• Erdogan Defiantly Says "Of Course" Turkey Will Buy More Russian S-400 Missile Defenses
  Erdogan Defiantly Says “Of Course” Turkey Will Buy More Russian S-400 Missile Defenses

  In a rare CBS interview which aired Sunday on “Face the Nation”, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced his intent to purchase another round of Russian S-400 air defense systems, after under the prior Trump administration Turkey’s reception of S-400s triggered deteriorated relations with Washington and a years-long diplomatic standoff which saw US threaten sanctions on its NATO ally.

  Biden administration officials have on multiple occasions condemned the prior deal which “provides Russia revenue, access and influence” – as Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said earlier this year. Erdogan in the weekend interview confirmed bluntly that “of course, of course, yes” Turkey will pursue more Russian anti-air defense systems.

  

  “I explained everything to President Biden,” Erdogan had begun in the segment which focused on the firm US stance on Turkey, which in 2019 saw Trump suspend delivery of Lockheed produced F-35 jets to Turkey. US officials have long argued that the jet’s stealth and radar evading technology can be compromised given Turkey would at the same time have S-400s, which further involves Russian advisers and technicians assisting with the systems.

  CBS News’ chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Brennan asked specifically about whether Turkey will defy Washington and pursue more of the Russian long-range missile defenses: 

  The Turkish president responded, “In the future, nobody will be able to interfere in terms of what kind of defense systems we acquire, from which country, at what level.” 

  “Nobody can interfere with that,” he added. “We are the only ones to make such decisions.”

  “That sounds like a yes,” Brennan replied.

  Erdoğan responded, “Of course, of course, yes.”

  Turkey still intends to buy a second batch of S-400 missile defense systems from Russia, President Tayyip Erdogan said, a move that could deepen a rift with NATO ally Washington and trigger new U.S. sanctions https://t.co/z6P09aIomp pic.twitter.com/lBsEkjSXkO

  — Reuters (@Reuters) September 26, 2021

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  Likely the words will trigger renewed talk of sanctions in Congress and within the US administration, given also that Biden has vowed to ‘get tough’ on Turkey, following accusations that Trump was too deferential to the US ally and had a compromisingly close friendship with the Turkish leader. 

  Starting all the way back in January 2020, as Biden began attempting to set himself apart from Trump on the issue, Biden was quoted in The New York Times as saying Erdogan is an “autocrat”. This reference came up in the CBS interview, to which Erdogan quipped in reference to Biden, “Mr. President’s definition of an autocrat remains unknown to me. I don’t know what he meant.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/28/2021 – 02:45

• Mass Celebrations Erupt In Norway As COVID Restrictions End
  Mass Celebrations Erupt In Norway As COVID Restrictions End

  Authored by Lorenz Duschamps via The Epoch Times,

  Norwegians took to the streets over the weekend to celebrate an end to the country’s CCP virus restrictions after government-imposed measures limited people’s social interactions for about 18 months.

  

  The Norwegian government announced on Sept. 24 that most of the remaining COVID-19 restrictions would be scrapped beginning on Sept. 25, and that life in the nation of 5.3 million would return to normal.

  “It has been 561 days since we introduced the toughest measures in Norway in peacetime,” outgoing Prime Minister Erna Solberg said at a news conference.

  “Now the time has come to return to a normal daily life.”

  Norway will no longer require businesses to implement social distancing measures, and it will also allow sports and cultural venues as well as restaurants to use their full capacity, the prime minister’s office said. Nightclubs can also reopen under the new guidelines.

  The virus can now be considered as one of several respiratory illnesses with seasonal variation, said Geir Bukholm, the assistant director for the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, according to local media. In Norway, COVID-19 has been classified as a generally dangerous disease, but the official classification could change soon, he said.

  “We are now in a new phase where we must look at the coronavirus as one of several respiratory diseases with seasonal variation,” Bukholm told news outlet VG, referring to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

  Rowdy celebrations in the Nordic European nation erupted on Sept. 25, with thousands of citizens across Norway taking to the streets and partying until the early hours of Sept. 26.

  “There was a significantly greater workload than during the summer. There were a lot of people out already in the afternoon and it continued during the night,” Rune Hekkelstrand, a police spokesman in Oslo, the capital of Norway, told the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK.

  Police said they responded to dozens of reports of unrest and violent clashes in the country’s major cities after streets, bars, restaurants, and nightclubs were filled with people celebrating the end of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus restrictions.

  

  People out on the streets to celebrate the end of the COVID-19 restrictions, in Oslo, on Sept. 25, 2021. (Naina Helen Jama/NTB via AP)

  Solberg justified the move to reopen society by saying that Norwegian health experts had supported the decision.

  “We shall not have strict (coronavirus) measures unless they are professionally justified. People must be allowed to live as they wish,” Solberg told Norwegian newspaper VG late Saturday.

  According to the Norwegian Institute for Public Health, about 67 percent of the population is fully vaccinated.

  Norway is the second country in the Nordic region to lift COVID-19 restrictions after Denmark did so on Sept. 10.

  Nearby Sweden also announced earlier this month it will remove most of its COVID-19 restrictions on Sept. 29.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/28/2021 – 02:00

• Escobar: A New World Order Takes Shape, Part 2 – Eurasian Consolidation Ends The US Unipolar Moment
  Escobar: A New World Order Takes Shape, Part 2 – Eurasian Consolidation Ends The US Unipolar Moment

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

  Read Part 1: How The SCO Just Flipped The World Order here…

  Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s 20th-anniversary summit heralded the beginning of a new geopolitical and geo-economic order…

  

  The 20th anniversary summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, enshrined no less than a new geopolitical paradigm.

  Iran, now a full SCO member, was restored to its traditionally prominent Eurasian role, following the recent $400 billion-worth trade and development deal struck with China. Afghanistan was the main topic – with all players agreeing on the path ahead, as detailed in the Dushanbe Declaration. And all Eurasian integration paths are now converging, in unison, towards the new geopolitical – and geoeconomic – paradigm.

  Call it a multipolar development dynamic in synergy with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

  The Dushanbe Declaration was quite explicit on what Eurasian players are aiming at: “a more representative, democratic, just and multipolar world order based on universally recognized principles of international law, cultural and civilizational diversity, mutually beneficial and equal cooperation of states under the central coordinating role of the UN.”

  For all the immense challenges inherent to the Afghan jigsaw puzzle, hopeful signs emerged this Tuesday, when Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah met in Kabul with the Russian presidential envoy Zamir Kabulov, China’s special envoy Yue Xiaoyong, and Pakistan’s special envoy Mohammad Sadiq Khan.

  This troika – Russia, China, Pakistan – is at the diplomatic forefront. The SCO reached a consensus that Islamabad will be coordinating with the Taliban the formation of a government also including Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras.

  The most glaring, immediate consequence of the SCO not only incorporating Iran but also taking the Afghan bull by the horns, fully supported by the Central Asian “stans”, is that the Empire of Chaos has been completely marginalized.

  From Southwest Asia to Central Asia, a real reset has as protagonists the SCO, the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), BRI and the Russia-China strategic partnership. The missing links so far, for different reasons – Iran and Afghanistan – are now fully incorporated to the chessboard.

  In my frequent conversations with Alastair Crooke, one of the world’s foremost political analysts, he evoked once again Lampedusa’s The Leopard: everything must change so everything must remain the same. In this case, imperial hegemony, as interpreted by Washington: “In its growing confrontation with China, a ruthless Washington has demonstrated that what matters to it now is not Europe, but the Indo-Pacific region.” That’s Cold War 2.0 prime terrain.

  With very little potential to contain China now that it’s been all but expelled from the Eurasia heartland, the fallback position had to be a classic maritime power play: the “free and open Indo-Pacific”, complete with Quad and AUKUS, the whole set up spun to death as an “effort” attempting to preserve dwindling American supremacy.

  The sharp contrast between the SCO continental integration drive and the “we all live in an Aussie submarine” gambit (my excuses to Lennon-McCartney) speaks for itself. A toxic mix of hubris and desperation is in the air, with not even a whiff of pathos to alleviate the downfall.

  The Global South is not impressed. Addressing the forum in Dushanbe, President Putin remarked that the portfolio of nations knocking on the SCO’s door was huge, and that was not surprising at all. Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are now SCO dialogue partners, on the same level with Afghanistan and Turkey. It’s quite feasible they may be joined next year by Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Serbia and a cast of dozens.

  And it doesn’t stop in Eurasia. In his meticulously timed address to CELAC, Xi Jinping no less than invited 33 Latin American nations to be part of the Eurasia-Africa-Americas New Silk Roads.

  Remember the Scythians

  Iran as a SCO protagonist and at the center of the New Silk Roads restores it to a rightful historic role. By the middle of the first millennium B.C., Northern Iranians ruled the core of the steppes in Central Eurasia. By that time the Scythians had migrated into the Western steppe, while other steppe Iranians made inroads as far away as China.

  Scythians – a Northern (or “East”) Iranian people – were not necessarily just fierce warriors. That’s a crude stereotype. Very few in the West know that the Scythians developed a sophisticated trade system, as described by Herodotus among others, linking Greece, Persia and China.

  And why’s that? Because trade was an essential means to support their sociopolitical infrastructure. Herodotus got the picture because he actually visited the city of Olbia and other places in Scythia.

  The Scythians were called Saka by the Persians – and that leads us to another fascinating territory: the Sakas may have been one of the prime ancestors of the Pashtun in Afghanistan.

  What’s in a name – Scythian? Well, multitudes. The Greek form Scytha meant Northern Iranian “archer”. So that was the denomination of all the Northern Iranian peoples living between Greece in the West and China in the East.

  

  Now imagine a very busy international commerce network developed across the heartland, with the focus on Central Eurasia, by the Scythians, the Sogdians, and even the Xiongnu – who kept battling the Chinese on and off, as detailed by early Greek and Chinese historical sources.

  These Central Eurasians traded with all the peoples living on their borders: that meant Europeans, Southwest Asians, South Asians and East Asians. They were the precursors of the multiple Ancient Silk Roads.

  The Sogdians followed the Scythians; Sogdiana was an independent Greco-Bactrian state in the 3rd century B.C. – encompassing areas of northern Afghanistan – before it was conquered by nomads from the east that ended up establishing the Kushan empire, which soon expanded south into India.

  Zoroaster was born in Sogdiana; Zoroastrianism was huge in Central Asia for centuries. The Kushans for their part adopted Buddhism: and that’s how Buddhism eventually arrived in China.

  By the fist century A.D. all these Central Asian empires were linked – via long-distance trade – to Iran, India and China. That was the historical basis of the multiple, Ancient Silk Roads – which linked China to the West for several centuries until the Age of Discovery configured the fateful Western maritime trade dominance.

  Arguably, even more than a series of interlinked historical phenomena, the denomination “Silk Road” works best as a metaphor of cross-cultural connectivity. That’s what is at the heart of the Chinese concept of New Silk Roads. And average people across the heartland feel it, because that’s imprinted in the collective unconscious in Iran, China and all Central Asian “stans”.

  The Revenge of the Heartland

  Glenn Diesen, Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway and an editor at the Russia in Global Affairs journal, is among the very few top scholars who are analyzing the process of Eurasia integration in depth.

  His latest book practically spells out the whole story in its title: Europe as the Western Peninsula of Greater Eurasia: Geoeconomic Regions in a Multipolar World.

  Diesen shows, in detail, how a “Greater Eurasia region, that integrates Asia and Europe, is currently being negotiated and organized with a Chinese-Russian partnership at the center. Eurasian geoeconomic instruments of power are gradually forming the foundation of a super-region with new strategic industries, transportation corridors and financial instruments. Across the Eurasian continent, states as different as South Korea, India, Kazakhstan and Iran are all advancing various formats for Eurasia integration.”

  The Greater Eurasia Partnership has been at the center of Russian foreign policy at least since the St. Petersburg forum in 2016. Diesen duly notes that, “while Beijing and Moscow share the ambition to construct a larger Eurasian region, their formats differ. The common denominator of both formats is the necessity of a Sino-Russian partnership to integrate Eurasia.” That’s what was made very clear at the SCO summit.

  It’s no wonder the process irks the Empire immensely, because Greater Eurasia, led by Russia-China, is a mortal attack against the geoeconomic architecture of Atlanticism. And that leads us to the nest of vipers debate around the EU concept of “strategic autonomy” from the US; that would be essential to establish true European sovereignty – and eventually, closer integration within Eurasia.

  European sovereignty is simply non-existent when its foreign policy means submission to dominatrix NATO. The humiliating, unilateral withdrawal of Afghanistan coupled with Anglo-only AUKUS was a graphic illustration that the Empire doesn’t give a damn about its European vassals.

  Throughout the book Diesen shows, in detail, how the concept of Eurasia unifying Europe and Asia “has through history been an alternative to the dominance of maritime powers in the oceanic-centric world economy”, and how “British and American strategies have been deeply influenced” by the ghost of an emerging Eurasia, “a direct threat to their advantageous position in the oceanic world order”.

  Now, the crucial factor seems to be the fragmentation of Atlanticism. Diesen identifies three levels: the de facto decoupling of Europe and the US propelled by Chinese ascendancy; the mind-boggling internal divisions in the EU, enhanced by the parallel universe inhabited by Brussels eurocrats; and last but not least, “polarization within Western states” caused by the excesses of neoliberalism.

  Well, just as we think we’re out, Mackinder and Spykman pull us back in. It’s always the same story: the Anglo-American obsession in preventing the rise of a “peer competitor” (Brzezinski) in Eurasia, or an alliance (Russia-Germany in the Mackinder era, now the Russia-China strategic partnership) capable, as Diesen puts it, “of wrestling geoeconomic control away from the oceanic powers.”

  As much as imperial strategists remain hostages of Spykman – who ruled that the US must control the maritime periphery of Eurasia – definitely it’s not AUKUS/Quad that is going to pull it off.

  Very few people, East and West, may remember that Washington had developed its own Silk Road concept during the Bill Clinton years – later co-opted by Dick Cheney with a Pipelineistan twist, and then circling all back to Hillary Clinton, announcing her own Silk Road dream in India in 2011.

  Diesen reminds us how Hillary sounded remarkably like a proto-Xi: “Let’s work together to create a new Silk Road. Not a single thoroughfare like its namesake, but an international web and network of economic and transit connections. That means building more rail lines, highways, energy infrastructure, like the proposed pipeline to run from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan, through Pakistan and India.”

  Hillary does Pipelineistan! Well, in the end, she didn’t. Reality dictates that Russia is connecting its European and Pacific regions, while China connects its developed east coast with Xinjiang, and both connect Central Asia. Diesen interprets it as Russia “completing its historical conversion from a European/Slavic empire to a Eurasian civilizational state.”

  So in the end we’re back to…the Scythians. The prevailing neo-Eurasia concept revives the mobility of nomadic civilizations – via top transportation infrastructure – to connect everything between Europe and Asia. We could call it the Revenge of the Heartland: they are the powers building this new, interconnected Eurasia. Say goodbye to the ephemeral, post-Cold War US unipolar moment.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/27/2021 – 23:40

• Bennett To UN: Israel's Tolerance At "Watershed Moment" As Iran Crossed All Nuclear "Red Lines"
  Bennett To UN: Israel’s Tolerance At “Watershed Moment” As Iran Crossed All Nuclear “Red Lines”

  Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in his address to the UN General Assembly meeting in New York on Monday warned that Iran’s advancing nuclear program has caused Israel’s tolerance to hit a “watershed moment”. 

  “Iran’s nuclear program has hit a watershed moment and so has our tolerance,” Bennett said. “Words do not stop centrifuges from spinning.” That’s when he emphasized, “All red lines have been crossed,” in an ominous tone of forewarning. 

  

  He reiterated prior vows to never allow the Islamic Republic to achieve nuclear weapons capability – an assumption that leaders in Tehran have long disputed. Iran officially calls nuclear arms ‘unIslamic’ – according to pronouncements over the years by the Ayatollah.

  But Bennet in his UN speech alleged that Iran is trying to expand its influence over the whole Mideast region via a “nuclear umbrella” through which it can flex its muscles and dictate its interests – for example in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

  “We will not tire. We will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon,” Bennet said further.

  Interestingly, he appeared to lash out at US progressives – including the handful of Progressive Democrats in Congress (namely ‘the Squad’, which tried to strip an extra $1 billion from a defense bill last week intended to help replenish Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ munitions) as well as companies which promote the BDS movement to boycott Israel in protest of its treatment of Palestinians:

  “Attacking Israel doesn’t make you morally superior. Fighting the only democracy in the ME doesn’t make you woke. Adopting clichés about Israel without bothering to learn the basic facts, well, that’s just plain lazy.”

  Words alone won’t stop centrifuges from spinning, but sanctions relief did. On the other hand, Israeli covert ops triggered an end to intrusive inspections, destroyed an IAEA monitoring camera and triggered 20% & 60% enrichment: https://t.co/lvV889KqUt

  — Ryan Costello (@RyeCostello) September 27, 2021

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  The address follows last week’s statement by Iran’s foreign ministry which indicated Iran planned to return to Vienna negotiations for the restoration of the JCPOA nuclear deal “very soon”. 

  Also last week for the first time new Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi addressed a global audience, telling the UNGA meeting via remote feed that Iran is ready and willing to continue Vienna negotiations toward a restored JCPOA nuclear deal, but that Washington must drop its sanctions that contravened the original 2015 deal.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/27/2021 – 23:20

• Texas Attorney General Leads 10-State Coalition Supporting Florida Ban On Big Tech Censorship
  Texas Attorney General Leads 10-State Coalition Supporting Florida Ban On Big Tech Censorship

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

  Texas Attorney General Paxton announced on Sept. 20 that he is leading a coalition of 10 states in filing an amicus brief with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in support of Florida’s law that attempts to regulate censorship on Big Tech social media platforms.

  

  Paxton signed on behalf of Texas, joining the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, and South Carolina who have also filled an amicus brief in support of Florida’s law.

  “The regulation of big tech censorship will inevitably suppress the ideas and beliefs of millions of Americans,” Paxton said in a statement. “I will defend the First Amendment and ensure that conservative voices have the right to be heard. Big Tech does not have the authority to police the expressions of people whose political viewpoint they simply disagree with.”

  Florida’s SB 7072 law allows Floridians to take legal action against Big Tech platforms if they censor a user’s content without consistent standards.

  The new bill also prevents Big Tech from banning Floridian political candidates. Social media companies that deplatform candidates for statewide office will be fined $250,000 a day. The fine is $25,000 per day when deplatforming candidates for other offices.

  Big Tech companies that violate the law can be brought to trial for monetary damage, and the state’s attorney general can litigate companies that don’t comply with the law under Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law in May but District Judge Robert Hinkle in June granted a temporary injunction preventing the governor from implementing the law after two Internet trade groups—NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association— filed a lawsuit.

  The trade groups argued the law may violate the First Amendment by compelling social media platforms to host offensive speech they otherwise would not and by interfering with their editorial policies.

  The coalition in its amicus brief said the district court’s First Amendment analysis is “riddled with errors.”

  “It veered off course from the outset by concluding that S.B. 7072 regulates speech, when that law instead regulates conduct that is unprotected by the First Amendment: social media platforms’ arbitrary application of their content moderation policies,” the coalition wrote.

  Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed Texas’s House Bill 20—similar to Florida’s law—which protects Texans from wrongful censorship on social media platforms.

  House Bill 20 prevents social media companies with more than 50 million monthly users, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, from banning users based on their political beliefs. The attorney general would also be able to take legal action on behalf of Texas residents that were banned or blocked by a platform due to such discrimination.

  “We will always defend the freedom of speech in Texas,” Abbott said. “Social media websites have become our modern-day public square. They are a place for healthy public debate where information should be able to flow freely—but there is a dangerous movement by social media companies to silence conservative viewpoints and ideas. That is wrong, and we will not allow it in Texas. I thank Senator Bryan Hughes, Representative Briscoe Cain, and the Texas Legislature for ensuring that House Bill 20 reached my desk during the second special session.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/27/2021 – 23:00

• China Issues Rare, Strongly-Worded Defense Of Russia Over US "Bullying" Sanctions
  China Issues Rare, Strongly-Worded Defense Of Russia Over US “Bullying” Sanctions

  It’s been no secret that over the past half-decade China and Russia have grown closer, even becoming unlikely allies (unlikely given historic 20th century antagonism), in the face of Washington pressure and sanctions on officials in both countries. 

  This growing cooperation on military, economic and infrastructure development fronts has now reached the next unprecedented step of Beijing publicly defending Russia, vociferously condemning the next round of proposed US sanctions on Moscow officials.

  China’s Foreign Ministry on Monday stated it “strongly opposes” new sanctions on top Russian officials, saying US Congressional leaders are using human rights as a “pretext” for ensuring attempts at improving US-Russia relations fail. “The US hegemonic and bullying practices are rejected by Russia and China and will meet rejection and opposition from more and more countries,” the Monday statement said.

  

  “China is strongly against Washington applying unilateral sanctions under the pretext of protecting human rights” given that it “violates the provisions of the UN Charter and acts contrary to generally accepted norms of international law,” spokesperson Hua Chunying said in Beijing.

  The statement suggested it’s another example of the United States’ unilaterally ‘bullying’ behavior (as Chinese officials have increasingly referenced), and that “a growing number of countries” oppose Washington’s attempts to punish Moscow while waiving the flag of human rights. 

  The new sanctions in question were part of anti-Russian legislation packaged into the US defense spending budget for 2022. Specifically they target 35 top Russian officials, including the mayor of Moscow and Health Ministry head Mikhail Murashko. The legislation also makes continued reference to ‘election interference’ and other such usual accusations against the Kremlin.

  Beijing issuing such a high level public defense of Putin’s Russia comes as China is under a similar human rights spotlight as well, particularly over its Hong Kong crackdown of the last few years, and widespread reports of Uighur minority ‘reeducation camps’ in northwest Xinjiang region. Typically the foreign ministry has deployed the “double standard” and hypocrisy charge in response to Washington criticisms of China. 

  China firmly opposes the US unilateral sanctions on the Russian side. The US hegemonic and bullying practices are rejected by Russia and China and will meet rejection and opposition from more and more countries. @mfa_russia pic.twitter.com/h97RD3zgym

  — Hua Chunying 华春莹 (@SpokespersonCHN) September 27, 2021

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  This fresh defense of Russia points to the two countries deepening their united front against their common enemy, also after joint military drills have in recent years been ramped up. Add to this both the US and UK navies lately deploying a more active presence in contested waters South China Sea and near Taiwan, and its recipe for potential major military confrontation between the West and a Russia-China alliance. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/27/2021 – 22:40

• Pentagon Says It Won't Ask Taliban Permission For Future Afghan Airstrikes
  Pentagon Says It Won’t Ask Taliban Permission For Future Afghan Airstrikes

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  The US has no plans to ask permission from the Taliban if it decides to bomb Afghanistan in the future, the Pentagon said in its latest statements addressing the issue.

  Since the withdrawal, the US has maintained that it has “over the horizon capabilities” to carry out airstrikes in Afghanistan. But even though the Taliban is leading the new Afghan government, the Pentagon has no plans to coordinate with them on potential airstrikes.

  

  “We retain all necessary authorities to execute over-the-horizon counterterrorism operations, and we remain confident in these capabilities moving forward,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told Military Times.

  “Without speaking to specific rules of engagement surrounding airstrikes, there is currently no requirement to clear airspace with the Taliban, and we do not expect that any future over the horizon counterterrorism strikes would hinge on such a clearance,” he said.

  The US has hinted at further intervention and airstrikes in Afghanistan under the guise of fighting ISIS-K. The Taliban have accepted air support from the US in the past against ISIS-K, but since the withdrawal was completed, the Taliban have said they don’t need foreign help to fight the terrorist group.

  The last known US airstrike in Afghanistan took place on August 29th in Kabul, which killed 10 civilians, including seven children. The Pentagon initially claimed the strike targeted ISIS-K, but it was forced to admit that only civilians were killed in the bombing.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/27/2021 – 22:20

• Musk Publicly Praises China For Second Time This Month At Conference Held By China's Cyberspace Administration
  Musk Publicly Praises China For Second Time This Month At Conference Held By China’s Cyberspace Administration

  The latest leg of Elon Musk’s China ass kissing tour commenced this weekend in the form of a pre-recorded stream at the World Internet Conference, which was hosted by the Cyberspace Administration of China.

  This marks the second instance this month where Musk took an opportunity to praise China for its work in the EV space.

  Musk said that China was the “global leader in digitalization” during the event, CNBC reported.

  Musk also continued by saying that Tesla would be expanding their investments in China: “My frank observation is that China spends a lot of resources and efforts applying the latest digital technologies in different industries, including the automobile industry, making China a global leader in digitalization. Tesla will continue to expand our investment and R&D efforts in China.”

  The Tesla CEO also called out data protection, reassuring those listening that Tesla stores certain types of data locally.

  “At Tesla, we are glad to see a number of laws and regulations that have been released to strengthen data management,” Musk said.

  

  He continued: “Tesla has set up a data center in China to localize all data generated from our business here, including production, sales, service and charging. All personally identifiable information is security stores in China without being transferred overseas. Only in very rare cases, for example, spare parts orders from overseas is data approved for transfer internationally.”

  We don’t know about you, but that sure makes us feel better.

  Recall, we pointed out days ago when Musk praised Chinese automakers – also known as Tesla’s competition – as “the most competitive in the world”. Musk also said China had “great potential” as a nation for electric vehicles.

  In another pre-recorded appearance at the World New Energy Vehicle Congress, Musk said: “I have a great deal of respect for the many Chinese automakers.”

  Data security was also a topic Musk talked about, stating that it was the “cornerstone” of the EV industry as it develops.

  Then Musk appeared to make a backhanded allusion that Tesla would be turning over whatever data the CCP wanted: “Tesla will work with national authorities in all countries to ensure data security of intelligence and connected vehicles. With the rapid growth of autonomous driving technologies, data security of vehicles is drawing more public concern than ever before.”

  Musk continued: “Public sentiment and support for electric vehicles is at a never before seen inflection point because they know it is the future.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/27/2021 – 22:00

• Container Ships Now Piling Up At Anchorages Off China's Ports
  Container Ships Now Piling Up At Anchorages Off China’s Ports

  By Greg Miller of FreightWaves,

  There are over 60 container ships full of import cargo stuck offshore of Los Angeles and Long Beach, but there are more than double that — 154 as of Friday — waiting to load export cargo off Shanghai and Ningbo in China, according to eeSea, a company that analyzes carrier schedules.

  

  The number of container ships anchored off Shanghai and Ningbo has surged over recent weeks. There are now 242 container ships waiting for berths countrywide. Whether it’s due to heavy export volumes, Typhoon Chanthu or COVID, rising congestion in China is yet another wild card for the trans-Pacific trade.

  

  Volatile trade flows

  Congestion in Chinese ports that slows the flow of exports is bad news for U.S. importers but it could temporarily alleviate pressure on the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

  When operations at the Chinese port of Yantian were heavily curtailed by a COVID outbreak in June, ships at anchor in California’s San Pedro Bay declined. The problem for California ports was that the temporary reprieve was soon followed by a surge of delayed cargo.

  “The devil in these things is the whiplash effects,” Simon Sundboell, founder of eeSea, told American Shipper. “What you’d rather have is more stability, not these swings, and I think what everybody fears is that the swings will become even more volatile. When the system is already this stretched, all of these unexpected events can be a causal factor in congestion.”

  Ships follow the money

  A major driver of congestion on both sides of the Pacific Ocean: Landside capacity (terminals, trucking, rail, warehousing) is limited, but the vessel capacity of a single ocean trade lane is highly flexible.

  While the number of ships in the world is finite, operators can shift ships to wherever they make the most money. And the trans-Pacific is now a particularly lucrative trade: Spot rates including premiums can top $20,000 per forty-foot equivalent unit (FEU).

  “These assets [ships] are super-mobile,” said Sundboell. “What’s happening now is the opposite of what dogged the industry for the past 20 years. Five years ago, people were asking: How can the trans-Pacific rate drop from $2,000 to $1,500 [per FEU] in the space of just six days? It was because you could take a vessel from one place and sail it someplace else, and suddenly there were more ships and a price war and rates dropped.

  “Now we’re seeing the opposite,” he said. As ship operators pile more capacity into the trans-Pacific, congestion rises, delays mount, the incentive for shippers to pay premiums is supported, and all-in rates remain at record highs.

  Surging number of services

  According to eeSea, the number of Far East-West Coast services has surged from 48 in January to 67 this month. In contrast, the number of services on this lane stayed fairly steady last year, at 42-46.

  

  In addition, ships are being drawn from other trades to serve as “extra loaders” (ships that perform one-off voyages). In some cases, multiple ad hoc ships are doing multiple round trips — a hybrid of an extra loader and a scheduled service.

  “We’re definitely seeing carriers pulling ships from Asia-Middle East and Asia-Africa and putting them into the trans-Pacific trade,” said Sundboell.

  “Whether it’s for one round trip as an extra loader or whether it becomes semipermanent, I don’t even think the carriers know themselves right now. They’re just playing the market and if it makes more economic sense to take a ship from the Middle East and put it in the trans-Pacific, they’ll do it, whether it’s for one month, three months or six months — which is why nobody knows what this network is going to look like six months from now.

  “The line managers in Copenhagen and Geneva and Marseille are looking at yields per container and costs per container. And not just per container. They’re looking at it per day, and per container-TEU [twenty-foot equivalent per]-mile.”

  Trans-Pacific ships getting smaller

  Yet another driver of increased trans-Pacific congestion: There are not only more ships, but the ships are getting smaller, meaning that more vessels are needed to carry the same TEUs.  

  According to eeSea, the average capacity of ships serving Asia-West Coast services was 8,601 TEUs in January and is 7,125 TEUs currently, a decrease of 17%.

  

  American Shipper recently analyzed the average size of vessels at anchorage or drifting off Southern California currently versus the Q1 anchorage peak on Feb. 1 and found a similar drop: from 8,060 TEUs to 6,184 TEUs, or 24%.

  Smaller average vessel size “would definitely slow things down further,” said Sundboell.

  Some operators have added trans-Pacific capacity by buying ships in the secondhand market or leasing them in the charter market. Most of the ships available for purchase or charter in 2021 have been in smaller size categories. 

  Liner companies’ switching of capacity from other trades is also pulling down average size, because the trades being cannibalized use lower-capacity ships. “The reason you have smaller vessels coming in is that they’re taking them from the Middle East and Africa trades,” said Sundboell.

  How does this end?

  Ship operators can put as many ships as they want into the trans-Pacific to chase record spot rates, leaving other trades short. But ultimately, the imbalance should self-correct.

  “It becomes something that balances itself out,” explained Sundboell, noting that if ships are removed from other trades, rates in those trades would rise to the point where it would entice ships back.

  “At a certain point, the rates of the trades you’re leaving increase too much or the cost of having the ships sitting at anchor becomes too much [in terms of lost future cargo],” said Sundboell.

  In Q1, when anchorages filled off Los Angeles/Long Beach, carriers were unable to get enough ships back to Asia in time to load cargo, so they had to “blank” (cancel) a large number of sailings, which reduced congestion in Q2.

  Given the extreme anchorage situations both off China and Southern California, a repeat of the blank-sailing scenario seems likely in Q4 – a worrisome prospect for importers. 

  Lack of visibility

  But even companies like eeSea that track blank sailings cannot definitely say what will happen in Q4.

  In the first half of 2020, when carriers were blanking sailings due to lockdown-induced demand drops, they announced voyage cancellations months in advance, providing an important signal to the market. This year, there is far less notice, because blank sailings are being caused by congestion, not lower forward demand.

  According to Sundboell, “For November, there are only eight blank sailings [on Asia-West Coast] and only three in December, but that is just because the carriers have not communicated them yet. We only put a blank sailing into our system when it is confirmed by the carrier.”

  Pre-COVID, he said, carriers believed they were tied down by long notice periods for service changes. “But corona gave them a platform to take out capacity with short notice,” said Sundboell. “Now they’re trying to get more capacity in, but they’ve definitely taken the liberty of being both more volatile with their capacity and with the ‘forecasting’ of their service.

  “And I think that’s what’s causing the frustration among the BCOs [beneficial cargo owners; the shippers]. A BCO hates having to be forced to get used to the fact that the vessel is always 10 days late — or that they won’t even know when it’s coming. I don’t think that’s what the carriers are aiming to do, but they’ve certainly found wiggle room to change services on short notice that they’ve never had before.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/27/2021 – 21:40

• Lawyers & Scientists Are Building A Case For Why Natural Immunity Should Be Treated Same As Vaccination
  Lawyers & Scientists Are Building A Case For Why Natural Immunity Should Be Treated Same As Vaccination

  Now that at least one employer in the health-care field – Michigan’s Spectrum Health – has decided to accept proof of natural immunity from prior infection as reason to waive its vaccination mandate for all employees, legal expert (and the reporters who love to quote them) are wondering: will the legality of proving natural immunity potentially win out in court?

  The answer to that question, they say, will depend – as all things COVID-related do – on “the science”, that nebulous and frequently shifting concept of how prior infection impacts immunity to new variants (and whether vaccine’s do as well).

  

  According to a report in Yahoo Finance, the notion that natural immunity is superior is already gaining support in the legal world. Presently, a handful of studies from different countries offer a conflicting view of whether natural immunity actually is superior to vaccinated immunity, or a combination of prior infection and vaccination

  Since it’s likely the federal government’s aim to roll out vaccine mandates that cover practically every US worker (they’re not too far off already), the issue of natural vs. vaccine immunity and whether some individuals should receive exemptions based on their antibody levels almost certainly be adjudicated in the federal courts.

  At least one attorney quoted by Yahoo agrees:

  “I think that a judge might reject a rule that’s been issued by a body, like the U.S. Department of Labor or by a state, that has not been sufficiently thought through as it relates to the science,” Erik Eisenmann, a labor and employment attorney with Husch Blackwell, told Yahoo Finance.

  As we reported when it was first published, a report out of Israel suggests that natural immunity could be many times more effective than the Pfizer vaccine at preventing infection with the delta variant. That study has yet to be peer-reviewed, however, and the world is anxiously awaiting the results.

  However, another peer-reviewed study cited by the CDC looks at dozens of cases in the US where certain people who tested positive for COVID never ended up generating the antibodies, which, science dictates, are necessary to fend off future infection.

  The CDC also published a study of 246 Kentucky residents, concluding that vaccination offers higher protection than a previous COVID infection. The CDC said the study went through a “rigorous multi-level clearance process” before submission, but now some are concerned it’s slightly out of date since it pre-dates the rise of delta.

  But as far as supporting natural vs. vaccinated immunity goes, this study is another big one: A C A June study by the Cleveland Clinic and Washington University tracked 52,238 Cleveland Clinic employees found that within 1,359 previously infected and unvaccinated people, none contracted a subsequent COVID-19 infection over the five-month study. The findings led authors to conclude that prior infection makes a person “unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination.”

  Then there’s this:

  In a smaller study conducted by Washington University School of Medicine and published in Nature, senior author Ali Ellebedy, PhD, an associate professor of medicine and of molecular microbiology, found antibody-producing cells in the bone marrow of 15 of 19 study subjects 11 months after their first COVID-19 symptoms. “These cells will live and produce antibodies for the rest of people’s lives. That’s strong evidence for long-lasting immunity,” Ellebedy said.

  The legal and scientific standards are intertwined here, but as more data develops that appears to validate the argument that natural immunity is at least as effective as vaccinated immunity, it’s more likely that lawyers will succeed in convincing judges that the standard should be “immunity by any means.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/27/2021 – 21:20

• Arizona Senate Hears Of Multiple Inconsistencies Found By Election Audit
  Arizona Senate Hears Of Multiple Inconsistencies Found By Election Audit

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

  Arizona lawmakers were told on Friday during a hearing on an audit conducted in the state’s most populous county of inconsistencies uncovered during a forensic audit into the 2020 election.

  

  The Maricopa County audit was commissioned by Republicans in the Arizona Senate.

  Senate President Karen Fann, a Republican, issued a letter on the same day to Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich recommending further investigation following the audit’s findings. In the letter, she raised concerns over signature verification on mail-in ballots, the accuracy of voter rolls, the securing of election systems, and the record-keeping of evidence related to the elections.

  “I am therefore forwarding the reports for your office’s consideration and, if you find it appropriate, further investigation as part of your ongoing oversight of these issues,” Fann told Brnovich in the letter.

  Brnovich, a Republican running for the U.S. Senate, said in a statement, “I will take all necessary actions that are supported by the evidence and where I have legal authority. Arizonans deserve to have their votes accurately counted and protected.”

  His office said that its Election Integrity Unit “will thoroughly review the Senate’s information and evidence.” Specific allegations cannot be commented on until the review is complete, the office added.

  Fann said Friday at the hearing that the audit had faced unnecessary obstruction from Maricopa County officials, who went to court in a bid to try to block the audit and subpoenas from the state Senate. While the forensic audit did not uncover a significant difference in the total vote tallies—the difference was only hundreds in the final report— evidence was uncovered of numerous other anomalies, including statutes being broken and chain of custody not being followed, Fann added.

  Cyber Ninjas, a Florida-based company hired by the state Senate to conduct the audit, said its review involved over 1,500 people and a total of over 100,000 hours. While the company said it only found in the recount a vote discrepancy of 994 in the presidential race and 1,167 in a U.S. Senate race, the report highlighted potential issues with a combined total of 53,305 ballots.

  Maricopa County on Friday issued a series of statements on its Twitter page in response to findings laid out in a purported draft audit report of Cyber Ninja’s forensic audit that had been released ahead of the Senate audit hearing.

  The draft audit report’s figures did not entirely correlate with that of Cyber Ninja’s final report. Fann said Friday at the hearing, “As you know somebody leaked one of the draft reports out over the last 24-48 hours. It was a draft report, so I can tell you that what’s in that is not entirely what’s in the final report.” However, some key allegations in the draft report regarding ballots did match that of the final report.

  

  23,344 Mail-In Ballots Voted From Prior Address

  According to the Cyber Ninjas’ final report, 23,344 mail-in ballots were received from voters’ previous addresses.

  “Mail-in ballots were cast under voter registration IDs for people that may not have received their ballots by mail because they had moved, and no one with the same last name remained at the address. Through extensive data analysis we have discovered approximately 23,344 votes that may have this condition,” the report states.

  Cyber Ninjas noted in its report that if ballots are sent by forwardable mail, this would violate the Arizona Elections Procedures Manual.

  “The Senate should consider referring this matter to the Attorney General’s Office for a criminal investigation as to whether the requirements of ARS 16-452(C) have been violated,” the company stated in the report.

  Maricopa County refuted the allegation on Friday, saying, “Mail-in ballots are not forwarded to another address.” It also asserted that voting from a previous address “is legal under federal election law,” such as in the case of American military and overseas voters. The county also said it had 20,933 one-time temporary address requests for the 2020 general election.

  

  9,041 More Ballots Returned by Voter Than Received

  Cyber Ninjas found that 9,041 more ballots were returned by voters than were sent to them.

  According to the report, “9,041 more ballots show as returned in the EV33 Early Voting Returns File for a single individual who voted by mail than show as sent to that individual within the EV32 Early Voting Sent File.” “In most of these instances, an individual was sent one ballot but had two ballots received on different dates.”

  Auditors later noted they were told that some of the discrepancies “could be due to the protected voter list,” but were not able to validate that. Maricopa County released a statement to similar effect on Friday.

  The county disputed the finding on Twitter, saying the majority of times when there are multiple entries in the EV33 file are when voters “returned a ballot without a signature or with a signature discrepancy,” and in such cases, election staff contact the voter.

  

  Cyber Ninjas: Voters Potentially Voted in Multiple Counties

  Cyber Ninjas noted that some 5,295 ballots were affected by voters who potentially voted in multiple counties.

  The company said that it had compared Maricopa County’s list of all its voters who cast a ballot in the election (also referred to as the VM55 Final Voted File) to the equivalent files of the other 14 Arizona counties, to find a total of 5,047 voters with the same first, middle, last name, and birth year, representing some 10,342 votes among all the counties.

  “The Ballot Impacted was calculated by the total number of votes (10,342) and subtracting the number of maximum number of potential unique people (5,047). This yielded 5,295,” the report said.

  

  Separately, the company found that the number of ballots tallied in the official Maricopa results were 3,432 more than the total number of people who voted.

  “The official result totals do not match the equivalent totals from the Final Voted File (VM55),” Cyber Ninjas said (P12).

  Cyber Ninjas said the finding is significant because “the number of individuals who showed up to vote should always match the number of votes cast.” The company recommended that legislation “that would require the Official Canvass to fully reconcile with the Final Voted File” should be considered.

  Cyber Ninjas said in another finding that there were 2,592 more duplicate ballots than original ballots sent to duplication—a process for replacing damaged or improperly marked ballots with a new ballot that preserves the voter’s intent.

  “This is probably one of the more interesting parts … that we had more duplicates than original ballots,” Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan said in his presentation on Friday. “According to our counts from our audit, we had 26,965 original ballots and we had 29,557 that were duplicate ballots, and those numbers should be the same.

  “Based on the numbers received from Maricopa county, we should have had 27,869 of both originals and duplicates and they should have matched up perfectly,” he added.

  Other findings of the ballots impacted included 2,382 in-person voters who had moved out of Maricopa County, and 2,081 voters who moved out of state during the 29-day period preceding the election. Responding to the findings, the county said it had completed separate spot checks and found “no discrepancies” for either of the figures.

  Cyber Ninjas also reported that there were 1,551 votes counted in excess of voters who voted, as well as a slew of other categories of findings that affected a smaller number of ballots, such as 397 mail-in ballots sent without there being a record of them having been sent, 393 ballots that had incomplete names, 282 votes cast by individuals who “were flagged as deceased,” and 198 votes cast by individuals who registered to vote after the Oct. 15 deadline, among other smaller categories.

  

  17,322 Duplicates of Early Voting Ballot Return Envelopes

  Shiva Ayyadurai, who was commissioned by the Senate to “check the signatures or lack thereof” on the early voting ballot (EVB) return envelopes, said during Friday’s presentation that the audit “reveals anomalies raising questions on the verifiability of the signature verification process.”

  Ayyadurai said that his team was hired only to verify whether the envelopes contained a signature—not whether the actual signature matched that of the voter in question.

  Of the 1,929,242 return envelopes provided by the Senate, 17,322 duplicates were found, with some voters having cast the same ballot three to four times, according to Ayyadurai’s report (pdf). He noted that Maricopa county’s canvass report, meanwhile, did not report any duplicates. 

  In response to duplicated ballot allegations, Maricopa County wrote Friday, “Re: duplicated ballots. Every time a voter has a questioned signature or a blank envelope, we work with that voter to cure the signature. That’s our staff doing their job to contact voters with questioned signatures or blank ballots. Only one ballot is counted.”

  Among other several key findings, Ayyadurai noted that over 25 percent of the duplicate ballots were received between Nov. 4 and Nov. 9, 2020.

  

  Allegations of Deletions

  Auditors stated in their report that “according to the Master File Table (MFT) of the drives, a large number of files on the Election Management System (EMS) Server and HiPro Scanner machines were deleted.”

  “These files would have aided in our review and analysis of the election systems as part of the audit,” the report reads. “The deletion of these files significantly slowed down much of the analysis.”

  Maricopa denied the allegation in a Twitter post on Friday, saying, “Maricopa County strongly denies claims that @maricopavote staff intentionally deleted data.” The county also said it has “backups for all Nov. data & those archives were never subpoenaed.”

  While auditors finished part of the audit that deals with the ballots, they say an evaluation of voting machine equipment is ongoing.

  “Because the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and the Arizona Senate have recently settled their dispute concerning outstanding subpoena items, this portion of the audit is not yet complete,” the Cyber Ninjas’ report states.

  Response to Findings

  Jack Sellers, Chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, said in a statement in response to the Senate audit hearing, “The Cyber Ninjas’ opinions come from a misuse and misunderstanding of the data provided by the county and are twisted to fit the narrative that something went wrong.”

  “Once again, these ‘auditors’ threw out wild, damaging, false claims in the middle of their audit and Senate leadership provided them the platform to present their opinions, suspicions, and faulty conclusions unquestioned and unchallenged. Today’s hearing was irresponsible and dangerous.”

  Arizona Democrats, meanwhile, pounced on the auditors’ report.

  “The Cyber Ninjas embarrassed Arizona for months, violated voters’ trust, refused transparency, and stuck AZ taxpayers with a multi-million dollar bill. What’d they find? Biden won,” Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who has frequently criticized the audit and is trying to become Arizona’s next governor, wrote on Twitter. “The so-called leaders who allowed and encouraged this need to be held accountable in 2022.”

  

  But Fann has long said that the goal of the audit was to improve Arizona’s election system and wasn’t designed to overturn the results.

  “Our No. 1 goal is to make sure those laws are followed,” Fann said during Friday’s hearing, adding that there are “a lot of people” with questions about the state’s election integrity. Citing a poll, Fann said that 45 percent of Arizona’s voters had significant distrust in the election system.

  Ahead of the official release of the report on Friday afternoon by the state Senate, Trump said the audit uncovered “significant and undeniable” fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

  “The audit has uncovered significant and undeniable evidence of fraud!” he said in an emailed statement. “I have heard it is far different than that being reported by the fake news media.”

  Trump added, “Until we know how and why this happened, our elections will never be secure. This is a major criminal event and should be investigated by the Attorney General immediately.”

  Arizona was one of several key swing states, including Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, and Wisconsin, that were certified for Biden during the Nov. 3 election. Trump won those states, with the exception of Nevada, in 2016. According to official results, Biden won Arizona over Trump by a margin of just over 10,000 votes.

  Maricopa County hasn’t responded to The Epoch Times’s request for comment.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/27/2021 – 21:00

• Despite Record Cargo Backlogs, Ports Of L.A. And Long Beach Still Don't Operate Around The Clock
  Despite Record Cargo Backlogs, Ports Of L.A. And Long Beach Still Don’t Operate Around The Clock

  Some of the busiest U.S. ports, including many in California, are still struggling with how to deal with significant cargo backlogs. 

  Yet, despite the backlog, the busiest U.S. port still shuts down for hours on most days and is closed on Sundays, the Wall Street Journal reports. “Tens of thousands” of containers remain stuck at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. More than 60 ships are lined up to dock, the report says.

  More than 25% of all American imports pass through one of the two ports. LA and Long Beach collectively manage 13 private container terminals. Long Beach officials finally said last week they would try operating 24 hours a day between Monday and Thursday. LA says it’s going to keep existing hours and wait for the rest of the supply chain to extend their hours first. 

  Gene Seroka, executive director of the larger Port of Los Angeles, said: “It has been nearly impossible to get everyone on the same page towards 24/7 operations.”

  

  Ports in places like Asia and Europe, for contrast, have operated around the clock “for years”, the report notes. 

  Uffe Ostergaard, president of the North America region for German boxship operator Hapag-Lloyd AG said: “With the current work schedule you have two big ports operating at 60%-70% of their capacity. That’s a huge operational disadvantage.”

  As the shortage continues, all members of the supply chain including truckers, warehouse operators and railways, are blaming each other for the shortages of products. All parts of the supply chain are also struggling with a shortage of labor. 

  A longshore shift at either of the two ports used to be either 8AM to 4PM or 6PM to 3AM. Overnight shifts of 5 hours were “rarely used” because they are up to 50% more expensive, the report says. 

  The International Longshore and Warehouse Union says their members will work a third shift, but only after the pileup of containers is fetched out of the port so there is space.

  Frank Ponce De Leon, a coast committeeman at the ILWU, said: “Congestion won’t be fixed until everyone steps up and does their part. The terminal operators have been underutilizing their option to hire us for the third shift.

  Meanwhile, elsewhere in the supply chian, Federal safety regulations prevent commercial truck drivers to 11 hours of driving in a 14 hour workday. Port truckers like to start early in the morning so they can maximize the number of loads they can transport in a day.  

  

  Tom Boyle, chief executive of Quik Pick Express LLC, a trucking and warehousing provider, told the Journal: “The biggest issue it probably comes down to is labor.”

  Rail operator Union Pacific says it sees most delays when it picks up cargo from ports and hands it to trucks at destinations. 

  Wim Lagaay, chief executive of APM Terminals North America, who operates at the port of LA, said: “If you work a gate 24/7 it will improve your velocity. Up to 30% of overall truck appointments are not met because there are not enough trucks, drivers or chassis.”

  Matt Schrap, chief executive of the Harbor Trucking Association, added: “There is too much congestion from empty containers on terminals. The shipping lines aren’t moving the boxes out, which is preventing us from returning empties that we are storing in our yards.”

  Mario Cordero, executive director at the Port of Long Beach concluded: “It’s impossible to effectively move such volumes if we don’t move to 24/7 operations across the supply chain. They do it in other parts of the world.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/27/2021 – 20:40

• Here's What 'No-Coiners' Don't Get: It's Not Up To The Government
  Here’s What ‘No-Coiners’ Don’t Get: It’s Not Up To The Government

  Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

  My last couple of posts, the first on why a China-style Bitcoin ban can’t happen in Westernized liberal democracies  and the second on how cryptos are a beneficial counterforce to the coming CBDCs seem to have a hit a nerve.

  

  More people than usual made the trip all the way over here to my blog to be sure to tell me how clueless I am and there was a lot of defeatism  in the comments on Zerohedge that all converged around a theme that governments will simply not permit the use of cryptocurrencies once their existence ceases to suit them.

  I’ve been involved in cryptos since 2013, and for a long time I too was strategizing out the game theory around why would governments permit cryptos to gain traction.

  It wasn’t until relatively recently, that I started to fully grasp something I read a long time ago, before all this crypto business ever started. It was in a rather obscure book by one W R Clement called Quantum Jump: A survival guide for the new Renaissance and it helped me understand the key point of today’s post.

  I started alluding to it in A Network State Primer that described how what we understand as “the nation state” is in the process of losing relevance to ascendent network states and crypto-claves. You can chart out the structural differences between those three different governance models based on what the architecture of the monetary layer is:

  

  When it comes to technological leaps like the internet and then public key cryptography and decentralized, non-state, sound money; those who eschew the new paradigms generally do so because they have difficulty fitting the new model into their worldview.

  People like Alvin Toffler called this “Future Shock” and he ascribed it mostly to an accelerating rate of change. He wasn’t wrong about that, but what Clement layered atop of that was the ascending level of abstraction.

  In the 1400’s the seemingly innocuous discovery of perspective opened the floodgates to the Gutenberg Press and double-entry accounting which opened the path for the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. Each revolution occurred despite the objections of the incumbent power structures of their day, and that made for volatile, even violent transitions.

  In the mid-90’s people were trying to wrap their heads around “cyberspace”. Somebody once wrote in Mondo2000 (I can’t remember who it was, sorry) that “cyberspace is where you are when you’re on the phone”. Meanwhile US lawmakers were calling the internet  “a series of tubes”.

  That contrast results from differing levels of abstraction.

  Which brings us to the entire point of today’s post.

  Levelling up to the next plateau of abstraction alters the architecture of the intellectual constructs upon which systems are based. What worked at the lower level of abstraction not only doesn’t work at the higher abstraction levels, it malfunctions. Clinging to it creates absurdities. Atrocities.

  Further, once the level of abstraction jumps, it is the proverbial Promethean dynamic. In this chapter of history, Satoshi has stolen the secret of fire from the Gods and given it to the people. (He did so anonymously, I presume, in an effort to avoid the part where his gizzard is eaten by vultures for all eternity).

  But it’s done now, humanity possesses the secret of decentralization and cryptography and nothing short of a complete and total system collapse can undo the newfound cognitive horizons that will accompany it. If society stays on the rails, then the new model will keep spreading at that higher level of abstraction and it will keep accelerating.

  In other words, now that cryptos have created non-state, decentralized, open source money, the dynamics of finance and economics have irrevocably changed, and there’s nothing the priests of the temple at The Fed can do about it.

  Any attempt by nation states and central banks to preserve the old system, to extend the lifespan of their fiat currencies by porting them into digital forms like CBDCs are simply trying to linearly extrapolate something into a landscape that has fundamentally changed. Faster horses in a new era of cars.

  This is what no-coiners do not understand, granted, because many of them are engaged in livelihoods which depend on them not understanding it:

  It is not a question of whether governments will permit Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to exist.

  It is a question of whether governments can successfully adapt to the new reality created by the dawning of the decentralized era.

  So while policy makers can and will regulate the on-ramps and off-ramps (the exchanges), this is to be expected and it’ll be around these chokepoints where some sort of equilibrium between these two monetary universes will take form.

  

  This diagram depicts the core thesis of The Crypto Capitalist Letter. It’s that the institutionalized financial repressions of NIRP, ZIRP, targeted inflation and coming regimes of UBI, MMT and CBDC-driven social credit are such that capital will exodus from the global bond and fiat bubbles over into the anti-fiat world. Anti-fiat includes gold and silver, it includes real estate, income producing businesses, commodities, intellectual property and cryptos.

  It is true that regulations can ramp up and clamp down and become more repressive, for awhile. But as we’re seeing in the world today, the pandemic emergency response is wearing thin and people’s patience for things like lockdowns and mandatory vaccinations is beginning to wane. Here in the West, people were willing to have their freedoms curtailed to meet the exigencies of a global crisis, but they will not countenance government overreach as a way of life. In an ironic sense, the kind of Big Government that may have previously taken decades to creep into intolerable levels may have just accelerated its own rejection and obsolescence with the near ubiquitous, rampant mishandling of COVID.

  No matter what happens, the nation state monopoly over the issuance of money is over. That’s why it really doesn’t matter if governments “ban” cryptos. Increasingly higher levels of wealth and capital that are moving into the crypto economy are on a one-way mission: it has no intention of ever returning to the fiat side of the system.

  *  *  *

  I cover this dynamic extensively in The Crypto Capitalist Letter, a long with a tactical focus on publicly traded crypto stocks. Get the overall investment / macro thesis free when you subscribe to the Bombthrower mailing list, or try the premium service for a month with our fully refundable trial offer.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/27/2021 – 20:20

• China Bans Advertisements For 'Cosmetic Beauty' Loans
  China Bans Advertisements For ‘Cosmetic Beauty’ Loans

  A few weeks ago, Beijing abruptly scrubbed one of China’s most famous actresses from the Chinese Internet, then outlawed the portrayal of “sissy men” – that is, men dressed effeminately, weak or woman-like (the South Korean boy band sensation BTS comes to mind) in Chinese movies and TV.

  Now, as President Xi pushes China to embrace more elements of its Marxist-Leninist founding principles, another cosmetics-related order comes down from on high.

  

  This time, Reuters reports that China on Monday banned advertisements for so-called “medical beauty loans” from playing on televisions, radios and online platforms, saying such advertisements enticed young people with low interest rates, while misleading consumers and causing other “adverse effects”.

  With the Evergrande debt crisis still in the news, the timing of this latest crackdown is interesting. It seemingly kills two birds with one stone. It’s pressing back against cosmetic surgeries which are becoming increasingly popular in the US and China. Many original Communists looked down on makeup and fashion, and cosmetic surgery likely would have been forbidden in many early Communist societies. It was once said that the original Bolsheviks didn’t wear makeup.

  Beijing has also recently cracked down on out-of-control online fandoms where fans sometimes would even have plastic surgery to look more like their idols.

  As one CNBC reported out, the decision to ban advertisements for these types of loans might not have been on anyone’s  ‘bingo card’ for what Beijing might do next.

  Medical beauty loans def wasn’t in my bingo card for what China will go after next

  Also: if they did this in Lebanon that would truly be the end of the nation https://t.co/X74hPfirS4

  — Joumanna Bercetche 🇱🇧 (@CNBCJou) September 27, 2021

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

  But it fits in with how President Xi is trying to remake China according to its original Marxist-Leninist principles.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/27/2021 – 20:00

• Pritzker Goes To Bat For What The Wall Street Journal Calls "One Of The Greatest Fiscal Cons In History"
  Pritzker Goes To Bat For What The Wall Street Journal Calls “One Of The Greatest Fiscal Cons In History”

  Authored by Mark Glennon via Wirepoints.org,

  President Biden and his allies in Congress are having a rough time winning support for a new, historic, gigantic spending plan, but they knew who to call for help.

  On Friday, Gov. JB Pritzker joined Biden on a Zoom call to with local reporters to make the case for the pending federal legislation.

  You may know the bill as the “$3.5 infrastructure bill,” which is what it has been commonly called in the media.

  But that’s just a testament to media distortion. It’s not $3.5 billion and it’s not infrastructure.

  

  The true cost is likely to be $5 to $5.5 trillion over ten years according to the bipartisan Committee For A Responsible Budget.

  A primary gimmick being used, it said, is pretending that programs intended to be permanent expire, which they say obscures “the true cost of the legislation and put program beneficiaries at risk.”

  A Wall Street Journal editorial detailed various “time shift gimmicks” and also explained how some states will be stood up for paying, on their own, part of the cost of new, universal pre-K entitlement and free community college. Hence, their preface: “Behold one of the greatest fiscal cons in history.”

  “The press has reported almost none of this,” said the Journal about the phony cost estimates.

  The Biden’s Administration’s answer to the cost issue is astonishing, even by its standards. The cost is actually “zero,” they say. Biden himself said the cost is “nothing.” On what basis? They claim they will raise taxes enough to cover the cost.

  How’s that for chutzpah? As long as you are billing taxpayers, you can say it costs nothing.

  And infrastructure is only a small part of what it’s about, even by CNN’s charitable description: “The sweeping 10-year spending plan marks the biggest step in Democrats’ drive to expand education, health care and childcare support, tackle the climate crisis and make further investments in infrastructure.”

  The bill in fact includes a massive expansion of multiple government dependency programs, which CNN tried to list, based on “what we know so far,” as they candidly put it last week. Does anybody really know besides a few insiders?

  Adding to the guesswork, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signaled over the weekend that the size of the bill may be negotiated down, but she also said the first vote may come as early as today, Monday. If that happens, don’t expect most members of Congress to have an honest understanding of what they will be voting on.

  What’s most troubling is the timing of the expansion of dependency programs. If ever there was a time to move people out of government dependency and into employment it is now. It doesn’t get any better than this. Jobseekers today have the best job market in American history – over 10 million jobs are unfilled while just 9 million are unemployed. Many employers are desperate for workers. The bill’s supporters, however, measure success by how many can be added to government programs.

  The U.S Chamber of Commerce has it right: “This reconciliation bill is effectively 100 bills in one representing every big government idea that’s never been able to pass in Congress,” Chamber President and CEO Suzanne Clark said. “The bill is an existential threat to America’s fragile economic recovery and future prosperity. We will not find durable or practical solutions in  one  massive  bill that  is  equivalent to  more  than  twice the  combined  budgets  of all 50 states.”

  Getting back to the Pritzker and Biden Zoom call with local reporters, why did they do it that way? Why not also release the tape of the call so we could see for ourselves? Instead, we got only the media’s post-digestion remains. Dare I say that we should be suspicious of how Biden and Pritzker deal with questions and the media, and with what comes out at the end?

  If the subsequent reports in Crain’s and the Chicago Tribune are correct, Pritzker spoke primarily about the expansion of benefits directed toward children. One is child care, lack of which “is holding back our recovery,” he said.

  Child care costs no doubt have always been a problem that keep some people from working, but did it occur to any of the reporters on the call to ask Pritzker this: Why would child care be more of an issue today, with the state’s unemployment rate at 7%, than it was before the pandemic when the rate was under 4%? To our knowledge, nobody ever asks that question.

  And think about the expansion of the per-child tax credit in the pending legislation, which is the most expensive element in the bill. In concept, that’s a popular idea and has significant bipartisan support, primarily because it is projected to lift many out of poverty. The credit would be for $3,000 to $3,600 per child, depending on age.

  But it’s hardly for the poor alone. The credit does not even begin to phase out until relatively high income levels — $75,000 for single parents and $150,000 for married couples. There would be no work requirement to get the credit, and the pending bill would end long-standing rules requiring a child to be a relative of the person taking the credit, as CNBC reported. Instead, whoever is caring for the child could take the credit, regardless of whether they’re related. Seems like a formula for abuse and a step toward making the federal government the family provider.

  Whatever the issues are with the pending legislation, Pritzker undoubtedly is thrilled with the prospect of more federal cash flowing into Illinois. That would allow him to kick the can again on addressing the state’s structural deficit, and continue to announce program after program of new spending as he has been doing recently with federal assistance already received.

  Biden called the right guy for help.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/27/2021 – 19:40

• Biden Gets Booster Shot, Says 97% Of Americans Need To Be Vaxx'd To Return To Normal
  Biden Gets Booster Shot, Says 97% Of Americans Need To Be Vaxx’d To Return To Normal

  Just like he did when he received his first jab last year (before he was president), President Joe Biden, 78, posed for the cameras on Monday as he received his first booster jab while cameras clicked and flashed, and he delivered some brief remarks to the public.

  The FDA granted an emergency use authorization last week for booster doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine six months after the completion of the two-dose course for those 65 and older, those with some underlying conditions and those who work in high-risk environments. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recommended a booster shot for these groups of people.

  Video of Biden’s third inoculation circulated widely on Twitter Monday. Before he received the jab, Biden delivered a brief statement, claiming the White House is preparing for a possible government shutdown as leaders struggle to pass a budget by the end of this month.

  Speaking on Monday, Biden emphasized that even though booster shots are important, getting fully vaccinated with the two-dose regimen is even more so.

  “Let me clear. Boosters are important. But the most important thing we need to do is get more people vaccinated,” the president said before getting his jab. “The vast majority of Americans are doing the right thing. Over 77% of adults have gotten at least one shot. About 23% haven’t gotten any shots, and that distinct minority is causing an awful lot of us an awful lot of damage for the rest of the country. This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. That’s why I’m moving forward with vaccination requirements wherever I can.”

  The president said he thinks the US is “awful close” to having enough of its population vaccinated though he added that he’s not a scientist. “But one thing is for certain. A quarter of the country can’t go unvaccinated and us not continue to have a problem.”

  As for the Moderna and J&J jabs, boosters will likely be approved for those as well.

  “Well, I think what’s going to happen is you’re going to see that, in the near term — or we’re probably going to open this up anyway,” he told reporters after a speech on the administration’s vaccination campaign. “They’re constantly looking at — we’re looking at both Moderna and J&J. And we’re both — as I said in the speech — in addition to that, we’re also looking to the time when we’re going to be able to expand the booster shots, basically, across the board.”

  At one point during the briefing, Biden said in response to a question that the US vaccination rate would need to be essentially 100% for the American economy to return to “normal”.

  REPORTER: How many Americans need to be vaccinated before getting back to normal?

