryptocurrencies. But as we have pointed out before, this isn’t exactly true. The reality is that while they have spoken of ‘the financial revolution,’ they have only embraced some aspects of cryptocurrency.

  For example, they have embraced the fact that all transactions on a digital blockchain can be carefully tracked and monitored, assuming they are the ones in control of said blockchain. This deep level of vision and insight would allow centralized financial authorities (like the Fed) to exert unprecedented levels of control over Americans’ spending habits.

  

  But what impact will the advent of digital currencies have on the dollar’s hegemonic status in the global monetary order? Fed expert Jim Bianco offered some very interesting thoughts on this topic during his latest interview with MacroVoices’ Erik Townsend, where he offered an interesting prediction.

  First, Bianco pointed out that many of the central banks that are most advanced in their CBDC projects are members of the emerging and frontier market classifications. As we have noted before, three CBDCs have already gone fully live in the past two years: the so-called DCash in the Eastern Caribbean, the Sand Dollar in the Bahamas and the eNaira in Nigeria (and, of course, the PBOC is making swift progress with its “e-RMB”).

  One reason why central banks in emerging markets are so eager to accelerate the transition to digital currencies is because many are growing frustrated with the realities of American hegemony. Even the IMF (or at least some of its senior officials) has acknowledged that western sanctions are undermining international faith in the dollar-based monetary system.

  Here’s Bianco, responding to a question from Townsend about a theoretical global monetary system managed by a consortium of central banks and based on a kind if supranational digital currency.

  So you’re seeing the adoption rate, really what’s pushing this is Asia, Africa, the Middle East, knowing that they’ve been at the short end of the stick having not to have access to world capital markets, or to banking services at a reasonable rate. And wanting to have that. That’s why you’re seeing the adoption of places like in El Salvador, and potentially in Argentina, as well, too. Because they have been shut out of the capital markets, they need the permission of entities like the World Bank, or the IMF to do certain things. They are punished if they do things that displeasures, the first world or the United States, or the IMF, or the World Bank. And so that’s why they want some kind of system like that.

  This shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody (at least, not those with at least a base level of understanding of economics). As both Bianco and Townsend point out, the concept of “exorbitant privilege” is nothing new.

  What you wind up doing is making it fair for the rest of the world because one of the problems the current global financial system has, is it’s more of a tiered system that if you’re further up the list in the United States is at the top of the list, you get more privileges, better, cheaper financing, better access to markets. As you move further down the list, you get less access, things become more expensive.

  With this in mind, remember: despite the Fed’s best efforts to develop a CBDC of its own, the US would likely do everything in its power to make sure the type of system described by Townsend above – that is, one where control is distributed among various central banks, and not concentrated in the hands of the Fed (and its supplicants) – never comes to be, since that would eliminate the ‘exorbitant privilege’ of the American economy (and create serious problems as the Treasury would likely be forced to pay higher interest rates on its massive debt).

  But there’s another obstacle to CBDCs: the fact that people remember how the Canadian government treated people who donated to the Canadian Truckers (they were essentially frozen out of the financial system for something that was completely legal and normal). Because of this, they remember how easily the government can exercise control over their lives via their money. So, presumably, millions of people wouldn’t be comfortable with central banks exercising even more direct control of the financial system (having wiped out the intermediaries of the banking system due to CBDCs).

  A central bank, digital currency makes that a lot more efficient. And so you’ve heard calls in the wake of that incident, that this is going to hurt the adoption of a central bank digital currency. Yes, they may create one. And yes, they might even take on potentially disrupting their banking system. But will people willingly say I want to keep my money with the Federal Reserve. And then one day, they might donate to a group, and remember, this happened with the truckers back in February. That people donated to the truckers, and it was perfectly legal, and it was fine. And then the Canadian government invented a word called retroactive law, that when you donate it in the beginning of February, to these truckers that was perfectly legal and fine. But by the end of February, when we decided that they we didn’t like that group, we’re gonna go retroactively back and punish you by freezing your account for doing that activity. I don’t want to make it easy for them. I don’t want to keep my money with a central bank directly in a digital currency. So they’ve got issues that they have to resolve the issues are not technological issues. The issues are more about control, privacy rights in policy that they have to work through. And so therefore, I think we’re still a ways away from seeing a central bank digital currency, because those issues haven’t been resolved

  For this reason, Townsend says, he believes the launch of a Fed CBDC would be “a big flop”.

  And my prediction is CBDCs, issued by central banks will be designed, first of all, to make it much easier for governments to do all sorts of crazy things like freeze people’s bank accounts, and, you know, automatically if they say something against the government narrative, as happened in Canada, as you described. And I don’t think that they’re going to be open to a supranational system. So for that reason, I think what’s much more likely is the CBDCs get developed, and they get launched with a big flop, and nobody really cares.

  And both Townsend and Bianco agree: the biggest obstacles to CBDC is skepticism and reluctance among the end users, since CBDCs will never be designed with the needs and desires of the users in mind (on the contrary, they’re being designed in accordance to the rules of the end government).

  Bianco offered the launch of China’s e-RMB as an example: the PBOC literally offered people free money to use it, but the currency came with “all these rules” about how people were required to spend it. As a result, the program wasn’t very successful.

  I absolutely would agree with that. And it’s not only the permissioning too, it’s the rules too. Just give you one example, in China, they’d have issued a central bank digital currency, a digital yuan. And one of the things that they did with it was, they put on its a bunch of rules that if you actually bought into this currency, you were in to use the crypto version, you are airdropped money, they put extra money in your account. But they put rules on what you could do with the money, you had to spend it in a certain period of time, I think they gave you 30 days. And you had to spend it on certain things, and you couldn’t spend it on other things. And even in China, even though they were giving you free money, with all those rules, didn’t go over very well. People don’t like you know, to have all of those restrictions.

  This is why there’s so much excitement in the decentralized space: because users are inherently excited by the idea of a ‘parameter-less’ currency, that’s beyond the reach of governments and sanctions.

  The creators want to do it, because they say, good, we could do all these rules and permissions. And we could we can affect behavior by changing the parameters. And the people that would use it say, well, I’d only use it if you left me alone, completely parameterless with it, let me do with it what I want when I want it. And that’s why you’re seeing people more and more gravitate towards the crypto space that is permissionless, that is decentralized, so no one controls it as well, too. And you’re seeing the excitement in the decentralized finance space really starts around what is referred to as stable coins. And a stable coin is just a digital token that is supposed to have its value pegged to something else.

  Readers can listen to the full interview below:

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/16/2022 – 20:00

• Lack Of Attention Allowed Special Interests To Take Over Schools: Journalist Luke Rosiak
  Lack Of Attention Allowed Special Interests To Take Over Schools: Journalist Luke Rosiak

  Authored by Masooma Haq and Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times,

  Investigative journalist and author of the book Race To the Bottom: Uncovering the Secret Forces Destroying American Public Education, said he started to notice a disturbing trend of special interest groups taking over the public schools to implement their radical agenda prior to the pandemic, which they only advanced further during the lockdowns.

  “I basically saw that something was coming, that schools mattered, and that no one was paying attention to them. And because of that, special interests had really started colonizing these schools,” Rosiak told host of American Thought Leaders Jan Jekielek in a recent interview. “It was almost everywhere.”

  

  Funders, teachers’ unions, and associations are working together to inculcate an extreme ideology in public schools in the name of “equity” or critical race theory (CRT), which was partially exposed when children were home during the pandemic.

  “So, I mean, one of the most important concepts to understand is equity,” said Rosiak, they don’t call it CRT.

  “But almost every school district in the country is on record supporting equity, and equity is a very bad thing. It means equal outcomes by race.”

  He likened the equity agenda to communism, saying, “that means forcing equal outcomes by either bringing the top performers down or by just rigging the stats.”

  The stated goal of communism is to eliminate any economic disparities, having everyone be equal, no matter the effort.

  In the name of equity, during Barack Obama’s second presidential term, the Department of Justice sent a letter to every school district telling them they will “be investigated unless your discipline rates were the same for all races,” said Rosiak. As a consequence, discipline was severely limited, and learning in classrooms was impacted.

  

  The 2014 DOJ letter states: “Regardless of the program adopted, federal law prohibits public school districts from discriminating in the administration of student discipline based on certain personal characteristics.”

  “The Departments initiate investigations of student discipline policies and practices at particular schools based on complaints the Departments receive from students, parents, community members, and others about possible racial discrimination in student discipline,” the letter reads.

  Rosiak has found that special interest groups running schools have installed equity departments, which have authority over all school policies, to ensure their equity agenda is advanced.

  “But what they do is they implant the equity stuff above it all,” Rosiak said. Every decision from every department has to then be cleared by the equity department because of its impact on race, he said.

  Two of those equity groups are called Policy Link and The Government Alliance on Race and Equity (“a national network of government working to achieve racial equity and advance opportunities for all”), which are two nonprofits many school districts use.

  Rosiak said that instead of implementing rigorous academic programs, district and teacher union heads are pushing for equity initiatives that lower the bar for students. Some of these actions include lower testing requirements or getting rid of certain types of tests altogether.

  “So essentially, yeah, in pursuit of equity, they have stopped measuring things, they started cooking the books, they started orienting everything around the lowest common denominator,” said Rosiak.

  “We’re not even trying to get them to be smart, because it’s better for the teachers to look like they’re succeeding, and that they’re not failing these kids, and they’re not creating these disparities.”

  

  He said New York City’s Stuyvesant High School is a school where standardized testing was required for merit-based entry and kids had to be skilled but because of pressure from racial equity activists, they stopped using the standardized test.

  “And it (merit-based entry) was really a way to keep the elites from capturing the school. And the merit, was the great equalizer, and it brought this very rigorous school to the middle class and the working class,” said Rosiak.

  “Don’t use the exam to get into the math school, because asking kids to answer math questions is not a good way to determine whether they know math.”

  Rosiak said all this effort is to make the schools look like they are not failing to teach, the one million students in New York, especially minority students. This is even more outrageous when you know that each student cost the NYC taxpayers, $29,000 per year.

  “So why did they care so much? What happens to these 20,000 kids at the specialized schools? And the answer is because it’s the optics, when you look at Stuyvesant, what you see is sort of a big picture of how kids are doing in New York City as a whole.”

  The equity framework being pushed by schools puts subjective truth above objective truth, said Rosiak.

  “A society can’t function on some philosophical framework that rejects objectivity, but that’s what CRT does. It positions ‘lived experience’, which is just whatever you say it is, and how you feel. So that’s what ‘counter storytelling’ is.”

  According to Columbia University Storytelling (page 142) Project Curriculum, “Counter stories are new stories that we deliberately construct to challenge the stock stories, build on and amplify resistance stories to interrupt the status quo and work for change.”

  In counter story-telling, “subjectivity, preempts objectivity, but only if it furthers critical race theory. So, in other words, both of our feelings matter, but our feelings only matter if they serve the ends of CRT. And if your lived experience is something that doesn’t help advance the CRT takeover, then your lived experience doesn’t matter,” Rosiak added.

  During the pandemic, school officials pushed through more of this agenda including, converting letter grades to standards-based assessments.

  “And so, they have all these different schemes that they had always been wanting to do for like 10 years, and during coronavirus you see them, ramming them through all at once,” he said.

  “We can’t do the tests, and therefore, we can’t have gifted and talented and magnet schools because there are no tests. We’re not going to do letter grades because a lot of kids are just being totally failed by remote learning.”

  Wealthy Foundations Funding School Associations

  “So, there are radical ideologues that have taken over all of the associations, and the groups that are doing that are basically the philanthropic foundations like the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation,” said Rosiak.

  The foundations, work with the teacher’s associations to further the funders’ racist agenda and hide the fact that the teachers/schools are failing students, which Rosiak calls the “alliance of convenience”.

  “When there is a jurisdiction that does these radical policies, the associations can then replicate it all over the country,” said Rosiak. “What they do is they say it’s best practices because another district has done it. But it doesn’t actually have to be effective.”

  Rosiak said the evidence he has found, points to the fact that the wealthy elite class wants to preserve their status.

  “So, it was basically social Darwinism…,” said Rosiak. “One of the things they may want to do is preserve the status quo of the elites at the top, and then this permanent black underclass, the best way to preserve a permanent black underclass is to completely refuse to educate them properly.”

  An example Rosiak gives, of this ideology is schools labeling habits that help high achievers, as being a part of white supremacy.

  “And so, when they say things like blacks can’t show up on time, or can’t be expected to get the right answer or worship of the written word, that’s a function of whiteness, like these are insane, racist ideas that are just saying blacks aren’t good enough. It’s horrible.”

  These foundations have always given out money and propagated their ideas but more recently they have consolidated their efforts, Rosiak said.

  

  “I think of it as like a multi-headed monster, it brings together all the foundations and it actually serves as a vehicle through which they can all coordinate.”

  He said one of these ventures is called the HUB project.

  “And so, they do things like they run fake news, websites that purport to be like a local news source covering maybe your local school board election, but it’s really a completely contrived thing for the purposes of pushing these political ideas.”

  Rosiak urges parents and any taxpayer who cares, to start going to school board meetings and questioning schools and hold these groups accountable for the poor and skewed education children are receiving.

  “Because paying an average of $17,000 per student per year, which is what we pay, and getting an average of 36 percent literacy among 12th graders 24 percent proficiency in math, that’s a completely untenable reality. And once we realize it, something’s going to have to change.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/16/2022 – 19:30

• Mapped: US Wind Electricity Generation By State
  Mapped: US Wind Electricity Generation By State

  Wind power is the most productive renewable energy source in the U.S., generating nearly half of America’s renewable energy.

  But, as Visual Capitalist’s Niccolo Conte details below, wind doesn’t blow fairly across the nation, so which states are contributing the most to U.S. wind energy generation?

  This map uses data from the EIA to show how much wind electricity different U.S. states generate, and breaks down wind’s share of total electricity generation in top wind power producing states.

  

  Wind Electricity Generation by State Compared

  America’s wind energy generating states are all primarily located in the Central and Midwest regions of the nation, where wind speeds are highest and most consistent.

  Texas is the runaway leader in wind, generating over 92 Terawatt-hours of electricity during a year, more than the next three top states (Iowa, Oklahoma, and Kansas) combined. While Texas is the top generator in terms of wind-powered electricity, wind only makes up 20% of the state’s total electricity generation.

  

  Data from Feb 2020-Feb 2021
  Source: EIA

  Meanwhile, wind makes up a much larger share of net electricity generation in states like Iowa (58%), Oklahoma (35%), and Kansas (43%). For both Iowa and Kansas, wind is the primary energy source of in-state electricity generation after overtaking coal in 2019.

  The U.S. also has 10 states with no wind power generating facilities, all primarily located in the Southeast region.

  How Does Wind Energy Work?

  Humans have been harnessing wind power for millennia, with windmills originally relying on wind to pump water or mill flour.

  Today’s wind turbines work similarly, with their large blades generating electricity as wind causes them to rotate. As these blades are pushed by the wind, a connected internal shaft that is attached to an electric generator also turns and generates electricity.

  Wind power is one of the safest sources of energy and relies on one key factor: wind speeds. When analyzing minimum wind speeds for economic viability in a given location, the following annual average wind speeds are needed:

  • Small wind turbines: Minimum of 4 meters per second (9 miles per hour)
  • Utility-scale wind turbines: Minimum of 5.8 meters per second (13 miles per hour)

  Source: EIA

  Unsurprisingly, the majority of America’s onshore wind turbine infrastructure is located in the middle of the nation, where wind speeds are highest.

  Growing America’s Wind Turbine Capacity

  While wind energy only made up 0.2% of U.S. electricity generating capacity in 1990, it is now essential for the clean energy transition. Today, wind power makes up more than 10% of U.S. electricity generating capacity, and this share is set to continue growing.

  Record-breaking wind turbine installations in 2020 and 2021, primarily in the Central and Midwest regions, have increased U.S. wind energy generation by 30% to 135.1 GW.

  In 2020, the U.S. increased wind turbine capacity by 14.2 gigawatts, followed by another 17.1 gigawatts in 2021. This year is set to see another 7.6 GW come online, with around half of 2022’s added capacity located in Texas.

  After two years of record-breaking wind turbine installations, 2021’s expiration of the U.S. production tax credit is likely to dampen the rate of future installations.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/16/2022 – 19:00

• Blinken: Ukraine War Will Last Through 2022
  Blinken: Ukraine War Will Last Through 2022

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Washington’s European allies that the US believes the war in Ukraine could last through the end of 2022, CNN reported Friday, citing two European officials.

  The report said that many Western officials have assessed there’s no short-term end in sight for the war, and public comments from US officials have reflected this. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has warned of a “protracted conflict” that he said could go on “for months or even longer.”

  

  Last week, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley has said he believes the war will continue for years. “I do think this is a very protracted conflict, and I think it’s measured in years. I don’t know about decade, but at least years for sure,” he told the House Armed Services Committee.

  A senior State Department official told CNN that Blinken has “has discussed with his counterparts our concern that the conflict could be protracted, but all of his engagements have revolved around how best to bring it to a halt as quickly as possible.”

  But Blinken hasn’t explored diplomacy with Russia as a potential avenue to bring about an end to the war. Blinken hasn’t spoken with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, since February 15, and President Biden doesn’t appear to have plans to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

  Instead of diplomacy with Moscow, the US is significantly increasing its military aid to Ukraine. On Wednesday, Biden authorized a new $800 million weapons package for Ukraine, bringing the total military aid pledged since Russia invaded on February 24 to about $2.6 billion.

  A second senior State Department official told CNN that the US has “done a lot and so we do have faith and we always had faith in our Ukrainian partners. But as the fight doubles down, so does our commitment to give them weapons and equipment that they can use.”

  Supply crates containing munitions and other explosive material bound for Ukraine are loaded at Dover Air Force Base in March 2022. pic.twitter.com/stoaiHyvHn

  — Department of Defense 🇺🇸 (@DeptofDefense) April 15, 2022

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

  Russia formally warned the US this week to stop arming Ukraine in a diplomatic note sent to the State Department by the Russian Embassy in Washington. The Russians said that the Western campaign to arm Ukraine was “adding fuel” to the conflict and could lead to “unpredictable consequences.”

  Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in negotiations, but the US and its allies have signaled they don’t want Kyiv to grant any concessions to Moscow. The Washington Post reported last week that for some NATO members “it’s better for the Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying, than to achieve a peace that comes too early or at too high a cost to Kyiv and the rest of Europe.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/16/2022 – 18:30

• Ford's F-150 Lightning Electric Pickup Truck Has Finally Arrived
  Ford’s F-150 Lightning Electric Pickup Truck Has Finally Arrived

  The Ford F-150 Lightning pickup is officially coming to compete with Tesla. 

  We have been tracking interest in Ford’s flagship electric pickup projects and have watched reservations and consumer interest pick up over the last year.

  Now, it looks the pickup is finally ready to hit the road – and Elon Musk’s Cybertruck, its most obvious competition, is still nowhere to be found. 

  Ford executives have said the new pickup is going to be worth the wait. Linda Zhang, chief engineer on the project, told Bloomberg: “We were dealing with a ton of skepticism internally. It couldn’t just be a battery on wheels. We wanted it to be a real American truck that does work.”

  This meant Ford had to create features that “hand’t been invented yet,” Zhang said. The truck’s “frunk”, for example, can hold 400 pounds of cargo and is comprised of 14 cubic feet of space. 

  In selling an electric pickup, Ford is beginning to convert its extremely popular F-Series, which sells about 900,000 trucks a year, to electric. 

  

  “Does it keep us up at night? You betcha,” CEO Jim Farley told Bloomberg. “It’s America’s most popular vehicle, and there is no more trusted brand in our industry. It feels a lot like the Model A launch in 1928.”

  While conducting research on electric vehicles with truck owners in Texas, Ford got mixed responses to the idea of an electric pickup. 

  Darren Palmer, vice president for Ford’s global EV programs, said during market research they asked Texans if EVs were a dog, which breed would they be?

  Palmer recalls: “This huge, burly Texan scoffs and says, ‘It would be one of those little Chihuahuas.’ Then we said, ‘OK, what kind of drink would it be?’ And he scoffs again and says, ‘Pink Champagne.’ ”

  But Ford thinks it has gotten the Lightning right. The Lightning goes on sale in late April with a price that starts around $40,000.

  Ford currently has nearly 200,000 reservations and has been “overwhelmed” by the demand for the truck. The automaker has had to quadruple capacity at the factory where they are making the truck. 

  In addition to the non-existent Cybertruck, the Lightning will be competing against Rivian’s R1T truck and GMC’s electric Hummer. They cost $80,000 and $112,595, respectively. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/16/2022 – 18:00

• Basic Solutions To Our Economic Problems That Establishment Elites Won't Allow
  Basic Solutions To Our Economic Problems That Establishment Elites Won’t Allow

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

  I think one of the great misconceptions about economic crisis is that solutions are always dependent on centralized government action. In truth, most financial disasters are actually caused by too much government action and involvement. Central banks like the Federal Reserve are also primary culprits; as I outlined in last week’s article their machinations, which are independent of government oversight, fall into the category of deliberate sabotage. The Fed bankrolls corruption through fiat money creation while government officials and corporations utilize that money to wreak havoc on our living standards.

  Ending the Fed would solve the fiat money problem, but there’s still a host of agenda driven politicians and bureaucrats to deal with before our nation can right the ship.

  

  One clear way to fix our system would be to first force government to interfere less. As a point of reference, consider the common media narratives surrounding the covid pandemic. Along with the White House the media has been the premier driver of irrational fear over the spread of covid, which ended up being a minor threat compared to the hype as the average Infection Fatality Rate was no more that 0.27%. Yet, in response to a virus that was a mortal danger to less than one-thrid of 1% of the population, bureaucrats declared a national emergency requiring insane and unconstitutional lockdowns.

  The lockdowns damaged the economy in ways people are only now beginning to comprehend, with hundred of thousands of small businesses lost across the country. Not only that, but the establishment responded to the economic implosion they created by printing over $6 trillion in new money through the Fed in 2020 alone. This helicopter money or beta test for UBI (Universal Basic Income) has expedited a stagflationary disaster and helped to push prices on necessities to 40 year highs (the official number).

  The media claims it is “covid that is causing the crash,” but this is a lie. It was the RESPONSE to covid that is causing the crash. The virus was incidental to the economic sabotage initiated by governments and central banks. As we saw in conservative red states that defied the lockdowns and the vax mandates, economic activity thrived while leftists blue states suffered. And what did these blue states get in return for their economic sacrifices? Nothing. Covid infections continued to rage in blue states and deaths often outpaced red states with similar sized populations.

