Aug 16

Today’s News 16th August 2021

  • The Gradual Death Of EU Coal Production
    The Gradual Death Of EU Coal Production

    Coal has been experiencing a gradual death in the EU over the last few decades, at least in terms of production on European soil.

    New figures from Eurostat show that in 1990, EU production totaled 277.4 million tonnes and as Statista’s Martin Armstrong shows in the infographic below, that has fallen steadily since, with just 56.5 million tonnes in 2020, churned out almost exclusively by Poland.

    Infographic: The Gradual Death of EU Coal Production | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Germany is the most notable absence from the 2020 figures, having accounted for 27 percent 30 years ago.

    While production in Czechia has halved over the time period, it was the only country alongside Poland to contribute towards the industry in 2020.

    Spain, France and all other member states have also disappeared in the latest figures.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/16/2021 – 02:45

  • Lockdown Created 1 Million New Alcoholics In England
    Lockdown Created 1 Million New Alcoholics In England

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    Official data shows that England’s lockdown caused an extra 1 million people to become addicted to alcohol since the start of the pandemic.

    Before the pandemic began, government polling indicated that there were around 1.5 million alcoholics in the country, meaning people who drank at least 50 units every week.

    “But this jumped to just shy of 2.5 million this summer, which experts have blamed on the endless cycle of virus-controlling restrictions,” reports the Daily Mail.

    According to alcohol abuse expert Dr Tony Rao of King’s College London, “The impact of the Covid pandemic on alcohol use has been devastating. The latest data, taken together with the highest number of alcohol-specific deaths on record, is a stark warning for the Government.”

    Alcohol charities are warning of a crisis “that is happening now” after Public Health England revealed that “deaths directly caused by alcohol soared by 20% during the first year of the pandemic.”

    As we highlighted earlier, young children’s cognitive development during lockdown was also severely impaired as a result of a lack of human interaction and mask mandates.

    The true impact of lockdowns on the health and well-being of both young and old won’t be properly known until years into the future.

    However, studies already undertaken into the devastation it will cause are chilling.

    A data analyst consortium in South Africa concluded that the economic consequences of the country’s lockdown would lead to 29 times more people dying than the coronavirus itself.

    As we previously reported, Academics from Duke, Harvard, and Johns Hopkins have concluded that there could be around a million excess deaths over the next two decades as a result of lockdowns.

    Back in June, Stanford University professor of medicine Jay Bhattacharya warned that in years to come lockdowns will be looked back upon as the most catastrophically harmful policy in “all of history.”

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/16/2021 – 02:00

  • Why The NARA Secrecy Over The Secret JFK Records?
    Why The NARA Secrecy Over The Secret JFK Records?

    Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

    For some unknown reason, there seems to be some secrecy on the part of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) over the still-secret 58-year-old records of the CIA and other federal agencies relating to the Kennedy assassination.

    On July 29, 2021, I submitted the following request for information through the NARA website:

    Would you please advise me whether any federal agencies, especially the CIA, have expressed an interest in seeking an extension of time for continued secrecy with respect to the JFK records that are set to be released in October?

    On August 10, I received the following email from NARA:

    Dear Mr. Jacob Hornberger,

    After looking into your request, we are able to confirm that at this time NARA and other federal agencies are in the process of reviewing JFK assassination records in accordance with the requirements of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 and the April 26, 2018, Presidential Memorandum on Certification for Certain Records Related to the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Similar to the 2017-2018 release, NARA plans to make the releasable records from the 2021 review available on the National Archives website.  More details will be communicated as updates arrive.

    Sincerely,
    Ashney Randle
    Special Access & FOIA Program

    On August 10, I sent the following email to Ms. Randle:

    Dear Ms. Randle,

    Thank you for your email. It provides interesting information, for which I am appreciative.

    Unfortunately, however, your email does not answer my question, which is: “Would you please advise me whether any federal agencies, especially the CIA, have expressed an interest in seeking an extension of time for continued secrecy with respect to the JFK records that are set to be released in October?”

    Was this an oversight? Or is there some reason why this information has to remain secret?

    Thank you for your time and continued attention to this matter.

    Sincerely,
    Jacob Hornberger

    On August 10, Ms. Randle sent me the following email:

    Dear Mr. Jacob Hornberger,

    As we were looking for an answer to your request, unfortunately, this is all the information that the National Archives has concerning the JFK records scheduled for release in October. While we understand this is not an ideal answer to your question, we do know that as updates become available, they will be posted online on the National Archives website.

    Sincerely,
    Ashney Randle
    Special Access & FOIA Program

    On August 10, I sent the following email to Ms. Randle:

    Dear Ms. Randle,

    I refer to the following excerpt from President Trump’s April 18, 2018, memorandum entitled “Certification for Certain Records Related to the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy” (https://fas.org/sgp/trump/jfk-cert.pdf):

    “Any agency that seeks further postponement beyond October 26, 2021, shall, no later than April 26, 2021, identify to the Archivist the specific basis for concluding that records (or portions of records) satisfy the standard for continued postponement under section 5(g)(2)(D) of the Act. Thereafter, the Archivist shall recommend to the President, no later than September 26, 2021, whether continued withholding from public disclosure of the identified records is warranted after October 26, 2021.”

    All I am asking for is whether any agency has, in fact, “identified to the Archivist the specific basis for concluding that records (or portions of records) satisfy the standard for continued postponement” and, if so, the names of such agencies.

    It seems to me that disclosing that information, one way or the other, would be a rather simple thing to do. Or is there a reason why such information has to be kept secret?

    Thank you for your time and your continued attention to this matter.

    Jacob Hornberger

    After that email, I failed to receive any more emails from Ms. Randle, and given her last email to me on August 10, I don’t expect to receive a direct answer to my question. (If I do, I will update this blog post.)

    That raises the obvious question: Why the secrecy on this particular question? Why not openly and publicly disclose now whether the CIA or other federal agencies have expressed an interest in another extension of time for secrecy of their official JFK assassination-related records? 

    Or to be more specific, why not disclose now, openly and publicly, whether “any agency that seeks further postponement beyond October 26, 2021 [has identified] to the Archivist the specific basis for concluding that records (or portions of records) satisfy the standard for continued postponement under section 5(g)(2)(D) of the Act.”

    It’s one thing to keep the official JFK assassination-related records of the CIA and other federal agencies secret after almost 60 years. But it’s quite another thing to keep secret whether the CIA and other federal agencies have expressed an interest to the National Archives for more years (or decades) of official secrecy of their official assassination-related records.

    If NARA were to disclose now whether the CIA and other federal agencies have expressed an interest in seeking more time for secrecy, the American people could begin discussing whether such a request should be granted. They could also be writing op-eds and editorials on the matter. They could be expressing their opinions to the members of Congress as well as to President Biden. Keeping such expressions of interest secret until the last minute leading up to the October 26 deadline naturally tends to suppress such discussions.

    Isn’t it bad enough to keep official assassination-related records secret after almost six decades? Doesn’t it just compound the problem when the National Archives keeps secret whether the CIA or other federal agencies have expressed an interest in another extension of time for secrecy?

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/15/2021 – 23:30

  • Tropics Awaken With Three Storms In Focus
    Tropics Awaken With Three Storms In Focus

    We reminded readers earlier this month that statistically speaking, the busiest part of the Atlantic hurricane season has begun and will peak around Sept. 10. As of Sunday evening, there are three systems in the tropics that we’re watching. 

    The first is Tropical Storm Fred that will impact southeast Alabama, Florida Panhandle, Georgia, and the western Carolinas beginning on Monday afternoon. Torrential rains are expected across the Southeast US through Wednesday. 

    The National Hurricane Center (NHC) is expecting dangerous storm surges across the Florida Panhandle. 

    The next system we’re watching is Tropical Depression Grace which is set to unleash heavy rainfall that could result in flash floods across Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti beginning on Monday afternoon. 

    The third system on our radar is Invest 96L, located northeast of Bermuda, and has continued to become better organized on Sunday evening. There’s a 90% chance the system could be upgraded to a depression in the next 48 hours. 

    “If this trend continues, advisories will likely be initiated on a new tropical depression later tonight. The system is forecast to move slowly toward the south or southwest during the next day or so, and then turn westward on Tuesday, passing near or just east and south of Bermuda,” NHC wrote in its latest tropical weather outlook. 

    With three systems to watch to start the week, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasters believe a busy hurricane season is ahead. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    The quiet period appears to be over, and the tropics are beginning to heat up.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/15/2021 – 23:00

  • Nixon's Gold Treachery Made Me A Cynic
    Nixon’s Gold Treachery Made Me A Cynic

    Authored by James Bovard via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    Fifty years ago, on August 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon announced that the U.S. government would cease honoring its pledge to pay gold to redeem the dollars held by foreign central banks. Nixon declared he was taking “action necessary to defend the dollar against the speculators.” But there was no way to defend the dollar against politicians. Nixon touted his default as therapy for his tormented fellow citizens, promising it would “help us snap out of the self-doubt, the self-disparagement that saps our energy and erodes our confidence in ourselves.” Nixon wrapped his decree with lofty political rhetoric, appealing to the nation’s “greatest ideals” and promising a “new prosperity” that “befits a great people.”

    The dollar thus became a fiat currency – something which possessed value solely because politicians said so. Nixon spurred the Federal Reserve to create an artificial boom to boost his reelection campaign. To suppress the damage from a flood of new money, he imposed wage and price controls, making it a crime to raise prices without government permission.

    At that time, I was working in a peach orchard in rural Virginia for 10 hours a day, reaping $1.40 an hour and all the peach fuzz I could take home on my arms and neck. Nixon’s wage controls doomed any chance of getting that raise to $1.45 an hour. But no loss – I was leaving that job soon to go back to high school. I was 15 at that time and an avid coin collector. I soaked up the rage at the reckless federal policies that permeated Coin News and other numismatic publications.  “Government as scoundrel” was the theme of many editorials and articles I read in those periodicals in the following months and years. I had no savvy on economics but my gut sense told me something was profoundly amiss. Nixon’s decree spurred my reading and researching. 

    Nixon’s gold default was also a landmark for America’s rising economic and political illiteracy. In the era of this nation’s birth, currency was often recognized as a character issue – specifically, the contemptible character of politicians. Shortly before the 1787 Constitutional Convention, George Washington warned that unsecured paper money will “ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice.” The Coinage Age of 1792 established gold and silver as the foundation for the nation’s currency and authorized a death penalty for anyone who debased the nation’s gold or silver coins.

    Unfortunately, politicians later exempted themselves from penalties for debasing the currency. In 1933, the U.S. had the largest gold reserves of any nation in the world. But fear of devaluation spurred a panic, which President Franklin Roosevelt exploited to seize people’s gold. FDR denounced anyone who refused to turn in their gold as a “hoarder.” Any citizen caught with more than $100 in gold coins faced ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine. (The penalty was not as harsh the Soviet Union’s death penalty for anyone caught “hoarding” wheat from a collective farm.)

    FDR asserted that banning private ownership of gold was necessary to give government “freedom of action” – which he quickly exploited by devaluing the dollar by 59% with a decree raising the value of gold from $20 an ounce to $35 an ounce. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau hailed the gold policy as part of the administration’s “plans for a restoration of public confidence,” but the de facto default on government debts set the precedent for boundless federal arbitrariness for the rest of the decade. FDR tried every trick to drive up prices, foolishly confident that a mere change in numerical prices would spawn prosperity. The resulting inflation was invoked in the early 1940s to help justify imposing payroll tax withholding.

    In the mid-1960s, the dollar was under pressure from perennial federal deficit spending and President Lyndon Johnson responded by eliminating all the silver in new dimes and quarters. After severing the dollar’s link to silver, LBJ demanded that the Federal Reserve pump up the economy. He even summoned Fed Chairman William McChesney Martin to his Texas ranch and “physically beat him, he slammed him against the wall, and said, ‘Martin, my boys are dying in Vietnam, and you won’t print the money I need,’” according to Dallas Federal Reserve president Richard Fisher. Since LBJ didn’t murder Martin at his ranch, the media could continue to portray the Federal Reserve as “independent” of political control. The Fed accommodated LBJ sufficiently that the inflation rate more than tripled between 1964 to 1968, rising from 1.3% to 4.3%. The rising inflation set the scene for Nixon’s gold repudiation.

    FDR’s prohibition on private gold ownership contained a loophole for rare coins with numismatic value. Luckily, the feds did not vigorously police that exemption. By 1973, I was buying Mexican and French gold pieces to save and to sell to high school classmates and others. After I got laid off from a construction job in the summer of 1974, I saw it as a sign from God (or at least from the market) that I should buy more gold. I liquidated most of my coin collection and put all my available cash into gold and also took out a consumer finance loan at 18% to purchase even more. That interest rate was the gauge of my blind confidence. I had been closely following gold prices and was convinced a price spike was coming. Nixon’s resignation in August did wonders for the price of gold.

    I didn’t get rich but made enough to help cover my costs for sporadically attending Virginia Tech, with some money left over to pay for my first literary strikeouts. Though Nixon assured the nation in 1971 that “the effect of this action… will be to stabilize the dollar,” the “Nixon Shock” was “followed by a decade of one of the worst inflations of American history and the most stagnant economy since the Great Depression. The price of gold rose to $800 from $35,” as Lewis Lehrman noted. Americans have suffered 570% inflation since Nixon “stabilized” the dollar.

    Nixon’s gold decree and other policies helped me recognize that politicians are far more perfidious than the media portrays. If the government would intentionally destroy the value of the currency, I wondered what else it was undermining. The Watergate scandal provided further evidence of “politician” as synonym for “damn rascal.” The dissolution of the Vietnam War clinched the case as Americans learned how presidents had conned the nation into a pointless Asian bloodbath. Gas shortages and gas lines beginning in late 1973 confirmed that any cadre of “best and brightest” in Washington was an optical illusion.

    Fifty years after Nixon’s betrayal, America is again facing rapidly increasing inflation. The Biden administration is embracing almost boundless deficit spending in its quest to throw unrestricted free money at any non-millionaire who might vote for Democratic candidates. Most of the fawning media coverage on Biden policies is as economically illiterate as the cheerleaders for Nixon’s chicanery long ago. If the government continues on this path, it is only a question of time until fresh debacles result. But from the economic wreckage, a new generation of cynics may arise who do a far better job of putting politicians back on a leash.   

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/15/2021 – 22:30

  • Deep Diving For Metals: Visualizing Ocean Mining
    Deep Diving For Metals: Visualizing Ocean Mining

    The mining sector has been one of the biggest beneficiaries in the COVID-19 recovery.

    Several countries’ recovery packages have ignited demand for commodities like copper, iron ore and lithium. Given that more metals are necessary for electrification and the clean energy transition, many companies are looking at an unexplored market: ocean mining.

    Mining of the Deep Sea is still under study but metals are abundant on the seafloor. Reserves are estimated to be worth anywhere from $8 trillion to more than $16 trillion.

    Visual Capitalist provides this infographic from Prospector provides a visual overview of the seabed mining process.

    Down in the Depths

    The most prolific area for ocean mining is the Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ) in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, between Hawaii and Mexico. Almost 20 international mining companies have contracts to explore the region which spans over 5,000 kilometers.

    Most of the metals are found in potato-sized rock-like polymetallic nodules. Millions of years old, the nodules grow by absorbing metals from the seawater, expanding slowly around the core of shell, bone, or rock.

    Source: The Pew Charitable Trusts

    It is estimated that there are 21 billion tonnes of polymetallic nodules resting on the ocean floor in the CCZ, containing an estimated:

    • 6 billion tonnes of manganese

    • 226 million tonnes of copper – about 25% of land-based reserves

    • 94,000 tonnes of cobalt – about six times as much as current land-based reserves

    • 270 million tonnes of nickel – 100 times the annual global nickel production in 2019

    Cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts are found on the sides of underwater mountain ranges and seamounts. Similar to nodules, these crusts form over millions of years as metal compounds in the water. Roughly 57% of them are located in the Pacific.

    Polymetallic sulfide deposits formed after seawater seeps into volcanic rocks can be found along tectonic plate boundaries on the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean.

    How Does Ocean Mining Work?

    Extraction of minerals from the seafloor is planned to involve either modified dredging (for nodules), cutting (for massive sulphides and crusts), and transport of the material as a slurry in a riser or basket system to a surface support vessel.

    The mineral-bearing material is then processed in a ship (cleaning and dewatering – with the wastewater and sediment being returned to the ocean) and then transferred to a barge for transport to shore where it will be further processed to extract the target metals.

    Towards a Greener Future

    Growing demand for batteries to power electric cars and store wind and solar energy has driven up the cost of many metals and bolstered the business case for seabed mining.

    According to a study published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, producing battery metals from nodules could reduce emissions of CO² by 70-75%,  cut land use by 94% and eliminate 100% of solid waste.

    Here is a look at how ocean and land mining compares:

     

    Source: The Metals Company

     

    The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has so far approved 28 exploration contracts in the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans, covering 1.3 million square kilometers of the ocean floor.

    With many companies turning their eyes to the unexplored riches of the ocean, seabed mining could offer a wealth of untapped minerals on the ocean floor.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/15/2021 – 22:00

  • Eviction Moratorium: A Postmortem On Private Property
    Eviction Moratorium: A Postmortem On Private Property

    Authored by Michael Milano via The Libertarian Institute, 

    At the beseeching of congressional Democrats and the fanatical urgings of Nancy Pelosi, who called the extension of the federal eviction moratorium a “moral imperative,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a new nationwide ban on evictions for counties with heightened levels of coronavirus community transmission. This latest CDC order comes in spite of President Biden’s candid admission that “the bulk of the constitutional scholarship says it’s not likely to pass constitutional muster.” In The Ethics of Liberty, Murray Rothbard attests that the “right to contract is strictly derivable from the right of private property.” If private property is a keystone for prosperous societies and a fundamental tenant of common law, what happens in the aftermath of the vitiation of millions of private contracts?

    A brief recap. In March 2020 under the CARES Act, an eviction moratorium was applied to all dwelling units participating in federal assistance programs. Invoking the Public Health Service Act of 1944, the CDC broadened the moratorium to cover all rental properties countrywide in September 2020. The CDC’s unprecedented unilateral expansion was rationalized as a reasonable measure to combat the spread of COVID-19 by preventing crowded living conditions that would stem from mass evictions and by facilitating self-isolation. This decree, initially slated to end after three months, had been extended on five separate occasions. Rent protection programs have additionally been enacted at the state level. In some states these eviction moratoriums are scheduled to expire over the upcoming weeks. In others, they are set to continue indefinitely.

    Image source: City limits

    In consonance with the ethos of a free society, the United States Constitution is a document grounded in natural rights, conceived to protect private property. The Founding Fathers did not include a universal pandemic exception. The Fifth Amendment states that no one shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” but does permit private property to be expropriated with just compensation (e.g., eminent domain). The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees due process protection at the state level. According to the Contract Clause, no state “may pass a law impairing the obligation of contracts.” During the eviction moratorium however, contractual obligations were voided, property was despotically taken with no compensation, and liberty was deprived without a hearing.

    For many painstaking months, landlords have been stripped of their rights to freely use their property, while being forced to fulfill legal duties for squatters. Courts at the district level ruled the CDC’s edict unconstitutional, yet the moratorium persisted. In June 2021, the Supreme Court chimed in, allowing the eviction moratoriums to stand in the case of Alabama Association of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Services. However, Justice Brett Kavanaugh clearly stated that the CDC exceeded its authority, that congressional authorization would be required for a moratorium extension, and that his deciding vote was cast only due to the fact that a few weeks remained before the moratorium was set to expire. Nevertheless, in open defiance of the Supreme Court ruling, the CDC issued their slightly scaled back, 60 day ban on evictions, at the beginning of August.

    A dangerous precedent has been established. If eviction moratoriums are deemed a lawful intervention, why shouldn’t the seizing of private property be used to quell future “crises”? Will the current fallout include landlords abandoning the industry, or will rents be raised to offset uncertainty risks as speculated by Jeff Deist? How do members of a society continue to confidently form agreements when the trust associated with contract enforcement erodes?

    When taking this all into account, proponents of strict constitutionalism are inevitably forced to reconcile their philosophy in the face of a swelling regulatory state, led by power mongering aspiring autocrats, who perceive the founding documents as ignorable relics. None of this should be overly surprising given that politicians and bureaucrats are perversely incentivized to perpetually expand the size of government. In spite of illusions of separated powers, regardless of whether the reigns are wielded by Democrats or Republicans, when the state is the ultimate arbiter, even in cases involving itself, justice becomes an empty abstraction distributed to gain political favor.

    Applying one set of ethical standards to the citizenry and another to the state is hypocrisy and downright immoral. In a system that preserves property rights, a creditor may grant a debtor forgiveness solely for obligations between the two parties. As Lysander Spooner wrote in No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority:

    “A man’s natural rights are his own, against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime; whether committed by one man, or by millions; whether committed by one man, calling himself a robber, or by millions calling themselves a government.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/15/2021 – 21:30

  • These Are The World's Fastest Growing Cities
    These Are The World’s Fastest Growing Cities

    By 2025, the world’s population will reach over 8.1 billion people.

    Most of that population growth will be concentrated in cities across Africa and Asia. To help paint a detailed picture, Visual Caitalist’s Avery Koop uses data from the United Nations to rank the top 20 fastest growing cities in the world in terms of average annual growth rate from 2020 to 2025.

    Full Speed Ahead

    The majority of the world’s fastest growing cities are located in Africa—in fact, 17 of the 20 are located on the continent, with four of the 20 cities being located in Nigeria specifically.

    Population growth is booming across the entire continent, as many countries retain high birth rates. According to the World Bank, the 2019 fertility rate (births per woman) in Sub-Saharan Africa was 4.6, compared to the global fertility rate of 2.4.

    Nigeria’s economy is largely based on petroleum which has resulted in the country becoming one of the strongest economies in Africa. This, coupled with a high birth rate and a resulting young population, has given the country a strong and rising workforce.

    However, the population growth in Nigeria is both a blessing and a curse. The success of the economy, among other factors, has resulted in excessive rural-to-urban migration. This mass exodus from rural areas has led to less farming, which means the country now needs to import basic food staples at a high cost.

    In Mozambique, Tete and Quelimane are growing 5.56% and 5.14% respectively. The country is expected to experience strong economic growth after facing contractions due to the pandemic. Forecasts predict that the Mozambiques’s economy will grow 4% by 2022.

    Implications of Fast Growth

    All of the top 20 fastest growing cities are located in either Africa or Asia, and they are far outpacing growth on other continents, such as Europe, for example.

    Fastest Growing Cities: Europe vs. Global

    By 2050, Sub-Saharan Africa will be home to close to 2 billion people and roughly half will be under the age of 25. This represents an enormous labor force and opportunities for innovation and growth. In fact, in navigating the pandemic, Africa is already starting to capitalize on digital advances in both traditional and new sectors.

    China has its eye on Africa, as evidenced through their multiple investments in infrastructure projects in the continent. Additionally, NATO countries have recently committed to investing similar amounts in Africa to counter China’s influence.

    In spite of the economic potential, increased city sizes could be problematic for some of these countries. They will need to adapt to the issues associated with mass urbanization, like pollution, overcrowding, and high costs of living.

    Changing Tides

    Population booms can lead to massive economic growth, a larger (and younger) working population, and a growing domestic consumer market.

    As the aforementioned cities continue their rapid expansion, and as people continue to flock to growing megacities in Africa and Asia, it could represent the beginning of an important economic shift that is worth keeping an eye on.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/15/2021 – 21:00

  • Judge Orders Biden Administration To Resume 'Remain In Mexico' Policy
    Judge Orders Biden Administration To Resume ‘Remain In Mexico’ Policy

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A federal judge on Friday said the Biden administration must resume a policy that sees asylum seekers wait in Mexico for their claims to be heard.

    A group of illegal immigrants crosses the Rio Grande from Acuna, Mexico, to Del Rio, Texas, on July 25, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

    The Department of Homeland Security “failed to consider several critical factors” before axing the Trump era “Remain in Mexico” policy, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, found.

    That included ignoring how the program was beginning to lead to some immigrants with asylum claims that lacked merit voluntarily returning home, he wrote in a 53-page ruling.

    Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on June 1 of this year formally ended “Remain in Mexico,” though in practice it was stopped when President Joe Biden entered office on Jan. 20. In a memorandum (pdf) to top immigration officials, Mayorkas said a review determined the policy “does not adequately or sustainably enhance border management in such a way as to justify the program’s extensive operational burdens and other shortfalls.”

    “Over the course of the program, border encounters increased during certain periods and decreased during others. Moreover, in making my assessment, I share the belief that we can only manage migration in an effective, responsible, and durable manner if we approach the issue comprehensively, looking well beyond our own borders,” he wrote.

    The memo fails to mention some of the primary benefits of the program, which is known as MPP, Kacsmaryk said.

    “At the very least, the Secretary was required to show a reasoned decision for discounting the benefits of MPP. Instead, the June 1 Memorandum does not address the problems created by false claims of asylum or how MPP addressed those problems. Likewise, it does not address the fact that DHS previously found that ‘approximately 9 out of 10 asylum claims from Northern Triangle countries are ultimately found non-meritorious by federal immigration judges,’ and that MPP discouraged such aliens from traveling and attempting to cross the border in the first place,” he said.

    That made the policy change both arbitrary and capricious, the judge added. The Administrative Procedure Act states that agency actions that are “arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion” are ripe for being overturned by courts.

    Kacsmaryk ordered the Biden administration to resume MPP, though he stayed his order for seven days to let the federal government seek emergency relief at an appeals court.

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who brought the lawsuit with the state of Missouri, said the ruling showed the Biden administration “unlawfully tried to shut down the legal and effective Remain-in-Mexico program.”

    Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, another Republican, described the ruling as a “huge win for border security and the rule of law.”

    The Biden administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is seen at a Customs and Border Protection processing facility in Donna, Texas, on May 7, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

    The Trump administration established MPP in 2019 to deal with a surge in illegal immigration. Former President Donald Trump successfully partnered with Mexico to start the program, which saw the U.S. send some asylum seekers back to Mexico until their claims were heard.

    Kirstjen Nielsen, who served as Homeland Security secretary during the Trump administration, said when the program was first implemented that it was in response to “a security and humanitarian crisis on the Southern border.”

    “MPP will help restore a safe and orderly immigration process, decrease the number of those taking advantage of the immigration system, and the ability of smugglers and traffickers to prey on vulnerable populations, and reduce threats to life, national security, and public safety, while ensuring that vulnerable populations receive the protections they need,” she said in a statement at the time.

    Biden and top officials this year have reversed or altered a number of key Trump-era immigration policies. The United States has seen a leap in illegal border crossings, culminating in a new 21-year-high in July.

    Mayorkas, Biden, and others have repeatedly blamed Trump, claiming his administration’s policies were “inhumane” and needed changing. That process takes time, they’ve said.

    Speaking about the border crossings during a visit in Texas this week, Mayorkas said one reason for them was “the end of the cruel policies of the past administration, and the restoration of the rule of laws of this country that Congress has passed, including our asylum laws that provide humanitarian relief.”

    Trump “slashed our international assistance to Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, slashed the resources that we were contributing to address the root causes of a right of irregular migration,” he added later.

    Stephen Miller, a top immigration adviser to Trump during the previous administration, called Mayorkas “a pathological liar” in response.

    “He inherited the most secure border—& the most effective enforcement regime—in history,” Miller wrote on Twitter. “The *sole* cause of the present border disaster was Biden’s decision to reverse the Trump program & replace it with sovereignty-erasing catch-and-release.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/15/2021 – 20:30

  • Biden To Address Crisis In Afghanistan "In Next Few Days"
    Biden To Address Crisis In Afghanistan “In Next Few Days”

    With both Americans, and the world, seeking some guidance – if not leadership – from the US during the chaos unfolding in Afghanistan which has seen both the capital Kabul and the US embassy fall to the Taliban in several frenetic hours…

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    … CNN announced that President Biden – who has been holed up in Camp David – is expected to address the nation in the next few days about the crisis in Afghanistan.

    According to the report, one option under discussion is to have Biden return to the White House, though the official cautioned that they had not completely ruled out making the remarks from Camp David.

    Earlier today, CNN’s Jeff Zeleny reported that while Biden can receive the same level of briefings from Camp David, as he has been doing throughout the weekend, officials are aware of the optics of the President being out of town during this perilous moment.

    Several administration officials have also been on vacation, but began returning to work remotely Sunday or in the West Wing.

    Earlier today, the White House twitter account sent out a photo showing Biden holding a video conference with the national security team and senior officials “to hear updates on the draw down of our civilian personnel in Afghanistan, evacuations of SIV applicants and other Afghan allies, and the ongoing security situation in Kabul.” The photo was quickly panned by a former Navy bomb squad team member among others, for clearly showing the face of the Doha station chief, outing him in the process.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/15/2021 – 20:04

  • Where Schools Have To Follow Mask Mandates
    Where Schools Have To Follow Mask Mandates

    Tensions are running high in U.S. states which are banning mask requirements in schools as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes that more and more school districts are deciding to go against governors and mandate masks anyways. Among the states in question, Florida and South Carolina have seen the biggest surges of new COVID-19 infections recently.

    In Texas, which is one of the eight states which does not allow mask requirements in schools, Governor Greg Abbott has tweeted that schools going against the grain will be sued. Several counties meanwhile won injunctions against Abbott’s ban, but these remain temporary. A similar ruling was issued in Arkansas on Friday while a Florida county circuit judge is expected to hold a hearing on the issue tomorrow.

    In addition to schools, challenges to the governor-issued bans on mask requirements also extend to government buildings and other government entities. But since children under the age of 12 cannot yet be vaccinated, questions around masks in schools are especially contentious and mask use for all K-12 students and teachers continues to be recommended by the CDC.

    According to Pew Charitable Trust, ten states and the District of Colombia still mandate masks to be worn in schools.

    Infographic: Where Schools Have to Follow Mask Mandates | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    For most of these states, a general indoor mask mandate for the unvaccinated also remains in place. Only Hawaii, Louisiana, D.C. and most recently, Oregon, have continued or returned to mandating masks worn indoors by everyone.

    In New Jersey and Delaware, mask mandates extend only to schools, while New York does it the other way round, asking unvaccinated people to wear masks indoors while leaving the decision about masks in schools up to the districts.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/15/2021 – 20:00

  • Wall Street Journal Proves It Doesn't Understand Gold
    Wall Street Journal Proves It Doesn’t Understand Gold

    Authored by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

    Gold bugs should never assume that the mainstream investing community actually understands finance.

    That includes the Wall Street Journal, which recently published an article (Gold as an Inflation Hedge: What the Past 50 Years Teaches Us) purporting to show that gold does not protect against a depreciating currency.

    The article begins with a couple of subheads…

    On the anniversary of the metal’s unleashing by Nixon, gold’s believers may be disappointed by the record

    Investors often think that gold is the answer to inflation. It’s not that simple, as the past 50 years have shown.

    …and then attempts to prove those points graphically with a chart comparing gold to stocks and bonds:

    Its conclusion? Pretty much everything has gone up since the US left the gold standard in 1971, and the things that went up most – stocks — are by definition the best “inflation hedges,” while bonds are just about as good as gold.

    So what’s wrong with this argument?

    Simply put, gold is not an “investment”. It is money.

    You don’t own it in place of Amazon stock or Treasury bonds, you own it in place of the dollars that might otherwise be in your pocket, your bank account, or under your mattress.

    Here’s a picture that’s as clear as the previous one is obscure.

    Two piles of dollars and coins.

    The one on the right is the amount that was required to buy an ounce of gold in 1920.

    The other, massive pile is the number of dollars it takes to buy an ounce of gold today.

    The upshot: gold has protected its owners’ purchasing power while the dollar has been depreciated to oblivion. That is the definition of “inflation hedge.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/15/2021 – 19:30

  • These Are The Best-Selling Vehicles In The World By Country
    These Are The Best-Selling Vehicles In The World By Country

    Each country has different preferences for goods, and vehicles are no different.

    Consumers in a dense country might prefer smaller cars, while countries with wide expanses (and parking spots) open the way for larger trucks. Likewise, rugged terrain might call for vehicles that can adapt and scale quickly.

    And, as Visual Capitalists’ Omri Wallach notes, it’s also a question of which manufacturer invested in the country. As the world’s largest automakers have raced to attract consumers in every corner of the globe, they built factories, renamed models, and even built specific cars to fit the tastes of individual countries.

    This infographic from Budget Direct Car Insurance highlights the best-selling vehicles in the world, using 2019 year-end sales data.

    What is the Most Popular Vehicle in Each Country?

    Though the map might vary across the board, one thing is certain: Toyota’s dominance.

    The Japanese automaker—which was also the most valuable automaker in the world for many years before being overtaken by Tesla—had the best-selling vehicle in 41 countries of the 104 countries tallied.

    It also had the world’s best-selling vehicle in 2019, the Toyota Corolla, though the sedan only took the top spot itself in five countries.

     

    As the best-seller in 16 countries, the Toyota Hilux truck (also known as the Toyota Pickup in North America) was the top vehicle in the most countries. It has a noticeably strong market share in the Southern Hemisphere, including in Argentina, South Africa, and Australia.

     

    The other consistent factor was the strength of local manufacturers. Many countries with large automakers had local models as the best-selling vehicles, especially in Europe.

     

    Cars are the Best-Selling Vehicles in the World

     

    So what do car consumers currently prefer? Currently, cars have a slight edge over trucks as the best-selling vehicles in the world.

    Of the 104 countries with sales tallied for the study, smaller cars often classified as “passenger vehicles” (including sedans, hatchbacks, and subcompacts) made up the majority of best-sellers, with 57 of the best-selling vehicles by country.

    Meanwhile, “light trucks” or “light commercial vehicles,” which include trucks, SUVs, and vans, were best-sellers in 47 countries.

    Best-Selling Vehicles by Type

    • Hatchback: 12

    • Sedan: 25

    • Sedan/Wagon: 1

    • Subcompact: 19

    • SUV: 20

    • Truck: 24

    • Van: 3

    But changing car consumption preferences are already making their mark. The electric vehicle (EV) Tesla Model 3 was already the best-selling vehicle in both the Netherlands and Norway, and other countries like China are increasing incentives for consumers to purchase EVs.

    That’s not even factoring in the slowdown of travel during the COVID pandemic, more workers going remote, and the semiconductor strain on automakers. A truly post-COVID world will likely transform the map even further.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/15/2021 – 19:00

  • Rickards: Is A Global Liquidity Crisis Underway?
    Rickards: Is A Global Liquidity Crisis Underway?

    Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

    I’ve been analyzing currency wars for years. In fact, I’ve written a book called Currency Wars, so I have some expertise in the subject.

    A new front in the currency wars is emerging, but it has not yet erupted into blatant currency manipulation. That will probably come in early 2022.

    First, we’ll likely pass through a major market disruption that will force the dollar significantly higher against other major currencies. When that disruption becomes acute and the strong dollar becomes painful for U.S. exports and export-related jobs, the U.S. Treasury will take steps to weaken the dollar.

    Let’s unpack that forecast a bit.

    The world has been in a currency war since 2010. That’s when then-President Obama set out to weaken the dollar in order to provide stimulus to the U.S. economy in the aftermath of the 2007-2008 global financial crisis.

    The White House and the Treasury knew a weaker dollar would hurt growth in Europe and Japan, but it didn’t matter. The U.S. is the largest economy in the world. If the U.S. goes into recession, it takes the rest of the world with it.

    The mission of weakening the dollar was critical to avoid another U.S. recession so soon after the 2007 – 2009 recession. Europe would have to suffer so that the U.S. and the world did not suffer more.

    Truce in the Currency Wars

    The policy worked. The U.S. dollar hit an all-time low on the Fed’s broad trade-weighted index in August 2011. Not surprisingly, this coincided with gold hitting a then all-time high. The euro surged, and the U.S. economy got the boost it needed.

    Thereafter, the U.S. passed the canteen to Europe and allowed the dollar to strengthen. The euro sank to $1.05 by October 2016. The U.S. felt that its economy was strong enough to endure a strong dollar even as it allowed the euro to sink in order to give the eurozone economies a boost.

    Since then, the EUR/USD cross-rate has traded in a fairly narrow range. On July 1, 2017, the euro was $1.18, almost exactly where it is today, four years later.

    The point is that currency wars do not involve constant fighting in the form of cross-rate volatility or extreme valuations. There are relatively quiet periods, which can be prolonged.

    Still, as long as the basic conditions that cause currency wars remain (too much debt and not enough growth), there is always the potential for a new eruption of fighting as one economy or another tries to boost growth by cheapening its currency against those of major trading partners.

    I said earlier that the dollar will strengthen in the short run. But if the U.S. will soon weaken the dollar as part of a currency war rescue package, why do I expect a stronger dollar in the short run?

    There are two parts to the answer…

    Recovery?

    The first is that the White House and the U.S. Treasury do not understand just how weak the U.S. economy is at the moment. The 6.5% Q2 GDP number was below expectations, but it was even worse than it appears.

    The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta GDPNow tracker went from 13% in April to 7.5% in June. The actual number came in at 6.5%. This means growth weakened considerably over the course of the quarter. It also means that if growth was stronger in April and May, and the full quarter was 6.5%, then June must have been well below 6.5%.

    The result is that Q3 is off to a weak start.

    In addition, there were some troubling data in the fine print that comes along with the headline GDP number. Imports were healthy because Americans have been on a buying binge using government handout checks.

    But exports were weak, a reflection that the rest of the world is not doing nearly as well as the U.S. Simply put, foreigners are not buying our goods because they’re in bad shape themselves.

    It Gets Worse

    Most dramatically, personal income fell 30% on an annualized basis. Private income has been flat for eight months going back to October 2020. The forecast is even more dire because one-by-one the government subsidies are running out.

    Expanded unemployment benefits are mostly done. The rent eviction moratorium has been extended for 90 days even though it’s been found unconstitutional. But its days are numbered.

    Meanwhile, the Payroll Protection Plan loans are over. No additional checks are going to be mass-mailed.

    With government handouts mostly over, private income stagnant, and exports falling, it’s not clear what will drive GDP growth at all in the second half of 2021.

    Joe Biden and Janet Yellen will get the message about the weak economy by November of this year, when the third-quarter GDP and several more months of inflation and employment data make it clear.

    By then, it will be too late to stop the economic slide. The 2022 midterm elections will be less than a year away. The White House will panic and turn to the Treasury for measures to weaken the U.S. dollar.

    That explains why the dollar will get weaker going into 2022. But what explains a stronger dollar in the meantime?

    A Global Liquidity Crisis Is Underway

    The answer is that a global liquidity crisis is now underway. Crises of this type do not emerge overnight. They often take a year or more to grow behind the curtain before both markets and the general public are fully aware of the gravity of the situation.

    Here are some of the specific warning signs of global financial distress:

    • The Chinese central bank has recently lowered the reserve ratio requirement that commercial banks must hold against loans. This points to economic weakness in China and liquidity problems in the banks.

    • Foreign governments are reducing their holdings of U.S. Treasury securities. This does not signal an aversion to the dollar. It signals that foreign banking systems are desperate to obtain dollars and will sell Treasuries to get them.

    • Certain segments of the Eurodollar futures curve are slightly inverted in a condition called backwardation. This indicates banks and large institutions expect lower rates in the future (a sign of recession) and higher rates in the near term (a sign of financial distress).

    • Yields-to-maturity on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes have been dropping steeply since last March. This is indicative of a global flight to quality (the fear trade) and expectations of disinflation and slower growth in the future consistent with a possible recession.

    It’s impossible to predict exactly when a global liquidity crisis will hit the headlines if it even becomes that acute. But these trends have been growing stronger since March, indicating that pressures are building and a crisis may emerge as early as this October.

    What is certain is that if a crisis emerges, the dollar (and gold) will strengthen in response to a global rush to safety.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/15/2021 – 18:30

  • "Get Your Sh*t Together" – Angry American Airline Customers Hit With Travel Delays Due To Labor Shortage
    “Get Your Sh*t Together” – Angry American Airline Customers Hit With Travel Delays Due To Labor Shortage

    We’re not entirely sure how many American Airlines, Inc. flight delays or cancellations on Sunday are due to labor shortages, but Twitter has erupted with furious customers across the US who blame entire crews for not showing up and resulting in travel disruptions. 

    From Las Vegas to Miami to Charlotte and many other airports, passengers are fed up with the airline carrier. They’re venting their frustration on Twitter this afternoon. 

    Twitter user Ryan Petrosso spoke of canceled flights at Las Vegas Airport. He shows a video of understaffed representatives. 

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    People are complaining entire airplane crews aren’t showing up as the labor shortage deepens. Many people are stranded at airports and will likely either get hotel vouchers tonight or have to sleep in the airport. 

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    Labor shortages among airlines have been an ongoing travel crisis in the last few weeks. 

    American Airlines, Spirit, and others canceled hundreds of flights in early August due to a lack of crew members. 

    There are over 666 delays and 59 cancelations across the US today. We’re not exactly sure how many of these delays or cancellations are connected with labor shortages. 

    Due to labor shortages across the US, American Airlines’ travel disruptions are completely unacceptable as it is an ongoing issue and doesn’t seem to be waning anytime soon. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/15/2021 – 18:07

  • Why Goldman Prefers Ether, JPM Turns Bullish And More: Key Crypto Developments In The Past Week
    Why Goldman Prefers Ether, JPM Turns Bullish And More: Key Crypto Developments In The Past Week

    All those who have followed the writings of JPMorgan’s Nick Panagirtzoglou and Josh Younger, for whom no bitcoin bashing opportunity was too small or too insigificant – a least until last Friday, when Panagirtzoglou finally admitted his bearishness was wrong and that there were “clear signs of rising institutional demand”, sending bitcoin and ether to 3 month highs…

    … may be surprised to learn recently the bank has been quietly distributing a report for its clients looking at all the top crypto developments without a negative bias.

    So for those tired of listening to JPM’s conflicted musing as it tries to create a lower entry point for its prop traders, here is nothing but facts from the Crypto Weekly report at the world’s largest bank:

    • All major cryptocurrencies rose in the week. Notably, the prices of Bitcoin and Ether each rose by about 9% w/w to $44.4K and $3.1K, respectively, with most of the weekly rises occurring during last weekend. In fact, Bitcoin reached as high as $46.7K during the week which is its highest level since mid-May.
    • Cryptocurrency volumes surge w/w. Similar to the price of most cryptocurrencies rising w/w, volumes also increased sharply. The average daily volume (ADV) of Bitcoin and Ether both rose about 30% w/w (and are now up 50% m/m) while the ADV of dogecoin more than tripled from the prior week.
    • Spotlight: Coinbase’s (COIN) 2Q21 Earnings highlighted rising institutional adoption and its growing sophistication, while COIN maintained its growth momentum. Over 9,000 financial institutions are now clients of Coinbase and 10% of the top 100 hedge funds by AUM are now active users of Coinbase’s services.
    • Ethereum’s quarterly trading volume outpaced Bitcoin’s for the first time on Coinbase. The higher Ethereum trading volume is attributed to growth in the DeFi and NFT ecosystems as well as increased demand driven by ETH2 staking.
    • Crypto firm Circle intends to eventually become a “national digital currency bank”. However, the firm behind USDC has not yet filed with a bank regulator.
    • Messi’s contract reportedly includes cryptocurrency fan tokens worth an estimated €25-30mm from his new club PSG.

    Key Takeaways from Coinbase’s 2Q21 Earnings Call

    • Strong pace of user growth. Coinbase’s monthly transacting users (MTU) grew to 8.8mm (+44% from 1Q21) and verified users stood at 68mm (up from 56mm in 1Q21). Institutional customers on the platform rose to 9,000 (up from 8,000 in 1Q21). Ecosystem partners on Coinbase who use its crypto tools and services to engage their own customers rose to 160K (up from 134K in 1Q21).
    • Ethereum trading volume outpaced Bitcoin’s for the first time. Ethereum trading volume amounted 26% of total 2Q21 trading volume, whereas Bitcoin’s trading volume amounted to 24%. The higher Ethereum trading volume is attributed to growth in the DeFi and NFT ecosystems, and increased demand driven by ETH2 staking. Overall, trading volume grew to $462B (up 38% q/q) in 2Q21.
    • Retail users are widening their scope of engagement. Coinbase’s 27% retail MTUs in 2Q21 (i.e. 2.4mm individuals) invested and engaged with at least one other non-investing products (up from 25% of 1Q21 retail customers of 1.5mm individuals). The incremental 0.9mm retail customers are majorly involved in Staking or Earn which allows them to earn rewards or yields on their crypto holdings.
    • Rising institutional adoption as over 9,000 financial institutions are now clients of Coinbase. The company also claimed that 10% of the top 100 hedge funds by assets under management are using Coinbase’s services. It has forged partnerships with Elon Musk, PNC Bank, SpaceX, Tesla, Third Point LLC, and WisdomTree Investments.
    • Institutional clients are demonstrating high sophistication. They are engaging with Coinbase as a single point of contact for trading, custody, lending, yield generation, and data. For institutional investors, liquidity is of paramount importance. Further, Coinbase has been providing global fiat payment networks, allowing institutional customers to reach new currencies and markets, improving their access to global liquidity pools.
    • Coinbase’s infrastructure is also being used by various financial firms to create their own crypto offerings. Traditional banks, asset managers, and fintechs are seeking Coinbase’s custody services.

    There were several notable developments on the regulatory front, where the top event took place on Tuesday, when the US Senate passed the $1T Infrastructure Bill which has provisions for tax reporting requirements for the players in crypto industry. The bill requires crypto ‘brokers’ to report user data including their names & addresses. The bill define ‘broker as anyone ‘responsible for and regularly providing any service effectuating transfers of digital assets on behalf of another person’. This definition of ‘broker’ will include crypto miners and software developers even though many of them do not collect or have access to users’ personal information. The crypto advocates say that this measure could harm crypto innovation happening in US. Treasury has been scrambling to explain to the House that it needs to amend the relevant section.

    India’s Ministry of Corporate Affairs said citing a reply in Parliament by minister Rao Inderjit Singh that as per a recent rule amendment Indian companies will need to disclose their virtual currency transactions. The companies will need to disclose where they have traded or invested in cryptocurrencies, the profit or loss on such transactions, the amount of cryptocurrencies held and any deposit or advance from any person for trading or investing in the cryptocurrencies.

    Finally, over in Japan, Junichi Nakajima, the recently appointed Commissioner of Japan’s Financial Services Agency, said in an interview that he is open-minded about the potential benefits that assets like Bitcoin possess as a quick and cheap way to send cash, however, in Japan, they are mainly being used for speculation and investment He added that they need to consider carefully whether it is necessary to make it easier for the general public to invest in crypto assets. The country’s financial regulator recently set up a study group of outside experts and may put out there regulatory responses to DeFi in the coming months.

    Here is a list of the Key corporate developments in the Week:

    An update on the latest crypto adoption news finds that in addition to AMC accepting bitcoin as payment by year-end, China’s telecom giant Xiaomi unveiled that it is partnering with Utrust to accept payment in various cryptocurrencies in Portugal. Finally, Microstrategy said it would continue buying more bitcoin. As of June-end, the company held 105,195 bitcoin with a book value of $2.1 billion, and while its core non-bitcoin business may be worth around $1 billion (very generously), many are wondering where the additional $4 billion in market value comes from.

    Away from JPMorgan, last week Goldman published its own crypto report authored by chief FX strategist Zach Pandl who reminded clients of Goldman’s view that a “flippening” is coming and that Ethereum – which it dubbed “the Amazon of information” in its initiating coverage report from May – will overtake more than Bitcoin.

    In his note, Pandl writes that like other asset classes, cryptocurrencies show a high degree of co-movement, consistent with a common market “beta”. For example, in data since the end of 2019, the first principal component explains about 80% of the daily variation in prices. However, the market does appear to distinguish between categories as well as specific assets. Based on available benchmark indices, the cryptocurrency market has delivered returns of around 750% since the end of 2019. Returns to individual assets or market segments have often differed from this benchmark return. For example, Goldman notes that Bitcoin has underperformed the broad market, gaining about 500% over this period, while Ethereum has outperformed, appreciating by more than 2,000%.

    Based on the Coin Metrics’ dominant use categories (and applying equal weights to the individual assets within each segment), exchange tokens, currency-like assets, and those used in other applications outperformed over this period, while privacy-focused assets underperformed. Similarly, networks with consensus mechanisms based on Proof-of-Stake (PoS) have outperformed those based on energy-intensive Proof-of-Work (PoW).

    Here Goldman reminds its clients that it recently argued that cryptocurrencies can be considered network technologies, and that valuations should be expected to rise with network growth, at least if driven by non-speculative use cases. Tracking cryptocurrency performance by market segment may also help determine which network features markets are rewarding over time. For example, in the next chart Goldman calculates equally-weighted return series for crypto assets categorized by dominant use, as well as for the market as a whole (using the universe of assets covered by Coin Metrics). The bank then plots the ratio of returns by category to the broad market to measure the degree of outperformance or underperformance by segment.

    As shown in the chart below, there have been a few periods of notable performance divergence by use category over the last year. For example, the remittance index outperformed in November on a surge in the price of XRP and Stellar, DeFi-related assets gained more than the broad market in January and early February, while exchange-related tokens have outperformed more recently.

    While potentially a useful way to categorize the nascent world of crypto assets, Goldman notes that defining market segments in this way has some drawbacks. For example, in some cases the dominant use categories include fairly dissimilar assets, and narrower groupings may therefore be more appropriate for tracking the performance of crypto market segments. Moreover, the features of particular networks may change over time (e.g. Ethereum plans to shift to a PoS consensus mechanism), which may require moving assets between categories.

    And speaking of Goldman’s preference for ethereum, ether traders have been acutely focused on data from the underlying Ethereum blockchain’s recent upgrade, known as the London hard fork – and the potential for the refresh to reduce the cryptocurrency’s supply growth. Under Ethereum Improvement Proposal 1559, a component of the London upgrade that’s usually shorthanded as just EIP 1559, base fees paid to transact on the blockchain get “burned,” meaning they offset some of the 2 ETH created as miner rewards with each data block.

    At publication press time, some 48,600 ETH have been burned in accordance with EIP 1559, according to the website Ultrasound Money. The amount represents more than $156 million, and has reduced the net issuance of new ether by an estimated 35%.

    The big question, as Coindesk notes, is whether institutional investors who are creeping into digital-asset markets might start to see ether as an inflation-resistant asset, similar to the way many bitcoin bulls have cast that cryptocurrency.  As bitcoin has rallied 16% in August, ether has outperformed with a 26% gain. On a year-to-date basis, ether has quadrupled in price while bitcoin is up 58%.

    FundStrat, Tom Lee’s investment-research firm, wrote this week: “We expect fees moving through the platform to increase concurrent with the recent uptick in market activity and consequently should continue to see further disinflationary and perhaps even deflationary effects on Ethereum’s circulating supply, resulting in positive price performance.”

    It’s notable that Mike McGlone, the Bloomberg Intelligence analyst who won praise for his (ultimately) accurate call last year that bitcoin would hit $50,000, raised the possibility in a report this week that ether might eventually challenge the larger cryptocurrency for the top spot in the rankings of digital assets by market capitalization. Crypto insiders often to that imagined change in the leaderboard as the “flippening.”     

    “There appears little can stop the process of ethereum ‘flippening’ to take the top spot by market cap, even it takes years rather than months at current trajectories,” McGlone wrote. “Ethereum appears on an enduring path as the go-to platform for the crypto ecosystem and decentralization of finance akin to Amazon Inc. and e-commerce.”

    Picking up on the increasingly bitter animosity between the BTC and ETH camps, UBS strategist James Malcolm writes that aside from their practical distinctions, there are several unique price characteristics in the two tokens’ price action: namely, BTC displays markedly lower volatility (Figure 5), which may be a product of its relative maturity and more diverse investor base, including ‘value-players’ who accumulate on dips and sell spikes. This has encouraged some to treat it as a funder within the crypto space. But, as the UBS strategist notes, one needs to be careful as its correlations to stocks have risen structurally and tend to surge during bull runs (Figure 8). Ether exhibits even stronger equity and tech correlations at longer-term horizons, which seems intuitive also even though its sensitivity to the dollar, gold, US Treasuries and inflation proxies do not screen as materially different to bitcoin’s.

    Looking ahead, however, Malcolm concludes that “Charles Darwin observed in the Galapagos nearly two centuries ago that successive slight adaptations are key to the survival of any species in the natural world. Yet he noted that evolution is unpredictable because the environment that shapes it also fluctuates. One should likewise eschew foregone conclusions here.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/15/2021 – 18:00

  • Escobar: Empire Warns Brazil – It's Our NATO Way Or Huawei
    Escobar: Empire Warns Brazil – It’s Our NATO Way Or Huawei

    Authored by Pepe Escobar and Quantum Bird for The Saker Blog,

    The Empire of Chaos could never be accused of deploying Sun Tzu subtlety. Especially when it comes to dealing with the satrapies.

    In the case of Brazil, former BRICS stalwart reduced to the status of a proto-neo-colony under an aspiring Soprano-style “captain”, the Men Who Run the Show applied standard procedure.

    First they sent the Deep State, as in CIA’s William Burns. Then they sent National Security, as in advisor Jake Sullivan. Both visits delivered the same message: toe the line – or else.

    Nuances do apply. The Deep State wants the current proto-neo-colony status of Brazil unchanged, and hopefully deepened – as it strikes the “B” in BRICS out of deeper cooperation with the Russia-China strategic partnership.

    Sullivan for his part is just a cog in the Dem dementia wheel that previously conspired alongside the NSA to destroy Dilma Rousseff’s presidency, throw Lula in jail and place Bolsonaro in charge.

    Lula is not the Dem’s horse for the 2022 Brazilian presidential election. But despite some woke-ish characters coming out of the closet, there’s no viable third way in the horizon acceptable for the Empire – at least not yet.

    Still, the proverbial “offer you can’t refuse” had to be delivered to the people that matter: the men in uniform. Do what you gotta do, strike a deal with Lula, whatever. In the end, what we say, goes.

    That poisoned carrot

    The cover story for Sullivan’s trip was what amounts for all practical purposes to the Ukrainization of Central America/the Caribbean. Notorious vampire Victoria “F**k the EU” Nuland, number 3 in the State Dept., had already been dispatched to assorted chihuahuas in the region to lay down the law.

    Sullivan followed the script, banging on notorious anti-imperial recalcitrants such as Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua and extolling the platitude du jour: “The need to preserve and protect democracy in the hemisphere.” He met face to face with two of the military brass who are part of the deciding circle, Gen Augusto Heleno, who heads the all-powerful Institutional Security Cabinet, and Defense Minister Braga Netto, both under fire for corruption.

    Unlike Burns, who stuck to “security” CIA interests, stressing that Brazil escaping from the Empire’s sphere of influence simply won’t be tolerated, Sullivan actually offered a carrot: drop Huawei out of the 5G auction later this year, and you may be accepted as a NATO partner.

    This carrot bears similarities with the Empire offering BRICS member India to become a – lesser – member of the Quad, alongside US, Japan and Australia, to “contain” China.

    So it’s always about the imperial sphere of influence: smashing BRICS from the inside, turning members into “partners”.

    NATO’s “partnerships” are euphemisms for “we own you, bitch”. All “partners” have to strictly follow the parameters of the NATO 2030 agenda, which has been designed to promote a planetary Robocop patrolling/containing vast swathes of the Global South.

    Even if Brazil seems to be, in fact, already a lowly NATO “partner”, as its Navy was invited to be part of the recent Sea Breeze exercise in the Black Sea, which was a major pro-Kiev, “containment of Russia” operation, it is not granted the carrot will be taken.

    Indeed, an upgrade would only mean a little extra terminological glamour, as in “major non-NATO ally” or “global partner”.

    The real question is who among the Brazilian men in uniform will approve this lethal blow to sovereignty. Significant dissent does exist. The Brazilian Navy, for example, will be against it – as it would be reduced to the role of patrolling the South Atlantic on behalf of the Empire, and even becoming a hostage were the Empire to turbo-charge the militarization of the South Atlantic.

    If this “partnership” ever happened, the Navy’s concept of the “Blue Amazon” would be buried deep in the ocean. Not to mention that NATO does not even recognize the concept of a South Atlantic. Brazil’s own sphere of influence actually extends from the Andes to the western coast of Africa via the South Atlantic.

    The “price” to be paid to accept such a Mafioso “offer you can’t refuse” is to bluntly antagonize China. Talk about the Brazilian military falling on their own tropical sword.

    Brazil and China commercial affairs are intense – and multifaceted. Since the mid-1990s, the presence of Chinese commercial interests has been significant in the Brazilian economy, ranging from mining companies to huge infrastructure projects such as the bridge over the Baia de Todos os Santos.

    China is also the top buyer of the huge native soy production, which is managed by the quite politically active agrobusiness Brazilian community, which is not going to stay idle while its interests are being eroded.

    Brazil also boasts the largest telecommunication market in Latin America. Rebuilding and updating the Brazilian telephony and internet network, jeopardized by 1990s privatizations and 2000s business mistakes, is an opportunity Huawei simply can’t ignore.

    That also configures a huge win for Brazil, able to profit from some hardware the NSA can’t easily spy on.

    So basically to close the doors to Huawei would push Beijing to fiercely retaliate in myriad ways. The most painful consequence would be the end of Brazilian soy imports; that will drive agrobusiness honchos absolutely nuts, with unforeseen consequences.

    In the end, Sullivan’s “offer you can’t refuse” actually smacks of desperation. As the Empire of Chaos is being slowly but surely expelled from Eurasia by the Russia-China strategic partnership, the imperial ace in the hole amounts to renewing control over the Monroe doctrine satrapies.

    All bets are off on whether the tropical men in uniform really understand the high stakes in play.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/15/2021 – 17:30

  • At Least 22 Dead In Lebanon Explosion After Army Confiscates Warehouse Full Of Gasoline
    At Least 22 Dead In Lebanon Explosion After Army Confiscates Warehouse Full Of Gasoline

    At least 22 were killed and 79 injured early Sunday after a fuel tank exploded in Northern Lebanon after the army seized a warehouse holding approximately 60,000 liters (16,850 gallons) of gasoline hidden by black marketeers.

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

    Government forces were in the midst of distributing the gasoline to local residents in Tleil when the explosion took place.

    “There was a rush of people, and arguments between some of them led to gunfire which hit the tank of gasoline and so it exploded,” said one security source, while local Al-Jadeed TV reported via eyewitnesses that the explosion was caused by a person who ignited a lighter.

    Around 200 people were nearby at the time of the explosion, according to Reuters. 

    “We need urgent help to evacuate some of the injured abroad..there are cases (of burns) that are more than the ability of Lebanese hospitals to handle,” Health Minister Hamad Hassan told the outlet.

    Army and security forces were among the casualties, according to sources. 

    “There were hundreds gathered there, right next to the tank, and God only knows what happened to them,” said one man who was taken to Tripoli’s al-Salam hospital after standing in line to get gasoline.

    Red cross teams are canvassing the explosion site for more casualties.

    Angry residents in Akkar gathered at the site and set fire to two dump trucks, according to a Reuters witness.

    Some of the injured were sent to hospitals in nearby Tripoli, while others were sent to Beirut, said Rashid Maqsood, an official with the Islamic Medical Association.

    The majority of the injured are in serious condition, said Dr. Salah Ishaq of al-Salam Hospital. “We can’t accommodate them, we don’t have the capabilities. It’s a very bad situation.”

    With Lebanon deep in economic crisis, hospitals have warned that fuel shortages may force them to shut down in coming days, and have also reported low supplies of medicines and other essentials. -Reuters

    “Some people were burned beyond recognition,” Marwa el-Sheikh told AP while waiting for word about her brother who was being treated for burns, as well as her brother-in-law who is currently missing. “They are the victims of the shortcomings and carelessness of our politicians who led us to this.”

    According to AP, hospitals in Northern Lebanon are asking for blood donations of all types, while Health Minister Hamad Hassan has told hospitals that the government will pay for the treatment of those injured by the explosion.

    Sunday’s explosion was the deadliest since an Aug 4, 2020 explosion in Beirut’s port which killed at least 214 people and wounded thousands.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/15/2021 – 17:00

  • Politicians Who Claim To Be Serious About Stopping Covid Better Get Serious About The Border
    Politicians Who Claim To Be Serious About Stopping Covid Better Get Serious About The Border

    Submitted by Mark Glennon for Wirepoints

    “We know exactly how to shut it down. We need to make illegal entry illegal.”

    -Border patrol agent speaking to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

    If you think it’s exaggeration to call the situation at the Mexican border an invasion, read on. If you think it’s exaggeration to say that it’s a major and growing obstacle to containing COVID, keep going. But if you expect to read something about our political establishment taking it seriously, forget it.

    Napoleon invaded Russia with 685,000 troops. North Korea invaded South Korea with 135,000. The Allies invaded Europe with 2 million to retake it from the Nazis, which is about what they had in France three months after D-Day.

    But this year alone over 2 million illegal entries from Mexico are expected. Even CNN acknowledges that number, but the true number likely will be far, far more. That’s an invasion. It’s not that the entrants are vile in some way comparable to invaders who start wars – everybody, hopefully, feels compassion for them and understands why they come. But, numerically speaking, it’s an invasion.

    What is the impact on efforts to contain COVID? Unquestionably, bigger causes are behind the current surge in COVID, the largest by far being the Delta variant that is far more contagious than the original virus. Nobody is claiming that the border crisis is the primary cause of the current spike.

    But it’s absurd to claim that COVID isn’t another major reason why the border must be enforced. COVID at the border is a growing, important concern.

    A stunning 18 percent of illegal migrants are estimated to be infected. “More than 18 percent of migrant families and 20 percent of unaccompanied minors who recently crossed the U.S. border tested positive for Covid on leaving Border Patrol custody” over a recent, reported NBC, citing a briefing document prepared for President Joe Biden.

    Source: NBC News

    That’s far worse than in the American population where less than one percent are infected at any given time. The 18% for illegal immigrants no doubt stems largely from much lower vaccination rates in the countries from which migrants are coming. Over half of Americans are now fully vaccinated. In Mexico, however, the rate is just 22%, and many immigrants come from countries like Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica and El Salvador where most vaccination rates are far lower

    The Biden Administration is returning to Mexico many of the immigrants it apprehends, supposedly around 170,000 per month. The administration is keeping in place a Trump-era policy of turning some migrants away at the southern border without allowing them to claim asylum due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

    But huge numbers of the infected unquestionably are getting through undetected or being let in:

    • Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, are never apprehended and tested – the “got-aways,” as they are called. Nobody knows for sure how many of those there are, but “Border Patrol agents who do work on the border, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, “swear the got-away percentages are upwards of 90 percent or even more.” CNN said it’s about 1,500 per day, which is over half a million per year. But that was in May and illegal crossings have surged since then. The estimated 2 million illegal entries this year is based only on published number of “encounters” with border agents, now running over 200,000 per month. The press seems obsessed with that measure but it ignores the got-aways.

    • Officials in McAllen, Texas say more than 7,000 out of nearly 88,000 migrants released by border patrol in the city since February had tested positive for COVID-19, a positivity rate of more than 8%, according to CBS. But that rate has been increasing. Last week, 14.8% of migrants released from U.S. custody into the city of McAllen tested positive.

    • U.S Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat, said in a press release that the migrant surge has resulted in the temporary shutdown of Catholic Charities (the primary organization that assists new migrants); nearly 70 border agents testing positive for COVID-19 in the Rio Grande Valley sector; 17 border agents testing positive for COVID-19 in the Laredo sector; and 233 hospital beds occupied in the area.

    A member of President Biden’s COVID-19 health equity task force, a virologist, essentially admitted that releasing immigrants is a key “tool “used to contain COVID. “Probably the most important thing that ICE can consider is release, because even with more efforts toward vaccination, being in a detention setting increases your risk of contracting COVID and it increases your risk of death,” he said.

    Where are illegal immigrants who are allowed to stay sent?

    Good question, but don’t expect anybody to have asked it in Illinois or most other places. We do know that former acting Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan says the Biden Administration has sent at least 40,000 infected immigrants to various cities in the interior of America. Forty thousand “at least,” he said. “That’s conservative.”

    What’s clear is that Illinois appears to be doing everything it can think of, through legislation and administrative action, to bring illegal immigrants here. We listed its most recent measures here.

    All this happens while Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas repeatedly tells the public that the border is under control, while saying the opposite in private. In a leaked tape of a meeting, he said, “if our borders are the first line of defense, we’re going to lose and this is unsustainable…. We can’t continue like this, our people in the field can’t continue and our system isn’t built for it.”

    Homeland Security’s Secretary Mayorkas

    And he earlier said this: “We’re not saying, ‘Don’t come,’ we are saying ‘don’t come now.’” That was in March. Now they are coming.

    It was in the recent, taped meeting that a border agent said what’s partially quoted above. “For those of us who have been around here long enough…we don’t need to reinvent the wheel,” he told Mayorkas. “We’ve had this happen before. We know exactly how to shut it down. We need to make illegal entry illegal.”

    It’s long past time that the obvious questions be put to Governor JB Pritzker and other public officials who claim to be so dedicated to fighting COVID: Why aren’t you demanding that the border be enforced? Are infected immigrants being sent to Illinois? How many of Illinois’ COVID infections have been in illegal immigrants. Do you even know? Do you care?

    The border must be enforced.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/15/2021 – 16:30

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Aug 15

Today’s News 15th August 2021

  • From PsyOp To MindWar
    From PsyOp To MindWar

    Authored by Cynthia Chung

    “MindWar must be strategic in emphasis, with tactical applications playing a reinforcing, supplementary role. In its strategic context, MindWar must reach out to friends, enemies, and neutrals alike across the globe…through the media possessed by the United States which have the capabilities to reach virtually all people on the face of the Earth…State of the art developments in satellite communication, video recording techniques, and laser and optical transmission of broadcasts make possible a penetration of the minds of the world such as would have been inconceivable just a few years ago. Like the sword of Excalibur, we have but to reach out and seize this tool; and it can transform the world for us if we have the courage and integrity to enhance civilization with it. If we do not accept Excalibur, then we relinquish our ability to inspire foreign cultures with our morality. If they can then desire moralities unsatisfactory to us, we have no choice but to fight them on a more brutish level.”

    – “From PSYOP to MindWar: The Psychology of Victory” by Col. Paul Vallely and Maj. Michael Aquino, a document written to increase the influence of the “spoon-benders” in the U.S. military.

    About one year ago, the U.S. military conducted a simulation of a “limited” nuclear exchange with… Russia.

    This was strange news on several accounts. For one, this sort of thing is not typically announced in the candid detail U.S. defense secretary Mark Esper described to journalists, giddy that he got to “play himself” in this war game scenario as if he were preparing for a Hollywood movie doing his best John Wayne impression: “If you got them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow.”

    However, the most concerning revelation of this simulated exercise was the announcement to the American people that “it might be possible to fight, and win, a battle with nuclear weapons, without the exchange leading to an all-out-world-ending conflict.”

    In other words, throw your cares to the wind, that is, the “spirit wind” known as kamikaze, because we are going for it.

    In the transcript of a background briefing on the war game exercise, senior Pentagon officials described their tactic further, explaining that their confident calculation on being “victorious” in this exercise completely relied on the supposition that such a confrontation would remain “limited” in its nuclear exchange.

    “It’s a very reasonable response to what we saw was a Russian nuclear doctrine and nuclear capability that suggested to us that they might use nuclear weapons in a limited way,” a senior official stated.

    It seems what senior Pentagon officials are really saying here about the predictability of the Russians, is that there seems to be a line the Russians won’t cross in the case of a nuclear conflict…but the Americans sure will.

    Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists tried to play down the “rodeo circus” and reduce the high profile announcement of the U.S. military exercise as simply a marketing gimmick to “justify” the new nuclear weapons since we are entering the new budget phase. “So all of this has been played up to serve that process.” stated Kristensen.

    I don’t know about you but I am getting some serious déjà vu. Didn’t we already go through all of this with the disastrous JIC-502?

    The JIC-502 Spookery

    In August 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb, several years before the 1953 date forecast by the CIA. As a response, the Joint Intelligence Committee submitted an estimate of the nature of the nuclear threat from the Soviets. JIC-502 claimed that once the Soviets had 200 atomic bombs, they could launch a surprise attack and defeat the U.S.

    These assertions were made without analysis of Soviet capabilities to actually deliver the weapons, let alone produce them at that rate. The estimates did not even attempt to analyze Soviet strategic intentions.

    JIC-502 intelligence report titled “Implications of Soviet Possession of Atomic Weapons” drafted in Jan 20th 1950, turned out not to be an intelligence report at all but rather a sales pitch, claiming that a nuclear-armed Soviet Union had introduced the notion that “a tremendous military advantage would be gained by the power that struck first and succeeded in carrying through an effective surprise attack.” For more on this refer to my paper.

    It was JIC-502 which would be the first to put forward a justification for the preventive first strike concept, supported by a massive military buildup under the pretence of pre-emptive war.

    NSC-68 would be drafted the same year and called for a massive military buildup to be completed by 1954 dubbed the “year of maximum danger,” the year JIC-502 claimed the Soviets would achieve military superiority and be able to launch war against the U.S. This proposed military buildup would increase the defense budget from $10 billion to $40 billion from 1950-53.

    During this same period another security doctrine was drafted, titled “NSC-75: A Report to the NSC by the Executive Secretary on British Military Commitments”. The report concluded that if the British Empire collapsed, and Britain could no longer carry out these deployments, in defending the “free world” against the Soviets, the U.S. would not be able to carry out its current foreign policy, including NSC-68.

    It was thus concluded in the report that it would be more cost-effective to aid Britain in saving its Empire!

    If you were ever wondering why the CIA was constantly found paired with British Intelligence, starting from its very inception, in a series of coups in countries they had no reason to be in, now you know why.

    The U.S. had gone from an explicit mission to end imperialism worldwide under Roosevelt, to actively supporting and upholding British colonies and vassal states under Truman!

    This was all done under the pretence of protecting the “free world” from the evil boogeymen Soviets, whom Churchill decided to be labelled such in his Iron Curtain Speech. And thus, the interests of the British Empire were safeguarded by an abiding American stooge, as long as the narrative that all Russians were villains was believed.

    Interestingly, the CIA was not on board with the pre-emptive war strategy, as defined by JIC-502. In February 1950 the CIA responded in ORE 91-49, stating:

    “It is always possible…that the USSR would initiate a war if it should estimate that a Western attack was impending. [However], It is not yet possible to estimate with any precision the effects of Soviet possession of the Atomic Bomb upon the probability of war. The implications of atomic warfare, either militarily or psychologically, have not yet been fully appraised.” (emphasis added)

    In other words, the CIA was stating that JIC-502’s frantic lunacy in demanding a military buildup and first strike capability against the Soviets was groundless. That there was no data to support such a claim, and thus such a response would be a reckless and dangerous one.

    It became evident to those who wished to push through these permanent war policies that the CIA was going to need “stronger” leadership.

    At least, this was the argument made by the Dulles-Jackson-Correa Report which called for a strong CIA Director in the wake of the Cold War. Though Walter Bedell Smith, who would become CIA Director from 1950-53, did much to reorganise the CIA away from the pre-emptive war mongering, it was ultimately Allen Dulles who would take the CIA throne.

    It should not come as a surprise that Dulles had himself in mind the whole time when he was talking about the stuff that was needed for a “strong” CIA Director… however, he was not referring to a strong mind, but rather a strong stomach.

    Dulles would act as Director of the CIA from 1953-61, until he was fired by President Kennedy (along with the Deputy Director and Deputy Director for Plans), all three were caught essentially committing treason during the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

    During Dulles’ term as CIA Director, he did nothing less than entrench America’s role in exacting permanent warfare across the world against “communist insurgents”, with the never-ending Indochina wars lasting for over 35 years. (Refer to my paper on how the CIA through illegal clandestine activity drew the American military into the Vietnam War).

    But the Soviets never did launch such a war, and all claims of their capabilities let alone their intentions turned out to be entirely fraudulent… so what was it all for?

    Did the U.S. have to put everything into expanding their military, turning away from the concept of a nation at peace made up of citizen soldiers and instead towards a nation in perpetual war made up of the Nietzschean fantasy of Übermensch (Beyond-Man) super soldiers, the very thing that Eisenhower warned against?

    Did this all have to happen in defense of “peace and security” of the free world?

    Why were the predictions of the JIC-502 completely unfounded? Were the predictions based off of corrupted data? Did the Soviets simply change their mind? Or was it never about a pre-emptive war but rather was always about global dominance.

    What would the American people think if they knew the truth, that their entire military industrial complex was never built for the protection of the “free world” in opposition to dictators and despots but rather the very opposite? That it simply thought its ideology the superior one, the only lawful dictatorship that had the right to rule, even if it meant by force.

    In the words of Vallely/Aquino:

    “If we do not accept Excalibur, then we relinquish our ability to inspire foreign cultures with our morality. If they can then desire moralities unsatisfactory to us, we have no choice but to fight them on a more brutish level.”

    This may look like just a “rodeo circus” but it is far far worst. As Edgar Poe elaborated in his “The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether”, the asylum is quite literally being run by the lunatics.

    What do Jedi Warriors, Spoon-benders, the First Earth Battalion and Men Who Stare at Goats Have in Common?

    For those who need a refresher of the film Dr. Strangelove’s synopsis, it is about what could happen if a lunatic had the authority to bypass the U.S. president and cause a nuclear escalation between the U.S. and USSR. In the movie, it is U.S. Air Force General Jack Ripper who initiates a nuclear attack to destroy the USSR under the premise that once the U.S. government is briefed on the situation, they would have no choice but to commit 100% towards a hostile attack against the USSR, in order to prevent nuclear retaliation.

    The reason why General Jack Ripper is fully convinced that it is absolutely necessary to destroy the USSR is because he believes that the communists are conspiring to pollute the “precious bodily fluids” of the American people. Gen. Jack Ripper goes on to describe how he first discovered this Soviet ploy, after sexual relations with a woman and how he felt empty inside but that luckily he was astute enough to be able to accurately deduce the cause of this feeling of emptiness as due to being drained of his “life essence”, all part of the communist conspiracy for sure. In other words, Gen. Jack Ripper is unequivocally insane.

    Unfortunately, this type of thinking in the U.S. military is not reserved to pure fiction.

    Sometime in the late 1980s then Col. Paul Vallely, Commander of the 7th Psychological Operations Group and then Maj. Michael Aquino, PSYOP Research & Analysis Team Leader authored a paper titled “From PSYOP to MindWar: The Psychology of Victory”, which discusses the necessity to wage perpetual psychological warfare against friend and enemy populations alike, and even against the American people. As stated in the paper:

    “MindWar must target all participants to be effective. It must not only weaken the enemy; it must strengthen the United States. It strengthens the United States by denying enemy propaganda access to our people, and by explaining and emphasizing to our people the rationale for our national interest in a specific war…There are some purely natural conditions under which minds may become more or less receptive to ideas, and MindWar should take full advantage of such phenomena as atmospheric electromagnetic activity, air ionization, and extremely low frequency waves.”

    Of course the terms “enemy” and “national interest” are not elaborated on, nor is the matter of free will even considered but rather that mind control is not only “natural”, it is essential. Besides the overtly fascist and occultist content in the paper, the proposal had a disturbing similarity to the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program launched by the Donald Rumsfeld Pentagon. TIA was a global propaganda and mega-data-mining plan that was supposedly scraped after a series of negative news stories.

    On Aug 17th, 2005 The New York Times published an article that discussed how “a military intelligence team repeatedly tried to contact the FBI in 2000 to warn about the existence of an American-based terrorist cell that included the ring leader of the Sept. 11 attacks” as reported by veteran Army intelligence officer Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer.

    The information came from the highly classified intelligence program “Able Danger”, which had successfully identified the terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta and three other hijackers of the 9/11 terrorist attack in mid-2000, well over a year before the actual 9/11 attack.

    According to New York Times article, Shaffer learned later that lawyers associated with the Special Operations Command of the Defense Department had canceled the FBI meetings “because they feared controversy if Able Danger was portrayed as a military operation that had violated the privacy of civilians who were legally in the United States.” (Able Danger was linked in its function to the TIA program)

    However, this is only part of the truth, the by far uglier truth is that they were already fully aware of the 9/11 terrorist ring and didn’t want a wrench thrown into the gears so to speak.

    Gen. Vallely, Lt. Col. Aquino and Col. Alexander (author of “The New Mental Battlefield: Beam Me Up, Spock”) are leading figures within the Special Operations community. In addition, Gen. Stubblebine III, Gen. Schoomaker, Gen. Downing and Gen. Boykin are the four names most often cited as promoters of programs like the “Goat Lab,” “Jedi Warriors,” “Grill Flame,” “Task Force Delta,” (aka the spoon-benders) and the “First Earth Battalion,” and have held top posts within the military intelligence and Special Operations commands.

    These were the programs that promoted the idea that one could learn to bend a metal spoon, walk through walls, and burst the hearts of goats with the use of “mind over matter” techniques.

    In 1979, Lt. Col. Channon presented a 125 page document called “The First Earth Battalion” which outlined “non-lethal” techniques that would soon be adopted by the military including the use of atonal noises as a form of combat psychological warfare and widespread experimentation with psychoelectronics and other means of debilitation.

    On March 10th, 1991, then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz while serving as chief policy advisor to then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, wrote the memo “Do We Need a Non-Lethal Defense Initiative?” in which he wrote, “A U.S. lead in non-lethal technologies will increase our options and reinforce our position in the post-Cold War world.”

    Though no mention was made of Col. Alexander, who spear-headed the non-lethal weaponry campaign, Alexander at the time of the memo had retired from active duty and was heading the Non-Lethal Weapons Program at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

    In 1990, Col. Alexander published “The Warrior’s Edge” and states its goal as to:

    “unlock the door to the extraordinary human potentials inherent in each of us. To do this, we, like governments around the world, must take a fresh look at non-traditional methods of affecting reality. We must raise human consciousness of the potential power of the individual body/mind system – the power to manipulate reality. We must be willing to retake control of our past, present, and ultimately, our future.” (emphasis added)

    Investigative journalist Jon Ronson, in his book “The Men Who Stare at Goats”, goes through how ‘psychic warriors’ such as Uri Geller and Jim Channon were called back into government service after 9/11, and that a series of meetings in 2004 were held between Gen. Schoomaker and Jim Channon to start a think tank which would utilise “First Earth Battalion” techniques in Afghanistan and Iraq.

    The Non-Lethal Techniques of Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and al-Qa’im

    According to Ronson and The New Yorker writer Jane Mayer, many of the torture techniques employed at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and the less-well-known al-Qa’im near the Syrian border in Iraq, are based on Channon and Alexander’s non-lethal conceptions. Jim Channon actually confirmed this in an email correspondence with Ronson.

    At one point in his investigation, Ronson asks Stuart Heller, friend of Jim Channon, if he could name one soldier who was “the living embodiment” of the First Earth Battalion, to which Heller responds unhesitatingly “Bert Rodriguez.” Ronson continues in his book, “In April 2001, Bert Rodriguez took on a new student. His name was Ziad Jarrah.” Rodriguez taught Jarrah “the choke hold and the kamikaze spirit. You need a code you’d die for, a do-or-die desire.” Rodriguez added, “Ziad was like Luke Skywalker. You know when Luke walks the invisible path? You have to believe it’s there…Yeah, Ziad believed it. He was like Luke Skywalker.” Rodriguez trained Ziad Jarrah for six months.

    On Sept 11, 2001, Ziad Jarrah took control of the United Airlines flight 93 as part of the orchestrated 9/11 terrorist attack.

    Meet Dr. Strangelove

    At the end of the film Dr. Strangelove we are finally confronted with the “top lunatic” so to speak who was really in charge this whole time. For all the “top brass” in the war room, nobody was really in control of the situation this entire time since the entire “war scenario” was set-up as a positive feedback loop within the doomsday plan of a lunatic.

    You see, the belief that one can bend spoons, walk through walls, and burst the hearts of goats is not the problem, it is the belief held by top officials within the U.S. military industrial complex that their ideology of appropriate morality is to prevail and that one must use these mind-over-matter techniques to achieve the ultimate goal, “the power to manipulate reality”, that global dominance can be achieved without wiping out the world.

    That somehow “it might be possible to fight, and win, a battle with nuclear weapons, without the exchange leading to an all-out-world-ending conflict,” and if not…we may all die for a lunatic’s dream in the process.

    *  *  *

    The author can be reached at https://cynthiachung.substack.com/

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/14/2021 – 23:30

  • Mercator Misconceptions: Clever Map Shows The True Size Of Countries
    Mercator Misconceptions: Clever Map Shows The True Size Of Countries

    Maps are hugely important tools in our everyday life, whether it’s guiding our journeys from point A to B, or shaping our big picture perceptions about geopolitics and the environment.

    For many people though, as Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley shows below, the Earth as they know it is heavily informed by the Mercator projection – a tool used for nautical navigation that eventually became the world’s most widely recognized map.

    Mercator’s Rise to the Top

    With any map projection style, the big challenge lies in depicting a spherical object as a 2D graphic. There are various trade-offs with any map style, and those trade-offs can vary depending on how the map is meant to be used.

    In 1569, the great cartographer, Gerardus Mercator, created a revolutionary new map based on a cylindrical projection. The new map was well-suited to nautical navigation since every line on the sphere is a constant course, or loxodrome.

    Geographic Inflation

    The vast majority of us aren’t using paper maps to chart our course across the ocean anymore, so critics of the Mercator projection argue that the continued use of this style of map gives users a warped sense of the true size of countries—particularly in the case of the African continent.

    Mercator’s map inadvertently also pumps up the sizes of Europe and North America. Visually speaking, Canada and Russia appear to take up approximately 25% of the Earth’s surface, when in reality they occupy a mere 5%.

    As the animated GIF below—created by Reddit user, neilrkaye – demonstrates, northern nations such as Canada and Russia have been artificially “pumped up” in the minds of many people around the world.

    Greenland, which appears as a massive icy landmass in Mercator projection, shrinks way down. The continent of Africa takes a much more prominent position in this new, correctly-scaled map.

    This visualization also highlights how distorted neighboring countries can look in Mercator projection. In the GIF above, Scandinavian countries no longer loom imposingly over their European neighbors, and Canada deflates to a size similar to the United States.

    Despite inaccurate visual features—or perhaps because of them—the Mercator projection has achieved widespread adoption around the world. This includes in the classroom, where young minds are first learning about geography and forming opinions on the relationships between countries.

    Getting Reacquainted with Globes

    Google, whose map app is used by approximately 150 million people per month, took the bold step of using different projections for different purposes in 2018.

    The Earth is depicted as a globe at further zoom levels, sidestepping map projection issues completely and displaying the world as it actually is: round. The result is a more accurate depiction of countries and landmasses.

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

    At closer zoom levels, users are typically using maps for things like navigation, which the Mercator projection was designed for. The exact angles of roads and borders are preserved in this projection.

    In the Right Direction

    In a more globally connected world, geographic literacy is more important than ever. As people become more accustomed to equal area maps and seeing the Earth in its spherical form, misconceptions about the size of continents may become a thing of the past.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/14/2021 – 23:00

  • Study Links Excess COVID-19 Cases And Deaths To Wildfire Smoke
    Study Links Excess COVID-19 Cases And Deaths To Wildfire Smoke

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

    New research indicates that exposure to pollutants in wildfire smoke may have led to thousands more COVID-19 cases and deaths.

    The new study, published in the journal Science Advances, links fine particle pollution known as PM2.5, which measures 2.5 micrometers across and is produced by wildfires, among other sources, to a significant increase in COVID-19 cases and deaths in California, Oregon, and Washington state.

    “The wildfires exacerbated the pandemic substantially,” said Francesca Dominici, a Harvard biostatistician and author of the study, in remarks to National Geographic.

    The study sought to gauge the impact of last year’s wildfires in the three states on excess COVID-19 cases and deaths by evaluating their correlation with data on short-term PM2.5 exposure, while seeking to account for a number of confounding factors, including weather, seasonality, long-term trends, mobility, and population size.

    Evaluating data from 92 counties affected by fires, the study’s authors “found strong evidence that wildfires amplified the effect of short-term exposure to PM2.5 on COVID-19 cases and deaths, although with substantial heterogeneity across counties.”

    Heterogeneity refers to clinical, statistical, or methodological variability among studies in a systematic review.

    Members of the Cal Fire San Mateo-Santa Cruz Unit (CZU) march along Old Lawley Toll Road during the Glass Fire in Calistoga, Calif., on Oct. 2, 2020. (Stephen Lam/Reuters)

    For COVID-19 cases, the study found that 52 of 92 counties had “strong evidence” of a positive association between PM2.5 and heightened risk of contracting the respiratory illness, which is caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, also known as the SARS-CoV-2 or the novel coronavirus.

    While there were sharp differences across counties, when pooled across multiple counties, the results indicated that a daily increase of 10 micrograms per cubic meter in PM2.5 for 28 subsequent days was associated with an 11.7 percent increase in COVID-19 cases. In two counties with the highest impact—Sonoma, California, and Whitman, Washington—the researchers concluded that the same level of PM2.5 over the same time horizon was associated with a 65.3 percent and 71.6 percent increase in infections, respectively.

    There was also significant variability among counties in terms of COVID-19 deaths, with 17 of 92 counties reflecting “strong evidence of a positive association” between PM2.5 and fatalities. Under the same PM2.5 exposure parameters as above, the researchers found an 8.4 percent overall increase in deaths, with two California counties—Calaveras and San Bernardino—coming in at 52.8 percent and 65.9 percent, respectively.

    Overall, the study concluded that the PM2.5 in wildfire smoke likely accounted for 19,742 more COVID-19 cases and 748 more deaths than would have been the case absent the fine pollutant.

    “We found strong evidence of a positive associations [sic] between daily increases in PM2.5 and increased risks of COVID-19 cases and deaths, cumulatively up to 4 weeks,” the researchers wrote.

    While scientists continue to learn more about how wildfires impact human health, an expert told National Geographic that PM2.5 could make it easier for the CCP virus to enter the body by compromising certain cells that help expel various pathogens.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/14/2021 – 22:30

  • Unlike The Fed, Brazil Central Bank Vows To Do Whatever It Takes To Tame Soaring Inflation
    Unlike The Fed, Brazil Central Bank Vows To Do Whatever It Takes To Tame Soaring Inflation

    Just days after Brazil’s central bank hiked rates last Wednesday by a whopping 100bps, to 5.25% and up 325bps since March, with market consensus for much more tightening to come, Brazilian policy markets vowed to do what the Fed won’t – or can’t – do, and will do whatever it takes to bring inflation expectations back to target despite a perceived deterioration in the country’s fiscal outlook .

    Speaking at a Thursday online event organized by the national association of bars and restaurants, Campos Neto said “keeping inflation anchored is key at this moment, when we are facing consecutive inflationary shocks and it’s becoming difficult to model inflation.”

    Foreign investors are perceiving a deterioration in Brazil’s fiscal accounts, Campos Neto said, as spending pressures mount ahead of next year’s presidential election. His remarks echoed similar comments made by Monetary Policy Director Bruno Serra on Wednesday, and followed the central bank’s decision to step up the pace of monetary tightening last week.

    Neto’s speech comes at a time when the most severe drought in decades, along with higher commodity prices and an economic reopening are keeping inflation well above target in Brazil. Consumer prices soared 8.99% in July from the year prior, higher than economists forecast and the highest in over 5 years. Analysts polled by the central bank estimate consumer prices to rise 6.88% in 2021 and 3.84% in 2022, above the targets of 3.75% and 3.5% for each year.

    The main drivers of Brazil’s runaway inflation are housing costs, which jumped 3.1% on the month due mainly to electricity bills that increased 7.88%, while transportation prices rose 1.52%, the statistics agency said.

    “We will use all the tools we have, as much as needed, to anchor inflation in the medium and long term,” Campos Neto said, adding that current inflationary shocks are contaminating expectations for next year. His comments follow the central bank’s guidance from last week which signaled another 100bps Selic increase at the September meeting, and a hiking cycle that will ultimately drive the Selic to an above-neutral level; i.e., into restrictive territory as the central bank scramble to contained soaring prices.

    After promising last week to raise interest rates above the so-called neutral level, the central banker said later on Thursday he still considers that point to be around 3% in real terms according to Bloomberg. Yet there’s an upward bias to that rate, which neither stimulates nor restricts the economy, when the most recent macroeconomic data is taken into account, he added.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/14/2021 – 22:00

  • The Propaganda Multiplier
    The Propaganda Multiplier

    Via swprs.org,

    It is one of the most important aspects of our media system, and yet hardly known to the public: most of the international news coverage in Western media is provided by only three global news agencies based in New York, London and Paris.

    The key role played by these agencies means Western media often report on the same topics, even using the same wording. In addition, governments, military and intelligence services use these global news agencies as multipliers to spread their messages around the world.

    A study of the Syria war coverage by nine leading European newspapers clearly illustrates these issues: 78% of all articles were based in whole or in part on agency reports, yet 0% on investigative research. Moreover, 82% of all opinion pieces and interviews were in favor of a US and NATO intervention, while propaganda was attributed exclusively to the opposite side.

    The Propaganda Multiplier: How Global News Agencies and Western Media Report on Geopolitics

    A Study by Swiss Propaganda Research

    Translated by Terje Maloy

    “Therefore, you always have to ask yourself: Why do I get this specific information, in this specific form, at this specific moment? Ultimately, these are always questions about power.”

    – Dr. Konrad Hummler, Swiss banking and media executive

    Contents

    1. Part 1: The Propaganda Multiplier

    2. Part 2: Case Study on Syria War Coverage

    3. Notes and Literature

    Introduction: “Something strange”

    “How does the newspaper know what it knows?” The answer to this question is likely to surprise some newspaper readers: “The main source of information is stories from news agencies. The almost anonymously operating news agencies are in a way the key to world events. So what are the names of these agencies, how do they work and who finances them? To judge how well one is informed about events in East and West, one should know the answers to these questions.” (Höhne 1977, p. 11)

    A Swiss media researcher points out: “The news agencies are the most important suppliers of material to mass media. No daily media outlet can manage without them. () So the news agencies influence our image of the world; above all, we get to know what they have selected.” (Blum 1995, p. 9)

    In view of their essential importance, it is all the more astonishing that these agencies are hardly known to the public: “A large part of society is unaware that news agencies exist at all … In fact, they play an enormously important role in the media market. But despite this great importance, little attention has been paid to them in the past.” (Schulten-Jaspers 2013, p. 13)

    Even the head of a news agency noted: “There is something strange about news agencies. They are little known to the public. Unlike a newspaper, their activity is not so much in the spotlight, yet they can always be found at the source of the story.” (Segbers 2007, p. 9)

    “The Invisible Nerve Center of the Media System”

    So what are the names of these agencies that are “always at the source of the story”? There are now only three global news agencies left:

    1. The American Associated Press (AP) with over 4000 employees worldwide. The AP belongs to US media companies and has its main editorial office in New York. AP news is used by around 12,000 international media outlets, reaching more than half of the world’s population every day.

    2. The quasi-governmental French Agence France-Presse (AFP) based in Paris and with around 4000 employees. The AFP sends over 3000 stories and photos every day to media all over the world.

    3. The British agency Reuters in London, which is privately owned and employs just over 3000 people. Reuters was acquired in 2008 by Canadian media entrepreneur Thomson – one of the 25 richest people in the world – and merged into Thomson Reuters, headquartered in New York.

    In addition, many countries run their own news agencies. These include, for instance, the German DPA, the Austrian APA, and the Swiss SDA. When it comes to international news, however, national agencies usually rely on the three global agencies and simply copy and translate their reports.