  BIDEN: Well, I think, look — I think we get the vast majority. 97, 98 percent. pic.twitter.com/mQ4ekSH5jN

  — August Takala (@RudyTakala) September 27, 2021

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  To be clear, that directly contradicts findings from scientists who believe COVID is now endemic in the human population and will never go away completely.

  Furthermore, here is the all-knowing Fauci in May:

  “If we get to the president’s goal – which I believe we will attain – of getting 70 percent of people getting at least one dose, adults that is, by July 4, there will be enough protection in the community that I really don’t foresee there being the risk of a surge.”

  Bear in mind that Norway, which has just lifted 100% of all its COVID restrictions and has actually returned to normal, has a 67% vaccination rate among its population.

  Readers can watch two clips from the briefing below:

  POTUS about to get his COVID booster. The shot is from Pfizer. #POTUS pic.twitter.com/DWtvRHioFM

  — Edward Lawrence (@EdwardLawrence) September 27, 2021

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  President Biden receives Covid booster shot. pic.twitter.com/P5SzNWUpiG

  — MSNBC (@MSNBC) September 27, 2021

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  And readers can watch the full press briefing below:

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/27/2021 – 19:20

• North Korea Launches "Unidentified Projectile" Into Sea Of Japan
  North Korea Launches “Unidentified Projectile” Into Sea Of Japan

  Just days after Pyongyang said they’re open to “constructive” talks with South Korea, and two weeks after the rogue nation fired a “new type long-range” cruise missile, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reports North Korea fired at least one unidentified “projectile” from its eastern coast Tuesday. The latest tick-up in missile firings comes as tensions between the U.S. and China continue to boil, and a US British warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Monday. 

  Details are scant at the moment, and there’s no confirmation if the projectile was a ballistic missile banned under U.N. Security Council resolutions and or how many were fired and how far it traveled. 

  “Tuesday’s launch could be designed to test whether the South would still brand it as a provocation,” Yonhap said. It was noted the projectile landed in the Sea of Japan. 

  

  Three days ago, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Kim Yo Jong, made a surprise statement indicating Pyongyang would be open to talks with South Korea but on condition that Seoul would press the Biden administration to relax the U.S. continued crippling sanctions on the isolated country. The latest firing may indicate talks are not going well. 

  Two weeks ago, North Korea test-fired a “new type long-range” cruise missile that would give the country a “strategic significance of possessing another effective deterrence means for more reliably guaranteeing the security of our state and strongly containing the military maneuvers of the hostile forces,” North Korea’s state-owned media KCNA said. 

  If the projectile is confirmed to be a ballistic missile, it would be the third launch this year. 

  Today’s launch most likely had Beijing’s full blessing (if not direct order) as Sino-U.S. relations continue to deteriorate.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/27/2021 – 19:15

• Senate Republicans Vote Down Pelosi's Debt Ceiling Bill, As Expected
  Senate Republicans Vote Down Pelosi’s Debt Ceiling Bill, As Expected

  Having detailed the ‘debt limit game of chicken’ last week, tonight’s vote in the Senate is exactly what was expected.

  Senate Republicans on Monday voted down the House-passed bill to fund the government through Dec. 3 and raise the debt limit.

  The final vote was 48-50 (60 votes were needed to advance the measure), with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) changing his vote from Yes to No so he could later bring the bill back up for a vote.

  “I changed my vote from yes to no in order to reserve the option of additional action on the House-passed legislation. Keeping the government open and preventing a default is vital to our country’s future and we’ll be taking further action to prevent this from happening this week,” Schumer said.

  All Republicans voted against the bill as expected.

  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said he will vote for the “clean” continuing resolution if Democrats’ move forward with that plan.

  “For more than two months now Senate Republicans have been completely clear about how this process will play out. So let me make it abundantly clear one more time, we will support a clean continuing resolution that will prevent a government shutdown. …We will not provide Republican votes for raising the debt ceiling,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

  

  Congress is now just 72 hours away from a potential shutdown, and as Goldman’s Alec Phillips wrote today, assuming that Republicans do not vote for a debt limit suspension in the near-term, this seems likely to come to head in the second half of October.

  The deadline is not entirely clear, but we think it is most likely to fall in late October.

  We expect the Treasury to provide a specific projection sometime after Oct. 1.

  A deadline still a few weeks off makes it less likely that Congress will deal with it in the coming week.

  If not, the debt limit is likely to get tangled up in other issues later in October, including another shutdown deadline (if Democrats decide to extend spending authority for a few weeks instead of a couple of months) and the debate over the pending fiscal packages.

  The most likely scenario seems to be that Democrats will need to pass a debt limit increase via the reconciliation process with only Democratic votes, but there are several procedural and political disadvantages to doing this.

  With no attractive options, it is hard to see Congress acting on the debt limit until the deadline for action seems imminent.

  The market is already pricing in issues until mid-November (and the bid for short-term debt has sent the early October bill yields negative…

  

  We can already hear the virtue-signaling cries from Schumer and Pelosi over the fact that Republicans are about to plunge America into its darkest period of history ever (well at least since the January 6th amble-around-the-Capitol).

  Schumer has already called the GOP position “unhinged,” arguing that there was a choice between “preserving our full faith and credit or vote in favor of an unprecedented default.”

  They are “deliberately sabotaging our country’s ability to pay the bills and likely causing the country’s first-ever default in American history,” Schumer said.

  To pre-empt those anguished comments, here is Nancy Pelosi herself from January/February 2018…

  Let’s be very clear: the reason Congress is facing another stop-gap spending bill is because of @HouseGOP & @SenateGOP incompetence. They must stop governing from manufactured crisis to crisis, & work with Dems to pass the many urgent priorities of the American people. #DoYourJob

  — Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) February 6, 2018

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  This is the first time in recent memory that a government shutdown has been possible when one party — one party — has controlled the White House, House, & Senate. The Republicans own that. #DoYourJob

  — Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) January 18, 2018

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  “Holding the debt limit hostage … is a dangerous, illogical, and irresponsible way to express that concern,” the Democratic lawmakers wrote.

  His response – in the words of Nancy Pelosi – #DoYourJob!

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/27/2021 – 19:06

• Goldman Cuts China's Q3 GDP Growth To 0% As A Result Of Growing Energy Crisis
  Goldman Cuts China’s Q3 GDP Growth To 0% As A Result Of Growing Energy Crisis

  It’s not just Europe that is suffering the mother of all commodity and energy price shocks: slowly but surely a similar fate is befalling China, where a perfect storm of increased regulation, extremely tight global energy supply, the escalating trade spat with Australia, surging coal prices and a crackdown on carbon has led to energy shortages first at factories and manufacturers and more recently, mass blackouts hitting tens of millions of residents in at least three Chinese provinces (as we discussed earlier).

  In our commentary to China’s growing energy problem we said that “while the blackouts starting to hit household power usage are at most an inconvenience, if one which may soon result in even more civil unrest if these are not contained, a bigger worry is that the already snarled supply chains could get even more broken, leading to even greater supply-disruption driven inflation.”

  But there’s more than just supply chains: as Goldman’s China strategist Hui Shan writes in a note published late on Monday, “the recent sharp cuts to production in a range of high-energy-intensity industries add to the already significant downside pressures in the growth outlook.”

  While the Goldman strategist explains more in detail further, the production cuts are due primarily to increased regulatory pressure on provinces to meet energy use targets for 2021 but also reflect surging energy prices in some cases. He notes that the NDRC issued ratings in mid-August showing nine provinces as performing poorly based on H1 energy usage, and reportedly intensified its efforts to bring underperformers into line in mid-September.

  Based on the number of provinces (9 in NDRC ‘red’ classification) and share of industrial activity affected (Goldman estimates 44%), as well as informed assumptions about the extent of the cutbacks, the bank has estimated the hit to industrial production and overall economic activity for the remainder of the year. The bank’s initial estimate is roughly a 1 percentage-point annualized hit to Q3 GDP growth and double this impact on Q4 growth. The bank then also adjusted its fiscal deficit estimates to reflect a smaller augmented deficit
  for 2021 (11.0%, vs 11.6% previously), accounted for by a lower deficit in the second half of the year: “This trims our growth assumption by about 25bp in Q3 and 50bp in Q4, given a relatively low multiplier and typical lags.”

  Putting it all together, Goldman’s new growth forecasts for Q3 shrink to flat, or 0% qoq (4.8% yoy), for Q4 to 6% qoq ann (3.2% yoy), and for 2021 as a whole to 7.8% (down from 5.1%, 4.1%, and 8.2% yoy previously.) Here, Goldman caveats that “considerable uncertainty” remains with respect to the fourth quarter, with both upside and downside risks relating principally to the government’s approach to managing the Evergrande stresses, the strictness of environmental target enforcement and the degree of policy easing. In short, how Beijing responds will impact the forecast. Regardless of said response, however, Goldman also takes down its 2022 GDP growth forecast to 5.5% yoy, well below China’s new redline in the 6% range.

  * * *

  Elaborating further, Goldman writes that in recent weeks markets have been focused on developments with respect to Evergrande, its real estate development business, and risks to the broader Chinese property sector. The downward pressures on property sales and construction have added to a myriad of other headwinds for the economy including a relatively tight macro policy stance (epitomized by a balanced official fiscal budget in H1), Covid-related restrictions to counter local outbreaks, and regulatory tightening across a range of other sectors.

  To this, we can now add a “new but tightening” constraint on growth from increased regulatory pressure to meet environmental targets for energy consumption and energy intensity (the so-called “dual controls”). As part of the country’s longer-term goal to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030, policymakers formulated shorter term targets for 2021 in March’s Government Work Report – including a 3% reduction in energy intensity of GDP this year. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) monitors these at the provincial level on a quarterly basis. In August, it released a report classifying 9 provinces as category “red” – having missed their H1 targets, including Qinghai, Ningxia, Guangxi, Guangdong, Fujian, Xinjiang, Yunnan, Shaanxi and Jiangsu (Exhibit 1). Another 10 provinces were classified as “yellow”. In mid-September, the NDRC published a plan for “dual controls” and was reported to pressure provinces that had lagged behind to curb energy use.

  

  Why did the energy use targets become binding so soon after being implemented?

  While it presumably was not the intention of policymakers to provoke a sharp tightening, at least when the goals were initially formulated, the peculiar nature of the Covid shock has made the economy more energy-intensive, at least temporarily. The boom in exports has boosted energy-intensive manufacturing industries (Exhibit 2), while Covid-related restrictions have primarily affected interaction-intensive service businesses. Meanwhile, efforts to reduce coal-fired related emissions and a reduction in coal imports have affected supply levels at least on the margin, contributing to the  sharp increase in prices discussed earlier.

  

  What follows below is Goldman’s attempt to quantify the impact of these production cutbacks on growth in Q3 and Q4.

  First, quantifying the impact of energy-related production cuts.

  Given the uncertainty associated with the degree and duration of production cuts, Goldman has made a number of simplifying assumptions to size the impact on GDP. Exhibit 4 displays these assumptions and calculations.

  First, the bank categorizes affected regions by their 1H 21 energy control ratings given by the NDRC. For the nine provinces where the rating is red, the local governments need to aggressively reduce energy consumption to meet the year-end target and we assume the largest production cuts in those provinces. This means even more pain is coming.

  Second, Goldman divides industries by their energy intensity. For ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals and non-metal mineral products, the NDRC labels them as “high energy intensity” sectors and they are also cited most frequently in the news related to the latest power cuts (see here for example). Therefore, the bank assumes the sharpest production cuts (20-40%) in these three industries. Petroleum, coking & nuclear fuel and chemical material & product are also labeled as “high energy intensity” sectors, and are likely to suffer medium levels of production cuts (10-20%). Mining, textile, paper making, chemical fiber and rubber & plastic product require significant energy inputs and have been quoted in news articles as well. Goldman assumes 5-10% of production cuts depending on the province for these industries.

  

  Altogether, Goldman expects the 10 days of production cuts at the end of September to reduce real GDP growth by nearly one percentage point (annualized) in Q3. The rightmost column in Exhibit 4 shows the hit to the level of GDP in Q3 for each set of industries; these sum to 23bp, and given this is a quarter-on-quarter change, the annualized change is slightly less than one percentage point (92bp).

  Assuming the production cuts continue in Q4 and affect 10 days per month, they would reduce Q4 real GDP growth by about 1.8% sequentially. Here, Goldman hands out the usual caveats: namely that there is a great deal of uncertainty in our estimates. On the one hand, the bank assumes no places outside of the red and yellow provinces and no industries beyond the 10 industries mentioned above are affected, which will likely underestimate the actual production impact. On the other hand, affected companies may resort to shifting maintenance timing in response to power cuts and production may increase in provinces with non-binding energy caps, leading to less damage to overall growth.

  Cutting fiscal deficit forecast

  After Chinese authorities quickly unwound the macro policy easing deployed in the first half of 2020, credit growth decelerated, excess liquidity was drained, and the fiscal deficit declined. In fact, fiscal policy normalized so quickly that the country ran an official deficit of zero in the first half of the year. Goldman had expected some reduction in the overall fiscal deficit, but the tighter-than-expected H1 caused the bank to revise its deficit estimate for 2021 lower. While there has been some fiscal easing in July and August, this partly reflects typical seasonal patterns and the deficit is tracking below these downwardly-revised estimates. Significant off-budget elements of the augmented deficit including policy bank lending, trust lending, and land sales are tracking below the bank’s forecasts, and the latter in particular seems likely to continue to underperform given the ongoing property market tightening and failed land auctions seen in recent months. On the other hand, local government special bond issuance has accelerated somewhat but remains below the pace needed to fully utilize this year’s quota. Therefore, Goldman is revising a second time, and moving its forecast for the full-year augmented deficit to 11.0% from 11.6% previously.

  

  Adjusting the new second-half deficit forecasts 1.2% lower and applying a multiplier of 0.2 (as well as a modest lag to some spending), Goldman now estimates an impact on qoq annualized growth of roughly -1/4pp in Q3 and -1/2pp in Q4.

  The new GDP growth forecasts

  Combining these new estimates for the impact of supply-side cuts to energy-intensive production and slightly less support from fiscal policy, Goldman cuts its growth forecasts for:

  • Q3 to 0% (qoq annualized), from +1.3% previously,
  • Q4 to 6.0% annualized, from 8.5% previously.

  As a result, Goldman’s year-over-year forecasts are now just 4.8% for Q3, 3.2% for Q4, and 7.8% for 2021 as a whole.

  Finally, the lower starting point for early 2022 activity pulls the growth forecast for that year down one tenth, to 5.5%, despite modestly stronger sequential growth as restrictions become less binding and policy eases.

  

  Uncertainties and policy response

  While the third quarter is nearly over, uncertainty around the Q4 pace remains very large, and a lot of this comes down to the stance of both macro and regulatory policy, i.e., Beijing’s reponse. Key drivers of the Q4 outcome will include the timing and extent of:

  1. government measures to stabilize housing sector activity and stretch out the deleveraging in the property sector,
  2. any temporary relaxation of regulatory pressures to meet energy use targets, and/or
  3. macro policy support.

  Each of these factors could materialize on either the positive or negative side relative to these new reduced growth forecasts.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/27/2021 – 19:04

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• Mercedes-AMG Boss Says V-8 Engine Will Be In Demand For "Next Ten Years"
  Mercedes-AMG Boss Says V-8 Engine Will Be In Demand For “Next Ten Years”

  Mercedes’ parent company Daimler has proposed tens of billions of dollars in battery-electric vehicle development between 2022-2030 and could go fully electric by the end of the decade. The company’s move from combustion engines to electric wasn’t entirely shared by the head of AMG, Maybach, and G-Class. 

  In a recent interview, Mercedes-AMG head Philipp Schiemer told Road & Track that he expects the V-8 engine to stick around for another decade or so.

  “I think there will be a future, yes,” Schiemer said. “I think for the next ten years we will see the V-8s, for sure. We have a lot of customers who love their cars and I still think that we will see those people buying the [V-8] cars for a long time.”

  He said there is still “very high demand for” V-8 luxury and high-performance vehicles worldwide despite the push to greenify the industry. 

  AMG Chief Technical Officer Jochen Hermann provided an example of the V-8’s future with the Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S e-Performance, which has hybridization built into it. 

  “You have this extra power, like low-end torque which is usually more of an issue for a combustion engine. We get that instant torque, whereas, you know, on a German Autobahn[…] this is where the V-8 engine really kicks in,” Hermann said.

  

  He noted combining the V-8 with a performance hybrid system increases the vehicle’s performance. 

  The hopes of winding down the use of combustion engines in new vehicle production might not entirely be the case for some high-performance Mercedes models. It appears AMG is still a huge fan of the V-8 engine. 

  Greta Thunberg and her gang of climate alarmists will likely be displeased by the comments made by AMG heads to keep the V-8 engine in production for a decade or more. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/27/2021 – 02:45

• The Harsh Truth Behind Europe's Energy Crisis
  The Harsh Truth Behind Europe’s Energy Crisis

  Authored by By Cyril Widdershoven via OilPrice.com,

  Europe’s energy crunch is continuing, as gas storage volumes have shrunk to 10-year lows. A possible harsh winter could lead to severe energy shortages and possible shutdowns of large parts of the economy.

  

  While the main discussion is currently focused on the potential role of Russia in the energy crisis, a new narrative could soon make the headlines. In a surprise move, the Dutch government has indicated that in a severe supply crunch situation, the Groningen gas field, Europe’s largest onshore gas field, could partially and temporarily be reopened. It seems that the term Dutch Disease could get a new meaning, from being the paradox of a rentier state suffering from plentiful resources to a show of Europe’s lack of realism when it comes to energy transition risks and current market powers.   Dutch Minister Stef Blok has indicated that he is considering the potential reopening of the Groningen field, in particular five wells, especially the one at Slochteren, as indicated by Johan Attema, director of the Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM), the operator of the Groningen field. The reopening of the field, even in the case of an emergency or an energy crisis, is politically controversial.

  Until recently, the plan was that Groningen would be closed completely by 2023, ending the large-scale gas production and export by the Netherlands with a bang.

  The Dutch media is speculating that minister Blok will be asking for a possible reopening of the Groningen field, a decision that must be made before October 1. If the Minister decides to change the current shutdown plans, the whole Groningen debacle, as some see it, will be prolonged. It is clear, looking at the current deplorable situation of the European energy sector, that Groningen is still needed. The ongoing energy crunch could have grave consequences for the economies and wellbeing of EU member states, changing the narratives in Brussels and the respective European capitals.  

  The lack of supply of natural gas by Russia (or the political will to supply more), the difficulty of ramping up Norwegian gas or other gas imports quickly, is jeopardizing Europe’s energy situation. At the same time, a possible shutdown of several electricity-intensive industries in Europe, such as fertilizers, chemicals, and steel/aluminum production is on the table.

  Political leaders will have to face the direct implications of higher energy bills or possible energy deficits for consumers and the industry. Both could lead to protests or political landslides during upcoming elections. Threats of an energy crisis are being discussed widely, but no real solutions except lower taxes are available. Due to higher energy costs, a possible record price level of $100 MMBtu or $250 per barrel of crude oil equivalent is very bad news for politicians, especially in the Netherlands, Germany, France, and the UK.  

  It remains unclear, however, whether European politicians are aware of the role that their own policies have played in creating this crisis. Even with the partial restart of the Groningen field, which could relieve some of the pain in Western Europe, there is a larger problem that must be addressed. 

  By opening up the gas market for liberalization, without giving the necessary tools to parties, and pushing for a spot market, instability was introduced into the system. Geopolitical powers are still at play, while utilities and European suppliers have seen little support from their governments.

  At the same time, when oil price-indexed long-term contracts with Russia were thrown out of the window, many did not understand that this could mean handing over full market powers to NOCs, such as Gazprom. Putin has been celebrating, knowing that he has been handed the key to European markets, with the option of manipulating fundamentals and prices at the same time. In the meantime, Europe has failed to sufficiently diversify supply.  

  European leaders desperately need to reconsider their position towards Russian gas supplies and the future role of NordStream 2, which is still being threatened by US sanctions and Eastern European opposition.

  It seems that Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin, however, is holding all the cards when it comes to natural gas in Europe. Without substantially more natural gas supply to Europe, consumers and industry may well be facing a winter of discontent. Europe’s gas supply diversification strategy has been a failure, not only due to EU tactics and regulations but also because of the ongoing one-sided emphasis on a rapid energy transition, hydrocarbon divestment, and full-scale investments in renewables, without realizing that the backbone of the European economic system is still hydrocarbon fueled.  

  The current situation shows one main fact of life, the success of the energy transition is not based on a one-sided approach. By relying too much on renewables, the market became destabilized, but politicians and others didn’t want to admit it. Destabilization could and should be prevented, by acknowledging the fact that for the foreseeable future hydrocarbons, including coal, will be playing a significant role in the European energy market.

  At the same time, European politicians also should acknowledge that without hydrocarbons, not only does energy supply become threatened, but the hydrocarbon economy suffers. It is not yet fully understood by most, but without hydrocarbons, especially natural gas and oil, food and other primary sectors will be hit hard. The first shutdowns of fertilizer and steel companies have already been reported.  

  Brussels, London, Berlin, and even The Hague, should start to change their approach to energy and the economy of the future. Politicians should start to listen to market analysts that have been warning of a disruption in energy markets.

  The European long-term energy strategy should acknowledge the position of hydrocarbons as a backbone while investing in renewable options at the same time. Investments in storage, diversified supply, and domestic production are crucial.  Without these, supply giants such as Putin’s Russia are holding all the cards.  

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/27/2021 – 02:00

• "Damn You To Hell, You Will Not Destroy America" – Here Is The 'Spartacus COVID Letter' That's Gone Viral
  “Damn You To Hell, You Will Not Destroy America” – Here Is The ‘Spartacus COVID Letter’ That’s Gone Viral

  Via The Automatic Earth blog,

  This is an anonymously posted document by someone who calls themselves Spartacus. Because it’s anonymous, I can’t contact them to ask for permission to publish. So I hesitated for a while, but it’s simply the best document I’ve seen on Covid, vaccines, etc. Whoever Spartacus is, they have a very elaborate knowledge in “the field”. If you want to know a lot more about the no. 1 issue in the world today, read it. And don’t worry if you don’t understand every single word, neither do I. But I learned a lot.

  The original PDF doc is here: Covid19 – The Spartacus Letter

  

  Hello,

  My name is Spartacus, and I’ve had enough.

  We have been forced to watch America and the Free World spin into inexorable decline due to a biowarfare attack. We, along with countless others, have been victimized and gaslit by propaganda and psychological warfare operations being conducted by an unelected, unaccountable Elite against the American people and our allies.

  Our mental and physical health have suffered immensely over the course of the past year and a half. We have felt the sting of isolation, lockdown, masking, quarantines, and other completely nonsensical acts of healthcare theater that have done absolutely nothing to protect the health or wellbeing of the public from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

  Now, we are watching the medical establishment inject literal poison into millions of our fellow Americans without so much as a fight.

  We have been told that we will be fired and denied our livelihoods if we refuse to vaccinate. This was the last straw.

  We have spent thousands of hours analyzing leaked footage from Wuhan, scientific papers from primary sources, as well as the paper trails left by the medical establishment.

  What we have discovered would shock anyone to their core.

  First, we will summarize our findings, and then, we will explain them in detail. References will be placed at the end.

  Summary:

  • COVID-19 is a blood and blood vessel disease. SARS-CoV-2 infects the lining of human blood vessels, causing them to leak into the lungs.

  • Current treatment protocols (e.g. invasive ventilation) are actively harmful to patients, accelerating oxidative stress and causing severe VILI (ventilator-induced lung injuries). The continued use of ventilators in the absence of any proven medical benefit constitutes mass murder.

  • Existing countermeasures are inadequate to slow the spread of what is an aerosolized and potentially wastewater-borne virus, and constitute a form of medical theater.

  • Various non-vaccine interventions have been suppressed by both the media and the medical establishment in favor of vaccines and expensive patented drugs.

  • The authorities have denied the usefulness of natural immunity against COVID-19, despite the fact that natural immunity confers protection against all of the virus’s proteins, and not just one.

  • Vaccines will do more harm than good. The antigen that these vaccines are based on, SARS-CoV- 2 Spike, is a toxic protein. SARS-CoV-2 may have ADE, or antibody-dependent enhancement; current antibodies may not neutralize future strains, but instead help them infect immune cells. Also, vaccinating during a pandemic with a leaky vaccine removes the evolutionary pressure for a virus to become less lethal.

  • There is a vast and appalling criminal conspiracy that directly links both Anthony Fauci and Moderna to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

  • COVID-19 vaccine researchers are directly linked to scientists involved in brain-computer interface (“neural lace”) tech, one of whom was indicted for taking grant money from China.

  • Independent researchers have discovered mysterious nanoparticles inside the vaccines that are not supposed to be present.

  • The entire pandemic is being used as an excuse for a vast political and economic transformation of Western society that will enrich the already rich and turn the rest of us into serfs and untouchables.

  COVID-19 Pathophysiology and Treatments:

  COVID-19 is not a viral pneumonia. It is a viral vascular endotheliitis and attacks the lining of blood vessels, particularly the small pulmonary alveolar capillaries, leading to endothelial cell activation and sloughing, coagulopathy, sepsis, pulmonary edema, and ARDS-like symptoms. This is a disease of the blood and blood vessels. The circulatory system. Any pneumonia that it causes is secondary to that.

  In severe cases, this leads to sepsis, blood clots, and multiple organ failure, including hypoxic and inflammatory damage to various vital organs, such as the brain, heart, liver, pancreas, kidneys, and intestines.

  Some of the most common laboratory findings in COVID-19 are elevated D-dimer, elevated prothrombin time, elevated C-reactive protein, neutrophilia, lymphopenia, hypocalcemia, and hyperferritinemia, essentially matching a profile of coagulopathy and immune system hyperactivation/immune cell exhaustion.

  COVID-19 can present as almost anything, due to the wide tropism of SARS-CoV-2 for various tissues in the body’s vital organs. While its most common initial presentation is respiratory illness and flu-like symptoms, it can present as brain inflammation, gastrointestinal disease, or even heart attack or pulmonary embolism.

  COVID-19 is more severe in those with specific comorbidities, such as obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. This is because these conditions involve endothelial dysfunction, which renders the circulatory system more susceptible to infection and injury by this particular virus.

  The vast majority of COVID-19 cases are mild and do not cause significant disease. In known cases, there is something known as the 80/20 rule, where 80% of cases are mild and 20% are severe or critical. However, this ratio is only correct for known cases, not all infections. The number of actual infections is much, much higher. Consequently, the mortality and morbidity rate is lower. However, COVID-19 spreads very quickly, meaning that there are a significant number of severely-ill and critically-ill patients appearing in a short time frame.

  In those who have critical COVID-19-induced sepsis, hypoxia, coagulopathy, and ARDS, the most common treatments are intubation, injected corticosteroids, and blood thinners. This is not the correct treatment for COVID-19. In severe hypoxia, cellular metabolic shifts cause ATP to break down into hypoxanthine, which, upon the reintroduction of oxygen, causes xanthine oxidase to produce tons of highly damaging radicals that attack tissue. This is called ischemia-reperfusion injury, and it’s why the majority of people who go on a ventilator are dying. In the mitochondria, succinate buildup due to sepsis does the same exact thing; when oxygen is reintroduced, it makes superoxide radicals. Make no mistake, intubation will kill people who have COVID-19.

  The end-stage of COVID-19 is severe lipid peroxidation, where fats in the body start to “rust” due to damage by oxidative stress. This drives autoimmunity. Oxidized lipids appear as foreign objects to the immune system, which recognizes and forms antibodies against OSEs, or oxidation-specific epitopes. Also, oxidized lipids feed directly into pattern recognition receptors, triggering even more inflammation and summoning even more cells of the innate immune system that release even more destructive enzymes. This is similar to the pathophysiology of Lupus.

  COVID-19’s pathology is dominated by extreme oxidative stress and neutrophil respiratory burst, to the point where hemoglobin becomes incapable of carrying oxygen due to heme iron being stripped out of heme by hypochlorous acid. No amount of supplemental oxygen can oxygenate blood that chemically refuses to bind O2.

  The breakdown of the pathology is as follows:

  SARS-CoV-2 Spike binds to ACE2. Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 is an enzyme that is part of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, or RAAS. The RAAS is a hormone control system that moderates fluid volume in the body and in the bloodstream (i.e. osmolarity) by controlling salt retention and excretion. This protein, ACE2, is ubiquitous in every part of the body that interfaces with the circulatory system, particularly in vascular endothelial cells and pericytes, brain astrocytes, renal tubules and podocytes, pancreatic islet cells, bile duct and intestinal epithelial cells, and the seminiferous ducts of the testis, all of which SARS-CoV-2 can infect, not just the lungs.

  SARS-CoV-2 infects a cell as follows: SARS-CoV-2 Spike undergoes a conformational change where the S1 trimers flip up and extend, locking onto ACE2 bound to the surface of a cell. TMPRSS2, or transmembrane protease serine 2, comes along and cuts off the heads of the Spike, exposing the S2 stalk-shaped subunit inside. The remainder of the Spike undergoes a conformational change that causes it to unfold like an extension ladder, embedding itself in the cell membrane. Then, it folds back upon itself, pulling the viral membrane and the cell membrane together. The two membranes fuse, with the virus’s proteins migrating out onto the surface of the cell. The SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid enters the cell, disgorging its genetic material and beginning the viral replication process, hijacking the cell’s own structures to produce more virus.

  SARS-CoV-2 Spike proteins embedded in a cell can actually cause human cells to fuse together, forming syncytia/MGCs (multinuclear giant cells). They also have other pathogenic, harmful effects. SARS-CoV- 2’s viroporins, such as its Envelope protein, act as calcium ion channels, introducing calcium into infected cells. The virus suppresses the natural interferon response, resulting in delayed inflammation. SARS-CoV-2 N protein can also directly activate the NLRP3 inflammasome. Also, it suppresses the Nrf2 antioxidant pathway. The suppression of ACE2 by binding with Spike causes a buildup of bradykinin that would otherwise be broken down by ACE2.

  This constant calcium influx into the cells results in (or is accompanied by) noticeable hypocalcemia, or low blood calcium, especially in people with Vitamin D deficiencies and pre-existing endothelial dysfunction. Bradykinin upregulates cAMP, cGMP, COX, and Phospholipase C activity. This results in prostaglandin release and vastly increased intracellular calcium signaling, which promotes highly aggressive ROS release and ATP depletion. NADPH oxidase releases superoxide into the extracellular space. Superoxide radicals react with nitric oxide to form peroxynitrite. Peroxynitrite reacts with the tetrahydrobiopterin cofactor needed by endothelial nitric oxide synthase, destroying it and “uncoupling” the enzymes, causing nitric oxide synthase to synthesize more superoxide instead. This proceeds in a positive feedback loop until nitric oxide bioavailability in the circulatory system is depleted.

  Dissolved nitric oxide gas produced constantly by eNOS serves many important functions, but it is also antiviral against SARS-like coronaviruses, preventing the palmitoylation of the viral Spike protein and making it harder for it to bind to host receptors. The loss of NO allows the virus to begin replicating with impunity in the body. Those with endothelial dysfunction (i.e. hypertension, diabetes, obesity, old age, African-American race) have redox equilibrium issues to begin with, giving the virus an advantage.

  Due to the extreme cytokine release triggered by these processes, the body summons a great deal of neutrophils and monocyte-derived alveolar macrophages to the lungs. Cells of the innate immune system are the first-line defenders against pathogens. They work by engulfing invaders and trying to attack them with enzymes that produce powerful oxidants, like SOD and MPO. Superoxide dismutase takes superoxide and makes hydrogen peroxide, and myeloperoxidase takes hydrogen peroxide and chlorine ions and makes hypochlorous acid, which is many, many times more reactive than sodium hypochlorite bleach.

  Neutrophils have a nasty trick. They can also eject these enzymes into the extracellular space, where they will continuously spit out peroxide and bleach into the bloodstream. This is called neutrophil extracellular trap formation, or, when it becomes pathogenic and counterproductive, NETosis. In severe and critical COVID-19, there is actually rather severe NETosis.

  Hypochlorous acid building up in the bloodstream begins to bleach the iron out of heme and compete for O2 binding sites. Red blood cells lose the ability to transport oxygen, causing the sufferer to turn blue in the face. Unliganded iron, hydrogen peroxide, and superoxide in the bloodstream undergo the Haber- Weiss and Fenton reactions, producing extremely reactive hydroxyl radicals that violently strip electrons from surrounding fats and DNA, oxidizing them severely.

  This condition is not unknown to medical science. The actual name for all of this is acute sepsis.

  We know this is happening in COVID-19 because people who have died of the disease have noticeable ferroptosis signatures in their tissues, as well as various other oxidative stress markers such as nitrotyrosine, 4-HNE, and malondialdehyde.

  When you intubate someone with this condition, you are setting off a free radical bomb by supplying the cells with O2. It’s a catch-22, because we need oxygen to make Adenosine Triphosphate (that is, to live), but O2 is also the precursor of all these damaging radicals that lead to lipid peroxidation.

  The correct treatment for severe COVID-19 related sepsis is non-invasive ventilation, steroids, and antioxidant infusions. Most of the drugs repurposed for COVID-19 that show any benefit whatsoever in rescuing critically-ill COVID-19 patients are antioxidants. N-acetylcysteine, melatonin, fluvoxamine, budesonide, famotidine, cimetidine, and ranitidine are all antioxidants. Indomethacin prevents iron- driven oxidation of arachidonic acid to isoprostanes. There are powerful antioxidants such as apocynin that have not even been tested on COVID-19 patients yet which could defang neutrophils, prevent lipid peroxidation, restore endothelial health, and restore oxygenation to the tissues.

  Scientists who know anything about pulmonary neutrophilia, ARDS, and redox biology have known or surmised much of this since March 2020. In April 2020, Swiss scientists confirmed that COVID-19 was a vascular endotheliitis. By late 2020, experts had already concluded that COVID-19 causes a form of viral sepsis. They also know that sepsis can be effectively treated with antioxidants. None of this information is particularly new, and yet, for the most part, it has not been acted upon. Doctors continue to use damaging intubation techniques with high PEEP settings despite high lung compliance and poor oxygenation, killing an untold number of critically ill patients with medical malpractice.

  Because of the way they are constructed, Randomized Control Trials will never show any benefit for any antiviral against COVID-19. Not Remdesivir, not Kaletra, not HCQ, and not Ivermectin. The reason for this is simple; for the patients that they have recruited for these studies, such as Oxford’s ludicrous RECOVERY study, the intervention is too late to have any positive effect.

  The clinical course of COVID-19 is such that by the time most people seek medical attention for hypoxia, their viral load has already tapered off to almost nothing. If someone is about 10 days post-exposure and has already been symptomatic for five days, there is hardly any virus left in their bodies, only cellular damage and derangement that has initiated a hyperinflammatory response. It is from this group that the clinical trials for antivirals have recruited, pretty much exclusively.

  In these trials, they give antivirals to severely ill patients who have no virus in their bodies, only a delayed hyperinflammatory response, and then absurdly claim that antivirals have no utility in treating or preventing COVID-19. These clinical trials do not recruit people who are pre-symptomatic. They do not test pre-exposure or post-exposure prophylaxis.

  This is like using a defibrillator to shock only flatline, and then absurdly claiming that defibrillators have no medical utility whatsoever when the patients refuse to rise from the dead. The intervention is too late. These trials for antivirals show systematic, egregious selection bias. They are providing a treatment that is futile to the specific cohort they are enrolling.

  India went against the instructions of the WHO and mandated the prophylactic usage of Ivermectin. They have almost completely eradicated COVID-19. The Indian Bar Association of Mumbai has brought criminal charges against WHO Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan for recommending against the use of Ivermectin.

  Ivermectin is not “horse dewormer”. Yes, it is sold in veterinary paste form as a dewormer for animals. It has also been available in pill form for humans for decades, as an antiparasitic drug.

  The media have disingenuously claimed that because Ivermectin is an antiparasitic drug, it has no utility as an antivirus. This is incorrect. Ivermectin has utility as an antiviral. It blocks importin, preventing nuclear import, effectively inhibiting viral access to cell nuclei. Many drugs currently on the market have multiple modes of action. Ivermectin is one such drug. It is both antiparasitic and antiviral.

  In Bangladesh, Ivermectin costs $1.80 for an entire 5-day course. Remdesivir, which is toxic to the liver, costs $3,120 for a 5-day course of the drug. Billions of dollars of utterly useless Remdesivir were sold to our governments on the taxpayer’s dime, and it ended up being totally useless for treating hyperinflammatory COVID-19. The media has hardly even covered this at all.

  The opposition to the use of generic Ivermectin is not based in science. It is purely financially and politically-motivated. An effective non-vaccine intervention would jeopardize the rushed FDA approval of patented vaccines and medicines for which the pharmaceutical industry stands to rake in billions upon billions of dollars in sales on an ongoing basis.

  The majority of the public are scientifically illiterate and cannot grasp what any of this even means, thanks to a pathetic educational system that has miseducated them. You would be lucky to find 1 in 100 people who have even the faintest clue what any of this actually means.

  COVID-19 Transmission:

  COVID-19 is airborne. The WHO carried water for China by claiming that the virus was only droplet- borne. Our own CDC absurdly claimed that it was mostly transmitted by fomite-to-face contact, which, given its rapid spread from Wuhan to the rest of the world, would have been physically impossible.

  The ridiculous belief in fomite-to-face being a primary mode of transmission led to the use of surface disinfection protocols that wasted time, energy, productivity, and disinfectant.

  The 6-foot guidelines are absolutely useless. The minimum safe distance to protect oneself from an aerosolized virus is to be 15+ feet away from an infected person, no closer. Realistically, no public transit is safe.

  Surgical masks do not protect you from aerosols. The virus is too small and the filter media has too large of gaps to filter it out. They may catch respiratory droplets and keep the virus from being expelled by someone who is sick, but they do not filter a cloud of infectious aerosols if someone were to walk into said cloud.

  The minimum level of protection against this virus is quite literally a P100 respirator, a PAPR/CAPR, or a 40mm NATO CBRN respirator, ideally paired with a full-body tyvek or tychem suit, gloves, and booties, with all the holes and gaps taped.

  Live SARS-CoV-2 may potentially be detected in sewage outflows, and there may be oral-fecal transmission. During the SARS outbreak in 2003, in the Amoy Gardens incident, hundreds of people were infected by aerosolized fecal matter rising from floor drains in their apartments.

  COVID-19 Vaccine Dangers:

  The vaccines for COVID-19 are not sterilizing and do not prevent infection or transmission. They are “leaky” vaccines. This means they remove the evolutionary pressure on the virus to become less lethal. It also means that the vaccinated are perfect carriers. In other words, those who are vaccinated are a threat to the unvaccinated, not the other way around.

  All of the COVID-19 vaccines currently in use have undergone minimal testing, with highly accelerated clinical trials. Though they appear to limit severe illness, the long-term safety profile of these vaccines remains unknown.

  Some of these so-called “vaccines” utilize an untested new technology that has never been used in vaccines before. Traditional vaccines use weakened or killed virus to stimulate an immune response. The Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines do not. They are purported to consist of an intramuscular shot containing a suspension of lipid nanoparticles filled with messenger RNA. The way they generate an immune response is by fusing with cells in a vaccine recipient’s shoulder, undergoing endocytosis, releasing their mRNA cargo into those cells, and then utilizing the ribosomes in those cells to synthesize modified SARS-CoV-2 Spike proteins in-situ.

  These modified Spike proteins then migrate to the surface of the cell, where they are anchored in place by a transmembrane domain. The adaptive immune system detects the non-human viral protein being expressed by these cells, and then forms antibodies against that protein. This is purported to confer protection against the virus, by training the adaptive immune system to recognize and produce antibodies against the Spike on the actual virus. The J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines do something similar, but use an adenovirus vector for genetic material delivery instead of a lipid nanoparticle. These vaccines were produced or validated with the aid of fetal cell lines HEK-293 and PER.C6, which people with certain religious convictions may object strongly to.

  SARS-CoV-2 Spike is a highly pathogenic protein on its own. It is impossible to overstate the danger presented by introducing this protein into the human body.

  It is claimed by vaccine manufacturers that the vaccine remains in cells in the shoulder, and that SARS- CoV-2 Spike produced and expressed by these cells from the vaccine’s genetic material is harmless and inert, thanks to the insertion of prolines in the Spike sequence to stabilize it in the prefusion conformation, preventing the Spike from becoming active and fusing with other cells. However, a pharmacokinetic study from Japan showed that the lipid nanoparticles and mRNA from the Pfizer vaccine did not stay in the shoulder, and in fact bioaccumulated in many different organs, including the reproductive organs and adrenal glands, meaning that modified Spike is being expressed quite literally all over the place. These lipid nanoparticles may trigger anaphylaxis in an unlucky few, but far more concerning is the unregulated expression of Spike in various somatic cell lines far from the injection site and the unknown consequences of that.

  Messenger RNA is normally consumed right after it is produced in the body, being translated into a protein by a ribosome. COVID-19 vaccine mRNA is produced outside the body, long before a ribosome translates it. In the meantime, it could accumulate damage if inadequately preserved. When a ribosome attempts to translate a damaged strand of mRNA, it can become stalled. When this happens, the ribosome becomes useless for translating proteins because it now has a piece of mRNA stuck in it, like a lace card in an old punch card reader. The whole thing has to be cleaned up and new ribosomes synthesized to replace it. In cells with low ribosome turnover, like nerve cells, this can lead to reduced protein synthesis, cytopathic effects, and neuropathies.

  Certain proteins, including SARS-CoV-2 Spike, have proteolytic cleavage sites that are basically like little dotted lines that say “cut here”, which attract a living organism’s own proteases (essentially, molecular scissors) to cut them. There is a possibility that S1 may be proteolytically cleaved from S2, causing active S1 to float away into the bloodstream while leaving the S2 “stalk” embedded in the membrane of the cell that expressed the protein.

  SARS-CoV-2 Spike has a Superantigenic region (SAg), which may promote extreme inflammation.

  Anti-Spike antibodies were found in one study to function as autoantibodies and attack the body’s own cells. Those who have been immunized with COVID-19 vaccines have developed blood clots, myocarditis, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, Bell’s Palsy, and multiple sclerosis flares, indicating that the vaccine promotes autoimmune reactions against healthy tissue.

  SARS-CoV-2 Spike does not only bind to ACE2. It was suspected to have regions that bind to basigin, integrins, neuropilin-1, and bacterial lipopolysaccharides as well. SARS-CoV-2 Spike, on its own, can potentially bind any of these things and act as a ligand for them, triggering unspecified and likely highly inflammatory cellular activity.

  SARS-CoV-2 Spike contains an unusual PRRA insert that forms a furin cleavage site. Furin is a ubiquitous human protease, making this an ideal property for the Spike to have, giving it a high degree of cell tropism. No wild-type SARS-like coronaviruses related to SARS-CoV-2 possess this feature, making it highly suspicious, and perhaps a sign of human tampering.

  SARS-CoV-2 Spike has a prion-like domain that enhances its infectiousness.

  The Spike S1 RBD may bind to heparin-binding proteins and promote amyloid aggregation. In humans, this could lead to Parkinson’s, Lewy Body Dementia, premature Alzheimer’s, or various other neurodegenerative diseases. This is very concerning because SARS-CoV-2 S1 is capable of injuring and penetrating the blood-brain barrier and entering the brain. It is also capable of increasing the permeability of the blood-brain barrier to other molecules.

  SARS-CoV-2, like other betacoronaviruses, may have Dengue-like ADE, or antibody-dependent enhancement of disease. For those who aren’t aware, some viruses, including betacoronaviruses, have a feature called ADE. There is also something called Original Antigenic Sin, which is the observation that the body prefers to produce antibodies based on previously-encountered strains of a virus over newly- encountered ones.

  In ADE, antibodies from a previous infection become non-neutralizing due to mutations in the virus’s proteins. These non-neutralizing antibodies then act as trojan horses, allowing live, active virus to be pulled into macrophages through their Fc receptor pathways, allowing the virus to infect immune cells that it would not have been able to infect before. This has been known to happen with Dengue Fever; when someone gets sick with Dengue, recovers, and then contracts a different strain, they can get very, very ill.

  If someone is vaccinated with mRNA based on the Spike from the initial Wuhan strain of SARS-CoV-2, and then they become infected with a future, mutated strain of the virus, they may become severely ill. In other words, it is possible for vaccines to sensitize someone to disease.

  There is a precedent for this in recent history. Sanofi’s Dengvaxia vaccine for Dengue failed because it caused immune sensitization in people whose immune systems were Dengue-naive.

  In mice immunized against SARS-CoV and challenged with the virus, a close relative of SARS-CoV-2, they developed immune sensitization, Th2 immunopathology, and eosinophil infiltration in their lungs.

  We have been told that SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines cannot be integrated into the human genome, because messenger RNA cannot be turned back into DNA. This is false. There are elements in human cells called LINE-1 retrotransposons, which can indeed integrate mRNA into a human genome by endogenous reverse transcription. Because the mRNA used in the vaccines is stabilized, it hangs around in cells longer, increasing the chances for this to happen. If the gene for SARS-CoV-2 Spike is integrated into a portion of the genome that is not silent and actually expresses a protein, it is possible that people who take this vaccine may continuously express SARS-CoV-2 Spike from their somatic cells for the rest of their lives.

  By inoculating people with a vaccine that causes their bodies to produce Spike in-situ, they are being inoculated with a pathogenic protein. A toxin that may cause long-term inflammation, heart problems, and a raised risk of cancers. In the long-term, it may also potentially lead to premature neurodegenerative disease.

  Absolutely nobody should be compelled to take this vaccine under any circumstances, and in actual fact, the vaccination campaign must be stopped immediately.

  COVID-19 Criminal Conspiracy:

  The vaccine and the virus were made by the same people.

  In 2014, there was a moratorium on SARS gain-of-function research that lasted until 2017. This research was not halted. Instead, it was outsourced, with the federal grants being laundered through NGOs.

  Ralph Baric is a virologist and SARS expert at UNC Chapel Hill in North Carolina. This is who Anthony Fauci was referring to when he insisted, before Congress, that if any gain-of-function research was being conducted, it was being conducted in North Carolina.

  This was a lie. Anthony Fauci lied before Congress. A felony.

  Ralph Baric and Shi Zhengli are colleagues and have co-written papers together. Ralph Baric mentored Shi Zhengli in his gain-of-function manipulation techniques, particularly serial passage, which results in a virus that appears as if it originated naturally. In other words, deniable bioweapons. Serial passage in humanized hACE2 mice may have produced something like SARS-CoV-2.

  The funding for the gain-of-function research being conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology came from Peter Daszak. Peter Daszak runs an NGO called EcoHealth Alliance. EcoHealth Alliance received millions of dollars in grant money from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (that is, Anthony Fauci), the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (part of the US Department of Defense), and the United States Agency for International Development. NIH/NIAID contributed a few million dollars, and DTRA and USAID each contributed tens of millions of dollars towards this research. Altogether, it was over a hundred million dollars.

  EcoHealth Alliance subcontracted these grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a lab in China with a very questionable safety record and poorly trained staff, so that they could conduct gain-of-function research, not in their fancy P4 lab, but in a level-2 lab where technicians wore nothing more sophisticated than perhaps a hairnet, latex gloves, and a surgical mask, instead of the bubble suits used when working with dangerous viruses. Chinese scientists in Wuhan reported being routinely bitten and urinated on by laboratory animals. Why anyone would outsource this dangerous and delicate work to the People’s Republic of China, a country infamous for industrial accidents and massive explosions that have claimed hundreds of lives, is completely beyond me, unless the aim was to start a pandemic on purpose.

  In November of 2019, three technicians at the Wuhan Institute of Virology developed symptoms consistent with a flu-like illness. Anthony Fauci, Peter Daszak, and Ralph Baric knew at once what had happened, because back channels exist between this laboratory and our scientists and officials.

  December 12th, 2019, Ralph Baric signed a Material Transfer Agreement (essentially, an NDA) to receive Coronavirus mRNA vaccine-related materials co-owned by Moderna and NIH. It wasn’t until a whole month later, on January 11th, 2020, that China allegedly sent us the sequence to what would become known as SARS-CoV-2. Moderna claims, rather absurdly, that they developed a working vaccine from this sequence in under 48 hours.

  Stephane Bancel, the current CEO of Moderna, was formerly the CEO of bioMerieux, a French multinational corporation specializing in medical diagnostic tech, founded by one Alain Merieux. Alain Merieux was one of the individuals who was instrumental in the construction of the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s P4 lab.

  The sequence given as the closest relative to SARS-CoV-2, RaTG13, is not a real virus. It is a forgery. It was made by entering a gene sequence by hand into a database, to create a cover story for the existence of SARS-CoV-2, which is very likely a gain-of-function chimera produced at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and was either leaked by accident or intentionally released.

  The animal reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 has never been found.

  This is not a conspiracy “theory”. It is an actual criminal conspiracy, in which people connected to the development of Moderna’s mRNA-1273 are directly connected to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and their gain-of-function research by very few degrees of separation, if any. The paper trail is well- established.

  The lab-leak theory has been suppressed because pulling that thread leads one to inevitably conclude that there is enough circumstantial evidence to link Moderna, the NIH, the WIV, and both the vaccine and the virus’s creation together. In a sane country, this would have immediately led to the world’s biggest RICO and mass murder case. Anthony Fauci, Peter Daszak, Ralph Baric, Shi Zhengli, and Stephane Bancel, and their accomplices, would have been indicted and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Instead, billions of our tax dollars were awarded to the perpetrators.

  The FBI raided Allure Medical in Shelby Township north of Detroit for billing insurance for “fraudulent COVID-19 cures”. The treatment they were using? Intravenous Vitamin C. An antioxidant. Which, as described above, is an entirely valid treatment for COVID-19-induced sepsis, and indeed, is now part of the MATH+ protocol advanced by Dr. Paul E. Marik.

  The FDA banned ranitidine (Zantac) due to supposed NDMA (N-nitrosodimethylamine) contamination. Ranitidine is not only an H2 blocker used as antacid, but also has a powerful antioxidant effect, scavenging hydroxyl radicals. This gives it utility in treating COVID-19.

  The FDA also attempted to take N-acetylcysteine, a harmless amino acid supplement and antioxidant, off the shelves, compelling Amazon to remove it from their online storefront.

  This leaves us with a chilling question: did the FDA knowingly suppress antioxidants useful for treating COVID-19 sepsis as part of a criminal conspiracy against the American public?

  The establishment is cooperating with, and facilitating, the worst criminals in human history, and are actively suppressing non-vaccine treatments and therapies in order to compel us to inject these criminals’ products into our bodies. This is absolutely unacceptable.

  COVID-19 Vaccine Development and Links to Transhumanism:

  This section deals with some more speculative aspects of the pandemic and the medical and scientific establishment’s reaction to it, as well as the disturbing links between scientists involved in vaccine research and scientists whose work involved merging nanotechnology with living cells.

  On June 9th, 2020, Charles Lieber, a Harvard nanotechnology researcher with decades of experience, was indicted by the DOJ for fraud. Charles Lieber received millions of dollars in grant money from the US Department of Defense, specifically the military think tanks DARPA, AFOSR, and ONR, as well as NIH and MITRE. His specialty is the use of silicon nanowires in lieu of patch clamp electrodes to monitor and modulate intracellular activity, something he has been working on at Harvard for the past twenty years. He was claimed to have been working on silicon nanowire batteries in China, but none of his colleagues can recall him ever having worked on battery technology in his life; all of his research deals with bionanotechnology, or the blending of nanotech with living cells.

  The indictment was over his collaboration with the Wuhan University of Technology. He had double- dipped, against the terms of his DOD grants, and taken money from the PRC’s Thousand Talents plan, a program which the Chinese government uses to bribe Western scientists into sharing proprietary R&D information that can be exploited by the PLA for strategic advantage.

  Charles Lieber’s own papers describe the use of silicon nanowires for brain-computer interfaces, or “neural lace” technology. His papers describe how neurons can endocytose whole silicon nanowires or parts of them, monitoring and even modulating neuronal activity.

  Charles Lieber was a colleague of Robert Langer. Together, along with Daniel S. Kohane, they worked on a paper describing artificial tissue scaffolds that could be implanted in a human heart to monitor its activity remotely.

  Robert Langer, an MIT alumnus and expert in nanotech drug delivery, is one of the co-founders of Moderna. His net worth is now $5.1 billion USD thanks to Moderna’s mRNA-1273 vaccine sales.

  Both Charles Lieber and Robert Langer’s bibliographies describe, essentially, techniques for human enhancement, i.e. transhumanism. Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum and the architect behind the so-called “Great Reset”, has long spoken of the “blending of biology and machinery” in his books.

  Since these revelations, it has come to the attention of independent researchers that the COVID-19 vaccines may contain reduced graphene oxide nanoparticles. Japanese researchers have also found unexplained contaminants in COVID-19 vaccines.

  Graphene oxide is an anxiolytic. It has been shown to reduce the anxiety of laboratory mice when injected into their brains. Indeed, given SARS-CoV-2 Spike’s propensity to compromise the blood-brain barrier and increase its permeability, it is the perfect protein for preparing brain tissue for extravasation of nanoparticles from the bloodstream and into the brain. Graphene is also highly conductive and, in some circumstances, paramagnetic.

  In 2013, under the Obama administration, DARPA launched the BRAIN Initiative; BRAIN is an acronym for Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies®. This program involves the development of brain-computer interface technologies for the military, particularly non-invasive, injectable systems that cause minimal damage to brain tissue when removed. Supposedly, this technology would be used for healing wounded soldiers with traumatic brain injuries, the direct brain control of prosthetic limbs, and even new abilities such as controlling drones with one’s mind.

  Various methods have been proposed for achieving this, including optogenetics, magnetogenetics, ultrasound, implanted electrodes, and transcranial electromagnetic stimulation. In all instances, the goal is to obtain read or read-write capability over neurons, either by stimulating and probing them, or by rendering them especially sensitive to stimulation and probing.

  However, the notion of the widespread use of BCI technology, such as Elon Musk’s Neuralink device, raises many concerns over privacy and personal autonomy. Reading from neurons is problematic enough on its own. Wireless brain-computer interfaces may interact with current or future wireless GSM infrastructure, creating neurological data security concerns. A hacker or other malicious actor may compromise such networks to obtain people’s brain data, and then exploit it for nefarious purposes.

  However, a device capable of writing to human neurons, not just reading from them, presents another, even more serious set of ethical concerns. A BCI that is capable of altering the contents of one’s mind for innocuous purposes, such as projecting a heads-up display onto their brain’s visual center or sending audio into one’s auditory cortex, would also theoretically be capable of altering mood and personality, or perhaps even subjugating someone’s very will, rendering them utterly obedient to authority. This technology would be a tyrant’s wet dream. Imagine soldiers who would shoot their own countrymen without hesitation, or helpless serfs who are satisfied to live in literal dog kennels.

  BCIs could be used to unscrupulously alter perceptions of basic things such as emotions and values, changing people’s thresholds of satiety, happiness, anger, disgust, and so forth. This is not inconsequential. Someone’s entire regime of behaviors could be altered by a BCI, including such things as suppressing their appetite or desire for virtually anything on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

  Anything is possible when you have direct access to someone’s brain and its contents. Someone who is obese could be made to feel disgust at the sight of food. Someone who is involuntarily celibate could have their libido disabled so they don’t even desire sex to begin with. Someone who is racist could be forced to feel delight over cohabiting with people of other races. Someone who is violent could be forced to be meek and submissive. These things might sound good to you if you are a tyrant, but to normal people, the idea of personal autonomy being overridden to such a degree is appalling.

  For the wealthy, neural laces would be an unequaled boon, giving them the opportunity to enhance their intelligence with neuroprosthetics (i.e. an “exocortex”), and to deliver irresistible commands directly into the minds of their BCI-augmented servants, even physically or sexually abusive commands that they would normally refuse.

  If the vaccine is a method to surreptitiously introduce an injectable BCI into millions of people without their knowledge or consent, then what we are witnessing is the rise of a tyrannical regime unlike anything ever seen before on the face of this planet, one that fully intends to strip every man, woman, and child of our free will.

  Our flaws are what make us human. A utopia arrived at by removing people’s free will is not a utopia at all. It is a monomaniacal nightmare. Furthermore, the people who rule over us are Dark Triad types who cannot be trusted with such power. Imagine being beaten and sexually assaulted by a wealthy and powerful psychopath and being forced to smile and laugh over it because your neural lace gives you no choice but to obey your master.

  The Elites are forging ahead with this technology without giving people any room to question the social or ethical ramifications, or to establish regulatory frameworks that ensure that our personal agency and autonomy will not be overridden by these devices. They do this because they secretly dream of a future where they can treat you worse than an animal and you cannot even fight back. If this evil plan is allowed to continue, it will spell the end of humanity as we know it.

  Conclusions:

  The current pandemic was produced and perpetuated by the establishment, through the use of a virus engineered in a PLA-connected Chinese biowarfare laboratory, with the aid of American taxpayer dollars and French expertise.

  This research was conducted under the absolutely ridiculous euphemism of “gain-of-function” research, which is supposedly carried out in order to determine which viruses have the highest potential for zoonotic spillover and preemptively vaccinate or guard against them.

  Gain-of-function/gain-of-threat research, a.k.a. “Dual-Use Research of Concern”, or DURC, is bioweapon research by another, friendlier-sounding name, simply to avoid the taboo of calling it what it actually is. It has always been bioweapon research. The people who are conducting this research fully understand that they are taking wild pathogens that are not infectious in humans and making them more infectious, often taking grants from military think tanks encouraging them to do so.

  These virologists conducting this type of research are enemies of their fellow man, like pyromaniac firefighters. GOF research has never protected anyone from any pandemic. In fact, it has now started one, meaning its utility for preventing pandemics is actually negative. It should have been banned globally, and the lunatics performing it should have been put in straitjackets long ago.

  Either through a leak or an intentional release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a deadly SARS strain is now endemic across the globe, after the WHO and CDC and public officials first downplayed the risks, and then intentionally incited a panic and lockdowns that jeopardized people’s health and their livelihoods.

  This was then used by the utterly depraved and psychopathic aristocratic class who rule over us as an excuse to coerce people into accepting an injected poison which may be a depopulation agent, a mind control/pacification agent in the form of injectable “smart dust”, or both in one. They believe they can get away with this by weaponizing the social stigma of vaccine refusal. They are incorrect.

  Their motives are clear and obvious to anyone who has been paying attention. These megalomaniacs have raided the pension funds of the free world. Wall Street is insolvent and has had an ongoing liquidity crisis since the end of 2019. The aim now is to exert total, full-spectrum physical, mental, and financial control over humanity before we realize just how badly we’ve been extorted by these maniacs.

  The pandemic and its response served multiple purposes for the Elite:

  • Concealing a depression brought on by the usurious plunder of our economies conducted by rentier-capitalists and absentee owners who produce absolutely nothing of any value to society whatsoever. Instead of us having a very predictable Occupy Wall Street Part II, the Elites and their stooges got to stand up on television and paint themselves as wise and all-powerful saviors instead of the marauding cabal of despicable land pirates that they are.

  • Destroying small businesses and eroding the middle class.

  • Transferring trillions of dollars of wealth from the American public and into the pockets of billionaires and special interests.

  • Engaging in insider trading, buying stock in biotech companies and shorting brick-and-mortar businesses and travel companies, with the aim of collapsing face-to-face commerce and tourism and replacing it with e-commerce and servitization.

  • Creating a casus belli for war with China, encouraging us to attack them, wasting American lives and treasure and driving us to the brink of nuclear armageddon.

  • Establishing technological and biosecurity frameworks for population control and technocratic- socialist “smart cities” where everyone’s movements are despotically tracked, all in anticipation of widespread automation, joblessness, and food shortages, by using the false guise of a vaccine to compel cooperation.

  Any one of these things would constitute a vicious rape of Western society. Taken together, they beggar belief; they are a complete inversion of our most treasured values.

  What is the purpose of all of this? One can only speculate as to the perpetrators’ motives, however, we have some theories.

  The Elites are trying to pull up the ladder, erase upward mobility for large segments of the population, cull political opponents and other “undesirables”, and put the remainder of humanity on a tight leash, rationing our access to certain goods and services that they have deemed “high-impact”, such as automobile use, tourism, meat consumption, and so on. Naturally, they will continue to have their own luxuries, as part of a strict caste system akin to feudalism.

  Why are they doing this? Simple. The Elites are Neo-Malthusians and believe that we are overpopulated and that resource depletion will collapse civilization in a matter of a few short decades. They are not necessarily incorrect in this belief. We are overpopulated, and we are consuming too many resources. However, orchestrating such a gruesome and murderous power grab in response to a looming crisis demonstrates that they have nothing but the utmost contempt for their fellow man.

  To those who are participating in this disgusting farce without any understanding of what they are doing, we have one word for you. Stop. You are causing irreparable harm to your country and to your fellow citizens.

  To those who may be reading this warning and have full knowledge and understanding of what they are doing and how it will unjustly harm millions of innocent people, we have a few more words.

  Damn you to hell. You will not destroy America and the Free World, and you will not have your New World Order. We will make certain of that.

  *  *  *

  This PDF document contains 14 pages, followed by another 17 pages of references.

  For those, please visit the original PDF file at Covid19 – The Spartacus Letter.

  *  *  *

  We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site. Thank you for your support. Support the Automatic Earth in virustime. Donate with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/27/2021 – 00:00

• Fire At IRGC Research Facility In Tehran Injures 3 Revolutionary Guardsmen
  Fire At IRGC Research Facility In Tehran Injures 3 Revolutionary Guardsmen

  A mysterious blaze broke out at one of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) research centers in the capital of Tehran on Sunday evening (local time), multiple international reports have said. 

  Three IRGC members have been wounded in the fire, the cause of which is as yet unknown. Details as to its extend are also unknown – only that it was soon reported contained at that the injured were transported to a nearby hospital. 

  

  Iran state TV quoted a statement from IRGC officials as confirming, “On Sunday evening a fire broke out in one of the IRGC … research centers in the west of Tehran. Three people were injured and the fire has been contained.”

  The facility is located in western Tehran, and given the high security nature of IRGC locations, it’s unlikely that many details will be divulged. This naturally tends to lead to immediate speculation by observers about the possibility of an Israeli sabotage operation. 

  Just days ago, it was revealed that top Israeli officials and the White House have resumed a ‘Plan B’ working group and intelligence sharing initiative focused on the Islamic Republic. The group is said to be planning ‘alternative’ actions against Iran should the currently stalled nuclear talks in Vienna fail.