  In other words, the lockdowns, the mask mandates and the attempts force vaccinations through medical tyranny saved ZERO lives and possibly made things worse. This is the legacy of government micro-management (And yes, let’s not forget that Trump went along with these lockdowns in the beginning of the pandemic also. Biden is just the dirt-bag that continued the measures despite the massive amount of evidence that they don’t work).

  While the covid event illustrates my point in a big way, there are a lot of deeply rooted problems that government intervention has caused that add up to one big fiscal calamity. Many of these threats require a basic but sweeping return to fundamentals that government elites will rarely address and will try to stop at all costs. Here are just a few examples…

  Inflation And Stagflation? Back The Dollar With Hard Commodities

  The federal reserve and their minions have spent the better part of a century trying to convince the public that a gold standard for our currency is what caused the Great Depression and what could cause future depressions. They claim that limitations on money printing strangle liquidity and disrupt velocity. This is a lie.

  Former fed chairman Ben Bernanke openly admitted in 2002 in a speech in honor of Milton Friedman that it was the CENTRAL BANK that actually caused the deflationary collapse of the 1930s, not the existence of the gold standard. This rare moment of truth from a fed official was perhaps due to the sheer amount of evidence that Friedman often cited that contradicted the original anti-gold propaganda. Or maybe it happened because the banking elites did not see Friedman as a particular threat, and figured no one among the public would read Bernanke’s speech anyway.

  In fact, a commodities foundation held the American economy together for centuries until the Fed came along and the government slowly began removing gold from the picture. All subsequent economic crisis events have been exponentially worse ever since. When a commodities standard is employed, stability always follows. Just look at what has happened in Russia recently; their currency was on a downward spiral due to international sanctions, yet, when they reopened markets this past week the Ruble skyrocketed back to normal. Why? Because Putin had the currency coupled to gold. It’s really that simple.

  The US and parts of Europe are facing their own inflationary disasters and this is largely due to the unchecked avarice of central bank stimulus and government spending. The ONLY way to secure the dollar’s existence as a stable store of wealth would be to back it with hard commodities like precious metals (among others). This might kill the dollar’s world reserve status because fiat printing would be impossible from that point on, but I got a news flash for those that hate the idea of grounding the dollar in commodities: We’re going to lose world reserve status anyway, and it’s going to happen soon.

  One third of the world’s population including Russia, China and India are already breaking from the dollar in bilateral trade. The US might as well accept this is the reality and prepare to mitigate the coming currency collapse by supporting the dollar with commodities.

  Oil Shortages And Energy Inflation? Stop Interfering With Oil Exploration

  In early February of this year the Biden Administration made legal filings which halted new oil and gas leases including exploration due to conflicts over “climate costs.” This interference with America’s oil independence is only one of many instances starting with Biden’s sabotage of the Keystone Pipeline in 2021. Interestingly, with gas prices doubling ever since Biden entered office, the White House now claims that they have nothing to do with energy inflation and are not preventing drilling in the US.

  During the same period Russia was establishing a decades long oil and gas contract with China and laying the groundwork for a major pipeline to be finished by 2025. And yes, China DOES in fact have the capacity along with India to absorb most of the oil and gas that might be shunned by Europe should they follow through with energy sanctions. Russia was planning ahead while the US was shifting from energy independence and net exporter status to once again becoming dependent on authoritarian regimes in the Arab world. Why?

  Biden’s excuse is usually climate alarmism. The Earth’s temperature has only risen by ONE DEGREE CELSIUS in the past 100 years according to the NOAA, so the main argument against oil production in the US is based on the fallacy that man-made carbon has any bearing whatsoever on climate changes. But maybe the carbon fraud is just a distraction from something else?

  To fix any supply and demand issues in the US, we only need to start producing once again at levels which were easily obtainable in 2020. But what if the issue of supply contraction is not the main cause of oil inflation? I would note that the dollar is not only the world reserve currency but also the global petro-currency. Until recently, almost all oil was traded internationally using dollars. The decline or collapse of the dollar’s buying power due to money printing and runaway inflation is more likely the direct cause of rising oil prices, and supply issues are secondary.

  If the dollar was about to collapse due to inflation, oil would be one of the first early warning indicators. With the establishment blocking new oil production and hindering the most cost effective method for oil transport (pipelines), an engineered decline in supply becomes a very effective smokescreen for the death of the dollar. The crisis caused by the government and the Federal Reserve’s currency destruction could then be blamed on supply chain issues and climate “peril.” This is the reason why the establishment will not allow any future growth in US oil production. They cannot allow the public to realize the precarious position our currency is in.

  Supply Chain Interdependency Leading To Shortages? Bring Back Manufacturing

  There are a lot of reasons why manufacturing has left the US, from greedy and corrupt labor unions driving up wages to higher taxes and land costs to extremely cheap shipping from overseas exporters. There is also the theory that US factories were outsourced to places like China in order to deliberately force the public into a global interdependency scheme. In other words were are stuck with the supply chain we have, not because it’s the best system, but because the globalists want it that way.

  It’s unlikely that the federal government and the elitist establishment would ever allow real manufacturing to come back to the US in a way that would make us more self sufficient. As long as our country relies on outsourced goods and raw materials from other nations we remain beholden to the global chain for our survival. Being completely independent might be impossible, but we could be producing far more domestically than we are today.

  State governments could create incentives to manufacture within their borders by removing property taxes, reducing state taxes and protecting businesses from certain federal obstructions such as carbon restrictions. As long as those companies do not support anti-freedom initiatives with the money they make, they should be aided so that real jobs and real production make a comeback in the US.

  I would also note that if states want to survive the coming financial crisis that is about to strike, they are going to have to start ignoring federal restrictions on land use and the production of raw materials (like oil or coal). Some environmental rules are good, but some are pointless and are only designed to control rather than protect. States will have to stand in defiance of these rules if anything is going to change for the better.

  Debt And Liquidity Crisis? Let States Establish Their Own Banks And Currencies

  The state of North Dakota has an interesting model for economic independence, which utilizes a state sponsored bank designed specifically to help businesses in ND. I would say it’s bizarre that this idea has not become popular across the nation, but I understand that if it did the federal government and the central bankers would be very unhappy.

  Here’s the thing, while it is true that the constitution explicitly states that the US Treasury be the only issuer of US currency, this was done at a time when our currency was backed by gold and silver and there was no corrupt middleman in the form of a central bank. In truth, the Treasury is now second fiddle to the Federal Reserve, and the constitutional regulations on money have already been broken. It’s time for a new currency model and new banking model.

  An official bank in each state could decentralize power away from the Federal Reserve in terms of how debt and interest rates are handled, creating something closer to free market discovery of interest rates rather than a rate dictatorship control by the Fed. By extension, each state could also issue currency scrip legal for use only within the borders of those states. This would create a secondary safety net against inflation in the dollar.

  In other words, we decentralize the banking system and we offer state alternatives which function not so much as competing currencies but as parallel or complementary currencies backed by and exchangeable in certain commodities. I believe very strongly that this model (along with a couple dozen other measures I don’t have space to cover here) could save our country from decades of economic mismanagement and bring us back from the brink of inflation and debt catastrophe.

  States could do this without the permission of the federal government or the Federal Reserve, but I have little doubt that the elites would be in an uproar. Make no mistake, states will have to move to decouple from the national financial system and build alternatives as soon as they realize that the dollar is tanking and stagflation is here to stay. And when they do, the establishment will declare such actions on par with “insurrection.”

  In the meantime, there are numerous preparations each individual can make in their local communities to insulate themselves from economic dangers. There are those that will say that local measures are only a stop gap and more national action needs to be taken. They are partially correct; in the long run there needs to be wider organization towards free markets once again, along with redundancies in state economies. In the short term we must do what we can.

  Ultimately, the most clear solutions to our fiscal fate are not pursued because the elites do NOT WANT to save the economy, at least not in a way that ends up with them having less power. They want even more power and centralization that extends beyond national boundaries into the realm of global management. Fixing the system can’t happen because they won’t let it happen.

  This means that the fix that will save us in the long run will be the one that allows all others to progress; and that fix is to remove these people from positions of influence and authority. You can’t really repair the body in the wake of an illness until the offending disease is eliminated. For now, all we can do is keep the country on life support until a cure is applied.

  *  *  *

  If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/16/2022 – 17:30

• "Not What We Are Seeing" – US Intel Officials Reject Biden's "Genocide" Claims
  “Not What We Are Seeing” – US Intel Officials Reject Biden’s “Genocide” Claims

  Earlier this week, President Biden appeared to veer off script in the middle of his ‘blame Putin, not our idiotic policies, for your collapsing cost of living’ speech, when he dropped the ‘g’ word…

  “Your family budget, your ability to fill up your tank, none of it should hinge on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide half a world away.”

  President Biden calls the war in Ukraine “genocide.”

  “Your ability to fill up your tank, none of it, should hinge on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide a half a world away.” pic.twitter.com/lYW7B0xKMB

  — CBS News (@CBSNews) April 12, 2022

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

  As the world waited for another rapid walk-back by White House staffers of another Biden gaffe, the 79-year-old doubled-down…

  “Yes, I called it genocide. Because it has become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of being able to be Ukrainian.”

  The comments sparked reactions from around the diplomatic world.

  French President Emmanuel Macron was the most outspoken, refusing to back Biden’s claim that Russia is committing “genocide” in Ukraine. The French leader instead warned that an escalation of rhetoric wouldn’t bring peace.

  On the same day Biden accused Russia of genocide, Newsweek published an article quoting a senior official from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency who said the civilian casualties in Ukraine are typical of modern warfare and “hardly” amount to genocide.

  The DIA official: said “I am not for a second excusing Russia’s war crimes, nor forgetting that Russia invaded the country.”

  “But the number of actual deaths is hardly genocide. If Russia had that objective or was intentionally killing civilians, we’d see a lot more than less than .01 percent in places like Bucha,” the official emphasized. 

  As expected, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded, according to Reuters, emphasizing the hypocrisy of a US military machine which has committed “well-known crimes” in the recent past.

  “This is hardly acceptable from a president of the United States, a country that has committed well-known crimes in recent times,” Peskov described.

  All of which leads to the weekend and a rather shocking report from no lessor mainstream media outlet than NBC News.

  NBC News reported on Friday, citing senior government officials, that President Biden’s accusation made earlier this week that Moscow was committing “genocide” in Ukraine has raised concerns among officials in the White House and has not been confirmed by US intelligence agencies.

  The claim of genocide “has so far not been corroborated by information collected by US intelligence agencies,” the report said.

  

  Worse still, NBC quoted two State Department officials as saying that Biden’s remarks “made it harder for the agency to credibly do its job.”

  “Genocide includes a goal of destroying an ethnic group or nation and, so far, that is not what we are seeing,” a U.S. intelligence official said.

  NBC did provide some cover however in a later paragraph, claiming that there is concern within the intelligence community that Russia’s actions in the next phase of the war could amount to genocide, and one official said that assessment could be part of what prompted Biden to take a public position that’s ahead of his own government.

  What is perhaps more shocking about this is the fact that it is NBC News that is reporting this – not a good look for a president who relies significantly on the mainstream media to clean up his messes with gaslighting and memory holes.

  In case you wondered, the official word from The White House is comical in its brevity:

  “These aren’t gaffes,” said one person close to the White House. “He’s doing this very purposefully.”

  As the world tip-toes towards WWIII, should we be reassured by that?

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/16/2022 – 17:00

• Russia Says It Shot Down Ukrainian Transport Plane Carrying Western Arms
  Russia Says It Shot Down Ukrainian Transport Plane Carrying Western Arms

  Update(1632ET): In what appears Moscow’s “answer” to the US and NATO countries continuing to supply major weapons systems to Ukrainian forces, state agency TASS is claiming that Russian forces have brought down a Ukrainian military transport plane that was transporting Western arms. It would mark a massive battlefield development if confirmed, potentially escalating conflict more directly with the West, now that Russia is actively targeting Western arms shipments.

  The alleged shoot down occurred outside Odessa via anti-air systems, says TASS, while citing Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov. Though remaining unconfirmed, China state media has also picked up the report, citing the defense ministry statement, which reads:

  “Near Odesa Russian anti-aircraft defense forces have shot down a Ukrainian military transport plane, which was delivering a large shipment of arms supplied to Ukraine by Western counties,” Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said Saturday.

  However, there’s nothing in the way of independent or outside sources confirming it, and Ukraine’s military has not issued any statements, nor are they likely to admit that their military aircraft were transporting Western weapons shipments, even if accurate.

  “Near Odesa Russian anti-aircraft defense forces have shot down a Ukrainian military transport plane, which was delivering a large shipment of arms supplied to Ukraine by Western counties,” Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said Saturday.

  — CGTN America (@cgtnamerica) April 16, 2022

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

  Days ago, the Kremlin repeated its threat to attack any inbound shipments of weaponry or supplies coming from Ukraine’s Western backers. The military also said it would hit “decision-making centers” – and on Saturday long-range missiles reportedly struck weapons depots in Kiev.

  Meanwhile, the Pentagon and US State Department have continued positively boasting that more weapons are en route, in a continuing escalation…

  Supply crates containing munitions and other explosive material bound for Ukraine are loaded at Dover Air Force Base in March 2022. pic.twitter.com/stoaiHyvHn

  — Department of Defense 🇺🇸 (@DeptofDefense) April 15, 2022

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

  * * *

  earlier

  Now more than 50 days into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the war appears to have escalated following Russia’s loss of its Black Sea flagship which sunk after the Ukrainians say they struck it with Neptune anti-ship missiles. The warship’s sinking likely marks a significant shift for the Kremlin. After suffering such major losses, Russia has more incentive to practice less restraint – which is perhaps why long-rage bombers are also apparently now in use. The Pentagon has since said it assesses the Ukrainians scored a direct hit on the warship, causing it to sink off Odessa.

  It now appears Russia’s retaliation for the devastating loss of its celebrated missile cruiser Moskva has begun, with the defense ministry announcing: “The number and scale of missile strikes against targets in Kyiv will increase in response to any terrorist attacks or sabotage committed by the Kyiv nationalist regime on Russian territory.”

  On Saturday it’s being reported that after a lull in fighting near Kiev following weeks ago Russian forces having pulled back their positions to focus on Donbas in the east, there have been fresh scattered attacks on the Ukrainian capital. 

  “The number and scale of missile strikes against targets in #Kyiv will increase in response to any terrorist attacks or sabotage committed by the Kyiv nationalist regime on #Russian territory,” the defence ministry in #Moscow says.
  Read more here:https://t.co/cpYkj3dxUX pic.twitter.com/cbtBA9t9RM

  — KyivPost (@KyivPost) April 16, 2022

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

  “Russian forces resumed scattered attacks on Kyiv, western Ukraine and beyond Saturday in an explosive reminder to Ukrainians and their Western supporters that the whole country remains under threat despite Russia’s pivot toward mounting a new offensive in the east,” The Associated Press reports.

  Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed in a statement that the military launched “air-launched high-precision long-range weapons” in order to take out an armored vehicle plant in Kiev, however without specifying the exact location. 

  The AP reported further of the attack: “Smoke rose early Saturday from eastern Kyiv as Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported a strike on the the city’s Darnytski district. He said rescuers and paramedics were at the scene, and information about possible deaths would be provided later.”

  Russian MoD video showing T-72B, T-72B1, and possibly T-72A tanks from the 90th Tank Division’s 239th Tank Regiment in Kharkiv Oblast with an escort from Mi-8AMTSh helicopters. Also Tigrs and Ural gun trucks with ZU-23-2.https://t.co/sK1J0Sq6iE pic.twitter.com/BKmyGzAETI

  — Rob Lee (@RALee85) April 16, 2022

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  The mayor of the suburban area warned residents it’s still unsafe to return amid the Russian assault.

  “It was not immediately clear from the ground what was hit in the attack. Darnytskyi is a sprawling district on the southeastern edge of the capital, containing a mixture of Soviet-style apartment blocks, newer shipping centers and big-box retail outlets, industrial areas and railyards,” the AP details further of the fresh attack.

  There are unconfirmed reports that Russia has attacked weapons manufacturing centers and depots…

  Military factory “Artyom” in #Kiev that produced anti-tank guided missiles and anti-tank missile systems of various types,air-to-air missiles,missiles for MLRS ‘Vilkha’,anti-ship missiles ‘Neptun’ and air-defence guided missiles was destroyed yesterday by Russian missile strike. pic.twitter.com/FsbzxktHRl

  — Zrada2022 (@zrada2022) April 16, 2022

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  On Thursday the Kremlin warned that it would attack “decision-making centers” in Ukraine if cross-border attacks continue. Russia has said that in at least two recent instances, Ukrainian forces have conducted strikes on Russian soil. “The village of Spodaryushino, near the border with Ukraine, had been shelled by Ukraine, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, said in a statement on Telegram,” CNN cited the Russian official was cited as saying. 

  Saturday’s strikes in Kiev could be the start of more long-rage missile launches against various cities across Ukraine to come, as Russia turns from slow-grinding infantry and tank tactics to greater reliance on air power and long-range missiles.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/16/2022 – 16:32

• Feds Weigh Emergency Actions As Lake Powell Hits Historic Low
  Feds Weigh Emergency Actions As Lake Powell Hits Historic Low

  The megadrought in the US West continues to wreak havoc as Federal officials weigh reducing water deliveries downstream on the Colorado River to prevent shuttering of a massive dam that provides power to millions of people, according to AP News. 

  Last month, Lake Powell dropped to 3,525 feet (1,075 meters), the lowest level since the federal government dammed the Colorado River at Glen Canyon (located in northern Arizona) more than five decades ago. This has caused officials at the Interior Department to propose holding back water at the dam to maintain the dam’s ability to generate power. 

  

  Tanya Trujillo, the Interior’s assistant secretary, warned if Lake Powell drops below 3,490 feet (1,063 meters), it will produce electrical grid uncertainty for the western part of the US, potentially affecting up to five million customers across Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.  

  “We’re in crisis management, and health and human safety issues, including production of hydropower, are taking precedence,” said Jack Schmidt, director of the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University. 

  The record low water level also comes as researchers have found the US West has been experiencing some of the driest conditions in more than 1,200 years. 

  Over the decade, drought conditions have worsened. Several major Californian reservoirs have dried up, forcing people to evacuate their boats and causing hydroelectric plants to shutter due to insufficient water supplies to spin turbines. 

  Reservoirs across California are well below their historical averages (as of Apr. 14). 

  

  According to the US Drought Monitor data, the US West is experiencing severe to extreme drought conditions. 

  

  New forecasts by federal government meteorologists may suggest drought conditions could deteriorate even more as there’s a 59% chance of La Niña for the Northern Hemisphere through summer. What this would mean is drier conditions. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/16/2022 – 16:00

• Two Female Prisoners At New Jersey Corrections Facility Pregnant After Having Sex With Transgender Inmates
  Two Female Prisoners At New Jersey Corrections Facility Pregnant After Having Sex With Transgender Inmates

  By Katabella Roberts of The Epoch Times

  Two female inmates at New Jersey’s only all-women prison have fallen pregnant after having consensual sex with transgender inmates, officials have said.

  

  The unidentified pregnant women are incarcerated at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility in Clinton, which houses 27 prisoners who identify as transgender and more than 800 women in total.

  They fell pregnant after engaging in “consensual sexual relationships with another incarcerated person,” Dan Sperrazza, the state Department of Corrections’ external affairs executive director told NJ.com.

  Sperrazza said officials are investigating the matter.

  “While DOC cannot comment on any specific disciplinary or housing decisions that may be considered in light of these events, the Department always reserves all options to ensure the health and safety of the individuals in its custody,” Sperrazza said.

  Edna Mahan began to house prisoners who identify as transgender women in 2021 under a New Jersey policy enacted which allows prisoners to be housed in accordance with their preferred gender identity as opposed to their sex assigned at birth.

  The policy change was part of a settlement by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and attorney Robyn Gigl of GluckWalrath LLP who sued the N.J. Department of Corrections and its officers in August 2019 on behalf of a trans woman.

  Plaintiffs in the lawsuit, who went by pseudonyms, alleged that they had faced harassment and abuse and were denied gender-appropriate clothing among other things when they had been incarcerated in male prisons over the years despite identifying as female.

  The policy also applies to trans women inmates who have yet to undergo gender-reassignment surgery.

  At the time, Chris Carden, a public information officer for the department of corrections, told NBC News that while the department “did have existing processes in place, the policy outlined in this settlement is an update to those processes.”

  Carden said that anyone incarcerated under NJDOC would be able, at any time, to provide officers with information regarding their identity and that the Department would then take “careful measures to ensure they are properly housed in line with their gender identity and their housing preferences while ensuring both their safety and the security of the institution.”

  However, the gender identity policy has been criticized by prisoners, including two inmates incarcerated at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility who in 2021 filed a lawsuit seeking for the policy to be revoked, alleging they have been harassed by transgender prisoners, the Daily Mail reports.

  They also claimed to have witnessed the transgender inmates engaging in sexual activity with female prisoners.

  The union representing correctional officers at Edna Mahan has criticized the policy.

  “We opposed this policy change believing it would be detrimental to the general population of female inmates being housed at Edna Mahan and also bring added stress to our correctional police officers assigned to this institution,” the union’s president told NJ.com.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/16/2022 – 15:30

• Bolsonaro Faces Stiff Criticism Over Brazilian Military's "Viagra Binge" 
  Bolsonaro Faces Stiff Criticism Over Brazilian Military’s “Viagra Binge” 

  Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is facing stiff scrutiny from opponents to explain why the country’s armed forces purchased tens of thousands of Viagra pills. 

  “We need to understand why the Bolsonaro government is spending public money to buy Viagra and in such a high amount. 

  “Health facilities across the country are often short of drugs to treat patients with chronic illnesses, such as insulin, and the Armed Forces receive thousands of Viagra pills. Society deserves an explanation,” Federal deputy Elias Vaz told Brazilian media. 

  Brazilian weekly news magazine Veja reported that 35,000 erectile dysfunction pills were bought by the government, allocating 28,000 pills to the Navy, 5,000 pills to the Army, and 2,000 to the Air Force. 

  

  The Navy told Universo Online that the acquisition of Viagra was to treat pulmonary hypertension. The Army responded that Viagra is being used to treat high blood pressure. 

  However, many of Bolsonaro’s opponents and critics were skeptical. 