    The three global news agencies Reuters, AFP and AP, and the three national agencies of the German-speaking countries of Austria (APA), Germany (DPA) and Switzerland (SDA).

    Wolfgang Vyslozil, former managing director of the Austrian APA, described the key role of news agencies with these words: “News agencies are rarely in the public eye. Yet they are one of the most influential and at the same time one of the least known media types. They are key institutions of substantial importance to any media system. They are the invisible nerve center that connects all parts of this system.” (Segbers 2007, p.10)

    Small abbreviation, great effect

    However, there is a simple reason why the global agencies, despite their importance, are virtually unknown to the general public. To quote a Swiss media professor: “Radio and television usually do not name their sources, and only specialists can decipher references in magazines.” (Blum 1995, P. 9)

    The motive for this discretion, however, should be clear: news outlets are not particularly keen to let readers know that they haven’t researched most of their contributions themselves.

    The following figure shows some examples of source tagging in popular European newspapers. Next to the agency abbreviations we find the initials of editors who have edited the respective agency report.

    News agencies as sources in newspaper articles

    Occasionally, newspapers use agency material but do not label it at all. A study in 2011 from the Swiss Research Institute for the Public Sphere and Society at the University of Zurich came to the following conclusions (FOEG 2011):

    “Agency contributions are exploited integrally without labeling them, or they are partially rewritten to make them appear as an editorial contribution. In addition, there is a practice of ‘spicing up’ agency reports with little effort: for example, unpublished agency reports are enriched with images and graphics and presented as comprehensive articles.”

    The agencies play a prominent role not only in the press, but also in private and public broadcasting. This is confirmed by Volker Braeutigam, who worked for the German state broadcaster ARD for ten years and views the dominance of these agencies critically:

    “One fundamental problem is that the newsroom at ARD sources its information mainly from three sources: the news agencies DPA/AP, Reuters and AFP: one German/American, one British and one French. () The editor working on a news topic only needs to select a few text passages on the screen that he considers essential, rearrange them and glue them together with a few flourishes.”

    Swiss Radio and Television (SRF), too, largely bases itself on reports from these agencies. Asked by viewers why a peace march in Ukraine was not reported, the editors said: “To date, we have not received a single report of this march from the independent agencies Reuters, AP and AFP.”

    In fact, not only the text, but also the images, sound and video recordings that we encounter in our media every day, are mostly from the very same agencies. What the uninitiated audience might think of as contributions from their local newspaper or TV station, are actually copied reports from New York, London and Paris.

    Some media have even gone a step further and have, for lack of resources, outsourced their entire foreign editorial office to an agency. Moreover, it is well known that many news portals on the internet mostly publish agency reports (see e.g., Paterson 2007, Johnston 2011, MacGregor 2013).

    In the end, this dependency on the global agencies creates a striking similarity in international reporting: from Vienna to Washington, our media often report the same topics, using many of the same phrases – a phenomenon that would otherwise rather be associated with »controlled media« in authoritarian states.

    The following graphic shows some examples from German and international publications. As you can see, despite the claimed objectivity, a slight (geo-)political bias sometimes creeps in.

    “Putin threatens”, “Iran provokes”, “NATO concerned”, “Assad stronghold”: Similarities in content and wording due to reports by global news agencies.

    The role of correspondents

    Much of our media does not have own foreign correspondents, so they have no choice but to rely completely on global agencies for foreign news. But what about the big daily newspapers and TV stations that have their own international correspondents? In German-speaking countries, for example, these include newspapers such NZZ, FAZ, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Welt, and public broadcasters.

    First of all, the size ratios should be kept in mind: while the global agencies have several thousand employees worldwide, even the Swiss newspaper NZZ, known for its international reporting, maintains only 35 foreign correspondents (including their business correspondents). In huge countries such as China or India, only one correspondent is stationed; all of South America is covered by only two journalists, while in even larger Africa no-one is on the ground permanently.

    Moreover, in war zones, correspondents rarely venture out. On the Syria war, for example, many journalists “reported” from cities such as Istanbul, Beirut, Cairo or even from Cyprus. In addition, many journalists lack the language skills to understand local people and media.

    How do correspondents under such circumstances know what the “news” is in their region of the world? The main answer is once again: from global agencies. The Dutch Middle East correspondent Joris Luyendijk has impressively described how correspondents work and how they depend on the world agencies in his book “People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East”:

    “I had imagined correspondents to be historians-of-the-moment. When something important happened, they would go after it, find out what was going on, and report on it. But I didn’t go off to find out what was going on; that had been done long before. I went along to present an on-the-spot report.

    The editors in the Netherlands called when something happened, they faxed or emailed the press releases, and I’d retell them in my own words on the radio, or rework them into an article for the newspaper. This was the reason my editors found it more important that I could be reached in the place itself than that I knew what was going on. The news agencies provided enough information for you to be able to write or talk your way through any crisis or summit meeting.

    That’s why you often come across the same images and stories if you leaf through a few different newspapers or click the news channels.

    Our men and women in London, Paris, Berlin and Washington bureaus – all thought that wrong topics were dominating the news and that we were following the standards of the news agencies too slavishly.

    The common idea about correspondents is that they ‘have the story’, () but the reality is that the news is a conveyor belt in a bread factory. The correspondents stand at the end of the conveyor belt, pretending we’ve baked that white loaf ourselves, while in fact all we’ve done is put it in its wrapping.

    Afterwards, a friend asked me how I’d managed to answer all the questions during those cross-talks, every hour and without hesitation. When I told him that, like on the TV-news, you knew all the questions in advance, his e-mailed response came packed with expletives. My friend had relalized that, for decades, what he’d been watching and listening to on the news was pure theatre.” (Luyendjik 2009, p. 20-22, 76, 189)

    In other words, the typical correspondent is in general not able to do independent research, but rather deals with and reinforces those topics that are already prescribed by the news agencies – the notorious “mainstream effect”.

    In addition, for cost-saving reasons many media outlets nowadays have to share their few foreign correspondents, and within individual media groups, foreign reports are often used by several publications – none of which contributes to diversity in reporting.

    “What the agency does not report, does not take place”

    The central role of news agencies also explains why, in geopolitical conflicts, most media use the same original sources. In the Syrian war, for example, the “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights” – a dubious one-man organization based in London –  featured prominently. The media rarely inquired directly at this “Observatory”, as its operator was in fact difficult to reach, even for journalists.

    Rather, the “Observatory” delivered its stories to global agencies, which then forwarded them to thousands of media outlets, which in turn “informed” hundreds of millions of readers and viewers worldwide. The reason why the agencies, of all places, referred to this strange “Observatory” in their reporting – and who really financed it – is a question that was rarely asked.

    The former chief editor of the German news agency DPA, Manfred Steffens, therefore states in his book “The Business of News”:

    “A news story does not become more correct simply because one is able to provide a source for it. It is indeed rather questionable to trust a news story more just because a source is cited. () Behind the protective shield such a ‘source’ means for a story, some people are inclined to spread rather adventurous things, even if they themselves have legitimate doubts about their correctness; the responsibility, at least morally, can always be attributed to the cited source.” (Steffens 1969, p. 106)

    Dependence on global agencies is also a major reason why media coverage of geopolitical conflicts is often superficial and erratic, while historic relationships and background are fragmented or altogether absent. As put by Steffens: “News agencies receive their impulses almost exclusively from current events and are therefore by their very nature ahistoric. They are reluctant to add any more context than is strictly required.” (Steffens 1969, p. 32)

    Finally, the dominance of global agencies explains why certain geopolitical issues and events – which often do not fit very well into the US/NATO narrative or are too “unimportant” – are not mentioned in our media at all: if the agencies do not report on something, then most Western media will not be aware of it. As pointed out on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the German DPA: “What the agency does not report, does not take place.” (Wilke 2000, p. 1)

    “Adding questionable stories”

    While some topics do not appear at all in our media, other topics are very prominent – even though they shouldn’t actually be: “Often the mass media do not report on reality, but on a constructed or staged reality. () Several studies have shown that the mass media are predominantly determined by PR activities and that passive, receptive attitudes outweigh active-researching ones.” (Blum 1995, p. 16)

    In fact, due to the rather low journalistic performance of our media and their high dependence on a few news agencies, it is easy for interested parties to spread propaganda and disinformation in a supposedly respectable format to a worldwide audience. DPA editor Steffens warned of this danger:

    “The critical sense gets more lulled the more respected the news agency or newspaper is. Someone who wants to introduce a questionable story into the world press only needs to try to put his story in a reasonably reputable agency, to be sure that it then appears a little later in the others. Sometimes it happens that a hoax passes from agency to agency and becomes ever more credible.” (Steffens 1969, p. 234)

    Among the most active actors in “injecting” questionable geopolitical news are the military and defense ministries. For example, in 2009 the head of the American news agency AP, Tom Curley, made public that the Pentagon employs more than 27,000 PR specialists who, with a budget of nearly $ 5 billion a year, are working the media and circulating targeted manipulations. In addition, high-ranking US generals had threatened that they would “ruin” him and the AP if the journalists reported too critically on the US military.

    Despite – or because of? – such threats our media regularly publish dubious stories sourced to some unnamed  “informants” from “US defense circles”.

    Ulrich Tilgner, a veteran Middle East correspondent for German and Swiss television, warned in 2003, shortly after the Iraq war, of acts of deception by the military and the role played by the media:

    “With the help of the media, the military determine the public perception and use it for their plans. They manage to stir expectations and spread deceptive scenarios. In this new kind of war, the PR strategists of the US administration fulfill a similar function as the bomber pilots. The special departments for public relations in the Pentagon and in the secret services have become combatants in the information war.

    For their deception maneuvers, the US military specifically uses the lack of transparency in media coverage. The way they spread information, which is then picked up and distributed by newspapers and broadcasters, makes it impossible for readers, listeners or viewers to trace the original source. Thus, the audience will fail to recognize the actual intention of the military.” (Tilgner 2003, p. 132)

    What is known to the US military, would not be foreign to US intelligence services. In a remarkable  report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts:

    Former CIA officer and whistleblower John Stockwell said of his work in the Angolan war: “The basic theme was to make it look like an [enemy] aggression. So any kind of story that you could write and get into the media anywhere in the world, that pushed that line, we did. One third of my staff in this task force were propagandists, whose professional career job was to make up stories and finding ways of getting them into the press. () The editors in most Western newspapers are not too skeptical of messages that conform to general views and prejudices. () So we came up with another story, and it was kept going for weeks. () But it was all fiction.”

    Fred Bridgland looked back on his work as a war correspondent for the Reuters agency: “We based our reports on official communications. It was not until years later that I learned that a little CIA disinformation expert had sat in the US embassy and had composed these communiqués that bore absolutely no relationship at all to truth. () Basically, and to put it very crudely, you can publish any old crap and it will get into the newspaper.”

    And former CIA analyst David MacMichael described his work in the Contra War in Nicaragua with these words: “They said our intelligence of Nicaragua was so good that we could even register when someone flushed a toilet. But I had the feeling that the stories we were giving to the press came straight out of the toilet.” (Hird 1985)

    Of course, the intelligence services also have a large number of direct contacts in our media, which can be “leaked” information to if necessary. But without the central role of the global news agencies, the worldwide synchronization of propaganda and disinformation would never be so efficient.

    Through this “propaganda multiplier”, dubious stories from PR experts working for governments, military and intelligence services reach the general public more or less unchecked and unfiltered. The journalists refer to the news agencies and the news agencies refer to their sources. Although they often attempt to point out uncertainties (and hedge themselves) with terms such as “apparent”, “alleged” and the like – by then the rumor has long been spread to the world and its effect has taken place.

    The Propaganda Multiplier: Governments, military and intelligence services using global news agencies to disseminate their messages to a worldwide audience.

    As the New York Times reported …

    In addition to global news agencies, there is another source that is often used by media outlets around the world to report on geopolitical conflicts, namely the major publications in Great Britain and the US.

    News outlets like the New York Times or the BBC may have up to 100 foreign correspondents and additional external employees. However, as Middle East correspondent Luyendijk points out:

    “Our news teams, me included, fed on the selection of news made by quality media like CNN, the BBC, and the New York Times. We did that on the assumption that their correspondents understood the Arab world and commanded a view of it – but many of them turned out not to speak Arabic, or at least not enough to be able to have a conversation in it or to follow the local media. Many of the top dogs at CNN, the BBC, the Independent, the Guardian, the New Yorker, and the NYT were more often than not dependent on assistants and translators.” (Luyendijk p. 47)

    In addition, the sources of these media outlets are often not easy to verify (“military circles”, “anonymous government officials”, “intelligence officials” and the like) and can therefore also be used for the dissemination of propaganda. In any case, the widespread orientation towards the major Anglo-Saxon publications leads to a further convergence in the geopolitical coverage in our media.

    The following figure shows some examples of such citation based on the Syria coverage of the largest daily newspaper in Switzerland, Tages-Anzeiger. The articles are all from the first days of October 2015, when Russia for the first time intervened directly in the Syrian war (US/UK sources are highlighted):

    Frequent citation of major British and US media, exemplified by the Syria war coverage of Swiss daily newspaper Tages-Anzeiger in October 2015.

    The desired narrative

    But why do journalists in our media not simply try to research and report independently of the global agencies and the Anglo-Saxon media? Middle East correspondent Luyendijk describes his experiences:

    “You might suggest that I should have looked for sources I could trust. I did try, but whenever I wanted to write a story without using news agencies, the main Anglo-Saxon media, or talking heads, it fell apart. () Obviously I, as a correspondent, could tell very different stories about one and the same situation. But the media could only present one of them, and often enough, that was exactly the story that confirmed the prevailing image.” (Luyendijk p.54ff)

    Media researcher Noam Chomsky has described this effect in his essay “What makes the mainstream media mainstream” as follows: “If you get off line, if you’re producing stories that the big press doesn’t like, you’ll hear about it pretty soon. () So there are a lot of ways in which power plays can drive you right back into line if you move out. If you try to break the mold, you’re not going to last long. That framework works pretty well, and it is understandable that it is just a reflection of obvious power structures.” (Chomsky 1997)

    Nevertheless, some of the leading journalists continue to believe that nobody can tell them what to write. How does this add up? Media researcher Chomsky clarifies the apparent contradiction:

    “[T]he point is that they wouldn’t be there unless they had already demonstrated that nobody has to tell them what to write because they are going say the right thing. If they had started off at the Metro desk, or something, and had pursued the wrong kind of stories, they never would have made it to the positions where they can now say anything they like. The same is mostly true of university faculty in the more ideological disciplines. They have been through the socialization system.” (Chomsky 1997)

    Ultimately, this “socialization system” leads to a journalism that no longer independently researches and critically reports on geopolitical conflicts (and some other topics), but seeks to consolidate the desired narrative through appropriate editorials, commentary, and interviews.

    Conclusion: The “First Law of Journalism”

    Former AP journalist Herbert Altschull called it the First Law of Journalism: “In all press systems, the news media are instruments of those who exercise political and economic power. Newspapers, periodicals, radio and television stations do not act independently, although they have the possibility of independent exercise of power.” (Altschull 1984/1995, p. 298)

    In that sense, it is logical that our traditional media – which are predominantly financed by advertising or the state – represent the geopolitical interests of the transatlantic alliance, given that both the advertising corporations as well as the states themselves are dependent on the transatlantic economic and security architecture led by the United States.

    In addition, the key people of our leading media are – in the spirit of Chomsky’s “socialization system” –  often themselves part of transatlantic elite networks. Some of the most important institutions in this regard include the US Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Bilderberg Group, and the Trilateral Commission, all of which feature many prominent journalists (see in-depth study of these groups).

    Most well-known publications, therefore, may indeed be seen as a kind of “establishment media”. This is because, in the past, the freedom of the press was rather theoretical, given significant entry barriers such as broadcasting licenses, frequency slots, requirements for financing and technical infrastructure, limited sales channels, dependence on advertising, and other restrictions.

    It was only due to the Internet that Altschull’s First Law has been broken to some extent. Thus, in recent years a high-quality, reader-funded journalism has emerged, often outperforming traditional media in terms of critical reporting. Some of these “alternative” publications already reach a very large audience, showing that the “mass” does not have to be a problem for the quality of a media outlet.

    Nevertheless, up to now the traditional media has been able to attract a solid majority of online visitors, too. This, in turn, is closely linked to the hidden role of news agencies, whose up-to-the-minute reports form the backbone of most online news sites.

    Will “political and economic power”, according to Altschull’s Law, retain control over the news, or will “uncontrolled news” change the political and economic power structure? The coming years will show.

    *  *  *

    Case study: Syria war coverage

    As part of a case study, the Syria war coverage of nine leading daily newspapers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland were examined for plurality of viewpoints and reliance on news agencies. The following newspapers were selected:

    • For Germany: Die Welt, Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ)

    • For Switzerland: Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), Tagesanzeiger (TA), and Basler Zeitung (BaZ)

    • For Austria: Standard, Kurier, and Die Presse

    The investigation period was defined as October 1 to 15, 2015, i.e. the first two weeks after Russia’s direct intervention in the Syrian conflict. The entire print and online coverage of these newspapers was taken into account. Any Sunday editions were not taken into account, as not all of the newspapers examined have such. In total, 381 newspaper articles met the stated criteria.

    In a first step, the articles were classified according to their properties into the following groups:

    1. Agencies: Reports from news agencies (with agency code)

    2. Mixed: Simple reports (with author names) that are based in whole or in part on agency reports

    3. Reports: Editorial background reports and analyses

    4. Opinions/Comments: Opinions and guest comments

    5. Interviews: Interviews with experts, politicians etc.

    6. Investigative: Investigative research that reveals new information or context

    The following Figure 1 shows the composition of the articles for the nine newspapers analyzed in total. As can be seen, 55% of articles were news agency reports; 23% editorial reports based on agency material; 9% background reports; 10% opinions and guest comments; 2% interviews; and 0% based on investigative research.

    Figure 1: Types of articles (total; n=381)

    The pure agency texts – from short notices to the detailed reports – were mostly on the Internet pages of the daily newspapers: on the one hand, the pressure for breaking news is higher than in the printed edition, on the other hand, there are no space restrictions. Most other types of articles were found in both the online and printed editions; some exclusive interviews and background reports were found only in the printed editions. All items were collected only once for the investigation.

    The following Figure 2 shows the same classification on a per newspaper basis. During the observation period (two weeks), most newspapers published between 40 and 50 articles on the Syrian conflict (print and online). In the German newspaper Die Welt there were more (58), in the Basler Zeitung and the Austrian Kurier, however, significantly less (29 or 33).

    Depending on which newspaper, the share of agency reports is almost 50% (Welt, Süddeutsche, NZZ, Basler Zeitung), just under 60% (FAZ, Tagesanzeiger), and 60 to 70% (Presse, Standard, Kurier). Together with the agency-based reports, the proportion in most newspapers is between approx. 70% and 80%. These proportions are consistent with previous media studies (e.g., Blum 1995, Johnston 2011, MacGregor 2013, Paterson 2007).

    In the background reports, the Swiss newspapers were leading (five to six pieces), followed by Welt, Süddeutsche and Standard (four each) and the other newspapers (one to three). The background reports and analyzes were in particular devoted to the situation and development in the Middle East, as well as to the motives and interests of individual actors (for example Russia, Turkey, the Islamic State).

    However, most of the commentaries were to be found in the German newspapers (seven comments each), followed by Standard (five), NZZ and Tagesanzeiger (four each). Basler Zeitung did not publish any commentaries during the observation period, but two interviews. Other interviews were conducted by Standard (three) and Kurier and Presse (one each). Investigative research, however, could not be found in any of the newspapers.

    In particular, in the case of the three German newspapers, a journalistically problematic blending of opinion pieces and reports was noted. Reports contained strong expressions of opinion even though they were not marked as commentary. The present study was in any case based on the article labeling by the newspaper.

    Figure 2: Types of articles per newspaper

    The following Figure 3 shows the breakdown of agency stories (by agency abbreviation) for each news agency, in total and per country. The 211 agency reports carried a total of 277 agency codes (a story may consist of material from more than one agency). In total, 24% of agency reports came from the AFP; about 20% each by the DPA, APA and Reuters; 9% of the SDA; 6% of the AP; and 11% were unknown (no labeling or blanket term “agencies”).

    In Germany, the DPA, AFP and Reuters each have a share of about one third of the news stories. In Switzerland, the SDA and the AFP are in the lead, and in Austria, the APA and Reuters.

    In fact, the shares of the global agencies AFP, AP and Reuters are likely to be even higher, as the Swiss SDA and the Austrian APA obtain their international reports mainly from the global agencies and the German DPA cooperates closely with the American AP.

    It should also be noted that, for historical reasons, the global agencies are represented differently in different regions of the world. For events in Asia, Ukraine or Africa, the share of each agency will therefore be different than from events in the Middle East.

    Figure 3: Share of news agencies, total (n=277) and per country

    In the next step, central statements were used to rate the orientation of editorial opinions (28), guest comments (10) and interview partners (7) (a total of 45 articles). As Figure 4 shows, 82% of the contributions were generally US/NATO friendly, 16% neutral or balanced, and 2% predominantly US/NATO critical.

    The only predominantly US/NATO-critical contribution was an op-ed in the Austrian Standard on October 2, 2015, titled: “The strategy of regime change has failed. A distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ terrorist groups in Syria makes the Western policy untrustworthy.”

    Figure 4: Orientation of editorial opinions, guest comments, and interviewees (total; n=45).

    The following Figure 5  shows the orientation of the contributions, guest comments and interviewees, in turn broken down by individual newspapers. As can be seen, Welt, Süddeutsche Zeitung, NZZ, Zürcher Tagesanzeiger and the Austrian newspaper Kurier presented exclusively US/NATO-friendly opinion and guest contributions; this goes for FAZ too, with the exception of one neutral/balanced contribution. The Standard brought four US/NATO friendly, three balanced/neutral, as well as the already mentioned US/NATO critical opinion contributions.

    Presse was the only one of the examined newspapers to predominantly publish neutral/balanced opinions and guest contributions. The Basler Zeitung published one US/NATO-friendly and one balanced contribution. Shortly after the observation period (October 16, 2015), Basler Zeitung also published an interview with the President of the Russian Parliament. This would of course have been counted as a contribution critical of the US/NATO.

    Figure 5: Basic orientation of opinion pieces and interviewees per newspaper

    In a further analysis, a full-text keyword search for “propaganda” (and word combinations thereof) was used to investigate in which cases the newspapers themselves identified propaganda in one of the two geopolitical conflict sides, USA/NATO or Russia (the participant “IS/ISIS” was not considered). In total, twenty such cases were identified. Figure 6 shows the result: in 85% of the cases, propaganda was identified on the Russian side of the conflict, in 15% the identification was neutral or unstated, and in 0% of the cases propaganda was identified on the USA/NATO side of the conflict.

    It should be noted that about half of the cases (nine) were in the Swiss NZZ, which spoke of Russian propaganda quite frequently (“Kremlin propaganda”, “Moscow propaganda machine”, “propaganda stories”, “Russian propaganda apparatus” etc.), followed by German FAZ (three), Welt and Süddeutsche Zeitung (two each) and the Austrian newspaper Kurier (one). The other newspapers did not mention propaganda, or only in a neutral context (or in the context of IS).

    Figure 6: Attribution of propaganda to conflict parties (total; n=20).

    Conclusion

    In this case study, the geopolitical coverage in nine leading European newspapers was examined for diversity and journalistic performance using the example of the Syrian war.

    The results confirm the high dependence on the global news agencies (63 to 90%, excluding commentaries and interviews) and the lack of own investigative research, as well as the rather biased commenting on events in favor of the US/NATO side (82% positive; 2% negative), whose stories were not checked by the newspapers for any propaganda.

    *  *  *

    About the authors: Swiss Propaganda Research (SPR) is an independent research group investigating geopolitical propaganda in Swiss and international media. You can contact us here.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/14/2021 – 21:30

  • Biden Administration Wants Airlines Off Fossil Fuels By 2050
    Biden Administration Wants Airlines Off Fossil Fuels By 2050

    As if we weren’t throwing enough trillions of dollars away (or, should we say, printing enough trillions away) incentivizing ill conceived “green energy” subsidies, the Biden administration is now set to be targeting weaning all airlines off of fossil fuels by 2050. 

    The idea, which is likely going to be laughably impossible to implement at any point in the near future, is part of the White House’s plan to “fight climate change”. It follows the Biden administration’s push for auto manufacturers to go all electric and/or hybrid by 2030.

    And how are they going to get airlines to go along with such an asinine idea and time schedule? You guessed it: offering cash in the form of incentives that we don’t have. The administration is “contemplating incentives to support private-sector production of sustainable aviation fuel,” according to Reuters. By 2050, the administration wants airlines to fly on 100% jet fuel from renewable sources, the report says.

    Discussions are in “early stages”, according to two sources. Meanwhile, sustainable aviation fuel is two to five times more expensive than conventional jet fuel. 

    Ali Zaidi, the Deputy National Climate Advisor for the White House, said: “As part of the Build Back Better agenda, President Biden proposed catalytic investments to propel innovation and deployment of sustainable aviation fuels.”

    Zaidi continued: “The administration is committed to advancing climate solutions in every sector and segment of the economy – with the urgency that the climate crisis demands.”

    Electrification of airlines isn’t an option, due to the weight of the batteries that would need to be used, the report notes. In Europe, regulators are trying to “force suppliers to blend rising amounts of SAF into their kerosene,” which has been opposed by U.S. airlines, Reuters notes.

    Fuel remains the second largest cost for airlines, other than labor. This means any additional costs due to implementing new fuel rules would likely be passed on to customers. 

    Plane manufacturers are targeting planes and engines that can run without fossil fuels by 2025 to 2030. Meanwhile, congress is debating a tax credit of up to $2 per gallon for SAF – with money we don’t have to spend. 

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

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/14/2021 – 21:00

  • Rabobank: The World's Biggest Oil Consumer Showed Its Political Vulnerability To Higher Oil Prices And Skyrocketing Inflation
    Rabobank: The World’s Biggest Oil Consumer Showed Its Political Vulnerability To Higher Oil Prices And Skyrocketing Inflation

    By Ryan Fitzmaurice of Rabobank

    Summary

    • The White House released a statement on Wednesday pleading with OPEC+ to increase oil production to stem off inflationary pressures from higher domestic gasoline prices
    • The world’s biggest oil consumer showed its political vulnerability to higher oil prices this week and more specifically skyrocketing consumer inflation
    • The push for “green” energy is also putting upward pressure on commodity price inflation

    Oil markets started off the week under pressure as continued speculative “long” liquidation amid delta variant demand concerns weighed on prices. However, in an ironic twist, the oil market got a boost from an unlikely source on Wednesday as the Biden administration announced it was pleading with OPEC+ members to increase oil production to stem inflationary pressures from rising domestic gasoline prices.

    The White House announcement was naturally intended to pressure oil prices lower as has worked under past administrations but instead the opposite occurred as the oil market saw right through the veiled attempt (while spurring criticism from all sides including industry lobbyists, “climate scientists”, progressives and conservatives). For starters, OPEC+ and more importantly Saudi Arabia, are unlikely to answer Biden’s calls for more crude oil as they already have a fully agreed to plan in place. Further to that end, the US/Saudi relationship is quite strained as the Biden administration has pivoted towards Iran as it anxiously looks to re-enter the Iran nuclear deal, but so far with little success. As such, the oil market rightly interpreted the desperate plea as coming from a place of weakness and not strength which led to strong gains in the notoriously unforgiving financial oil markets on Wednesday.

    Adding to the irony, oil prices had actually been trending lower prior to the announcement but consequently found a new source of strength as the world’s biggest oil consumer showed its political vulnerability to higher oil prices and more specifically skyrocketing consumer inflation. In addition to shifting the short-term oil momentum back to the upside, the plea to OPEC+ also enraged oil producers in the US and Canada given there is plenty of capacity available in North America that can be called upon rather than increasing dependency on Middle East oil. Furthermore, not only was this North American oil not called upon, but it has also been intentionally stifled by the Biden administration by cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline and vowing to ban drilling on federal lands, to name a few.

    The “green” energy conundrum

    In addition to angering North American oil producers, the plea for more OPEC+ oil is also not sitting well with the “green” energy enthusiasts that make up a meaningful percentage of Biden’s base. This outrage should come as no surprise as increased oil production undermines the push to decarbonize economies and reduces the incentive to shift away from fossil fuels and towards electric vehicles, a key part of the current administration’s agenda.

    Perhaps more importantly though, the plea to OPEC+ to lower US gasoline prices shines a bright light on the cost of going “green” which can be quite expensive it turns out (as discussed here back in June in “Why One Bank Thinks ESG Could Trigger Hyperinflation“). After all, the cost of crude oil makes up a shrinking portion of retail prices at the pump in states such as California, the US leader when it comes to decarbonisation and “green” policies.

    As you can see in Figure 2 below, the average cost of regular gasoline is significantly more expensive than the national average. In fact, looking at the most recent price of $4.35 per gallon in California, that equates to a cost of $183 per barrel, or more than 2.5x the cost of Brent crude oil. So why the huge mark-up in retail gasoline prices?

    For starters, California requires a very strict and specific grade of gasoline known as CARBOB, that has tighter specifications than the rest of the US meant to address air quality issues in the state. This reduces the gasoline supply pool for California as not all refiners can produce the specifications while also increasing the cost of production for refiners. In addition to tighter specs, federal and state renewable credits have been soaring this year, adding even more upwards pressure to prices at the pump as a large portion of these costs are passed on to the consumer.

    Perhaps more importantly, the huge run-up in renewable credits has US oil refiners shutting crude oil capacity in favor of renewable fuels production. As a result, the US has less operable refining capacity than it did prior to the pandemic, but the renewable facilities are still under construction. As such, the refined products are experiencing supply tightness and upward pressure on prices.

    Looking Forward

    Looking forward, the oil market is heading into next week with a mixed technical picture. On the bullish side of things, the spot Brent contract recaptured the psychologically important $70/bbl level on the upside this week, but on the other hand, the market remains below its 20-day moving average. Looking at the big picture though, inflation remains a key concern for consumers, politicians, and investors alike.

    This dynamic was on full display this week as the Biden administration’s pleaded for OPEC+ to pump more oil and reduce gasoline prices. As we explained though, we do not expect OPEC+ to change course on its already agreed to production increases and, as such, we expect oil prices will likely stay high and US balances will remain tight. Furthermore, this dynamic could work to reignite inflation-driven commodity index flows from large asset managers that have been so important to the oil market this year.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/14/2021 – 20:30

  • Hell Came: Millennials Lost "Millions" On Bill Ackman's SPAC Implosion
    Hell Came: Millennials Lost “Millions” On Bill Ackman’s SPAC Implosion

    High profile fund manager Bill Ackman wound up torching retail investors when his special-purpose acquisition company, Pershing Square Tontine Holdings, failed to find a merger partner after months of bluster from Ackman and blind faith from investors.

    The failure of PSTH to get off the ground resulted in large losses for retail investors, like one 35-year-old unmarried Chicago psychiatrist who lost nearly $1 million “investing” in call options on the pre-merger entity, a new profile by Institutional Investor points out. 

    PSTH had been touted by Ackman to be an “investor friendly” SPAC. Ackman even “tweeted a rap video about SPACs minting money” in February 2021. Ackman even joked about “marrying a unicorn” when talking about his SPAC’s launch last July. 

    The rise and fall of PSTH, from Sept. 2020 to Aug. 2021

    “That video literally single-handedly caused the stock to rise 10 percent,” the investor told II. “It was like, okay, this is coming very soon. If you don’t get in now, you’re going to miss it.” 

    “Just because I have specialized training doesn’t mean I can’t be just as much of a fool as the guy next door,” the investor said. “Whatever money I had, I pretty much was putting it all into buying more of it,” he said of his purchases of June 18, 2021 $25 strike call options. The stock traded at $23 at the time, leaving the options to be a total loss.

    But reality hit on June 4 when PSTH announced a deal to take a 10% stake in Universal Music Group. It was a small slice of an investment that left money over for other deals. Then, “hell came” when the SEC told Ackman that the deal didn’t meet NYSE’s requirements for a SPAC, all but killing the deal. 

    In fact, II talked to 16 other people who invested in PSTH and though it was a “safe, calculated bet”. “Nine of the 17 men II contacted were either immigrants or first-generation Americans,” the report noted.

    One 31 year old German college student put about $294,000 in savings into the SPAC. He had lost about $100,000 on the investment. “I looked up to Ackman,” he said, noting that he was impressed by Ackman’s SPAC doing away with free sponsor shares and encouraging holding shares post-merger through special warrants. “It was clear to me that this was a new kind of vehicle. To me, the warrants were the unique selling point of PSTH,” he said.

    Another investor who lost $600,000 on PSTH options told II: “The gambler’s fallacy is always the high end. You think you’re invincible until you’re not, and that’s generally what happened to me.”

    The biggest loss came from a 39 year old software engineer, who saved $1.6 million over 20 years. He set up an account at Fidelity last year and, behind the back of his parents whom he was helping support, put the entire $1.6 million into PSTH. 

    “Ackman just sounded very confident. I trusted the guy. I thought he knew what he was doing,” the engineer said.

    It was then that he transferred his shares into in the money call options with a strike price of $22. The stock was trading at $30 at the time.

    His account hit $2 million at one point before his options expired worthless on July 16. 

    He said of the resulting depression he is suffering from: “I’m not mentally there. I’ve got to pick myself up or this is going to ruin my life even further.” 

    You can read II’s full piece here.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/14/2021 – 20:11

  • 'Named & Shamed' – IRS Lists The Record Number Of Wealthy Americans Becoming Ex-Americans In 2020
    ‘Named & Shamed’ – IRS Lists The Record Number Of Wealthy Americans Becoming Ex-Americans In 2020

    The number of wealthy Americans with assets over $2 million who renounced their citizenship has surged amid socioeconomic despair, political firestorms, and an unrelenting virus pandemic sparking increasingly freedom-destroying mandates from the ‘petty tyrants’ – as Rand Paul described them – in Washington. 

    Earlier this year, we noted 6,705 Americans gave up their citizenship in 2020, a 260% increase from 2019 when 2,577 renounced their citizenship. People fleeing the country tend to have the economic mobility to do so and seek tax haven countries. They also seek areas that are safer (free of social unrest) and have more freedoms. 

    It’s no secret that the Democrat’s key campaign promise is higher taxes and that may have spooked wealthy people also.

    For 2021, the number of Americans who renounced their citizenship this year is down, but that might be due to COVID restrictions at U.S. embassies and consulates that have delayed the process. 

    David Lesperance, an international tax lawyer based in Poland who helps people renounce U.S. citizenship, told Axios that there’s a backlog of wealthy people trying to renounce their citizenship but “can’t get the appointment” with the government because “the system’s capacity has peaked.”

    He estimates “20,000 or 30,000 people” are attempting to renounce their citizenship. 

    Lesperance told Axios that the first process to renouncing citizenship requires obtaining citizenship in another country. He said, “it’s a year-and-a-half to get an appointment at a Canadian embassy.” 

    He added the virus pandemic has complicated the process and made it more time-consuming than ever before. 

    Ashkan Yekrangi, an immigration lawyer, based in Orange County, told Axios that “the bulk of the cases are individuals trying to avoid tax liability.” 

    Even tech billionaires have begun to apply for citizenship elsewhere: the former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, is becoming a citizen of the island of Cyprus.

    The Biden tax plan to raise the corporate tax rate, top individual income tax rate, and capital gains tax rate will likely push more wealthy people out of the U.S. on top of the already socioeconomic collapse that is being held up by a thread of fiscal and monetary stimuli. 

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

    The IRS published a quarterly list of the latest millionaires who have renounced their citizenship or given up their green cards. Read the complete list here.  

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/14/2021 – 20:00

  • Judge Orders Biden Administration To Resume "Remain In Mexico" Policy
    Judge Orders Biden Administration To Resume “Remain In Mexico” Policy

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    The stoppage of the policy has contributed to the border crisis, ruling says…

    A federal judge on Friday said the Biden administration must resume a policy that sees asylum seekers wait in Mexico for their claims to be heard.

    The Department of Homeland Security “failed to consider several critical factors” before axing the Trump era “Remain in Mexico” policy, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, found.

    That included ignoring how the program was beginning to lead to some immigrants with asylum claims that lacked merit voluntarily returning home, he wrote in a 53-page ruling.

    Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on June 1 of this year formally ended “Remain in Mexico,” though in practice it was stopped when President Joe Biden entered office on Jan. 20. In a memorandum (pdf) to top immigration officials, Mayorkas said a review determined the policy “does not adequately or sustainably enhance border management in such a way as to justify the program’s extensive operational burdens and other shortfalls.”

    “Over the course of the program, border encounters increased during certain periods and decreased during others. Moreover, in making my assessment, I share the belief that we can only manage migration in an effective, responsible, and durable manner if we approach the issue comprehensively, looking well beyond our own borders,” he wrote.

    The memo fails to mention some of the primary benefits of the program, which is known as MPP, Kacsmaryk said.

    “At the very least, the Secretary was required to show a reasoned decision for discounting the benefits of MPP. Instead, the June 1 Memorandum does not address the problems created by false claims of asylum or how MPP addressed those problems. Likewise, it does not address the fact that DHS previously found that ‘approximately 9 out of 10 asylum claims from Northern Triangle countries are ultimately found non-meritorious by federal immigration judges,’ and that MPP discouraged such aliens from traveling and attempting to cross the border in the first place,” he said.

    That made the policy change both arbitrary and capricious, the judge added. The Administrative Procedure Act states that agency actions that are “arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion” are ripe for being overturned by courts.

    Kacsmaryk ordered the Biden administration to resume MPP, though he stayed his order for seven days to let the federal government seek emergency relief at an appeals court.

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who brought the lawsuit with the state of Missouri, said the ruling showed the Biden administration “unlawfully tried to shut down the legal and effective Remain-in-Mexico program.”

    Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, another Republican, described the ruling as a “huge win for border security and the rule of law.”

    The Biden administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is seen at a Customs and Border Protection processing facility in Donna, Texas, on May 7, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

    The Trump administration established MPP in 2019 to deal with a surge in illegal immigration. Former President Donald Trump successfully partnered with Mexico to start the program, which saw the U.S. send some asylum seekers back to Mexico until their claims were heard.

    Kirstjen Nielsen, who served as Homeland Security secretary during the Trump administration, said when the program was first implemented that it was in response to “a security and humanitarian crisis on the Southern border.”

    “MPP will help restore a safe and orderly immigration process, decrease the number of those taking advantage of the immigration system, and the ability of smugglers and traffickers to prey on vulnerable populations, and reduce threats to life, national security, and public safety, while ensuring that vulnerable populations receive the protections they need,” she said in a statement at the time.

    Biden and top officials this year have reversed or altered a number of key Trump-era immigration policies. The United States has seen a leap in illegal border crossings, culminating in a new 21-year-high in July.

    Mayorkas, Biden, and others have repeatedly blamed Trump, claiming his administration’s policies were “inhumane” and needed changing. That process takes time, they’ve said.

    Speaking about the border crossings during a visit in Texas this week, Mayorkas said one reason for them was “the end of the cruel policies of the past administration, and the restoration of the rule of laws of this country that Congress has passed, including our asylum laws that provide humanitarian relief.”

    Trump “slashed our international assistance to Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, slashed the resources that we were contributing to address the root causes of a right of irregular migration,” he added later.

    Stephen Miller, a top immigration adviser to Trump during the previous administration, called Mayorkas “a pathological liar” in response.

    “He inherited the most secure border—& the most effective enforcement regime—in history,” Miller wrote on Twitter. “The *sole* cause of the present border disaster was Biden’s decision to reverse the Trump program & replace it with sovereignty-erasing catch-and-release.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/14/2021 – 19:30

  • Visualizing The Taliban's Advance In Afghanistan
    Visualizing The Taliban’s Advance In Afghanistan

    More Afghan provincial capitals have fallen to the Taliban as the insurgent group is advancing quickly in the country after the United States started to withdraw its troops.

    The exodus of the U.S. military is not expected to finish before the end of the month, but, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes, the insurgents have already regained control of large swaths of the country, suggesting that their defeat was never more than temporary. According to media reports, the Afghan capital Kabul could be surrounded in as little as 30 days, which has led to foreign governments including the U.S. scrambling to remove their personnel from the city.

    Infographic: The Taliban's Advancement in Afghanistan | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Southern provincial capital Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city, fell to attacks Friday, while Lashkar Gah in the neighboring province of Helmand also came under Taliban control. This is according to the Foundation For Defense of Democracies’ Long War Journal.

    According to the journal, the Taliban announced retaking twelve complete provinces and two more provincial capitals – Aybak and Puli Khumri in northern provinces Samangan and Baghlan – in the past week. The two provinces are still qualified as under high Taliban threat in the chart with Long War Journal data, as are six additional provinces. Kabul province meanwhile is listed as being under moderate threat of Taliban capture. Only two provinces are currently under low Taliban threat, remaining firmly in the hands of Afghan government.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/14/2021 – 19:00

  • Rhode Island Teachers' Union Sues Mother For Daring To Ask To See Her Kindergartener's Curriculum
    Rhode Island Teachers’ Union Sues Mother For Daring To Ask To See Her Kindergartener’s Curriculum

    Authored by Andrew Widburg via AmericanThinker.com,

    Nicole Solas, a Rhode Island mom with a kindergartener in public school, was curious about whether CRT had entered her daughter’s school.  

    Therefore, she filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with her school district.  

    “I became concerned that Critical Race Theory (CRT) and gender theory were integrated into lessons when an elementary school principal told me that teachers don’t refer to students as ‘boys’ and ‘girls,’” Solas wrote in an op-ed published on Legal Insurrection. 

    “Additionally, I was told a kindergarten teacher asks five-year-olds, ‘what could have been done differently on the first Thanksgiving’ in order to build upon a ‘line of thinking about history.’”

    The school has been fighting her to keep these taxpayer-funded records private…

    South Kingstown School Committee chairwoman Emily Cummiskey said in a June 2 statement:

    “This issue is a much larger one—one that involves a disturbing attempt by a nationally organized, racist group to create chaos and intimidate our district in recent weeks as we discuss bringing equity and anti-racism curriculum to our schools,” adding that,

    “this is their MO nation-wide, and I anticipate other districts in our state will soon experience the same unfortunate influx we have.”

    …and, just this week, the local branch of the National Education Association (America’s largest teacher’s union) sued to block her request.  Frankly, from a lawyer’s point of view, the union’s objections are ridiculous.

    The complaint is here.  I’ve reviewed it, and, while I’ll be the first to admit that I last worked on school district law in the mid-1980s, I think I have enough experience under my belt to point and laugh at the complaint.

    The remedy the union seeks is simple:

    In short, this action seeks to: (a) prohibit the disclosure of non-public records; and/or (b) for those requests that call for personally identifiable and other personnel related information about public school teachers, that no records be disclosed under the Court employs a balancing test that properly assesses the public interest in the records at issue measured against the teachers’ individual privacy rights.

    It’s certainly understandable that the teachers should have an expectation of privacy when it comes to records about their health or personal finances.  Otherwise, these are public employees.  If one of the teachers is sending around emails saying, “We’d better make sure the White students understand their unfairly acquired privilege,” it doesn’t matter if she didn’t fill out a form to make that statement.

    Anything in the school’s possession that touches upon curriculum matters is appropriate for public consumption.  Much as the unions and school district would like to ignore the fact, it is the taxpayers who, by paying school salaries, are the employers.

    The NEA explains that when the school principal refused to turn over papers and, instead, told Solas to utilize the state’s FOIA process, AKA the Access to Public Records Act (APRA), she did so with enthusiasm, as did others, once word got out about her efforts to pry loose information from her school.  Instead of producing the requested information, the school whined that Solas was asking for too much.

    The NEA was also upset by multiple requests, a few of which I’ve highlighted here:

    Documents about the union’s role in the school.  

    Considering the fact that unions have significant say in school curricula, this is an appropriate thing for a taxpaying parent to want to know.

    “Public documents” about a union employee.  

    The fact that they are public makes them automatically discoverable.

    Complaints about a specific retired teacher and union member. 

     If those complaints are relevant to CRT in the classroom, they should be discoverable.

    Details of disciplinary [actions] against teachers. 

     This request made clear that it sought publicly available information because it further acknowledged that, even if the details were private, a parent is still entitled to know the names of the teachers who were subject to such actions.  Once again, this is appropriate information for taxpayers dealing with their children’s public schools.

    Teachers’ emails.  

    No employee can ever write an email with an expectation of privacy.  All emails belong to the employer.  In the case of a public entity, the ultimate employer is the taxpayer.

    A reasonable negotiation would exclude or redact emails in which teachers relate personal concerns, such as matters regarding their or their families’ health, personal financial issues, or other obviously private matters.  To the extent that the emails discuss school policy, there is no basis to object to them.  If the teachers are genuinely concerned about their well-being, their names can be redacted, provided that the content is produced.

    It’s certainly true that there are a lot of bad judicial rulings out there protecting public employees from being called out for their bad actions.  However, without doing a review of that law, I’m betting that the rules are different when parents are seeking information about what schools are teaching their children — and if they’re not, they ought to be.

    Meanwhile, at Legal Insurrection, law professor William A. Jacobson has a vast body of articles about Solas’s efforts to get these records.  Jacobson’s take is a little broader than mine about motives, but the same about the specifics of production:

    My initial take is that this smells collusive. South Kingstown doesn’t want to produce records and the union is helping them out. The lawsuit purports to prevent disclosure of “private” information, but the public records laws and Solas’ requests pursuant to those laws only require the district to produce public records. The district has been very aggressive in asserting exemptions and redacting documents, so the union’s concern and rush to court seems peculiar, at best.

    Ultimately, the school’s resistance, now with the backing of the union, is so over the top that it’s reasonable to infer that the school has been grossly abusing its access to innocent children in order to indoctrinate them with Critical Race Theory, an ideology so racist that, if one substituted Black or Jewish for White, it would be appropriate in a KKK or Nazi school.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/14/2021 – 18:30

  • Double Trouble: Tropical Storm Sets Crosshairs On Haiti Amid Earthquake Chaos
    Double Trouble: Tropical Storm Sets Crosshairs On Haiti Amid Earthquake Chaos

    Tropical Depression Fred struggled Saturday morning to gain momentum and moved toward the eastern Gulf of Mexico with a cone of uncertainty forecasted to make landfall on Monday near the Florida-Alabama border. Although Fred has been downgraded from a tropical storm, peak hurricane season has arrived, and another system is developing. 

    The National Hurrican Center (NHC) is eyeing Tropical Storm Grace about 400 miles east of the Leeward Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. The storm quickly strengthened into tropical storm status in the last 24 hours. 

    The five-day cone of uncertainty shows Grace is a threat to several landmasses across the Caribbean. The most notable is Haiti, where on Saturday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey reported a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the Caribbean country’s coast and has produced devastating effects on land. 

    Haiti appears to be in Grace’s cone of uncertainty. 

    Tropical winds could arrive in Haiti as early as Monday morning. 

    A double whammy of natural disasters could strike Haiti in a short period. Grace is forecasted to pass near or over Haiti early next week.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/14/2021 – 18:00

  • The Value Of Gold And What It Is Worth In Today's Market
    The Value Of Gold And What It Is Worth In Today’s Market

    Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,

    While reflecting on the distorted world in which we live and thinking about the woes of owning real estate which weather and time have a way of ravishing I started to think about value. Owning any tangible object seems to have its drawbacks, especially if it has no utility value. Still, they do have at least one thing going for them, they are real. Liquidity is also an issue and unless you can sell an item safely and without a lot of bother, it is difficult to argue it is liquid.

    The recent pullback in the price of gold brings front and center the reality no investment is free of risk. When leveraging a position by using borrowed money this risk grows substantially. There is also the issue of where to store it, and even whether what you have purchased is real. Nobody wants to be made a fool of, and that is what a person becomes when they spend their money on what they think is gold only to find out later the item purchased is a fake.

    People may claim there is huge demand, that a commodity is rare, and that the cost of producing it is soaring but that does not mean its value is destined to rise. Supply and demand remain king when it comes to valuing a commodity, and gold’s role in our future has yet to be determined.

    A recent post on AdvancingTime looked into how once magnificent Grandfather clocks have now become obsolete symbols of wealth and conspicuous consumption. The fact these large clocks are hard to move and maintain has led to their value dropping like a stone. In fact, many of them can now be found in storage rooms and the back corner of the garage in homes across America. Value is not a constant and whether something is in vogue matters.

    It is easy to adopt the view that with the rapid and huge surge in both debt and the money supply gold and inflation have nowhere to go except up. Gold has for a long time been touted as the ultimate place a person can store wealth. Still, we should ask, do the trends taking place in modern society also undermine its value? While many gold bugs are astounded by such a suggestion, it is a question that should be asked. The rise of a slew of cryptocurrencies has called into question gold’s staying power as a defense against inflation.

    We must never forget how gold quickly rose in value several times over the years only to slump in price for long periods of time. As charts showing the value of gold indicate, the precious metal has seen many ups and downs. Without a great deal of utility value, the value of gold tends to often move based on shifts in interest rates and the cost of money. Efforts to magically tie the value of gold to historic relationships with other commodities and currencies generally prove futile. 

    The eroding ability of anything to stand up against governments growing ability to confiscate and steal our wealth brings into question the future of gold and its mantle of the best place to store wealth. This means that a person best have the gold they own in their possession and hidden away from prying eyes or it may not remain theirs for long. 

    My Precious! Is The General Consensus

    One of the sad realities we face is that gold has become so valuable that today many people that wore gold jewelry for years no longer wear it because it increases the risk they will be robbed. Crooks are everywhere, if someone will kill for a few hundred dollars, it does not take a rocket scientist to recognize that anyone wearing a $2,000 chain around their neck has a bullseye painted on them.

    Central banks know that gold is a threat to fiat money and by occasionally causing it to retreat in value they can damage those that hold it dear. Many gold bugs and even silver investors claim this exploitation has gone on for decades and won’t stop until economies collapse. They see gold and silver as two of the most manipulated commodities on the planet.

    It was recently pointed out to me that many younger people are not as enthralled by gold, many of them are more focused on cryptocurrencies than this precious metal. Also, it must be noted that some cultures and areas of the world hold gold in higher esteem than others. This often has to do with their history and how their ancestors were to the idea gold and wealth flowed together as one.

    The reason many young people may not be as captivated and dazzled by gold’s charm could be their interests have turned to other things, they simply can’t afford gold, or they are not familiar with how inflation can destroy the value of currencies. With all the above in mind, the biggest threat facing those that own gold is that it may at some point be confiscated by governments or that it may be made illegal to sell or owned. 

    In no way should any of the things written above be considered a stand that holding gold is not the ticket to a prosperous future or a bad investment. The above is simply a reminder of how fragile and dangerous the investment world is, it is a place where nothing is carved in stone, and if it were, that stone would be sitting next to a giant stone crusher.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/14/2021 – 17:30

  • China 'Ready' To Recognize Taliban If Afghan Government Ousted
    China ‘Ready’ To Recognize Taliban If Afghan Government Ousted

    Late last month the world beheld the unusual footage of Taliban commanders being warmly received by China’s foreign minister Wang Yi in the Chinese city of Tianjin. That trip included the Islamic terror group’s co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in a rare visit widely seen as an attempt of the jihadists to gain “legitimacy” abroad.

    It appears to have paid off, given that now at a moment the Taliban is scoring victory and victory on the ground they are eyeing the sought after price of Kabul. And now US News and World Report writes that “China is prepared to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate ruler of Afghanistan if it succeeds in toppling the Western-backed government in Kabul, U.S. News has learned, a prospect that undercuts the Biden administration’s remaining source of leverage over the insurgent network as it continues its startling campaign to regain control.”

    Beijing is still said to be urging the Taliban to strike a ceasefire and peace deal with the government under Afghan president Ashraf Ghani. In the past days Kabul has signaled it’s open to a “power sharing” agreement.

    But the Taliban has little incentive given it’s already taken over about two-thirds of the country with relative ease and while beholding retreating national forces.

    “However, new Chinese military and intelligence assessments of the realities on the ground in Afghanistan have prompted leaders in the Chinese Communist Party to prepare to formalize their relationship with the insurgent network, according to multiple U.S. and foreign intelligence sources familiar with the Chinese assessments,” the report says further.

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    At the same time to US and UK are meekly warning of “isolation” on the global stage should the Taliban take back the country, in what’s simply looking like a repeat of the scenario pre-2001.

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    Previously the Biden administration spelled out that any future Taliban government in Afghanistan would be viewed as a “pariah state”. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said weeks ago: “The Taliban says that it seeks international recognition, that it wants international support for Afghanistan. Presumably, it wants its leaders to be able to travel freely in the world, sanctions lifted, etc,” however, he underscored it would be immediately isolated, with “pariah” status akin to other ‘rogue regimes’.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/14/2021 – 17:00

  • Biden Mobilizes 5,000 Troops For Urgent Afghan Evacuation
    Biden Mobilizes 5,000 Troops For Urgent Afghan Evacuation

    There’s been reported growing frustration and anger even within the Democratic administration itself over President Biden’s being utterly silent Friday into Saturday while for much of the past week the Taliban has steamrolled Afghan forces as it prepares to lay siege to Kabul. He’s even vacationing this weekend at Camp David; Axios described the president as “relaxing”. 

    Amid growing pressure to address the crisis which is seeing a rapid emergency evacuation from the US Embassy in Kabul with Pentagon assistance, President Biden belatedly addressed the situation late in the day Saturday. His first move was to announce an increase in the US security deployment to Kabul to assist the evacuation of US diplomatic staff.

    “I have authorized the deployment of approximately 5,000 US troops to make sure we can have an orderly and safe drawdown of US personnel and other allied personnel,” he said while acknowledging the Taliban advance. Ironically the past months have witnessed a steady draw down of just as many troops – and now they will go right back.

    Image via Reuters

    Biden confirmed prior reports that Washington has signaled to the Taliban that it’s not to attack retreating US forces: “we have conveyed to the Taliban representatives in Doha, via our Combatant Commander, that any action on their part on the ground in Afghanistan, that puts US personnel or our mission at risk there, will be met with a swift and strong US military response,” Biden said.

    Earlier in the day The Washington Post wrote:

    US officials now appealing to the Taliban to wait for the completion of the U.S. evacuation saying that doing so would increase “the likelihood that both the international community and Afghans will accept the Taliban’s entry into the capital.”

    More details began to be released within the hour after the White House statement. Elite soldiers from Fort Bragg are reportedly being mobilized.

    According to Pentagon Correspondent Tara Copp, the breakdown of 5,000 troops breaks down as follows:

    • 650 already on the ground protecting Kabul Airport & embassy
    • USMC embassy security detachment
    • 3,000 from 3 USMC USArmy infantry battalions that are enroute/ will be on the ground by this weekend,
    • 1,000 @82ndABNDiv getting re-routed direct to #Kabul

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    Remaining American civilians in the country have been told by the State Department to proceed to Kabul’s international airport “at your own risk”.

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    Much of the rest of Biden’s statement deals with defending his rationale for the full US troop exit by the symbolic date of 9/11…

    “America went to Afghanistan 20 years ago to defeat the forces that attacked this country on September 11th. That mission resulted in the death of Osama Bin Laden over a decade ago and the degradation of al Qaeda,” the White House statement reads. “And yet, 10 years later, when I became President, a small number of US troops still remained on the ground, in harm’s way, with a looming deadline to withdraw them or go back to open combat.

    More scenes like the following will continue in the coming days and weeks:

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    “Over our country’s 20 years at war in Afghanistan, America has sent its finest young men and women, invested nearly $1 trillion dollars, trained over 300,000 Afghan soldiers and police, equipped them with state-of-the-art military equipment, and maintained their air force as part of the longest war in US history,” Biden continued. “One more year, or five more years, of US military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country. And an endless American presence in the middle of another country’s civil conflict was not acceptable to me.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/14/2021 – 16:45

  • The Great Parent Revolt
    The Great Parent Revolt

    Authored by Katharina Gorka via RealClearPolitics.com,

    As overreach in classrooms by progressive school administrators, nonprofits and the federal government has reached new heights, parents are stepping up to fight back. 

    Moms for Liberty, Informed Parents of California, EdFirstNC, NJ Parental Rights, No Left Turn in Education and Parents Against Critical Theory are just a few of the hundreds of new parent groups that have emerged across the country in recent months. Many parents have become education activists because of schools’ failure to bring children back into the classroom or their continued imposition of mask mandates. 

    Others are engaging because of the content being taught. Whether it’s age-inappropriate sex education, critical race theory, or anti-American history, parents are seeing more of what their children are learning—thanks to COVID’s virtual learning—and they don’t like it. As a result, parents are organizing, speaking out, and pushing back, and they are having a noticeable impact.           

    Some of the most effective efforts have begun with individual parents who reached a boiling point and decided to speak out. Mom and investigative journalist A.P. Dillon helped expose critical race theory training in Wake County, N.C., public schools.  Elana Fishbein was a lone parent in Lower Marion, Pa., who objected to content in her children’s curriculum, which, in her words, “described ‘whiteness’ as an entitlement to steal land, garner riches, and get special treatment on equity and race.” That letter reached a national audience when Tucker Carlson invited her onto his Fox News Channel show. 

    Andrew Gutmann also made national news when he sent a letter to 650 families criticizing New York City’s Brearley School, which his daughter attended, for its obsession with race and for “desecrating the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”

    Meanwhile, the 11-minute takedown of a Putnam County, N.Y., school board by Tatiana Ibrahim has well over 1 million views on YouTube. 

    Individual parents speaking out have helped to kick off what is proving to be a rapidly growing parent revolt. They have helped to galvanize others who were either unaware of the bad content or too afraid to speak out. After Elana Fishbein appeared on Carlson’s show, hundreds of parents across the country reached out to her on social media. And today No Left Turn in Education has 35 chapters across the country and is growing. 

    When Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice finished their terms as school board members in Florida, they decided to form Moms for Liberty to teach parents how to serve as watchdogs of their local schools boards. When they established the organization in January of this year, they had intended it to serve as a statewide entity in Florida. But today, just over six months later, they have 65 chapters nationwide and have more applications for new chapters. 

    Wherever these parent groups have emerged, they are finding creative ways to challenge the attempted progressive takeover of K-12 education. Sloan Rachmuth, founder of EdFirstNC, has held webinars and in-person events to educate parents on how the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction rewrote the social studies standards for K-12 based on critical race theory. Patti Hidalgo Menders, a mother of five boys in Loudoun County, Va., read aloud to school board members obscene passages from Tiffany D. Jackson’s “Monday’s Not Coming” and Gretchen McNeil’s “#Murder Trending.” 

    Educating parents is a critical part of the work. As Hannah Smith, a newly elected board member in Texas explained, “There were a lot of people who had, by their own admission, just kind of fallen asleep. They just thought we’ve got these award-winning schools, we’ve got this awesome community, everything’s going well. I don’t need to show up at board meetings. I don’t need to be worried about what’s happening in the schools.” 

    In addition to raising the alarm about what’s happening in the schools, parent groups are challenging school boards through recalls — for example in Loudoun County  and San Francisco — and by actively running candidates for school board, with some notable successes. 

    When the Carroll, Texas, Independent School District introduced a Cultural Competence Action Plan, which would require “social justice training” and establish a “diversity and inclusion” week, at the cost of $3 million over 10 years, local father Cameron Bryan decided to run for school board and won. As Bob Lubke, from Civitas, has written, “Historically, conservatives have not been as vocal about down-ballot races. That’s a mistake. Education is often the largest expenditure for state and local government. Local school board members not only make budget and policy decisions that impact the day-to-day operations of how our schools are financed and administered but also how our children are educated. Few local positions are as consequential.” 

    With the growing anger over the indoctrination of their children, parents have become much more engaged in school board elections, and it is having an impact: In 2021, the number of board member recalls has more than doubled from previous years, according to Ballotpedia. 

    Parents are also initiating lawsuits as an important tool in their fight against overly progressive schools. According to John Murawski at RealClearInvestigations, about a dozen lawsuits and administrative complaints have been filed since 2018. A new wave of lawsuits is being driven by the recent surge of concern among parents over critical race theory and its implementation in schools. 

    The first lawsuit against CRT was filed on Dec. 22, 2020, in Nevada. Gabrielle Clark and her son William brought the suit on the grounds that the school violated William’s free speech and due process rights. According to the No Left Turn in Education website: “the Sociology of Change teaching in his civic classes required him to publicly reveal his race, gender, religious, and sexual identities, and then attach derogatory labels such as ‘privileged’ or ‘oppressor’ to those identities. Students were then asked to ‘undo’ and ‘unlearn’ their ‘beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that stem from oppression.’ William and his mother objected, and he was punished with a failing grade and his graduation was at risk.” 

    The lawsuit was brought by a coalition of organizations, led by The Discovery Institute’s Center on Wealth and Poverty, with support from the Upper Midwest Law Center, Schoolhouserights.org, and others. According to CRT expert Chris Rufo, several more lawsuits are in preparation. 

    On June 20, Patti Hidalgo Menders, Scott Mineo and several others, represented by the Liberty Justice Center, filed a lawsuit against the Loudoun County School Board (Menders v. Loudoun County School Board). On June 23, 2020, LCPS published its Action Plan to Combat Systemic Racism. The plan included the creation of a Student Ambassador Equity Program, which was only open to “students of color” and those with “a passion for social justice.” The lawsuit also states, “The ‘Share, Speak-up, Speak-out’ meetings in which Student Equity Ambassadors are entitled to take part are not an everyday opportunity for student/faculty engagement. Rather they are part of an explicit initiative to stifle speech under the guise of eliminating ‘bias’.” 

    While 26 states have introduced or passed bills to reject the teaching of critical race theory, it will likely be the courts that ultimately decide whether it fundamentally violates American principles, and even in that process, the role of parents will be pivotal. As John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, recently said, “I think that what’s going to happen is that there have to be more parents, more communities involved, challenging these kinds of efforts to use race explicitly in the schools or in their local governments, and those will generate the cases that get to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court can make clear, as I think it should, that race is just never to be used in the government and in state and local at all, for whatever reason, whether it’s allegedly benign or it’s for malign reasons.” 

    The bottom line is that education in America will likely never be the same, thanks to the Great Parent Revolt of 2021, and that’s good news. For decades, many parents have outsourced the raising of their children to the schools, trusting that administrators, school board members, and teachers would share their values. We blindly believed that schools would care about our children as much as we do. We believed that if the teaching went astray, if the books were inappropriate, or if the civics and history were a little un-American, what we did at home would serve as a gentle correction and all would be well. The past two years have taught us how wrong we were. 

    Thankfully parents are reengaging in their children’s education and reasserting their rightful place in decisions about curriculum and content. The question will be whether their efforts are strong enough and sufficiently sustained to win the battle against the radical tide of educators, nonprofits and federal education bureaucrats who are working to rewrite American history.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/14/2021 – 16:30

  • Taliban Seen Flying Captured Military Helicopters Over Afghanistan
    Taliban Seen Flying Captured Military Helicopters Over Afghanistan

    Multiple videos out of Afghanistan circulated widely on Saturday show an unusual and true first: the Taliban have “have operationalized at least two helicopters captured in Herat,” according to a regional correspondent on the ground. An analyst at the D.C.-based Middle East Institute (MEI) writes “After capturing several helicopters in Kandahar, a Taliban trained pilot reportedly flew an Mi-17 chopper earlier today, right around the city.” It’s confirmed: the bearded Islamists rapidly overrunning cities while US forces are in retreat now literally have airpower, apparently.

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    Over much of the past two weeks the Taliban have been capturing bases in an around provincial capitals and major cities, taking the abandoned and available military hardware there – some of it even previously supplied and left there by the US. Some choppers appear Russian-made.

    Such scenes like the below circulating on social media have become the norm…

    Almost unbelievable videos like the below are circulating:

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    Likely these pilots were previously part of the Afghan military, perhaps even trained in Pakistan or by the US at some point, before going over to join the advancing Taliban.

    There appears actual coordination between Taliban ground forces and their newly captured helicopters in the air, as the below video shows.

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    So now the imminent fight for Kabul could actually witness Taliban helicopters in action, among the other ongoing absurdities amid the US retreat and impending collapse of the country.

    Meanwhile, the ultra-fast advance toward Kabul continues. At this point, the fall of the capital is just a matter of time.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/14/2021 – 16:01

  • American Railroads Warn STB About "Unintended Consequences"
    American Railroads Warn STB About “Unintended Consequences”

    By Railway Age,

    In responding to Surface Transportation Board Chair Marty Oberman’s July 22 letter to the Class I railroads requesting information on the extent of congestion at key U.S. container terminals and on their railroads’ policies and practices for assessing container demurrage fees, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) said its members “have made clear in their own responses how they are collaborating with all stakeholders to keep intermodal terminals and the entire national rail network fluid,” and the STB “should refrain from any regulatory action that would undermine those efforts.”

    Following is the full text—filled with references to regulatory and court decisions*—of the Aug. 10 letter to Oberman from AAR Associate General Counsel and Corporate Secretary Timothy J. Strafford:

    Recently, you wrote to the Class I freight railroad members of the Association of American Railroads (“AAR”) to express your concern about disruptions within the aspects of the international intermodal supply chain involving the Class I freight rail network. In particular, you noted your concerns “about significant increases in container congestion at key U.S. terminals, and substantial charges being levied by the railroads for container storage at these terminals.” Each of the Class I railroads submitted information responsive to your request regarding their individual situations and practices. AAR writes now to respond to the suggestion you report by some stakeholders that the Board consider revoking aspects of the regulatory exemption for intermodal traffic, and to provide the rail industry’s views as to the legal and policy implications of that request. 

    The global supply chain faces unprecedented challenges in its recovery from the global pandemic, caused by factors beyond the Board’s regulatory regime. Shutdowns of entire sectors of the global economy throughout the pandemic, an uneven recovery in 2020, backlogs of container supply due to decisions of international shipping lines, port delays, and surging demand as the domestic economy reopened all contributed to create the highest rail intermodal volumes ever for the first half of 2021. As a consequence, railroads’ logistics partners at intermodal terminals have been hampered in their ability to absorb the traffic, due in part to their own labor challenges and equipment shortages, creating a backlog of containers at some locations. As explained in their individual responses, Class I railroads have taken steps within the small pieces of this chain that are within their control to keep the overall system as fluid as possible. One of the few levers available to them to incentivize the removal of containers from terminal facilities is to charge storage fees to those entities with which they have commercial relationships. 

    We noted and appreciated your observation that any potential Board action related to intermodal exemptions would warrant careful examination. The Interstate Commerce Commission, and later the Board, broadly exempted from regulation trailer-on- flatcar/container-on-flatcar (TOFC/COFC) services at 49 C.F.R. Part 1090 due to the fiercely competitive nature of intermodal traffic. See Improvement of TOFC/COFC Regulation, 364 I.C.C. 731 (1981); Improvement of TOFC/COFC Regulations (R.R.-Affiliated Motor Carriers & Other Motor Carriers), 3 I.C.C.2d 869 (1987); Improvement of TOFC/COFC Regulations (Pickup & Delivery), 6 I.C.C.2d 208 (1989). Any action to limit those exemptions would face a high bar in meeting the revocation standard of 49 U.S.C. § 10502, particularly in light of the statute’s specific reference to the exemption of intermodal traffic. See 49 U.S.C. § 10502(f); WTL Rail Corp.—Petition for Declaratory Order and Interim Relief, NOR 42092 et al. (STB served Feb. 17, 2006) (citing Rail Exemption Misc. Agricultural Commodities, 8 I.C.C.2d 674, 682 (1992)). 

    While the STB retains authority under 49 U.S.C. § 10502(d) to revoke a previously issued exemption, that authority is constrained by the plain language of Section 10502 and the statutory scheme as a whole, which reflects congressional intent to favor deregulation of the railroad industry. Specifically, Section 10502 provides that the Board “shall” exercise its exemption authority “to the maximum extent” consistent with the statute, but that it “may” revoke exemptions, in whole or in part, only when “necessary” to effectuate the Rail Transportation Policy goals contained in Section 10101. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has recognized that this statutory language mandates the “deregulation of the entire railroad industry to the maximum extent possible in conformity with the national rail transportation policy.” Brae Corp. v. United States, 740 F.2d 1023, 1043 (D.C. Cir. 1984); see also Ass’n of Am. R.Rs. v. Surface Transp. Bd., 237 F.3d 676, (D.C. Cir. 2001). 

    Congress has stressed that when considering revocation, “the Board should continue to require demonstrated abuse of market power that can be remedied only by reimposition of regulation or that regulation is needed to carry out the national transportation policy.” H.R. Conf. Rep. 104-422, at 169 (1995), 1995 U.S.C.C.A.N. 850, 854. Congress has also emphasized that it “expects the Board to examine all competitive transportation factors that restrain rail carriers’ actions and that affect the market for transportation of the particular commodity or type of service for which revocation has been requested.” H.R. Conf. Rep. 104-422, at 169; see also S. Rep. No. 104-176, at 8–9 (same). The Board itself has previously recognized that an “exemption will be revoked [only] where regulation is shown to be necessary,” and “that showing cannot be made” where a carrier “lacks market dominance over [the shipments] at issue.” FMC Wyo. Corp. v. Union Pac. R.R., EP 346 (Sub-No. 29A), 2000 WL 33527851, at *13 n.17 (STB served May 12, 2000). Storage charges assessed in these circumstances are not a reflection of market power over transportation that would trigger the Board’s regulatory authority. 

    More important, even partial revocation in this instance would not mitigate the problem and would have unintended consequences. Capacity at rail terminals is finite. To maintain terminal and network fluidity, railroads use storage fees to incentivize the prompt removal of containers. Allowing railyards to overflow with containers has adverse impacts on the entire supply chain, as well as other rail customers. Regulation of demurrage and storage charges, even if permitted by the exemption revocation standard, would only incentivize those unregulated portions of the supply chain to shift the burdens of higher volumes onto railroads. This, in turn, would have the unintended consequence of forcing railroads to meter or halt the inflow of containers to terminals, until the backlog of containers on the ground clears. 

    That is not to say that the Class I freight railroads have no role to play in working through the challenges currently facing the global supply chain. AAR’s freight members have made clear in their own responses how they are collaborating with all stakeholders to keep intermodal terminals and the entire national rail network fluid. The Board should refrain from any regulatory action that would undermine those efforts. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/14/2021 – 15:30

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Aug 14

Today’s News 14th August 2021

  • T Is For Tyranny: How Freedom Dies From A To Z
    T Is For Tyranny: How Freedom Dies From A To Z

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

    “Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naively, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books.”

    – French philosopher Etienne de La Boétie

    The COVID-19 pandemic continues to be a convenient, traumatic, devastating distraction.

    The American people, the permanent underclass in America, have allowed themselves to be so distracted and divided that they have failed to notice the building blocks of tyranny being laid down right under their noses by the architects of the Deep State.

    Biden, Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton: they have all been complicit in carrying out the Deep State’s agenda.

    Frankly, it really doesn’t matter who occupies the White House, because it is a profit-driven, unelected bureaucracy—call it whatever you will: the Deep State, the Controllers, the masterminds, the shadow government, the corporate elite, the police state, the surveillance state, the military industrial complex—that is actually calling the shots

    Our losses are mounting with every passing day, part of a calculated siege intended to ensure our defeat at the hands of a totalitarian regime.

    Free speech, the right to protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and transparency in government, privacy, media, sovereignty, assembly, bodily integrity, representative government: all of these and more are casualties in the government’s war on the American people.

    Set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized federal police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches, and the like—all of which have been sanctioned by Congress, the White House and the courts—our constitutional freedoms are being steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded.

    As a result, the American people continue to be treated like enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, and denied due process.

    None of these dangers have dissipated in any way.

    They have merely disappeared from our televised news streams.

    Thus, in the interest of liberty and truth, here’s an A-to-Z primer that spells out the grim realities of life in the American Police State that no one seems to be talking about anymore.

    A is for the AMERICAN POLICE STATE. A police state “is characterized by bureaucracy, secrecy, perpetual wars, a nation of suspects, militarization, surveillance, widespread police presence, and a citizenry with little recourse against police actions.”

    B is for our battered BILL OF RIGHTS. In the militarized police culture that is America today, where you can be kicked, punched, tasered, shot, intimidated, harassed, stripped, searched, brutalized, terrorized, wrongfully arrested, and even killed by a police officer, and that officer is rarely held accountable for violating your rights, the Bill of Rights doesn’t amount to much.

    C is for CIVIL ASSET FORFEITURE. This governmental scheme to deprive Americans of their liberties—namely, the right to property—is being carried out under the guise of civil asset forfeiture, a government practice wherein government agents (usually the police and now TSA agents) seize private property they “suspect” may be connected to criminal activity. Then, whether or not any crime is actually proven to have taken place, the government keeps the citizen’s property and it’s virtually impossible to get it back.

    D is for DRONES. It was estimated that at least 30,000 drones are  now airborne in American airspace, part of an $80 billion industry. Although some drones may be used for benevolent purposes, many are also being equipped with lasers, tasers and scanning devices, among other weapons—all aimed at “we the people.”

    E is for EMERGENCY STATE. From 9/11 to COVID-19, we have been the subjected to an “emergency state” that justifies all manner of government tyranny and power grabs in the so-called name of national security. The government’s ongoing attempts to declare so-called national emergencies in order to circumvent the Constitution’s system of checks and balances constitutes yet another expansion of presidential power that exposes the nation to further constitutional peril.

    F is for FASCISM. A study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens. Instead, the study found that the government is ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover, the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups. In other words, we are being ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism—a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people are seen as mere economic units or databits.

    G is for GRENADE LAUNCHERS and GLOBAL POLICE. The federal government has distributed more than $18 billion worth of battlefield-appropriate military weapons, vehicles and equipment such as drones, tanks, and grenade launchers to domestic police departments across the country. As a result, most small-town police forces now have enough firepower to render any citizen resistance futile. Now take those small-town police forces, train them to look and act like the military, and then enlist them to be part of the United Nations’ Strong Cities Network program, and you not only have a standing army that operates beyond the reach of the Constitution but one that is part of a global police force.

    H is for HOLLOW-POINT BULLETS. The government’s efforts to militarize and weaponize its agencies and employees is reaching epic proportions, with federal agencies as varied as the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration stockpiling millions of lethal hollow-point bullets, which violate international law. Ironically, while the government continues to push for stricter gun laws for the general populace, the U.S. military’s arsenal of weapons makes the average American’s handgun look like a Tinker Toy.

    I is for the INTERNET OF THINGS, in which internet-connected “things” monitor your home, your health and your habits in order to keep your pantry stocked, your utilities regulated and your life under control and relatively worry-free. The key word here, however, is control. This “connected” industry propels us closer to a future where police agencies apprehend virtually anyone if the government “thinks” they may commit a crime, driverless cars populate the highways, and a person’s biometrics are constantly scanned and used to track their movements, target them for advertising, and keep them under perpetual surveillance.

    J is for JAILING FOR PROFIT. Having outsourced their inmate population to private prisons run by private corporations, this profit-driven form of mass punishment has given rise to a $70 billion private prison industry that relies on the complicity of state governments to keep their privately run prisons full by jailing large numbers of Americans for petty crimes.

    K is for KENTUCKY V. KING. In an 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that police officers can break into homes, without a warrant, even if it’s the wrong home as long as they think they may have a reason to do so. Despite the fact that the police in question ended up pursuing the wrong suspect, invaded the wrong apartment and violated just about every tenet that stands between the citizenry and a police state, the Court sanctioned the warrantless raid, leaving Americans with little real protection in the face of all manner of abuses by law enforcement officials.

    L is for LICENSE PLATE READERS, which enable law enforcement and private agencies to track the whereabouts of vehicles, and their occupants, all across the country. This data collected on tens of thousands of innocent people is also being shared between police agencies, as well as with government fusion centers and private companies. This puts Big Brother in the driver’s seat.

    M is for MAIN CORE. Since the 1980s, the U.S. government has acquired and maintained, without warrant or court order, a database of names and information on Americans considered to be threats to the nation. As Salon reports, this database, reportedly dubbed “Main Core,” is to be used by the Army and FEMA in times of national emergency or under martial law to locate and round up Americans seen as threats to national security. There are at least 8 million Americans in the Main Core database.

    N is for NO-KNOCK RAIDS. Owing to the militarization of the nation’s police forces, SWAT teams are now increasingly being deployed for routine police matters. In fact, more than 80,000 of these paramilitary raids are carried out every year. That translates to more than 200 SWAT team raids every day in which police crash through doors, damage private property, terrorize adults and children alike, kill family pets, assault or shoot anyone that is perceived as threatening—and all in the pursuit of someone merely suspected of a crime, usually possession of some small amount of drugs.

    O is for OVERCRIMINALIZATION and OVERREGULATION. Thanks to an overabundance of 4500-plus federal crimes and 400,000 plus rules and regulations, it’s estimated that the average American actually commits three felonies a day without knowing it. As a result of this overcriminalization, we’re seeing an uptick in Americans being arrested and jailed for such absurd “violations” as letting their kids play at a park unsupervised, collecting rainwater and snow runoff on their own property, growing vegetables in their yard, and holding Bible studies in their living room.

    P is for PATHOCRACY and PRECRIME. When our own government treats us as things to be manipulated, maneuvered, mined for data, manhandled by police and other government agents, mistreated, and then jailed in profit-driven private prisons if we dare step out of line, we are no longer operating under a constitutional republic. Instead, what we are experiencing is a pathocracy: tyranny at the hands of a psychopathic government, which “operates against the interests of its own people except for favoring certain groups.” Couple that with the government’s burgeoning precrime programs, which will use fusion centers, data collection agencies, behavioral scientists, corporations, social media, and community organizers and by relying on cutting-edge technology for surveillance, facial recognition, predictive policing, biometrics, and behavioral epigenetics in order to identify and deter so-called potential “extremists,” dissidents or rabble-rousers. Bear in mind that anyone seen as opposing the government—whether they’re Left, Right or somewhere in between—is now viewed as an extremist.

    Q is for QUALIFIED IMMUNITY. Qualified immunity allows police officers to walk away without paying a dime for their wrongdoing. Conveniently, those deciding whether a cop should be immune from having to personally pay for misbehavior on the job all belong to the same system, all cronies with a vested interest in protecting the police and their infamous code of silence: city and county attorneys, police commissioners, city councils and judges.

    R is for ROADSIDE STRIP SEARCHES and BLOOD DRAWS. The courts have increasingly erred on the side of giving government officials—especially the police—vast discretion in carrying out strip searches, blood draws and even anal and vaginal probes for a broad range of violations, no matter how minor the offense. In the past, strip searches were resorted to only in exceptional circumstances where police were confident that a serious crime was in progress. In recent years, however, strip searches have become routine operating procedures in which everyone is rendered a suspect and, as such, is subjected to treatment once reserved for only the most serious of criminals.

    S is for the SURVEILLANCE STATE. On any given day, the average American going about his daily business will be monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by both government and corporate eyes and ears. A byproduct of the electronic concentration camp in which we live, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior. This doesn’t even begin to touch on the corporate trackers that monitor your purchases, web browsing, Facebook posts and other activities taking place in the cyber sphere.

    T is for TASERS. Nonlethal weapons such as tasers, stun guns, rubber pellets and the like have been used by police as weapons of compliance more often and with less restraint—even against women and children—and in some instances, even causing death. These “nonlethal” weapons also enable police to aggress with the push of a button, making the potential for overblown confrontations over minor incidents that much more likely. A Taser Shockwave, for instance, can electrocute a crowd of people at the touch of a button.

    U is for UNARMED CITIZENS SHOT BY POLICE. No longer is it unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later, often attributed to a fear for their safety. Yet the fatality rate of on-duty patrol officers is reportedly far lower than many other professions, including construction, logging, fishing, truck driving, and even trash collection.

    V is for VIRUSES and VACCINE PASSPORTS. What started out as an apparent effort to prevent a novel coronavirus from sickening the nation (and the world) has become yet another means by which world governments (including the U.S.) can expand their powers, abuse their authority, and further oppress their constituents. The road we are traveling is paved with lockdowns, SWAT team raids, mass surveillance, forced vaccinations, contact tracing, vaccine passports, and heavy fines and jail time for those who dare to venture out without a mask, congregate in worship without the government’s blessing, or re-open their businesses without the government’s say-so.

    W is for WHOLE-BODY SCANNERS. Using either x-ray radiation or radio waves, scanning devices and government mobile units are being used not only to “see” through your clothes but to spy on you within the privacy of your home. While these mobile scanners are being sold to the American public as necessary security and safety measures, we can ill afford to forget that such systems are rife with the potential for abuse, not only by government bureaucrats but by the technicians employed to operate them.

    X is for X-KEYSCORE, one of the many spying programs carried out by the National Security Agency that targets every person in the United States who uses a computer or phone. This top-secret program “allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals.”

    Y is for YOU-NESS. Using your face, mannerisms, social media and “you-ness” against you, you are now be tracked based on what you buy, where you go, what you do in public, and how you do what you do. Facial recognition software promises to create a society in which every individual who steps out into public is tracked and recorded as they go about their daily business. The goal is for government agents to be able to scan a crowd of people and instantaneously identify all of the individuals present. Facial recognition programs are being rolled out in states all across the country.

    Z is for ZERO TOLERANCE. We have moved into a new paradigm in which young people are increasingly viewed as suspects and treated as criminals by school officials and law enforcement alike, often for engaging in little more than childish behavior or for saying the “wrong” word. In some jurisdictions, students have also been penalized under school zero tolerance policies for such inane “crimes” as carrying cough drops, wearing black lipstick, bringing nail clippers to school, using Listerine or Scope, and carrying fold-out combs that resemble switchblades. The lesson being taught to our youngest—and most impressionable—citizens is this: in the American police state, you’re either a prisoner (shackled, controlled, monitored, ordered about, limited in what you can do and say, your life not your own) or a prison bureaucrat (politician, police officer, judge, jailer, spy, profiteer, etc.).

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the reality we must come to terms with is that in the post-9/11 America we live in today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.

    We have moved beyond the era of representative government and entered a new age.

    You can call it the age of authoritarianism. Or fascism. Or oligarchy. Or the American police state.

    Whatever label you want to put on it, the end result is the same: tyranny.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 23:50

  • Mexican Demand For California Cannabis "Explodes" 
    Mexican Demand For California Cannabis "Explodes" 

    The demand for U.S.-grown marijuana has exploded across Mexico. Wealthy Mexicans want to be smoking the best stuff so they can post it on their Instagram. 

    Traditionally, weed has been illegally smuggled into the U.S. through speedboats, planes, drones, tunnels, and even slingshot devices. But the days of drug “mules” crossing the U.S.-Mexico border could be over and soon reversing.

    Cannabis grown in California is some of the best in the world. Mexicans are demanding California grown weed that drug dealers have been forced to source from the States, according to WaPo. They’re labeling the weed “IMPORTADO” and charging a hefty markup. 

    Just like Cuban cigars in the U.S., people are willing to pay a markup to purchase one because they can brag to their friends or post images on social media. 

    Traffickers from California are packing suitcases and stuffing cars with flower and other cannabis products, heading southbound as their contraband instantly doubles or triples in value as it enters Mexico. 

    “The demand here for American weed has exploded,” said a drug dealer in Mexico city, who estimates 60% of the weed he sells comes from California. The dealer spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of arrest because cannabis is illegal in Mexico. “It’s aspirational for many of my clients. They want to be seen smoking the best stuff, the stuff rappers brag about smoking.”

    U.S.-grown marijuana with high amounts of THC can cost upwards of $500 per ounce in Mexico, dealers said. The same ounce may only cost $150 in San Diego. 

    “Mexicans want to try what they see in music video, in movies, in media, and that’s usually American,” said another dealer in Mexico City. “We still have this idea that the best products come from the U.S.”

    At Urban Leaf, a marijuana dispensary in San Ysidro, California., near the Tijuana border, owner Josh Bubeck estimates about half his customers are Mexican nationals. 

    “Nobody is going to grow cannabis better than California probably ever,” Bubeck said.

    He said the appeal is clear: “You’re showing ‘This is what I’m about. I’m a bad ass. I got this from America.'”
     

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 23:30

  • India's Ivermectin Blackout
    India's Ivermectin Blackout

    Authored by Justus R Hope, MD. via TheDesertReview.com,

    Ivermectin Wins in India

    News of India’s defeat of the Delta variant should be common knowledge. It is just about as obvious as the nose on one’s face. It is so clear when one looks at the graphs that no one can deny it.

    Yet, for some reason, we are not allowed to talk about it. Thus, for example, Wikipedia cannot mention the peer-reviewed meta-analyses by Dr. Tess Lawrie or Dr. Pierre Kory published in the American Journal of Therapeutics. 

    Wikipedia is not allowed to publish the recent meta-analysis on Ivermectin authored by Dr. Andrew Hill.

    Furthermore, it is not allowed to say anything concerning www.ivmmeta.com showing the 61 studies comprising 23,000 patients which reveal up to a 96% reduction in death [prophylaxis] with Ivermectin.

    One can see the bias in Wikipedia by going on the “talk” pages for each subject and reading about the fierce attempts of editors to add these facts and the stone wall refusals by the “senior” editors who have an agenda. And that agenda is not loyalty to your health.

    The easy way to read the “talk” page on any Wikipedia subject is to click the top left “talk” button. Anyone can then review the editors’ discussions.

    There is a blackout on any conversation about how Ivermectin beat COVID-19 in India. When I discussed the dire straits that India found itself in early this year with 414,000 cases per day, and over 4,000 deaths per day, and how that evaporated within five weeks of the addition of Ivermectin, I am often asked, “But why is there no mention of that in the news?”

    Yes, exactly. Ask yourself why India’s success against the Delta variant with Ivermectin is such a closely guarded secret by the NIH and CDC. Second, ask yourself why no major media outlets reported this fact, but instead, tried to confuse you with false information by saying the deaths in India are 10 times greater than official reports.

    Perhaps NPR is trying so hard because NPR is essentially a government mouthpiece. The US government is “all-in” with vaccines with the enthusiasm of a 17th century Catholic Church “all-in” with a Geocentric Model of the Universe disputing Galileo. Claiming that India’s numbers are inaccurate might distract from the overwhelming success of Ivermectin.

    But in the end, the truth matters. It mattered in 1616, and it matters in 2021.

    The graphs and data from the Johns Hopkins University CSSE database do not lie.

    On the contrary, they provide a compelling trail of truth that no one can dispute, not even the NIH, CDC, FDA, and WHO.

    Just as Galileo proved with his telescope that the earth was NOT the center of the Universe in 1616; today, the data from India shows that Ivermectin is effective, much more so than the vaccines. It not only prevents death, but it also prevents COVID infections, and it also is effective against the Delta Variant.

    In 1616, you could not make up the telescopic images of Jupiter and its orbiting moons, nor could you falsify the crescent-shaped images of Venus and Mercury. These proved that the earth was NOT the center of the Universe – a truth the Catholic Church could not allow.

    Likewise, the massive drop in cases and deaths in India to almost nothing after the addition of Ivermectin proved the drug’s effectiveness. This is a truth that the NIH, CDC, and FDA cannot allow because it would endanger the vaccine policy.

    Never mind that Ivermectin would save more lives with much less risk, much less cost, and it would end the pandemic quickly.

    Let us look at the burgundy-colored graph of Uttar Pradesh. First, allow me to thank Juan Chamie, a highly-respected Cambridge-based data analyst, who created this graph from the JHU CSSE data. Uttar Pradesh is a state in India that contains 241 million people. The United States’ population is 331 million people. Therefore, Uttar Pradesh can be compared to the United States, with 2/3 of our population size.

    This data shows how Ivermectin knocked their COVID-19 cases and deaths – which we know were Delta Variant – down to almost zero within weeks. A population comparable to the US went from about 35,000 cases and 350 deaths per day to nearly ZERO within weeks of adding Ivermectin to their protocol.

    By comparison, the United States is the lower graph. On August 5, here in the good ol’ USA, blessed with the glorious vaccines, we have 127,108 new cases per day and 574 new deaths. 

    Let us look at the August 5 numbers from Uttar Pradesh with 2/3 of our population. Uttar Pradesh, using Ivermectin, had a total of 26 new cases and exactly THREE deaths. The US without Ivermectin has precisely 4889 times as many daily cases and 191 times as many deaths as Uttar Pradesh with Ivermectin.

    It is not even close. Countries do orders of magnitude better WITH Ivermectin. It might be comparable to the difference in travel between using an automobile versus a horse and buggy.

    Uttar Pradesh on Ivermectin:  Population 240 Million [4.9% fully vaccinated]

    COVID Daily Cases: 26

    COVID Daily Deaths: 3

    The United States off Ivermectin: Population 331 Million [50.5% fully vaccinated]

    COVID Daily Cases: 127,108

    COVID Daily Deaths: 574

    Let us look at other Ivermectin using areas of India with numbers from August 5, 2021, compiled by the JHU CSSE:

    Delhi on Ivermectin: Population 31 Million [15% fully vaccinated]

    COVID Daily Cases: 61

    COVID Daily Deaths: 2

    Uttarakhand on Ivermectin: Population 11.4 Million [15% fully vaccinated]

    COVID Daily Cases: 24

    COVID Daily Deaths: 0

    Now let us look at an area of India that rejected Ivermectin. 

    Tamil Nadu announced they would reject Ivermectin and instead follow the dubious USA-style guidance of using Remdesivir. Knowing this, you might expect their numbers to be closer to the US, with more cases and more deaths. You would be correct. Tamil Nadu went on to lead India in COVID-19 cases.

    Tamil Nadu continues to suffer for its choice to reject Ivermectin. As a result, the Delta variant continues to ravage their citizens while it was virtually wiped out in the Ivermectin-using states. Likewise, in the United States, without Ivermectin, both the vaccinated and unvaccinated continue to spread the Delta variant like wildfire.

    Tamil Nadu off Ivermectin: Population 78.8 Million [6.9% fully vaccinated]

    COVID Daily Cases: 1,997

    COVID Daily Deaths: 33

    Like the JHU CSSE data, Galileo’s telescope did not lie either, and the truth can usually be found in plain sight. Ivermectin works, and it works exceedingly well. Harvard-trained virologist Dr. George Fareed and his associate, Dr. Brian Tyson of California’s Imperial Valley, have saved 99.9% of their patients with a COVID Cocktail that includes Ivermectin. They have released versions of their new book published in the Desert Review that everyone should read.

    I could talk about how every one of my patients who used Ivermectin recovered rapidly, about my most recent case who felt 90% better within 48 hours of adding the drug, but I won’t. I could write about how Wikipedia censors more than Pravda, about how you should always read the “talk” section of EVERY Wikipedia article to go behind the scenes and understand what the editors DO NOT want you to read, but I will refrain.

    I could write about VAERS and how it is so much easier to navigate by following Open VAERS or how Wikipedia has unfairly portrayed Dr. Peter McCullough, one of the world’s sharpest and most credible doctors. But I will hold back.

    I could recite the history of early outpatient treatment of COVID-19 with repurposed drugs, including Ivermectin, with all the specifics, and EXACTLY WHY this lifesaving information has been censored, but instead, I will leave researching these topics to each of you readers as individuals.

    Because you already know what will happen if you simply sit back and swallow what the media are feeding you. You MUST question what the government tells you, and always DO YOUR OWN research.

    Following the 1616 Inquisition of Galileo, the Pope banned all books and letters that argued the sun was the center of the Universe instead of the Earth.