  This tends to be widely interpreted – at least from the Israeli side and in Israeli media – to mean clandestine operations involving sabotage and likely cyberattacks on Iranian nuclear facilities. Concerning the Sunday fire in Tehran, one Washington-based think tank analyst said, “Oh the timing here is very interesting.”

  Israel killed Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh last year using a remote-controlled machine gun and artificial intelligence | via New York Timeshttps://t.co/8Vi8rXlH8c

  — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) September 19, 2021

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  In August Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz had hinted at possible ramped-up sabotage operations, which weren’t initially confirmed by the US side. Sounding threatening and ominous in statements which was a thinly veiled threat at military action, Gantz said at the time:

  “The United States and Israel share intelligence information, and the cooperation with the United States in this field is only getting stronger. We are working with them in order to establish a Plan B and to demonstrate that if there is no deal, other activities will begin…”

  When Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was hosted for the first time at the White House in late August, both sides confirmed they would resume the secretive sessions, focused on intelligence planning and ‘alternate’ scenarios to jointly pursue of nuclear talks fail.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/26/2021 – 23:30

• "We Face Huge Pressure" – China's Developer Cash Crunch Spreads To Sunac
  “We Face Huge Pressure” – China’s Developer Cash Crunch Spreads To Sunac

  By Sofia Horta e Costa, Bloomberg markets commentator and analyst, who follows up on our Friday article “The Housing Market Is Almost Frozen” – An Even Bigger Problem Emerges For China” in which we discussed the spread of Evergrande’s contagion to Sunac

  Sunac has become the latest Chinese developer to run into liquidity issues, underscoring the challenging environment for the industry as the nation’s property slowdown deepens.

  The Hong Kong-listed real estate firm asked authorities in the city of Shaoxing for assistance after local housing curbs affected sales at one of the company’s projects, according to a letter from a subsidiary seen by Bloomberg. The market is almost frozen, the company said in the letter, addressing the local government. “We face huge pressure.”

  Sunac’s plea for help shows the urgency of the cash crunch affecting the country’s indebted developers as the central government maintains rules to cut leverage in the industry and cool housing activity. China’s home prices are at risk of “meaningful downside” regardless of what happens to Evergrande, Citigroup analysts wrote in a recent note.

  Sunac’s dollar bonds slumped on Friday after the letter circulated among credit traders, with the 5.95% note due 2024 dropping to the lowest price on record. Sunac has the third-biggest weighting on a Bloomberg index of Chinese high yield dollar bonds, after Kaisa and a riskier note sold by ICBC this month.

  

  Sunac’s shares have slumped 50% this year, cutting the wealth of billionaire founder and chairman Sun Hongbin. He had a 44% shareholding in the company as of June, according to the data compiled by Bloomberg. The Tianjin-based business reported revenue of 230.6 billion yuan ($33 billion) in 2020.

  The property market fallout is hurting companies in a stronger financial position than Evergrande. Sunac, which has high speculative-grade ratings at the three global credit risk accessors, has about half the liabilities of its larger peer Evergrande. Sunac complies with two of China’s debt metrics known as the three red lines, and it’s looking to sell assets including its indoor ski parks business to raise cash.

  The Sunac group as a whole has “run into big hurdles and difficulties in terms of cash flow and liquidity,” it said in the letter.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/26/2021 – 23:00

• "They Were Seeing Blood": Bombshell Report Details CIA's 'Kidnap Or Kill' Plans Against WikiLeaks' Assange
  “They Were Seeing Blood”: Bombshell Report Details CIA’s ‘Kidnap Or Kill’ Plans Against WikiLeaks’ Assange

  A bombshell Yahoo News investigation published Sunday is being called the most important deep-dive exposé in years detailing the lengths the CIA and US national security state went to nab WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange while he was holed up at the Ecuadoran embassy. US officials were even having meetings discussing possible assassination of the man who exposed so many secrets of American military and clandestine actions abroad.

  Dozens of US intelligence officials, including many who had served under the Trump administration, are now confirming the CIA considered “options” for kidnapping and/or assassinating Assange and that plans were mulled over at the highest levels of CIA leadership. “More than 30 former U.S. officials — eight of whom described details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange,” are sourced in the report, which further reveals the CIA targeted journalists who worked closely with WikiLeaks, including Glenn Greenwald.

  

  Among the many key new revelations in the report includes that then CIA chief Mike Pompeo was itching for revenge against WikiLeaks and Assange after the “Vault 7” leaks, considered a massive embarrassment to the agency almost without parallel. This began years-running US intelligence “war” on the whistleblower organization publisher of leaked and classified materials, which had the end goal of destroying it and Assange. 

  WikiLeaks itself had publicized on multiple occasions reports of its legal and media team being victims of “professional operations” by CIA assets, and even provided surveillance footage of a “grab team” at various points camped outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London. We also learn that attempts to tie WikiLeaks to the Russian government was part of a CIA propaganda campaign tied to its ‘dirty war’ on the media entity.

  Here’s how the lengthy and stunning investigative report begins:

  In 2017, as Julian Assange began his fifth year holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London, the CIA plotted to kidnap the WikiLeaks founder, spurring heated debate among Trump administration officials over the legality and practicality of such an operation.

  Some senior officials inside the CIA and the Trump administration even discussed killing Assange, going so far as to request “sketches” or “options” for how to assassinate him. Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred “at the highest levels” of the Trump administration, said a former senior counterintelligence official. “There seemed to be no boundaries.”

  The conversations were part of an unprecedented CIA campaign directed against WikiLeaks and its founder. The agency’s multipronged plans also included extensive spying on WikiLeaks associates, sowing discord among the group’s members, and stealing their electronic devices.

  This was during a period of time that then CIA director Mike Pompeo began publicly calling WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service” – which the report says was an attempt to introduce legal justification for targeting its members and close journalist associates.

  RELEASE: Infra-red footage of covert @JulianAssange “grab team” stake out operation reading mission briefing notes

  Full file: https://t.co/v39ljjlwzp#grabteam1 pic.twitter.com/Kz8XOOCdNp

  — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 23, 2018

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  But increasingly the question of ‘legality’ mattered less and less, as one source cited in the report highlights:

  Pompeo and other top agency leaders “were completely detached from reality because they were so embarrassed about Vault 7,” said a former Trump national security official. “They were seeing blood.”

  Below is a summary thread providing an overview of the full report by journalist Kevin Gosztola, who in the past has provided close coverage of Assange’s legal saga from London for Shadowproof (emphasis ours)…

  * * *

  WikiLeaks’ publication of “Vault 7” materials from the CIA was hugely embarrassing. Even though the CIA had increased spying operations against WikiLeaks, they still were surprised the media organization obtained a trove of the agency’s extremely sensitive files.

  CIA director Mike Pompeo was afraid President Donald Trump would learn about the “Vault 7” materials and think less of him. “Don’t tell him, he doesn’t need to know.” But it was too important. Trump had to be informed.

  The CIA was already engaged in ramped up operations against Assange and WikiLeaks because the media organization assisted NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. We learn that US intelligence officials lobbied the White House under Obama to redefine WikiLeaks—and high-profile journalists like Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras—as “information brokers.” This could help CIA argue they were “agents of a foreign power” and valid targets.

  “More than 30 former U.S. officials — eight of whom described details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange,” were sources for the report. One of these officials professes to lobbying for a redefinition of journalists—a clear attack on principles of press freedom. Pompeo and the CIA seized on a “carveout” to authorize operations against Assange and WikiLeaks over “Vault 7” publication. They’d treat WikiLeaks as a spy service and anything conducted would be “offensive counterintelligence” activity.

  Recall, CIA director Mike Pompeo’s speech at CSIS, a Washington think tank, where he labeled WikiLeaks “a non-state hostile intelligence service.” That was all to fuel a climate for aggressive action targeted against Assange, WikiLeaks staff, and associates. 

  The CIA could not prove WikiLeaks was working at the behest of the Russian government. So rather than claim authority to target WikiLeaks that way officials sought to reframe the organization as a “hostile entity.” Then it wouldn’t matter that they weren’t working for Russia.

  Here is why I’ve said for the past couple of years the CIA was out to destroy WikiLeaks. The “hostile entity” designation allowed them to target the media organization for disruption. This is a list of activities they believed they could engage in at any time…

  Here is why I’ve said for the past couple of years the CIA was out to destroy WikiLeaks. The “hostile entity” designation allowed them to target the media organization for disruption.

  This is a list of activities they believed they could engage in at any time: pic.twitter.com/quW3OuVpFJ

  — Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) September 26, 2021

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  The Yahoo! report appears to confirm Andy Müller-Maguhn, a former spokesman for Chaos Computer Club in Germany and friend of Assange, was targeted for disruption by the CIA. He is a German citizen. A key question is whether German intelligence operatives were aware.

  We can now say CIA Director Mike Pompeo wanted to kidnap WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Pompeo wanted to put him on a rendition flight to the United States. The US intelligence operatives UC Global Director David Morales and others referenced worked at the highest levels. Note key detail related to the proposal of kidnapping Assange. Pompeo was not raising a fresh and crazy idea.

  “…the notion of kidnapping Assange preceded Pompeo’s arrival at Langley…” So under Obama there were meetings where kidnapping Assange was discussed. President Donald Trump reportedly “spitballed” on whether the CIA could kill WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

  And “agency executives requested and received ‘sketches’ of plans for killing Assange and other Europe-based WikiLeaks members with access to Vault 7 materials.” John Eisenberg, who was a top lawyer for the National Security Council under Trump, apparently opposed rendering Assange to US without criminal charges. He urged DOJ to accelerate drafting of charges and was concerned Pompeo was freezing out lawyers from Assange discussions.

  This is not a spy movie. This is reality. CIA considered killing #Assange, even killing @wikileaks associates. Although it’s no surprise for those of us who have been on CIA’s spy list, this is huge and @POTUS should drop #Assange charges immediately.https://t.co/dF1Xvz1nEM

  — Srećko Horvat (@HorvatSrecko) September 26, 2021

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  British government agreed not to drop bail-jumping charge against Assange after Swedish investigation into sexual allegations was dropped in May 2017. This bail-jumping charge helped keep him in Belmarsh during extradition hearing and after prevailed in district court. 

  At the conclusion of the report, it reads: “Spy services are increasingly using a WikiLeaks-like model of posting stolen materials online.” Trump administration gave the CIA “aggressive new secret authorities” for hack-and-dump operations.

  To sum this all up: The Justice Department was afraid the CIA might kidnap or kill WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. They abandoned any hangup they had over “the New York Times problem” of charging a publisher and drafted an indictment. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/26/2021 – 22:30

• Morgan Stanley: We Are Approaching An Inflection Point In China Policy Easing
  Morgan Stanley: We Are Approaching An Inflection Point In China Policy Easing

  By Chetan Ahya, Chief Economist and Global Head of Economics at Morgan Stanley

  The past two months have seen successive waves of headlines from China, first on the broad regulatory reset and then this week’s focus on property developers facing near-term funding pressures. The policy goals of these measures are first to ensure social stability and second to make economic growth more sustainable by reducing income inequality and addressing imbalances and excesses. However, they have raised concerns about a potential rise in systemic risks and a sharper slowdown in growth.

  Investors’ focus has shifted from tech to the property sector, which faces challenges on two fronts. First, property developers are required to adhere to the “three red lines” – maintaining healthy liabilities-to-assets, net gearing and cash-to-short-term debt ratios – which were announced in August 2020.

  

  What we are experiencing now is a direct effect of that regulatory action, which aimed to reduce systemic risks with benchmarks to curb excessive property sector borrowing. In addition, property demand in China has slowed in the last two months, as the front-loading of mortgage lending quotas in the first half of the year has weighed on property sales, increasing headwinds for property developers.

  As things stand, most property developers are on track to comply with the three red lines, but a number face challenges in meeting the mandated ratios. Our China property analyst estimates that the total debt exposure of property developers is around Rmb 18.4 trillion, which is now similar to annual sales. This indicates that leverage in aggregate is manageable – hence, so is the deleveraging process.

  Nonetheless, the pressure to reduce leverage means that defaults in China’s property sector are likely to increase. From past experience, policy-makers have mechanisms in place to prevent systemic risks. For instance, debt restructuring will take place at the holding company level of property developers in default, while operating companies remain in business and construction projects move forward. Credit committees will oversee this process, with representation from the financial regulators, the central bank and local governments.

  Vis-à-vis the banking system, the property risk exposure of China’s banks appears manageable. Development loans totaled 6.9% of banks’ total loan balances, and individual developers’ loan balances are limited to 0.3% of banks’ total loan balance or less. NPL formation has also dropped to multi-year lows in 1H21. In addition, the risks related to peer-to-peer consumer loans and shadow banking credits have largely been addressed over the last three years. Hence, our China financials analyst sees ample room for the domestic banking system to deal with property sector risks this year. The exposure of global investors to the China property sector as holders of the debt or global banks as lenders to the sector is relatively small, which reduces the potential for global systemic risks.

  While we expect the restructuring process and immediate spillovers to the financial system to be orderly, we are mindful of potential knock-on effects in the broader economy. Although inventory levels are low, the economy will see some downside pressure from weaker housing starts in the near term.

  The property and adjacent sectors – residential property investment, related services and downstream goods consumption – account for ~15% of China’s GDP. Our chief China economist Robin Xing estimates that a 10pp slowdown in residential property activity could exert a ~1pp drag on GDP growth. Further spillovers could take the form of a negative wealth effect: reduced private consumption, the decline in property investment weighing on fixed asset investment in other upstream manufacturing sectors, and the impact on property sector employment exacerbating weaker consumption.

  

  These spillover effects are creating downward pressure on growth at the same time that production cuts to meet energy intensity targets are weighing on growth, the regulatory reset is weighing on corporate sentiment and consumption is softening because of intermittent Covid-related restrictions.

  We therefore see a risk that spillovers from the property sector would keep 4Q21 growth below 5% on a 2Y CAGR basis. This is a low starting point relative to next year’s growth target of 5.5%. Moreover, a sharper growth slowdown could increase the risk of a material impact on the labour market, which would run counter to the policy objective of ensuring social stability. It is in this context that we expect policy-makers to manage the process and pace of adjustment while providing meaningful countercyclical easing, just as they did in 2H15, 4Q18 and 2H19.

  

  Indeed, we think that we are approaching an inflection point in policy easing. Further measures in the pipeline include: faster fiscal spending to support infrastructure projects in September-December; another 50bp RRR cut in mid-to-late October; some easing of mortgage quotas and fine-tuning of production cuts to meet energy intensity targets in 4Q21; and front-loading of loan quotas and local government special bonds in January-February 2022.

  In the coming weeks, we will be watching for (1) communication from policy-makers on the details of the restructuring plan for property developers, and (2) policy easing signals and announcements.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/26/2021 – 22:00

• Watch: Australian C-17 Globemaster Conducts Insane Maneuver Between Skyscrapers
  Watch: Australian C-17 Globemaster Conducts Insane Maneuver Between Skyscrapers

  An Australian Boeing C-17 Globemaster III transport jet, one of the largest in the world, conducted one of the most insane aerial stunts as it weaved in between skyscrapers on Thursday. 

  

  The extremely low fly-by in Brisbane, Australia, was in preparation for the annual Sunsuper Riverfire festival today, Sat. 25, according to a RAAF press release.

  Here’s the video of the C-17 in downtown Brisbane. You can hear the person filming the rehearsal flight saying, “holy shit.” 

  While the video looked amazing, Task & Purpose spoke with one USAF C-17 pilot who said the low fly-by was extremely dangerous. 

  “If the crew’s timing is off or if they are slow to react, the jet would collide with a building. Very risky,” said the pilot, who wanted to remain anonymous. 

  He explained in the US, C-17 pilots must fly 1,000 feet above building structures in populated areas. Even during flyovers for sporting events, the transport plane cannot fly below building tops. 

  “Those Brisbane videos are insane,” the pilot said. “We could never do something like that in the USAF. If we did, we would lose our wings immediately — never fly again.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/26/2021 – 21:30

• "This Is Completely Avoidable" – New York Hospitals Prepare For Staffing Crisis As Vaccination Mandate Forces Mass Firings
  “This Is Completely Avoidable” – New York Hospitals Prepare For Staffing Crisis As Vaccination Mandate Forces Mass Firings

  With President Biden’s federal vaccine mandate set to take effect on Monday, health-care systems around the country are suspending elective in-patient surgeries and refusing to accept ICU patients from other hospitals as they brace for potentially hundreds of firings of nurses and other critical staffers, potentially even doctors.

  According to the NYT, the Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo is planning to do all that and more, as it says it may soon fire about 400 employees who have chosen not to get the single job required by the edict (which was pushed through despite being blocked by a federal judge).

  Similarly, officials at Northwell Health, the state’s largest health-care provider, estimate that NWH might be forced to fire thousands of people who have refused to get vaccinated.

  In an economy with more job openings than workers – 2.2MM more, to be exact – forcing workers to choose between employment and their health or religious compunctions simply isn’t a smart idea.

  Without even a hint of self-awareness, the governor apparently agrees: “What is looming for Monday is completely avoidable, and there’s no excuses,” Ms. Hochul said, pleading for those who have not done so to get vaccinated,” Hochul said during a weekend press briefing.

  But we digress.

  The situation is less dire in NYC, but there will still be plenty of hospitals left with massive staffing holes after mass-firings.

  The city’s largest private hospital network, NewYork-Presbyterian, has more than 200 employees who may face termination because they haven’t received at least one jab.

  Of course, as we have pointed out in recent posts, health-care workers are only a fraction of the worker who will be impacted by shortages across the economy. In California, nurse shortages have reached crisis levels in California, airlines are seeing flights frequently cancelled due to worker shortages.

  

  As of late September, 84% of NY’s 450,000 hospital workers and 83% of nursing home workers – which number around 45,400 – remained unvaccinated. 

  Despite being directly threatened by their superiors, most say they’re refusing the jab on religious or health grounds, or because they’re allergic to certain ingredients.

  In an effort to scare workers into compliance, NY Gov. Kathy Hochul has threatened to find “foreign workers” to staff the Empire state’s hospitals and care homes (despite the fact that vaccination rates are much lower in most of the world outside the US).

  She has also threatened to call in the National Guard or order a state of emergency in a plan unveiled over the weekend.

  NY’s teachers are also facing a mandate to either get vaccinated or kiss their jobs goodbye. Roughly 10,000 public school workers, that’s compared to 75K teachers and tens of thousands of other employees from custodians to paraprofessioanls.

  Circling back to hospitals and care homes, institutions like Northwell are being relatively parsimonious with their exemptions for religious and health reasons, But some are getting through .

  NY’s emergency order doesn’t stipulate how exactly hospitals and nursing homes should enforce it, and there’s a good chance that hospitals serving communities in greater need will be forced to make exceptions. Black and Hispanic New Yorkers have gotten the jab in far lower numbers than white new Yorkers. The NYT points out in its story that some hospitals in the Bronx see unvaccinated rates among doctors and nurses reaching into double-digit territory.

  At St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, about 12 percent of the nearly 3,000 employees had not been vaccinated as of midday on Friday, the chief medical officer, Eric Appelbaum, said in an interview. The group includes roughly 3 important doctors, and plenty of badly eed studiws

  Anecdotally hospitals are reporting a surge in vaccinations among hospital workers who haven’t yet been vaccinated. But who knows what to believe. All we know is that we wouldn’t want to be having an elective surgery or delivering a baby in NY right now.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/26/2021 – 21:00

• Goldman Raises Year-End Oil Price Target To $90
  Goldman Raises Year-End Oil Price Target To $90

  Just days after Goldman’s head commodity analyst Jeff Currie told Bloomberg TV that the bank anticipates oil spiking to $90 if the winter is colder than usual, on Sunday afternoon Goldman went ahead and made that its base case and in a note from energy strategist Damien Courvalin, he writes that with Brent prices reaching new highs since October 2018, the bank now forecasts that this rally will continue, “with our year-end Brent forecast of $90/bbl vs. $80/bbl previously.”

  

  What tipped the scales is that while Goldman has long held a bullish oil view, “the current global oil supply-demand deficit is larger than we expected, with the recovery in global demand from the Delta impact even faster than our above consensus forecast and with global supply remaining short of our below consensus forecasts.”

  

  Among the supply factors cited by Goldman is hurricane Ida – the “most bullish hurricane in US history” – which more than offset the ramp-up in OPEC+ production since July with non-OPEC+ non-shale production continuing to disappoint.

  

  Meanwhile, as noted above, on the demand side Goldman cited low hospitalization rates which are leading more countries to re-open, including to international travel in particularly COVID-averse countries in Asia.

  

  Finally, from a seasonal standpoint, Courvalin sees winter demand risks as “further now squarely skewed to the upside” as the global gas shortage will increase oil fired power generation.

  From a fundamental standpoint, the current c.4.5 mb/d observable inventory draws are the largest on record, including for global SPRs and oil on water, and follow the longest deficit on record, started in June 2020.

  For the oil bears, Goldman does not see this deficit as reversing in coming months as its scale will overwhelm both the willingness and ability for OPEC+ to ramp up, with the shale supply response just starting.

  

  This sets the stage for inventories to fall to their lowest level since 2013 by year-end (after adjusting for pipeline fill), supporting further backwardation in the oil forward curve where positioning remains low.

  

  But what about a production response? While Goldman does expect short-cycle production to respond by 2022 at the bank’s higher price forecast, from core-OPEC, Russia and shale, this according to Goldman, will only lay bare the structural nature of the oil market repricing. To be sure, there will likely be a time to be tactically bearish in 2022, especially if a US-Iran deal is eventually reached. The bank’s base-case assumption is for such an agreement to be reached in April, leading the bank to then trim its price target to an $80/bbl price forecast in 2Q22-4Q22 (vs. its 4Q21-1Q22 $85/bbl quarterly average forecast). This would, however, remain a tactical call and a likely timespread trade according to Courvalin, with long-dated oil prices poised to reset higher from current levels, especially as the hedging momentum shifts from US producer selling to airline buying (a move which Goldman says to position for with a long Dec-22 Brent and short Dec-22 Brent put trade recommendations).

   

  Meanwhile, the lack of long-cycle capex response – here you can thank the green crazy sweeping the world – the quickly diminishing OPEC spare capacity (Goldman expects normalization by early 2022), the inability for shale producers to sustain production growth (given their low reinvestment rate targets) and oil service and carbon cost inflation will all instead point to the need for sustainably higher long-dated oil prices. Remarkably, Goldman now expects the market to return to a structural deficit by 2H23, which leads it to raise its 2023 oil price forecast from $65/bbl to $85/bbl, and the mid-cycle valuation oil price used by Goldman’s equity analysts to $70/bbl.

  

  Translation: expect a slew of price hikes on energy stocks in the coming days from Goldman.

  Finally, where could Goldman’s forecast – which would infuriate the white house as gasoline prices are about to explode higher – be wrong? For what it’s worth, the bank sees the greatest risk on the timeline of its bullish view. On the demand side, it would take a potentially new variant that renders vaccine ineffective. Beyond that, however, the bank expects limited downside risk from China, with its economists not expecting a hard landing and with our demand growth forecast driven by DMs and other EMs instead. This leaves near-term risks having to come from the supply side, most notably OPEC+, which next meets on October 4. And while an aggressively faster ramp-up in production by year-end would soften (but not derail) our projected deficit, it would only further delay the shale rebound, which would reinforce the structural nature of the next rally given binding under-investment in oil services by 2023. In addition, a large ramp-up in OPEC+ production would simply fast-forward the decline in global spare capacity to historically low levels, replacing a cyclical tight market with a structural one.

  

  

  The full report as usual available to pro subscribers in the usual place.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/26/2021 – 20:36

• Power Supply Shock Looms: "Global Markets Will Feel The Pinch Very Soon" Of China's Next Crisis
  Power Supply Shock Looms: “Global Markets Will Feel The Pinch Very Soon” Of China’s Next Crisis

  Distracted by the ‘grandness’ of the collapse of China’s property development market, many have missed the fact that China faces a crisis that could directly hit Asia’s economy just as hard as a financial collapse – a nationwide power supply shock.

  After ramping up its coal-based power production earlier in the year, it appears Beijing has suddenly grown a conscience over its emissions and the ‘average joe’ could be about to feel the pain of that decision.

  Climate change facts: Chinese CO2 emissions are more than double those of the US, and greater than US and EU combined. pic.twitter.com/ZpJCoPaUjB

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 6, 2020

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

  As Bloomberg reports, the crackdown on power consumption is being driven by rising demand for electricity and surging coal and gas prices as well as strict targets from Beijing to cut emissions.

  It’s coming first to the country’s mammoth manufacturing industries: from aluminum smelters to textiles producers and soybean processing plants, factories are being ordered to curb activity or – in some instances – shut altogether.

  “With market attention now laser-focused on Evergrande and Beijing’s unprecedented curbs on the property sector, another major supply-side shock may have been underestimated or even missed,” Nomura Holding Inc. analysts including Ting Lu warned in a note, predicting China’s economy will shrink this quarter.

  As a reminder, China pollutes more than the US and all developed countries combined…

  

  More problematic for Greta and her pals, between the years 2000 and 2020, the amount of electricity generated by burning coal increased more than four-fold in China, hitting around 4,600 terrawatt hours in the past year.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  As the scene below suggests, this is not the first time China has faced winter power demand surges (which prompted many to turn to diesel generators to plug the shortages of power from the electricity grid).

  

  However, this year is different.

  The danger is that, as Zeng Hao, chief expert at consultancy Shanxi Jinzheng Energy, warns: government policies will significantly limit the energy industry’s potential to increase production to meet the demand increase.

  2021’s worsening power crunch in China reflects three specific factors:

  1) Extremely tight energy supply globally (that’s already seen chaos engulf markets in Europe);

  2) The economic rebound from COVID lockdowns that has boosted demand from households and businesses (as lower investment by miners and drillers constrains production); and

  3) President Xi Jinping tries to ensure blue skies at the Winter Olympics in Beijing next February (showing the international community for the first time that he’s serious about de-carbonizing the economy).

  Simply put, it is the third factor – which is all of its own making – that has raised the risk of a severe shortage of coal and gas – used to heat homes and power factories – this winter; and more ominously, expectations of the need to ration power to those deemed worthy.

  “The power curbs will ripple through and impact global markets,” Nomura’s Ting said.

  “Very soon the global markets will feel the pinch of a shortage of supply from textiles, toys to machine parts.”

  As we noted earlier in the year, China needs to shutter 600 coal plants to meet its emissions goals of net zero greenhouse emissions by 2060.

  

  If Xi’s recent actions in the interests of “common prosperity” are really about forestalling social unrest, we suspect his commitment to meeting self-imposed carbon emissions targets may quickly evaporate as the Chinese people are unlikely to stand sustained black-outs for long without upheaval.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/26/2021 – 20:30

• The Importance Of Dune, Part 2: The Jihad
  The Importance Of Dune, Part 2: The Jihad

  Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

  Read Part 1 here

  In 2020 I wrote a pair of editorials for the Gold Goats ‘n Guns Newsletter in sympathy to the movie’s original release for last December. This one appeared in November after the (s)election of Joe Biden as U.S. president. I’ve written a lot about the ideas contained in this essay but I felt it appropriate to revisit it now that we’re in the window of seeing our story play out on the big screen, where art still has the possibility of moving us to action.

  

  The Jihad

  “We Fremen have a saying: God created Arrakis to train the faithful. One cannot go against the word of God.”

  — FRANK HERBERT

  In my last editorial I talked about why Frank Herbert’s Dune was even more relevant today than when it was published in 1965.  As we approached the election, after re-reading Dune, I made it into Herbert’s sequel, Dune Messiah.

  And having not read it in thirty years I was amazed at how good it was.  The whole book is about a moment in time that Paul, who can see into the future, cannot see beyond.  The 2020 election felt exactly that way to me.

  That moment was a singularity, a point we pass through without knowing what lies on the other side.  The parallels were simply too deep for me to ignore.  The trope Herbert used in Dune Messiah has been copied a hundred times since then, but its metaphoric power remains the same.

  A moment like that turns everything on its head when it happens.  It shattered Paul’s life and ushered in the next period of chaos far deadlier than the last.

  Dune left us knowing that with the victory over the entrenched, sclerotic power structure of the great houses there would be a religious jihad by the Fremen which would sweep across the galaxy like a plague of killer locusts.

  That jihad occurred and Paul was powerless to stop it.

  And, like Paul, this is what I fear is coming. The results of the election confirm for me that what comes next will be a terrible thing. 

  The Davos Crowd think they have won the war, that they have been successful in defeating the insurgent Trump and his Deplorable sand rats.  They think there are only a few of us vocally leading a loose contingent of conspiracy theorists on the fringe of society who can be easily controlled and marginalized.

  This was the mistake the establishment made in Dune, thinking the Fremen numbered in the thousands.  In reality, they numbered in the tens of millions and were viciously angry, self-sufficient and disciplined; ready to remake the world and shut off the source of the power, the spice.

  When Dune was written the spice was a metaphor for oil.  Today information is the currency of the realm, and Davos thinks that by controlling all information flow they can control everything else.

  But they don’t control the information anymore, even if it looks that way. Because by cheating and creating false value throughout the society, by degrading the quality of the information, they have raised the value of producing real things with real labor to the point of it being existential to their power.

  And when you marginalize the tens of millions of people who produce the goods which sustain their false reality, when you remove their ability to speak their mind and make their voices heard, when you insult them, berate them, hector them and beat them then you will bear the consequences when the sleeper awakens, in Herbert’s words.

  This isn’t a threat or an open invitation to violence.  This is an observation of what always comes next.  These people know that they have been lied to, their children spiritually separated from them.  The election was a cruel joke meant to rub our noses in their complete power over us.  You can see it every day on Twitter.

  What comes next will be nothing short of a Fremen-esque jihad by the 70+ million people who voted for Donald Trump.  If his allies prove the systematic thievery of the election, it will fuel what is now a simmering anger to a violent boiling rage with a near-religious frenzy.

  They will be fully justified.

  I get that anger.  I feel it building in me.  Paul saw this coming in Dune and failed in his attempt to control it.  And I can see it coming today.

  Their Jihad will be joined by the people who didn’t want to win by cheating.  There are millions of them, too.  They voted against Trump but don’t view their neighbors as enemies.

  The alternative to it is worse, acquiescence and vassalage to a corrupt system.  And that’s why today it’s clear to me this only ends in violence.  The elites had a choice.  They chose poorly.

  They have their own religious zealots, suffused with the righteous anger at a corrupt system but blaming it on the wrong people, their neighbors. 

  The people have a choice, stand their ground or be ground into paste. 

  This is why I feel the only option for Davos when faced with the coming jihad against them will be to unleash a response to it orders of magnitude deadlier than COVID-19.  That’s a moment I, frankly, don’t want to see beyond.

  *  *  *

  I think it’s quite clear now that we’re in the middle of that next response. The ‘Jihad’ of angry Trump voters hasn’t quite materialized yet, but it has in other parts of the world.

  The descent into random violence with brutal Harkonnen police and embedded Sardaukar mercenaries putting down protests in Melbourne, Australia is not only deeply disturbing but, sadly, wholly predictable.

  The Fremen were trained by Arrakis through privation and extreme thrift imposed on them by the desert to find meaning and beauty in the simplest things. We’re not there yet. But by now brutally imposing vaccination mandates through a terror campaign people have woken up quickly.

  Because they already saw the problem if they didn’t want to believe it would ever come to this.

  The sleeper will awaken here in the U.S. The more they take away from us the more it will feed the burning inside.

  Davos’ Sardaukar are sustained through blood sacrifice and dehumanization, the Harkonnens through good ol’ payola. They serve this system not because they believe in it but because they are fed by it. Australians will begin imposing costs on them that outweigh their comfort and they will collapse.

  It’s already happening in France. It will happen in Germany this fall. And when the U.S. joins the jihad that’s when the violence gets real.

  Fat, roid-freaks running around beating old women and unarmed men with gang tactics will turn into massacres, but not for us, for them. They have told us they are no longer negotiating with us. Become subservient or be destroyed. Their call isn’t a bluff but it ultimately is.

  We have reached that moment today where the choice is clear. Get hard, get in shape, get tough-mined and become #ungovernable or be extinguished. You are not alone.

  Moments like this take generations to build to. Welcome to Arrakis.

  *  *  *

  Join my Patreon if you can see The Jihad forming

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  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/26/2021 – 20:00

• Fauci Flop? New Documentary About COVID Czar Fails To Disclose Box Office Results
  Fauci Flop? New Documentary About COVID Czar Fails To Disclose Box Office Results

  A new documentary called “Fauci,” released by National Geographic Documentary Films two weeks ago, honors Dr. Anthony Fauci’s work to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic and COVID-19 pandemic. Since the release two weeks ago, there’s been no data on ticket sales by major film sites, according to Just The News. 

  The new documentary was released in theaters across York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, D.C., and New Orleans on Sept. 10. No major film site, including RottenTomatoes.com, Boxoffice Pro, IMDB.com, and BoxOfficeMojo.com, has calculated ticket sales or earnings for the film.

  The documentary “follows the renowned infectious disease specialist’s work in two health crises: AIDS and the coronavirus pandemic. Dr. Fauci agreed to participate as long as it didn’t interfere with his work,” NYT tweeted. 

  Shawn Robbins, the chief analyst with Boxoffice Pro, said it’s “incredibly uncommon” for a major studio not to release box office earnings. 

  “Niche distributors often lack the proper resources for data reporting. That may or may not be the case with this particular documentary,” said Robbins. He said it’s too early to suggest “Fauci” has become a flop at theaters, but time will tell. 

  Just The News said the film had one condition before seeing it: patrons of the theater had to show their vaccine cards. 

  On IMDB, the documentary has a 2.2 rating out of 10. About 80% of the reviews rate it as a 1 star. 

  

  IMDB users criticized the documentary as establishment-backed propaganda. Here’s one review: 

  Hilarious how this movie uses George Bush, and Susan Rice, to ascribe credibility for Dr. Fauci 😂 Bush’s false “Weapons of Mass Destruction” Iraq War, and Susan Rice’s “Benghazi” debacle speak for themselves.

  The movie does indeed humanize Fauci with stories about his family. He said they are being harassed because of his work. So what do they do? They put their images and information in the movie….😧

  Then along comes Bono’s interview. I’m still trying to figure out what a singer really has to do with any of this.

  It has interesting interviews, but is a very one sided movie. It’s mostly politicos trying to dig out poor ole Dr. Fauci from the avalanche of his massive PR nightmare. He’s 80 years old, maybe just maybe it’s time to relax and retire.

  The mystery remains why National Geographic continues to withhold the box office earnings of Fauci, but the poor reviews at IMBD suggest the flick might have been a flop, and that is why. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/26/2021 – 19:30

• Frontrunning As A Service: "Flashbots" Can Now Enable Anyone To Skip The Transaction Line On Crypto Networks
  Frontrunning As A Service: “Flashbots” Can Now Enable Anyone To Skip The Transaction Line On Crypto Networks

  Frontrunning isn’t just for Citadel anymore: the same thing is starting to evolve in the crypto space.

  Crypto bots can now spot when other traders on a network are trying to buy a token and can attempt to place an order to get in front of the already-existing order. 

  As Bloomberg noted in a new report, it’s a win/win situation for those managing the bots:

  If you are able to get your purchase done before the other trader, you’ll get a good deal on a coin you know there’s demand for. Your purchase pushes up the price the other buyer has to pay. Completing the sandwich, you sell for an easy profit.

  Undertaking these types of transactions in the world of crypto is far easier than it is on equity markets or futures markets. There’s numerous bots available for download thanks to a free open source tool called Flashbots that makes it easy to create these types of bots.

  

  “There was a high chance that front-running would not happen to you,” before Flashbots came along, Anton Bukov, co-founder of 1inch, a crypto-exchange aggregator, told Bloomberg. “Since it was released, a lot of people got access to this, and they started to front-run all these traders,” he continued.

  The creators of Flashbots attest that they are simply “trying to solve a serious problem” of miners having power to decide which transactions in a block get priority while processing transactions for the ledger.

  Nic Carter, who co-founded research firm Coin Metrics, added: “We haven’t even scratched the surface of shenanigans miners could be up to.”

  And if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em: while Flashbots doesn’t eliminate the frontrunning, it makes it available for everyone. The software “makes a market out of cutting in line,” Bloomberg wrote. 

  In an auction feature it has, the software allows users to bid on positions in the miner queue and then allows miners to benefit from taking a fee from the winner of the auction. Advocates for the practice argue that bringing in out into the open makes it more orderly. 

  Traders can also use the software to pay a miner to ensure their transaction is undertaken at the price agreed upon (i.e. that they aren’t skipped in line themselves). 

  These transparent auctions differentiate crypto from “the predatory, opaque manipulation that goes on in traditional financial exchanges,” according to one of its co-creators, Cornell Ph.D. student Phil Daian. 

  

  “If the current state is the final solution, I’d say it’s a net negative. But in the long run it’s a good steppingstone,” said Tarun Chitra, co-founder of crypto financial modeling platform Gauntlet. 

  Another critic is Ari Juels, a professor at Cornell Tech who is co-author of “Flash Boys 2.0” who advises Daian. He said: “It makes sense only as part of a false narrative that there’s no other way.” 

  Juels says blockchain protocols that ensure orderly transactions are another way to solve the problem, and he likened Flashbots to “a town solving burglaries by selling the right to do it and using the revenue to fund the police”.
   

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/26/2021 – 18:30

• Choice Architecture And Retail Investors
  Choice Architecture And Retail Investors

  By Nicholas Colas, founder of DataTrek Research

  The topic of today’s Story-Time discussion will be the behavioral economics concept of choice architecture, which says that how choices are presented influences what people choose. There’s “good” architecture, which nudges people into beneficial outcomes, and “bad” architecture, which leaves them adrift. Capital markets are rife with the “bad” sort of architecture, especially for the new crop of retail investors: myriad choices, randomly displayed. The only good news: it’s always been this way and capital markets/investors have done fine.

  We’ve been fascinated by the behavioral economics concept of “choice architecture” ever since Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s 2008 book “Nudge”, and it is the topic of this week’s Story Time Thursday.

  The easiest way to explain choice architecture and the complexity it can create is with an example from a 2013 piece by Thaler, Sunstein and Balz (the editor for “Nudge”, link to the work below):

  • The food service director for a large urban school systems discovers that children tend to choose foods by where they appear in the cafeteria queue. Items presented at the start and end of the line are chosen more frequently, as are those placed at eye level.
  • Armed with this knowledge, should the director optimize the daily presentation of options based on 1) the healthiness of the food, or 2) at random, or 3) maximizing profit/minimizing cost?
  • The first option (healthy foods) is certainly what parents would prefer but one can see how choices 2 and 3 might be more popular if in place of a children’s cafeteria we were talking about a restaurant for adults. Choice architecture design is always a function of situation.

  Now, it’s not just children that favor the easy-to-see or first option offered. Packaged goods companies pay supermarkets for shelf placement. Businesses pay Amazon and Google to put their ads at the top of relevant searches. Both examples are choice architecture “hacks” that may not yield the optimal result for the consumer. Regardless, they still work, as Google’s near $2 trillion market cap highlights.

  Since the publication of “Nudge”, the primary way choice architecture has affected how economic choices are presented is in the use of default options to guide (“nudge”) people without taking away freedom of choice. Two examples:

  • Many US companies now make contributing to a 401(k) retirement plan the standard choice with a further default into a target date fund when new employees onboard. They can still choose not to enroll in the program, but that requires an explicit choice rather than the other way around.
  • When governments make organ donation the default option rather than “no donation”, enrollment in such programs increases.
  • Default choices are like salad placed at the start of the cafeteria buffet. You know it’s the “right” option, so you take it and that reduces the possibility that you’ll grab the burger and fries later.

  Now, one area where choice architecture plays a prominent role in current capital markets is in how it effects decisions made by millions of new retail investors. There are thousands of individual listed equities in the US and at least as many exchange traded funds. Expand this investable universe to virtual currencies, and the list grows by another 12,000 potential choices.

  Online broker Robinhood has an interesting approach to helping new accounts choose a stock to own: they simply put a share of a well-known name right into the account on sign-up. It might be JPMorgan (a $160 value) or Ford ($14), but on day 1 the client owns something. This is essentially a “default option” meant to engage the customer in the investment process and, hopefully, encourage further activity. In our view, this is an extremely clever way to break the logjam created by the thousands of potential choices that new investors face.

  Go over to Coinbase, where there are a much smaller number of tradable options (63 just now), and you’ll still see choice architecture hacks meant to put a given option at “eye level”. For example, one offering called fetch.ai offers potential buyers $1 of value in that token for every video about the project that they watch. This is not quite as much of a “default choice” as Robinhood’s stock incentive, but the idea is the same: give users a reason to engage.

  Even with these examples, the myriad of options available to retail investors obviously makes for something of an architectural nightmare, but this is not a novel problem. The new crop of millennial retail investors use sources like Reddit to find ideas amid the thousands of choices on offer. Their Boomer parents may scoff at this approach, but in their (relative) youth they paid 5-8 percent loads on mutual funds in large part because they too were overwhelmed by the choices on offer. Most of those fees went to brokerage firms in compensation for navigating the complex choice architecture that is Wall Street.

  Yes, new retail investors could use some “nudges” to encourage sounder decision-making, but the historical track record shows this is very hard, as this brief personal story shows:

  • In a prior job I (Nick) developed independent research for sales to brokerage firms which had to show this work to their clients in the wake of the 2003 Global Analysts Research Settlement between the SEC, FINRA and 10 large Wall Street firms.
  • My firm made a ton of money on this product because the brokers involved had to pay $450 million over 5 years for work like ours.
  • But the reality was that very few brokerage clients (less than 100/month, typically) ever read the work despite it being both free and prominently displayed on investor portals.
  • On top of that, the further $85 million set aside from the settlement for “investor education” remained largely unused.

  The bottom line to all this is that the choice architecture of investing is like a cafeteria with essentially infinite, randomly displayed choices and every demographic cohort that comes through the doors must find their own way. They make mistakes, they correct, they move on. Yes, it would be great if there were some systematic way to reduce the initial error rate. My own experience with the 2003 Research Settlement tells me there is not. In the grand scheme of things, that’s OK. The more important issue is that retail investors engage with financial markets and stay involved for the long term. Boomers managed this despite the 1987 crash and 2 bear markets. Millennials should be no different, a positive factor when considering long-term US equity returns.

  Sources:

  Choice Architecture (Thaler, Sunstein, Balz): https://dl1.cuni.cz/pluginfile.php/958113/mod_resource/content/0/06%20Thaler%2C%20Sunstein%2C%20Balz%20%282012%29%20Choice%20Architecture.pdf

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/26/2021 – 18:00

• As Margins Begin To Slide, Will Corporations Choose To Defend Profits Or Absorb Transitory Shocks
  As Margins Begin To Slide, Will Corporations Choose To Defend Profits Or Absorb Transitory Shocks

  Having spent much of the summer warning that as a result of surging labor costs, commodity prices and generally “transitory hyperinflation”, corporate margins would tumble (which in the view of Morgan Stanley would lead to a 10% correction), three weeks ago we warned that we are about to see a surge in profit warnings as the realization that the current unprecedented ascent in prices is going to be anything but transitory.

  If MS and BofA are right on slumping consumer demand and margin contraction we should start seeing Q3 earnings warnings in the next 2 weeks.

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 30, 2021

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

  Sure enough, shortly after we noted that “Profit Warnings Are Coming Fast And Furious As Q3 Profits Brace For Big Hit” it wasn’t until Nike and FedEx’s dismal outlooks that the world finally paid attention to the coming stagflationary wave.

  As we reported last week, Fedex tumbled after it reported that not only did it miss Q1 earnings – just hours after announcing it was raising prices at the fastest pace in decades – but also slashed guidance, warning about sharply higher labor costs and operating expenses.Picking up on this, earlier today Nordea also chimed in saying that “FedEx adjusted down expectations and cited being 35% understaffed in various parts of the supply chain as an important reason why. This is not good!” Yes… after the fact.

  

  We won’t waste our readers’ time on why margins are set to plunge, and drag profits along with them absent a continued surge in revenues – we have discussed that extensively in the past few months – but we will highlight a recent note from SocGen’s Andrew Lapthorne who cuts through the noise and says that corporates now have to make a decision: defend high margins or absorb “transitory” shocks.

  As Lapthorne writes last week, while the rest of the world’s attention turns to China, his charts focused on corporate profitability given the concerns about rising costs, supply disruption and now higher energy costs. According to the SocGen strategist, reported EBIT growth in the US has jumped by over 30% and over 55% in Europe, a remarkable surge which has been accompanied by a sharp increase in profit margins as sales growth has easily outstripped the growth in costs. Indeed, as noted recently, US profit margins hit an all all-time high in Q2, leading to a substantial uplift in profit margins to all-time highs.

  

  Why the focus on margins and profitability? As Lapthorne explains, “profit margins act as shock absorbers. If businesses can absorb price shocks and business disruption into their P&L instead of passing the problems onto customers then logic has it that short-term profitability would be hit, but bigger issues, such as the need for policy tightening, is reduced.”

  And while on aggregate profit margins are healthy enough – for now – to absorb some temporary pain, it will be interesting to see what path the corporates take: to defend margins and risk inflation taking hold, or allow profits suffer for a while?

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/26/2021 – 17:30

• Hedge Fund CIO On China's Crypto Crackdown: Beijing Is Desperate To Ensure Successful Rollout Of Their Digital Yuan
  Hedge Fund CIO On China’s Crypto Crackdown: Beijing Is Desperate To Ensure Successful Rollout Of Their Digital Yuan

  By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

  “When you and I grew up, half the world was covered in communism,” said the CIO. “Global markets and international business provided the keys to liberate the human potential stifled by that system,” he continued. “When we started in the business, there weren’t vast pools of human capital moving piles of paper. But those days are done.”

  Too much of society has become financialized, optimized. Such a structure leads to corrupt incumbents, fragility, instability. “Markets and economics are no longer the answer to the world’s problems. And that’s not to say communism is the solution. It’s not. But it appears clear we’re entering the type of decade you see a couple times a century where politics dominate.”

  Overall:

  “Virtual currency-related business activities are illegal financial activities,” declared the People’s Bank of China, increasingly desperate to ensure the successful rollout of their centralized digital yuan.

  PBOC SAYS ALL CRYPTO-RELATED TRANSACTIONS ARE ILLEGAL

  So the digital yuan is a complete disaster eh?

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 24, 2021

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

  “The government will resolutely clamp down on virtual currency speculation, related financial activities and misbehavior in order to safeguard people’s properties and maintain economic, financial and social order.”

  Beijing stopped short of outlawing the ownership of such digital assets. They prefer centrally controlled coercion, slow suffocation. One risk to outlawing the ownership of virtual currencies is that citizens who forfeit them are forever resentful. And states that turn their citizens into criminals at scale do so at great peril. Soviet communists turned such transformation into an art form.

  These are the stakes at play. China’s central bank digital yuan will provide Beijing with unparalleled transactional insight and financial control. It further intends to export this system as an alternative to the US dollar, directing business in China through its new international payments system.

  But the free market has already created parallel systems that lay outside of Beijing’s dominion. Bitcoin is one. Ethereum another. So are stablecoin. Such systems are built to meet market demand for digital versions of an existing fiat currency, such as the US dollar. More than 98% of the $128bln of global stablecoin is linked to the US dollar. Even more impressive, the annual transaction turnover of US dollar stablecoin is over $100trln. It is an astonishing success of blockchain technology applied by the private sector at scale. There is no such demand for the digital yuan – the largest private CNY stablecoin is less than $5mm (see ““I’m Not At All Excited”: China’s Digital Yuan Is Turning Into A Giant Flop“)

  China and the US are, thus, confronting very different positions. China success in the digital currency arena hinges on control – the digital yuan will be used by decree. US success depends on regulators integrating US dollar stablecoin into the mainstream. They will.

  And when they do, these technologies will come under conventional oversight, unlocking exponential growth. Benefits will accrue to the nation with the currency that the market selects. That remains, unambiguously, the US.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/26/2021 – 17:00

• NYC Fast Resembling San Fran & Vancouver 'Cities Of The Walking Dead' As Junkies, Dealers Take Over Midtown Streets With Impunity 
  NYC Fast Resembling San Fran & Vancouver ‘Cities Of The Walking Dead’ As Junkies, Dealers Take Over Midtown Streets With Impunity 

  A lengthy weekend exposé in The New York Post has chronicled how the outgoing de Blasio administration’s long turning a blind eye has allowed the Garment District and some midtown Manhattan streets to increasingly resemble the deteriorating zombie-like feel of the open drug use problem in places like San Francisco, or Vancouver in Canada. It also calls to mind the reputation of an open-air crime infested drug den and “fear city” that came to define daily life and commutes in the 1970s and 1980s – also following more than a year of the Covid-induced exodus of people moving out of the city.

  “New York City has become the city of The Walking Dead,” a former NYPD detective, Michael Alcazar, who also teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told The Post. The publication quoted neighbors and eyewitnesses who live near 35th and 36th streets, who say that busy sidewalks are now “littered with used needles, broken glass crack pipes, trash, urine, and feces” – and one can increasingly see junkies shooting up in broad daylight.

  

  “I’ve personally seen dozens of deals go down. I’ve seen a person OD and nearly die,” one resident of the area said. And separately the aforementioned former detective Alcazar lamented, “This is a city problem. How has the city eroded this far so quickly?” And he concluded, “With lack of treatment and open use of drugs… The city has lost its focus.”

  Businesses which form the heart of the neighborhood are all too aware of the downward slide and increasingly public safety danger, with Garment District Alliance President Barbara Blair cited as saying on their behalf, “We are appalled and disgusted by the drug use and other illicit behaviors that are taking place on our sidewalks in Midtown Manhattan and throughout New York City.”

  The report actually went so far as to feature photographs of the sordid scenes it was documenting in action: drug deals and exchanges happening with impunity in the middle of the day, shirtless homeless men shooting meth on the sidewalk, police standing around checking their phones as if bored, residents and tourists walking past junkies sitting dazed in a trance-like state of oblivion.

  

  After watching what was an obvious drug deal going down on 36th street the Post reporters crucially observed further:

  The NYPD appears to have only a token presence. Two cops stood on Eighth Avenue between 35th and 36th, leaning up against a police van while staring into their phones, as illicit activities swirled around them.

  But cops have been “effectively ordered” by city and state leaders to let junkies roam free, said Manny Gomez, a former NYPD sergeant and FBI special agent who now heads MG Security Services.

  Haven’t seen this in NYC since I was about 6 years old asking my older sister what was wrong with those who were doing this….NYC is now the new Hamsterdam…

  ‘City of the Walking Dead:’ Junkies shoot up in broad daylight in Midtown https://t.co/44vAcJLjYe via @nypmetro

  — Michael Lambert aka That’s Mr. Boomer 2U‼️ (@Mezikenyc) September 26, 2021

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

  Images in 2021 increasingly resemble the down and out crime and drug-fueled 1970s and 1980s where venturing down city streets and riding subways were feared especially by outsiders…

  

  All of this has no doubt impacted violent crime in the area, with the report citing NY city numbers to point out that robberies have jumped a whopping 182% this year compared to last, with felony assaults increasing 163% as well.

  This strongly suggests what’s happening on a number of blocks of midtown isn’t merely an inconvenient matter of imaging or a neighborhood aesthetics problem, but will make these neighborhoods increasingly unsafe – not to mention the potential for spread of disease via needles strewn about and a growing feces problem – again akin to San Francisco’s “poop crisis” on the other coast.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/26/2021 – 16:30

• As Biden Releases 12K Haitians Into US, Thousands More Arrive In Panama For Northbound Trek
  As Biden Releases 12K Haitians Into US, Thousands More Arrive In Panama For Northbound Trek

  Thousands of Haitian migrants have somehow made it to Panama, and have passed through the treacherous jungles of the Darien Gap on their way north to the United States, according to Reuters.

  According to the report which cites two Panamanian government sources, between 3,500 and 4,000 migrants are passing through ‘migration reception stations’ in Darien and Chiriqui, according to one source – an official with Panama’s security ministry.

  But wait, there’s more:

  Meanwhile, some 16,000 migrants are stuck in the northern Colombian beach town of Necocli, awaiting their turn on limited boat transport toward the Darien Gap, where smugglers guide groups through one of the most dangerous and impassable regions of Latin America. read more

  Colombia and Panama agreed last month that 500 migrants could cross per day, but local officials have repeatedly urged them to raise the quota, saying it is far too low to keep pace with the up to 1,500 migrants who arrive in town daily. -Reuters

  Meanwhile, the Biden administration has released around 12,000 Haitians into the United States – unvaccinated, while school children are forced to wear masks and unvaccinated Americans are losing their jobs because… science.

  More from Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

  Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said Sunday that a significant number of Haitian illegal immigrants who had amassed along the U.S.-Mexico border last week are being released into the United States.

  

  About 12,400 out of 17,000 Haitians are having their cases heard by immigration courts, Mayorkas said, adding that about 5,000 are being processed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Only approximately 3,000 are in detention, he said.

  “Approximately, I think it’s about ten thousand or so, twelve thousand,” Mayorkas told “Fox News Sunday” when he was asked about the number of Haitian illegal aliens who have been released into the interior of the United States. The number could rise as 5,000 more cases are processed, he remarked further.

  Mayorkas added that the figure of those being released “could be even higher” and added that the “number that are returned could be even higher.”

  Striking a defensive tone, Mayorkas said, “What we do is we follow the law as Congress has passed it.”

  “Legislative reform is needed,” he said, adding that the U.S. “immigration system is broken.”

  The Department of Justice in 2017 previously estimated that about 43 percent of illegal aliens released into the U.S. miss their immigration court hearings.

  When asked about what will happen to the 12,000 who were released in the past week, Mayorkas said that “it is our intention to remove” those aliens.

  “We have enforcement guidelines in place that provide that individuals who are recent border crossers who do not show up for their hearings are enforcement priorities, and will be removed,” Mayorkas said.

  Last week, more than 15,000 Haitians congregated underneath a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, and essentially constructed a shantytown before numerous local officials sounded the alarm that a humanitarian crisis was brewing.

  

  Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas updates reporters on the effort to resettle vulnerable Afghans in the United States, in Washington on Sept. 3, 2021. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

  DHS officials, including Mayorkas, on Sept. 24 said that the encampment under the bridge was cleared out. A day later, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said that the Texas border crossing will be partially reopened.

  The agency also said it is planning to continue flights to Haiti throughout the weekend, ignoring criticism from Democratic lawmakers and some progressive groups.

  The number of people at the Del Rio encampment peaked last weekend as migrants driven by confusion over the Biden administration’s policies and misinformation on social media converged at the border crossing. While Mayorkas and other White House officials have asserted that the border is closed, Republicans have said that the administration’s decisions to rescind a number of Trump-era immigrant orders have triggered a surge of illegal immigration.

  

  All the while, Mayorkas and other senior officials have dedicated a significant amount of time in news conferences condemning some Border Patrol agents who were seen on horseback near Haitians who illegally crossed the border. The photographer who shot those pictures last week said that the agents were not whipping the migrants, as some officials and Democratic lawmakers had claimed.

  “Some of the Haitian men started running, trying to go around the horses,” photographer Paul Ratje told local station KTSM, explaining the situation on the ground.

  “I’ve never seen them whip anyone,” he said, referring to the agents. “He was swinging it, but it can be misconstrued when you’re looking at the picture.”

  

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/26/2021 – 16:00

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• The Problem Is Not Just Xi Jinping; It Is Communism
  The Problem Is Not Just Xi Jinping; It Is Communism

  Authored by David Flint, op-ed via The Epoch Times,

  To communists and their ilk, the truth is whatever line the party is now promulgating – that is, until it is superseded by a new line.

  

  This is the theme of George Orwell’s great novel, 1984. The protagonist, Winston Smith, works at the Ministry of Truth, constantly amending historical records to be consistent with whatever is the current party line. In particular, those liquidated are made non-persons, just as though they never existed.

  The truth has been packaged precisely this way in Communist China continuously and consistently since 1949, just as it was from the birth to the collapse of the USSR. Accordingly, when Joseph Stalin’s secret police chief, Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, was executed by his successors, subscribers to the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia would receive instructions to replace pages eulogising Beria with additional material on the Behring Sea. Beria was made a non-person.

  But the fact is that the enemy of each and every communist regime is truth itself, as are the other values and principles of civilised society, especially the proposition at the very core of the Declaration of Independence. This is not just American. According to Winston Churchill, following the Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights, the Declaration is the third great title deed on which the liberties of the English-speaking people, the core of the West, are founded.

  

  “Declaration of Independence,” 1819, by John Trumbull. (Public domain)

  It states the fundamental principle that man is endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights, a principle which is inconsistent with communism, whoever is the paramount ruler.

  The latter is important. What we may call the “Communist China Lobby”—a powerful pressure group in the United States and many democratic nations—pretends Chinese leader Xi Jinping to be the sole source of present troubles with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

  Not so, the source of this evil is communism. Just as an egregious illustration, the wicked multi-billion-dollar trade in the organs of healthy people dates from well before Xi’s rise.

  The fact is that communism is and has always been alien to civilisation. We cannot rely on communist regimes to behave appropriately or honourably. We can place no trust in their word, even in the most elementary matters.

  Take, for example, the statistics on COVID-19 for which the CCP is responsible.

  We are told the deaths from the virus in Australia, a country of 26 million, will soon exceed those from Communist China, a country with a population of over 1.4 billion.

  Clearly, no wise person would ever take either their statistics, or their word, seriously, a counsel which curiously does not seem to apply whenever the subject is the reduction of CO2 emissions.

  Equally, any wise person must expect a hostile reaction when they demand a truth that will expose a matter that could embarrass the communists, as occurred when Australia dared to propose an international investigation into the origins of the pandemic.

  Australia’s only mistake was to allow an investigation to be led by the World Health Organisation, an organisation under the heavy influence of the CCP.

  

  A sign of the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, on April 24, 2020. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)

  Australia should have proposed to the former U.S. administration to establish an ad hoc international tribunal to investigate its origins, assess liability and, if appropriate, damages.

  Were damages awarded and not paid, legislation could authorise their recoupment from assets in Australia under the ultimate control of the guilty state—the Port of Darwin comes to mind.

  As Australia came under increasing and unlawful economic punishment from Beijing in response to its calls for an investigation, there is little more the CCP could do if we were to seize such assets to satisfy a lawful international judgement. At least a range of premium and strategic assets could be recovered.

  The point is that not only can we not rely on the information or the truth from this regime, but it also controls a territory where there is no rule of law, no human rights, and no protection of workers’ rights.

  This did not come with Xi; it has prevailed since 1949.

  With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of European communist dictatorships, the CCP’s abiding object has been to avoid a similar fate.

  Then-paramount leader Deng Xiaoping drew on former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP) which had saved the Soviet Union from early collapse in 1922. He followed Lenin and moved the CCP towards a “socialist market economy” under “communism with Chinese characteristics.”

  Lenin never intended the NEP to be permanent. Words attributed to him illustrate the communist’s real intentions: “The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them.” Which they did, with Stalin reversing direction, socialising the economy, forcing collectivisation on the class enemy, including being forced to farm Kulaks, and brutally using famine to destroy them.

  Deng Xiaoping had more to offer the West than Lenin. It was something that dazzled Western elites, a market with a fifth of the world’s population.

  

  Containers are seen at the Yangshan Deep-Water Port in Shanghai, China, on Oct. 19, 2020. (Aly Song/Reuters)

  Bill Clinton gambled on welcoming the People’s Republic of China into the World Trade Organisation in 2000. Instead, he allowed access without the most elementary safeguard to ensure they could not do what communists do: ignore the rules, steal, or forcibly extract something far greater—than even the US$85 billion of modern weaponry recently gifted to the Taliban—America’s vast portfolio of intellectual property.

  From Europe to Australia, Western leaders and big businesses have blindly followed suit.

  As a result, these elites saved a tyrannical regime from the fate Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher delivered to the Soviet Union.

  They betrayed American, Australian, and Western workers by closing and transferring their industries to China.

  They betrayed Chinese workers by indecently profiting from the suppression of their fundamental rights.

  Yet, these same elites were too often taken for a ride by the communists who cheated them at every turn and allowed their nations to become dependent on the CCP.

  Only under the former U.S. administration was this trend briefly reversed.

  Now, from America to Europe and Australia, that same Communist China Lobby, who want Western industry back in China, are trying desperately to restore this dependency. They have a uniform justification for this. The problem, they say, is temporary. The problem will pass when paramount leader Xi passes.

  But that is not so.

  The problem is not whoever is the paramount leader. The problem is, as it has always been, that evil “plague bacillus,” which is communism.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/26/2021 – 00:00

• The Best Selling Vehicles In America, By State
  The Best Selling Vehicles In America, By State

  From Ford trucks in the Midwest to Toyotas on the coasts, the best selling vehicles in America reveal a lot about the country.

  Compared to other countries with fewer highways or narrower roads, the U.S. is very much a truck-friendly country. Across the U.S., the most sold vehicle in 2019 was the Ford F-Series of trucks, primarily the F-150.

  As the home of the world’s pioneer automotive manufacturers, including Ford and GM, consumers primarily purchase local brands. But, as Visual Capitalist’s Omri Wallach notes, that hasn’t stopped Toyota, the largest foreign manufacturer in the world, from also gaining a foothold.

  This graphic uses 2020 sales data from automotive information resource Edmunds.com, breaking down the best selling vehicles in each state through new vehicle retail registration.

  

  What Are the Best Selling Vehicles in Each State?

  Despite a slowdown in vehicle sales due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a global chip shortage, Americans still bought plenty of trucks last year.

  In fact, 48 out of the 50 states had a truck or SUV as the top selling vehicle in 2020—and most states actually had trucks taking all of the top three spots. The only two with a car topping the leaderboard were California and Florida.

  

  The Ford F-Series was the clear leader in sales, primarily in the Midwest. With a top-selling spot in 60% of U.S. states, the F-Series was the best selling vehicle in America.

  Combined with the Chevrolet Silverado and Ram 1500-3500 series, the big three American truck brands accounted for 73% of the top three selling vehicles across all American states and territories.

  Japanese Automakers in the Mix

  Though American manufacturers had the best selling cars in most states, they had some overseas competition.

  Japanese manufacturers Toyota and Honda had the top-selling vehicle in 11 states (and D.C.). They primarily captured car sales along the coastlines, including in California, Florida, New York and Washington, some of the most populated states in the country.

  

  Despite many cars being available for sale in the U.S., only seven manufacturers made the top-selling vehicles list in 2020.