  Brazil’s Workers Party (PT) leader Gleisi Hoffmann criticized the Viagra purchase, calling it a “criminal spending spree,” and accused the president of destroying the military’s credibility.

  “Unless they’re able to prove they’re developing some kind of secret weapon – capable of revolutionizing the international arms industry – it’ll be tough to justify the purchase of 35,000 units of an erectile dysfunction drug,” Ciro Gomes, a leftist politician who may challenge Bolsonaro in October’s presidential election, said. 

  Political commentators called the military’s “Viagra binge” an embarrassment. 

  Bolsonaro fired back at the swelling criticism and anyone else in between who made jokes about the large purchase.

  “Obviously, that’s mostly for retirees and inactive service members,” the president added, reiterating the military’s explanation that the drug is treating the high blood pressure of its military personnel. 

  “We take abuse every day from a press that acts in very bad faith and is ignorant on the matter,” he said.

  And maybe Bolsonaro and the military are right. Last year, researchers in Sweden published a study explaining Viagra can be used to treat high blood pressure and expand the lifespan of men. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/16/2022 – 15:00

• Why Has Retail "YOLO" Activity Collapsed: $346BN In Capital Gains Tax Due On Monday
  Why Has Retail “YOLO” Activity Collapsed: $346BN In Capital Gains Tax Due On Monday

  One of the biggest differences in the market between now and a year ago – aside from the elephant in the room of course which is that in 2021 the Fed was all-in on easing because “inflation was transitory” and now the Fed is trying to pull off a Volcker, having realized it was dead wrong about inflation – is that in 2021 retail investors dominated marginal price setting, whether it was through forced short squeezes of illiquid stocks, or simply redirecting stimmy checks into high-beta names, while in 2022 they appear to have taken a back seat.

  To be sure, retail investors have remain far more bullish – and active – than hedge funds, who have liquidated much of their long exposure in recent months…

  

  … but overall retail activity has been far more muted than in 2021, and as we noted last week, even retail flows finally turned negative as “the last market bull capitulated.”

  

  What may have caused this recent reversal in retail sentiment? According to Goldman flow trader Scott Rubner, the answer is simple: taxes.

  As Rubner writes in the latest edition of Goldman’s “Two Minute Views”, US Households own 39% of the US equity market and 20x more exposure than hedge funds, and yet this largest owner of equities has slowed their trading activity ahead of April 18th tax deadline.

  

  Why? According to Goldman, there is a record $2.14 Trillion worth of realized capital gains in 2021, which means a record capital gains tax bill of $346 Billion due on Monday. Putting it in context, this tax bill exceeds last year’s prior record of $270 Billion by 28%.

  

  According to Goldman, this resembles trading activity from 2021, and because of that the bank is optimistic that we are about to see a resurgence in bullishness: “retail traders saw a resurgence on call option activity during the second half of April after taxes were paid.”

  Will this time be different.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/16/2022 – 14:30

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Mexican Drug Cartels Launched 9,000 Drone Incursions Into US Airspace 
  Mexican Drug Cartels Launched 9,000 Drone Incursions Into US Airspace 

  Border security continues to suffer significantly as Mexican drug cartels conducted more than 9,000 drone incursions into US airspace in 2021, Judicial Watch revealed this week. 

  Judicial Watch spoke with a senior Homeland Security, interviewed federal officials at the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Rio Grande Valley sector in Texas, and even filed a Freedom of Information Act request with CBP to investigate the use of drones by Mexican drug cartels to surveil federal, state, county, and city agencies and conduct nefarious activities on the border.

  CBP officials on the ground told the conservative activist group that cartels used drones for surveillance during human smuggling and drug trafficking operations into the US. They said the drones, many of which can be readily bought off the internet or at a big box retailer, are being used to spot gaps in the border coverage, as well as create diversions in certain areas to confuse CBP agents while smugglers move high-value assets across the border in other locations.

  

  Brandon Judd, the union president representing 20,000 CBP agents, told Judicial Watch the drones are also “dropping fentanyl” packages into the US. 

  “They fly into certain locations, drop them to the ground and fentanyl is taken off of them and they take back off into Mexico,” Judd said. 

  Readers may recall that we’ve covered cartels flying drugs into the US via these drones over the years. 

  Judd said the drones aren’t “military-grade” and “can be purchased anywhere.” He didn’t mention which drone brands are widely used by cartels, but one can only assume it’s Chinese drone maker DJI. 

  One concerning topic not covered by Judicial Watch is the militarization of consumer drones. We noted earlier this year that a modified consumer drone went on a bombing raid against a rival drug cartel in Mexico. The video from the drone was absolutely stunning and mimicked the ones used in Syria by terror organizations. This is alarming because what’s to say that these drones could be used against CBP and or other US personnel protecting the border. 

  The fact that Mexican drug cartel drones are penetrating US airspace represents a significant failure by the Biden administration and could be a national security threat. 

  This revelation comes as the Biden Administration lifts the Title 42 public health authority, and an unmanageable number of illegal immigrants could soon pour across the border. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/15/2022 – 23:00

• California's Vanished Dream, By The Numbers
  California’s Vanished Dream, By The Numbers

  Authored by Joel Kotkin via RealClear Investigations,

  Even today amid a mounting exodus among those who can afford it, and with its appeal diminished to businesses and newcomers, California, legendary state of American dreams, continues to inspire optimism among progressive boosters.

  Laura Tyson, the longtime Democratic economist now at the University of California at Berkeley, praises the state for creating “the way forward” to a more enlightened “market capitalism.” Like-minded analysts tout Silicon Valley’s massive wealth generation as evidence of progressivism’s promise. The Los Angeles Times suggested approvingly that the Biden administration’s goal is to “make America California again.” And, despite dark prospects in November’s midterm elections, the President and his party still seem intent on proving it.

  But most Californians, according to recent surveys, see things differently. They point to rising poverty and inequality, believe the state is in recession and that it is headed in the wrong direction. Parting with the state’s cheerleaders, the New York Times’ Ezra Klein, a reliable progressive and native Californian, says the Golden State’s failures are “making liberals squirm.”

  

  Reality may well be worse than even Klein admits. In a new report for Chapman University, my colleagues and I find California in a state of existential crisis, losing both its middle-aged and middle class, while its poor population faces dimming prospects. Despite the state’s myriad advantages, research shows it plagued by economic immobility and inequality, crushing housing and energy costs, and a failing education system. Worse than just a case of progressive policies creating regressive outcomes, it appears California is descending into something resembling modern-day feudalism, with the poor and weak trapped by policies subsidized by taxes paid by the rich and powerful.

  California may conjure images of Rodeo Drive and Malibu mansions in the public imagination, but today the state suffers the highest cost-adjusted poverty rate in the U.S. The poor and near-poor constitute over one third – well over 10 million – of the state’s residents according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Los Angeles, by far the state’s largest metropolitan area, and once a magnet for middle class aspirations, has one of the highest poverty rates among major U.S. cities. A United Way of California analysis shows that over 30 percent of residents lack sufficient income to cover basic living costs even after accounting for public-assistance programs; this includes half of Latino and 40 percent of black residents. Some two-thirds of noncitizen Latinos live at or below the poverty line.

  

  While many Californians are fleeing, some are decidedly less bearish.

  “In California, there is this idea of ‘Oh, we care about the poor,’ but on this metric, we are literally the worst,” Stanford’s University’s Mark Duggan, principal author of an economic comparison of California with Texas, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

  The state’s poverty and associated dysfunction are on full display in leading cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, where a large underclass now inhabits the streets – the once-iconic locales having become poster children for urban dysfunction. Beyond massive homeless camps, crime has become so bad that the LAPD has warned tourists it can no longer protect them. San Francisco, meanwhile, suffers the highest property crime rate in the country. Businesses like Walgreens have shut down numerous Bay Area locations due to “rampant burglaries.” Homelessness and crime increasingly dominate the state’s political discourse, particularly in these two deep blue bastions.

  California also faces growing inequality. By the Gini index, a measure of the distribution of income across a population, California has the third-highest inequality behind New York and Louisiana, and has experienced the fifth largest expansion of inequality since 2010, according to American Community Survey data. California also suffers the widest gap between middle- and upper-middle-income earners of any state.

  

  Once among the most egalitarian regions in the country, Silicon Valley has become among the most segregated places in the country. CityLab has described the technology hub as “a region of segregated innovation,” a trend becoming more pronounced, according to recent research. Silicon Valley now boasts its own underclass of those who clean its buildings and provide food service. Nearly 30 percent of its residents rely on public or private financial assistance.

  Similarly, according to the Brookings Institution, San Francisco, the technology industry’s most important urban center, has experienced the most rapid growth in inequality among the nation’s large cities in the last decade. The California Budget and Policy Center has named the city first in California for economic inequality; the average income of the top one percent of households in the city averages $3.6 million, forty-four times the average income of the bottom 99 percent, which stands at $81,094 in a city and state with a high cost of living.

  The situation is worse elsewhere in the state. Over the past decade more than 80 percent of California jobs paid under the median income, and most under $40,000 annually, a poverty wage in California. Worse yet, as demonstrated in our analysis, California lags all peer competitors – Texas, Arizona, Tennessee, Nevada, Washington and Colorado – in creating high wage jobs in fields like business and professional services, as even tech growth begins to shift elsewhere.

  The biggest losers in California have been those industries that historically provided the best opportunities for working-class people – manufacturing, construction, energy – as well as agriculture, the state’s historic economic powerhouse. On a per capita basis, California builds only a fraction of the housing compared to its main rivals, while corporate new investment, suggests a new Hoover Institution study, has shriveled to a rate one-tenth Texas and one-sixteenth that of Ohio.

  The state’s climate change policies, however well-intentioned, have had a particularly devastating impact on manufacturing. California’s “renewable energy” push has generated high energy prices and the nation’s least-reliable power grid, crippling an industry reliant on fossil fuels and a stable electric supply. The state fell to 44th in the country in manufacturing sector employment growth last year; its industrial new job creation has lagged competitors such as Nevada, Kentucky, Michigan and Florida. Even without adjusting for costs, no California metro ranks in the U.S. top ten in terms of offering well-paying blue-collar jobs, notes The New York Times. But four – Ventura, Los Angeles, San Jose, and San Diego – sit among the bottom ten.

  

  As the environmentalist Breakthrough Institute summarizes it, the state’s climate agenda has created a “new Green Jim Crow era” keeping more people, particularly minorities, in poverty.

  Housing policy has also hurt most those who can least afford it. California’s state planning policies aim to reduce urban sprawl – the shift to locales where costs are lower and the state is gaining migrants. The heavily minority Inland Empire, which has little political influence, now has more people than the San Francisco metropolitan area, which dominates state politics, but the former is unable to reverse any of these policies.

  Despite expectations by planners that limiting suburban growth would reduce prices for the masses and greenhouse emissions by encouraging density, studies in Vancouver, Canada and several other locations have shown the opposite; they associate densification with higher land and housing prices. California has the highest urban density of any state, yet suffers the second highest housing costs and rents of any state except Hawaii. On this issue, some media coverage appears to have been influenced by the pro-density preferences of tech titans like Mark Zuckerberg.

  Striving, largely minority middle- and working-class families bear the brunt of such policies. According to a recent American Enterprise Institute survey, California is home to six of the nation’s worst markets for first-time homebuyers. It would take more than 100 years for the median-income household to save for a mortgage on a median-priced home in San Francisco, Los Angeles or San Jose. The state now ranks 49th in homeownership rate, producing far less new housing than competitive regions like Arizona, Texas or Florida. A recent study by economist John Husing found not one unionized construction worker can afford a median-priced home in any coastal California county.

  Unable to buy their own home, many working class families find themselves paying extraordinarily high rents, with more than half of all renters shelling out in excess of 30% of household income, the traditional definition of an outsized housing burden. Nearly four in ten California households meet or exceed this level. Not surprisingly, one quarter are contemplating a move elsewhere. High rents and house prices, along with low wages, also have produced the nation’s highest level of overcrowding.

  Nor has densification brought the purported environmental benefits cited by California’s champions at Brookings and in the Biden Administration; the pro-density Terner Center projects that if California’s cities followed the density guidelines, at best the state would see a 1% reduction in emissions.

  Manifest Education Failures

  Historically education was seen – particularly among traditional liberals – as critical to upward mobility for poor and working-class people. Yet for decades the state’s schools have underperformed national norms, particularly for poor students. Since 1998, California has ranked, on average, 46th in 8th-grade reading and mathematics subject-area performance on the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP), the only comparable assessment between states nationwide. This includes comparisons with demographically similar states like Texas, which spends less money per student.

  Today, almost three of five California high schoolers are not prepared for either college or a career; the percentages are far higher for Latinos, African Americans, and the economically disadvantaged. Among the 50 states, California ranked 49th in the performance of poor, largely minority, students. San Francisco, the epicenter of California’s woke culture, and site of the recent recall of several far-left school board members, suffers the worst scores for African Americans of any county in the state.

  These students are often unprepared for college. At California State University – where ethnic studies programs are now mandated – the need for remedial courses or 40 percent of freshmen demonstrates a low level of preparedness in such basic skills as reading comprehension, writing and mathematics. Some educators have decided to eliminate this problem by eliminating remedial classes.

  California’s model curriculum, which focuses on how to “build new possibilities for post-imperial life that promotes collective narratives of transformative resistance,” may only exacerbate these problems by inculcating attitudes antithetical to those necessary to succeed in a highly competitive capitalist economy.

  Many California educators from the highest reaches of academia down to the grade school level champion “equity” in education over developing hard math skills and fostering excellence. Even basic life skills such as being on time are eschewed: The San Diego Unified School District will no longer count such scruples as turning in work on time in grading and evaluation. It may reduce the penalties for cheating. This is justified as a way of redressing racial issues, as many of the malefactors (like most California students) are from disadvantaged minority groups.

  Most Californians support charter schools, including nearly half of all Democrats, and three chapters of the Southern California NAACP – San Diego, San Bernardino and Riverside. The state’s powerful teachers unions, and the Democrats they back, oppose such education alternatives.

  Tech titans, once focused on improving schools, now seem less engaged. This may make sense given the extent to which tech relies on global talent rather than recruiting locally. In 2018, three-quarters of the tech workforce in the Bay Area was foreign-born, a majority on short-term non-immigrant visas.

  The answer to many of the problems plaguing California’s struggling lower classes has been to throw more of the upper class’s money at them. Michael Bernick, a former director of the state’s Employment Development Department, says “The culture for much of California, driven by state politics, is one of benefits (and now guaranteed income), not a jobs strategy or expectation.” California is unlikely to be devoting the state’s surplus –driven largely by stock and property gains among the wealth – as Texas and other states do, to attracting businesses. Instead, as Bernick suggests, the preference has been to boost the welfare state, as it did in initiating record-setting stimulus payments during the pandemic. It is now contemplating handing out debit cards to cope with high energy prices created by the state’s environmental policies.

  California’s technology industry consists of staunch funders of the states’ progressive Democrats. They may themselves be obsessed workaholics and living testaments to entrepreneurial capitalism, but Greg Ferenstein, who interviewed 147 digital company founders, says most believe that “an increasingly greater share of economic wealth will be generated by a smaller slice of very talented or original people. Everyone else will increasingly subsist on some combination of part-time entrepreneurial ’gig work ‘and government aid.”

  Many prominent business people, including those who made their fortunes in California such as Zuckerberg, Pierre Omidyar, Elon Musk, and Sam Altman, founder of the Y Combinator, have embraced the notion of a “guaranteed wage,” that would cover most critical bills. Democratic Presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s campaign was built around this concept.

  In the interim, people are fleeing the state. Demographer Wendell Cox notes that since 2000, California has lost 2.6 million net domestic migrants, more than the current populations of San Diego, San Francisco and Anaheim combined. In 2020, California accounted for 28 percent of all net domestic outmigration in the nation, about 50 percent more than its share of the US population.

  

  California’s population growth has fallen below the national average for the first time, and the state appears to have even possibly lost population the last two years. The pandemic seems to have accelerated this movement. Last year California was home to three of the five large regions over one million with the highest percentage population loss – San Francisco, San Jose and Los Angeles. Both San Francisco and Los Angeles school districts face large decreases in enrollment; the LA district, the state’s largest, projects a 20% cut in this decade.

  This outmigration trend cannot be dismissed as “white flight.” An analysis of minority population flows shows that Latinos and African Americans are settling increasingly west of the Sierra, particularly in the south, Texas, and parts of the Midwest. Similarly, the foreign-born population – so critical to the state’s economy – has declined in Los Angeles over the past decade, and stagnated in the Bay Area while swelling in places like Dallas-Ft. Worth, Austin, Houston, Nashville and even midwestern cities like Columbus, Des Moines and Indianapolis.

  Simply put, California is in danger of losing its youthful mojo. Many of those leaving, according to IRS data, come from young, middle and working class families. When these people leave, birthrates plummet. Los Angeles and San Francisco rank last and second-to-last in birthrates among the 53 U.S. major metropolitan areas. Among California’s big metros, only Riverside/San Bernardino exceeds the national average in women aged between 15 and 50 with births. California’s total fertility rate, long above the national average, is now the nation’s 10th lowest. Los Angeles County alone has lost three quarters of a million people under 25 over the past twenty years.

  California today is as old as the rest of the country and aging 50 percent faster than the national norm.

  It is rapidly replacing the surfboard with a walker.

  *  *  *

  Joel Kotkin is a Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University in Orange, Calif.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/15/2022 – 22:15

• CCP Youth League Slams "Extreme Feminists" Who Criticized "Lack Of Representation" In Propaganda Images
  CCP Youth League Slams “Extreme Feminists” Who Criticized “Lack Of Representation” In Propaganda Images

  After being criticized for not including pictures of any women in a collection of images depicting key historical moments in the history of the Communist Party, the Communist Youth League of China, the official party organization for Chinese youths, has published an article warning that “extreme feminism” cannot and should not be tolerated.

  

  According to the SCMP, the League said that “extreme feminism has become a malignant tumour on the internet” and that the criticisms had been an “online violence against the editors”.

  “Extreme feminism has become more rampant and its toxicity is fierce,” it wrote. “It’s urgent for all internet users to remove this tumour and let the online sphere regain a clean environment.”

  For context, here are some examples of what these “extreme feminist” critics said, per the SCMP.

  One person wrote that all of the people involved in the photos were men.

  “How do you avoid using pictures of those women heroes who made contributions to the country?” wrote a person on Weibo.

  Another person asked: “Aren’t women entitled to be included in these pictures?”

  However, as the SCMP pointed out, while two of the pictures feature mostly men, four of the images feature large crowds, or people wearing COVID hazmat suits, making it impossible to tell their genders. The League wrote on Weibo that the critics were “triggering public outrage” and that people online had engaged in “gender confrontation” to attract attention.

  And in a sign that China could be headed toward another crackdown on feminism, a local party mouthpiece in Beijing declared that it’s time to “discipline” so-called “fake feminists”.

  Beijing Evening News, the mouthpiece of the Beijing municipal government, published a commentary on Weibo that said it was time to discipline “fake feminists” who waved sticks to attack other people.

  “Advocating for the equality between men and women does not mean yelling slogans and encouraging extremism, nor creating confrontations and dividing the society,” the newspaper said.

  The issue dates back to April 2, when the organization published a social media post that featured six images from some of China’s most famous moments in its history under the Communist Party, including the Red Army’s Long March, Chinese soldiers crossing the Yalu River during the Korean war and constructing the Red Flag Canal in the 1960s.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/15/2022 – 21:30

• Chinese Oil Giant To Exit US, Canada And UK Over Fears Of Western Sanctions
  Chinese Oil Giant To Exit US, Canada And UK Over Fears Of Western Sanctions

  An odd thing happened this week: for obvious reasons, Russian usage of the Chinese yuan has been booming in recent weeks, with the Nikkei reporting that Russia boosted yuan holdings over dollar just before the invasion (having previously dumped all of its Treasury holdings all the way back in 2018 telegraphing what was coming to anyone who was paying attention), and even though Chinese trade with Russia has soared…

  

  … many Chinese companies had refused to side fully with Russia, amid concerns that they would be swept up in various secondary sanctions should the increasingly erratic Biden administration decide to lash out at Beijing.

  That’s not the odd thing, in fact it is to be expected: after all, if you go after the king – in this case the king of global reserve currencies, the dollar, you better not miss and according to most experts, China is nowhere near ready to dethrone the US as the world’s biggest superpower (with or without the assistance of Russia). What was odd, is that Reuters reported that China’s top offshore oil and gas producer CNOOC, was preparing to exit its operations in Britain, Canada and the United States, because of concerns in Beijing the assets could become subject to Western sanctions, industry sources said.

  In other words, one of China’s largest and most important companies has decided to pull the plug before it absolutely has to, in what appears to be a clear indication that what comes next will be very troubling.

  The United States said last week China could face consequences if it helped Russia to evade Western sanctions that have included financial measures that restrict Russia’s access to foreign currency and make it complicated to process international payments. Additionally, the US has also made very clear that any Chinese invasion of Taiwan will result in an identical response to that faced by Russia now. The implication: one of those two things may be about to happen.

  Some background: according to Reuters, while companies periodically carry out reviews of their portfolios, the exit being prepared would take place less than a decade after state-owned CNOOC entered the three countries via a $15 billion acquisition of Canada’s Nexen, a deal that transformed the Chinese champion into a leading global producer. The assets, which include stakes in major fields in the North Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and large Canadian oil sand projects, produce around 220,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, Reuters calculations found.

  However, it now appears that CNOOC has had enough, and last month, Reuters reported CNOOC had hired Bank of America to prepare for the sale of its North Sea assets, which include a stake in one of the basin’s largest fields. That’s just the start, however, and Reuters adds that CNOOC has launched a global portfolio review ahead of its planned public listing in the Shanghai stock exchange later this month that is aimed primarily at tapping alternative funding following the delisting of its U.S. shares last October. CNOOC is also taking advantage of a rally in oil and gas prices, driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, and hopes to attract buyers as Western countries seek to develop domestic production to substitute Russian energy.

  As it exits the West, CNOOC is looking to acquire new assets in Latin America and Africa, and also wants to prioritize the development of large, new prospects in Brazil, Guyana and Uganda, the Reuters sources said.

  Even before its exit, CNOOC faced hurdles operating in the United States in particular, such as security clearances required by Washington for its Chinese executives to enter the country.

  “Assets like Gulf of Mexico deepwater are technologically challenging and CNOOC really needed to work with partners to learn, but company executives were not even allowed to visit the U.S. offices. It had been a pain all along these years and the Trump administration’s blacklisting of CNOOC made it worse,” said the source.