    Similarly, today, the FDA and WHO have banned any use of Ivermectin for COVID outside of a clinical trial.

    YouTube and Wikipedia both consider Ivermectin for COVID as heresy.

    “YouTube doesn’t allow content that spreads medical misinformation that contradicts local health authorities or the World Health Organization’s (WHO) medical information about COVID-19… Treatment misinformation: claims that Ivermectin is an effective treatment for COVID-19.”

    Wikipedia defines heresy as:

     “any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religious teachings, but is also used of views strongly opposed to any generally accepted ideas. A heretic is a proponent of heresy.”

    Heresy is disagreeing with the government, or their health authority, even if they are all wrong and even if their policies harm people. Today we no longer call it heresy; it is labeled as misinformation.

    Galileo was found guilty of heresy and sentenced on June 22, 1633, to formal imprisonment, although this was commuted to house arrest, under which he remained for the rest of his life.

    On August 7, 2021 Medpage Today published a new quiz, “Can COVID Misinformation Cost You Your Medical License?”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 23:10

  • Visualizing US Oil Production By State
    Visualizing US Oil Production By State

    In 2018, the United States became the world’s top crude oil producer, and as Visual Capitalist’s Anshool Deshmukh notes, It has strongly held this position ever since.

    According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the country accounted for nearly 15% of the world’s total oil production in 2020, churning out close to 13 million barrels of crude oil per day—more than Russia or Saudi Arabia.

    Although total U.S. oil production declined between 1985 and 2008, annual production increased nearly every year from 2009 through 2019, reaching the highest amount on record in 2019.

    The Dominant Oil Producing States

    Impressively, 71% of total U.S. oil production came from just five states. An additional 14.6% came from the Gulf of Mexico, which is a federal jurisdiction.

    Here are the five states that produce the largest amount of crude oil:

    Rounding the top 10 are states like Alaska, California, Wyoming, Louisiana, and Utah.

    Texas is undoubtedly the largest oil-producing state in the United States. In 2020, Texas produced a total of 1.78 billion barrels of oil. Texas is home to the most productive U.S. oil basin, the Permian, routinely accounting for at least 50% of total onshore production. A distant second is North Dakota, which produced about 431.2 million barrels of oil in 2020.

    Regional Distribution of U.S. Oil Production

    A total of 32 of the 50 U.S. states produce oil. They are divided among five regional divisions for oil production in the U.S., known as the Petroleum Administration for Defense Districts (PADD).

    These five regional divisions of the allocation of fuels were established in the U.S. during the Second World War and are still used today for data collection purposes.

    Given that Texas is the largest U.S. oil-producing state, PADD 3 (Gulf Coast) is also the largest oil-producing PADD. PADD 3 also includes the federal offshore region in the Gulf of Mexico. There are around 400 operational oil and gas rigs in the country.

    Impact of U.S. Oil Production on Employment

    Rapid growth in oil production using advanced drilling methods has created high-paying jobs in states like North Dakota and Texas.

    Thanks to the rapid development in the Bakken Shale formation, North Dakota boasts the nation’s lowest unemployment rate. The state has also grown personal income and state economic output at a fast rate, due to oil and gas industry growth.

    Oil production from the Eagle Ford Shale has transformed a relatively poor region of South Texas into one of the nation’s most significant economic development zones. In fact, due largely to the oil and natural gas industry, the Texas Comptroller estimates that Texas has recovered 100% of the jobs lost during the Great Recession.

    Looking to the Future

    The U.S. slashed its oil production forecast through next year just as OPEC and its allies begin to roll back their production cuts in the coming months.

    U.S. oil output will drop to 11.04 million barrels a day this year, down from a forecasted 11.15 million. This was a result of the deep freeze that shut down the oil industry in Texas. The EIA also lowered its output forecast for 2022 by 100,000 barrels a day.

    Despite its forecast for a rise in supply from outside the cartel this year, OPEC said in its report that it is uncertain about the levels of investment expected to determine the non-OPEC supply outlook for the years to come.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 22:50

  • Gender Reassignment Surgery Is Child Abuse, Says Texas Commissioner
    Gender Reassignment Surgery Is Child Abuse, Says Texas Commissioner

    Authored by Allan Stein via The Epoch Times,

    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced Wednesday he received a letter from the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services determining that genital mutilation of a child through gender transitioning surgery constitutes child abuse.

    Abbott had directed DFPS to issue a determination on the matter last week and the department’s commissioner Jaime Masters replied with his findings.

    “Genital mutilation of a child through reassignment surgery is child abuse,” Masters wrote.

    “This surgical procedure physically alters a child’s genitalia for non-medical purposes potentially inflicting irreversible harm to children’s bodies,” he wrote.

    “Generally, children in the care and custody of a parent lack the legal capacity to consent to surgical treatments, making them more vulnerable.”

    In the letter, Masters said that allegations involving genital mutilation of a child would be promptly investigated.

    Failure to report abuse is a class misdemeanor and is punishable by up to one year in jail, a $4,000 fine, or both.

    At present, the transgender population in Texas counts as the second highest in the United States with 125,350 adults (.66 percent of the population) who identify as transgender. California ranks number one with 218,400 transgender residents.

    There are currently an estimated 1.4 million transgender people in the U.S. according to a study put out by the Williams Institute, a think tank at UCLA Law.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 22:30

  • Vaccine Expert Vanden Bossche Calls For "Immediate Halt" To Vaccinations, Says They Encourage "Escape Mutant" Variants
    Vaccine Expert Vanden Bossche Calls For "Immediate Halt" To Vaccinations, Says They Encourage "Escape Mutant" Variants

    Of all those who have been critical of our vaccination efforts related to Covid-19, vaccine expert Geert Vanden Bossche stands out as one of the loudest voices in the crowd.

    Having been featured on Dr. Chris Martenson’s Peak Prosperity and Bret Weinstein’s Dark Horse podcast, Vanden Bossche has been outspoken – yet measured and reasoned – in his critiquing of mass vaccinations during the midst of the Covid pandemic. One of his main gripes with vaccination efforts is that vaccinating during the middle of a pandemic could potentially lead to a long runway of variants, some of which may evolve to be far more difficult to deal with than the original Covid virus.

    And Vanden Bossche is an expert in the space with an extensive resume. He received his DVM from the University of Ghent, Belgium, and his PhD degree in Virology from the University of Hohenheim, Germany. He has worked for several vaccine companies (GSK Biologicals, Novartis Vaccines, Solvay Biologicals) to serve various roles in vaccine R&D as well as in late vaccine development. 

    He also joined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Health Discovery team in Seattle (USA) as Senior Program Officer before working with the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) in Geneva as Senior Ebola Program Manager. At GAVI he tracked efforts to develop an Ebola vaccine. He also represented GAVI in fora with other partners, including WHO, to review progress on the fight against Ebola and to build plans for global pandemic preparedness. 

    He then joined the German Center for Infection Research in Cologne as Head of the Vaccine Development Office. 

    In a new blog post published yesterday, Vanden Bossche continued to raise questions about our mass vaccination program to fight Covid.

    In a summary of his findings, he writes: “As of the early days of the mass vaccination campaigns, at least a few experts have been warning against the catastrophic impact such a program could have on global and individual health. Mass vaccination in the middle of a pandemic is prone to promoting selection and adaptation of immune escape variants that are featured by increasing infectiousness and resistance to spike protein (S)-directed antibodies (Abs), thereby diminishing protection in vaccinees and threatening the unvaccinated.“

    “This already explains why the WHO’s mass vaccination program is not only unable to generate herd immunity (HI) but even leads to substantial erosion of the population’s immune protective capacity,” he continues. “As the ongoing universal mass vaccination program will soon promote dominant propagation of highly infectious, neutralization escape mutants (i.e., so-called ‘S Ab-resistant variants’), naturally acquired, or vaccinal neutralizing Abs, will, indeed, no longer offer any protection to immunized individuals whereas high infectious pressure will continue to suppress the innate immune defense system of the nonvaccinated.”

    “This is to say that every further increase in vaccine coverage rates will further contribute to forcing the virus into resistance to neutralizing, S-specific Abs. Increased viral infectivity, combined with evasion from antiviral immunity, will inevitably result in an additional toll taken on human health and human lives.”

    He then urges “immediate action”, writing: “Immediate action needs, therefore, to be taken in order to dramatically reduce viral infectivity rates and to prevent selected immune escape variants from rapidly spreading through the entire population, whether vaccinated or not. This first critical step can only be achieved by calling an immediate halt to the mass vaccination program and replacing it by widespread use of antiviral chemoprophylactics while dedicating massive public health resources to scaling early multidrug treatments of Covid-19 disease.”

    You can read his full, comprehensive findings at his blog here. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 22:10

  • Whopping 2.8 Tons Of Meth, Fentanyl Seized In California
    Whopping 2.8 Tons Of Meth, Fentanyl Seized In California

    Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times,

    The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Tuesday announced the seizure of some 2.8 tons’ worth of methamphetamine and fentanyl powder in California.

    Border Patrol officers at the Otay Mesa Commercial Facility found the massive load on Aug. 5 in what the agency described as “the largest methamphetamine drug smuggling seizure along the southwest border, to date.”

    Altogether, the massive haul comprises 5,528 pounds of methamphetamine and 127 pounds of fentanyl powder, and is worth an estimated $12,990,749.

    “This amount of fentanyl and methamphetamine is enough to ruin countless lives and fund transnational criminal organizations,” CBP Director of Field Operations in San Diego Pete Flores said in a statement.

    “I’m proud of our officers’ efforts at all Ports of Entry within the San Diego Field Office to intercept this and all smuggling attempts.”

    Border officers found the drugs “hidden within a shipment of plastic household articles” in an intensive inspection of a tractor and trailer, by using the port of entry’s imaging system that is similar to an X-ray scan. “Anomalies” were detected in the trailer.

    “Further examination was required at the inspectional dock, a CBP canine team screened and received indication there were narcotics inside of the trailer,” according to a CBP statement.

    “CBP officers searched the cargo and discovered a combination of 414 packages consisting of methamphetamine and fentanyl concealed within boxes.”

    The seizure exceeds the entire amount of meth the U.S. Border Patrol has seized since the beginning of fiscal year 2021, which began in October 2020.

    Border officers seized the tractor, trailer, and narcotics.

    San Diego border officers seized 2.8 tons of meth and fentanyl at Otay Mesa Commercial Facility in California, on Aug. 5, 2021. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection)

    The driver, a 53-year-old Mexican male, was arrested and now faces federal charges over the alleged smuggling of the narcotics. He was sent to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in San Diego.

    Earlier this year, the same port of entry found and seized more than 1,100 pounds of methamphetamine hidden inside a shipment of watermelons, worth an estimated $2.5 million.

    Methamphetamine remains readily available throughout the United States, most of which is “clandestinely produced” in Mexico and smuggled across the southwest border, according to a 2020 report (pdf) by the Drug Enforcement Agency.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 21:50

  • CIA Mulls New China Mission Center To "Out-Spy Beijing"
    CIA Mulls New China Mission Center To "Out-Spy Beijing"

    The CIA is considering establishing a new China-focused mission center, Bloomberg is reporting, at a moment tensions have steadily escalated over months of continued Biden-ordered sail throughs of the Taiwan Strait and other provocative ‘freedom of navigation’ warship maneuvers in the South China Sea. It comes amid criticisms that China is ultimately “out-spying” the United States, also amid tit-for-tat cyber intrusion accusations which have gone on for years. 

    CIA Director Bill Burns has ordered a broad review of the agency’s China capabilities. Currently China-related missions fall under the aegis of the much larger “Mission Center for East Asia and Pacific,” but officials are turning their sights to a specialized internal unit with its own mandate of a narrower China focus which would include vaster resources.

    “Mission center are stand-alone entities that utilize resources from across the CIA in line with agency priorities,” notes Bloomberg. Apparently an entire mission center for China has for years been under discussion, but with no director or prior administration willing to order its establishment, likely on fears it would trigger Cold War-style escalation and tit-for-tat covert ops.

    Getty Images

    A CIA statement confirmed the current review of capabilities underway: “As director Burns has said, China is one of his priorities, and CIA is in the process of determining how best to position ourselves to reflect the significance of this priority,” CIA Public Affairs said.

    The last major mission center to be established, the Korea Mission Center, was under Trump in 2017 at a moment the White House was trying to assess the north’s nuclear capabilities and how to confront Pyongyang.

    Chinese leaders are sure to see this is as a major escalation, and will likely mirror US intelligence efforts, particularly given just last month China charged the CIA specifically with hacking Beijing for over a decade. 

    NPR at the time detailed the accusations, writing that “China has accused the United States of mounting cyberattacks against Chinese government, scientific, aviation and other technical institutions for the past 11 years.” Further the report noted “The finger-pointing comes the day after the U.S. mounted similar accusations against China, an exchange of blame which threatens to make cybersecurity another rift in an already-fractious U.S.-China relationship.”

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    Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian had at the time said the US is the world’s greatest aggressor in terms of cyber attacks and cyber espionage, warning Washington to “stop pouring dirty water” in terms of its hypocritical allegations against other nations. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 21:30

  • China: The Regime's Managed Economy Is Stagnating
    China: The Regime's Managed Economy Is Stagnating

    Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

    Despite high domestic economic growth and solid global recovery, the Chinese market is down on the year. At the close of this article, the Shanghai CSI 300 is down 5% vs the S&P 500’s +18%, and in the past five years, it has risen 51%, a decent but modest figure compared to the S&P 500’s +103%.

    Additionally, the Chinese stock market looks optically cheap. At 12.7x estimated Price to Earnings 2021, according to Bloomberg, it is significantly cheaper than most developed economies and many emerging ones. So why do I say “optically”? Because the Chinese stock market valuation includes important discounts that any investor must consider. Political risk and government intervention is a relevant discount factor that cannot be ignored, and the recent crackdown on technology and education is proof of that.

    Political and government intervention risks are not exclusive to Chinese stocks but explain a large proportion of the discount in valuation terms. These risks are also evident in the stocks of countries like Russia, but also in the Spanish or Italian market. It is not just regulatory risk, which may exist in numerous sectors globally, but the risk of random, politically driven, and destructive intervention.  When politicians want to take control of private entities, their earnings growth and margins are irrelevant considering the possibility of flowing management with politicians that use the balance sheet of private companies for political purposes. The recent crackdown in China is not about inequality, it is about control. If the government wanted to reduce inequality it would have implemented fiscal measures that would have been more effective than crippling its stock market.

    The Chinese economy’s high growth is not reflected in valuations for two main reasons, in my view.

    First, most of that growth is centrally planned and driven by massive indebtedness.

    Second, the risk of random changes in management and strategy of companies due to political motives has risen in the past ten years.

    The Chinese economy has not been opening since Xi Jinping’s tenure was extended indefinitely, it has been gradually closing, and one of the main objectives of a more interventionist government is to assault the corporate sector and take control of private companies even if that means weakening their financial situation, limits their access to capital markets and raises investor concerns.

    Therefore, political risk is a larger drag on valuations because investors know that politicians will not consider shareholder and stakeholder interests and will likely use the balance sheet of the company to advance political control.

    Our readers may say that the government has good intentions and that politicians in companies do not necessarily mean value destruction, but those naïve thoughts are wrong. If politicians had the best intentions and the goodwill of citizens in their minds, they would strengthen the independence of regulators instead of taking political control of private companies. A politician that has the best interest of its people in mind lets independent professionals make the decisions in business and regulation precisely to avoid politically charged decisions. However, when politicians weaken the independence of regulators and strengthen their grip on the management of businesses there is no benefit for citizens or shareholders. It is just interventionism to push forward a political agenda. Cash flow is squandered, debt balloons and inequality rises because merit disappears in favor of political adherence.

    If the government of China was worried about inequality and market power, why did they not create independent and transparent regulators instead of making them even more dependent on the government?

    The Chinese stock market discount is also a function of past interventionism and a “grow at any cost” rule. A country with such high growth and potential shows an index with very weak financials. Net debt to EBITDA exceeds 6.9x, driven mostly by the state-owned enterprises which have been piling on debt while showing very poor profitability. Return On Assets of the Shanghai Index, according to Bloomberg, is a weak 1.18% and profit margin is a mere 7.9% after a massive gross margin of 16%!

    Does the Chinese market have potential? Absolutely, and it is enormous. However, in order to achieve the revaluation potential it deserves, the Chinese government should promote transparency, independent board members, audits, and regulation as well as clear corporate governance rules that protect investors and stakeholders. All measures that go against the independence of regulators and corporate managers and open and transparent capital markets end up backfiring because they do not help citizens in any way and weaken the business and investment fabric.

    Filling businesses with politically designated managers means less innovation, lack of questioning of bad decisions and massive malinvestments, traits that China could rapidly reduce if it opened, instead of closing, its economy.

    This is a lesson for those in the West that see China’s rising interventionism as a good idea.

    Political interventionism means bad capital allocation, worse job creation, and the worst type of inequality, the one that is politically driven.  

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 21:10

  • Baidu Says Its Robotaxis Will Be Cheaper Than Human Drivers By 2025
    Baidu Says Its Robotaxis Will Be Cheaper Than Human Drivers By 2025

    Unlike some other companies that have made bold promises about robotaxis <cough> Elon Musk <cough> Tesla <cough> one million robotaxis <cough>, it looks as though the rubber is literally hitting the road for Baidu’s autonomous driving segment.

    Baidu held its Q2 2021 conference call on Thursday morning at 8AM and much of the focus was on autonomous driving and the company’s progress and plans for rolling out robotaxis. 

    “Earlier this year, Baidu’s autonomous driving unit Apollo launched paid robotaxi services, that operate without a driver behind the steering wheel, in Beijing and Guangzhou,” Yahoo noted about the company’s progress thus far. Baidu has said it wants to target robotaxi services to 3 million users by 2023, the report continued. 

    The biggest headline from the call was that Baidu expected the cost of its robotaxi services to be less than human drivers by 2025.

    CEO Robin Li said on the company’s conference call: “Based on our current projection, I think by the year 2025, we will cross the line, which means that the total cost of Robotaxi ride-hailing will be lower than manned-vehicle ride-hailing. And after that, I think that the scale will be able to grow much larger than it is today. And I think around that time, we should be able to report in a separate line.”

    CFO Herman Yu followed up, emphasizing that the economics of robotaxis would continue to improve: “And if you look at what Robin just said, throughout to 2025, what we’re seeing in the economics is that in a ride-hailing with after drivers, look the concept of a person — labor costs only goes up, it doesn’t go down over time, but you’re competing with technology. You’re competing with the fact that the more miles that we have, the more data that we have, our operation experience that this thing will continue to go down.”

    Li also went into further detail on how the economics were starting to favor the company: “As pointed out earlier, our fifth-generation robotaxi vehicles saw another 60% drop in cost per mile compared to an average decrease of 62% in the first 4 generations of AV vehicles. We plan to roll out Apollo Go ride-hailing across 30 cities over the next 2 to 3 years.”

    Yu also noted that the company already had robotaxis on the road – a far cry from certain U.S.-based competitors: “If you look at today in Shougang Park in Beijing, we believe we’re the only second autonomous driving car company in the world, where you actually have a car driving without someone at the driver’s seat.”

    He continued: “So I think that shows the number of years of experience that we’ve been doing in autonomous driving. It also just shows the fact that we’ve been doing operations for autonomous driving for a while. That’s why we can get the permit and actually start testing that. So it’s open to the public. You guys are free to come and look at how autonomous driving is being done without someone at the driver’s seat.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 20:50

  • Coercing People To Get COVID-19 Vaccines Is Damaging Trust In Public Health: Harvard Professor
    Coercing People To Get COVID-19 Vaccines Is Damaging Trust In Public Health: Harvard Professor

    Authored by Zachary Stieber and Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times,

    The rapidly escalating pressure on many Americans to get a COVID-19 vaccine is undermining trust in public health, according to Martin Kulldorf, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

    New York City became the first major metropolitan area in the United States this month to require proof of vaccination to enter numerous businesses, including gyms and restaurants. Other cities and states are imposing vaccine requirements on workers, including police officers and nurses.

    “At best, it’s sort of a very coercive way to get people to vaccinate, and I think that’s very bad for public health,” Kulldorf, also a professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders.”

    “One reason is that, why do you coerce people who are immune, or people who are young, who have very small risk, when the vaccines are much more needed for older people in other places? So that’s an ethical aspect to it. I think it’s very unethical to do so,” he added.

    “The other aspect is that if you force something on people, if you coerce somebody to do something, that can backfire. So public health has to be based on trust. And if [a] public health official wants the public to trust them, public health officials also have to trust the public.”

    Kulldorf has long worked on vaccines, including messaging surrounding the shots. A key aspect is maintaining confidence in vaccines so many people get them, achieving herd immunity.

    “There’s a small group of people who are against vaccines but they haven’t really been influential. They’re very vocal, but they haven’t been influential because most people trust the vaccines and have confidence in them.

    What the vaccine, I would call them vaccine fanatics who are demanding vaccine passports and vaccine mandates, pushing for that—they have done more damage to the confidence in vaccines than these so-called anti-vaxxers have ever been able to do,” Kulldorf said.

    Proponents of the vaccine verification requirements, colloquially known as vaccine passports, say the mandates increase uptake of the vaccines, helping protect the wider society, including populations who cannot at present get a jab. They also argue that people who don’t want to get a vaccine don’t have to. If they’re fired, the line of thinking goes, then they can just get a new job.

    But the push to vaccinate is backfiring among some Americans, who question why there is such a strong crackdown on those who don’t get a vaccine. The mandates also by and large don’t address a key issue: natural immunity, or the protection people who recover from COVID-19 enjoy against the virus that causes it.

    “Why do you have to force somebody to take the vaccine if it’s so beneficial to you? That’s sort of one rationale,” Kulldorf said.

    Even if people are coerced into getting a jab, “it will turn them off from public health, it will make them distrust public health and turn off from other vaccines that are not mandatory,” he added.

    “So it has sort of ripple effects on other aspects of public health that are very unfortunate.”

    The Sweden native noted that confidence in vaccines remains high in his homeland, where no mandates are in place.

    “It’s completely voluntary, and I think if you want to have high confidence in vaccines, it has to be voluntary. There shouldn’t be any mandates,” he said.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 20:30

  • Robin "Comes Out" As Bisexual In New Batman Comic
    Robin "Comes Out" As Bisexual In New Batman Comic

    Remember your old Batman comics? The thread was always centered around fighting crime in Gotham; a true superhero story.

    Today, Batman is about coming out as bisexual.

    At least that was the topic of the latest issue of the monthly anthology comic series “Batman: Urban Legends,” where Batman’s sidekick Robin “comes out”, according to Variety. 

    The sixth issue of the series came out on Tuesday and show the character Tim Drake agreeing to go on a date with a man after having a “lightbulb moment”. 

    Drake goes to an male friend’s house for dinner and winds up questioning his sexuality before going out to fight crime. 

    “I’m really glad you got home okay. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, about that night, and I — I don’t know what it meant to me. Not yet. But I’d like to figure it out,” the character says about his dinner with his friend.

    The friend then asks: “I was hoping you would. Tim Drake…do you want to go on a date with me?” 

    “Yeah… Yeah, I think I want that,” Drake says. 

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    Robin joins Kate Kane’s Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Renee Montoya and Alan Scott the Green Lantern in the canon of LGBTQ+ characters in the DC Comics universe.

    Writer Meghan Fitzmartin said her “goal in writing has been and will always be to show just how much God loves you.” 

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    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 20:10

  • Yet Again, The Media's COVID Narrative Doesn't Add Up
    Yet Again, The Media's COVID Narrative Doesn't Add Up

    Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

    If one were to go only on what one reads or sees in the media, one would think it’s the spring of 2020 all over again. The headlines are filled with stories of overcrowded hospitals, overwhelmed medical personnel, and predictions of people dying in parking lots waiting for medical care. The news articles generally quote a staffer of some kind at various hospitals and then leave it at that.

    It’s difficult to know what to make of these stories. After all, we heard very much the same thing during March, April, and May of 2020. Local governments were building makeshift hospitals in convention centers—yet they went unused. Memphis’s overflow hospital was closed down after an entire year of never housing a single patient. In late 2020, after months of media reports that New York hospitals were utterly overwhelmed, Andrew Cuomo announced New York hospitals “were never overwhelmed.” Colorado built a twenty-two hundred–patient overflow hospital. It was never used. Last spring, a $17 million overflow facility in Houston was dismantled without ever being used.

    Now we’re being told that this time, they really mean it and hospitals are on the verge of overflowing.

    Yet according to data from Johns Hopkins, most of these cases may be overstated. In Texas, for example, whose hospitals have been the subject of countless recent stories about overflowing ICUs, the state is a long way from reaching its earlier peaks of 2020. Moreover, Texas is now staffing fewer ICU beds overall. The story is the same in Georgia, that supposed home of an “experiment in human sacrifice,” where officials were among the first to end stay-at-home orders in 2020. Indeed, it’s clear most of the country—regardless of the state’s use of mask mandates or stay-at-home orders—remains well behind previous peak levels.

    One outlier in terms of hospitalizations, however, is the state of Florida. Numbers in Florida do appear to be closer to previous peaks than in most other states, and ICU usage is now larger than what it was during the summer of 2020.

    Why is this?

    According to many reports from the corporate media, this must be because the state’s governor is Ron DeSantis. Because of his connection to the Trump movement, the media has predictably focused on DeSantis and his policies as alleged drivers of rising covid cases in Florida. The preponderance of media articles about Florida are careful to mention that the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, has opposed mask mandates, vaccine passports, and stay-at-home orders.

    The implication, of course, is that DeSantis’s opposition to these measures has somehow caused today’s rising number of hospitalizations.

    This connection is so tenuous, however, that even Philip Bump at the Washington Post—who clearly is no fan of DeSantis—admits it’s unclear what’s behind Florida’s rising numbers. Florida may be an outlier in terms of new hospitalizations, but it’s not an outlier in terms of policy. States that have been relatively laissez-faire on covid, like Georgia, Texas, South Dakota, and Nebraska have not seen trends similar to Florida’s. 

    Moreover, Bump notes that Florida has higher vaccination rates than many states with both fewer hospitalizations and fewer new covid deaths. Florida isn’t an outlier in terms of vaccinations. Nearly 50 percent of the population is fully vaccinated in Florida—California is at 53 percent. Floridians are vaccinated at higher rates than is the case in Utah, Texas, Indiana, Ohio, and South Dakota. Yet these other states all have fewer cases of new deaths and hospitalizations, per capita:

    Something makes Florida exceptional here: These numbers are hazy enough (thanks to reporting periods and the lags in case and death counts) that one can certainly cobble together a case that there’s some other factor at play than indifference from state leadership. And, in fact, something else may be the problem. It’s hard to say.

    Moreover, even with the current surge in hospitalization in Florida, the state may still never catch up with states like New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts in terms of total covid deaths per million. As of August 11, Florida is still twenty-sixth in the nation in terms of total deaths per million, at 1,870. New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts still top the list, with 3,003, 2,797, and 2,629 deaths per million, respectively. There is also evidence that the current increase in covid cases—and the “delta surge” in general—has already peaked.

    So here we go again—the narrative doesn’t lend itself to easy explanations. States with long-lasting lockdowns, covid restrictions, and even mounting vaccine “incentives” have still been hit harder than more laissez-faire states in many cases, even after the virus has had eighteen months to spread well beyond the borders of the initial hot spots.

    But for anyone who can remember the media narrative eighteen months ago, the current story will seem quite familiar. Hospitals are overflowing. But if we heed the diktats of the regime’s technocrats, we’re told, things will markedly improve. Those places that refuse to take orders from Washington will have many times more death, illness, and economic destruction.

    The facts never backed up this story in 2020. Twenty twenty-one isn’t shaping up to be much different. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 19:50

  • Lawyers Expect Lawsuits As Employers Navigate "Touchy" Subject Of Religious Objections To Vaccines
    Lawyers Expect Lawsuits As Employers Navigate "Touchy" Subject Of Religious Objections To Vaccines

    Now that the Biden Administration has outsourced the responsibility for enforcing America’s vaccine mandate to individual employers (who for millions of Americans control access to health-care, income, and a sense of self-worth), legal experts expect companies to struggle with “touchy” subjects like workers with legitimate religious objections to vaccination, especially as workers increasingly demand to continue working from home.

    Recently, the band the Offspring made headlines when it announced that its drummer, who had decided not to get the vaccine for legitimate medical issues, wouldn’t be joining the rest of the band during an upcoming tour. The drummer explained in a statement that he had Guillain Barre syndrome when he was a child, and didn’t want to risk trigger rare blood clots which are a documented side effect of the vaccine, making it unsuitable for certain high risk patients.

    And has large tech companies like Google and Microsoft are joined by banks, airlines (or at least one airline), Tyson Foods and others, many managers are finding it difficult to navigate an area where Americans have traditionally enjoyed many liberties: their religious preferences.

    Reuters reports that while the Equal Employment  Opportunity Commission made an exemption in its vaccine rules for religious exemptions, it’s likely this right too will be steamrolled in practice.

    And given the obvious conflict, it’s almost guaranteed that unlawful termination and discrimination lawsuits will emerge in the coming months as those who refuse to get the vaccine face every conceivable means of coercion.

    As one lawyer put it, “it’s a touchy subject.”

    “It’s such a touchy subject for both sides,” said Erin McLaughlin, a Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney lawyer who advises large employers.

    “This issue has moved to the forefront as we see more and more mandatory vaccination policies,” she said. She said there had been more regulator guidance on exemptions for disabilities than religious beliefs, adding to the challenge as companies draft vaccine policies.

    In the past, US courts ruled that veganism counted as a religious belief so far as it justified one nurse’s decision to refuse a flu shot, which led to her termination back in 2010.

    Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center fired customer service representative Sakile Chenzira in 2010 for refusing a flu vaccine because she was a vegan. Chenzira sued and the hospital wanted the case dismissed, arguing she was mistaking a dietary habit for a religious belief. The federal judge ruled in her favor based on the sincerity of her views. The parties settled privately.

    “As an employer, you can inquire whether an employee has a sincerely held religious belief. It’s just kind of a fraught investigation,” said Brian Dean Abramson, an author and specialist in vaccine law.

    But the vegan loophole likely won’t be tolerated this time around, despite the EEOC’s broad definition of religion.

    The standard of “undue burden” means businesses must accommodate religious beliefs unless it poses an “undue burden”, either financially or in terms of safety.

    In other words, those who refuse the vaccine will need to submit to weekly testing and constant masking. Should they fail to keep up with either, they could be at risk for termination.

    Burgo said businesses should assume that employees seeking an exemption sincerely hold their beliefs. She said the bigger challenge can be accommodating those exemptions which the employer can refuse if it results in an “undue burden” on workplace safety and efficiency.

    Brett Horvath cited religious beliefs when he refused a tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis vaccine in 2016 that was required by the City of Leander Fire Department in Texas where he worked as a driver and pump operator.

    The department gave him a choice. Instead of being vaccinated, he could wear a mask and submit to testing or switch to a job in code enforcement with hours that were less convenient. He refused and was fired.

    He sued and last year the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal, finding the face mask requirement accommodated his religion while allowing him to perform his job.

    Employees who push to work from home to better accommodate their situation will simply force a reluctant employer to come up with a reason why the employees’ presence at the office is essential.

    But employees may also demand to work from home, creating a challenge for reluctant employers to explain why mandatory in-person attendance is essential after months of remote work.

    “There will be a few employers who get it wrong before we get through the process to get pretty good established guidance on how to handle this, especially with vaccines,” said McLaughlin, the lawyer for large employers.

    As more cities follow NYC’s lead of requiring proof of vaccination to dine in restaurants and go to the gym, those with religious exemptions to the vaccine shouldn’t expect any special treatment, which is of course by design.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 19:30

  • The Shadow State: NeuralHash & Apple's Post-Privacy World
    The Shadow State: NeuralHash & Apple's Post-Privacy World

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    In the last week, Apple unveiled “NeuralHash,” a tool that will hasten our move toward a dystopian post-privacy world. The company informed the world this week that it would be adding the NeuralHash to its network of over a billion iPhones, storage platforms, and other resources. The NeuralHash will allow it to scan images before they are uploaded to iCloud for child pornography. The user will then be disabled and reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

    As with Facebook’s campaign for people to embrace censorship by calling it “content modification”, Apple has repackaged perpetual monitoring as “perceptual hashing.” Not surprising, these pitches for eroding expectations of speech or privacy are presented as as harmless, even reassuring. After all, the only people who need to worry are those with images constituting child porn. Of course, that determination will be made by a bot who will present people for review using algorithms looking for Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). Microsoft, Google, Facebook and others are already sharing digital fingerprints of known child sexual abuse images.

    The controversy over Apple’s new system raises not just privacy concerns but broader concerns over the shifting of power from the government to corporate figures. In critical areas, United States is moving from a democracy to a corporatocracy where critical rights and privileges are effectively controlled by a small number of CEOs. The founding fathers of that corporatocracy are figures like Jack Dorsey (Twitter), Tim Cook (Apple), and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook). It is an alternative government created by acclamation rather than any constitution. From free speech to Covid mandates, many on the left, including the Biden Administration, have called for policies to be carried out by corporations like a type of shadow state. At the same time, companies like Facebook have been running commercials for months to try to convince people to embrace corporate censorship over their own speech. Yet, in this brave new world of corporate governance, nothing quite prepared many of us for

    Apple will now use its phones to actively spy on over a billion users to see if any have photos that may be CSAM in order to report them. Imagine the post-privacy world unfolding literally before us. People will have no choice if they have an iPhone in allowing a corporation to monitor their photos. Then, when they use their phones on social media, Twitter and Facebook will censor any views that they object to on subject ranging from Covid to gender identification to Hunter Biden’s laptop to election fraud to even criticism of governments.

    At the same time, the Biden White House has decided that it does not want to deal with the legal or political challenges of seeking to impose a national vaccine mandate.

    Instead, President Biden has called on corporations to carry out the mandate.

    The Democratic embracing of corporate governance is a matter of simple convenience. Corporations now overwhelmingly support the left on key political issues, and some seem to have virtually written off roughly half of the country that voted for Donald Trump. More importantly, Democrats cannot limit speech, impose national vaccine mandates, or deny privacy through the government. However, surrogate corporations can since the First Amendment and other constitutional provisions address government not corporate abuses. Much of the Constitution then becomes largely relevant – your rights are entirely protected except from the main source of their denial.

    What is really maddening is that companies like Facebook and Apple do not simply want us to yield core rights to them but to love them for it. After all, the cheerful hip figures on the Facebook censorship commercial like “Joshan” only want you to “change” to allow your “blending of the real world and the internet world.” Then there is Apple which simply tells you to “Think Different” with all of the other worthy netizens at the “Genius bar.”

    In this new world, free speech itself is a danger rather than the very thing that defines us. Privacy is a shield used by those who want to harm children. “Changing” with Joshan means learning to love corporate monitoring and “modifications.”

    Carrying around your own personal surveillance device is not the only thing that you will lose in Apple’s Orwellian NeuralHash. In the end, the powers of both corporations and the government will be enhanced by our modified selves. Under the controlling standard of the “Katz” test, our privacy is protected from warrantless surveillance by our “expectations of privacy.” When such expectations exist, the government generally must obtain a warrant after showing probable cause that a crime is or has been committed. However, as our expectations fall, the government can engage in more warrantless surveillance. As it engages in more warrantless surveillance, our expectation fall further. Well, you get the idea.

    We are increasingly living in a fishbowl society where monitoring (that would have once outraged Americans) is treated as part of life. When we leave our homes were are monitored on the road or at the 7-11 buying coffee. We are monitored on the streets and in our workplaces. We are monitored all the way home in the evening. Now, once at home our images will be monitored and our communications are “modified” according to what corporations want us to see and say.

    The response from the left today is that none of this is a problem because corporations are not controlled by the Constitution. After all, if you want a phone that does not spy on you, invent one and compete with Apple with your own global network. Simple.

    The current limited function of the NeuralHash is simply the decision of Apple. However, it is a new technology that can be expanded to other images and could potentially be used by the government. I recently testified in Congress about the rapid loss of privacy due to the government’s use of national security letters and other devices to search the iCloud and to obtain “metadata.” This includes the use of secret orders to corporations to spy on journalists during the Obama, Trump, and Biden Administrations. We already have ample powers to investigate and prosecute child pornography but this function will now be taken up by the corporatocracy which is not directly controlled any more than by Fourth Amendment than the First Amendment.

    Like authoritarian governments, authoritarian corporations always have an appealing reason for limiting freedoms. Fighting terrorism or child porn or “misinformation” often leave free speech or privacy as mere abstractions. After all, the idea is to “Think Different” about privacy. Indeed, you have to think differently from the original Apple when many of us bought its first computer. Back then Apple was portrayed in its famous “1984” Mac commercial as literally smashing the authoritarian conformity of Big Brother. Now, conformity is good.  After all, as Orwell himself wrote in 1984, “One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 19:10

  • Treasury To Calm Crypto Nerves With Clarification On Broker-Only IRS Reporting Requirements
    Treasury To Calm Crypto Nerves With Clarification On Broker-Only IRS Reporting Requirements

    The US Treasury Department is set to clarify that only bonafide cryptocurrency brokers – not developers, equipment providers, or miners – will need to comply with proposed IRS reporting requirements contained in the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, as long as they don’t act as brokers.

    In a statement to Bloomberg, an unnamed Treasury official said that the guidance won’t grant blanket exemptions based on how firms identify – but would rather focus on the IRS‘s opinion of whether a firm’s activities constitute brokerage activity under the tax code.

     

    The guidance, which could be made public as soon as next week, is an attempt to address concerns in the cryptocurrency industry that the $550 billion infrastructure bill would require a host of companies with ties to digital assets to report data to the Internal Revenue Service that they don’t have. The tax provision, estimated to raise $28 billion over a decade, was included in the legislation as a way to help pay for new investments in roads and bridges.

    The Treasury’s directive is crucial because lawmakers who want to revise the bill’s language in the House are unlikely to succeed, since altering the crypto section could open up the whole legislation to additional revisions. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she’ll bring up the bill for a vote when President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion social spending and tax plan is also ready for consideration, which could be months from now. -Bloomberg

    Ohio GOP Sen. Rob Portman, who drafted the cryptocurrency portion of the bill passed earlier this week by the Senate, said that he thinks the legislation is clear – and that miners, transaction validators, and software developers for digital wallets should be exempt from the new tax rules. 

    Crypto traders who rode out the last several weeks may beg to differ with Portman, as industry players and advocates slammed the legislation for overly-broad language that could subject anyone “regularly providing any service effectuating transfers of digital assets” to reporting requirements.

    In an 11th hour attempt to provide clarity, a bipartisan group of senators brought an ill-fated amendment to the bill, but it was blocked via procedural moves. According to the Treasury official, some of the concerns over the broad language were valid, however much of the lobbying was aimed at limiting the Treasury’s collection of legitimate tax information. Instead, the IRS isn’t going to pursue businesses that don’t actually transact cryptos.

    According to the report, the upcoming guidance will clarify how the definition of ‘broker’ applies to entities which transfer digital assets on behalf of another person, which – along with however aggressive the IRS is on enforcement – will ultimately determine the number of companies required to comply with the new requirements.

    The effort is also part of a broader push by the Treasury Department to crack down on tax cheats. IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig has said tax evasion through the use of virtual currency is a key contributor to the growing gap between what’s owed in taxes and what the IRS actually collects.

    In addition, more regulation is likely coming for the cryptocurrency community with prominent lawmakers, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, and regulators like Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler both eager to address the emerging technology. –Bloomberg

    “I don’t think people will notice much. Did everything die in crypto in the U.S. when Coinbase began 1099s a few years ago?” said William Quigley, the co-founder of stablecoin Tether and blockchain platform WAX. “Those worries, though, I think have started to settle down a bit,” he added.

    “I think the IRS is going to take note of what the intent was that was expressed by these senators.”

    Assuming the infrastructure bill is finally passed and signed into law, the new reporting rules won’t go into effect until 2023, which will give ample time for crypto companies to adapt to the new requirements.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 18:50

  • Woke Nonsense Is Warping Everyday Life
    Woke Nonsense Is Warping Everyday Life

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

    Americans are growing angrier by the day, but in a way different from prior sagebrush revolts such as the 1960s Silent Majority or the Tea Party movement over a decade ago.

    The rage this time is not just fueled by conservatives.

    For the first time in their lives, Americans of all classes and races are starting to fear a self-created apocalypse that threatens their family’s safety and the American way of life.

    The border is not just porous as in the pre-Trump past. It is arguably nonexistent. Some 2 million people may cross illegally in the current fiscal year, according to reports — with complete impunity. There is zero effort to stop them. Officials hector Americans daily to get vaccinated and tested for COVID-19. But they are mute about illegal entrants, some of them no doubt infected with the virus.

    Have we ever had a president who made no pretense about destroying federal immigration law and asking of Americans what he does not ask of those entering the country illegally?

    Joe Biden has also conceded that his moratorium on housing evictions defied a Supreme Court ruling. He added that he probably didn’t have the legal authority to ignore the court but didn’t really care.

    As in the case of demolishing immigration law, the president seems either unaware or proud that he is insidiously dismantling the Constitution.

    America has also never before seen such overt and multifaceted efforts to undermine the foundations of free-market capitalism.

    At a time of resurging GDP, low unemployment and record worker shortages, Biden has announced that renters can continue to avoid paying what they owe their landlords — even after a prior year of free housing.

    In a rebounding economy amid record debt, the government is still sending workers unemployment benefits that are more remunerative than the paychecks they would earn if employed.

    Such insanity not only means that labor-short employers can’t provide goods and services to American consumers; the new ethos also institutionalizes the pernicious idea that it is smarter to stay home and be idle than to get a job and be productive.

    Biden is also considering further extending exemptions for the repayment of $1.7 trillion in student loans. That amnesty will only further mainstream this growing notion that borrowing money entails no legal or moral obligation to pay it back.

    No one seems to acknowledge that both students and the universities that lured them to borrow knew the risks they were taking. Meanwhile, millions of American youth, the working classes who choose not to attend college, and those who paid off their loans or whose parents saved enough over the years to cover their tuition obligations will subsidize the debt evaders by paying higher taxes.

    Inflation is roaring back. Soaring prices are a direct result of incentivizing the unemployed not to work, while discouraging manufacturers and producers of food, gas, oil, timber, mineral and metals.

    Rising crime rates are likewise not accidental. Increasing crime is the logical result of releasing thousands of criminals from prison, defunding and defaming the police, and empowering woke mayors and prosecutors to contextualize crime as the fault of society, not the criminal.

    In response, millions of Americans now simply avoid the mayhem of big cities in blue states.

    Race relations have regressed 50 years. Under the fad of critical race theory, the color of our skin is now deemed essential to who we are.

    Most Americans still integrate and assimilate, and many intermarry. But the current woke revolution is an elite, top-down effort to smear a self-critical and always improving nation as some sort of contemporary racist hellhole.

    George Orwell would say of these cultural Marxists that they grab power in the present to reinvent the past in order to control our futures.

    All this multifaceted chaos is not just faculty lounge stuff. We are beginning to see the collective craziness filter down to disruptions in our everyday lives.

    Airliners cannot take off due to fuel shortages. Automobiles, houses, gas and lumber are in short supply.

    Consumers can’t get their roofs fixed, their houses painted or their trees trimmed, as employers plead with their idle, government-subsidized employees to come back to work.

    Many Americans have lost faith in the FBI, the CIA, the Pentagon, the CDC and most of the other federal bureaucracies, which are as politicized as they are incompetent.

    What started out as elite woke nonsense now warps daily life. If we don’t wake up from wokeness, we will continue on our sure trajectory to self-inflicted, systemic paralysis — followed by civilizational collapse.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 18:30

  • Even In Their "High Earning Years", Millennials Saddled With Debt Aren't Making Enough
    Even In Their "High Earning Years", Millennials Saddled With Debt Aren't Making Enough

    While many millennials are heading into the chapter of their lives where they are expected to earn the most, the drag of high debt-to-income ratios and the lingering effects of two recessions and a pandemic are all but ensuring the generation’s earnings “prime” isn’t as meaningful as it has been for past generations.

    Lowell R. Ricketts, a data scientist for the Institute for Economic Equity at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, recently told the Wall Street Journal: “In perspective, you can kind of understand how the millennial generation is a microcosm of the K-shaped recovery that we’re seeing and also just the divergence in wealth overall. I think you have to factor in the labor market changes over time as well, but there’s a kind of more of a sense of insecurity, even though you might be now earning a high salary or wage, that might not be guaranteed tomorrow.”

    The Journal points out that workers generally hit their peak median weekly earnings between the ages of 35 and 54, before earnings plateau or start to fade lower. Workers now see a median 22% increase in income when moving from the 25-to-34 to 35-to-44 age bracket. This compares to increases of 20% in 2005 and 16% in 1986.

    But despite the increased bump up in earnings, millennials are dealing with significantly more debt than past generations. And they’re also getting started accruing assets, like homes, later in life. As of 2020, the median age of a first time home buyer is up to 33 years old, from 30 years old in 2010.

    Millennials are also having babies later in life. The CDC notes that the mean age of mothers was 27 in 2019, a record high. 

    A 2020 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research notes that millennials are still working to recover lost ground from the 2008 financial crisis. William Gale, one of the authors of the study, told the Journal: “You carry that with you for a long time, maybe your whole career.”

    The study revealed that the 2007 to 2009 recession “significantly reduced” wealth for all age groups. Millennial households held 12% less wealth in 2016 than in 1989. 

    The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found in 2019 that debt-to-income ratios for millennials were 23% higher than expected. 

    And overall real wages in 2018 had the same purchasing power as 40 years ago, meaning that millennials aren’t necessarily seeing more flexibility in their budgets, despite wage gains and the current recovery boom.

    Andrea Pica, a 39-year-old from Neptune City, NJ, told the Journal: “The extra money I make every year just gets funneled into something new, in the necessary things in our life.”

    Tim Eng, a 35-year-old product manager from Connecticut, says he takes on longer hours and more stress to meet his personal salary goals. “You’re not going to make more income without drastically uprooting your life. It’s about making the most of what they have,” he said.

    Ricketts concluded: “Gen X can’t move up to senior positions currently held by boomers, and then millennials can’t move up to their positions. The broad numbers point to a challenge in that narrative that ‘baby boomers are done and setting sail on their boats to go fishing.’ This is really a story of folks still working.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 18:10

  • Buchanan: Who Lost America's Longest War?
    Buchanan: Who Lost America's Longest War?

    Authored by Pat Buchanan,

    In April, President Joe Biden told the nation he would have all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack ever on the continental United States.

    Given the turn of events of the past week, that 20th anniversary may be celebrated by a triumphant Taliban, now on the cusp of victory over the Americans and their Afghan allies, with gruesome public executions of their surrendered and captured enemies.

    Sept. 11, 2021, could see U.S. Marines and diplomats fleeing Kabul to escape the retribution of the Taliban whom we ousted in 2001.

    Consider. From Friday, a week ago, to today, the Taliban have overrun 10 of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals.

    Mazar-e-Sharif in the north is now surrounded. Kandahar and Herat, second and third largest cities, are under siege. The Kandahar-Kabul road has been cut. The defense minister escaped assassination in the capital. The government’s media director did not. The Taliban now control half of the 400 regions of Afghanistan and two-thirds of its territory.

    Some Afghan soldiers have fought bravely. Others have retreated into their bases, surrendered, or fled into neighboring countries such as Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan. An entire Afghan army corps with its U.S. weapons, equipment and vehicles was surrendered in Kunduz city.

    U.S. military say the fall of Kabul could come within 90 days, with some saying privately the regime could fall to the Taliban within a month.

    Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut has summarized the situation:

    “The complete, utter failure of the Afghan national army, absent our hand-holding, to defend their country is a blistering indictment of a failed 20-year strategy predicated on the belief that billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars could create an effective democratic central government in a nation that has never had one.”

    The reality of that grim assessment raises many questions.

    Who is responsible for the colossal U.S. failure in Afghanistan? Who is responsible for America’s impending defeat in her longest war?

    Over the last 20 years, the U.S. lost 2,500 troops with 20,000 wounded and invested $1 trillion to create an Afghan army, only to see that army crumble and disintegrate as soon as we departed.

    Wednesday, Biden conceded that truth:

    “Look, we spent over $1 trillion over 20 years; we trained and equipped … over 300,000 Afghan forces. Afghan leaders have to come together. They’ve got to fight for themselves.”

    We are facing in Afghanistan a wipeout of the investment of a generation to convert Afghanistan into a democracy with the ability to hold the allegiance of its people and to defend itself.

    Why did we fail?

    Did the U.S. generals, statesmen, politicians and journalists who went to Afghanistan during these last two decades, and came back to testify to our steady progress, delude themselves? Or did they deceive us?

    How many U.S. generals knew what was going on but declined to risk their careers by telling Congress or the country that the Afghan army and regime we had stood up would likely collapse like a house of cards once the Americans departed and they had to face the Taliban alone?

    Today, the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, is in Qatar threatening the Taliban that if they overrun the country and impose a victor’s peace, they risk being denied diplomatic recognition by the U.S. and its Western allies and a forfeiture of future foreign aid.

    But to brand the Taliban terrorists and pariahs is not new to them. What they seek is something for which they have proven they are willing to die.

    What is critical for them is to restore the Taliban to their previous dominance; to create an Islamic Emirate; to make themselves the moral, social and political arbiters of a more purely Islamic Afghanistan.

    And to be rid of the outsiders and their alien values.

    They want to be able to stand up and say to the Muslim world: “We have shown you how to do it. We fought America, the world superpower, for 20 years until we forced the Americans, tails between their legs, to get out of our land, and then put their puppets up against a wall.”

    While our strategic defeat will leave Americans reluctant to attempt any such future imperial interventions, there needs to be an accounting.

    The questions that need answering:

    • Was not the attempt to transplant Madisonian democracy into the soil of the Middle and Near East a fool’s errand from the beginning?

    • How many other U.S. allies field paper armies, which will collapse, if they do not have the Americans there to do the heavy lifting?

    • Is what we have on offer — one man-one vote democracy — truly appealing in a part of the world where democracy seems to have trouble, from the Maghreb to the Middle East to Central Asia, putting down any deep roots?

    The Taliban’s God is Allah. The golden calf we had on offer was democracy.

    In the Hindu Kush, their god has proven stronger.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 17:50

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Aug 13

Today’s News 13th August 2021

  • Russian Embassy Trolls US State Dept Over Litany Of "Human Rights Abuses" At Home
    Russian Embassy Trolls US State Dept Over Litany Of “Human Rights Abuses” At Home

    Despite the jailed anti-Putin activist Alexei Navalny largely falling out of headlines in recent months, this week State Department spokesman Ned Price featured his fate in Wednesday statements about severe human rights violations in Russian and by various other bad actors like Cuba and Belarus. Price called out the Kremlin’s “violent crackdown” against protesters seeking to highlight Navalny’s plight.

    The response out of Russia was to slam Washington for its own human rights violations. The Russian Embassy in the US further trolled the State Department Spox’s Twitter account with the following…

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

    “Meanwhile, it’s high time the US drew its attention to the internal situation,” the embassy stated in part while linking to Russia’s own detailed review of human rights abuses around the globe, with particular focus on the United States.

    The section of the document focusing on the US begins as follows:

    The United States continues to grossly violate human rights both inside and outside the country, including through illegal unilateral coercive measures (sanctions), the most egregious example of which is the imposed and ongoing (despite numerous UN General Assembly resolutions) blockade of Cuba. However, this does not prevent them from positioning themselves as a “world standard” in the field of protecting fundamental freedoms. Even non-governmental organizations loyal to Washington admit that the state of affairs in the human rights sphere is getting worse here every year. At the same time, criticism about the real situation with human rights in the country is still ignored by the authorities. Instead, Washington is looking for “violations” anywhere but at home.

    And there’s heavy focus on “inequality” and racial tensions which over a year ago gave rise to recent Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests, unrest, and riots…

    In the United States, the level of racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and other manifestations of such discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance continues to rise. In addition, the problem of racism has acquired a systemic character in American society, permeating all spheres of society. This is indicated with alarm by human rights organizations. The rapid spread of such a phenomenon that disgraces America hardly correlates with the image declared by Washington as a “global leader” in the field of protecting rights and freedoms around the world.

    The lengthy document which was published by the Russian Foreign Ministry only last month takes frequent swipes at Washington, including a multitude of sarcastic quips calling out US ‘human rights hypocrisy’. It further includes a list of “very disturbing pattern” foreign policy failures by the US especially in regions like the Middle East and Central Asia.

    Currently in Afghanistan US-trained national forces are in retreat amid a rapid Taliban advance while Washington is reportedly mulling the evacuation even of its embassy in Kabul, according to Politico. Russia, at the same time, is offering sales of combat helicopters to the Afghan government, in a bit of a historical ironic twist. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 02:45

  • UK's SAGE Advisor Says Lockdowns Can No Longer Be Justified
    UK’s SAGE Advisor Says Lockdowns Can No Longer Be Justified

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    A top SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) adviser to the UK government says that COVID lockdowns can no longer be justified and that measures to control the virus should instead be aimed at protecting the most vulnerable.

    Professor Andrew Hayward, a University College London epidemiologist, said that the days of disruptive restrictions imposed on everyone should end in favor of a more targeted approach.

    “I think as we generally move into an endemic rather than pandemic situation the potential harm that a virus can cause at a population level is much less,” Hayward told BBC Radio 4.

    “So you can’t really justify such broad population-wide control measures and we tend to target the control measures more to those who are most vulnerable,” he added.

    “And so I think, not only in testing but in all sorts of forms of control, as we move into a situation where we’re coming to live with this virus forever, then we target the measures to the most vulnerable rather than having the more disruptive measures,” said the professor.

    Hayward’s view that we need to learn to live with the virus was echoed by signatories to the Great Barrington Declaration, in which 12,000 scientists asserted that the strategy should be centered on “focused protection,” not endless lockdowns.

    However, the UK government is still pursuing the idea of vaccine passports for some venues from September onwards while eliminating the option of negative COVID tests, despite the fact that fully vaccinated people can still catch and spread the virus.

    The domestic passports have proven highly controversial in France, where police were seen earlier this week checking the medical papers of people sitting outside at cafes.

    As we previously highlighted, some lockdown advocates appear to be upset that the restrictions might not make a return, with a Guardian journalist writing about how he is “going to miss being locked down.”

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 02:00

  • Why Do Some People Support Tyranny While Others Defy It?
    Why Do Some People Support Tyranny While Others Defy It?

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

    There is a fundamental question that haunts the pages of history and it is one that has never been addressed in a satisfactory manner. There are many schools of thought on why and how tyranny rises in any given society and all of them miss the mark in terms of explanations, primarily because they all allow their biases to rule their conclusions and blind them to the deeper aspects of power and conspiracy. In other words, they are willing to go down the rabbit hole only so far, and then they deny that the rabbit hole even exists.

    The common assumption when it comes to autocracy or oligarchy is that people are “stupid” and easily manipulated into following compelling personalities that make promises they never intend to keep. This is a foolish oversimplification. In truth, the level of manipulation needed to lure a majority of people into dictatorship is so complex that it requires an advanced understanding of human psychology.

    In our modern era, people cannot merely be ordered to submit at gunpoint, at least not right away. They must be tricked into conforming, and not only that, but they must be made to think that it was THEIR IDEA all along. Without this dynamic of self censorship and self enslavement, the population will eventually rebel no matter how oppressive the regime. A thousand year tyranny cannot exist unless a number of people are conned into applauding it, or, they directly benefit from it.

    And this is where we find the true key to totalitarianism – It only thrives because there is an inherent portion of any given society that secretly loves it and wants it to exist. We might call these people useful idiots, but it is much more than that. They are not necessarily unaware of what they are doing; they understand to some extent that they are helping in the destruction of other people’s freedoms…and they revel in it. Sure, there are elitists and globalists that levy core conspiracies and seek out more and more control, but they could not accomplish much of anything without the aid of the army of sociopathic aberrations that live among us.

    This strange and destructive characteristic is ever visible today in light of the covid lockdowns and the push for forced vaccinations. It is clear that there are some people out there that are overly concerned with the personal health decisions of everyone else. The science and the stats prove there is nothing for them to worry about from the virus, but they ignore the science. They thirst for the taste of power. They have become a cult which ignores all logic and demands fealty to their fraudulent narrative. They do not care about the facts, they only care that we comply.

    Well, as I have said time and time again: We Will Not Comply!

    And so begins the epic conflict; a tale as old as civilization itself. There are two types of people in this world: Those that want to control others, and those that want to be left alone. But what motivates the control freaks? Why are they the way they are? Lets examine some of the causes…

    The Fear Engine

    There are people that are driven by success, by merit, by hope, by prosperity, by faith, by optimism, by love, and by honor. And then, there are people driven by fear. There are hundreds of various fears, but only a few ways to react to any of them. Collectivists respond to fear with a desperate need to micromanage their environment; they believe that if they can dictate people and events to a certain degree, they can eliminate unexpected outcomes and be free of fear. But life does not work this way and it never will.

    The level of influence these people seek is so far beyond them that it can never be attained. That is to say, they will never be satisfied until they get more. Their fears will always haunt them because fears cannot be dealt with from without, they can only be dealt with from within.

    Furthermore, the things they fear often revolve around their own narcissism and are of their own making. They fear failure, but they rarely work hard enough to succeed. They fear exposure, but only because they constantly lie. They fear conflict, but only because they are weak in body and character. They fear death, because they believe in nothing greater than themselves. They clamor for dominance of their surroundings because they wrongly believe that they can cheat fate and the consequences of their own terrible choices.

    The Safety Of The Mob

    The issue of fear extends into the common mindset of the totalitarian and how they find safety. The idea of standing on their own two feet and standing by their principles in the face of opposition is completely foreign to them. They avoid these situations at any cost and the notion of risk is abhorrent to them. So, they instead look for a mob to blend into. This makes them feel safe in obscurity while also wielding force through collectivist action. They can feel powerful while at the same time being pitiful and weak.

    These people almost always operate through large single minded groups that punish any dissension in the ranks, usually with gatekeepers that moderate the motivations of the hive.

    The mob itself is a weapon, its only purpose beyond the comfort of its adherents is to destroy those people that do not hold the same beliefs or values as the controllers. There is no defensive purpose to the mob; it is an assassin’s tool, it is a nuclear bomb. And, as we have seen in every modern dictatorship from the Bolsheviks in Russia to the Fascists in Germany to the communists in Mao’s China, the totalitarian mob is capable of murdering more people than any nuclear weapon in existence, all in the name of “the greater good of the greater number.”

    False Piety In Place Of Self Worth

    All tyrants believe themselves to be righteous in their cause, even when they know that their actions are morally abhorrent. I have seen this dynamic on bold display during the covid mandates and the vaccine passports initiatives. Consider for a moment that 99.7% of the population is under no legitimate threat from the covid virus; they will not die from it, and in the vast majority of cases they will recover quickly from it. Yet the covid cult consistently argues that people who refuse the mandates, the lockdowns and the vaccines are putting others at risk, which is why we need to be “forced” to submit.

    Most of them know according to the data that covid is not a threat, but the narrative gives them an opportunity to apply power through “moral judgment”, and so they lie, and they continue to lie about the data until they think the lie will be accepted as reality. This is a common aspect of most cults and of fundamentalist religions that have gone astray – The habit of adherents to value lies over facts and evidence not because they are trying to protect their faith, but because it affords them the chance to feel pious and superior to those they are determined to harm.

    Those who disagree are labeled heretics, the lowest of the low, the unwashed terrorists. The anti-mandate crowd is thus stripped of its humanity in this way and is painted as demonic. The people who want to remain free become monsters, and the totalitarian monsters become heroes out to save the world. As author Robert Anton Wilson once said:

    “The obedient always think of themselves as virtuous rather than cowardly.”

    The Love Of A Cage

    I feel as though I understand this mindset to an extent, but it never fails to shock me the way in which people who scratch and scrape for power over others also seem to love being slaves to the system. I’m not so sure that it is ironic, as authoritarianism does fulfill some of its promises of “security” as long as the people involved are willing to trade away any impulses of liberty. If you do as you’re told at all times and serve the system without fail, then there is a good chance you will be able to hold onto the meager necessities of survival. You will live a life, though probably not a happy one.

    For those that go above and beyond and cast aside all personal principle in order to further the goals of the system, they might even enjoy a modicum of wealth beyond their peers. You see, in a despotic society, the people who are most without honor are the people that are most rewarded. They don’t need merit, or accomplishment, or skills, or even brains; all they have to do it sell their souls and do whatever it takes to catch the eye of the oligarchy. They don’t have to be good at anything, all they have to do is be evil, and for some people that’s easy.

    In this way the system becomes a comfortable blanket that otherwise useless deviants can be swaddled in. They wrap themselves in it and luxuriate in its warmth. They are not concerned with freedom because freedom feels cold to them. Freedom can be isolating and the existence of choice is terrifying. When all your choices are made for you there is never any doubt or internal stress. All that is required is that you wake up each day and obey.

    For weak and ignorant people, subservience is a gift instead of a curse. They believe that a cage is meant to be gilded, not escaped from, and anyone that seeks escape must be crazy or dangerous. If free people exist then the slaves are forced to question their own condition and their own compliance, so everyone must be enslaved to remove any and all doubt from society. The hive mind is placed above all else.

    The Defiant And Free

    The little tyrants that infiltrate humanity probably look at liberty advocates as some kind of alien creatures from far beyond the bounds of their universe. They just can’t fathom how it is possible for someone to defy the system, to stand against the mob or the collective, even when they are outnumbered or when the risk is so high. They assume that it is a form of madness or a lack of intelligence; for how could anyone smart think they have a chance of fighting back against the dictatorship?

    Liberty people are individualists by nature, but we also care about the freedoms of others. There is a common propaganda narrative that claims that individualists are “selfish”, but this is not the case at all. It is not enough for us alone to escape slavery, we will not stand by and watch others be forced into bondage either. We are willing to risk our lives not just to save ourselves but to save future generations from autocracy.

    As the vaccine passports and mandates continue to escalate the totalitarians will find themselves even more bewildered, because each new mechanism of control will result in even greater impetus for rebellion, and frankly at this point it is going to be us, or them. They will not stop their pursuit of dominion and we will not comply, so we are at an impasse. Our two tribes cannot coexist within the same society, maybe not even the same planet.

    The truth is that if voluntarism was a valued ideal then this whole fight could be avoided. If the collectivist cult was willing to accept the notion that they can choose to live in a highly micromanaged environment while others can choose to live independently, then there would be no crisis. We could easily go our separate ways. But this is not how totalitarians think: To them, all people are chattel, we are property to be staked down and reeducated until we see the light. And if we don’t see the light, we are to be done away with and erased.

    This is why they are utterly to blame for the war that is coming. They cannot stop themselves from grasping for our throats and our minds. They are addicted to supremacy. They are living in a fever dream and the only drug that cools their veins is total oppression of everyone around them. I see what is coming next and it is not pretty for either side, but it will be especially gruesome for the collectivists because they cannot imagine a scenario in which they lose. They are so certain of their preeminence and the safety of their self imposed prisons that they will see failure as a phantom, a ghost that cannot touch them. It would only take a handful of minor defeats to bring them down, but this requires freedom advocates become more organized than they are.

    The bottom line is this: Tyrannical systems are planned by elitists groups and governments and it is they that benefit most from the destruction of public freedoms. It is indeed a conspiracy, and the pandemic lockdowns and forced vaccine response are no exception. However, tyrannical systems could not be executed without the help of a larger psychopathic contingent of the population, and these people congregate together to make terrible things happen. It’s as if they hear a silent dog whistle as totalitarianism rises, or they smell the blood of innocent victims in the air.

    Call them leftists, call them communists, call them collectivists, call them whatever you want; but know that the globalists are not our only concern. There is a wall of self absorbed and power hungry peons in the way, and they want whatever scraps they can get from the big boy’s table. They are not oblivious; they have not been tricked into doing the things they do. They are a sad and pathetic bunch but they are still dangerous in their ambitions, and they will continue to slither out of the woodwork as the covid agenda progresses.

    *  *  *

    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
    Fri, 08/13/2021 – 00:05

  • Beirut Goes Dark As Economic Tailspin Sees Dire Fuel & Electricity Shortages 
    Beirut Goes Dark As Economic Tailspin Sees Dire Fuel & Electricity Shortages 

    Starting Wednesday night Lebanon’s Central Bank announced that fuel subsidies have been halted, already at a moment where there’s been scarcity of both gas and electricity. Fuel prices are expected to at least quadruple, leading to a national scramble for fuel, exacerbating rolling blackouts akin to what’s become the tragic “norm” of recent years in neighboring war-torn Syrian.

    International reports are underscoring that the enduring economic crisis beginning in 2019 which sparked a year of mass protests and a currency crisis, and subsequent failed attempts to stave off total collapse amid a drastic “shock” change in government, are now coming to a head, sending already impoverished areas of the country of nearly seven million spiraling into steadily worsened conditions.

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    Regional director of humanitarian aid NGO Crisis Group, Heiko Wimmen, was cited in CNN as saying “This is obviously going to ripple through the whole economy.” He emphasized that seemingly overnight basic staples that support daily life have now become a “luxury”.

    “For a large part of the population, electricity will become a luxury. Driving your car will become a luxury, too. Transportation will become a luxury,” Wimmen added.

    The cutting of subsidies was expected, but still a “shock” nonetheless. Like everything else in Lebanon energy has been severely mismanaged, after already the government suspended lines of credit to fuel importers.

    AFP

    So the sudden liberalization of fuel prices meant whole villages, towns, and parts of cities were plunged into darkness overnight as not even generators could keep the lights on:

    The ripple effects of the decision came before the decision itself. Petrol stations across the country shuttered. Highways became clogged by long lines that snaked out of the few petrol pumps that remained open. Many bakeries have closed. Factories, including one that supplies the majority of Lebanon’s intravenous lines to hospitals, closed. They blamed diesel exhaustion.

    Several towns and neighborhoods, already suffering from the effects of long outages from state electricity, lost access to diesel, which is needed to power backup generators, and were plunged into darkness.

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    Over past months there were increasing scenes of astoundingly long lines at gas stations, with fights and disputes over supplies becoming almost routine. 

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    And it appears rolling blackouts have even hit Beirut International Airport, which is a major hub for the entire region…

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    Even food and medicines are now running scarce, as The New York Times detailed this week: “The supply of medicines has also become unreliable. At a pharmacy, a line stretched, where anxious shoppers sought medicines that are now scarce, such as pain killers & blood pressure meds.”

    By all accounts things look to get worse before they get better – and compounding all this remains US and EU sanctions on both Lebanon and Syria.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/12/2021 – 23:45

  • "Defund The Police" Is A Problem; Not Prosecuting Criminals Is Worse…
    “Defund The Police” Is A Problem; Not Prosecuting Criminals Is Worse…

    Authored by Pedro Gonzalez via NationalInterest.org,

    The Democratic Party has spent months retreating from its progressive incantations about defunding the police after discovering, to their surprise, that most Americans are yet fond of their unmolested person and property. Unfortunately for Democrats, Missouri Rep. Cori Bush has ruined their egress from a messaging disaster.

    In an interview with CBS, Bush defended spending $70,000 on a private security detail amid her calls for eliminating the boys in blue.

    “So suck it up and defunding the police has to happen,” she huffed, “we need to defund the police and put that money into social safety nets.” In other words, protection for me but not for thee.

    Her comments occurred in the shadow of a crime wave so big that it has become impossible to ignore.

    Citing police data, the Washington Post reported 462 homicides in New York City last year, up from 319 the previous year. Phoenix counted 200 homicides last year, up from 139 in 2019. In Philadelphia, there were 499 homicides last year, up from 356 a year earlier. These trends are everywhere.

    Bush’s honesty understandably caused a stir, even within the Democratic Party, because she has handed Republicans fodder for campaign messaging. But the truth is, one need not defund the police to impair their ability to fight crime.

    In St. Louis, prosecutors in the office of Attorney Kim Gardner failed to appear at a series of pretrial hearings for accused murderer Brandon Campbell. Consequently, a judge dropped the murder charges against him.

    The St. Louis attorney has made a name for herself as a progressive activist. Gardner doggedly pursued Mark and Patricia McCloskey after they confronted left-wing agitators outside their home with firearms. After the McCloskeys successfully argued Gardner’s personal politics had infected the proceedings, she was removed from the case. The local NBC news affiliate reported she had used the case in campaign fundraising emails before and after the charges were issued.

    Gardner’s office missed multiple hearings related to the Campbell case; Gardner herself failed to respond to an email from the accused murderer’s attorney.

    “Kim Gardner is a poor excuse for a prosecutor,” said Brandy Veasley, one of the victim’s sisters.

    “It’s not fair.”

    It’s not fair, but Gardner is, in fact, playing her part in the politicized legal regime.

    For now, police are still allowed, though certainly discouraged, from policing violent crime, especially when the suspect is a minority.

    But increasingly, the people they pick off the streets travel through a revolving door tended to by so-called “reform” bureaucrats like Kim Gardner. 

    The Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund is one of the only organizations keeping track of prosecutorial malpractice. They found a 20 percent increase in dropped or lost felony cases nationwide and a 19 percent decline in guilty verdicts or pleas. Wherever prosecutions have declined, crime has climbed—and it’s not just blue states.

    In Dallas, Texas, guilty verdicts or pleas have fallen by 30 percent, while dropped or lost cases have increased 18 percent under Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot.

    As if to antagonize critics, Creuzot has openly bragged that his campaign was largely funded “through [George] Soros. And I got money through the Texas Organizing project.” Under his reign, everything from assault to auto theft has steadily risen. According to police data, there were twelve homicides and 469 aggravated assaults in March, both increasing over the previous year.

    Chants of “F— the [Fraternal Order of Police]” accompanied Larry Krasner’s victory party when he won the primary to be Philadelphia District Attorney in 2017. Like Creuzot, Krasner applies a gentle hand on violent criminals, even promoting the appeal of convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jama. Since Krasner took office, guilty pleas or verdicts are down, lost or dropped cases are up, and aggravated assaults by shootings have risen 18 percent.

    In New York, hundreds of looters arrested last year during the George Floyd riots have had charges against them dropped by a friendly legal system. Police risked life and limb to take back the streets then; looters even ran over some officers. But all seems to be forgiven now.

    Police across America find themselves between a rock and a hard place. Doing their job risks vilification, but often what good they can do is undercut by a legal system with a pathological affection for the criminal. Moreover, in major cities, police chiefs can become virtually indistinguishable from bureaucrats who are more concerned with political patronage than the safety of their officers or the community they are supposed to serve.

    Democrats, in truth, are torn on the issue of defunding the police. On the one hand, they don’t necessarily want to eliminate law enforcement so much as they want to change its priorities, policing the law-abiding instead of the law-breaking. On the other hand, Bush’s comments illustrate that security increasingly appears to be a luxury for those who can afford it and those whose politics align with the zeitgeist of depravity.

    In either case, the breakdown of the central social and ethical standards in society which law enforcement is intended to help maintain will continue, and when the center cannot hold, nothing good follows.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/12/2021 – 23:25

  • Cargo Ship Splits In Half After Running Aground Off Japanese Port
    Cargo Ship Splits In Half After Running Aground Off Japanese Port

    Wood chip carrier Crimson Polaris ran aground in the northern Japan harbor, broke into two, and remains adrift Thursday. The main section of the dry bulk carrier, carrying thousands of tons of wood chips, remains anchored. 

    “The hull of the vessel, a dedicated wood-chip carrier operated by NYK, split in two at 4:15 am on August 12, and oil from the vessel has spilled into the ocean. The amount is currently under investigation,” NYK wrote in a statement. 

    NYK, the ship’s operator, confirmed the vessel was “swept away by a strong wind while anchored and resultantly ran aground.”

    NYK statement:

    Crimson Polaris, a dedicated wood-chip carrier operated by NYK, was swept away by a strong wind while anchored and resultantly ran aground off Hachinohe in Aomori prefecture at around 7:35 am (JST) on August 11.

    Afterward, a portion of the ship’s wood-chip cargo was lost from the damaged part of the hull, NYK is currently confirming the amount of cargo and the impact on the sea area at the site. Fortunately, no oil pollution has occurred. All crew members have been evacuated from the ship with the cooperation of the Japan Coast Guard, and those seafarers have been confirmed to be safe.

    The vessel is owned by MI-DAS Line S.A. and managed by Misuga Kaiun Co. Ltd. NYK is currently chartering this ship from the shipowner.

    NYK has organized a crisis management center lead by NYK president Hitoshi Nagasawa to rapidly address the situation. The company is cooperating with related parties based on advice from the Japan Coast Guard. Company personnel have been sent to the site, and necessary support will be provided to the shipowner and ship-management company. We hope the situation will be bought to a safe and timely conclusion.

    Bloomberg data shows the vessel remains adrift. 

    Video of the ship split in two shows a possible oil leak has developed. 

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    More images of the incident. 

    In a separate incident not too long ago, a roll-on/roll-off vessel sank off the coast of Japan due to weather-related issues. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/12/2021 – 23:05

  • Blinken's Diversity & Inclusion Plan Erodes Equality & Excellence
    Blinken’s Diversity & Inclusion Plan Erodes Equality & Excellence

    Authored by Peter Berkowitz via RealClear Politics (emphasis ours),

    On April 12, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the appointment of Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, a career Foreign Service Officer and former ambassador to Malta, as the State Department’s first chief diversity and inclusion officer (CDIO). On July 21, Blinken sent an unclassified cable to U.S. diplomatic and consular posts around the world to introduce Abercrombie-Winstanley — who, in her new position, reports directly to the secretary of state — and to tout the new Office for Diversity and Inclusion.

    A State Department that welcomes, and offers opportunities for advancement, to all Americans is a priority. Yet the lofty rhetoric of diversity and inclusion has often provided a cover for imposing ideological conformity and distributing benefits and burdens based on race. Therefore, Blinken’s new undertaking gives cause for concern. His near silence in the two official pronouncements about the personal qualities, educational attainments, professional achievements, and areas of expertise that the State Department values in building a workforce that responsibly conducts American foreign policy heightens apprehensions.

    To advance U.S. interests abroad, the State Department must live up to America’s highest principles by ensuring that service in the nation’s diplomatic corps is open to all citizens based on skills, talents, and character. Individuals with diverse experiences, opinions, and training enrich understanding within the department of the vast array of jobs, opportunities, and threats that the United States faces abroad. These range from efficient processing of visa requests and effective operation within international organizations to protect health and the environment to cooperating with friends and partners to counter the Chinese Communist Party’s aim in every region of the globe to reorient world order around Beijing’s authoritarian imperatives.

    But the soothing words “diversity and inclusion” mask a different agenda. Blinken seems to believe that turning race, ethnicity, and gender into crucial determinants of career advancement honors America’s highest principles and will enhance the State Department’s work.

    His April 12 remarks stress the comprehensiveness of the new undertaking, saying that “our Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan” aims at “aligning and advancing diversity and inclusion efforts across the department.” His July 21 cable emphasizes that the Office of Diversity and Inclusion has been structured, and provided with ample resources, to accomplish its ambitious task. An “11-person full-time staff” — including a “Deputy Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Chief of Staff, Chief Data Scientist, two Senior Advisors, two Strategic Communications Advisors, two Special Assistants, and two Staff Assistants” — reports to the chief diversity and inclusion officer. Supplementing the “core team” are “Foreign Service and Civil Service detailees, Presidential Management Fellow rotations, contractors, and interns.”

    The State Department must mobilize personnel and take decisive action because the problem is “systemic,” Blinken explained in April. “It goes much deeper than any one institution or any one administration — and it’s perpetuated by policies, practices, and people to this day.” Notwithstanding Blinken’s blanket claim, even the government report that examines under-representation of minorities in higher levels of the State Department bureaucracy offers the remarkable acknowledgement that “some unobservable factors that our analyses may not have captured include employees’ skills, motivation, performance, or abilities.” In neither his April remarks nor his July cable, moreover, does Blinken identify a single policy, practice, or person that perpetuates systemic racism in the State Department — where he served as deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 and which for 16 of the last 21 years has been led either by an African American secretary of state or has been accountable to an African American president.

    Nevertheless, Blinken insists that so pervasive and deep-seated is systemic discrimination at the State Department that “Promoting diversity and inclusion is the job of every single member of this department.” By asserting that advancing diversity and inclusion is “mission critical,” Blinken implies that systemic discrimination impairs the formulation and implementation of State Department policy. It would be useful, therefore, to know what role Blinken believes systemic discrimination played in the devising of an Iran deal that brought the ayatollahs billions of dollars and which supported their violent pursuit of hegemony throughout the region, in the failure to prevent North Korea’s acceleration of its nuclear program, and in the neglect of China’s increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea and around the world — all of which transpired while he served as deputy secretary of state.

    All department employees should treat colleagues courteously and respectfully and judge one another based on character and competence. It is something else to demand that every member of the State Department workforce promote select minorities and women. This conscripts employees into an experiment in social engineering that, according to Blinken, aims to “change the culture” at the State Department including “our norms, our behaviors, and our biases.”

    Blinken has put State Department employees on notice that whatever your task — from monitoring Islamic extremists to negotiating arms treaties to understanding China’s domestic tensions and global ambitions — you will be evaluated on your contribution to hiring, retaining, and promoting designated categories of people.

    Here a lesson from abroad is instructive. Highlighting differences among individuals ostensibly engaged in a joint enterprise by allocating power based on membership in identity groups has not fostered a devotion to common purpose in Lebanon, the Balkans, or almost anywhere else it has been tried. There is little to reason to expect that it will foster a sense of shared mission among the State Department’s tens of thousands of employees.

    Nor is there is good reason to hope that the Office of Diversity and Inclusion will, as Secretary Blinken promises, improve the State Department’s ability “to pursue U.S. national security interests in a world that grows ever more complex.” By institutionalizing within Foggy Bottom’s labyrinthine bureaucracy the imperative to focus on skin color, ethnic background, and gender in decisions about hiring, retention, and promotion, Blinken demotes questions of skill, talent, and character. Indeed, by reproducing within the State Department the education establishment’s obsession with identity politics, Blinken runs the risk of diverting the State Department from its principal tasks, as our schools have been sidetracked from transmitting knowledge and cultivating students’ ability to think for themselves.

    This is a reasonable inference from Joel Kotkin’s disquieting recent essay, “The End of Merit.” A fellow at the Claremont Institute Center for the American Way of Life and a fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University, Kotkin argues that schools’ concentration on systemic racism “both reflects and contributes to the ‘systemic’ decline of education itself.” The decline is measurable and costly: “Over time, our educational deficit with other countries, notably China, particularly in the acquisition of practical skills in mathematics, engineering, medical technology, and management, has grown, threatening our economic and political pre-eminence,” writes Kotkin. “In math, the OECD’s 2018 Program for International Student Assessment found the United States was outperformed by 36 countries, not only by China, but also Russia, Italy, France, Finland, Poland, and Canada.”

    The decline of our ability to compete will accelerate, suggests Kotkin, because the fixation on systemic racism in schools does not merely displace attention that would otherwise be focused on the acquisition of skills. It also vilifies the disciplined pursuit of excellence as itself an instrument of systemic racism. Educators imbued with the tenets of critical race theory assert, for example, “that ‘merit, meritocracy and especially meritocracy based on standardized testing’ are essentially ‘racist systems,’” observes Kotkin. “Some among the new racial cadres even denounce habits such as punctuality, rationality, and hard work as reflective of ‘racism’ and ‘white privilege.’”

    Secretary Blinken is far from endorsing such folly. Yet where are his initiatives to promote integrity and excellence in the workforce? What undertakings has he showcased to enhance diplomats’ understanding of our partners as well as our competitors by, say, creating incentives to increase the number of officials who attain fluency in critical foreign languages? When will he boast of new programs to recruit to the State Department, and train within its ranks, individuals whose knowledge of science and technology enables them to comprehend the intricacies of, and devise policies to address, the commercial, conventional military, and cybersecurity threats posed by China’s quest for dominance in artificial intelligence? 

    Instead of dividing its workforce by race, ethnicity, and gender, the State Department should treat all employees with equal respect, which is also the best means of fostering a common sense of purpose and attaining excellence throughout the ranks.

    Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. In 2019 and 2020, he served as Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department. His writings are posted at PeterBerkowitz.com and he can be followed on Twitter @BerkowitzPeter.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/12/2021 – 22:45

  • Shippers Frantic After China's Busiest Port Shuts Container Terminal Due To Covid
    Shippers Frantic After China’s Busiest Port Shuts Container Terminal Due To Covid

    We recently discussed how already astronomical container shipping costs are set to rise even higher should China lock down one or more shipping terminals to contain the spread of the delta variant in provinces that have direct exposure to global commerce (“Shipping Rates From China To US Hit Record $20,000 With No Drop In Sight” and “Brace For Astronomical Shipping Costs As China Goes Into Lockdown Mode“) with Goldman Sachs explicitly warning that “port closures or stricter control measures at ports could also put further upward pressure on shipping costs, which are already very high.”

    It now looks that this worst case scenario is in play after Chinese authorities on Wednesday closed a major container terminal at the Port of Ningbo after a dock worker tested positive for COVID, raising fears among traders that supply chain disruptions that occurred when Yantian terminal in Shenzhen reduced output by 70% for a month earlier this summer would be repeated. 

    According to FreightWaves which cited local media reports and logistics operators, all operations at the Ningbo Meidong Container Terminal, also referred to as the Meishan Terminal, were immediately suspended following the positive test results.

    “With this sudden suspension, we expect a delay in planned sailings that might affect your cargo planning. Please know that we are working on alternatives, and hope for your understanding on a matter that is beyond our control,” German vessel operator Hapag-Lloyd said in a customer notice posted on its website, anticipating the howls of rage as already stratospheric shipping rates are poised to surge.

    There are five container terminals in Ningbo. The port’s decision to shut down vessel and gate operations for at least a day effectively eliminated 20% of the port’s capacity.

    Ningbo is the third-largest container port in the world after Shanghai and Singapore, but the most . It handled more freight in the first seven months of this year – 18.7 million twenty-foot equivalent units – than any other port in China, the Ministry of Transportation said last week. 

    The Port of Ningbo in eastern China.

    The consequences of the shutdown are already apparent: on Thursday, Mediterranean Shipping Co. pushed back estimated arrival times for two vessels departing Ningbo to the U.S. The MSC Danit, on the Sequoi service, is now scheduled to arrive on the U.S. west coast on Sept. 15, and the Maersk Seville, on the Lone Star service and part of the 2M Alliance, will arrive at its first east coast port on Oct. 2, according to an updated schedule issued Thursday.

    With vessels rerouted to Shanghai, ports in the area are experiencing a fresh burst of congestion, with about 30 vessels waiting on anchor at the Yangshan port. The chart below from Refinitiv shows vessel congestion in Shanghai & Ningbo’s main ports.

    If the outbreak spreads and authorities take further steps to lock down, the impact potentially could be greater than what happened at Yantian in late May and June according to FreightWaves. The limited activity in Yantian forced vessels to wait more than a week to reach a berth and created ripple effects worldwide. Many vessels skipped Yantian for other ports in south China, creating massive congestion in those locations. Backlogged shipments took weeks to clear from the docks and are still being pulled from warehouses and factories, upsetting delivery schedules for retailers and manufacturers.

    “If something goes sideways in Ningbo, it’s going to be a real problem. At least as big, potentially, as what happened in Yantian,” a sea freight executive at a large logistics company said during a customer briefing American Shipper was privy to.

    The freight forwarding division of C.H. Robinson told customers in an email notice to expect port delays and congestion.

    Any lengthy closure could result in cargo diversion to other terminals and ports, putting a strain on their operations and exacerbating capacity challenges that have led to record shipping rates 10 times greater than normal for certain routes.

    As Michael Every concluded in his daily note this morning, Delta is leading to further disruption to shipping at China’s busiest ports, and even Vietnamese and Thai production are being impacted by the virus. In short, shipping snarls are going to get worse. Anecdotes are of shippers telling clients they will not deliver except at a premium; of smaller firms, and countries, being pushed down the priority list; of ships refusing to pick up goods exports from some locations; and of a structural supply-demand mismatch of sought-after shipping containers.

    It is against this backdrop that another supply-chain snafu is emerging, and unless contained quick, could lead to a dramatic deterioration in global shipping logistics just as optimism was emerging that the historic logjam was set to normalize by early 2022.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/12/2021 – 22:25

  • Biden Sending Troops To Afghanistan To Help Evacuate US Embassy Staff
    Biden Sending Troops To Afghanistan To Help Evacuate US Embassy Staff

    Submitted by Jack Phillips of Epoch Times

    Green zone in Kabul, Afghanistan

    American troops will be deployed to aid the evacuation of some U.S. Embassy personnel in Kabul amid significant Taliban military gains across Afghanistan, a senior U.S. Department of State official confirmed on Thursday.

    Around 3,000 US troops, including two Marine infantry battalions and one Army infantry battalion, will be deployed to the Kabul airport to secure the civilian population, said Department of Defense spokesman John Kirby in a news conference. Diplomatic work will still continue at the embassy, said State Department spokesman Ned Price during a separate press briefing.

    “This is a temporary mission with a narrow focus,” Kirby said. “We’re mindful that the security situation continues to deteriorate in Afghanistan. And as I said before, our troops will as always have the right of self-defense. But this is a narrowly focused mission to help safeguard an orderly reduction of civilians.”

    The United States, Price said, is “further reducing our civilian footprint in Kabul in light of the evolving security situation” and said the Department of Defense will “temporarily deploy additional personnel to Hamid Karzai International Airport.”

    Price said the U.S. military will also help with the departure of embassy and State Department staff from Afghanistan “in the coming weeks,” but he emphasized: “This is not a full evacuation.”

    “This is not abandonment. This is not an evacuation. This is not the wholesale withdrawal,” Price also said. ‘It’s a very important distinction between planning and contingency planning,” he said, without providing more details. “We will continue to have a diplomatic presence on the ground.”

    However, the move suggests the Biden administration doesn’t have confidence in the Afghan government’s capacity to push back the Taliban after the terror group took over swaths of the country, including the third-largest city, in recent days. It comes a few months after President Joe Biden ordered a full withdrawal.

    The Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001, has no air force or navy and is vastly outnumbered by U.S.-trained Afghan army forces but was able to take provincial capital after provincial capital with alacrity. Anonymous U.S. officials have told media outlets that the Afghan government army has collapsed even faster than previously thought possible.

    The U.S. embassy in Kabul, in a fresh warning to American citizens, urged them to leave Afghanistan immediately. Its ability to assist Americans in the country will soon be “extremely limited,” according to the bulletin, due to reduced staffing and security concerns.

    President Joe Biden initially set Sept. 11 as the target date for all American forces to be pulled out of the beleaguered country, coming 20 years after the terrorist attacks that propelled the United States into the war.

    “We spent over $1 trillion over 20 years. We trained and equipped with modern equipment over 300,000 Afghan forces. And Afghan leaders have to come together. We lost thousands, we lost to death and injury, thousands of American personnel. They’ve got to fight for themselves, fight for their nation,” Biden said in recent remarks.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/12/2021 – 22:08

  • Another Industrial Metal Hits Record High Prices: Aluminum Billet
    Another Industrial Metal Hits Record High Prices: Aluminum Billet

    Commodities, including industrial metals, have exploded to the upside due to an unprecedented amount of pandemic-driven government stimulus. The latest metal to hit news highs is a specialized aluminum known as billet. 

    The aluminum billet is used in several applications such as automotive, transport, buildings, heat transfer, general engineering, electronics, and aviation.

    With central banks and governments flooding the world with stimuli, supercharging the global economy, along with tight supplies due to supply chain disruptions, prices of aluminum billet have leaped to all-time highs, according to Bloomberg data. 

    Aluminum spot prices are up more than 30% on the London Metal Exchange this year. Buyers are paying an even higher premium over futures to obtain aluminum billets. Bloomberg shows in the chart below that combined price and premium for buyers in Europe now exceeds $3,750 a ton, the highest ever, taking out the highs in 2007-08. 

    Bloomberg explains several factors for the surge in the industrial metal:

    Aluminum’s rally has been driven by a rebound in construction as economies open, and supply issues including power shortages that dented Chinese output. For the coming years, analysts and traders expect further gains as usage in electric vehicles and renewables accelerates and China cracks down on energy-intensive industries. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. forecasts futures prices to hit a record by late next year.

    In a recent webinar organized by Commodities People, Andrew Busch, an economist with the Bank of the Philippine Islands, said a “massive wall of money and momentum in the US economy is driving demand for commodities.” 

    Below we show how the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet expansion has been bullish for the Bloomberg Industrial Metals index.

    The question we have: What happens to industrial metal prices if Democrats and the Biden administration can push through a multi-trillion dollar infrastructure spending bill? 

    Indeed this would exacerbate inflationary forces and force commodity prices even higher. 

    Here’s what the ING Commodities desk had to say about this:

    The metals complex regained some buoyancy on Wednesday after the US Senate passed a US$550 billion infrastructure plan, sparking some optimism for US metals demand. However, the bill may face further hurdles in the House, which is scheduled to be on a break until 20 September. Meanwhile, a slightly weaker dollar after US inflation data provided further support to metals. Copper was the exception, with LME prices closing lower yesterday due to a reduced risk premium after mining company, BHP, reached a preliminary wage agreement with the union representing miners at its Escondida mine. The agreement will be put to a vote and must be signed by union leaders by Thursday. In addition, the Caserones copper mine in Chile continues to operate despite a strike by one of its biggest unions which began on Tuesday, as members of other unions continue to work. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/12/2021 – 21:45

  • California Governor Newsom Faces Imminent Recall And A Libertarian Might Win
    California Governor Newsom Faces Imminent Recall And A Libertarian Might Win

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    Larry Elder, a Libertarian, might be the next governor of California…

    Recall of Governor Gavin Newsom 

    A recall vote of California Governor Gavin Newsom is in progress. It started over Newsom’s handing of Covid and most figured it was doomed.

    But in April 2021, the secretary of state certified that the effort had enough signatures to trigger a vote.

    The vote is on September 14. The vote has two parts: 

    Part one is a yes-or-no question: Shall the officeholder be recalled? Part two offers a list of successor candidates—46 have qualified in this recall. Each voter chooses one of them, and if the recall is successful, whichever candidate earns a plurality fills out the term.

    Larry Elder did not enter the race until July 12, but suddenly he is either leading or in second place depending on what poll one believes.

    Who Is Larry Elder?

    The Sacramento Bee reports Right-Wing Talk Show Host is Leading the California Recall Election Polls.

    From minimum wage to Black Lives Matter, Donald Trump to the War on Drugs, Elder has taken a number of far-right conservative positions over the years. 

    The article reads like a hit piece on Trump. He is actually a Libertarian, not right-wing.

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    Elder Does Not Believe in Minimum Wages

    Similarly, the Washington Post goes after Elder in Meet the leading candidate to unseat California’s governor — who doesn’t believe in the minimum wage

    Radio host Larry Elder, the leading opponent to California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), has long embraced the position that the minimum wage is unnecessary. The conservative even told a newspaper editorial board last week that “the ideal minimum wage is $0.00,” adding, “Why two people who are adults can’t determine what the price of labor ought to be is beyond me.”

    Most polls — though not all — show that if Newsom goes down, Elder will get a plurality of the voters, despite the fact that Elder announced his run only last month. (One poll shows voters favoring little-known Democrat Kevin Paffrath, a YouTube vlogger.)