  • Ford

  • Ram

  • Chevrolet

  • Toyota

  • Honda

  • Subaru

  • Jeep

  With the full effects of the COVID-19 pandemic yet to be reflected in the sales, and electric vehicle manufacturers like Tesla on the rise, how will the best selling vehicles in America evolve?

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/25/2021 – 23:30

• The Importance Of Dune, Part 1: The Sleeper Has Awakened
  The Importance Of Dune, Part 1: The Sleeper Has Awakened

  Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

  Last year I wrote two editorials for the Newsletter in sympathy with Denis Villeneuve’s film, Dune, originally suppose to come out last December. This one was published in the September 2020 issue when the election was the dominant issue of the day. The movie is now out but won’t come to the U.S. next month and I think it appropriate to publish it now with everything happening in the world today. It’s been edited slightly to bring it up to date.

  

  There are few things I’m more looking forward to than the first of two films by Denis Villeneuve bringing to life Frank Herbert’s classic science-fiction novel Dune.  And it isn’t just because I’m a big fan of the book, which is an intricately-plotted treatise on religion, gender, power and politics, but because its ideas are perfected suited for this period of history.

  Because this story, unlike a lot of recent blockbuster films, should scare the pants off our political leaders as they will see themselves onscreen in their various guises.  And that fear may be enough to waken the sleeper, in the parlance of the book, the silent majority now staring at a bleak future post COVID-19.

  In the hands of Denis Villeneuve, a film-maker perfectly suited to the material, we could be looking at a movie which becomes a turning point in the culture war.   Villeneuve is one of the few people working today who can marry bold visual storytelling with complex narrative while not browbeating his audience. Watch The Arrival, Sicario or, my favorite, Blade Runner 2049 (see my original thoughts/review here) to get a sense of what we’re in store for. 

  He reminds me of Ridley Scott at his best, which Scott hasn’t been at for decades.

  Dune is the story of a space-faring humanity at a time of crisis whose entire civilization, thanks to previous periods of barbarism, is dependent on a single commodity, the spice.  And spice can only be found on the planet Arrakis, or Dune. 

  The metaphor to oil is obvious since Herbert published the book in 1965.

  Dune is a pastiche of a number of genres, a classic hero’s journey from adolescence to adulthood for its protagonist, Paul Atreides, told in ways both intensely intimate but keenly aware of these events’ historical importance.  It is an intense political drama with six Houses vying for control against a rising religious jihad against their rule.

  Looking over our world as we approach the end of 2020 [sic], Dune is especially relevant because it shows us exactly where we are in the cycle of empires.  It will be hard for people to miss these things when they see the movie.  

  The film will make very clear, if told properly, what happens when the concentration of power in the hands of the few at the expense of the many becomes toxic.  The corruption of the Houses, their plotting and scheming against each other for control of the spice drives all the external action.

  It’s a deep look at a society coming unglued at the seams, where the political structures, in place for centuries, have become sclerotic.   But it is also a linear narrative that if stripped of its excesses tells a streamlined story about the rise of a new world on the ashes of the old one. 

  It’s a story about a desert world which is the source of life itself and whose unforgiving environment forges mere men into forces of nature.

  Because, ultimately, Dune is about the limits of power and how it corrupts everyone.  It reminds all of us that fear is what drives men to make desperate plays to maintain power.  Told mostly through Paul’s eyes as he grows into the man who will lead a revolution, it is the growing unrest of the people which forces the hand of the Emperor to set things in motion and who exists as a vague threat to come in an crush anyone stupid enough to cross him and his near unlimited power.  

  And yet he too, like every other tyrant, falls.

  After years of Dune languishing as a nearly dead property Villeneuve’s film will have to answer the most important question if it wants to succeed, “Why Now?”  It isn’t just because someone in Hollywood had the rights to it.  Those rights were tied up by Herbert’s son who had managed them into near irrelevance.  That’s how the project gets started.   

  They tried to tell this story back in the eighties with David Lynch’s unfortunate film, but it was the wrong time. 

  There was no resonance with current events during the height of the Reagan reboot of America when optimism was rampant and Ridley Scott had failed not two years earlier with Blade Runner, now a classic but hated on release.

  That’s the big fear they should have going into release.  And conquering fear is the key thing Paul must do to survive the task in front of him.  His story should become ours as we enter 2022 and, if that happens, that should scare the would-be tyrants of this world to death.

  *  *  *

  Since this was written a number of things have happened that validate my fears then. It was a call to action for us to begin hardening ourselves against a bleak and terrifying future. It was also a warning for us not to put our faith in the institutions we think protect us from them.

  Back then I was worried about the sequel to the Coronapocalypse, now confirmed for me as the rollout of the vaccines against COVID-9/11, as much as Trump being deposed through obvious and under-handed means. It’s why I was so adamant about the election being the inflection point for the world.

  Everything came down to it. It was a singularity where one world ended and another began. The sleeper awakened that day and those that didn’t see it or refused to see its importance are now complicit in the violence that has come since and is yet to come.

  The collapsing narrative surrounding the COVID-9/11 vaccines, their efficacy and honestly the dangers they represent to those in low-risk cohorts, it makes sense to see the headlines chocked to the gills with announcements of escalating stakes for us, the unwashed, unclean, unvaxxed and ungovernable.

  Biden is threatening dishonorable discharges for U.S. military. From what I’ve heard from military men I’ve talked to, that would be 90% of them.

  New York governor, Kathy Hochul is threatening medical workers with replacement by ‘foreigners’ if they don’t get the jab. It’s like she thinks her job gives her that power?

  In Australia they are now just shooting protestors in public.

  Tomorrow I will publish the companion piece, written after the stolen election. It’s called The Jihad. Tomorrow is the day the results of the election audit in Arizona are released. What happens if it proves fraud and Sen. Mark Kelly is recalled due to a decertified election?

  *  *  *

  Join my Patreon if you have awakened

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  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/25/2021 – 23:00

• "Not Satisfied" – USAF Signals Hypersonic Weapon Program In Limbo
  “Not Satisfied” – USAF Signals Hypersonic Weapon Program In Limbo

  Hypersonic weapon development is among the highest priorities of global superpowers as a great-power competition rages between the US and China. 

  China is rapidly developing hypersonic weapon systems and has fielded some of these superfast weapons to its southeast coast and or militarized islands in the South China Sea – challenging the US’ air dominance in the Indo-Pacific region. 

  

  The problem is that for decades the US has been lightyears ahead of other countries in developing and fielding anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles but, for some reason, is having difficulty fielding hypersonic weapons. 

  On Monday, at the annual Air Force Association Air, Space & Cyber conference, USAF Secretary Frank Kendall told reporters that he is reassessing the USAF’s hypersonic program, according to Breaking Defense. “I’m not satisfied with the pace,” he said. “We’re making some progress on the technology; I would like to see it be better.”

  Kendall said he is “not satisfied with the degree to which we have figured out what we need for hypersonics — of what type, for what missions.”

  “The target set that we would want to address, and why hypersonics are the most cost-effective weapons for the US, I think it’s still, to me, somewhat of a question mark,” he said. “I haven’t seen all the analysis that’s been done to justify the current program.”

  Gen. Arnold Bunch, the head of Air Force Materiel Command, told reporters on Tuesday that “there are certain aspects, attributes that [have] not performed the way we need to,” while acknowledging the hypersonic program has hit obstacles. 

  “We are going to have to continue to put our focus there, and we will continue to take what are called educated risks as we move forward so that we can get a capability out in the field as quickly as possible,” Bunch said.

  While China and Russia have fielded hypersonic weapons, the US has not and recently experienced a failed air-launch test of a missile that can travel at Mach 5, or about 3,836 mph. 

  In terms of funding, the push for hypersonic weapon development occurred under the Trump administration and has continued under Biden. 

  

  America is trying to reassert its air dominance worldwide, but it’s having trouble developing hypersonic weapons as other superpowers soar ahead. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/25/2021 – 22:30

• Rare Solar Superstorm Could Prompt ‘Internet Apocalypse’ Lasting Several Months: Study
  Rare Solar Superstorm Could Prompt ‘Internet Apocalypse’ Lasting Several Months: Study

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

  The “black swan” event of a solar superstorm directed at earth could prompt an “internet apocalypse” across the entire globe that could last for several months, new research (pdf) has warned.

  University of California Irvine assistant professor Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi presented the new research, titled “Solar Superstorms: Planning for an Internet Apocalypse,” last month during the Association for Computing Machinery’s annual conference for their Special Interest Group on Data Communication (SIGCOMM).

  “One of the greatest dangers facing the internet with the potential for global impact is a powerful solar superstorm,” Jyothi wrote in the new research paper.

  “Although humans are protected from these storms by the earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere, they can cause significant damage to man-made infrastructure. The scientific community is generally aware of this threat with modeling efforts and precautionary measures being taken, particularly in the context of power grids. However, the networking community has largely overlooked this risk during the design of the network topology and geo-distributed systems such as DNS and data centers,” he continued.

  A solar storm, also known as a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), occurs when a large mass of plasma and highly magnetized particles violently eject from the sun. Large CME’s can contain up to a billion tons of matter and can get accelerated to large fractions of the speed of light.

  When the earth is in the direct path of a CME, these magnetized and charged solar particles interact with the earth’s magnetic field, producing geomagnetically induced currents (GIC) that can potentially disrupt communication satellites and long-distance cables that provide the world with the internet.

  According to Jyothi’s research, power grids, oil and gas pipelines, and networking cables are the most vulnerable to the impacts of GIC’s, while submarine cables, which span hundreds or thousands of kilometres, are even more vulnerable than land cables, due to their larger lengths.

  Owing to a lack of real world data on the impacts of GIC’s on these submarine cables, scientists still don’t know how long it would take to repair them if such an event were to occur, and—just like natural disasters such as earthquakes—CME’s are extremely difficult for scientists to predict.

  The research noted that the “distribution of internet infrastructure is skewed when compared to the distribution of internet users,” and high-latitude climates are more at risk if a solar storm were to occur.

  

  

  “The U.S. is one of the most vulnerable locations with a high risk of disconnection from Europe during extreme solar events. Intra-continental connections in Europe are at a lower risk due to the presence of a large number of shorter land and submarine cables interconnecting the continent,” the report notes.

  Meanwhile, if a severe solar superstorm were to occur, Singapore would maintain good connectivity to neighboring countries, while cities in China would be more likely to lose connectivity than India because China connects to much longer cables.

  Australia, New Zealand, and other island countries in the region would be at high risk of losing most of their long-distance connections.

  The research warns that a collapse of the internet—even one lasting a few minutes—could cause devastating losses to service providers and damage cyber-physical systems. The economic impact of an internet disruption for a day in the United States is estimated to be over $7 billion.

  While the likelihood of a solar superstorm hitting earth is rare—with astrophysicists noting that the probability of extreme space weather events that directly impact earth occurring are between 1.6 percent to 12 percent per decade—they can still happen.

  In 1921, a solar storm, driven by a series of coronal mass ejections, triggered extensive power outages and caused damage to telephone and telegraph systems associated with railroad systems in New York City and across the state.

  Years later, in 1989, a solar storm bought an electrical power blackout to the entire province of Quebec, Canada.

  “Although we have sentinel spacecraft that can issue early warnings of CMEs providing at least 13 hours of lead time, our defenses against GIC are limited. Hence, we need to prepare the infrastructure for an eventual catastrophe to facilitate efficient disaster management,” Jyothi said.

  The research pointed to “increasing capacity in lower latitudes for improved resiliency during solar storms,” and having “mechanisms for electrically isolating cables connecting to higher latitudes from the rest” at submarine cable landing points to prevent large-scale failures.

  The paper has yet to appear in a peer-reviewed journal.

  Katabella Roberts is a reporter currently based in Turkey. She covers news and business for The Epoch Times, focusing primarily on the United States.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/25/2021 – 22:00

• Iran Demands IAEA Closely Monitor Nuclear Fuel For Australia Submarines In Wake Of AUKUS Deal
  Iran Demands IAEA Closely Monitor Nuclear Fuel For Australia Submarines In Wake Of AUKUS Deal

  Iran is calling out a double standard when it comes to application of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) restrictions and monitoring of countries’ nuclear development and activity, joining China in condemning the US-UK-Australia defense pact recently unveiled.

  Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA said this week amid all the headlines and controversy over the AUKUS deal which will see the US transfer nuclear submarine technology to Australia that the IAEA must have access to all nuclear fuel to be used for Australia’s future submarines when the terms of the AUKUS are put in motion. 

  

  Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, Kazem Gharibabadi told the international body this this must happen in a timely manner, according to Iranian state media.

  “For Australia, reaching safeguards arrangement with the Agency is of essence. The Agency should have access to the HEU [highly-enriched uranium] there at agreed and reasonable time and no excuse is accepted in this regard,” Gharibabadi stated. “The Agency should keep the BoG [Board of Governors] informed on this important [issue] regularly.”

  He reminded the monitoring body that nuclear-powered submarines require fuel to be enriched to above 90% purity, which is far above Iran’s current enrichment of up to 60%, which Gharibabadi claimed is only “for humanitarian and peaceful purposes.”

  The official further slammed the US, UK and Australia for what he called the “vulgar facade of double standard and hypocrisy”. This after Chinese officials have been charging Australia with violating its policy of having a nuclear free zone according to it’s decades ago signing on to the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

  The Iranians are now echoing these charges, saying Washington will transfer the nuclear technology “under the pretext of the fabricated so-called strategic concerns.”

  Tehran has of late been in a war of words with the IAEA over monitoring nuclear sites inside the Islamic Republic. Earlier this month an agreement was belatedly reached to keep cameras on which remotely monitor sensitive sites to ensure Iran doesn’t ramp up uranium enrichment or other activities further.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/25/2021 – 21:30

• Democrats In Congress Try To Abolish Space Force
  Democrats In Congress Try To Abolish Space Force

  Authored by Li Hai via The Epoch Times,

  Some Democrats in Congress are trying to abolish the Space Force at a time when China and Russia have been doubling down on expanding their military capabilities in space.

  

  On Wednesday, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) introduced a bill named No Militarization of Space Act, trying to abolish the Space Force, a new military service branch created under former President Donald Trump.

  “The long-standing neutrality of space has fostered a competitive, non-militarized age of exploration every nation and generation has valued since the first days of space travel,” Huffman said in a statement.

  “But since its creation under the former Trump administration, the Space Force has threatened longstanding peace and flagrantly wasted billions of taxpayer dollars.”

  The Space Force was established in December 2019 and has been deemed by some to be one of Trump’s signature achievements. But its origin can be traced back to the beginning of the Cold War.

  “Our mission must be to support the American people, not spend billions on the militarization of space,” Huffman added.

  Huffman’s bill was co-sponsored by Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Jesús García (D-Ill.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.).

  The bill comes as Congress moves to pass the National Defense Authorization Act, the annual bill that authorizes funding for the military.

  Huffman’s bill is unlikely to succeed because the new military branch was established upon the National Defense Authorization Act (FY 2020), which received bipartisan support at the time. To cancel the Space Force, new legislation would need to be enacted.

  China and Russia have been trying to advance their military capabilities in space for years.

  China’s communist regime “has devoted significant resources to growing all aspects of its space program, from military space applications to civil applications,” reads the Pentagon’s latest annual report to Congress.

  In May, China placed a rover on Mars, becoming the second nation after the United States to do so, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported. China has continued to develop its space station and explore the moon.

  According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Secure World Foundation reports, Russia performed multiple anti-satellite weapons tests in 2020. China and India have tested their own military capabilities in orbit in past years, too, Axios reported.

  On Monday at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference, U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said that the threats presented by China continue to grow, including those from space.

  On Tuesday, Gen. John “Jay” Raymon, chief of Space Operations, talked about the anti-satellite weapons China and Russia have owned.

  China has deployed satellites with a robotic arm that could be used to “grab” other satellites. Russia has a co-orbital, anti-satellite weapon that “is specifically designed to kill U.S. satellites,” Raymon said during the same conference.

  President Joe Biden hasn’t publicly shared his views on the future of the Space Force. His press secretary Jen Psaki dodged such a question in February, weeks after Biden took office.

  However, she took to Twitter to say that “we look forward to the continuing work of Space Force,” signaling that Biden had no intention to change Space Force’s status at the time.

  “We look forward to the continuing work of Space Force and invite the members of the team to come visit us in the briefing room anytime to share an update on their important work,” Psaki wrote.

  The Epoch Times has contacted the White House and the Space Force for comment.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/25/2021 – 21:00

• Hedge Fund Net Leverage At All Time Highs As No Dips Are Sold
  Hedge Fund Net Leverage At All Time Highs As No Dips Are Sold

  Two weeks ago, JPMorgan’s prime desk wrote about 2 main themes among the hedge fund community: elevated leverage levels and low exposure to cyclicals/value that tend to do better when rates are rising. However, over the past week, both of these things have come into sharper focus as US equities suffered one of their larger pullbacks in a while and rates globally jumped higher towards the end of this week. 

  So what has the largest bank’s prime brokerage desk seen in the past week? 

  According to the latest weekly Positioning Intelligence report published by the bank, at a high level, it seems that HFs are not that concerned about the broader market (nor is anyone else for that matter) with the bank finding that over the past few months, there’s been limited willingness to sell dips.  In line with this, the bank saw neutral flows globally over the past week with small buying on Monday, alongside retail BTFDers, even as professional sentiment tracked by AAII turned the most bearish since last October…

  

  … followed by small selling on Thursday.  But more generally, net flows globally have remained neutral to skewed towards buying in the past 2 weeks with Asia the only region to see some selling.

  Furthermore, as has been the case for much of 2011, net leverage remains near highs with little change in the past few weeks—net at 98th percentile (of all time) across All Strategies. While gross leverage has come down a little to the 76th percentile, that appears to be more derivatives related and there could be an element of Quadruple Witching that might be impacting this as the largest gross leverage reductions were among Multi-Strat funds. According to JPM, one reason why leverage and flows among HFs might be more neutral this month is that performance has held in relatively well MTD: long-short spreads have been improving over the past few months.  Looking at this month, longs are holding up well, while shorts are down in line with the market. This leaves HFs up slightly MTD, according to JPM estimates.

  Back to the topic of leverage, FINRA just came out with its latest statistics on Margin Debt which showed them at a new ATH. Given it is up almost 60% since the start of 2020, it begs the question Bank of America asked one month ago: should we be concerned? Not surprisingly, JPM dismisses this indicator and thinks “this alone is not something that is concerning when one breaks down the changes and behavior to account for how the market has been performing.” Furthermore the JPM prime desk notes that “this appears to be very different from the peaks in 2000 and 2007 when Margin Debt rose about 50% faster than the S&P 500 over a 12-month period.” Instead, to JPM the recent moves seem more reminiscent to what happened in the early 90s.

  At a more micro level, cyclicals / value / inflation / travel related stocks have all been doing better recently as COVID are falling once more, some travel restrictions are getting lifted, and rates are rising globally. 

  

  In line with this, JPM continued to see buying of NA Financials, something that has been noted over the past few weeks, but this week JPM saw Banks getting bought (vs. more Insurance and Div. Fins in prior weeks).  COVID recovery stocks have also been bought but there’s room for more to go as positioning and valuations remain low in many cases (especially among the US COVID – Domestic Recovery basket, JPAMCRDB).  EMEA Travel & Leisure stocks saw strong buying in the past week as the US prepares to drop its ban for transatlantic travel, and net positioning is getting a bit elevated vs. history; however, EMEA Airlines still has low positioning.  Finally, not everything cyclical is getting bought—HFs have continued to sell Energy into strength – despite the recent surge in oil and all other commodities – and have also sold Materials. 

  Below we share some more details on each of these core themes

  Main theme #1: Global Flows and Leverage: HFs Don’t Seem Too Concerned

  While markets have been volatile over the past week, due to the myriad concerns, HF flows remained quite calm.  The reason is that hedge funds have been reluctant to sell dips and that appeared to be the case again last Fri/this Mon as global flows were quite neutral.  However, at the same time, HFs are also not chase the rally as the JPM Prime net flows were fairly neutral on Wed and skewed towards selling on Thurs when markets rallied back.

  

  A notable observation is that there appears to be some strategy differences in the past 2 weeks as Equity L/S and Quant funds have been buyers while Multi-Strats have been net sellers across JPM prime.  The selling among Multi-Strats comes as gross and net leverage have started to pull back from peak levels. 

  

  The gross reductions among some Multi-Strat funds have been the main driver of the broader “All Strategies” gross leverage figure lower WoW.  However, net leverage was basically unchanged. Furthermore, it appears derivative positions might be driving some of the changes as notional LMV and SMV increased WoW while delta adjusted LMV and SMV fell.  

  Among Equity L/S funds, who have been moderate net buyers of equities most days MTD, net leverage actually rose slightly WoW and it’s now at the 93rd %-tile since Mar 2017.  

  

  #2:  US Margin Debt: New ATHs at End of Aug…Should We Be Concerned?

  FINRA just released the latest monthly stats on “Margin Debt” which showed a fairly large increase, following a decrease in July.  As Margin Debt is at new All-Time-Highs and is now up almost 60% since the start of 2020, it’s worth asking -as BofA did one month ago –  if this is something we should be concerned about.  

  In order to answer this, we’ve looked at the relationship between Margin Debt and the markets over time, augmenting the data FINRA has on it’s website with NYSE Margin Debt data that goes back to 1959.  What this shows is that while there is a very big increase recently, it is 1) in line with the markets and 2) seems to be following the general pattern of the past 60+ years.  

  

  Similar to discussions of rate-driven VaR shocks, JPM argues that it’s not so much the level of Margin Debt that one should be focused on, but rather the rate of change. On this point, the bank measured the 12M change in Margin Debt and the S&P 500 over the past ~60 years and what this shows is that there is typically a fairly strong correlation over time. In particular, this correlation has been very strong since the GFC, but there were a couple notable divergences in 2000 and 2007 when Margin Debt rose much faster than the market.

  

  In its attempt to mitigate concerns about record margin debt, JPM then notes that increases in Margin Debt (i.e. investors taking on more leverage) that exceed the market returns by a wide margin could indicate greater potential for future stress because it might suggest that investors are adding leverage at market highs, but not actually making much money while doing so. Thus, when markets start to pull back, the recent investments start to lose money more quickly than if they had been added when the markets weren’t at highs.

  Addressing this point, JPM notes that when looking at what’s happened in the past 2 years, we have seen Margin Debt increase faster than the markets on a 12M rolling basis with the difference reaching +28% at its recent high.  However, the recent high in the 12M difference metric was reached in January of this year (perhaps due to the fact that HFs had performed very well in 2020 and had been adding risk throughout 2H20 in particular). Thus, this difference has been falling for much of the past 7 months.  Furthermore, the recent rise follows a period when Margin Debt had generally lagged the market increases; since the start of 2018, margin debt is only up ~40% vs. the S&P up ~70% in price terms.

  

  When it looks back even further, JPM notes that there were periods in the 70s-80s when large increases in Margin debt were followed by market weakness, suggesting this isn’t only a 2000 and 2007 phenomenon (left chart below).  Furthermore, one could reasonably ask why the relatively large increase in the early 90s didn’t result in a market pullback.  While there are likely other contributing factors as well, one thing to note about Margin Debt was that it had gone through a period of relatively slower growth in the late 80s, so the rise in the early 90s was somewhat of a “catch-up” period for it.  Similarly, JPM argues that the rise into Jan of this year could also be considered a bit of a “catch-up” period, which appears to be different from 2000 and 2007 when Margin Debt was reaching new highs, even when measuring it relative to the S&P changes.  

  

  In light of the above it’s hardly a surprise that JPM thinks that while there are many potential reasons one could cite for market caution, “the level and changes in Margin Debt do not appear to be setting us up for extreme market drawdowns like we saw in 2000 and 2007.”

  #3:  Reopening/Recovery Trades Back in Focus?

  With COVID cases appeared to be on the decline globally, and travel restrictions getting lifted in some places, reopening/recovery themes have been more topical as they’ve started to perform better. On the HF side, JPM Prime has seen net buying over the past 2-3 weeks in both the Domestic Recovery basket (JPAMCRDB) and the International Recovery Basket (JPAMCRIB).  Positioning in both groups remains low on a YTD basis and very low on a multi-year basis for the Domestic basket.  In addition, JPM’s U.S. Equity Research Strategist, Dubravko, recently wrote about this in a recent note where he showed that the COVID Recovery – Domestic basket had seen relative valuations fall back to multi-year lows while COVID Beneficiaries were back near highs.

  

  In a similar vein, Travel & Leisure stocks have seen strong performance this week in both N. America and EMEA, along with HF buying as the US said it would remove its ban on EU travel for vaccinated passengers starting in November. The recovery in performance, relative to the market, still has more to go before getting back to  where we were earlier this year. In terms of where the recent buying and outperformance leaves HF positioning, net exposures are nearing average levels among US Travel & Leisure stocks, but are a bit closer to highs in EMEA.

  Where there appears to be more potential upside for positioning in EMEA is among the Airlines stocks where net exposures is still about 1z below average and JPM has yet to see shorts covered in the group, after persistent additions for the past 6 months.

  Among US stocks, the rise in rates was accompanied by further buying of Inflation Winners and Rising Bond Yield Winners. Despite the recent buying, net exposure to the Inflation winners remains quite low with net exposures about 1 std dev below average and for the Rising Bond Yield Winners, the net exposure is still slightly below average.  

  Similarly, a couple weeks ago JPM wrote about how positioning and flows in Value vs. Growth had done a “180” in the past few months as Value had underperformed. Perhaps not surprisingly, US Value seems to be getting a revival recently as the Value factor has been bought in the past 2 weeks. This is coming from both Value Longs getting bought and Value Shorts being sold/shorted.  In line with this, Growth stocks have seen some selling.

  #4:  Performance – HFs Holding Well in Sep

  With a risk-on backdrop of cyclicals outperforming defensives, small caps rallying, and rising rates this week (Rising Bond Yield Winners up +5% WTD), Hedge Funds find themselves in the rare position of outperforming broader equity market indices MTD. And with WSB’s short squeeze hunts fading, shorts are not detracting from performance as they are generally down in-line with the market; whereas, longs have fared better and protected to the downside. 

  Among Global Equity L/S funds, net returns continue to track positively with gains of +60-70bps MTD, outperforming MSCI ACWI (which is down -1.2%). The long-short spread has continued to improve since mid-August, driven more recently by shorts selling off faster in September than the market (down -1.3% on wgtd avg basis) and longs holding up relatively well (only down -15bps MTD).

  

  Non-Equity L/S funds are also up MTD and outperforming global equity indices, up between +30-85bps. In terms of alpha, longs have outperformed shorts throughout most of September (some reversion over the past 2 days).

  

  At a regional level, N. America L/S funds are flat to slightly up MTD, up around +0-30bps and are thus outpacing the SPX. The long-short spread has continued to improve steadily since mid-August but slowed yesterday as shorts outperformed. In EMEA, net returns among L/S funds are positive MTD, gaining around +0.5-1.3% and outperforming the headline European index.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/25/2021 – 20:30

• Texas Moves To Divest From Ben & Jerry’s Over Israeli Settlement Ban
  Texas Moves To Divest From Ben & Jerry’s Over Israeli Settlement Ban

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  Texas has added Ben & Jerry’s and its parent company Unilever to a list of companies that are “boycotting Israel” over the ice cream company’s decision to stop selling its product in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

  The firms have 90 days from being notified that they’re on the list to reverse the settlement ban, or Texas will remove about $100 million in pension funds that are invested in Unilever.

  

  While Ben & Jerry’s is accused of boycotting Israel, their policy only applies to illegal settlements in occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the ice cream will still be sold in Israel. But Texas has a broad definition of what it considers to be boycotting the Jewish State.

  Texas law defines boycotting Israel as “refusing to deal with, terminating business activities with, or otherwise taking any action that is intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on or limit commercial relations specifically with Israel or with a person or entity doing business in Israel or in an Israeli-controlled territory.”

  Other states have taken action against Unilver over the settlement ban. Florida and New Jersey have added Unilever to a similar list, and Arizona has already begun to pull millions out of Unilever.

  There are over 30 US states with laws against the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that calls for international boycotts to put pressure on Israel over its crimes against the Palestinians. The laws prohibit states from doing business with companies and individuals that are determined to be boycotting Israel. Contractors wishing to do business with these states have to sign a pledge not to boycott Israel.

  After Ben & Jerry’s announced its move to stop selling ice cream in the occupied territories in July, Israel launched a “maximum pressure” campaign to influence the US and urged states with anti-BDS laws on the books to take action.

  Disclosure: Antiwar.com has received donations in the past from Ben Cohen, the co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/25/2021 – 20:00

• New York Gov. Hochul Launches Purge Of Cuomo Cronies
  New York Gov. Hochul Launches Purge Of Cuomo Cronies

  Last week, New York’s New Gov. Kathy Hochul threatened to fire all unvaccinated health-care workers and replace them with vaccinated foreign workers (‘we’re in talks with the State Department’, she said, perhaps not realizing how low vaccination rates are outside the US and Europe) as she tries to make her mark on the Empire State.

  While Hochul might have a little trouble ousting 20% of the state’s hospital and nursing-home workers, she’ll probably have a much easier time purging the last Cuomo loyalists still drawing a paycheck in Albany.

  The New York Post reports that Gov. Hochul has officially launched a purge of agency heads and other officials appointed by her disgraced predecessor. At least nine of these ‘Cuomo-crats’ – agency heads and other high-ranking officials – will either be resigning or told that they’ll be out of a job within the next few weeks according to the Post’s sources.

  At the top of the list of potential departures is Michael Hein, the former Ulster County Executive who was tapped by Cuomo in 2019 to oversee the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance.

  

  At the start of the pandemic, Hein was put in charge of the regional control room for the Hudson Valley. In that role, he monitored key health risks as the state tenatively reopened in the summer of 2020.

  More recently, Hein was supposed to oversee the distribution of $2.6 billion in federal money to at-risk tenants who needed help paying back rent and utilities. He was criticized for failing to hand out the money fast enough.

  Other officials who are about to be handed their walking papers include:

  • Dr. Theodore Kastner, commissioner of the state Office for People With Developmental Disabilities
  • Arlene González-Sánchez, head of the Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services
  • Kenneth Theobalds, chair of the New York State Insurance Fund
  • Human Rights Division Commissioner Licha Nyiendo
  • Deputy Secretary for General Government and Technology Molly Reilly
  • Deputy Secretary for Civil Rights and Workforce Debra Alligood White
  • Director of Cannabis Program Norman Birenbaum
  • Deputy Secretary for Public Safety Jeremy Shockett

  But the purge truly began in earnest when Gov. Hochul sacked Health Commissioner Howard Zucker, whose handling of the pandemic in the state has been widely criticized. Zucker has also been accused of helping Cuomo minimize the death toll at nursing homes across the state (Zucker issued the infamous March 2020 order that all nursing homes must accept COVID-positive residents returning from hospitals. Amazing, Zucker also barred nursing homes from testing the returning residents for the virus.

  Per the NYP, Amit Singh Bagga, who has been appointed Hochul’s deputy secretary for intergovernmental affairs, will be charged with supervising the purge.

  Now it’s time for New Yorkers to sit back and watch the heads roll.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/25/2021 – 19:30

• Judge Denies Police Union's Effort To Delay Vaccine Mandate in Massachusetts
  Judge Denies Police Union’s Effort To Delay Vaccine Mandate in Massachusetts

  Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times,

  A Massachusetts judge has denied a bid by the state police union to delay mandatory vaccinations for all state employees.

  

  The State Police Association of Massachusetts, a union representing about 1,800 state police officers, filed a lawsuit (pdf) last week asking the judge to put the mandate on hold to give the union time to “negotiate the terms and conditions of their employment” before a deadline of Oct. 17.

  “The public interest is, unquestionably, best served by stopping the spread of the virus, in order to protect people from becoming ill, ensure adequate supply of medical services, and curtail the emergence of new, deadlier variants of the virus,” Judge Jackie Cowin said in the decision, reported The Associated Press.

  Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, issued an executive order last month that would require proof of COVID-19 vaccination for all executive department employees by Oct. 17.

  “Executive Department employees who are not vaccinated or approved for an exemption as of October 17, 2021 will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination … Management employees not in compliance as of October 17, 2021 will also be subject to disciplinary action up to and including termination.” Baker’s office said in a statement.

  His office also stated, “The Administration will continue to work with its union partners regarding this policy, and specific ramifications of non-compliance for staff represented by unions will be discussed well in advance of October 17 with each employee union.”

  The union had asked that troopers who don’t get the vaccine be allowed to wear a mask and undergo weekly COVID-19 testing instead.

  “We are disappointed in the judge’s ruling; however, we respect her decision,” Michael Cherven, the union’s president, said in a statement.

  “It is unfortunate that the Governor and his team have chosen to mandate one of the most stringent vaccine mandates in the country with no reasonable alternatives.”

  “Throughout COVID, we have been on the front lines protecting the citizens of Massachusetts and beyond. Simply put, all we are asking for are the same basic accommodations that countless other departments have provided to their first responders, and to treat a COVID related illness as a line of duty injury.

  “To date, dozens of troopers have already submitted their resignation paperwork, some of whom plan to return to other departments offering reasonable alternatives such as mask wearing and regular testing,” he added.

  “The State Police are already critically short staffed and acknowledged this by the unprecedented moves which took troopers from specialty units that investigate homicides, terrorism, computer crimes, arsons, gangs, narcotics, and human trafficking, and returned them to uniformed patrol.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/25/2021 – 19:00

• "A More Difficult Backdrop Is Emerging": 5 Reasons Why Goldman Is Starting To Turn Bearish
  “A More Difficult Backdrop Is Emerging”: 5 Reasons Why Goldman Is Starting To Turn Bearish

  Last week’s remarkable bounce in stocks from Monday’s lows which, as a reminder, prompted the first outflow from equities in 2021…

  

  … has sparked many questions among Wall Street’s elite where even some of the biggest bulls are puzzled by the market’s violent reversal (which, however, was predicted correctly by flow-tracking quants like Nomura’s Charlie McElligott).

  And it’s not just the market’s relentless ability to internalize any adverse market action and come out on top as a wave of BTFDers rushes in: as Goldman’s strategist Chris Hussey wrote late on Friday, “one thing that is increasingly drawing our attention and was ‘front and center’ this week is how the economy, policy, and earnings growth appear to be rapidly transitioning away from the initial post-pandemic explosion of accommodation and activity and towards a slower pace as the brakes are pressed on a variety of key parts of the growth machine.”

  As Hussey further notes, growth is fine for now and even robust, with Goldman’s economists forecasting over 4.5% GDP growth forecast to extend into 2022, but as he cautions “a developed economy like the US cannot grow at a 9% pace for very long –even as it catches up out of a pandemic.”

  Meanwhile, as he delineates below, a series of pieces may be falling into place to ‘tap the brakes’ on some of the torrid growth we have been seeing since vaccines were distributed earlier this year. Among these Goldman focuses on the impact of fading stimulus, supply chains, the virus, China, and even stock valuations which are “coalescing to create a more difficult backdrop for earnings growth and multiple expansion in the months, or at least years ahead.”

  Here are a few observations on all 5 of these potentially “braking” factors:

  1. Stimulus. The FOMC indicated that tapering ‘may soon be warranted’ at this week’s meeting and on the back of the statement, yields on 10-year Treasuries have risen 15 bp to 1.45% while front-end rates have reset notably higher as shown in the chart below.

  

  Interestingly, stocks also rose on the back of the Fed statement, consolidating the rebound from Monday’s sell-off. And while the Fed has not done anything yet — only suggested it is about to — the wheels do seem to now be in place to wind down the central bank’s latest QE program and to eventually start raising rates — as soon as one year from now. Adding to this point, BofA’s Michael Hartnett notes that global tapering has begun (ECB, BoE, BoC, RBA, Fed) which will see a sharp drop in global central liquidity which was $8.5 trillion in 2020, shrinks to $2.1trillion in 2021, and will be just $0.1 in 2022 (putting this in context, since the COVID outbreak central banks have bought $800MM of assets every hour, a number which shrinks to <$100MM in the second half of 2022).

  

  And at the same time monetary policy appears to be shifting from the gas pedal to the brakes, fiscal policy may be as well. As we noted last week, Goldman’s political economist wrote this week about the growing risks around the next US federal spending program and the debt limit extension in “Collision Course?” and “More Downside Risks from Washington.”

  2. Supply Chains. The inability of companies to source parts, people, and commodities has been a major reason why we have warned about the slowing growth momentum we have observed in recent week. While Goldman is confidence that supply chain constraints are mainly a function of too rapid a recovery in demand, and so see it as a temporary problem, but for homebuilders, automobile manufacturers, and truckers it is all a supply problem today that is putting upward pressure on pricing and potentially downward pressure on margins (although margins have held up quite well so far). Case in point, on August 30 we warned that a slew of profit warnings are coming in the coming weeks, and between FedEx, Nike, PPG, and many others that’s just what has happened.

  If MS and BofA are right on slumping consumer demand and margin contraction we should start seeing Q3 earnings warnings in the next 2 weeks.

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 30, 2021

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  • Looking at the Homebuilders, Goldman highlights how DRI lowered its November quarter guidance due to an inability to get enough materials and labor while fellow builder LEN is also started fewer communities in the current environment.
  • In Autos, the bank writes that September car sales are tracking about 25% below year-ago levels – that’s versus September 2020 and the heart of the pandemic – as dealer inventories are at historically low levels. The good news for car makers: prices are strong — although this may not be so good for inflation and Fed policy (see #1 above).
  • And finally in Transports, FDX missed earnings this week as it is facing a shortage of truckers and shippers .

  3. The virus. In addition to supply chain disruptions, Goldman previously cited the Delta variant as a reason for why they were seeing slower 3Q21 GDP growth when they lowered the bank’s economic forecast back on Sep 6. Fast forward two weeks, and the summer wave of the virus does appear to have peaked…

  

  … even in the US South — as the chart below clearly shows.

  

  Commenting on the chart above, Goldman said that “what we might have learned this summer is that the virus still has the ability to disrupt the pace of growth even among populations with high rates of vaccination. Growth does not appear to have been derailed this summer, but it does appear to be trending slower than most thought it would back on Memorial Day.”

  4. China. We entered this week with a lot being written about how issues surrounding China’s property market are driving a global ‘risk-off’ sentiment shift. And we exit this week with no resolution to China’s property market issues, yet the S&P 500 is UP on the week. But while it turned out that China did not derail the bull market this week, China’s property market is still very big (see “The Housing Market Is Almost Frozen” – An Even Bigger Problem Emerges For China“). And uncertainties persist. Perhaps what we continue to discover is that China is no longer the sustained tailwind to global growth that it was back in the years following the Great Financial Crisis when the country was pushing double digit GDP growth rates (see “China Is Responsible For More Than A Third Of World GDP Growth – This Is A Problem“.)

  

  5. Valuation. According to Goldman’s Hussey, “stock market valuations rarely break under their own weight” and it typically takes some other more fundamental catalyst to cause earnings to decline and investors to pay less for earnings. But as Goldman’s Peter Oppenheimer highlighted in a fresh global strategy note this week, stock market returns are likely to be muted going forward relative to past cycles. Why? We are entering the current cycle with high valuations, ultra-low rates, and corporate margin headwinds from rising wages and regulation and the headwinds from de-globalization. And as the bank’s chart of the week below illustrates, historically forward 10-year returns for equities have trended lower when they have started at our current elevated valuation.

  Goldman’s chart of the week: Valuation is not typically the cause of a bubble bursting and stocks can stay ‘expensive’ for a long time. But over a long time, the returns that you might expect to get from investing in equities tend to be far smaller when you buy stocks at high  aluations than when you buy them when they are ‘cheap’.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/25/2021 – 18:30

• Never Say Neigh: FDA Lists 'Horse Drug' As Approved COVID Treatment
  Never Say Neigh: FDA Lists ‘Horse Drug’ As Approved COVID Treatment

  While the media has spent more than a year ridiculing the widely-prescribed drug Ivermectin to treat Covid-19 – branding it a ‘horse dewormer for idiots,’ they’ve kept oddly silent about another widely prescribed drug that’s also used in horses, which is being pushed by official bodies worldwide to treat the disease.

  

  The NIH, CDC, WHO and FDA have all recommended dexamethasone – a corticosteroid which has shown efficacy in the treatment of severe covid. It’s also a commonly used drug to treat allergies in horses.

  The difference? One can be used to treat billions of mild-moderate cases – or as a prophylactic, while the other has a much more narrow use – those suffering from severe Covid.

  As Twitter user @DoRtChristians notes: “The FDA recently told the public not to take life-saving Ivermectin because “you’re not a horse”“

  

  

  

  

  Yet;

  

  Per Google (via Wedgewood pharmacy): “Dexamethasone commonly is used in horses to treat allergic reactions such as respiratory allergies, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (heaves), hives, itching and inflammatory diseases including arthritis.“

  But, but…

  You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it. https://t.co/TWb75xYEY4

  — U.S. FDA (@US_FDA) August 21, 2021

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  We can only assume that because official bodies are recommending dexamethasone – and because it’s used in severe covid – a much smaller fraction of those looking at ivermectin as a prophylactic and early-stage treatment, the transitive properties of media outrage over people taking a ‘horse medication’ don’t apply.

  Ivermectin

  This widely prescribed anti-parasitic which is also used in horses has shown massive efficacy worldwide in the treatment of mild and moderate cases of Covid-19, plus as a prophylactic. India’s Uttar Pradesh province, with a population of over 200 million, says that widespread early use of Ivermectin ‘helped keep positivity [and] deaths low.’

  

  Separately, there have been several studies funded by the Indian government, primarily conducted through their largest govt. public medical university (AIIMS).

  • Role of ivermectin in the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection among healthcare workers in India: A matched case-control study (source)

  Conclusion: Two-dose ivermectin prophylaxis at a dose of 300 μg/kg with a gap of 72 hours was associated with a 73% reduction of SARS-CoV-2 infection among healthcare workers for the following month.

  • Ivermectin as a potential treatment for mild to moderate COVID-19 – A double blind randomized placebo-controlled trial (source)

  Conclusion: There was no difference in the primary outcome i.e. negative RT-PCR status on day 6 of admission with the use of ivermectin. However, a significantly higher proportion of patients were discharged alive from the hospital when they received ivermectin.

  • Clinical Research Report Ivermectin in combination with doxycycline for treating COVID-19 symptoms: a randomized trial (source, double-blind randomized, peer-reviewed)

  Discussion: In the present study, patients with mild or moderate COVID-19 infection treated with ivermectin in combination with doxycycline generally recovered 2 days earlier than those treated with placebo. The proportion of patients responding within 7 days of treatment was significantly higher in the treatment group than in the placebo group. The proportions of patients who remained symptomatic after 12 days of illness and who experienced disease progression were significantly lower in the treatment group than in the placebo group.

  

  Here are more human studies from other countries on the ‘horse dewormer’:

   

  Peru:

  • Sharp Reductions in COVID-19 Case Fatalities and Excess Deaths in Peru in Close Time Conjunction, State-By-State, with Ivermectin Treatments (source, peer-reviewed, University of Toronto, Universidad EAFIT)

  For the 24 states with early IVM treatment (and Lima), excess deaths dropped 59% (25%) at +30 days and 75% (25%) at +45 days after day of peak deaths. Case fatalities likewise dropped sharply in all states but Lima

  Spain:

  • The effect of early treatment with ivermectin on viral load, symptoms and humoral response in patients with non-severe COVID-19: A pilot, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial (source, University of Barcelona, peer-reviewed)

  Findings: Patients in the ivermectin group recovered earlier from hyposmia/anosmia (76 vs 158 patient-days; p < 0.001).

  Bengladesh:

  • A Comparative Study on Ivermectin-Doxycycline and Hydroxychloroquine-Azithromycin Therapy on COVID-19 Patients (source – peer reviewed, though not govt funded)

  Conclusion: According  to  our  study,  the  Ivermectin-Doxycycline combination therapy has better symptomatic relief, shortened recovery duration, fewer adverse effects, and superior patient compliance compared to the Hydroxychloroquine-Azithromycin combination. Based on this  study’s  outcomes,  the  Ivermectin-Doxycycline  combination  is  a  superior  choice  for  treating  patients  with  mild to moderate COVID-19 disease.

  • A five-day course of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19 may reduce the duration of illness (source, peer-reviewed double blind randomized, though small sample size)

  Discussion: A 5-day course of ivermectin resulted in an earlier clearance of the virus compared to placebo (p = 0.005), thus indicating that early intervention with this agent may limit viral replication within the host. In the 5-day ivermectin group, there was a significant drop in CRP and LDH by day 7, which are indicators of disease severity.

  Meanwhile, There are currently 76 ongoing or completed clinical trials on Ivermectin around the world. Below are the results of 32 which have been completed. One can visit ivermeta.com and dig down on any of these / read the entire study. The site recommends Ivermectin in conjunction with vaccines to confer the best protection against Covid-19, however we’ll leave that to you and your doctor to discuss.

  

  Why does Ivermectin, a ‘horse dewormer’ work? For starters, it’s a protease inhibitor. Interestingly, Pfizer’s 2x/day Covid-19 prophylactic they’re trialing right now is also a protease inhibitor.

  

  Yet doctors who advocate for Ivermectin are ridiculed by the media (more here and here and here).

  The MSM swarmed over ‘horse paste overdoses’  for weeks after a handful cases nationwide (and no deaths) – including an outright lie amplified by Rolling Stone which they were forced to correct after the hospital in question denied the claim.

  Meanwhile, the likes of Maddow, Don Lemon and Chris Hayes jumped right on the propaganda bandwagon – with Maddow promoting the debunked ER story in a tweet she refuses to delete – and Twitter refuses to censor for misinformation.

  Why would any doctor put their career on the line to publicly advocate for ivermectin when this is the result?

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/25/2021 – 18:00

• Female American Soldier Allegedly Assaulted By Afghan Refugees At Fort Bliss Camp
  Female American Soldier Allegedly Assaulted By Afghan Refugees At Fort Bliss Camp

  A group of Afghan evacuees have allegedly assaulted a female American soldier at a refugee camp at New Mexico’s Fort Bliss in what appears to be the first incident of Afghan refugees (most of whom were rescued by American forces during the chaotic final weeks before the Taliban assumed complete control of Kabul) attacking an American soldier on US soil.

  Republicans slammed the Biden Administration over the incident, claiming it represents a failure of the Administration to properly vet the Afghan nationals who were rescued during a mission that cost the lives of 13 Marines.

  

  Speaking to the Hill on Friday, the 1st Armored Division at Fort Bliss told the press that a female service member reported being assaulted by “a small group of male evacuees” while at the Doña Ana Complex in New Mexico on Sunday.

  The military said it’s looking into the allegations, and the FBI is also investigating.

  “We take the allegation seriously and appropriately referred the matter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the statement said.

  “The safety and well-being of our service members, as well as all of those on our installations, is paramount. We immediately provided appropriate care, counseling and support to the service member.”

  A spokesperson for Fort Bliss also said the military is “implementing additional security measures to include increased health and safety patrols, additional lighting, and enforcement of the buddy system at the Dona Ana Complex.”

  “We will cooperate fully with the FBI and will continue to ensure the service member reporting this assault is fully supported,” the statement said.

  Additionally, the FBI has confirmed that its El Paso office is investigating the incident.

  The assault occurred just weeks after the refugee camp was set up to house refugees offered SIVs for their work aiding the NATO combat effort in Afghanistan, which would have likely marked them for death by the Taliban.

  Joe Biden made a decision to shove tens of thousands people on planes to make it look like his botched evacuation was going well. The truth is he had no idea who he brought to the US. That’s why I led a letter today demanding accountability and answers. https://t.co/sTVqysGFla

  — Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 24, 2021

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  While the statements issued by the military, FBI and Administration have used mostly sanitized language so far, it should be pretty obvious to all what just happened here. But will federal lawmakers raise a stink about the attack?

  Do not think for 1 second that @SenGillibrand or any other military sexual assault Democrat is going to get up in arms about this. This soldier’s claim will be brushed aside and hidden…https://t.co/tlmlVMib2J

  — Scott “McCarthy was Right about Ds and Liberals” (@ScottC20012) September 25, 2021

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  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/25/2021 – 17:30

• Huawei CFO Gets Hero's Welcome In China While Canadians Land Quietly After Biden Acquiesced To 'Hostage Diplomacy'
  Huawei CFO Gets Hero’s Welcome In China While Canadians Land Quietly After Biden Acquiesced To ‘Hostage Diplomacy’

  China is essentially declaring ‘victory’ after the Biden DOJ struck a deal with Huawei Technologies CFO Meng Wanzhou for a deferred prosecution agreement, allowing her to go free from her Canadian confinement after nearly three years. 

  She was treated to a hero’s welcome in a major homecoming after her Air China plane touched down at Shenzhen’s Bao’an International Airport at about 10 pm local time on Saturday. State media gave the event major coverage and the city was decked out in celebratory banners of “Welcome Home” – and a sizeable crowd of supporters came out to greet her.

  

  A teary-eyed Meng while holding a bouquet roses gave a brief speech wherein she said to the crowd, “I am finally home after over 1,000 days of suffering.” She joyfully added, “Finally I am home”. State media said that about 60 million people watched the live-stream of the event.

  However, while in Vancouver her very loose form of house arrest wherein she was monitored 24/7 but still free to move about, had been dubbed by US media an “opulent detention”… so the reality was a far cry from “1,000 days of suffering.”

  “The motherland will always provide you with the most powerful support,” the airport tower had radioed to her inbound flight just ahead of touchdown. Supporters on the tarmac waived the national flag of China while holding huge banners.

  She must now spend two weeks at a hotel in isolation, based on the country’s strict quarantine requirement for any and all travelers from foreign countries. 

  According to a further description of the festive scene:

  She thanked the support from the Chinese government and people, and said she was touched by President Xi Jinping’s concern for her case. 

  After her speech, Meng sang along as the crowd burst into a patriotic Chinese song called “Ode to the Motherland.”

  But here’s what Bloomberg relates of the other side what’s being dubbed China’s hostage diplomacy concerning the “two Michaels” subsequently released from Chinese detention in tit-for-tat exchange: “In contrast, Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig arrived to a more low-key reception. The pair landed in Calgary before sunrise on Saturday, accompanied by Dominic Barton, Canada’s ambassador to China.”

  Welcome home, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. You’ve shown incredible strength, resilience, and perseverance. Know that Canadians across the country will continue to be here for you, just as they have been. pic.twitter.com/1UoLbBFGNv

  — Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) September 25, 2021

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  “Dressed in blazers and face-masks, they were met by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who hugged the pair on the tarmac,” the report details. “Government officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and the nation’s spy agency, tweeted welcome messages to the pair, who were expected to reunite with the families in private.”

  China’s state media didn’t miss the opportunity to claim a “triumph” for the nation in the face of US and Canada’s conspiring to keep the Huawei executive in a lengthy ‘illegal detention’, which both countries said was for illicit dealings with Iran under US sanctions.

  More than 60 million people watched livestreaming of #Meng Wanzhou’s arrival in Shenzhen. Yes, Chinese people regard Meng regaining freedom as victory of justice and we believe China’s powerful national strength has shaped this result. pic.twitter.com/uPmahPPoRr

  — Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) September 25, 2021

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  People’s Daily for example titled an article hailing her return, “No Force Will Prevent China’s Progress” while claiming the ordeal as a major victory for China’s Communist Party in the face of Western aggression.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/25/2021 – 17:00

• Elon Musk And Girlfriend Grimes Break Up After Three Years
  Elon Musk And Girlfriend Grimes Break Up After Three Years

  Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his girlfriend Grimes have ended their relationship after three years. And we thought this one was going to go the distance…

  The two are reportedly “semi-separated” and “still love each other” while remaining “on great terms”, according to an exclusive from the NY Post.

  Musk confirmed that the two would continue to co-parent their one year old son, X Æ A-Xii Musk.

  Musk told the NY Post: “We are semi-separated but still love each other, see each other frequently and are on great terms.”

  He continued: “It’s mostly that my work at SpaceX and Tesla requires me to be primarily in Texas or traveling overseas and her work is primarily in LA. She’s staying with me now and Baby X is in the adjacent room.”

  

  While things appear to be amicable now, we can’t help but wonder interesting tidbits of information Grimes could spill about Musk if their “friendship” winds up eventually dissolving, too.

  Their son was born in May of 2020 and the couple was last seen in public together at the Met Gala in early September. Grimes walked the red carpet alone at the event, the report said.

  Musk then threw an afterparty at the club Zero Bond that Grimes attended. The two were spotted leaving New York together the next day.

  Musk had attended a party at the same club, the weekend prior, alone. 

  Grimes recently prattled on about her child with Musk to Vogue: “I think having a baby was a big kind of like rebirth for me, like artistically. Like, it just like, I don’t know.”

  We don’t know, either, Grimes. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/25/2021 – 16:30

• Just How Many Containers Of Cargo Are Stuck Off California's Coast?
  Just How Many Containers Of Cargo Are Stuck Off California’s Coast?

  By Greg Miller of American Shipper,

  With around 70 container ships loaded with cargo now waiting at anchor or drifting off the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, how deep of a hole are the terminals actually in? To answer that question, American Shipper analyzed data from the Marine Exchange of Southern California on exactly which ships are out there and how much cargo they can carry.

  

  While the numbers fluctuate from day to day, there were 70 container ships in the queue on Monday with total capacity of 432,909 twenty-foot equivalent units. To put the enormity of that number in perspective, that’s more than the inbound container volume the Port of Long Beach handled in the entire month of August. It’s roughly what Charleston handles inbound in four months and what Savannah handles in two.

  The combined import throughput of both Los Angeles and Long Beach in August was 893,118 TEUs. Assuming ships waiting offshore are effectively full and capacity is a good proxy for volume, and that terminals are able to process vessels at the same pace they did in August, the anchorages and drift areas could only be completely cleared if no ships arrived for 14 days straight days.

  Not only would that never happen, but there is no letup in arrivals in sight. Vessel-positioning data from MarineTraffic confirms that a steady stream of container ships remains en route across the Pacific, destined for Los Angeles.

  

  How long ships wait for berths

  The Port of Los Angeles publishes the average waiting period for a ship to reach one of its berths. On Tuesday, that number rose to an all-time high of nine days (calculated on a 30-day rolling average basis).

  To gauge how much capacity has been stuck waiting for how long, American Shipper looked at aggregate TEUs by arrival date.

  Thirty-six ships with a total capacity of 230,803 TEUs arrived in port waters in the seven days through Monday. That’s 54% of the total TEU capacity waiting offshore. Another 27 ships with total capacity of 176,892 TEUs arrived between one and two weeks prior to Monday, representing a further 42%. The remaining few ships arrived in late August and early September.

  

  Arriving ships have gotten smaller

  A significant change over the course of this year’s congestion crisis is that the average capacity of ships calling in Los Angeles/Long Beach has decreased, meaning that terminals handle more ships to move the same throughput.

  In the current peak season, new trans-Pacific services have been introduced that use smaller vessels, pulling the average size down. The primary reason: Virtually no larger container ships have been available for sale or lease in recent months; operators are adding capacity via smaller ships by necessity, even if it means chartering them for short periods at astronomical day rates.

  During the congestion peak reached earlier this year, on Feb. 1, there were 40 container ships at anchor in San Pedro Bay, which at the time seemed enormous but now seems middling. The total cargo capacity of anchored ships then was 322,721 TEUs. Of ships at anchor on Feb. 1, 15 were 10,000 TEUs or larger, or 38% of the vessel count. The average capacity in the Feb. 1 queue was 8,068 TEUs.

  Several larger container ships have suffered waits of beyond one week. The 13,092-TEU Maersk Elba arrived Sept. 7; the 11,142-TEU MSC Avni on Sept. 9; the 11,356-TEU CMA CGM Callisto on Sept. 11; the 10,055-TEU Hyundai Neptune and 14,036-TEU MSC Livorno on Sept. 12; and the 14,026-TEU ONE Blue Jay on Sept. 13.

  In contrast, as of Monday, there were 17 ships larger than 10,000 TEUs at anchor or drifting, representing only 24% of the total ship count. The average capacity of all ships in the queue was down to 6,184 TEUs — 24% below the average ship size on Feb. 1.

  The change in ship size helps put the growth of the offshore queue in context. The news headlines focus on the total number of ships waiting for berths, which has risen from 40 in February to around 70 currently, an increase of 75%. Yet the aggregate capacity of ships in the offshore “parking lot” — a proxy for delayed cargo — has only risen by 34% over the same timeframe, because of the declining size of ships in the queue.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/25/2021 – 16:00

• Taliban Hangs 4 Bodies In Public Square – Says Will Resume "Cutting Off Of Hands"
  Taliban Hangs 4 Bodies In Public Square – Says Will Resume “Cutting Off Of Hands”

  The Associated Press reports on Saturday that the Taliban has begun hanging dead bodies of executed criminals from the main square in Herat city in western Afghanistan, as a gruesome message to the public in order to deter crime and ensure conformity to Islam. 

  The AP report cited eyewitnesses, including “Wazir Ahmad Seddiqi, who runs a pharmacy on the side of the square” who told the agency that “that four bodies were brought to the main square and three bodies were moved to other parts of the city for public display.”

  

  The Taliban claims that the four were killed by police after a kidnapping incident was thwarted. A Taliban police statement said “the four were killed in crossfire” with security forces and a father and son were able to be rescued.

  This comes a day after the Taliban confirmed its religious enforcers of public conformity to strict sharia law would once again be enacting corporal punishment akin to the pre-2001 days, including mutilation such as cutting off of hands for certain offenses. A Taliban spokesman and overseer of sharia laws in Afghanistan after the August US pullout, Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, explained in the following: 

  “Cutting off of hands is very necessary for security,” he said, saying it had a deterrent effect. He said the Cabinet was studying whether to do punishments in public and will “develop a policy.”

  In recent days in Kabul, Taliban fighters have revived a punishment they commonly used in the past — public shaming of men accused of small-time theft.

  On at least two occasions in the last week, Kabul men have been packed into the back of a pickup truck, their hands tied, and were paraded around to humiliate them.

  Turabi further defended the notorious soccer stadiums of death which shocked the globe during the prior Taliban rule over two decades ago. At that time the public would be invited to watch convicts having limbs hacked off, as well as people being shot at point-blank range.

  US denounces Taliban plans to resume executions: Actions “would constitute clear gross abuses of human rights” https://t.co/3PqPcf1ShE pic.twitter.com/rnSQDDvMNJ

  — The Hill (@thehill) September 24, 2021

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  “Everyone criticized us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” the Taliban official told AP further. “No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Quran.”

  In the wake of the recent Taliban reconquest of the country, some Western officials including in the Biden administration suggested the hardline Islamist group had “moderated” – however this premature assessment is looking like mere wishful thinking.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/25/2021 – 15:30

• "Pure Evil!" , "War Criminal!": Crowd Heckles Hillary During Installation As Chancellor Of Irish University
  “Pure Evil!” , “War Criminal!”: Crowd Heckles Hillary During Installation As Chancellor Of Irish University

  Hillary Clinton has finally been inaugurated… as the first female chancellor of Queen’s University in Belfast, Ireland – but not before she was loudly heckled on the way to her coronation.

  

  As Clinton entered the university, protesters could be heard shouting: “pure evil!:” and “war criminal!” amongst other things, including:

  “You’re not welcome in Belfast! Go away, you war criminal scumbag!”

  “How many kids have you killed today?”

  “imperialist scum”

  “Yankee”

  Irishman screaming “pure evil” at Hillary today in Belfast pic.twitter.com/JhoeF3Ld0J

  — Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) September 25, 2021

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  Protester shouts and calls Hillary Clinton a war criminal as she enters Queens University in Belfast: pic.twitter.com/GFQZuJ6h8k

  — Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 24, 2021

  Here’s the full video posted by Lasair Dhearg, as left-wing socialist republican group.

  As the Western Journal notes:

  One man who addressed a crowd on the video shared online accused Clinton of being responsible for “over 400 drone strikes across multiple nations which overwhelmingly killed civilians and even children.”

  The man also blasted Clinton for labeling black men “superpredators when she helped lobby for the 1994 [U.S. crime bill].”

  Appointed in 2020, Clinton spoke at the event for around 15 minutes, during which she suggested that the people of Northern Ireland “work together to resolve their differences over Brexit and dealing with the legacy of past violence.”

  Clinton, as it stands, voted in favor of the war in Iraq – and as US Secretary of State was instrumental in the Obama administration’s decision to bomb Libya, “leaving Libya a failed state and a terrorist haven,” according to the New York Times (h/t Daily Caller).  Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi, meanwhile, promised in 2010 that he’d stop illegal African migration into Europe for a tidy sum of US$6.3 billion per year. Two months later, he was dead.

  When US-backed Salafi-jihadist fascists murdered Libya’s leader Qadhafi, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gleefully replied, not at all like a sociopath: “We came, we saw, he died!”

  Those NATO-sponsored extremist “rebels” then ethnically cleansed and enslaved Black Libyans pic.twitter.com/Jqh0qFglfn

  — Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) March 19, 2021

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  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/25/2021 – 15:15

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• "Immunity As A Service" – The Snake-Oil Salesmen & The COVID-Zero Con
  “Immunity As A Service” – The Snake-Oil Salesmen & The COVID-Zero Con

  Authored by Julius Ruechel via Julius Ruechel.com,

  The Snake-Oil Salesmen and the COVID-Zero Con: A Classic Bait-And-Switch for a Lifetime of Booster Shots (Immunity as a Service)

  If a plumber with a lifetime of experience were to tell you that water runs uphill, you would know he is lying and that the lie is not accidental. It is a lie with a purpose. If you can also demonstrate that the plumber knows in advance that the product he is promoting with that lie is snake oil, you have evidence for a deliberate con. And once you understand what’s really inside that bottle of snake oil, you will begin to understand the purpose of the con.

  One of the most common reasons given for mass COVID vaccinations is the idea that if we reach herd immunity through vaccination, we can starve the virus out of existence and get our lives back. It’s the COVID-Zero strategy or some variant of it.

  By now it is abundantly clear from the epidemiological data that the vaccinated are able to both catch and spread the disease.

  Clearly vaccination isn’t going to make this virus disappear. Only a mind that has lost its grasp on reality can fail to see how ridiculous all this has become. 

  But a tour through pre-COVID science demonstrates that, from day one, long before you and I had even heard of this virus, it was 100% inevitable and 100% predictable that these vaccines would never be capable of eradicating this coronavirus and would never lead to any kind of lasting herd immunity. Even worse, lockdowns and mass vaccination have created a dangerous set of circumstances that interferes with our immune system’s ability to protect us against other respiratory viruses. They also risk driving the evolution of this virus towards mutations that are more dangerous to both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated alike. Lockdowns, mass vaccinations, and mass booster shots were never capable of delivering on any of the promises that were made to the public. 