  And just to make it even clearer what’s coming, in its prospectus ahead of the initial public offering, CNOOC said it could face additional sanctions. “We cannot predict if the company or its affiliates and partners will be affected by U.S. sanctions in future, if policies change,” CNOOC said.

  In the United States, CNOOC owns assets in the onshore Eagle Ford and Rockies shale basins as well as stakes in two large offshore fields in the Gulf of Mexico, Appomattox and Stampede. Its main Canadian assets oil sands projects are Long Lake and Hangingstone in Alberta Province.

  All of the above is a very long-winded way to put what Rabobank’s Michael Every summarized in just a few words:

  Reuters says China’s oil giant CNOOC is preparing to exit the UK, Canada, and US over sanctions fears. Why would it be retreating if China is not going to do anything that could cause it to be subject to secondary sanctions?

  The answer? Because China will do things that will cause it to be subject to sanctions.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/15/2022 – 20:45

• Black Swan Event? Top US Fertilizer Producer Hit With Rail Delays To Midwest
  Black Swan Event? Top US Fertilizer Producer Hit With Rail Delays To Midwest

  A fertilizer supply shock is imminent for US farmers as CF Industries Holdings, Inc. warned Thursday that rail shipments of crop nutrients would be reduced to top agricultural states, which couldn’t come at the worst time as the Northern Hemisphere spring planting season is underway. 

  The world’s largest fertilizer company said Union Pacific had hit it with railroad-mandated shipping reductions that would impact nitrogen fertilizers such as urea and urea ammonium nitrate shipments to Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, and California. Union Pacific told CF Industries without advance notice to reduce the volume of private cars on its railroad immediately. This means CF Industries had to decrease shipments by a whopping 20% to stay compliant. 

  “The timing of this action by Union Pacific could not come at a worse time for farmers,” said Tony Will, president and chief executive officer of CF Industries.

  “Not only will fertilizer be delayed by these shipping restrictions, but additional fertilizer needed to complete spring applications may be unable to reach farmers at all. By placing this arbitrary restriction on just a handful of shippers, Union Pacific is jeopardizing farmers’ harvests and increasing the cost of food for consumers,” Will said. 

  The move is particularly problematic for the Midwest, where 90% of corn and 80% of soybeans are produced in the US. The region is a critical node in the global food system, and tightening the fertilizer supply will only drive up food prices by shrinking harvests. 

  Farmers have been pressured by record-high fertilizer and diesel costs.

  

  CF Industries released an ominous warning about the lack of fertilizer across the Midwest this year and how it may cause food supply woes: 

  “If farmers are unable to secure all the nitrogen fertilizer that they require in the current season because of supply chain disruptions such as rail shipping restrictions, the Company expects yield will be lower.

  “This will likely extend the timeline to replenish global grains stocks. Low global grains stocks continue to support high front month and forward prices for nitrogen-consuming crops, which has contributed to higher food prices,” CF Industries said. 

  Josh Linville, direct of fertilizer at StoneX, called this a “black swan” moment for the Midwest. 

  UP rail situation:

  Sounds like the UP is backed up on shipments. As a result, they are restricting “private car” shipments (i.e. not UP equipment) by almost 20%.

  We were already struggling with fert logistics coming into spring. This doesn’t help at all…#blackswan pic.twitter.com/YOo36UWj2J

  — Josh Linville (@JLinvilleFert) April 14, 2022

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

  In response to record-high fertilizer costs and tight supply, some farmers have already transitioned millions of acres from corn to soybeans this year (soybeans require very little fertilizer versus corn). 

  

  Last month, a tweet from Douglas Karr, the founder of the businesses blog Martech Zone, made the point that “media isn’t even warning you” a food crisis in America is emerging. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/15/2022 – 20:00

• Is The Woke Cultural Agenda Of Union Leaders Undermining Support For Organized Labor Groups?
  Is The Woke Cultural Agenda Of Union Leaders Undermining Support For Organized Labor Groups?

  Authored by Batya Ungar-Sargon via Outside Voices,

  Doug Tansy is living the American Dream. A 44-year-old Native Alaskan, Tansy is an electrician living in Fairbanks in a house he and his wife Kristine own. Kristine has a social work degree, but for 13 years she stayed home to raise their five kids. It was something the couple could afford thanks to Tansy’s wages and benefits, secured by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. All of Tansy’s union friends have similar stories; those who chose not to have kids traveled the world on the money they earned. 

  

  Tansy started an apprenticeship right out of high school, a decision he calls “one of the best things I ever did for myself.” His high school pushed everyone to go to college, which Tansy did, but to pay for his first year he took a summer job working construction. It provided an instructive contrast with his college courses. “College was certainly challenging, but it didn’t excite me. Construction did. It grabbed me,” Tansy told me. “I was always told ‘find what your hands want to do, and when you do, do it with all your might.’ And I did.”

  Tansy now serves as the assistant business manager of the IBEW in Fairbanks and as president of the Fairbanks Central Labor Council, which is sort of like the local chapter of the AFL-CIO. “I consider myself a labor person and that simply means a lot of what we do is focus on the middle class,” Tansy explained. “Putting really great wages into our economy and helping people save up to get ahead, to pay off a house.”

  But the union is about more than just securing a middle-class life for working class Americans. Tansy calls it a fraternity. “If I ever have trouble, I can make one phone call and that’s the only call I need to make,” he says. “They will take care of the rest of it and whatever I need will be coming.” And this support system traverses ideological and ethnic divisions. The IBEW in Fairbanks has Republicans, independents, Democrats, progressives, and everything in between. Debates can get testy, especially when social issues like abortion come up in the breakroom. Tansy has also on rare occasions experienced racism. And yet there is a deep bond connecting the members of the IBEW that crosses ideological lines.

  This bond is the result of a simple fact: that more unites members of the union than divides them, and that what unites them is sacred. “Having good wages, good benefits, good conditions, and being treated fairly and with dignity in retirement should not be only for Republicans or Democrats or red states or blue states,” Tansy explained. “To me, these are nonpartisan issues that should be for everybody. And that’s how we reach our common ground.”

  Tansy’s story is not unique. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans who belong to unions in the U.S. make on average 17% more than their non-unionized brothers and sisters, with a median $1,144 in weekly earnings—compared to $958 for those not unionized. It’s not just wages, either. Unions offer apprenticeships and ongoing training, a debt-free career, a pension, and workplace safety and other protections. They give workers a seat at the table and a voice to balance out the power of the businesses they work for, no mean feat at a time when the majority of working-class Americans are living lives of precarity. Working-class wages decoupled from production and stagnated in the late 70s; it’s estimated that over $47 trillion of working- and middle-class wages have been sapped from the bottom 90% of earners and redistributed to the top 1% since then.

  So it’s no surprise that approval of labor unions is the highest it’s been since 1965: 68% of Americans told Gallup they approve of unions last year. And yet, despite this fact, Americans aren’t signing up to join unions at record rates. Just the opposite: fewer Americans than ever belong to unions, a scant 6% of Americans working in the private sector. Many believe they are a dying institution in the U.S.

  Some cast this as proof of yet another case of working-class conservatives choosing a cultural stand against their economic interests. William Sproule is the Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters and says his union is actively engaged in combating negative stereotypes about unions when recruiting. “In the South and other parts of the country, the Southeast, even some of the middle of the country, you say the word ‘union,’ people have been basically brainwashed to think that there are people like me who are some kind of fat-cat millionaires who are stealing money from their pension funds and all this other stuff, all these bad things they try to present about unions,” Sproule says.

  Of course, there are political reasons unions aren’t popular in some corners of the South. Labor has for a century been affiliated with the Democratic Party and remains so. Sproule views the Democrats as much better for organized labor, and though the Carpenters Union will endorse pro-labor Republicans, right now he says it’s important that the Democrats maintain control over government. “The predominant anti-union forces do seem to come from the Republican Party,” Sproule says, citing things like punishing, anti-union “Right to Work” laws. The Carpenters Union advised its members to vote for Joe Biden based on the policies President Trump pursued that were hostile to organized labor—things like deregulations at the National Labor Relations Board and appointments of pro-business judges, among other things. 

  Certain pro-labor positions are undoubtedly the province of the Left, from minimum wage campaigns, to support for the NLRB and the PRO Act, to even the expansion of social security benefits. Then there’s healthcare. When employers are responsible for employee healthcare, they have immense, unfair, and corrosive leverage over their workers. The push for universal healthcare is crucial for stabilizing the downward slide of many working-class families, and it is something only Democrats bring up, however sporadically.

  And yet, thanks to an emergent class chasm in America, the laboring class is increasingly made up of people who find more in common with the Republican Party. In 2020, Bloomberg News found that truckers, plumbers, machinists, painters, correctional officers, and maintenance employees were among the occupations most likely to donate to Trump (Biden got the lion’s share of writers and authors, editors, therapists, business analysts, HR department staff, and bankers). 

  Others have blamed the fear of corporate consolidation—and corporate retaliation—for a lack of interest in unionizing. The pressures of starting a union are immense, like trying to hold an election in a one-party state, David Rolf, Founding President of Seattle-based Local 775 of the Service Employees International Union and author of The Fight for Fifteen: The Right Wage for a Working America, explained. “Sort of like if you were running to become the mayor, but before you were allowed to be the mayor, you had to first fight to establish that there should be a mayor at all. And then once you establish that there should be a mayor, then you find that your opponent is the only one with access to the electorate for eight hours a day, and that they’ve had the voter list for years and you just get it six weeks before the election. Also they have unlimited resources.” Meanwhile, there are numerous stories of ugly union busting and retaliation at companies like Tesla and Amazon. But even in companies where union busting is minimal, many people don’t want to go to work and have a permanently conflict-based and litigious relationship with their boss, Rolf explained. And there’s the fact that things like sectoral or regional bargaining are just not part of the American worker’s lexicon.

  But in addition to overcoming the immense challenges of starting a union from scratch while facing corporate union busting, there’s another, less discussed reason workers give for not flocking to unions at a time when they are most in need of what unions offer: a political and class divide separating the people leading unions from the rank and file. More and more, unions are led not by people like Doug Tansy, who sees his job as overcoming partisan divides, but by people enmeshed in a progressive culture that is increasingly at odds with the values of the people the unions purport to represent. And it’s resulted in the paradox of waning union membership despite the near record level of popular support for unions.

  ---

  Labor is definitely having a moment. Anywhere from 25,000 to 100,000 workers went on strike in October 2021. Workers at four Kellogg cereal plants ended an 11-week strike after announcing a deal had been made with the company. The first Starbucks voted to unionize a branch in Buffalo, New York, and has been followed subsequently by other branches across the nation, many of them voting unanimously. At the end of last year over 10,000 workers at John Deere ended a five-week strike after making substantial improvements to their working conditions. Those included a 20% increase in wages over the next six years as well as a return on cost-of-living adjustments and gains to their pension plan. Most recently, an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island became the first Amazon center to unionize, an effort that the corporation spent $4.3 million to combat.

  The COVID-19 pandemic created a much tighter labor market, which has given workers the upper hand in negotiations for the first time in decades. Expanded unemployment and stimulus checks gave many workers a cushion, some for the first time in their lives, which, combined with the absence of childcare for much of the pandemic and a shortage of workers due to illness or even death, created a real labor shortage. In some cases, that shortage has led to resignations. Over 4 million Americans quit their jobs in November, the majority of them low-wage. In other cases, it’s led to workers demanding better conditions in order to stay—and succeeding at getting them.

  Chris Laursen lives in Ottumwa, Iowa and has worked at John Deere as a painter for 19 years. He says the strike was a long time coming and sees in it evidence of the rebirth of the American labor movement. “The strikes like the one that we spearheaded showed working people that it is possible to take a stand and get a seat at the table and secure better wages and benefits for your families and yourselves,” Laursen says. “The cheap labor bubble’s busted. Gone are the days where you can bring in employees and not pay them anything.”

  Like in the IBEW, for John Deere workers, the union’s power is a non-partisan proposition. Ottumwa is the kind of factory town that went for Barack Obama in 2012 then for Trump in 2016. A 2018 rally for Bernie Sanders saw 800 people turn out—followed by one for Trump two weeks later which drew a crowd of 1,200. “Twenty years ago, if you were a Republican here, you were pretty much a closet case about it,” Laursen, who was a delegate for Bernie Sanders, says. “That’s really not the case anymore.” 

  Key to the strike’s success was a laser-like focus on what united the striking workers over what divided them. “We didn’t want to politicize the strike or have anything that could divide us, because we understood the importance of us staying together,” Laursen explained. “People who own all the stuff and the media, they want to divide the herd and get us fighting amongst each other. And it really is nonsense because we work in the same place, and our kids go to the same schools. We eat in the same restaurants. We have a lot more commonalities than we do differences.”

  The COVID labor market has been a boon for non-union workers, too. Latasha Exum is a health aid in a school in Cleveland. She’s in charge of evaluating children who need medical attention. Exum has been in the medical field for 10 years—she’s certified as a medical assistant—but she’s new to her current job and not sure she’ll stay (she loves children, but she worries about how much they spread germs in the age of COVID). And due to the current pressures of the job market, she’s certain that she would be able to find another one. She had no trouble finding this job and was even able to negotiate for a higher starting pay, although the supply chain crisis has made her job harder (thermometers and even band aids have been in short supply).  “Pay isn’t everything as far as working conditions,” Exum explained. “Pay is one of the factors that some places are willing to wiggle and negotiate, but the conditions might not be the best.”

  The COVID economy hasn’t worked for everyone, though. Jenna Stocker is a former marine who worked retail at a pet store in Minneapolis throughout the pandemic. Her job was deemed essential, and she couldn’t afford to miss a paycheck, so while millions were able to work from home, she went to work every day. “I couldn’t afford to stay home and bake bread,” she said. “And those who did looked at us like we were lepers. Essential workers were looked down upon for having a job that allowed other people to stay home.” And she does mean lepers. “They didn’t want to touch us,” Stocker recalled. “When I would deliver dog food, they made me leave it outside. It was dehumanizing.”

  But it was also part of a larger trend Stocker has noticed, of feeling what she calls “morally wrong” for being poor or working class. There’s a smugness that’s imposed on the lower classes by those in the upper classes, and the class divide is only getting worse. Yet within the working class, divisions evaporate. “I work with a whole spectrum of people, including liberals and conservatives,” Stocker says. “It’s just not something that divides us. We have to work together. We have to make it work. Politics is not something we let divide us at work or in our friendships.” They simply don’t have that luxury.

  ---

  One of the things that the labor shortage has done is something the federal government failed to do: It normalized the idea of a $15 an hour wage. 80% of American workers now make at least $15 an hour—up from 60% in 2014. But that’s nothing close to a living wage for most American cities. Working-class wages have simply not kept up with production; all that extra GDP that’s come from increased production went instead to the top 1%. “Had you merely kept pace with the economy since the 1970s, a full-time, prime-age worker in America who in 2020 made $50,000 a year, that person would be making between $93,000 and a $103,000 a year without any growth in their personal income or share of GDP since the 1970s,” Rolf said. “Half of the income people should have expected to receive over that time was functionally stolen by a series of public policy and boardroom decisions that rewired the economy as upwardly sucking.”

  Jason Offutt is a 47-year-old from Parma, Ohio who paints lines on roads and in parking lots. He’s seen wage stagnation firsthand. Offutt took a summer job as a line painter when he was 16 and stayed with the company after he left school. He worked for a number of other companies after that, until he was finally able to buy a line-painting machine—it was a friend’s, and it was in pieces—for $1,000. He put it back together by hand, and now he works for himself. “I just got tired of watching everybody else making money that I was busting my butt for,” Offutt told me. It took a while to become viable, but once Offutt got in the church directories, the jobs started to come regularly. 

  In the 30 years Offutt has been a line painter, he’s seen the security of working-class life collapse. “Inflation has gone up so much, even compared to when I started,” he told me. “I was making $16, $17 an hour back in my 20s and 30s, so that was pretty decent money back then, if you had one kid and didn’t have too many responsibilities. But as you get older and your kids get older, your son’s out working and he barely has enough to pay for his apartment, where I could work and pay for my apartment and car and still be ok. Now, if you’re working class, you’ve got to have two incomes, two and a half incomes, just to be an above-board person and enjoy your life. Back then, you could do great on just one income.”

  The percentage of American workers who have what might be called a secure job—who work at least 30 hours a week and earn $40,000 a year with health benefits and a predictable schedule—is less than one in three, and for people without a college degree, it’s just one in five. That’s what Oren Cass, executive director of American Compass and author of The Once and Future Worker, recently found in an extensive survey. “The economy has generally bifurcated into a labor market that has relatively better paying, secure jobs in what we would call knowledge industries, that have tended to see expansion and wage growth and so forth, and generally less secure jobs in shrinking or stagnating industries, that tend to be filled with people without college degrees,” says Cass.

  One of those people is Cyrus Tharpe, a 46-year-old hazmat truck driver from Phoenix. Tharpe has spent his entire life living below the state median household income everywhere he has lived, and he is deeply cynical about talk of a resurgent labor movement. “Everything is getting worse,” Tharpe tells me. Working class bodies are born to work until they are in too much pain to do so—and then die. “If you’re working class, you die in your early seventies. You know that and there’s nothing you can do about it. This is the business model,” Tharpe says.

  Most of the successful strikes have been won by the tiny percentage of workers who are already unionized. But the 94% of workers in private sector jobs without union representation like himself are just out of luck; to them, attempting to unionize means an antagonistic relationship with management or retaliation from bosses or risking their jobs entirely, facing an influx of new workers flown in from elsewhere or a corporation shutting down the branch where they work. These are luxuries most American workers just can’t afford. Someone from the AFL-CIO in Arizona once reached out to Tharpe and asked if he was interested in forming a union. He said yes and asked for contact information for the lawyers who would back him up when his boss started pushing back. He never heard back from the union representative.

  It’s exhilarating to see workers at places like Amazon and Starbucks unionize. But those jobs tend to be temporary ones—by design at a place like Amazon, which is infamous for paying people to quit. Meanwhile Starbucks workers are often younger and even college-educated. Though both are huge employers—Amazon is America’s second biggest—they also aren’t typical of working-class jobs.

  And there’s a question of scale, too. The efforts at the Amazon warehouse in Staten Island succeeded where others had failed in large part due to the eschewal of a national union in favor of the creation of a new one specific to the site—the Amazon Labor Union. Far from an endorsement, the success of the Staten Island Amazon warehouse is largely being viewed as a rebuke of organized labor.

  Moreover, there’s something of a Catch-22 to starting a union in the workplaces where people most need union protections and collective bargaining: It requires someone who paradoxically doesn’t really need the work, who will be ok if the corporate backlash is extreme and they lose their job.

  Gianna Reeve is a 20-year-old shift supervisor who has worked at a Starbucks in Buffalo for a year and a half. Reeve is a student at Buffalo University where she’s studying psychology, and she is active in the effort to unionize her branch, hoping to follow the lead of another Buffalo Starbucks, the first to unionize. For now, Reeve’s branch seems to have voted against unionizing, though the pro-union faction is contesting the results.

  Reeve came to Starbucks from Tim Hortons, which she says was grueling work. At Starbucks, employees—Starbucks calls them “partners”—seemed happy to come to work, and Reeve initially felt that they were respected by the company. But in mid-August, a coworker texted to ask if they could talk about something to do with work but “outside of work.” They met at another coffee shop that had recently unionized—a symbolic choice, it turned out—and Reeve’s coworker explained the unionization effort to her and asked if she was interested in helping out. 

  “I was like, yeah,” Reeve recalled. “I mean, of course, if it means better working conditions for people like my partners, then absolutely.”

  Reeve was thinking of the people she supervises, most of whom are older than her. She made a point of checking her privilege, pointing out the sad irony of union organizing. “I don’t blame any of my partners for being scared or being against unionizing,” she told me. “I’m in a position where I’m able to say, yeah, you know what, let’s do it either way. But it’s a privilege. I don’t have kids. I don’t have a family I support,” she explained. “I don’t really have anything personally that tethers me. I know that I’m going to be financially and benefits-wise stable, no matter what, so it’s not really a threat they can put against me.”

  ---

  But it’s not just economic privilege. There is an emerging cultural disconnect between the people who most need unions and the people who sometimes run them. At the national level, union staff—especially on the political and public policy side of things—are very likely to be part of what one longtime union leader called the “revolving door of Democratic operatives in Washington.” They have often been guilty of subordinating core working-class interests to what he called “the permanent culture of progressive college-educated coastal elites.” And they are alienating the workers they’re supposed to be representing—who are much more socially conservative.

  A YouGov/American Compass survey of 3,000 workers found that “excessive engagement in politics is the number one obstacle to a robust American labor movement.” “Among those who said they would vote against a union, the top reason cited was union political activity, followed by member dues,” the survey found. “These workers anticipate that unions will focus on politics rather than delivering concrete benefits in their workplaces, and don’t want to pay the cost.” Meanwhile, fear of retaliation was the least cited reason workers gave for why they haven’t unionized.

  The alliance of unions and Democratic politics often goes beyond labor issues, whether it’s the president of the AFL-CIO applauding a Netflix walkout over a Dave Chappelle special, or one of America’s biggest unions endorsing Supreme Court packing, or unionization efforts drawing on slogans like Black Lives Matter to convince workers to vote yes. “When you survey workers, which is what we did, what you find is that this is the thing that they most hate about unions,” Cass told me.

  Jeff Salovich is a pipefitter foreman at the Minneapolis City Hall, which means he’s in charge of all the heating, air conditioning, and ventilation systems for local government offices, including those of the police chief, the fire chief, City Council, and the mayor. Salovich has been with the Local 539 since 2002, something he’s proud of. But he’s worried about the future of labor in America. 

  “I think unions are dying,” Salovich told me. And he blames what he calls “political theater.” “There’s too many progressives in my mind that don’t really understand unions. And although they’re trying to represent unions, they’re actually doing more harm to unions than they are good.”

  Though Salovich’s union has people from across the political spectrum, it leans conservative, and there is a divide forming between the blue-collar members and the top-down liberal culture that’s being imposed upon them. “A great majority of the people that I work with—other pipefitters and plumbers and mechanical trades—I would say at least 75% of the workers tend to lean more conservative and are more concerned about keeping their jobs instead of saying the right things or addressing people by pronouns and this and that, all the theatrics that are going on,” he said. “Whereas the people that are running things are being pressured by outside influences to succumb to that.” 