    Elder has zero elected government experience. He’s an ardent Trump supporter in a state where even many Republicans find the former president abhorrent. He didn’t even bother to show up to Wednesday night’s Republican candidates’ debate.

    It seems unfathomable that Californians actually support what amounts to Elder’s fringe, right-wing position on worker pay. Despite the fact that the federal government has left the federal minimum wage at a paltry $7.25 an hour for more than a decade, California has moved aggressively to raise the lowest hourly earnings for its workers.

    Could a Conservative Replace Gavin Newsom?

    The Wall Street Journal gets the idea correctly: 

    “A quixotic effort to recall California’s governor is suddenly gaining steam. And libertarian radio host Larry Elder is the front-runner,” reports the WSJ.

    Please consider Could a Conservative Replace Gavin Newsom?

    He describes himself as libertarian—which means liberal on cultural issues like same-sex marriage. His dad instilled an ethos of self-reliance and personal responsibility. “My father always told us, hard work wins,” he says. “You can’t control the outcome, but you’re 100% in control of the effort.” 

    Mr. Elder ticks off numbers like a sportscaster. “There are 300,000 public-school teachers in California. It is estimated by virtually every expert I talk to that a minimum of 5% of them are incompetent. That’s 15,000 teachers walking through the corridors of our schools, educating our kids. Now, we wouldn’t put up with that with the LAPD”—the Los Angeles Police Department.

    “There was recently a study that showed two-thirds of black parents do not want to send their kids back to the Los Angeles School District, and one of the reasons they cite is ‘systemic racism,’ ” he says. “What they mean is this: the worst teachers end up in the urban schools. They don’t end up on the West Side, they don’t end up in the Valley; the worst teachers end up in the urban schools. And black and brown parents are aware of this, and they want something done about it.”

    Mr. Elder supports an initiative that the California School Choice Foundation may place on the November 2022 ballot to establish education savings accounts, allowing parents to use taxpayer dollars that would normally go to zoned public schools for private-school tuition, homeschooling and other education-related expenses.

    “You can now steal up to $950 without being guilty of a felony if you get caught. If you get caught, you get a ticket as a misdemeanor,” Mr. Elder says. That feeds addiction, as many shoplifters support their drug habits by selling stolen goods. “And by the way, it’s not just $950—it’s $950 every single day, at every single place, which is why you’re finding places like Walmart, Target that are closing up—because they can’t make any money, because people are stealing. Or they’re cutting hours and hurting the very employees that used to work there.”

    The Democratic secretary of state moved to keep Mr. Elder off the ballot because he didn’t properly redact personal information on 300 pages of personal tax returns he submitted. Mr. Elder sued and won his ballot spot.

    Face-ism

    “People have asked me whether or not this is some sort of attack against Larry Elder, whether or not it was racism. Well, the secretary of state happens to be a black female, and I’ve always said it’s not racism that they were engaging it, it’s ‘face-ism,’ meaning this particular face,” he says. “I’m from the inner city. I’m a product of public schools. . . . I believe that they’re afraid of my ability to explain these kinds of things in ways that Joe and Joanne Six Pack can understand, and in ways more effectively than Republicans have in the past.” 

    Is the Golden State ready for a political turn? “I hope it’s becoming more conservative, but I can’t say that,” Mr. Elder says. “All I know is people are fed up.”

    California Democratic Party instructs voters to leave ballot question 2 blank

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    People Are Fed Up

    The key idea is “people are fed up”. 

    If they weren’t a Newsom recall would have zero chance in Democrat-led California.

    Of the 46 candidates to replace Newsom, only one is a Democrat. 

    If that was the only fact I had, I would place Elder’s chances at roughly zero percent.

    But here we are. 

    Expect the unions to launch an all out push for the Governor. 

    This will be decided on Turnout. If Democrats sit this out, and people of common sense do turn out, Elders has a good shot. 

    I am astonished by the Party’s recommendation to leave question 2 blank. 

    I believe that is bad instruction by Newsom and hope Democrats follow it.

    It would also help if some of Republicans dropped out and backed Elders.

    Good luck and best wishes to Elders.

    *  *  *

    Like these reports? I hope so, and if you do, please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/12/2021 – 21:25

  • Plunging Crop Supplies Send Prices Soaring And Reignite Food Inflation Fears, WASDE Reports
    Plunging Crop Supplies Send Prices Soaring And Reignite Food Inflation Fears, WASDE Reports

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report was released Thursday afternoon and pointed to declining grain supplies that sent grain futures prices higher and will keep food inflation in focus. 

    The closely watched supply and demand report slashed estimates for corn yields and stockpiles. World inventories for wheat were reported near a five-year low. 

    Grain and oilseed futures soared to a near-decade high earlier this year but have been in a holding pattern for the last month, awaiting new reports on the outlook for upcoming U.S. harvests. A megadrought and back-to-back heat waves have plagued the corn belt and the U.S. West for much of the summer. 

    December corn futures were up more than 2% to $5.7150 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, soybean futures popped on the report and are now flat at the end of the U.S. cash session, wheat futures rose more than 3%, hitting a fresh eight-year high.

    The Bloomberg Grains Index closed up 1% on the report. 

    Bloomberg outlines the key takeaways from the August WASDE report: 

    • DROUGHT BITES: U.S. corn and soybean yields fell below analyst expectations and the declines were largely centered in the drought-stricken northern Plains, where severe drought has withered crops.

    • RUSSIA: So goes Russia’s harvest, so goes the wheat market. A large cut in the harvest means a lot less global wheat supplies and Russia’s wheat-export throne as the world’s top shipper is in doubt with the current forecast in line with exports out of the E.U.

    • WHEAT PEAK: Benchmark Chicago wheat prices hit the highest levels for a most-active contract since 2013. Corn and soybeans each touched multi-week highs but remain below multi-year peaks from earlier in 2021.

    • YOUR MOVE, FUNDS: With the USDA seeming to appease bullish traders with aggressive cuts and dry weather continuing to grip the Plains, an influx of speculative buying could bring the rally in grains, nearly a year-old at this point, to new heights.

    • FOOD INFLATION: Of course, with grain and soybean prices elevated for months, the higher costs should start to filter through the supply chain, pointing to higher prices for feed, seed, fertilizer, food and other goods.

    This report means that adverse weather conditions are another driver of food inflation that shows no signs of stopping. We noted not too long ago, grocery store prices were expected to rise through the fall. Earlier this week, Tyson Foods Inc. said the surge in raw materials costs would force them to raise food prices in the coming weeks.  

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/12/2021 – 21:05

  • Tearful Virginia Teacher Resigns At School Board Meeting, Denounces "Highly Politicized Agendas"
    Tearful Virginia Teacher Resigns At School Board Meeting, Denounces “Highly Politicized Agendas”

    Authored by Masooma Haq via The Epoch Times,

    A Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) teacher in Virginia resigned in front of the school board Tuesday, saying that she refused to “be a cog in a machine” that forces her to transmit their “highly politicized agendas” to children.

    “Within the last year, I was told, in one of my so-called equity trainings, that white, Christian, able-bodied females currently have the power in our schools and that ‘this has to change,’” said the elementary school teacher Laura Morris during the public comment portion of the board meeting.

    Loudoun County, Virginia, has become a national focal point for the debate about teaching the divisive critical race theory in schools.

    “Clearly, you’ve made your point. You no longer value me or many other teachers you’ve employed in this county. So, since my contract outlines the power that you have over my employment in Loudoun County Public Schools, I thought it necessary to resign in front of you,” said the 5th-grade teacher.

    “School board, I quit,” she said.

    “I quit your policies, I quit your training, and I quit being a cog in a machine that tells me to push highly politicized agendas on our most vulnerable constituents—the children,” Morris added.

    In June, Loudoun County schools’ superintendent told Fox News, “Critical race theory is not something that is relatable on the K–12 level. It’s not taught in our school.”

    Monica Gill, an LCPS AP Government and U.S. History teacher of 25 years, said the district may say they don’t use critical race theory, but Ibram Kendi’s books are required reading for some of the county’s teachers. Gill said the board needs to embrace Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s message of unity and love, not Kendi’s message of division and discrimination.

    Kendi is an author, professor, and anti-racism activist whose work informs critical race theory and who has called for dismantling racist systems in America.

    “I have never been afraid to deal with issues of racism or injustice in our history, not once. It gives me the opportunity to point to America’s moral compass, which we have used time and time again to right those wrongs,” said Gill.

    “So, it is not that teachers like myself—and there are more of us than you think—or the parents who stand behind me don’t want to teach about racism. It’s that we don’t want our kids taught through this distorted lens of race.”

    LCPS’ Superintendent Scott A. Ziegler on March 19 issued a statement to defend his district against claims that they were using the debated critical race theory curriculum and “to clarify many of the misperceptions being reported by certain media outlets and social media.”

    “In explaining LCPS’ equity priorities, it might be helpful to state what they are not. They are not an effort to indoctrinate students and staff into a particular philosophy or theory. What they are is an effort to provide a welcoming, inclusive, affirming environment for all students,” he wrote.

    Morris also alleged that the county told her not to express opposing views.

    “Concepts such as white supremacy and systemic racism are discussed during professional development. LCPS has not adopted Critical Race Theory as a framework for staff to adhere to. Social media rumors that staff members have been disciplined or fired for not adhering to the tenets of Critical Race Theory or for refusing to teach this theory are not true,” Ziegler wrote.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/12/2021 – 20:45

  • Newsom Handed Win After California California Supreme Court Won't Hear GOP Case Against Vote-By-Mail 'Overreach'
    Newsom Handed Win After California California Supreme Court Won’t Hear GOP Case Against Vote-By-Mail ‘Overreach’

    The California Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to hear an appeal arguing that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) acted illegally when he issued an executive order laying out procedures for a mail-in election, according to the Sacramento Bee.

    The California Supreme Court denied the petition for review submitted by Assemblymen James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, and Kevin Kiley, R-Rocklin, which allows a lower-court ruling affirming Newsom’s powers to stand.

    Gallagher and Kiley sued the governor last year, saying the Democrat acted illegally when he issued an executive order laying out procedures for a mail-in election. The lawmakers, who represented themselves in court, said Newsom had unconstitutionally used executive action under the California Emergency Services Act when he changed how the state would conduct elections that year. -Sacramento Bee

    The appeal comes after the 3rd District Court of Appeals reversed a decision by a Sutter County Superior Court Judge, who sided with the GOP lawmakers last fall. The appeals court found in may that Newsom’s order complied with the state’s Emergency Services Act, giving him expanded powers in extreme circumstances. 

    “We conclude the issuance of such orders did not constitute an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power,” wrote the appeals court.

    Gallagher tweeted his disappointment on Wednesday:

    “I want everyone to understand what the CA Supreme Court passed on:  Newsom changing your election laws overnight to 1) shorten the number of days you can vote; 2) eliminate traditional polling places; 3) eliminate the need for publicly noticed meetings with voting rights groups,” adding “We argued only the Legislature can amend law, can’t do that by EO it’s blatantly unconstitutional.”

    Newsom staffer Erin Mellon said the administration was pleased with the court’s decision not to hear a “misguided attack on California’s Emergency Services Act” which allows the state to rapidly respond to emergencies.

    “It’s a law that carefully balances the Legislature’s and Governor’s roles, and we’re glad the state Supreme Court recognized there was no need to entertain fringe legal theories that sought to upset that balance,” said Mellon.

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/12/2021 – 20:25

  • Here We Go Again… WHO Announces The "Marburg Virus"
    Here We Go Again… WHO Announces The “Marburg Virus”

    Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

    If you’ve been wondering what the next phase of this public health insanity is going to look like, your wait is over.

    Introducing… the MARBURG VIRUS.

    Earlier this week, as police fanned out across the streets of Paris going table-to-table in cafes to check people’s Covid papers, and as the Australian military deployed to the streets of Sydney to enforce extended lockdowns, the World Health Organization announced a brand new outbreak of the “Marburg Virus” in West Africa.

    Marburg is yet another highly infectious virus, and one that the WHO has classified as the highest level biological threat– “Risk Group 4”.

    (By comparison, SARS-Cov-2 is a lower, “Risk Group 3” biological agent.)

    Marburg comes from the same virus family as Ebola. And, while Covid-1984 has a roughly 1.7% fatality rate according to CDC data, the limited data from the past 20 years of Marburg cases shows a fatality rate of 85%.

    One person died from the Marburg virus in Guinea last week, and authorities there estimate that 145 people may have been in contact with him and potentially exposed to the virus.

    Here we go again…

    Public health policy is starting to look like a never-ending Mobius Strip– where we just go around an endless loop repeating the same things over and over again.

    Judging by harsh lockdowns, mask mandates, and police enforcement around the world due to the Delta variant, it looks like it’s April 2020 all over again.

    Even places that had some of the most extreme public health protocols, like Australia, have found themselves completely hapless in trying to combat Covid.

    Surprise, surprise. It turns out that you can’t wait out a virus. You can’t legislate it away. You can’t make it go away with endless money printing and fiscal stimulus.

    Human beings have had to content with influenza for at least eight thousand years. No public health official has ever been able to eradicate it.

    In fact the only virus that has ever been officially eradicated (according to the World Health Organization) among the human population is smallpox. But even that’s not actually true because smallpox is still used by terrorists and dictators as a biological weapon.

    But that hasn’t stopped public health officials from waging an endless crusade to play whack-a-mole with Covid.

    They have seized unconstitutional, dictatorial powers to control nearly every aspect of our lives. Stay home. Wear three masks. Shun human contact. No sex. Take this injection. Face the wall in elevators. Avoid speaking. Don’t ask questions. Obey.

    It’s also completely obvious these public health overlords lack any objectivity.

    There is almost zero discussion about natural immunity for people who already had Covid. Similarly, there’s very little attention given to the extensive research about treatment options for Covid.

    There are mountains of data, for example, across dozens of randomized control trials and peer-reviewed studies involving tens of thousands of patients, demonstrating that the drug Ivermectin is associated with a profoundly superior outcome for Covid-19 patients.

    This isn’t some wild conspiracy theory. Here’s one study, for example, on the US government’s National Institutes of Health website.

    But that’s never part of the discussion. In fact the Big Tech companies are standing by ready to squash any conversation about treatment.

    Twitter, for example, blocked the sharing of a medical study published late last year in the respected European Journal of Medical & Health Sciences because it had positive conclusions about Ivermectin.

    Ironically, these public health overlords claim to care so much about people who might potentially fall ill and die.

    So wouldn’t it make sense for them to disseminate objective information about medications and treatment options? After all, isn’t it possible that access to information about treatment might have saved some lives?

    But talking about medication and treatment doesn’t fit the narrative that these vaccine-brained public health officials are pushing. If you’re not talking about getting an injection, then you’re not allowed to talk. Period.

    Delta is now raging, and they’re already talking about the evil new ‘Lambda’ variant. And now, perhaps, the WHO may be starting to prime us for a new round of public health terrorism with the Marburg Virus.

    So if you thought the pandemic was over and everything was going back to normal… then I applaud your optimism. But think again.

    Given the public health response to the Delta variant, plus these new pathogenic threats that may be coming, it’s possible that there may be a new wave of lockdowns, travel restrictions, school closures, mask mandates, and more.

    Obviously I have no crystal ball, and am in no way trying to be alarmist. But it’s worth considering– if governments begin to impose quarantines once again, where would you want to be?

    Last year Covid took most people by surprise. But if it happens again, this time around we have the benefit of experience. We know their playbook and how they’re going to react.

    So it certainly makes sense to think about lockdowns, quarantines, and overall public health insanity when considering your Plan B options.

    *  *  *

    On another note… We think gold could DOUBLE and silver could increase by up to 5 TIMES in the next few years. That’s why we published a new, 50-page long Ultimate Guide on Gold & Silver that you can download here.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/12/2021 – 20:05

  • Bill Gates Pledges $1.5 Billion To Develop New Green Technologies As Image-Rehab Tour Continues
    Bill Gates Pledges $1.5 Billion To Develop New Green Technologies As Image-Rehab Tour Continues

    Bill Gates’ campaign to rehabilitate his public image in the wake of his divorce from ex-wife Melinda French formally began earlier this month when Gates sat for a softball interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. It continued Thursday with another interview (this time with the conservative-leaning WSJ) where the Microsoft founder pledged to invest $1.5 billion in a series of public-private partnerships set up to develop new green technologies, like devices that suck carbon out of the atmosphere, or emissions-free jet fuel.

    The statement was clearly timed to coincide with the Senate’s passage of the “compromise” infrastructure bill, which, if passed by the House, would dedicate $25 billion to the Department of Energy for the development of new technologies and prototypes to help fight climate change, part of $100 billion in climate change-fighting funds tucked into the bill.

    Gates explained to WSJ that the money would be provided over a period of three years by a fund Gates has named “Breakthrough Energy”. These “Breakthrough” projects will focus on finding market-based solutions to climate change. To be sure, Gates’ grants will need to compete for the matching DoE funds with other private sources (but considering Gates’s vast connections in Washington, we will be shocked if the matching funds aren’t approved)

    He also seized the opportunity to praise the Dems for their dedication to fighting climate change, while also spouting boilerplate language about being “dedicated” to the cause.

    Breakthrough will likely shift funding for the biggest projects to Europe and Asia instead if the package doesn’t become law, he added.

    “Critical for all these climate technologies is to get the costs down and to be able to scale them up to a pretty gigantic level,” Mr. Gates said. “You’ll never get that scale up unless the government’s coming in with the right policies, and the right policy is exactly what’s in that infrastructure bill.”

    Gates also insisted that these “demonstration projects” are critical to making new technologies work.

    The interview featured a subtle threat: if Congress doesn’t approve the infrastructure package (with the climate funding attached), Gates will take his “Breakthrough” funding elsewhere, likely to Europe and Asia.

    While Gates is doing everything he can to promote the public-private partnership plan included in the Infrastructure Bill, this approach to clean-energy technology has backfired before. The best-known example is probably the collapse of Solyndra, a solar panel maker that received $500MM+ in public funds from the Obama Administration via the post-crisis recovery bill passed in 2009. The company declared bankruptcy in 2011, laying off hundreds of workers, and leaving the Democrats’ with an embarrassing black eye.

    Can an investment from Bill Gates guarantee that this won’t happen again?

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/12/2021 – 19:45

  • New Studies Suggest Lambda Variant Could Be Vaccine-Resistant
    New Studies Suggest Lambda Variant Could Be Vaccine-Resistant

    Two separate studies have concluded that the latest Covid-19 fearpocalypse – the Lambda strain – may be vaccine resistant, as well as more infectious than the original alpha strain of SARS-CoV-2.

    No word on how people with preexisting natural immunity fare against Lambda.

    As the New York Post reports, a not-yet peer-reviewed study out of Japan published on July 28 concludes that the C.37 Lambda variant is defeating the ‘leaky’ vaccine at an alarming rate.

    The strain has been contained in 26 countries, including substantial outbreaks in Chile, Peru, Argentina and Ecuador.

    “Notably, the vaccination rate in Chile is relatively high; the percentage of the people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine was [about] 60%,” the authors write.

    “Nevertheless, a big COVID-19 surge has occurred in Chile in Spring 2021, suggesting that the Lambda variant is proficient in escaping from the antiviral immunity elicited by vaccination,” they warn. –New York Post

    The new variant is thought to have emerged between November and December 2020 in South America, and has since emerged in countries throughout Europe, North America and Asia according to data from GISAID. That said, it’s only around one-tenth of 1% of cases in America, around 911 so far.

    “In addition to increasing viral infectivity, the Delta variant exhibits higher resistance to the vaccine-induced neutralization,” wrote the authors, adding “Similarly, here we showed that the Lambda variant equips not only increased infectivity but also resistance against antiviral immunity.”

    In a similar not-yet peer-reviewed study out of Chile, investigators concluded “that mutations present in the spike protein of the lambda variant of interest confer increased infectivity and immune escape from neutralizing antibodies elicited by CoronaVac.”

    CoronaVac is a vaccine manufactured by a Chinese company and that’s used in Peru. The study continues: “These data reinforce the idea that massive vaccination campaigns in countries with high SARS-CoV-2 circulation must be accompanied by strict genomic surveillance allowing the identification of new isolates carrying spike mutations and immunology studies aimed to determine the impact of these mutations in immune escape and vaccines breakthrough.”

    Of note, Peru has the highest Covid-19 death rate of any country in the world – around 600 for every 100,000 people, about double the next highest country, Hungary. Around 81% of cases in Peru since April were the lambda variant, according to the WHO.

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    The news comes amid an Axios report that the Pfizer vaccine was just 42% effective in July – when the Delta variant was dominant. Meanwhile, 40% of migrants bused into Laredo, Texas are Covid-positive.

    The next time you hear Fauci, Biden or Psaki warn how scary the Lambda strain is, ask yourself why they won’t close the border – or mandate the ‘efficacy challenged’ vaccines they’ve bet the farm on.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/12/2021 – 19:25

  • Watch: Parents Make Threats After School Board Mandates Elementary Children Mask Up – "We Will Find You"
    Watch: Parents Make Threats After School Board Mandates Elementary Children Mask Up – “We Will Find You”

    “The scene in Franklin was only the latest display of resistance against covid-19 precautions coming from the streets of small cities and the desks of politicians alike,” wrote The Washington Post of the below chaotic scene showing a Franklin, Tennessee school board meeting erupting in chaos over a new mask mandate for local elementary schools.

    “We know who you are! We will find you and we know who you are…” angry parents told a health expert who had been called in to testify in support of masking up children to start the school year. “You can leave freely, but we will find you.”

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    A large crowd of parents after the chaotic meeting were chanting as school board members and supporters of the mandate left the meeting: “Will not comply!”

    “There’s a place for you guys — there’s a bad place in hell,” another parent was heard yelling. “You will never be allowed in public again.”

    The Williamson County Board of Education meeting had reportedly dragged on to nearly four hours amid tense debate over the mandate to wear masks until at least Sept.21 at a moment of growing fears over the COVID-19 Delta variant. The board voted 7 to 3 in favor of masks in the classroom and on the bus.

    One of the pro-mask experts at the meeting, Meredith Duke, a surgeon at Vanderbilt University Medical Center – who also has children at Williamson County schools, told a local news affiliate that she was directly threatened: “There were people screaming and threatening me, and I just couldn’t believe it.” Other school board supporters said the scene was “hard to fathom”. Inside the meeting nearly a dozen parents spoke before the board on either side.

    “Take that mask off!” another woman is seen shouting toward school board members in the video. The crowd also charged school authorities for being “child abusers” for enforcing the masks.

    Another video showed local law enforcement attempting to calm the crowd of parents outside the meeting venue… “keep it peaceful,” they urged.

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    In the end some among the pro-mask school board officials and those testifying on their behalf had to be escorted out of the parking lot by police, especially as protesting parents began to surround one man’s vehicle, as seen in the video.

    Likely similar scenes will be witnessed in other parts of the country as debate intensifies and as schools move closer to the start of the school year, with many just a week away, and also as standoffs between local and state authorities come to a head – Texas and Florida being prime examples.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/12/2021 – 19:05

  • Gold's "Flash Crash" Explained: Charts, Fundamentals, & Familiar Manipulations
    Gold’s “Flash Crash” Explained: Charts, Fundamentals, & Familiar Manipulations

    Via GoldSwitzerland.com,

    In this 23-minute MAMChat, Matterhorn principals Egon von Greyerz and Matthew Piepenburg address gold’s recent “flash crash” in the context of technicals, fundamentals, and good ol’ fashioned price manipulation from the bullion banks.

    “…it was a black hole [at that time of day] of liquidity, no trader would ever sell into that if they wanted to get rid of gold in an orderly way…”

    “…this we’ve seen many times before. Clearly, this is intervention, manipulation at the highest degree…”

    Toward this end, Egon gives careful attention to the technical indicators and their bullish trends/confirmations while Matthew digs deeper under the hood to reveal the relationship between Basel III regs, bullion bank gold shortages and the motives behind gold’s recent price decline.

    Egon then addresses the historical pricing and hence buying opportunities for gold when measured against the broader money supply, confirming that precious metals have never been so seductively undervalued as they are today. For longer-term investors rather than short-term speculators, gold is particularly well priced, positioned and essential in the current backdrop of just staggering debt, market and currency risk.

    In short, the “flash crash” is merely a buying opportunity.

    As to debt risk, debt cycles and the template of increased centralized controls by banks and governments, Matthew walks through the all-too sad yet familiar patterns of debt crises leading to social and economic instabilities which then inevitably usher in increased centralized control over financial and social systems, a trend all too familiar today, as Egon’s personal journey through financial and (hence) gold cycles confirm.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/12/2021 – 18:45

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Aug 12

Today’s News 12th August 2021

  • The End Of The Merkel Era
    The End Of The Merkel Era

    Angela Merkel’s reign is coming to an end after 16 years in office as the German chancellor. The 67-year-old is no longer the German conservative party’s candidate to head a new government after the September 26 elections, the usual procedure for a chancellor completing a fourth term.

    During her time in office, Merkel became known as one of the most powerful and influential women on the planet. At the national level, she distinguished herself by stoic leadership and firm crisis management while leaving room for public opinion. She steered the country through the financial crisis of 2008, the Fukushima disaster in 2011 (including its repercussions for atomic energy stronghold Germany) and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic as well as her government’s decision to welcome more than one million refugees to Germany in 2015.

    During her long career, Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes that Angela Merkel – or Mutti (“mommy”) as the Germans call her – has seen many world leaders come and go.

    Infographic: End of the Merkel Era | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    At the helm since 2005, she has been a peer to four American and four French presidents as well as five British and eight Italian prime ministers (one of whom, Silvio Berlusconi, even had two separate terms).

    Only the Japanese were able to match the musical chairs at the top of the Italian government. Eight Japanese premiers made their introductions to Angela Merkel (and she to them), also including one returning one, Shinzo Abe. Abe had the longest consecutive term of any Japanese prime minister opposite Merkel between 2012 and 2020. This beats the longest consecutive term for an Italian prime minister of around 3.5 years, but also means that the Japanese were changing their prime ministers in even quicker succession during the rest of the time.

    Fewer different faces greeted Merkel as the top politicians in India and China. Manmohan Singh shared 8.5 years in office with Merkel from 2005 to 2014. Narendra Modi and the German longtime chancellor are going on 7.5 years of shared time in office come September. While Modi’s reelection is coming up in 2024, another one of Merkel’s familiar faces, Chinese president Xi Jinping, already made provisions to extend his reign for longer. Xi has served opposite Merkel since 2013 – longer than any other world leader in the analysis – and since term limits for Chinese presidents were abolished in 2018, he is now bound to see the chancellors pass him by for a change.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/12/2021 – 02:45

  • US Officials Condemn China Over Diplomatic Retaliation Against Lithuania
    US Officials Condemn China Over Diplomatic Retaliation Against Lithuania

    Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times,

    The U.S. State Department and some members of Congress on Aug. 10 voiced support for Lithuania, after China threw a diplomatic tantrum over the Baltic nation’s decision to allow Taiwan to open an office in Vilnius under its own name.

    State Department spokesperson Ned Price pauses while speaking during a briefing at the State Department in Washington on Aug. 2, 2021. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

    On Tuesday, China’s foreign ministry recalled its ambassador to Lithuania and demanded it recall its ambassador to China. The ministry said the Baltic nation “brazenly violates” the ties between China and Lithuania, and it warned that there would be “potential consequences” if the Taiwan office were indeed opened.

    “We do stand in solidarity with our NATO ally Lithuania and we condemn the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China’s] recent retaliatory actions,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price told a briefing on Aug. 10.

    He added, “We support our European partners and our allies as they develop mutually beneficial relations with Taiwan and resist the PRC’s coercive behavior.”

    Price said there are benefits for countries to engage with Taiwan, since the self-ruled island is “a global leader in public health, advanced manufacturing, and democratic governance.”

    “Each country should be able to determine the contours of its own ‘one-China’ policy without outside coercion,” Price said.

    Many countries, including the United States, have long held a “one-China policy,” which asserts that there is only one sovereign state with the name “China.” The Chinese regime demands nations accept its “one-China principle” under which Beijing asserts sovereignty over Taiwan.

    Taiwan, a de facto independent nation with its own military and constitution, establishes trade offices that act as de facto embassies in countries without formal relations. For example, Taiwan’s de facto embassy in the United States is called the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States.

    This general view shows the Lithuanian Embassy in Beijing on Aug. 10, 2021. (Jade Gao/AFP via Getty Images)

    Neither Washington nor Vilnius has formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan. The self-ruled island currently has 15 diplomatic allies, with the Vatican being the only one in Europe.

    The Taipei Mission in the Republic of Latvia (TMIL) handles affairs between Taiwan and the three Baltic nations—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

    Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a statement, expressed regret over China’s decisions. However, the ministry added that the country is “determined to pursue mutually beneficial ties with Taiwan like many other countries in the European Union and the rest of the world do.”

    Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told Reuters on Tuesday that, “We are considering our next moves.”

    China’s hawkish state-run media Global Times, in an op-ed published on Tuesday, said Beijing’s diplomatic actions against Lithuania are a warning to the rest of the world.

    “If the Chinese government does not take action, it may leave the rest of the world a false impression that countries that offend China over Taiwan will not get punished,” it stated.

    The outlet’s editor-in-chief, Hu Xijin, slammed Lithuania as a “crazy, tiny country” and a “U.S. running dog” in an article. He said the Baltic country will “eventually pay the price.”

    Several U.S. lawmakers took to Twitter to voice support for Lithuania.

    “The PRC’s punitive diplomacy will not silence democratic nations in their support for #Taiwan, a shining example of democracy in the Indo-Pacific,” wrote Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

    Rubio added:

    “Free nations, like #Lithuania, have the right to engage with a fellow democracy. We must all stand up to the #CCP’s aggression.”

    Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) applauded Lithuania for “remaining firm in their relations with Taiwan,” despite pressure from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

    “Taiwan is a crucial ally for our struggle against the evils of Beijing’s communism,” he added.

    Taiwanese sailors salute the island’s flag on the deck of the Panshih supply ship after taking part in annual drills at the Tsoying naval base in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, on Jan. 31, 2018. (Mandy Cheng/AFP via Getty Images)

    In July, Lithuania announced that it will open a trade office in Taiwan’s capital Taipei in autumn this year.

    In recent months, Lithuania has not been shy about voicing its criticism of the Chinese regime. In May, it decided to withdraw from China’s “17+1” cooperation platform, which it joined in 2012. In the same month, the country’s parliament passed a resolution calling out the communist regime’s treatment of Uyghurs in China’s far-western Xinjiang region as “genocide.”

    On Tuesday, Lithuania’s foreign ministry stated it stood with Canada in “condemning #China’s decision to uphold the death penalty of Robert Schellenberg.”

    Schellenberg, a Canadian citizen who has been detained in China since 2014, had his appeal struck down in a Chinese court on Aug. 10. He was sentenced to death in 2018 over a drug case.

    On Aug. 11, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs took to its Twitter account to applaud Lithuania for its “courageous [and] principled stance” on Taiwan.

    “As forces for good, we’ll continue working together to safeguard freedom & democracy for the benefit of our citizens,” the Taiwanese ministry wrote.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/12/2021 – 02:00

  • Does The New US-Led 'Quad' With Pakistan, Uzbekistan, & Afghanistan Have China In Its Sights?
    Does The New US-Led ‘Quad’ With Pakistan, Uzbekistan, & Afghanistan Have China In Its Sights?

    Authored by Maria Siow via The South China Morning Post,

    • Analysts remain divided over whether the new grouping is aimed at countering China’s growing influence in the region, especially its Belt and Road Initiative

    • Its stated aim is expanding trade, but some see a US attempt to keep military supply lines into Afghanistan open – the choice of name has also raised eyebrows

    Little is known about the new quadrilateral framework announced last month between the United States, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan except that it is aimed at enhancing regional connectivity.

    Afghan security forces stand guard at a checkpoint in Herat, Afghanistan, last month. Photo: EPA

    A July 16 statement from the US State Department said the four countries aimed to “expand trade, build transit links, and strengthen business-to-business ties” with an eye on “the historic opportunity to open flourishing interregional trade routes”.

    Few other details were provided in the one-paragraph statement, except that the four members of the “Quad Regional Support for Afghanistan-Peace Process and Post Settlement” all “consider long-term peace and stability in Afghanistan critical to regional connectivity and agree that peace and regional connectivity are mutually reinforcing”, and would further discuss their cooperation in the coming months.

    The use of the word ‘Quad’ has invited comparisons to the US-Australia-India-Japan Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. Photo: EPA

    The use of the word “Quad” for the new partnership has invited comparisons to the US-Australia–India–Japan Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which Beijing has criticised as an anti-China alliance and is also known as the Quad. But with such scant information to go on, analysts remain divided over whether the new grouping is actually aimed at countering China’s influence, and how effective it will be at achieving its stated aims.

    Derek Grossman, a senior defence analyst at the Rand Corporation, a US think tank, said the new Quad was expected to have more of an economic focus. “That said, it is difficult to focus on forging economic connectivity without security, so we’ll have to see how this plays out,” he said.

    Focus on Afghanistan

    With the US on track to fully withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by the end of the month, the Taliban’s recent seizures of checkpoints and districts from Afghan government forces have fuelled worries of a return to civil war and instability in the region.

    The new Quad could help by ensuring that landlocked Afghanistan remains engaged with its neighbours and the outside world by facilitating cross-border trade and access to the wider region, said Kashish Parpiani, a strategic studies fellow at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation think tank.

    He said the inclusion of Pakistan and Uzbekistan made sense as the two countries have stakes in ensuring stability in Afghanistan. The US has also been working with Islamabad on military and intelligence engagements, and Tashkent on relocating Afghan refugees and locals who worked with the US military, Parpiani said.

    The grouping’s second purpose, according to Mark N. Katz, a government and politics professor at George Mason University in the US, was to keep supply lines open so that Washington could continue to support government forces in Afghanistan.

    “Afghan forces may not succeed in defending the Kabul government even if they receive US supplies. But they definitely will not succeed if they do not,” Katz said.

    He said Washington’s decision to include both Pakistan and Uzbekistan in the new partnership was to ensure that neither country had a “monopoly” on supply lines, so the US could “at any time choose to route supplies bound for Afghanistan” through either of the neighbours.

    Umida Hashimova, an analyst at the US-based Centre for Naval Analyses who specialises in Central Asia affairs, said one motivation for Uzbekistan joining the new Quad was to receive US political support – and “whatever financial backing Washington can provide”– for a planned railway across Afghanistan that, once complete, would provide a new route linking Central Asia to Pakistan’s seaports.

    She noted that Tashkent began funding discussions in November with the US state-run International Development Finance Corporation for the project, which aims to connect Peshawar in Pakistan to Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan – and onwards to Uzbekistan via an existing rail link. Construction of the 573-km long railway’s first section, between Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif, is expected to begin next month.

    Two Quad’s a crowd?

    As the scant US State Department statement on the new Quad did not mention China, some analysts have suggested the grouping is not intended as a counter to Beijing.

    But Muhammad Ali Baig, a research associate at Pakistan’s Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad, said the grouping’s name had raised eyebrows as “the very word ‘Quad’ is worrisome for some Chinese policymakers”.

    He said the original Quadrilateral Security Dialogue had rapidly turned into an “Asian Nato”, in reference to the transatlantic security alliance set up to provide collective security against the Soviet Union after the second world war. In October last year, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi described the earlier Quad as an “Indo-Pacific Nato”.

    China keen to position itself for influence in a post-US Afghanistan

    Yan Liang, an economics professor at Willamette University in the US state of Oregon, said the new Quad was clearly an attempt by Washington to rival China’s growing global influence, following on from the launch of the US-led Build Back Better World initiative at the G7 summit in June as a rival to Beijing’s multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative to boost global connectivity and trade.

    “From Beijing’s perspective, it certainly looks like a strategy to form a ‘bloc confrontation’ and an anti-China encirclement,” Liang said.

    But Nishank Motwani, research and policy director at Kabul-based ATR Consulting, said China was unlikely to lose sleep over the new grouping as it had far more political and economic clout in the region than the US.

    Between 2005 and 2020, Chinese companies invested nearly US$50 billion in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, according to the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute think tank’s China Global Investment Tracker.

    Rand Corporation’s Grossman said he agreed that the use of the term “Quad” held negative connotations for Beijing, but said that it “it is hard to argue that all four of these countries are on the same page” as the US in regards to China.

    “Pakistan, of course, is an ‘ironclad’ and decades-long partner of Beijing,” he said, adding that Afghanistan’s government had previously welcomed belt and road projects to help build infrastructure in the war-torn country.

    Beijing’s ties with the Kabul government could be jeopardised, however, by its recent overtures to the Taliban, Grossman said. Foreign Minister Wang met representatives of the group in China late last month.

    Uzbekistan, meanwhile, is closer to the US but maintains a working relationship with China and did not necessarily wish to alienate Beijing, Grossman said, further noting that if the new Quad was to survive, it would have “to focus on building economic connectivity instead of building an anti-China bloc”.

    At the first Belt and Road Forum held in Beijing in 2017, Uzbekistan and China signed 115 deals worth more than US$23 billion to strengthen cooperation in areas ranging from electrical power and oil production, to transport, infrastructure and agriculture.

    An ineffective partnership?

    Analysts also cast doubt on how effective the new Quad would be at achieving its aims, given the troubled ties its other members have had with the US in the past.

    Katz from George Mason University said Pakistan’s reliability as a US partner was “clearly questionable” given its previous support for the Taliban.

    Pakistan has long been accused of providing military, financial and intelligence support to the group that ruled most of Afghanistan as a fundamentalist Islamic emirate where women had few rights and entertainment was banned until it was ousted by a US-led invasion in 2001. Islamabad has denied the charges.

    Motwani from ATR Consulting said that with its military withdrawal – after two decades of war and some 47,600 civilian deaths – the US had “abandoned” Afghanistan, “the most pro-American government in the region to a terrorist organisation whose modus operandi is to bring about death, darkness, and destruction to civilians”.

    He said Washington’s “desperation in salvaging its diminishing profile” was on show in its “stitching” together of a regional connectivity mechanism such as the new Quad.

    Liang, the economics professor who sees the new Quad as an extension of the US-led Build Back Better World G7 initiative, said it was unclear where funding for new transit links and trade routes in Afghanistan would come from at a time when Washington was struggling to pass a domestic infrastructure bill whose had already been slashed in half, to US$1 trillion.

    The G7’s infrastructure plan was “unlikely to collaborate and cooperate” with the nearly 2,600 belt and road projects – worth some US$3.7 trillion – that China had launched in developing countries, Liang wrote in a commentary for the East Asia Forum last month, adding “this could lead to repetitive, window-dressing, uncoordinated and even disorderly efforts to build global infrastructure.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/11/2021 – 23:40

  • Former College Professor Arrested For Setting Fires Near Dixie Blaze
    Former College Professor Arrested For Setting Fires Near Dixie Blaze

    A former college professor living out of his car is accused of setting fires near the area of the massive Dixie Fire in Northern California. 

    CBS Sacramento reports forty-seven-year-old Gary Stephen Maynard was arrested Saturday for setting fire to public land. He’s accused of setting the Ranch Fire near the Mendocino National Forest.

    US Forest Agents began investigating the former Santa Clara University and Sonoma State University criminal justice professor on July 20 when he was spotted by someone acting strangely near the Cascade Fire. 

    Court documents reveal a witness saw Maynard come out of the woods where one of the fires was sparked. They said the man was “mentally unstable.” 

    “Witness 1 believed the man was mentally unstable, describing the man as, ‘mumbling a lot and having bipolar-like behavior,'” the court documents detailed. 

    Investigators were quick to place a tracking device on Maynard’s vehicle looking for answers for who or what sparked the Dixie Fire, the largest single wildfire in California history. They also found additional evidence he might have stoked more fires. 

    “The two small ground fires were each determined to be acts of arson and, indeed, classified as two additional arson fires,” wrote one investigator.

    Another court document read:

    “He entered the evacuation zone and began setting fires behind the first responders fighting the Dixie fire. In addition to the danger of enlarging the Dixie fire and threatening more lives and property, this increased the danger to the first responders. Maynard’s fires were placed in the perfect position to increase the risk of firefighters being trapped between fires. But for the dedication and efforts of U.S. Forest Service investigators working around the clock to track Maynard, those fires would not have been discovered in their infancy.”

    On Tuesday, federal Judge Kendall Newman ordered Maynard to stay in custody pending a hearing on Wednesday. 

    While in custody, Maynard showed signs of anger and instability as he lashed out at police in the Lassen County Jail:

    “I’m going to kill you, f—king pig! I told those f—kers I didn’t start any of those fires!” 

    Commenting on the case is Jonathan Turley, a Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, who said:

    “There is an abundance of evidence of a mental disability and crisis in this case. This is someone who clearly needs help and hopefully will now get some. The question will become whether that evidence is sufficient as an insanity defense.”

    Maynard’s motive has yet to be released by police. Still, perhaps the fires around Dixie or even Dixie itself were aided by the possible arsonist and not as much climate change as liberals want everyone to believe. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/11/2021 – 23:20

  • Ethiopia Calls For Full Mobilization In Attempt To Stoke Civil War
    Ethiopia Calls For Full Mobilization In Attempt To Stoke Civil War

    Submitted by South Front,

    A sense of desperation is setting in among the Ethiopian government.

    On August 10th, Nobel Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed issued a statement calling on all Ethiopians capable of wielding a weapon to enlist in the military and crush the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). He said that “now” was the right time for all capable Ethiopians “who are of age” to join the Defense Forces, Special Forces and militias. The purpose for this is for citizens to show their patriotism, and fight against other citizens of their own country.

    The statement also takes aim at some in the international community, blaming them for the “machinations of foreign hands” in the nine-month war that has spilled from Tigray into the neighboring Amhara and Afar regions.

    The call by Ahmed furthermore reinforces the idea that the unilateral government-imposed ceasefire has entirely failed, after being openly mocked by the TPLF.

    Tigray forces say they want to secure their blockaded region, end the fighting and see the prime minister leave office. The TPLF claim they don’t want further gains, or control over large swathes of the country. This isn’t Afghanistan and the Tigray Forces are not the Taliban. Still, the central government is painting a picture of existential crisis, in which the TPLF threaten the everyday existence of the normal Ethiopian citizen.

    To reinforce that, the government statement also calls on all Ethiopians to be “the eyes and ears of the country in order to track down and expose spies and agents” of the Tigray forces. Everybody could be an enemy, and the very status quo, the way of life is under threat, at least it is presented as such in claims. All these claims are accompanied by dubious attacks and raids, all of which are denied by the TPLF.

    After retaking control of most of Tigray in late June and early July, Tigrayan forces have pushed into the adjoining Afar and Amhara regions, capturing the United Nations World Heritage site of Lalibela. In an alleged attack in the Afar region on August 5th, 12 people who had been forced from their homes by violence were killed, said Mohammed Yesuf, head of the Dubti Hospital. 46 people were treated for injuries at the hospital, he told Reuters by phone.

    The TPLF entirely denied responsibility for these attacks, while the central government accuses them.

    When the tables were turned and Addis Ababa was in control of Tigray’s capital Mekelle, there were opposing claims saying the government was hunting ordinary citizens and detaining them for allegedly spying and other “crimes”. Quite questionable conduct for a Prime Minister who won a Nobel Peace Prize. Furthermore, what Abiy Ahmed is doing now is stoking full-blown civil war, because the TPLF wishes for him to resign and a new government to be formed.

    If the “full mobilization” strategy turns into reality, it is entirely unknown how the pieces will fall and what the remains of Ethiopia will look like in the ensuing chaos.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/11/2021 – 23:00

  • China Credit Growth Unexpecteldy Collapses
    China Credit Growth Unexpecteldy Collapses

    One month ago we observed that after tumbling for much of 2020 and even turning negative early Q2, China’s credit impulse had finally troughed with significant consequences for global reflation. But with China’s economy rapidly slowing and Beijing considering what is the best way to stimulate the economy without leading to another overheating, the latest Chinese credit data released overnight which missed every consensus expectation, confirmed that Beijing’s latest attempt to reflate the local (and global) economy will not be a walk in the park.

    Here are the key numbers reported by the PBOC this morning:

    • New CNY loans: RMB 1080bn in July (RMB loans to the real economy: RMB 839.1bn) missing consensus of RMB 1200bn. Outstanding CNY loan growth was 12.3% yoy in July, unchanged from June’s 12.3% yoy.
    • Total social financing: RMB 1060bn in July, badly missing consensus of RMB 1700bn. This was the lowest TSF print since February  2020 when the Chinese economy was effectively shut down.
    • TSF stock growth (after adding all government bonds) was 11.0% yoy in July, lower than 11.3% in June. The implied month-on-month growth of TSF stock moderated to 9.3% (seasonally adjusted annual rate) from 9.9% in June.
    • M2: 8.3% yoy in July (-0.9% SA ann mom) also missing the Bloomberg consensus of  8.7% yoy. June: 8.6% yoy (10.2% SA ann mom estimated by GS).

    After strong prints in June, new RMB loans, total social financing (TSF) and M2 all surprised to the downside in July, as both corporate and household loans slowed, while government bond net issuance was also smaller in July vs June due to the large amount of maturing bonds in the month. Meanwhile, shadow banking credit continues to contract. Tight regulations likely continued to slow credit extensions to property, consumers and LGFV sectors, and credit demand in the rest of the economy has likely been weak, as interest rates declined along with the slowdown in credit growth in July.

    Some more detailed observations:

    July TSF flow and new CNY loans both came in below expectations, after both indicators surprised to the upside in June. Sequential growth of TSF stock moderated to 9.3% mom annualized sa in July from 11.1% in June, and overall RMB loans growth also decelerated to 8.8% month-over-month annualized, from 11.5% in June. M2 growth was also lower than market expectations and slowed from June.

    Among major TSF components, RMB loans slowed meaningfully. Here, as Goldman reminds us, the RMB loans under TSF differs from the headline new RMB loans separately reported by the PBOC as the latter includes loans between financial institutions while the former only includes loans to the real economy. New RMB loans to the real economy were even lower than the headline new RMB loans. More specifically, the slowdown in RMB loan growth in July appeared broad-based: both corporate and household loan growth decelerated in July. Household short-term loans showed the biggest deceleration. After adjusting for seasonality, household short-term loan growth slowed to 6.3% month-over-month annualized, from 15.3% in June. Corporate and government bond net issuance was lower on the back of the large amount of maturing bonds in the month. Meanwhile China’s shadow banking system – trust and entrust loans – continued to contract, although bank acceptance bills showed a small rebound in July after seasonal adjustment.

    According to Goldman, the slowdown in TSF and RMB loans likely reflected the weak credit demand amid tightened regulations on property, LGFV, and consumer credit (through regulations on online lending platforms), as interest rates in general drifted lower in the month after the broad RRR cut in the middle of the month. Disruptions such as the virus outbreak and related control measures, floods and typhoons likely also contributed.

    The broad TSF growth was slow even if one looks at the average growth rate in June-July combined: average TSF growth was around 9.6% annualized in June and July, vs an average month-over-month annualized growth rate of 11.3% in the first five months of the year, and was also tracking below our 11.5% full year forecast of TSF growth.

    While this may initially appear problematic, Beijing is all too aware of the credit conditions in its economy whose GDP forecast has been downgraded by every major bank in the past week amid the continued slowdown in Chinese trade, while the continued overheating in CPI and PPI means that unless China reboots its economy – and fast – it faces a stagflationary hard landing.

    Needless to say, that is not an acceptable outcome to Beijing, and as a result Goldman concludes that the weak credit data and the recent resurgence of virus (along with the strict virus control measures) increased the likelihood of incremental policy easing. In fact, Goldman’s China economists continue to expect one more RRR cut later this year, and expect government bond net issuance to increase in the next few months which would support overall TSF growth.

    Said otherwise, the latest data was ugly and it will hammer China’s credit impulse pushing it to the lowest level in over two years. However, it is that very downshift in Chinese credit flows that ensures that Beijing will have no choice but to aggressively easy in the coming months and push China’s hibernating credit growth back into overdrive.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/11/2021 – 22:40

  • An Open Letter To The Person Who Gave Me COVID
    An Open Letter To The Person Who Gave Me COVID

    Authored by Thomas E. Woods via The Libertarian Institue/Tom Woods.com

    To the Person Who Gave Me the Virus:

    I have no idea who you are, but our paths almost surely crossed last month in Las Vegas.

    Even now I wouldn’t change a thing about that trip, by the way, which was a blast.

    The existence of the virus, it’s true, made my life a fraction of one percent more dangerous than it was before.

    But since I don’t have any mental disorders, I hadn’t calibrated my risk tolerance so precisely that such a tiny change would make me radically alter my life.

    Naturally if you knew you were sick, you should have stayed home.

    Of all the advice they’ve given—mask wearing, social distancing, and all the rest—staying home when you’re sick would do by far the most good, yet we hear it urged upon us the least.

    At the same time, The Hill reports that you can easily confuse the symptoms of the virus for allergies, so it’s entirely possible not to be aware that you’re contagious. I see no reason to assume bad will on your part.

    Tom Woods, Libertarian author and host of “The Tom Woods Show”

    Every time I leave my house I am taking a risk. We all are. I don’t blame you for the constraints imposed by reality.

    If the chance of being struck by lightning increased tenfold tomorrow, this would not affect my behavior in any way. Not being neurotic, I don’t live my life as if the present rate of lightning strikes is precisely as high as I can tolerate.

    It has become almost impossible to have a rational conversation about any of this.

    For one thing, most people are shockingly misinformed. Ask the average person what the likelihood is of someone in his age cohort needing to be hospitalized for COVID, and his answer will be off by a factor of 10, if not 100. Guaranteed.

    For that matter, I cannot believe how many people think masks are accomplishing anything. The laughable “studies” on masks generally assume what they set out to prove, and/or confine themselves to strangely arbitrary timeframes, before explosions in COVID spread.

    Dozens of countries have seen their COVID charts go almost vertical after (not necessarily immediately after, but after) introducing large-scale masking, which is what the charts would look like if masks accomplished absolutely nothing. These places are ignored, because nobody is told about them.

    Meanwhile, there have been essentially zero COVID deaths in Sweden over the past month, and the rest of Scandinavia is also doing very well despite very little masking or other restrictions.

    The world acts as if these countries do not exist. As usual with the “you’re to blame for the virus” people, success stories like these are of no interest, because there’s nobody they can demonize—and demonizing people is their favorite pastime.

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    The case of Nepal is interesting, too. After a lockdown that ended in July 2020, they decided essentially to proceed as normal. They’re a poor country, and they chose the radical, unheard-of approach of overturning a policy that would have had them starving to death.

    And guess what?

    They’re doing fine.

    “Public health officials” were stumped, but at this point who can be surprised by that? What we laughingly call our “public health” establishment has made fools of themselves during this entire fiasco. Nepal is at 340 deaths per million. Compare that to locked-down countries like the UK (1909), Spain (1756), Belgium (2170), or Peru (5883).

    Back in the United States, the Sun Belt spike of 2020 came down with zero behavioral changes of any kind. The “COVID is your fault” people are too determined to blame someone to show any curiosity about this, even though it absolutely should evoke curiosity.

    COVID comes and goes seasonally and regionally, and blows its way past our silly masks and six-foot floor stickers.

    With my friend Tim Scott, I created a website where people can test their ability to determine which alleged mitigation measures accomplished what. If they work, it should be easy and obvious to choose which line on a graph represents a state or country that implemented it and which line represents one that did not. So go ahead. Try your hand at it. If any of the insanity accomplished anything, it’ll be a breeze: CovidChartsQuiz.com

    We have uncensored discussions of all this inside the Tom Woods Show Elite, my increasingly indispensable private group.

    Now it’s true: I was definitely laid up in bed for a while. But not a single kid should have missed a single basketball practice to keep me from getting sick. Imagine the selfishness involved in that kind of demand.

    Screw that.

    And nor should you, mysterious Las Vegas person, feel sorry for me. I don’t want you staying in your house! I don’t want you refusing to live! I’m glad you were out living your life, enjoying things that make life worth living. Merely preserving your biological existence is unworthy of a human being.

    This is especially so when we’ve been given no indication of precisely what would constitute an all-clear. It’s all arbitrariness piled upon more anti-scientific arbitrariness. We should all be inspired by the words of Lord Sumption in the UK:

    “What sort of life do we think we are protecting? There is more to life than the avoidance of death. Life is a drink with friends. Life is a crowded football match or a live concert. Life is a family celebration with children and grandchildren. Life is companionship, an arm around one’s back, laughter or tears shared at less than two meters. These things are not just optional extras. They are life itself. They are fundamental to our humanity, to our existence as social beings. Of course death is permanent, whereas joy may be temporarily suspended. But the force of that point depends on how temporary it really is.”

    Thank you, Las Vegas person, for refusing to be inhuman, for refusing to be an automaton, and for saying yes to those things that bring us joy and make our lives meaningful.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/11/2021 – 22:20

  • Erdogan Might Host Taliban Leader As US Ex-Ambassador Blasts Biden For "Handover" To Enemies
    Erdogan Might Host Taliban Leader As US Ex-Ambassador Blasts Biden For “Handover” To Enemies

    At a moment the Biden administration seems to have resigned itself to sitting by and watching as the Taliban takes back all of Afghanistan, and as the Pentagon has revised its assessment saying it fears Kabul will fall within one month to 90 days, Turkey is setting itself up to be a major player in the country after the dust settles. 

    This could involve Turkey doing its own deal with the Taliban, while being the last major NATO member presence in the country amid the US exit, given Turkish troops are still running and guarding Kabul international airport as the last foreign troops are still flying out.

    On Wednesday President Tayyip Erdogan raised eyebrows by for the first time saying he might soon meet with the leader of the Taliban, Haibatullah Akhundzada, in Turkey.

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    Erdogan made the statements to CNN Turk, and cast the prospect of such a controversial potential meeting as part of efforts to end the fighting in Afghanistan. Here’s what he said according to translation on Daily Sabah:

    “The latest developments and the situation of the Afghan public are really, really troubling,” Erdoğan said.

    “Maybe I will even be in a position to receive the person who is their leader,” Erdoğan added, after referring to efforts by Turkish officials for talks with the Taliban.

    Erdoğan last month said Turkey would hold discussions with the Taliban as part of the peace process.

    “Why? Because if we do not get control of things like this at a high level, it won’t be possible to secure peace this time in Afghanistan,” he added

    He also in Wednesday statements criticized the US for encouraging allies on the ground in Afghanistan who had worked with the US coalition – such as local Afghan translators and security personal (now being threatened by the Taliban and other Islamists) – to seek the safety of regional countries before seeking asylum in the US.

    As Bloomberg describes of the scathing comments: 

    Turkey on Wednesday blasted the U.S. for recommending that Afghans fearful of a vengeful Taliban seek asylum in America from third countries.

    “Turkey does not, and will not, serve as any country’s waiting room,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s communications director, Fahrettin Altun, told Bloomberg on Wednesday. “We will continue to do everything in our power to preserve the safety of our borders.”

    Meanwhile the Biden administration continues to face criticism and anger over the scale of just how fast things have deteriorated, given as one senior EU official has pointed out over 65% of the country is now firmly in Taliban control, including at least eight provincial capitals. 

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    A prominent former US ambassador to Afghanistan under the Obama administration, Ryan Crocker, has gone so far as to lash out at Biden for abandoning the country the US spent 20 years attempting to secure to the Islamist enemies.

    “This is a handover to the Taliban,” Crocker told Bloomberg TV Wednesday. He said the US-backed national government now perceives “rightly that we have hung them out to dry. We did a deal with their enemy.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/11/2021 – 22:00

  • The Great Keynesian Coup Of August 1971: Fifty Years Later
    The Great Keynesian Coup Of August 1971: Fifty Years Later

    Authored by William Anderson via The Mises Institute,

    On August 15, 1971, the last remains of what had been a magnificent monetary system died a terrible death, and the American academic, political, business, and media elites led the cheers. The Dow Jones Average jumped by more than 32 points the next day. A de facto national default was spun as a great liberation from a tyrannical financial arrangement that had plagued humanity for generations.

    A half century later the disinformation continues, as intellectual bankruptcy parallels the financial bankruptcy of that event.

    I write, of course, of the decision by President Richard Nixon to officially close the “gold window,” through which the US government was obligated to sell its gold stores to foreign governments at $35 an ounce, which even then was a bargain. As Nixon’s regime encouraged the Federal Reserve System to inflate the dollar to pay for its bloated military and welfare spending, as had the Johnson and Kennedy regimes before him, it became apparent that the US dollar was quickly losing value. The United States was in rapid decline—and the dollar was falling with the nation’s prestige.

    What happened? There are several accounts, and I will give the main ones, ending with the Austrian perspective. The first will be the Keynesian, the second the monetarist (Chicago school), the third the supply-side version, and the fourth from the Austrians. Before doing that, however, I will give a brief account of the events that began with the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944 and ended in national disgrace, an ignominy that even now the official American narrative refuses to recognize.

    The Bretton Woods Conference didn’t occur in a vacuum. Just a month before, Allied troops had secured a beachhead in France and had begun to slowly push the German army eastward. Across the European continent, armies from the Soviet Union were slowly destroying the Axis forces from the other direction. In the Pacific, US bombers were beginning to lay waste to Japanese cities, and the Japanese armies were suffering defeat after defeat. Final victory for the USA and its allies would not come for another thirteen months, but even in July 1944, it was clear how the war would end.

    The US State Department explains the stated purpose of the conference: to help reestablish trading relations in the postwar world:

    The lessons taken by U.S. policymakers from the interwar period informed the institutions created at the conference. Officials such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull were adherents of the Wilsonian belief that free trade not only promoted international prosperity, but also international peace. The experience of the 1930s certainly suggested as much. The policies adopted by governments to combat the Great Depression—high tariff barriers, competitive currency devaluations, discriminatory trading blocs—had contributed to creating an unstable international environment without improving the economic situation. This experience led international leaders to conclude that economic cooperation was the only way to achieve both peace and prosperity, at home and abroad.

    Some cynicism can be excused if one sees a disconnect between the high-minded rhetoric of the document and the actual policies of the Wilson and Roosevelt administrations that played a major role in creating the calamities from 1917 to the end of World War II. But then, it is a rare occurrence when government bombast and the truth intersect. Not surprisingly, Bretton Woods was an attempt by governments to deal with the previous disastrous results of intervention by imposing even more intervention.

    In his classic What Has Government Done to Our Money, Murray N. Rothbard (who will figure heavily in my interpretation of the August 15 events) describes the Bretton Woods Agreement:

    While the Bretton Woods system worked far better than the disaster of the 1930s, it worked only as another inflationary recrudescence of the gold-exchange standard of the 1920s and—like the 1920s—the system lived only on borrowed time.

    The new system was essentially the gold-exchange standard of the 1920s but with the dollar rudely displacing the British pound as one of the “key currencies.” Now the dollar, valued at 1/35 of a gold ounce, was to be the only key currency. The other difference from the 1920s was that the dollar was no longer redeemable in gold to American citizens; instead, the 1930’s system was continued, with the dollar redeemable in gold only to foreign governments and their Central Banks. No private individuals, only governments, were to be allowed the privilege of redeeming dollars in the world gold currency. In the Bretton Woods system, the United States pyramided dollars (in paper money and in bank deposits) on top of gold, in which dollars could be redeemed by foreign governments; while all other governments held dollars as their basic reserve and pyramided their currency on top of dollars. (p. 99)

    To put it another way, the Bretton Woods Agreement really was a scheme to give the appearance of “sound money” all the while ensuring that the sound money regime that existed prior to the outbreak of World War I would not be reinstituted. Furthermore, Henry Hazlitt, who then was writing editorials for the New York Times (how the mighty have fallen!), saw through everything and predicted that the new monetary arrangements would lead to disastrous consequences. He wrote:

    The greatest single contribution the United States could make to world currency stability after the war is to announce its determination to stabilize its own currency. It will incidentally help us, of course, if other nations as well return to the gold standard. They will do it, however, only to the extent that they recognize that they are doing it not primarily as a favor to us but to themselves.

    But Hazlitt knew that governments in 1944 were institutionally incapable of returning to sound money and that the elites in government, academe, and the media were hostile to anything but fiat money. Ultimately, Hazlitt and the NYT would part ways over his disagreements with the Keynesian economic views of the era. The NYT would continue to endorse monetary socialism and today features Paul Krugman, who has all but endorsed the money printing of modern monetary theory. In other words, Hazlitt predicted the demise of the Bretton Woods accord twenty-seven years before it officially collapsed.

    As previously noted, the US dollar was set as the world’s “reserve” currency and it was set at $35 per ounce of gold, which meant that foreign governments and central banks could purchase US gold at that price if they wished to redeem their dollars on something other than dollar-denominated goods and assets. Rothbard points out that because the agreements set the currency exchange values at prewar levels, the dollar was undervalued and European currencies overvalued, thus increasing the demand for dollars.

    (For reasons of length, I do not cover the Marshall Plan and how international monetary policies fit into trying to make it work. Suffice it to say the Marshall Plan has been given far too much credit for Europe’s postwar recovery. In many instances, it actually impeded recovery and it was only after the governments of Western European nations eased the economic controls set during Nazi occupations that Europe had a true economic recovery.)

    The purposeful devaluing of the US dollar provided incentives for the Federal Reserve System to inflate the dollar, which it did in the postwar years and beyond (and is doing with a vengeance today). Because the law forbade Americans from buying and owning gold (with some exceptions for jewelry and official coin collections), the US government did not have to worry about its inflationary policies creating a domestic run on its gold reserves. That would not be the case overseas, however.

    American economists and politicians embraced Keynesian theories that emphasized expansive government programs financed through deficit spending. The few dissenters such as economists Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek were dismissed as “mossbacks” and “reactionaries,” as the American media, academic, and political establishments saw the New Economics as a gateway to easy prosperity.

    European governments, and especially the French government led by Charles de Gaulle (who was advised by the classical gold-standard economist Jacques Rueff), by the 1960s began to purchase US gold in earnest. In the early postwar years, it made sense to hold officially undervalued dollars, but in less than two decades, the dollar had become hopelessly overvalued relative to most European currencies. Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam war and his Great Society welfare programs had to be financed, and the government chose inflation. Buying US gold at what was a bargain price was a way that foreign governments could do an end run around a monetary exchange system that was becoming increasingly unbalanced.

    In 1968, the US government tried to put together a stopgap measure to stop the gold hemorrhage. (Rothbard goes into the details of the measures, noting that they were doomed to fail because they were based upon faulty economic analysis.) By trying to sever the link between the US dollar and gold sold on the free market, the Johnson administration claimed that the new measures would force down the price of gold to less than $35 an ounce, making US stores an unattractive buy.

    As any competent Austrian economist would predict, however, the runs on US gold did not diminish but rather intensified, and by the summer of 1971, the US economy was stagnant, prices were rising, and President Nixon on August 15 announced his “Phase One” economic plan of price controls and temporarily closing the gold window. Again, any competent economist would know that this move would end in failure, but the move initially was popular in the media and with the public. Gene Healy writes:

    There was no national emergency in the summer of ’71: unemployment stood at 6 percent…. Yet, after Nixon’s announcement, the markets rallied, the press swooned, and, even though his speech pre‐empted the popular Western Bonanza, the people loved it, too—75 percent backed the plan in polls.

    On the monetary side, the next step was the implementation in December of the Smithsonian Agreement, which raised the official price of US government gold to $38 an ounce and allowed some flexibility in the fixed exchange rates, but in the end, the combination of US inflation and economic stagnation on the home front would lead to the total collapse of fixed rates. By 1973, the dollar was hopelessly overvalued and ultimately the present system of floating exchange rates prevailed.

    Keynesian Policies

    One of the most famous statements to come from this episode of “Nixon Shock” was the president’s statement to his advisers, “We are all Keynesians now.” It also was the most accurate statement anyone in the government would make. In one action, Nixon cut ties to gold, what J.M. Keynes had called “that barbarous relic.” The devaluation of the dollar would help exports, and Nixon saw government intervention as necessary to “balance power” between labor unions and corporations.

    In fact, his Federal Reserve chairman, Arthur Burns, already had announced his fealty to Keynesian economics, and Nixon himself had surrendered any previous notions of free markets to Keynesian-inspired policies. The PBS Commanding Heights series reported:

    [W]hatever the effects of the Vietnam War on the national consensus in the 1960s, confidence had risen in the ability of government to manage the economy and to reach out to solve big social problems through such programs as the War on Poverty. Nixon shared in these beliefs, at least in part. “Now I am a Keynesian,” he declared in January 1971—leaving his aides to draft replies to the angry letters that flowed into the White House from conservative supporters. He introduced a Keynesian “full employment” budget, which provided for deficit spending to reduce unemployment. A Republican congressman from Illinois told Nixon that he would reluctantly support the president’s budget, “but I’m going to have to burn up a lot of old speeches denouncing deficit spending.” To this Nixon replied, “I’m in the same boat.”

    Whatever fiscal discipline Nixon had promised during his political campaign was out the window. Even if his enemies in the academic and political worlds (and they were legion) would always hate him, nonetheless he was giving them what they always had wanted: government control of the economy. Not surprisingly, while his policies were politically popular at the beginning, the 1970s ultimately became known for stagflation (simultaneous increases in unemployment and inflation—something Keynesians claimed was impossible), gasoline and natural gas shortages (due to price controls), and a general feeling of despair.

    Democrats ultimately would drive Nixon from office three years later, but they endorsed his economic policies, and especially his penchant for price controls. President Jimmy Carter would push his wage-price “guidelines” in an unsuccessful attempt to bring down double-digit inflation, and when Senator Ted Kennedy ran for the Democratic nomination in 1980, he made price controls the centerpiece of his economic policies.

    Ironically, Carter and the Democrats did embark on a supply-side venture of their own, deregulating the financial and transportation sectors and laying the groundwork to deregulate telecommunications. Thus, the party of the New Deal actually undid part of the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt—and actually provided a long-run boost to the economy, all the while being ignorant of their accomplishments.

    Supply-Siders

    While the group of economists that called themselves supply-siders raised important issues about how government intervention into the economy was causing stagflation and other economic ills, nonetheless their statements on Nixon’s actions were shortsighted. During the 1980 presidential campaign in which Ronald Reagan cast his lot with supply-side economics, Jack Kemp, who championed the supply-side policies in Congress, declared that Nixon’s error had been to go to floating exchange rates instead of holding to the fixed rates of the Bretton Woods accord.

    Nixon’s actions, as dishonest as they were, did not occur in a vacuum. Holding to fixed exchanged rates and a (very) modified gold standard would have required the kind of fiscal and monetary discipline that had not existed in Washington since the Great Depression and certainly was not going to begin in August 1971. We should be clear: Nixon did not unilaterally destroy a productive arrangement. Nixon’s actions unwittingly exposed the bankruptcy of US government policies even though he would spin it as the US fending off an unjustified foreign attack on the dollar and on US gold supplies.

    During the era of the international gold standard that fell apart in 1914, currency rates were fixed, but not against each other but rather to a measure of gold. Any attempts to game the system—as the US government did on a regular basis in the postwar years—would have quickly been detected, with gold outflows ultimately helping to counter cheating. Although the Bretton Woods accord was created to emulate the old gold standard with its fixed rates, it ultimately failed because governments are destructive. By summer’s end of 1914, the governments of Europe had gone to war and destroyed an international gold standard that took decades to build. In 1971, governments armed with Keynesian dogma laid waste to an economic system almost as surely as the Guns of August brought Western civilization to its knees.

    Monetarists

    When Nixon announced the imposition of wage and price controls, Milton Friedman of the University of Chicago loudly denounced them as an “utter failure.” However, as Rothbard wrote, Friedman was not unhappy to see the last ties of the dollar to gold broken. As an outspoken advocate of floating fiat exchange rates, Friedman for years had denounced gold ties to the dollar, as Rothbard explains:

    Since the United States went completely off gold in August 1971 and established the Friedmanite fluctuating fiat system in March 1973, the United States and the world have suffered the most intense and most sustained bout of peacetime inflation in the history of the world. It should be clear by now that this is scarcely a coincidence. Before the dollar was cut loose from gold, Keynesians and Friedmanites, each in their own way devoted to fiat paper money, confidently predicted that when fiat money was established, the market price of gold would fall promptly to its nonmonetary level, then estimated at about $8 an ounce. In their scorn of gold, both groups maintained that it was the mighty dollar that was propping up the price of gold, and not vice versa. Since 1971, the market price of gold has never been below the old fixed price of $35 an ounce, and has almost always been enormously higher. (pp. 109–10)

    In Friedman’s defense, the floating exchange rates didn’t cause the inflation of the 1970s. However, those floating rates imposed no financial discipline on the US government, and when things went south presidential administrations blamed foreign governments. When the dollar fell against European currencies in 1978, President Carter signed off on a scheme in which the Federal Reserve System underwrote a massive purchase of dollars in order to prop up the currency. Not surprisingly, the arrangement failed to strengthen the dollar over time.

    Austrians

    While Keynesians and monetarists might look down on gold as money (or any monetary ties to gold), Austrians are not afraid to face the ridicule from elites. More than anyone else, however, Austrians such as Rothbard understood completely what was happening in 1971, and they were not fooled by the government’s various monetary tricks as were others. Rothbard writes:

    All pro-paper economists, from Keynesians to Friedmanites, were now confident that gold would disappear from the international monetary system; cut off from its “support” by the dollar, these economists all confidently predicted, the free-market gold price would soon fall below $35 an ounce, and even down to the estimated “industrial” nonmonetary gold price of $10 an ounce. Instead, the free price of gold, never below $35, had been steadily above $35, and by early 1973 had climbed to around $125 an ounce, a figure that no pro-paper economist would have thought possible as recently as a year earlier.

    Far from establishing a permanent new monetary system, the two-tier gold market only bought a few years of time; American inflation and deficits continued. Eurodollars accumulated rapidly, gold continued to flow outward, and the higher free-market price of gold simply revealed the accelerated loss of world confidence in the dollar. (pp. 104–05)

    The American economy and the dollar rebounded during the 1980s in part because of lower tax rates and in part because of the deregulatory efforts instituted by the Carter administration. Unfortunately, the favorable economic conditions did not lead to fiscal soundness, but, instead, seemed to encourage even more reckless behavior in Washington. For the last twenty-two years, the economy has seen one financial bubble after another: first the tech bubble of the late 1990s, then the housing bubble that burst in 2008, and now a combination of housing and equities seems to be rising well out of synch with market fundamentals.

    As they did in 1971, the elite economists of our day are the cheerleaders for fiscal foolishness. Lest one believe I am exaggerating, this is from a recent column by Paul Krugman in the New York Times, which lost its way editorially after the editorial leadership pushed out Henry Hazlitt. Endorsing the so-called Infrastructure Bill, Krugman writes:

    Imagine, to use a round number, that the federal government were to go out right now and borrow $1 trillion—and that it were to do so without making any provisions for servicing the additional debt. That is, it wouldn’t raise any taxes or cut any spending to pay off the principal; it wouldn’t even do anything to cover interest payments, simply borrowing more money as interest came due.

    Under these circumstances the debt would grow over time. But it wouldn’t grow very fast: The current interest rate on long-term U.S. debt is less than 1.2 percent, so after a decade the debt would have risen only about 13 percent.

    And debt growth would be vastly outpaced by growth in the economy: The Congressional Budget Office projects a 50 percent rise in dollar G.D.P. over the next 10 years. Debt wouldn’t snowball; relative to the economy, it would melt.

    So the fact that the infrastructure bill would, in practice, pay for public investment with borrowed money isn’t anything to worry about. If the investment is worth undertaking—and it is—we should just do it.

    One can imagine that Krugman would have championed Nixon’s moves, from abrogating the Bretton Woods Agreement to imposing wage and price controls. To a Keynesian like Krugman and those that came before him, the economy works best when governments spend recklessly with no constraints.

    Austrians know better. The collapse of the monetary order in 1971 reflected the massive dislocations and malinvestment of resources that ultimately turned the decade into one crisis after another, and the current economy is facing risks of even greater magnitude. Unfortunately, Keynesians rule the day, just as they did fifty years ago. As Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand wrote of the Bourbons in the years after the French Revolution, “They learned nothing, and they forgot nothing.” One can say the same for the Keynesians. A half century after The Crisis, Keynesians seem hellbent on creating new crises and printing money to “fix” them.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/11/2021 – 21:40

  • "Now Youse Can't Leave"
    “Now Youse Can’t Leave”

    A mere few months ago any mention in public discourse of Covid passports was written off by the mainstream media as but the ravings of “conspiracy theorists” consigned to remote corners of the internet making supposedly far-fetched slippery slope arguments. On Wednesday CNBC now writes, “As the rampant delta variant of Covid threatens the post-pandemic travel and tourism rebound, there’s growing acceptance of so-called vaccine passports among a one-hesitant U.S. public and of increased calls for their mandated use across the industry.”

    Citing a recent survey by a travel industry website, CNBC informs its readers that, “A survey found 81.8% of Americans support the idea of vaccine passports, digital or physical proof of vaccination against Covid.” Looking forward, where are we headed? Australia seems to be providing the world with a ‘forward warning’ and dystopian glimpse of what will likely be enacted by many more governments across the globe assuming the Delta and other Covid variants continue to spread…

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    The above recent local Australian news broadcast is absolutely chilling given that citizens are informed in a peppy and bright ‘reassuring’ voice by the blond bombshell reporter that they essentially have no rights and no recourse whatsoever when it comes to Health Ministry directives.

    Welcome to the future – perhaps coming to a “health ministry” near you…

    Australians living overseas could be “trapped” in Australia if they return, after the nation’s government tightened its border rules without notice.

    Since March last year, the country has banned its citizens from leaving the country as part of its Covid strategy. That restriction has not previously applied to Australians who usually live in other countries.

    But they will now need to apply for an exemption for outbound travel – in line with rules for other Australians.

    The smiling correspondent in the above clip seems to be almost gleeful as she informs her fellow Aussies, “Some Australians based overseas have told Sky News they don’t even know whether or not they’ll be able to return to the country they live in.”

    And then she immediately pivots to something that seems straight of a North Korean state TV script…

    “Is it legal? Yes it is.

    Nobody can challenge the Health Minister’s directives. 

    Even under International law, Australia doesn’t have a Bill of Rights meaning no citizen can challenge the Governments decision.”

    Perhaps the segment would have been easier if the broadcast simply informed citizens without elaborating (though with fewer smiles): “Now youse can’t leave”…

    “This change will mean no matter where you live in the world, once you are in Australia you are formally trapped,” Professor Kim Rubenstein, who writes about citizenship law from the University of Canberra, told BBC Wednesday.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/11/2021 – 21:20

  • Eight Questions For The California Recall Candidates
    Eight Questions For The California Recall Candidates

    Authored by Terry Paulding via AmericanThinker.com,

    We have an election coming up in California. Yes, it’s a recall, so the current administration is invested in ignoring it, hoping it’ll go away. The large slate of candidates wishing to replace Governor Newsom, I guess, would prefer not to hear from their competitors. So once again, we are left with the election version of “you have to pass the bill to see what’s in it.” You must elect someone, to find out who they are and what they truly stand for. I would prefer to get some answers before casting my vote.

    Candidates running to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom in the recall election include, clockwise from top left: businessman John Cox, former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, retired Olympian/reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner, Larry Elder, nationally syndicated conservative radio host, Assemblyman Kevin Kiley and billboard model Angelyne.

    Here’s a list of the things I’d like each candidate to address.

    I hope they will:

    1. Wildfires have consumed millions of acres of our state and destroyed multiple communities. They are getting worse every year. Governor Newsom eliminated his entire budget for forest management and brush clearing this last year. We once had thriving a logging industry in our state, that clear-cut and replanted, managed the forests for their own profit, and created jobs. Since the industry was hounded out of existence, we’ve operated on an alternative philosophy, one of letting everything grow wild and unmanageable, in the name of preservation. Clearly, that hasn’t worked. Please tell us your philosophy about how we will solve this problem.

    2. Homelessness is rampant in our cities. Encampments breed violence, disease, and destruction. Garbage lines our streets, human feces, needles, filth on our sidewalks. Nobody has come up with any solution to this problem. What would you do?

    3. Violence in the streets is becoming the norm. People are being accosted and robbed, punched, shot, randomly murdered. Police are demoralized, unsupported, and demonized. It is becoming unsafe to go out in the daytime, much less evening, for fear of violence. Do you have a plan to fix this?

    4. Our schools are embarrassing. Our Superintendent of Education has embedded CRT in the curriculum. Teachers are being paid not to teach. Our children are languishing at home, or being forced to wear filth-ridden, toxic masks to school. Mental health problems among school children, whose vivid imaginations are not balanced by being able to see the expressions of their schoolmates, are very high. The teacher’s unions rule the roost. Would you support school choice, and having the budget per student available to all parents who want to exercise the right to find a better alternative for their children? How would you deal with these problems?

    5. Water supply in this state has always been a challenge. We either have drought or flood. We have done nothing to improve the water-retention infrastructure for years, nor have we exercised ourselves, as a state, to find alternatives. Would you support (a) desalination plants on a scale to alleviate the stress on our water system and allow our farmers to farm, (b) construction of more reservoirs to capture runoff, (c) exploring the possibility of piping water from the north?

    6. Energy infrastructure and supply are unreliable. We have the highest energy and gasoline prices in the nation. We are wedded to turning to electricity for all our needs, and we are eliminating reliable sources of power such as clean natural gas, in favor of solar and wind farms. These farms only operate when the sun shines and the wind blows, kill massive amounts of birds, and the energy needs to be subsidized to be affordable when it’s working at all. What will you do about the problem?

    7. Our taxes are astronomical and the “services” we get for paying them are more draconian than helpful. We are over-regulated and under-supported as a business community, and as residents. Our roads are a shambles, despite massive supposedly targeted gas taxes. How would you deal with taxes?

    8. COVID restrictions are killing business in the state. Forced vaccination, scare tactics, and masking, despite the clear and demonstrable uselessness of the last-mentioned measure, leave us residents under the thumb of a bureaucracy we don’t trust. Common sense has been supplanted by generalized fear. Residents are uneducated about the medical realities, which is that the virus is easily treated, that most of the death has come from being forced not to treat early, and that children don’t die from COVID unless they have an underlying condition. Censorship is the enemy of success when it comes to dealing with the disease. Famously, our current governor doesn’t obey the rules he set for all of us to follow. What is your intention regarding COVID rules?

    I’m sure I’ve missed some things. But answering this simple set of pressing questions would educate us all, in terms of our vote next month. I’m not sure how to make that happen, even though we all would be better off knowing each candidate’s answers.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/11/2021 – 21:00

  • CDC Forced To "Adjust" Sunday's Florida "Record" COVID Count Lower By Almost 50% After State Health Department Cries Foul On Data
    CDC Forced To “Adjust” Sunday’s Florida “Record” COVID Count Lower By Almost 50% After State Health Department Cries Foul On Data

    The CDC has been forced to “adjust” its Covid-19 case tracker for Florida after the state’s health department took to Twitter earlier this week to call out incorrect data.

    As of Tuesday, the CDC “was working with the state’s health department” to get the data right, according to a report from Fox News. 

    Florida’s health department called out the incorrect CDC information publicly, stating earlier this week: “Wrong again. The number of cases @CDCgov released for Florida today is incorrect. They combined MULTIPLE days into one. We anticipate CDC will correct the record.”

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    The CDC had reported 28,317 new Covid cases on Sunday, but had “adjusted” the number to 19,584 cases by Tuesday, the report says. Florida’s health department claimed that there were 15,319 cases on Sunday a number that is almost 50% lower than the CDC’s originally reported number. 

    “On Tuesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the state has surpassed 20,000 for its 7-day average of new cases, a day after the federal agency misreported numbers given by the Florida Department of Health by combining data from the last three days into two,” Fox reported on Wednesday, after first pointing out the data discrepancy earlier in the week.

    Florida’s hospitalizations were up by more than 1,110 to 14,787 on Tuesday. 

    Recall, earlier this week we noted that Governor Ron DeSantis was threatening to withhold salaries from school officials who defied his mask mandate ban. 

    According to a statement issued by DeSantis’ office – just days after his threat to cut funding resulted in a ‘pause’ on a proposed mask mandate in Broward County – one potential consequence for defiant school officials would be a loss of income.

    “With respect to enforcing any financial consequences for noncompliance of state law regarding these rules and ultimately the rights of parents to make decisions about their children’s education and health care decisions, it would be the goal of the State Board of Education to narrowly tailor any financial consequences to the offense committed. For example, the State Board of Education could move to withhold the salary of the district superintendent or school board members, as a narrowly tailored means to address the decision-makers who led to the violation of law,” reads the statement.

    …unintentional? Too late to correct all those Sunday morning political shows ‘gloating’ over DeSantis’ state outbreak.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/11/2021 – 20:44

  • "This News Is False": China Caught Fabricating Non-Existant Swiss Biologist To Refute COVID Origin Story
    “This News Is False”: China Caught Fabricating Non-Existant Swiss Biologist To Refute COVID Origin Story

    Another day, another shameless lie by China – which clearly has “nothing to hide” – about the origin of the Chinese coronavirus which either leaked or was created at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

    According to the SCMP, several Chinese newspaper websites removed comments about the coronavirus pandemic that were “wrongly presented” as coming from a Swiss biologist who does not appear to exist, Switzerland ’s foreign ministry said Wednesday.

    The press and social media comments attributed to a non-existent biologist identified as Wilson Edwards took aim at alleged US pressure on researchers amid the pandemic. Chinese authorities and state media outlets have led an aggressive pushback against criticism abroad of China’s handling of the Covid-19 outbreak; in fact they have pushed back to so hard at allegations they created the covid virus, they are now fabricating “experts” instead of merely bribing them as was the case with the World Health Organization.

    The Swiss embassy in Beijing highlighted its suspicions about the quoted scientist on Tuesday with a Twitter post: “Looking for Wilson Edwards, alleged [Swiss] biologist, cited in press and social media in China over the last several days.”

    “If you exist, we would like to meet you!” the embassy tweeted.

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    A message inserted with the post, written in English and Chinese, said no Swiss citizen named Wilson Edwards appeared on registries or academic articles from the biology field. It said the Facebook account where comments attributed to Wilson were published was opened on July 24.

    The embassy said that while it appreciated Switzerland receiving attention, it “must unfortunately inform the Chinese public that this news is false”.

    “While we assume that the spreading of this story was done in good faith by the media and netizens, we kindly ask that anyone having published this story take it down and publish a corrigendum,” the embassy post said.

    Pierre-Alain Eltschinger, a spokesman for the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs, said the comments were “wrongly presented as coming from a Swiss biologist”.

    “Several Chinese newspapers have since pulled down those comments,” he said in an email, without specifying.

    Meanwhile, the biggest “crusader” against fake news – the propaganda central that is Facebook – was the only outlet that was still citing the non-existing person. According to SCMP, an authenticated Facebook account of China’s People’s Daily newspaper still had an English language reference to an article from CGTN, the international arm of the Chinese state broadcaster, quoting Wilson.

    In the CGTN article, Wilson was quoted as saying he and fellow researchers had faced pressure and intimidation from the US and some media outlets for supporting conclusions in a joint study by China and the Geneva-based World Health Organization on the origins of Covid-19.

    Not only did that not happen, but it’s clear that China will do absolutely everything to deflect attention from its creation of a virus that has cost the world tens of trillions in damages and countless deaths.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/11/2021 – 20:40

  • "No Mingling": Hawaii Revives COVID-19 Restrictions Over Fear Of Delta Variant
    “No Mingling”: Hawaii Revives COVID-19 Restrictions Over Fear Of Delta Variant

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    The state of Hawaii announced it would reintroduce restrictions on social gatherings due to the COVID-19 Delta variant.

    “With COVID-19 cases going up, the State of Hawaiʻi is taking precautions now to avert a strain on our healthcare systems. To that end—I’ll be signing an Executive Order that will limit social gatherings, effective immediately,” Gov. Dan Ige, a Democrat, announced Wednesday on Twitter.

    The order would limit capacity at restaurants, bars, gyms, and social establishments to 50 percent of capacity. It also caps indoor and outdoor gatherings to 10 and 25 people, respectively.

    “Patrons in restaurants bars and social establishments must remain seated with parties maintaining at least 6 ft distancing between groups (with maximum groups size of 10 indoors and 25 outdoors); there will be no mingling, and masks must be worn at all times except when actively eating or drinking,” according to a news release from his office.

    The order also stipulates that county governments “will review proposals for all professionally sponsored events for more than 50 people, to ensure that appropriate safe practices will be implemented.”

    “Organizers of these professional events must notify and consult with the following county agencies prior to the event. County approval is required for professional events for more than 50 people,” Ige’s office added.

    The policies will remain in effect until Oct. 18, according to Ige’s office, unless another order is implemented.

    The government of Hawaii in June raised social gathering limitations to 25 indoors and 75 outdoors amid a decline in cases.

    Hawaii, with more than 60 percent of its population fully vaccinated, has witnessed a rise in cases by 168 percent between July 26 and August 8, said the state’s department of health.

    Across the United States, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of COVID-19 cases has surged in recent weeks.

    The CDC’s data, however, also shows that the U.S. death count is nowhere near as high as it was in early January 2021, when more than 4,100 people died across the country in a single day. As of Aug. 9, the seven-day average for COVID-19 deaths is 434 per day.

    Ige’s move comes as the federal government has increasingly pushed for vaccinations. This week, the Department of Defense announced it would mandate all military members to get the COVID-19 shot, while the CDC on Wednesday recommended that pregnant women get the vaccine.

    Last week, New York City officials announced they would, starting in August, roll out a vaccine passport-type system for bars, restaurants, gyms, and theaters.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/11/2021 – 20:20

  • Newsom Announces Nation's First Vax-Or-Test Rule For All Teachers And Staff
    Newsom Announces Nation’s First Vax-Or-Test Rule For All Teachers And Staff

    California has become the first state in the nation to require all teachers and school employees to be vaccinated or submit to regular Covid-19 testing.

    In a Wednesday announcement, Governor Gavin Newsom (D) made official a policy already employed by several school districts, including Long Beach Unified and districts in San Francisco, Oakland and Sacramento.

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    As Fox5 notes, Los Angeles Unified School District – the largest in the state, and second-largest in the nation – has a slightly stricter policy in place, requiring weekly testing for all students and staff regardless of vaccination status.

    Newsom’s order, first reported Tuesday night by Politico and later confirmed by various media outlets, was announced by the governor during a late-morning visit to an elementary school in Alameda County. Newsom said California is the first state in the nation to implement such a sweeping requirement.

    The vaccination-or-testing requirement already has the support of the powerful Service Employees International Union, which represents thousands of school workers across the state. –Fox5

    Newsom’s latest edict won hilarious praise from the Service Employees International Group (SEIU) union, which less than two weeks ago opposed Newsom’s order requiring state workers show proof of vaccination or undergo regular testing due to the ‘abruptness’ of notification.

    “We share Governor Newsom’s commitment to increasing the rate of vaccination so we can better protect the students and families we serve from sickness and death, and prevent the virus from spreading to our own families and communities, and we support public health measures such as this which are designed to do so while giving workers a choice,” said SEIU California executive board member, Max Arias. “Worker-led school safety protocols have created the model for safe school reopening, and many school workers have already created similar agreements.”

    So – state workers: absolutely not until we can bargain over it.

    Students and teachers: follow Newsom’s science. 

    Also supportive are the state’s two major teacher’s unions, the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers. According to the CTA, nearly 90% of its members are already vaccinated based on a March survey.

    Undoubtedly opposed to Newsom’s order is the Orange County Board of Education, which announced last week that it will take legal action to challenge Newsom’s statewide mask mandate in schools. In addition, a pair of parent groups have filed lawsuits in San Diego challenging Newsom’s order.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/11/2021 – 20:00

  • Epstein: They Knew Everything And Did Nothing
    Epstein: They Knew Everything And Did Nothing

    Authored by Techno Fog via The Reactionary (emphasis ours),

    It has been two years since Jeffrey Epstein died.

    I refuse to say he committed suicide because that would require trust in the DOJ’s investigation into his death. Not that it’s inconceivable that Epstein committed suicide. He was facing serious charges that would have resulted in serious time. He revised his will two days before he died. (Indicative of planning his death or being fearful he’d be killed, however you want to look at it.) Rather, it’s that we’ve learned from the Epstein saga that the DOJ, which serves the broader interests of the US government, can’t be trusted.

    Two years gone and we still have no good answers about Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to intelligence.

    There are sources telling Vicky Ward of Rolling Stone that “Epstein’s dealings in the arms world in the 1980s had led him to work for multiple governments, including the Israelis.” Ward’s sources said that Epstein “was known in the intelligence world as a ‘hyper-fixer,’ somebody who can go between different cultures and networks.”

    As to the allegations that Epstein was dealing arms in the 1980s – if true, then likely in conjunction with US or Israeli intelligence – that might explain why he had an Austrian passport that was used to enter France, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Saudi Arabia in the 1980s.

    And it’s easy to imagine Epstein being a “hyper-fixer” in the 1990s-2000s, given his ties to influential political and corporate figures. Think Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, and Leslie Wexner (of Victoria Secret’s fame), to name a few.

    Adding to the intrigue is this excerpt we reported from Ghislaine Maxwell’s deposition, where Epstein had reportedly told people he worked for the US government to “recover stolen funds.”

    One can’t help but think it all goes deeper than this, with intelligence relationships and handling agents and the US government either supporting or turning a blind eye to Epstein’s depravity because he was useful. There has to be something else. Yet without concrete specifics, and with a government unwilling to provide answers, these allegations remain unproven.

    What they knew.

    In July 2019, prosecutors with the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) held a press conference announcing the arrest and indictment against Epstein for sexual exploitation of minors from 2002 through 2005.

    In explaining the SDNY’s decision to prosecute Epstein, US Attorney Geoffrey Berman stated they were “assisted from some excellent investigative journalism.”

    If only that were true.

    In reality, this was federal prosecutors in New York cleaning up the mess left behind by federal prosecutors in South Florida and federal officials in DC. Make no mistake: the 2019 decision to prosecute Epstein was the result of public outrage from Epstein’s 2007 federal non-prosecution agreement. Public relations got so bad the DOJ had to do something.

    Background.

    A couple dates to keep in mind. First, Epstein signed his non-prosecution agreement (NPA) with federal officials in September 2007. He pleaded guilty to Florida state charges in June 2008.

    The Evidence.

    The evidence to prosecute Epstein was always there. In 2015, during a South Florida civil case brought by Epstein’s victims against the federal government, it was revealed through privilege logs (summaries of the evidence the government was keeping secret) that the DOJ and FBI boxes and boxes of evidence against Epstein. This included an FBI filed called “Summary of Sexual Activity,” which contained information on victims, grand jury evidence, and travel records.

    The Feds also had volumes of information on Epstein’s corporations and bank accounts.

    Here’s where the dates matter. Epstein signed his federal non-prosecution agreement with DOJ officials on September 24, 2007. Court documents revealed that the investigation of Epstein was ongoing – not completed, not finished, but ongoing – at the time that document was signed.

    In fact, the FBI was still interviewing witnesses after the non-prosecution agreement was signed. (It is standard practice for federal prosecutors offer a plea deal after they identify the victims – not before.)

    For example, court filings indicate that “In October 2007, after the NPA was signed, federal agents spoke with three of the more than 30 identified victims.”

    Approximately four months after Epstein signed the NPA, the FBI met with a victim and gathered “additional details about Epstein’s abuse as well as the direct sexual abuse by one of his co-conspirators, Nadia Marcinkova – who participated in the abuse of other victims as well.” (Unfortunately for the victims, Ms. Marcinkova was protected from prosecution by the Epstein NPA.)