  And yet, vaccination has been successfully used to control measles and even to eradicate smallpox. So, why not COVID? Immunity is immunity, and a virus is a virus is a virus, right? Wrong! Reality is far more complicated… and more interesting.

  This Deep Dive exposes why, from day one, the promise of COVID-Zero can only ever have been a deliberately dishonest shell game designed to prey on a lack of public understanding of how our immune systems work and on how most respiratory viruses differ from other viruses that we routinely vaccinate against. We have been sold a fantasy designed to rope us into a pharmaceutical dependency as a deceitful trade-off for access to our lives. Variant by variant. For as long as the public is willing to go along for the ride. 

  Exposing this story does not require incriminating emails or whistleblower testimony. The story tells itself by diving into the long-established science that every single virologist, immunologist, evolutionary biologist, vaccine developer, and public health official had access to long before COVID began. As is so often the case, the devil is hidden in the details. As this story unfolds it will become clear that the one-two punch of lockdowns and the promise of vaccines as an exit strategy began as a cynical marketing ploy to coerce us into a never-ending regimen of annual booster shots intentionally designed to replace the natural “antivirus security updates” against respiratory viruses that come from hugs and handshakes and from children laughing together at school. We are being played for fools. 

  This is not to say that there aren’t plenty of other opportunists taking advantage of this crisis to pursue other agendas and to tip society into a full-blown police state. One thing quickly morphs into another. But this essay demonstrates that never-ending boosters were the initial motive for this global social-engineering shell game ― the subscription-based business model, adapted for the pharmaceutical industry. “Immunity as a service”. 

  So, let’s dive into the fascinating world of immune systems, viruses, and vaccines, layer by layer, to dispel the myths and false expectations that have been created by deceitful public health officials, pharmaceutical lobbyists, and media manipulators. What emerges as the lies are peeled apart is both surprising and more than a little alarming.

  “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” – Sherlock Homes” 

  – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  

  Table of Contents:

  •     Viral Reservoirs: The Fantasy of Eradication

  •     SARS: The Exception to the Rule?

  •     Fast Mutations: The Fantasy of Control through Herd Immunity

  •     Blind Faith in Central Planning: The Fantasy of Timely Doses

  •     Spiked: The Fantasy of Preventing Infection

  •     Antibodies, B-Cells, and T-Cells: Why Immunity to Respiratory Viruses Fades So Quickly

  •     Manufacturing Dangerous Variants: Virus Mutations Under Lockdown Conditions — Lessons from the 1918 Spanish Flu

  •     Leaky Vaccines, Antibody-Dependent Enhancement, and the Marek Effect

  •     Anti-Virus Security Updates: Cross-Reactive Immunity Through Repeated Exposure

  •     The Not-So-Novel Novel Virus: The Diamond Princess Cruise Ship Outbreak Proved We Have Cross-Reactive Immunity

  •     Mother Knows Best: Vitamin D, Playing in Puddles, and Sweaters

  •     The Paradox: Why COVID-Zero Makes People More Vulnerable to Other Viruses

  •     Introducing Immunity as a Service – A Subscription-Based Business Model for the Pharmaceutical Industry (It was always about the money!)

  •     The Path Forward: Neutralizing the Threat and Bullet-Proofing Society to Prevent This Ever Happening Again.

  *  *  *

  Viral Reservoirs: The Fantasy of Eradication

  Eradication of a killer virus sounds like a noble goal. In some cases it is, such as in the case of the smallpox virus. By 1980 we stopped vaccinating against smallpox because, thanks to widespread immunization, we starved the virus of available hosts for so long that it died out. No-one will need to risk their life on the side effects of a smallpox vaccination ever again because the virus is gone. It is a public health success story. Polio will hopefully be next ― we’re getting close. 

  But smallpox is one of only two viruses (along with rinderpest) that have been eradicated thanks to vaccination. Very few diseases meet the necessary criteria. Eradication is hard and only appropriate for very specific families of viruses.

  Smallpox made sense for eradication because it was a uniquely human virus ― there was no animal reservoir. By contrast, most respiratory viruses including SARS-CoV-2 (a.k.a. COVID) come from animal reservoirs: swine, birds, bats, etc. As long as there are bats in caves, birds in ponds, pigs in mud baths, and deer living in forests, respiratory viruses are only controllable through individual immunity, but it is not possible to eradicate them. There will always be a near-identical cousin brewing in the wings.

  Even the current strain of COVID is already cheerfully jumping onwards across species boundaries. According to both National Geographic and Nature magazine, 40% of wild deer tested positive for COVID antibodies in a study conducted in Michigan, Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania. It has also been documented in wild mink and has already made the species jump to other captive animals including dogs, cats, otters, leopards, tigers, and gorillas. A lot of viruses are not fussy. They happily adapt to new opportunities. Specialists, like smallpox, eventually go extinct. Generalists, like most respiratory viruses, never run out of hosts to keep the infection cycle going, forever.

  As long as we share this planet with other animals, it is extremely deceitful to give anyone the impression that we can pursue any scorched earth policy that can put this genie back in the bottle. With an outbreak on this global scale, it was clear that we were always going to have to live with this virus. There are over 200 other endemic respiratory viruses that cause colds and flus, many of which circulate freely between humans and other animals. Now there are 201. They will be with us forever, whether we like it or not.

  SARS: The Exception to the Rule?

  This all sounds well and good, but the original SARS virus did disappear, with public health measures like contact tracing and strict quarantine measures taking the credit. However, SARS was the exception to the rule. When it made the species jump to humans, it was so poorly adapted to its new human hosts that it had terrible difficulty spreading. This very poor level of adaptation gave SARS a rather unique combination of properties:

  1. SARS was extremely difficult to catch (it was never very contagious)

  2. SARS made people extremely sick.

  3. SARS did not have pre-symptomatic spread.

  These three conditions made the SARS outbreak easy to control through contact tracing and through the quarantine of symptomatic individuals. SARS therefore never reached the point where it circulated widely among asymptomatic community members. 

  By contrast, by January/February of 2020 it was clear from experiences in China, Italy, and the outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship (more on that story later) that the unique combination of conditions that made SARS controllable were not going to be the case with COVID. COVID was quite contagious (its rapid spread showed that COVID was already well adapted to spreading easily among its new human hosts), most people would have mild or no symptoms from COVID (making containment impossible), and that it was spreading by aerosols produced by both symptomatic and pre-symptomatic people (making contact tracing a joke).

  In other words, it was clear by January/February 2020 that this pandemic would follow the normal rules of a readily transmissible respiratory epidemic, which cannot be reined in the way SARS was. Thus, by January/February of 2020, giving the public the impression that the SARS experience could be replicated for COVID was a deliberate lie – this genie was never going back inside the bottle.

  Fast Mutations: The Fantasy of Control through Herd Immunity

  Once a reasonably contagious respiratory virus begins circulating widely in a community, herd immunity can never be maintained for very long. RNA respiratory viruses (such as influenza viruses, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), rhinoviruses, and coronaviruses) all mutate extremely fast compared to viruses like smallpox, measles, or polio. Understanding the difference between something like measles and a virus like COVID is key to understanding the con that is being perpetrated by our health institutions. Bear with me here, I promise not to get too technical.

  All viruses survive by creating copies of themselves. And there are always a lot of “imperfect copies” — mutations — produced by the copying process itself. Among RNA respiratory viruses these mutations stack up so quickly that there is rapid genetic drift, which continually produces new strains. Variants are normal. Variants are expected. Variants make it virtually impossible to build the impenetrable wall of long-lasting herd immunity required to starve these respiratory viruses out of existence. That’s one of several reasons why flu vaccines don’t provide long-lasting immunity and have to be repeated annually ― our immune system constantly needs to be updated to keep pace with the inevitable evolution of countless unnamed “variants.” 

  This never-ending conveyor belt of mutations means that everyone’s immunity to COVID was always only going to be temporary and only offer partial cross-reactive protection against future re-infections. Thus, from day one, COVID vaccination was always doomed to the same fate as the flu vaccine ― a lifelong regimen of annual booster shots to try to keep pace with “variants” for those unwilling to expose themselves to the risk of a natural infection. And the hope that by the time the vaccines (and their booster shots) roll off the production line, they won’t already be out of date when confronted by the current generation of virus mutations. 

  Genetic drift caused by mutations is much slower in viruses like measles, polio, or smallpox, which is why herd immunity can be used to control these other viruses (or even eradicate them as in the case of smallpox or polio). The reason the common respiratory viruses have such rapid genetic drift compared to these other viruses has much less to do with how many errors are produced during the copying process and much more to do with how many of those “imperfect” copies are actually able to survive and produce more copies. 

  A simple virus with an uncomplicated attack strategy for taking over host cells can tolerate a lot more mutations than a complex virus with a complicated attack strategy. Complexity and specialization put limits on how many of those imperfect copies have a chance at becoming successful mutations. Simple machinery doesn’t break down as easily if there is an imperfection in the mechanical parts. Complicated high-tech machinery will simply not work if there are even minor flaws in precision parts.

  For example, before a virus can hijack the DNA of a host cell to begin making copies of itself, the virus needs to unlock the cell wall to gain entry. Cellular walls are made of proteins and are coated by sugars; viruses need to find a way to create a doorway through that protein wall. A virus like influenza uses a very simple strategy to get inside ― it locks onto one of the sugars on the outside of the cell wall in order to piggyback a ride as the sugar is absorbed into the cell (cells use sugar as their energy source). It’s such a simple strategy that it allows the influenza virus to go through lots of mutations without losing its ability to gain entry to the cell. Influenza’s simplicity makes it very adaptable and allows many different types of mutations to thrive as long as they all use the same piggyback entry strategy to get inside host cells.

  By contrast, something like the measles virus uses a highly specialized and very complicated strategy to gain entry to a host cell. It relies on very specialized surface proteins to break open a doorway into the host cell. It’s a very rigid and complex system that doesn’t leave a lot of room for errors in the copying process. Even minor mutations to the measles virus will cause changes to its surface proteins, leaving it unable to gain access to a host cell to make more copies of itself. Thus, even if there are lots of mutations, those mutations are almost all evolutionary dead ends, thus preventing genetic drift. That’s one of several reasons why both a natural infection and vaccination against measles creates lifetime immunity ― immunity lasts because new variations don’t change much over time. 

  Most RNA respiratory viruses have a high rate of genetic drift because they all rely on relatively simple attack strategies to gain entry to host cells. This allows mutations to stack up quickly without becoming evolutionary dead ends because they avoid the evolutionary trap of complexity. 

  Coronaviruses use a different strategy than influenza to gain access to host cells. They have proteins on the virus surface (the infamous S-spike protein, the same one that is mimicked by the vaccine injection), which latches onto a receptor on the cell surface (the ACE2 receptor) ― a kind of key to unlock the door. This attack strategy is a little bit more complicated than the system used by influenza, which is probably why genetic drift in coronaviruses is slightly slower than in influenza, but it is still a much much simpler and much less specialized system than the one used by measles. Coronaviruses, like other respiratory viruses, are therefore constantly producing a never-ending conveyor belt of “variants” that make long-lasting herd immunity impossible. Variants are normal. The alarm raised by our public health authorities about “variants” and the feigned compassion of pharmaceutical companies as they rush to develop fresh boosters capable of fighting variants is a charade, much like expressing surprise about the sun rising in the East.

  Once you got immunity to smallpox, measles, or polio, you had full protection for a few decades and were protected against severe illness or death for the rest of your life. But for fast-mutating respiratory viruses, including coronaviruses, within a few months they are sufficiently different that your previously acquired immunity will only ever offer partial protection against your next exposure. The fast rate of mutation ensures that you never catch the exact same cold or flu twice, just their closely related constantly evolving cousins. What keeps you from feeling the full brunt of each new infection is cross-reactive immunity, which is another part of the story of how you are being conned, which I will come back to shortly. 

  Blind Faith in Central Planning: The Fantasy of Timely Doses

  But let’s pretend for a moment that a miraculous vaccine could be developed that could give us all 100% sterilizing immunity today. The length of time it takes to manufacture and ship 8 billion doses (and then make vaccination appointments for 8 billion people) ensures that by the time the last person gets their last dose, the never-ending conveyor belt of mutations will have already rendered the vaccine partially ineffective. True sterilizing immunity simply won’t ever happen with coronaviruses. The logistics of rolling out vaccines to 8 billion people meant that none of our vaccine makers or public health authorities ever could have genuinely believed that vaccines would create lasting herd immunity against COVID.

  So, for a multitude of reasons, it was a deliberate lie to give the public the impression that if enough people take the vaccine, it would create lasting herd immunity. It was 100% certain, from day one, that by the time the last dose is administered, the rapid evolution of the virus would ensure that it would already be time to start thinking about booster shots. Exactly like the flu shot. Exactly the opposite of a measles vaccine. Vaccines against respiratory viruses can never provide anything more than a temporary cross-reactive immunity “update” ― they are merely a synthetic replacement for your annual natural exposure to the smorgasbord of cold and flu viruses. Immunity as a service, imposed on society by trickery. The only question was always, how long between booster shots? Weeks, months, years? 

  Feeling conned yet?

  Spiked: The Fantasy of Preventing Infection

  The current crop of COVID vaccines was never designed to provide sterilizing immunity – that’s not how they work. They are merely a tool designed to teach the immune system to attack the S-spike protein, thereby priming the immune system to reduce the severity of infection in preparation for your inevitable future encounter with the real virus. They were never capable of preventing infection, nor of preventing spread. They were merely designed to reduce your chance of being hospitalized or dying if you are infected. As former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who is on Pfizer’s board, said: “the original premise behind these vaccines were [sic] that they would substantially reduce the risk of death and severe disease and hospitalization. And that was the data that came out of the initial clinical trials.” Every first-year medical student knows that you cannot get herd immunity from a vaccine that does not stop infection. 

  In other words, by their design, these vaccines can neither stop you from catching an infection nor stop you from transmitting the infection to someone else. They were never capable of creating herd immunity. They were designed to protect individuals against severe outcomes if they choose to take them – a tool to provide temporary focused protection for the vulnerable, just like the flu vaccine. Pushing for mass vaccination was a con from day one. And the idea of using vaccine passports to separate the vaccinated from the unvaccinated was also a con from day one. The only impact these vaccine passports have on the pandemic is as a coercive tool to get you to roll up your sleeve. Nothing more.

  Antibodies, B-Cells, and T-Cells: Why Immunity to Respiratory Viruses Fades So Quickly

  There are multiple interconnected parts to why immunity to COVID, or any other respiratory virus, is always only temporary. Not only is the virus constantly mutating but immunity itself fades over time, not unlike the way our brains start forgetting how to do complicated math problems unless they keep practicing. This is true for both immunity acquired through natural infection and immunity acquired through vaccination.

  Our immune systems have a kind of immunological memory ― basically, how long does your immune system remember how to launch an attack against a specific kind of threat. That memory fades over time. For some vaccines, like diphtheria and tetanus, that immunological memory fades very slowly. The measles vaccine protects for life. But for others, like the flu vaccine, that immunological memory fades very quickly.

  On average, the flu vaccine is only about 40% effective to begin with. And it begins to fade almost immediately after vaccination. By about 150 days (5 months), it reaches zero.

  

  Fading immunity after flu shot (Science, April 18th, 2019)

  The solution to this strange phenomenon lies in the different types of immune system responses that are triggered by a vaccine (or by exposure to the real thing through a natural infection). This has big implications for coronavirus vaccines, but I’ll get to that in a moment. First a little background information…

  A good analogy is to think of our immune system like a medieval army. The first layer of protection began with generalists – guys armed with clubs that would take a swing at everything – they were good for keeping robbers and brigands at bay and for conducting small skirmishes. But if the attack was bigger, then these generalists were quickly overwhelmed, serving as arrow fodder to blunt the attack on the more specialized troops coming up behind them. Spearmen, swordsmen, archers, cavalry, catapult operators, siege tower engineers, and so on. Each additional layer of defense has a more expensive kit and takes ever greater amounts of time to train (an English longbowman took years to build up the necessary skill and strength to become effective). The more specialized a troop is, the more you want to hold them back from the fight unless it’s absolutely necessary because they are expensive to train, expensive to deploy, and make a bigger mess when they fight that needs to be cleaned up afterwards. Always keep your powder dry. Send in the arrow fodder first and slowly ramp up your efforts from there.

  Our immune system relies on a similar kind of layered system of defense. In addition to various non-specific rapid response layers that take out the brigands, like natural killer cells, macrophages, mast cells, and so on, we also have many adaptive (specialized) layers of antibodies (i.e. IgA, IgG, IgM immunoglobulin) and various types of highly specialized white blood cells, like B-cells and T-cells. Some antibodies are released by regular B-cells. Others are released by blood plasma. Then there are memory B-cells, which are capable of remembering previous threats and creating new antibodies long after the original antibodies fade away. And there are various types of T-cells (again with various degrees of immunological memory), like natural killer T-cells, killer T-cells, and helper T-cells, all of which play various roles in detecting and neutralizing invaders. In short, the greater the threat, the more troops are called into the fight.

  This is clearly a gross oversimplification of all the different interconnected parts of our immune system, but the point is that a mild infection doesn’t trigger as many layers whereas a severe infection enlists the help of deeper layers, which are slower to respond but are much more specialized in their attack capabilities. And if those deeper adaptive layers get involved, they are capable of retaining a memory of the threat in order to be able to mount a quicker attack if a repeat attack is recognized in the future. That’s why someone who was infected by the dangerous Spanish Flu in 1918 might still have measurable T-cell immunity a century later but the mild bout of winter flu you had a couple of years ago might not have triggered T-cell immunity, even though both may have been caused by versions of the same H1N1 influenza virus.

  As a rule of thumb, the broader the immune response, the longer immunological memory will last. Antibodies fade in a matter of months, whereas B-cell and T-cell immunity can last a lifetime.

  Another rule of thumb is that a higher viral load puts more strain on your immune defenses, thus overwhelming the rapid response layers and forcing the immune system to enlist the deeper adaptive layers. That’s why nursing homes and hospitals are more dangerous places for vulnerable people than backyard barbeques. That’s why feedlot cattle are more vulnerable to viral diseases than cattle on pasture. Viral load matters a lot to how easily the generalist layers are overwhelmed and how much effort your immune system has to make to neutralize a threat.

  Where the infection happens in the body also matters. For example, an infection in the upper respiratory tract triggers much less involvement from your adaptive immune system than when it reaches your lungs. Part of this is because your upper respiratory tract is already heavily preloaded with large numbers of generalist immunological cells that are designed to attack germs as they enter, which is why most colds and flus never make it deeper into the lungs. The guys with the clubs are capable of handling most of the threats that try to make through the gate. Most of the specialized troops hold back unless they are needed.

  Catching a dangerous disease like measles produces lifetime immunity because an infection triggers all the deep layers that will retain a memory of how to fight off future encounters with the virus. So does the measles vaccine. Catching a cold or mild flu generally does not. 

  From an evolutionary point of view, this actually makes a lot of sense. Why waste valuable resources developing long-lasting immunity (i.e. training archers and building catapults) to defend against a virus that did not put you in mortal danger. A far better evolutionary strategy is to evolve a narrower generalist immune response to mild infections (i.e. most cold and flu viruses), which fades quickly once the threat is conquered, but invest in deep long-term broad-based immunity to dangerous infections, which lasts a very long time in case that threat is ever spotted on the horizon again. Considering the huge number of threats our immune systems face, this strategy avoids the trap of spreading immunological memory too thin. Our immunological memory resources are not limitless – long-term survival requires prioritizing our immunological resources.

  The take-home lesson is that vaccines will, at best, only last as long as immunity acquired through natural infection and will often fade much faster because the vaccine is often only able to trigger a partial immune response compared to the actual infection. So, if the disease itself doesn’t produce a broad-based immune response leading to long-lasting immunity, neither will the vaccine. And in most cases, immunity acquired through vaccination will begin to fade much sooner than immunity acquired through a natural infection. Every vaccine maker and public health official knows this despite bizarrely claiming that the COVID vaccines (based on re-creating the S-protein spike instead of using a whole virus) would somehow become the exception to the rule. That was a lie, and they knew it from day one. That should set your alarm bells ringing at full throttle.

  So, with this little bit of background knowledge under our belts, let’s look at what our public health officials and vaccine makers would have known in advance about coronaviruses and coronavirus vaccines when they told us back in the early Spring of 2020 that COVID vaccines were the path back to normality.

  From a 2003 study [my emphasis]:

  “Until SARS appeared, human coronaviruses were known as the cause of 15–30% of colds… Colds are generally mild, self-limited infections, and significant increases in neutralizing antibody titer are found in nasal secretions and serum after infection. Nevertheless, some unlucky individuals can be reinfected with the same coronavirus soon after recovery and get symptoms again.“

  In other words, the coronaviruses involved in colds (there were four human coronaviruses before SARS, MERS, and COVID) all trigger such a weak immune response that they do not lead to any long-lasting immunity whatsoever. And why would they if, for most of us, the threat is so minimal that the generalists are perfectly capable of neutralizing the attack.

  We also know that immunity against coronaviruses is not durable in other animals either. As any farmer knows well, cycles of reinfection with coronaviruses are the rule rather than the exception among their livestock (for example, coronaviruses are a common cause of pneumonia and various types of diarrheal diseases like scours, shipping fever, and winter dysentery in cattle). Annual farm vaccination schedules are therefore designed accordingly. The lack of long-term immunity to coronaviruses is well documented in veterinary research among cattle, poultry, deer, water buffalo, etc. Furthermore, although animal coronavirus vaccines have been on the market for many years, it is well known that “none are completely efficacious in animals“. So, like the fading flu vaccine profile I showed you earlier, none of the animal coronavirus vaccines are capable of providing sterilizing immunity (none were capable of stopping 100% of infections, without which you can never achieve herd immunity) and the partial immunity they offered is well known to fade rather quickly.

  What about immunity to COVID’s close cousin, the deadly SARS coronavirus, which had an 11% case fatality rate during the 2003 outbreak? From a 2007 study: “SARS-specific antibodies were maintained for an average of 2 years… SARS patients might be susceptible to reinfection >3 years after initial exposure.”  (Bear in mind that, as with all diseases, re-infection does not mean you are necessarily going to get full-blown SARS; fading immunity after a natural infection tends to offer at least some level of partial protection against severe outcomes for a considerable amount of time after you can already be reinfected and spread it to others – more on that later.)

  And what about MERS, the deadliest coronavirus to date, which made the jump from camels in 2012 and had a fatality rate of around 35%? It triggered the broadest immune response (due to its severity) and also appears to trigger the longest lasting immunity as a result (> 6yrs)

  Thus, to pretend that there was any chance that herd immunity to COVID would be anything but short-lived was dishonest at best. For most people, immunity was always going to fade quickly. Just like what happens after most other respiratory virus infections. By February 2020, the epidemiological data showed clearly that for most people COVID was a mild coronavirus (nowhere near as severe than SARS or MERS), so it was virtually a certainty that even the immunity from a natural infection would fade within months, not years. It was also a certainty that vaccination was therefore, at best, only ever going to provide partial protection and that this protection would be temporary, lasting on the order of months. This is a case of false and misleading advertising if there ever was one.

  If I can allow my farming roots to shine through for a moment, I’d like to explain the implications of what was known about animal coronaviruses vaccines. Baby calves are often vaccinated against bovine coronaviral diarrhea shortly after birth if they are born in the spring mud and slush season, but not if they are born in midsummer on lush pastures where the risk of infection is lower. Likewise, bovine coronavirus vaccines are used to protect cattle before they face stressful conditions during shipping, in a feedlot, or in winter feed pens. Animal coronavirus vaccines are thus used as tools to provide a temporary boost in immunity, in very specific conditions, and only for very specific vulnerable categories of animals. After everything I’ve laid out so far in this text, the targeted use of bovine coronavirus vaccines should surprise no-one. Pretending that our human coronavirus vaccines would be different was nonsense. 

  The only rational reason why the WHO and public health officials would withhold all that contextual information from the public as they rolled out lockdowns and held forth vaccines as an exit strategy was to whip the public into irrational fear in order to be able to make a dishonest case for mass vaccination when they should have, at most, been focused on providing focused vaccination of the most vulnerable only. That deception was the Trojan Horse to introduce endless mass booster shots as immunity inevitably fades and as new variants replace old ones. 

  Now, as all the inevitable limitations and problems with these vaccines become apparent (i.e. fading of vaccine-induced immunity, vaccines proving to only be partially effective, the rise of new variants, and the vaccinated population demonstrably catching and spreading the virus ― a.k.a. the leaky vaccine phenomenon), the surprise that our health authorities are showing simply isn’t credible. As I have shown you, all this was 100% to be expected. They intentionally weaponized fear and false expectations to unleash a fraudulent bait-and-switch racket of global proportions. Immunity on demand, forever.

  Manufacturing Dangerous Variants: Virus Mutations Under Lockdown Conditions — Lessons from the 1918 Spanish Flu

  At this point you may be wondering, if there is no lasting immunity from infection or vaccination, then are public health officials right to roll out booster shots to protect us from severe outcomes even if their dishonest methods to get us to accept them were unethical? Do we need a lifetime regimen of booster shots to keep us safe from a beast to which we cannot develop durable long-term immunity?

  The short answer is no. 

  Contrary to what you might think, the rapid evolution of RNA respiratory viruses actually has several important benefits for us as their involuntary hosts, which protects us without the benefit of broad lifelong immunity. One of those benefits has to do with the natural evolution of the virus towards less dangerous variants. The other is the cross-reactive immunity that comes from frequent re-exposure to closely related “cousins”. I’m going to peel apart both of these topics in order to show you the remarkable system that nature designed to keep us safe… and to show you how the policies being forced on us by our public health authorities are knowingly interfering with this system. They are creating a dangerous situation that increases our risk to other respiratory viruses (not just to COVID) and may even push the COVID virus to evolve to become more dangerous to both the unvaccinated and the vaccinated. There are growing signs that this nightmare scenario has already begun. 

  “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” 

  – President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

  Let’s start with the evolutionary pressures that normally drive viruses towards becoming less dangerous over time. A virus depends on its host to spread it. A lively host is more useful than a bedridden or dead one because a lively host can spread the virus further and will still be around to catch future mutations. Viruses risk becoming evolutionary dead ends if they kill or immobilize their hosts. Plagues came, killed, and then were starved out of existence because their surviving hosts had all acquired herd immunity. Colds come and go every year because their hosts are lively, easily spread the viruses around, and never acquire long-lasting immunity so that last year’s hosts can also serve as next year’s hosts ― only those who have weak immune systems have much to worry about. In other words, under normal conditions, mutations that are more contagious but less deadly have a survival advantage over less contagious and more deadly variations.

  From the virus’ point of view, the evolutionary golden mean is reached when it can easily infect as many hosts as possible without reducing their mobility and without triggering long-term immunity in most of their hosts. That’s the ticket to setting up a sustainable cycle of reinfection, forever. Viruses with slow genetic drift and highly specialized reproductive strategies, like polio or measles, can take centuries or longer to become less deadly and more contagious; some may never reach the relatively harmless status of a cold or mild flu virus (by harmless I mean harmless to the majority of the population despite being extremely dangerous to those with weak or compromised immune systems). But for viruses with fast genetic drift, like respiratory viruses, even a few months can make a dramatic difference. Rapid genetic drift is one of the reasons why the Spanish Flu stopped being a monster disease, but polio and measles haven’t. And anyone with training in virology or immunology understands this! 

  We often speak of evolutionary pressure as though it forces an organism to adapt. In reality, a simple organism like a virus is utterly blind to its environment — all it does is blindly produce genetic copies of itself. “Evolutionary pressure” is actually just a fancy way of saying that environmental conditions will determine which of those millions of copies survives long enough to produce even more copies of itself. 

  A human adapts to its environment by altering its behaviour (that’s one type of adaptation). But the behaviour of a single viral particle never changes. A virus “adapts” over time because some genetic copies with one set of mutations survive and spread faster than other copies with a different set of mutations. Adaptation in viruses has to be seen exclusively through the lens of changes from one generation of virus to the next based on which mutations have a competitive edge over others. And that competitive edge will vary depending on the kinds of environmental conditions a virus encounters.

  So, fear mongering about the Delta variant being even more contagious leaves out the fact that this is exactly what you would expect as a respiratory virus adapts to its new host species. We would expect new variants to be more contagious but less deadly as the virus fades to become just like the other 200+ respiratory viruses that cause common colds and flus. 

  That’s also why the decision to lock down the healthy population is so sinister. Lockdowns, border closures, and social distancing rules reduced spread among the healthy population, thus creating a situation where mutations produced among the healthy would become sufficiently rare that they might be outnumbered by mutations circulating among the bedridden. Mutations circulating among the healthy are, by definition, going to be the least dangerous mutations since they did not make their hosts sick enough to confine them to bedrest. That’s precisely the variants you want to spread in order to drown out competition from more dangerous mutations. 

  A host stuck in bed with a fever and not out dining with friends is limited in his ability to infect others compared to a host infected with a variety that only gives its host a sniffle. Not all bedridden hosts have caught a more dangerous mutation, but all dangerous mutations will be found among the bedridden. Thus as time goes by, dangerous mutations can only compete with less dangerous mutations if the entire population is limited in its ability to mix and mingle.

  As long as the majority of infections are among the healthy, the more dangerous variants circulating among some of the bedridden will be outnumbered and will become evolutionary dead ends. But when public health officials intentionally restricted spread among the young, strong, and healthy members of society by imposing lockdowns, they created a set of evolutionary conditions that risked shifting the competitive evolutionary advantage from the least dangerous variants to more dangerous variants. By locking us all up, they risked making the virus more dangerous over time. Evolution doesn’t sit around to wait for you while you develop a vaccine.

  Let me give you a historical example to demonstrate that this rapid evolution of a virus towards either more or less dangerous variants isn’t mere theory. Small changes to the environment can lead to very rapid changes in the virus’ evolution. The first wave of the 1918 Spanish Flu was not particularly deadly, with mortality rates similar to regular seasonal flu. However, the second wave was not only much deadlier but, rather unusually, was particularly deadly to young people rather than just the old and the weak. Why would the second wave be the deadly one? And what would cause the virus to evolve so quickly to become both more deadly and better adapted to preying on young people? At first glance it would seem to defy all evolutionary logic.

  The answer demonstrates just how sensitive a virus is to small changes in evolutionary pressure. The Spanish Flu spread in the midst of the lockdown-mimicking conditions of World War One. During the first wave, the virus found a huge population of soldiers trapped in the cold damp conditions of the trenches and a near endless supply of captive bedridden hosts in overflowing field hospitals. By the Spring of 1918, up to three-quarters of the entire French military and half of British troops had been infected. These conditions created two unique evolutionary pressures. On the one hand, it allowed variants that were well adapted to young people to emerge. But on the other hand, unlike normal times, the cramped conditions of trench warfare and field hospitals allowed dangerous variants that immobilize their hosts to spread freely with little competition from less dangerous variants that spread through lively hosts. The trenches and field hospitals became the virus incubators driving the evolution of variants. 

  Normally young people are predominantly exposed to less dangerous mutations because the healthiest do all the mingling while the bedridden stay home. But the lockdown conditions of war created conditions that erased the competitive advantage of less dangerous mutations that don’t immobilize their hosts, leading to the rise of more dangerous mutations. 

  Thanks to the end of the war, the lockdown-mimicking conditions also ended, thereby shifting the competitive advantage back to less dangerous mutations that could spread freely among the mobile healthy members of the population. The deadliness of the second wave of the 1918 Spanish Flu is inextricably linked to the First World War, and the end of the war is linked to the virus fading into the background of regular cold and flu season.

  

  Soldiers from Fort Riley, Kansas, ill with Spanish flu at a hospital ward at Camp Funston

  It is therefore highly likely that the 1918 Spanish Flu would never have been more than a really bad flu season had it not been for the amplifying effect of lockdown conditions created by a world at war.

  It also raises the question, for which I don’t have an answer, whether the lockdown strategy during COVID was intentionally used to reduce spread among the healthy in order to keep the virus from fading into harmless irrelevancy. I use the word “intentionally” ― and it’s a strong word ― because the deadly second wave of the 1918 Spanish Flu and its causes are hardly secrets in the medical community. You’d have to be a completely reckless and utterly incompetent idiot, or a cynical bastard with an agenda, to impose any strategy that mimics those virus-amplifying conditions. Yet that’s what our health authorities did. And what they continue to do, while shamelessly hyperventilating about the risk of “variants” to force us to submit to medical tyranny based on mandatory vaccines, never-ending booster shots, and vaccine passports that can turn off access to our normal lives. This is cynicism at its finest.

  Leaky Vaccines, Antibody-Dependent Enhancement, and the Marek Effect

  The experience of the 2nd wave of the 1918 Spanish Flu also raises another question: What kind of evolutionary pressures are being created by using a leaky vaccine?

  A vaccine that provides sterilizing immunity prevents the vaccinated from being able to catch or transmit the virus. They become a dead end for the virus. However, as I’ve already mentioned, the current crop of COVID vaccines, which are meant to train the immune system to recognize the S-spike proteins, were not designed to create sterilizing immunity. By their design, they merely help reduce the risk of severe outcomes by priming the immune system. The vaccinated can still catch and spread the virus ― the definition of a leaky vaccine ― and epidemiological data makes it very clear that this is now happening all around the world. Thus, both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated are equally capable of producing new variants. The idea that the unvaccinated are producing variants while the vaccinated are not is a boldfaced lie.

  

  Source: “Israel hopes boosters can avert new lockdown as COVID vaccine efficacy fades.” August 23rd, 2021, Financial Times, 

  From an evolutionary perspective, this is a potentially dangerous scenario. What has been done by temporarily blunting the risk of hospitalization or death, but without stopping infection among the vaccinated, is to create a set of evolutionary conditions where a variant that is dangerous to the unvaccinated can spread easily among the vaccinated without making the vaccinated very sick. For lack of a better term, let’s call this a dual-track variant. Thus, because the vaccinated are not getting bedridden from this dual-track variant, they can continue to spread it easily, giving it a competitive advantage, even if it is highly dangerous to the unvaccinated.

  Furthermore, since COVID vaccination only offers temporary short-term protection, as soon as immunity fades, the vaccinated themselves are also equally at risk of more severe outcomes. Thus, this creates the evolutionary pressure for the virus to behave as an increasingly contagious but relatively mild virus as long as everyone is vaccinated but as a dangerous but also very contagious virus as soon as temporary immunity wears off. The call for boosters every 6 months is already here. (Update: now it’s being revised down to 5 months.)

  So, the pandemic really does have the potential to become the Pandemic of the Unvaccinated (the shameless term coined by public health officials to terrify the vaccinated into bullying their unvaccinated peers), but reality comes with a twist because if a dual-track variant does evolve it would be the unvaccinated (and those whose boosters have expired) who would have reason to fear the vaccinated, not the other way around as so many frightened citizens seem to believe. And the end result would be that we all become permanently dependent on boosters every 6 months, forever.

  Hold on, you might say, the flu vaccine chart shown earlier also never provided sterilizing immunity. The flu vaccine is notoriously leaky but hasn’t gotten more dangerous, has it? The answer is complicated because the comparison is less useful than it first appears. As long as the majority of the population does not get the flu vaccine, more dangerous variants will face stiff competition from less dangerous ones circulating among the healthy unvaccinated population (average flu vaccination rates in most western countries are between 38-41%, with most other countries around the world doing very little vaccination against the flu). And since the vaccine is only 40% effective to begin with and since immunity fades rapidly after the shot, the flu vaccine doesn’t provide much protection to begin with, thus reducing the chance that separate mutations would circulate among the vaccinated. And public health frequently gets the strain wrong (influenza has many strains that are constantly evolving so there is a lot of guesswork that goes into creating the right vaccine formula each year). In other words, lack of universal coverage and poor protection are likely preventing the emergence of a dual-track variant. 

  Furthermore, flu vaccination is not evenly distributed across the population. It is mostly the vulnerable and those who work around them that get it while children, young adults and other healthy members of society don’t get it. So, even if more deadly variants were to arise in nursing homes or hospital settings, the high number of healthy unvaccinated visitors to those facilities would constantly bring less deadly more contagious variants with them, thereby preventing more dangerous variants from gaining a competitive edge in nursing home or hospital settings. But if the leaky flu vaccinations were to be extended to everyone, or if nursing home populations continue to be kept isolated from the rest of society during COVID lockdowns, things might begin to look a little different.

  However, what I am warning about is far from theoretical. There is a very clear example (well known to public health officials and vaccine developers) from the poultry farming industry where a universal leaky vaccine pushed a virus to evolve to become extremely deadly to unvaccinated chickens. It is called the Marek Effect. It began with a leaky vaccine that was rolled out to fight a herpes virus in industrialized high-density chicken barns. Vaccinated chickens were protected from severe outcomes but nevertheless continued to catch and spread the virus, so evolutionary pressure led to the emergence of a dual-track variant that become the dominant strain of this herpes virus. It continues to spread among the vaccinated chickens without killing them but kills up to 80% or more of unvaccinated birds if they get infected. Thus, a never-ending stream of vaccinations is now required just to maintain the status quo. I bet the pharmaceutical industry is smiling at all those drug-dependent chickens though — talk about having a captive audience!

  It’s not a certainty that this will happen with the COVID vaccines, but the longer this fiasco continues and the higher that vaccination rates rise around the world, the more likely it becomes that we re-create the conditions for some kind of Marek effect to develop. A leaky vaccine used sparingly to protect small pockets of vulnerable individuals is very different than a leaky vaccine applied to everyone. The rapid change in behaviour of the 1918 Spanish Flu should be a warning to us all that a virus can adapt very quickly in response to small changes in evolutionary pressure. The closer we get to universal vaccination, the greater the danger that leaky vaccines will lead to dual-track variants that become more dangerous to the unvaccinated.

  There is one other danger from leaky vaccines that is worth mentioning because researchers are already starting to see the first signs of it, as you can see discussed in this paper published on August 9th, 2021, in the Journal of Infection. It’s called antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). It happens when a poorly designed vaccine trains antibodies to recognize a virus as an intruder without being strong enough to kill/neutralize them. Instead of the virus being neutralized inside the antibody when the antibody attacks and “swallows” it (antibodies envelope intruders in order to neutralize them), the virus takes over the antibody cell that attacked it and uses it as a host to start making copies of itself. Thus, the attacking antibody opens the door to the inside of the cell and becomes the virus’ unwitting host, thereby accelerating rather than stopping the infection.

  Antibody-dependent enhancement is a well-documented phenomenon in attempts to develop vaccines against the RSV virus, dengue fever, and other coronaviruses. This is one of the reasons why previous attempts to develop a human coronavirus vaccine against the SARS virus failed. It kept happening in animal trials. And many doctors warned from day one that it would happen with these vaccines as well as new variants gradually emerge that are sufficiently different from the original variant upon which the vaccine is based. ADE doesn’t show up on the day after vaccination. It emerges gradually as new variants spread that are different from previous variants.

  Quote from the aforementioned study: 

  ADE may be a concern for people receiving vaccines based on the original Wuhan strain spike sequence (either mRNA or viral vectors). Under these circumstances, second generation vaccines with spike protein formulations lacking structurally-conserved ADE-related epitopes should be considered.

  In other words, your previous vaccination protects you only until new variants arise, then the training that your previous vaccination gave your immune system becomes a liability as your immune system switches from protecting you to increasing your risk from the disease. Your only way to protect yourself is to dutifully get your next “updated” booster shot to protect you for next few short months. You become a permanent drug dependent vaccine customer. And you better hope next year’s formulation doesn’t get it wrong. And you better hope that updates can keep you safe indefinitely because there’s also the risk that updates will get less effective as the bad training from previous boosters begins to add up. 

  It puts a whole new spin on “trust the scientists.” Your life will literally be at their mercy. 

  I bet the pharmaceutical industry will be smiling at all those drug-dependent chickens loyal customers though — talk about having a captive audience! And what a sweet deal – vaccine makers have been granted an exemption from liability and, if it goes wrong, they are the go-to guy to solve it… with more boosters.

  And with every booster, you’ll get to play Russian Roulette all over again with side effects: death, autoimmune diseases, reactivation of dormant viruses, neurological damage, blood clotting, and more. Here’s where the reported side effects on the US VAERS system stand at the time of writing (August 28th, 2021).

  

  OpenVaers Search, August 28th, 2021

  Leaky vaccines are playing with fire. All vaccine makers and public health authorities were aware of the potential for ADE with the development of a coronavirus vaccine. Yet they pushed for mass vaccination, from day one, without completing the long-term trials that are meant to rule out this kind of risk. They knowingly gambled with your future in their eagerness to get you onto your regimen of never-ending boosters and vaccine passports. Why not, if more boosters are the solution if something going wrong. They can always blame it on the “variants”. The media won’t challenge them – not with billions of vaccine advertising dollars floating around.

  Anti-Virus Security Updates: Cross-Reactive Immunity Through Repeated Exposure

  And now we come to the second way in which our immune systems benefit from the rapid evolution of RNA respiratory viruses and to the sinister way in which public health policy is interfering with that system. 

  The once deadly 1918 Spanish Flu is still with us today; now it is part of the smorgasbord of viruses that cause colds and flus every winter precisely because subsequent variants evolved to be less deadly. As unpleasant as flu season is, for most of us it is not lethal unless we have weak or compromised immune systems. But each subsequent exposure teaches our immune system how to keep up with its gradual evolution over time. 

  In other words, each year’s fresh exposure to the latest strain of cold or flu virus functions as a sort of antivirus security update to partially prepare you for the next one. Fading immunity and changing mutations means you’ll never be 100% immune to the next one, but as long as updates are frequent enough, you’ll also never have 0% immunity. There will always be enough carry-over to protect you from the most serious outcomes unless you are unfortunate enough to have a weak immune system. That is why it is called cross-reactive immunity. 

  A broad smorgasbord of viruses cruising around during cold and flu season makes it less likely that we will die or get seriously ill when exposed to some new “variant” from London, India, or Brazil, or if we are exposed to a new “cousin”, like COVID, which crawls out of some bat cave or wet market or escapes from some lab in Wuhan. 

  

  Partial cross-reactive immunity requires periodic re-exposure. Modified from Nature, 4704, September 17th, 2020.

  But when we think about it for a moment, what was once dangerous when it was new soon becomes our most important ally for the future to protect us from the next dangerous new thing. As long as we are re-exposed frequently, before immunity fades to zero, cross-reactive immunity is the only realistic evolutionary strategy that humans have to protect us from the next viral variant or viral cousin of these fast-mutating respiratory viruses. 

  With sufficient leftover cross-reactive immunity from your last exposure, exposure to the latest variant of a virus may simply result in your immune system getting updated without you even noticing a single thing. That’s what it means to get an “asymptomatic” infection. Before we started tormenting the healthy with never-ending PCR tests to make us aware of all these “asymptomatic infections”, we were constantly getting lots of these “antivirus security updates” each time we encountered one of the more than 200 respiratory viruses circulating among us, often without even noticing the “infection”. 

  Many of these encounters are asymptomatic because our immune systems are able to neutralize them without even ruffling enough layers of our defenses to trigger any symptoms. Almost everyone gets a few immune system updates to the viruses that cause common colds, every single year, yet only a small percentage will ever get very sick. The rest may barely get a runny nose, or nothing symptoms at all. 

  Mass PCR testing during COVID created a massive freak-out over every single asymptomatic COVID update when we should have only been focused on those people who come down with severe symptomatic disease. There was never any justifiable reason to roll out PCR tests to asymptomatic citizens other than to heighten fear in the population in order to make them receptive to mass vaccination. 

  So, in a sense, those 201 respiratory viruses that cause our colds and flus are not just an inconvenience, they are nature’s solution to software updates ― even though they are dangerous to those with weak immune systems, for the rest of us our immune systems depend on them to give us partial protection against new strains that emerge through mutation or when new strains jump across species boundaries. Getting rid of those already circulating in society would make us more vulnerable to new variants that emerge. Adding another 200 will make us even safer once we get our first contact behind us.

  Eradicating a relatively benign respiratory virus is therefore not a desirable goal. But making it fade into the background is a desirable public health goal so that what was once dangerous can now keep protecting us against the next one through cross-reactive immunity. Focused protection for the vulnerable, not lockdowns, was always the only realistic public health response to this respiratory virus, unless someone wanted to seize the opportunity as a way to rope the public into mass vaccinations.

  Nature evolved this fascinating strategy of self-updating immunological countermeasures by continually testing us with mild versions of previous closely related respiratory viruses. Our immune system is therefore somewhat similar to an Olympic weightlifter whose muscles not only stay strong but get even stronger by routinely putting his muscles under a little bit of stress. Our immune system functions the same way ― it must be continually stress-tested with mild challenges to these fast-mutating viruses in order to develop the robust arsenal of defenses to keep us safe. It is a concept called anti-fragility, which was described in detail by Nassim Taleb in his ground-breaking book, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder #Commissions Earned. Once you understand this concept, your fear of “variants” will rapidly dissolve.

  The eradication of these fast-mutating respiratory viruses is therefore not just unachievable, it would actually be dangerous if we succeeded because it would eliminate the security updates that we need to protect us against new variants that crawl out of bat caves or jump species boundaries. This year’s runny nose is your protection against COVID-23. Your cross-reactive immunity to last years annoying flu might just save your life if something truly dangerous arrives, as long as it is at least somewhat related to what your immune system has seen before. COVID could easily have turned out to be as dangerous to us as the Spanish Flu if it hadn’t been for the saving grace of cross-reactive immunity. As this study shows, up to 90-99% of us already had some level of protection to COVID thanks to partial cross-reactive immunity gained from exposure to other coronaviruses. The high percentage of infections that turn out to be asymptomatic bears that out.

  Someone needs to remind Bill Gates, his fawning public health bootlickers, and the pharmaceutical companies that whisper sweet-nothings in his ear that in the natural world of respiratory viruses, most of us don’t need a regimen of never-ending booster shots to keep us safe from COVID variants ― we already have a perfectly functioning system to keep bringing us new updates. Respiratory viruses are a completely different beast than smallpox, polio, or measles; and pretending otherwise is not just silly, it’s criminal because anyone with a background in immunology knows better. But it’s a fantastic and very profitably way to scare a wide-eyed population into accepting never-ending booster shots as a replacement for the natural antivirus updates that we normally get from hugs and handshakes. Protect the vulnerable. Stop preying on the rest of us.

  The Not-So-Novel Novel Virus: The Diamond Princess Cruise Ship Outbreak Proved We Have Cross-Reactive Immunity

  A truly novel virus affects everyone because no-one has pre-existing cross-reactive partial immunity to it. That’s why the diseases that accompanied Christopher Columbus to the Americas killed up to 95% of North and South America’s indigenous populations (see Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond #Commissions Earned). To them, these diseases were novel because they had no previous exposure to them and therefore lacked the antivirus security updates acquired through pre-existing infections. They would have benefited greatly from access to a vaccine prior to first contact.

  Thankfully, COVID-19 was not that kind of virus. Yet the media and public health officials shamelessly provoked fear that it was by using the scientifically accurate term novel to describe it, knowing full well that all scientists would understand this to mean a newly emergent strain while the general public would jump to the conclusion that this was an entirely new virus (also called a novel virus by scientists), like when tuberculosis or influenza accompanied Columbus to the Americas. This was a grotesque example of public health officials misusing scientific terminology, knowing full well that the public would misunderstand the term novel according to how we use the word in everyday language and not according to how the scientific community uses it. 

  That little game successfully sparked a wave of fear that is so strong that not only is everyone desperate for a leaky jab to lead them to safety, they are so scared that they won’t rest until all their friends, neighbors, and family members get one too, even if it requires extreme levels of coercion to get the job done. Canada has even recently gone as far as making vaccination mandatory for all federal employees, employees of Crown Corporations, employees of federally-regulated companies (i.e. utilities) and for all travellers on commercial airlines and trains (CBC, August 13th, 2021) !

  Despite the scary numbers put out by the Chinese government in the early days of the pandemic, the outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship served as an inadvertent petri-dish to study the COVID virus. Thanks to that example, by the end of February 2020, we knew that COVID was not some monster virus like the 1918 Spanish Flu but was simply another coronavirus strain that was closely related to previous coronaviruses and that most of us already carried some level of cross-reactive immunity to protect us.

  How do we know that? The virus circulated freely onboard the ship, yet age corrected lethality remained between 0.025% and 0.625% (that’s on the order of a bad flu season and nothing at all like the fatality rate of the 1918 Spanish Flu, which was between 2% and 10%). Only 26% of the passengers tested positive for the virus and of those that tested positive 48% remained completely symptom free despite the advanced age of most of these passengers! 

  

  Diamond Princess Cruise Ship, Alpsdake, CC BY-SA 4.0.

  The Diamond Princess didn’t turn into the floating morgue of bygone eras when ships carrying a disease were forced into quarantine. That should have been the first clue that this virus was anything but novel in the colloquial understanding of the term. Like most cold and flu viruses, only those with weak immune systems were in danger while everyone else got off with little or no symptoms. That is simply not how a truly novel virus behaves when it encounters a population without any pre-existing cross-reactive immunity. The only plausible explanation for that lack of deadliness (deadly for some, annoying for some, and asymptomatic for most others) is that most people already have sufficient pre-existing cross-reactive immunity from exposure to other coronaviruses. 

  Research subsequently confirmed what the Diamond Princess outbreak revealed. Cross-reactive immunity. As I mentioned before, studies like this one demonstrated that up to 90 – 99% of us already have some residual level of partial protection to COVID. And we also subsequently found out that most people who were exposed to the deadly SARS virus in 2003 have little to fear from COVID, again because of cross-reactive immunity. COVID was never a mortal threat to most of us.

  The important thing to remember is that the Diamond Princess data was already publicly available since the end of February of 2020. Operation Warp Speed, the vaccine development initiative approved by President Trump, was nevertheless announced on April 29th, 2020. Thus, our health authorities knowingly and opportunistically recommended lockdowns and promoted vaccines as an exit strategy after it was already clear that the majority of us had some kind of protection through cross-reactive immunity. The Diamond Princess example provided the unequivocal proof that the only people who might benefit from a vaccine, even if it worked as advertised, were the small number of extremely vulnerable members of society with weak immune systems. Likewise, lockdowns should have been recommended only for nursing home residents (on a strictly voluntary basis to protect their human rights) while the pandemic surged through the rest of us.

  The only plausible explanation for why our international health authorities ignored the example of the Diamond Princess is if they wanted to stoke fear among the public and if they wanted to bamboozle credible politicians in order to opportunistically achieve some other public health agenda. They pushed vaccination on everyone knowing full well that most people don’t need it and that protection would fade quickly even if the vaccines had been 100% effective, which they also knew was not going to be the case either. And yet they continue to push these vaccines using the same deceitful tactics even today. Water does not run uphill.

  “We know they are lying, 

  they know they are lying, 

  they know we know they are lying, 

  we know they know we know they are lying, 

  but they are still lying.” 

  – Attributed to Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn

  Mother Knows Best: Vitamin D, Playing in Puddles, and Sweaters

  Just like during other cold and flu seasons, the vulnerable to COVID are overwhelmingly those with compromised immune systems: those whose immune systems are shutting down as they approach death from old age and those whose immune systems are compromised due to severe pre-existing conditions that reduce immune function. 

  For everyone else with a strong immune system and cross-reactive immunity, we have little to fear from the virus and its never-ending stream of mutations unless our immune systems are temporarily suppressed through illness, environmental conditions, or nutritional deficiencies. 

  Your mother’s warnings about putting on a sweater, hat, and dry socks, tucking in your shirt to cover your kidneys, and not playing in puddles were not about preventing infection by a cold or flu, it was about preventing symptomatic infection. Research has demonstrated that getting chilled can temporarily suppress your immune system. Thus, getting chilled increases the chance that an infection leads to symptomatic disease rather than merely updating your immune system through an asymptomatic infection. Your sweater won’t prevent you from catching an infection. But it might prevent that infection from becoming a symptomatic disease. It could be the difference between experiencing nothing and ending up in bed with a fever.

  In the same way, topping up on vitamin C and D, eating properly, getting enough rest, getting hugs from loved ones, adopting a positive attitude in life, and smiling when you see a rainbow are all strategies that help keep your immune system strong. They don’t prevent infection, but they might reduce your risk of a bad outcome.

  

  Ask the staff in a nursing home what happens to their patients when any of these important ingredients is missing ― vitamin and nutrient deficiencies, poor sleep, loneliness, and depression lay out the welcome mat for the Grim Reaper. A temporarily suppressed immune system cannot mount an adequate immune response even when we do have cross-reactive immunity.

  Our public health authorities also all know this. This is not a mystery. Yet, instead of promoting these strategies as ways in which people could reduce their risk to severe outcomes, they have systematically downplayed, ignored, or labeled these strategies as “fake news“. Maximize the risk of death. Then promote the vaccine as the exclusive path to safety. Criminal.

  You cannot control other people forever to avoid getting exposed to a respiratory virus. COVID Zero is an authoritarian fantasy. But you can control your food, your sleep, and your attitude so that your immune system can mount the strongest attack it can muster. The odds are that you already have all the cross-reactive immunity you need to survive this virus without a hitch. Look inwards to find freedom from fear. Take good care of yourself. Go play in the sun with your friends. And listen to your mother —tuck in your shirt! 

  The Paradox: Why COVID-Zero Makes People More Vulnerable to Other Viruses

  As is so often the case when politicians try to run our lives for us, the government response to COVID is not just wrong, it is actually making us more vulnerable, both to COVID and to other respiratory viruses. Depriving nursing home patients of their loved ones, locking them in isolation, locking people in their homes, shutting down gyms, driving us into depression, and paralysing us with fear and uncertainty ensures that our immune systems will be working at suboptimal levels. Broken marriages, children deprived of social contacts, insomnia, the remarkable surge in obesity that occurred during COVID, and so many other consequences of these ill begotten strategies all have a toll on our ability to mount a strong immune response when we are inevitably exposed to any respiratory viruses.

  Equally devastating is that, by disrupting our normal social contacts, we have reduced how much training our immune system is getting through repeated exposure to other respiratory viruses. A computer that stops getting security updates becomes increasingly vulnerable to future versions of viruses. The same goes for our immune system. COVID is not the only risk. Remember, there are more than 200 other respiratory viruses that are also circulating. They may not be getting much attention and may be temporarily starved for hosts while we are cooped up at home, but they haven’t gone away. They are waiting. And when they find us, they find hosts whose antivirus security updates are out of date. 

  In other words, by breaking our ability to socialize with our peers, what was once relatively harmless is becoming more dangerous to us because our immune systems are out of practice. This isn’t some theoretical risk. We’re already beginning to see the fallout from that lack of updates, with deadly consequences. 

  For example, New Zealand was praised internationally for adopting a COVID-Zero policy and for the low COVID cases that resulted. But the lockdowns, social distancing measures, and border closures also had another effect  ― there was a 99.9% reduction in flu cases and a 98% reduction in cases of the RSV virus. Sounds good, right? Not so fast…

  Systems that depend on constant challenges to become antifragile will become fragile if those challenges stop happening. A tree that grows up sheltered from the wind will break when it is exposed to the storm.

  Now New Zealand’s myopic focus on COVID as the one and only risk is coming home to roost. Its hospitals are overflowing with children. But they’re not being hospitalized by COVID. They are falling ill with RSV virus because of the “immunity debt” that built up from not being continually exposed to all the respiratory viruses that make up normal life. These children are, quite literally, the next wave of victims of COVID-Zero. Being cut off from normal life has left them fragile. Instead of praise, it now is becoming apparent that New Zealand’s authoritarian strongwoman, Jacinda Ardern, and her public health advisors ought to be standing trial for gross negligence for ignoring the long-established research about how our immune systems depend on continual exposure to respiratory viruses in order to stay healthy.

  

  Source: The Guardian, July 8th, 2021.

  As long as our social contacts are restricted, we are all becoming increasing vulnerable to all these other respiratory viruses because of the “immunity debt” that has built up during lockdowns and social distancing rules. It turns out that handshakes and hugs are not just good for the soul. Our public health officials have blood on their hands for denying us our normal lives. 

  This heightened risk to other viruses isn’t an unexpected outcome; there were plenty of doctors who warned about precisely this risk as lockdowns were being imposed. For example, Dr. Dan Erickson and Dr Artin Massihi warned about this phenomenon back in May of 2020. YouTube censored their video. Yet they were citing long-established science that was uncontested until society collectively lost its mind in 2020.

  Introducing Immunity as a Service – A Subscription-Based Business Model for the Pharmaceutical Industry (It was always about the money!)

  As you can see from everything I have laid out in this essay, this misbegotten vaccine-enabled fever dream was never a realistic solution to stop COVID. At best, if the vaccines worked as advertised, all they could ever have been was one tool among many to provide the vulnerable with focused protection while the rest of us went about our normal lives, largely unaffected by our periodic antivirus security updates through exposure to the natural virus.

  COVID-Zero in all its variations was a fantasy. 

  But it was not an accidental fantasy. 

  Water does not run uphill.

  Every single public health official in the world has the education to know that what they have been promoting, from day one, is gibberish. What I have laid out in this essay is pretty basic virology and immunology knowledge. Which raises a rather alarming question: how can any virologist, immunologist, vaccine maker, or public health official knowingly promote this lie? 

  Why is there such a blind obsession with getting us all to take a vaccine that most people do not need and that can never provide long-lasting herd immunity?

  It’s no mystery why pea-brained politicians might fall for this fantasy; they are only as good as the advisors they listen to. And politicians are shameless opportunists, so it is not surprising that they are now exploiting the situation to increase their powers and to harness this emerging command-and-control economy in pursuit of their own ideological goals — redistribution, carbon net zero, social credit score systems, you name it. In this Orwellian world, if you have a podium and a utopian dream, the world is your oyster, at least as long as the band keeps playing and the pitchforks can be kept off the streets. 

  “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” 

  – Rahm Emanuel

  “I really believe COVID has created a window of political opportunity…” 

  – Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister of Canada

  But our public health officials and international health organizations are trained to know better. Yet they nevertheless set this nightmare in motion in violation of all their own long-established pandemic planning guidelines. They know eradication is impossible. They know most of us already have cross-reactive immunity. They know most of us are healthy enough so that our immune systems will protect us against severe outcomes from this virus. They know about the negative consequences imposed on our immune systems when we are prevented from living normal lives. They know they are increasing our risk to other viruses by preventing us from socializing. It’s their job to know. And, as I have demonstrated, they have known since day one. 

  But what if a shameless pharmaceutical industry could manipulate public health policies by capturing politicians, policymakers, and public health agencies through generous donations? What if the boundaries between public health agencies, international public health organizations, and pharmaceutical companies have become blurred to such a degree that each benefits from reinforcing one another’s best interests? What if they have all come to believe that vaccines against respiratory viruses are the holy grail of public health (and of generous funding), even if they have to play fast and loose with the truth to get humanity to accept them and even if they have to do a little evil to achieve some imagined future “greater good”?

  What if the revolving door between pharmaceutical companies, public health, and international health organizations has created a kind of blind groupthink within this holy trinity? What if anyone caught up in that system is forced to bite their tongue because to speak out is a deathblow to their career? What if many of those caught up in the system genuinely believe the lies, despite a lifetime of training that should tell them otherwise? The powerful effect of groupthink, demonstrated by the Ash Conformity Experiments, can make people blind to what is staring them in the face. Even the medieval kings knew they needed a court jester to prevent the king from growing a big head. But what if, in the hallowed halls of this holy trinity, all the court jesters have long since been purged or cowed into silence?

  “It’s dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.” 

  – Voltaire

  A quote that best sums up the thinking inside many of our public health institutions comes from Peter Daszak, head of EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit non-governmental organization that works closely with public health agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and intergovernmental organizations like the WHO (published in a 2016 report by the National Academy of Sciences):

  “Daszak reiterated that, until an infectious disease crisis is very real, present, and at an emergency threshold, it is often largely ignored. To sustain the funding base beyond the crisis, he said, we need to increase public understanding of the need for MCMs [medical counter measures] such as a pan-influenza or pan-coronavirus vaccine. A key driver is the media, and the economics follow the hype. We need to use that hype to our advantage to get to the real issues. Investors will respond if they see profit at the end of process, Daszak stated.” [Emphasis mine]

  In the presence of so much conflict of interest, in the absence of the checks and balances provided by individual rights, in the censorious atmosphere of cancel culture that has infected all our public institutions, and with so many institutional donors (private and governmental alike) being enamored with social-engineering projects and blinded by their own arrogance, it would perhaps be more surprising if this vaccine-fueled hysteria hadn’t happened. 

  In view of the circumstances, what happened almost seems inevitable. To the eyes of profit-hungry pharmaceuticals and funding-hungry national and international public health institutions, this virus must look like manna from heaven. They must feel like a fox that has been invited into the henhouse by ripe chickens that are begging to be plucked.

  

  History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme. What has emerged during COVID is simply a bigger, better, bolder replay of what happened during the 2009 swine flu hysteria. I’d like to share a few quotes with you – and keep in mind that these are about the 2009 Swine Flu scandal, not COVID:

  From a 2010 article entitled: European Parliament to Investigate WHO and “Pandemic” Scandal [Emphasis mine]:

  • “In his official statement to the Committee, Wodarg criticized the influence of the pharma industry on scientists and officials of [the] WHO, stating that it has led to the situation where “unnecessarily millions of healthy people are exposed to the risk of poorly tested vaccines,” and that, for a flu strain that is “vastly less harmful” than all previous flu epidemics.”

  • “For the first time, the WHO criteria for a pandemic was changed in April 2009 as the first Mexico cases were reported, to make not the actual risk of a disease but the number of cases of the disease [the] basis to declare “Pandemic.” By classifying the swine flu as [a] pandemic, nations were compelled to implement pandemic plans and also t[o] purchase swine flu vaccines.“

  And here are a series of even more revealing quotes from a 2010 report published by Der Spiegel called: Reconstruction of a Mass Hysteria — The Swine Flu Panic of 2009:

  • “Researchers in more than 130 laboratories in 102 countries are constantly on the lookout for new flu pathogens. Entire careers and institutions, and a lot of money, depend on the outcomes of their work. “Sometimes you get the feeling that there is a whole industry almost waiting for a pandemic to occur,” says flu expert Tom Jefferson, from an international health nonprofit called the Cochrane Collaboration. “And all it took was one of these influenza viruses to mutate to start the machine grinding.“

  • “Does this mean that a very mild course of the pandemic was not even considered from the start? At any rate, efforts to downplay the risks were unwelcome, and the WHO made it clear that it preferred to base its decisions on a worst-case scenario. “We wanted to overestimate rather than underestimate the situation,” says Fukuda [Keiji Fukuda was the Assistant Director-General for Health, Security and Environment for the WHO at that time].“

  • “The media also did its part in stoking fears. SPIEGEL, for example, had reported at length on the avian flu. Now it devoted a cover story to the new “global virus,” a story filled with concerns that the swine flu pathogen could mutate into a horrific virus.”