  For example, in the pipefitter trade, there’s a tool called a nipple that connects different pieces of pipe. But as part of what Salovich sees as progressive pressures on leadership, the word is now verboten, and if you’re caught saying it, you’ll get reprimanded by your boss. It’s a small example of a much larger trend, he explained. “I think there’s that breaking point where people will start to leave if they feel like their dues money is going to political alliances that don’t line up with their family’s convictions,” he explained. 

  Many conservatives in the union just stay quiet, hoping this new tidal wave will blow over. But for some, even the good pay and benefits that the union provides isn’t worth it.

  So, they’re willing to give up their economic interests for cultural issues? “No,” Salovich explained. “Because my interests are not just limited to my paycheck. It’s your life,” he said. “They don’t understand that people just want to work. I’m coming from a mechanical side. As far as trade staff like painting and plumbing and carpentry and trades that people work with their hands, we don’t want to have to be perfect in how we address people and how we talk or be afraid to talk or be who we are as people And the Left side, the progressives, are really pushing a lot of agendas that are not aligned with how we raise our families.”

  There are a lot of people willing to work for half as much as the unions are offering for peace of mind and a stress-free environment, and to not see their dues go to groups that fund Planned Parenthood. But the more progressive culture may also be contrary to their economic interests; after all, marriage has been correlated with significantly higher earnings, especially for men. They may not have the data at hand to support what they can observe in their communities, but working-class people resisting a politics that is indifferent at best and hostile at worst to traditional values like marriage are, it turns out, acting in their economic interests, too.

  Many union leaders are cognizant of this cultural divide, like Doug Tansy of Alaska. Tansy is a registered Democrat, but he actively works to combat the politicization of his union. “I purposely always try to get people that will check me,” he told me. “I definitely want that conservative voice at the table, debating with me and decision-making with me because, left to my own devices, I will go too far. I represent a very diverse membership and I use my conservative friends to help check me, to make me defend my ideas and to defend my choices, because I don’t want to be one-sided.”

  But how many Tansys are there? 

  ---

  There’s a devastating irony to the fact that it was a bipartisan anti-worker consensus that resulted in stagnant wages and downward mobility for America’s working-class, and that it is now partisanship that is keeping a strong working class from fighting back. 

  Americans are often told how divided the nation is, how politically polarized, how we entombed in our own tightly sealed echo chambers. But this is not the reality for millions and millions of working-class Americans outside the few elites who make up our political and chattering classes. Political polarization is a luxury they cannot afford in a marketplace dominated by powerful, profit-maximizing corporations. With the blessing of free-market policies pushed by both political parties in the U.S., millions of good working-class jobs have been shipped overseas, jobs that once catapulted working-class Americans into the middle class and now do the same for the burgeoning middle class in China and elsewhere. 

  What would help America’s working class? A number of solutions came up with everyone I spoke to. Vocational training was the first. America is unique among wealthy countries in its refusal to invest in skilled trades, something that in countries like Germany and Switzerland has offset the drastic effects of offshoring manufacturing. Universal healthcare was another thing nearly everyone I spoke to agreed upon. Regional or sectoral bargaining was another option that came up, or just a larger culture of collective bargaining that isn’t tied to individual workplaces; it’s why across Northern Europe, corporations like Starbucks and Amazon are forced to deal with unions. And we need new federal labor laws that protect workers—not just businesses. 

  But none of these goals are achievable so long as organized labor is a political football and what one longtime union organizer and leader called a “subsidiary of the Left wing of the Democratic Party.” Rather than holding the benefits of organized labor hostage until Republican workers agree to fund groups that support Planned Parenthood, those who claim to want a strong labor movement would do better to meet workers where they are—which is increasingly on the social and political right.

  In other words, Americans who truly care about a stable and thriving working class, one that has access to the American Dream, would do well to learn what workers understand: that more unites us than divides us. In other words, politicians and pundits and journalists and influencers who seek to advance workers’ causes should stop trying to lead and should start following. 

  ---

  Batya Ungar-Sargon is the deputy opinion editor of Newsweek. She is the author of “Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy.”

  *  *  *

  NOTE FROM GLENN GREENWALD: As is true with all of the Outside Voices freelance articles that we publish here, we edit and fact-check the content to ensure factual accuracy, but our publication of an article or op-ed does not necessarily mean we agree with all or even any of the views expressed by the writer, who is guaranteed editorial freedom here. The objective of our Outside Voices page is to provide a platform for high-quality reporting and analysis that is lacking within the gates of corporate journalism, and to ensure that well-informed, independent reporters and commentators have a platform to be heard.

  To support the independent journalism we are doing here, please obtain a gift subscription for others and/or share the article

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/15/2022 – 19:15

• Shanghai Outraged By Latest Preventable Deaths Caused By CCP Lockdown Policy
  Shanghai Outraged By Latest Preventable Deaths Caused By CCP Lockdown Policy

  Another unnecessary death, caused as a direct result of the CCP’s draconian COVID lockdown policy that bars anybody without a current COVID test from seeking medical treatment in Shanghai’s hospitals, has rattled the people of Shanghai – and again shaken the people’s faith in the CCP’s “zero COVID” policies – all while the economic carnage from China’s latest lockdowns reverberates across both the country and the world.

  

  According to the SCMP, Qian Wenxiong, a cadre with the city’s Hongkou District Health Commission, died on Tuesday afternoon, according to a statement published on an official Weibo account on Thursday. He was 55.

  Information on social media included a story that was nothing short of heart-wrenching.

  Father of a 5yr old and stable cancer patient died after suddenly feeling discomfort at home. He was told his covid test from yesterday was invalid.
  His last words on earth? Mom, can you check if my new Covid test has come out?
  2hrs after he left, his Covid test came bk negative pic.twitter.com/hYQFN3etI4

  — JinJin Xu (@jinxshoe) April 15, 2022

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

  Meanwhile, as they try to loosen lockdown measures in Shanghai (at least when it comes to factories and other economically important areas), authorities announced Friday that restrictions are being reimposed in Xi’an, known for being the epicenter of the previous omicron wave.

  • CHINESE CITY OF XIAN SAYS TO IMPOSE PARTIAL LOCKDOWN FROM APRIL 16 UNTIL END-APRIL 19 DUE TO COVID

  President Xi and the senior leadership have been preoccupied with trying to revive the city’s flagging factory production. On Friday, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said it will push for forward production resumption at major factories in Shanghai, with priority given to 666 major enterprises, auto and equipment manufacturing, and biological medicine industries.

  Now in its third week (for a lockdown that was only supposed to last 9 days), the Shanghai lockdown has inspired some of the most heated anti-government criticism in years, which has spilled out onto Weibo despite the government’s efforts to censor it. The latest trending post to get censored features an 82-year-old man pleading for medication with a local party official, who said he could only offer traditional Chinese remedies.

  Even the party official acknowledged that he was “very worried”.

  “I’m also very worried about the people seeking help,” the party official said in the recording. “I’m also very angry but there’s nothing we can do.”

  Although food shortages have eased in some places and protests remain rare (although they have happened), the simmering rage is palpable, especially in Shanghai, as tens of thousands of social media users pass around stories about acts of individual defiance and reports of suicides on Weibo and WeChat.

  President Xi made his first veiled reference to the growing discontent on Wednesday during a visit to the tourist destination of Hainan province, saying the country needed to stick with its zero-tolerance approach to COVID despite the growing discontent and economic costs. In particular, he said, it was necessary to overcome “paralyzing thoughts” and “war weariness” while preventing any imported cases and local virus flare-ups.

  The government reported 29,411 new cases on Thursday, and all but 3,020 were asymptomatic. Shanghai accounted for 95% of that total, or 27,719 cases. All but 2,573 had no symptoms.

  More Chinese are worried about the lockdowns spreading, especially as economists from Nomura warn that the CCP’s COVID measures could disrupt the upcoming harvest, jeopardizing the food supply for China’s 1.4 billion people.

  As one Shanghaier told Bloomberg, it’s not so much the CCP’s strict policy that has elicited rage, but the poor implementation of it.

  “The gripes among ordinary people are not so much directed toward Covid Zero as it is about the messy implementation,” Huang Yanzhong, a senior fellow for global health at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.

  Still, for residents like Irene Li, the damage is lasting.

  “Shanghai was the best place in China because of her freedom, her modernization, her internationalization,” she said. “And yet it has turned to this, where one ridiculous policy has harmed so many lives.”

  In Shanghai, the government has piled pressure on grassroots leaders and police officers to strictly enforce the lockdown, which has led to incidences of police killing pets who have been suspected of COVID exposure (for example, if their owners tested positive).

  Meanwhile, the top policy makers at the PBOC are resorting to more monetary easing to try and cushion the economic blowback. Unfortunately, measures like this won’t help grow crops.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/15/2022 – 18:30

• Biden Opens More Public Land To Oil & Gas Drilling In Latest Climate-Policy Capitulation
  Biden Opens More Public Land To Oil & Gas Drilling In Latest Climate-Policy Capitulation

  Following a punishing surge in natural gas prices this past week (in defiance of cooling demand for heat as the spring arrives, and despite China’s ongoing lockdowns, which have helped to undercut the prices of all the commodities that China needs…a phenomenon about which China hawk Kyle Bass has some interesting thoughts), President Biden has finally decided to throw in the towel, and break one of his top campaign promises to the environamentalist wing of the Democratic Party.

  

  In a report that arrived at almost exactly 1700ET on Good Friday (also the start of Passover), the NYT revealed that the president has decided to lift the ban (initiated by executive fiat) on selling leases for new oil and gas drilling on public lands. But there’s a small catch: he’s also raising the federal royalties that companies must pay to drill.

  Still, the administration plans to open up 145,000 acres of public lands in nine states to oil and gas leasing next week.

  The Interior Department said in a statement that it planned to open up 145,000 acres of public lands in nine states to oil and gas leasing next week, the first new fossil fuel permits to be offered on public lands since President Biden took office.

  This represents the abandonment of one of Biden’s “signature” environmental policies (also: it’s a capitulation to more conservative and moderate Democrats, who have been upping the pressure on Biden to do more to bolster oil and gas production). So far, his administration has relied mostly on SPR releases, allowing more ethanol in gas during the summer months.

  The move comes as President Biden seeks to show voters that he is working to increase the domestic oil supply as prices surge in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But it also violates a signature campaign pledge made by Mr. Biden as he sought to assure climate activists that he would prioritize reducing the use of fossil fuels.

  “And by the way, no more drilling on federal lands, period. Period, period, period,” Mr. Biden told voters in New Hampshire in February 2020.

  However, since the administration is raising the royalty rate it demands from producers who drill or frack on public lands, oil and gas companies will still face higher costs on the new leases.

  In opening up the new public lands for oil and gas permitting, the Interior Department will raise the royalty rates that companies must pay to the federal government from 12.5 percent of their profits to 18.75 percent, an increase that could bring in billions of dollars of new revenue.

  Already, environmental activists are slamming Biden for his ‘recklessness’ and for abdicating the Democrats’ “climate leadership”.

  “The Biden administration’s claim that it must hold these lease sales is pure fiction and a reckless failure of climate leadership,” said Randi Spivak, director of the public lands for Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s as if they’re ignoring the horror of firestorms, floods and megadroughts and accepting climate catastrophes as business as usual.”

  Meanwhile, everybody else will just be happy to see lower prices at the pump…although it will take months, perhaps years, for the new supply to come on line and have an impact on the US market.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/15/2022 – 17:45

• Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory Remains Closed, Has Already Lost 40,000 EVs Due To COVID Lockdowns
  Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory Remains Closed, Has Already Lost 40,000 EVs Due To COVID Lockdowns

  Thursday’s spectacle of Elon Musk’s attempt to buy Twitter for about $43 billion has diverted attention from a significant Tesla production snag in China. 

  Bloomberg reports that Tesla Giga Shanghai, a factory operated by Tesla, Inc. in Shanghai, China, which produces Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, has had production lines shuttered for nearly three weeks due to city-wide lockdowns to control the spread of COVID-19. 

  

  Since Mar. 28, the factory has lost 39,900 units, equating to about 2,100 units per day. There is no word on when production would restart, though some believe it could be sometime in the first half of May. 

  “Our base case estimate for reopening is the first week in May,” Junheng Li, founder and CEO of JL Warren Capital, a China-focused equity firm, told Bloomberg. 

  Li estimated that Tesla’s Shanghai factory could record a production loss of 84,000 units under this scenario. She said losses could be even more significant if surrounding regions were locked down, impeding the flow of auto parts to the factory. Upon reopening, the factory would restart production in stages and could take time to resume full capacity, depending on the supply of components. 

  In the first quarter, the factory produced 182,174 vehicles. The current loss of 39,900 units is about a 20% drop in output versus 1Q figures. Li’s more severe scenario of 84,000 units would equate to a 46% drop in production.  

  “Since the production lines first fired up in late 2019, this most recent production hiatus has been the longest — worse than when Covid first hit in 2020 and much worse than the odd chip shortage that has forced two- or three-day suspensions in past months,” Bloomberg said. 

  Li added that Beijing’s Zero COVID policies may cause “multinationals to rethink their strategies in China … As long as Covid mutations continue, and China doesn’t give up on Covid-Zero, I believe that they will cut or halt their expansion plans in the country.” 

  Another analyst, Gordon Johnson of GLJ Research, has an even gloomier outlook than Li’s. Last week, he warned clients that ground contacts are telling him the factory could be “closed down until ‘at least’ mid-May.” 

  The question remains if Musk’s grand show to purchase Twitter (or at least attempt to) is one of the greatest spectacles of our time to divert attention from major production woes in Shanghai.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/15/2022 – 17:00

• Moscow Warns US In Diplomatic Letter: Arming Ukraine To Result In "Unpredictable Consequences"
  Moscow Warns US In Diplomatic Letter: Arming Ukraine To Result In “Unpredictable Consequences”

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  Russia sent a formal diplomatic note to the US this week calling on Washington and NATO to stop arming Ukraine. The note, which was obtained by The Washington Post, said the Western campaign to pour weapons into Ukraine was “adding fuel” to the conflict and could lead to “unpredictable consequences.”

  The diplomatic note was sent Tuesday, when news broke of a new massive US military aid package for Ukraine. President Biden announced the new aid on Wednesday, which is worth $800 million and includes howitzers for the first time. The package also includes helicopters, armed Switchblade drones, coastal defense drones, armored vehicles, radar systems, and thousands of Stinger and Javelin missiles.

  

  The Russian note was sent to the State Department by the Russian Embassy in Washington. It said the US and its NATO allies were ignoring “rigorous principles” on the transfer of weapons into the conflict zone and said the Western powers are oblivious to “the threat of high-precision weapons falling into the hands of radical nationalists, extremists and bandit forces in Ukraine.”

  The Russians accused NATO of pressuring Ukraine to “abandon” peace talks with Moscow “in order to continue the bloodshed.” The US and most of its NATO allies have shown little interest in supporting the negotiations between the warring sides. The Western powers are signaling that they don’t want Kyiv to make any concessions to Moscow.

  The Post reported last week that for some NATO members “it’s better for the Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying, than to achieve a peace that comes too early or at too high a cost to Kyiv and the rest of Europe.”

  The formal Russian protest of the US arming Ukraine could be a precursor to Russia launching airstrikes on weapons shipments in Ukraine. On Wednesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned that Moscow would view US or NATO vehicles transporting arms inside Ukraine as “legitimate military targets.”

  So far, the United States has committed more than $3.2B in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden Administration. $2.6B of that has come just since the beginning of Russia’s unprovoked assault on February 24.

  The work continues. pic.twitter.com/sEPPmHHMKA

  — Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III (@SecDef) April 14, 2022

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

  It’s not clear if any US or NATO vehicles have actually brought weapons into Ukraine since Russia invaded. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby has said that Ukrainian troops bring the weapons into Ukraine after the US brings them to Eastern Europe. So far, there haven’t been reports of Russia targeting weapons shipments as they enter Ukraine, but Moscow has hit weapons depots. Earlier this week, Russia said it destroyed an S-300 missile defense system in Ukraine that was provided by a European country.

  Russia’s protest highlights the danger of the US-led campaign to pour weapons into Ukraine and the risk of provoking Moscow. On top of arming the Ukrainians, the US is also providing them with intelligence for attacks on Russian forces. The huge amount of support raises questions about at what point Russia would consider the US a co-belligerent in the war.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/15/2022 – 16:15

• California Balks On Vax Mandate For Schoolchildren – Will Delay Until At Least July 2023
  California Balks On Vax Mandate For Schoolchildren – Will Delay Until At Least July 2023

  While California was the first state to announce that all school-aged kids would require the Covid-19 vaccine, state health officials are now taking a big step back – delaying a statewide mandate until at least July 2023, according to a Thursday announcement by the Department of Health.

  

  The delay was explained as a way to “ensure sufficient time for successful implementation of new vaccine requirements,” and will apply to students in grades 7 through 12, according to KTLA.

  “To ensure sufficient time for successful implementation of new vaccine requirements, California will not initiate the regulatory process for a COVID-19 vaccine requirement for the 2022-2023 school year,” said the department. “As such, any vaccine requirements would not take effect until after full FDA approval and no sooner than July 1, 2023.

  The Health Department still encourages “all eligible Californians, including children, to be vaccinated against COVID-19,” according to department Director Tomás J. Aragón – but not enough to wade through the legal quagmire of forcing students to get a jab designed for a completely different strain of a virus that has minimal effects on most children.

  Approximately 75% of the state has received the vaccine, including 34% of children between the ages of 5-11, and 66.4% of children ages 12-17, according to state data.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/15/2022 – 15:40

• The Failure Of Fiat Currencies & The Implications For Gold & Silver
  The Failure Of Fiat Currencies & The Implications For Gold & Silver

  Authored by Alasdair Macleod via GoldMoney.com,

  This is the background text of my Keynote Speech given yesterday to European Gold Forum yesterday, 13 April.

  To explain why fiat currencies are failing I started by defining money. I then described the relationship between fiat money and its purchasing power, the role of bank credit, and the interests of central banks.

  Undoubtedly, the recent sanctions over Russia will have a catastrophic effect for financialised currencies, possibly leading to the end of fifty-one years of the dollar regime. Russia and China plan to escape this fate for the rouble and yuan by tying their currencies to commodities and production instead of collapsing financial assets. The only way for those of us in the West to protect ourselves is with physical gold, which over time is tied to commodity and energy prices.

  

  What is money?

  To understand why all fiat currency systems fail, we must start by understanding what money is, and how it differs from other forms of currency and credit. These are long-standing relationships which transcend our times and have their origin in Roman law and the practice of medieval merchants who evolved a lex mercatoria, which extended money’s legal status to instruments that evolved out of money, such as bills of exchange, cheques, and other securities for money. And while as circulating media, historically currencies have been almost indistinguishable from money proper, in the last century issuers of currencies split them off from money so that they have become pure fiat.

  At the end of the day, what constitutes money has always been determined by its users as the means of exchanging their production for consumption in an economy based on the division of labour. Money is the bridge between the two, and while over the millennia different media of exchange have come and gone, only metallic money has survived to be trusted. These are principally gold, silver, and copper. Today the term usually refers to gold, which is still in government reserves, as the only asset with no counterparty risk. Silver, which as a monetary asset declined in importance as money after Germany moved to a gold standard following the Franco-Prussian war, remains a monetary metal, though with a gold to silver ratio currently over 70 times, it is not priced as such.

  For historical reasons, the world’s monetary system evolved based on English law. Britain, or more accurately England and Wales, still respects Roman, or natural law with respect to money. To this day, gold sovereign coins are legal tender. Strictly speaking, metallic gold and silver are themselves credit, representing yet-to-be-spent production. But uniquely, they are no one’s liability, unlike banknotes and bank deposits. Metallic money therefore has this exceptional status, and that fact alone means that it tends not to circulate, in accordance with Gresham’s Law, so long as lesser forms of credit are available.

  Money shares with its currency and credit substitutes a unique position in criminal law. If a thief steals money, he can be apprehended and charged with theft along with any accomplices. But if he passes the money on to another party who receives it in good faith and is not aware that it is stolen, the original owner has no recourse against the innocent receiver, or against anyone else who subsequently comes into possession of the money. It is quite unlike any other form of property, which despite passing into innocent hands, remains the property of the original owner.

  In law, cryptocurrencies and the mooted central bank digital currencies are not money, money-substitutes, or currencies. Given that a previous owner of stolen bitcoin sold on to a buyer unaware it was criminally obtained can subsequently claim it, there is no clear title without full provenance. In accordance with property law, the United States has ruled that cryptocurrencies are property, reclaimable as stolen items, differentiating cryptocurrencies from money and currency proper. And we can expect similar rulings in other jurisdictions to exclude cryptocurrencies from the legal status as money, whereas the position of CBDCs in this regard has yet to be clarified. We can therefore nail to the floor any claims that bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency can possibly have the legal status required of money.

  Under a proper gold standard, currency in the form of banknotes in public circulation was freely exchangeable for gold coin. So long as they were freely exchangeable, banknotes took on the exchange value of gold, allowing for the credit standing of the issuer. One of the issues Sir Isaac Newton considered as Master of the Royal Mint was to what degree of backing a currency required to retain credibility as a gold substitute. He concluded that that level should be 40%, though Ludwig von Mises, the Austrian economist who was as sound a sound money economist as it was possible to be appeared to be less prescriptive on the subject.

  The effect of a working gold standard is to ensure that money of the people’s choice is properly represented in the monetary system. Both currency and credit become bound to its virtues. The general level of prices will fluctuate influenced by changes in the quantity of currency and credit in circulation, but the discipline of the limits of credit and currency creation brings prices back to a norm.

  This discipline is disliked by governments who believe that money is the responsibility of a government acting in the interests of the people, and not of the people themselves. This was expressed in Georg Knapp’s State Theory of Money, published in 1905 and became Germany’s justification for paying for armaments by inflationary means ahead of the First World War, and continuing to use currency debasement as the principal means of government finance until the paper mark collapsed in 1923.

  Through an evolutionary process, modern governments first eroded then took away from the public for itself the determination of what constitutes money. The removal of all discipline of the gold standard has allowed governments to inflate the quantities of currency and credit as a means of transferring the public wealth to itself. As a broad representation of this dilution, Figure 1 shows the growth of broad dollar currency since the last vestige of a gold standard under the Bretton Woods Agreement was suspended by President Nixon in August 1971.

  

  From that date, currency and bank credit have increased from $685 billion to $21.84 trillion, that is thirty-two times. And this excludes an unknown increase in the quantity of dollars not in the US financial system, commonly referred to as Eurodollars, which perhaps account for several trillion more. Gold priced in fiat dollars has risen from $35 when Bretton Woods was suspended, to $1970 currently. A better way of expressing this debasement of the dollar is to say that priced in gold, the dollar has lost 98.3% of its purchasing power (see Figure 4 later in this article).