    As to victims in New York, privilege logs show the FBI/DOJ knew of these victims dating back to 2008.

    It went all the way up to the top.

    According to Epstein attorney Alan Dershowitz, the federal non-prosecution agreement “went through numerous levels of approval at main justice.” This means DC.

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    Our own research confirms what Dershowitz says. Andrew Oosterbaan, then-DOJ Chief of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, was advised of plea negotiations and the non-prosecution agreement.

    Main Justice official Andy Lourie was also involved. (Lourie was the acting chief of the Public Integrity Section of the Criminal Division in Washington in 2006, before becoming the acting principal deputy assistant attorney general and chief of staff to the Criminal Division by 2007. In 2007, he was also an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida.)

    In early 2008, as there were discussions of a renewed federal plea agreement and concerns about press coverage, the FBI was involved in Epstein meetings in DC. This is consistent with the involvement of Main Justice in some of the most important aspects of the Epstein matter, from reviewing the non-prosecution agreement to apparently delaying the development of the case.

    Main Justice was even blamed for the delay in presenting the Epstein case to a grand jury.

    Eventually, in Spring 2008, DC would sign-off on the Epstein deal.

    Main Justice assisting Epstein’s attorneys.

    As prosecutors in South Florida consulted with Main Justice in DC, so too did Epstein’s lawyers.

    Ken Starr, one of Epstein’s lawyers, had requested meetings with Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher to stop the DOJ from executing its lawful duty and notifying Epstein’s victims of the plea deal.

    These appeals worked. According to April 2008 correspondence from Starr to Deputy Assistant Attorney General Sigal Mandelker, the victim notification letters were “halted by an eleventh hour appeal to AAG Fisher.”

    These victim notification letters, which would inform them of Epstein’s plea deal and afford them the right to be heard at any plea or sentencing hearing, were rights conferred by the Crime Victims’ Rights Act. The upper levels of the DOJ, in conjunction with local prosecutors and Epstein’s defense team, conspired to deny these rights.

    As the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals recently observed, “it appears that prosecutors worked hand-in-hand with Epstein’s lawyers – or at the very least acceded to their requests – to keep the NPA’s existence and terms hidden from victims.”

    I lay out this evidence – of prosecutors and federal officials fast-tracking the Epstein NPA, of reaching the NPA before victims were interviewed, of high level DOJ participation in the Epstein deal – because there’s one important question that remains unanswered:

    Why did the federal government go to these lengths to protect Epstein and his co-conspirators?

    We suspect the answer goes back to what we started with – Epstein’s ties to intelligence.

    According to Alex Acosta, the former US Attorney who signed the NPA, he was instructed to back off the case because Epstein was above his pay grade. Acosta supposedly told Trump transition officials that “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone.”

    And who gave Acosta those instructions to leave Epstein alone? A good starting point might be those federal officials identified in this article.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/11/2021 – 19:40

  • "People Are Genuinely Trying To Make An Informed Decision" – Why Vaccine Giveaways & "Freebies" Don't Work
    “People Are Genuinely Trying To Make An Informed Decision” – Why Vaccine Giveaways & “Freebies” Don’t Work

    Since the vaccines were first offered to the broader population earlier this year, state and municipal governments across the US have tried to incentivize more adults to get the jabs by offering money, free beer, and entry into a lottery for millions of dollars to try and draw more people to get the vaccine. For some, this has bred resentment, as the vaccinated have questioned why they’re being penalized for complying with the government’s demands.

    As France resorts to using more heavy handed measures, like requiring vaccination passports for people to dine at restaurants The FT is the latest to take on this issue as the world wonders whether there might be a more humane alternative to government’s forcing people to take an experimental vaccine. As the FT points out, across the US “inducements to receive COVID jabs are proliferating…states are offering rewards ranging from $100 cash to free beer, theme park tickets and lottery tickets. In the UK, freebies include fast food and free taxi rides.”

    But now that NYC has started requiring vaccine passports for gym-goers and restaurant patrons, many other cities are considering following in their footsteps. And when the time comes, how will the rest of the world handle it? For now, per the FT,  battling vaccine hesitancy is still very  much a “rich-country problem”.

    Any governments considering adopting additional “incentives” (perhaps before choosing a harsher, more authoritative route) should probably consider these criticisms, laid out by the FT, which spoke to a handful of academics, including Psychology Professor Stephen Reicher, from the University of St. Andrews.  He told the FT that incentive schemes have “many complexities and many pitfalls” and – like vaccine passports – could have a “polarizing effect.”

    “People who were going to get vaccinated anyway might say to themselves: ‘OK well I’ll do it a bit more quickly’ . . . On the other hand, those who are reluctant become more negative and more resistant,” says Reicher. “Precisely the people you want to win over can be the people you alienate.”

    Initial data show that, in France, the introduction of Macron’s strict requirements led to a bump in demand for vaccination appointments, but that this only lasted a week, before bookings for appointments trended lower once again.

    Source: FT

    A public health official from Arkansas perhaps put it best: when it comes to vaccines “people genuinely wish to make an informed decision and that doesn’t add new information, she said, referring to “freebies” like lotteries and giveaways.

    So, if giveaways and don’t work, then what are some strategies that might?

    Others believe recruiting more “influencers” to act as “age-appropriate” spokespeople for the 18-34s who are still refusing to get the jab might be an effective strategy. The US has already tapped into this by enlisting teenage pop star Olivia Rodrigo in its campaign.

    While they’re trying to reach out to the right age demographic, they should also take a second to figure out which demographic groups are also worth targeting. While much ink has been spilled about minorities and their skepticism of vaccines, one recent study showed that the most highly educated Americans are also the most vaccine-hesitant.

    Research in the UK shows that vaccination rates are lower among “people of black Caribbean and African heritage” as well as those “living in ore deprived areas”, according to the FT.

    It’s this second group that some experts believe to be the “lowest hanging fruit.”

    Although information campaigns and vaccine passports and incentives attract public attention, many experts say the most effective way to increase uptake is simply to make it as easy as possible for those who are short of time and motivation — but not actively opposed to vaccination — to get their jabs. 

    “The lowest hanging fruit are those who continue to lack access to the vaccine,” says Maureen Miller, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Columbia University in New York. She adds that adverts in languages other than English, making clear that jabs are free and do not require health insurance or proof of immigration status, are critical for capturing those who want a jab but are nervous.

    “Anything that gets anybody vaccinated is important, but in order to get the larger numbers we need to make it convenient, and not scary,” she adds.

    NYC is probably done the most of any western city in this regard, due to its pop-up vaccination centers in subways and other public spaces. Success has still been pretty limited, however.

    The experts quoted in the FT report all reportedly agreed that vaccine requirements should be in place for international travel, due to a “long history of vaccination certificates” as well as some jobs involving human contact (thought French PM Emmanuel Macron’s and Mayor de Blasio’s edicts requiring health-care workers to be vaccinated have proven more controversial than those leaders may have anticipated).

    While governments will likely mandate jabs for international travel, three US carriers – Delta, Southwest and American announced on Wednesday that they would break with United and opt not to require proof of vaccination from customers flying domestic.

    Especially as “the science” raises more questions about the efficacy of the vaccines, for now, the best strategy for convincing people that the jabs are safe would be for the FDA to finally officially approve them. Though even that might not be enough for many skeptics concerned about the long-term effects.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/11/2021 – 19:20

  • CNN Medical Propagandist: Kids In Schools Need Industrial Grade Masks, Weekly Tests
    CNN Medical Propagandist: Kids In Schools Need Industrial Grade Masks, Weekly Tests

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    CNN’s resident fear monger medical “expert” Dr. Leana Wen declared Tuesday that children returning to school need to be forced to wear industrial grade face masks and should be subjected to weekly COVID tests until they are fully vaccinated.

    “This is now one of the most dangerous times in the pandemic when it comes to children because we have the more contagious Delta variant, we have surges, and we have so adults many letting down their guard, not wearing masks, not getting vaccinated. That’s contributing to this really dangerous environment for children,” Wen declared.

    “That said, we do know what it takes to get our children back in school safely,” she continued, referring to forcing kids into face masks.

    “We also know that it requires layers. So when we remove a layer, for example, we remove the layer of distancing because we can’t get kids back in school in-person full time if we still keep six feet instancing, but if we remove that layer, then indoor masking becomes even more important universal making,” Wen further proclaimed.

    She also claimed that the “type of mask also matters, N95 or K95 if the children are able to tolerate that, if not at least a three-ply surgical mask.”

    Wen further emphasised that “cloth masks are not enough.”

    She added that “improved ventilation and very importantly, testing as well. We should at least be having weekly testing for all the unvaccinated children and staff. Putting all that together is how we can get kids back in school safely.”

    Watch:

    This is interesting because when Senator Rand Paul pointed out that cloth masks are useless, citing two peer reviewed scientific papers, he was attacked by leftists, and censored by YouTube.

    Yet here is Wen admitting the same thing, they don’t work, albeit using the fact to advocate forcing children to wear stronger masks that it is recommend adults do not wear for prolonged periods because they severely impair breathing.

    So when Rand Paul says cloth masks don’t work, it’s anti-science. But when CNN’s “expert” says the same thing, it’s pro-science and should be applauded?

    Given that it’s now well established that vaccinated people can still spread the virus, there is no evidence to wholly blame the “surge” of the delta variant on unvaccinated people.

    Wen is merely continuing her narrative of attempting to frame the unvaccinated as second class citizens who should face discrimination.

    During a previous appearance on CNN, Wen asserted that, “It needs to be hard for people to remain unvaccinated,” calling on workplaces and schools to start making life difficult for those who refuse to take the shot.

    Last week, Wen declared that “we can’t trust the unvaccinated,” and everybody should still be wearing masks.”

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/11/2021 – 19:00

  • US Intelligence Revises Afghan Estimate: Kabul To Be Overrun "Sooner Than Feared"
    US Intelligence Revises Afghan Estimate: Kabul To Be Overrun “Sooner Than Feared”

    Previously a widely reported US intelligence assessment from June predicted that after the US troop exit from Afghanistan is complete (which at this point has essentially been accomplished), the densely populated capital of Kabul could fall within six months.

    US defense officials have now greatly revised that estimate after this past week which saw the Taliban overrun no less than eight provincial capital cities within a mere week. Officials told The Washington Post Kabul’s fall could likely occur within the next 90 days, according to a new military intelligence assessment, with some officials offering the more dire prediction of one month.

    Kabul, via Reuters

    The revised bleaker assessment comes a day after a senior EU official was widely cited as saying 65% of the country’s territory is now under Taliban control, much of it gained without significant resistance, given the many reports of US-trained national forces fleeing in retreat. Further, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby conceded there’s “not much” the US can do at this point if the Afghan Army isn’t willing to put up more of a fight.

    The Washington Post writes Wednesday, “The Biden administration is preparing for Afghanistan’s capital to fall far sooner than feared only weeks ago, as a rapid disintegration of security has prompted the revision of an already stark intelligence assessment predicting Kabul could be overrun within six to 12 months of the U.S. military departing, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter.”

    The outlook is such that US officials are said to be debating whether to even keep the sprawling, high-secured embassy in Kabul open; however, they assure plans remain the same to keep it in operation with hundreds of additional military security personnel guarding it.

    Amid the daily bad news reports of a rapid Taliban offensive to retake the country, President Biden says he has no regrets. “Look,” Biden began at a White House press briefing, “we spent over a trillion dollars over 20 years. We trained and equipped, with modern equipment, over 300,000 Afghan forces.” He indicated plans remain the same to declare ‘mission accomplished’ by the highly symbolic 9/11 anniversary.

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    He still urged the war-torn nation’s factions and leaders to unite and “fight for their nation”. The Pentagon this week confirmed that there are no plans to call in extra air support to assist the Afghan military. But if Kabul is directly threatened or under siege, it’s unclear if plans would change.

    The Pentagon’s Kirby struggled to essentially say on Monday that Afghan forces are on their own at this point: “I mean, if – if – if it, – the –we don’t have forces on the ground in partnership with them, and we – we can’t  – we – we will certainly support from the air, where feasible, but that’s no substitute for leaders on the ground, it’s no substitute for political leadership in Kabul, it’s no substitute for using the capabilities and capacity that we know they have.” 

    Meanwhile, the Taliban says it has no interest in ceasefire talks, with Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid telling Axios on Wednesday: “We have never yielded to any foreign pressure tactics before and we do not plan to capitulate any time soon either.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/11/2021 – 18:40

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Aug 11

Today’s News 11th August 2021

  • Russia Slams "Crude Provocation" After US Invited To Station Troops & Anti-Air Systems In Ukraine
    Russia Slams “Crude Provocation” After US Invited To Station Troops & Anti-Air Systems In Ukraine

    A top Ukrainian official has indicated that US support to Ukraine may be in the process of ramping up dramatically, suggesting that Kiev has invited a permanent American troop presence and stationing of anti-air defense rocket systems on its soil.

    Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Reznikov made the revealing statements recently while hosted by the hawkish D.C.-based Jamestown Foundation. “It is important to expand the security package for Ukraine,” Reznikov said. “First of all, with the stationing of air defense forces, and even by deploying American units.”

    Patriot batteries, via AFP

    Reznikov forther argued this would serve a secondary purpose of eroding Moscow’s “influence in the Balkans” – also at a moment the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline is nearing completion, and amid rival military drills of late occurring on the Black Sea. 

    The statements certainly raised eyebrows in the Kremlin, being picked up widely in Russian media, which described such a scenario of US air defenses on Russia’s border a severe “red line”. TASS cited chairman of the State Duma’s committee for international affairs, Leonid Slutsky, who lashed out at the “crude provocation” on Tuesday.

    “Reznikov’s statement is crude provocation. The deployment of the US missile defense systems in Ukraine may change the balance of force in the region and outside it,” Slutsky was quoted as saying. TASS reported his words further:

    He stressed that the anti-missile system Aegis included the launcher Mk41, which could be used for launching not only interceptors, but also cruise missiles.

    “Their emergence (of such air defense systems – TASS) close to Russia’s borders will undoubtedly evoke Moscow’s response. Tensions will merely soar,” Slutsky warned.

    Meanwhile the past year has witnessed a mutual ramping up of military drills on the Black Sea between Russia on the one hand and the Western allies on the other.

    And D.C. think tanks have renewed efforts at stoking tensions over Ukraine…

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    Just last month, NATO and Ukraine held two weeks of joint naval drills – Sea Breeze 2021 – as a show of force aimed squarely at Moscow. It involved some 30 warships and 40 aircraft from NATO members and Ukraine, according to IUS state-funded VOA News.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/11/2021 – 02:45

  • Italy To Extend Vaccine Passports To Public Transport & Schools
    Italy To Extend Vaccine Passports To Public Transport & Schools

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    Despite massive protests against the measures, Italy is set to extend its vaccine passport system to public transport and schools from September 1st.

    Potentially exacerbating growing public contempt towards the draconian rules, authorities announced that the list of venues where the passport would be required is to be extended.

    From the start of next month, teachers will be out of a job unless they take the vaccine and get the pass, while university students will be unable to attend classes without it.

    The unvaccinated will also be banned from using long distance public transport, meaning that holidays, travel for work and visiting relatives will become impossible for many.

    As of last week, venues such as museums, stadiums, theaters gyms, and indoor seating spaces at bars and restaurants all required vaccine identification.

    “Customers and venues may face fines ranging from €400 to €1,000 ($470 to $1,180) if businesses fail to implement the regulation. Institutions that frequently break the rule risk being shut down for up to ten days by the authorities,” reports Reclaim the Net.

    In an Orwellian statement, Health Minister Roberto Speranza said the extension of the scheme to include schools and public transport was necessary to “avoid closures and to safeguard freedom.”

    As we highlighted last month, the Italian parliament saw protests against the domestic passports when MPs who held up signs saying “no green pass” were chased out of the building.

    Italians also hit the streets in numerous cities the demonstrate against the plan, with protesters in Turin chanting, “No dictatorship!”

    All across Europe, governments are creating two tier societies that will entrench total discrimination against the unvaccinated, who will remain under de facto lockdown measures indefinitely.

    As we highlighted earlier, in France which has imposed one of the most draconian systems, police are now on patrol checking the vaccine papers of people sitting outdoors at cafes.

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/11/2021 – 02:00

  • Escobar: All Roads Lead To The Battle For Kabul
    Escobar: All Roads Lead To The Battle For Kabul

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

    City after city have fallen from government to Taliban control but Afghanistan’s end-game is still unclear…

    Afghan militia fighters keep watch at an outpost against Taliban insurgents at Charkint district in Balkh Province in June. Photo: AFP / Farshad Usyan

    The ever-elusive Afghan “peace” process negotiations re-start this Wednesday in Doha via the extended troika – the US, Russia, China and Pakistan. The contrast with the accumulated facts on the ground could not be starker. 

    In a coordinated blitzkrieg, the Taliban have subdued no less than six Afghan provincial capitals in only four days. The central administration in Kabul will have a hard time defending its stability in Doha.

    It gets worse. Ominously, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has all but buried the Doha process. He’s already betting on civil war – from the weaponization of civilians in the main cities to widespread bribing of regional warlords, with the intent of building a “coalition of the willing” to fight the Taliban.

    The capture of Zaranj, the capital of Nimruz province, was a major Taliban coup. Zaranj is the gateway for India’s access to Afghanistan and further on to Central Asia via the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC).

    India paid for the construction of the highway linking the port of Chabahar in Iran – the key hub of India’s faltering version of the New Silk Roads – to Zaranj.

    At stake here is a vital Iran-Afghanistan border crossing cum Southwest/Central Asia transportation corridor. Yet now the Taliban control trade on the Afghan side. And Tehran has just closed the Iranian side. No one knows what happens next.

    The Taliban are meticulously implementing a strategic master plan. There’s no smoking gun, yet – but highly informed outside help – Pakistani ISI intel? – is plausible.

    First, they conquer the countryside – a virtually done deal in at least 85% of the territory. Then they control the key border checkpoints, as with Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Spin Boldak with Balochistan in Pakistan. Finally, it’s all about encircling and methodically taking provincial capitals – that’s where we are now.

    The final act will be the Battle for Kabul. This may plausibly happen as early as September, in a warped “celebration” of the 20 years of 9/11 and the American bombing of 1996-2001 Talibanistan.

    That strategic blitzkrieg

    What’s going on across the north is even more astonishing than in the southwest.

    The Taliban have conquered Sheberghan, a heavily Uzbek-influenced area, and took no time to spread images of fighters in stolen garb posing in front of the now-occupied Dostum Palace. Notoriously vicious warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum happens to be the current Afghan vice-president.

    Taliban posing with military garb stolen from Dostum’s palace in Sheberghan. Photo: Supplied

    The Taliban’s big splash was to enter Kunduz, which is still not completely subdued. Kunduz is very important strategically. With 370,000 people and quite close to the Tajik border, it’s the main hub of northeast Afghanistan.

    Kabul government forces have simply fled. All prisoners were released from local jails. Roads are blocked. That’s significant because Kunduz is at the crossroads of two important corridors – to Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif. And crucially, it’s also a crossroads of corridors used to export opium and heroin.

    The Bundeswehr used to occupy a military base near Kunduz airport, now housing the 217th Afghan Army corps. That’s where the few remaining Afghan government forces have retreated.

    The Taliban are now bent on besieging the historically legendary Mazar-i-Sharif, the big northern city, even more important than Kunduz. Mazar-i-Sharif is the capital of Balkh province. The top local warlord, for decades, has been Atta Mohammad Noor, who I met 20 years ago.

    He’s now vowing to defend “his” city “until the last drop of my blood.” That, in itself, spells out a major civil war scenario.

    The Taliban endgame here is to establish a west-east axis from Sheberghan to Kunduz and the also captured Taloqan, the capital of Takhar province, via Mazar-i-Sharif in Balkh province, and parallel to the northern borders with Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

    If that happens, we’re talking about an irreversible, logistical game-changer, with virtually the whole north escaping from the control of Kabul. No way the Taliban will “negotiate” this win – in Doha or anywhere else.

    The leader of the Taliban negotiating team Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, center, after the final declaration of the peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban in Qatar’s capital Doha on July 18, 2021. Photo: AFP / Karim Jaafar

    An extra astonishing fact is that all these areas do not feature a Pashtun majority, unlike Kandahar in the south and Lashkar Gah in the southwest, where the Taliban are still fighting to establish complete control.

    The Taliban’s control over almost all international border crossings yielding customs revenue leads to serious questions about what happens next to the drug business.

    Will the Taliban again interdict opium production – like the late Mullah Omar did in the early 2000s? A strong possibility is that distribution will not be allowed inside Afghanistan.

    After all, export profits can only benefit Taliban weaponization – against future American and NATO “interference.” And Afghan farmers may earn much more with opium poppy cultivation than with other crops.

    NATO’s abject failure in Afghanistan is visible in every aspect. In the past, Americans used military bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. The Bundeswehr used the base in Termez, Uzbekistan, for years.

    Termez is now used for Russian and Uzbek joint maneuvers. And the Russians left their base in Kyrgzstan to conduct joint maneuvers in Tajikistan. The whole security apparatus in the neighboring Central Asian “stans” is being coordinated by Russia.

    China’s main security priority, meanwhile, is to prevent future jihadi incursions in Xinjiang, which involve extremely hard mountain crossings from Afghanistan to Tajikistan and then to a no man’s land in the Wakhan corridor. Beijing’s electronic surveillance is tracking anything that moves in this part of the roof of the world.

    This Chinese think tank analysis shows how the moving chessboard is being tracked. The Chinese are perfectly aware of the “military pressure on Kabul” running in parallel to the Taliban diplomatic offensive, but prefer to stress their “posing as an aggressive force ready to take over the regime.”

    Chinese realpolitik also recognizes that “the United States and other countries will not easily give up the operation in Afghanistan for many years, and will not be willing to let Afghanistan become the sphere of influence of other countries.”

    This leads to characteristic Chinese foreign policy caution, with practically an advice for the Taliban not to “be too big,” and try “to replace the Ghani government in one fell swoop.”

    How to prevent a civil war

    So is Doha DOA? Extended troika players are doing what they can to salvage it. There are rumors of feverish “consultations” with the members of the Taliban political office based in Qatar and with the Kabul negotiators.

    The starter will be a meeting this Tuesday of the US, Russia, Afghanistan’s neighbors and the UN. Yet even before that, the Taliban political office spokesman, Naeem Wardak, has accused Washington of interfering in internal Afghan affairs.

    Pakistan is part of the extended troika. Pakistani media is all-out involved in stressing how Islamabad’s leverage over the Taliban “is now limited.” An example is made of how the Taliban shut the key border crossing in Spin Boldak – actually a smuggling haven – demanding Pakistan ease visa restrictions for Afghans.

    Now that is a real nest of vipers issue. Most old school Taliban leaders are based in Pakistan’s Balochistan and supervise what goes in and out of the border from a safe distance, in Quetta.

    Extra trouble for the extended troika is the absence of Iran and India at the negotiating table. Both have key interests in Afghanistan, especially when it comes to its hopefully new peaceful role as a transit hub for Central-South Asia connectivity.

    Moscow from the start wanted Tehran and New Delhi to be part of the extended troika. Impossible. Iran never sits on the same table with the US, and vice-versa. That’s the case now in Vienna, during the JCPOA negotiations, where they “communicate” via the Europeans.

    New Delhi for its part refuses to sit on the same table with the Taliban, which it sees as a terrorist Pakistani proxy.

    Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, left, and his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Tehran. Photo: AFP / Iranian Foreign Ministry

    There’s a possibility that Iran and India may be getting their act together, and that would include even a closely connected position on the Afghan drama.

    When Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar attended President Ebrahim Raisi’s inauguration last week in Tehran, they insisted on “close cooperation and coordination” also on Afghanistan.

    What this would imply in the near future is increased Indian investment in the INSTC and the India-Iran-Afghanistan New Silk Road corridor. Yet that’s not going to happen with the Taliban controlling Zaranj.

    Beijing for its part is focused on increasing its connectivity with Iran via what could be described as a Persian-colored corridor incorporating Tajikistan and Afghanistan. That will depend, once again, on the degree of Taliban control.

    But Beijing can count on an embarrassment of riches: Plan A, after all, is an extended China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), with Afghanistan annexed, whoever is in power in Kabul.

    What’s clear is that the extended troika will not be shaping the most intricate details of the future of Eurasia integration. That will be up to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which includes Russia, China, Pakistan, India, the Central Asian “stans” and Iran and Afghanistan as current observers and future full-members.

    So the time has come for the SCO’s ultimate test: how to pull off a near-impossible power-sharing deal in Kabul and prevent a devastating civil war, complete with imperial B-52 bombing.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 08/11/2021 – 00:05

  • China Upholds Death Sentence For Canadian Man Convicted Of Drug Smuggling
    China Upholds Death Sentence For Canadian Man Convicted Of Drug Smuggling

    Though the story has faded from the headlines over the past 18 months (as the coronavirus and China’s efforts to obscure its origins has superseded other diplomatic struggles), a Chinese judge has just rejected a Canadian man’s last attempt to appeal a death sentence for smuggling drugs.

    The timing is notable, coming one day before a Canadian man accused of espionage (one of two Canadian nationals arrested and charged with espionage) is expected to be sentenced in a case that Ottawa has decried as political retribution for the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou.

    The court proceedings for the two Canadians comes as lawyers in Canada representing Meng, who is still under house arrest in Canada as she awaits a ruling on extradition to the US, make a final push to convince a court there not to extradite her to the US, where she faces charges linked to violating sanctions.

    The convicted drug smuggler, Robert Schellenberg, was arrested in 2014 and initially sentenced to 15 years in prison in late 2018.

    He appealed, but a court in the city of Dalian sentenced him to death in January 2019, a month after Meng was first arrested at Vancouver International Airport on a warrant from the US, charging her with misleading HSBC Holdings about Huawei’s business dealings in Iran, potentially causing the bank to violate American economic sanctions.

    Around the same tie, two Canadian businessmen were arrested and later charged with espionage.

    The High Court in the northeast province of Liaoning heard Schellenberg’s appeal against the death sentence in May last year and confirmed the verdict on Tuesday.

    Speaking to reporters by telephone after attending the hearing, Canadian ambassador to Beijing Dominic Barton criticized the decision and demanded that China grant clemency.

    “It is not a coincidence that these are happening right now, while the case is going on in Vancouver,” Barton said, referring to Schellenberg’s case and that of another Canadian, Michael Spavor.

    Spavor was detained in China days after Meng’s arrest in Vancouver. He was charged with espionage in June last year and went to trial in March.

    China has rejected the claim that any of the cases were politically motivated.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/10/2021 – 23:45

  • What Would Our Economy Look Like In The Shadow Of Vaccine Passports?
    What Would Our Economy Look Like In The Shadow Of Vaccine Passports?

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Birch Gold Group,

    Yes, it’s an official concern now. The mainstream media and the Biden Administration have gone from suggesting that Covid vaccinations would “not be mandated” to saying they “should be mandated.” This means several very uncomfortable consequences are on the way for our economy and the nation as a whole. Remember, the federal government already decided it’s legal for companies to require coronavirus vaccines.

    The most obvious next step: A mandatory “vaccine passport” certifying its holder has gotten the recommended injections.

    The assertion by the establishment is that life would simply go back to normal as long as you comply and get your shots like a good citizen.

    But from what I have seen even some people who have taken the vaccines voluntarily do not want a passport system in place, and for good reason. Should a mandatory vaccine passport system be implemented, life will never be normal again.

    Vaccine passports are not a panacea

    First we have to take into account the fact that there will never be a 100% vaccination rate in the U.S.; not even close. With a number of states at or below a 50% vaccination rate, there is a question of practicality regarding vaccine passports. Such a program would mean that around half the country could be put in the position of hearing they have no right to employment or possibly even general interaction in trade because they won’t take the experimental jab.

    The real concern with a vaccine passport has nothing to do with coronavirus, or herd immunity, or saving lives. It’s a tool of control. Like the Soviet Union’s communist party membership card, it’s an official document that demonstrates compliance to authority. It’s a tool to divide the U.S. population.

    If this autocratic diktat was directed at a tiny minority of people within the population, it might work at frightening them into accepting the vaccinations; to go along to get along. But, with hundreds of millions of people saying “no way,” history tells us the more pressure applied the more rebellion is inspired.

    Second, we have to consider what the immediate economic and financial effects will be in light of this conflict. For example, look at the amount of relocation and migration that has happened in the U.S. in the past year alone. Many millions of people have escaped from predominantly blue states based on political and social factors; and the covid mandates and lockdowns are a big part of what inspired most people to leave.

    As has been well documented, blue states are much slower in recovering economically when compared to red states with less restrictions. Not only that, but money moves with people. This is a hard reality. Conservative states are seeing ample cash inflows from tourism and mass migration while blue states are bleeding tax revenues. In light of this revelation, red states are going to ask themselves this question:

    “Why would we commit economic suicide like the blue states by following their example? Wouldn’t vaccine passports be the equivalent of blue state covid mandates times a hundred?”

    But let’s say for a moment that vaccine passports were somehow implemented everywhere in the country at the same exact time. What would happen then?

    Economic consequences of a vaccine passport mandate

    Well, the amount of bureaucracy that would be added between the average consumer and everyday trade would be immense, and with red tape comes a slowdown in business.

    Whole new wings of the government would have to be created to track and enforce vaccine passports rules (I say “rules” because none of the mandates have ever been passed into law or voted on by the public). Regular inspections of businesses would have to be enacted, and new taxes would have to be created to pay for the system. The amount of space and employees needed to meet new standards for retailers would increase in order to check every customer that comes through the door for a passport.

    Also, let’s not forget that many thousands of people in multiple states have had “breakout” covid infections despite being fully vaccinated, which means rules on social distancing and masking will also still be in place. The amount of capital that a business owner would have to spend to meet the government requirements would continue to rise while their profits would continue to fall. Eventually, the majority of small businesses would close, just as we saw during the first series of lockdowns.

    Smaller businesses, which represent about half of the U.S. retail economy, would be under so much stress from maintaining the proper restrictions and adding infrastructure that they simply would not be able to compete with major corporations and Big Box stores.

    The end result would be the complete disintegration of the small business sector (except perhaps online retailers). Only national and international conglomerates would be left behind to provide brick-and-mortar services to the public, and of course many millions of jobs would be lost in the process.

    Less competition means ever increasing prices and a lower quality of goods and services.

    Simply put, vaccine passports could result in the death of what’s left of the free market as we know it. The majors will know they have the public by the scruff of the neck, so why bother trying anymore? They can throw us scraps from the table and we would have to take them and be happy with what we get.

    Practical alternatives to the death of the free market

    Then again, there is a central factor that tends to arise when restrictions on the economy are put in place – The black market, or what I would call “alternative markets”.

    When governments restrict domestic trade and limit consumer participation based on frivolous requirements, people don’t just roll over and submit. Instead, they find other ways to get the things they need more freely. This means black market trade or barter markets, alternative currencies and sometimes entire underground economies.

    Free markets will not be denied. And this is where the government disguise of humanitarianism will really fall away and true tyranny will be revealed.

    Anyone rational would say that people trading with each other on an individual or community basis is perfectly normal, but under medical tyranny such trade would be treated as an ultimate crime. By providing services for each other, common people would be “opening the door” to survival outside of the system, and if survival is possible, then non-vaccination is possible. Therefore, the argument will be made by the establishment that alternative economies need to be eliminated “for the good of society as a whole.” There is always an excuse for totalitarianism.

    With a large portion of the population seeking a means to live without oppression, alternative markets will thrive, and the government will make war on them. Which means the people will be forced to make war on the government. It’s inevitable under every scenario. But in the meantime, barter and trade will continue without vaccine passports and there’s not much that governments can do to stop it.

    I have little doubt that precious metals will become go-to commodities for trade as a currency, just as they always have in times of crisis. All trade systems need a universal mechanism with inherent value to back it, otherwise more and more steps are added in the trade cycle and it becomes more difficult to conclude each transaction. Straight barter will be useful, but so will precious metals (especially gold and silver) along with other hard commodities with intrinsic value and utility.

    Economic disaster followed by an economic renaissance

    What I see in the near future is economic disaster in the wake of any attempt at a vaccine passport system. Millions will lose their jobs or quit their jobs in protest. Small businesses will disappear under the weight of bureaucracy and constant scrutiny. The quality of goods and services will suffer as competition shrivels. But I also see the birth of a whole new economic system outside of the mainstream control grid. I see true free markets returning, and eventually, I see full blown rebellion.

    What I suggest is that people get ready for this eventuality. We need to become producers again, rather than mere consumers. In order to position ourselves for success in the new trade environment we have to be able to make necessities, repair necessities or teach necessary skills. Those that are able to do this will do very well within alternative markets. And, of course, those that stock preparations and buy gold and silver will also have a safety net as the current economy is slowly crushed under the weight of covid mandates.

    Finally, if you find yourself today in a heavily restricted city, county, or state, I suggest leaving now while you still can to a safer and more free place with more liberty minded people. Time is running out fast.

    *  *  *

    With global tensions spiking, thousands of Americans are moving their IRA or 401(k) into an IRA backed by physical gold. Now, thanks to a little-known IRS Tax Law, you can too. Learn how with a free info kit on gold from Birch Gold Group. It reveals how physical precious metals can protect your savings, and how to open a Gold IRA. Click here to get your free Info Kit on Gold.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/10/2021 – 23:25

  • Frost Bites Brazilian Sugar Crop As Prices Zoom Higher 
    Frost Bites Brazilian Sugar Crop As Prices Zoom Higher 

    Brazil’s top producing regions for coffee, oranges, and sugar have been devastated by the worst weather in decades and could leave a lasting impact on prices, according to Bloomberg. 

    The South American country is one of the world’s leading coffee, sugar, and orange producers experienced a cold snap and drought this growing season in the Center-South area that has significantly damaged crops. 

    We have focused on coffee and orange markets and how prices are sloping higher after harvest output will likely come in well below average. 

    Now we’re setting our eyes on the sugar market, where losses in production, exacerbated by an already tight global supply, is fueling higher prices that may be sticking around for the next 18 months. 

    “We are getting into a boom cycle for the commodity prices,” said Pierre Santoul, chief executive officer in Brazil of France-based Tereos SCA. He said sugar prices are expected to remain elevated through early 2023. 

    Tereos’s sugar-cane crushing may fall to the lowest levels since the 2009-10 season, to 16.6 million metric tons, or about a 21% reduction from 20.9 million crushed in 2020-21. The nation’s sugar-cane industry group Unica said sugar content in cane fell in the country from a year ago, while cane yield dropped 18%.

    Santoul said the extent of the devastation is still unknown. He said mills had increased harvesting to avoid further cane deterioration. He added that if the weather improves in October and rains relieve droughts, the dismal scenario may slightly improve. 

    Weather disruptions in Brazil mean higher prices for coffee, oranges, and or sugar. Since most of these farm goods are exported, and shipping costs are at record highs, it’s only a matter of time before US wholesalers pass along the costs to consumers. 

    Food inflation doesn’t seem to be waning anytime soon. Just yesterday, Tyson Food’s CEO said costs are rising faster than it can hike retail prices.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/10/2021 – 23:05

  • Gaslighting: The Psychology Of Shaping Another's Reality
    Gaslighting: The Psychology Of Shaping Another’s Reality

    Authored by Cynthia Chung via The Saker Blog,

    “But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
    “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
    “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
    “You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

    – Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”

    We are living in a world where the degree of disinformation and outright lying has reached such a state of affairs that, possibly for the first time ever, we see the majority of the western world starting to question their own and surrounding level of sanity. The increasing frenzied distrust in everything “authoritative” mixed with the desperate incredulity that “everybody couldn’t possibly be in on it!” is slowly rocking many back and forth into a tighter and tighter straight jacket. “Question everything” has become the new motto, but are we capable of answering those questions?

    Presently the answer is a resounding no.

    The social behaviourist sick joke of having made everyone obsessed with toilet paper of all things during the start of what was believed to be a time of crisis, is an example of how much control they have over that red button labelled “commence initiation of level 4 mass panic”.

    And can the people be blamed? After all, if we are being lied to, how can we possibly rally together and point the finger at the root of this tyranny, aren’t we at the point where it is everywhere?

    As Goebbels infamously stated,

    “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State [under fascism].”

    And here we find ourselves today, at the brink of fascism. However, we have to first agree to forfeit our civil rights as a collective before fascism can completely dominate. That is, the big lie can only succeed if the majority fails to call it out, for if the majority were to recognise it for what it is, it would truly hold no power.

    The Battle for Your Mind

    “Politicians, Priests, and psychiatrists often face the same problem: how to find the most rapid and permanent means of changing a man’s belief…The problem of the doctor and his nervously ill patient, and that of the religious leader who sets out to gain and hold new converts, has now become the problem of whole groups of nations, who wish not only to confirm certain political beliefs within their boundaries, but to proselytize the outside world.”

    – William Sargant “Battle of the Mind”

    It had been commonly thought in the past, and not without basis, that tyranny could only exist on the condition that the people were kept illiterate and ignorant of their oppression. To recognise that one was “oppressed” meant they must first have an idea of what was “freedom”, and if one were allowed the “privilege” to learn how to read, this discovery was inevitable.

    If education of the masses could turn the majority of a population literate, it was thought that the higher ideas, the sort of “dangerous ideas” that Mustapha Mond for instance expresses in “The Brave New World”, would quickly organise the masses and revolution against their “controllers” would be inevitable. In other words, knowledge is freedom, and you cannot enslave those who learn how to “think”.

    However, it hasn’t exactly played out that way has it?

    The greater majority of us are free to read whatever we wish to, in terms of the once “forbidden books”, such as those listed by The Index Librorum Prohibitorum. We can read any of the writings that were banned in “The Brave New World”, notably the works of Shakespeare which were named as absolutely dangerous forms of “knowledge”.

    We are now very much free to “educate” ourselves on the very “ideas” that were recognised by tyrants of the past as the “antidote” to a life of slavery. And yet, today, the majority choose not to…

    It is recognised, albeit superficially, that who controls the past, controls the present and thereby the future. George Orwell’s book “1984”, hammers this as the essential feature that allows the Big Brother apparatus to maintain absolute control over fear, perception and loyalty to the Party cause, and yet despite its popularity, there still remains a lack of interest in actually informing oneself about the past.

    What does it matter anyway, if the past is controlled and rewritten to suit the present? As the Big Brother interrogator O’Brien states to Winston, “We, the Party, control all records, and we control all memories. Then we control the past, do we not? [And thus, are free to rewrite it as we choose…]”

    Of course, we are not in the same situation as Winston…we are much better off. We can study and learn about the “past” if we so desire, unfortunately, it is a choice that many take for granted.

    In fact, many are probably not fully aware that presently there is a battle waging for who will “control the past” in a manner that is closely resembling a form of “memory wipe”.

    *  *  *

    William Sargant was a British psychiatrist and, one could say, effectively the Father of “mind control” in the West, with connections to British Intelligence and the Tavistock Institute, which would influence the CIA and American military via the program MK Ultra. Sargant was also an advisor for Ewen Cameron’s LSD “blank slate” work at McGill University, funded by the CIA.

    Sargant accounts for his reason in studying and using forms of “mind control” on his patients, which were primarily British soldiers that were sent back from the battlefield during WWII with various forms of “psychosis”, as the only way to rehabilitate extreme forms of PTSD.

    The other reason, was because the Soviets had apparently become “experts” in the field, and out of a need for national security, the British would thus in turn have to become experts as well…as a matter of self-defence of course.

    The work of Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, had succeeded in producing some disturbingly interesting insights into four primary forms of nervous systems in dogs, that were combinations of inhibitory and excitatory temperaments; “strong excitatory”, “balanced”, “passive” and “calm imperturbable”. Pavlov found that depending on the category of nervous system temperament the dog had, this in turn would dictate the form of “conditioning” that would work best to “reprogram behaviour”. The relevance to “human conditioning” was not lost on anyone.

    It was feared in the West, that such techniques would not only be used against their soldiers to invoke free-flowing uninhibited confessions to the enemy but that these soldiers could be sent back to their home countries, as zombified assassins and spies that could be set off with a simple code word. At least, these were the thriller stories and movies that were pumped into the population. How horrific indeed! That the enemy could apparently enter what was thought the only sacred ground to be our own…our very “minds”!

    However, for those who were actually leading the field in mind control research, such as William Sargant, it was understood that this was not exactly how mind control worked.

    For one thing, the issue of “free will” was getting in the way.

    No matter the length or degree of electro-shock, insulin “therapy”, tranquilizer cocktails, induced comas, sleep deprivation, starvation etc induced, it was discovered that if the subject had a “strong conviction” and “strong belief” in something, this could not be simply erased, it could not be written over with any arbitrary thing. Rather, the subject would have to have the illusion that their “conditioning” was in fact a “choice”. This was an extremely challenging task, and long term conversions (months to years) were rare.

    However, Sargant saw an opening. It was understood that one could not create a new individual from scratch, however, with the right conditioning that was meant to lead to a physical breakdown using abnormal stress (effectively a reboot of the nervous system), one could increase the “suggestibility” markedly in their subjects.

    Sargant wrote in his “Battle of the Mind”: “Pavlov’s clinical descriptions of the ‘experimental neuroses’ which he could induce in dogs proved, in fact, to have a close correspondence with those war-neuroses which we were investigating at the time.”

    In addition, Sargant found that a falsely implanted memory could help induce abnormal stress leading to emotional exhaustion and physical breakdown to invoke “suggestibility”. That is, one didn’t even need to have a “real stress” but an “imagined stress” would work just as effectively.

    Sargant goes on to state in his book:

    “It is not surprising that the ordinary person, in general, is much more easily indoctrinated than the abnormal…A person is considered ‘ordinary’ or ‘normal’ by the community simply because he accepts most of its social standards and behavioural patterns; which means, in fact, that he is susceptible to suggestion and has been persuaded to go with the majority on most ordinary or extraordinary occasions.”

    Sargant then goes over the phenomenon of the London Blitz, which was an eight month period of heavy bombing of London during WWII. During this period, in order to cope and stay “sane”, people rapidly became accustomed to the idea that their neighbours could be and were buried alive in bombed houses around them. The thought was “If I can’t do anything about it what use is it that I trouble myself over it?” The best “coping” was thus found to be those who accepted the new “environment” and just focused on “surviving”, and did not try to resist it.

    Sargant remarks that it is this “adaptability” to a changing environment which is part of the “survival” instinct and is very strong in the “healthy” and “normal” individual who can learn to cope and thus continues to be “functional” despite an ever changing environment.

    It was thus our deeply programmed “survival instinct” that was found to be the key to the suggestibility of our minds. That the best “survivors” made for the best “brain-washing” in a sense.

    Sargant quotes Hecker’s work, who was studying the dancing mania phenomenon that occurred during the Black Death, where Hecker observed that heightened suggestibility had the capability to cause a person to “embrace with equal force, reason and folly, good and evil, diminish the praise of virtue as well as the criminality of vice.”

    And that such a state of mind was likened to the first efforts of the infant mind “this instinct of imitation when it exists in its highest degree, is also united a loss of all power over the will, which occurs as soon as the impression on the senses has become firmly established, producing a condition like that of small animals when they are fascinated by the look of a serpent.”

    I wonder if Sargant imagined himself the serpent…

    Sargant does finally admit: “This does not mean that all persons can be genuinely indoctrinated by such means. Some will give only temporary submission to the demands made on them, and fight again when strength of body and mind returns. Others are saved by the supervention of madness. Or the will to resist may give way, but not the intellect itself.”

    But he comforts himself as a response to this stubborn resistance that “As mentioned in a previous context, the stake, the gallows, the firing squad, the prison, or the madhouse, are usually available for the failures.”

    How to Resist the Deconstruction of Your Mind

    “He whom the gods wish to destroy, they first of all drive mad.”

    – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “The Masque of Pandora”

    For those who have not seen the 1944 psychological thriller “Gaslight” directed by George Cukor, I would highly recommend you do so since there is an invaluable lesson contained within, that is especially applicable to what I suspect many of us are experiencing nowadays.

    The story starts with a 14 year old Paula (played by Ingrid Bergman) who is being taken to Italy after her Aunt Alice Alquist, a famous opera singer and caretaker of Paula, is found murdered in her home in London. Paula is the one who found the body, and horror stricken is never her old self again. Her Aunt was the only family Paula had left in her life. The decision is made to send her away from London to Italy to continue her studies to become a world-renowned opera singer like her Aunt Alice.

    Years go by, Paula lives a very sheltered life and a heavy somberness is always present within her, she can never seem to feel any kind of happiness. During her singing studies she meets a mysterious man (her piano accompanist during her lessons) and falls deeply in love with him. However, she knows hardly anything about the man named Gregory.

    Paula agrees to marry Gregory after a two week romance and is quickly convinced to move back into her Aunt’s house in London that was left abandoned all these years. As soon as she enters the house, the haunting of the night of the murder revisits her and she is consumed with panic and fear. Gregory tries to calm her and talks about the house needing just a little bit of air and sun, and then Paula comes across a letter written to her Aunt from a Sergis Bauer which confirms that he was in contact with Alice just a few days before her murder. At this finding, Gregory becomes bizarrely agitated and grabs the letter from Paula. He quickly tries to justify his anger blaming the letter for upsetting her. Gregory then decides to lock all of her Aunt’s belongings in the attic, to apparently spare Paula any further anguish.

    It is at this point that Gregory starts to change his behaviour dramatically. Always under the pretext for “Paula’s sake”, everything that is considered “upsetting” to Paula must be removed from her presence. And thus quickly the house is turned into a form of prison. Paula is told it is for her best not to leave the house unaccompanied, not to have visitors and that self-isolation is the best remedy for her “anxieties” which are getting worst. Paula is never strictly forbidden at the beginning but rather is told that she should obey these restrictions for her own good.

    Before a walk, he gives as a gift a beautiful heirloom brooch that belonged to his mother. Because the pin needs replacing, he instructs Paula to keep it in her handbag, and then says rather out of context, “Don’t forget where you put it now Paula, I don’t want you losing it.” Paula remarks thinking the warning absurd, “Of course I won’t forget!” When they return from their walk, Gregory asks for the brooch, Paula searches in her handbag but it is not there.

    It continues on like this, with Gregory giving warnings and reminders, seemingly to help Paula with her “forgetfulness” and “anxieties”. Paula starts to question her own judgement and sanity as these events become more and more frequent. She has no one else to talk to but Gregory, who is the only witness to these apparent mishaps. It gets to a point where completely nonsensical behaviour is being attributed to Paula by Gregory. A painting is found missing on the wall one night. Gregory talks to Paula like she is a 5 year child and asks her to put it back. Paula insists she does not know who took it down. After her persistent passionate insistence that it was not her, she walks up the stairs almost like she were in a dream state and pulls the painting from behind a statue. Gregory asks why she lied, but Paula insists that she only thought to look there because that is where it was found the last two times this occurred.

    For weeks now, Paula thinks she has been seeing things, the gas lights of the house dimming for no reason, she also hears footsteps above her bedroom. No one else seems to take notice. Paula is also told by Gregory that he found out that her mother, who passed away when she was very young, had actually gone insane and died in an asylum.

    Despite Paula being reduced to a condition of an ongoing stupor, she decides one night to make a stand and regain control over her life. Paula is invited, by one of her Aunt Alice’s close friends Lady Dalroy, to attend a high society evening with musical performances. Recall that Paula’s life gravitated around music before her encounter with Gregory. Music was her life. Paula gets magnificently dressed up for the evening and on her way out tells Gregory that she is going to this event. Gregory tries to convince her that she is not well enough to attend such a social gathering, when Paula calmly insists that she is going and that this woman was a dear friend of her Aunt, Gregory answers that he refuses to accompany her (in those days that was a big deal). Paula accepts this and walks with a solid dignity, undeterred towards the horse carriage. In a very telling scene, Gregory is left momentarily by himself and panic stricken, his eyes bulging he snaps his cigar case shut and runs after Paula. He laughingly calls to her, “Paula, you did not think I was serious? I had no idea that this party meant so much to you. Wait, I will get ready.” As he is getting ready in front of the mirror, a devilish smirk appears.

    Paula and Gregory show up to Lady Dalroy’s house late, the pianist is in the middle of the 1st movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata #8 in C minor. They quickly are escorted to two empty seats. Paula is immediately immersed in the piece, and Gregory can see his control is slipping. After only a few minutes, he goes to look at his pocket watch but it is not in his pocket. He whispers into Paula’s ear, “My watch is missing”. Immediately, Paula looks like she is going to be sick. Gregory takes her handbag and Paula looks in horror as he pulls out his pocket watch, insinuating that Paula had put it there. She immediately starts losing control and has a very public emotional breakdown. Gregory takes her away, as he remarks to Lady Dalroy that this is why he didn’t want Paula coming in the first place.

    When they arrive home, Paula has by now completely succumbed to the thought that she is indeed completely insane. Gregory says that it would be best if they go away somewhere for an indefinite period of time. We later find out that Gregory is intending on committing her to an asylum. Paula agrees to leave London with Gregory and leaves her fate entirely in his hands.

    In the case of Paula it is clear. She has been suspecting that Gregory has something to do with her “situation” but he has very artfully created an environment where Paula herself doubts whether this is a matter of unfathomable villainy or whether she is indeed going mad.

    It is rather because she is not mad that she doubts herself, because there is seemingly no reason for why Gregory would put so much time and energy into making it look like she were mad, or at least so it first appears. But what if the purpose to her believing in her madness was simply a matter of who is in control?

    Paula almost succeeds in gaining the upper-hand in this power-struggle, the evening she decided to go out on her own no matter what Gregory insisted was in her best interest. If she would have held her ground at Lady Dalroy’s house and simply replied, “I have no idea why your stupid watch ended up in my handbag and I could care less. Now stop interrupting this performance, you are making a scene!” Gregory’s spell would have been broken as simple as that. If he were to complain to others about the situation, they would also respond, “Who cares man, why are you so obsessed about your damn watch?”

    We find ourselves today in a very similar situation to Paula. And the voice of Gregory is represented by the narrative of false news and the apocalyptic social behaviourist programming in our forms of entertainment. The things most people voluntarily subject themselves to on a daily, if not hourly, basis. Socially conditioning them, like a pack of salivating Pavlovian dogs, to think it is just a matter of time before the world ends and with a ring of their master’s bell…be at each other’s throats.

    Paula ends up being saved in the end by a man named Joseph Cotten (a detective), who took notice and quickly discerned that something was amiss. In the end Gregory is arrested. It is revealed that Gregory is in fact Sergis Bauer. That he killed Alice Alquist and that he has returned to the scene of the crime after all these years in search for the famous jewels of the opera singer. The jewels were in fact rather worthless from the standpoint that they were too famous to be sold, however, Gregory never intended on selling these jewels but rather had become obsessed with the desire to merely possess them.

    That is, it is Gregory who has been entirely mad all this time.

    A Gregory is absolutely dangerous. He would have been the end of Paula if nothing had intervened. However, the power that Gregory held was conditional to the degree that Paula allowed it to control her. Paula’s extreme deconstruction was thus entirely dependent on her choice to let the voice of Gregory in. That is, a Gregory is only dangerous if we allow ourselves to sleep walk into the nightmare he has constructed for us.

    “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone,
    “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
    “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
    “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – – that’s all.”

    – Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass”

    *  *  *

    The author can be reached at https://cynthiachung.substack.com/

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/10/2021 – 22:45

  • Ohio Judge Orders Man Convicted Of Fentanyl Possession To Get Vaccine Or Face Jail Time
    Ohio Judge Orders Man Convicted Of Fentanyl Possession To Get Vaccine Or Face Jail Time

    How’s this for judicial overreach?

    An Ohio attorney is speaking out after a judge ordered one of his clients to get vaccinated as a condition of his release.

    21-year-old Brandon Rutherford was given a suspended sentence last week for possession of the deadly drug fentanyl by Hamilton County Judge Christopher Wagner. But in addition to the typical requirements – that Rutherford stay clean, and get a job, stay away from guns, – the judge also gave him 60 days to get vaccinated, or be sent to prison to serve out a term as lengthy as 18 months.

    Rutherford’s lawyer decided to take the case to the press, speaking to multiple media outlets on Monday about the unfairness of the judge’s order regarding his client. The lawyer says he intends to challenge the order, but that he wants to wait and see if Judge Wagner “violates” his client once the deadline is up.

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    According to a transcript of the hearing, Wagner had asked Rutherford why he was wearing a mask inside the courtroom, only to learn that the defendant had not been vaccinated. It was at this point that the judge decided to require the jab as a condition of the probation.

    “I’m just a judge, not a doctor, but I think the vaccine’s a lot safer than fentanyl, which is what you had in your pocket,” Wagner told Rutherford. “You’re going to maintain employment. You’re not going to be around a firearm. I’m going to order you, within the next two months, to get a vaccine and show that to the probation office. Okay?”

    Rutherford was not on board. He told the press that it’s “unfair” of the judge to force him to get a vaccine that he doesn’t want, or believe he needs.

    “Because I don’t take a shot they can send me to jail? I don’t agree with that,” Rutherford told WCPO last Thursday. “I’m just trying to do what I can to get off this as quickly as possible, like finding a job and everything else. But that little thing can set me back,” he added.

    Meanwhile, judges across the US have ruled in favor of letting private businesses and even public universities impose vaccine mandates on their employees and students. On Monday, the Department of Defense announced it would mandate vaccines to members of the US military by mid-September, or sooner, if the jabs – currently approved only for emergency use – receive full FDA approval.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/10/2021 – 22:25

  • Attention Turns From Tokyo Olympics To Beijing 2022 Amid Calls For Boycott
    Attention Turns From Tokyo Olympics To Beijing 2022 Amid Calls For Boycott

    Authored by Alex Wu via The Epoch Times,

    As the Tokyo Summer Olympics closed on Aug. 8, attention has turned back to the controversy surrounding the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

    The Tokyo Olympics games ran relatively smoothly during the COVID-19 pandemic, although it was not open to spectators.

    The United States scored the most gold medals with 39, with China coming in second with 38. The United States also ranked first in the overall medal tally with 113 medals, including 41 silver medals, and 33 bronze medals—far surpassing China, again in second place, with 88 medals.

    Players from the United States react after defeating Brazil to win the gold medal in women’s volleyball at the 2020 Summer Olympics, in Tokyo, Japan, on Aug. 8, 2021. (Frank Augstein/AP Photo)

    As the host country, Japan performed the best in its history since participating in the Olympics, winning a total of 58 medals, including 27 gold.

    While the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus causing the COVID-19 pandemic is still raging around the world, there are only six months before the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. The pandemic is just one of the problems that the Beijing Winter Olympics is facing.

    CTV, Canada’s largest private television network, conducted a poll of thousands of Canadians during the Tokyo Olympics. It announced its results on the closing day of the Tokyo Olympics showing that more than 60 percent of respondents supported a boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

    In recent years, the Chinese regime has been accused by human rights experts and organizations, liberal democratic nations, and United Nations experts of mass detention of at least one million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.

    Policies amounting to cultural extermination and experiences of political brainwashing has been characterized by U.S. administrations as “genocide.”

    But while the ruling CCP continues to push back against the “genocide” accusations, more and more international organizations and countries are calling for the 2022 Winter Olympics to be moved from Beijing.

    Activists including members of the local Hong Kong, Tibetan and Uyghur communities hold up banners and placards in Melbourne, Australia, on June 23, 2021, calling on the Australian government to boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics over China’s human rights record. (William West/AFP via Getty Images)

    In February, more than 180 human rights organizations issued a joint open letter urging world leaders to take a diplomatic boycott of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing, including not sending leaders or dignitaries to China to participate in any activity in protest of the regime’s mass human rights abuses.

    The letter cited accusations of serious human rights violations by the Chinese communist regime in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia. It also pointed out that Beijing has increased threats to regional security across the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, and the Sino-Indian border in recent years.

    However, on the grounds of political neutrality and an inability to change a country’s legal and political system, the International Olympic Committee refused to the request from international organizations to change the venue of the 2022 Winter Olympics from Beijing to other countries.

    So far, no government has officially announced a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, but lawmakers in the United States, Canada, the European Union, and the United Kingdom are all calling on their governments to take action.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/10/2021 – 22:05

  • One Asteroid Heading Towards Earth Has Enough Precious Metal To Make Every Person Alive A Billionaire
    One Asteroid Heading Towards Earth Has Enough Precious Metal To Make Every Person Alive A Billionaire

    Wondering about that gold flash crash at the Globex open on Sunday night? Maybe this has something to do with it. 

    NASA has officially launched a mission to study an asteroid with more than $10,000 quadrillion worth of precious metals on it. The asteroid is literally so “rich” that it would make everyone on Earth a billionaire if its haul was divided equally, according to The Independent. 

    The asteroid is named Psyche 16 and it was first noticed all the way back in March of 1852. It’s 124 miles wide and is set to be the “primary focus” of NASA’s mission, which will take place in August 2022.

    NASA’s spacecraft would arrive at the asteroid in early 2026, according to the report.

    “Unlike most other asteroids that are rocky or icy bodies, scientists think the M-type (metallic) asteroid 16 Psyche is comprised mostly of metallic iron and nickel similar to Earth,” NASA said.

    Image of the proposed NASA Mission to Psyche 16 (The Independent)

    The asteroid is located between Mars and Jupiter and is believed to be the “remnants of a protoplanet destroyed by ‘hit-and-run collisions’ when the solar system formed.”

    A team in California helped create a temperature map to better understand the asteroid’s surface properties.

    The team discovered the surface of the asteroid was made up of “at least” 30% metal. 

    “The findings are a step toward resolving the mystery of the origin of this unusual object, which has been thought by some to be a chunk of the core of an ill-fated protoplanet”, one researcher said.

     “We think that fragments of the cores, mantles, and crusts of these objects remain today in the form of asteroids. If that’s true, it gives us our only real opportunity to directly study the cores of planet-like objects,” concluded assistant professor of planetary science and astronomy at Caltech, Katherine de Kleer.
     

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/10/2021 – 21:45

  • Oregon Suspends Need For High School Graduates To Be Proficient In Reading, Writing, & Math
    Oregon Suspends Need For High School Graduates To Be Proficient In Reading, Writing, & Math

    Authored by Jonathan Turley via jonathanturley.org (emphasis ours),

    I was once told by a pilot that jet bridges are the most dangerous places in aviation because “no one dies on the plane.” When someone has a fatal episode on a plane, the preference is to move the person outside to “call the code” on the bridge rather than require the plane to be held or quarantined due to the death. If you just move them outside, they died somewhere else. The result is that it can be challenging to determine how many people actually die on airplanes.

    Oregon Gov. Kate Brown quietly signed a bill on July 14 that suspends a requirement for Oregon students to demonstrate reading, writing and math proficiency in order to receive a diploma.

    That story came to mind this week as more schools moved to end standardized testing — a move that can guarantee no one fails in their schools. In this case, students who lack proficiency in basic subjects are being sent out into society or even college to fail somewhere else. Anywhere other than the school.

    Many of us have long objected to the chronic failure of public schools in major cities like New York, Detroit, Washington, D.C. and Baltimore to achieve bare proficiency for many students in reading, writing, and math. The response in many districts is for some to declare standardized testing or meritocracy as racist while other district eliminate special programs or schools for gifted students. Oregon has found a simpler approach. Gov. Kate Brown (D) just signed a bill last month that drops any proficiency requirement in reading, writing or math, before graduation. Problem solved.

    The short bill includes this provision:

    “SECTION 3. Notwithstanding any rules adopted by the State Board of Education, a student may not be required to show proficiency in Essential Learning Skills as a condition of receiving a high school diploma during the 2021-2022, 2022-2023 or 2023-2024 school year.”

    The pandemic was the basis for initial suspension of such requirements but now it is being extended. The call for a more “inclusive and equitable review of graduation and proficiency requirements” was supported by Foundations for a Better Oregon to change requirement to “reflect what every student needs to thrive in the 21st century.” That appears not to include proven proficiency in being able to write, read, or do simple math. The supporters insist that it is unfair to require students to show knowledge on tests.

    Charles Boyle, the deputy communications director from Gov. Brown’s office, is quoted as saying that the new standards for graduation will help benefit the state’s “Black, Latino, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Tribal, and students of color.”

    The “benefit” however is more to the school district in getting kids out the door with a diploma without shouldering the burden to get them to a point of bare proficiency. Teachers like Larry Lewin testified in support of the change:

    “The students I tutored at North Eugene High School were largely Latinx kids, and to a one, they were resigned, fatalistic, and lacking any hope for graduating with their classmates. They knew the score – they knew they were losers in the system. No amount of coaching, cajoling, mentoring from me would inspire them to want to write better. The Essential Skills Requirement had already sunk them. I was not teaching how to write, how to communicate, how to use language for a purpose; I was test prepping them – again.”

    There is value to what Lewin says about “teaching to the test” and the need to focus on substantive learning. I respect him for his continuing commitment to his students and his sincere opposition to testing. However, it is chilling to see a former public school teacher say that “no amount of coaching, cajoling, mentoring from me would inspire [Hispanic kids] to want to write better.” That is the point of education. We have to get kids to reach a level of bare proficiency and establish that ability with an objective test. If you have proficiency in writing or reading, you should be able to write or read on a standardized test.

    The move in Oregon is part of a larger effort to eliminate standardized testing and scores on every level of our educational system. If there are no such standardized scores, there is no ability to easily compare the achievement of schools or even the achievement of students applying for admission. Recently, the University of California system joined the “test-blind” movement and said it would end the use of the SAT and ACT in its admissions decisions. The move followed a decision of California voters not to lift the long ban on affirmative action in education under state law.  Many have decried standardized testing as vehicles for white supremacy.

    The elimination of standardized testing means that it would be much more difficult to prove that the universities were still engaging in racial discrimination or preferences. With no testing scores for comparison, it would be nearly impossible to show that race was the major or dominant factor in admissions.

    University of California President Janet Napolitano sought to eliminate standardized testing by assembling the Standardized Testing Task Force in 2019. Many people expected the task force to recommend the cessation of standardized testing. However, the Task Force surprised many (most notably Napolitano herself) by releasing a final report that concluded that standardized testing was not just reliable by that “at UC, test scores are currently better predictors of first-year GPA than high school grade point average (HSGPA), and about as good at predicting first-year retention, [University] GPA, and graduation.” It even found that “test scores are predictive for all demographic groups and disciplines … In fact, test scores are better predictors of success for students who are Underrepresented Minority Students (URMs), who are first generation, or whose families are low-income.”

    Despite those conclusions, Napolitano simply announced a cessation of the use of such scores in admissions.

    With states like Oregon now eliminating the need to establish proficiency on basic subjects with standardized tests, American education faces the perfect storm. Despite record expenditures on public schools, we are still failing students, particularly minority students, in teaching the basis subjects needed to succeed in life. We will then graduate the students by removing testing barriers for graduation. Then some may go to colleges and universities that have eliminated standardized testing for admission. At every stage in their education, they have been pushed through by educators without objective proof that they are minimally educated. That certainly guarantees high graduation rates or improved diversity admissions. However, these students are still left at a sub-proficient state as they enter an increasingly competitive job market and economy. Any failures will come down the road when they will be asked to write, read, or add by someone who is looking for actual work product. They will then be outside of the educational system and any failures will not be attributed to public educators.

    If we truly care for these students, we cannot rig the system to just kick them down the road toward failure. It is like declaring patients healthy by just looking at them and sending them on their way. We have the ability to measure proficiency and we have the moral obligation to face our own failures in helping these kids achieve it.

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/10/2021 – 21:25

  • Here We Go Again: Dozens Of Major Events Are Being Cancelled Across The Country Due To Covid
    Here We Go Again: Dozens Of Major Events Are Being Cancelled Across The Country Due To Covid

    Here we go again.

    Just when we thought life would be returning back to “normal”, that vaccines were going to bring us back to the way things were in 2019 and that the government overreach and hysteria would finally come to a close, events are being cancelled left and right heading into the fall in what is looking like a carbon copy of 2020…all over again.

    It was announced yesterday that the famous New Orleans Jazz Festival for 2021 would be cancelled due to “rising cases” of Covid in the state, according to CNN. 

    The festival said it was being cancelled “as a result of the current exponential growth of new Covid cases in New Orleans and the region and the ongoing public health emergency.”

    The festival had already been moved from April and May to October as a result of the pandemic and was supposed to feature the Rolling Stones, Foo Fighters and Lizzo.

    “We now look forward to next spring, when we will present the Festival during its traditional timeframe. Next year’s dates are April 29 — May 8, 2022,” the festival said on its website.

    Sure. We’ll see about that. 

    New Orleans also cancelled its famous Red Dress Run. Despite the cancellation, its likely that people are going to show up to do it anyways, NOLA.com reported. 

    The event “combines self-paced jogging, tongue-in-cheek cross-dressing, and unabashed alcohol consumption” and is run by running club the Hash House Harriers. The two mile run through the French Quarter usually raises tons of money for charity. 2019’s entry fees totaled $139,000. 

    One board member said he’d be “stunned” if people don’t just “show up anyways”. 

    New Orleans also cancelled its 2021 Gretna Heritage Festival, which was set for October 22-24.

    Outside of Louisiana, rock band Limp Bizkit has also cancelled its tour dates for August due to “safety concerns related to Covid-19”. 

    “Out of an abundance of caution and concern for the safety of the band, crew and most of all the fans, the Limp Bizkit show this Monday and the remaining August tour is being cancelled,” the band said on its website, according to Rolling Stone. The band was supposed to play in New Jersey last Friday and cancelled hours before the show started. 

    NOLA’s Red Dress Run isn’t happening this year. But it just might anyways.

    The 2021 New York Oyster Festival has also been cancelled. The event usually attracts thousands and was scheduled to be held in Oyster Bay, NY at Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park. 

    “The health and well-being of the residents of our beloved Oyster Bay-East Norwich community and the festival attendees is our primary concern,” the event said.

    In Oklahoma, the Chocktaw Nation has cancelled its annual 2021 Labor Day Festival due to spread of the Delta variant. “Our top priority is the health and safety of our tribal members, associates and the communities we serve,” said Chief Gary Batton, according to NBC. 

    And we’re sure heading into the fall – and whatever variant Dr. Fauci is bracing to tell us about next – the fear mongering and cancellations will continue. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/10/2021 – 21:05

  • Beijing Plans To Stick With Its "Zero Tolerance" Approach To COVID As Delta Wave Spreads
    Beijing Plans To Stick With Its “Zero Tolerance” Approach To COVID As Delta Wave Spreads

    China is presently grappling with a wave of COVID infections believed to be driven by the delta variant, the same highly contagious strain purportedly driving waves of outbreaks in the US and Europe. But economists at American megabanks like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America have recently become concerned that Beijing’s “zero tolerance” approach to combating COVID – which involves travel restrictions, lockdowns and mass testing, among other disruptive measures – could impact global growth, or at least weaken demand for commodity prices.

    Some have broached the idea that as the CCP works to bolster economic growth, it might soon be ready to compromise on its “zero tolerance” approach to combating the virus.

    Unfortunately, a recent editorial published by Global Times editor Hu Xijin suggests that this is highly unlikely. as Hu declares in the opening paragraph of the editorial: “China is unlikely to abandon its dynamic approach of vigorously clearing new COVID-19 cases and embrace the loose approach used in the West to achieve “herd immunity.”

    As we noted yesterday, rapid indicators like subway ridership in the city of Nanjing, the epicenter of the current outbreak, suggests that the present outbreak might have a broader impact on consumption and the Chinese service-sector (while likely having little, if any, impact on still-important manufacturing sector).

    While China’s strategy for fighting the virus has been very “successful” (according to Hu; of course the international community will never really know the true toll), too much “success” – in this case – could still create problems.

    Since China can’t live with this “success” (ie lockdowns) forever, “it must favor a disciplined strategy involving short but intense measures to ensure the virus is stopped dead in its tracks.”

    And although it’s “understandable” that some scholars advocate “coexistence” with the virus (since it’s currently “impossible” to get rid of COVID in its entirety), Beijing maintains that its strategy has already proven to be the “most effective” while allowing “the least humanitarian and social cost in the world.”

    By trying to save their economies first, the US and EU have callously allowed a greater loss of life while “demonstrating a lack of economic competitiveness” as well.

    Interested parties can read the rest of the editorial below:

    Recently, there have been discussions about whether China should learn to live with the novel coronavirus. In my opinion, such a debate has no meaning now or in the near future. China is unlikely to abandon its dynamic approach of vigorously clearing new COVID-19 cases and embrace the loose approach used in the West to achieve “herd immunity.”

    It is understandable that some scholars advocate coexistence with the virus. But they didn’t mean relaxing the current anti-epidemic prevention and control measures. Instead, they wanted to warn us that we need to come up with a more precise strategy to lower the cost of the dynamic zero-case route, as it is currently impossible to get rid of the virus completely. I don’t feel that this is really a serious divergence with the anti-epidemic approach in Chinese society.

    To this day, China’s strategy toward COVID-19 has been proven to be the most effective, and one that comes with the least humanitarian and social cost in the world. China will not give up this approach, for the following reasons.

    First, the epidemic is still wreaking havoc in the West and some developing countries. There was no resurgence in the UK after the country’s opening-up. However, it is still too early to come to any conclusion, as the UK could still face more challenges. What is more shocking is the swiftly rising number of COVID-19 cases across the US. In other words, herd immunity is not a positive experience, at least not yet, and the World Health Organization has not approved such an approach.

    Second, the route that China is taking against the epidemic has brought better economic development. The approach the US and Europe adopted has not only caused more loss of life, but also demonstrated a lack of economic competitiveness. This can’t appeal to China unless it can bring higher economic growth, not to mention the humanitarian factor involved.

    Third, in the long term, the West’s barbaric route of disregarding human lives will eventually compete with China’s dynamic approach of clearing COVID-19 cases, and economic growth will be the peak of the competition between the two routes. China does face the pressure of having to continuously improve the precision of prevention and control. The economy in the West was on a rollercoaster ride last year due to COVID-19. And even though there is a resurgence of the pandemic now, vaccines have lowered the death rate in the West and helped its economy come back on track. As a result, China needs to seriously compete with Western countries in terms of the degree of its economic recovery.

    Therefore, I must say that China’s anti-virus path is very successful, but we cannot live with such success forever. We must have the urgency to strengthen prevention and control measures. When the virus hits a certain place, we must assess the situation in a highly scientific way to decide if a complete or partial lockdown should be implemented. Any large-scale lockdown must be done in a short period of time. More importantly, each place should detect the epidemic more quickly, cut the infection chain more effectively, and reduce the social cost of wiping it out. Nationwide vaccination is a basic requirement. It can play an invisible role in controlling the intensity of each new wave of the epidemic.

    I think China’s anti-virus path is improving, but the latest round of infections that started from Nanjing has exposed some shortcomings. Obviously, there is room for improvement in our scientific prevention and control, and this is something we must do.

    China will not tolerate newly emerged infection chains, because that will only lead to disaster and bring the situation out of control. The public will not accept the change for worse, and it is not politically feasible. Therefore, we must give up all illusions and strengthen our anti-virus efforts that have already been proven effective. As for how we should expand engagement with the outside world, decisions will be made according to the situation. The better we do today, the more initiative we will have in the future.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/10/2021 – 20:45

  • Canadian Farmers Cull 130,000 Pigs After Pork Plant Strike Closes Processor
    Canadian Farmers Cull 130,000 Pigs After Pork Plant Strike Closes Processor

    Bloomberg reports a labor strike at a Quebec pork-processing plant may have resulted in more than 130,000 culled pigs in eastern Canada. 

    A dangerous backlog of pigs ready for slaughter has built up after Olymel’s processing facility in Vallee-Jonction, Quebec, experienced a labor strike and the resulting closure of the plant since April 28. 

    The company slaughters on average 36,000 hogs each week. But since the plant closed, backlogs are increasing, and pigs are being diverted to other U.S. and western Canada processors. About 15,000 pigs each week are being left behind, according to David Duval, the president of the Eleveurs de porcs du Quebec, which represents the province’s farmers. 

    “Animals struggle through heat waves like this. If on top of that they’re crammed, it’s becoming extremely difficult,” Duval said. “I heard several producers who told me ‘I don’t know where to put them next week.”

    Duval calls the situation “unprecedented” and says the pork industry in Quebec produces four times more than what’s locally consumed. 

    “Olymel is taking special measures to limit this backlog, to control the backlog as much as we can,” Richard Vigneault, a spokesman for Olymel, said. 

    Bloomberg estimates more than 130,000 pigs have been culled by local farmers. 

    Each pig can provide around 600 meals, and the waste is considered astronomical. 

    With backlogs mounting due to limited processing capacity, farmers are forced to euthanize pigs to prevent overcrowding. 

    Canada is the world’s third-largest pork exporter – there has yet to be any information on supply chain disruptions due to the downed plant. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/10/2021 – 20:25

  • Tracking China's Regulatory Reset: Handy Cheat Sheet Of Beijing's Regulatory Crackdown
    Tracking China’s Regulatory Reset: Handy Cheat Sheet Of Beijing’s Regulatory Crackdown

    With Beijing’s regulatory framework changing by the day – if not the hour – as part of the emerging “Paradigm Shift” in China, a popular question that has emerged is which sector’s shareholders does China plan on destroying today by publishing a harshly worded op-ed…

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    … targeting capitalist virtues like profit and, well, capital.

    Making matters worse, now that China’s crackdown is a daily event, it has become virtually impossible to keep track of all the latest developments.

    To make it a little easier, Morgan Stanley’s China economist Robin Xing has penned the following tracker of China’s “regulatory reset”, noting that regulatory issues linger in the healthcare and technology  sectors, while policy support is skewed toward decarbonization. Further, the bank tracks regulatory developments in key sectors as follows:

    1) Healthcare: An article in the People’s Daily on Aug 9 reported incidences of improper sales/marketing practices and safety concerns in the medical aesthetics sector, quoting expert views for stronger regulatory oversight on credentials, service quality and pricing.

    Morgan Stanley analyst’s take: Sean Wu and Yolanda Hu believe that while this is a reiteration of previous guidance, the medical aesthetics sector, which has been a loosely regulated segment, could see tightened regulations over time to reduce accidents and penalize sales practices that promote unnecessary surgery procedures.

    2) Technology: The Haidian District People’s Procuratorate in Beijing announced on Aug. 7 that it intends to initiate a public interest lawsuit against Tencent, due to alleged compliance issues with the “Minors Protection Law” in the “youth mode” of the company’s WeChat app.

    Morgan Stanley analyst’s take: Gary Yu believes that the lawsuit reflects increased scrutiny to protect minors. Tencent proactively launched the “youth mode” on WeChat in Oct 2020 to align with regulatory focus,and has been fine-tuning the functions while conducting a series of self-rectifications across the ecosystem, including implementation of stricter curbs on minors’ access to mobile games and suspension of new user registration for WeChat.

    3) Decarbonization: In a recent response to the NPC, the Ministry of Finance indicated that it is drafting supportive fiscal measures (covering fiscal and tax policies) in relation to the “30/60” carbon emission targets.

    Morgan Stanley analyst’s take: Tim Chan believes the announcement of the Ministry of Finance reiterated the importance of green finance in achieving China’s carbon neutrality goal. These fiscal measures should support continued flow of capital to green projects. Moreover, Tim also thinks that potential auctioning of allowances in future in the China National Emissions Trading Scheme could become another major funding source for green projects.

    Finally, here is a handy cheat sheet summary of all the recent regulatory developments across China’s economy:

     

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/10/2021 – 20:05

  • North Korea Lashes Out Over "Hostile" US-South Joint War Drills
    North Korea Lashes Out Over “Hostile” US-South Joint War Drills

    So much for this summer’s attempts at a communications reset geared towards “recovering trust”…

    “North Korea did not answer routine calls on inter-Korean hotlines on Tuesday, South Korea said, hours after a senior official in Pyongyang warned the South and the United States over annual joint military drills set to begin this week,” Reuters reports.

    This after the powerful sister of Kim Jung Un blasted the annual drills as imminently destructive of attempts to restore dialogue with the South. Kim Yo Jong said in an August 1st statement warning against holding the drills: “For some days I have been hearing an unpleasant story that joint military exercises between the South Korean army and the U.S. forces could go ahead as scheduled.” The drills have now kicked off.

    Pyongyang Press Corps Pool via AP

    “I view this as an undesirable prelude which seriously undermines the will of the top leaders of the North and the South wishing to see a step taken toward restoring mutual trust and which further beclouds the way ahead of the North-South relations,” she continued at the time.

    “Our government and army will closely follow whether the South Korean side stages hostile war exercises in August or makes other bold decision,” she said.

    The Hill notes that today’s refusal of Pyongyang to pick up the phone is meant as a glaring message:

    North and South Korea have routinely checked in over the hotlines managed by the unification ministry and South Korea’s military two times a day, according to Reuters. While morning calls between the two went as usual, the North reportedly did not answer calls made in the afternoon.

    Footage from the drills this week…

    US-South Korea preliminary ‘live’ drills have kicked off as of Tuesday, with computer simulated drills continuing into next week.

    Washington has called the drills purely “defensive” in nature – this following in prior years the Pentagon scaling them back due to the coronavirus pandemic and also hopes at denuclearization talks on the peninsula proceeding. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/10/2021 – 19:45

  • Paging Greta Thunberg – China Restarts Coal Mines To Keep Up With Power Demand
    Paging Greta Thunberg – China Restarts Coal Mines To Keep Up With Power Demand

    Authored by Julianne Geiger via OilPrice.com,

    Operations at 53 shuttered coal mines in China will once again come to life, as China struggles to keep up with increased power demand, according to a statement by the National Development Reform Commission in China.

    Last week, China announced it would restart 38 coal mines in Inner Mongolia. Now, China has announced it will resume operations at 15 more coal mines, in the regions of  Shanxi and Xinjiang. The mines will operate for a year and will produce as much as 44 million tons of coal, which China hopes will satisfy the growing calls for power amid an intense heatwave and tick up in industrial activity.

    China has struggled to answer the calls for both increased power and decreased emissions.

    The news coincides with a scathing UN report that suggested this week that unless the world takes immediate large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, there will be no way to limit global warming to 2-degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

    Despite bringing a multitude of coal mines back online, China has warned that its power shortage situation is just beginning—in fact, it is expected to worsen.

    This also means that its thermal coal prices are expected to stay high. In May, China’s thermal coal prices skyrocketed to new record levels.

    Still, coal is a cheap power source that has given China a rather ironic advantage when it comes to manufacturing solar panels used in Western countries, the Wall Street Journal pointed out at the end of July.

    One could view the push for solar power in the United States and Europe as triggering increased demand for coal power in China, even to the point of restarting its previously shuttered mines.

    [ZH: Someone is going to be angry…]

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/10/2021 – 19:25

  • "Worst Case Scenario": "Woke" Olympic Ratings Plunge Nearly 50%, Forcing NBC To Hand Out Free Ad Space
    “Worst Case Scenario”: “Woke” Olympic Ratings Plunge Nearly 50%, Forcing NBC To Hand Out Free Ad Space

    It looks like yet another instance of “get woke, go broke” for NBC and the Tokyo Olympics. 

    Ratings for the Olympics have been so poor this year that NBC is being forced to hand out “extra commercials” for those who bought advertising during the games, according to Fox News. 

    Experts have pointed to backlash over protesting the U.S. flag and “woke” athletes as the key reason why ratings are down. 

    The ratings dropoff is stunning. Per Fox News:

    NBC’s primetime coverage of the Tokyo Olympics on July 26 averaged 14.7 million viewers — for a 49% drop compared to the equivalent night from the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and 53% less than the 2012 London Olympics. The opening ceremonies saw their lowest viewership since 1988.

    The plunge in ratings has caused “advertiser anxiety” from companies who feel as though they aren’t getting enough bang for their marketing buck. The early exits of gymnast Simone Biles and tennis player Naomi Osaka didn’t help rating, the report wrote. 

    One media exec said the ratings “clearly are not what NBC, our agency or our clients were looking for”.

    Andy Billings, director of the sports communications program at the University of Alabama commented: “When you look at the numbers, it’s hard to be pleased with them. It’s probably NBC’s worst-case scenario, but it’s probably a worst-case scenario that they would have been able to predict months ago.”

    The protests of the flag “have done little to attract new viewers while alienating Republican spectators,” Fox News wrote. 

    Monmouth University polling found last week that 33% less American viewers were interested in the games. 

    Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, concluded: “The delay from last year and lack of spectators have taken the edge off the typical anticipation and excitement for this event. But the emergence of Black Lives Matter in the sports world has also led to a backlash among some Americans.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/10/2021 – 19:05

  • Buchanan: Is America Becoming A Failed State?
    Buchanan: Is America Becoming A Failed State?

    Authored by Pat Buchanan,

    Suddenly, Sunday, a riveting report came over cable news:

    The U.S. embassy was urging all Americans to “leave Afghanistan as soon as possible.” Message: Get out while you can.

    Adding urgency was news that three northern provincial capitals, including Kunduz city, had fallen to the Taliban, making it five provincial capitals overrun since Friday.

    The huge investment in blood and treasure by the United States over two decades to remake Afghanistan appears about to be wiped out, whole and entire, and we appear about to sustain our worst diplomatic and political defeat since the fall of Saigon.

    Not once in this century has the U.S. decisively won one of the wars it launched – in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen or Libya. And the sole superpower status we enjoyed as the 21st century began is gone with the wind.

    Yet America’s hawks are urging us to give a new war guarantee to Taiwan, should Beijing exercise its claim, though former President Richard Nixon and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger assented in 1972 that Taiwan is “a part of China.”

    Before we issue any war guarantee to Taipei, we might consider the Pentagon’s evaluation of the results of a recent war game in which the U.S. confronted China over Taiwan.

    How did it go?

    Says vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Hyten,

    “Without overstating the issue, it failed miserably.

    “An aggressive red team that had been studying the United States for the last 20 years just ran rings around us. … They knew exactly what we were going to do before we did it, and they took advantage of it.”

    Are we Americans prepared, in any way, for an air-sea-and-missile war in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific over islands they claim as their historic national territory but we have never claimed as ours?

    Here at home, the COVID-19 pandemic, now in a fourth wave, is infecting 100,000 Americans every day, with hospitalizations rising commensurately. For that third of a nation still unvaccinated, the delta variant is a potential death sentence.

    Despite this medical crisis that is common to us all, our political divide is manifesting itself in savage battles over vaccinations, masks and mandates.

    And while COVID-19 continues to infect, hospitalize and kill, scores of thousands of Americans are being annually lost to drug overdoses and opioids. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 93,000 overdose deaths occurred across the country in 2020, and 3 in 4 fatal overdoses can be attributed to opioids.

    More Americans are dying yearly from overdoses and opioids than all the Americans dead during the war in Vietnam.

    The U.S. trade deficit numbers just came in for June, where the deficit in goods alone increased to $91 billion for the month. This translates into $1 trillion a year.

    The largest component of that trade deficit is with China — an extraordinary level of U.S. dependency on a foreign nation for the vital necessities of its national life, let alone on an adversary like China.

    On our southern border, an invasion of our country is taking place.

    Every month President Joe Biden has been in office, illegal border crossings have increased. In June, Border Patrol recorded 178,000 border arrests — a 571% jump from June 2020. Border arrests have already reached their highest since 2000 and are on track to reach 1.8 million this year.

    Biden is failing in his first constitutional duty — to defend the United States from foreign invasion. We Americans no longer decide who comes into our national home and whom we shall adopt as new citizens. Others decide, others determine our future, for us.

    We defend the borders of scores of nations; we cannot, or Biden will not, defend our own. And, as former President Ronald Reagan reminded us, a country that can’t or won’t defend its borders isn’t really a country anymore.

    In our great cities, public shootings and killings have begun to exceed those of previous years. Police, under attack and abuse from the elites and people they protect, are resigning and retiring in record numbers.

    Consider.

    America is unable to win the wars she chooses to fight. She cannot or will not control and defend her borders from a mass migrant invasion. She cannot halt an outbreak of criminality and killing in her great cities. She has not run a trade surplus in four decades. Her dependency upon foreign producers is unprecedented. And her budget deficits continue to break records every year — as does her soaring national debt.

    Is that not the description of a failed or failing state?

    Asked by a despondent young friend if the defeat at Saratoga and potential loss of the American colonies meant the ruin of Britain, Adam Smith assured him, “There is a great deal of ruin in a nation.”

    Britain would go on from the loss of her 13 colonies to create the greatest empire since Rome.

    Yet if there is “a great deal of ruin in a nation,” we Americans certainly appear to be testing those limits.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/10/2021 – 18:45

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Aug 10

Today’s News 10th August 2021

  • Pope Francis Sent 'Bullets In Envelope' Death Threat As Financial Scandal Trial Underway
    Pope Francis Sent ‘Bullets In Envelope’ Death Threat As Financial Scandal Trial Underway

    It’s being widely reported that Italian police are investigating a threat made on Pope Francis’ life after a mysterious envelope addressed to the pontiff was intercepted at a mail sorting facility near Milan. 

    “Law enforcement in Milan is investigating the source of an envelope containing three bullets addressed to the pope, Italian paramilitary police said Monday,” the AP reports. Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera described that they were 9-millimeter caliber bullets.

    The Pope has had beefed up security over the years, including his own ‘secret service’ detail along with the traditional Swiss Guard.

    The suspicious envelope was reportedly sent from France but left few other details in terms of the identity of the sender. It was found during overnight sorting.

    The AP notes further:

    The envelope was addressed by hand in pen to: “The Pope, Vatican City, St. Peter’s Square, Rome,” and contained three bullets presumed to be for a pistol and a message referring to financial operations at the Vatican.

    The financial scandal-related message is interesting given that an unprecedented Vatican trial is still underway, likely to result in the downfall of a very senior cardinal. It’s centered on shady London real estate purchases and mismanaged funds that were intended for charity.

    To review, details of the trial include the following:

    On July 27, a trial got under way in which 10 people, including a senior cardinal, have been indicted over allegations of mishandling of Vatican funds. The multi-million euro scandal revolves around the purchasing of a luxury property in London.

    According to Reuters, an indictment revealed as part of the process showed Pope Francis gave his personal approval for the trial against senior figures to commence.

    The trial is considered the biggest in recent Vatican history…

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    Previously there was widespread speculation that the highly unusual February 2013 resignation of Pope Benedict – Francis’ still living predecessor (unusual given that typically a Pope remains in the highest Roman Catholic office for life) – was due to his inability to clean up increasingly grave and public financial mismanagement and scandal at the Vatican Bank.

    It’s believed that among Pope Francis’ most central mandates is to urgently clean up and resolve lingering financial crisis, while also the clergy molestation scandal and fallout is still ongoing.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/10/2021 – 02:45

  • Lebanon's Economy Quickly Collapsing Amid Hyperinflation, Power Outages
    Lebanon’s Economy Quickly Collapsing Amid Hyperinflation, Power Outages

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    The economy of Lebanon is seeing a once-in-a-lifetime collapse amid hyperinflation and outages, according to a report from the World Bank.

    The small Middle Eastern country has seen inconsistent power supply and outages after the massive explosion in its capital, Beirut, last year. The country, which is also dealing with hyperinflation, is seeing one of the worst three economic depressions globally since the mid-1800s, according to the World Bank.

    “Lebanon’s GDP plummeted from close to US$55 billion in 2018 to an estimated US$33 billion in 2020, with US$GD/capita falling by around 40 percent,” said the organization in a recent news release accompanying its report (pdf).

    “Such a brutal and rapid contraction is usually associated with conflicts or wars” although Lebanon has been considered a state prone to conflict and violence, said the report.

    And increasingly “dire socio-economic conditions,” it added, “risk systemic national failings with regional and potentially global consequences.”

    “This illustrates the magnitude of the economic depression that the country is enduring, with sadly no clear turning point on the horizon, given the disastrous deliberate policy inaction. The social impact of the crisis, which is already dire, could rapidly become catastrophic; more than half the population is likely below the national poverty line,” according to the report.

    A view of the site of the blast in Beirut’s port area, Lebanon on Aug. 6, 2020. (Issam Abdallah/Reuters)

    An analysis from the Wall Street Journal places at least some of the blame on the massive explosion that rocked Beirut about a year ago in August of last year. In the capital, power outages are commonplace and have forced restaurants, for example, to use portable generators to generate electricity.

    The blast killed at least 200 people and triggered as much as $15 billion in damage, according to Beirut’s governor. The government of Lebanon also was forced to resign after widespread pressure from protesters.

    “I set out to combat corruption, but I discovered that corruption is bigger than the state,” said Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab widespread resignations.

    “I declare today the resignation of this government. God bless Lebanon.”

    There have also been fights in supermarkets as people try to buy bread, sugar, oil, and other goods before they run out, with inflation 400 percent, the report said. Murder rates and other crimes are also rapidly rising.

    The economic collapse could reduce the country into a failed state, experts have warned.

    “Not only do we have an absence of government and a political vacuum, but we’re going to have a severe problem with the function of the state of Lebanon,” Lebanese American University political scientist Imad Salamey told The Wall Street Journal. “We are heading toward the unknown.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/10/2021 – 02:00

  • Climate Change Is Not Driving Western Wildfires, Government Mismanagement Is To Blame
    Climate Change Is Not Driving Western Wildfires, Government Mismanagement Is To Blame

    Authored by H.Sterling Burnett, op-ed via The Epoch Times,

    In late July, President Joe Biden held a virtual joint planning meeting and press conference with the governors of various Western states to discuss how to handle 2021’s wildfire season.

    Every leader blamed catastrophic human climate change for the severity of recent wildfire seasons.

    The New York Times allowed Oregon’s Democratic Gov. Kate Brown to follow up that event with an editorial titled “The West Is on Fire, It’s Past Time to Act on Climate Change.”

    Biden and the governors are wrong.

    Wildfires have been common throughout the West historically, often burning more acres than they’ve burned in recent years. To the extent that wildfires have increased in intensity recently, it isn’t due to modest warming, but rather to decades of federal and state mismanagement of publicly owned forests throughout the Western United States, leaving those forests in tinderbox conditions.

    It has been more than a century since California experienced wildfires of the magnitude it has suffered recently. But research published in Forest Ecology and Management reported that prior to European colonization, more than 4.4 million acres of California forest and shrub-land burned annually. And those huge wildfires came when the Earth was cooler than it is today.

    Had Brown studied history a bit, she would have found Oregon has suffered large fires throughout its history.

    As detailed in an article sponsored by Oregon’s Department of Forestry:

    “Prior to Euro-American settlement large, stand-replacing crown fires burned Pacific Northwest coastal forests every 200–500 years. Smaller surface fires revisited dry interior forests as often as every 4–20 years. West-side Cascade wildfire intervals and intensity fell somewhere in the range between.”

    This changed with the arrival of Euro-American settlers in the West, who stopped the regular burning both to deny Native Americans of their traditional lifestyles and food production system and to prevent fires from burning newly settled towns and farms.

    Forests grew thicker.

    With the rise of widespread federal and state ownership of forests in the West, management with the ax, firehose, firebreaks, and roads replaced regular widespread forest fires. For nearly 80 years, the U.S. Forest Service, an agency within the Department of Agriculture, drove thousands of miles of roads deep into the forests to allow logging. The roads also created artificial fire breaks and allowed access for firefighters into the backwoods to fight fires when they started, typically far from settled areas.

    In 1985, Oregon’s federal forests produced more than 4 billion board feet of timber annually. By 1995, concerns about the spotted owl and a change in forest management philosophy from one of productive use to natural ecosystem management resulted in thousands of miles of forest roads being closed and ripped out. Soon thereafter, timber harvests plunged to less than 1 billion board feet per year. The same decline in logging and destroyed forest roads were common throughout Western public forests.