  • “The pharmaceutical industry was particularly adept at keeping this vision alive.”

  • “We expected a real pandemic, and we thought that it had to happen. There was no one who suggested re-thinking our approach.“

  • “the vast majority of experts on epidemics automatically associate the term “pandemic” with truly aggressive viruses. On the WHO Web site, the answer to the question “What is a pandemic?” included mention of “an enormous number of deaths and cases of the disease” — until May 4, 2009. That was when a CNN reporter pointed out the discrepancy between this description and the generally mild course of the swine flu. The language was promptly removed.”

  • “‘Sometimes some of us think that WHO stands for World Hysteria Organization,’ says Richard Schabas, the former chief medical officer for Canada’s Ontario Province.”

  • “A party with strong connections in Geneva had a strong interest in phase 6 being declared as quickly as possible: the pharmaceutical industry.”

  • “Meanwhile, a debate had erupted over whether Germany had chosen the wrong vaccine, Pandemrix [it was later found to have caused narcolepsy in some patients, which is an autoimmune disease]. It contained a new type of agent designed to boost its effectiveness, known as an adjuvant, which had never undergone large-scale human trials in connection with the swine flu antigen. Were millions of people about to receive a vaccine that had hardly been tested?”

  • “But the contracts for Pandemrix had been signed in 2007, and they came into effect automatically when the WHO decided to declare phase 6.”

  • “The ministers felt pressured from all sides. On the one hand, the media were stoking fears of the virus. The German tabloid newspaper Bild, in particular, was printing new tales of horror almost daily. On the other hand, the pharmaceutical companies were upping the pressure and constantly setting new ultimatums.”

  • “Oct. 9, 2009: Wolf-Dieter Ludwig, an oncologist and chairman of the Drug Commission of the German Medical Association , says: ‘The health authorities have fallen for a campaign by the pharmaceutical companies, which were plainly using a supposed threat to make money.’“

  • “Oct. 21, 2009: A BILD newspaper headline, printed in toxic yellow, warns: “Swine Flu Professor Fears 35,000 Dead in Germany !” The professor’s name is Adolf Windorfer, and when pressed, he admits that he has received payments from the industry, including GSK and Novartis. Next to the BILD headline is an ad for the German Association of Pharmaceutical Companies.”

  • “According to Wodarg, the WHO’s classification of the swine flu as a pandemic have earned the pharmaceutical companies $18 billion in additional revenues. Annual sales of Tamiflu alone have jumped 435 percent, to €2.2 billion.”

  Rinse and repeat in 2020-2021.

  What if, upon recognizing the emergence of a new pandemic, those in the know opportunistically made vaccines the endgame? What if all the vaccine injuries recorded on VAERS and all the risks they are taking with our lives are simply collateral damage – a calculated investment risk – in order to turn their dream of subscription-based “immunity as a service” into reality. 

  In the words of Bill Gates, “we kind of caught mRNA half way to prime time.” Maybe we should believe him — and gape in awe at the recklessness and contempt they have shown for their fellow citizens in order to capitalize on this “window of opportunity”. Carpe diem (seize the day). Don’t sweat the small stuff. Keep your eye on the ball… and on the year-end bonuses.

  What if COVID-Zero, in all its variations, was merely a strategy to herd us together so we obediently line up for an endless string of booster shots as a trade-off for access to our lives? 

  In other words, what if someone could bamboozle our leaders into believing that the only way back to a normal life is for vaccines to replace the role that hugs and handshakes used to play in order to update us with the latest antivirus security updates? 

  What if, by depriving us of normal life, those who stand to gain from vaccines can forever cement themselves at the center of society by providing an artificial replacement for what our immune systems used to do to protect us against common respiratory viruses back when we were still allowed to live normal lives? 

  The headlines tell the story:

  “Pfizer CEO says third Covid vaccine dose likely needed within 12 months.” (CNBC, April 15th, 2021)

  “Variants could be named after star constellations when Greek alphabet runs out, says WHO Covid chief.” (The Telegraph, August 7th, 2021)

  “Fauci warns Americans may face having booster shots indefinitely” (Daily Mail, August 13th, 2021, and Dr. Fauci in his own words on YouTube on August 12th, 2021)

  “Biden OKs booster shots 5 months after 2nd dose” (Boston Globe, August 27th, 2021)

  What if the fast mutation of RNA viruses ensures that no vaccine will ever be fully effective at providing lasting immunity, thus creating the illusion that we are permanently in need of vaccine boosters? 

  What if politicians could be convinced to make vaccination mandatory in order to prevent potential customers from opting out? 

  What if, by relying on lockdowns during the winter season, our vulnerability to other viruses increased, which could then be used to rationalize expanding the jab, via mission creep, to simultaneously vaccinate us against RSV, influenza, other coronaviruses, the common cold, and so on, despite knowing full well that the protection that these vaccines offer against respiratory viruses is only temporary?

  And what other social engineering goals can be rolled into your annual booster shot in the future once you are permanently bound to these annual jabs and vaccine passports? In an atmosphere of hysteria, it’s a system ripe for abuse by opportunists, ideologues, power hungry totalitarians, and Malthusian social engineers. The snowball doesn’t have to grow by design. Mission creep happens all on its own once Pandora’s Box is opened to coerced vaccinations and conditional rights. The road to Hell is frequently paved by good intentions… and hysteria. 

  So, what if COVID-Zero and the vaccine exit strategy is merely the global state-sanctioned equivalent of a drug dealer creating dependency among its customers to keep pushing more drugs? 

  What if it was all just a way of convincing society of the need for subscription-based “immunity as a service”? The subscription-based business model (or some version of it) is all the rage these days in the corporate world to create loyal captive audiences that generate reliable money streams, forever. Subscriptions are not just for your cable TV and gym membership anymore. Everything has been redesignated as a “consumable”. 

  • Netflix did it with movies.

  • Spotify did it with music.

  • Microsoft did it with its Office suite.

  • Adobe did it with Photoshop editing suite.

  • The smartphone industry did it with phones that need to be replaced every 3 to 5 years.

  • The gaming industry did it with video games.

  • Amazon is doing it with books (i.e. Kindle Unlimited).

  • The food industry is doing it with meal delivery services (i.e. Hello Fresh).

  • Uber is doing it with subscription-based ride sharing.

  • Coursera is doing it with online education.

  • Duolingo and Rosetta Stone are doing it with language learning.

  • Zoom is doing it with online meetings.

  • Monsanto and its peers did it to farmers with patented seed technology, which cannot legally be replanted, and is lobbying to try to legalize the use of terminator seed technology (GMO seeds that are sterile in the second generation to prevent replanting).

  • The healthcare industry is doing it with concierge medical services, fitness tracking apps (Fitbit), sleep-tracking apps, and meditation apps.

  • The investment industry is doing it with farmland, with investors owning the land and leasing it back to farmers in a kind of modern revival of the sharecropping system. (Bill Gates is the largest farmland owner in the USA – are you surprised?)

  • Blackrock and other investment firms are currently trying to do it with homes to create a permanent class of renters.

  • And public health authorities and vaccine makers have been trying to do it with flu vaccines for years, but we’ve been stubbornly uncooperative. Not anymore.

  Remember when the World Economic Forum predicted in 2016 that by 2030 all products would become services? And remember their infamous video in which they predicted that “You will own nothing. And you will be happy.”? Well, the future is here. This is what it looks like. The subscription-based economy. And apparently it now also includes your immune system in a trade-off for access to your life.

  

  Original video on Facebook, World Economic Forum, December 9th, 2016.

  Let’s revisit the Peter Daszak quote from earlier. A second read allows the message to really hit home:

  “Daszak reiterated that, until an infectious disease crisis is very real, present, and at an emergency threshold, it is often largely ignored. To sustain the funding base beyond the crisis, he said, we need to increase public understanding of the need for MCMs [medical counter measures] such as a pan-influenza or pan-coronavirus vaccine. A key driver is the media, and the economics follow the hype. We need to use that hype to our advantage to get to the real issues. Investors will respond if they see profit at the end of process, Daszak stated.“

  Isn’t it ironic that he didn’t even care which vaccine was pushed? Influenza or coronavirus, it made no difference. It was always about funding. It was always about the money. It always was. It always is.

  The holy trinity of pharmaceutical companies, public health, and international health organizations, all egging each other on in their hunger for a reliable flow of cash: shareholder profits, larger budgets, and governmental donations. Their interests are perfectly aligned and the lines between them are blurred to such a degree that each benefits from reinforcing one another’s best interests.

  And why would politicians and media bow to the holy trinity?

  Big Pharma spent an average of US$4.7 billion per year between 1999 and 2018 on lobbying and campaign contributions, just in the USA!  

  Big Pharma also shells out $US20 billion each year to schmooze doctors and another US$6 billion on drug ads, just in the USA! So, it’s no surprise why legacy media and Big Tech are tripping over themselves not to ruffle the party line — they live and die by the almighty advertising dollar. Never bite the hand that feeds you.

  So, they are all dancing to the same tune while your pocket gets picked and your arm gets pricked, and everyone wins… except you and me. We are the cow that gets milked. We are the serfs that fund their largesse in this neo-feudal society where a few big boys own the assets and everyone else is beholden to those above them in the hierarchy for access to, well, everything — land, resources, rights, individual autonomy, and even immune systems. My body, their choice.

  What if, in an atmosphere of runaway hysteria, a police state founded on medical tyranny is creating itself, fueled by a toxic brew of self-serving opportunists who have seized the moment to superimpose their own goals on a fortuitous virus, until one day you wake up to find yourself chained and milked, like a cow in a dairy barn, under the absolute custody of a modern-day Louis the Fourteenth and his royal court full of drug pushers, ideologues, and militant devotees? The modern face of feudalism, updated for the 21st century. Neo-feudalism, enforced by a mandatory subscription-based “immunity as a service”.

  And what if a society that has lost its principles, a society that is eager to hand over individual responsibility to “experts,” a society that is held hostage to cancel culture mobs, a society that no longer has transparency into the decisions made by its experts, a society led by a censorious political class full of immoral opportunists, a society that has fallen so in love with big government that red tape and cronyism have completely erased the self-limiting checks and balances of a free and open society, and a society that has elevated safety to a new sort of religious cult is a society that has no immunity to protect itself from predators who treat us like cattle?

  No period in history has ever lacked in snake-oil salesmen, ideologues, and social engineers eager to take society for a ride. Most of the time, they are ignored. So, what if the only real mystery is why society has grown so willing to accept the collar and yoke? 

  What if all this really is just as simple as that? 

  The Path Forward: Neutralizing the Threat and Bullet-Proofing Society to Prevent This Ever Happening Again.

  Now we know we’ve been played, how we’ve been played, and why we’ve been played. Again. Just like during the 2009 Swine Flu con. Only bigger, bolder, and better. They learned from their mistakes. We didn’t.

  But now that you see the con, you can’t unsee it. And now that you understand the threat and how the game is being played, there is a weight that comes off your shoulders. 

  When you know there’s a threat, but you don’t know exactly what it is, every movement in the grass might be a tiger or a snake or a scorpion. It’s paralysing and exhausting to defend yourself against an invisible unknown and they have used that fear masterfully against us to keep us frozen. But once you spot the tiger in the grass, you know where to direct your focus, your feet become unglued, your voice becomes bold, and you regain the clarity of thought to defend yourself.

  The con is clear. It’s time to focus all our might on stopping this runaway train before it takes us over the cliff into a police state of no return. Stand up. Speak out. Refuse to play along. Stopping this requires millions of voices with the courage to say NO — at work, at home, at school, at church, and out on the street. 

  “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis & foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

  Compliance is the glue that holds tyranny together. Non-compliance breaks it apart. One person alone cannot stop this. But if millions find the courage to raise their voices and the courage to refuse to participate in the system on these tyrannical medical terms, it will throw the system into such a crisis and create such a tension that the community will be forced to confront the issue. Without enough truckers, no-one eats. Without enough medical staff, hospitals close. Without enough workers, supply chains break. Without enough policemen, laws cannot be enforced. Without enough garbage collectors, cities grind to a halt. Without enough cashiers, box stores cannot stay open. Without enough administrators, institutions cease to function. Without enough staff, corporations lose profits. Without enough servers, restaurants cannot serve their customers. And without enough customers, businesses are brought to their knees. 

  Tyranny is not sustainable if the system grinds to a halt. Make it grind by being a thorn in everyone’s side until they give us back our freedoms and end this ridiculous charade. They are trying to impose vaccine passports and mandatory vaccinations. But we hold the cards… but only if we are bold enough to stand up even at the risk of finding ourselves standing alone. Courage begets courage. It was Martin Luther King’s secret power. It must be ours.

  Now that you see the con, you also know the simple recipe to make this virus go away before their reckless policies turn it a monster virus for real. Remember 1918. End the war on the virus. Let the young folks come out of the trenches. Let people go back to their lives. Provide focused protection for the vulnerable. That is how this virus fades into the history books. 

  It’s time to be bold. It’s time to call out the fraudsters. And it’s time to reclaim the habits, values, and principles that are required to fix our democratic and scientific institutions to prevent this from ever happening again. 

  Feudalism was one giant stinking cesspool of self-serving corruption. Individual rights, free markets, the democratic process, and limited government were the antidotes that freed humanity from that hierarchical servitude. It seems we have come full circle. The COVID con is a symptom, not the cause, of a broken system.

  Modern liberal democracy all around the world was inspired by the system of checks and balances that America’s Founding Fathers built to prevent government from being co-opted by the special interests of its leaders, institutions, corporations, and most influential citizens. The ink was barely dry when those principles began to be ignored by those with ever greater enthusiasm for an all-powerful referee to manage even the most intimate details of how everyone lives their lives. After two and a half centuries of effort the admirers of big government have achieved their heart’s desire. And what a glorious and rotten cesspool of self-serving corruption it is.

  But the principles laid out by America’s Founding Fathers remain as true today as the day they were written and are waiting to be rediscovered. If there is one culprit who deserves to shoulder more blame than any other for the fiasco of the last 18 months, it is society itself for allowing itself to fall prey to the siren song of big government, the illusion that there can ever be a benevolent, virtuous, and incorruptible referee. He who creates the red tape, he who has the keys to the treasury, he who wields the power of the tax collector, and he who commands those sent to enforce the laws will always have an entourage of self-serving charlatans, rent seekers, and parasites following him wherever he goes. So, keep his powers on a very short leash to keep other people’s hands off your money, your property, your freedom, and your body. You don’t need better leaders. You need less powerful institutions. That’s how you prevent this from ever happening again.

  Freedom of speech, individual rights, private property, individual ownership, competition, good faith debate, small government, minimal taxes, limited regulation, and free markets (the opposite of the crony capitalism we now suffer under), these are the checks and balances that bullet-proof a society against the soulless charlatans that fail upwards into positions of power in bloated government institutions and against the parasitic fraudsters that seek to attach themselves to the government’s teat. 

  Yes, we need a Great Reset. Just not the subscription-based version that the World Economic Forum imagined.

  

  “Just Say No to Drugs”

  “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” 

  – Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark #Commissions Earned

  *  *  *

  If you enjoyed this Deep Dive, please consider donating to my Tip Jar to support my independent writing.  And I invite you to subscribe to my free email notifications to receive my latest articles in your inbox. I write about many things, but always with the goal of answering questions essential to science and democracy, and always in the hope of teasing a broader perspective from the mind-numbing noise. Subscribe for free email notifications for new articles:

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/25/2021 – 00:00

• Visualizing The World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies
  Visualizing The World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies

  Some of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies have played a central role in the COVID-19 pandemic.

  However, it’s likely no surprise that the pandemic has also been great for many healthcare businesses. In fact, as Visual Capitalist’s Anshool Deshmukh notes, in 2020 alone, the world’s 50 largest pharmaceutical companies still combined for a whopping $851 billion in revenues.

  In this graphic, using data from Companies Market Cap, we list the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world by market capitalization. It’s worth noting this list also includes healthcare companies that work closely with pharmaceuticals, including biotech, pharmaceutical retailers, clinical laboratories, etc.

  

  Editor’s Note: A previous version of this graphic was missing some key companies such as GSK and AbbVie. They were unfortunately not included in the original source and we are now working to make sure there were no other smaller omissions. Thanks to all that sent in corrections.

  The Pharmaceutical Leaders

  To start, here are the top five biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world at the moment by market capitalization:

  1. Johnson & Johnson

  The pharmaceutical and consumer goods giant is worth $428.7 billion in market cap. They developed the third vaccine authorized for use in the U.S. and were named among the TIME100 Most Influential Companies List in 2021.

  2. Roche

  The Swiss pharmaceutical giant is at the forefront of oncology, immunology, infectious diseases, ophthalmology, and neuroscience. In 2019, Roche’s pharma segment sales rose by a healthy 16% to $53 billion.

  3. Pfizer

  Despite being the leading COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer in North America, Pfizer slid in the rankings to third place. The company has recently gained momentum, especially in the past quarter, with Q2’2021 revenues of $19.0 billion, reflecting a 86% operational growth from 2020.

  4. Eli Lilly

  Eli Lilly has taken a significant step towards establishing itself as a pharmaceutical industry leader. Having a market cap value of $125 billion in 2019, Eli Lilly has jumped to a current value of $214.9 billion, a significant growth of 72%.

  5. Novartis

  The second-biggest pharmaceutical company out of Switzerland, Novartis has been the face of the pharma industry for about 25 years. The primary manufacturer for the most recognizable drugs on the market pulled in a revenue of over $48 billion in 2020, a 3% increase compared to 2019.

  Here’s how all the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world stack up against each other:

  

   

  World’s Largest Pharmaceutical Exporters and Importers

   

  According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), these countries exported the most number of pharmaceuticals in the year 2019:

  

   

  In contrast, here are the biggest importers over the same period.

  

   

   

  This position is hardly surprising for the U.S., where six of the world’s top 10 pharmaceutical companies are headquartered. The country also captures 45% of the global market.

   

  The Future of Pharmaceutical Companies

  If the response to the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it is that in building a patient-centered future, the pharmaceutical industry plays a key role. It has to constantly find new ways to customize medicines while researching and developing new tools and drugs.

  By embracing disruptive technologies like 3D printed drugs, artificial intelligence guided therapies, and preventive medicine while working with regulatory agencies, the pharmaceutical companies will benefit from having a digital revolution.

  Furthermore, emerging markets will have a more significant say in the global pharmaceutical market in the coming years. Even though ‘big pharma’ will keep raking in the massive profits they do every year, their reliance on countries like Brazil and India for research and drug production will significantly impact the years to come.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 23:40

• Is China Using Wokeism To Erode American Democracy?
  Is China Using Wokeism To Erode American Democracy?

  Authored by Frank Fang and Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times,

  The communist regime in China is using “wokeism” as a geopolitical tool to undermine U.S. democracy, said Vivek Ramaswamy, author of “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam.”

  

  “They [China] are using that to divide us, to use that as a kink in our armor to divide us from within, by getting corporations to criticize injustice here, without saying a peep about injustice over there and deflecting accountability for their human rights abuses,” Ramaswamy said in a recent interview with EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders.”

  He said U.S. companies like NBA and Disney—who criticize social issues in the United States but remain silent on China’s human rights abuses such as those in Xinjiang—are in fact empowering communist China.

  In 2020, Disney drew heavy criticism when it was revealed that it filmed a live-action remake of “Mulan” in China’s far-western region of Xinjiang, where Beijing has locked up over 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in internment camps. Several governments including the United States have characterized China’s oppression in Xinjiang as “genocide.”

  The NBA was in hot water in 2019 after Houston Rockets then-general manager Daryl Morey voiced support for Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters in a Twitter post. The Chinese regime, which cast the protesters as “rioters,” suspended airing NBA games in retaliation, while Chinese companies cut ties with the league.

  In an apologetic statement, the NBA said Morey’s tweet was “regrettable” and “deeply offended many of our friends and fans in China.” However, the league did not bow to Chinese pressure to discipline or fire Morey.

  “What that has the effect of doing is creating a false moral equivalence between the United States and China,” he explained.

  He added:

  “And that actually erodes our greatest geopolitical asset of all, that is not our nuclear arsenal, it is our moral standing on the global stage.”

  Meanwhile, the Chinese regime has been “rolling out the red carpet” for companies that criticized injustice in the United States, Ramaswamy said. For example, he pointed to U.S. online lodging platform Airbnb, which has voiced support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

  Ramaswamy argued that Airbnb paid “a dirty bribe” to Beijing when it shared its guest data with Chinese authorities in exchange for being able to do business in China.

  In March, over 190 global campaign groups wrote an open letter to Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, asking the firm to withdraw its support for the 2022 Winter Olympics in China’s capital Beijing because of the communist regime’s horrific human rights records.

  “Airbnb should not be encouraging a wider tourist industry to be supported and allowed to flourish at the expense of Uyghur and Tibetan rights,” the groups wrote.

  Airbnb, who inked a partnership with the International Olympic Committee in 2019, is one of the organization’s 15 leading sponsors.

  Ramaswamy said, “The way in which they [China] have turned our own companies into Trojan horses to undermine us from within is the flip side of the modern Battle of Troy. They’ve sent the Trojan horse in.”

  The modern-day wokeism, which Ramaswamy characterized as a “culture of self-criticism,” has borne resemblance to old school Chinese communist politics, as well as former Chinese leader Mao Zedong’s Red Guards, he explained.

  “This is a time of effectively living in a modern Red Guard revolution in America, except instead of the Chinese Red Guard pushing the philosophy of Marxism, the new Red Guard is pushing it through all of our major institutions, from the private sector to the public, they are pushing this new philosophy of wokeism,” he said.

  He added: “Someone inside needed to sound the alarm bell.”

  Mao instigated the Red Guards, who were Chinese high school and university students, to persecute those identified as “class enemies” of the communist regime, amid the Cultural Revolution that lasted 10 years until Mao’s death in 1976.

  Ramaswamy warned that “American greatness” would be coming to an end if Americans weren’t able to reverse the trend.

  He explained, “[We need to] harness and rediscover our own culture of excellence, our own culture of the unapologetic pursuit of excellence through our system of free enterprise, and through our democracy in ways that require seeing past the superficial demands of the woke movement.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 23:20

• Mysterious Stealth Boat In Mississippi Boatyard Linked To Special Forces Program
  Mysterious Stealth Boat In Mississippi Boatyard Linked To Special Forces Program

  A picture of a mysterious stealth boat has surfaced on social media. The catamaran was spotted in a boatyard in Gulfport, Mississippi, known for the high-tech manufacturing of vessels for US special forces.

  Defense analyst for USNI News, H I Sutton, geolocated the stealth boat, which appears to be in construction at US Marine Inc (USMI) on the river Bernard Bayou. He said USMI has a long history of “building high-specification riverine and inshore special forces vessels.”

  

  “One of their major customers has been USSOCOM, including Naval Special Warfare (NSW) which contains the US Navy SEALs. USMI previously supplied the SEALs with High-Speed Boats (HSB) and the better known Mk.V Special Operations Craft,” Sutton continued. 

  USMI was recently awarded a $108,000,000 contract to build USSOCOM Combatant Craft Assault (CCA) vessels. He said, “the new catamaran shares some major features with the CCA.” 

  

  Sutton said there were no definites about the customer of the mysterious stealth vessel, adding, “it may be a speculative build, or for export. Or that it fulfills a sensitive requirement for the US Navy.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 23:00

• US Air Force Official: China Might 'Strike From Space'
  US Air Force Official: China Might ‘Strike From Space’

  Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

  As Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has said before, his priorities are “China, China, and China.” His keynote address at the Air Force Association Air, Space & Cyber Conference continued that trend, talking up the possibility of space warfare against China.

  Kendall warned China has the potential to “actually put weapons in space,” and likening the situation to the Cold War. He further warned China might be able to make attacks effectively undetectable for early warning systems.

  

  This is almost a perfect, tailor-made talking point for the US military, as it facilitates potentially endless spending on space warfare simply to counter what China might do. This was the whole justification for the US Space Force, and its appetite for wildly expensive weapons systems of dubious use, in the first place.

  “​​There is a potential for weapons to be launched into space, then go through this old concept from the Cold War called the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System,” Kendall warned the conference, “which is a system that basically goes into orbit and then de-orbits to a target.”

  Space Operations Chief Gen. John Raymond has been talking up the growing capabilities of China to deny America access to space, vowing “we can’t let that happen,” and saying the US must be prepared for this fight.

  It’s not clear why the US military is so convinced China wants to either fight America in space or try to deny them access to space. Either way, the officials agree that the answer is expensive preparedness and amassing weapons for the presumptive battle.

  “We are being more effectively challenged militarily than at any other time in our history.”@USAirForce Secretary Frank Kendall warned about #China’s increasing military threats, including those from space. https://t.co/UWIZvnNNel

  — The Epoch Times – China Insider (@EpochTimesChina) September 22, 2021

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

  As with the Cold War, this could go on more or less forever, or until one side just runs out of money.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 22:40

• Renewables Not So Reliable As US Hydropower Plunges 14%
  Renewables Not So Reliable As US Hydropower Plunges 14%

  The transition away from hydrocarbons is not a seamless as many hope. The latest data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows a significant decline this year in hydropower generation amid historic droughts. 

  

  The magical thinking about renewable energy and President Biden’s calls for the U.S. power grid to be 100% clean by 2035 is a pipe dream. 

  The problem with renewable energy is sustainability. California and states in the Pacific Northwest have found out that out the hard way this summer as droughts and back-to-back heat waves have led to a plunge in hydropower capacity. The region produces a bulk of U.S. hydropower capacity. 

  EIA estimates U.S. hydropower plants will be 14% lower in 2021 than it was in 2020. Hydropower generation in the Northwest, which includes the Columbia River Basin and parts of other Rocky Mountain states, is expected to be 12% lower than the prior year. Hydropower generation in California will be down a shocking 49% in 2021 than in 2020.

  

  The dry conditions have reduced water levels across large parts of the Columbia River Basin this summer, drought emergencies were declared in counties across Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Some reservoirs in California halted hydropower generation due to declining water levels. 

  Between March and April, hydropower generation in Washington and Oregon was 10% below the 10-year range. Over the summer, hydropower generation in these states moved back within range. But in California, hydropower generation stayed below the 10-year range as the Edward Hyatt Power Plant at Lake Oroville went offline due to low water levels last month. 

  

  This summer, California’s energy challenges show the state’s aggressive push to slash carbon emissions by shifting to renewable energy has its disadvantages. The state’s top grid operator, California Independent System Operator (CAISO), requested and was granted an emergency measure by the federal government to fire up natural gas generation plants to prevent blackouts amid the loss of some renewable energy sources. 

  Maybe it’s time for California to admit their “green” push has been a complete disaster, and the transition is not going to be as seamless as once thought. But wait, they already have:

  • CAISO admitted in August that “significant swings in wind resource output” resulted in the grid operator to “shed load to maintain system reliability.” 
  • California’s government acknowledged in a recent bond offering that greenifying the economy could put the grid at risk. 

  The short-term strategy for California has been to fire up fossil fuel generation plants as renewable energy sources become unreliable. This is just one ugly truth about renewable power the progressives don’t want you to hear. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 22:20

• Black Lives Matter NYC Leader Promises "Uprising" Against City's "Racist" Vaccine Passports
  Black Lives Matter NYC Leader Promises “Uprising” Against City’s “Racist” Vaccine Passports

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

  One of the leaders of a Black Lives Matter group in New York City promised an “uprising” against the city’s COVID-19 vaccine passports, decrying the system as racist.

  

  According to data provided by New York state, about 85 percent of black residents have not received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Data provided by New York City shows that 64 percent of black people between the ages of 18 and 44 are not fully vaccinated while 56 percent have received one shot.

  

  Hawk Newsome, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York, told the Washington Examiner that “I think, in a perfect world, [vaccine requirements] should be business by business. But it could be a slippery slope, so the mandate should be removed completely.”

  He added: “It’s not gonna be white men in suits on Wall Street who are gonna get stopped. There’s such hypocrisy in this thing.”

  Newsome said he believes that black Americans “have a natural distrust of the vaccine,” citing the Tuskegee Syphilis Study in the 20th century for a reason why.

  “How dare they remove religious exemptions? It’s the most disrespectful thing I’ve ever seen,” Newsome said, adding that he believes that most vaccine mandates don’t allow religious exemption.

  “Now the government has decided your God doesn’t matter? I love God.”

  New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, argued in a court filing this week that the state has no constitutional obligation to grant religious exemptions to COVID-19 vaccines for healthcare workers. Religious exemptions to the vaccines most commonly center on objections on how aborted fetal cells were used in the manufacturing and testing process. Medical exemptions usually include a doctor’s recommendation that a person not get the vaccine due to an underlying medical condition.

  The Epoch Times has contacted Black Lives Matter of Greater New York for additional comment.

  Another member of the group promised an “uprising” in New York City over the vaccine mandate.

  “We’re putting this city on notice that your mandate will not be another racist social distance practice,” Chivona Newsome, a leader of the group, told fellow protesters during a demonstration in Manhattan in front of Carmine’s restaurant on Monday.

  “Black people are not going to stand by, or you will see another uprising. And that is not a threat. That is a promise.”

  “The vaccination passport is not a free passport to racism,” she added.

  Black Lives Matter activists had accused Carmine’s of racially profiling three black women from Texas, who were arrested last week after a hostess allegedly demanded vaccination proof.

  A lawyer for Carmine’s denied their allegations.

  “Any claim that they were racially profiled is a complete fabrication, disingenuous, and outright irresponsible,” Carolyn Richmond, the attorney for the restaurant, told the New York Daily News.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 22:00

• Texas National Guard Urges Members To Volunteer Amid Border Crisis
  Texas National Guard Urges Members To Volunteer Amid Border Crisis

  The Texas Military Department seeks Guardsmen who are willing to volunteer their time to defend the Lone Star State amid the “unprecedented” migrant crisis along the Texas-Mexico border. 

  The Texas Military Department stated, “new full-time positions” are available for the Operation Lone Star border support mission. “Volunteers must be medically and administratively deployable and members of the Texas Military Department,” it said. 

  “We are still looking for Texas Guardsmen to support Operation Lone Star. Please help us stop human trafficking, smuggling, and illegal border crossings while we are securing texas. Lodging and per diem included,” the department’s Twitter said. 

  We are still looking for Texas Guardsmen to support Operation Lone Star. Please help us stop human trafficking, smuggling, and illegal border crossings while we are #securingtexas
  Lodging and per diem included.

  Click here for more information https://t.co/F3itNkXZar pic.twitter.com/bUZuZ6uc2S

  — Texas Military Dept (@TXMilitary) September 23, 2021

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

  Operation Lonestar “integrates Texas Department of Public Safety with the Texas National Guard and deploys air, ground, marine, and tactical border security assets to high threat areas to deny Mexican Cartels and other smugglers the ability to move drugs and people into Texas,” according to the Office of Governor Greg Abbott.

  Abbot joined Fox News’ Hannity Thursday to discuss the border crisis. He said his state took “unprecedented action” to secure the border amid the flow of at least 15,000 migrants who ended up under a Texas bridge earlier this week. 

  Texans ― & all Americans ― demand & deserve a secure southern border & the protection of our nation’s sovereignty.

  We know Biden isn’t going to do it.

  So, Texas will continue to take unprecedented action to secure the border. pic.twitter.com/VR7lk968ZL

  — Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) September 24, 2021

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  Days later, the Biden administration finally took action and forced thousands of Haitian migrants back to their own county despite political turmoil after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise and the most recent earthquake. 

  Scenes from the border in the last few weeks have been shocking as the Biden administration looked the other way. Even a Democratic judge in Texas bashed Biden for the handling of the crisis and said the president is the root cause of the problem.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 21:40

• What's Really Going On In China
  What’s Really Going On In China

  Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

  Losses will be taken and sacrifices enforced on those who don’t understand the Chinese state will no longer absorb the losses of speculative excess.

  Let’s start by stipulating that no one outside President Xi’s inner circle really knows what’s going on in China, and so my comments here are systemic observations, not claims of insider knowledge.

  Many western observers have noted the centrality of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist doctrine in President Xi’s writings. This is somewhat akin to invoking America’s Founding Fathers to support one’s current policies: if you’re trying to modify state policy in China, you have to explain it in the context of the Chinese Communist Party’s history and doctrines. Never mind if the ideals were not met; what’s important is establishing continuity and resonance with the history of China, the core doctrines of Chinese Communism and the CCP’s leadership based on those doctrines.

  That said, we should be careful not to read too much into doctrinal evocations such as common prosperity, which are useful conceptual anchors and slogans but not the full story.

  What’s actually happening in China isn’t Marxist or Capitalist–it’s plain old non-ideological human greed, hubris and magical thinking manifesting as moral hazard running amok.. Moral hazard— the separation of risk and consequence, as speculators make increasingly risky bets because they know any losses will be covered by the state–is effectively the new State Religion in China: everyone is absolutely confident that every punter, especially all the rich, powerful, well-connected speculators–will be bailed out by the central government.

  Greed knows no bounds when a speculator is insulated from risk, for people have an insatiable appetite for risky bets when the gains will be theirs to keep but any losses will be covered by the government.

  This is the fundamental story of Evergrande: the implicit backstop of the Chinese government enabled near-infinite moral hazard which then fueled an explosion of debt-funded speculation with essentially zero connection to real-world risks, sales, return on capital, etc.

  Both the U.S. and China have been a utopian Paradises of moral hazard for the past 30 years. In the U.S., the Federal Reserve would bail out any losses / declines in the debt-asset bubble orgy.

  In China, the implicit policy was that the structural losses in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and the speculative excesses of rapid development would be tolerated as long as real growth in employment, wages, profits and lifestyles was strong. Creating vast amounts of debt-money was necessary to support growth, and that it also supported speculative excesses was accepted as part of the price of explosive progress, much like environmental damage.

  After 30 years, the equation in China has changed: debt in the official banking sector and in the informal shadow-banking sector has soared along with purely speculative excesses while “good growth” has stagnated. That’s the problem with incentivizing moral hazard: the profits from speculation, corruption and fraud far outweigh the puny profits earned by legitimate enterprises. So where do you put the borrowed billions? In Evergrande and other conglomerates of speculation.

  Something else changed in 30 years of rapid development: inequality skyrocketed, and since inequality and corruption are mutually-reinforcing, corruption also reached new heights as inequality skyrocketed.

  A third factor emerged after 30 years of touting technology and speculation: the power of Chinese Big Tech and financiers began encroaching on the control of the Communist Party.

  All three factors inflated a debt-asset-speculative bubble of profound proportions, and President Xi grasped what the clueless Federal Reserve and other western central banks have not: Either pop the bubble when you still have some control over it or let it expand and pop when you’ve lost all control.

  

  In systems terms, when risk and fragility reach unstable levels in tightly-bound systems, there’s no controlling the supernova-like implosion of the system.

  Xi observed the skyrocketing power of Big Tech, moral-hazard-incentivized financiers and cryptocurrencies and concluded that the state must move decisively to crush these rivals, regardless of cost. This separates China from the American state, which is incapable of enforcing any sacrifices, limits or costs on the parasitic elite which dominates its economy and political order.

  Xi saw the danger of Big Tech and financiers being able to buy whatever influence they needed from corrupt CCP and state officials, and he realized that this is the crucial moment in history: either crush Big Tech and the financiers / speculators or risk losing control to their interests.

  Control is something the CCP and Xi want to retain, regardless of the cost to the nouveaux riche, the parasitic elites, the aspirational middle class and even the Party regulars who have supped too often and too gloriously at the corruption / moral hazard trough.

  Losses will be taken and sacrifices enforced on those who don’t understand the Chinese state will no longer absorb the losses of speculative excess. Those who don’t understand the reign of parasitic private-sector elites and excessively corrupt party officials in China is over might profitably ponder this Chinese proverb: “Whoever gets mixed up with garbage will be eaten by pigs.”

  *  *  *

  If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

  My recent books:

  A Hacker’s Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF).

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  The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake $1.29 (Kindle), $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

  Money and Work Unchained $6.95 (Kindle), $15 (print) Read the first section for free (PDF).

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 21:20

• Personal Tracking Devices Moving Toward A "Dangerous" New Era
  Personal Tracking Devices Moving Toward A “Dangerous” New Era

  Tracking devices can sometimes be useful: you can attach one to your phone or wallet and know where it is at all times, for example.

  But the Bluetooth and ultra-wideband (UWB) tracking devices are moving towards a “dangerous new era”, according to a new writeup by Android Authority. 

  The devices are getting so small, prominent and widely available that risks of both stalking and general surveillance using them can no longer be ignored, the piece argues. 

  It calls stalking the “biggest and most obvious threat”. It can happen when a tracker, usually a thin tile-like piece of plastic, gets slipped into someone’s bag, vehicle or clothing, tracking them everywhere they go. 

  One such instance of stalking took place in 2018 when  a woman in Houston said she found a Tile planted inside the console of her car, which her ex was using to follow her. The ex was charged with a misdemeanor as a result.

  Even overaggressive parents could take advantage of the trackers, the article argues: “An abusive husband could use trackers to follow their spouse to a shelter or the police. An overprotective mother could prevent their child from going anywhere but home or school.”

  

  Surveillance is another way trackers can be abused. Android Authority writes:

  The more items a person tracks through first- or third-party apps, the more comprehensive surveillance can theoretically become. Let’s say you have a tracker on your backpack or laptop. If your phone and the tracker leave for a specific place every morning, it’s not hard to guess that the origin is your home, and the destination is an office or worksite. Placing another tracker on a TV remote immediately confirms your home location, and if you’re monitoring headphones or a personal electric vehicle, hackers can pick out some of your favorite haunts, like parks or the gym.

  Hacking into a phone could even allow an attacker to figure out where in a building devices are kept, or where a specific person sits and sleeps, the report says: “In the wrong hands, this data could be used to plan burglaries or even murders.”

  Tracking apps could eventually even become the target of ransomware attackers, the piece suggests. And, with everything from shoes to cars in the future moving toward being trackable, you may not even know when or how you’re being watched. 

  Finally, the idea of government intrusion using such apps and trackers also becomes an obvious cautionary point. “More trackers translate into more data points for surveillance and suppressing dissent,” the piece concludes.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 21:00

• Los Angeles Homeless Moving Back Onto Street After Cleanups
  Los Angeles Homeless Moving Back Onto Street After Cleanups

  Authored by Micaela Ricaforte via The Epoch Times,

  This month, Los Angeles resumed its CARE Plus homeless encampment cleanups in the city. Some Angelenos welcome the cleanups, saying it improves the quality and safety of their neighborhoods, while others are concerned about the unhoused who are left scrambling after their belongings are often completely thrown out by the city.

  

  Earlier this year, the city council voted to resume the cleanups, which require the homeless to take down their tents so the Los Angeles Sanitation Department can sweep and wash the streets and remove trash and waste from the area, beginning on Sept. 1.

  Peggy Lee Kennedy of Venice Justice and Service Not Sweeps told The Epoch Times previously that the CARE Plus cleanup crews put aside some of the people’s belongings in bins, but that other belongings are often destroyed by the crew.

  “The [cleanup crew] put the police tape up, and they really just went at it and started destroying everything with very minimal going through belongings,” Kennedy said.

  “They had, I guess for these four blue tubs that they stored people’s belongings in, but [everyone’s belongings were mixed up]. And a front loader was pushing things and sort of crushing them, and then a crane picked everything up and threw it in the trash truck—full tents and everything.”

  

  A homeless encampment in Venice Beach, Calif., on June 8, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

  Julian von Loesch, founder of activist organization Sidewalk Society, decided to rent a U-Haul truck to help the unhoused store their larger belongings during the encampment cleanups. On Sept. 16, photojournalist Fabian Lewkowicz posted a video of von Loesch helping a homeless person unpack their things from the U-Haul truck after an encampment cleanup on Hampton Drive in Los Angeles.

  Lewkowitz told The Epoch Times that he saw von Loesch help people in the encampment load up their belongings into the U-Haul earlier that day before the city’s scheduled CARE Plus cleanup. After the cleanup, von Loesch and others helped people unpack their belongings.

  In the video, von Loesch said that part of what he’s trying to do is help people in encampments downsize.

  “A lot of people have lost a lot of stuff,” von Loesch said.

  “I want to transition people slowly. So what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to reduce this as much as possible … smaller tents less stuff, less clutter … The problem is, people have too much stuff, so it looks ugly.”

  Von Loesch said his organization was trying to “help people raise money for nice tents and [have] less stuff.”

  “So far what’s happening is a lot of money is being spent on the cleanups but like three hours later, the same [expletive] is there again,” he said.

  “So, slowly, we’re gonna raise money so we can get people whatever they need, housing, and save [lots of] dollars in taxpayer money.”

  

  Tents line the sidewalks on Skid Row, in Los Angeles on Sept. 6, 2011. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

  The video led to outrage among some Venice Beach residents who expressed frustration that the encampments just returned after the cleanups – with some calling it “illegal dumping.”

  “[Von Loesch] isn’t helping anyone by moving them on the sidewalk. He is actually setting them up for their slow demise, especially if he is moving them into one of these large encampments,” resident James Baum commented on the video, which was also posted on the Venice Community Facebook page.

  “He is moving items onto a sidewalk in an encampment, which is technically illegal dumping. He says he is trying to make it so there is less clutter but in reality, he is doing the exact opposite.”

  Resident Rick Swinger, who advocates against illegal dumping in Los Angeles, said on his Facebook page, Stop Illegal Dumping, that von Loesch was “ignoring the facts that unregulated camping leads to pollution, rodent infestation, diseases and used bloody needles on our beach putting everybody in harm’s way especially our children playing in the sand.”

  Van Loesch didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 20:40

• China Is Responsible For More Than A Third Of World GDP Growth – This Is A Problem
  China Is Responsible For More Than A Third Of World GDP Growth – This Is A Problem

  As Deutsche Bank’s FX strategist George Saravelos writes in a recent research report he has been “on the pessimistic side of the reflation narrative for some time now.”

  In the note titled “three charts for pessimists”, he admits that there are many more things happening to the global economy than easy fiscal and monetary policy, including a large negative supply-shock, in turn leading to sizeable demand destruction; stronger than expected precautionary saving behavior from consumers pushing down r*; and massive structural economic change on the back of COVID-led digitization across multiple sectors. And now we have to add China to the mix.

  His first chart below highlights a simple observation: China has been acting as a massive global growth turbocharge since the start of the century, and is responsible for more than a third of world GDP growth. As Saravelos gloomily notes, “systemic risks of the unfolding property developer crisis aside, if the last few months experience are signaling a regime break in Chinese tolerance for what authorities have termed “low quality” growth, the world should take notice.”

  

  Back to the developed world, Saravelos’ second chart shows there is still a massive hole in the UK labor market. Total hours worked are a whopping near-10% below trend compared to pre-COVID. Yet the market is now fully pricing a Bank of England rate hike early next year. For sure, wages are rising, but as a recent IFS study showed there are still massive disruptions in the UK labor market. It will take a brave central bank to hike in to such a hole. Even if it does, it is hardly positive for the currency.

  

  Finally, there are two parallel universes. The global goods sector is overheated. Look no further than US consumption, which is half a trillion dollars above trend. But the US services sector is twice as large and half a trillion below trend. The analytical value of aggregate GDP metrics is severely lessened in the presence of such massive sectoral dislocations. In recent months, the goods sector has started decelerating faster than the services sector has quickened. How the consumer rebalances spending in coming months will be very important.

  

  We are only at the very beginning of trying to understand the true post-COVID steady state, it will be a long ride.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 20:20

• Ignored Warnings, Deferred Maintenance Caused Michigan Dams To Collapse
  Ignored Warnings, Deferred Maintenance Caused Michigan Dams To Collapse

  By Julie Strupp of ConstructionDive,

  Following the rare and dramatic collapse of the Edenville and Sanford dams in Midland County, Michigan, in May 2020 that forced 10,000 residents to evacuate, a newly released preliminary report sheds light into why they failed, and offers safety lessons for other aging, earthen infrastructure. 

  

  The independent investigation from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) covers the physical mechanisms involved in the accident but doesn’t place blame; a final report expected in several months will delve into human factors. 

  The report says poor construction and ignored upkeep, combined with intense rainfall, were the primary causes of the failure. Experts previously assumed that only an earthquake could cause a dam embankment to liquify the way it did in Edenville.

  A series of failures

  On May 19, 2020, water poured into the Wixom Lake reservoir, filling it to a record high. This waterlogged the dam’s embankment, which caused it to liquify and collapse, per the report. This overwhelmed the downstream Sanford Dam, causing it to fail as well. The problems started long before that day though: The two dams were built in the 1920s, but a key embankment wasn’t compacted the way it was supposed to be, setting it up for failure about 100 years later.

  Boyce Hydro bought the Edenville, Sanford, and two other central Michigan dams as tax shelters in 2006 and owned them at the time of the collapse, Bridge Michigan reported. 

  After the company failed for decades to repair spillways that are supposed to prevent flooding, the FERC revoked the license to generate power for the Edenville dam a year and a half before the accident. The Sanford Dam was an active hydroelectric facility at the time of the incident.

  A 2012 report by Boyce says that the company knew since at least 2012 that the section of the dam that failed lacked the tile drains that were supposed to line the entire bottom, leaving that soil vulnerable to saturation. The company disputes it is to blame. It also argues area landowners and federal regulators are responsible for rules that made it unable to preemptively drain the lake to make room for the additional rainwater.

  Other dams at risk

  While the liquification seen at Edenville is rare, dam failure is unfortunately not unique: The 2017 Oroville Dam incident in California forced 180,000 people to evacuate, and in 2019 the Spencer Dam failure in Nebraska killed one person. Both failures were also sparked by heavy rain.

  The Michigan dam failures caused about $175 million in damage to homes and buildings and left two lake beds empty. Victims of the incident are suing Boyce Hydro (as well as state and federal regulators) but the company has filed for bankruptcy, thus plaintiffs are unlikely to receive much compensation from it.

  Experts don’t know exactly how many U.S. dams might have the same issues as Edenville, said Mark Ogden, technical specialist for the Association of State Dam Safety Officials, and information is sparse about the many dams that were constructed a century ago.

  “We know there are likely about 4,000 high hazard-potential dams that have an assessment rating of poor or are not rated, and it’s likely that a good percentage of those require some remedial action,” Ogden said. “The need for action to get these dams upgraded and improved is really significant.”

  More than half of dams are privately owned, and lack of upkeep is sometimes an issue, according to Ogden. Plus, climate change-related extreme weather will put increasing stress on aging dams in coming years, and could cause more breakdowns unless remedial measures are taken, he said.

  Policy, engineering remedies

  Going forward, engineers will look for lessons from the incident, according to Ogden. 

  “Any time we see a failure or incident at a dam, it’s really important to investigate… I think that we will see that dam owners will look at these types of dams and will make decisions based on this new info to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” said Ogden. “There are definitely dams out there in a similar situation [as Edenville], and hopefully dam owners and regulators and others in the dam safety field can work together.”

  One of the issues with preventing dam failures is that there isn’t enough funding for inspections and upkeep, according to Ogden. The Twenty-First Century Dams Act, introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) in July, would provide $21.1 billion to rehabilitate, retrofit and remove dams as needed, as well as to fund inspections and state safety programs. States regulate about 70% of dams in the U.S.

  “Many dam safety programs are terribly under-resourced,” Ogden said. “[The 21st Century Dam Act] is an important piece of legislation that could help in terms of improving the safety of dams.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 20:00

• China Should Alter Nuclear "No First Strike Policy" To Counter US Pressure: Ex-Diplomat
  China Should Alter Nuclear “No First Strike Policy” To Counter US Pressure: Ex-Diplomat

  The AUKUS pact that was revealed last week to the shock and dispmay of France and the EU, which will involve the US transferring nuclear submarine technology to Australia, has resulted in continued nuclear jawboning out of China this week.

  First, as we detailed earlier in the week a Chinese state-linked analyst and expert announced to “23 million Australians” in a prime time interview with an Aussie national broadcaster that “Australia will lose that privilege of not being targeted with nuclear weapons by other countries” – as Victor Gao put it to the stunned interviewer. 

  Following these comments, former diplomat Sha Zukang – who previously served as the longtime Chinese ambassador for disarmament affairs to the UN – told a conference in Beijing on Thursday that China should review its “no first strike policy” in the wake of recent developments. 

  

  The speech, which was first reported in the South China Morning Post, called for China’s leadership to “fine tune” its nuclear policy as a counterweight to the ongoing pressure campaign coming from Washington and its allies in the Indo-Pacific. It follows Chinese officials denouncing plans for the US to deliver at least eight nuclear-powered subs to Australia.

  While Beijing is accusing Australia of reneging on its commitment to a nuclear free zone, particularly calling it out as a violation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), Canberra officials are differentiating nuclear-powered technology from the deployment of nuclear arms.

  Here’s what the influential and now retired ambassador Zukang said in part in his remarks:

  “The strategic pressure on China is intensifying as [the US] has built new military alliances and as it increases its military presence in our neighborhood,” he said.

  For the most part, Sha clarified that China ought to keep its “no first strike policy” for most countries, but may start thinking differently for the US. The policy, Sha said, may not apply between China and the US unless the two nations “negotiate a mutual understanding on no first use of nuclear weapons, or unless the US ceases to take any negative measures that undermine the effectiveness of China’s strategic forces.”

  

  So while suggesting the menacing prospect of a dramatic reversal of its current no first strike policy for some countries, it appears Zukang is arguing a reversal or at least tweaking of China’s stance would inevitably hasten a future nuke treaty with the US, though which in reality would obviously remain a huge gamble in terms of removing a key barrier to the prospect of nuclear confrontation. 

  Also recall, ironically enough, that this is happening as China lobbies Australia to support its entry into the CPTPP trade partnership – which would of course help Beijing prop up those soon-to-be-needed-even-more trade surpluses, structurally.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 19:40

• Heckler's Veto: 66% Of College Students Say Stopping Speech Is Free Speech
  Heckler’s Veto: 66% Of College Students Say Stopping Speech Is Free Speech

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  We have previously discussed the worrisome signs of a rising generation of censors in the country as leaders and writers embrace censorship and blacklisting. The latest chilling poll was released by 2021 College Free Speech Rankings after questioning a huge body of 37,000 students at 159 top-ranked U.S. colleges and universities. It found that sixty-six percent of college students think shouting down a speaker to stop them from speaking is a legitimate form of free speech.  Another 23 percent believe violence can be used to cancel a speech. That is roughly one out of four supporting violence.

  

  Faculty and editors are now actively supporting modern versions of book-burning with blacklists and bans for those with opposing political views. Others are supporting actual book burning. Columbia Journalism School Dean Steve Coll has denounced the “weaponization” of free speech, which appears to be the use of free speech by those on the right. So the dean of one of the premier journalism schools now supports censorship.Free speech advocates are facing a generational shift that is now being reflected in our law schools, where free speech principles were once a touchstone of the rule of law. As millions of students are taught that free speech is a threat and that “China is right” about censorship, these figures are shaping a new society in their own intolerant images.

  The most chilling aspect of this story is how many on left applaud such censorship. A prior poll shows roughly half of the public supporting not just corporate censorship but government censorship of anything deemed “misinformation.” Perhaps the same citizens and academics will embrace the Chinese model on social scoring and praise actions that the reported move by Chase bank.

  We discussed this issue recently with regard to a lawsuit against SUNY. It is also discussed in my forthcoming law review article, Jonathan Turley, Harm and Hegemony: The Decline of Free Speech in the United States, 45 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy (2021).

  This has been an issue of contention with some academics who believe that free speech includes the right to silence others.  Berkeley has been the focus of much concern over the use of a heckler’s veto on our campuses as violent protesters have succeeded in silencing speakers, even including a few speakers like an ACLU official.  Both students and some faculty have maintained the position that they have a right to silence those with whom they disagree and even student newspapers have declared opposing speech to be outside of the protections of free speech.  At another University of California campus, professors actually rallied around a professor who physically assaulted pro-life advocates and tore down their display.  In the meantime, academics and deans have said that there is no free speech protection for offensive or “disingenuous” speech.  CUNY Law Dean Mary Lu Bilek showed how far this trend has gone. When conservative law professor Josh Blackman was stopped from speaking about “the importance of free speech,”  Bilek insisted that disrupting the speech on free speech was free speech. (Bilek later cancelled herself and resigned after she made a single analogy to acting like a “slaveholder” as a self-criticism for failing to achieve equity and reparations for black faculty and students).

  We previously discussed the case of Fresno State University Public Health Professor Dr. Gregory Thatcher recruited students to destroy pro-life messages written on the sidewalks and wrongly told the pro-life students that they had no free speech rights in the matter.  A district court has now ordered Thatcher to pay $17,000 and undergo First Amendment training.  However, Thatcher remained defiant and the university appeared complicit in his actions by the lack of disciplinary action.

  The pro-life students had written messages on the sidewalk like “You CAN be pregnant & successful” and “Unborn lives matter” to “Women need love, NOT abortion.”  Thatcher got students from his 8 a.m. class to help remove the anti-abortion messages and that their chalk was taken away to write pro-choice slogans on the sidewalk. The students seem entirely unconcerned that they are censoring speech and engaging in a grossly intolerant act.  Instead, they refer to their teacher as telling them that they should do so.  Thatcher then walked up.    Thatcher invoked the controversial restriction of free speech to “zones” and says that there is no free speech right for this type of writing outside of that zone.  When the students explain that they have permission, he then proceed to rub out their messages and declared “you have permission to put it down — I have permission to get rid of it.”

  Thatcher is arguing that same Orwellian “Stopping free speech is free speech” position.

  A few years ago, I debated NYU Professor Jeremy Waldron who is a leading voice for speech codes. Waldron insisted that shutting down speakers through heckling is a form of free speech.

  I disagree. It is the antithesis of free speech and the failure of schools to protect the exercise of free speech is the antithesis of higher education.

  The added increase in embracing violence is particularly chilling. A quarter of those polled supported violence to prevent others from speaking. This is the core of the philosophy of the Antifa movement. It is at its base a movement at war with free speech, defining the right itself as a tool of oppression. That purpose is evident in what is called the “bible” of the Antifa movement: Rutgers Professor Mark Bray’s Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. Bray emphasizes the struggle of the movement against free speech:

  “At the heart of the anti-fascist outlook is a rejection of the classical liberal phrase that says, ‘I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’” Indeed, Bray admits that “most Americans in Antifa have been anarchists or antiauthoritarian communists…  From that standpoint, ‘free speech’ as such is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.”

  It is an illusion designed to promote what Antifa is resisting “white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, ultra-nationalism, authoritarianism, and genocide.” Thus, all of these opposing figures are deemed fascistic and thus unworthy of being heard.

  Antifa has a long and well-documented history of such violence. Bray quotes one Antifa member as summing up their approach to free speech as a “nonargument . . . you have the right to speak but you also have the right to be shut up.”

  Notably, when George Washington University student and self-professed Antifa member Jason Charter was charged as the alleged “ringleader” of efforts to take down statues in Washington, D.C., Charter declared the “movement is winning.” He is right and this poll shows the success.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 19:20

• Containers Quickly Pile Up At US Rail Terminals, Add To Port Strains
  Containers Quickly Pile Up At US Rail Terminals, Add To Port Strains

  The US continues to face an unprecedented shipping crisis as logjams at ports and railyards continue to worsen with no relief in sight. 

  The increasing volume of containers, combined with a labor shortage of dockworkers and truck drivers, rail and storage capacity, have left shipping networks with huge congestion problems that continue to increase.

  Currently, more than 100 container ships are waiting to enter US ports from coast to coast. Some of the largest congestion is in San Pedro Bay off the port of Los Angeles, with more than 61 vessels waiting to enter. Dwell time for vessels is six days, the wait time for on-dock rail is nearly 16 days, and then it takes an additional week to move the container on the street to warehouses. 

  What’s caught our attention is import congestion at railyards. Using data from Hapag-Lloyd AG, one of the world’s top shippers, we find that container dwell time at 11 major railroad terminals averages 9.8 days this month, up from 6.7 days in May and 5.9 days in February. 

  

  Noted above, the port of Los Angeles has the highest wait times out of all railyards. Delays are also increasing in Charleston and Detroit. 

  We recently said port officials had extended operating hours at truck gates to reduce a massive backlog of containers piling up retail, manufacturing, and agricultural supply chains. 

  Hapag-Lloyd said the delays at Los Angeles and Long Beach ports are the most extreme and would “continue for the remainder of the year.” 

  Bloomberg points out that increasing demand for imports mixed with labor shortages of truck drivers is a very severe issue plaguing major companies’ supply chains, such as packaged good giant General Mills Inc.

  “So we have hundreds of disruptions in our supply chain literally, and it really changes on a daily and weekly basis,” said Jonathon Nudi, group president of North America retail at General Mills. “The bulk of our discussions right now with retailers are really around service and making sure that we can ship the product that our consumers are ultimately looking for.”

  Import congestion appears to be worsening, and the focus is now on railyards. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 19:00

• "It's A Ghost Town" – Shocking Images Show Downtown Chicago "Depressingly" Empty During Day
  “It’s A Ghost Town” – Shocking Images Show Downtown Chicago “Depressingly” Empty During Day

  Authored by Mark Glennon via Wirepoints.org,

  “Have you been downtown lately? It’s nearly empty.”

  

  Canal Street

  We hear comments like that more and more often from alarmed readers in the Chicago area. We see it, too, and it’s worsening. So we’re putting up a few pictures for those who haven’t visited lately, and adding the perspective of one downtown restaurant owner.

  We took the pictures downtown on Thursday between 9:30 AM and 1:30 PM.

  Things seemed to be improving a bit over the summer, but no longer.

  Is it COVID, crime or the new trend to remote working?

  The recent surge in COVID began in the first week in July, and that’s undoubtedly a major cause. The trend toward remote work is real and may be permanent. But crime seems to be increasingly on people’s minds.

  

  Adams Street

  I checked in with somebody who is a kind of real time barometer of downtown activity. That’s Jesse Boyle, who owns two restaurants in the Ogilvie Transportation Center – Station Restaurant and Bar and Vinny’s Pizza Bar. Ogilvie is the primary commuter train station in downtown Chicago, so Boyle has a pretty good feel of the pulse of downtown activity.

  “In the spring and summer I was anticipating things to really come back after Labor Day,” Boyle told me.

  “I was hearing a lot of companies were scheduling their employee returns for the fall, and my group was excited to get closer to normal,” he says.

  And he had put his money where his hopes were, completing major renovations.

  “But there are two things that have converged,” Boyle says, that have set things back.

  “One is that the Delta variant has taken away a lot of that early enthusiasm for work gatherings and people getting reacquainted.”

  “A very close second” is crime, as Boyle sees it.

  “Overall crime is up again, and the stories we’re hearing and reading about suggest that downtown is not as safe as it used to be.

  It’s confluence of those causes, and whatever else has drained people from downtown, that’s most deadly. You can feel it, and it feeds on itself.

  “It’s a ghost town feeling that you have just walking down any downtown street,” as Boyle puts it.

  “It makes you a little uneasy, and it’s kind of shocking to me that we continue to see this for such an extended period. The offices are empty, and the energy is gone.”

  

  Jackson Street

  Boyle went on:

  It wasn’t like that prior to last year, and I’m hopeful that our city government pulls it together and helps us fix this. I’ve seen a sales dip from July to August, which is unusual.  Things in September continue to be flat or down from August.

  Just having more people around downtown will make all of us feel better, but at this point I have no sense of direction on when that will happen.  As a business owner this is very dispiriting and depressing.

  Our hearts are out to Boyle, his employees and all the others like them, in downtown Chicago and all places suffering like it.

  

  State Street

  This cannot go on. Chicago as we’ve known will not survive with as few people downtown as there are. And Illinois cannot survive without Chicago.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 18:40

• Here's How Many Shares Big Tech CEOs Have Already Dumped This Year
  Here’s How Many Shares Big Tech CEOs Have Already Dumped This Year

  When CEOs of major companies are selling their shares, investors can’t help but notice.

  After all, as Visual Capitalist’s Aran Ali notes, these decisions have a direct effect on the personal wealth of these insiders, which can say plenty about their convictions with respect to the future direction of the companies they run.

  Considering that Big Tech stocks are some of the most popular holdings in today’s portfolios, and are backed by a collective $5.3 trillion in institutional investment, how do the CEOs of these organizations rank by their insider selling?

  

  Breaking Down Insider Trading, by CEO

  Let’s dive into the insider trading activity of each Big Tech CEO:

  Jeff Bezos

  During the first half of 2021, Jeff Bezos sold 2 million shares of Amazon worth $6.6 billion.

  This activity was spread across 15 different transactions, representing an average of $440 million per transaction. Altogether, this ranks him first by CEO insider selling, by total dollar proceeds. Bezos’s time as CEO of Amazon came to an end shortly after the half way mark for the year.

  Mark Zuckerberg

  In second place is Mark Zuckerberg, who has been significantly busier selling than the rest.

  In the first half of 2021, he unloaded 7.1 million shares of Facebook onto the open market, worth $2.2 billion. What makes these transactions interesting is the sheer quantity of them, as he sold on 136 out of 180 days. On average, that’s $12 million worth of stock sold every day.

  Zuckerberg’s record year of selling in 2018 resulted in over $5 billion worth of stock sold, but over 90% of his net worth still remains in the company.

  Satya Nadella

  Next is Satya Nadella, who sold 278,694 shares of Microsoft, worth $234 million. Despite this, the Microsoft CEO still holds an estimated 1.6 million shares, which is the largest of any insider.

  Microsoft’s stock has been on a tear for a number of years now, and belongs to an elite trillion dollar club, which consists of only six public companies.

  Sundar Pichai

  Fourth on the list is Sundar Pichai who has been at the helm at Google for six years now. Since the start of 2021, he’s sold 27,000 shares through nine separate transactions, worth $62.5 million. However, Pichai still has an estimated 6,407 Class A and 114,861 Class C shares.

  Google is closing in on a $2 trillion valuation and is the best performing Big Tech stock, with shares rising 60% year-to-date. Their market share growth from U.S. ad revenues is a large contributing factor.