  While it is a mistake to think of the relationship between the quantity of currency and credit in circulation and the purchasing power of the dollar as linear (as monetarists claim), not only has the rate of debasement accelerated in recent years, but it has become impossible for the destruction of purchasing power to be stopped. That would require governments reneging on mandated welfare commitments and for them to stand back from economic intervention. It would require them to accept that the economy is not the government’s business, but that of those who produce goods and services for the benefit of others. The state’s economic role would have to be minimised.

  This is not just a capitalistic plea. It has been confirmed as true countless times through history. Capitalistic nations always do better at creating personal wealth than socialistic ones. This is why the Berlin Wall was demolished by angry crowds, finally driven to do so by the failure of communism relative to capitalism just a stone’s throw away. The relative performance of Hong Kong compared with China when Mao Zedong was starving his masses on some sort of revolutionary whim, also showed how the same ethnicity performed under socialism compared with free markets.

  The relationship between fiat currency and its purchasing power

  One can see from the increase in the quantity of US dollar M3 currency and credit and the fall in the purchasing power measured against gold that the government’s monetary statistic does not square with the market. Part of the reason is that government statistics do not capture all the credit in an economy (only bank credit issued by licenced banks is recorded), dollars created outside the system such as Eurodollars are additional, and market prices fluctuate.

  Monetarists make little or no allowance for these factors, claiming that the purchasing power of a currency is inversely proportional to its quantity. While there is much truth in this statement, it is only suited for a proper gold-backed currency, when one community’s relative valuations between currency and goods are brought into line with the those of its neighbours through arbitrage, neutralising any subjectivity of valuation.

  The classical representation of the monetary theory of prices does not apply in conditions whereby faith in an unbacked currency is paramount in deciding its utility. A population which loses faith in its government’s currency can reject it entirely despite changes in its circulating quantity. This is what wipes out all fiat currencies eventually, ensuring that if a currency is to survive it must eventually return to a credible gold exchange standard.

  The weakness of a fiat currency was famously demonstrated in Europe in the 1920s when the Austrian crown and German paper mark were destroyed. Following the Second World War, the Japanese military yen suffered the same fate in Hong Kong, and Germany’s mark for a second time in the mid 1940s. More recently, the Zimbabwean dollar and Venezuelan bolivar have sunk to their value as wastepaper — and they are not the only ones.

  Ultimately it is the public which always determines the use value of a circulating medium. Figure 2 below, of the oil price measured in goldgrams, dollars, pounds, and euros shows that between 1950 and 1974 a gold standard even in the incomplete form that existed under the Bretton Woods Agreement coincided with price stability.

  

  It took just a few years from the ending of Bretton Woods for the consequences of the loss of a gold anchor to materialise. Until then, oil suppliers, principally Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members, had faith in the dollar and other currencies. It was only when they realised the implications of being paid in pure fiat that they insisted on compensation for currency debasement. That they were free to raise oil prices was the condition upon which the Saudis and the rest of OPEC accepted payment solely in US dollars.

  In the post-war years between 1950 and 1970, US broad money grew by 167%, yet the dollar price of oil was unchanged for all that time. Similar price stability was shown in other commodities, clearly demonstrating that the quantity of currency and credit in circulation was not the sole determinant of the dollar’s purchasing power.

  The role of bank credit

  While the relationship between bank credit and the sum of the quantity of currency and bank reserves varies, the larger quantity by far is the quantity of bank credit. The behaviour of the banking cohort therefore has the largest impact on the overall quantity of credit in the economy.

  Under the British gold standard of the nineteenth century, the fluctuations in the willingness of banks to lend resulted in periodic booms and slumps, so it is worthwhile examining this phenomenon, which has become the excuse for state intervention in financial markets and ultimately the abandonment of gold standards entirely.

  Banks are dealers in credit, lending at a higher rate of interest than they pay to depositors. They do not deploy their own money, except in a general balance sheet sense. A bank’s own capital is the basis upon which a bank can expand its credit.

  The process of credit creation is widely misunderstood but is essentially simple. If a bank agrees to lend money to a borrowing customer, the loan appears as an asset on the bank’s balance sheet. Through the process of double entry bookkeeping, this loan must immediately have a balancing entry, crediting the borrower’s current account. The customer is informed that the loan is agreed, and he can draw down the funds credited to his current account from that moment.

  No other bank, nor any other source of funding is involved. With merely two ledger entries the bank’s balance sheet has expanded by the amount of the loan. For a banker, the ability to create bank credit in this way is, so long as the lending is prudent, an extremely profitable business. The amount of credit outstanding can be many multiples of the bank’s own capital. So, if a bank’s ratio of balance sheet assets to equity is eight times, and the gross margin between lending and deposits is 3%, then that becomes a gross return of 24% on the bank’s own equity.

  The restriction on a bank’s balance sheet leverage comes from two considerations. There is lending risk itself, which will vary with economic conditions, and depositor risk, which is the depositors’ collective faith in the bank’s financial condition. Depositor risk, which can lead to depositors withdrawing their credit in the bank in favour of currency or a deposit with another bank, can in turn originate from a bank offering an interest rate below that of other banks, or alternatively depositors concerned about the soundness of the bank itself. It is the combination of lending and depositor risk that determines a banker’s view on the maximum level of profits that can be safely earned by dealing in credit.

  An expansion in the quantity of credit in an economy stimulates economic activity because businesses are tricked into thinking that the extra money available is due to improved trading conditions. Furthermore, the apparent improvement in trading conditions encourages bankers to increase lending even further. A virtuous cycle of lending and apparent economic improvement gets under way as the banking cohort takes its average balance sheet assets to equity ratio from, say, five to eight times, to perhaps ten or twelve. Competition for credit business then persuades banks to cut their margins to attract new business customers. Customers end up borrowing for borrowing’s sake, initiating investment projects which would not normally be profitable.

  Even under a gold standard lending exuberance begins to drive up prices. Businesses find that their costs begin to rise, eating into their profits. Keeping a close eye on lending risk, bankers are acutely aware of deteriorating profit prospects for their borrowers and therefore of an increasing lending risk. They then try to reduce their asset to equity ratios. As a cohort whose members are driven by the same considerations, banks begin to withdraw credit from the economy, reversing the earlier stimulus and the economy enters a slump.

  This is a simplistic description of a regular cycle of fluctuating bank credit, which historically varied approximately every ten years or so, but could fluctuate between seven and twelve. Figure 3 illustrates how these fluctuations were reflected in the inflation rate in nineteenth century Britain following the introduction of the sovereign gold coin until just before the First World War.

  

  Besides illustrating the regularity of the consequences of a cycle of bank credit expansion and contraction marked by the inflationary consequences, Figure 3 shows there is no correlation between the rate of price inflation and wholesale borrowing costs. In other words, modern central bank monetary policies which use interest rates to control inflation are misconstrued. The effect was known and named Gibson’s paradox by Keynes. But because there was no explanation for it in Keynesian economics, it has been ignored ever since. Believing that Gibson’s paradox could be ignored is central to central bank policies aimed at taming the cycle of price inflation.

  The interests of central banks

  Notionally, central banks’ primary interest is to intervene in the economy to promote maximum employment consistent with moderate price inflation, targeted at 2% measured by the consumer price index. It is a policy aimed at stimulating the economy but not overstimulating it. We shall return to the fallacies involved in a moment.

  In the second half of the nineteenth century, central bank intervention started with the Bank of England assuming for itself the role of lender of last resort in the interests of ensuring economically destabilising bank crises were prevented. Intervention in the form of buying commercial bank credit stopped there, with no further interest rate manipulation or economic intervention.

  The last true slump in America was in 1920-21. As it had always done in the past the government ignored it in the sense that no intervention or economic stimulus were provided, and the recovery was rapid. It was following that slump that the problems started in the form of a new federal banking system led by Benjamin Strong who firmly believed in monetary stimulation. The Roaring Twenties followed on a sea of expanding credit, which led to a stock market boom — a financial bubble. But it was little more than an exaggerated cycle of bank credit expansion, which when it ended collapsed Wall Street with stock prices falling 89% measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Index. Coupled with the boom in agricultural production exaggerated by mechanisation, the depression that followed was particularly hard on the large agricultural sector, undermining agriculture prices worldwide until the Second World War.

  It is a fact ignored by inflationists that first President Herbert Hoover, and then Franklin Roosevelt extended the depression to the longest on record by trying to stop it. They supported prices, which meant products went unsold. And at the very beginning, by enacting the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act they collapsed not only domestic demand but all domestic production that relied on imported raw materials and semi-manufactured products.

  These disastrous policies were supported by a new breed of economist epitomised by Keynes, who believed that capitalism was flawed and required government intervention. But proto-Keynesian attempts to stimulate the American economy out of the depression continually failed. As late as 1940, eleven years after the Wall Street Crash, US unemployment was still as high as 15%. What the economists in the Keynesian camp ignored was the true cause of the Wall Street crash and the subsequent depression, rooted in the credit inflation which drove the Roaring Twenties. As we saw in Figure 3, it was no more than the turning of the long-established repeating cycle of bank credit, this time fuelled additionally by Benjamin Strong’s inflationary credit expansion as Chairman of the new Fed. The cause of the depression was not private enterprise, but government intervention.

  It is still misread by the establishment to this day, with universities pushing Keynesianism to the exclusion of classic economics and common sense. Additionally, the statistics which have become a religion for policymakers and everyone else are corrupted by state interests. Soon after wages and pensions were indexed in 1980, government statisticians at the Bureau of Labor Statistics began working on how to reduce the impact on consumer prices. An independent estimate of US consumer inflation put it at well over 15% recently, when the official rate was 8%.

  Particularly egregious is the state’s insistence that a target of 2% inflation for consumer prices stimulates demand, when the transfer of wealth suffered by savers, the low paid and pensioners deprived of their inflation compensation at the hands of the BLS is glossed over. So is the benefit to the government, the banks, and their favoured borrowers from this wealth transfer.

  The problem we now face in this fiat money environment is not only that monetary policy has become corrupted by the state’s self-interest, but that no one in charge of it appears to understand money and credit. Technically, they may be very well qualified. But it is now over fifty years since money was suspended from the monetary system. Not only have policymakers ignored indicators such as Gibson’s paradox. Not only do they believe their own statistics. And not only do they think that debasing the currency is a good thing, but we find that monetary policy committees would have us believe that money has nothing to do with rising prices.

  All this is facilitated by presenting inflation as rising prices, when in fact it is declining purchasing power. Figure 4 shows how purchasing power of currencies should be read.

  

  Only now, it seems, we are aware that inflation of prices is not transient. Referring to Figure 1, the M3 broad money supply measure has almost tripled since Lehman failed, so there’s plenty of fuel driving a lower purchasing power for the dollar yet. And as discussed above, it is not just quantities of currency and credit we should be watching, but changes in consumer behaviour and whether consumers tend to dispose of currency liquidity in favour of goods.

  The indications are that this is likely to happen, accelerated by sanctions against Russia, and the threat that they will bring in a new currency era, undermining the dollar’s global status. Alerted to higher prices in the coming months, there is no doubt that there is an increased level of consumer stockpiling, which put another way is the disposal of personal liquidity before it buys less.

  So far, the phases of currency evolution have been marked by the end of the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1971. The start of the petrodollar era in 1973 led to a second phase, the financialisation of the global economy. And finally, from now the return to a commodity standard brought about by sanctions against Russia is driving prices in the Western alliance’s currencies higher, which means their purchasing power is falling anew.

  The faux pas over Russia

  With respect to the evolution of money and credit, this brings us up to date with current events. Before Russia invaded Ukraine and the Western alliance imposed sanctions on Russia, we were already seeing prices soaring, fuelled by the expansion of currency and credit in recent years. Monetary planners blamed supply chain problems and covid dislocations, both of which they believed would right themselves over time. But the extent of these price rises had already exceeded their expectations, and the sanctions against Russia have made the situation even worse.

  While America might feel some comfort that the security of its energy supplies is unaffected, that is not the case for Europe. In recent years Europe has been closing its fossil fuel production and Germany’s zeal to go green has even extended to decommissioning nuclear plants. It seems that going fossil-free is only within national borders, increasing reliance on imported oil, gas, and coal. In Europe’s case, the largest source of these imports by far is Russia.

  Russia has responded by the Russian central bank announcing that it is prepared to buy gold from domestic credit institutions, first at a fixed price or 5,000 roubles per gramme, and then when the rouble unexpectedly strengthened at a price to be agreed on a case-by-case basis. The signal is clear: the Russian central bank understands that gold plays an important role in price stability. At the same time, the Kremlin announced that it would only sell oil and gas to unfriendly nations (i.e. those imposing sanctions) in return for payments in roubles.

  The latter announcement was targeted primarily at EU nations and amounts to an offer at reasonable prices in roubles, or for them to bid up for supplies in euros or dollars from elsewhere. While the price of oil shot up and has since retreated by a third, natural gas prices are still close to their all-time highs. Despite the northern hemisphere emerging from spring the cost of energy seems set to continue to rise. The effect on the Eurozone economies is little short of catastrophic.

  While the rouble has now recovered all the fall following the sanctions announcement, the euro is becoming a disaster. The ECB still has a negative deposit rate and enormous losses on its extensive bond portfolio from rapidly rising yields. The national central banks, which are its shareholders also have losses which in nearly all cases wipes out their equity (balance sheet equity being defined as the difference between a bank’s assets and its liabilities — a difference which should always be positive). Furthermore, these central banks as the NCB’s shareholders make a recapitalisation of the whole euro system a complex event, likely to question faith in the euro system.

  As if that was not enough, the large commercial banks are extremely highly leveraged, averaging over 20 times with Credit Agricole about 30 times. The whole system is riddled with bad and doubtful debts, many of which are concealed within the TARGET2 cross-border settlement system. We cannot believe any banking statistics. Unlike the US, Eurozone banks have used the repo markets as a source of zero cost liquidity, driving the market size to over €10 trillion. The sheer size of this market, plus the reliance on bond investment for a significant proportion of commercial bank assets means that an increase in interest rates into positive territory risks destabilising the whole system.

  The ECB is sitting on interest rates to stop them rising and stands ready to buy yet more members’ government bonds to stop yields rising even more. But even Germany, which is the most conservative of the member states, faces enormous price pressures, with producer prices of industrial products officially increasing by 25.9% in the year to March, 68% for energy, and 21% for intermediate goods.

  There can be no doubt that markets will apply increasing pressure for substantial rises in Eurozone bond yields, made significantly worse by US sanctions policies against Russia. As an importer of commodities and raw materials Japan is similarly afflicted. Both currencies are illustrated in Figure 5.

  

  The yen appears to be in the most immediate danger with its collapse accelerating in recent weeks, but as both the Bank of Japan and the ECB continue to resist rising bond yields, their currencies will suffer even more. The Bank of Japan has been indulging in quantitative easing since 2000 and has accumulated substantial quantities of government and corporate bonds and even equities in ETFs. Already, the BOJ is in negative equity due to falling bond prices. To prevent its balance sheet from deteriorating even further, it has drawn a line in the sand: the yield on the 10-year JGB will not be permitted to rise above 0.25%. With commodity and energy prices soaring, it appears to be only a matter of time before the BOJ is forced to give way, triggering a banking crisis in its highly leveraged commercial banking sector which like the Eurozone has asset to equity ratios exceeding 20 times.

  It would appear therefore that the emerging order of events with respect to currency crises is the yen collapses followed in short order by the euro. The shock to the US banking system must be obvious. That the US banks are considerably less geared than their Japanese and euro system counterparts will not save them from global systemic risk contamination.

  Furthermore, with its large holdings of US Treasuries and agency debt, current plans to run them off simply exposes the Fed to losses, which will almost certainly require its recapitalisation. The yield on the US 10-year Treasury Bond is soaring and given the consequences of sanctions on global commodity prices, it has much further to go.

  The end of the financial regime for currencies

  From London’s big bang in the mid-eighties, the major currencies, particularly the US dollar and sterling became increasingly financialised. It occurred at a time when production of consumer goods migrated to Asia, particularly China. The entire focus of bank lending and loan collateral moved towards financial assets and away from production. And as interest rates declined, in general terms these assets improved in value, offering greater security to lenders, and reinforcing the trend.

  This is now changing, with interest rates set to rise significantly, bursting a financial bubble which has been inflating for decades. While bond yields have started to rise, there is further for them to go, undermining not just the collateral position, but government finances as well. And further rises in bond yields will turn equity markets into bear markets, potentially rivalling the 1929-1932 performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Index.

  That being the case, the collapse already underway in the yen and the euro will begin to undermine the dollar, not on the foreign exchanges, but in terms of its purchasing power. We can be reasonably certain that the Fed’s mandate will give preference to supporting asset prices over stabilising the currency, until it is too late.

  China and Russia appear to be deliberately isolating themselves from this fate for their own currencies by increasing the importance of commodities. It was noticeable how China began to aggressively accumulate commodities, including grain stocks, almost immediately after the Fed cut its funds rate to zero and instituted QE at $120 billion per month in March 2020. This sent a signal that the Chinese leadership were and still are fully aware of the inflationary implications of US monetary policy. Today China has stockpiled well over half the world’s maize, rice, wheat and soybean stocks, securing basics foodstuffs for 20% of the world’s population. As a subsequent development, the war in Ukraine has ensured that global grain supplies this year will be short, and sanctions against Russia have effectively cut off her exports from the unfriendly nations. Together with fertiliser shortages for the same reasons, not only will the world’s crop yields fall below last year’s, but grain prices are sure to be bid up against the poorer nations.

  Russia has effectively tied the rouble to energy prices by insisting roubles are used for payment, principally by the EU. Russia’s other two large markets are China and India, from which she is accepting yuan and rupees respectively. Putting sales to India to one side, Russia is not only commoditising the rouble, but her largest trading partner not just for energy but for all her other commodity exports is China. And China is following similar monetary policies.

  There are good reasons for it. The Western alliance is undermining their own currencies, of that there can be no question. Financial asset values will collapse as interest rates rise. Contrastingly, not only is Russia’s trade surplus increasing, but the central bank has begun to ease interest rates and exchange controls and will continue to liberate her economy against a background of a strong currency. The era of the commodity backed currency is arriving to replace the financialised.

  And lastly, we should refer to Figure 2, of the price of oil in goldgrams. The link to commodity prices is gold. It is time to abandon financial assets for their supposed investment returns and take a stake in the new commoditised currencies. Gold is the link. Business of all sorts, not just mining enterprises which accumulate cash surpluses, would be well advised to question whether they should retain deposits in the banks, or alternatively, gain the protection of possessing some gold bullion vaulted independently from the banking system.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/15/2022 – 15:00

• Psaki On Biden Emulating Boris Johnson's Ukraine Trip: "He's Ready…The Man Likes A Fast Car, Some Aviators"
  Psaki On Biden Emulating Boris Johnson’s Ukraine Trip: “He’s Ready…The Man Likes A Fast Car, Some Aviators”

  White House press secretary Jen Psaki in a Thursday interview quashed speculation that President Biden is preparing a trip to Ukraine after Politico and other reported Wednesday that it’s a possibility. “No decision on the potential visit has yet been made as deliberations continue inside the White House. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris remain candidates to represent the U.S. in the Ukrainian capital, though it’s far more likely that a Cabinet member like Secretary of State Antony Blinken or Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will go, the officials said,” Politico wrote. 

  Since the report, the administration has been questioned over whether such plans are in the works, also following the UK’s Boris Johnson’s surprise visit to meet with Zelensky in Kiev last week. Psaki on Thursday was asked about it during a “Pod Save America” podcast interview. “He is ready for anything. The man likes a fast car, some aviators — he’s ready to go to Ukraine,” Psaki described, but then stressed, “we are not sending the president to Ukraine.”

  

  But fast cars and aviators aside, it was the comparison to Boris Johnson that was the most interesting and revealing.

  She described that for the British Prime Minister to make it to Kiev last week, which was kept secret until moments after he met face to face with Zelensky, he had to take a train in the middle of a war zone – suggesting that this would be near impossible to facilitate for the US president. 

  Psaki explained that Johnson “took an eight-hour train through a war zone to get to the middle of Ukraine” – and continued:

  “So no, that is not in the plans for the president of the United States,” Psaki said. “We should all be maybe relieved about that.”

  “You’re welcome, America. We need him to do a lot of things,” she added.

  But we should also point out that, no Jen Psaki… Biden is not at all “ready” to go to Ukraine even if he wanted to go…

  Biden on Thursday had told reporters, “We’re making that decision now” – regarding sending a top level US official to Ukraine. Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) and Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) became the first known US officials to visit the country since Russia’s Feb.24 invasion.

  Likely this is also being viewed as a precursor to a possible trip by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, which would require significant security measures and logistics.  

  The pair of Congress members toured some of the devastated suburbs of Kiev, including Bucha, after which the urged more weapons from the West. “The sooner we can provide Ukraine with the lethal aid they need to win this war, the sooner we will end the war crimes,” Sen. Daines said in a statement.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/15/2022 – 14:35

• RNC Votes To Withdraw From Commission On Presidential Debates
  RNC Votes To Withdraw From Commission On Presidential Debates

  By Nick Ciolino of The Epoch Times

  The Republican National Committee (RNC) voted unanimously Thursday to withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), which governs the general election debates.

  In a statement, RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said the commission is “biased and has refused to enact simple and commonsense reforms to help ensure fair debates including hosting debates before voting begins and selecting moderators who have never worked for candidates on the debate stage.”

  Today, the RNC voted to withdraw from the biased CPD, and we are going to find newer, better debate platforms to ensure that future nominees are not forced to go through the biased CPD in order to make their case to the American people. pic.twitter.com/v8YdXyr3wX

  — Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) April 14, 2022

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

  This vote comes months after the GOP threatened in a letter to urge its candidates to not participate in televised debates unless the commission adopts major reforms.

  In the letter, McDaniel accused the commission of partisanship and “significant errors” in its organization of the 2020 presidential debates between then-President Donald Trump and then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.

  The commission’s “repeated missteps and the partisan actions of its Board Members make clear that the organization no longer provides the fair and impartial forum for presidential debates which the law requires and the American people deserve,” McDaniel wrote.

  The reforms McDaniel has advocated for include term limits for the CPD’s board of directors, adopting a “code of conduct” that would prevent staff from making public comments for or against any candidate, committing to hosting at least one debate before the start of early voting, and publicly disclosing criteria for moderator selection.