    This has resulted in overcrowded forests and the easier spread of insect infestations, such as bark beetles, which have killed an untold number of trees. Many federal forests now contain more dead and dying timber than living trees. And since loggers can no longer clear large areas of forests and firefighters can’t get to fires, except from the air if conditions are right, wildfires are on the rise again. Sadly, hundreds of towns, homes, and businesses are being burnt out.

    With so much fuel, these fires are different. Rather than replenishing the soil, they burn so hotly that they often kill key microbes in the soil. This leaves millions of acres of land denuded for decades, looking like moonscapes. Under the current federal policy of letting nature take its course, loggers usually can’t even get into burnt-over areas to clear fallen burnt timber and replant new trees in areas where, with human help, they might possibly take root and flourish.

    So, for political reasons, Biden and the governors want to blame modest recent warming for the scope and intensity of wildfires in Western states in 2020 and 2021. The true culprit is more than 30 years of forest mismanagement.

    Contrary to Biden and the governors’ assertions, state and federal efforts to address racial disparities, increase electric vehicle usage, and stop using fossil fuels to generate electricity will do nothing to prevent wildfires.

    Wildfires are natural. They can’t be stopped. They can be managed. The damage they cause to the forests and the people living near them can be dramatically reduced.

    Wise management of forests is required, either through regular, widespread, low-intensity burning, as the Native Americans did, or through active forest management, including intensive logging and brush clearing and firefighting efforts, as governments did prior to 1990. These tools, not massive, misdirected spending on climate change, are the best hope of preventing Westerners’ lives and livelihoods from being consumed by flames.

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

  • Olympic Medal Count: How Did Each Country Fare At Tokyo 2020
    Olympic Medal Count: How Did Each Country Fare At Tokyo 2020

    Every four years, the Summer Olympics brings together thousands of athletes from around the world to compete in a global arena of sportsmanship and athletic excellence.

    Tokyo hosted the 2020 Summer Olympics from July 24 to August 9, 2021, marking the second time Japan has hosted the Summer Olympics. The country was first given the honor back in 1964 becoming the first Asian nation to host the Olympic Games.

    As Visual Capitalist’s Anshool Deshmukh details below, even in this most challenging of climates where the games had to be pushed by a year, nothing stopped the athletes from exceeding their limits and breaking long-held records.

    The Final 2020 Olympic Medal Count

    In a complete show of dominance, the U.S. won the most medals at the Olympics, raking in 113 total with 39 gold medals. The U.S. beat out China to claim the top spot by a single gold medal. China finished the games with an impressive 88 medals in total. The host country Japan comes in at third with 27 gold medals and a total of 58 medals.

    Here is the final Olympic medal count for each country that participated in the Tokyo Olympic Games:

    Of course, countries with larger populations have an inherent advantage, so it’s also interesting to look at the top countries by medals per capita. By this measure, the European microstate of San Marino comes out on top. This was San Marino’s first ever medal showing at an Olympic Games. Turkmenistan and Burkina Faso also won medals for the first time at Tokyo 2020.

    Here’s a look at the top 15 countries by Olympic medals per capita:

    Among countries with a slightly larger population, the Netherlands and Australia had strong showings.

    Other Facts and Figures About the 2020 Tokyo Olympics

    Despite a year-long delay and a slew of challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, this unprecedented Olympic Games went ahead. Here are 12 interesting things to note about the 2020 Tokyo Olympics:

    1. The Olympic Torch

    The Olympic Torch Relay travelled through all 47 of Japan’s prefectures over 121 days. It involved 10,500 torchbearers, who ultimately arrived at Japan’s Olympic Stadium in Tokyo.

    2. The Stadiums

    40 venues in and around the city of Tokyo hosted 33 Olympic Sports and 22 Paralympic Sports events. The two main areas were the Heritage Zone and the Tokyo Bay Zone.

    3. Cost of the Games

    The Tokyo Olympics were the most expensive Olympics on record. According to officials, the budget for the Games was $15.4 billion. On the other hand, Japanese government auditors have claimed the total spending topped $20 billion.

    This is almost three times the original forecast of around $7.4 billion when Tokyo put together its bid for the Olympics. The postponement of the Games cost the country close to $2 billion, after initial speculation that the cost could be as high as $6 billion.

    4. IOC Refugee Olympic Team

    29 athletes qualified as part of the IOC Refugee Olympic Team for the Tokyo Olympic Games. Rio 2016 was the first time that an IOC refugee team had made an appearance at the Olympic games.

    5. Age is Just a Number

    Syrian table tennis player Hend Zaza and Japanese skateboarder Kokona Hiraki were the youngest athletes in Tokyo at 12 years old, while Australian equestrian Mary Hanna was the oldest at 66 years old.

    6. Self Service Medalling

    Athletes at the Tokyo Olympics put their medals around their own necks to protect against spreading COVID-19. After being presented medals on a tray, the athletes picked it up and medalled themselves. There would also be no handshakes or hugs at the podiums.

    7. A Focus on Sustainability

    To promote sustainability, this year’s Olympics repurposed a number of the venues used in the 1964 Games. Moreover, the podiums, uniforms, medals, and even the beds at the Olympic Village were all made from recycled materials.

    While Japan is not the first to make Olympic medals from recycled materials, it is the first time that citizens of a host country proactively donated their electronic devices as materials for the medals.

    8. Inclusion and Diversity

    This year, the Games nearly reached gender parity. According to the IOC, of the almost 11,000 Olympic athletes in Tokyo, nearly 49% were women, marking the first “gender-balanced” games in its history. Nearly 85 years after the canoe sprint made its Olympic debut, the women’s sprint event was added to the Olympic games this year.

    Weightlifter Laurel Hubbard from New Zealand was the first openly transgender woman competing in any event at the Olympics. She joined other elite athletes like footballer Quinn from Canada and U.S. cyclist Chelsea Wolfe to participate in this year’s games.

    9. Mental Health Took Center Stage

    Starting with four-time grand slam champion Naomi Osaka withdrawing from the French Open over mental health concerns, the conversation about an athlete’s mental preparedness was as important as their physical one at the games.

    After Simone Biles stepped away from the U.S. women’s gymnastics team in the all-around contest earlier last week, numerous athletes worldwide have continued to elevate conversations surrounding mental health, especially in competitive sports.

    10. Splitting a Medal?

    Olympic high jumpers Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar and Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy mutually decided to share the top spot in their event. The last time the gold medal was shared among two athletes at the Olympics was 113 years ago.

    11. Hot New Events

    Four sports made their Olympic debuts at the Tokyo Games: karate, skateboarding, sport climbing, and surfing. Other sports added new disciplines, including men’s and women’s three-on-three basketball and the BMX freestyle event.

    12. Tokyo’s Slick Olympic Technology

    Humanoid Robots helped on the field for the first time, fetching hammers and javelins flung during field events and interacting with spectators. This was also the first time a host used facial recognition systems to provide athletes and officials venue access, helping to increase and speed up security

    Next Stop, Paris

    The Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games will take place from 26 July to 11 August 2024. During those weeks, Paris will be at the centre of the sporting world. The IOC is keen to set a new standard for inclusive, gender-balanced and youth-centred games.

    The next Olympics are expected to see even more athlete and spectator participation—hopefully, one where they likely won’t have to work around COVID-19 restrictions. With numerous new sports added in Tokyo’s Olympic Games, we might even see breakdancing in the Paris version of events. Here’s to the next four years.

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

  • Could The Delta Variant End The Chinese Communist Party?
    Could The Delta Variant End The Chinese Communist Party?

    Authored by Gordon Chang via 19fortyfive.com,

    COVID-19 is ravaging China.

    The Delta variant is spreading across the country fast, and Beijing has no answer to the new strain other than draconian, totalitarian brute-force measures—and blaming foreigners.

    Millions of Chinese residents are now in various forms of lockdown. The recent infections constitute the most widespread coronavirus outbreak since the disease first hit China, sometime in late 2019.

    The new flare-up, which quickly slipped beyond the control of the authorities, is undermining core Communist Party propaganda narratives.

    Chinese authorities trace the latest series of infections to a flight landing at the Nanjing Lukou International Airport from Russia on July 20. Nine Chinese airport workers tested positive after cleaning the plane.

    Since then, the disease has ripped through China, infecting people in almost half of the country’s 33 provinces and provincial-level cities and regions. “Delta has broken through the country’s virus defenses, which are some of the strictest in the world,” notes Bloomberg News.

    Delta is now appearing in places with no reported cases for months. Of particular concern for the regime is the cluster in Wuhan, the original epicenter of the disease. The city’s infection-free status has been, as Bloomberg reports, “a source of pride in China.”

    Covid has also reached Beijing, the heart of Chinese power. There, travel restrictions are strict. Tourists are now not admitted to the city. Only “essential travelers” are allowed in, but only if they produce negative Covid tests. Government and state enterprise employees may not leave the city. Beijing residents have been told not to travel elsewhere “unless necessary.”

    There have been more than 30 outbreaks around China after the initial cases in Wuhan of last year, including a particularly devastating flare-up hitting Guangdong province ports beginning in late May. Draconian measures were seemingly successful in isolating China’s COVID-19 cases, however. The Party, beginning early last year, used its handling of the virus as proof of the superiority of its system over, among others, “Western democracy.”

    Totalitarian-style tactics, unfortunately for China’s rulers, have not worked with the hardy Delta variant.

    The coronavirus, unlike other pathogens, has become more transmissible and more virulent over time. Delta, as a result, is now killing off the triumphalism of the Communist Party.

    Therefore, a nationwide spread of the disease is a potentially existential threat to the Party. At the moment, Delta is running through many societies around the world, but China appears to be the only one where the variant could end the ruling group’s tenure.

    Therefore, it should be no surprise that Party propagandists went berserk for a few days last month when Bloomberg named the U.S. No. 1 in the world in its “Covid Resilience Ranking.” “What a joke,” People’s Daily, the most authoritative publication in China, remarked.

    Denigration of the U.S. cannot solve the Party’s main problem, however. None of China’s five coronavirus vaccines are particularly effective.

    Beijing, claiming to have administered more than 1.5 billion doses of its vaccines in China, reports 40% of Chinese citizens are fully vaccinated. China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention says Chinese vaccines “can still have good preventative and protective effects” against the Delta strain, but that seems unlikely as countries turn their backs on the Chinese jabs if they have an alternative. Most of the new cases in Nanjing were vaccinated.

    No society will fully recover from this disease until it has an effective and safe vaccine, and Beijing is a long way off from developing one of them, even though its researchers had months of head start in coming up with a good jab.

    Until China can administer an effective vaccine across the country, its regime will have no choice but to fall back on propaganda. Narrative control has been key from the very beginning of the epidemic. This became clear when the Communist Party on January 26 of last year announced the formation of its Central Leading Small Group for Work to Counter the New Coronavirus Infection Pneumonia Epidemic, China’s task force. There was only one public health official on the nine-person roster, which was heavy with political hacks and propaganda officials. The Party’s propaganda czar, Wang Huning, was vice-chair. Maintaining control of the narrative and Xi Jinping’s dictatorial rule were—and remain—the Leading Group’s primary goals.

    A Chinese soldier guarding the southern entrance of the Forbidden City in Beijing, dominated by a giant portrait of Mao Zedong.

    The Party’s propagandists evidently believe blaming foreigners for the Delta outbreak is good politics. They were quick to say the origin of the most recent contagion was passengers on the plane from Russia to Nanjing, for instance, implying Russia was the source. Media also attributes a cluster of cases in Zhengzhou to two hospital cleaners in contact with patients from abroad.

    In the most irresponsible move of all, China’s foreign ministry in March of last year publicly maintained that the global coronavirus pandemic started in the United States. Since then, Chinese propagandists have continually pushed the notion that the coronavirus was hatched in Frederick, Maryland, in the U.S. Army’s Fort Detrick.

    China’s rulers have run out of options when it comes to the uncontrolled—and perhaps uncontrollable—spread of the newest variant of COVID-19.

    Is their fate now in the hands of a virus named “Delta”?

    *  *  *

    Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China and The Great U.S.-China Tech War. Follow him on Twitter @GordonGChang. 

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

  • Archegos Founder Bill Hwang Plots Comeback From Sleepy New Jersey Suburb After Losing $20 Billion
    Archegos Founder Bill Hwang Plots Comeback From Sleepy New Jersey Suburb After Losing $20 Billion

    In the months since the implosion of Archegos, the family office that saddled a coterie of banks with billions of dollars in losses after its heavily leveraged swap positions went sour, founder Bill Hwang has been living a low-key life in the New Jersey suburb of Tenafly, a decidedly modest home for a man who some suspect may still be a billionaire, even after the bulk of his fortune evaporated with Archegos.

    David Pauker, the same liquidation specialist who presided over Lehman’s bankruptcy during the financial crisis, has been tapped to preside over the wind-down of any of Archegos’s remaining assets. Still, Bloomberg reports that Archegos’s bankers are scrambling to discern whether Hwang has any outside wealth that they can claw back to offset their losses related to Archegos.

    While his former employees put their (multiple) homes on the market while griping about bonus money they foolishly left in Hwang’s hands (to be invested alongside the rest of his firm’s money), Bloomberg reports that Hwang has been laying low in New Jersey. For the first time since the blowup, he appears to have spoken to reporters – a team from Bloomberg – confirming that he is already planning his comeback, while still working to contain the fallout from Archegos.

    In the easeful heat of this summer morning, he’s awaiting a call with a retired U.S. general who, he hopes, might provide some counsel. He’s dressed like your average American soccer dad: teal shirt, blue cargo pants, Adidas slides. He has a pad of paper and a pen handy. An 8-ounce plastic bottle of Poland Spring water stands on the white plastic table which, like the chair, could have come from Costco.

    At hand, too, is a Christian pamphlet — a testament to the faith that’s guided Hwang as he made dangerous bets in the markets and was even charged with insider trading in the past. The title is Armor of God, a reference to Ephesians 6:11 — “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.”

    Hwang is relaxed, self-deprecating and reflective in a brief conversation, but declines to discuss the Archegos fiasco or his next steps. He’s been lying low here in New Jersey, in this tidy borough of 15,000, beyond The Palisades cliffs that rise above the Hudson River. He is not exactly a Wall Street Napoleon exiled to Elba: Hwang has lived here for years, in the same house, with cobwebs in the eaves and hedges out front. A Mercedes sits in the driveway. “Black Lives Matter” signs dot neighbors’ manicured lawns. Homes on this tree-softened street tend to sell for a few million dollars — a modest price, for a billionaire.

    When a neighbor was informed about Hwang’s recent losses, they responded incredulously: “Billion with a B?”

    Unfortunately for Hwang, there’s still a chance that prosecutors could bring criminal charges against him. Credit Suisse claimed in its recently released report that Hwang and Archegos likely “deceived” CS about the true extent of its positions with rivals, and even withdrew billions of dollars in collateral days before the blowup.

    US prosecutors are asking questions, too, including the big one: Was all of this another spectacle of Wall Street greed and hubris, or was it something worse?

    The DoJ is reportedly investigating whether Hwang or one of his lieutenants misled lenders during the days leading up to the crash.

    The Department of Justice has been moving ahead with a probe into the blowup. At least one line of questioning has revolved around the communication between Hwang’s top associate Andy Mills and the lenders, and whether he may have misled them in the week of the crash, according to a person interviewed by prosecutors.

    “The assertion that Andy Mills or anyone at Archegos misled the banks during the week of March 22 is untrue in every respect,” a spokesman for Archegos said.

    Although Hwang declined to discuss Archegos with the Bloomberg reporters, he confirmed that he has been laying low in Tenefly, roughly 15 miles from Manhattan. His preference for a low profile is understandable: across the Hudson River, Archegos’s landlord is suing for nearly $160K in unpaid rent.

    Meanwhile, Hwang is trying to move forward, reading the Bible (and Christian-themed literature like CS Lewis’s “The Screwtape Letters”. He occasionally travels into the Big Apple for a business dinner.

    Despite everything, Hwang is trying to push forward. He’s investing his remaining money, and occasionally crossing the Hudson to catch dinner at a New York restaurant. He spends spare hours as he has for much of his adult life: praying, reading Christian-themed literature, and listening to recordings of the Bible. He’s recently been reading “The Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis, looking for guidance to navigating the current troubles. A satirical epistolary novel, the book features the demon Screwtape writing letters of advice to his nephew, Wormwood, who is trying to win the soul of a young man.

    He’s already reportedly promised to throw his support behind three funds being launched by former Archegos personnel. The names of the funds all hint at the theme of resurrection (in keeping with Hwang’s Christian views): One fund has reportedly taken the name Red Ember Capital, and the other is calling itself AriseN Partners.

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

  • The First Hotel In Space Will Open In 2027
    The First Hotel In Space Will Open In 2027

    Via Entrepreneur.com,

    Its structure will be composed of two concentric rings fixed to each other with a set of spokes that support a residential ring made up of large modules.

    When reality surpasses or reaches science fiction. In the era of space tourism, The Gateway Foundation was created with the purpose of building the first hotel in space and everything seems to indicate that it will be inaugurated in 2027.

    The resort will have artificial gravity and will have the capacity to accommodate 500 people, and it will also offer a gym, restaurant, bar, and all the amenities that a hotel on Earth has.

    “Voyager Station will harness the technologies of space and the comforts of Earth to create a unique experience unprecedented in history. The simulated gravity will offer comforts such as toilets, showers and beds that work in a similar way to what is used on Earth ”, they explain on the website.

    Image: voyagerstation.com

    Its structure will be composed of two concentric rings fixed to each other with a set of spokes that support a residential ring made up of large modules.

    The outer ring will be the backbone of the station and will have a kind of inner tube, which will provide the assembly for the housing modules, solar panels, radiators and a rail transport system.

    Habitation Rin / Image: voyagerstation.com

    On the other hand there will be the ring of rooms made up of a series of pressurized, connected and large modules. It will be made up of all the previously mentioned amenities, gym module, kitchen, restaurant and bar; Crew Quarters module, which will be configurable for room by gravity and microgravity; modules for scientific activities.

    How much will it cost?

    Image: voyagerstation.com

    According to National Geographic in Spanish , the cost for a three-day stay to sleep in the stars is around 5,000 dollars (approximately 99,898 Mexican pesos).

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

  • Apple Call Center Workers Face AI-Powered Surveillance Cameras At Home
    Apple Call Center Workers Face AI-Powered Surveillance Cameras At Home

    A call center company used by Apple, Amazon, and Uber, among others, has forced employees to sign a new contract that allows them to install AI-powered cameras at home to monitor work performance, according to NBC News.

    Teleperformance, one of the world’s largest call center companies, has allegedly required employees at one Colombian facility to sign a new contract, first issued in March, that “allows monitoring by AI-powered cameras in workers’ homes, voice analytics and storage of data collected from the worker’s family members, including minors,” NBC said. 

    Six workers based in Colombia for Teleperformance, one of the world’s largest call center companies, which counts Apple, Amazon and Uber among its clients, said that they are concerned about the new contract, first issued in March. The contract allows monitoring by AI-powered cameras in workers’ homes, voice analytics and storage of data collected from the worker’s family members, including minors […]

    “The contract allows constant monitoring of what we are doing, but also our family,” said a Bogota-based worker on the Apple account who was not authorized to speak to the news media. “I think it’s really bad. We don’t work in an office. I work in my bedroom. I don’t want to have a camera in my bedroom.”

    The worker said that she signed the contract, a copy of which NBC News has reviewed, because she feared losing her job. She said that she was told by her supervisor that she would be moved off the Apple account if she refused to sign the document. -NBC 

    Teleperformance spokesperson Mark Pfeiffer said that the company is “constantly looking for ways to enhance the Teleperformance Colombia experience for both our employees and our customers, with privacy and respect as key factors in everything we do.”

    There was no explanation of how Teleperformance could advance such an invasive monitoring program on some of its employees, considering Apple forbids its contractors from doing this. 

    Apple spokesperson Nick Leahy said that the company “prohibits the use of video or photographic monitoring by our suppliers and have confirmed Teleperformance does not use video monitoring for any of their teams working with Apple.” Leahy said that Apple had audited Teleperformance in Colombia this year and did not find any “core violations of our strict standards.”

    “We investigate all claims and will continue to ensure everyone across our supply chain is treated with dignity and respect,” he added. -NBC 

    A similar incident occurred at an Albanian call center operated by Teleperformance. Workers complained that the company wanted to introduce video monitoring in their homes in late 2020. 

    Teleperformance asserted that the use of at-home surveillance was to mitigate data breaches while employees worked remotely.  

    This should not be shocking since companies began using digital surveillance technology to increase control and maintain productivity while their employees worked remotely during the virus pandemic. Now some of this technology appears not as much temporary as first believed, but somewhat permanent. 

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

  • Now Is The Time To Strike At The Root Of Confidence
    Now Is The Time To Strike At The Root Of Confidence

    Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

    Government is the ultimate confidence game. It’s power rests on the idea that enforcing issued edicts through public pressure and policing is unchallengeable…

    That power, however, is anything but that. Policing is a bluff, and a dangerous one at that. That bluff is maintained through rational risk assessment we all do when deciding whether to challenge the policeman’s demands.

    This tension lies at the heart of all government systems, no matter how repressive or constructive. Those in power, ultimately remain there only with the consent of the governed. And once confidence in the constructive aspects of government (whatever they may be) fails, that’s when chaos ascends.

    Charles Lipson, writing in Real Clear Politics, finally categorized the extent to which we as Americans have lost confidence in our institutions. Frankly, he’s a little late, but hey, I never turn my nose up to anyone willing to join this party.

    The problem we face, beyond the specifics about crime, COVID, duplicity, and social division, is a palpable breakdown in public order at the same time the public has lost confidence in our government officials and the institutions they lead. The two meta-problems—the breakdown of order and erosion of public confidence—are deeply intertwined because we count on our leaders and institutions to give us reliable information, provide a stable environment (so each of us can go about our lives), and abide by the same rules we all do. Those are foundational elements of a peaceful, liberal, democratic society. Their attrition imperils that society and its governance.

    Lipson’s right. And that he’s being published in a regime-friendly site like RCP is a tell that there is real worry at the top of the dominance hierarchy. Long-time readers know that chronicling this decline of confidence is kinda this blog’s raison d’etre so it’s good to see these ideas filtering out into ‘the real world.’

    The 4 Stages of Griefing

    But it’s also a tell that because we can now talk about this with our outside voices it justifies steps being taken right now to close the loop, lock the doors and push their control over us to its crisis point.

    That justification however, is a flimsy one, only made by those so suffused with self-righteousness that they refuse to entertain anyone’s non-compliance. I came across a tweet that succinctly expressed the current state of affairs as it pertains to COVID-19 and the Delta bogeyman.

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

    Last week I told you that we’d entered the eye of Davos’ Storm. We are accelerating towards a future that when viewed from the outside looks like Terry Gilliam’s Brazil but feels from the insides like Steven Spielberg’s interpretation of Philip K. Dick’s Minority Report.

    Davos and their agents have reached Stage 4.

    And Stage 4 can last longer than a lot of people are uncomfortable with.

    Things would have never gotten to Stage 4 if our leaders had been honest brokers.

    Things would have never gotten to Stage 4 is they weren’t engaged in the biggest psy-op in human history.

    Things wouldn’t have gotten to Stage 4 if they were actually doing the jobs we gave them and respected the relationship between government and governed.

    Today going to Stage 4 is inviting chaos when they should be restoring order. The problem for The Davos Crowd is they have always benefitted from inviting a little chaos in the past.

    Because, in the past, the consensual hallucination of government was still there. We still believed, wrongly, that they had our best interests at heart. So, any chaos inserted in the Matrix could be used as an opportunity to advance their schemes, because the critical mass of skepticism wasn’t there.

    But, that’s not the case now. Inviting chaos when they’ve taken everything from us and exposed their rapaciousness is inviting something they’ve never seen before.

    While the U.S. hasn’t hit rock bottom yet, we’re not seeing the real uprising. In France, Italy and now Poland, those that have nothing left to lose have lost it (H/T to Gerald Celente). Does anyone want to see what happens when another 6 million Americans are thrown out of their homes by Blackrock?

    No wonder Biden was desperate to get the eviction moratorium extended no matter how unconstitutional.

    But when you mix this level of social and financial repression with the complete lack of confidence in (and by) the institutions, as Lipson pointed out, you get something very volatile indeed. This is why Italians were burning their vaccination cards this weekend.

    This is why French firefighters and public health officials are striking against President Macron’s mandates. And it’s why no matter how much our media, the government and the COVID Karens in the ‘burbs threaten us the more likely when someone stands up and just says, “No,” the whole thing comes crashing down.

    Welcome to Stage 5

    Because of this instability, this fragility, it is incumbent on us right now to say “No,” everywhere. Threats of job loss over vaccination? No, force them to fire you. The lawyers will be standing 20 deep to take your case to court.

    In Moscow the restaurants lost 80% of their business overnight after the city instituted a vaccine passport to eat out. The response? Russians just said, “No,” and cooked. This is your model.

    All during the ‘pandemic’ in my home town I avoided places that mandated a mask and ignored the warnings on those places that tried to browbeat me into wearing one.

    I walked in, was polite, did my business and left.

    I wore masks out of politeness to locals outside of my hometown. But, that’s it.

    Today, we are being coerced to accept second-class citizenship for not getting vaccinated where the vaccines do nothing to stop the spread of the virus. This is being framed as irresponsibility when, if anything, the vaccinated carry higher viral loads making them potential super-spreaders endangering everyone else.

    I don’t need to get an experimental gene therapy to validate your life choices.

    I need you to see that there is more to life than following the mandates of psychopaths and pathological liars to err on the side of caution.

    No wonder there’s an increasing cohort of people moving into Stage 5, just saying ‘No.’ The time for virtue-signaling is over. The time for lying about masks, death statistics and the basics of virology is over. This is a political operation and we need to treat it as such.

    If you got the jab, fine. If you didn’t have a side-effect, great!

    If you got COVID afterwards, had mild symptoms and recovered, even better. I’m glad you survived.

    But, it stops there. Don’t worry about me. Now it’s your responsibility to understand what the true stakes are and find a future that doesn’t end in derangement, a permanent underclass and mass death.

    So, let’s stop pretending that any of this now is about public health, and hasn’t been for more than a year. If anything it has always been about your personal health and therefore getting a vaccine should be a personal choice.

    Anything beyond that is pure politics serving the interests of those who have been caught red-handed lying about every bit of this and profiting from our shared misery egregiously.

    It is about the failure of the state to make good on its basic promises for decades and coming to terms with that honestly. Now the State’s lies about COVID and the vaccines are distractions from their failures, dividing us to not only maintain that power but expand it exponentially.

    Our confidence in them is gone. That much is crystal clear. What isn’t obvious to many is that their confidence in our willingness to go along with them is also gone. That’s why they are so swiftly moving into Stage 4.

    Because that is the far scarier state of play for them.

    The more we simply go to Stage 5 and say, “No,” the quicker this entire operation collapses and we can get on with Stage 6, fixing what was broken.

    *  *  *

    Join my Patreon if you want to fix what was broken

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

  • The Beer Industry & The Illusion Of Choice
    The Beer Industry & The Illusion Of Choice

    First celebrated in 2008, International Beer Day is commemorated annually on the first Friday of August. According to its organizers, it is “a global celebration of beer, taking place in pubs, breweries, and backyards all over the world. It’s a day for beer lovers everywhere to raise a toast to our brewers and bartenders and rejoice in the greatness of beer!”

    And as beer lovers around the world toast to the seemingly endless variety of their favorite drink, Statista’s Felix Richter zooms out to show how much of the world’s beer production is actually controlled by just a few brewing conglomerates.

    Over the past two decades, companies such as Anheuser Busch InBev, Heineken or Carlsberg have consolidated hundreds of beer brands under their roofs, creating an illusion of choice for consumers around the world.

    Infographic: The Beer Industry and the Illusion of Choice | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Take the five most valuable beer brands according to Brand Finance for example, four of which belong to AB InBev, which owns world-famous brands such as Budweiser, Beck’s, Stella Artois, Leffe, Modelo and Corona. And while the company was foreced to sell the U.S. business of the latter two to Constellation Brands due to antitrust concerns in relation to its acquisition of Grupo Modelo, it still goes to show what a wide variety of international brands the world’s largest brewing group owns.

    You could easily go to a bar, try five different beers from five different countries, nay continents, without realizing that AB InBev was your exclusive beer provider for the evening. And while we have seen a boom in independent craft breweries over the past few years, their output is still dwarfed by the aforementioned global players. According to the Brewers Association, America’s 8,764 operating craft breweries produced 23 million barrels (around 27 million hectoliters) of beer in 2020. AB InBev alone produced nearly seventeen times that according to official company figures tracked by hops specialist BarthHaas.

    Collectively, the six largest brewing groups displayed in our chart accounted for roughly 60 percent of global beer production last year.

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

  • China's Delta Outbreak Worsens As Goldman, Bank Of America Cut Growth Forecasts
    China’s Delta Outbreak Worsens As Goldman, Bank Of America Cut Growth Forecasts

    China’s latest COVID outbreak, the fourth wave to hit the country, has officially become the country’s worst outbreak since the virus first emerged, as the delta variant continues to spread despite Beijing’s heavy-handed response, which has involved testing of millions of people, travel restrictions, and, in a few cases, residential or local lockdowns.

    Worries that Beijing’s response might impact GDP growth led economists at Goldman Sachs to cut their China 2021 growth forecasts due to the fast spread of the variant. Goldman slashed its Q3 real GDP forecast to 2.3% from 5.8% , but raised its Q4 growth forecast to 8.5% from 5.8%, leaving the full-year 2021 projection at 8.3% down from 8.6%.

    In addition to the new restrictions, Beijing has punished dozens of local officials, scapegoats for the government’s inability to maintain “COVID zero”, as promised.

    The outbreak continued to expand over the past 24 hours on Monday. Sunday saw 125 new confirmed infections, including 94 locally transmitted cases, were up from the previous day’s figure of 96, with 81 locally transmitted, while the rest were imported from abroad, according to China’s NHC and Reuters.

    China also reported 39 new “asymptomatic” cases, up from 30 a day earlier. China doesn’t group them in with the rest of its cases.

    The largest number of Sunday’s local patients were in the central city of Zhengzhou and Yangzhou. The city has started a fifth round of mass tests, city authorities said on Monday, the day Zhengzhou is expected to wrap up sample collection for its third round of citywide tests. Over in Wuhan, the city completed citwide testing in just 6 days, finding 37 cases & 41 asymptomatic carriers among the city’s 12MM residents.

    The eastern city of Nanjing, seen as the epicenter of the outbreak, has started a third round of targeted testing in some neighborhoods after three rounds citywide, despite fewer than five local cases reported over the last week.

    The city of Nantong, close to Yangzhou and Nanjing, has yet to report any new local case since late July, but has still started mass testing – just to be careful.

    Goldman isn’t the only investment bank that has tried to project the economic fallout from China’s latest outbreak. A report from Bank of America determined that while still small in absolute terms, the outbreak has still spread to nearly 2 dozen provinces. The bank used a smaller outbreak in May as a benchmark to project the near term impact of the current outbreak. BofA determined that the outbreak could lower Q3 growth by 0.7pp, mainly due to weaker service sector activity.

    One chart showed how social distancing is already having an impact in Nanjing, which as we said above is the epicenter of the outbreak. Subway ridership has plunged by 68% over the past week.

     

    China’s latest COVID outbreak, the fourth wave to hit the country, has officially become the country’s worst outbreak since the virus first emerged, as the delta variant continues to spread despite Beijing’s heavy-handed response, which has involved testing of millions of people, travel restrictions, and, in a few cases, residential or local lockdowns.

     

    Worries that Beijing’s response might impact GDP growth led economists at Goldman Sachs to cut their China 2021 growth forecasts due to the fast spread of the variant. Goldman slashed its Q3 real GDP forecast to 2.3% from 5.8% , but raised its Q4 growth forecast to 8.5% from 5.8%, leaving the full-year 2021 projection at 8.3% down from 8.6%.

    In addition to the new restrictions, Beijing has punished dozens of local officials, scapegoats for the government’s inability to maintain “COVID zero”, as promised.

    The outbreak continued to expand over the past 24 hours on Monday. Sunday saw 125 new confirmed infections, including 94 locally transmitted cases, were up from the previous day’s figure of 96, with 81 locally transmitted, while the rest were imported from abroad, according to China’s NHC.

    China also reported 39 new “asymptomatic” cases, up from 30 a day earlier. China doesn’t group them in with the rest of its cases.

    The largest number of Sunday’s local patients were in the central city of Zhengzhou and Yangzhou. The city has started a fifth round of mass tests, city authorities said on Monday, the day Zhengzhou is expected to wrap up sample collection for its third round of citywide tests. Over in Wuhan, the city completed citwide testing in just 6 days, finding 37 cases & 41 asymptomatic carriers among the city’s 12MM residents.

    The eastern city of Nanjing, seen as the epicenter of the outbreak, has started a third round of targeted testing in some neighborhoods after three rounds citywide, despite fewer than five local cases reported over the last week.

    The city of Nantong, close to Yangzhou and Nanjing, has yet to report any new local case since late July, but has still started mass testing – just to be careful.

    Goldman isn’t the only investment bank that has tried to project the economic fallout from China’s latest outbreak. A report from Bank of America determined that while still small in absolute terms, the outbreak has still spread to nearly 2 dozen provinces. The bank used a smaller outbreak in May as a benchmark to project the near term impact of the current outbreak. BofA determined that the outbreak could lower Q3 growth by 0.7pp, mainly due to weaker service sector activity.

    One chart showed how social distancing is already having an impact in Nanjing, which as we said above is the epicenter of the outbreak. Subway ridership has plunged by 68% over the past week.

    The analysts conclude: “Considering the long distance still to herd immunity, we continue to expect a slow recovery in consumption activities.” Those like Ray Dalio who are insisting that it’s “still safe” to invest in China should probably consider that there’s a new valuation risk on the horizon, beyond the politically-motivated CCP crackdown, and a newly revived, officially sanctioned, Chinese #MeToo wave aimed at Big Tech’s corporate culture.

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

  • "If Masa Says 'Yes', Who Am I To Object?" – Insiders Worried About SoftBank's Dictatorial Dealmaking Culture
    “If Masa Says ‘Yes’, Who Am I To Object?” – Insiders Worried About SoftBank’s Dictatorial Dealmaking Culture

    SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son is perhaps Japanese most famous investor (he’s sometimes referred to as “the Japanese Warren Buffett” In the press), but his reputation has been threatened in recent years due to debacles involving WeWork and Greensill (among other less notable setbacks).

    And now, some of the firm’s employees are anonymously speaking out to the press that they’re afraid Masa might already be blundering his way into the next WeWork or Greensill.

    This isn’t the first time we’re hearing about Masa’s dictatorial management style. But in the latest insider report, the FT spoke to several current and former high-ranking SoftBank executives, who dished that Masa’s “highly competitive, instinct-driven culture us often in conflict with the firm’s compliance procedures.

    Some questioned SoftBank’s decision to combine the chief compliance and general legal officer roles into a single role, following the sudden resignation last Sept. of the company’s former compliance chief Chad Fentress.

    Others griped that SoftBank has apparently not learned the hard lessons from several setbacks that nearly derailed its first Vision Fund, even as the firm has tried to market VFII as more disciplined than its predecessor.

    Internal conflicts have erupted over the firm’s decision to revive its buyback program while finalizing the deal for its sale of its T-Mobile stake.

    Here’s a snippet from the FT report:

    Legal opinion was divided, with some within the company arguing that the conclusion of the T-Mobile deal was uncertain and therefore did not require disclosure. The group also engaged outside counsel to consult whether the T-Mobile transaction would constitute market-sensitive, material non-public information, which may require the share buyback to be halted, but no definitive conclusion was reached.

    SoftBank told the FT that the decision to go ahead with the buybacks and the T-Mobile sale was “carefully considered” by multiple departments within the firm.

    SoftBank told the FT that each of its relevant departments co-ordinated closely to examine the legal and regulatory implications of business decisions under consideration. “The legal department regularly seeks outside legal advice from Japanese and non-Japanese counsel about the company’s legal and regulatory obligations and shares such information with the other functional departments in order that appropriate decisions are made,” it added.

    The biggest issue is that Japanese law strictly governors disclosure of material non-public information, and its application regarding stock buybacks is “open to interpretation”, potentially leaving the firm with some legal risk.

    One of Japan’s top M&A lawyers at a Big Four law firm said the question of how material non-public information might affect share buyback programmes was raised frequently by Japanese clients, particularly as the number of such programmes has soared in recent years.

    The openness of the regulation to interpretation and the potential for being accused of insider dealing, said the lawyer, meant firms always tended to offer conservative advice to companies. Any unwillingness of a firm to provide a written opinion, he added, might suggest the client had opted to proceed with some risk.

    And the disclosures surrounding the Sprint sale weren’t the only instances where SoftBank had cause for concern. Apparently, the same executive responsible for SoftBank’s now-infamous “Nasdaq Whale” trades caused internal controversy when the firm pushed through a deal for the Norwegian warehouse automation company AutoStore.

    The deal, which people familiar with its background said was pushed through at high speed, was in keeping with what has now become “a culture at SoftBank where everyone is so desperate to impress Son” that compliance concerns might be viewed as secondary to the pressure to make impressive acquisitions.

    The fact that there isn’t any outside money in the Vision Fund has led executives to fret that SoftBank might be getting too reckless. One particularly bad decision occurred in November of 2020, when SoftBank provided Greensill with an emergency loan of $440MM funding via VFII. 4 months later, the supply-chain finance company filed for bankruptcy.

    While one executive who spoke on the record said the firm tries to foster a culture of openness – “Masa shares the view that employees should speak up” – many still feel afraid to challenge the great Masa. As one anonymous employee confessed to the FT: “If Masa had already said yes, who am I to object?” said one of the people.

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

  • Cuomo Scrambled To Cut 11th Hour Deal To Avoid Impeachment
    Cuomo Scrambled To Cut 11th Hour Deal To Avoid Impeachment

    Embattled New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo tried to cut a deal with the state legislature in exchange for not getting impeached, according to the New York Post.

    In an 11th hour plea to keep his job before a bombshell report on sexual misconduct was set to be released by state Attorney General Letitia James, Cuomo offered to drop his bid for a fourth-term.

    “It was something that was floated to me by the folks in the Cuomo camp as a possible option before the attorney general’s report came out,” said NY State Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs in a statement to the Post, adding “I never saw it as a viable option.“

    Still, it looks like Cuomo and his winnowed-down inner circle haven’t given up on the last-ditch effort to avoid impeachment.

    A source told The City on Monday that the gov’s team has been busy making calls to try to save his skin in the wake of the official report, which concluded Cuomo sexually harassed at least 11 women in violation of state and federal law. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

    Before she resigned Sunday night, top aide and confidante Melissa DeRosa had been asking executive staffers for strategies to quiet the impeachment talks, the source told The City. –New York Post

    According to Jacobs, he told the governor’s staff that the plan wouldn’t work.

    “I shot it down pretty quick,” he said. “Either you can survive the AG’s report and run again or you don’t survive the AG’s report. There’s no compromise.”

    Cuomo reportedly reached out to the state legislature through a longtime pal, Charlie King – who told the Post “No. He’s not running for a fourth term, period.”

    Per the Post, several other longtime Cuomo advisers – including former federal prosecutor Steve Cohen and top adviser Larry Schwartz – have urged him to step down.

    “You don’t need this,” said Cuomo pal and 2018 campaign chairman Bill Mulrow, who has apparently complained to others over the governor’s refusal to step down before his current term ends on December 31, 2022.

    We doubt the NY legislature will allow that to happen.

    The state Assembly Judiciary Committee met in Albany Monday for updates on its investigation into Cuomo.

    The committee had told him that it was “nearing completion” of the probe and would “consider potential articles of impeachment.”

    He was given until Friday to submit any information he wanted the panel to consider in its findings. -NY Post

     How long until articles of impeachment are filed?

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

  • #FakePoos Trends In Australia After Premier Cites "Non-Existent" Covid-Tainted Sewage As A Reason To Lock Down
    #FakePoos Trends In Australia After Premier Cites “Non-Existent” Covid-Tainted Sewage As A Reason To Lock Down

    Australians just found out the reasoning for their archaic-style lockdowns is worse than they thought.

    The ugly truth came to light this week when Victoria Premier Dan Andrews admitted that he cited “non-existent coronavirus-tainted sewage” in his reasoning to lock down the state, RT reported.

    In other words, Andrews faked that Covid was being carried in poop to justify a lockdown.

    Andrews used the sewage excuse to help justify a 7 day statewide shutdown that went into effect on August 5. The shutdown was supposedly due to “wastewater detection” of Covid 19 in a city about 147 miles away from Melbourne.

    Andrews first said the detection created the “potential that regional Victorians have been exposed to Covid-19”, citing it as an excuse for locking down Victoria and prohibiting public gatherings. 

    Wangaratta mayor Dean Rees challenged Andrews’ explanation less than 24 hours later, after Andrews said the sewage initially “pinged” positive before testing negative. Then, regional health officially confirmed there had been “several successive tests returning negative results” after one positive detection on July 30. 

    And it was with that, that #FakePoos started trending and angry Australians started to take to social media.

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

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

    This prompted an admission of guilt by Andrews, who said: “We apologize. We try to get the best information out as quickly as we can. Nothing is perfect and no one has ever pretended that it is.”

    Even better, the lockdowns are set to be extended. Meanwhile, Australians remain vigilant in arguing that the current data doesn’t justify lockdowns. 

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

  • Don't Be Fooled By The Bipartisan, 'Paid For' Infrastructure Bill
    Don’t Be Fooled By The Bipartisan, ‘Paid For’ Infrastructure Bill

    Authored by Andrew Wilford via RealClear Markets (emphasis ours),

    Over the course of the pandemic, federal overspending has exploded even by Congress’s lofty standards. While trillion-dollar deficits were a cause for concern before 2020, spending over just the last two years is set to increase the national debt by over $6 trillion. It’s bizarre, then, that the only thing that members of opposing parties in Congress can seem to work together on is fooling the budgetary scorekeepers with phantom offsets for even more spending.

    Photo: Bill Clark, Roll Call

    In total, the bipartisan infrastructure deal includes around $550 billion in new federal spending on infrastructure to take place over five years. Advocates of the legislation claim that it is paid for, but they are relying on gimmicks and quirks of the budget scoring process to make that claim.

    Take the single biggest offset claimed — repurposing unused COVID relief funds, which the bill’s authors say would “raise” $210 billion (particularly considering that at least $160 billion have already been accounted for in the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline). Only in the minds of Washington legislators does this represent funds ready to be used when the national debt stands at over $28 trillion.

    Imagine you take out a $20,000 loan to pay for your upcoming wedding. At the last moment, your spouse-to-be backs out. Do you then decide that you just got a free $20,000 to buy a new car with? Of course not, you still have to pay back that $20,000 loan. And did I mention that you’re already $28 trillion in debt?

    Congress intends to use this trick a second time as well, this time with $53 billion from states that elected to end the federal unemployment insurance subsidy early. In total, $263 billion, or nearly half of the alleged “offsets,” come from pretending that unspent funds that weren’t paid for in the first place can be used to pay for something else.

    Another major “pay-for” that is essentially budget voodoo is $51 billion from delaying the Medicare Part D rule. President Trump proposed a regulation intended to reform how insurers and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) handle prescription drug rebates that budget experts said would result in about $177 billion in additional federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid premiums. President Biden has delayed implementation of the rule until 2023, and now lawmakers are proposing to “pay for” their infrastructure package by delaying the rule even longer. The rule has yet to even go into effect, but still Congress gets to count its delayed implementation as “savings.”

    Congress also is counting $56 billion in projected additional revenue from economic growth resulting from the infrastructure package. Those old enough to remember will recall how bitterly Democrats in Congress fought the use of dynamic scoring as an offset for the 2017 tax reform law, though they seem happy enough to embrace it here. That’s backwards, considering how the evidence is far stronger that tax cuts boost economic growth than spending. What’s more, the CBO has stated that private investment has twice the rate of return as public investment.

    The rest of the so-called pay-fors in this package are generally more of the same on a smaller scale. The National Taxpayers Union and National Taxpayers Union Foundation have each gone line by line and explained how proposed pay-fors, from mortgage guarantee fees to Strategic Petroleum Reserve sales to extending the mandatory sequester, are unlikely to offset the cost to taxpayers much at all.

    Though Congress is keeping up the pretense of paying for new spending, taxpayers shouldn’t be fooled — very few of the offsets laid out in the bipartisan infrastructure will ameliorate the budget impact of this legislation. If new spending is truly necessary, it shouldn’t be too hard for Congress to trim the fat elsewhere.

    *  *  *

    Andrew Wilford is a policy analyst with the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to tax policy research and education at all levels of government. 

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

  • Jefferies Joins The Fray: Investment Bank Becomes Latest To Bump First Year Analyst Pay To $110,000
    Jefferies Joins The Fray: Investment Bank Becomes Latest To Bump First Year Analyst Pay To $110,000

    It turns out Goldman Sachs wasn’t the very last investment bank to bump pay for its junior bankers. Jefferies announced this week that it was going to be raising pay for its first year analysts in the U.S. to $110,000. 

    The bump in pay is a raise of $25,000 from their previous starting salary of $85,000 per year. 

    Second year analysts will make $125,000, up from $95,000 and third year analysts, called associates, will move up to $150,000 per year from $125,000, according to Bloomberg. 

    Bonuses for the firm, which are typically handed out in August are “expected to be high” this year as well, according to the report. 

    Jefferies’ pay bumps match that of Goldman Sachs, who raised pay by 30% just weeks ago.

    First year analysts at Goldman will now also make $110,000 per year in their first year and $125,000 their second year, FT reported days ago. Senior associate ranks will see their pay bumped to $150,000, similar to Jefferies. 

    The move puts both Jefferies and Goldman Sachs at the top of the heap in terms of starting pay package terms. 

    As we reported weeks ago, there had been significant discussion at Goldman about whether or not boosting junior banker salaries could be counterintuitive. But the rising tide of all banks lifting their pay finally caused Goldman to give in. Jefferies followed shortly thereafter. 

    There had been pushback from Senior Executives at Goldman, who argued that bumping up salaries mid-year could set a “dangerous precedent” and break from the company’s long-held “pay for performance” compensation structure. 

    Goldman and Jefferies follow steps taken by banks like Citigroup, which offered an increase of up to $25,000 last month to move its fixed salaries to $100,000 per year. JP Morgan and Barclay’s also lifted salaries to $100,000, from $85,000 at the end of June, FT noted. Bank of America and Wells Fargo increased salaries by $10,000 each, as well.

    Finally, as of this week, Credit Suisse is also reported to be bumping their first year analyst pay to $100,000, according to Bloomberg.

    Recall, just weeks ago, we noted that Cantor Fitzgerald’s CEO, Howard Lutnick, was pushing back on junior bankers that think they have life too tough. Lutnick said that junior bankers complaining about long hours and stressful demands should “rethink their career choice”.

    Lutnick’s comments followed 13 junior bankers at Goldman complaining about their workload earlier this year in a slide deck that was released to the public. They claimed to be working 100 hour weeks and experiencing declining physical and mental health. The public scrutiny caused other banks to offer bonuses and rewards to retain their younger talent.. 

    But when interviewed last week, Lutnick broke from the crowd, stating: “Young bankers who decide they’re working too hard — choose another living is my view. These are hard jobs.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/09/2021 – 19:20

  • California Republican Party Decides Not To Endorse Any Recall Election Candidate
    California Republican Party Decides Not To Endorse Any Recall Election Candidate

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    California Republicans on Saturday opted not to endorse a candidate in the recall election.

    Voters are poised this week to decide whether to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat. In the same special election, voters will choose who they would want to replace Newsom if he is recalled by a simple majority.

    Some of the candidates vying in the election are Republicans, but the California GOP voted against endorsing any of them.

    Harmeet Dhillon, a Republican National Committee national committeewoman, and Shawn Steel, a Republican National Committee national committeeman, put forth a motion during a virtual meeting over the weekend.

    The motion was to table the agenda item to vote on an endorsement.

    California GOP delegates passed the motion with nearly 90 percent support.

    That triggered the end of the meeting, and means the state Republican Party is not endorsing a candidate.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom makes a gesture as he speaks during a news conference in San Bernardino, Calif., on Aug. 6, 2021. (Watchara Phomicinda/The Orange County Register via AP)

    The decision “speaks to the strength of our field of candidates and the outstanding position our party is in going into the recall election,” Jessica Millan Patterson, chairwoman of the California Republican Party, said in a statement.

    “We are squarely focused on putting California back on track by recalling the worst governor in California history. Gavin Newsom is arrogant, incompetent, and a desperate politician who has failed Californians in every way possible. The state is burning, crime is spiking, homelessness is rampant, students have fallen behind, and taxes are suffocating working people. On September 14th, voters will end the Newsom nightmare once and for all and finally restore good governing to California,” she added.

    (L-R) Republican candidates for California governor John Cox, Kevin Faulconer, Kevin Kiley, and Doug Ose participate in a debate at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, Calif., on Aug. 4, 2021. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Photo)

    If a vote had taken place during the meeting, delegates were set to choose between political commentator Larry Elder, former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, California Assemblyman Kevin Kiley, and former Rep. Doug Ose (R-Calif.).

    Ose said he supported the move not to endorse him or one of his competitors.

    “My compliments to Chairwoman Patterson for figuring out how to allow Republican delegates the option of No Endorsement. The Party needs to focus on Question 1. Let’s get this done!” he wrote on Twitter.

    Question 1 will ask voters whether Newsom should be recalled.

    The other candidates did not weigh in on the decision.

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

  • Watch: Dramatic Video Shows People Trapped In Neck High Water During Omaha Flash Floods
    Watch: Dramatic Video Shows People Trapped In Neck High Water During Omaha Flash Floods

    A horrifying video has surfaced online of a Nebraska man and his friends nearly drowned Saturday in neck-high floodwaters during an elevator ride at their apartment complex in downtown Omaha, Nebraska. 

    The footage was shared with local news KETV. Tony Luu and two other friends went down their apartment complex elevator to check on the storm damage in downtown Omaha. Once the elevator arrived on the ground floor, floodwater began to pour inside the elevator. 

    Video recorded by Luu’s friend shows neck-high water, and the three nearly drowned. They managed to pry the elevator door open before first responders arrived on the scene. 

    Luu’s friend Daylon Guy told the Omaha World-Herald that others were stuck on an adjacent elevator. He said no one in either elevator suffered any injuries. 

    “It was pretty traumatizing,” Guy told the paper. 

    Luu told local news ABC13 that “it was like something out of a movie:” 

    “Once it got to my stomach, we kind of figured, ‘Ok, this is real,'” he said. Luu called 911 and also his roommate who works maintenance for the building. “We might die if you don’t come help us,” he told his friend.

    Flash floods occurred in downtown Omaha Saturday night following five inches of rain in a short period. The storm left other areas in the surrounding metro with flood damage. 

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

  • The Death Of Truth & The Rise Of Centralized Government Control
    The Death Of Truth & The Rise Of Centralized Government Control

    Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com,

    As I write this from a France making ever more bold moves toward forced vaccination, one can’t help but ponder the broader issues of centralized government control, regardless of one’s take on vaccine or no vaccine.

    Focusing on financial rather than viral data, the evidence of centralized state control over natural market forces in the stock and bond markets is becoming increasingly incontrovertible.

    We’ve written elsewhere about the death of logic and the madness of crowds. It should therefore come as little surprise that the death of truth is yet another casualty of the increased central control we are experiencing in global markets.

    Debt Crisis Disguised as a Health Black Swan

    Long before COVID reared its highly controversial head (from viral source debates, baby-with-bathwater policy reactions, censored science as to vaccine efficacy and safety, distorted math on infection rates vs death rates, and centralized government control by officials acting “for your own safety” vs. Constitutional and legal issues of individual choice), the global financial system was already in an undeniable as well as unsustainable debt crisis.

    As any one who can fog a mirror and read history in the same breath also knows, whenever a debt crisis is obvious, what follows is equally obvious: an economic crisis, then a political crisis, and from there a social crisis.

    In short, and from ancient Rome to 1917 Russia, or 1789 France to 1933 Germany, debt matters.

    Debt is a very dangerous thing to economies and societies, and always climaxes with more centralized control in its wake.

    The problem for the 21st century, however, is that almost no global policymaker (left, right or center, European, Asian or American) wanted to touch this $280T debt elephant in the room.

    Instead, they buried their heads for years in the sand and sought re-election with promises paid for with, alas, more debt.

    In this openly embarrassing backdrop (long before COVID), economic orthodoxy had been tossed into a corner as governments around the world took on fatal debt levels like this:

    …paid for (i.e., “monetized”) with mouse-click fiat money like this…

    But rather than face or confess the sins of a system already on its debt-broken knees, the financial and political actors responsible for the pre-COVID debt disaster had a convenient tale to tell.

    A Convenient Lie

    That is, and almost as if on demand, along came the tale of all tales, the patsy of all patsies, the blame of all blames, and the excuse of all excuses: COVID.

    That is, if we thought economic orthodoxy (i.e., living within one’s national means, valuing valuations or honoring free market price discovery) had been tossed into a corner pre-COVID, well, the post-COVID backdrop essentially murdered economic orthodoxy completely.

    Today, we have global debt rising exponentially…

    …as well global central banks printing more fiat currencies parabolically:

    New Rules Hiding Old Failures and “Fuzzy Economics”

    COVID paved a sad new road to what Antoine van Agtmael described as “fuzzy economics”—namely a financial panopticon in which governments worldwide have literally gorged themselves on ever more debt in a secular paradigm shift toward greater centralized control over our economic, personal, social, political and foreign policies.

    From vaccines to banking regulations, lockdowns to melt-ups, individuals and markets are now adapting to a new set of desperate rules in the wake of the equally desperate failures of prior financial policies.

    a. Governmental Guarantees of Commercial Bank Loans

    To this end, I have spoken with Russell Napier at length (and written at length)on these new rules, which involve new sets of governmental/centralized control euphemistically described as “support,” including governmental (and highly inflationary) guarantees of commercial bank loans.

    This massive game-changer (and open signal of increasing centralized control) effectively went unnoticed by the Main Stream Media, whatever stream that is…

    b. Warnings from a Fed Governor: Governments Doubling Down

    Yet even before blunt geniuses like Napier clarified this narrative, some of the less blunt and far less genius policy makers themselves could no longer hide or deny their own mistakes, all of which pointed toward new rules, “new order” and hence new mistakes to come.

    In May of 2015, for example, former Fed governor Larry Lindsay was already confessing that “the financial arrangements of the state are no longer sustainable,” and that a new paradigm awaited us.

    He went on to say that, “it is not a pretty change if we get there, and it is a matter of political liberty because a government will NOT voluntarily let itself go out of business…it will use all its powers available… to fund itself.”

    Imagine that.

    The sad fact is that just because governments have immense power, this by no means implies immense wisdom, character, accountability or even math skills.

    The new rules now involve a financial system already heading toward an open confession of Wall Street socialism and a Federal Reserve which is now effectively, if not entirely, financing the U.S. government.

    Centralized Government Controls = Deliberate Inflation

    As Russell Napier, a one-time staunch deflationist, now argues, these new rules all point to more inflation ahead, which is the ultimate gut-punch to an already over-controlled and dying middle-class—i.e., the real world.

    But for nations drowning in debt, deliberate inflation is one way to print away that burden.

    Bond Markets Decoupled from Reality

    Meanwhile, in this new abnormal of increased centralized control over our lives, markets and economies, the Fed can create money like this in the span of months…

    …in order to purchase the vast bulk of otherwise unwanted IOUs from Uncle Sam—i.e., Treasury bonds.

    Such “policy,” of course, artificially suppresses Treasury yields (which go down as central bank supported bond prices go up).

    This explains why yields have sunk to levels which in no way reflect where yields would otherwise be in a free market confronting undeniable as well as rising inflation (which the Fed still refuses to acknowledge).

    But as for inflation, Napier once again reminds: “Have we ever seen a country in history persistently running a broad money growth rate at 10% that didn’t have inflation at 4% or above? The answer is no.”

    Of course, the U.S. is hardly alone in drinking its own debt Kool-Aide, and if you still need more evidence of who is buying the world’s major governments bonds, it’s simply their own central(ized) banks:

    Truth Dies as Centralized Government Controls Rise

    In short, control has not only distorted markets, it has distorted truth, and in the same breath, distorted any sense of trust in centralized “leadership” and/or credibility, which like real bond yields, grows more negative by the day.

    As Napier has said elsewhere, “bond yields are decoupled from inflation,” which is a polite way of saying that bond yields in particular, like the bond market in general, is an open lie.

    Stocks Decoupled from Reality

    Speaking of “decoupling” from reality in the wake of the “new rules” emerging from increasing centralized controls (economic, social and political), the stock market is no less of an open lie than the overtly subsidized bond market.

    After all, stocks love a generous central bank, one becoming more central to our financial lives with each passing day, mouse-click and newly “printed” dollar.

    Hard to believe?

    Then ask Warren Buffett’s infamous stock market valuation metric which measures total equity market cap as a percentage of GDP.

    As the graph below confirms, about the only thing growing under centralized control and its “new rules” is the mother of all stock bubbles.

    The “centralizers” in bed with the debt-drunk politicos call this “promising market growth” resulting from “accommodation,” but anyone who tracks markets already knows that debt-driven, money-printed “growth” is not growth at all—it’s merely a centralized aberration, as well as an open insult to natural market forces.

    More to the point, such top-heavy (and artificial) market predominance within U.S. GDP screams of an open charade, and graphs like the Buffett Indicator above are just one more reason to distrust a centralized system which has now fully devolved from free market to free prevarication.

    Pretty Words to Hide Scary Math

    Centralizers may be dishonest and openly distortive, but like all politically self-interested profiles, they are masters at putting lipstick on a pig through euphemistic word choice, of which “quantitative easing,” “stimulus,” “accommodation,” “MMT,” and “recovery’ are all classic examples.

    But there’s more…

    “Climate Change” Policies—Wise Altruism or Just More Centralized Control?

    As for further examples of the creative use of language to hide truth, it may come as a surprise to any of us who care about the planet that the sudden politicized interest in “climate change” may not be as altruistic or progressive as the politico’s would like you to believe.

    In a global backdrop of debt-driven desperation and increased centralization, leaders thirsty for any way to build credibility would have us admire their green initiative; but the real driver behind their plans may be less green than oil-colored.

    With all the inflationary forces colliding (extreme money supply expansion, fiscal deficits, governmental guarantees etc.), the last thing our not-so-trusted leaders want to confess is that oil prices, and oil supply, may be signaling an end to cheap oil.

    Rather than confess the myriad economic and political shock waves of a “peak oil” event, the powers that be would rather use “climate change” to justify their suddenly important war against fossil fuels to mask a pivot toward ever more centralized government control of your thinking and your energy consumption.

    Earlier in July, for example, the Financial Times announced that “in order for sustainable finance to work, we will need Central Planning.”

    Really? Wonderful, more central planning.

    This blunt declaration was made in regard to the EU’s new sustainable finance strategy and Green Bond Standard aimed at creating the first climate-neutral continent by 2050.

    Sounds noble? Who wouldn’t love “climate neutral”?

    But why does sustainable finance and climate neutrality require central planning?

    What’s likely being deliberately censored from this initiative is that troublesome little notion so in danger today, namely allowing free markets to decide which energy sources provide the highest “Energy Return on Invested Energy” (EROIE).

    Needless to say, when it comes to “bang for your buck” the best energy “rate of return” still comes from those pesky fossil fuels not windmills or nuclear reactors.

    Needless to say, if free market forces were in actual play, participants would use of the cheapest, most cost-efficient source for energy, again: Fossil fuels.

    Making headlines today, however, are global policymakers (from Yellen to the IEA) endeavoring (nobly?) to gut-punch interest in fossil fuels.

    The IEA has openly stated they want energy groups to stop producing oil and gas by 2050.

    But again: Is the motive truly noble? Is this about the environment? The planet’s safety? Or something else?

    Cynically (and I am a cynic), there may be a darker problem beneath the surface of this political shine, including the fact that the oil production beneath the surface of that same planet has not moved much at all in the last decade.

    In other words, has the world reached peak oil?

    Are policy makers deliberately attacking the free market use of energy sources to save the planet, or do they secretly believe peak oil (namely peak “cheap” oil) is a stark reality against which policy makers must now take extreme action?

    In sum, is “climate change” a politically correct ruse used to mask the much darker reality that “peak oil” is upon us, which would have a drastic impact on debt markets, geopolitics (think Saudi Arabia), and inflation (skyrocketing)?

    Certainly, “climate change” offers far better political optics than “peak oil” headlines and all that it would portend should affordable oil become a distant memory.

    More Centralization + More Spending + More Inflation = More Need to Prepare

    As I wrote in a book published just weeks before the COVID outbreak, the financial system was already and openly Rigged to Fail well before a pandemic became the new pretext for once unthinkable governmental influence (i.e., centralized control) over our markets and private lives.

    The evidence of increasing centralization is all around us, yet in an increasingly politicized media which effectively parrots (rather than questions) governmental policy, what is entirely absent is increasingly open and public debate (as well as math) on everything from COVID policy to monetary policy.

    Regardless of whether you feel governments are centralizing to benefit or control your future, the means to that centralized end will demand further spending, further debt-onboarding and hence further distortion of credit, equity, real estate and currency markets.

    As for currencies, be they paper, digitalized CBDC or some hybrid, informed investors recognized long ago that they will not be real stores of value, and hence the road ahead will certainly favor precious metals, as just about everything else “precious” about free markets and national currencies is behind us.

    Needless to say, this explains why some of the largest and most recent buyers of gold are the global central banks (Russia, Hungary, Brazil…) themselves.

    Just saying…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/09/2021 – 18:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Aug 09

Today’s News 9th August 2021

  • What Is The World Worrying About? Jobs, Jabs, & Jail
    What Is The World Worrying About? Jobs, Jabs, & Jail

    What do people worry about most in different countries? 

    According to research from Ipsos, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic caused some of the highest rates of worry, but it was by no means the top concern for everyone anymore. But, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes, a baffling 63 percent of Swedes said they worried about crime and violence despite living in a relatively safe country. The concern was also the most common in Mexico and the United States.

    Infographic: What Does the World Worry About? | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Americans were more divided than most countries on what worried them.

    33 percent said crime and violence, which was followed by the coronavirus (25 percent), climate change (23 percent) and corruption (22 percent).

    Unemployment was the top worry in South Africa at 62 percent and Italy at 55 percent, while coronavirus worry was still most present in Asia, where 76 percent of Malaysians said they worried about the pandemic – the highest degree of agreement in the survey.

    The top country for worry about corruption was Columbia, where it was the most common concern at 55 percent of respondents agreeing to it.

    For worry about poverty, the same is true for Russia at 58 percent.

    Interestingly, climate change wasn’t the biggest worry in any of the 28 countries in the survey. In a reoccurring Gallup survey asking for the biggest threat to one’s country, more and more nations have been pivoting towards naming climate change, potentially revealing a discrepancy between knowing climate change as a threat and grasping it enough to personally worry about it.

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

  • Top Health Expert Admits Dire COVID-19 Predictions Were "Off" For UK
    Top Health Expert Admits Dire COVID-19 Predictions Were “Off” For UK

    By Jack Phillips of Epoch Times

    A UK professor who served as a COVID-19 advisor for the government admitted that a previous prediction about a massive surge of the virus over the summer was askew, adding that a new lockdown likely won’t be needed.

    Last month, Professor Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist from Imperial College London and adviser to the government, said that as many as 200,000 cases of the covid virus could be recorded per day if pandemic restrictions were lifted. But during a recent interview with The Times of London, Ferguson said that his prediction was “off” due to the Euro cup finals last month.

    “We had an artificially inflated level of contact during that period and then suddenly it dropped off,” he told The Times on Saturday, Aug. 7.

    A report from Goldman last week confirmed the same, with the bank noting in its Chart of the Week that “data this week suggests that hospitalizations for COVID in the UK have peaked sooner and at a lower rate than forecast models anticipated.”

    Ferguson, who has been sometimes dubbed as “Professor Lockdown” for his promoting of social distancing measures, also suggested that no new lockdowns will be required, arguing that the high vaccination rate contributed to a drop in cases of the CCP virus, which causes COVID-19.

    “I think it’s going to transition quite quickly in a few months to be more something we live with and manage through vaccination rather than crisis measures,” he said. “I wouldn’t rule it out altogether, but I think it’s unlikely we will need a new lockdown or even social-distancing measures of the type we’ve had so far. The caveat to that is, of course, if the virus changes substantially.”

    But he warned: “I suspect for several years, we will see additional mortality. There’s a risk in the winter coming of thousands to tens of thousands more deaths.”

    Ferguson resigned from his government position last year after telling other officials that he undermined the UK government’s messaging on social distancing by meeting with a woman several times.

    Late last week, in its weekly survey of the levels of infection across the UK, the Office for National Statistics said case rates appeared to be falling in England, Scotland, and Wales, though not in Northern Ireland, with the declines most noticeable among younger age groups. In England, for example, the statistics agency found that one in 75 people in private households had COVID-19 in the week to July 31, down from one in 65 in the previous week.

    Despite fears among some that daily cases rates would hit 100,000 this summer as a result of the more contagious Delta variant and the lifting of lockdown restrictions, infections have fallen to around 30,000 a day, leading to a fall in the number of people requiring hospitalization for COVID-19 symptoms.

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

  • An Epidemic Of Mandatory
    An Epidemic Of Mandatory

    Authored by Richard Fernandez via PJMedia.com,

    The official narrative has shifted from “we can beat the coronavirus” to “we can coexist with it but only if you follow our shifting instructions very carefully.”

    The pandemic has become endemic, going from something we can beat to “another virus that we’ll have to live with.”

    As far back as February, an article in Nature asked if we could ever be “coronavirus-free… [by maintaining] heavy restrictions… could the world hope to rid itself of the virus?”

    Probably not.

    The good news from a San Francisco hospital coronavirus cluster is that the vaccinated don’t get very sick anymore.

    The bad news is that they can test positive.

    “At least 233 staff members at two major San Francisco hospitals, most of them fully vaccinated, tested positive for the coronavirus this month, and most, according to a hospital official, involved the highly contagious Delta variant.”

    However, few were seriously stricken.

    Without vaccinations, Dr. Day said, the hospitalization rate would be much worse.

    “We’re concerned right now that we’re on the rise of a surge here in San Francisco and the Bay Area,” Dr. Day said.

    “But what we’re seeing is very much what the data from the vaccines showed us: You can still get Covid, potentially. But if you do get it, it’s not severe at all.”…

    Staff members at both hospitals have continued to wear personal protective equipment, Dr. Day said. But the number of staff infections reported in July is about as many as during the peak of the winter surge.

    It’s like a science fiction story where the earth has been invaded by aliens, who can be contained but cannot be dislodged. This life form (the authorities think) comes from some Species X or Missing Link and nobody knows for sure what it will do next. “The virus becoming endemic is likely, but the pattern that it will take is hard to predict,” says Angela Rasmussen, a virologist from Georgetown University. Among the scenarios now envisioned are:

    1. Some regions might become temporarily virus-free but remain at risk from reinfection;

    2. The virus will never go away, but constant vaccination and restriction will prevent widespread hospitalization;

    3. Humanity will be able to eventually reduce the menace to the impotence of the common cold.

    This shift in tone is a significant one because it sets the stage for an indefinite period of vigilance. Gone are the categorical expectations of quick triumph. In its place is a protracted total war where the key word is “mandatory.”

    The headlines are full of the word:

    • “Factbox: Countries make COVID-19 vaccines mandatory”

    • “Check In app now mandatory if you want to enter thousands of businesses”

    • “Compulsory vaccinations for care home staff in England backed by MPs”

    • “Covid vaccine certificates to be compulsory for crowded venues in England”

    • “Anti-Covid masks now mandatory outdoors in 30 French departments”

    • “Germany Imposes Mandatory COVID-19 Testing Requirement for Unvaccinated People”

    • “New York City and California to Require Vaccines or Tests for Workers”

    • “Biden Orders Military to Move Toward Mandatory COVID Vaccine.”

    Mandatory, compulsory, required and we might break even, cross our hearts and hope to die. But the problem with “mandatory” is that nobody can say how long it will take to work or, honestly, whether it will work at all. There is “No end in sight for COVID ‘Phase A’ on Australia’s path out of lockdowns,” writes ABC news. The sad truth is that many world leaders didn’t even know they would need a Plan B in the confident early days of fact-checkers. But we are now in a game dominated, not by the original coronavirus and the world of 2019, but by a new situation shaped by the public policy response since then.

    Second Order Effect refers to the idea that every action has a consequence, and each consequence has a subsequent consequence. In other words, this means that a single decision can initiate a series of cause-and-effects, something which we might not have knowledge or control of. Therefore, it can be very difficult for us to predict possible implications of the original decision (unless we are somehow blessed with an all-seeing crystal ball).

    We now live in the second-order world. “Get Ready for a Spike in Global Unrest,” writes Foreign Policy. What was supposed to be the summer of recovery has become the season of disaster.

    To call 2021 the summer of discontent would be a severe understatement. From Cuba to South Africa to Columbia to Haiti, often violent protests are sweeping every corner of the globe as angry citizens are taking to the streets.

    Each country has different histories and realities on the ground … butd they all faced a perfect storm of preexisting social, economic and political hardships which fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic only inflamed farther.

    Though the problem is worst in the Third World, even European and North American countries face the same dilemma: how to fight this now-endemic disease without running out of economic energy that at some stage will mean stall, crash and burn — unless “mandatory” works before then.

    The longer it takes for “mandatory” to work, if ever it does, the more political shibboleths will become unaffordable. At some point, fossil fuel taxes will become insupportable. Further on, perhaps “open borders” must go. Further still, even public-sector unions and academia will feel the pinch. Yet if history is any guide, ideologues will cling to their obsessions even at the cost of survival. “Mandatory” may give a false impression of light at the end of the tunnel when, as Slate writes, that is just a “noble lie.”

     When experts or agencies deliver information to the public that they consider possibly or definitively false to further a larger, often well-meaning agenda, they are telling what is called a noble lie. …

    Later in 2020, Fauci participated in a second noble lie. In December, he explained in a phone interview with then–New York Times reporter Donald McNeil that he had been moving the target estimate for herd immunity based in part on emerging studies. …

    In his own words, he “nudged” his target range for herd immunity to promote vaccine uptake. Even though his comments were made to influence public actions to get more people vaccinated (a noble effort), the central dilemma remains: Do we want public health officials to report facts and uncertainties transparently? Or do we want them to shape information, via nudges, to influence the public to take specific actions? …

    The epidemic of “mandatory” suggests that rather than becoming more flexible and adaptive before an endemic disease, the experts are hanging on to the mantle of certitude.

    Slate sadly concludes:

    “Noble lies are a trap. We cannot predict the public’s behavior, and loss of trust is devastating. The general population is far too skeptical to blindly follow the advice of experts, and far too intelligent to be easily duped.”

    True. And that loss of trust is how we arrived at mandatory.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/08/2021 – 23:50

  • Restrictions On Unvaxxed See Explosion Of Fake Vaccination Cards In US & EU
    Restrictions On Unvaxxed See Explosion Of Fake Vaccination Cards In US & EU

    A week ago we detailed the story of the American couple getting fined $50,000 by the government of Canada after they were caught providing border agents with fake COVID-19 “proof of vaccination” documents at the airport. We noted this seeming unusual occurrence was likely the tip of the iceberg in terms of the rise of an entire sophisticated counterfeit documents industry geared toward getting around new restrictions quickly going into place, such as the recent New York City ban on the unvaccinated dining in restaurants or entering gyms and other public venues. This also as so-called digital ‘COVID passports’ aren’t yet uniform within the US or especially around the globe, and as global protests and pushback are on the rise, especially in Europe.

    And most recently the United States has mandated that all federal workers must be vaccinated, with the only alternative being a regimen of regular testing and mask-wearing. Major employers are also increasingly issuing mandates for their in-person staff. There will without doubt be many who refuse what is still at this point an experimental vaccine (given lack of formal FDA approval and the regular rigorous procress), while also naturally desiring to avoid the extreme inconvenience of daily social distancing and generally being placed in a second class “non-vaxxed” social category.

    The Wall Street Journal has documented multiple instances of fake vaccination cards and their proliferation on the internet, based largely on the relatively easy to forge initial CDC vaccination cards. “In the U.S., fake vaccination cards purportedly issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have appeared for sale on sites such as Amazon, eBay and Etsy,” the report details. 

    Getty Images

    “In May, officers arrested a bar owner in California for allegedly selling fake vaccination cards costing $20 each,” it continues. “The alleged perpetrator was charged with identity theft, forging government documents and falsifying medical records.”

    And a DOJ spokesman confirmed in the report that “While we do not have definitive numbers, we are seeing more of these types of schemes recently.” This includes the example of a California licensed practitioner of homeopathic medicine, described as running a scheme where clients would order “immunization pellets” and receive CDC vaccination cards in return, including detailed instructions on how to write in specific vaccine lot number information into the card.

    Currently there’s talk in the US of implementing a uniform digital vaccination “proof” for each person fully vaccinated; however, as the WSJ details further in Europe where such an EU pass does exist, fakes are still popping up all over: 

    Despite the more-secure format, fake versions of the EU digital certificate have multiplied. In Italy, there are about 30 social-media profiles purporting to sell fake certificates, about 500 of which have been sold in the past few months, according to Ivano Gabrielli, an Italian police commander who oversees online fraud investigations. Telegram is the main platform being used for the sale of the fake certificates, he said.

    Ultimately the current fakes that are out there, especially the digital fakes, are believed to be easily detectable. But this would all change in a scenario where information in a nation’s vaccine registry might be hacked, for example.

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

    But like with any certificate or sought-after identity-related document in the past, forgers will without doubt get better at the craft.

    The WSJ report provided another interesting example of fraudulent vaccine passes in the EU as follows:

    An Italian channel on Telegram is currently advertising a digital version of a vaccine certificate for €100, the equivalent of $118, and a printed copy for €120. “Family packs” consisting of four passes can be had for €300 for digital versions and €350 for printed copies. Passes can be paid for in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and in some cases through PayPal or with Amazon gift cards.

    Illustrative

    Authorities in the US and EU are working the counteract and shut down the increasingly sophisticated schemes.

    Without doubt the fakes will continue to be proliferated, and will show up increasingly in the United States as more locales and possibly even entire states enact a ‘two-tiered system’ of sorts segregating the status of the vaxxed vs. unvaxxed. Each new day of this and it seems we’re all living in a Black Mirror episode.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/08/2021 – 23:25

  • They're Normalizing Robot Police By Calling Them "Dogs"
    They’re Normalizing Robot Police By Calling Them “Dogs”

    Authored by Caitlin Johnstone,

    Hawaii police are defending their use of pandemic relief funds for a robotic “police dog” made by Boston Dynamics which scans homeless people’s eyes to see if they have a fever.

    “If you’re homeless and looking for temporary shelter in Hawaii’s capital, expect a visit from a robotic police dog that will scan your eye to make sure you don’t have a fever,” says a new report from Associated Press.

    “That’s just one of the ways public safety agencies are starting to use Spot, the best-known of a new commercial category of robots that trot around with animal-like agility.”

    “Acting Lt. Joseph O’Neal of the Honolulu Police Department’s community outreach unit defended the robot’s use in a media demonstration earlier this year,” AP reports.

    “He said it has protected officers, shelter staff and residents by scanning body temperatures between meal times at a shelter where homeless people could quarantine and get tested for COVID-19. The robot is also used to remotely interview individuals who have tested positive.”

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    This has understandably elicited criticism from civil rights advocates.

    “Because these people are houseless it’s considered OK to do that,” Hawaii ACLU legal director Jongwook Kim told AP.

    “At some point it will come out again for some different use after the pandemic is over.”

    This report comes just days after we learned that police in Winnipeg have also obtained a “Spot” robot which they intend to use in hostage situations.

    Winnipeg Free Press reports:

    The Winnipeg Police Service is set to acquire a pricey dog-shaped robot, to be used in hostage situations, that’s already been ditched by police in New York City.

    “Spot” is made by Boston Dynamics, which sells the device for US$74,500. Winnipeg police are spending $257,000 to acquire and use Spot. The 32-kilogram robot “has the ability to navigate obstacles, uneven terrain (and) situations where our traditional robot platforms can’t go into,” said Insp. Brian Miln at a news conference Wednesday.

    Months earlier the New York Police Department cancelled its lease of the same type of robot they obtained last year following public outcry. More from AP:

    The expensive machine arrived with little public notice or explanation, public officials said, and was deployed to already over-policed public housing. Use of the high-tech canine also clashed with Black Lives Matter calls to defund police operations and reinvest in other priorities.

    The company that makes the robots, Boston Dynamics, says it’s learned from the New York fiasco and is trying to do a better job of explaining to the public — and its customers — what Spot can and cannot do. That’s become increasingly important as Boston Dynamics becomes part of South Korean carmaker Hyundai Motor Company, which in June closed an $880 million deal for a controlling stake in the robotics firm.

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    To be absolutely clear, there is not actually any legitimate reason for any normal person to refer to these machines as a “robotic dog”, or a “high-tech canine”, or by a cutesy cliché name for a pet. These are robots. Robots that are being used by police forces on civilian populations. If the robots being used had two legs, or eight, they would not be able to apply such cuddly wuddly labels, and public alarm bells would be going off a lot louder.

    Which is of course the idea. As AP noted above, Boston Dynamics is acutely aware that it has a PR situation on its hands and needs to manage public perception if it wants to mainstream the use of these machines and make a lot of money. Because it’s a known fact that westerners tend to be a lot more sympathetic to dogs than even to other humans, arbitrarily branding a quadrupedal enforcement robot a “dog” helps facilitate this agenda.

    On-the-ground robot policing is becoming normalized today under the justification of Covid-19 precautions in the same way police around the world have normalized the use of drones to police coronavirus restrictions, at the same time police departments are rolling out dystopian systems for predicting future criminality using computer programs and databases.

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    This is all happening as the French army is testing these “Spot” robots for use in combat situations, years after the Pentagon requested the development of a “Multi-Robot Pursuit System” which can “search for and detect a non-cooperative human subject” like a pack of dogs. New Scientist’s Paul Marks reported on the latter development back in 2008:

    Steve Wright of Leeds Metropolitan University is an expert on police and military technologies, and last year correctly predicted this pack-hunting mode of operation would happen. “The giveaway here is the phrase ‘a non-cooperative human subject’,” he told me:

    “What we have here are the beginnings of something designed to enable robots to hunt down humans like a pack of dogs. Once the software is perfected we can reasonably anticipate that they will become autonomous and become armed.

    We can also expect such systems to be equipped with human detection and tracking devices including sensors which detect human breath and the radio waves associated with a human heart beat. These are technologies already developed.”

    These developments always elicit nervous jokes about Terminator movies and the idea of Skynet robots going rogue and enslaving humanity, but the far more realistic and immediate concern is this technology being used on humans by other humans.

    For as long as there have been governments and rulers, there has been an acute awareness in elite circles that the public vastly outnumber those who rule over them and could easily overwhelm and oust them if they ever decided to. Many tools have been implemented to address this problem, from public displays of cruelty to keep the public cowed and obedient, to the circulation of propaganda and power-serving religious doctrines, but at no time has any power structure in history ever produced a guaranteed protection against the possibility of being overthrown by their subjects who vastly outnumber them.

    The powerful have also long been aware that robot and drone technologies can offer such a protection.

    Once the legal and technological infrastructure for robotic security systems has been rolled out, all revolutionary theory that’s ever been written goes right out the window, because the proletariat cannot rise up and overthrow their oppressors if their oppressors control technologies which enable them to quash any revolution using a small security team of operators.

    Or, better yet, fully automated technologies which can fire upon civilians without the risk of human sympathy taking the side of the people. According to a recent UN report, a Turkish-made drone may have been the first ever to attack humans with deadly force without being specifically ordered to.

    Live Science reports:

    At least one autonomous drone operated by artificial intelligence (AI) may have killed people for the first time last year in Libya, without any humans consulted prior to the attack, according to a U.N. report.

    According to a March report from the U.N. Panel of Experts on Libya, lethal autonomous aircraft may have “hunted down and remotely engaged” soldiers and convoys fighting for Libyan general Khalifa Haftar. It’s not clear who exactly deployed these killer robots, though remnants of one such machine found in Libya came from the Kargu-2 drone, which is made by Turkish military contractor STM.

    So at this point we’re essentially looking at a race to see if the oligarchic empire can manufacture the necessary environment to allow the use of robotic security forces to lock their power in place forever before the masses get fed up with the increasing inequalities and abuses of the status quo and decide to force a better system into existence.

    What a time to be alive.

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/08/2021 – 23:00

  • US Embassy Alerts All Americans To Depart Afghanistan "Immediately" As More Provincial Capitals Fall
    US Embassy Alerts All Americans To Depart Afghanistan “Immediately” As More Provincial Capitals Fall

    Over the weekend a second provincial capital has fallen to the Taliban, this time in the north of Afghanistan, just days after the southern Nimruz province which borders Iran fell reportedly with barely any resistance from US-trained Afghan national forces.

    On Saturday Sheberghan, the capital of Jowzjan province, was captured at a moment the US State Department has sounded the alarm for any American citizens still remaining in the country, with just a little over a month to go until Biden’s Sept.11 complete troop exit deadline. The US embassy in Kabul had urged Americans to leave the war-torn country “immediately” while noting they can’t rely on government flights. 

    Image via NDTV

    A US Embassy security alert on Saturday stated that “Given the security conditions and reduced staffing, the Embassy’s ability to assist U.S. citizens in Afghanistan is extremely limited even within Kabul.”

    At the moment southern Helmand province is also under threat of imminent fall the Taliban, who are gaining momentum also through increasing capture of military bases and equipment, including US Humvees and weaponry – which the Islamist militants have been parading of late.

    The Wall Street Journal summarizes the significance of this latest provincial capital to fall to the Taliban advance as follows: 

    “The fall of the city of Sheberghan is particularly important because Jowzjan has long been the traditional stronghold of ethnic Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, one of the country’s main anti-Taliban leaders who served as Afghanistan’s vice president until last year.”

    Sheberghan also borders Turkmenistan, which means it’s yet another huge blow to Kabul in terms of losing an important hub of regional trade, also at a moment the Taliban controls the vast majority of key border crossing areas.

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    Crucially these latest rapid Taliban gains have been made in the south and north even as Afghanistan’s military with the aid of the United States has conducted large-scale airstrikes. “As attacks intensify, Afghan security forces and government troops have retaliated with increasing airstrikes, aided by the United States. This has raised growing concerns about civilian casualties across the country,” NBC News writes.

    This strongly suggests that even if the Pentagon were to provide full and immediate air support to Afghan forces across all theaters, it would likely do little to blunt the insurgents’ offensive. It could now be a mere matter of months or even weeks before Kabul finds itself under siege. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/08/2021 – 22:35

  • California College Students Contest Vaccination Mandates To Return To Campus
    California College Students Contest Vaccination Mandates To Return To Campus

    Authored by Drew Van Voorhis via The Epoch Times,

    Some students across California school systems are concerned about recently implemented requirements to get the COVID-19 vaccine prior to stepping foot on campuses again in the fall, saying it should be their decision about what they put in their bodies. 

    The University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) systems announced in July that they would be requiring all students and staff to be fully inoculated against COVID-19 by the fall semester, backtracking on their statements earlier this year that vaccinations would not be mandated unless one of them was given full approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  

    “There is no alternative here for anyone who doesn’t want to get the vaccine,” James Barr, president of Cal State Fullerton College Republicans told The Epoch Times.  

    “It’s something that every student has to get now in order to continue their education, which I find repugnant in terms of [the school] administration. I don’t believe that any student should be mandated to take a vaccine in order to get their education out of the way,” he said. 

    Students plan to protest the vaccination requirements on Fullerton’s campus Aug. 7, requesting either that the rules be changed, or students at least be given the option to wear a mask instead. At this point, not all classes are available online, so not every student can continue their online education if they choose not to get vaccinated.  

    Barr said the point of the protest is not to oppose vaccines or tell others not to get vaccinated, but to fight for people’s right to make their own medical choices. 

    “Whatever happened to ‘my body, my choice’?” Amanda McGuire, Field Director for Lincoln Club Institute, a nonprofit working to connect students with resources to fight back against vaccine mandates, told The Epoch Times.  

    “All students want restored is the human right to control what goes into their own bodies. We have yet to understand the effects of such a mandate as this, but they are sure to do more harm than good in every way,” she said. 

    Not all students are against the mandates though, as some say they are necessary to keep the virus from spreading.  

    “I think it comes down to a matter of safety more than anything, regardless of where you stand on the issue,” Josh Mitchell, president of Associated Students Inc. at CSU Fullerton, told The Epoch Times.  

    “I think the university can’t in good conscience open up [without everyone vaccinated] considering how big our campus is. We have 45,000 students on campus next year and around 3,000 staff and faculty. Considering [that], if students are not vaccinated, we will have potential outbreaks, and because of that I believe that’s where the decision came from.” 

    Mitchell said that he personally has not received any messages from students who have been unable to continue their education due to not being vaccinated, but he wants to work to advocate for those students.  

    For some students, their opposition to the vaccine has less to do with its potential side effects and more about how it is developed. Lloyd Labriaga, president of Students for Life at UC Irvine, told The Epoch Times that because the vaccine is developed using fetal cell lines that originally come from abortions, many pro-life students do not want to take the vaccine.  

    According to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health:

    “In various stages of vaccine development and manufacturing, some of the COVID-19 vaccines used cells originally isolated from fetal tissue (often referred to as fetal cells), some of which were originally derived from an aborted fetus,” as stated in a recent fact sheet (pdf).

    “The use of fetal cell lines is a very sensitive and important topic within some faith communities and among individuals with concerns about the ethics of using materials derived in this way.”

    Labriaga also said that college students, who are typically young and do not usually have severe reactions to COVID-19, should not be the target demographic for vaccine mandates.  

    “Most college students are very young, and we’re at the lowest risk levels from COVID. So why is UCI forcing us to take vaccine, wear masks, and social distance? All these three things for an age group that’s not likely going to get affected badly from it.” 

     CSU Fullerton did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.  

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/08/2021 – 22:10

  • 14 Israelis Have Caught COVID-19 Even After Booster Shot, Some Hospitalized
    14 Israelis Have Caught COVID-19 Even After Booster Shot, Some Hospitalized

    The population of Israel has been looked upon of late as a global guinea pig of sorts given it was the first country out of the gate to implement a large-scale booster shot program for people 60 and up who’ve already been vaccinated with two rounds of the COVID-19 shot. This was announced only at the end of July, and the early data is beginning to trickle in.

    Israel is considered to have among the world’s highest vaccination rates, with 5.3 million of its citizens having been inoculated with two doses, with weeks ago headlines declaring it had reached ‘herd immunity’ – only for the headlines to give way to reports of the alarming rapid rise of breakthrough cases.

    And now it appears that even the much touted COVID booster shot could be failing to protect: “Internal Health Ministry data shows that 14 Israelis have been infected with COVID-19 a week after receiving a booster shot, Channel 12 news reports,” The Times of Israel writes Sunday.

    Image via FT

    Already over the weekend Israeli media is reporting that “serious cases” have hit a four month high, with over 324 patients hospitalized, many of them in critical condition.

    It was only a little over a week ago that elderly Israelis began receiving the third shot, and so “early results” and observations have only now begun to come in, and it’s not looking good. The Times of Israel continues in its breaking report: 

    The network says 11 of those infected are over the age of 60 — two of whom have now been hospitalized — while the other three got their third dose because they are immunocompromised.

    If confirmed in larger samples, the figures could cast doubt on the effectiveness of the booster shot, which Israel has started administering before major health bodies around the world have approved it.

    Channel 12 noted that the confirmed new infections were revealed based on tests performed one week after the group had received the third shot. Three of the above are being described as “younger patients”. 

    This comes as the CDC and FDA have begun discussions on pushing forward with offering booster shots in the US – possibly as early as September, according to some reports.

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    The Jerusalem Post has subsequently issued further details of the new ‘post booster jab’ cases as follows: 

    Of the 422,326 Israelis who have so far received their third dose of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine, 14 have so far reportedly contracted the disease in tests performed one week after the shot, N12 reported on Sunday evening.

    Of the 14 confirmed cases, 11, are over the age of 60, and 3 are younger patients who are at a greater risk due to immunosuppresive diseases. Two have so far been hospitalized.

    So now even a third jab might be powerless amid the current Delta variant wave (and no doubt others to follow)?

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    Regardless, Anthony Fauci, has already begun making the pitch for a third shot “reasonably soon” while making the rounds on the big Sunday shows…

    “We need to look at them in a different light,” Fauci said of boosters on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” on Sunday, according to Bloomberg. “We would certainly be boosting those people before we boost the general population that’s been vaccinated, and we should be doing that reasonably soon.”

    He began by noting the booster would first be made available for the immunocompromised and elderly (just like in Israel). “As soon as they see that level of durability of protection goes down, then you will see the recommendation to vaccinate those individuals,” Fauci added.

    Meanwhile USA Today wrote that “Some people are already taking the matter into their own hands, deciding to get extra doses – either a second or a third shot depending on which vaccine they got the first time. One doctor referred to the phenomenon on Twitter as ‘booster mania.’“

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/08/2021 – 21:45

  • People Left Cities For Rural Zoom Towns. How Does That Impact Wildfire Risk?
    People Left Cities For Rural Zoom Towns. How Does That Impact Wildfire Risk?

    Via Priceonomics.com,

    As the pandemic waxes and wanes and we look back on the last 18 months, it’s clear that different types of workers experienced differential economic impacts. On one hand, there are workers who need to be in a location to do their job. Many members of the workforce, including restaurant staff, hotel employees, and those in the events industry saw their financial livelihoods devastated as the pandemic shut down parts of the economy.

    On the other hand, we also saw the boom of “Zoom workers”—or knowledge workers who can conduct their work online. These workers typically work from anywhere. For these workers, the pandemic enabled them to move out of the city and work in more rural locations with natural beauty.

    As such, the pandemic has given birth to a massive real estate boom in these so-called “Zoom towns” where knowledge workers relocated during the pandemic. These picturesque locations, particularly in the West, have seen a spike in real estate prices.

    But there is tremendous risk associated with these growing Zoom towns in rural areas —almost all of them are in high wildfire risk areas. Living in a cabin in the woods seems idyllic until a spark of lightning ignites the forest and endangers your home.

    In this analysis, we examine the wildfire risk and property values of popular Zoom towns in the Western U.S. At CAPE Analytics, we use artificial intelligence to analyze vast quantities of geospatial imagery to help insurers and other companies better understand properties and property risk. In this analysis, we look at U.S. Forest Service wildfire risk data, paired with Zillow home price estimates from the Zillow Home Value Index.

    We found that the Zoom town with the highest fire risk in our sample is Mariposa, CA, a picturesque town near Yosemite, followed by Springdale, UT, and Lake Arrowhead, CA. Meanwhile, the most expensive Zoom towns in our sample were Aspen, CO, and Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA. The Zoom towns with the fastest price appreciation were Glen Ellen, CA, Truckee, CA, and Big Bear, CA, with annual price appreciation exceeding 25% in each location.