  Tim Cook

  Last, is Tim Cook, who just surpassed a decade as Apple CEO.

  During this time, shares have rallied over 1,000% and annual sales have gone from $100 billion to $347 billion. That said, Cook has sold 0 shares of Apple during the first half of 2021. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t sold shares elsewhere, though. Cook also sits on the board of directors for Nike, and has sold $6.9 million worth of shares this year.

  Measuring Insider Selling

  All things equal, it’s desirable for management to have skin in the game, and be invested alongside shareholders. It can also be seen as aligning long-term interests.

  A good measure of insider selling activity is in relation to the existing stake in the company. For example, selling $6.6 billion worth of shares may sound like a lot, but when there are 51.7 million Amazon shares remaining for Jeff Bezos, it actually represents a small portion and is probably not cause for panic.

  If, however, executives are disclosing large transactions relative to their total stakes, it might be worth digging deeper.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 18:20

• DHS Touts Counter-Domestic Extremism Plan; Rights Groups Cite Threats To Civil Liberties
  DHS Touts Counter-Domestic Extremism Plan; Rights Groups Cite Threats To Civil Liberties

  Authored by Ken Silva via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is touting a raft of new programs aimed to combat domestic extremism—many of which are raising red flags among interest groups across the political spectrum.

  

  The new DHS plans follow a March intelligence community report that deems white supremacy and violent domestic extremism as the most dangerous terror threat to the homeland. Mayorkas made similar statements at a Sept. 21 Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on counterterrorism.

  “Today, U.S.-based lone actors and small groups, including homegrown violent extremists and domestic violent extremists—who are inspired by a broad range of ideological motivations—pose the most significant and persistent terrorism-related threat to our country,” he said.

  These “broad range of ideological motivations” include “racial bias, perceived government overreach, conspiracy theories promoting violence, and false narratives about unsubstantiated fraud in the 2020 presidential election,”

  He didn’t elaborate on what he meant by “perceived government overreach” or “conspiracy theories promoting violence.” He did, however, assure lawmakers that his department is working hard to combat these perceived threats.

  One of the major programs touted by Mayorkas is the newly branded DHS Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3), formerly known as the Office for Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention. In conjunction with that, the DHS is in the midst of a $77 million grant program aimed to provide state and local institutions with tools to counter extremism.

  The DHS first announced CP3 in May along with a new dedicated domestic terrorism branch within the Department’s Office of Intelligence & Analysis (I&A). Mayorkas told the Homeland Security panel that CP3 is helping expand the department’s ability to prevent terrorism and targeted violence “through the development of local prevention frameworks.”

  “Through CP3, we are leveraging community-based partnerships and evidence-based tools to address early-risk factors and ensure individuals receive help before they radicalize to violence,” he said.

  However, Mayorkas didn’t offer details about other elements of CP3—elements that various interest groups say pose a threat to liberty.

  Among the details that weren’t discussed are what CP3 says on its own site—that it “leverages behavioral threat assessment and management tools, and addresses early-risk factors that can lead to radicalization to violence.”

  According to human rights activist Ed Hasbrouck, consultant to the nonprofit Identity Project, this mission amounts to a pre-crime program.

  “CP3’s attempts to predict future crimes are to be based on behavioral patterns— i.e., profiling—and on encouraging members of the public to inform on their families, friends, and classmates,” Hasbrouck wrote when CP3 was first announced.

  “The problem, of course, is that the law does not permit prosecution based solely on patterns of lawful behavior,” he wrote. “With good reason: ‘precrime’ prediction is a figment of the imagination of the creators of a dystopian fantasy movie, ‘Minority Report.’”

  The Brennan Center for Justice has expressed similar concerns. Far from a conservative group, the Brennan Center agrees with the DHS and FBI that domestic extremism is a rising threat.

  “Over the past five years, from Charlottesville to Pittsburgh to El Paso, attacks by people who reject our multiracial democracy have shaken our country to its core and sparked conversation about how best to address far-right violence,” the group stated in a June report.

  “The Trump administration, which stoked the flames of white supremacy, ended with the ransacking of the U.S. Capitol as Congress was certifying Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.”

  But the Brennan Center said CP3 and the Biden administration’s overall approach to countering domestic extremism—enhanced surveillance, profiling, and the like—are the same draconian tactics government used against Muslims post-9/11.

  “At a time when jurisdictions around the country are considering how to reduce law enforcement involvement in mental health and social issues, CP3 prevention activities take the opposite approach. They create structures to bring a broad range of concerns about mental health and socioeconomic conditions to the attention of law enforcement as indicators of criminality without normal safeguards,” the Brennan Center stated in its June 69-page report on the issue.

  Not only are the DHS-Biden plans a threat to civil liberties; they’re also proven to be ineffective, the Brennan Center said.

  The Brennan Center report paid particular focus to DHS “fusion centers”—law enforcement compounds scattered throughout the United States that seek to integrate federal, state, and local intelligence. The goal of fusion centers is to create partnerships between varying agencies and the private sector to share intelligence on threats to public safety so law enforcement has the whole picture and can “connect the dots.”

  Citing congressional reports from 2012, the Brennan Center stated that these fusion centers have proven to be ineffective. Those reports found that the DHS spent $289 million to $1.4 billion in public funds to support state and local fusion centers since 2003, with little results to show.

  “Instead of looking for terrorist threats, fusion centers were monitoring lawful political and religious activity. That year, the Virginia Fusion Center described a Muslim get-out-the-vote campaign as ‘subversive,’” the Brennan Center stated in its June report. “In 2009, the North Central Texas Fusion Center identified lobbying by Muslim groups as a possible threat.”

  Seemingly little has improved since then.

  Earlier in September, NBC News revealed an investigation into fusion centers. The report starts with an anecdote of Mike Sena, the president of the National Fusion Center Association, bragging that the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC) helped stop a mall shooting attack in Santa Clara.

  NBC News found that Sena was apparently stretching the extent to which his fusion center helped.

  “We don’t have any information showing that NCRIC was involved,” said Steven Aponte, a San Jose Police Department spokesperson.

  The Brennan Center stated in its June report that the Biden administration is inappropriately involving law enforcement in social problems and should focus on “community investment, not criminalization.”

  “Communities around the United States should not need to sign up for a counterterrorism program to get resources for their schools, universities, places of worship, or social institutions,” the Brennan Center stated.

  “Government commitments should directly address these as social problems rather than treat those experiencing them as potential violent criminals, and should wall off programs addressing social ills from law enforcement across levels of government.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 18:00

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• Lithuania Tells People To Throw Away Chinese Smartphones Due To "Cybersecurity Risks"
  Lithuania Tells People To Throw Away Chinese Smartphones Due To “Cybersecurity Risks”

  Lithuania’s National Cyber Security Centre (NKSC) released a new report Thursday urging consumers to throw away their Chinese smartphones due to cybersecurity and censorship risks. 

  NKSC, which is part of the Defense Ministry, found that Chinese smartphone brand Xiaomi had built-in censorship tools to detect and censor phrases such as “Free Tibet,” “Long live Taiwan independence,” “People’s daily newspaper,” and “democracy movement,” among others. It noted Xiaomi’s Mi 10T 5G phones had the software turned off for European customers, but the report stressed the tools could be remotely turned on at any time. 

  

  “This is important not only to Lithuania but to all countries which use Xiaomi equipment,” NKSC said in the report.

  Besides Xiaomi’s Mi 10T 5G, the security assessment examined Huawei’s P40 5G3 and found cybersecurity risks to users. There was no mention of risks for OnePlus’s 8T 5G. 

  

  Deputy Defense Minister Margiris Abukevicius said consumers should discard these mobile devices and purchase new ones that are not from Chinese companies: 

  “We strongly recommend that state and public institutions not use those devices and plan to initiate legislation which regulates acquiring certain devices for the ministries and various state agencies,” Abukevicius said. 

  NKSC said the security assessment is intended “to ensure the safe use of 5G mobile devices sold in our country and the software they contain.” 

  When it came to Huawei’s P40 5G phone, the report found risks of cyber-security breaches: 

  “The official Huawei application store AppGallery directs users to third-party e-stores where some of the applications have been assessed by anti-virus programs as malicious or infected with viruses.”

  It’s crucial to note relations between NATO ally Lithuania and China have deteriorated as of recent. The Baltic country approved Taiwan to open a representative office in Vilnius, the capital, and be named the Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania later this year. Beijing soured over the word “Taiwanese” in the name of the office because it contradicts the “One China” policy that Europe and the US follow. 

  The growing rift between Lithuania and China is a wake-up call for other European countries. 

  * * *

  Here’s the full report: 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 02:45

• The European Energy Crisis Is About To Go Global
  The European Energy Crisis Is About To Go Global

  Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

  It was only a matter of time, really. In a globalized world, energy crunches can hardly remain regionally contained for very long, especially in a context of damaged supply chains and a rush to cut investment in fossil fuels. The energy crunch that began in Europe earlier this month may now be on its way to America. For now, all is well with one of the world’s top gas producers. U.S. gas exporters have enjoyed a solid increase in demand from Asia and Europe as the recovery in economic activity pushed demand for electricity higher. According to a recent Financial Times report, there is a veritable bidding war for U.S. cargos of liquefied natural gas between Asian and European buyers—and the Asians are winning.

  

  Coal exports are on the rise, too, and have been for a while now, especially after a political spat had China shun Australian coal. But supply is tightening, Argus reported earlier this month. In July, according to the report, U.S. coking coal exports dropped by as much as 20.3 percent from June. The report noted supply was constrained by producers’ limited access to funding and a labor shortage that has plagued many industries amid the pandemic.

  All this should be good news for U.S. producers of fossil fuels. But it may easily become bad news as winter approaches. The Wall Street Journal’s Jinjoo Lee wrote earlier this week high energy prices could be the next hot import for the United States. Lee cited data showing gas inventory replenishment was running below average rates for this season, and gas in storage in early September was 7.4 percent below the five-year average.

  Coal inventories are also running low because of stronger exports, with prices for thermal coal three times higher than they were a year ago. According to calculations from the Energy Information Administration cited in the WSJ report, coal inventories in the United States could fall to less than half last year’s inventory levels by the end of the year. Last year, energy demand was depressed because of the pandemic. This year, the U.S. economy is firing on all cylinders once again. 

  No wonder electricity prices are already going up.

  In a way, the events in Europe could be seen as a trailer of what might happen in the United States. It is a trailer because it shows all the worst bits. The United States is much more energy independent than, say, the UK, and that’s a big plus. Yet exports bring in revenues, and it would require government intervention to make gas producers cut exports.

  In an alarming move, such intervention was requested last week by a manufacturing industry group. Industrial Energy Consumers of America, an organization representing companies producing chemicals, food, and materials, asked the Department of Energy to institute limits on the exports of liquefied natural gas in order to avoid soaring prices and gas shortages during the winter, Reuters reported on Friday.

  Opinions seem to differ on whether rising LNG exports are in fact hurting U.S. consumers. But the fact is that gas prices are already double what they were a year ago. According to the IECA, they are not, however, high enough to motivate a ramp-up in natural gas production. Therefore, in order to stockpile enough gas for the winter, the U.S. government must force a reduction in exports.

  The LNG industry is, of course, against this. The executive director of Center for Liquefied Natural Gas told Reuters most LNG exports are shipped under long-term fixed-price contracts that have no relation to benchmark gas prices and their movements. Yet some cargos are sold on the spot market.

  “Buyers of LNG who compete for natural gas with U.S. consumers are state-owned enterprises and foreign government-controlled utilities with automatic cost pass through,” Paul Cicio, president of IECA, said, as quoted by Reuters. “U.S. manufacturers cannot compete with them on prices.”

  Traders are already getting jittery, and this will likely contribute to price uncertainty; regardless of how the fundamentals situation develops. Again, Europe is at the heart of the uncertainty – or rather the certainty that prices have higher to climb. But now, China has added to concern about gas supply and the potential for shortages.

  For now, China’s biggest problem seems to be coal rather than gas. A recent Bloomberg report said that China coal power plant operators are struggling to buy enough coal to keep their plants running, and some are being forced to shut down their boilers because of insufficient coal supply. This, however, might lead to stronger gas demand to ensure enough electricity and heating for the winter. This will further exacerbate the difference between global demand and supply.

  The European energy crunch is spilling over into other regions. The blame game has begun with culprits ranging from years of underinvestment in local gas production to a Gazprom scheme to get Nord Stream 2 approved by Germany. For now, it is still unclear how much of the price surge is due to a gap between demand and supply and how much of it is due to market nervousness, at least according to RBC commodity strategist Christopher Louney, as quoted by the WSJ’s Lee. This question is less important than another, however, and it is a scary one:

  Just how bad could things get this winter?

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 02:00

• Brandon Smith: Organizing Patriots In The Face Of Government Informants And False Flags
  Brandon Smith: Organizing Patriots In The Face Of Government Informants And False Flags

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

  There is a simple fact that must be understood when it comes to the fight for liberty: Such a fight cannot be won by lone individuals. Freedom requires organized resistance and it does not matter how many millions of people stand against an authoritarian regime, if they are completely isolated from each other they WILL lose. It’s a guarantee.

  

  This is why a considerable portion of establishment money, energy and propaganda is directed at defusing or sabotaging any semblance of conservative organization. This includes engineering false flag events and creating potential terror attacks from thin air so that they can be blamed on constitutionally minded groups. The strategy is called “4th Generation Warfare” and it is not conspiracy theory, this is conspiracy fact.

  For example, as we now know according to court documentation, the supposed scheme by a Michigan “militia” made up of anarchists to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer and “try her as a tyrant” was heavily infiltrated by at least a dozen FBI agents and informants. The group was so infiltrated, in fact, that the entire plot for the kidnapping was essentially planned out by the FBI. This is the very definition of a false flag. The corruption and entrapment involved in the operation was so egregious that even the leftist media has reported on it.

  I recall a very similar situation occurred during the Malheur incident when Ammon Bundy (son of Cliven Bundy) and a group of patriots decided to annex the wildlife refuge and its obscure ranger buildings as a launching point for a revolution. Though I was a supporter of the efforts at Bundy Ranch, I was vehemently against Malheur because the whole situation seemed grossly suspect. The strategy made no sense, the rationale made no sense, the site of the standoff made no sense and the public optics were terrible. It was an anti-Bundy Ranch; a situation in which all of the dynamics were in favor of the feds and against the liberty movement.

  And, not surprisingly, Malhuer had also been influenced and in some cases was arranged by federal informants and agents. These people were whispering in the ear of Ammon Bundy the entire time while the FBI authorized them to commit criminal acts. There were so many paid employees of the FBI at Malheur that jurors decided to drop all charges against most of the defendants involved.

  And what about the latest “J6” rally in Washington DC, which was planned by a virtually unknown former Trump aid and was quickly exposed as a potential “honeypot” designed to lure in conservatives? The army of plain clothes undercover feds was so prevalent that riot cops accidentally arrested an armed FBI agent thinking he was a protester.

  Now, there are many people in the alternative media that are breathing a sigh of relief that almost no one showed up for the J6 protest or “fell into the trap”. In fact, there were far more reporters and feds there than actual activists. However, I think we need to look at the bigger picture of why the government is staging such events in the first place, and it’s not just to entrap a few conservatives .

  If you think about it, the entire strategy is high cost/minimum reward if we only look at it in terms of actual arrests. If the idea is to catch and prosecute patriots, then they could infiltrate groups and engineer criminal actions for decades and achieve little to nothing. Obviously, this is not the purpose of informants. Rather, the strategy is not to invade groups unnoticed; the strategy is to BE NOTICED, to make sure the whole of the liberty movement believe that if they ever try to organize in any way the feds will be there to set them up. In other words, the primary goal of the FBI is to instill paranoia and fear among patriots and ensure they never effectively organize to resist.

  When we cheer the “failure” of J6, we need to keep in mind that the establishment does not care. Getting people to show up was not their main intent; making people afraid to show up for any other events in the future is what they want.

  The issue presents a Catch-22. If conservatives organize there is the chance that some groups will be infiltrated or set up and used to make the entire movement look bad. If we don’t organize, then we have lost the fight. It will be over before it even truly begins (and no, the real fight has not started yet). So what is the solution?

  I think it’s odd but maybe not surprising that the standoff at Bundy Ranch has been memory-holed by the media and is rarely mentioned even among conservative activists these days. Yet, it was probably one of the most successful patriot actions in the past couple of decades. There are a number of reasons for this:

  1) The action was spontaneous, not pre-planned and was in response to criminal activity by the FBI (including assaulting women that were protesting and the use of sniper positions to surround the Bundy property similar to Ruby Ridge). The movement took action to remedy a government trespass rather than creating a standoff out of nothing.

  2) There was no single person in charge. Groups showed up from all over the country; some of them squared away and some of them screw-ups. This might sound like a bad thing, but in terms of rebellion it is often better to avoid streamlined top-down leadership. Frankly, I am usually suspicious of anyone that tries to anoint themselves the “leader” of the liberty movement or the sole leader of a protest action. Cult of personality is the most useless thing I can think of when it comes to battling tyranny, and top-down leadership can be easily manipulated or controlled.

  3) Because of the decentralized nature of the response to Bundy Ranch, the feds had no way to influence or predict the outcome, and they really hate that. Without informants in key positions, the feds did not have the ability to adapt to the quickly changing circumstances. Contrast this with Malheur, where the feds were basically in control from the very beginning. The site itself was so isolated and ill conceived that the FBI was able to dictate every movement of patriots in and out of the area. It was pointless for any militia to occupy it, but it was a great spot for the feds.

  4) Patriots arrived at Bundy Ranch peacefully, but with the will to fight if necessary. The Bundy Ranch response had a clear objective – To stop the FBI from harming the Bundy family and to retrieve the stolen cattle if possible. Both of these objectives were accomplished and with no shots fired. A complete success. The group was motivated and unified by the objective, NOT a singular leadership. Without a clear objective there is no purpose to any action.

  It is important to understand the difference between a Lexington Bridge moment and a Fort Sumter moment – During Lexington Bridge, the revolutionaries took action to stop a British detachment from arresting colonial leaders and confiscating rifles and powder stores. The British were in the midst of an undeniable attempt to disarm and snuff out the resistance. At Fort Sumter, the Confederate attack was in response to an attempted resupply of the fort itself; which made sense strategically but looked like an act of pure aggression to the wider public. The concept of states rights (more prominent in the minds of the confederates than the issue of slavery) fell by the wayside.

  Eventually tyranny has to put boots on the ground. A totalitarian system can function for a time on color of law and implied threats, but it will crumble unless it is able to establish a physical presence of force. Once those jackboots touch soil in a visible way and the agents of the state try to expand oppressive measures, rebels then have a free hand to disrupt them or bring them down. But this only works if there are objectives and enough decentralization to prevent misdirection of the movement.

  Some organization is essential. It cannot be avoided. All the “Gray Men” and secret squirrel preppers out there that think they are going to simply weather the storm in isolation and pop out of their bug-out locations to rebuild are suffering from serious delusions. I can’t help but think of that moment in ‘Lord Of The Rings’ when the Ents refuse to organize to fight against the invading orcs. Pippen suggests to Merry that the problem is too big for them and that they should go back to the Shire to wait out the war. Merry laments:

  “The fires of Isengard will spread. And the woods of Tuckborough and Buckland will burn. And all that was once green and good in this world will be gone. There won’t be a Shire, Pippin.”

  If this fight is not pursued now, there will be no world worth coming back to, even if one was able to successfully hide from it. There will be a “new world order” as the globalists like to call it. There will be nothing left of freedom.

  So, organization must be accomplished, and it should be built at the local level. This is far more important than any dreams of a national organization, at least for now. There is no one we can trust to lead such a nationwide revolt, and that includes political leaders like Donald Trump.

  Will federal intrusions happen? Of course, but at the local level it is much easier to vet people according to their behaviors and root out bad actors. Hold your local meetings to discuss current events and create a place for people to network and get to know each other. Talk to local businesses or your county sheriff to see where they stand on issues like the vaccine passports and Biden mandates. Put things in motion now or you will regret it later when your community is completely disjointed and paralyzed by fear during crisis or government subjugation.

  And, what about the first guy at your meetings that starts talking about building bombs, drafting “kill lists” or kidnapping governors? Kick his ass out promptly and make sure everyone knows why you did it. Most likely he is a fed or he is on an informant payroll. As our national composure breaks down and the manure hits the fan, fed informants and agents will suddenly disappear from these groups without a trace. They are not going to stick around for what happens next; the government doesn’t pay them enough for that. And knowing who the patriots are will not help the federal government if the patriots are organized to defend themselves. This is the reality which they do not want us to wake up to.

  *  *  *

  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
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 23:40

• France: "Time & Action" Needed To Restore US Ties; PM Morrison Says Macron Giving "Cold Shoulder"
  France: “Time & Action” Needed To Restore US Ties; PM Morrison Says Macron Giving “Cold Shoulder”

  Following the tense Wednesday phone call between French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Joe Biden wherein the two agreed to try and “restore trust” following the severe rift over the AUKUS defense pact which led Paris to pull its ambassador to Washington (which France has since vowed to restore), Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Thursday with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. 

  Suggesting that prior good relations have been strained if not broken, Le Drian said “time and actions” are needed to “fully” restore ties between the two typically close allies. He underscored:

  The way out of a diplomatic crisis between France and the US over a mega submarine deal will “take time and require actions”…

  

  A French government statement indicated the two met at the United Nations in New York to go through the “terms and main issues” to be addressed in upcoming consultations.

  The White House summary of the Blinken meeting indicated a big top of discussion was France’s recent charges that the US-Australia submarine pact supplanting a French deal worth at least $66 billion ultimately was a blow to France’s strategic cooperation with allies in the Indo-Pacific to counter China.

  In the Wednesday Biden-Macron phone call, the White House said the two leaders and NATO allies have agreed to meet by the end of October in Europe.

  “They discussed the EU Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, which the United States welcomes, and the need for close cooperation with France and other European allies and partners active in the region,” the readout said.

  While communications are apparently open between Paris and Washington, it’s not so with Canberra: 

  Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he is being given the cold shoulder by Macron after the scrapping of the submarine deal, but vowed to be “patient” in repairing frayed relations.

  Speaking in Washington late Wednesday, Morrison said he had tried to reach the French leader but the call had “not yet” happened.

  Meanwhile @LeDrien says they want to restore trust (…) that the crisis between FR and US will take time to fix (i.e.after US duped France’s €52 billion “deal of the century”).
  130 characters simply aren’t enough to paint over the facts. https://t.co/gLl62rVBZE pic.twitter.com/ePx6cSdL4P

  — Beth 🌺 (@m_beth) September 23, 2021

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

  This “cold shoulder” persists as France has even threatened to torpedo EU-Australia trade negotiations, which were scheduled to resume later this fall.

  * * * 

  According to Rabobank’s commentary…

  US President Biden and French President Macron are attempting to build bridges burned over AUKUS. The French ambassador is now to return to DC, and Biden to come to Europe for talks next month. However, word on the street is that France, and French agriculture, now have the excuse to kick the planned Australia – EU FTA into the long grass even if the rest of the EU is in favour. The UK has also been sent scuttling from any thoughts of joining the USMCA.

  However, geopolitics leads and trade usually follows in today’s atmosphere. Japan’s outgoing PM Suga has also been exceptionally forthright, stating China’s rapidly growing military influence and unilateral changing of the status quo could present a risk to Japan. That’s ahead of a first in-person Quad meeting to be held on Friday at the White House.  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 23:20

• Freedom From Fear: Stop Playing The Government's Mind Games
  Freedom From Fear: Stop Playing The Government’s Mind Games

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

  “No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.”

  – Edward R. Murrow, broadcast journalist

  America is in the midst of an epidemic of historic proportions.

  The contagion being spread like wildfire is turning communities into battlegrounds and setting Americans one against the other.

  Normally mild-mannered individuals caught up in the throes of this disease have been transformed into belligerent zealots, while others inclined to pacifism have taken to stockpiling weapons and practicing defensive drills.

  This plague on our nation – one that has been spreading like wildfire – is a potent mix of fear coupled with unhealthy doses of paranoia and intolerance, tragic hallmarks of the post-9/11 America in which we live and the constantly shifting crises that keep the populace in a state of high alert.

  Everywhere you turn, those on both the left- and right-wing are fomenting distrust and division. You can’t escape it.

  We’re being fed a constant diet of fear: fear of a virus, fear of the unmasked, fear of terrorists, fear of illegal immigrants, fear of people who are too religious, fear of people who are not religious enough, fear of extremists, fear of the government, fear of those who fear the government. The list goes on and on.

  The strategy is simple yet effective: the best way to control a populace is through fear and discord.

  Fear makes people stupid.

  

  Confound them, distract them with mindless news chatter and entertainment, pit them against one another by turning minor disagreements into major skirmishes, and tie them up in knots over matters lacking in national significance.

  Most importantly, divide the people into factions, persuade them to see each other as the enemy and keep them screaming at each other so that they drown out all other sounds. In this way, they will never reach consensus about anything and will be too distracted to notice the police state closing in on them until the final crushing curtain falls.

  This is how free people enslave themselves and allow tyrants to prevail.

  This Machiavellian scheme has so ensnared the nation that few Americans even realize they are being manipulated into adopting an “us” against “them” mindset. Instead, fueled with fear and loathing for phantom opponents, they agree to pour millions of dollars and resources into political elections, militarized police, spy technology, endless wars, COVID-19 mandates, etc., hoping for a guarantee of safety that never comes.

  All the while, those in power—bought and paid for by lobbyists and corporations—move their costly agendas forward, and “we the suckers” get saddled with the tax bills and subjected to pat downs, police raids and round-the-clock surveillance.

  Turn on the TV or flip open the newspaper on any given day, and you will find yourself accosted by reports of government corruption, corporate malfeasance, militarized police, marauding SWAT teams, and egregious assaults on the rights of the citizenry.

  America has already entered a new phase, one in which communities are locked down, employees are forced to choose between keeping their jobs or exercising their freedoms, children are arrested in schools, military veterans are forcibly detained by government agents, and law-abiding Americans are finding their movements tracked, their financial transactions documented and their communications monitored.

  These threats are not to be underestimated.

  Yet even more dangerous than these violations of our basic rights is the language in which they are couched: the language of fear. It is a language spoken effectively by politicians on both sides of the aisle, shouted by media pundits from their cable TV pulpits, marketed by corporations, and codified into bureaucratic laws that do little to make our lives safer or more secure.

  Fear, as history shows, is the method most often used by politicians to increase the power of government.

  So far, these tactics are working.

  An atmosphere of fear permeates modern America.

  Each successive crisis in recent years (a COVID-19 pandemic, terrorism, etc.)—manufactured or legitimate—has succeeded in reducing the American people to what commentator Dan Sanchez refers to as “herd-minded hundreds of millions [who] will stampede to the State for security, bleating to please, please be shorn of their remaining liberties.”

  Sanchez continues:

  “I am not terrified of the terrorists; i.e., I am not, myself, terrorized. Rather, I am terrified of the terrorized; terrified of the bovine masses who are so easily manipulated by terrorists, governments, and the terror-amplifying media into allowing our country to slip toward totalitarianism and total war…

  “I do not irrationally and disproportionately fear Muslim bomb-wielding jihadists or white, gun-toting nutcases. But I rationally and proportionately fear those who do, and the regimes such terror empowers. History demonstrates that governments are capable of mass murder and enslavement far beyond what rogue militants can muster. Industrial-scale terrorists are the ones who wear ties, chevrons, and badges. But such terrorists are a powerless few without the supine acquiescence of the terrorized many. There is nothing to fear but the fearful themselves…

  “Stop swallowing the overblown scaremongering of the government and its corporate media cronies. Stop letting them use hysteria over small menaces to drive you into the arms of tyranny, which is the greatest menace of all.”

  As history makes clear, fear leads to fascistic, totalitarian regimes.

  It’s a simple enough formula. National crises, global pandemics, reported terrorist attacks, and sporadic shootings leave us in a constant state of fear. Fear prevents us from thinking. The emotional panic that accompanies fear actually shuts down the prefrontal cortex or the rational thinking part of our brains. In other words, when we are consumed by fear, we stop thinking.

  A populace that stops thinking for themselves is a populace that is easily led, easily manipulated and easily controlled.

  The following are a few of the necessary ingredients for a fascist state:

  • The government is managed by a powerful leader (even if he or she assumes office by way of the electoral process). This is the fascistic leadership principle (or father figure).

  • The government assumes it is not restrained in its power. This is authoritarianism, which eventually evolves into totalitarianism.

  • The government ostensibly operates under a capitalist system while being undergirded by an immense bureaucracy.

  • The government through its politicians emits powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.

  • The government has an obsession with national security while constantly invoking terrifying internal and external enemies.

  • The government establishes a domestic and invasive surveillance system and develops a paramilitary force that is not answerable to the citizenry.

  • The government and its various agencies (federal, state, and local) develop an obsession with crime and punishment. This is overcriminalization.

  • The government becomes increasingly centralized while aligning closely with corporate powers to control all aspects of the country’s social, economic, military, and governmental structures.

  • The government uses militarism as a center point of its economic and taxing structure.

  • The government is increasingly imperialistic in order to maintain the military-industrial corporate forces.

  The parallels to modern America are impossible to ignore.

  “Every industry is regulated. Every profession is classified and organized,” writes Jeffrey Tucker.

  “Every good or service is taxed. Endless debt accumulation is preserved. Immense doesn’t begin to describe the bureaucracy. Military preparedness never stops, and war with some evil foreign foe, remains a daily prospect.”

  For the final hammer of fascism to fall, it will require the most crucial ingredient: the majority of the people will have to agree that it’s not only expedient but necessary. In times of “crisis,” expediency is upheld as the central principle—that is, in order to keep us safe and secure, the government must militarize the police, strip us of basic constitutional rights and criminalize virtually every form of behavior.

  Not only does fear grease the wheels of the transition to fascism by cultivating fearful, controlled, pacified, cowed citizens, but it also embeds itself in our very DNA so that we pass on our fear and compliance to our offspring.

  It’s called epigenetic inheritance, the transmission through DNA of traumatic experiences.

  For example, neuroscientists have observed how quickly fear can travel through generations of mice DNA. As The Washington Post reports:

  In the experiment, researchers taught male mice to fear the smell of cherry blossoms by associating the scent with mild foot shocks. Two weeks later, they bred with females. The resulting pups were raised to adulthood having never been exposed to the smell. Yet when the critters caught a whiff of it for the first time, they suddenly became anxious and fearful. They were even born with more cherry-blossom-detecting neurons in their noses and more brain space devoted to cherry-blossom-smelling.

  The conclusion? “A newborn mouse pup, seemingly innocent to the workings of the world, may actually harbor generations’ worth of information passed down by its ancestors.”

  Now consider the ramifications of inherited generations of fears and experiences on human beings. As the Post reports, “Studies on humans suggest that children and grandchildren may have felt the epigenetic impact of such traumatic events such as famine, the Holocaust and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.”

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, fear, trauma and compliance can be passed down through the generations.

  Fear has been a critical tool in past fascistic regimes, and it now operates in our contemporary world—all of which raises fundamental questions about us as human beings and what we will give up in order to perpetuate the illusions of safety and security.

  In the words of psychologist Erich Fromm:

  [C]an human nature be changed in such a way that man will forget his longing for freedom, for dignity, for integrity, for love—that is to say, can man forget he is human? Or does human nature have a dynamism which will react to the violation of these basic human needs by attempting to change an inhuman society into a human one?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 23:00

• Five B-21 Raider Stealth Bombers Are Now In Final Production
  Five B-21 Raider Stealth Bombers Are Now In Final Production

  The B-21 Raider – the US Air Force’s secretive, next-generation, long-range stealth bomber is allegedly in final assembly, with the debut expected in early 2022. 

  According to The Drive, there are five Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider stealth bombers in the final assembly. This was confirmed by the Air Force Association’s Air, Space, & Cyber Conference, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall, who said the five Raiders are being built at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. 

  

  There are no known images of the Raider in the public domain except for computer renderings. The first glimpses of the new stealth bomber could come as early as 2022. Test flights are expected in late spring or early summer. 

  In July, we noted the most recent rendering of the bomber was featured in a USAF tear-off sheet. It was the third official rendering of the B-21. The rendering showed a previously unseen cockpit windscreen configuration as the bomber takes off from Edwards Air Force Base, California. We noted several years ago that the bomber would be tested at Edwards AFB. 

  

  Officials have described the B-21 as the most advanced bomber to date, with complex nuclear long-range missions built into its airframe. It may even be able to carry hypersonic weapons. 

  “Nuclear modernization is a top priority for the Department of Defense and the Air Force, and B-21 is key to that plan,” Randall Walden, Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office director, said in a recent press release.

  Senior Air Force officials have testified before Congress that the service is desperate for new stealth bombers that would increase global competitiveness as China and Russia race to develop new bombers. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 22:40

• Biden Security Adviser Jake Sullivan Tied To Alleged 2016 Clinton Scheme To Co-Opt CIA/FBI To Tar Trump
  Biden Security Adviser Jake Sullivan Tied To Alleged 2016 Clinton Scheme To Co-Opt CIA/FBI To Tar Trump

  Authored by Paul Sperry via RealClearInvestigations.com,

  White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan figures prominently in a grand jury investigation run by Special Counsel John Durham into an alleged 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign scheme to use both the FBI and CIA to tar Donald Trump as a colluder with Russia, according to people familiar with the criminal probe, which they say has broadened into a conspiracy case.

  

  Biden National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan as Clinton campaign adviser for the 2016 election. AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File

  Sullivan is facing scrutiny, sources say, over potentially false statements he made about his involvement in the effort, which continued after the election and into 2017. As a senior foreign policy adviser to Clinton, Sullivan spearheaded what was known inside her campaign as a “confidential project” to link Trump to the Kremlin through dubious email-server records provided to the agencies, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

  Last week, Michael A. Sussmann, a partner in Perkins Coie, a law firm representing the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of making false statements to the FBI about his clients and their motives behind planting the rumor, at the highest levels of the FBI, of a secret Trump-Russia server. After a months-long investigation, the FBI found no merit to the rumor.

  The grand jury indicated in its lengthy indictment that several people were involved in the alleged conspiracy to mislead the FBI and trigger an investigation of the Republican presidential candidate — including Sullivan, who was described by his campaign position but not identified by name.

  The Clinton campaign project, these sources say, also involved compiling a “digital dossier” on several Trump campaign officials – including Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, and Carter Page. This effort exploited highly sensitive, nonpublic Internet data related to their personal email communications and web-browsing, known as Internet Protocol, or IP, addresses.

  

  Alleged targets: Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, Carter Page. YouTube/CNN/FNC/RCP

  To mine the data, the Clinton campaign enlisted a team of Beltway computer contractors as well as university researchers with security clearance who often collaborate with the FBI and the intelligence community. They worked from a five-page campaign document called the “Trump Associates List.”

  The tech group also pulled logs purportedly from servers for a Russian bank and Trump Tower, and the campaign provided the data to the FBI on two thumb drives, along with three “white papers” that claimed the data indicated the Trump campaign was secretly communicating with Moscow through a server in Trump Tower and the Alfa Bank in Russia. Based on the material, the FBI opened at least one investigation, adding to several others it had already initiated targeting the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016.

  

  Michael Sussmann: Indicted former Clinton campaign lawyer allegedly coordinated with Jake Sullivan on dubious materials provided to the FBI and media. perkinscoie.com

  The indictment states that Sussmann, as well as the cyber experts recruited for the operation, “coordinated with representatives and agents of the Clinton campaign with regard to the data and written materials that Sussmann gave to the FBI and the media.”

  One of those campaign agents was Sullivan, according to emails Durham obtained. On Sept. 15, 2016 – just four days before Sussmann handed off the materials to the FBI – Marc Elias, his law partner and fellow Democratic Party operative, “exchanged emails with the Clinton campaign’s foreign policy adviser concerning the Russian bank allegations,” as well as with other top campaign officials, the indictment states.

  The sources close to the case confirmed the “foreign policy adviser” referenced by title is Sullivan. They say he was briefed on the development of the opposition-research materials tying Trump to Alfa Bank, and was aware of the participants in the project. These included the Washington opposition-research group Fusion GPS, which worked for the Clinton campaign as a paid agent and helped gather dirt on Alfa Bank and draft the materials Elias discussed with Sullivan, the materials Sussmann would later submit to the FBI. Fusion researchers were in regular contact with both Sussmann and Elias about the project in the summer and fall of 2016. Sullivan also personally met with Elias, who briefed him on Fusion’s opposition research, according to the sources.

  Sullivan maintained in congressional testimony in December 2017 that he didn’t know of Fusion’s involvement in the Alfa Bank opposition research. In the same closed-door testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, he also denied knowing anything about Fusion in 2016 or who was conducting the opposition research for the campaign.

  “Marc [Elias] … would occasionally give us updates on the opposition research they were conducting, but I didn’t know what the nature of that effort was – inside effort, outside effort, who was funding it, who was doing it, anything like that,” Sullivan stated under oath.

  

  Jake Sullivan’s December 2017 House testimony may put him in perjury jeopardy.  House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

  Sullivan also testified he didn’t know that Perkins Coie, the law firm where Elias and Sussmann were partners, was working for the Clinton campaign until October 2017, when it was reported in the media as part of stories revealing the campaign’s contract with Fusion, which also produced the so-called Steele dossier. Sullivan maintained he didn’t even know that the politically prominent Elias worked for Perkins Coie, a well-known Democratic law firm. Major media stories from 2016 routinely identified Elias as “general counsel for the Clinton campaign” and a “partner at Perkins Coie.”

  “To be honest with you, Marc wears a tremendous number of hats, so I wasn’t sure who he was representing,” Sullivan testified.

  “I sort of thought he was, you know, just talking to us as, you know, a fellow traveler in this — in this campaign effort.”

  Although he acknowledged knowing Elias and his partner were marshaling opposition researchers for a campaign project targeting Trump, Sullivan insisted, “They didn’t do something with it.” In truth, they used the research to instigate a full-blown investigation at the FBI and seed a number of stories in the Washington media, which Elias discussed in emails.

  

  Marc Elias: Prominent Democrat lawyer allegedly also coordinated with Sullivan. Sullivan would later plead ignorance under oath about Elias’s role. Perkins Coie

  Lying to Congress is a felony. Though the offense is rarely prosecuted, former Special Counsel Robert Mueller won convictions of two of Trump’s associates on charges of that very offense.

  An attorney for Sullivan did not respond to questions, while a spokeswoman for the National Security Council declined comment. After the 2016 election, Sullivan continued to participate in the anti-Trump effort, which enlisted no fewer than three Internet companies and two university computer researchers, who persisted in exploiting nonpublic Internet data to conjure up “derogatory information on Trump” and his associates, according to the indictment.

  Prosecutors say the operation ran through at least February 2017, when Sullivan met with another central figure in the plot to plant the anti-Trump smear at the FBI. But now the goal was to compel agents to continue investigating the false rumors in the wake of the election, thereby keeping Trump’s presidency under an ethical cloud.

  

  Daniel Jones: One of the lead figures in helping resurrect the Trump-Russia collusion narrative after Trump’s election, Jones coordinated with Sullivan in hatching the effort. McCain Institute/YouTube

  On Feb. 10, 2017, Sullivan huddled with two Fusion operatives and their partner Daniel Jones, a former FBI analyst and Democratic staffer on the Hill, to hatch the post-election plan to resurrect rumors Trump was a tool of the Kremlin. As RealClearInvestigations first reported, the meeting, which lasted about an hour and took place in a Washington office building, also included former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The group discussed raising money to finance a multimillion-dollar opposition research project headed by Jones to target the new president. In effect, Jones’ operation would replace the Clinton campaign’s operation, continuing the effort to undermine Trump.

  It’s not clear if Sussmann attended the Feb. 10 meeting, but he was apparently still involved in the operation, along with his crew of data miners. The day before the meeting attended by Sullivan, Sussmann paid a visit to the CIA’s Langley headquarters to peddle the disinformation about the secret server – this time to top officials there, according to the sources familiar with Durham’s investigation. During a roughly 90-minute meeting, Sussmann provided two officials at the intelligence headquarters “updated” documents and data he’d provided the FBI before the election, RealClearInvestigations has learned exclusively.

  Then, on March 28, 2017, Jones met with the FBI to pass on supposedly fresh leads he and the cyber researchers had learned about the Alfa Bank server and Trump, and the FBI looked into the new leads after having closed its investigation a month earlier. That same month, FBI Director James Comey publicly announced the bureau was investigating possible “coordination” between Moscow and the newly sworn-in president’s campaign.

  Despite the renewed push by Jones, the FBI debunked the tip of a nefarious Russian back channel. Agents learned the email server in question wasn’t even controlled by the Trump Organization. “It wasn’t true,” Mueller confirmed in 2019 testimony.

  It turns out that the supposed “secret server” was housed in the small Pennsylvania town of Lititz, and not  Trump Tower in New York City, and it was operated by a marketing firm based in Florida called Cendyn that routinely blasts out emails promoting multiple hotel chains. Simply put, the third-party server sent spam to Alfa Bank employees who used Trump hotels. The bank had maintained a New York office since 2001.

  “The FBI’s investigation revealed that the email server at issue was not owned or operated by the Trump Organization but, rather, had been administrated by a mass-marketing email company that sent advertisements for Trump hotels and hundreds of other clients,” Durham wrote in his indictment.

  Nonetheless, Jones and Sullivan kept promoting the canard as true.

  

  Democrat Senators Mark Warner and Ron Wyden: Conduits for TDIP’s Trump-Russia material. AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

  With help from Sullivan and Podesta in 2017, Jones launched a nonprofit group called The Democracy Integrity Project, which raised some $7 million mainly from Silicon Valley tech executives. TDIP hired computer researchers, as well as Fusion opposition researchers and Christopher Steele, the British author of the now-discredited Steele dossier, to “prove” the rumors in the dossier. As they sought new dirt on Trump, they fed their information to media outlets, leading Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee (namely Sens. Mark Warner and Ron Wyden), and the FBI. Jones previously worked on the Senate intelligence panel, which had launched a major investigation of Trump and Russia, and he provided a pipeline of information for the committee, according to the sources.

  As RCI first reported, Jones emailed a daily news bulletin known as “TDIP Research” to prominent Beltway journalists to keep the Trump-Russia “collusion” rumor-mill going, including the debunked rumor about the “secret server.” Durham has subpoenaed Jones to testify before his grand jury hearing the case, along with computer experts and researchers recruited by Sussmann for the Clinton campaign project, persons close to the investigation said. Attempts to reach Jones for comment were unsuccessful.

  In a statement, Durham said his investigation “is ongoing.”

  

  Special Counsel John Durham: Lengthy single count “speaking” indictment of Sussmann suggests a broader conspiracy case in the works. AP

  Indictments for a single-count process crime such as making a false statement normally run a page or two. But Durham’s filing charging Sussmann spans 27 pages and is packed with detail. FBI veterans say the 40-year prosecutor used the indictment to outline a broader conspiracy case he’s building that invokes several other federal statutes.

  “That is what we call a ‘speaking indictment,’ meaning it is far more detailed than is required for a simple indictment under [federal statute] 1001,” which outlaws making false statements and representations to federal investigators, former assistant FBI Director Chris Swecker said in an interview with RealClearInvestigations.

  “It is damning,” he added.

  “And I see it as a placeholder for additional indictments, such as government grant and contract fraud, computer intrusion, the Privacy Act and other laws against dissemination of personally identifiable information, and mail fraud and wire fraud – not to mention conspiracy to commit those offenses.”

  

  Chris Swecker: The Sussmann indictment “is damning,” and “I definitely see more to come,” says the ex-top FBI investigator. Miller & Martin

  “I definitely see more [indictments] to come,” emphasized Swecker, who knows Durham personally and worked with him on prior investigations. The sources close to the case said former FBI general counsel James Baker, who accepted the sketchy materials from Sussmann and passed them on to agents for investigation, is cooperating with Durham’s investigation, along with former FBI counterintelligence chief Bill Priestap, who has provided prosecutors contemporaneous notes about what led the bureau to open an investigation into the allegations Trump used Alfa Bank as a conduit between his campaign and Russian President Vladimir Putin to steal the election.

  According to the sources, Durham also has found evidence Sussmann misled the CIA, another front in the scandal being reported here for the first time. In December 2016, the sources say Sussmann phoned the general counsel at the agency and told her the same story about the supposed secret server – at the same time the CIA was compiling a national intelligence report that accused Putin of meddling in the election to help Trump win.

  Sussmann told Caroline Krass, then the agency’s top attorney, that he had information that may help her with a review President Obama had ordered of all intelligence related to the election and Russia, known as the Intelligence Community Assessment. The review ended up including an annex with several unfounded and since-debunked allegations against Trump developed by the Clinton campaign.

  It’s not clear if the two-page annex, which claimed the allegations were “consistent with the judgments in this assessment,” included the Alfa Bank canard. Before it was made public, several sections had been redacted. But after Sussmann conveyed the information to Krass, an Obama appointee, she told him she would consider it for the intelligence review of Russian interference, which tracks with Sussmann’s 2017 closed-door testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. (Krass’ name is blacked out in the declassified transcript, but sources familiar with Sussmann’s testimony confirmed that he identified her as his CIA contact.)

  

  Caroline Krass: Michael Sussmann also gave  Trump-Russia material to this CIA lawyer. CIA/Wikipedia

  “We’re interested,” said Krass, who left the agency several months later. “We’re doing this review and I’ll speak to someone here.”

  It’s not known if Sussmann failed to inform the top CIA lawyer that he was working on behalf of the Clinton campaign, as he’s alleged to have done at the FBI. Attempts to reach Krass, who now serves as Biden’s top lawyer at the Pentagon, were unsuccessful.

  But in his return trip to the CIA after the election, Sussmann “stated falsely – as he previously had stated to the FBI general counsel – that he was ‘not representing a particular client,’ ” according to the Durham indictment, which cites a contemporaneous memo drafted by two agency officials with whom Sussmann met that memorializes their meeting. (The document refers to the CIA by the pseudonym “Agency-2.” Sources confirm Agency-2 is the CIA.)

  Remarkably, the CIA did not ask for the source of Sussmann’s walk-in tip, including where he got several data files he gave the agency. The FBI exhibited a similar lack of curiosity when Sussmann told it about the false Trump/Alfa Bank connection.

  Attempts to reach Sussmann to get his side to the additional CIA allegations leveled by Durham were unsuccessful. The 57-year-old attorney pleaded not guilty to a single felony count and was released on a $100,000 bond Friday. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison.

  The prominent Washington lawyer quietly resigned from Perkins Coie, which has scrubbed all references to him from its website. And late last month, as rumors of the indictment swirled, the powerhouse law firm divested its entire Political Law Group formerly headed by Marc Elias – who commissioned the Steele dossier. Elias, who worked closely with Sussmann on the Trump-Alfa Bank project, also is no longer employed by the firm.

  Jake Sullivan’s Golf Cart Rounds

  In late July 2016, during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, the CIA picked up Russian chatter about a Clinton foreign policy adviser who was trying to develop allegations to “vilify” Trump. The intercepts said Clinton herself had approved a “plan” to “stir up a scandal” against Trump by tying him to Putin. According to hand-written notes, then-CIA chief John Brennan warned President Obama that Moscow had intercepted information about the “alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016, of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump.” That summer, Brennan had personally briefed Democrats, including then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, on the Alfa Bank-Trump server rumors, according to congressional reports. Reid fired off a letter to Comey demanding that the FBI do more to investigate Trump’s ties to Russia.

  During that convention, Sullivan drove a golf cart from one TV-network news tent in the parking lot to another, pitching producers and anchors a story that Trump was conspiring with Putin to steal the election. CNN, ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News, as well as Chris Wallace of Fox News, all gave him airtime to spin the Clinton campaign’s unfounded theories. Sullivan also gave off-camera background briefings to reporters.

  “We were on a mission,” Clinton campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri later admitted in a Washington Post column. “We wanted to raise the alarm.”

  Then, on the eve of the election, Sullivan claimed in a written campaign statement that Trump and the Russians had set up a “secret hotline” through Alfa Bank, and he suggested “federal authorities” were investigating “this direct connection between Trump and Russia.” He portrayed the shocking discovery as the work of independent experts — “computer scientists” — without disclosing their attachment to the campaign.

  “This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow,” Sullivan claimed.

  Clinton teed up his statement in an Oct. 31, 2016, tweet, which quickly went viral. Also that day, Clinton tweeted, “It’s time for Trump to answer serious questions about his ties to Russia,” while attaching a meme that read: “Donald Trump has a secret server. It was set up to communicate privately with a Putin-tied Russian bank called Alfa Bank.”

  

  The Clinton campaign played up the bogus Trump-Alfa Bank story on the eve of the 2016 election. Twitter/@HillaryClinton

  It’s not immediately apparent if then-Vice President Joe Biden was briefed about the Alfa Bank tale or other Trump-Russia rumors and investigations.

  Biden has never been questioned about his own role in the investigation of Trump. However, it was the former vice president who introduced the idea of prosecuting Trump’s national security adviser appointee, Gen. Flynn, under the Logan Act of 1799, a dead-letter statute that prohibits private citizens from interfering in U.S. foreign policy and which hasn’t been used to prosecute anyone in modern times. According to notes taken by then-FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok, who attended a Jan. 5, 2017, Oval Office meeting with Obama and Biden, in which Trump, Flynn and Russia were discussed, Biden raised the idea: “VP: Logan Act,” the notes read.

  Although he’s not an attorney, Sullivan has argued in congressional testimony and elsewhere that Flynn violated the Logan Act, raising suspicions he may have put the idea in Biden’s head. Sullivan had advised the vice president before joining the Clinton campaign.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 22:20

• This Has To Be A Mistake
  This Has To Be A Mistake

  While we were digging through the data for today’s household net worth report we stumbled upon something that seem beyond ridiculous: the ratio of Household Net Worth to Disposable Net Income. At 786% in the latest quarter, the chart at first appears to be a mistake but we triple checked it, and… well, here it is.

  

  The latest, all-time high print is an increase from 698% in Q1 and also represents the biggest quarterly increase in history!

  

  This number is so ridiculous, it is almost 50% higher than the long-term average of 540%. More importantly, it means that the total net worth number we reported earlier today, which in Q2 hit a record high of $142 trillion, is massively inflated on the back of what is obviously the biggest asset bubble on record.

  

  It also means that if one were to strip away the asset bubble, and net worth was purely a reasonable function of disposable income, then total net worth worth be haircut by 31%, or some $43 trillion, which incidentally, is equivalent to the net worth of the top 1% of US society…

  

  … and which as we showed earlier today is a record 32% of total household net worth.

  

  As an aside, the fact that the top 1% have gained $10 trillion in wealth since the covid pandemic outbreak, is probably just a coincidence, and yet…

  Covid has been the best thing ever to happen to the wealthy and powerful. No wonder they don’t want it to end

  — Hipster (@Hipster_Trader) September 23, 2021

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

  As for the chart which clearly has to be a mistake, we are sad to report that it isn’t, and as politicians of both the Democrat and Republican party pretend to fight for the common man, all they are doing is enabling and accelerating the greatest wealth transfer in the world but not for nothing: they too want to be in the top 1%.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 22:00

• FOMC Voting Rotation Matters More Than A Hawkish Dot Shift
  FOMC Voting Rotation Matters More Than A Hawkish Dot Shift

  As excerpted from Michael Read, Bloomberg Markets Live Reporter and Commentator

  The hawkish dot plot should be treated with an even greater degree of skepticism than usual.

  Firstly, dots are individual projections, do not distinguish between voting and non-voting members and likely reflect views from policy makers whose terms will come to an end over the dot horizon. They aren’t really summary forecasts or a promise of action and are most certainly not fungible by any means.

  

  Secondly, while we undoubtedly had a technical shift in the 2022 median dot and 2023 snapping up to 1.5 hikes (we can put the new 2024 dot on the bench for the time being) the key point here is exactly who is going to do the voting. We can spend the next few weeks and months playing guess-the-dot, or we can look at the voting rotation on the FOMC to analyse the balance of power.

  In 2022, four hawkish regional Fed Presidents rejoin the voting roll (Bullard, George, Mester, Rosengren) with two doves (Evans, Daly) dropping off. The “year of the hawks“ gives the 2022 hawkish shift more credibility assuming the Fed’s accelerated tapering is completed mid-2022 with few hiccups along the way.

  Beyond that it gets a bit messy. In 2023, the FOMC voting bias is flipped on its head. Two hawks rejoin (Harker/Kaplan) but a broad range of the current hawkish contingent are benched as a flock of doves, including Evans/Kashkari assume voting positions… all while dots (currently) point to three hikes.

  

  Plausible? Sure. Probable? Less so.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 21:40

• "Hyperinflation" Tops List Of Fears For UBS Clients
  “Hyperinflation” Tops List Of Fears For UBS Clients

  With Democrats in Washington pushing for a $3.5 trillion ‘social infrastructure’ stimulus package and Speaker Pelosi perhaps hinting at the removal of the debt ceiling altogether for the US, it is perhaps no surprise that some are ‘worried’ that the idea of consequences is absent from any discussions.

  Pelosi called the debt ceiling vote a “tradition,” adding that there is some back and forth about whether they need to do it, before she dropped this bombshell: “There’s some doubt as to whether that should be the case.”

  Well no debt ceiling would certainly enable MMT – as long as The Fed can keep monetizing that malarkey – and perhaps that’s why USA sovereign risk is spiking…

  

  While US’s sovereign risk has been considerably higher than this before (like in 2013 during that debt ceiling debacle), the velocity of the move suggests more than a few investors are considering the chance of a US default.

  Who can blame anyone for at least considering that when US debt is literally exploding – with no signs of it abating…

  

  …and the Fed’s balance sheet having gone vertical…

  

  With Central Bankers constantly reassuring that there is nothing to fear here – some even pointing to Japan as proof that this can go on much longer before the pin is pulled from the global reserve currency’s grenade – it appears that, back in the real-world, real-life human beings investing their own hard-earned money are much more worried about Washington’s largesse.

  Specifically, clients of UBS Group AG are wondering whether central banks’ massive stimulus could trigger hyperinflation, according to a list of their top economic concerns…

  

  As Bloomberg notes, the concerns highlight the conundrum facing central banks as they continue to provide ultra-accommodative policy to help economies recover from the crisis.

  Commodity prices have spiked and other inputs are facing severe supply constraints, driving up inflation rates from Europe to the U.S.

  And remember “nothing lasts forever” in fiat make-believed-land…

  

  With the world now seemingly convinced The Fed is on its way to normalization (tapering into mid-2022, then rate-liftoff by end-2022) and a Democrat-run socialist utopia lies aheadwhere the rich pay “their fair share” of taxes and the citizenry gets to sit at home being “artistic” and “creative” thanks to our UBI (as long as we comply with vaccine mandates); some more pragmatic market-watchers – like the UBS clients – see a path that is a little less optimistic (think Mad Max).

  Peter Schiff warned that even if the Fed does begin to taper, it will eventually reverse course and ultimately expand QE.

  “It knows the only foundation this bubble economy has is the Fed’s easy money policies. And I don’t think they have any actual plans to taper. And even if they just kind of feign the process by beginning it, they’ll never complete it because soon after they start the taper, again, if they even ever start, they’re going to have to reverse the process. Because ultimately, the Fed Fed is going to expand the QE program and start to buy a lot more government Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities in the future than it’s doing right now.”

  They’re going to be tired of a boy crying wolf over and over and over again, and a wolf never actually showing up.

  At some point, the markets are going to figure this out, understand the Fed’s predicament, and then it’s going to hit the fan.”

  Perhaps that is why gold and crypto has soared so much…

  

  Remember the strength/weakness of the ‘dollar’ only exists relative to other fiat frauds – to truly comprehend its ‘weakness’ one needs to compare to ‘stores of wealth’.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 21:20

• Australian Government Shuts Down Melbourne Construction Sites Amid Protests Over Vaccine Mandates
  Australian Government Shuts Down Melbourne Construction Sites Amid Protests Over Vaccine Mandates

  By Jennifer Goodman of Construction Dive,

  Construction sites in and around Melbourne, Australia, have been shut down for two weeks after hundreds of construction workers and other protestors gathered Monday at the site of a union building, throwing bottles and damaging equipment.

  

  They were protesting the Victorian government’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for construction workers that begins Thursday.

  Riot police used rubber bullets and pepper spray to disperse crowds, the BBC reported, and the headquarters building for the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union was damaged. Several people were arrested.

  The union released a statement saying it condemned the protests and the “mindless acts of violence” perpetrated by members of the crowd. The statement said that many protesters were not construction workers but members of neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist groups.

  “It is clear that a minority of those who participated were actual union members,” it said.

  Protests continued on Tuesday in Melbourne, with the crowd growing into the thousands and encompassing anti-vaccine activists and other types of workers. 

  Up to 2,000 protesters descended into the city’s central business district, according to The New York Times, which also reported that protesters threw bottles at the police and set off flares, while officers in riot gear fired rubber bullets and used pepper spray.

  Worker protests began last week when “tea rooms” where tradespeople congregate during breaks were shut down amid the rising delta surge and the government banned workers from consuming food or drink indoors. That prompted construction workers to take their lunch breaks outside in protest.

  They set up tables and plastic chairs in multiple intersections in central Melbourne, blocking roads and holding up traffic, according to NPR.

  Public health measures

  Following the protests, construction and state officials announced that jobsites in Melbourne and other areas in the region will be closed for at least two weeks beginning Tuesday. It cited Monday’s unrest and the increase in COVID-19 cases in the building and construction industry as the reasons.

  Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said that multiple outbreaks — as high as 13% of all cases, according to local media reports — have been linked to construction sites.

  Construction has been among the few industries that have largely stayed open throughout the pandemic in Victoria.

  “Construction workers are a mobile workforce who may work across multiple sites and travel longer distances to work than other permitted workers,” Andrews said in a statement. “Concerns have also been raised, and remain, about the sector’s compliance with public health measures and directions.”

  Minister for Industrial Relations Tim Pallas was even more forceful, saying that his office has seen widespread non-compliance across the industry.

  “We’ve been clear: if you don’t follow the rules, we won’t hesitate to take action,” he said in the statement.

  Workers will be required to show proof of at least one vaccine dose when sites reopen on Oct. 5, he added.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 21:00

• Taiwan Seeks Entry Into Key Trade Pact Before China, Says Simultaneous Bid "Quite Risky"
  Taiwan Seeks Entry Into Key Trade Pact Before China, Says Simultaneous Bid “Quite Risky”

  China and Taiwan are increasingly entering a war of words as both are within the last week seeking to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP. The Pacific trade pact involves Japan, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and others among 11 total countries, which began in 2018 – though previous to that it was known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and ironically was long deemed a crucial economic counterweight to China’s regional influence. 

  On Wednesday, merely less than a week after Beijing announced its own bid for formal membership, Taiwan’s Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Chen Chern-chyi unveiled the application in a press conference while Cabinet spokesperson Lo Ping-cheng said, “Applying to join the CPTPP is an important economic and trade policy that the government has worked hard to promote for a long time.”

  Taiwan’s chief trade negotiator John Deng admitted on the same day that “it will pose a major obstacle for Taiwan to join the trade bloc if Beijing joins it first.” Beijing’s ‘One China’ policy has attempted to aggressively enforce the idea that Taiwan can’t join international trade pacts and institutions. 

  

  Deng followed up in Thursday statements by pointing out that China consistently attempts to obstruct Taiwan’s participation in global trade and entities, underscoring that, “So if China joins first, Taiwan’s membership case should be quite risky. This is quite obvious.”

  “I stress that Taiwan is an sovereign, independent nation. It has its own name. But for trade deals the name we have used for years is the least controversial,” Deng added. He explained further:

  But Taiwan has a different “system” from China, Deng added, pointing to Taiwan’s democracy, rule of law, transparent laws and respect for personal property.

  However he said there was no direct connection between Taiwan’s decision to apply and China’s, which has yet to comment on Taiwan’s application.

  “How mainland China comments on this is a matter for them,” Deng said.

  He added that Taiwan, a major semiconductor producer, has applied to join under the name it uses in the World Trade Organization (WTO) — the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu. Taiwan is a member of the WTO and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping.

  Last week Chinese state-run media hailed the Beijing’s own application application as affirming China’s leading role in global trade and success in resisting Washington pressures. For example Communist Party mouthpiece Global Times had this to say in a prior op-ed just hours after the announcement:

  The late-night announcement aims to cement China’s leadership role in global trade, while piling pressure on the US that has thus far stayed away from rejoining the revised version of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a regional trade pact initiated by the US under former President Barack Obama that was widely believed to be aimed at containing China’s rise, experts said. 

  GT took further swipes, suggesting China represents multilateralism in the face of Washington bullying as follows:

  China is hoping for the CPTPP to put global trade and economic cooperation back on track, underscoring the need for multilateralism, thereby reviving both the Chinese economy and the global economy in the post-COVID-19 era.

  More importantly, watchers of international affairs stressed that China’s latest step that is set to steady its partnership with CPTPP members, would inevitably subject the US to what could be overwhelming pressure.

  So without doubt, officials in Beijing will see Taiwan’s bid for CPTPP membership as but yet more Washington meddling with a US ‘hidden hand’ challenging One China.

  On Thursday outspoken GT editor Hu Xijin weighed in with the following…

  Taiwan applied to join the CPTPP. If Taiwan wants to use this process to reinforce its impact on the one-China policy, I can say with certainty that it cannot enter the CPTPP.

  — Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) September 23, 2021

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

  Currently Japan has the foremost visible leadership role in the CPTPP, which could further complicate things in terms of both China and Taiwan applying at the same time, given current rising Japan-China tensions are centered precisely on Tokyo’s recent willingness to take a pro-Washington line on the matter.

  Meanwhile, Britain began negotiations to enter the trans-Pacific trade pact in June, and its own case is front and center, said to be proceeding the fastest at the moment.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 20:40

• Unbiased, Mobility-Enabling, Open, Global Network: How Crypto Enables Economic Freedom
  Unbiased, Mobility-Enabling, Open, Global Network: How Crypto Enables Economic Freedom

  Authored by Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase,

  The following is an internal memo that I shared with Coinbase employees this week and would also like to share publicly to help people see how we’re working toward our mission of increasing economic freedom in the world.

  Tl;dr: Our core thesis is that greater adoption and usage of cryptocurrency will increase economic freedom in the world, because crypto solves many of the shortcomings of the current financial system that hinder economic freedom.