  The CPD is a nonprofit that was established in 1987 and has since sponsored and produced presidential debates in all nine subsequent election cycles.

  The commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/15/2022 – 14:10

• NYC Mayor Blasts BLM Silence Over Crime Spree: "I Thought Black Lives Mattered?"
  NYC Mayor Blasts BLM Silence Over Crime Spree: “I Thought Black Lives Mattered?”

  How long until Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams – who is black – will find himself facing the firing squad of liberal cancel-tards after he dared to criticize the Black Lives Matter movement over their silence amid the surge in crimes in his city and the seeming daily murders of black children.

  During an interview with NY1 – initially focused on the arrest of Frank James, who now faces a federal terrorism charge for shooting 10 people on a Brooklyn subway train – a clearly exasperated Adams declared after being asked by the host how to handle the increasing number of shootings occurring in the city (as she cited that over a dozen shootings took place on Wednesday night alone):

  “By being consistent with our message. Here’s my question that I put out to the city. Hey, I thought black lives matter. Where are all those who stated ‘black lives matter?’”

  “Then go do an analysis of who was killed or shot last night. I was up all night speaking to my commanders in the Bronx and Brooklyn,” he said.

  “The victims were Black. Many of the shooters were Black.”

  Adams concluded to a rather shocked NY1 anchor:

  “If Black lives matter, then the thousands of people I saw on the street when [George] Floyd was murdered should be on the streets right now stating that the lives of these Black children that are dying every night matter,” adding, “we can’t be hypocrites.”

  As DailyCaller notes, since taking office in January, Adams has clashed with Black Lives Matter Greater New York and its co-founder, Hawk Newsome, over the city’s policing policies.

  “Eric Adams has a lot of good ideas but he doesn’t have a plan,” Newsome told Fox News’ Bill Hemmer in February.

  Since the beginning of the year, crime rose in New York City by more than 75% from the same time frame in 2021, according to New York City Police Department data. Black people were victims of 65% of murders and 74% of shootings in 2020, the New York Times reported.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/15/2022 – 13:45

• Musk Speaking To Co-Investors As Twitter Board Adopts "Poison Pill" To Thwart Hostile Takeover
  Musk Speaking To Co-Investors As Twitter Board Adopts “Poison Pill” To Thwart Hostile Takeover

  (Update: 20:00ET): In an attempt to move along his hostile takeover following Twitter’s adoption of a poison pill takeover defense (see below), the NY Post reports that Elon Musk is speaking to potential co-investors who could partner with him on a bid for the social network, and cites sources according to whom a new plan that includes partners could be announced within days.

  One possibility is teaming with private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners, which was planning to co-invest with him in 2018 when he was considering taking Tesla private, and whose Co-CEO Egon Durban is already a Twitter board member and led Musk’s deal team during the 2018 failed effort to take Tesla private, sources said. Silver Lake declined to comment.

  Whether Musk would present Twitter with an entirely new offer — perhaps raising his current bid — or whether new partners would simply go in on a purchase with him isn’t clear. A Musk spokesperson declined to comment.

  As we predicted earlier (see below), one way to circumvent Twitter’s Poison Pill is for Musk “to be joined by one or more like-minded, anti-censorship investors such as Peter Thiel who either build up stakes through the poison pill 15% limit in the process making a management and board replacement by proxy vote the simple outcome.” And indeed, the Post writes now that the “pill may not stop other entities or people from acquiring their own shares of up to 15% of the company. Those owners could partner with Musk to force a sale, make changes in the executive ranks or push for other overhauls of the company.”

  “This is not over,” a source close to the situation told the Post.

  It sure isn’t because separately, Bloomberg, Reuters and the Post all report that besides Musk’s offer, Twitter has been fielding takeover interest from other parties, including technology-focused private equity firm Thoma Bravo, which is considering making a rival offer. The New York Post reported Thoma Bravo’s interest on Thursday.

  Additionally, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mandeep Singh writes that “Musk could decide to partner with Oracle, whose co-founder Larry Ellison sits on Tesla’s board and has expressed interest in acquiring social media company TikTok’s U.S. assets, and a private equity consortium that includes Thoma Bravo to thwart Twitter’s poison pill, while raising the bid 10-15% to about $50 billion.”

  * * *

  As was widely expected and reported in the aftermath of Elon Musk going hostile on Friday morning, on Saturday morning Twitter adopted a measure that will shield it from hostile acquisition bids in a desperate step to prevent billionaire Elon Musk’s offer to take the company private and make it a bastion of free speech.

  The board set up a shareholder rights plan, also known as a “poison pill” which as we clarified yesterday for the benefit of the company’s overly dramatic, overly literal and overly snowflake employees, is not literal…

  Uhm, someone should probably advise employees “poison pill” is not literal…

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 14, 2022

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

  … and which is exercisable if a party – read Elon Musk – acquires 15% of the stock without prior approval, lasting for one year (if the pill had expired the day after the midterms it may have been a bit too obvious). The plan seeks to ensure that anyone taking control of Twitter through open market accumulation pays all shareholders an appropriate control premium, according to a statement Friday.

  For a company that has struggled greatly with value creation – on Friday TWTR stock closed at $45.08, or 18 cents higher than where it closed on its first day as a public company, or $44.90 – a poison pill defense strategy allows existing shareholders the right to purchase additional shares at a discount, effectively diluting the ownership interest of the hostile party. Poison pills are common among companies under fire from activist investors or in hostile takeover situations.

  Under Twitter’s plan, each right will entitle its holder to purchase, at the then-current exercise price, additional shares of common stock having a then-current market value of twice the exercise price of the right.

  Twitter enacted the plan to buy time, Bloomberg reported citing a person familiar with the matter, although it wasn’t clear time for what: at $54.20, Musk’s offer represents a premium to the historical TWTR price since IPO on 92% of the time.

  

  And since the Twitter board, whose constituents are listed below…

  

  … is about to get bombarded with a barrage of lawsuits claiming it violated its fiduciary duty, the board also said it wants to be able to analyze and negotiate any deal, and may still accept it (spoiler alert: it won’t).

  Twitter’s board met Thursday to review Musk’s proposal – which according to the world’s richest man was his “best and final” offer and who had already accrued a stake of more than 9% in Twitter since earlier this year – to determine if it was in the best interest of the company and all of its shareholders.

  Included in Musk’s securities filing disclosing the bid Thursday morning was a script of text he sent to the company. In it he said, “it’s a high price and your shareholders will love it.” Hilariously, one prominent – and former – investor said the offer was too low and the market reaction appeared to agree. Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said the deal doesn’t “come close to the intrinsic value” of the popular social media platform. Which is, well, hilarious since as we showed yesterday, it appears the Prince no longer has direct ownership of even one share of Twitter stock.

  

  Speaking later Thursday at a TED conference, Musk said he wasn’t sure he “will actually be able to acquire it.” He added that his intent was to also retain “as many shareholders as is allowed by the law,” rather than keeping sole ownership of the company himself.

  After initially surging, Twitter shares dropped 1.7% in New York on Thursday, reflecting the market’s view that the deal is likely to be rejected or to fall through.

  Musk first disclosed his Twitter stake on April 4, making him the largest individual investor. At the TED conference, he indicated that he has a Plan B if Twitter’s board rejects his offer. He declined to elaborate. But in his filing earlier in the day, he said he would rethink his investment if the bid failed.

  “If the deal doesn’t work, given that I don’t have confidence in management nor do I believe I can drive the necessary change in the public market, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder,” said Musk.

  * * *

  Previewing the poison pilll defense, on Thursday, Cameron Winklevoss, founder of the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, tweeted (of course) that “Twitter is considering a poison pill to thwart @elonmusk’s offer.” In response, Musk said that a “poison pill” move would be a “breach” of the board’s fiduciary duty and could expose Twitter’s board to “titanic” legal liability.

  If the current Twitter board takes actions contrary to shareholder interests, they would be breaching their fiduciary duty.

  The liability they would thereby assume would be titanic in scale.

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 14, 2022

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

  Winklevoss alleged in his tweet that, by adopting the poison pill tactic, Twitter was demonstrating its commitment to preserving the status quo even if it has a negative impact on existing shareholders.

  “They would rather self-immolate than give up their censorship programs. This shows you how deeply committed they are to Orwellian control of the narratives and global discourse. Scary,” he wrote. Twitter has repeatedly suppressed and “shadowbanned” conservative viewpoints, allegations the company has repeatedly denied.

  Adam Candeub, a law professor at Michigan State University, said that Twitter’s board could face legal consequences if they turn down an offer that’s financially lucrative to shareholders.

  “Twitter’s owned by shareholders, and the directors have to act in a way that’s in their best interests, not in the way that allows them to keep control of the corporation,” Candeub told The Epoch Times.

  “If they turn down a very favorable price, there will be dereliction of their legal duty, and there could be lots of legal consequences.”

  * * *

  Now that his original plan has been thwarted, Musk has said that he has a “Plan B” in stock for the company although he did not disclose what it is. As Mark Cuban pointed out yesterday…

  Want to see the whole world lose their shit ? Get Peter Thiel to partner with Elon and raise the bid for Twitter

  — Mark Cuban (@mcuban) April 14, 2022

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

  … one possible response is for Elon to be joined by one or more like-minded, anti-censorship investors such as Peter Thiel who either build up stakes through the poison pill 15% limit in the process making a management and board replacement by proxy vote the simple outcome, or they just raise the takeover price to a level that even the woke Twitter board can not reject.

  Or skip the whale investor approach entirely, and open up twitter to a mass investor buyout, in the form of a DAO, where “token holders will get to vote on what’s trending and who gets verified.”

  And of course a decentralized group of supporters for “the current thing” will create a DAO to buy Twitter. Token holders will get to vote on what’s trending and who gets verified. Ok I’ll stop now 😁

  — Mark Cuban (@mcuban) April 14, 2022

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

  Alternatively, Musk can take his appeal directly to his 82 million twitter followers (a quarter of Twitter’s total 217 million  global Daily Active Users) and have them all buy several shares, then pledge them for Elon during the next proxy vote. Because as much as Twitter wants to reject any buyout offer that will prevent it from imposing the censorship its liberal board and employees love so much, there is only so much it can do.

  In the end, however, the only question is how dedicated is Musk to control Twitter, because if he really wants it, he will get it.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/15/2022 – 13:21

• Whither Bitcoin?
  Whither Bitcoin?

  Authored by Eric Yakes via BitcoinMagazine.com,

  The world stands on the precipice of a monetary restructuring, with bitcoin seemingly the most likely to be adopted… albeit slowly.

  

  INTRODUCTION

  The world is reorganizing. People are attempting to comprehend the implications of recent events across a variety of dimensions: politically, geopolitically, economically, financially and socially. A feeling of uncertainty has eclipsed global affairs and individuals are developing an increased reliance on the thoughts of those bold enough to attempt comprehension. Experts are everywhere, but the expert is nowhere.

  I am not claiming to be an expert on anything, either. I read, write and do my best to piece together an understanding of vague and complex concepts. I’ve spent some time reading and thinking through various concepts and believe we are witnessing an inflection point of global trust.

  My goal is to explain the framework that led me to this conclusion. I’ll generally avoid discussing geopolitics and focus on the monetary and financial implications of this shift we are witnessing. The best place to start is understanding trust.

  THE WORLD RUNS ON TRUST

  We are witnessing a shift in global trust, setting the table for a new global monetary order. Consider Antal Fekete’s introduction from his seminal work Whither Gold?:

  “The year 1971 was a milestone in the history of money and credit. Previously, in the world’s most developed countries, money (and hence credit) was tied to a positive value: the value of a well-defined quantity of a good of well-defined quality. In 1971 this tie was cut. Ever since, money has been tied not to positive but to negative values — the value of debt instruments.”

  Debt instruments (credit) are built on trust — the most fundamental construct of organization. Organization allowed humanity to genetically eclipse its ancestors. Relationships, whether between individuals or groups, hinge on trust. Societies developed technologies and social structures to reduce the need for trust through reputations, security and money.

  Reputations reduce the need to trust because they represent an individual’s pattern of behavior: You trust some people more than others because of how they’ve acted in the past.

  Security reduces the need to trust that others will not hurt you in some form. You build a fence because you don’t trust your neighbors. You lock your car because you don’t trust your community. Your government has a military because it doesn’t trust other governments. Security is the price you pay to avoid the costs of vulnerability.

  Money reduces the need to trust that an individual will return a favor to you in the future. When you provide an individual a good or service, rather than trusting that they will return it to you in the future, they can immediately trade money to you, eliminating the need to trust. Stated differently, money reduces the need to trust that positive outcomes will happen while reputations and security reduces the need to trust that negative outcomes won’t happen. When money became entirely unanchored from gold in 1971, the value of money became a function of reputations and security, requiring trust. Before then, money was tied to the commodity gold, which maintained value through its well-defined quality and well-defined quantity and therefore didn’t require trust.

  Trust at a global level appears to be shifting across reputations and security, and thus credit money:

  • Reputations — countries are trusting each other’s reputations less. The U.S. government’s reputation throughout recent history has been a global pillar of political stability and standard of financial and economic prudency. This is changing. The rise of U.S. populism has hindered its reputation as a politically stable country that allies depend on and rivals fear. Unprecedented economic and financial policy measures (e.g., bailouts, deficit spending, monetary inflation, debt issuance, etc.) are causing international powers to question the stability of the U.S. financial system. A hindrance to the reputation of the U.S. is a hindrance on the value of its money, to be discussed below.

  • Security — countries are witnessing a contraction in global military order. The U.S. has been reducing its military presence and the world is shifting from a unipolar to a multipolar structure of order. The U.S.’ withdrawal of its military presence abroad has reduced its role as the monitor of international order and given rise to the military presence of rival nations. Reducing the assurance of its military presence internationally reduces the value of the dollar.

  • Money — countries are losing trust in the international monetary order. Money has existed as either a commodity or credit (debt). Commodity money is not subject to trust through the reputations and security of governments while credit money is. Our modern system is entirely credit-based and the credit of the U.S. is the pillar upon which it exists. If the global reserve currency is based on credit, then the reputation and security of the U.S. is paramount to maintaining international monetary order. Trust in political and financial stability impacts the value of the dollar as does its holders’ demand for liquidity and stability. However, it’s not just U.S. credit money that is losing trust; it’s all credit money. As political and financial stability decline, we are witnessing a shift away from credit money entirely, incentivizing the adoption of commodity money.

  U.S. DEBT IS NOT RISK FREE

  Most recently, the reputation of U.S. credit has declined in an unprecedented way. Foreign governments historically trusted that the U.S. government’s debt is risk free. When financial sanctions froze Russia’s foreign exchange reserves, the U.S. undermined this risk-free reputation, as even reserves are now subject to confiscation. The ability to freeze the reserve assets of another country removed a foreign government’s right to either repay its debts or spend those assets. Now, international observers are realizing that these debts are not risk free. As the debt of the U.S. government is what backs its currency, this is a significant cause for concern.

  When the U.S. government issues debt, and demand from domestic and foreign buyers of it isn’t strong enough, the Federal Reserve prints money to purchase it in the open market and generate demand. Thus, the more U.S. debt countries are willing to buy, the stronger the U.S. dollar becomes — requiring less money printing by the Fed to indirectly enable government spending. Trust in the U.S. government’s credit has now been damaged, and thus so has the credit of the dollar. Further, trust in credit is declining in general, leaving commodity money as the more trustless option.

  First, I will examine this shift in the U.S. which applies specifically to its reputation and security, and then discuss the shifts in global credit (money).

  U.S. Dollar Dominance

  Will foreign governments attempt to de-dollarize? This question is complex as it not only requires an understanding of the global banking and payment systems but also maintains a geopolitical background. Countries around the world, both allies and rivals, have strong incentives to end global dollar hegemony. By utilizing the dollar a country is subject to the purview of the U.S. government and its financial institutions and infrastructure. To better understand this, let’s start by defining money:

  

  The above figure from my book shows the three functions of money as a store of value, medium of exchange and unit of account, as well as the supporting monetary properties of each below them. Each function plays a role in international financial markets:

  1. Store of Value — fulfilling this function drives reserve currency status. U.S. currency and debt is ~60% of global foreign reserves. A country will denominate its foreign exchange reserve assets in the most creditworthy assets — defined by their stability and liquidity.

  2. Medium of Exchange — this function is closely tied to being a unit of account. The dollar is the dominant invoicing currency in international trade and the euro is a close second, both of which fluctuate around ~40% of total. The dollar is also 64% of foreign currency debt issuance, meaning countries mostly denominate their debt in dollars. This creates demand for the dollar and is important. Since the U.S. issues more debt than domestic and foreign buyers are naturally willing to buy, they must print dollars to buy it in the market, which is inflationary (all else equal). The more foreign demand they can create for these newly printed dollars, the lower the inflationary impact from printing new dollars. This foreign demand becomes entrenched as countries denominate their contracts in the dollar, allowing the U.S. to monetize their debt.

  3. Unit of Account — Oil and other commodity contracts are often denominated in U.S. dollars (e.g., the petrodollar system). This creates artificial demand for the dollar, supporting its value while the U.S. government continually issues debt beyond amounts domestic and foreign buyers would be willing to purchase without the Fed creating demand for it. The petrodollar system was created by Nixon in response to a multi-year depreciation of the dollar after its fixed convertibility into gold was removed in 1971. In 1973, Nixon struck a deal with Saudi Arabia in which every barrel of oil purchased from the Saudis would be denominated in the U.S. dollar and in exchange, the U.S. would offer them military protection. By 1975, all OPEC nations agreed to price their own oil supplies in dollars in exchange for military protection. This system spurred artificial demand for the dollar and its value was now tied to demand for energy (oil). This effectively entrenched the U.S. dollar as a global unit of account, allowing it more leeway in its practices of money printing to generate demand for its debt. For example, you may not like that the U.S. is continually increasing its deficit spending (hindering its store of value function), but your trade contracts require you to use the dollar (supporting its medium of exchange and unit of account function), so you have to use dollars anyway. Put simply, if foreign governments won’t buy U.S. debt, then the U.S. government will print money to buy it from itself and contracts require foreign governments to use that newly printed money. In this sense, when the U.S. government’s creditworthiness (reputation) falls short, its military capabilities (security) pick up the slack. The U.S. trades military protection for increased foreign dollar demand, enabling it to continuously run a deficit.

  Let’s summarize. Since its establishment, the dollar has served the functions of money best at an international level because it can be easily traded in global markets (i.e., it’s liquid), and contracts are denominated in it (e.g., trade and debt contracts). As U.S. capital markets are the broadest, most liquid and maintain a track record of secure property rights (i.e., strong reputation), it makes sense that countries would utilize it because there is a relatively lower risk of significant upheaval in U.S. capital markets. Contrast this idea with the Chinese renminbi which has struggled to gain dominance as a global store of value, medium of exchange and unit of account due to the political uncertainty of its government (i.e., poor reputation) which maintains capital controls on foreign exchange markets and frequently intervenes to manipulate its price. U.S. foreign intervention is rare. Further, having a strong military presence enforces dollar demand for commodity trade per agreements with foreign countries. Countries that denominate contracts in dollars would need to be comfortable trading away military security from the U.S. to buck this trend. With belligerent Eastern leaders increasing their expanse, this security need is considerable.

  Let’s look at how the functions of money are enabled by a country’s reputation and security:

  • Reputation: primarily enables the store of value function of its currency. Specifically, countries that maintain political and economic stability, and relatively free capital markets, develop a reputation for safety that backs their currency. This safety can also be thought of as creditworthiness.

  • Security: primarily enables the medium of exchange and unit of account functions of its currency. Widespread contract denomination and deep liquidity of a currency entrench its demand in global markets. Military power is what entrenches this demand in the first place.

  If the reputation of the U.S. declines and its military power withdraws, demand for its currency decreases as well. With the shifts in these two variables in front of mind, let’s consider how demand for the dollar could be affected.

  OVERVIEW OF THE GLOBAL MONETARY SYSTEM

  Global liquidity and contract denomination can be measured by analyzing foreign reserves, foreign debt issuance, and foreign transactions/volume. Dollar foreign exchange reserves gradually declined from 71% to 60% since the year 2000. Three percent of the decline is accounted for in the euro, 2% from the pound, 2% from the renminbi and the remaining 4% from other currencies.

  More than half of the 11 percentage point decline has come from China and other economies (e.g., Australian dollars, Canadian dollars, Swiss francs, et al.). While the U.S. dollar decline in dominance is material, it obviously remains dominant. The primary takeaway is that most of the decline in dollar dominance is being captured by smaller currencies, indicating that global reserves are gradually becoming more dispersed. Note that this data should be interpreted with caution as the fall in dollar dominance since 2016 occurred when previous non-reporting countries (e.g., China) began gradually revealing their FX reserves to the IMF. Further, governments don’t have to be honest about the numbers they report — the politically sensitive nature of this information makes it ripe for manipulation.

  

  Source: IMF

  Foreign debt issuance in USD (other countries borrowing in contracts denominated in dollars) has also gradually declined by ~9% since 2000, while the euro has gained ~10%. Debt issuance of the remaining economies was relatively flat over this period so most of the change in dollar debt issued can be attributed to the euro.

  

  Source: Federal Reserve

  The currency composition of foreign transactions is interesting. Historically, globalization has increased the demand for cross-border payments primarily due to:

  • Manufacturers expanding supply chains across borders.

  • Cross-border asset management.

  • International trade.

  • International remittances (e.g., migrants sending money home).

  This poses a problem for smaller economies: the more intermediaries that are involved in cross-border transactions, the slower and more expensive these payments become. High-volume currencies, such as the dollar, have a shorter chain of intermediaries while lower-volume currencies (e.g., emerging markets) have a longer chain of intermediaries. This is important because it is these emerging markets that stand to lose the most from international payments and for this reason alternative systems are attractive to them.

  

  Source: Bank of England

  If we look at the trend in composition of foreign payments it’s evident that the dollar’s share of invoicing is materially greater than its share of exports, illuminating its outsized role of invoicing in proportion to trade. The euro has been competing with the dollar in terms of invoicing share, but this is driven by its usage for export trade among EU countries. For the rest of the world, export share has been, on average, greater than 50% while invoicing share has remained less than 20% on average.