    In general, our analysis finds that Zoom towns with lower home prices tend to carry higher wildfire risk. However, these same areas, which carry high fire risk, are also experiencing the highest appreciation in property values, as remote workers drive up demand. For those who deal with risk, such as the insurance industry, this can be a worrisome trend. Not only are more people moving to these higher-risk areas, but the property values (and subsequent potential losses) are growing at unprecedented rates. 

    Before diving into the results, let’s spend a moment on the data sources and methodology. The U.S. Forest Service provides wildfire risk assessment for much of the United States on a 0 to 5 score ranking system (0 being no risk, 5 being very high risk). We looked at the fire risk scores in cities and towns mentioned in news articles about pandemic relocation trends. This data was then paired with Zillow’s typical single-family home value estimates according to the Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI) as of April 30th, 2021.

    To start, let’s look at the list of Zoom towns we’ve assembled, ranked from the highest to lowest fire risk according to the U.S. Forest Service.

    Chart via Cape Analytics

    By a significant margin, Mariposa, CA, has the highest average wildfire risk at 3.8. Coming in second place is Springdale, UT, a town near Zion National Park. Lake Arrowhead, a Southern California vacation destination, and Glen Ellen, CA, a town in the middle of Sonoma wine country, round out the top four highest risk areas.

    The lowest wildfire risk areas among Zoom towns in the Western United States are Butte, MT, followed by the arid locations of Palm Springs, CA, and La Quinta, CA. It should be noted that even in areas like Napa, CA, which ranks as low as 0.6 fire risk, this score is skewed by the more densely populated portions of each city. In the more rural surrounding areas of each town, the fire risk can be extremely high.

    Next, we wanted to quantify the typical home price in each of these Zoom towns. The following chart ranks homes by typical value, according to Zillow, and compares those values to each town’s wildfire risk.

    Chart via Cape Analytics

    Aspen, Vail, Sun Valley, and Park City, all small Western ski towns, make up four out of the five most expensive places. In second place is Carmel-by-the-Sea in California. All of these top five areas have relatively low wildfire risk on average. The least expensive Zoom towns in our sample are Butte, MT, Mariposa, CA and MT, Taos, NM. In Butte and Taos, at least, the wildfire risk is lower than the typical city in this study.

    How do home prices correlate with fire risk in these idyllic rural locations? The following chart shows the Zillow home values segmented by wildfire risk bucket.

    Chart via Cape Analytics

    In general, the more wildfire risk in the area, the lower the home prices. Homeowners insurance is higher in fire-prone areas (or impossible to obtain), which may also help drive down home prices. Another possible explanation is that homes in particularly high-risk areas tend to be more remote, closer to wildland, and further away from amenities that drive up home prices.

    Finally, let’s turn our attention to where home prices are rising the fastest over the last year as some people work from home in more rural areas. Below is the chart of the Zoom towns with the largest 1-year price appreciation.

    Chart via Cape Analytics

    Glen Ellen, a town in Sonoma wine country, has the highest appreciation rate over this last year, with homes increasing 28.8% in just one year. Truckee, the ski town on the California side of the Lake Tahoe area, has had the second-highest price growth in the last year, with homes selling for 27.7% more than the year prior. As Bay Area workers flee to Lake Tahoe, Truckee is a more affordable homeownership option than being closer to the lake in Tahoe City. Big Bear Lake in California also saw price appreciation greater than 25% in one year.

    Price appreciation typically is a consequence of increased demand for a given amount of housing stock. The following chart shows the average price appreciation by fire risk cohort among locations:

    Chart via Cape Analytics

    Unfortunately, we have seen a substantial increase in demand for homes that happen to be in high fire risk zones. The highest price appreciation has been in areas with a high fire risk score of 2-3, which includes many areas that have had devastating wildfires in recent years, followed by areas with moderate fire risk of 1-2. 

    The COVID migratory pattern of people leaving cities has led to an influx of homebuyers in these higher wildfire risk areas. For people fortunate enough to be economically unscathed by the pandemic, working remotely has opened living options. As a result, many are relocating to mountain towns, wine country, or near a picturesque national park. As more demand for rural living leads to more housing and higher home value in those areas, the risk and possible total destructive value of a wildfire increases in turn. 

    New homeowners in these areas should be aware of this heightened risk and take mitigation measures, such as maintaining a minimum, 10-foot defensible space perimeter between the home and any vegetation. A recent Cape Analytics analysis, for example, shows that clearing vegetation from 10 feet around a home reduces the risk of damage from a wildfire by 80% or more, in very high-risk areas. 

    As climate change and associated wildfire risk worsen throughout the Western U.S., it’s paramount for government officials, insurance companies, and homeowners to understand the changing risk landscape and the possible negative impacts on people and property. 

    *  *  *

    This post is from Cape Analytics a Priceonomics Data Studio customer. Does your company have interesting data? Become a Priceonomics customer.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/08/2021 – 21:20

  • Colleges Dole Out Cash, Free Parking, Laundry & Ski Passes To Make Up For On-Campus Housing Shortages
    Colleges Dole Out Cash, Free Parking, Laundry & Ski Passes To Make Up For On-Campus Housing Shortages

    The “year off” school that many students took due to the Covid-19 pandemic is coming back to bite colleges this fall in the form of a major housing shortage. 

    In fact, schools like Middlebury College in Vermont and Dartmouth College are offering incentives to try and alleviate the stress of what is going to be a housing crunch when the new school year starts. Middlebury is giving its students ski passes to try and move them to satellite housing, while Dartmouth is offering $5,000 to students to get them to back out of living on campus. Dartmouth is also converting “common areas into bedrooms and doubles into triples,” Bloomberg reported this week. 

    Justin Anderson, a Dartmouth spokesman, commented: “Other potential solutions, such as new modular housing or blocks of hotel space, proved to be less feasible.”

    Middlebury’s enrollment was up 13% to 2,880 from a typical year. It has also moved its room and board discount up to 50% for students who opt to live off campus and shuttle to campus. This deal includes ski passes, free laundry and a faculty parking pass.

    Derek Doucet, dean of students, commented: “Our first priority is to provide an in-person educational experience to all active students who wish to be here.”

    The shortage is going to hit harder at many liberal arts colleges where the on-campus experience is part of the appeal of the school. Alex Bloom, director of undergraduate enrollment research at EAB Global Inc, said that people at these schools “want to walk around and have a sense of intimacy, a small environment with access to everything” and that their “value proposition is most dependent on the in-person college experience.”

    “The line between living and learning is practically nonexistent,” Pomona College’s website says. 94% of students usually live on campus for all four years. 

    The shortage poses extra challenges since many students are excited about the prospect of resuming “normal” and again living on campus. “Living on campus was something I really wanted to do because I’d been away for so long,” said 20-year-old Valeria Andrade at Dartmouth.

    Many other colleges are expecting robust enrollment for the coming year as well. Harvard, for example, is set to have its largest freshman class since World War II, the report noted.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/08/2021 – 20:55

  • Jim Rickards: Stop The Lies!
    Jim Rickards: Stop The Lies!

    Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

    Health officials continue to lose credibility over COVID-19. They seem to change their minds daily based on whim rather than science. But that’s been the case since the pandemic started.

    Going back to last January, official comments on COVID have been mostly wrong. The comments were either outright lies or were prescriptions based on politics, not medicine.

    In January 2020, the World Health Organization said there was no human-to-human transmission of COVID. They knew better because of data from China, so that was a lie. Dr. Anthony Fauci said there was little risk of COVID coming from China to the U.S. Another lie.

    Then, over the course of 15 months, Fauci said not to wear masks, then he said to wear them, then he said you could take them off. Now, he says it’s time to put them on again.

    Fauci is an over-the-hill bureaucrat, not a true scientist. His greatest skill has been successfully navigating the Washington swamp for the past four decades. He’s heavily conflicted because he owns patents on inputs to the vaccines.

    He also has a lot to hide, because he funded the Wuhan laboratory coronavirus research in the first place. The science is clear that masks don’t work (because the virus is far smaller than the mask weave), and lockdowns don’t work (because people indoors in confined spaces spread the virus faster than people outside who are in motion).

    Masks are positively dangerous for children because they force you to breathe your own CO2, which causes dizziness, lethargy, inability to focus and can cause people to pass out. The latest lie is Biden’s call for vaccine mandates for federal workers or weekly testing, masking and distancing.

    What Vaccine Mandate?

    The White House had repeatedly said there would be no federal vaccine mandates. It’s true that there is no single mandate that applies to all Americans. But there are now hundreds of mini-mandates that add up to the same thing.

    Biden’s federal worker mandate covers 4 million federal employees and as many as 4 million federal contractors.

    Meanwhile, universities are imposing vaccine mandates on returning students. Large companies like Facebook and Google are imposing vaccine mandates on their workers. New York State has imposed a vaccine mandate on state workers. Sports and entertainment venues are barring anyone who cannot prove they have been vaccinated.

    When you add it all up, we’re turning into a society of vaxxed and unvaxxed where the latter are denied the opportunity to work, attend school, go out for a show or sporting event and so on.

    “There is no vaccine mandate,” they’ll say. But in reality, the unvaccinated will be treated as second-class citizens who can’t live regular lives or participate fully in society.

    Why Are So Many Vaccinated People Getting Sick?

    This is all over so-called vaccines that are really experimental gene modification treatments with dangerous side effects and limited efficacy since many vaccinated individuals are now being infected again. The vaccines won’t stop you from getting the virus or from spreading it.

    In one Massachusetts town, for example, 74% of new cases have already been vaccinated. Data from overseas is even more revealing since many countries report new cases daily, which doesn’t allow for the type of data manipulation U.S. health agencies often engage in.

    In Israel, about 85% of adults over 30 are fully vaccinated. Over 90% of those above 60 are fully vaccinated. But Israel is experiencing a dramatic rise in new cases. The number of serious cases has increased about 10 times since the beginning of July. Importantly, the vast majority are vaccinated.

    The data reveal that rates of severe cases among the vaccinated are currently as high as the unvaccinated’s rate just two weeks ago.

    The Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, warns that cases may quadruple within three weeks and that authorities are preparing for new lockdowns (even though lockdowns have proven to be ineffective against stopping the virus).

    Most Israelis have taken the Pfizer vaccine, incidentally.

    Gene Therapy

    But why should these vaccines stop you from getting the virus or from spreading it? Again, these aren’t vaccines in the traditional sense, which introduce weakened or inactive parts of a virus, against which your body produces antibodies.

    Instead, these COVID vaccines introduce mRNA (messenger RNA) into your muscle cells. The cells then reproduce the spike protein. These vaccines are, therefore, a form of gene therapy.

    Fauci has said that the recent surge in infections is a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” that 99% of deaths were unvaccinated. But that’s another lie. The CDC’s own data indicated that 15% of fatalities occurred among the unvaccinated during the period in question. There’s reason to believe the actual figures are higher.

    But the demands for universal vaccination continue. The American Medical Association (AMA) has reported that 96% of practicing physicians are fully vaccinated, based on a poll of 300 respondents.

    The point is to try to convince those who aren’t vaccinated that if almost all doctors are vaccinated, you should be too. But a separate survey of 700 participants conducted by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) revealed that nearly 60% of respondents said they were not “fully vaccinated.”

    Which numbers do you believe are more likely?

    Cheap, Effective Therapeutics Are Suppressed

    At the same time, health authorities have suppressed cheap, effective therapeutics like Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine that can significantly reduce COVID hospitalizations and deaths. These drugs have been around for decades and are extremely safe.

    But the alphabet soup of health agencies says they need more testing before they can be approved. Yet these are the same people who are shoving experimental gene therapy down people’s throats, which were rushed through on an emergency basis without the usual testing that takes years.

    Any health professional who cites the benefits of these therapeutics can be banned from social media, despite numerous clinical studies that demonstrate their effectiveness, especially if used in the early stages of illness. They aren’t magic bullets, but the data indicate they provide substantial benefit.

    Why are public health authorities so determined to suppress these cheap but effective therapeutics? Well, you might want to follow the money.

    The FDA granted emergency use approval for the vaccines. But for the FDA to grant that emergency approval, “no formally approved alternatives” can be available at the time.

    If these other therapeutics were deemed effective, the vaccines couldn’t be rushed through on an emergency basis. And a lot of powerful interests stood to profit from the vaccines. They wouldn’t profit from off-patent therapeutic drugs that might cost pennies per pill.

    Meanwhile, the push for new lockdowns, universal vaccination and vaccine passports continues.

    It’s a Brave New World, and it’s not going away soon.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/08/2021 – 20:30

  • Covid Booster Shots Coming "Soon" Fauci Tells CNN
    Covid Booster Shots Coming “Soon” Fauci Tells CNN

    It’s no longer a matter of if but when the US will mandate booster shots to those already vaccinated.

    Speaking to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Anthony Fauci who has managed to last at least a few weeks since a major flip-flop, said Covid-19 vaccine booster shots should be given “reasonably soon” to people with weakened immune systems.

    “We need to look at them in a different light. We would certainly be boosting those people before we boost the general population that’s been vaccinated, and we should be doing that reasonably soon.”

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    It wasn’t clear who would make the determination which potential subjects have a weakened vaccine system: perhaps Apple will comb through all American iPhones as part of its latest crackdown on personal privacy and alert the proper authorities if it finds a white blood cell count below a given (constantly changing, because this is after all “science”) threshold.

    Fauci spoke as debate grows over “breakthrough” infections among fully vaccinated people and whether approval should be given for booster shots. On Sunday, Israel, the first nation to roll out booster shots widely, said it had given more than 420,000 third shots to people 60 and over. At least 14 Israelis have already caught Covid-19 after having been injected with a booster shot, suggesting that the booster shot will be the first of many, and will likely last all the way through the mid-term elections because, well, mail-in ballots next November.

    Fauci said most people who have compromised immune systems, including those with organ transplants or who are on chemotherapy, “never did get an adequate response” from their Covid-19 vaccination. This is yet another example of US “scientists” moving the goalposts in real time, and they will keep on moving that much is guaranteed: when asked if other groups should get booster shots, Fauci said the CDC and Prevention is ready to give such recommendations “as soon as” they see clear evidence to do so from the data.

    As for the kind of data the CDC will be looking for, Fauci said that the CDC has been tracking the level of durability of protection for the elderly, those in nursing homes and young people, month by month. “As soon as they see that level of durability of protection goes down, then you will see the recommendation to vaccinate those individuals.”

    Speaking one day after Barack Obama’ epic birthday bash (despite it being shrunk for just the closest family and friends), Fauci said that health officials don’t take breakthrough infections “lightly,” warning that the delta variant which is more contagious and is fueling the surge of U.S. cases to more than 100,000 a day, will produce “more” breakthrough cases. Luckily, everyone inside the Barack Birthday Bash tent is exempt from such risks.

    And speaking of furiously moving goalposts, Fauci said the Delta variant presents the additional problem that vaccinated people can also transmit the virus to someone else. That has led to the CDC revising its mask guidelines recently. But, he stressed: “The vaccines are still doing what you originally want them to do — to keep you out of the hospital to prevent you from getting seriously ill.”

    Actually, what the CDC “originally” wanted the vaccines to do, was to prevent those who were jabbed from infecting others. Only later did we learn that too was a fabrication.

    Finally, Fauci reminded viewers that all Covid-19 vaccines remains experimental although he assured his pals at CNN that a full approval could arrive “within the next few weeks.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/08/2021 – 20:05

  • Goldman Slashes China GDP On Delta Spread, Warns Of Inflation Spike Risk On "Supply-Chain Spillovers"
    Goldman Slashes China GDP On Delta Spread, Warns Of Inflation Spike Risk On “Supply-Chain Spillovers”

    While the rest of the developed world is scrambling to reverse the most recent spike in covid cases, attention is increasingly turning to China where the current Delta variant-driven outbreak has affected more regions than the winter resurgence, with 144 mid- to high-risk districts scattered over 11 provinces (vs. 72 districts over six provinces during the winter) as the following chart from Morgan Stanley shows.

    While the case count is still relatively modest…

    … the more transmissible nature of the variant and China’s Covid-zero approach indicate that economic impact is inevitable. Evident of this, in addition to stringent lockdowns and travel restrictions in higher-risk regions, most low-risk regions have also imposed precautionary social-distancing measures in entertainment venues.

    Echoing this downbeat take, Bloomberg commentator Ye Xie writes that “the delta variant adds to downside risks for the economy” noting that “the regulatory tightening adds to downside risk for China’s economy just as the Covid-19 virus reemerged. China began imposing travel restrictions as the delta variant fueled the nation’s broadest outbreak in more than a year. The dimmed growth outlook sent bonds rallying, pushing 10-year yields down for a seventh straight week, the longest decline since 2018. Meanwhile, the crisis at China Evergrande deepened, with its bonds dropping to new record lows.”

    In this context, shortly after Nomura trimmed its Chinese economic forecast, late last week Morgan Stanley also cut its China economic forecast – just before the latest disappointing trade data was released out of Beijing on Saturday which saw sequential declines in both imports and exports…

    … and the bank now expects 3Q GDP to soften to 5.0% 2Y CAGR (vs. 5.5% in 2Q and 5.0% in 1Q), which corresponds to 5.1% YoY and 1.6% QoQ SAAR. According to the bank’s China economist Robin Xing, “the downward revision is mainly attributable to a weaker service consumption including travel, catering and entertainment.” That said, Xing expects 4Q GDP to rebound to 5.5% 2Y CAGR (or 4.5% YoY), considering: 1) backloaded fiscal support and infrastructure investment; and 2) a mild rebound in service growth conditional on stable domestic virus situation. Consequently, Morgan Stanley lowered its full-year GDP growth forecast by 50bp to 8.2%, with below-trend consumption growth as the lingering elevated uncertainty over the virus situation would cap hiring in service sectors below full employment

    Fast forward to Sunday, when – never too far behind the curve – Goldman’s China economists also took the machete to their GDP forecasts, writing that with the virus spreading to many of China’s provinces and local governments reacting swiftly to control the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant, “we have begun to see softening in national aggregate data.”

    Similar to Morgan Stanley, Goldman slashed its Q3 real GDP forecast by 3.5% to 2.3% Q/Q  (vs. 5.8% previously), even if – similar to MS – Goldman also predicted an offsetting hike to Q4 GDO growth which is expected to benefit from both activity normalization after the Q3 outbreak and policy support: “wWe revise up our Q4 real GDP forecast to 8.5% qoq ar (vs. 5.8% previously). This leaves our full-year 2021 projection modestly lower at 8.3% yoy (vs. 8.6% previously).”

    Why just a modest one-quarter drip in GDP, and subsequent renormalization? The bank explains:

    Our forecasts assume the government brings the virus outbreak under control in about a month and the virus outbreak and related control measures mainly hit service activities. Industrial activities appeared less affected as of early August. Even in Nanjing where restrictions are arguably among the tightest, industrial companies have managed to maintain operations. But we would closely monitor high-frequency indicators such as steel demand and listed companies’ guidance to see if there are signs of industrial activity disruptions at the national level.

    Whether Goldman is right that the Chinese speedbump will last just one quarter is debatable, but a bigger problem emerges when looking at the potential for global supply chains to be snarled further, with Goldman’s chief economist Jan Hatzius writing in a separate report that while he expects the direct impact of the Delta variant on the US economy to consist mainly of a delay in the final steps of reopening, rather than a major reversal, “many Asia Pacific economies have imposed tighter restrictions that in some cases have included factory closures, raising the risk of negative spillovers at a time when supply chain disruptions are already at record levels.”

    Why does this matter? Because as Haztius explains, significant “downside risks are possible if new restrictions constrain semiconductor or auto production in the region, or if China adopts tighter restrictions that affect exports to the US of several currently constrained goods” which could lead to further supply chain blockages, to wit:

    Any setbacks in Asia could spill over to the US at a time when supply chain disruptions are already the most severe and widespread in decades, as shown in Exhibit 3. These supply-side problems accounted for much of the disappointment to our initial Q2 GDP growth expectations and have lingered into Q3

    To narrow in on current vulnerabilities where Delta-related supply disruptions pose the greatest risk, the chart below shows the share of US imports from Asia Pacific economies for several intermediate inputs and consumer goods that have been in short supply recently.

    Here, Goldman highlights three key risks.

    • First, Asia Pacific countries account for about half of the semiconductors used in the US. Our sector analysts do not expect shutdowns of semiconductor plants themselves because cleanliness standards are exceptionally high even in normal times, but the plants rely on a long supply chain in the region that could be vulnerable to tighter restrictions. The final packaging and export steps also pose some risk.
    • Second, the US imports just under 20% of its autos from the Asia Pacific region. Our sector analysts see some risk that auto parts producers in Southeast Asian countries with especially stringent lockdowns could further reduce production in Japan, where Toyota has already announced a brief production halt. Any reduction in auto exports to the US would worsen already tight new auto inventories in the US.
    • Third, US imports from China account for 7-9% of domestic use of several vulnerable goods, including plastics, semiconductors, furniture, and apparel. If China—which is also experiencing supply chain challenges related to weather and flooding in July—needs to adopt tighter measures that hamper either production or exports, the US could also see moderate negative spillover effects in these areas.

    But the biggest threat of all, in a time of “transitory inflation” when everyone is keeping one eye on stratospheric trans-Pacific container shipping rates which ensure far higher inflation until there is significant renormalization…

    … is that “any setbacks in the Asia Pacific region could also pose upside inflation risk, especially for autos and other goods that require semiconductors. Port closures or stricter control measures at ports could also put further upward pressure on shipping costs, which are already very high.” Hatzius lists three specific inflation risks from extended Delta-related restrictions in China and Asia-Pacific:

    • First, further delays in the rebuild of auto inventories would push back the timeline for new and used car price normalization.
    • Second, any further hit to semiconductor output could raise prices on a range of consumer electronics that require them.
    • Third, port closures or stricter virus control measures at ports could further increase shipping costs from East Asia to the US, which are already extremely high due to container shortages and remaining restrictions on international transport services.

    In other words, if China really wants to tighten the screws on the Biden admin and send already soaring US prices into orbit, all it has to do is develop a sudden case of the “Delties”, shut down its ports for a few weeks and watch as the US screams in terror as “transitory” hyperinflation takes hold.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/08/2021 – 19:40

  • Gold Flash Crashes By Almost $100 As $4 Billion In Sell Orders Hit
    Gold Flash Crashes By Almost $100 As $4 Billion In Sell Orders Hit

    In the liquidity void that follows the resumption of futures trading, and which saw US futures trade modestly lower, a sudden burst of selling in the gold futures contract sent Gold pries plunging to as low as $1,677.0 or almost $100 lower from the Friday close of $1,761.50.

    Together with Friday’s post-payroll plunge, this has been the biggest 2-day drop in gold (in dollar terms) since the March 2020 crash.

    However, unlike Friday when gold moved in response to the spike in the dollar and the surge in yields…

    … there was no offsetting move in any securities after the futures reopen (the 10Y traded back over 1.30% but the move was orderly) when over $4 billion notional, or some 24,000 contracts…

    … were suddenly and furiously dumped in a completely price-indiscriminate manner whose apparent intention was to nuke the entire bid-stack.

    While there was no news or even pair-trade correlation catalyst behind the move, technicians have noted a “death cross” alongside a technical breach of USD 1,750/oz which triggered liquidation stops to the downside.

    Silver was also slammed…

    And equity futures have tumbled to Friday’s post-payrolls lows…

    For now, gold appears to have stabilized around the $1700 level.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/08/2021 – 19:22

  • University Spends $50,000 Removing "Racist" Boulder From Campus
    University Spends $50,000 Removing “Racist” Boulder From Campus

    Apparently a ‘racist’ boulder was making students at the University of Wisconsin’s Madison campus feel uncomfortable to the point that the school actually spent some $50,000 removing it.

    The story is so utterly absurd that we wish we could claim satire, but as Fox News writes, “Chamberlin Rock, which rests atop Observatory Hill, is named after a 19th Century geologist and former university president, Thomas Crowder Chamberlin, whose work centered on glacial deposits, according to a bio on the university’s website.”

    Wisconsin State Journal via AP

    Controversy erupted after a nearly 100-year-old news article indicated that the dark colored rock had in the 1920s been often referred to using a racial slur. It was also believed the Ku Klux Klan had been active on campus at the time. 

    Activist student groups had in recent years dubbed the rock a “symbol of racism” and a “racist monument”. Last week the campus brought in a crane to remove it… because “inclusivity” etc.

    “The Black Student Union led the call to remove the rock last summer,” an ABC report described. “Crews began removing it just before 7 a.m. Friday, securing it with straps and lifting it with a crane before moving it to a flatbed truck. It cost an estimated $50,000, covered by private donations, to remove.”

    The “racist rock” goes away, students can breath easy, apparently, Wisconsin State Journal via AP

    The rock’s removal has garnered national media attention, which points to just how over-the-top stupid and absurd the whole thing is, also summarized unironically in this quote: “Juliana Bennett, a senior and a campus representative on the Madison City Council, said removing the rock signaled a small step toward a more inclusive campus.”

    Perhaps inadvertently highlighting that grown adults are now calling inanimate natural objects “racist” – here’s arguably the dumbest quote among them all…

    Kenneth Owens, a Madison resident, said he was glad to see the rock go,

    “It’s not the rock’s fault that it got that terrible and unfortunate nickname,” he said. “But the fact that it’s… being moved shows that the world is getting a little better today.”

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

    We await the moment it gets “discovered” that the very soil under the students’ feet is “racist”. Maybe they’ll just uproot and destroy the campus altogether, and everyone can go home and just be done with it all.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/08/2021 – 19:15

  • Israel's Ambassador Issues Explicit Call For 'Regime Change' In Iran
    Israel’s Ambassador Issues Explicit Call For ‘Regime Change’ In Iran

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    Israel’s Ambassador to the US and UN Gilad Erdan said Friday that Israel would ultimately like to see regime change in Iran.

    “In the end, we would ultimately like to see [the government] overthrown and [for there to be] regime change,” Erdan told Israel’s Army Radio when asked about his government’s Iran policy.

    It’s no secret Israel is hostile to the Iranian government, but Israeli officials have previously avoided such explicit calls for regime change. What Erdan said was interpreted by The Times of Israel as “one of the most far-reaching comments by an Israeli official in favor of regime change in Tehran.”

    Illustrative: prior airstrikes in Syria

    Erdan said he was working to rally the world against Iran. “We would like to see actions that are much more determined from the international community against Iran,’ he said. “We hope the international community will draw this conclusion as soon as possible because we need to put an end to this murderousness.”

    Erdan’s comments come after a week of almost daily threats from Israeli officials that they might take military action against Iran over a deadly attack on the Mercer Street, an Israeli-linked ship that was hit by a drone last week. The attack killed two crew members; a British national and a Romanian.

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

    Israel, the US, and now the G7 have all blamed Iran for the Mercer Street attack, but Tehran maintains its innocence. On Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Israel was prepared to attack Iran and urged that other countries also take action.

    “We are at a point where we need to take military action against Iran. The world needs to take action against Iran now,” he said.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/08/2021 – 18:50

  • A Detailed Look At Who Is Buying Bitcoin Here
    A Detailed Look At Who Is Buying Bitcoin Here

    The past two weeks saw some of the strongest crypto returns this year, with the broader crypto index rallying around 25%. The move started when bitcoin (BTC) rocketed 15% in a two-hour window during early Asia time on Monday 26 July.

    As we noted at the time, a break of the $35,000 level triggered stops on short positions, undermining record-high cash-margined futures open interest.

    While many stories tried to tie the move to Amazon.com’s posting of a job advert for a lead crypto analyst, this was not the catalyst as the news had first hid two days earlier, and the company was quick to quash speculation that it suggested they would consider accepting BTC payments.

    Echoing our take that the move was a squeeze and technical in nature, UBS strategist Alexey Ostapchuk writes in his weekly “Crypto Compass” note that “underlining its technical nature, price momentum ran out of steam right at the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement point, extending a clear  downtrend from May which now becomes immediate resistance around 41k. Above that the 200dma comes in around 45k, then the 50.0% and 61.8% Fibos near 47k and 51k, respectively.”

    While the rest of the crypto space was dragged up in the buying frenzy, but Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ether (ETH) and XRP proved to be subsequent standouts

    Taking a modest tangent here, we look at a recent analysis by Copper.co of on-chain data which confirms UBS’ observations and reflects that small to medium investors have returned to accumulation ever since Bitcoin hit the $35k mark at the end of May. The fact that the  cryptocurrency dropped further to $30k was, by on-chain metric standards, seen as a cost-averaging opportunity. Simply said, retail buyers accumulated more.

    Digging deeper, Copper founds that since the start of this year, on-chain data shows that entity holding between 0 and 1 BTC increased by 137k Bitcoins, equivalent to 72% of newly mined supply. Meanwhile, miner balances have actually increased since the start of the year, meaning, not all mined Bitcoins have come to market.

    While it may seem that we’re speaking about small amounts of Bitcoin, context is important. These small amounts of accumulated Bitcoin are more than triple Tesla’s now infamous purchase. These investors have also accumulated more than MicroStrategies ballooned treasury of 105k Bitcoins. There is a key point to further consider. The demand by these investors has been and remains very consistent.

    In 2021 alone, entity holding between 0.01 and 0.1 BTC increased by over 40k Bitcoins. Between 0.1 and 1 BTC entity holdings saw a huge 86k increase. But more interesting is the fact that it was only on a few days of the year did these entity holdings decrease.

    This category of investors is seemingly price agnostic. Since the end of 2013 when Bitcoin hit over $1000 for the first time, these entity holdings never saw a month in decline. Since 2018, when Bitcoin met its top before declining from near $20k to $3k, entity holdings have grown by nearly 500k. Every month saw growth.

    So linear is the growth of smaller investors that Copper did some simple extrapolation on how retail might chip away at the supply, Satoshi-by Satoshi.

    What if found is that average monthly growth rates for entity holdings have been fairly close year-on-year (see chart 4). And considering the consistent level of growth since 2018, Copper assessed the market supply should these levels continue and long-term investors remain price agnostic. After all, a near $65k BTC didn’t scare them off. Should growth continue at this pace up until Bitcoin reaches its next miner reward halving, entity holdings could grow to nearly 1.7mn BTC from just under 1mn today. This would account for nearly 75% of new mined Bitcoin (see chart 5).

    Of course, there will come a time when price will matter. But to date, this can’t actually be seen by smaller investors. Growth has been particularly steady. And these entity holdings have increased more in the first seven months of 2021 than in all of 2020 already – at sky high prices (see chart 6).

    This doesn’t account for institutional buyers. And what also needs to be considered despite not having actual figures, is that there is Bitcoin sitting on exchanges that also represents retail investors are accumulating.

    The bottom line:

    Small investors can make a big difference. Are these investors potentially new entrants attempting to gain a small slice of Bitcoin? Or perhaps traders rotating profits into Bitcoin? Listening in on the crypto community can seem particularly obnoxious to proponents of the traditional investor class. Every dip is an opportunity no matter the losses. Hold on to bitcoin for life. The institutions are coming. But what’s scarier is that so far, despite grandiose claims, they’ve been fairly accurate. One thing that time will test is the concept of “Stacking Sats”. Maybe they know something. So far, the data supports it.

    To be sure, some of these moves can be traced to idiosyncratic developments: the launch of SmartBCH sidechain, Ethereum’s widely anticipated and just completed ‘London’ hard fork, and Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity service. Notably, ETH is following the pattern it mapped around its seven previous upgrades quite closely.

    It is also worth noting that with Ethereum volumes now surpassing those of bitcoin…

    … it may be just a matter of time before ETH becomes the biggest cryptocurrency and has a lower volatility than its historically larger peer…

    … especially if ETH is subject to a major gamma squeeze: as shown below, the bulk of long-dated ETH option strikes are in the 5000 and higher range, while most short-dated bitcoin option straks are below the current spot price.

    Still, as Ostapchuk notes, “it’s worth recognizing that these are all bigger market-cap coins which tend to be less volatile so would normally be laggards in any bull market.That this is instead an environment where market interest is unusually concentrated probably speaks of the hangover that is still affecting retail interest. It may also say something about attention focusing on better prospects for institutional adoption in the face of greater legal clarity.”

    As the UBS strategist goes on, headline comparisons and on-chain metrics further illustrate some of these dynamics. Compared with BTC and ETH, most altcoins remain substantially further from their recent all-time highs. 

    Which brings us to arguably the key question: who’s buying?

    According to Ostapchuk, the main bitcoin buyers continue to be medium-size whales, holders of 10k-100k coins, generally at the expense of bigger entities. Remarkably, the smallest cohort of users that own less than 1 BTC saw the next-largest increase in holdings having absorbed 131% of new bitcoins minted over the last fortnight.

    Furthermore, the recovery in on-chain activity was primarily driven by receiving entities and accumulation addresses, with the former count now back at January levels and the latter reaching a new peak. Meanwhile, exchange balances and the number of pure senders remain low amid sub-par transaction volumes.

    Separately, as noted recently, mining difficulty has rebounded with prices but remains well below its pre-China crackdown levels, lifting BTC issuance back to mid-May rates of growth.

    As Ostapchuk summarizes, “such things generally accord with our composite measures that show trendiness scores below normal and no major coin prices screening as particularly stretched.”

    * * *

    Away from market dynamics and looking at the news front, UBS points to a few holdouts like ShapeShift are going to extreme lengths to remain outside the regulatory fold. But most service providers are scrambling to become more compliant. Thus, Binance and FTX cut permitted maximum trading leverage on their platforms from 100 times or more to ‘just’ 20 so as to deflect attention and enhance consumer protection. Both face increased scrutiny over the ‘open secret‘ that they have thus far done little to prevent US consumers from trading through their unregulated offshore entities. This was one of the points which Gary Gensler emphasized in a speech at the Aspen Security Forum on Tuesday. He also said that securing compliance from trading, lending and DeFi platforms should be a legislative priority, and that the Howey Test remained sufficient and suggested many digital assets are indeed securities so require registration. On a more accommodating note, he said he was looking forward to receiving SEC staff reviews of crypto ETF applications, especially those linked to BTC futures.

    BlockFi also received a cease and desist order for new account openings in the first such clampdown on a platform that pays users a substantial (4-8% annualized) yield for staking cryptocurrencies that are then used to provide dollar loans. The New Jersey Attorney General alleges that these represent unregistered securities, and other states like Alabama and Texas have since followed suit. Such action is already reverberating across the sector. Another well-known industry name, Uniswap, delisted around 100 offerings on its trading interface, including tokenized stocks, options and indices.

    The long-running Department of Justice investigation into Tether ratcheted up a notch just after the Fed and Treasury signalled their heightened focus on stablecoins. Bloomberg reported that executives there may have committed bank fraud by hiding the fact that their early business dealings were linked to crypto. Paxos also turned on its larger rivals in a scathing blog post. Fully 96% of its reserves are held in FDIC-insured cash deposits along with a further 4% in US Treasury bills; the equivalents for USDT and USDC are 4%+3% and 61%, respectively, with much of the remainder being unsecured commercial paper, secured loans, corporate bonds and some longer-dated Treasuries.

    We got two surprises out of Washington. One was wrapped up in the much anticipated bipartisan infrastructure bill, which now incorporates enhanced supervision of digital asset transactions via the IRS to fund around USD28bn of the USD550bn in new outlays. Lobbying efforts by the Bitcoin Association and others succeeded in tightening the definition of ‘brokers‘ in the final draft, though the USD10,000 threshold on transaction reporting stands. Some further changes are inevitable as it works its way through the Senate and the requirements won’t go into effect until 2023. But this clearly marks a ratcheting up of the pressure on VASPs, who have hitherto been enjoying an unfair advantage over their legacy financial sector peers. The other twist came from Don Beyer (D-VA), chairman of Congress’ Joint Economic Committee. He introduced a bill ‘seemingly out of fresh air’ that seeks to establish comprehensive oversight of crypto industry. Observers describe it as remarkably well researched and the most impressive piece of such legislation to date, making it too worth watching even if its immediate prospects for becoming law are less clear.

    Finally, a handful of useful crypto charts courtesy of UBS:

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/08/2021 – 18:25

  • Knowing "When To Fold 'Em" Is Hard
    Knowing “When To Fold ‘Em” Is Hard

    By Nicholas Colas of DataTrek Research

    Highly skilled equity managers know how to find great stocks, but they are not so good at knowing which positions to sell. That observation comes from a recently published paper which is the subject of this post. The problem here is one of attention. Great PMs spend a lot of time looking for the next big idea and much less on evaluating their current positions. When they sell, that information gap leaves them open to unproductive mental shortcuts. Good news: the paper’s findings point to 4 hacks around this problem.

    * * *

    The decision to buy or sell a stock should be based on the same question: how will it perform in the future? Therefore, you’d think that highly skilled portfolio managers would be good at both. They should (generally) pick winners and sell them when they’re about to stop working.

    A recently published NBER paper shows that’s not what happens, however. The paper’s title, “Selling Fast and Buying Slow: Heuristics and Trading Performance of Institutional Investors”, is a nod to Daniel Kahneman’s book “Thinking, Fast and Slow”. We love a good behavioral finance story, so the paper’s findings and our thoughts on them are the subject of this week’s Story Time Thursday.

    The study, done by researchers at the University of Chicago, MIT, and UK data firm Inalytics, (link to the full paper below) looked at buy and sell decisions across 783 actively managed portfolios from 2000 to 2016. All portfolios were unlevered and actively managed by institutional, long-only managers who make concentrated bets (average of 80 positions at any one time). They outperformed by an average of 2.6 points/year over their benchmarks during this period, so we’re talking about a skillful group of individuals.

    This graph summarizes the researchers’ key finding: these PMs were great at buying the right stocks, but not so great at knowing which names to sell out of their portfolios. The left side bar graph shows that these managers on average picked winners versus their benchmark. Great, but … The graph on the right shows they would have been better off either 1) selling a small part of every name in their portfolio or 2) randomly picking a name to ax, rather than selling the name they chose to cut loose.

    The paper’s authors believe that “the stark discrepancy in performance between buys and sells is consistent with an asymmetric allocation of limited cognitive resources towards buying and away from selling”. In layman’s language, there’s only 24 hours in a day and PMs spend most of that time looking for the next hot investment idea. That leaves less time for keeping up on the names they already own. When pressed to sell out a position, therefore, they lean on counterproductive heuristics (mental shortcuts).

    As odd as all this sounds, the realities of running a money management business do (sort of) demand it:

    • Describing new and interesting investment ideas is a huge part of the marketing process for investment managers. Many fund-raising meetings start with the allocator asking “OK, tell me a stock story I haven’t heard before”. Of course a PM is going to allocate more time to finding a new name rather than having to discuss something they’ve owned for a while and will therefore seem stale.
    • Wall Street doesn’t care about counterfactuals. If a PM has a winning record, they will generally be able to find new clients. “You’re a great money manager, but you sell the wrong names so I’m not giving you any money to manage” has never been said by anyone, ever.

    Even with that cynical (but absolutely correct) second point, the paper does still offer 4 actionable observations that we believe are applicable to anyone looking to improve portfolio performance:

    1. When a good investment process leads you to an idea, do all the work up-front and size it appropriately (i.e., no “cheerleading positions” – make it count). Selling low-conviction ideas (as measured by portfolio weighting) was responsible for most of the underperformance the researchers found in the data. These were names the PM had put on the sheet in a small way, but had not felt confident enough to size up. When they found something they thought was better, they ditched the small holding to fund their next purchase.
    2. It can often be a good idea to wait for the next earnings report before selling. Researchers found that sales made on earnings announcement dates “substantially” outperformed the random-sale counterfactual (randomly selling a name or just cutting back the entire portfolio evenly). Oddly, purchases made on earnings announcement days saw no net outperformance versus other buys.
    3. Don’t just focus on whether a name has been a big winner/loser for you when deciding to sell. Past performance is not a predictor of future returns, but the PMs studied still sold outliers (big winners or big losers) at rates “more than 50 percent higher” than other positions. As with the prior point, this bias did not exist when PMs made Buy decisions.
    4. Value investors beware; the paper found that “funds that score higher on value appear to underperform most in selling”. Momentum strategy portfolios, by contrast, had no selling underperformance over the 1 year after their sales.

    The bottom line to all this: where the head goes, the portfolio follows. Finding new ideas to own requires a disciplined approach, but so does making sales. The paper’s key finding is that even highly skilled managers mentally overweight “buying” and underweight “selling”, leaving them open to a range of unproductive heuristics when deciding to unload a position. The good news – for them and for all investors – is that correcting this imbalance comes down to just paying a bit more attention to what’s already in the portfolio.

    Source:

    Selling Fast and Buying Slow: Heuristics and Trading Performance of Institutional Investors, by Akepanidtaworn, Di Mascio, Imas and Schmidt, NBER 2021: https://www.nber.org/papers/w29076

    NPR article about the paper and its findings: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/08/03/1022840229/why-even-the-most-elite-investors-do-dumb-things-when-investing

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/08/2021 – 18:00

  • NYC Suburban Home Sales Plunge As Shortages Persist
    NYC Suburban Home Sales Plunge As Shortages Persist

    Even though we recently noted US housing supply could be finally catching up with demand, that doesn’t seem to be the case for single-family homes in New York City’s suburbs. The great exodus from the city for rural life continues, but there are not enough homes on the market, which dampened sales last month.

    New York City’s suburbs have been in a total euphoric buying frenzy over the last year due to an abundance of city dwellers buying up rural homes. This sparked insane bidding wars and homes that sold routinely over asking prices, many with cash offers that were willing to waive inspections and seller costs. 

    Bloomberg cites a new report from appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate that says for the first time in more than a year, home sales for July in New York City’s suburbs declined.

    Single-family home sales in Westchester County fell 36% and 31% in Long Island last month over the same period the previous year, the first decline since June 2020. Signed deals in the Hamptons fell for the second consecutive time since May 2020, with contracts in July diving as much as 61%. 

    The lack of homes with high demand among city dwellers plus low-interest rates has kept a bid in New York City’s suburban markets. A hybrid workweek has allowed many to work at home and float between the office. As long as a good internet connection in the suburbs can handle Bloomberg Terminals and Zoom calls, demand for suburban homes will continue. 

    Only 150 homes were listed last month in the Hamptons, 36% fewer than a year ago. Westchester recorded a 48% drop in new listings while Long Island listings sank 18%. 

    Scott Durkin, chief executive officer of Douglas Elliman, said new construction is needed to satisfy demand. Those familiar with purchasing land and building a home from scratch understand that permitting to the actual build can take anywhere between 1-2 years. 

    There was one exception, Greenwich saw a 10% rise in signed deals last month, though listings fell 8.5%. 

    Home sales in New York City’s suburbs are sliding as many are unwilling to chase prices higher. This market will eventually correct the supply imbalance, and prices will adjust accordingly. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/08/2021 – 17:35

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Today’s News 8th August 2021

  • Chinese Regime Has Stolen Enough Data To Compile "Dossier" On All Americans: Former Official
    Chinese Regime Has Stolen Enough Data To Compile “Dossier” On All Americans: Former Official

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    A former U.S. national security official warned that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is stealing data to compile a “dossier” on every American adult and may use coercive means to influence private citizens and political leaders.

    Part of the Chinese Communist Party’s army of “internet trolls” in an undated leaked photo, in Fangzheng County, Harbin City, China. (The Epoch Times)

    During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing this week, former Trump deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger said the CCP has stolen Americans’ sensitive data via illicit methods, including cyber theft and hacking.

    “Assembling dossiers on people has always been a feature of Leninist regimes, but Beijing’s penetration of digital networks worldwide, including using 5G networks … has really taken this to a new level,” Pottinger said, referring to former Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin.

    With the information the CCP has obtained, he said, it “now compiles dossiers on millions of foreign citizens around the world, using the material that it gathers to influence, target, intimidate, reward, blackmail, flatter, humiliate, and ultimately divide and conquer.”

    Going a step further, Pottinger sounded the alarm that “Beijing’s stolen sensitive data is sufficient to build a dossier on every single American adult and on many of our children too, who are fair game under Beijing’s rules of political warfare.”

    Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger arrives for a Medal of Honor ceremony for Sergeant Major Thomas P. Payne, United States Army, for conspicuous gallantry in the East Room of the White House in Washington, on Sept. 11, 2020. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

    For years, the CCP has engaged in campaigns to steal U.S. intellectual property and technology secrets in a bid to militarily and geopolitically gain an advantage over the West.

    The regime has also carried out significant hacks against private entities, including last month’s alleged cyberattack against Microsoft—which the United States and its allies blamed on the Chinese Ministry of State Security. In addition, four Chinese nationals were charged by the Department of Justice over a number of separate cyber intrusions that targeted corporate and research secrets.

    During the hearing, the former director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, William Evanina, said that the CCP is using a “whole of country approach” to “leverage, infiltrate, influence, and steal from every corner of U.S. success.”

    “It is estimated that 80 percent of American adults have had all of their personal data stolen by the CCP, and the other 20 percent most of their personal data,” he said.

    Furthermore, he said that the Chinese regime poses an “existential threat” to the United States and is employing “complex, pernicious, strategic, and aggressive” tactics to accomplish its goals.

    William Evanina, nominee to be director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, testifies during a hearing held by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in Washington, on May 15, 2018. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

    The Chinese regime is even working to illegally obtain data to create artificial intelligence, research, and development programs to bolster its military and economic goals.

    After the recent cyberattacks, Biden administration officials offered sharp criticism against Beijing’s state-sponsored hacks, including intellectual property theft. But the critical words were not accompanied by any punitive actions including diplomatic expulsions or sanctions against the regime.

    Separately, Pottinger also warned about the CCP’s so-called “United Front” efforts to spread propaganda and influence decision-makers around the world and within the United States.

    “The CCP’s 95 million members are all required to participate in the system, which has many different branches. The United Front Work Department alone, which is just one branch, has three times as many cadres as the U.S. State Department has foreign service officers,” he noted.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/08/2021 – 00:00

  • Visualizing US Military Spending Relative To The Rest Of The World
    Visualizing US Military Spending Relative To The Rest Of The World

    The U.S. is well known for its immense military and defense spending. In 2020, the nation ranked #1 in the world in terms of military spending at $778 billion outpacing the next nine highest spenders, which came out to $703.6 billion combined.

    As Visual Capitalist’s Avery Koop notes, one factor is the military–industrial complex (MIC) which feeds into the U.S.’ defense dominance, with a longstanding tradition of the defense and weapons industries working closely with the U.S. government and armed forces.

    A Breakdown of U.S. Military Spending

    So what are these billions being spent on?

    The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) laid out the spending plan when they made their 2020 budget proposal. It included a few main areas to invest in, including:

    • Air – $57.7 billion

    • Maritime – $34.7 billion

    • Ground systems – $14.6 billion

    • Space – $14.1 billion

    • Cyber – $6.9 billion

    This is just the tip of the iceberg. The overall goal of the 2020 budget was to promote innovation and to strengthen competitive advantages to increase the military’s ‘readiness’ factor. Additionally, in an effort to sustain forces, a military pay raise of 3.1% was included.

    Military Maintenance

    Surprisingly, however, the U.S. actually does not have the largest military in the world in terms of personnel, and some of the other top 10 countries have larger or similarly sized militaries spread across different branches.

    Russia is only the fourth highest spender, but they have the largest military size of any of the top 10, at around 5.9 million personnel.

    All of these countries have militaries that number in the hundreds of thousands to millions, and many are a part of treaties and alliances that require them to upkeep their armies and weaponry — but none spend half as much as the U.S.

    To this day, the U.S. is actively involved in a number of overseas conflicts and maintains a large military force with millions of personnel. Spending on areas such as weaponry and wages is significant in order to maintain jobs, as well as national defense.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/07/2021 – 23:30

  • 160 San Francisco Sheriffs' Deputies Threaten To Resign Due To Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccine
    160 San Francisco Sheriffs’ Deputies Threaten To Resign Due To Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccine

    Authored by Enrico Trigoso via The Epoch Times,

    A number of San Francisco deputies will seek employment elsewhere or opt for early retirement if they are required to take the COVID-19 vaccine under a new imposed vaccine mandate, warned the city’s sheriff’s union on Friday.

    San Francisco officials recently announced that all city employees will have to be vaccinated or face possible termination.

    There are about 35,000 city employees. Religious exemptions or medical reasons may let some bypass the mandate, but those who refuse the shot and have no exemption will encounter consequences that could result in termination, reported the San Francisco Chronicle.

    The San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs’ Association published a statement on Facebook, saying they always supported safety measures against the virus but the issue at hand is that about 160 of their Sheriffs don’t want to take the vaccine due to their beliefs.

    “The problem we are faced with now is the strict San Francisco Mandate which is vaccinate or be terminated. If deputy sheriffs are forced to vaccinate a percentage of them will retire early or seek employment elsewhere,” reads the statement.

    The Sheriff’s Association notes that 160 of their 700 deputies are unwilling to take the vaccine, and that they can’t afford to lose them since they already have the lowest-ever staffing due to applicant testing restrictions imposed by the mayor.

    “The majority of Deputy Sheriffs are vaccinated. Approximately 160 out 700 Deputy Sheriffs are not vaccinated [and] prefer to mask and test weekly instead of being vaccinated due to religious and other beliefs. Currently, the staffing at the SFSO is at the lowest it has ever been due to the past 9-month applicant testing restriction placed on the Sheriff’s Office by the May.”

    The Epoch Times reached out to the San Francisco mayor for comment.

    “It’s really a decision for the health and safety of our employees and our public that we serve,” the city’s director of human resources, Carol Isen, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

    San Francisco and six other counties in the Bay area have reinstated a mask mandate for all indoor public activities due to the appearance of the Delta variant.

    The mask mandate is to be obeyed by everyone, including vaccinated people, reported the Associated Press.

    “It is unfortunate we have to do this at this point in the pandemic. None of us wanted to be here,” Dr. George Han, deputy health officer for Santa Clara County said, “but the virus has changed.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/07/2021 – 23:00

  • Rich People Buying "Trophy Trees" And "Enormous Crystals" For Their Mansions
    Rich People Buying “Trophy Trees” And “Enormous Crystals” For Their Mansions

    Shortly after the virus pandemic struck, the Federal Reserve unleashed liquidity spigots to drive down borrowing costs and keep the economy from further collapsing. Much of the emergency bond-buying continues to this day and has greatly benefited wealthy people. 

    So much so that house prices are surging to stratospheric levels, along with stocks, bonds, antique cars, wine collections, and fancy artwork have also dramatically risen in price. 

    Over the last year, the world’s billionaires added more than $5 trillion to their wealth, with the wealthiest 2,755 people on earth amassing more than $13 trillion.

    With all this newfound wealth – what are some of the wealthiest people buying besides megayachts?

    Two buying trends this year are “trophy trees” and “enormous crystals.”  

    Mansion Global reports Michael Chen, a Los Angeles real estate developer, has bought a 150-year-old, 15-foot olive tree imported from Tuscany, which he calls the “tree of life.” The trophy tree sits in the middle of his $65 million Beverly Hills mansion.

    Source Joe Bryant

    In Miami, Fernando Wong Outdoor Living Design, a company that specializes in landscaping, said the trophy tree business is booming. The wealthy are demanding nondisclosure agreements to keep their horticultural endeavors super secret. 

    Besides exotic trees worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, the rich are also furnishing their homes with giant crystals.  

    According to Los Angeles Times, wealthy buyers purchase crystals sculpted into love seats and coffee tables to furnish their homes. 

    Mineral collector Peter Megaw said the global market for high-end crystals is becoming fine art, with scarcity driving prices higher for unique pieces. 

    Work-at-home and lockdowns turbocharged the craze for self-healing crystals that also create lavish decorations. 

    The wealthy are spending $125,000 amethyst coffee table or a $333,000 peach-colored quartz the size of a laundry basket. 

    Here’s a $45,000 amethyst throne. 

    A 900-pound quartz chair. 

    More fine crystal pieces. 

    Trophy trees and crystals, two buying trends of the super-wealthy this year.  

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/07/2021 – 22:30

  • "Trust The Science", They Said…
    “Trust The Science”, They Said…

    Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

    “I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

    “I have certain rules I live by. My first rule: I don’t believe anything the government tells me.” – George Carlin

    The pronouncements from the world’s favorite science troll, who hasn’t told the truth since March 2020 when he told the world masks were useless in stopping a virus from spreading, are coming fast and furious as more and more people ignore the fear propaganda. Alpha!!! Delta!!! and now Lambda!!! We’re all going to die unless we allow Big Pharma, with no liability for killing or maiming you with their experimental gene therapy, and totalitarian politicians to inject us with a concoction which doesn’t keep you from contracting covid or spreading covid. But it may kill you, give you a dose of blood clots, or a touch of myocarditis.

    Fauci, Walensky, Biden, Pasaki and the rest of the Biden apparatchiks are liars, frauds, and fear mongering whores for Big Pharma. Fauci is the father of covid. He created it with his illegal gain of function funding, partnering with the communist government of China and is responsible for all the death and economic destruction wrought over the last eighteen months. He should be tried, convicted and executed for crimes against humanity. History should lump him with the likes of Josef Mengele and other mass murders.

    He continues to lie on a daily basis and the cucks in the corporate propaganda media never question his lies or push back in any way. They are co-conspirators in this authoritarian attempt to override the Constitution and enslave you in a pharmacological techno gulag. The merger of Big Government with Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Finance and Big Corp endangers the rights, freedoms and liberties guaranteed to citizens under the U.S. Constitution.

    They are pushing the country towards inevitable violent conflict by using their powers of coercion to force people to inject a substance into their bodies they do not need and do not want. For what ultimate purpose, we do not know. But we do know it is not about your health or the health of others. The current fear narrative being peddled by Fauci and Biden is the dreaded Delta variant, previously known as the Indian variant. Did you ever wonder why they had to rename the Indian variant? The chart below is why.

    The panic porn media was running non-stop horror stories about India and the bodies piling up in the streets back in May. At that time less than 4% of the Indian population had been vaxxed. Even today it is only 7% of their 1.3 billion people. The talking heads, and Fauci, all pointed to India as a humanitarian tragedy in the making – using it as their fear tactic for getting the jab. But their narrative fell apart in a matter of weeks and you no longer hear about India on the nightly news.

    That’s because cases crashed by 90% in the two months from the peak in May. And guess what? It happened with no vaccine rollout. They did send tens of millions of doses of ivermectin out to the population. These FACTS do not support the approved narrative being spun by our contemptible corrupt leaders. This flu is seasonal. Cases, based on a flawed PCR test, are already highly questionable. And 40,000 cases per day in a country with four times the population of the U.S. is a non-event. India’s deaths peaked at about 4,000 per day in May and are now 500 per day, down 88% with virtually no one getting jabbed.

    How could India’s deaths per million (312) be 64% lower than the U.S. (866) when they have very few vaccinated, have a vast majority of their 1.3 billion people living in squalor, and have limited medical resources for the majority. Seems like a conundrum, and now you know why our pandemia panic patrol no longer speak about India. Just like they no longer speak about Sweden, because their no lockdown, no mask mandates, and no forced vaccination policies have worked spectacularly well, while not infringing upon the rights and freedoms of their citizens. These examples are an embarrassment to the Great Reset crowd and their agenda of controlling the masses through fear and threats.

    After the powers that be were forced to rename the Indian variant to the scarier foreboding Delta variant, it was time to launch a new fear marketing campaign in the UK, where Boris the Great fulfilled his Great Reset obligation to Schwab, Gates and the rest of the Davos elite by ramping up restrictions, lockdowns and vaccine passports. What a good little obedient puppet he has become.

    Cases, again based upon a PCR test just pulled from the market by the FDA, began to rise in early June. By mid-July they had already peaked, just as expected from a seasonal flu. They have now fallen by 50% from the peak. I bet you haven’t heard that on any propaganda spewing mainstream fake news media outlet. Twitter and Facebook would ban these facts and declare them misleading.

    A strange thing happened on the way to impending doom, as a teary eyed Walensky would say. Deaths with covid barely budged upward during this surge. When daily cases had reached 50,000 in January there were 1,200 deaths “with” covid per day. During this scary outbreak of the dreaded Delta variant, the average deaths per day has been 80, 93% below the January peak. This isn’t due to masks or lockdowns. The Delta variant is not more transmissible and it is far less deadly than the first strain. It’s the flu bro.

    You would think our “trust the science” gurus would actually observe what has actually happened in both India and the UK and give a fact based assessment to the American people. The Delta is far less lethal and nothing to be frightened about. Based on the facts, the cases will peak in early September and then fall precipitously thereafter. Delta is not scary. It’s not deadly. The cases are based upon a faulty PCR test that can’t tell the difference between the common cold, seasonal flu and covid. Real health experts would be telling people to calm down and stop worrying.

    The U.S. is currently averaging 100,000 cases per day, the highest since mid February. At that time 3,000 people per day were dying with covid. Currently 470 people are dying per day with covid, 84% below the mid February amount. Oh the horror!!! We already know, based on the facts, those dying are over 80 years old, morbidly obese, and/or have 5 co-morbidities. This horrific surge is nothing more than a fart in the wind. But that is not how our glorious leaders are treating this farce of a flu.

    This brings us to more “trusting the science”. These vaccines were hailed as the miracle to win the war against covid. Trump said so. Fauci said so. The executives at Pfizer, Moderna and J&J said so. They declared them 96% effective in keeping you from getting covid. There would just be a minuscule number of “breakthrough” cases. It’s more like a dam break of cases. They didn’t tout these drugs as reducing the symptoms of covid.

    There is no one who got the jabs who thought they would get covid after being vaxxed. Watching the cognitive dissonance being exhibited by the vaxxed is a wonder to behold. They cannot admit they were misled and bamboozled by Fauci and friends.They cannot admit they made a mistake and still don’t know the long term effects of this gene altering therapy. And this doesn’t even take in to account the 12,000 deaths, 70,000 serious injuries and 550,000 adverse reactions reported into the VAERS system from the vaccines. And these numbers are likely under-reported by a factor of at least three.

    The vaccine doesn’t keep you from catching covid, spreading covid or dying from covid. It doesn’t reduce the symptoms any more than ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine. The vaxxed can also carry a heavier viral load, making them even more dangerous. The anger which should be directed at the liars and frauds who touted this “cure” is instead being directed at those who choose to let their immune system do its job. The anger is being fomented by Biden and his acolytes blaming the current “surge” on those choosing to let their natural immunity work. More lies.

    And we have the proof. Israel, the most vaxxed country in the world, is experiencing a surge in cases among the vaxxed, while neighboring Palestine with virtually no one vaxxed is experiencing no surge. And now Israel is locking down again. Are the vaccines causing the Delta surge? You certainly won’t get an honest answer from Fauci & Pfizer. There are hundreds of billions in profits to be made. Just get that booster and all will be well.

    The totalitarians never let a good fake crisis go to waste. This faux flu crisis is being marketed to the hilt by those pressing their agenda of medical tyranny, backed by technological surveillance and tracking, and coordinated with mega-corporations and social media censorship police. Their agenda is deeply disturbing and Orwellian in nature. The almost hysterical lies and blather being uttered by Fauci, Walensky, their fawning media acolytes, tyrant governors, and bureaucrat government drones, clearly points toward a more nefarious goal. Nothing being implemented by the Federal government, state governments, or mega-corporations is based upon science, your health, or anyone else’s health.

    This full court press to forcibly vaccinate every person in America is nonsensical, unnecessary, unscientific, and un-Constitutional. This flu already had a 99.7% survival rate. And it is less lethal than the annual flu for anyone under 30 years old. The Delta variant is far less lethal than the original virus. But, those in power are compelled to ruin the livelihoods of anyone refusing to become the research in this experimental gene therapy scheme. The government is conspiring with corporations and social media companies to force these jabs into arms.

    The desperate nature of the authoritarian actions being implemented by the elitists running our country and their corporate co-conspirators is foretelling a much darker truth lurking below the surface. This global Ponzi scheme we call our economic and financial system is ripping apart at the seams. The powerful and wealthy oligarchs who already control the levers of power and own most of the wealth do not want to see their heaven on earth of riches evaporate like a puddle on a hot summer day. This is why they are attempting to install a command and control “build back better” Great Reset plan where they will own everything and you will own nothing,  say nothing, do as you are told, and get your yearly booster shot for the newest variant of a phantom flu.

    The globalist empire of debt is faltering under the weight of un-payable obligations and derivatives of mass destruction. How these “vaccines” play into their overall plan to retain power, control and wealth is unclear at this point, but the frantic, autocratic, and unrestrained shredding of our Constitutional rights over a flu virus should make every critical thinking American pause and ponder what comes next.

    We allowed them to shut down the country, destroy small businesses, put tens of millions out of work, forced you to wear face diapers, created drastically more dependency on government handouts, drove the national debt up by $6.5 trillion in eighteen months, and essentially handed over our entire economy to Wall Street puppets at the Federal Reserve whose sole purpose is to keep enriching bankers, billionaires, and the corporatocracy.

    They reduced the pressure for a brief time, but they learned how gullible and pliable the willfully ignorant masses were during round one of their authoritarian takeover. Round two looks to be more tyrannical and enforced by their police thugs, corporate backers, social media tyrants, and their zombie hordes of vaxxed Karens snitching on those not following the plan. Biden and his handlers are shitting on the Constitution on a daily basis and don’t believe the rule of law applies to them. They are allowing millions of illegal immigrants (many with covid), who somehow (Soros) have the money to fly to Mexico from their 3rd world shitholes, to pour over the border and be transported to swing state Democrat run urban paradises.

    If we don’t forcefully push back now, we may never be given another chance to reverse this downward spiral of a once free nation. We are crossing our Rubicon and there will be no turning back. The decisions we make individually and as a country in the next few months will determine whether we are mice or men.

    Wise men from the past knew the enemy can always be found within. We need to identify our enemy, confront them through non-compliance with their mandates, boycotting corporations supporting the regime, organizing workers to resist vaccine mandates through strikes or mass resignation,  passive resistance by throwing monkey wrenches into the gears of their financial system, and if need be exercising our 2nd Amendment rights. I am not overstating this threat, as this country is being pushed toward the brink by an enemy in plain sight.

    “The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero

    “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” – John Adams

    *  *  *

    The corrupt establishment will do anything to suppress sites like the Burning Platform from revealing the truth. The corporate media does this by demonetizing sites like mine by blackballing the site from advertising revenue. If you get value from this site, please keep it running with a donation.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/07/2021 – 22:00

  • Emerging Markets Hit 20 Year Low Against S&P, Waiting For A "Cathartic Event"
    Emerging Markets Hit 20 Year Low Against S&P, Waiting For A “Cathartic Event”

    The old “new normal” is firmly back in control of the market.

    As BofA CIO Michael Hartnett writes in his latest Flow Show, despite a host of stagflationary concerns about the economy and markets in the second half (laid out in his second half preview discussed here), investment grade bonds (LQD) and semiconductors (SOX) are back at all time highs, both leaders of a ”secular stagnation” bull market indicating that the Fed’s reflationary hopes are all but dead for the time being; Additionally, the Brazilian real (BRL) – which Hartnett calls the “world’s best “risk-on” indicator” – is dithering above 5.00 level despite the Brazilian Central Bank hiking 325bps in 5 months (and warning that inflation is anything bur transitory), while stealth “flight-to-quality” trades are observed so far in H2, as utilities, health care, and REITs are the best SPX performing sectors.

    Hartnett then looks at the latest “Biggest Picture” trend which shows that EM stocks are approaching a 20-year low versus S&P500…

    … and notes that big lows in EM normally triggered by cathartic events (LTCM, 9/11, Lehman) and while we wait for the next “cathartic” trigger, Hartnett notes that emerging markets are unambiguously where the secular value is, e.g. EM bonds cheapest relative to US high yield in 20 years (of course, China is a big factor here and following Beijing’s recent crackdown on various “non-social” industries – as defined recently by Goldman – the wait for the catalyst could prove to be a lengthy one). Hartnett concedes as much, but notes that whereas regulatory risk has hit large cap China tech (HSTECH -43% peak to trough) where over a $1 trillion in market cap has been lost, the small cap China innovation index, i.e., ChiNext (CNT) is trading to new all time highs.

    Hartnett then switches track to observe the performance of various “balanced” portfolios, but instead of the ubiquitous 60/40, the BofA CIO instead focuses on his favorite “25/25/25/25”, i.e., a max diversified portfolio of 25% in global equities, bonds, commodities, and cash which he has pitched for the past several years and which in 2021 is enjoying record returns, annualizing a 16% return which is the best since 1987.

    The bank strategist then focuses on the macro distortions that have emerged in the US economy and captured best by a chart showing payrolls (7 million below pre-covid levels) vs retail sales (which as 18% above covid).

    And while the market was clear to jump on Friday’s payroll as opening the gates to a Jackson Hole taper announcement, Hartnett is not so sure, noting that the Fed has made it clear they don’t see clarity on payrolls until Sept report released early-Oct.

    Additionally, the recent surge in Delta cases coupled with renewed outperformance of lockdown vs reopening stocks is also clouding the autumn outlook.

    Looking ahead, Hartnett lays out a trio of potentially “unanticipated” autumn events which could undo the market’s relentless meltup, including:

    • White House fails to reappoint Powell as Fed Chair;
    • escalation of US-China cold war (Covid-19 origin investigations, Biden-Xi to meet in Rome Oct 30th);
    • stagflationary resolution to US labor market conundrum.

    Putting it all together, Hartnett says that the best analog to the current market regime is the late ‘60s-early ‘70s with persistent negative real  rates, large budget deficits, populist & polarized electorates, an excessively easy & complicit Fed, which led to inflation rising to multi-year highs. Back then the value bull of 1968 (= H1’2021) was followed by volatile bear of 1969 (H2’2021).

    As such, his advice to investors: own defensive quality = good market hedge H1 (peak policy) & good macro hedge H2 (peak profits).

    One final point: in keeping with what his publication originally covered, namely market flows, Hartnett makes the following notable observations:

    • The latest week saw $24.7Bn flows to cash, $12.1Bn to bonds, $4.8Bn to stocks, and $0.7Bn to gold (the largest in 8 weeks) which alas culminated with a brutal hammering gold sustained in the aftermath of the blockbuster jobs report
    • Flows to Know: 6th week of inflows to tech ($1.2bn), 7th week of inflows to healthcare ($0.3bn), largest outflow from EM equities in 6 weeks ($1.6bn).
    • Tech & healthcare: inflows to “growth” sectors have resumed after Q2 redemptions

    • EM equities: similarly, slowdown in EM inflows since spring looks to be over (Chart 8).

    • Financials, energy, materials, value: in contrast cyclical sectors that saw big H1 inflows have seen redemptions past 6 weeks; same trend for value funds

    IG, HY, EM debt: inflows to credit funds (need-for-yield bid) remain steady

    TIPS, bank loans: inflow to TIPS rising, to bank loan funds slowing as Fed shifts back to ‘let it run hot” in recent weeks.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/07/2021 – 21:30

  • New Identity Authentication Requirement For Unemployment Spreads Across The Country
    New Identity Authentication Requirement For Unemployment Spreads Across The Country

    Authored by Beth Brelje via The Epoch Times,

    Pennsylvania now requires individuals filing for unemployment compensation to prove their identity before receiving payments.

    In an effort to prevent fraudulent claims which have plagued the online unemployment system, Pennsylvania has hired ID.me, a McLean, Virginia-based company, to authenticate users.

    Since 2020, some 27 states have hired ID.me for unemployment verification, including Pennsylvania, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming.

    “We are also now under contract with an additional two states. ID.me Spokesman Nicholas Michael told The Epoch Times.

    “Our federal partners include the Department of Veterans Affairs and Social Security Administration.”

    Unemployment applicants in these states must submit to a new, more invasive level of vetting to receive payments.

    ID.me’s online authentication process begins with a request for permission to use details from the user’s credit profile and other public sources. Soon after that, the system requires users to consent to ID.me collecting their Social Security number and biometric data. The user cannot continue the process or receive unemployment without consenting.

    The fine print explains ID.me may collect facial biometrics and voiceprints.

    Users upload an image of a driver’s license or passport, and a current “selfie” image taken with their smartphone. In some cases, a video selfie is used.

    “We use these images to create a facial geometry or faceprint which we use for purposes of identity verification and to prevent the fraudulent creation of multiple accounts in a fraudulent manner,” the agreement explains.

    Users may also be required to call ID.me and leave a voice recording that is used to create a voiceprint. “We use this voiceprint for identity verification and to prevent the creation of multiple ID.me accounts in a fraudulent manner,” the agreement explains.

    Collecting Biometric Data

    ID.me stores a user’s biometric data for use up to seven and a half years after they stop using the service, the agreement says. Users may ask ID.me to delete their biometric data, but the company may decline the request in some cases.

    “ID.me will never share your biometric data with a third party except to protect you or others from identity theft,” the consent agreement says.

    However, the agreement also says ID.me can share biometric data with its clients such as the Department of Labor and Industry to process unemployment claims, plus third-party service providers and “other third parties where permitted by law, to enforce the terms, to comply with legal obligations or applicable, to respond to legal process (such as a subpoena, warrant or civil discovery request), to cooperate with law enforcement agencies concerning conduct or activity that we reasonably and in good faith believes may violate federal, state, or local law, and to prevent harm, loss or injury to others.”

    Batches of digital files containing the personal information of each person authenticated by ID.me are regularly sent to the state. The files contain an individual’s full name, email address, phone number, Social Security number, date of birth, street address, city, state, postal code, gender, and a unique identifier.

    ID.me tracks the IP address, town, and time when users interact with the company.

    Where Is the Information Going?

    “It’s overbroad and absurd considering the limited purpose the verification is supposed to further,” Jeff Schott, a labor and civil rights attorney at the Scaringi Law Firm in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, told The Epoch Times.

    “To me, it’s wrong because you are entitled to those benefits and you have to agree to their terms, which exceed what is needed for the purpose for ID verification.”

    Schott says the law firm has fielded numerous calls about ID.me from Pennsylvanians applying for unemployment. The complaints generally fall into one of two categories.

    Some are people who are not computer savvy and through the pandemic, have been laid off for the first time in their lives. They need help navigating ID.me and worry about submitting to facial recognition and handing their Social Security number over to a third-party company.

    “They want to know and where all this information is going and where it is stored,” Schott said.

    “Since COVID, people are more in tune with government intrusion in their lives, for obvious reasons.”

    Other folks are calling the law firm complaining ID.me rejected them, even though their information was legitimate.

    If there is a problem, ID.me says cases will be handled on a video conference by a “trusted referee,” but Schott said some clients have told him that the video conference never happened, others told him ID.me’s trusted referees seemed more hostile than helpful, acting as if they were speaking with a fraudster instead of helping them solve the problem.

    About 90 percent of people verify their identity through the automated process in about five minutes, Michael said. Applicants’ selfie photo or video is compared to the photo on their passport or driver’s license through facial recognition.

    “If the individual takes a blurry, or cut off image of their face three times, or uploads documents that have issues, we offer a live video chat session—similar to a Zoom call—with a live agent,” Michael said. “The individual can finish the verification process that way. No one is blocked by this step.”

    People who do not have a presence in records, are recent immigrants, or have no credit history have difficulty proving their identity online, he said.

    “ID.me is the only vendor in the country that offers identity verification through a video chat with one of our trusted referees,” Michael said.

    Pennsylvania first engaged with ID.me through an $800,000, one-year contract to authenticate Pandemic Unemployment Assistance applicants from September 2020-September 2021.

    In late July, Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor and Industry informed applicants of regular (not pandemic-related) unemployment that they are required to verify their identity through ID.me to start or continue receiving payments.

    There is likely another contract to cover this new service but the Department of Labor and Industry was unable to produce it or say how much it is paying ID.me.

    Labor and Industry Spokeswoman Sarah DeSantis told The Epoch Times ID.me is subcontracted through Geographic Solutions, the company that manages the state’s online unemployment system, which was recently updated. But Geographic Solutions spokesman Donald Silver told The Epoch Times the contract is between ID.me and the state.

    “We’ll have to defer to Pennsylvania L&I for information about the contract,” ID.me Spokesman Nicholas Michael said.

    Ultimately, neither ID.me nor the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry would provide a contract or disclose the cost of this service.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/07/2021 – 21:00

  • Does The Tuskegee Experiment Really Explain Black Vaccination Rates?
    Does The Tuskegee Experiment Really Explain Black Vaccination Rates?

    Naked Capitalism’s Yves Smith, writes that it is bizarre to see the press keep repeating the myth that the Tuskegee syphilis experiment is the big reason blacks are lagging other groups in vaccination.

    But it is also proof of how removed the press and our nominal betters are from the struggles of individuals and families at the lower end of the income spectrum.

    Many people who have gotten the Covid shots are pretty ill for a half a day to two days. Many of our readers have confirmed that happens, and blown that off as if it’s no big deal. It’s not if you can’t afford to miss any shifts, or worse, might lose your job if yo call in sick.

    To put it another way, “What about precarity don’t you understand?”

    Perhaps I am overthinking things, but I also wonder if the Tuskegee experiment rings “Bad Bubba!” bells, which makes it even more appealing to those who want to assign blame for low vaccinations to retrograde whites. Even though the Tuskegee study was a Federal initiative, run by the United States Public Health Service and the Centers for Disease Control, it was managed by the then Tuskegee Institute, and recruited poor black sharecroppers in Alabama. In other words, even if the top brass might not have been from the South, the front line staff and immediate managers were.

    Oddly, I have yet to see someone who tries assigning blame to the Tuskegee study highlight the CDC’s role, and play out a possible thought process: “The CDC was behind that atrocity. And they are headquartered in Atlanta, in the Deep South. How can we trust them?” Is it that the CDC is now “the science” and can’t be seen as responsible for past mistakes, no matter how horrific?

    Matt Breunig doesn’t get into alternative explanations but simply demonstrates that the popular account doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

    *  *  *

    By Matt Bruenig. Originally posted at his website

    Black vaccination rates lag the rest of the country, according to data from the Census Household Pulse Survey and other similar sources.

    One common explanation for this in the discourse is that black people are skeptical of the vaccine because of prior historical events in which they were abused and experimented upon by the US government and healthcare authorities. The main incident brought up in this explanation is the Tuskegee Experiment. In that experiment, black people with syphilis were told they were receiving drugs to treat the disease but they were actually given placebos while the researchers studied the effects of untreated syphilis.

    This theory checks off certain boxes that make it resonate well within current discourse frameworks, but it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. If the coronavirus vaccines were only being given to black people, then you could see how someone might reason that it is a trick. But they are being given to everyone, including over 100 million white people. Are we meant to think that black people who aren’t getting the vaccine believe that the government is poisoning 100 million white people because the government has a racist history of poisoning black people? The racial analysis here would tell you that there is no way the white supremacist government would do such a thing and so the vaccine must be safe!

    Perhaps more compelling than this abstract reasoning is the breakdown of the black vaccination rate by education level.

    As with the population in general and every other racial group, black vaccination rates climb in lockstep with educational attainment. Educational attainment of course is also a decent proxy, on average, for income, wealth, and other socioeconomic indicators.

    I would guess that awareness of the Tuskegee Experiment and black history more generally is greater among those with higher education than those with lower education. If this guess is right, then knowledge of historical racist medical abuses is actually strongly correlated with getting the vaccine.

    One of the reasons I am bringing this up because it seems to me that this just-so story about black vaccine hesitancy is actually very unhelpful when it comes to trying to getting black people and the population more generally vaccinated.

    It’s soothing to a certain mindset that is prevalent in the discourse, but it’s totally detached from reality and papers over the much more significant socioeconomic factors.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/07/2021 – 20:00

  • Did The CDC Director Just Accidentally Admit That Vaccination Passports Are Futile?
    Did The CDC Director Just Accidentally Admit That Vaccination Passports Are Futile?

    Authored by ‘Sundance’ via The Last Refuge blog,

    They are just making up narratives now, and the media are not calling them out on it….

    The Director of the CDC made an important admission during an interview today on CNN.   CDC Director Rochelle Walensky stated the vaccine does not prevent COVID-19 infection, nor does it stop the vaccinated person from transmitting the infection or the delta variant. 

    According to Director Walensky, the only benefit from the vaccine now is presumably that it reduces the severity of symptoms.

    If a vaccinated and non-vaccinated person have the same capacity to carry, shed and transmit the virus – with or without symptoms – then what difference does a vaccination passport or vaccination ID make?

    According to the CDC TODAY, both the vaxxed and non-vaxxed person walking into a restaurant, store, group, venue or workplace present the exact same risk to other people there, so how does the presentation of proof of vaccine make any difference?  

    WATCH:

    (UPDATE – Google removed the video, I replaced with Rumble)

    Additionally, her entire statement makes no sense. 

    There is no evidence that vaccinated asymptomatic carriers are asymptomatic because of the vaccine.  There are likely just as many asymptomatic non-vaccinated carriers.  The data shows an equally distributed infection rate regardless of vaccination rate, which is simultaneously admitted by Direcor Walensky, which, as an outcome, is an admission that undercuts the entire argument for compulsory vaccines.

    The reverse is also evident in the data.  There are just as many vaxxed carriers who are symptomatic (ie. sick), as there are un-vaxxed carriers who are symptomatic (ie. sick). The percentage of vaxxed and non-vaxxed people hospitalized it identical to the vaxxed/non-vaxxed population around the hospital.

    In regional populations with extremely high vaccination rates, the COVID infection rate continues unabated. 

    The percentage of vaccinated people hospitalized is identical to the percentage of people vaccinated in the community.

    In Gibraltar, 99% of the population vaccinated; COVID infection rate climbs.  In Iceland over 75% of population vaccinated; infection rate climbs.  Singapore and Israel show the same thing [Data Sets Here].  So what value is the vaccination passport?

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/07/2021 – 19:00

  • Activity On Dating Apps Hits Record High In July
    Activity On Dating Apps Hits Record High In July

    Activity on dating apps hit a record high in July as people who were cooped up for a year due to the virus pandemic now feel comfortable mingling with others. 

    According to Bloomberg, citing research firm Apptopia, daily active users on top ten dating apps, including Match Group Inc.’s Tinder and Bumble Inc., reached more than 15 million users.

    Early in the pandemic, users frowned upon dating apps for fear of meeting others who may be a carrier of the virus.

    But since more than half the country is vaccinated and life has been getting back to normal, users are online searching for their soul mate. 

    Emma-Claire Ziolkowski, a dietitian from Virginia Beach, Virginia, said she re-downloaded Tinder after she was fully vaccinated. 

    Ziolkowski said that after more than a year spent alone and working at home, an app is an easiest and safest place to search for love:

    “My favorite thing about dating apps as a whole is that you have access to people you would have never had access to.”

    More insights into dating app trends will follow next week’s quarterly report of Bumble. The dating app recently went public, taking advantage of the reopening of the economy. 

    However, the recent spread of the delta variant could be a significant challenge for online dating apps as cities and states reimpose public health guidelines. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/07/2021 – 18:30

  • After Russiagate, Why Wouldn't People Be Skeptical About COVID
    After Russiagate, Why Wouldn’t People Be Skeptical About COVID

    Authored by Caitlin Johnstone,

    You hardly ever hear about Russiagate anymore. The last time it made a blip in the radar was when disgraced Collusion author Luke Harding published a very thinly-sourced story in The Guardian claiming to have proof that Donald Trump was a Kremlin asset, but other mass media outlets barely touched it and it vanished as quickly as it came.

    Looking at mainstream news outlets in 2021, you’d hardly know they’d recently spent years hammering the story into public consciousness that Vladimir Putin had infiltrated the highest levels of the US government, day after day after day after day after day.

    But they did.

    Vast fortunes were raked in off the public interest generated by click-friendly stories about the latest BOMBSHELL revelation involving some peripheral member of Trump’s associates perhaps maybe having some kind of contact with a Russian national at some point. Entire careers were built on this.

    Then the Mueller investigation invalidated the entire claim by failing to indict a single American for conspiring with the Russian government, and the mass media who’d spent the previous few years bashing everyone in the face with that story just kind of slowly sidled away from it.

    And now they act like it never happened.

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    Now I’m going to ask you to put yourself in the shoes of someone you might not normally be inclined to.

    Imagine you’re someone on the political right watching this whole thing unfold. Imagine that from late 2016 to mid-2019 you were watching the mass media aggressively shove this story down everyone’s throat that a US president, whom you support, is secretly working for a hostile foreign government with the goal of subverting the United States of America. The media you consume have been highlighting all the massive, glaring plot holes in this narrative the entire time, so you know it’s not true, yet you’ve still got friends, coworkers and family members who believe it is.

    Can you imagine how disgusted you’d get with the media watching this happen day after day? How outraged? How resentful? If you’re really putting yourself there, I think you probably can.

    Now imagine a year later these exact same media institutions start telling you there’s a novel coronavirus which we’re all going to have to sacrifice some personal liberties in order to stop. We might have to stay in our homes, wear a mask, get injected with new drugs we’re not sure about, possibly while watching our bank account drain and our business go under, and all these media institutions you just watched lie to everyone’s face for years on end are aggressively saying you need to do this and support this or you’re a dangerous monster whose voice should be banned from social media.

    How well do you imagine that would go over with you?

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    And yet now we’re seeing article after article after article and news segment after news segment after news segment from these very same institutions freaking out about “the unvaccinated”, a new label for a new category of human we’re all meant to have very strong opinions about. The very media institutions which actively cultivated the distrust of these populations are now whipping up public outrage at the people they alienated.

    And of course it’s not just right-wingers; people of color across the political spectrum have relatively low vaccination rates as well. What do those groups have in common? Distrust for institutions which in their experience have an extensive history of being untrustworthy. People on the left who saw through the Russiagate madness would be skeptical as well.

    The sane way to counteract the public distrust that’s been caused by generations of lies, wars and depravity would be a tremendous increase in transparency, accountability and contrition on the part of those institutions, showing the public that they have changed and are working to become more trustworthy. So naturally what we are seeing is vaccine mandates in New York City, pundits calling for forced injections, and soldiers policing the streets of Sydney.

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    The way people are acting like trust in media-sanctioned narratives should be a given after those institutions literally just discredited themselves in front of everyone is insane. You don’t have to believe anything odd about the virus or the vaccine to understand the distrust. It was entirely predictable that this trust crisis would occur, and surely there were people in positions of influence who did predict it. And now this entirely predictable thing is being used to ban people from social media, justify vaccine passports, etc. I find that immoral.

    I don’t know what’s going on with this virus; my brain just doesn’t work in a way that lends itself to science. One of the most annoying things about the indie media scene in the age of Covid has been gaining an audience because I’m good at logic and writing and then being told by lots of people “Oh you’re good at writing? Cool. Now you have to be good at science or I hate you.” People expect me to either understand things I don’t understand or pretend that I do, and maybe that’s good enough for them but it isn’t for me.

    What I do know is that things are getting increasingly ugly and authoritarian as global capitalism looks more and more like the end of a Monopoly game, and that media institutions have no business complaining that people don’t trust them after spending years actively alienating their trust. The sooner humanity wakes up from its unwholesome relationship with mental narrative, the better.

    *  *  *

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. 

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/07/2021 – 18:00

  • California Judge Rules Newsom Can Blame "Republicans And Trump Supporters" For Recall
    California Judge Rules Newsom Can Blame “Republicans And Trump Supporters” For Recall

    California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has won the right to blame “Republicans and Trump supporters” for the Sept. 14 recall election.

    Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Laurie M. Earl said in a final ruling that Newsom’s proposed wording for the voter information handbook does not violate election law – echoing her prior conclusion in a tentative decision before a hearing, according to Yahoo News.

    “The Court finds there is nothing false or misleading about describing the recall effort’s leaders as Trump supporters,” wrote Earl.

    Recall leaders charged in a lawsuit that Newsom was lying in his ballot statement because not all recall supporters and candidates vying to replace Newsom were Republicans.

    During a hearing Thursday, the recall backers also claimed Newsom lied when he said they were “abusing our recall laws.”

    Earl disagreed, saying there was “an argument that this recall is an abuse of a perfectly legal process.”

    “The recall is being held less than three years after a sizable majority of California voters elected Newsom Governor,” she noted.

    Earl said that while reasonable minds may disagree on the propriety of the recall, Newsom’s statement falls within the realm of ‘legitimate political debate,’ according to the report.

    Meanwhile, a recent shock poll has Newsom losing the recall by double digits, according to SFGate.

    The poll came from Survey USA and the San Diego Union Tribune, and was conducted among 1,100 Californians from Aug. 2 to Aug. 4. It found that 51% of respondents were in favor of recalling Newsom, while only 40% wanted to keep him in power. The previous Survey USA/San Diego Union Tribune poll from May found 36% in favor of the recall with 47% opposed.

    Interestingly, Democrats support the recall by a 1:3 margin according to the poll, meaning that it isn’t just ‘Republicans and Trump supporters’ who want the governor out, despite who organized it.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/07/2021 – 17:30

  • Chinese City Offers $15,000 Reward For Snitching On Gatherings
    Chinese City Offers $15,000 Reward For Snitching On Gatherings

    Authored by Dorothy Li via The Epoch Times,

    An eastern city has become the first in China to offer significant financial rewards to people who report public gatherings. Authorities across the nation are scrambling to contain new outbreaks of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus, also known as COVID-19, especially with more breakthrough cases emerging.

    Officials in Tai’an city, in China’s coastal Shandong Province, paid a resident $15,000 on Aug. 3. The individual reported a company group training in a hotel on July 30, according to local state media.

    Authorities said organizers didn’t report the 12-day training to the local government, and its attendees came from several cities across China. After the attendees’ tests came back negative, they were ordered back to their homes.

    It is the latest of a number of regions to introduce cash incentives as part of a recent campaign to battle the new outbreak. Authorities in cities, counties, districts, and even the lowest government level—neighborhood committees— from at least eight provinces announced financial rewards to members of the public for providing tip-offs about the CCP virus. The latest outbreak started in Nanjing city, with nine airport cleaners infected on July 20.

    A neighborhood committee in Yangzhou city announced residents could receive a $310 reward if they reported others who had traveled from infected areas or had close contact with confirmed cases. A district office in the city offered to pay people $775 for providing information, and would double the reward if the case is confirmed, according to state news outlet ThePaper.cn.

    Yangzhou, about one and a half hours drive from Nanjing, has become the latest hotspot, reporting 32 cases on Wednesday. Although this figure likely does not reflect the actual total, given that the Chinese regime is known for grossly underreporting its virus numbers, it accounted for almost half of the 73 confirmed across the country on Wednesday.

    Aerial view of a restricted residential area due to the CCP virus in Yangzhou, in China’s eastern Jiangsu Province, on Aug. 3, 2021. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

    Authorities attributed the outbreak in Yangzhou to a 64-year-old female citizen who failed to inform local officials after traveling back from the epicenter Nanjing on July 21. Before seeking treatment for cough and fever on July 27, she frequently visited crowded places, including entertainment centres used for playing cards and mah-jong, restaurants, and shops, according to state mouthpiece Xinhua.

    Local police have detained the woman, according to the report.

    Yangzhou authorities have also set up a special hotline for members of the public to report information related to the spread of the CCP virus.

    Residents line up to test for the CCP virus in Yangzhou in China’s eastern Jiangsu Province on Aug. 3, 2021. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

    Chinese commentator Li Muyang said the cash incentives indicate that authorities are under pressure to squash the CCP virus outbreak. But Li suggested officials worry more about their positions than the safety of local citizens.

    The mayor of Yangzhou city resigned on Aug. 2. The provincial governor criticized the mayor on Aug. 1 because COVID-19 positive patients were identified too late, resulting in the city’s situation becoming “complicated and serious.”

    The CCP’s top anti-corruption body punished 18 officials in Zhangjiajie city on Wednesday. Many of the latest cases emerging nationwide are related to a performance held in this popular tourist destination on July 22. Authorities are now trying to track down over 2,000 people who attended it.

    Breakthrough Cases

    Shanghai health officials reported on Aug. 3 that an inoculated airport worker had returned a positive test result of the CCP virus. The head of the Shanghai panel overseeing the treatment of COVID-19, Zhang Wenhong, confirmed the infected worker had been vaccinated.

    “The staff had received vaccines, of course, because the high-risk group must be vaccinated according to the vaccination rules,” Zhang said at a press conference on Tuesday. He added that 85 percent of the adult population in Shanghai, the largest city in China, had been vaccinated, and all airport workers were inoculated.

    Gene sequencing results show a high match of the Delta variant, but it is not related to the new cases in Nanjing, authorities said on Wednesday.

    Shanghai had tested over 68,000 people related to the case on Aug. 4, Shanghai health officials said.

    Staff members checking a unit at a temporary “Fire Eye” laboratory used for COVID-19 testing at an exhibition center in Nanjing in China’s eastern Jiangsu Province on July 28, 2021. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

    China’s recent infections stemming from the Nanjing Lukou International Airport have hit 17 of all 31 provinces. Nanjing’s health authorities admitted on July 22 that almost all of the infected workers had received vaccines, except for one person under 18 years old.

    In another coastal city, Xiamen, next to the Taiwan Strait, an airport worker, and his three family members were confirmed to be infected with the CCP virus on July 30. The local authorities did not mention whether they had received Chinese vaccines, but airport workers are listed as a high-risk group on China’s vaccination priority list.

    Xiamen city has completed 93 percent of the second round of mass testing, collecting over 420,000 samples as of Aug. 3, state media ChinaDaily reported.

    Mass Testing Relaunched

    In response to the rising number of breakthrough cases, the Chinese regime has doubled down on its containment approach with mass testing and strict lockdowns.

    Residents line up to test for the CCP virus in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei Province on Aug. 3, 2021. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

    Zhuhai, a city neighboring Macao, announced the first round of mass testing of 2 million people on the evening of Aug. 4.

    Wuhan city of Hubei Province, where COVID-19 was first identified in late 2019, started to test its 13.5 million people on Tuesday. A “state of emergency” status has been declared in Hubei, resulting in provincial authorities launching strict measures to battle the spike in cases of the CCP virus, which prompted citizens to raid supermarkets for food supplies.

    Empty shelves at a supermarket in Wuhan, as people stock up on items, in China’s central Hubei Province, on Aug. 2, 2021. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

    The recent flood-stricken Zhengzhou planned to complete the second round of mass testing of its 12.6 million residents on Aug. 6, state-back news agency Xinhua said.

    In capital Beijing, the CCP has sealed off residential compounds on Wednesday, where the three new confirmed cases live. A resident surnamed Li confirmed to The Epoch Times on Wednesday that they are not allowed to go out and were waiting to receive the nucleic acid test.

    Meanwhile, authorities of all 31 provinces have urged people to avoid travel and gatherings while many domestic flights, ships, and trains have been canceled. State media reported that the Chinese regime tightened the border controls, suspending the issuing of entry and exit documents for non-essential, non-emergency travel.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/07/2021 – 17:00

  • Facing Fraud Charges For Lying About "Nearly All Aspects" Of Nikola, Trevor Milton Hires Elon Musk's Lawyers
    Facing Fraud Charges For Lying About “Nearly All Aspects” Of Nikola, Trevor Milton Hires Elon Musk’s Lawyers

    Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up. Nikola’s Elon-Musk-Wannabe-Founder, Trevor Milton – who now has plead not guilty to, and stands accused of, three counts of fraud for lying about…well, everything…has turned to Elon Musk’s lawyers for help. 

    Milton has retained Terence Healy, who represented Musk when the SEC claimed he had committed securities fraud by faking an $80 billion buyout offer for Tesla, mid-day during a trading day. Healy was joined by Brad Bondi, who Milton has also hired, and was able to negotiate a settlement where Musk stepped down as Tesla’s chairman. 

    Milton has also hired Marc Mukasey, who is advising President Trump on the criminal case brought against his company by Manhattan’s DA, Cyrus Vance, according to Bloomberg. 

    Recall, Milton was charged with three counts of fraud just days ago. CNBC reported that Milton was charged with making false claims regarding “nearly all aspects of the business” – something Elon Musk’s lawyers should have extensive experience in dealing with…

    “Prosecutors say that when Milton unveiled their tractor trailer truck it had to be plugged into the wall, the headlamps were activated by remote by a staffer, and air had to be pumped in because there was a slow leak in the air lines of the truck,” the report continued.

    “And yes, prosecutors do say part of Milton’s conduct was video of the Nikola truck in the Super Bowl ad was not in fact of a working truck but was towed to the top of a hill. Brakes were released and it rolled downhill.”

    An SEC complaint filed last week also revealed that footage of the truck “had been sped up two-to-three times” and that the video was “ultimately approved” by Milton.

    CNBC’s Phil LeBeau reported last week:  “All of this started initially with Hindenburg Research saying ‘Hey look, a lot of the comments and claims that were made by Trevor Milton and Nikola regarding the ability of their semis to power themselves, videos that were shot, that they’re not accurate’. Ultimately, Trevor Milton was bounced out of the job at Nikola.”

    The DOJ complaint against Milton said he “repeatedly made false and misleading statements about core aspects of Nikola’s products, technological advancements, and commercial prospects” including

    • (a) Falsely claiming that Nikola’s first semi-truck prototype, the Nikola One, could be driven under its own power, and using a misleading video to create the false impression that the Nikola One was, in fact, driving under its own power
    • (b) Falsely claiming that Nikola was producing hydrogen, that it was doing so at a cost that was four times less than the prevailing market rates, and that it had obtained electricity at costs that made hydrogen production profitable
    • (c) Falsely claiming that Nikola had significantly developed or already completed a prototype of an electric pickup truck, the Badger, and that this vehicle used primarily Nikola’s proprietary components
    • (d) Falsely claiming that Nikola had obtained “billions and billions and billions and billions” of dollars of committed truck orders
    • (e) Falsely claiming that Nikola had developed a “game-changing” battery technology and that Nikola was manufacturing and developing multiple key vehicle components “in-house”; and
    • (f) Falsely claiming that the total cost of ownership of Nikola’s trucks was 20-30 percent below that of diesel vehicles.

    The complaint also says that Milton would regularly take action to try and stop declines in Nikola’s share price Elon . It reads: 

    “On days when Nikola’s stock price declined, Milton regularly attempted to direct Nikola’s senior executives to take actions to stop the price decline. Senior executives received frantic phone calls or text messages from Milton on such days in which he urged the executives to “do something.” Milton also spoke of needing to put out “good news” or some kind of announcement “to get people excited” as a way to counteract price declines or maintain support for the stock price.”

    The complaint also says that “Milton tracked the daily number of new Robinhood users who held Nikola stock” and apparently was excited that retail bagholders stockholders were buying the stock:

    The senior executive responded, in part, by expressing his amazement at how many calls he received “from retail investors today that have no clue about Nikola, other than their friends told them to buy. A lot of hype out there with retail investors,” to which Milton replied: “That’s how you build a foundation. Love it.”

    Milton also misled the public about the company’s Badger pickup truck, the SEC alleged, claiming the pickup was only a “CGI rendering” and nothing more:

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    You can read the full complaint here:

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    Milton pleaded not guilty and was ultimately freed on a $100 million bond,” according to FreightWaves. 

    The report noted that bail was secured by two properties in Utah owned by Milton, “one worth $36 million, the other worth $4 million.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/07/2021 – 16:30

  • FBI Officials "Widely Ignored" Rules In 2016, With Dozens In Contact With Reporters: Watchdog
    FBI Officials “Widely Ignored” Rules In 2016, With Dozens In Contact With Reporters: Watchdog

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    FBI policy strictly limiting which employees can speak to reporters was “widely ignored” in 2016, with over 50 officials having contact that year with one or more reporters using government-issued devices, a watchdog found.

    The Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) probed allegations that FBI employees improperly disclosed non-public information in 2016 before the presidential election in violation of bureau rules.

    A review of FBI records and a forensic examination of FBI devices found that 52 employees had contact in April and May 2016 with reporters who wrote stories using the information. The investigation also found 33 FBI employees had contact with the reporters in October 2016.

    Staffers at the OIG’s office interviewed 56 current and former FBI employees who were identified as having contact with reporters in 2016. Nearly all of them acknowledged the contacts but denied providing non-public information. Many also claimed they were authorized to be in touch with the media, either by FBI policy or by a supervisory official.

    There could well be more employees who were in touch with reporters using their personal devices or face-to-face, the OIG said in the report on its investigation (pdf) released this week.

    The probe was hampered by what the FBI described as a gap in its collection of text messages from bureau-issued devices for four of the people in contact with the media. The OIG asked for the government-issued phones to fill the gap, but the FBI couldn’t locate the devices that the employees were using in 2016.

    Additionally, the large number of employees in touch with reporters made pinpointing the source of the leaks difficult.

    The OIG was unable to figure out which agents or officials were the source of leaks.

    However, it was able to confirm that six employees at the FBI’s headquarters in Washington were not authorized by policy to have contact with the media and referred those to the bureau to determine if the conduct warrants disciplinary action.

    FBI Director Christopher Wray arrives to testify before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 2, 2021. (Mandel Ngan/Pool via Reuters)

    The same watchdog previously found misconduct by three senior FBI officials for “unethical interactions with reporters.” One accepted sporting tickets from a reporter and lied to OIG investigators about paying for them, a second accepted a ticket valued at $225 to a media-sponsored dinner, and a third received “items of value” from reporters.

    “The misconduct by these three senior officials, and the substantial media contacts identified by the OIG involving numerous other FBI employees, evidenced a cultural attitude at the FBI that was far too permissive of unauthorized media contacts in 2016,” the watchdog said.

    That culture reached the top of the bureau. Former Director James Comey leaked to his attorneys classified information, some of which later appeared in the media.

    The FBI declined to comment on the new report. In a letter to the OIG, Douglas Leff, the FBI’s assistant director, said the bureau has strengthened procedures guiding media contacts. For instance, the bureau has updated its training on media policy.

    There is no indication that any of the employees who broke policies were punished in any way.

    The FBI decided in 2018 that the penalties for violations of the rules are sufficient to deter unauthorized contact with the media, improper acceptance of gifts, and other misconduct.

    “That’s what’s noticeably missing to me—you’re never going to change the culture of unlawful conduct until you actually start to enforce the rules,” Timothy Parlatore, a lawyer representing former Trump campaign associate Carter Page, who the FBI illegally surveilled, told The Epoch Times.

    “And the reality is you have that all the way to the top, you have Jim Comey himself who’s doing that stuff. So if you don’t hold people accountable, how is anything ever gonna change? Otherwise it’s just lip service,” added Parlatore, who is involved in ongoing litigation with the FBI over Page’s case.

    The OIG found found that agents assigned to the case made “at least 17 significant errors or omissions.” 

    One FBI lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, pleaded guilty to manipulating an email from saying Page was a CIA asset to saying he was not, and sending it along to be used to bolster the case to get secretive warrants to spy on Page. Clinesmith was sentenced to probation.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/07/2021 – 16:00

  • Wuhan's 'Bat Lady' Warns Of Coming Covid-19 Mutants
    Wuhan’s ‘Bat Lady’ Warns Of Coming Covid-19 Mutants

    Of all the people on the planet who should probably take a pass on weighing in over the future of Covid-19, the woman suspected of either creating it and/or releasing it is probably at the top of the list.

    Yet, that’s what just happened.

    According to Chinese state media cited by the South China Morning Post, top CCP virologist Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology – also known as “Bat Lady” – says the virus will continue to mutate, and we must prepare to coexist with it.

    “As the number of infected cases has just become too big, this allowed the novel coronavirus more opportunities to mutate and select. New variants will continue to emerge,” said Shi, whose lab was working with a US-Funded nonprofit to make bat coronaviruses more infectious to humans.

    Zhengli Shi toasts with Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance

    Fear porn or legitimate concern?

    Aside from the obvious value in having ‘Wuhan’s Bat Lady™’ opine on emerging strains of the virus she’s an expert in – note that she doesn’t discuss how much more or less deadly new strains could be.

    For example, there’s no evidence that the Delta strain – while much more virulent than the original Alpha strain of Covid-19, is any deadlier.

    “There’s no evidence that it’s more deadly,” said Dr. Larry Corey, who is coordinating all of the COVID-19 vaccine research in the U.S (via King5). “There is evidence that it’s more infectious and more infectious to others, i.e., more transmissible. But [is it] actually more severe? There’s really not good hard evidence of that.”

    “Becoming more transmissible and less lethal are absolutely what’s best for the pathogen,” said Troy Day, a professor of mathematics and biology at Queen’s University in Canada, who has studied how infectious diseases – including coronaviruses – evolve (via AP).

    That said, sometimes viruses evolve to become more deadly.

    “…in many instances is never possible, to be more transmissible and also less lethal,” Day added – noting that there are documented cases of animal viruses which have evolved to become more lethal over time.

    Some examples of viruses that became more deadly over time include those that developed drug resistant variants, and animal viruses such as bird flu, which were harmless to humans initially but then mutated to become capable of killing people, according to Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Health Security.

    “Flu viruses have developed resistance to certain antivirals that make them more difficult to treat, and therefore make them more deadly,” said Adalja, noting that this has happened with HIV and certain strains of Hepatitis C.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/07/2021 – 15:40

  • One Man Killed After Homeless Crowd Attacks Couple At Seattle Encampment
    One Man Killed After Homeless Crowd Attacks Couple At Seattle Encampment

    A man was killed by an “angry group” of homeless people in Seattle after venturing to their encampment to retrieve items stolen from him during a burglary.

    Seattle police responded to a hit and run call on July 27 “at a large tent encampment at Dexter Avenue North and Mercer Street,” according to KIRO 7 News.

    A couple had driven to the South Lake Union homeless encampment in hopes of finding items stolen from them when their car was burglarized. The driver told police they were able to locate his shoes and a Bluetooth speaker that belonged to him. They had their 2 year old son in a car seat with them. 

    The couple was “immediately attacked by several people in the group,” according to the police. Nearby surveillance footage showed the driver being hit in the back with a 5 foot wooden pole while another man “smashed the windows of the car with a machete”.

    The report says that additional people joined with rocks and sticks and that a woman began fighting with the female passenger in the car.

    The driver desperately tried to get away and wound up speeding through the crowd, killing a man who was part of the group attacking the car.

    One man who attacked the car, Mario Miller, is a 12 time felon in Washington and California. Another, John Rosser IV, was a 9 time felon.

    A nearby business owner said: “It was a car being attacked. Being surrounded by people from this encampment. And they were bashing the car to pieces with bars, sticks, whatever they had. Then the car made a run for it to break through this crowd. One of the guys who was surrounding the car got thrown up into the air and then run over by this vehicle.”

    He continued: “Since Denny Park (encampment) closed down, these are the worst of these types of people. It’s almost the center of crime here.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/07/2021 – 15:30

  • White House Press Secretary: "We're Not Going To Lock Down Our Economy Or Our Schools"
    White House Press Secretary: “We’re Not Going To Lock Down Our Economy Or Our Schools”

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    The U.S. economy isn’t going to be locked down, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday.

    “This is not March 2020 or even January 2021. We’re not going to lock down our economy or our schools because our country’s in a much stronger place than when we took office,” Psaki told reporters in Washington.

    She credited President Joe Biden’s “leadership in vaccinating American people and getting economic relief to those who need it.”

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    COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have increased across the country in recent weeks, a rise officials have attributed to the Delta variant of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19.

    While some teachers unions have recently called for all-virtual classes to be held at the beginning of the upcoming school year, and a number of states and counties have re-imposed mask mandates and put into place vaccine verification requirements, the United States isn’t poised to go into the lockdown it did last year, Psaki said.

    “We are not going back. We are not turning back the clock,” she said.

    The U.S. government has been preparing for the possibility of the virus evolving and becoming more difficult to deal with.

    “We’ve been preparing, like boys scouts and girl scouts, for this moment and the potential that there would be ups and downs in our recovery, there would be ups and downs as we fight the virus, and that’s why a number of programs were designed to extend for several months beyond this summer,” Psaki told reporters.

    The remarks contrasted with Psaki deferring to states in a briefing last month when asked if the White House would attempt to reimpose harsh restrictions due to the pandemic.

    But she said Biden would support states if they went into lockdown again.

    Psaki’s new message echoed one offered by Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top medical adviser to Biden, over the weekend.

    Fauci said Sunday on ABC that things will get worse due to the Delta variant.

    But, he added, “I don’t think we’re going to see lockdowns.”

    “I think we have enough of the percentage of people in the country, not enough to crush the outbreak, but I believe enough to not allow us to get into the situation we were in last winter,” he said, referring to the number of people who have been vaccinated against the CCP virus.

    Earlier Friday, Biden touted statistics saying over 70 percent of adults 18 or older have gotten at least one COVID-19 dose.

    The vaccines were developed during the Trump administration but the effort to vaccinate Americans ramped up once Biden took office.

    Biden also warned of the Delta variant, urging people to get vaccinated to protect themselves against it, but said the economic toll would not be as bad this time around as last year, when millions of people lost their jobs amid the lockdowns.

    “America can beat the Delta variant just as we beat the original COVID-19,” he said in remarks made in Washington.

    “We can do this. So wear a mask when recommended. Get vaccinated, today. All of that will save lives and it means we are not going to have the same kind of economic damage we have seen when COVID-19 began.”

    Schools have the resources to safely reopen, according to the president.

    Biden later hinted at new rules under consideration, after requiring federal workers to show proof of vaccination or wear masks and socially distance while at work.

    “There will be more to come in the days ahead,” he said.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/07/2021 – 15:00

  • "One Step Closer To Dictatorship": Joe Rogan Slams Vaccine Passports, Warns Vax May Cause 'Virulent Mutations'
    “One Step Closer To Dictatorship”: Joe Rogan Slams Vaccine Passports, Warns Vax May Cause ‘Virulent Mutations’

    Joe Rogan raised eyebrows during a Friday episode of his podcast, where he railed against vaccine passports and suggested that the vaccine may in fact lead to vax-resistant SARS-CoV-2 mutations.

    Now you have a mini dictator. You have one step away from a king. One step closer. You’re moving one step closer to dictatorship. That’s what the f**k is happening. That’s what’s going to happen with the vaccine passport. That’s what’s going to happen if they close borders. You can’t enter New York City unless you have your papers! You can’t go here unless you have that! You can’t get on a plane unless you do what I say.

    Watch:

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    Rogan – who acknowledge that he’s not a doctor or an anti-vaxx person, says that concerned doctors have been anonymously sending him studies – including one which asserts that an imperfect vaccine can lead to ‘highly virulent pathogens,’ and that ‘vaccines that keep the host alive but still allow transmission can thus allow virulent strains to circulate in a population.’

    “The very sort of environment that we’re creating by having so many people vaccinated with a vaccine that doesn’t kill off the virus, it actually can lead to a more potent virus. Try finding that story anywhere,” said Rogan, who was referring to a peer-reviewed paper published in 2015, in which its authors – from Penn State and the Pirbright Institute concluded that “anti-disease vaccines that do not prevent transmission can create conditions that promote the emergence of pathogen strains that cause more severe disease in unvaccinated hosts.“

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    Watch the whole segment below:

    Meanwhile, mRNA pioneer Dr. Robert malone points out that if 95% of severe patients in Israel were indeed vaccinated, and 85-90% of hospitalizations are among the truly vaccinated, it could suggest Antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) is occurring, in which antibodies generated during an immune response can bind to a pathogen, but are unable to prevent infection – instead acting as a Trojan Horse.

    Rogan’s comments drew immediate rebuke from the usual suspects:

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    Rogan supporters showed up to defend the host:

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/07/2021 – 14:30

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Aug 07

Today’s News 7th August 2021

  • Escobar: Iran Embraces Its Eurasian Future
    Escobar: Iran Embraces Its Eurasian Future

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

    New Iranian leader expected to shift emphasis from the West to Global South and neighboring countries including China and Russia…

    Ebrahim Raisi’s election as Iranian president was marred by a low turnout and the banning of moderate opponents. Photo: AFP

    Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi was sworn in as the 8th president of Iran this Thursday at the Majlis (Parliament), two days after being formally endorsed by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei.

    Representatives of the UN secretary-general; OPEC; the EU; the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU); the Inter-Islamic Union; and quite a few heads of state and Foreign Ministers were at the Majlis, including Iraq President Barham Salih and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

    The Islamic Republic of Iran now enters a new era in more ways than one. Khamenei himself outlined its contours in a short, sharp speech, ‘The Experience of Trusting the US’.

    Khamenei’s strategic analysis, conveyed even before the final result of the JCPOA negotiations in Vienna in 2015, which I covered in my Asia Times ebook Persian Miniatures , turned out to be premonitory: “During the negotiations I repeatedly said they don’t uphold their promises.” So, in the end, “the experience tells us this is a deadly poison for us.” During the Rouhani administration, Khamenei adds, “it became clear that trusting the West doesn’t work”.

    With perfect timing, a new, six-volume book, Sealed Secret, co-written by outgoing Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and two top JCPOA negotiators, Ali Akbar Salehi and Seyed Abbas Araghchi (who’s still involved in the current, stalled Vienna debate) will be published this week, for the moment only in Farsi.

    Professor Mohammad Marandi of the University of Tehran summed up for me the road map ahead: “Iran’s foreign policy decisions are pretty clear. Iran will be putting less emphasis on Western nations, especially European, and more emphasis on the Global South, the East, neighboring countries, and of course that will include China and Russia. That doesn’t mean the Iranians are going to ignore Europe altogether, if they decide to return to the JCPOA. The Iranians would accept if they abide by their obligations. So far, we have seen no sign of that whatsoever.”

    Marandi could not help referring to Khamenei’s speech: “It’s pretty clear; he’s saying, ‘we don’t trust the West, these last 8 years showed that’, he’s saying the next administration should learn from the experience of these 8 years.”

    Outgoing president Hassan Rouhani (L) and Iran’s newly inaugurated President Ebrahim Raisi arriving for the handover ceremony in Tehran, August 3, 2021. -Photo: AFP / Iranian Presidency

    Yet the main challenge for Raisi will not be foreign policy, but the domestic framework, with sanctions still biting hard: “With regard to economic policy, it will be tilting more towards social justice and turning away from neoliberalism, expanding the safety net for the disenfranchised and the vulnerable.”

    It’s quite intriguing to compare Marandi with the views of a seasoned Iranian diplomat who prefers to remain anonymous, and very well positioned as an observer of the domestic conflict:

    “During Rouhani’s 8 years, contrary to the Supreme Leader’s advice, the government spent lots of time on negotiations, and they have not been investing on internal potential. Anyhow the 8 years are now finished, and contrary to Rouhani’s promises we currently have Iran’s worst economic and financial record in 50 years.”

    The diplomat is adamant on “the importance of paying attention to our internal capacities and abilities, while having powerful economic relations with our neighbors as well as Russia, China, Latin America, South Africa as well as maintaining mutual respectable ties with Europeans and the US government, if it changes its behavior and accepts Iran as it is and not always trying to overthrow the Iranian state and harm its people by any possible means.”

    Iranians are heirs to a tradition of at least 2,500 years of fine diplomacy. So once again our interlocutor had to stress, “the Supreme Leader has never, ever said or believed we should cut our relations with Europeans. Quite the opposite: he deeply believes in the notion of ‘dynamic diplomacy’, even concerning the US; he said multiple times we have no problem with the US if they deal with us with respect.”

    And now, let’s time travel

    There are no illusions in Tehran that Iran under Raisi, much more than under Rouhani, will remain the target of multiple “maximum pressure” and/or Hybrid War tactics deployed by Washington, Tel Aviv and NATOstan, crude false flags included, with the whole combo celebrated by US Think Tankland’s analyses penned by “experts” in Beltway cubicles.

    All that is irrelevant in terms of what really matters ahead in the Southwest Asia chessboard.

    The late, great René Grousset, in his 1951 classic L’Empire des Steppes, has pointed out “how Iran, renewing itself for fifty centuries”, has “always given proof of astonishing continuity.” It was because of this strength that Iranian civilization, as much as Chinese civilization, has assimilated all foreigners that conquered is soil, from Seljuks to Mongols: “Every time, because of the radiance of its culture, Iranism reappeared with renewed vitality, on the road to a new renaissance.”

    The possibility of a “new renaissance”, now, implies a step beyond the “neither East or West” first conceptualized by Ayatollah Khomeini: it’s rather a back to the (Eurasian) roots, Iran reviving its past to tackle the new, multipolar, future.

    The political heart of Iran lies in the sophisticated urban organization of the northern plateau, the result of a rolling, pluri-millennial process. All along Grousset’s “fifty centuries”, the plateau has been the house of Iranian culture and the stable heart of the state.

    Around this central space there are plenty of territories historically and linguistically linked to Persia and Iran: in Eastern Anatolia, in Central Asia and Afghanistan, in the Caucasus, in Western Pakistan. Then there are Shi’ite territories of other ethnic groups, mostly Arab, in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon (Hezbollah), Yemen (the Zaidites) and the Persian Gulf (Bahrain, the Shi’ites in Hasa in Saudi Arabia).

    A handout picture provided by the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on January 8, 2021 shows him delivering a televised speech on the occasion of the 43rd anniversary of 1978 revolt in Qom which ignited the Iranian Revolution. Photo: AFP via KHAMENEI.IR

    This is the Shi’ite arc – evolving in a complex Iranization process that is foremost political and religious, and not cultural and linguistic. Outside of Iran, I have seen in my travels how Arab Shi’ites in Iraq, Lebanon and the Gulf, Dari/Farsi Shi’ites in Afghanistan, those of Pakistan and India, and Turcophone Shi’ites in Azerbaijan look up towards political Iran.

    So Iran’s large zone of influence relies mostly on Shi’ism, and not on Islamic radicalism or the Persian language. It’s Shi’ism that allows political power in Iran to keep a Eurasian dimension – from Lebanon to Afghanistan and Central Asia – and that reflects once again Grousset’s “continuity” when he refers to Persian/Iranian history.

    From Ancient History to the medieval era, it was always out of imperial projects, born in Southwest Asia and /or the Mediterranean basin, that came the drive to attempt the creation of a Eurasian territory.

    The Persians, who were halfway between Mediterranean Europe and Central Asia, were the first who tried to build a Eurasian empire from Asia to the Mediterranean, but they were halted in their expansion towards Europe by the Greeks in the 5th century B.C.

    Then it was up to Alexander The Great, in pure badass blitzkrieg mode, to venture all the way to Central Asia and India, de facto founding the first Eurasian empire. Which happened to materialize, to a large extent, the Persian empire.

    Then something even more extraordinary happened: the simultaneous presence of the Parthian and Kushan empires between the Roman Empire and the Han Empire during the first two centuries of the first millennium.

    It was this interaction that first allowed commercial and cultural trade and connectivity between the two extremities of Eurasia, between the Romans and the Han Chinese.

    Yet the largest Eurasian territorial space, founded between the 7th and 10th centuries, following the Arab conquests, were the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates. Islam was at the heart of these Arab conquests, remixing previous imperial compositions, from Mesopotamia to the Persians, Greeks and Romans.

    Historically, that was the first truly Eurasian economic, cultural and political arc, from the 8th to the 11th century, before Genghis Khan monopolized The Big Picture.

    All that is very much alive in the collective unconscious of Iranians and Chinese. That’s why the China-Iran strategic partnership deal is much more than a mere $400 billion economic arrangement. It’s a graphic manifestation of what the revival of the Silk Roads is aiming at. And it looks like Khamenei had already seen which way the (desert) wind was blowing years before the fact.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/06/2021 – 23:40

  • "It's Magical Thinking" – Most Law Degrees Are No Longer Worth The Tuition
    “It’s Magical Thinking” – Most Law Degrees Are No Longer Worth The Tuition

    A few weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal published a report about overpriced masters’ degree programs offered by Ivy League Universities and other top-ranked private colleges that often left graduates “financially hobbled for life”. The story appeared to resonate, and was one of the most popular stories on the WSJ website for days after its publication, while sparking discussion on social media, as many chimed in with similar personal experiences.

    Schools like Columbia (one of the worst offenders, according to WSJ) have been churning out MFAs and Masters in Fine Arts degrees at a surprisingly rapid pace given the paucity of well-paying jobs in those fields. Ultimately, the story showed the government was partly culpable, as no-limit loans for masters’ degrees helped create the incentives for schools to make useless masters’ degrees part of the higher education boom.

    One student, who earned a Masters in Fine Arts from Columbia in 2018, described having “2 a.m. panic attacks where you’re thinking, ‘How the hell am I going to pay this off?'” While we sympathize with the student, we can’t help but wonder what was going through his mind when he signed up for the program. In many cases, the classes are stocked with the children of wealthy parents, who happily foot their rent and tuition (while letting them carrying around daddy’s credit card).

    Of course, it’s one think to go broke after taking out a quarter of a million dollars in loans for your MFA. It’s quite another when the ‘worthless degree’ you shelled out for is a law degree, or an MBA. At least the students who enrolled in those programs had a reasonable expectation that they might find work in their chosen field after graduation.

    But as the old saying goes, “lawyers are a dime a dozen”, and for students of non-target law schools, the time has come to ask: was this degree really worth it?

    As WSJ begins, “law school was once considered a surefire ticket to a comfortable life. Years of tuition increases have made it a fast way to get buried in debt.” One professor quoted in the story said law schools “foster this kind of cruel optimism” in students, letting them think six figure salaries are attainable when in reality, those high-paying jobs are largely reserved for students at only the top-ranked law schools. Law schools encourage a kind of ‘magical thinking’ to keep the lights on.”

    We suspect the situation is probably similar for students who graduate from non-target MBA programs: stories abound of students shelling out a quarter of a million dollars to get degrees at Fordham, or even NYU, and coming out making less than many graduates of top ranked schools who have only undergraduate degrees.

    One of the schools featured in the WSJ report was the Unversity of Miami Law School, once of the most expensive in the country. Federal data show the value of law degrees from non-elite schools has fallen substantially. Salaries haven’t kept pace with inflation over the past 20 years, while tuition has soared. A thre-year JD program including living expenses, costs more than $250K now.

    Source: WSJ

    Meanwhile, law school graduates earn a median $72.5K the year after graduation, according to the National Association for Law Placement. That means half of them earn less than that.

    The end result of all this is that ‘graduate degree debt’ has emerged as a trouble spot in the modern economy.

    In fact, the only way to practically guarantee that law school will pay off is by attending one of the country’s top law schools. Out of roughly 200 law programs, only a dozen of the country’s top schools leave students earning salaries two years after graduation.

    At UMiami’s law school, tuition and fees have risen by 43%, to $57K for the coming school year, according to the ABA. That’s more than double the rate of inflation. The result is that students graduate and can only afford the minimum payment on their loans (unless they have help from parents). For those who don’t, they’re essentially condemned to decades of having their income garnished by a debt that will have swollen by more than 100% over the duration of the loan.

    Laura Cordell, a 2019 graduate, said she chose Miami for the prestige, particularly within Florida. “You go to any courthouse in Miami and the judge went to UM, the judge is a teacher at UM, there’s some sort of connection to UM,” she said.

    “When I was looking for law schools, I wasn’t looking at price as much as what would be good for my career,” said Ms. Cordell, 30 years old, who said she turned down another school that offered her a large scholarship. “I didn’t have an understanding of the gravity of the amount I was borrowing.”

    Ms. Cordell owes $334,000 in federal loans for her time at Miami. She now makes an $80,000 base salary, with a bonus of about $12,000, working at a firm that specializes in insurance. Because her debt load is so high, she said, she can’t afford more than the minimum payment on an income-driven plan, which sets her monthly payments according to her income.

    Why is that UMiami can get away with raising tuition, even though wages for its graduates are stagnating? The answer is government-backed loans: Schools know graduates can tap the government’s Grad Plus loan program, which permits borrowing for whatever the cost of tuition, fees plus living expenses. It’s still the fastest growing federal student loan program, even as law school enrollment dropped substantially after the financial crisis.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/06/2021 – 23:20

  • Larry Sanger: The Astonishing Hubris Of A Global Experimental Vaccine
    Larry Sanger: The Astonishing Hubris Of A Global Experimental Vaccine

    Authored by Wikipedia Co-Founder Larry Sanger via larrysanger.org (emphasis ours),

    It is an objective, indisputable fact: never in the history of the world has there been a global push to administer an experimental medicine to all of humanity, billions of us, at the same time.

    I want you to stop and reflect on that. Imagine the hubris it required both to carry out this plan and to propagandize the world to carry it out.

    “Hubris?” you ask. “What do you mean?”

    The Covid vaccines are experimental. The FDA has not approved them. Most vaccines require years to test and approve, in no small part because we want to make sure they don’t have dangerous long-term side effects, which they can have; the CDC has published a list of problems with selected approved vaccines. Many experimental vaccines never make it out of the experimental phase. CNN made similar points back when Trump was, wrongheadedly (I thought so at the time) pushing for rapid approval of the Covid vaccines. Of course, the mercurial news organization hastened to forget all that when the Biden administration decided rapid vaccine deployment was a good idea. They shouldn’t have: for all the good they certainly have done, physicians warn us that vaccines can be dangerous for some, and experimental vaccines are, naturally, even more so.

    Again, my point is simple and absolutely factual. Again:

    • experimental vaccine

    • billions of people (over two billion)

    • at the same time

    You have to be willing to trust the welfare of billions of people not just to the honesty of our leaders and scientists—because things can go wrong for decent people. You must also trust their competence—and not just that, because competent people can make surprising, unforeseeable mistakes. You must also trust that we avoided the worst, that we dodged a bullet, and that they actually succeeded in making a more or less safe vaccine.

    Of course, maybe they did. I sure hope so. But what if we discover some horrifically high incidence of catastrophic side-effects that do not show up for two or five or ten years? Scientists tell us that that is possible. It is unfortunately possible that more people will die from these experimental vaccines than would have died from a virus that kills fewer than 1% of those who contract it.

    Do not misunderstand me. I am not claiming that is happening. I am not even saying that it is terribly likely. I am saying it is possible, because these are experimental vaccines.

    Frankly, the hubris required for carrying out this plan, and for taking the lead in propagandizing the world to carry it out, is jaw-dropping and scary to me. If a world leader is willing to take such gambles with all of humanity, what else are they prepared to do? I really wonder. If suddenly you became a president or top medical system leader or media organization owner, would you want to take an action that, if you were wrong, might spell the death of millions? First, do no harm. We haven’t heard that old medical byword very much recently.

    My family received our childhood vaccinations, by the way, with no issues. I am not an anti-vaxxer. I am an anti-global-all-at-once-experimental-vaxxer. There is a big difference.

    This is not even to touch the question whether these experimental vaccines should be mandated, i.e., if you should lose your basic civil rights if you fail to be vaccinated. Maybe I will write about that question, definitely a non-medical question, separately another time. There is indeed much, much more to say.

    But my present point is simple: experimental vaccine—billions of people—at the same time. It utterly boggles the mind that so many otherwise reasonable people have been influenced to think this is a good idea.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/06/2021 – 23:00

  • Mercedes-Benz Unveils Armored S-Class Can Withstand AK-47 Bullets
    Mercedes-Benz Unveils Armored S-Class Can Withstand AK-47 Bullets

    Mercedes-Benz has tapped into the armored car market by releasing a new S-Class saloon that can survive a hail of machine-gun bullets. 

    The S 680 Guard 4MATIC is the armored version of the German carmaker’s full-size luxury sedan. It costs more than $650,000 but comes armored to the teeth to protect high-ranking officials, politicians, heads of state. 

    For instance, the Guard has the highest level of ballistic protection plates for a civilian vehicle. The polycarbonate windows are nearly 4 inches thick. The vehicle comes with a built-in oxygen tank and fire suppression system in case of an attack. 

    The armored plating and other modifications take Mercedes-Benz an extra 51 days to install. The weight of the vehicle is 4.2 tons, or about double the standard S-Class saloon.

    Pictures of the vehicle look like any other Mercedes-Benz. Non-descript or blending into the environment is what the German automaker is going after. 

    Mercedes-Benz appears to be entering the armored car market about two years after Russia unveiled a bulletproof saloon for heads of state worldwide. The cost of the Russian saloon is a lower-cost option to the Benz. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/06/2021 – 22:40

  • 'Preppers' Quietly Stock Up For The 'Perfect Storm'
    ‘Preppers’ Quietly Stock Up For The ‘Perfect Storm’

    Authored by Allan Stein via The Epoch Times,

    A crippling ice storm that left Travis Maddox and thousands of other Missouri residents without power in 2007 had an “almost apocalyptic feel to it.”

    “No one could move. It just shut the whole region down for two weeks. I wasn’t as prepared as I thought,” said Maddox, a burly man of 43 sporting a long black beard, T-shirt, cargo pants and baseball cap, while tending his garden.

    Those two weeks made Maddox realize that being prepared—“prepping,” as it’s called today—was the key to a life of self-reliance and personal freedom.

    As an Eagle Scout, he never forgot the Boy Scout motto: Be prepared.

    “To me, the ultimate level of prepping is being self-sufficient. You’re still being modern, but you’re in control,” Maddox told The Epoch Times in a phone interview on Thursday.

    In 2009, Maddox launched his YouTube channel, “The Prepared Homestead,” which now has over 32,000 subscribers.

    People, he said, are waking up to the worsening reality of supply chain disruptions and food shortages, and rapid political and social changes that all point toward “a perfect storm” just ahead.

    The COVID-19 lockdowns and empty store shelves served only to heighten popular sentiment that the “old normal” is gone, he said.

    “When the pandemic struck we started seeing all this panic buying,” Maddox said.

    “What’s really increased is the number of people that contact me. These are really personal emails. They’re not crazy extremists. These are single moms, elderly people, disabled people, regular working people. They’re realizing that things are changing. They can just feel things are changing rapidly,” he said.

    “The riots [of 2020] were bad. The election was bad. Now what’s happening is the whole world is starting to change,” Maddox added.

    Talk of a global political and economic “Great Reset” and vaccine passports have done little to diminish anxiety among the unvaccinated that society is about to turn its back on them. And so they and others prepare—with food, water, alternative power sources, survival gear, and plans to leave the city if possible for the relative safety of rural areas.

    Along with The Prepared Homestead, a host of other YouTube channels cater to the seasoned and beginning preppers, including “Magic Prepper” in North Dakota, “Angry Prepper” in New York City, “Alaska Prepper”, “Ice Age Farmer”, and many others.

    Maddox said The Prepared Homestead began as a way to share basic gardening tips that grew in scope as political and economic circumstances changed.

    Now, he produces at least six videos a week, touching upon controversial topics such as forced vaccination, firearms confiscation, and “cultural secession”—living apart from the government and its “woke” culture—while using careful language to avoid the YouTube censors.

    “A huge portion of our country is saying you’ve gone too far,” Maddox said.

    “We’re seeing not just a rapid change in politics and policies and the economy, we’re seeing a rapid change in the heart and soul of America.”

    A storage room stacked with food is seen at a preppers ranch in Mathias, West Virginia, on March 13, 2020. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)

    While many individual preppers and prepper organizations try to remain anonymous, the number of people preparing appears to be growing. In the last year alone, roughly 45 percent of Americans, or about 116 million people, said they spent money preparing for hard times or spent money stockpiling survival goods, according to Finder.com.

    Maddox, however, said there’s a big difference between prepping and “hoarding.”

    “Prepping is something most people did all the time” in bygone years.

    “Our grandparents were preppers. I suspect if things continue to worsen preppers will be made to be the bad guys,” he said.

    In the months following the pandemic lockdowns, online stores that serve a growing number of preppers have experienced record-breaking sales and interest in their products.

    Keith Bansemer, president of My Patriot Supply in Salt Lake City, said his business has grown exponentially amid widespread fear of a return to COVID-19 lockdowns, empty store shelves, and forced vaccinations that will limit personal freedoms.

    “For those that choose not to be vaccinated, the fear is that it’s going to restrict their access to certain things,” Bansemer told The Epoch Times.

    In a word—food.

    “Since mid-July, we have seen a [six-fold] increase in orders and are shipping several thousand orders daily from our centers in Utah, Missouri, and Ohio,” Bansemer said.

    “Americans are quietly preparing.”

    Bansemer said My Patriot Supply has provided over 1 million families in the U.S. with emergency foods, water filtration, and other survival products since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.

    “We own and operate three large warehouses covering over 500,000 square feet. We spent the last year adding 10 times the additional capacity to our operations to best serve our customers during times of crisis and emergencies during spikes in orders like we are seeing now,” Bansemer said.

    “An increasing number of those new to preparing have placed orders recently. They are primarily purchasing our large food kits that average over 2,000 calories per day and last up to 25 years in storage. The most popular item right now is our 3-Month Emergency Food Kit,” he added.

    In the end, he said, being prepared isn’t about politics—it’s that “people just need to eat.”

    A prepper collects eggs from his chickens which he raises at his home in Sebastopol, California on March 30, 2017. (Monica Davey/AFP via Getty Images)

    At South Carolina-based Practical Preppers, a supplier of emergency preparing supplies, President Scott Hunt said COVID is “definitely a driver of increased demand.”

    “The social and political divisions are also making people nervous,” Hunt told The Epoch Times.

    The Texas ice storm and the Colonial pipeline ransom earlier this year “really caused people everywhere to pursue independence,” he said.

    “Electrical independence is very high on everyone’s list. I predict demand will outstrip supply this month or the next. Shipping difficulties play a very large role in this. Port congestion and trucking shortages are contributing to this perfect storm,” Hunt said.

    As a seasoned prepper, Maddox said homesteading is the next level preparing for hard times. Both he and his wife and daughter live in a family-built house tucked away in the pristine Ozarks with the goal of living off the grid.

    The family raises goats, chickens, sheep, turkeys, and grows a variety of fruits and vegetables including squash, corn, and asparagus in a large garden.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/06/2021 – 22:20

  • These Are America's Most-Searched And Visited News Sites In Each State
    These Are America’s Most-Searched And Visited News Sites In Each State

    America is known to have significant distinctions at the state-by-state level, and data suggests this trend extends to popular news sources.

    To learn more, Visual Capitalist’s Aran Ali shows this infographic from SEMRush ranks U.S. news websites by search volume and popularity across U.S. states.

    Here’s how the top 10 news sites compare when ranked by monthly visitors, as well as the number of states the news source is most searched for in:

    Political affiliation plays a large role in determining each state’s favored news sites. Blue states lean towards Google News and CNN, while red states overwhelmingly choose Fox News.

    The Most Popular News Sites

    Yahoo News is the most popular news website in America, bringing in a massive 175 million monthly visitors. In addition, they’re the most searched for news site in 12 states—the highest of any website. The company’s history has been a roller coaster ride and at different times Yahoo intended to acquire Google and Facebook. Both companies went on to be worth over $1 trillion each, while Yahoo shrank some 90% from when it was once worth $125 billion.

    The New York Times has 60 million monthly visitors, but in recent years, has pivoted towards the coveted and trending paid subscription model. This decision is paying off well, as the site now has 6.1 million paid subscribers—more than any of its competitors. Consequently, the New York Times’ share price hit a record high in December 2020.

    HuffPost, and their audience of 110 million, were bought by BuzzFeed from Verizon in November of 2020. The two organizations have some history together, as BuzzFeed co-founder Jonah Peretti was also one of the early founders of HuffPost.

    CNN is seeing a fall in ratings ever since Donald Trump left office. By some measures has witnessed a 36% decline in primetime viewers in the new year.

    Google News experiences 125 million visitors a month, ranking second overall. That said, they stand tall relative to their competitors by overall visits to their main site. Here, Google hits 92.5 billion monthly visits, while Yahoo experiences a more modest 3.8 billion. Unlike legacy media news companies, Google has managed to increase their market share of U.S. advertising revenues, due to more ads going digital.

    The Modern News Landscape

    Overall, the modern news industry has been a tough landscape to operate in. Here are some of the reasons why:

    First, the internet has removed barriers to where people obtain information, and revenue streams have been disrupted in the process. The advertising business model of news organizations is cutthroat to compete in, and there has been plenty of consolidation and layoffs.

    Lastly, trust in traditional news and media organizations has been declining amongst Americans, from nearly 60% to 46% since 2019.

    To add to this, on a global basis, the U.S. ranks well below most major countries based on trust in news media.

    Some organizations like The Washington Post and The New York Times have opted out of the advertising model, moving towards the direction of premium subscriptions. But only 20% of the Americans pay for their news, which could lead to stiff competition down the road.

    The Future Of News

    There are serious concerns about the future of news in the era of spreading misinformation. Up to 43% of Americans say the media are doing a very “poor/poor job” in supporting democracy. But despite this waning trust, 84% of Americans view news media as “critical” or “very important”.

    What will the future of media look like throughout the 21st century and how will this impact the most popular news sites of today?

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/06/2021 – 22:00

  • Time To End Another Failed California Gun Control Law
    Time To End Another Failed California Gun Control Law

    Authored by John Seiler via The Epoch Times,

    Gun control laws don’t work.

    Yet politicians eager to curb Americans’ Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms” keep pushing for tighter laws to grab more guns.

    A good example is California’s Armed and Prohibited Persons System (APPS), defined by Attorney General Rob Bonta’s website as “a database populated with data from a number of existing DOJ databases.”

    How’s that for a bureaucratic phrase?

    The APPS data “identify criminals who are prohibited from possessing firearms subsequent to the legal acquisition of firearms or registration of assault weapons.”

    In English, they’re felons or others who previously had bought guns, but were banned from owning them. Yet they continued to hold the guns, or are suspected of having them.

    “The APPS program”—weirdly defined by the AG as a system and a program—“is a highly sophisticated investigative tool that provides law enforcement agencies with information about gun owners who are legally prohibited from possessing firearms.”

    APPS was actually started by Republicans with Senate Bill 950 in 2001, by Senate Minority Leader Jim Brulte (later party chairman). It passed unanimously in both houses and was signed by then-governor Gray Davis.

    Trying to get ahead of the curve on crime issues, Republicans periodically decry the backlog of APPS cases, a safe way to seem tough on crime while not directly offending their pro-gun constituency. One example was a 2018 letter by the Senate GOP Caucus to then-attorney general Xavier Becerra (now a U.S. Senator), blasting him for allowing 10,226 delinquent cases.

    SB 950’s Senate floor analysis from 2001 actually explained it in clear language: “This bill will provide a way for law enforcement to find out which proven felons are still possessing weapons.”

    And it provided the reason: “The Attorney General [Bill Lockyer, the powerful former Senate majority leader] is sponsoring the bill in the wake of the mass slaying in February 2000 at Navistar’s International Truck and Engine Plant in Melrose Place, Illinois. In that case, the murderer was a twice-convicted felon who had previously, before his convictions, purchased firearms. Thus, even though he was prohibited and in possession of firearms, there was no way for law enforcement to find out and he was left to commit murder.

    “The bill was brought to the [attorney general] at the urging of law enforcement agencies in the state and it will provide them with a tool that will disarm these proven law-breakers before they can break the law again. If the state is going to find that some people are too dangerous to possess a gun, then we should make it as easy as possible for law enforcement to ensure that these laws are enforced.”

    Failed Potential

    On July 27 CalMatters reported, “But what seemed at the time like a straight-forward approach to the enforcement of existing gun laws has instead become mired in chronic shortcomings, failing for years to make good on its potential. Successive administrations have vowed to fix the problems, but all have fallen short.

    “Today, the state is struggling to recover thousands of guns from people who have been ordered to surrender them. At the start of the year, the list compiled by the state Department of Justice had swelled to 24,000 individuals, the most ever. The pandemic only worsened the mounting backlog of cases when some state Justice Department agents were pulled from field enforcement.”

    That assumes there actually was any “potential.”

    For perspective, I turned to John Lott, the nation’s top gun expert. I reviewed his book “More Guns, Less Crime” when it was released two decades ago. He recently was a senior adviser for research and statistics at the Office of Justice Programs at the U.S. Department of Justice. He now heads the Crime Prevention Research Center.

    “The notion that you will stop criminals from getting guns simply because you stop them from having legally acquired guns seems as likely to succeed as preventing criminals from buying illegal drugs, which obviously has worked flawlessly,” he told me, with a touch of irony.

    “The major source of illegal guns is drug dealers, who have to have weapons to protect their very valuable property.”

    The Brady Background Check System was enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1993. That’s what you go through when you buy a gun, and is used with APPS.

    But, Lott pointed out, “There is no real evidence that the Brady system has reduced violent crime [even gun control people agree, but they now claim that is because it didn’t go far enough]. I would argue that there is no evidence that background checks on the private transfer of guns have reduced violent crime or mass public shootings.”

    He pointed to his research on those issues in Chapter 10 of the 3d Edition of “More Guns, Less Crime,” which came out in 2010.

    Does Not Compute

    Then there’s the problem of fingering innocent people. A lot of Americans hold the same names. As noted above, the California DOJ claims its APPS database “is a highly sophisticated investigative tool.” If that’s really the case, then it’s the only efficient computer system run by the state government.

    Despite being the home of Silicon Valley, the Golden State’s government is known for its pyrite data systems. The most notorious is the system of the Employment Development Department, which collapsed under the load of millions of newly furloughed workers when COVID hit. A December 2020 report by California Auditor excoriated its computer system because, “[N]early half of the claims EDD processed in the first six months of the claim surge required additional intervention to complete filing after claimants submitted them online.”

    Let’s not forget the California DMV, a byword for bureaucratic incompetence. Government Technology magazine reported in February, “Personal information for possibly millions of California drivers may have been accessible to hackers this month after a company contracting with the California DMV suffered a security breach earlier this month.”

    Getting back to guns, Lott said, “The background check system that we have is a mess, with about 99 percent of the 3.8 million who have been stopped being mistakes. It is one thing to stop a felon from buying a gun, but it is something else to stop a law-abiding person simply because they have a name similar to a felon.”

    With racial tensions rising since the killing of George Floyd more than a year ago, the last thing we need to do is make that worse over guns. But that’s what’s happening.

    “The error rate is very high among minorities because people tend to have names similar to others in their racial groups,” Lott said.

    “When I was recently working at the [U.S. department of justice] the error rate for black males was three times their share of the population and for Hispanic males was 2.5 times their share of the population.”

    That is, the minorities’ Second Amendment rights were violated at a much higher rate than were those of whites.

    Lack of Data

    The CalMatters article summarized numerous problems with the APPS being unable to go after a lot of people who aren’t supposed to have guns, but still have them. It noted, “Experts on the system—who note that thousands of guns have, in fact, been removed from individuals—say stakeholders throughout government must summon the resolve to finally fix the system’s deepening problems.”

    But get this, CalMatters also found, “Although the state does not track how many individuals, if any, commit crimes while they continue to remain armed, the agency has good reason to be concerned.”

    But if there’s no data, there’s just smoke. The state has no idea what’s going on.

    And this: “At the time of its adoption, the Armed and Prohibited Persons System was seen as the low-hanging fruit of gun-control measures—taking firearms from known owners who legally shouldn’t have them.

    “But today, the inability of state and local agencies to make it work as envisioned has raised questions about how they can begin to confront the wider menace posed by the thousands of illegal firearms circulating throughout California or the new wave of untraceable ‘ghost guns,’ assembled at home from mail-order kits.’”

    Ghost Guns

    Ah, yes, the bogeyman of ghost guns, which President Joe Biden also demanded be regulated in his Feb. 14 speech attacking the Second Amendment. They’re made by 3D printers. Which means the only way to stop them is by banning or regulating 3D printers. The designs can be downloaded from Internet sites located around the world.

    It reminds me how, in the Soviet Union, Xerox copiers were numbered and regulated to prevent “samizdat”—self-published underground publications—from being circulated. That’s what tyrannies do.

    The fact is, unless you live in a city like Chicago or Baltimore that’s run by Democrats defunding the police, your chances of being murdered are quite low, by guns or other means. It’s a gigantic country of 330 million people. So bad things will happen, including massacres that lead the news cycle.

    The Armed and Prohibited Persons System was a mistake enacted 20 years ago that should not be fixed, but ended. Of course, if police in the course of their work come across someone who shouldn’t own a gun, then they should enforce the law. But a special program sending officers to people’s homes – often the wrong homes – in search of alleged violators went too far.

    We need to get back to the American reflex to always bend our laws toward freedom.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/06/2021 – 21:40

  • FBI Busts International Plot To Take Out Myanmar's UN Ambassador In New York
    FBI Busts International Plot To Take Out Myanmar’s UN Ambassador In New York

    Myanmar’s junta rulers have maintained an iron grip on the country since the February 2021 coup d’etat which saw elected leaders of the National League for Democracy get rapidly deposed and placed under arrest by the army.

    But given the United Nations has not recognized the coup government under the generals, Myanmar’s ambassador to the UN Kyaw Moe Tun has actually remained in place despite him also saying he does not recognize the new government. He’s continued to represent the now deposed National Unity Government at UN meetings in New York City.

    Permanent ambassador to the UN Kyaw Moe Tun, via Reuters

    But the military has said he no longer represents the country. State TV announced last February that he’d “betrayed” Myanmar and was fired, particularly after his public calls for outside countries to employ “all means necessary” to reverse the army takeover. 

    This week it was revealed that a mysterious threat on his life was made, which got the FBI involved and resulted in beefed up personal security. Reuters reported earlier in the week:

    Myanmar’s ambassador to the United Nations, denounced by his country’s military rulers, said on Wednesday that an apparent threat had been made against him and U.S. authorities had stepped up his security.

    “Reportedly there is some threat. The police are working on it. Necessary security has be provided by the police,” Kyaw Moe Tun told Reuters. He was made aware of the threat on Tuesday.

    On Friday US Attorney’s Office Southern District of New York announced the arrest of two Burmese nationals believed behind the plot against Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun. A press statement described a plan to “assault and make a violent attack upon Myanmar’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations.”

    He was “wanted” by the junta…

    US federal charges were filed after agents were tipped off to the plot. US Attorney Audrey Strauss detailed in the Friday statement: “As alleged, Phyo Hein Htut and Ye Hein Zaw plotted to seriously injure or kill Myanmar’s ambassador to the United Nations in a planned attack on a foreign official that was to take place on American soil.”

    In what sounds like something out a Hollywood movie, the pair were alleged to have been touch with an international arms dealer out of Thailand who helped coordinate a murder-for-hire plot.

    “In the course of those conversations, HTUT and the Arms Dealer agreed on a plan in which HTUT would hire attackers to hurt the Ambassador in an attempt to force the Ambassador to step down from his post,” a detailed statement from the DOJ described. “If the Ambassador did not step down, then the Arms Dealer proposed that the attackers hired by HTUT would kill the Ambassador.”

    “Shortly after agreeing on the plan, ZAW contacted HTUT by cellphone and transferred approximately $4,000 to HTUT through a money transfer app as an advance payment on the plot to attack the Ambassador,” the statement continues. “Later, during a recorded phone conversation with ZAW, HTUT discussed how the planned attackers would require an additional $1,000 to conduct the attack on the Ambassador in Westchester County, and for an additional payment the attackers could, in substance, ‘finish off’ the Ambassador.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/06/2021 – 21:20

  • America's "Re-Education" Camps
    America’s “Re-Education” Camps

    Authored by William Choslovsky via RealClearPolicy.com,

    We rightly criticize and condemn China for sending more than one million Uighurs – Muslims – to “re-education” camps. At the “camps” the Uighurs are “educated” in a process their Chinese elders describe as “washing brains, cleansing hearts, strengthening righteousness and eliminating evil.”

    Again, this is sick and wrong, a human rights abuse, something that should disgust us all.

    But we have our own, milder, version of “re-education” camps that indoctrinate, all for a supposed good, evolved cause. We call our re-education camps public schools.

    Here is one example, from Evanston, right outside of Chicago, of what first and second graders are now “taught” in school:

    DEEMAR V. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF EVANSTON/SKOKIE

    This is not a one-off or a rogue teacher. This is the curriculum, endorsed by the superintendent and school board. 

    Likewise, teachers are forced to acknowledge that “white identity is inherently racist.” They are actually separated by race during training. And if teachers object or question the practice, the district brands them “racists.”

    Students are also separated at times by race. During “Black Lives Matter Week,” the science department is required to teach a lesson called, “Black Women and Unapologetically Black.” Fifth grade teachers are even required to indoctrinate – I mean “teach” – that “color blindness helps racism.”

    Teachers are instructed “to disrupt the Western nuclear family dynamic as the proper way to have a family” and instead to promote the “Black Village,” which is a “collective village that takes care of each other.”

    Again, this is the curriculum for teaching seven year olds. It covers more than 7,000 kindergarteners through eighth graders attending 15 schools.

    Amidst all of this, sadly fewer than half of the district’s students meet or exceed the state’s math and English standards. And in the name of “equity,” the district recently eliminated geometry for its advanced students.

    This can’t be dismissed as “oh, that’s just wacky Evanston,” or that’s just “cuckoo Berkeley.” This is increasingly the norm across America. If not there already, it may be coming to a school near you.

    In short, it is an entire curriculum based on race. The student handbook even prominently states that the district “is committed to focusing on race as one of the first visible indicators of identity.” 

    In this respect the district arguably promotes the exact opposite teachings of what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. espoused and demanded: Namely, a colorblind society where his children were “judged on the content of their character, not the color of their skin.”

    What Evanston – and schools across the country – are doing is unequivocally misguided. It is dangerous. It is divisive. It hinders, not helps, inclusion, healing, progress, community, and self-worth. 

    And as we will soon learn, it might be illegal.

    In fact, our country fought this battle almost 70 years ago in the courts. It took the famous case of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 to end our nation’s shameful practice of “separate but equal.” There the Supreme Court ruled that “separate but equal” is “inherently unequal,” thankfully ending the sanctioned practice of government segregation by race.

    But now it’s back, just trumpeted as a good, evolving, progressive thing this time. 

    Though people will equivocate, rationalize, and seek to justify, little commentary is necessary when first graders are taught “whiteness is a bad deal” and separated at times from their black peers based only on their race.

    If it’s wrong and bad for the Chinese to “re-educate” Uighurs based on their race or religion – and spoiler alert, it is very wrong and very bad – so too it is wrong to do so with our kids based on their skin color.

    The phrase the “road to hell is paved with good intentions” comes to mind. 

    Imagine if there were schools that openly taught – as part of the approved curriculum – that “Blackness is a bad deal,” separated kids and teachers at times by race, and told the black kids they were bad for being black.

    We would rightly be abhorred. It would not be tolerated. Yet today – just flip the labels – it is celebrated and made part of the curriculum.

    This is not to say there is no place in our schools to discuss racism and its history. Of course there is, but just the same you don’t remedy one set of wrongs by perpetuating another. As the Supreme Court stated in 2007 when prohibiting public schools from admitting kids based on race: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

    So, What to Do?

    If you think this is wrong, there are two things to do, one political and one legal. 

    On the political front, you can use the ballot box and elect school board members who reject such practices. 

    People are finally realizing that what actually affects their daily lives more is not who sits in the oval office in Washington, but the nameless folks who set policy for the schools down the street, where their kids spend more of their waking hours than at home. 

    Those boring local elections matter. A lot.

    And if that fails, people can, and should, consider filing lawsuits. To be sure, it takes courage. Stacy Deemar, a 20 year veteran teacher in Evanston, recently did so. 

    Like the plaintiffs in Brown v. Board of Education, Deemar is stepping up and saying the Evanston practices violate our Constitution’s requirement of “equal protection” under the law and must stop. Her 34 page complaint boils down to one sentence: “District 65 continues to treat individuals differently based on their race.”

    I applaud her. In short, no matter who is doing the “oppressing,” and no matter their motivation, treating people differently based on their race is wrong. Period. 

    All said, if you want to protest government “re-education” camps, sadly you don’t need to go to China. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/06/2021 – 21:00

  • "He's A Pathological Liar": Cornell Chemistry Professor Dave Collum Unloads On Dr. Fauci And Covid Hysteria
    “He’s A Pathological Liar”: Cornell Chemistry Professor Dave Collum Unloads On Dr. Fauci And Covid Hysteria

    Friend of Zero Hedge and Cornell Professor Dave Collum appeared on the Quoth the Raven podcast this week and offered his unfiltered (and often profane) 2 hour long take not only on the development of the Delta variant hysteria, but also on Dr. Fauci, vaccinations and the state of lockdowns across the globe. 

    Collum is the Betty R. Miller Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Cornell University and holds a PhD, Columbia University, MS, Columbia University, MA, Columbia University and BS, Cornell University.

    The duo of Collum and podcast host Chris Irons first talked about Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the chief medical advisor to the president, whom Collum referred to as a “pathological liar”.

    When asked about the FOIA request for Fauci’s emails, Collum responded: “They were heavily redacted. One could only imagine what the redaction was. I got the feeling, reading the emails, Fauci was smart enough to know to not, himself, say anything. So Fauci didn’t say incriminating things, it was emails to Fauci that were incriminating.”

    Collum also took exception with the state of the country locking down again. “This is where it just keeps getting darker,” he said. “It started out as ‘flatten the curve’ and that made total sense…at the time it seemed like the scramble was to try and understand it, which I gave credit for them. It was really garbled because everything was ‘Anti-Trump’ at the time…but where I went off the rails is that it was looking like the pandemic was starting to subside and they weren’t stopping.”

    He continued: “So now what I see, what is confounding to me, which takes me down really dark places. I see panic. Panic, authoritarian levels that we vaccinate. And it’s Soviet style propaganda, it’s coercion, it’s bludgeoning.”

    Collum and Irons then discussed the lab leak theory, which Irons had ruminated about in-depth during a previous podcast days earlier. 

    “I’d call it a crime against humanity,” Collum said while talking about on the possibility of a lab leak cover-up. 

    “It’s interesting to look back now know what we know about Fauci’s communication,” host Chris Irons says. “It does look like a cover-up. What else are we going to find out? It’s been 18 months and the idea of a lab leak has gone from ‘completely batshit conspiracy theory’ to ‘this is the most common sense explanation’.” 

    “It’s not just that,” Collum responds. “Serious biochemists have looked at the sequencing and said ‘that does not make sense’.”

    “There’s no ethical guidelines for some of the egomaniacs in science,” Collum said.

    The discussion then moves on to vaccines, where Collum is quick to point out non-sequiturs in the “official” narrative: “It’s incoherent because they’re saying if you get vaccinated you’ll be protected and then they’re saying the people who are not vaccinated are risking the other people who are vaccinated and I’m like ‘which is it?'”

    “To vaccinate kids is nuts,” he says. “And you know what else is psychotic? The moment where it crossed the dotted line was December 2020. The vaccine had been out for a very brief period. The CDC Tweeted, I can recite it almost verbatim, although there are no studies, there’s no reason pregnant women shouldn’t get the vaccine.”

    He continued, exasperated: “You’re telling these women who are told don’t even drink a fucking glass of wine’ to get a god damn MRNA vaccine even though there’s no studies?”

    “That showed you the sociopathy of the campaign,” Collum concludes.

    You can listen to the entire interview here:

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/06/2021 – 20:40

  • Why Did China Crack Down On Its Ed-Tech Industry?
    Why Did China Crack Down On Its Ed-Tech Industry?

    Authored by Lizzi Lee via TheDiplomat.com,

    Beijing’s latest move is a response to long-held public grievances about educational inequality and the resulting pressure to keep up…

    The Chinese regulatory authorities have been keeping investors on the edge of their seats this year. Domestic fintech firms were among the first targeted by Beijing. Next came ride-hailing and food delivery. Now ed-tech giants have rounded out the lineup.

    To understand the latest development, it is crucial to unpack the chronic love-hate relationship between Chinese parents and China’s private tutoring industry, says Zak Dychtwald, founder of the advisory firm Young China Group. “There’s enormous pressure on parents and children to give their kids a head start and to get them into the best school possible.”

    It all starts with the idea of “the project of childhood,” defined as the laser-focused drive to get ahead early in life, where having a leg up early on can define a child’s competitiveness from the middle school market, the high school market, the college and professional market, to the marriage and housing market, before reaching full circle as their offspring undergo the same ritual.

    Savvy business minds leaped at the opportunity, creating alluring promises of miracle grade boosters. Marketers tapped parents’ guilt mentality of not giving their kids the best chances they deserve with anxiety-inducing pitches. Scammers prey on low-income households with misleading free trials and deep discounts, which subsequently lock families into expensive multi-year contracts.

    On Chinese social media, where grievances about civil society are tightly controlled, signs of dissatisfaction surfaced.

    Tracking the emergence of neologisms, China Media Project has identified a fabric of buzzwords in recent years reflecting this mentality. The so-called “996” culture describes the expectation that employees work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week. “Chicken child” (鸡娃), a subtle dig at the tiger mom concept, mocks parents who push their children extremely hard to excel at all costs. The emergence of “little joys” (小确幸) and a “buddha-like” (佛系) lifestyle reflects the conscious choice of a more relaxed, hands-off approach to life, arising from a broad sense of the desperation of “involution” (内卷). This term refers to the meaningless rat race in which “one does not grow or progress but merely spins in place, becoming more and more exhausted in the process.” Then comes “tang ping” (躺平), or “lying flat.”

    In April 2021, a short Baidu post titled “Lying Flat Is Justice” emerged. “The stresses of life have been primarily generated by established ways of thinking and by the older generation,” says the post. The post resonated with so many that it created an overnight sensation.

    “Gaping educational inequality, along with the perception that you have to enter the rat race of getting ahead, is the single biggest source of anxiety in the Chinese society,” says Yale Law School professor Zhang Taisu.

    “People in policymaking circles and intellectual circles understand this. If you see this, then the crackdown seems a natural, long-overdue course correction.”

    To Xiaobo Lü, associate professor at the Department of Government, the University of Texas at Austin, the new regulations aim to kill two birds with one stone. “The Chinese central government has been increasingly wary about the role of private capital in the private education sector, or more broadly, the tech sector.”

    Still, as with almost all policy changes, there are winners and losers. The entire private tutoring and test prepping industry has been dealt a fatal blow. Reports of large-scale lay offs in the sector have surfaced on Chinese social media. Small-to-medium-sized providers face an existential crisis, expected to fold within a year if the current policy persists.

    Tantalizing proposals for reorienting existing business models, including investing in extracurricular programs excluded from the new regulations, have been circulated.

    “I think it’s going to be very difficult for them. It’s as if Ford couldn’t make the F-150 [truck] anymore. It’s their core competitive product and 80 percent of their balance sheet that got hit.” says Dychtwald.

    But not all is lost, argues Dychtwald. “If there’s ever an entrepreneurial group in the world who is good at adapting, adopting, and evolving at incredible speed, it’s China. Chinese entrepreneurs, in many ways, are products of their ecosystem, where regulation can change on a dime,” says Dychtwald.

    “The root of the problem is the widening social inequality, and the privileged and wealthy will come up with alternative ways to maximize their children’s education advantages, such as hiring private tutors to teach at home,” says Syracuse University Sociology professor Yingyi Ma.

    A ream of bank think-pieces indicates Wall Street equity strategists are connecting the dots. Instead of tracking the fast-moving economic landscape and profit projections, investors would be better positioned by selling businesses that are perceived to exacerbate inequality, such as education and housing, and buying ones aligned with Beijing’s stated long-term policy goals.

    In a speech delivered at the Communist Party’s Central Party School in January, Xi Jinping called on the government to proactively reduce the ever-growing income gaps to improve people’s sense of “empowerment, happiness, and security.” Reiterating the importance of “common prosperity,” Xi “warned it is “not only an economic issue but also a major political issue.”

    This might sound like mundane, abstruse Communist jargon until one realizes China has joined the club of capitalist countries with the most skewed wealth distribution. According to a new paper by Thomas Piketty, Li Yang, and Gabriel Zucman, the share of national income earned by the top 10 percent of the Chinese population has increased from 27 percent in 1978 to 41 percent in 2015, while the share earned by the bottom half of the population has dropped from 27 percent to 15 percent.

    The crackdown reflects Xi’s broader desire to take China out of its Gilded Age, as well as his preferred method to achieve that via command, argues Yuen Yuen Ang, associate professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

    “He genuinely wants a society that is less corrupt and more equal. And he intends to do so through commands. Have poverty? Command its eradication. Have corruption? Command its eradication. Have unequal education access? Command its eradication,” writes Ang.

    While acknowledging that these commands could be highly popular among the lower classes, Ang cautions that no leader can “command social problems out of sight.”

    Further, when a government can electrocute an entire industry with a snap of its fingers, investors have good reason to be alarmed. The series of regulatory crackdowns has wiped some $400 billion off the value of U.S.-listed Chinese companies, setting off a fanatic run for exit last week.

    “[The authorities] spent much of the summer going after private firms. There is a sense that they want to get everything done in one fell swoop,” says Zhang,

    “If you have the gears of the bureaucracy churning in such a way, you might as well take advantage of that momentum.”

    Dexter Tiff Roberts, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Asia Security Initiative, writes in a report: “While the importance of the private sector to China’s economy has not lessened, its status in the eyes of China’s top officials has undergone a real downgrading in recent years, and earlier efforts to make a fairer playing field have stalled.”

    Barry Naughton, professor at the University of California, San Diego, and one of the world’s top researchers on China’s economy, cautions that the recent regulatory assaults are part of the great initiative of increasing government control.

    “What’s the unifying feature of all these dramatic moves that the Chinese government has taken in the last couple of months? I think the answer is Beijing has decided that it has the ability and wants to even more actively steer the economy than it had before,” says Naughton.

    Xi Jinping himself has been unabashed about his desire to contain the unchecked expansion of the education sector. Online education has been “hijacked by capital,” concludes People’s Daily, the paramount CCP mouthpiece.

    If one looks close enough, the new raft of stringent regulations against China’s booming private-tutoring industry has long been on the official agenda. Still, to many, Beijing’s most recent abrupt moves feel like unpredictable bursts of wrath.

    “China’s volatile style of policymaking… often leads to a policy control mechanism that fluctuates between very lax and very harsh enforcement,” posits Angela Zhang, director of the Center for Chinese Law at the University of Hong Kong, in a new article.

    “It is a substantial reorientation in the attitude of the Chinese government, and I do not think that investors are overreacting,” says Naughton.

    When China’s stock market imploded in 2015, authorities scrambled to stem the losses. “This time Chinese government is acting as if they don’t care if the stock market crashes,” says Naughton.

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/06/2021 – 20:20

  • Retiring Baby Boomers Must Avoid Living In These States
    Retiring Baby Boomers Must Avoid Living In These States

    Millions of Baby Boomers retire each year from the US labor force. They must make the difficult decision if their current home state is worth living out their “golden years” of adulthood. 

    To simplify the process of what states are the best for retirees in 2021. The finance website Bankrate provides new data of the worst states to retire in this year. 

    Bankrate examined five essential factors: affordability, wellness, culture, weather, and crime for each state. Affordability and wellness were weighted the most, 40% and 20%, respectively. 

    The survey found that Maryland, Minnesota, and Kansas were the worst three states to retire in.

    “It’s a complicated formula to figure out what’s going to attract people to your state and how to create the best climate for them,” Jeff Ostrowski, Bankrate analyst, told CNBC. “It’s a combination of factors, some in the control of the state and its leaders and some that are not.”

    Ostrowski said Maryland ranked the worst because of complaints about the state’s tax burdens. 

    Here’s the full list of the eleven worst states to retire in this year: 

    11. Washington

    • Affordability rank: 36
    • Wellness rank: 8
    • Culture rank: 27

    9. TIE: Idaho

    • Affordability rank: 22
    • Wellness rank: 39
    • Culture rank: 30

    9. TIE: Connecticut

    • Affordability rank: 49
    • Wellness rank: 7
    • Culture rank: 9

    8. Alabama

    • Affordability rank: 8
    • Wellness rank: 44
    • Culture rank: 43

    6. TIE: Arkansas

    • Affordability rank: 19
    • Wellness rank: 49
    • Culture rank: 42

    6. TIE: Maine

    • Affordability rank: 40
    • Wellness rank: 29
    • Culture rank: 1

    5. Alaska

    • Affordability rank: 25
    • Wellness rank: 23
    • Culture rank: 20

    4. Montana

    • Affordability rank: 33
    • Wellness rank: 33
    • Culture rank: 3

    3. Kansas

    • Affordability rank: 24
    • Wellness rank: 26
    • Culture rank: 38

    2. Minnesota

    • Affordability rank: 39
    • Wellness rank: 15
    • Culture rank: 34

    1. Maryland

    • Affordability rank: 47
    • Wellness rank: 4
    • Culture rank: 39

    The timing of the Bankrate report comes as the number of retired Baby Boomers has surged post-pandemic, according to Pew Research Center analysis data from late 2020. 

    “We’re not expecting that someone’s going to make their life decision based on one index; it’s just another data point to consider,” Ostrowski said.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/06/2021 – 20:00

  • Biden Administration Drops Lawsuit Protecting Pro-Life Nurses
    Biden Administration Drops Lawsuit Protecting Pro-Life Nurses

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    The Biden Administration took a little discussed but significant action this month in dropping a lawsuit against the University of Vermont Medical Center for allegedly forcing pro-life nurses to participate in abortions. It is not clear if the Biden Administration believes that pro-life nurses can be forced to participate in procedures that they consider to be immoral. However, it is clear that they are not willing to protect those religious views in this important action despite the faith-based claims under federal law. Indeed, the nurse believed the procedure constitute murder of the unborn and the Trump Administration agreed that she should be able to decline.

    According to the prior findings letter,  the medical center refused the request of the nurse to excuse herself from the abortion procedure. Other nurses were all allegedly forced to help despite such objections. There was no evidence that the Center could not accommodate the religious objectors by using other nurses.

    During the Trump Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)  asked the DOJ to investigate the matter as a civil rights violation. However, Biden Secretary Xavier Becerra asked for the investigation and lawsuit to be terminated.

    The HHS told Fox News:

    After a detailed evaluation of the underlying legal theory used to issue a referral to the Department of Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services withdrew the original referral and requested DOJ dismiss the suit against the University of Vermont Medical Center, a request which was granted.

    In line with this, HHS removed the Notice of Violation issued against UVMCC last Friday. HHS continues to evaluate the underlying facts of the matter and notified all the parties about its actions last Friday.

    That says virtually nothing. It is particularly glaring in light of the prior findings. The prior Administration found:

    UVMMC forced the nurse complainant to assist in an abortion against the nurse’s religious or moral objection. The nurse had expressed an objection for many years and was included in a list of objectors, but UVMMC knowingly assigned the nurse to an abortion procedure. The nurse was not told the procedure was an abortion until the nurse walked into the room, when the doctor—knowing the nurse objected to assisting in abortions—told the nurse, “Don’t hate me.” The nurse again objected, and other staff were present who could have taken the nurse’s place, but the nurse was required to assist with the abortion anyway. If the nurse had not done so, the nurse reasonably feared UVMMC would fire or report the nurse to licensing authorities.

    The prior referral was based on the view that this violated the the Church Amendments by forcing employees to participate in abortions against their moral or religious objections. 42 U.S.C. § 300a-7(c)(1) of the Church Amendments which state:

    “(c)Discrimination prohibition

    (1)No entity which receives a grant, contract, loan, or loan guarantee under the Public Health Service Act [42 U.S.C. 201 et seq.], the Community Mental Health Centers Act [42 U.S.C. 2689 et seq.], or the Developmental Disabilities Services and Facilities Construction Act [42 U.S.C. 6000 et seq.] after June 18, 1973, may—

    (A) discriminate in the employment, promotion, or termination of employment of any physician or other health care personnel, or

    (B) discriminate in the extension of staff or other privileges to any physician or other health care personnel, because he performed or assisted in the performance of a lawful sterilization procedure or abortion, because he refused to perform or assist in the performance of such a procedure or abortion on the grounds that his performance or assistance in the performance of the procedure or abortion would be contrary to his religious beliefs or moral convictions, or because of his religious beliefs or moral convictions respecting sterilization procedures or abortions.”

    The Center received $1.6 million in federal aide in the prior three years.

    HHS did not explain the basis for the withdrawal and just said it was “continuing to evaluate” the situation. The Biden Administration needs to be more clear on the government’s positions on religious objections. These nurses deserve better than a perfunctory, conclusory statement when they feel they are being forced to choose between the jobs and their faith.

    What is interesting is that the Biden Administration is planning on the controversial step withholding federal funds from hospitals and other institutions that do not impose a mandatory vaccine requirement. However, it is dropping an enforcement action to withhold funds to protect religious objections to participating in abortions.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/06/2021 – 19:40

  • 65% Of American Workers Would Take A 5% Pay Cut To Be Able To Permanently Work From Home
    65% Of American Workers Would Take A 5% Pay Cut To Be Able To Permanently Work From Home

    It looks like the idea of working from home is sticking.

    In fact, Americans are so keen on continuing to work from home that they would even take pay cuts to do so, according to a new Bloomberg report. In addition to just taking a pay cut, many respondents to a new survey said they would also “give up days off or put in more hours” in order to be able to keep working from home.

    And amidst a historic labor shortage brought about by the Federal government subsidizing the entire country to sit around and literally lock down, companies are being forced to pull out the incentives to try and get workers to return to the office. Some companies are handing out prizes or even providing things like free lunch, child care, or yoga classes.

    Insurance company Breeze commissioned the survey, which revealed that 65% of Americans said they would take a pay cut of 5% to be able to work from home. Most people said they wouldn’t give up more than 5% – but 15% of respondents said they’d be willing to give up as much as 25% of their salary to work remotely. 46% of respondents said they would give up 25% of their days off and 15% said they would give up “all paid time off” to work from home. 

    For employees, it could make sense, especially when factoring in the cost of commuting. For companies, it could make sense because it is another cost reduction for many companies who are already choosing to eliminate office space, and the costs associated with the real estate. 

    The survey included 1,000 people who said they were “employed or looking for work at a job that can be completed entirely remotely.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/06/2021 – 19:20

  • Olympic Organizers Refuse To Honor Victims Of 1945 Hiroshima Bombing
    Olympic Organizers Refuse To Honor Victims Of 1945 Hiroshima Bombing

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    Friday marks the 76th anniversary of the United States dropping an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The anniversary coincides with the Tokyo Olympics, but organizers of the games refuse to honor the victims of the massacre.

    Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui sent a letter to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to hold a moment of silence at 8:15 am on Friday, the time that the bomb was dropped, but the request was denied.

    Prior Olympic torch ceremony at Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, Japan, on May 17, via Reuters.

    The letter read: “We want athletes and related officials to somehow understand the reality of atomic bombs. Could you please call on them to join in spirit the Peace Memorial Ceremony held in Hiroshima by offering a silent prayer at the Olympic Village or wherever they are?”

    The IOC denial came after the organization’s president, Thomas Bach, visited memorial sites in Hiroshima in July. “I wanted them to take just a bit of time. What did Mr. Bach visit Hiroshima for? We feel betrayed,” said Toshiyuki Mimaki, a 79-year-old of Nihon Hidankyo, an organization of A-bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    Explaining its denial of the request, the IOC said it made a decision not to call on athletes or officials to hold a moment of silence. The closing ceremony of the Olympics scheduled for August 8th will have a segment commemorating victims of historical tragedies. The IOC said the Hiroshima bombing could be remembered during the closing ceremony but added that the segment would not be about victims of any single incident.

    The real death toll of the US bombing of Hiroshima will never be known, but estimates put the number at about 140,000. The estimated population of the city at the time the A-bomb was dropped was approximately 255,000. Nagasaki was bombed a few days later, on August 9th, where an estimated 70,000 people were killed.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/06/2021 – 19:00

  • Brace For Astronomical Shipping Costs As China Goes Into Lockdown Mode
    Brace For Astronomical Shipping Costs As China Goes Into Lockdown Mode

    With the latest weekly update of container shipping rates showing that prices – already at all time high – simply refuse to back down, as rates from China to the US surpassing a record $20,000, a new threat looms which could send already sky high prices into orbit. As the delta variant spreads on the mainland, most Chinese ports are now requiring a Covid test for all crew, with vessels forced to remain at anchor until negative results are confirmed, and requiring ships to quarantine for 14-28 days if they previously berthed in India or changed crew within 14 days of arriving.

    That spells further delays, further price increases and, according to Splash, shipping will need to start to make contingency plans should China – the world’s most important nation for shipping movements – emerge as another pandemic epicenter.

    The delta variant has broken through the country’s virus defences, which are some of the strictest in the world, and reached nearly half of China’s 32 provinces in just two weeks. While the overall number of infections — more than 360 so far — is still lower than Covid resurgences elsewhere, the wide spread indicates that the variant is moving quickly with many millions of Chinese now in lockdown.

    “For freight markets, the implications include delays at ports as authorities screen crews of incoming vessels and a hit to China’s oil demand if widespread lockdowns are imposed,” a report from Braemar ACM pointed out this week.

    When a Covid-19 outbreak was detected at Yantian Port in late May, operations at the key southern Chinese export hub were slashed by 70% for most of June. Similar disruptions are in the cards in the coming weeks, while shipyards are also likely to see their delivery schedules come under pressure if any wider lockdown measures are taken.

    “As long as lockdowns remain confined to China, the impact on freight markets is likely to be muted, especially in the case of wet and dry freight. The container market seems most vulnerable if we see more severe disruptions to manufactured products supply chains,” commented Plamen Natzkoff, senior trade expert at VesselsValue. On the potential tanker ramifications, Natzkoff said: “An immediate impact of a lockdown in China is reduced population mobility which would have a direct impact on demand for transportation fuels, potentially impacting negatively the tanker market.”

    On the possible consequences for the container sector, Alan Murphy, CEO of Danish consultancy Sea-Intelligence, reminded readers of what happened in February 2020 when China first went into lockdown. Carriers responded with a wave of blank sailings.

    “Assuming that a strict China lockdown would lead to a scenario as in February 2020, we would expect a drop in production of 15-20% for about a month,” Murphy suggested.

    While that at first might not sound too detrimental, after all that is in rough numbers what happens every normal Chinese New Year, 2021 is not a normal year.

    “Cargo owners, already stressed beyond sanity from devastatingly high freight rates and absurd surcharges, and with no way to secure neither equipment nor space, would suddenly see their procurement costs sky-rocket in addition to their back-breaking logistics costs,” Murphy predicted, adding that the one possible silver lining for shippers could be that as the production decreases start to wave out to the Chinese ports, pressure would start to ease off on the ocean bottleneck, which could start to bring down freight rates.

    The added concern Murphy has is if Chinese ports were not able to run at full capacity, like Yantian earlier this summer.

    “For container shipping, which is more than red-hot at the moment, even a brief halt in Chinese exports is likely to ease the crunch a bit logistically so long as a lockdown only closes manufacturing sectors and not ports and terminals,” commented Peter Sand, chief shipping analyst at BIMCO.

    Nick Ristic, a dry bulk analyst at Braemar ACM, said the sector would not be as badly affected as it was at the start of the pandemic last year.

    “Based on the experience in other countries with prolonged lockdowns, it seems the world has learnt how to keep things running with restrictions in place,” Ristic pointed out. Of greater concern for Ristic is the state of consumer demand and the underlying economy in China, which is starting to slow down.

    “This could take some real steam out of the Chinese economy and manufacturing base. PMIs are already weakening too,” Ristic said.

    Factory activity expanded at the slowest pace in 15 months in China last month as new orders dropped. The Caixin/Markit manufacturing PMI fell to 50.3 in July from 51.3 in June, the lowest since the covid pandemic started.

    Bulk carrier congestion in China hit a five-year high of 50.5m dwt over the weekend, rising by 24% year-on-year as new restrictions were put in place in ports across the country. Current queues are 76% above the five-year average according to data from Braemar ACM as Covid-19-related protocols affect all sectors of the dry bulk market, worsening the crew change crisis in the process.

    Newly reported positive Covid-19 cases in China have recently forced the country to re-introduce restrictions to curb the spread of the virus. Most ports in the country are now requiring a nucleic acid test for all crew, with vessels forced to remain at anchor until negative results are confirmed.

    Many ports in the country are also requiring vessels to quarantine for 14-28 days if they previously berthed in India or performed a crew change within 14 days of arriving in China. “While it is unclear how long these measures will be in place for, they will likely tighten the dry market in the near-term,” Braemar ACM suggested in a note to clients yesterday.

    Ralph Leszczynski, global head of research at Banchero Costa, like most analysts contacted by Splash, was adamant that China would not press ahead with a national lockdown. “Larger scale lockdowns would be unsustainable economically, so can happen at local level – in a single neighborhood or city, but not for whole provinces, not to mention nationwide,” Leszczynski said.

    China has managed to carry out one of the largest vaccination campaigns this year, with over 60% of the population already reportedly vaccinated, and an 80% vaccination threshold likely to be reached by September or October.

    “China will certainly try now to contain and eliminate the current outbreak, but if they don’t manage to do that, and it spreads uncontrollably nationwide, I think they are more likely to shift towards more of a living with Covid strategy thanks to vaccination in the autumn, similar to what Singapore has announced recently, rather than shutting down the whole country, which would be unsustainable economically and create discontent,” Leszczynski said.

    Mark Williams, who heads up British consultancy Shipping Strategy, concurred with Leszczynski, telling Splash: “More likely than a national lockdown is a series of targeted lockdowns by province or county. If those lockdowns include coastal regions, key ports and logistics centres, then globalised supply chains will become chaotic.”

    Commenting on the latest developments in the increasingly whacky world of hyperinflating shipping rates, Rabobank’s Michael Every made the following observations:

    • Before this surge in shipping costs, most economists thought logistics were invisible, efficient, and of no interest. Like plumbing, you need it, but don’t let it dictate your plans for the day;
    • Those logistics assumptions were only possible because since 1945 the US Navy has kept global sea lanes open and safe for all maritime traffic. Pirates and hijacking get attention today because they are *rare* – but they did not used to be. Indeed, global sea lanes used to be carved up by empires for their preferred shipping and production, not open to all;
    • That paradigm starting to fray along with the rest of the post-WW2 global architecture;
    • Current price surges are due to massive supply-demand imbalances that are not going to go away any time soon;
    • But imagine shipping costs, and the broader implications, if we get maritime chaos in the Straits of Hormuz, around Suez, or in the South China Sea;
    • Building new maritime capacity from ship to port to warehouse to rail to truck to store to home to address our supply-demand imbalances is tied to the post-Covid economic geography: is it still a post-1945 open economy?; if not, where will things be made? We still don’t know, but we BRI vs. B3W is an example of how things are trending;

    In short, Every concludes, the ship of apolitical logistics has sailed: “Just as ‘a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged’, so a ‘mercantilist is a free trader with squeezed supply chains’.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/06/2021 – 18:40

  • The Unvaccinated: The New COVID Scapegoats
    The Unvaccinated: The New COVID Scapegoats

    Authored by Techno Fog via The Reactionary,

    They have found a COVID scapegoat. It is you.

    Persuasion to get the COVID vaccines failed with some Americans, as those who seek to persuade – namely government officials and the media – have no credibility. Onto the next step: a collective effort by the press, corporations, and the government to blame and vilify and target the unvaccinated. This is no coincidence, as such efforts help deflect responsibility from those who caused and created this problem in the first place.

    In New York City, you will need proof of a COVID vaccine for indoor dining, gyms, and concerts.

    Writing for The Atlantic, Juliette Kayyem (a former Homeland Security official with the Obama Administration) calls for the federal government to institute a “no-fly list for unvaccinated adults.” She desires there to be the establishment of “norms that restrict certain privileges to vaccinated people,” apparently so other “privileges” can be removed if the no-fly list doesn’t encourage enough vaccinations.

    The Atlantic headline, since revised.

    Her use of the word “privilege” is intentional. This is because she believes “Flying is not a right.” We disagree. Travel (and thus the manner of travel) is a fundamental right to all Americans, “one of the implied and unremunerated rights reserved to the People.”

    Anyway, the unvaccinated “no-fly list” isn’t solely for the purposes of airplane safety. She concedes that the transmission of COVID is “unlikely” during a passenger flight. This is, instead, a proposed punishment to change the minds of the unvaccinated.

    Of course, there are millions of Americans who don’t fly. Banning them from flying won’t have the desired effect. From there it follows that they will have to remove additional “societal benefits” until compliance with a vaccine that still doesn’t have FDA approval is 100% (or at least until they get herd immunity).

    And on that point, the New York Times states, “the elusive path to herd immunity necessarily runs through vaccinating unpersuadable adults.” If they cannot be persuaded, what are the options? The Times answers that question: Without vaccine mandates, it’s hard to imagine making much progress with this population.”

    You know where they’re going with this. The Times’ Ezra Klein proposes policymakers start “raising the costs of remaining unvaccinated.” As if the people haven’t been through enough.

    Meanwhile, over on Twitter, morbidly obese writer Matthew Yglesias is offended by your health decisions and fantasizing about forced vaccinations (a position he holds but since deleted).

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

    While they say this is about health, it is clear that it is also political.

    The press revels in condemning conservatives for not getting the vaccine. Self-loathing conservatives like David French say Evangelical vaccine hesitancy is a “spiritual problem.” Conservative governors – those with low COVID death rates in their states – are attacked for not doing enough to encourage vaccination.

    Paul Krugman takes these arguments to the next level, arguing that conservatives seeking personal autonomy are really trying to preserve their while male Christian “privilege” while making minorities pay the price.

    The government – including officials like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins – must be happy with the blame-shifting. Just imagine their delight, after having potentially contributed to the creation of COVID-19, that the unvaccinated are now the accused.

    Never one to miss a media appearance, Dr. Fauci is out there saying the unvaccinated are “propagating” the latest outbreak, that we need to “do something to get them to be vaccinated.” This duty that Dr. Fauci advances is the purported obligation to do something to protect others. (One has to ask whether millions of lives would have been saved had they followed this same duty with taxpayer dollars at Wuhan.)

    We believe this is just the start. If persuasion has reached its limit (and there is evidence it has), then please, trust them at their word when they advocate restricting your rights and inflicting punishment if you remain unvaccinated.

    And in considering the institutions of power setting their sights on the unvaccinated – those whose purported crime is of inaction – I leave you with the words of René Girard:

    “The crowd tends toward persecution since the natural causes of what troubles it and transforms it into a turba cannot interest it. The crowd by definition seeks action but cannot affect natural causes. It therefore looks for an accessible cause that will appease its appetite for violence. Those who make up the crowd are always potential persecutors, for they dream of purging the community of the impure elements that corrupt it, the traitors who undermine it.”

    Subscribe here.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/06/2021 – 18:20

  • Lake Oroville Hydro Power Plant Shut Down For First Time Due To Megadrought
    Lake Oroville Hydro Power Plant Shut Down For First Time Due To Megadrought

    One of California’s most important hydroelectric plants has ceased operations due to falling water levels, according to the Department of Water Resources (DWR).

    On Wednesday, Lake Oroville fell to a record low of 642-feet above mean sea level. By Thursday, the lake stood at 641-feet above mean sea level. Readers may recall in mid-June, we said if the “640 feet is breached, then officials will likely be forced to close the Edward Hyatt Power Plant for the first time since it opened in 1967.”

    Hitting the threshold was enough for DWR to declare the hydroelectric power plant had to cease operations. Lake management officials are in a water preservation emergency amid a megadrought and scorching heat waves. 

    Karla Nemeth, the director of DRW, said the move to shut down the powerplant follows a “climate-induced drought.”

    Shutting down the plant is a move to conserve as much water in Lake Oroville as possible. Water in the lake is pumped into an adjacent hydroelectric energy facility known as the Hyatt power plant, which can power 800,000 homes when operational. 

    “DWR State Water Project operations managers have taken the Hyatt Powerplant at Lake Oroville offline due to falling lake levels. This is the first time Hyatt Powerplant has gone offline as a result of low lake levels. However, DWR anticipated this moment, and the state has planned for its loss in both water and grid management. We have been in regular communication about the status of Hyatt Powerplant with the California Independent Service Operator (CAISO) and the California Energy Commission and steps have been taken in anticipation of the loss of power generation.

    “This is just one of many unprecedented impacts we are experiencing in California as a result of our climate-induced drought. California and much of the western part of the United States are experiencing the impacts of accelerated climate change including record-low reservoir levels due to dramatically reduced runoff this spring.

    “DWR will continue to focus on reservoir operations and water storage management at Lake Oroville to preserve as much water in storage as possible. DWR will use the River Valve Outlet System to release some water from the base of Oroville Dam to maintain river temperature requirements and outflows to the Feather River.

    “Falling reservoir levels are another example of why it is so critical that all Californians conserve water. We are calling on everyone to take action now to reduce water use by 15 percent, to preserve as much water supply in storage as possible should we experience another dry year. We are all in this together.” – Nemeth

    The loss of the Hyatt power plant might not trigger blackouts but illustrates a broader challenge facing the state’s power grid operators this year amid multiple climate disasters. 

     Before & After 

    2019 Lake Oroville

    2021 Lake Oroville

    The power will have to be made up somewhere else to reduce the risk of blackouts: 

    “This is a huge problem. It’s part of the big challenge we are facing this summer,” Severin Borenstein, co-director of the Energy Institute at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, told The Mercury News. 

    The silver lining is that Oroville won’t experience a spillover crisis anytime soon as drought ravages the region. Nevertheless, the federal government could quickly declare the first-ever water shortage in the area, which would prompt cutbacks in water usage. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/06/2021 – 18:00

  • Wuhan's 'Bat Lady' Warns Of Coming Covid-19 Mutants
    Wuhan’s ‘Bat Lady’ Warns Of Coming Covid-19 Mutants

    Of all the people on the planet who should probably take a pass on weighing in over the future of Covid-19, the woman suspected of either creating it and/or releasing it is probably at the top of the list.

    Yet, that’s what just happened.

    According to Chinese state media cited by the South China Morning Post, top CCP virologist Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology – also known as “Bat Lady” – says the virus will continue to mutate, and we must prepare to coexist with it.

    “As the number of infected cases has just become too big, this allowed the novel coronavirus more opportunities to mutate and select. New variants will continue to emerge,” said Shi, whose lab was working with a US-Funded nonprofit to make bat coronaviruses more infectious to humans.

    Zhengli Shi toasts with Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance

    Fear porn or legitimate concern?

    Aside from the obvious value in having ‘Wuhan’s Bat Lady™’ opine on emerging strains of the virus she’s an expert in – note that she doesn’t discuss how much more or less deadly new strains could be.

    For example, there’s no evidence that the Delta strain – while much more virulent than the original Alpha strain of Covid-19, is any deadlier.

    “There’s no evidence that it’s more deadly,” said Dr. Larry Corey, who is coordinating all of the COVID-19 vaccine research in the U.S (via King5). “There is evidence that it’s more infectious and more infectious to others, i.e., more transmissible. But [is it] actually more severe? There’s really not good hard evidence of that.”

    “Becoming more transmissible and less lethal are absolutely what’s best for the pathogen,” said Troy Day, a professor of mathematics and biology at Queen’s University in Canada, who has studied how infectious diseases – including coronaviruses – evolve (via AP).

    That said, sometimes viruses evolve to become more deadly.

    “…in many instances is never possible, to be more transmissible and also less lethal,” Day added – noting that there are documented cases of animal viruses which have evolved to become more lethal over time.

    Some examples of viruses that became more deadly over time include those that developed drug resistant variants, and animal viruses such as bird flu, which were harmless to humans initially but then mutated to become capable of killing people, according to Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Health Security.

    “Flu viruses have developed resistance to certain antivirals that make them more difficult to treat, and therefore make them more deadly,” said Adalja, noting that this has happened with HIV and certain strains of Hepatitis C.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/06/2021 – 17:40

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