  

  Source: Journal of International Economics

  Lastly, let’s discuss the volume of trade. A currency with high volume of trade means that it is relatively more liquid and thus, more attractive as a trade vehicle. The chart below shows the proportions of volume traded by currency. The dollar has remained dominant and constant since 2000, expressing its desirability as a liquid global currency. What’s important is that the volume of all major global reserve currencies have declined slightly while the volume of “other” smaller world currencies has increased from 15% to 22% in proportion.

  

  Source: BIS Triennial Survey; (Note: typically these numbers are shown on a 200% scale — e.g., for 2019 USD would be 88.4% out of 200% — because there are two legs to every foreign exchange trade. I’ve condensed this to a 100% scale for ease of interpretation of the proportions).

  The dollar is dominant across every metric, although it has been gradually declining. Most notably, economies that are not major world reserves are:

  1. Gaining dominance as reserves and thus world FX reserves are becoming more dispersed.

  2. Utilizing the dollar for foreign transactions in significantly greater proportions than their exports and limited by a long chain of intermediaries when attempting to use their domestic currencies.

  3. Hurt the most by long chains of global intermediaries for their transactions and thus stand to gain the most from alternative systems.

  4. Increasing their share of foreign exchange volume (liquidity) while all the major reserve currencies are declining.

  There exists a trend whereby the smaller and less dominant currencies of the world are expanding but are still limited by dollar dominance. Pair this trend with the global political fragmentation occurring and their continued expansion becomes more plausible. As the U.S. withdraws its military power globally, which backs the dollar’s functions as a medium of exchange and unit of account, it decreases demand for its currency to serve these functions. Further, the dollar’s creditworthiness has declined since implementing the Russian sanctions. The trends of declining U.S. military presence and creditworthiness, as well as increased global fragmentation, indicate that the global monetary regime could experience drastic change in the near term.

  THE GLOBAL MONETARY SYSTEM IS SHIFTING

  Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, and the U.S. subsequently implemented a swath of economic and financial sanctions. I believe history will look back on this event as the initial catalyst of change towards a new era of global monetary order. Three global realizations subsequently occurred:

  Realization #1: Economic sanctions placed on Russia signaled to the world that US sovereign assets are not risk free. U.S. control over the global monetary system subjects all participating nations to the authority of the U.S.

  Effectively, ~$300 billion of Russia’s ~$640 billion in foreign exchange reserves were “frozen” (no longer spendable) and it was partially banned (energy still allowed) from the SWIFT international payments system. However, Russia had been de-dollarizing and building up alternative reserves as protection from sanctions throughout previous years.

  Now Russia is looking for alternatives, China being the obvious partner, but India, Brazil and Argentina are also discussing cooperation. Economic sanctions of this magnitude by the West are unprecedented. This has signaled to countries around the world the risk they run through dependence on the dollar. This doesn’t mean that these countries will begin cooperating as they are all subject to constraints under an international spiderweb of trade and financial relationships.

  For example, Marko Papic explains in “Geopolitical Alpha” how China is heavily constrained by the satisfaction of its growing middle class (the majority of its population) and fearful that they could fall into the middle-income trap (GDP per capita stalling within the $1,000-12,000 range). Their debt cycle has peaked and economically they are in a vulnerable position. Chinese leaders understand that the middle-income trap has historically brought the death of communist regimes. This is where the U.S. has leverage over China. Economic and financial sanctions targeting this demographic can prevent growth in productivity and that is what China is most afraid of. Just because China wants to partner with Russia and achieve “world domination” does not mean that they will do so since they are subject to constraints.

  The most important aspect of this realization is that U.S. dollar assets are not risk free: they maintain a risk of appropriation by the U.S. government. Countries with plans to act out of accordance with U.S. interests will likely start de-dollarizing before doing so. However, as much as countries would prefer to opt out of this dollar dependency, they are constrained in doing so as well.

  Realization #2: It’s not just the U.S. that has economic power over reserves, it’s fiat reserve nations in general. Owning fiat currencies and assets in reserves creates uncertain political risks, increasing the desirability of commodities as reserve assets.

  Let’s talk about commodity money vs. debt (fiat) money. In his recent paper, Zoltan Pozsar describes how the death of the dollar system has arrived. Russia is a major global commodity exporter and the sanctions have bifurcated the value of their commodities. Similar to subprime mortgages in the 2008 financial crisis, Russian commodities have become “subprime” commodities. They’ve subsequently declined materially in value as much of the world is no longer buying them. Non-Russian commodities are increasing in value as anti-Russia countries are now all purchasing them while the global supply has shrunk materially. This has created volatility in commodity markets, markets that have been (apparently) neglected by financial system risk monitors. Commodity traders often borrow money from exchanges to place their trades, with the underlying commodities as collateral. If the price of the underlying commodity moves too much in the wrong direction, the exchanges tell them that they need to pay more collateral to back their borrowed money (trader get margin-called). Now, traders take both sides in these markets (they bet the price will go up or that it will go down) and therefore, regardless of which direction the price moves, somebody is getting margin-called. This means that as price volatility is introduced to the system, traders need to pay more money to the exchange as collateral. What if the traders don’t have more money to give as collateral? Then the exchange has to cover it. What if the exchanges can’t cover it? Then we have a major credit contraction in the commodity markets on our hands as people start pulling money out of the system. This could lead to large bankruptcies within a core segment of the global financial system.

  In the fiat world, credit contractions are always backstopped — such as the Fed printing money to bail out the financial system in 2008. What is unique to this situation is that the “subprime” collateral of Russian commodities is what Western central banks would need to step in and buy — but they can’t because their governments are the ones who prevented buying it in the first place. So, who is going to buy it? China.

  China could print money and effectively bail out the Russian commodity market. If so, China would strengthen its balance sheet with commodities which would strengthen its monetary position as a store of value, all else equal. The Chinese renminbi (also called the “yuan”) would also begin spreading more widely as a global medium of exchange as countries that want to participate in this discounted commodity trade utilize the yuan in doing so. People are referring to this as the growth of the “petroyuan” or “euroyuan” (like the petrodollar and eurodollar, just the yuan). China is also in discussions with Saudi Arabia to denominate oil sales in the yuan. As China is the largest importer of Saudi oil, it makes sense that the Saudis would consider denominating trade in its currency. Further, the lack of U.S. military support for the Saudis in Yemen is all the more reason to switch to dollar alternatives. However, the more the Saudis denominate oil in contracts other than the dollar, the more they risk losing U.S. military protection and would likely become subject to the military influence of China. If the yuan spreads wide enough, it could grow as a unit of account, as trade contracts become denominated in it. This structure of incentives implies two expectations:

  1. Alternatives to the U.S. global monetary system will strengthen.

  2. Demand for commodity money will strengthen relative to debt-based fiat money.

  However, the renminbi is only 2.4% of global reserves and has a long way to go towards international monetary dominance. Countries are much less comfortable utilizing the yuan over the dollar for trade due to its political uncertainty risks, control over the capital account and the risk of dependence on Chinese military security.

  A common expectation is that either the West or the East is going to be dominant once the dust settles. What’s more likely is that the system will continue splitting and we’ll have multiple monetary systems emerge around the globe as countries attempt to de-dollarize — referred to as a multipolar system. Multipolarity will be driven by political and economic self-interest among countries and the removal of trust from the system. The point about trust is key. As countries trust fiat money less, they will choose commodity-based money that requires less trust in an institution to measure its risk. Whether or not China becomes the buyer of last resort for Russian commodities, global leaders are realizing the value of commodities as reserve assets. Commodities are real and credit is trust.

  Bitcoin is commodity-like money, the scarcest in the world that resides on trustless and disintermediated payment infrastructure. Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, Russia had restricted crypto assets within its economy. Since then, Russia’s position has changed drastically. In 2020, Russia gave crypto assets legal status but banned their use for payments. As recently as January 2022, Russia’s central bank proposed banning the use and mining of crypto assets, citing threats to financial stability and monetary sovereignty. This was in contrast to Russia’s ministry of finance, which had proposed regulating it rather than outright banning it. By February, Russia chose to regulate crypto assets, due to the fear that it would emerge as a black market regardless. By March, a Russian government official announced it would consider accepting bitcoin for energy exports. Russia’s change of heart can be attributed to the desire for commodity money as well as the disintermediated payment infrastructure that Bitcoin can be transferred upon — leading to the third realization.

  Realization #3: Crypto asset infrastructure is more efficient than traditional financial infrastructure. Because it is disintermediated, it offers a method of possession and transfer of assets that is simply not possible with intermediated traditional financial infrastructure.

  Donations in support of Ukraine via crypto assets (amounting to nearly $100 million as of this writing) demonstrated to the world the rapidness and efficiency of transferring value via just an internet connection, without relying on financial institutions. It further demonstrated the ability to maintain possession of assets without reliance on financial institutions. These are critical features to have as a war refugee. Emerging economies are paying attention as this is particularly valuable to them.

  Bitcoin has been used to donate roughly $30 million to Ukraine since the start of the war. Subsequently, a Russian official stated that it will consider accepting bitcoin, which I believe is because they are aware that bitcoin is the only digital asset that can be used in a purely trustless manner. Bitcoin’s role on both sides of the conflict demonstrated that it is apolitical while the freezing of fiat reserves demonstrated that their value is highly political.

  Let’s tie this all together. Right now, countries are rethinking the type of money they are using and the payment systems they are transferring it on. They will become more avoidant of fiat money (credit), as it is easily frozen, and they are realizing the disintermediated nature of digital payment infrastructure. Consider these motivations alongside the trend of an increasingly fragmented system of global currencies. We’re witnessing a shift towards commodity money among a more fragmented system of currencies moving across disintermediated payment infrastructure. Emerging economies, particularly those removed from global politics, are postured as the first movers towards this shift.

  While I don’t expect that the dollar will lose primacy anytime soon, its creditworthiness and military backing is being called into question. Consequently, the growth and fragmentation of non-dollar reserves and denominations opens the market of foreign exchange to consider alternatives. For their reserves, countries will trust fiat less and commodities more. There is a shift emerging towards trustless money and desire for trustless payment systems.

  ALTERNATIVES TO THE GLOBAL MONETARY SYSTEM

  We are witnessing a decline in global trust with the realization that the age of digital money is upon us. Understand that I am referring to incremental adoption of digital money and not full-scale dominance — incremental adoption will likely be the path of least resistance. I expect countries to increasingly adopt trustless commodity assets on disintermediated payment infrastructure, which is what Bitcoin provides. The primary limiting factor to this adoption of bitcoin will be its stability and liquidity. As bitcoin matures into adolescence, I expect this growth to increase rapidly. Countries that want a digital store of value will prefer bitcoin for its sound monetary properties. The countries most interested and least restrained in adopting digital assets will be among the fragmented developing world as they stand to gain the most for the least amount of political cost.

  While these incremental shifts will be occurring in tandem, I expect the first major shift will be towards commodity reserves. Official reserve managers prioritize safety, liquidity and yield when choosing their reserve assets. Gold is valuable in these respects and will play a dominant role. However, bitcoin’s trustless nature will not be overlooked, and countries will consider it as a reserve despite its tradeoffs with gold, to be discussed below.

  Let’s walk through what bitcoin adoption could look like:

  

  Source: World Gold Council; Advanced reserve economies includes the BIS, BOE, BOJ, ECB (and its national member banks), Federal Reserve, IMF and SNB.

  Since 2000, gold as a percentage of total reserves has been declining for advanced economies and growing for China, Russia and the other smaller economies. So, the trend towards commodity reserves is already in place. Over this same period gold reserves have fluctuated between nine and 14% of total reserves. Today, total reserves (both gold and FX reserves) amount to $16 trillion, 13% of which ($2.2 trillion) is gold reserves. We can see in the below chart that gold as a percentage of reserves has been rising since 2015, the same year the U.S. froze Iran’s reserves (this was ~$2 billion, a much smaller amount than the Russia sanctions).

  

  Source: World Gold Council.

  Reserves have been growing rapidly in China, Russia and smaller economies as a whole. The chart below shows that non-advanced economies have increased their total reserves by 9.4x and gold reserves by 10x, while advanced economies have increased total reserves by only 4x. China, Russia and the smaller economies command $12.5 trillion in total reserves and $700 billion of those are in gold.

  

  Source: World Gold Council.

  The growth and size of smaller economy reserves is important when considering bitcoin adoption among them as a reserve asset. Smaller countries will ideally want an asset that is liquid, stable, grows in value, disintermediated and trustless. The below illustrative comparison stack ranks broad reserve asset categories by these qualities on a scale of 1-5 (obviously, this is not a science but an illustrative visualization to facilitate discussion):

  

  Countries adopt different reserve assets for different reasons, which is why they diversify their holdings. This assessment focuses on the interests of emerging economies for bitcoin adoption considerations.

  Bitcoin is liquid, although not nearly as liquid as fiat assets and gold. Bitcoin isn’t stable. Standard reserve assets, including gold, are much more stable. Bitcoin will likely offer a much higher capital appreciation than fiat assets and gold over the long run. Bitcoin is the most disintermediated as it has a truly trustless network — this is its primary value proposition. Storing bitcoin doesn’t require trusted intermediaries and thus can be stored without the risk of appropriation — a risk for fiat assets. This point is important because gold does not maintain this quality as it is expensive to move, store and verify. Thus, bitcoin’s primary advantage over gold is its disintermediated infrastructure which allows for trustless movement and storage.

  With these considerations in mind, I believe the smaller emerging economies that are largely removed from political influence will spearhead the adoption of bitcoin as a reserve asset gradually. The world is growing increasingly multipolar. As the U.S. withdraws its international security and fiat continues to lose creditworthiness, emerging economies will be considering bitcoin adoption. While the reputation of the U.S. is in decline, China’s reputation is far worse. This line of reasoning will make bitcoin attractive. Its primary value-add will be its disintermediated infrastructure which enables trustless payments and storage. As bitcoin continues to mature, its attractiveness will continue to increase.

  If you think the sovereign fear of limiting its domestic monetary control is a strong incentive to prevent bitcoin adoption, consider what happened in Russia.

  If you think countries won’t adopt bitcoin for fear of losing monetary control, consider what happened in Russia. While Russia’s central bank wanted to ban bitcoin, the finance ministry opted to regulate it. After Russia was sanctioned, it has been considering accepting bitcoin for energy exports. I think Russia’s behavior shows that even totalitarian regimes will allow bitcoin adoption for the sake of international sovereignty. Countries that demand less control over their economies will be even more willing to accept this tradeoff. There are many reasons that countries would want to prevent bitcoin adoption, but on net the positive incentives of its adoption are strong enough to outweigh the negative.

  Let’s apply this to the shifts in global reputations and security:

  • Reputations: political and economic stability is becoming increasingly riskier for fiat, credit-based assets. Bitcoin is a safe haven from these risks, as it is fundamentally apolitical. Bitcoin’s reputation is one of high stability, due to its immutability, which is insulated from global politics. No matter what happens, Bitcoin will keep producing blocks and its supply schedule remains the same. Bitcoin is a commodity that requires no trust in the credit of an institution.

  • Security: because Bitcoin cannot trade military support for its usage, it will likely be hindered as a global medium of exchange for some time. Its lack of price stability further limits this form of adoption. Networks such as the Lightning Network enable transactions in fiat assets, like the dollar, over Bitcoin’s network. Although the Lightning Network is still in its infancy, I anticipate this will draw increased demand to Bitcoin as a settlement network — increasing the store of value function of its native currency. It’s important to understand that fiat assets will be used as a medium of exchange for some time due to their stability and liquidity, but the payment infrastructure of bitcoin can bridge the gap in this adoption. Hopefully, as more countries adopt the Bitcoin standard the need for military security will decline. Until then, a multipolar world of fiat assets will be utilized in exchange for military security, with a preference for disintermediated payment infrastructure.

  CONCLUSION

  Trust is diminishing among global reputations as countries implement economic and geopolitical warfare, causing a reduction in globalization and shift towards a multipolar monetary system. U.S. military withdrawal and economic sanctions have illuminated the lack of security within credit-based fiat money, which incentivizes a shift towards commodity money. Moreover, economic sanctions are forcing some countries, and signaling to others, that alternative financial infrastructure to the U.S. dollar system is necessary. These shifts in the global zeitgeist are demonstrating to the world the value of commodity money on a disintermediated settlement network. Bitcoin is postured as the primary reserve asset for adoption in this category. I expect bitcoin to benefit in a material way from this global contraction in trust.

  However, there are strong limitations to full-scale adoption of such a system. The dollar isn’t going away anytime soon, and significant growth and infrastructure is required for emerging economies to utilize bitcoin at scale. Adoption will be gradual, and that is a good thing. Growth in fiat assets over Bitcoin settlement infrastructure will benefit bitcoin. Enabling a permissionless money with the strongest monetary properties will spawn an era of personal freedom and wealth creation for individuals, instead of the incumbent institutions. Despite the state of the world, I’m excited for the future.

  Whither Bitcoin?

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/15/2022 – 13:00

• Russian Long-Range Bombers Strike Ukraine For 1st Time In War
  Russian Long-Range Bombers Strike Ukraine For 1st Time In War

  For the first time since the Feb.24 invasion, it’s being widely reported that the Russian military has struck Ukrainian targets using long-range bombers. Ukrainian defense ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said Friday that bombs were dropped by Tu-22M3 aircraft over positions in the port city of Mariupol. 

  “On April 14, two Russian strategic heavy bombers Tu-95/-160 have launched cruise missiles hitting the territory of Ukraine from Krasnodar Krai of Russian Federation airspace,” he said. “Also for the first time from the start of the armed aggression bombs were dropped by a long-range bombers Tu-22M3. This airstrike took place, hitting Mariupol.”

  

  It’s believed Russian forces are attempting to secure a corridor that stretches from Mariupol to the Crimean Peninsula as the war for the Donbas region heats up. Motuzyanyk described that there are still major street battles happening in and near Mariupol, which before the war had nearly 500,000 people. 

  The use of long-range bombers could signal the start of a new Russian strategy. The Kremlin has recently admitted it’s suffered bigger than expected casualties, with many analysts pointing out that so far Russia has been restrained when it comes to major bombing raids on Ukrainian cities. 

  It also became evident early on that Russia’s military appeared to be restraining its use of airpower, resulting in many instances of unprotected tank convoys being ambushed with often foreign-supplied anti-tank missiles, such as the Javelin. 

  The timing of this latest development is interesting also given the Thursday sinking of the Moskva cruiser off Odessa’s coast, which was considered the Russian Navy’s flagship in the Black Sea. It was reportedly hit by a pair of Neptune anti-ship missiles, and Ukraine is celebrating it as a major victory. This as Russia claimed the ship was destroyed by accidental fire which ignited munitions. 

  Losing the Moskva (if confirmed) isn’t just tactically significant it’s strategically significant

  And could be a big sign things are about to heat up https://t.co/fuhhk1NxhW

  — Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) April 14, 2022

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  The warship’s sinking is likely to mark a significant shift for the Kremlin. After suffering such major losses, Russia has more incentive to practice less restraint – which is perhaps why long-rage bombers are apparently now in use.

  This week CIA Director William Burns testified that he sees that a lengthy conflict will play out. And it goes without saying that none of this will be good for global food and energy security.

  Russia going the long range bomber route now. Both sides have stopped negotiations as Russia declares peace talks a “dead end”. As expected, this will drag on for a loooong time. 🤢

  Many on my timeline thought this would be a one month war. Could be just beginning for wheat pic.twitter.com/jwyls8SySL

  — Sp3cul8r (@sp3cul8r) April 15, 2022

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  Additionally, Moscow has freshly warned Washington this week to stop supplying arms to Kiev, warning of “unpredictable consequences” to come by continuing down this path. Indeed given Russia is now losing entire warships, and with a crew of over 500 having to be evacuated, the war has just entered a new unpredictable phase.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/15/2022 – 12:30

• Biden COVID Czar: Little Kids Should Still Wear Masks Because CDC Says So
  Biden COVID Czar: Little Kids Should Still Wear Masks Because CDC Says So

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  The Biden Administration’s ‘COVID Coordinator’ declared Thursday that little kids should still be wearing masks in school because the ‘experts’ say so, but claimed that lifting all restrictions for migrants crossing the border is different.

  

  Dr. Ashish Jha claimed that Biden lifting the Title 42 health authority, instated by President Trump, while simultaneously extending mask mandates for Americans makes sense because of ‘different standards’.

  Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto said “I’d like to address this whole Title 42 situation with you, doctor. Because there seems to be a different standard for migrants or those at the border, where we might loosen that at a time when we are tightening requirements here.”

  “I’m just wondering your thoughts on that and whether Americans are right to feel that there’s a double standard,” Cavuto asked.

  Jha responded, “The way I look at it is, first of all, if you look across the country, if you look at the CDC map, 97% of the country is in green. There are not very many restrictions. And the CDC scientists determined, on Title 42, that it was an appropriate time, from a public health point of view, to lift the Title 42 restrictions.”

  OK, CDC says so. Any science to back it up?

  No, look at the big map. OK. Carry on.

  “We have always had a bit of a different standard on transportation, in the sense that we know when you’re sitting on an airplane, the person sitting next to you, if they’re coughing, they’re sneezing, you can’t get up and move. So, we’ve always wanted to be extra careful on public transportation, airlines,” Jha continued.

  Jha added “And that, I think, is part of what is motivating the CDC scientists here to say, let’s take two more weeks, let’s get a sense of what’s going on. They really are pretty different circumstances. And I think that’s what is driving the CDC decision-making on this.”

  Different standards, absolutely not double standards. OK.

  Jha continued, “I think what we heard from the CDC this week is a little more time to make a more durable decision. It struck me as eminently reasonable.”

  Watch:

  Biden’s COVID coordinator Ashish Jha: Biden’s CDC extended the travel mask mandate, but not Title 42, “to get a sense of what’s going on.” pic.twitter.com/Xp2g9VjND6

  — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 14, 2022

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  COVID bad when Americans on transport, not bad when migrants crossing border. OK, got it.

  Cavuto then asked, “Do you think little kids should wear masks, doctor?”

  Jha responded “That is what both the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends, that’s what the CDC recommends. So, I really do follow the experts on this. And I believe that, if America’s pediatricians are making those recommendations, I’m certainly going to take that pretty seriously.”

  Masks good on little American kids in schools, restrictions not needed for migrants crossing border because ‘experts’ say so, OK got it.

  Watch:

  CAVUTO: “Should little kids be wearing masks?”

  BIDEN’S COVID COORDINATOR: Yes pic.twitter.com/78MA5CNmvN

  — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 14, 2022

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  Full interview:

  https://video.foxnews.com/v/embed.js?id=6303980343001&w=466&h=263Watch the latest video at foxnews.com

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  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/15/2022 – 12:05