  

  Team,

  Every quarter at our company All Hands, we review our Mission (what we’re trying to achieve) and our Strategy (how we’re going to get there). One question I often hear from employees is: “How does cryptocurrency create more economic freedom in the world?” This is a great question, so I wanted to share my thoughts with all of you.

  First, a refresher: Economic freedom is a composite measure of 12 factors.

  It quantifies the rights of people to control their own labor and property in each country and globally. Economic freedom varies dramatically across the world, and while our economy is increasingly global, the government of any single country has significant control over the financial and economic freedoms of its people. Low economic freedom in a given country isn’t always due to malicious activity (e.g, fraud, oppression, etc) — it’s often due to mismanagement (poor monetary and fiscal policy) or simply bad infrastructure.

  Crypto and economic freedom

  The question to ask is: How can we build a global economy where anyone with an internet connection can participate, where property rights are enforced, and where money preserves its value? Crypto is the solution. Crypto can’t directly improve every facet of economic freedom (e.g., tax policies and government spending), but it can improve most of the underlying drivers (see below).

  

  Read more about each of the factors here.

  Why is crypto so uniquely positioned to increase economic freedom? Because it has these inherent properties:

  Crypto is an open, global network

  Crypto networks are open, removing the barriers of borders. It allows every person in the world to transact on shared networks, in the same way they communicate on a shared network (the internet). More importantly these networks themselves are not controlled by governments that can use their monetary systems to hinder economic freedom (and prosperity). This design principle leads to more open markets and increases trade freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, and monetary freedom.

  Crypto enforces property rights

  Property rights allow people to save their income, grow their wealth, and plan for the long term because they know the fruits of their labor are safe from unfair seizure or theft. Before crypto, your confidence in property rights was a function of the trust you had in your government and its respect for the rule of law. With crypto, anyone can acquire and grow their wealth without intervention from trusted 3rd parties like a government or a bank, or fear that their wealth could easily be seized. Property rights are also about the ability to enter contractual agreements. In some areas around the world, a contract has little value, because you can’t be confident in its enforcement. Smart contracts move enforcement from the courts to the blockchain, enabling gains from specialization and commercial exchange.

  Crypto is unbiased

  Crypto networks are often pseudonymous (or even anonymous). They don’t care where you live, what your race or gender is, or who you voted for in the last election. Unlike the current financial system they are inherently open and unbiased. Anyone with an internet connection can create a wallet, get paid in crypto, spend in crypto and accrue wealth in crypto. Service providers like Coinbase do have compliance programs as required by law, but we don’t control access to all crypto and we don’t own the network. Anyone can access crypto networks through other providers if we make a bad decision, or are forced into bad regulation. In addition, self custody wallets like Coinbase Wallet provide an ever greater degree of freedom when it comes to financial inclusion.

  Crypto enables mobility

  As I mentioned above, there are important components of economic freedom that cryptocurrency can’t directly benefit (e.g., government integrity, tax policies, fiscal health, etc.). However, cryptocurrency does provide the conditions for mobility by reducing switching costs, allowing people to both accrue wealth and bring it across borders. Cryptocurrency is the ultimate embodiment of the power of the individual, by significantly reducing the barriers to emigration / exit, and thus increasing economic freedom.

  Conclusion

  As you can see, cryptocurrency can impact many of the factors that lead to more economic freedom. It can both help build better-functioning economies in countries with less economic freedom, and make it easier to emigrate to a better life. This is why our core thesis as a company is that greater adoption and usage of cryptocurrency will increase economic freedom in the world.

  Technology is the longest lever we can pull to improve the human condition. At its core, cryptocurrency is a technology breakthrough that allows us to build a more free and open financial system that enables the rights of people to control their own labor and property. It is the best tool that exists to advance our mission of increasing economic freedom in the world.

  What does this mean for Coinbase? Crypto is in many ways still nascent. It’s still hard to use, crypto networks are plagued with scaling challenges, and the economy built on top of crypto infrastructure is in its early days. Our strategy and roadmap is geared towards solving these challenges: We’re focused on building easy-to-use products that abstract away the complexity of blockchains, and we’re building the primitives of a functioning financial system. We still have a long way to go, but the future is bright.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 20:20

• US Meat Prices To Remain Elevated Amid Depleted Reserves
  US Meat Prices To Remain Elevated Amid Depleted Reserves

  Beef, pork, and chicken in US cold storage warehouses have yet to recover from pandemic lows and could continue to support higher prices. 

  New United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) data shows beef reserves dropped 7.7% from a year ago in August, poultry supplies fell 20%, and pork plunged 44% to their lowest levels since 2017, according to Bloomberg. 

  

  Jim Sullivan, commercial director for Stable USA, said low meat inventories would suggest meat prices will stay elevated. 

  “Prices remain very elevated compared to seasonal expectations,” Sullivan said. 

  Soaring supermarket prices have been on the radar of the Biden administration as working-poor families allocate a high percentage of their incomes to basic and essential items. Higher food inflation eats away their wages and is why Biden recently increased SNAP benefits by a quarter. 

  Earlier this month, the Biden administration finally addressed inflation as a concern but didn’t blame the trillions of dollars in fiscal and monetary policies and labor shortages on increased food inflation but instead placed responsibility on meatpackers. 

  White House National Economic Council Director Brian Deese said “pandemic profiteering” food companies are driving up supermarket costs for Americans. This is nothing more than a blame game and failed government policies that have not just increased food prices but have left supply chains reeling due to stimulus checks that disincentivized workers from working. 

  New data of low meat supply at US cold storage facility is more bad news for the Biden administration, who will have to develop a new narrative about why meat prices aren’t going down. If food inflation remains elevated into early next year, Americans might vote with their wallets during next year’s midterms. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 20:00

• "Ghost Guns": Why The Government Desperately Wants To Ban 3D-Printed Weapons
  “Ghost Guns”: Why The Government Desperately Wants To Ban 3D-Printed Weapons

  Authored by Aden Tate (Author of The Faithful Prepper and Zombie Choices) via The Organic Prepper,

  Nobody loves controlling others more than the government, so it’s no surprise that they’re desperate to ban 3-d printed guns. Right now, the US legislature has introduced two separate yet identical bills that would outright ban the creation of 3D-printed guns or the dissemination of the code for doing so.

  HR 4225 was introduced to the House Committee on the Judiciary on June 29 of this year by Representative Ted Deutsch (D-FL). A few short days later, an identical bill, S.2319, was introduced by Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) in the Senate. [Source]

  Officially, S.2319 is referred to as the 3-D Printed Gun Safety Act of 2021.

  They’re ready to take gun control to a whole new level with this.

  

  But you may know it as its mainstream media coined term: The Ghost Gun Ban

  According to the US government, the stated intention of S.2319 is “to amend chapter 44 of title 18, United States Code, to prohibit the distribution of 3D printer plans for the printing of firearms, and for other purposes.” After the bill was introduced, 27 Senators throughout the US – all Democrat (with the exception of stated Independent, Bernie Sanders) – jumped on board to sign it. They are:

  •   Sen. Menendez, Robert [D-NJ]  

  •   Sen. Reed, John [D-RI]

  •   Sen. Schatz, Brian [D-HI]

  •   Sen. Casey, Bob [D-PA]

  •   Sen. Feinstein, Dianne [D-CA]

  •   Sen. Wyden, Ron [D-OR]

  •   Sen. Blumenthal, Richard [D-CT]

  •   Sen. Merkley, Jeff [D-OR]

  •   Sen. Whitehouse, Sheldon [D-RI]

  •   Sen. Duckworth, Tammy [D-IL]

  •   Sen. Durbin, Richard [D-IL]

  •   Sen. Sanders, Bernard [I-VT]

  •   Sen. Padilla, Alex [D-CA]

  •   Sen. Murphy, Christopher [D-CT]

  •   Sen. Van Hollen, Chris [D-MD]

  •   Sen. Smith, Tina [D-MN]

  •   Sen. Leahy, Patrick [D-VT]

  •   Sen. Kaine, Timothy [D-VA]

  •   Sen. Cardin, Ben [D-MD]

  •   Sen. Klobuchar, Amy [D-MN]

  •   Sen. Baldwin, Tammy [D-WI]

  •   Sen. Booker, Cory [D-NJ]

  •   Sen. Coons, Christopher [D-DE]

  •   Sen. Hirono, Mazie [D-HI]

  •   Sen. Gillibrand, Kirsten [D-NY]

  •   Sen. Brown, Sherrod [D-OH]

  •   Sen. Murray, Patty [D-WA]

   [source] 

  All these folks can’t wait to ban 3-d printed guns.

  What does this mean for aficionados if they ban 3-D printed guns ?

  Should this bill be passed to ban 3-D printed guns, it likely means that tens of thousands (if not more) of Americans would instantly become criminals overnight.  (This is nothing new for gun control aficionados in the government.) What was once legal for any free man would become criminal and likely result in the ATF being sent to the scene. 

  If you’ve purchased a 3D printer in the past, this bill could easily result in additional policies decreeing your need to register your printers, filaments, and other 3D printer-associated tools.

  Furthermore, this bill would make even posting the schematics for 3D printed guns online illegal. This is something that’s never been done before in American history.

  What do I mean by this?

  One has always been able to find gun blueprints in America. The United States has a long history of “backyard gunsmiths,” if you will, and it’s never been illegal before. Firearm schematics are readily available for those with a metal lathe, machining equipment, and the desire to craft their own weapon.

  But now that more people can engage in the act, it’s been decided it needs to be made illegal. Hence, it isn’t enough to ban 3D-printed guns alone. They must also ban all online 3D printed gun plans.

  Here’s the problem, though:

  3-D printed gun plans are free speech

  The founder of 3D printed guns, Cody Wilson, actually settled a hefty court case with the US State Department after successfully arguing that code is free speech and thus, he’d done nothing wrong by disseminating his code to the world. [source] 

  If such were made illegal, what type of code would follow?

  Would any form of encrypted messengers, such as Signal, soon be determined to be a ‘threat’ and thus made illegal? (Don’t think that can’t happen. It’s already been discussed.)  If you discussed how to reload ammunition online in a forum with a reloading newcomer, could you later be the subject of legislative action?

  What if you just taught a friend how to shoot at your farm? What if you teach your son how to hunt? In both cases, you’ve used words to instruct somebody else on how to use a firearm? Could that be subject to legislation down the road should this bill be passed? A similar bill about instructing others that was allegedly meant to discourage informal militias was brought up in Virginia back in 2020.

  Couldn’t every firearm book in existence that teaches people how to reload, shoot, clean a gun, etc., fall under the jurisdiction of such a decision?

  The Constitution has been forsaken

  We’ve already seen that the American justice system has a long history of resorting to case law rather than Constitutional law. The passing of this bill would only make the arguing for further infringements of human freedom even easier for these people. 

  Further examples would be how this bill could open the door for every conceivable firearm part or accessory out there now needing to be registered. Diagrams for any such part – say for something as simple as a pair of flip-up sights – could be rendered illegal overnight. Now, millions of Americans would be deemed criminals in need of punishment.

  What would this mean for the gunsmith industry?

  Would you be able to continue practicing your trade? Within the world of firearms, prices would reach such exorbitant levels that nobody would be able to afford guns or ammunition.

  Why is this?

  Well, if every firearm component has to be stamped and registered, you’re talking about forcing every manufacturer out there to invest money in stamping equipment. You’re talking about a considerable expense, extra employees, and extra training. The registration process would require additional time, likely include a tax of some sort, and would create a host of legal hoops to jump through. And nobody’s just going to eat that cost. They will send it directly to the consumer.

  The adjustable AR-15 stock you once bought for $60 could now easily be $100. The AK-47 you’ve had your eyes on could now be selling for 4x higher than in prior years. This would effectively mean that only those with enough disposable income, along with the capability and wherewithal to jump through a circus ring of obstacles, would be able to defend themselves.

  Single mothers, fresh college grads, and anybody running on hard times financially (such as those brought about by government-instituted lockdowns) would no longer be able to afford the weapons, ammunition, or training needed to defend themselves.

  Do you think the government will succeed in its efforts to ban 3-D printed guns?

  When the rights to free speech and self-defense are simultaneously attacked, the only thing coming down the road is slavery.

  But hey, F-15 jets, Blackhawk helicopters, and 600,000 rifles given away in Afghanistan?  [source]

  No big deal.

  Do you agree that these regulations would be an infringement on your Constitutional rights?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 19:40

• Evergrande Auto Hasn't Sold A Single Car, But Has Enriched Its Founder And His Friends Plenty
  Evergrande Auto Hasn’t Sold A Single Car, But Has Enriched Its Founder And His Friends Plenty

  While everyone has been focusing on Evergrande as a property developer, few know the story about how Evergrande Auto became worth $86.6 billion at one point without selling a single car. The company now trades at a fraction, about 4%, of its all time high. While shareholders were wiped out for the most part, insiders made out well. 

  On Tuesday of this week, the company did what it does best. No, not make vehicles: pay insiders. Evergrande Auto “granted 323.72 million share options worth HK$1.26 billion to three directors and around 3,180 employees of the company,” a new report from Caixin notes.

  Founder Hui Ka Yan and “friends” in his circle have made out the best from the fallen company. How well have they done? One “friend” of the founder bought 80 million shares in the company before it was renamed as Evergrande Auto for HK$0.30 each. They then sold them all for HK$50 per share, netting the friend more than HK$4 billion.

  Hey, it’s great work if you can get it. 

  Caixin reports that the primary purpose of Evergrande Auto was to raise capital for the group company Evergrande. While the parent company claimed it was investing some 47 billion yuan into the auto company, analysts are starting to wonder if the market funded these investments instead. 

  One analyst told Caixin: “Evergrande Auto had raised 30 billion yuan in two rounds, which means that the company mostly used investors’ money — instead of its own capital — to invest, and it managed to gain a high market value (for the auto company). Consequently, with its shares (in the auto company) at high price, it could use them as collateral to raise even more money.”

  The company focused more on M&A than it did on making cars, the report says. For example, it bought a major stake in Xinjiang Guanghui Industry Investment Group Co. Ltd. for 14.5 billion yuan in 2018. As Caixin notes, that company is a stakeholder in China Grand Automotive Services Group Co. Ltd., which is one of the largest auto dealers in the country.

  

  The stake was later sold off in 2019 when Evergrande needed cash. 

  In 2019, Evergrande Auto’s predecessor bought a 51% stake in National Electric Vehicle Sweden AB (NEVS) for $930 million, the report notes. Evergrande’s stock price rose as a result. 

  Part of the mechanics that helped Evergrande Auto’s predecessor rocket higher included the fact that 18 shareholders owned 19.83% of the company’s shares. When combined with the 74.99% of the issued shares held by the company, that only left 5.18% of Evergrande shares to be traded freely. 

  Evergrande also acquired a 51% equity stake in Fangchebao Group Co. Ltd. using its shares. Fangchebao then brought in 17 investors in March 2021 that helped it raise capital at a valuation of HK$163.5 billion. Evergrande made HK$8.175 billion upon selling its shares.

  Analysts, however, were baffled as to how Evergrande was able to bring in investors at the elevated valuation. The secret lied in a promise of a buyback from Evergrande.

  One investor told Caixin: “What we valued was its valuation adjustment mechanism (对赌协议). If Fangchebao failed to go public within a year, Evergrande would buy back our shares at a 15% premium to the prevailing market price. At least, through this mechanism, we could get out money back.”

  Those investors thought Evergrande could continue to push up Fangchebao’s valuation and that Evergrande wouldn’t fail within a year.

  Another investor said: “However, Fangchebao was a relatively poor quality company, much worse than Evergrande Property Services. In Fangchebao’s case, it was better not to go public. It would be more troublesome after the listing because its poor performance would become public knowledge.”

  Then there’s the question of who truly benefitted from Evergrande’s financial wheeling and dealing over the years. While investors and shareholders now suffer the consequences of the company’s poor decision making, Hui Ka Yan’s personal assets are now mysteriously being “transferred to new ownership”, the report says. In fact, Hui was easily the single biggest beneficiary of the dividends paid by Evergrande from 2011 to 2020. 53 billion yuan of the 69 billion yuan that Evergrande has paid in dividends since it listed have gone to Hui.

  You can read Caixin’s detailed report here. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 19:20

• Tropical Storm Sam Forms In Atlantic Basin, Expected To Become Major Hurricane This Weekend
  Tropical Storm Sam Forms In Atlantic Basin, Expected To Become Major Hurricane This Weekend

  Tropical Storm Sam, the 18th named storm of the season, formed Thursday in the Atlantic Basin, is forecasted to become a major hurricane by the end of this weekend or early next week, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). 

  NHC said Sam formed Thursday morning from Tropical Depression Eighteen and is about 1,745 miles east-southeast of the northern Leeward Islands and moving west at 16 mph. 

  “Intensification is expected through the rest of this week and into the weekend, and Sam is expected to become a hurricane late Friday or Friday night,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Rob Miller said.

  The storm is expected to take a west-northwest track across the central Atlantic over the weekend, Accuweather said. It’s still uncertain whether it makes landfall, but NHC has urged caution for the Bahamas, Bermuda, and the US East Coast. 

  “Sam could approach the northern Leeward Islands by Tuesday of next week as a major hurricane,” Miller said, indicating this would mean the storm would have maximum sustained winds of more than 100 mph.

  

  Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach tweeted that this hurricane season has had 18 named storms, and there was only one other time that this happened by Sept. 23, which was last year. 

  Tropical Storm #Sam has formed in the eastern tropical Atlantic – the 18th named storm of the 2021 Atlantic #hurricane season to date. Only 1 season on record has had 18+ Atlantic named storms by 23 September: 2020. 2020 had 23 named storms by 23 September. pic.twitter.com/AGFg37ljxw

  — Philip Klotzbach (@philklotzbach) September 23, 2021

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

  On Sept. 10, Klotzbach called the “climatological peak of the Atlantic hurricane season,” indicating the number of named storms is well above average. 

  

  It’s still too early to tell Sam’s exact trajectory, but a better understanding of its path will be established in the coming days. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 19:00

• Pelosi Vows To Avert Shutdown As Dems Reportedly Cave To "Republican Blockade"
  Pelosi Vows To Avert Shutdown As Dems Reportedly Cave To “Republican Blockade”

  Yesterday, when we laid out the dynamics behind Biden’s game of debt limit chicken, we quoted Rabobank which explained why the stand-off between Democrats and Republicans ahead of the debt ceiling Drop Dead Date (the date when all emergency funding measures are exhausted and which falls some time in late October) is so precarious: unlike previous occasions, neither side has to back down due to political or ideological purposes. In fact the side that is seen as conceding first  will likely be punished by its electorate; it’s also why Goldman has repeatedly warned that the odds of a catastrophic outcome are especially high.

  Worse, the closer we get to the Drop Dead Date without a deal, the more likely a freefall outcome becomes as the two sides dig in with the only hope then becoming a deal after the fact.

  However, today a ray of hope emerged when Bloomberg reported that Nancy Pelosi signaled Democrats will avert a government shutdown by passing a stopgap spending bill without a debt ceiling increase in it, amid Republican opposition to linking the two measures.

  “Whatever it is, we will have a CR that passes both houses by September 30,” Pelosi said at a press briefing Thursday, referring to the continuing resolution that will be needed to fund the federal government at the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1.

  The House passed a stopgap spending measure this week that would keep the government open until Dec. 3 and suspend the debt ceiling until Dec. 16, 2022, but that measure is dead in the Senate where it needs 60 votes to move ahead and Republicans are expected block it in.

  At a news conference that included Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Pelosi said that the conversation on the debt limit would continue. Schumer separately announced that Democrats have a “framework” for a deal to pay for President Joe Biden’s economic plan, though neither he nor Pelosi provided any details.

  Adding to the confusion, due to the irregularity of Treasury revenues and outlayws, it is not yet clear when the US Treasury could be on the brink of a default, adding uncertainty to how quickly Congress has to act. Yellen has said the government will probably exhaust its ability to avoid breaching the limit at some point in October, which is in line with Goldman’s estimate of D-Date falling around October 27.

  

  Meanwhile, confirming that Senate republicans won’t touch the debt limit vote, top senate republican Mitch McConnell said Democrats have plenty of time to use a partisan approach to raise the debt ceiling without Republican votes.  He also said that it would take Democrats “about a week or a little more” to use the budget reconciliation procedure to raise the debt limit (reconciliation bills bypass the filibuster, removing the need for GOP votes in the 50-50 Senate, but have required procedures that take time to go through).

  Senate Democrats have so far resisted deploying that tactic, saying that the effort should be bipartisan as Democrats realize that raising the debt ceiling on their own could hurt the Democrats in the midterm elections in 2022, so they prefer sharing the blame with the Republicans by forcing them to support a suspension of the debt limit. In .

  “This may inconvenient for them, but it is totally possible,” McConnell said. “This Democratic government must not manufacture an avoidable crisis.”

  For once he was actually right: as Rabobank explained, “the Democrats have the power to raise the debt ceiling and adopt a spending patch, through budget reconciliation, without any Republican vote. Therefore it will be difficult to blame a government shutdown or even a default on the Republicans. The mainstream media may try to do so anyway, but conservative media – which are relevant to Republican voters – will explain the realities to their audience. Therefore, there is no electoral need for the Republicans to blink. If they have the stomach for it, they can win this game and force the Democrats to “own” their spending spree. What’s more, if the Democrats fail to stick together under pressure, Biden’s ambitious legislative agenda could dissolve in October.”

  McConnell’s comments challenge House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth, who said Wednesday that Democrats probably do not have enough time to raise the U.S. debt ceiling on their own using the fast-track budget process before the default date. Actually they do – here is a calendar of fiscal policy deadlines courtesy of Rabo:

  

  An impartial budget expert agreed with McConnell’s view of the timetable: “They could do it in less than two weeks,” said former Senate Budget Committee staff director Bill Hoagland, now with the Bipartisan Policy Center. “It would be tight but I believe they could do it.”

  To be sure, not all Democrats are opposed to using the partisan path to raising the debt limit. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal said in an interview with CNN he’d be open to using reconciliation.

  “If we had to do it, I would do that,” Neal said, according to CNN. “I mean that the idea that America would default on debt is so far removed from everything I’ve ever entertained or thought of since I’ve been here.”

  Other Democrats on Thursday suggested the same: “I don’t draw lines in the sand. I want to get this done,” Maryland Senator Benjamin Cardin said.

  Virginia Senator Tim Kaine said Democratic leadership is exploring alternatives for the debt limit. “I’m not going to let the government default,” Kaine said, adding that Democrats have voted under Republican presidents to suspend the debt ceiling. “But if they’re not going to be responsible, we still will be,” he added.

  Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee, said he expects “at the end of the day” the Senate will pass a stopgap government funding bill that doesn’t have a debt limit increase on it and that Democrats will move the debt-limit increase through reconciliation.

  Yet not everyone is confident that a debt ceiling deal will be reached on time, starting first and foremost with the market, where today’s 4-week and 8-week Bill auctions showed a dramatic preference for the latter at the expense of the former, which mature right around the Drop Dead Date and may suffer repayment complications if the US is in technical default. As shown below, the discount rate on the 4-Week Bills came 1.5bps higher than the 8-Week Bill, the widest differential since the March 2020 covid crisis.

  

  Additionally, there was a collapse in Indirect demand for 4-week bills, with Indirects taking down just 21.3% while taking home a much higher 67.3% of the eight-week offering, the most since June 17.

  Finally, one reason why Pelosi may be less than credible is because earlier today, WaPo reported that the White House budget office (OMB) told federal agencies on Thursday to begin preparations for the first shutdown of the U.S. government since the pandemic began.

  While administration officials stressed the request is in line with traditional procedures seven days ahead of a shutdown and not a commentary on the likelihood of a congressional deal, the market did not seem to accept that explanation. Both Democrats and Republicans have made clear they intend to fund the government before its funding expires on Sept. 30, but time is running out and lawmakers are aiming to resolve an enormous set of tasks to in a matter of weeks.

  More importantly, WaPo confirmed Bloomberg’s report reporting that privately Democrats also began to acknowledge they are unlikely to prevail in the face of what the Washington Post called, a Republican blockade: “Democrats have started discussing the mechanics of how to sidestep Republicans as soon as next week, according to lawmakers and aides, as they maintain they will not allow the government to shut down in a pandemic or the country to default for the first time in history.”

  In a sign of the early scramble to avoid a shutdown, the Senate’s two top appropriators — Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and top Republican Richard C. Shelby (Ala.) — are set to huddle at a meeting later Thursday to discuss issues potentially including a short-term agreement to keep the government funded. Such a measure could be moved independently of an increase in the debt ceiling, since Republicans including McConnell have an expressed an openness to supporting such a solution.

  Meanwhile Bill Hoagland, a senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center and former Republican staff director for the Senate Budget Committee, pointed out that parts of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health would be closed as part of the government shutdown. Hoagland said a very brief shutdown may occur but said he doubted it would go on for “any length of time.”

  “This would be the first shutdown during a declaration of national emergency,” Hoagland said. “In the midst of an ongoing pandemic and non-resolved issues related to the delta virus, to have a shutdown of some of the major federal agencies would add unbelievable complications to our ability to recover.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 18:40

• North Carolina Hospital System Suspends Hundreds Of Employees After COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate
  North Carolina Hospital System Suspends Hundreds Of Employees After COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

  A North Carolina health care system said it suspended hundreds of its employees after the firm implemented a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, adding that workers who refuse to get vaccinated after five days will be fired.

  “Beginning this week, approximately 375 team members—across 15 hospitals, 800 clinics and hundreds of outpatient facilities—have been confirmed to be non-compliant and are not able to report to work,” stated a press release from Novant Health, which is based in North Carolina but operates in other states.

  “They will have an opportunity to comply over a five day, unpaid suspension period,” the release said.

  “If a team member remains non-compliant after this suspension period, he or she will have their employment with Novant Health terminated.”

  The firm then claimed that about 98.5 percent of its workforce are compliant with the policy, meaning they have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Workers who started a two-dose vaccine series have until Oct. 15 to get the second shot, Novant said.

  

  Employees who have an exemption are required to get weekly COVID-19 testing, as well as wear N95 masks and eye protection, it added.

  In a similar move, 125 workers with Indiana University Health, the biggest hospital system in the state, parted ways with the company, according to a news release issued last week. Those workers, it said, did not comply with the firm’s vaccine mandate.

  “Indiana University Health has put the safety and well-being of patients and team members first by requiring employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Sept. 1,” the company said in a Sept. 16 statement. “After a two-week unpaid suspension period ending Sept. 14, a total of 125 employees, the equivalent of 61 full-time employees, chose not to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and have left the organization.”

  It comes as President Joe Biden on Sept. 9 announced he would direct the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to penalize companies with 100 or more employees if they do not comply with his administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Under the mandate, details of which have not been released, private-sector workers would have to either get the COVID-19 vaccine or submit to weekly testing.

  The president also said he would mandate that all health care workers who are employed at facilities that receive Medicaid or Medicare funding get vaccinated.

  Republican leaders, as well as some union bosses, have criticized Biden for the announcement and said it’s tantamount to federal overreach. Some governors and state attorneys general have threatened to file lawsuits against the mandate.

  What happened to “heroes!”?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 18:20

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• UK Strikes Emergency Deal With CO2 Producer To Restart Operations Amid Shortage
  UK Strikes Emergency Deal With CO2 Producer To Restart Operations Amid Shortage

  US company CF industries will restart carbon dioxide (CO2) production this week at one of its two shuttered UK plants after the government offered financial support. CF closed both plants last week after soaring natural gas prices made it uneconomical to produce CO2, a byproduct of fertilizer that is derived from natural gas. 

  According to FT, CF’s ammonia plant at Billingham will “immediately restart operations” after the government signed an “exceptional short-term arrangement” with the company. 

  “The government will provide limited financial support for CF Fertilisers’ operating costs for three weeks while the CO2 market adapts to global gas prices,” the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said on Tuesday. Sources told FT, financial support could be upwards of £20 million. 

  British Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said the short-term financial agreement with CF will last for several weeks to increase the production of CO2 for critical industries.

  “This agreement will ensure the many critical industries that rely on a stable supply of CO2 have the resources they require to avoid disruption,” Kwarteng said.

  

  George Eustice, environment secretary, said with one plant coming back online, it would be enough to divert new CO2 supplies to industries that need it the most, such as the meat industry, food packaging industry, hospitals, and nuclear power plants, among others. 

  

  The closure of CF’s Billingham and Ince plants is about 45% of the country’s commercial production of CO2. The government warned with limited supplies. Companies could pay upwards of 500% more for the CO2. This will make the production or handling of products even more expensive for companies that will either eat costs and experience margin compression or pass the costs on to consumers. 

  COMMODITY INFLATION: UK government flags massive jump in industrial CO2 prices.

  “The food industry knows that there’s going to be a sharp rise in the cost of CO2 […] from £200 a ton, eventually closer to £1,000,” Environment Secretary George Eustice said pic.twitter.com/B36nO1KQ21

  — Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) September 22, 2021

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

  With soaring natural gas prices, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said earlier this week that his government would do everything in its power to prevent an energy crisis from severely disrupting the economy. 

  There’s also been destabilization in energy markets where smaller power companies are folding left and right as a bankruptcy wave appears to have begun. 

  The disruptive nature of soaring natural gas prices is rippling through the UK economy and may get worse ahead of winter.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 02:45

• The Afghanistan Debacle Was A Major Wake Up Call For NATO
  The Afghanistan Debacle Was A Major Wake Up Call For NATO

  Via Global Risk Insights,

  Overview of Prior EU Bureaucratic Actions 

  The vestiges of the Trump administration’s “America first” foreign policy have forced Europe to consider more autonomous defense initiatives. The EU lacks the military capabilities required to confront mounting geo-strategic concerns. Limited defense budgets increase Europe’s reliance on US expenditures, and uneven national allocations to NATO threaten the political viability of the alliance. 

  To rectify strategic shortcomings, the EU introduced the European Defense Fund (EDF). The EDF establishes the industrial foundation required for a resilient European defense program. The EU’s 2016 Global Strategy report included the EDF. The strategy sought to integrate Europe’s foreign policy and allocate resources toward external security threats.

  In 2018, the EU established The Capability Development Plan (CDP) to “address long-term security and defense challenges”.  The CDP encourages supranational cooperation and promotes capability cohesion with NATO.  In the midst of COVID’s economic disruption, bridging the capability gap remains an aspirational strategic objective. The notional budgetary allocations to the EDF and CDP (proposed within EU defense and security briefs prior to 2020) may decrease to account for the fiscal and political uncertainty caused by the pandemic.

  

  Military Realities

  Beyond the broad, rather philosophical debate surrounding European strategic autonomy, the Afghanistan imbroglio reveals military deficiencies that are unique to the EU. The disparity in military expenditures across Western states may prove unsustainable as geostrategic competition intensifies.  Inadequate defense budgets preceded the capability deficiencies that plagued NATO’s European member states in Afghanistan.

  In an interview with Foreign Policy, retired British General Richard Barrons states that without the US, “NATO is a very limited concept and very limited force”.  As the future strategic risks and threat perceptions of Europe and the US diverge, Europe will be responsible for defending its own interests. A shift toward a more autonomous European foreign policy will include improving the ability of the EU to intervene and protect their strategic priorities.

  Russian belligerence in Eastern Europe adds a measure of urgency to the question of strategic autonomy.  The lingering ambiguity regarding US willingness to fulfill Article V commitments remains a driver of EU security policy initiatives. NATO-Russia force balance improvements on NATO’s eastern flank will be a strategic priority as Russia calculates the cost of future belligerence. Improving force readiness and maintaining operative-forward deployment positions in Eastern Europe may support European defense autonomy and promote capability cohesion within NATO. 

  Political Implications

  Emmanuel Macron continues to advance his conception of ‘European Sovereignty’.  In a February interview with the Financial Times, Macron said that he defends strategic autonomy “not because I am against NATO or because I doubt our American friends…but because I think we need a fair sharing of the burden and Europe cannot delegate the protection of its neighborhood to the USA.”

  Angela Merkel agrees that Europe must “take [its] fate into [its] own hands”.  Macron faces reelection with an approval rating hovering around 40% and Merkel steps down as chancellor in September.  Therefore, transitional stability is a reasonable concern. Policy continuity among the EU’s principal members may determine the efficacy of Europe’s independent security agenda.

  The resurgence of the ‘America First’ mentality is a threat to transatlantic defense cooperation. Hardline voters in Republican strongholds may determine the extent to which US foreign policy reflects isolationist doctrine. A 2024 general election triumph by a viable Republican candidate might call into question America’s commitment to Article V and to NATO itself.

  Public opinion may determine how, and to what degree, European policymakers pursue strategic autonomy through increased budgetary expenditures. Though 61% of Europeans hold a favorable opinion of NATO, all but five member states oppose, in the majority, defending a NATO ally should Russia attack.  Such polling data suggests an overreliance on US protection, the aggregate fragility of Article V commitments, and the necessity of a more independent European security apparatus. 

  Outlook

  Theresa May, while addressing Parliament, framed the question of European strategic autonomy, “What does [the Afghanistan pullout] say about us as a country? What does it say about NATO, if we are entirely dependent on a unilateral decision by the U.S.?”.  Forward-facing policy proposals will address the capability disparities within NATO and without it. Public opinion and the political will of elites to increase military expenditures against possible political headwinds determine, in part, the ultimate impact of such initiatives.

  A more functional independent European security may inoculate the EU against the inherent uncertainty of quadrennial US presidential transitions. The volatility of US domestic politics will contribute to European skepticism regarding US commitment to the collective defense provision of the NATO charter.  Transatlantic incredulity will introduce urgency into policy planning and may provide political justification for increased defense spending.

  The Afghanistan pullout has renewed calls to improve EU intervention capabilities. France and Germany have proposed the creation of an “initial entry force”. The conceptual force includes 5,000 troops supported by aircraft and ships. Such an EU rapid-reaction force, employed in concert with increased global development expenditures, may provide stability for struggling democracies abroad. Pursuing a balanced, synergistic combination of hard and soft power projection will make the EU a more capable NATO partner and a more formidable international actor.

  US-Russia-China trilateral relations will play a large role in shaping the transatlantic alliance in the medium and long term. In the short term, while US and EU threat perceptions regarding Russia and China differ, regional NATO cooperation in the Middle East will be a necessity. It is unclear what the nature of Russian and Chinese influence will look like on the ground, but the willingness of the two powers to engage with the Taliban is telling. The urgency with which NATO and the EU respond to these developments may determine the scale of imminent irregular migration crises.

  In a September 1st guest essay for the New York Times, Josep Borrell Fontelles (the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy) underscores the instructive nature of the Afghanistan withdrawal. He writes that “Some events catalyze history: The Afghanistan debacle is one of them.” Whether Europe will pursue more efficacious security policies remains unclear. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 02:00

• Do The 'Global Managers' Really Want The Pandemic To End?
  Do The ‘Global Managers’ Really Want The Pandemic To End?

  Authored by Brian Jones via TheAmericanConservative.com,

  Early treatment of symptoms is the last remaining enemy of the global Covid consensus…

  

  In his March 17, 2020, article in Stat, Stanford epidemiologist Dr. John Ioannidis argued for a vast reconsideration of the societal response to the emerging SARS-COV-2 pandemic, commonly called Covid-19.

  For unknown reasons, the scientific and medical tradition forming the foundation for how to respond to pandemics was being quickly disbanded. Abandoning such previously established traditions entailed filling the void with the appearance of a new global consensus: The combination of unending non-pharmaceutical interventions (masks, social distancing, etc.) and universal vaccination was the key that would end the pandemic.

  The totalizing power of this new global pandemic consensus has certainly been effective over the last year and a half. However, the last month and a half has brought about a palatable instability to this apparently once-certain agreement.

  As one writer observes,

  Until now, Corona policy in every western country has unfolded more or less according to the same script, devised by the World Health Organization at the end of February 2020. The final act was supposed to be the wide-scale eradication of Corona after mass vaccination. It is now clear that this will never happen. For the first time since March 2020, there is no obvious international consensus on the way forward.

  The global political and health managers of Western nations and their media allies increasingly seem uncertain as to where to go next. Lurking behind the uncertainty of how to respond to the variants, however, is the last remaining consensus. And while it is the last remaining consensus, it has been a little-known, yet real, part of the script from the beginning. It is as simple as it is all-encompassing: Use every available means possible to assault early treatment of the virus. 

  Consider one of the latest displays of this charade.

  Many have now seen, or heard about, the American podcaster Joe Rogan’s recent experience with Covid-19. After recognizing some of the common symptoms of Covid-19, Rogan decided to “throw the kitchen sink at it.” Following the insights offered by Dr. Peter McCullough and his multi-drug treatment protocol, Rogan pursued infusion of monoclonal antibodies. Along with antibody infusion, Rogan took a cocktail that consisted of ivermectin, Azithromyicin, the corticosteriod Predinsone, and high doses of vitamin D (through drip line). Within 72 hours after beginning the treatment regimen, Rogan declared that he felt great, and had practically recovered from the virus.

  We would not have needed the gift of prophecy to have predicted what followed: The Covid machine was deployed to attack Rogan. The inspiration for the assault has been helped by a recent tweet from the FDA, which read: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.” Moving on from its initial onslaught against the effective early use of hydroxychloroquine, the global consensus has now overwhelmingly shifted its ire to ivermectin. Coinciding with the attack on Rogan was a supposed news story from Rolling Stone, which claimed that access to emergency care for gunshot victims at an Oklahoma hospital was threatened due to the number of patients who had been poisoned by overdosing on ivermectin. The hospital offered a clarification that denied the claims, which had been made by a former employee. And yet, only updates have been added; thus far, the story has not been retracted.

  This widespread jettisoning of the principle and effectiveness of preventative and early treatment has been described as “therapeutic nihilism.” Nearly two years into this pandemic, getting early treatment for Covid-19 that can prevent hospitalization and death is still extremely difficult. Continued attempts to undermine early treatment protocols, as well as frequented campaigns against those who are skeptical of the prevailing narrative, give the impression that certain interested parties are hesitant to bring the pandemic to an end.

  The global managers writing and executing the Covid script are using it to manipulate the populace. I am reminded of the Polish philosopher and statesman Ryszard Legutko’s 2016 book The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies. Following the collapse of totalitarianism regimes in 1989, Legutko began noticing something that was as confusing as it was unsettling. Supporters of communism appeared to find a somewhat comfortable home in liberal democratic societies. In an attempt to parse out and understand this political phenomenon, Legutko came to realize some shared similarities between the principles of communism and modern liberal democratic regimes:

  Communism and liberal democracy proved to be all-unifying entities compelling their followers how to think, what to do, how to evaluate events, what to dream, and what language to use. They both had their orthodoxies and their models of an ideal citizen. [Emphasis added]

  What Legutko’s diagnosis reveals is that the global response to the pandemic has been utilized to accelerate the conditions whereby rigorous and independent thinking may be snuffed out. The pandemic seems to have accelerated the project of Western nations transmuting into large, mechanizing systems oriented towards uniformity of thought and practice.

  Here is Stanford’s Ioannidis commenting upon this disturbing integration of rapidly declining transparency and collectivism:

  The retraction of a highly visible hydroxychloroquine paper from the The Lancet was a startling example: A lack of sharing and openness allowed a top medical journal to publish an article in which 671 hospitals allegedly contributed data that did not exist, and no one noticed this outright fabrication before publication. The New England Journal of Medicine, another top medical journal, managed to publish a similar paper; many scientists continue to heavily cite it long after its retraction.

  Such a situation reveals the emptiness of supposed concerns about “evidence.” Abused tropes such as “follow the science” are revealing themselves to be nefarious power grabs seeking to destroy nuance. “Good” citizens should not even consider the possibility of calling into question the prevailing narrative regarding Covid. More specifically, it is anathema to even fathom the thought that preventative and early treatment should be a fundamental pillar of the response to a pandemic.

  As the consensus equating vaccination with the elimination of the virus continues to weaken, Ioannidis’s original prediction continues to be persuasive: The response to SARS-COV-2 will eventually be seen as a “once in a century evidence fiasco.” But the citizens of Western nations must think critically for themselves if the coils of the Covid machine have a chance of being loosened.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 00:00

• Bill Gross's Feud With His Neighbor Is A Cockroach That Just Won't Die
  Bill Gross’s Feud With His Neighbor Is A Cockroach That Just Won’t Die

  If you’re wondering what, exactly, Bill Gross and his wife have decided to take on as a hobby during their “retirement”, we might know. It appears the Gross household has made it the family’s life work to bicker with their neighbor, Mark Towfiq, until the end of time.

  That’s because the feud you may have foolishly thought ended with a court decision back in December 2020 has once again reignited, with Gross’s wife, Amy, claiming that Towfiq has “driven her from her oceanfront home,” according to Bloomberg. 

  

  “I fear going into my backyard. I couldn’t have my wedding reception there. I couldn’t have my birthday there,” the former tennis pro told Bloomberg. 

  The couple has once again found themselves in court after neighbor Towfiq asked a judge to find them in violation of a court order handed down in December that says the family can’t play music loudly when they are not outdoors. 

  Carol Nakahara, Towfiq’s wife, testified: “I thought this was over. What else are we supposed to do?”

  But Gross’ wife insists she’s the victim, stating she needs to announce every time she’s out back of her own home so the neighbors don’t call the police. She testified: “I’m being monitored 24-7 inside my home. I’m very frustrated.”

  

  Gross and Towfiq have a feud that’s as inane as it is lengthy. It was thought to have culminated in December of 2020, when Gross lost a lawsuit after Trowfiq and his wife sued the billionaire bond king over what court documents described as a coordinated campaign of harassment intended to coerce the couple into dropping a nuisance complaint involving a lawn statue and safety net owned by Gross.

  Gross also sued for installing cameras on his property. Towfiq initially sued for psychological distress, arguing that Gross subjected him to a form of “torture” for refusing to simply drop his complaint to the town about Gross’s lawn sculpture.

  Gross has a history of high-profile feuds, including with his ex-wife, whom he terrorized with fart spray and old fish. And that was before he retired from his day job as a portfolio manager at Janus Henderson.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/22/2021 – 23:40

• Escobar: Eurasia Takes Shape, Part 1 – How The SCO Just Flipped The World Order
  Escobar: Eurasia Takes Shape, Part 1 – How The SCO Just Flipped The World Order

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

  As a rudderless West watched on, the 20th anniversary meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was laser-focused on two key deliverables: shaping up Afghanistan and kicking off a full-spectrum Eurasian integration.

  The two defining moments of the historic 20th anniversary Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan had to come from the keynote speeches of – who else – the leaders of the Russia-China strategic partnership.

  Xi Jinping: “Today we will launch procedures to admit Iran as a full member of the SCO.”

  Vladimir Putin: “I would like to highlight the Memorandum of Understanding that was signed today between the SCO Secretariat and the Eurasian Economic Commission. It is clearly designed to further Russia’s idea of establishing a Greater Eurasia Partnership covering the SCO, the EAEU (Eurasian Economic Union), ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and China’s Belt and Road initiative (BRI).”

  In short, over the weekend, Iran was enshrined in its rightful, prime Eurasian role, and all Eurasian integration paths converged toward a new global geopolitical – and geoeconomic – paradigm, with a sonic boom bound to echo for the rest of the century.

  That was the killer one-two punch immediately following the Atlantic alliance’s ignominious imperial retreat from Afghanistan. Right as the Taliban took control of Kabul on August 15, the redoubtable Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia’s Security Council, told his Iranian colleague Admiral Ali Shamkhani that “the Islamic Republic will become a full member of the SCO.”

  Dushanbe revealed itself as the ultimate diplomatic crossover. President Xi firmly rejected any “condescending lecturing” and emphasized development paths and governance models compatible with national conditions. Just like Putin, he stressed the complementary focus of BRI and the EAEU, and in fact summarized a true multilateralist Manifesto for the Global South.

  Right on point, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan noted that the SCO should advance “the development of a regional macro-economy.” This is reflected in the SCO’s drive to start using local currencies for trade, bypassing the US dollar.

  

  With Iran’s arrival, the SCO member-states now number nine, and they’re focused on fixing Afghanistan and consolidating Eurasia.

  Watch that quadrilateral

  Dushanbe was not just a bed of roses. Tajikistan’s Emomali Rahmon, a staunch, secular Muslim and former member of the Communist Party of the USSR – in power for no less than 29 years, reelected for the 5th time in 2020 with 90 percent of the vote – right off the bat denounced the “medieval sharia” of Taliban 2.0 and said they had already “abandoned their previous promise to form an inclusive  government.”

  Rahmon, who has never been caught smiling on camera, was already in power when the Taliban conquered Kabul in 1996. He was bound to publicly support his Tajik cousins against the “expansion of extremist ideology” in Afghanistan – which in fact worries all SCO member-states when it comes to smashing dodgy jihadi outfits of the ISIS-K mold .

  The meat of the matter in Dushanbe was in the bilaterals – and one quadrilateral.

  Take the bilateral between Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Chinese FM Wang Yi. Jaishankar said that China should not view “its relations with India through the lens of a third country,” and took pains to stress that India “does not subscribe to any clash of civilizations theory.”

  That was quite a tough sell considering that the first in-person Quad summit takes place this week in Washington, DC, hosted by that “third country” which is now knee deep in clash-of-civilizations mode against China.

  Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was on a bilateral roll, meeting the presidents of Iran, Belarus, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The official Pakistani diplomatic position is that Afghanistan should not be abandoned, but engaged.

  That position added nuance to what Russian Special Presidential Envoy for SCO Affairs Bakhtiyer Khakimov had explained about Kabul’s absence at the SCO table: “At this stage, all member states have an understanding that there are no reasons for an invitation until there is a legitimate, generally recognized government in Afghanistan.”

  And that, arguably, leads us to the key SCO meeting: a quadrilateral with the Foreign Ministers of Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran.

  Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi affirmed: “We are monitoring whether all the groups are included in the government or not.” The heart of the matter is that, from now on, Islamabad coordinates the SCO strategy on Afghanistan, and will broker Taliban negotiations with senior Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara leaders. This will eventually lead the way towards an inclusive government regionally recognized by SCO member-nations.

  Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was warmly received by all – especially after his forceful keynote speech, an Axis of Resistance classic. His bilateral with Belarus president Aleksandr Lukashenko revolved around a discussion on “sanctions confrontation.” According to Lukashenko: “If the sanctions did any harm to Belarus, Iran, other countries, it was only because we ourselves are to blame for this. We were not always negotiable, we did not always find the path we had to take under the pressure of sanctions.”

  Considering Tehran is fully briefed on Islamabad’s SCO role in terms of Afghanistan, there will be no need to deploy the Fatemiyoun brigade – informally known as the Afghan Hezbollah – to defend the Hazaras. Fatemiyoun was formed in 2012 and was instrumental in Syria in the fight against Daesh, especially in Palmyra. But if ISIS-K does not go away, that’s a completely different story.

  Particular important for SCO members Iran and India will be the future of Chabahar port. That remains India’s crypto-Silk Road gambit to connect it to Afghanistan and Central Asia. The geoeconomic success of Chabahar more than ever depends on a stable Afghanistan – and this is where Tehran’s interests fully converge with Russia-China’s SCO drive.

  What the 2021 SCO Dushanbe Declaration spelled out about Afghanistan is quite revealing:

  1. Afghanistan should be an independent, neutral, united, democratic and peaceful state, free of terrorism, war and drugs.

  2. It is critical to have an inclusive government in Afghanistan, with representatives from all ethnic, religious and political groups of Afghan society.

  3. SCO member states, emphasizing the significance of the many years of hospitality and effective assistance provided by regional and neighboring countries to Afghan refugees, consider it important for the international community to make active efforts to facilitate their dignified, safe and sustainable return to their homeland.

  As much as it may sound like an impossible dream, this is the unified message of Russia, China, Iran, India, Pakistan and the Central Asian “stans.” One hopes that Pakistani PM Imran Khan is up to the task and ready for his SCO close-up.

  That troubled Western peninsula

  The New Silk Roads were officially launched eight years ago by Xi Jinping, first in Astana – now Nur-Sultan – and then in Jakarta.

  This is how I reported it at the time.

  The announcement came close to a SCO summit – then in Bishkek. The SCO, widely dismissed in Washington and Brussels as a mere talk shop, was already surpassing its original mandate of fighting the “three evil forces” – terrorism, separatism and extremism – and encompassing politics and geoeconomics.

  In 2013, there was a Xi-Putin-Rouhani trilateral. Beijing expressed full support for Iran’s peaceful nuclear program (remember, this was two years before the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the JCPOA).

  Despite many experts dismissing it at the time, there was indeed a common China-Russia-Iran front on Syria (Axis of Resistance in action). Xinjiang was being promoted as the key hub for the Eurasian Land Bridge. Pipelineistan was at the heart of the Chinese strategy – from Kazakhstan oil to Turkmenistan gas. Some people may even remember when Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, was waxing lyrical about an American-propelled New Silk Road.

  Now compare it to Xi’s Multilateralism Manifesto in Dushanbe eight years later, reminiscing on how the SCO “has proved to be an excellent example of multilateralism in the 21stcentury,” and “has played an important role in enhancing the voice of developing countries.”

  The strategic importance of this SCO summit taking place right after the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok cannot be overstated enough. The EEF focuses of course on the Russian Far East – and essentially advances interconnectivity between Russia and Asia. It is an absolutely key hub of Russia’s Greater Eurasian Partnership.

  A cornucopia of deals is on the horizon – expanding from the Far East to the Arctic and the development of the Northern Sea Route, and involving everything from precious metals and green energy to digital sovereignty flowing through logistics corridors between Asia and Europe via Russia.

  As Putin hinted in his keynote speech, this is what the Greater Eurasia Partnership is all about: the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), BRI, India’s initiative, ASEAN, and now the SCO, developing in a harmonized network, crucially operated by “sovereign decision-making centers.”

  So if the BRI proposes a very Taoist “community of shared future for human kind,” the Russian project, conceptually, proposes a dialogue of civilizations (already evoked by the Khatami years in Iran) and sovereign economic-political projects. They are, indeed, complementary.

  Glenn Diesen, Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway and an editor at the Russia in Global Affairs journal, is among the very few top scholars who are analyzing this process in depth. His latest book remarkably tells the whole story in its title:  Europe as the Western Peninsula of Greater Eurasia: Geoeconomic Regions in a Multipolar World. It’s not clear whether Eurocrats in Brussels – slaves of Atlanticism and incapable of grasping the potential of Greater Eurasia – will end up exercising real strategic autonomy.

  Diesen evokes in detail the parallels between the Russian and the Chinese strategies. He notes how China “is pursuing a three-pillared geoeconomic initiative by developing technological leadership via its China 2025 plan, new transportation corridors via its trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, and establishing new financial instruments such as banks, payment systems and the internationalization of the yuan. Russia is similarly pursuing technological sovereignty, both in the digital sphere and beyond, as well as new transportation corridors such as the Northern Sea Route through the Arctic, and, primarily, new financial instruments.”

  The whole Global South, stunned by the accelerated collapse of the western Empire and its unilateral “rules-based order,” now seems to be ready to embrace the new groove, fully displayed in Dushanbe: a multipolar Greater Eurasia of sovereign equals.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/22/2021 – 23:20

• Russia Uses AUKUS Spat To Highlight "Shock" Of Disunity For NATO
  Russia Uses AUKUS Spat To Highlight “Shock” Of Disunity For NATO

  Russia is now weighing in on the AUKUS agreement unveiled last week and which has enraged France given it effectively got cut out of its prior $66 billion deal to deliver submarines to Australia, and instead now Washington will give Canberra nuclear-powered submarines for the first time.

  The Russian Foreign Ministry highlighted NATO disunity and “shock” within the alliance after EU leadership said the bloc was caught completely off-guard, only learning about the pact when it hit the media. Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova pointed out on Wednesday, “It came as a total surprise and a shock for NATO.”

  

  She continued: “It came as an absolute surprise not for those whom the US, Australia and the UK call their opponents and whom they are collaborating against, but for their allies and the military and political blocs that the US and the UK are part of,” as cited in TASS.

  “The developments that are unfolding around Australia, a seemingly a faraway land, what is happening there is not just interesting – though it is interesting indeed – but it also requires special attention from the political analyst community, including experts on international relations and military and strategic issues,” the Russian diplomat added.

  Reading between the lines, she appears to be suggesting a fragile or greatly weakened NATO alliance, given the major inter-NATO spat was unleashed by dealings in “a seemingly faraway land” – as Zakharova put it.

  After all, it led to France recalling its ambassador to Washington for what’s believed to be the first time in history (a move done also with the ambassador to Australia). Tensions are also running high between France and the UK over what Paris charged as ‘backroom dealing’ and “duplicity, disdain and lies”.

  Russia is not happy about AUKUS. Moscow’s top security official says the US/UK/Australia nuclear bloc a hostile step aimed not only at China, but it’s a threat to “the entire security architecture in Asia.”https://t.co/Ukxb6gJoIf

  — Bryan MacDonald (@27khv) September 21, 2021

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

  China has been especially angered at the potential for a large US ally operating nuclear subs in its Indo-Pacific backyard. No doubt Moscow is unhappy too that Australia will join the small number of nations that possess them, which currently includes only the US, UK, France, China, India as well as Russia. The US will now transfer technology and help allowing Australia to construct at least eight nuclear powered submarines.

  But with the diplomatic fighting still unfolding between Europe on one side, and the UK and US on the other over the AUKUS, likely at the Kremlin they’re currently content to kick back and grab the popcorn.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/22/2021 – 23:00

• Greenwald: A Definitive Account Of The CIA/Media/BigTech Fraud Over Hunter Biden Emails
  Greenwald: A Definitive Account Of The CIA/Media/BigTech Fraud Over Hunter Biden Emails

  Authored by Glenn Greenwald via greenwald.substack.com, (Watch Glenn’s podcast on this fiasco here),

  A severe escalation of the war on a free internet and free discourse has taken place over the last twelve months. Numerous examples of brute and dangerous censorship have emerged: the destruction by Big Tech monopolies of Parler at the behest of Democratic politicians at the time that it was the most-downloaded app in the country; the banning of the sitting president from social media; and the increasingly explicit threats from elected officials in the majority party of legal and regulatory reprisals in the event that tech platforms do not censor more in accordance with their demands.

  

  But the most severe episode of all was the joint campaign — in the weeks before the 2020 election — by the CIA, Big Tech, the liberal wing of the corporate media and the Democratic Party to censor and suppress a series of major reports about then-presidential frontrunner Joe Biden. On October 14 and then October 15, 2020, The New York Post, the nation’s oldest newspaper, published two news reports on Joe Biden’s activities in Ukraine and China that raised serious questions about his integrity and ethics: specifically whether he and his family were trading on his name and influence to generate profit for themselves. The Post said that the documents were obtained from a laptop left by Joe Biden’s son Hunter at a repair shop.

  From the start, the evidence of authenticity was overwhelming. The Post published obviously genuine photos of Hunter that were taken from the laptop. Investigations from media outlets found people who had received the emails in real-time and they compared the emails in their possession to the ones in the Post‘s archive, and they matched word-for-word. One of Hunter’s own business associates involved in many of these deals, Tony Bobulinski, confirmed publicly and in interviews that the key emails were genuine and that they referenced Joe Biden’s profit participation in one deal being pursued in China. A forensics analyst issued a report concluding the archive had all the earmarks of authenticity. Not even the Bidens denied that the emails were real: something they of course would have done if they had been forged or altered. In sum, as someone who has reported on numerous large archives similar to this one and was faced with the heavy burden of ensuring the documents were genuine before risking one’s career and reputation by reporting them, it was clear early on that all the key metrics demonstrated that these documents were real.

  Despite all that, former intelligence officials such as Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan and his Director of National Intelligence James Clapper led a group of dozens of former spooks in issuing a public statement that disseminated an outright lie: namely, that the laptop was “Russian disinformation.” Note that this phrase contains two separate assertions: 1) the documents came from Russia and 2) they are fake (“disinformation”). The intelligence officials admitted in this letter that — in their words — “we do not know if the emails are genuine or not,” and also admitted that “we do not have evidence of Russian involvement.” Yet it repeatedly insinuated that everyone should nonetheless believe this:

  

  But the complete lack of evidence for these claims — that even these career CIA liars acknowledged plagued their assertions — did not stop the corporate media or Big Tech from repeating this lie over and over, and, far worse, using this lie to censor this reporting from the internet. One of the first to spread this lie was the co-queen of Russiagate frauds, Natasha Bertrand, then of Politico and now promoted, because of lies like this, to CNN. “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say,” blared her headline in Politico on October 19, just five days after the Post began its reporting. From there, virtually every media outlet — CNN, NBC News, PBS, Huffington Post, The Intercept, and too many others to count — began completely ignoring the substance of the reporting and instead spread the lie over and over that these documents were the by-product of Russian disinformation.

  On October 21 — exactly one week after the Post‘s first report — The Intercept published a false story under the melodramatic headline “We’re Not a Democracy” about these materials from former New York Times reporter James Risen. This propaganda assault masquerading as “news” mindlessly laundered the CIA’s lies about the laptop. This is what appeared in this outlet that still claims to do “adversarial” reporting:

  Their latest falsehood once again involves Biden, Ukraine, and a laptop mysteriously discovered in a computer repair shop and passed to the New York Post….This week, a group of former intelligence officials issued a letter saying that the Giuliani laptop story has the classic trademarks of Russian disinformation.

  Note that even the intelligence officials, who acknowledged they had no evidence to support this claim, were more honest than The Intercept, which omitted that critical admission. Days later, this very same outlet — which I co-founded seven years earlier to be adversarial, not subservient, to evidence-free assertions from the intelligence community, and which was designed to be an antidote to rather than a clone of The New York Times — told me that I could not publish the article I had written about the Biden archive because it did not meet their lofty and rigorous editorial standards: the same lofty and rigorous editorial standards that led to uncritical endorsement of the CIA’s lies just days earlier. It was that episode, as Matt Taibbi recounted at the time, that prompted my resignation from the outlet I created in protest of this censorship, in order to report instead only on free speech platforms such as this one.

  But the media disinformation about the Post‘s documents — obviously designed to protect Joe Biden in the lead-up to the election — were not the worst aspect of what happened here. Far worse was the decision by Twitter to prohibit any discussion of this reporting or posting of links to the story both publicly and privately on the platform. Worse still was the immediate announcement by Facebook through its communications executive Andy Stone — a life-long Democratic Party operative — that it would algorithmically suppress the story pending a “fact check” by “Facebook’s third-party fact-check partners.” Despite multiple requests from me and others, Facebook never published the results of this alleged fact-check and still refuse to say whether it ever conducted one. Why? Because the documents they blocked millions of Americans from learning about were clearly true and authentic.

  While I will intentionally not link to the New York Post, I want be clear that this story is eligible to be fact checked by Facebook’s third-party fact checking partners. In the meantime, we are reducing its distribution on our platform.

  — Andy Stone (@andymstone) October 14, 2020

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

  

  As indicated, there was ample proof from the start that these documents were genuine and that the only ones engaged in “disinformation” and lies was this axis of the CIA, corporate media, and Big Tech. Yet the most dispositive proof yet emerged on Tuesday — not from a right-wing news outlet that liberals have been trained to ignore and disbelieve but from one of the most mainstream news institutions in the country.

  A young reporter for Politico, Ben Schreckinger, has published a new book entitled “The Bidens: Inside the First Family’s Fifty-Year Rise to Power.” To his great credit, he spent months investigating the key documents published by The New York Post and found definitive proof that these emails and related documents are indisputably authentic. His own outlet, Politico, was the first to publish the CIA lie that this was “Russian disinformation,” but on Tuesday — without acknowledging their role in spreading that lie — they summarized Schreckinger’s findings this way: the book “finds evidence that some of the purported Hunter Biden laptop material is genuine, including two emails at the center of last October’s controversy.” In his book, the reporter recounts in these passages just some of the extensive work he did to obtain this proof:

  A person who corresponded with Hunter in late 2018 confirmed to me the authenticity of an email in the cache. Another person who corresponded with Hunter in January 2019 confirmed the authenticity of a different email exchange with Hunter in the cache. Both of these people spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing fears of being embroiled in a global controversy.

  

  A third person who had independent access to Hunter’s emails confirmed to me that the emails published by the New York Post related to Burisma and the CEFC venture matched the substance of emails Hunter had in fact received. (This person was not in a position to compare the published emails word-for-word to the originals.)

  

  The National Property Board of Sweden, part of the Swedish Finance Ministry, has released correspondence between Hunter and House of Sweden employees to me and to a Swedish newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, under the country’s freedom of information law. Emails released by the property board match emails in the cache.

  

   

  Given what I regard as the unparalleled gravity of what was done here — widespread media deceit toward millions of American voters in the weeks before a presidential election based on a CIA lie, along with brute censorship of the story by Big Tech — and given that so much of what was done here took place on television, we produced this morning what I regard as the definitive video report of this scandal. I realize this report is longer than the standard video — it is just over an hour — but I really believe that it is vital, particularly with the emergence of this new indisputable proof, to take a comprehensive look at how the intelligence community, in partnership with Big Tech and the corporate media, disseminated massive lies and disinformation, using censorship and other manipulative techniques, to shape the outcome of what was a close election. (We will very shortly institute our new feature of producing transcripts for all videos above ten minutes in length, but I really hope that as many people as can do so will watch this video report).

  After observing what they did, I hope and believe you will have a similar reaction to the one I had after spending the day compiling and reporting it all. No matter how much you despise this sector of the corporate media, it is nowhere near close enough to the level of contempt and scorn they deserve. You can watch our video report on my Rumble page or on the player below.

  Watch:

  ---

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

• China Locks Down Northeastern City After Discovering First Outbreak Since February
  China Locks Down Northeastern City After Discovering First Outbreak Since February

  China’s latest COVID outbreak continued to smolder through the mid-Autumn festival. In the Northeastern city of Harbin, where authorities imposed a new round of lockdown restrictions after discovering a single case. Another 5 new local infections were confirmed on Wednesday, bringing the total cases in the city to 8.

  Officially, China has recorded fewer than 100K COVID cases and fewer than 5K deaths, although the true number may never be known. Recently, the country has seen a handful of outbreaks as new variants have finally invaded the country, overpowering China’s domestically produced COVID jabs. In total across the country, China reported a total of 16 cases Wednesday. It’s Harbin’s first outbreak since February.

  

  Despite the negligible number of cases, authorities in Harbin imposed travel restrictions ordering residents not to leave the city while a range of venues – including spas, cinemas, karaoke halls, dancing and gaming venues and mahjong salons – have been temporarily closed.

  In response to the outbreak, Harbin will conduct city-wide testing before Thursday while some venues will be shut in keeping with China’s “war-like” response to dealing with COVID. China’s virus outbreak was previously in southeastern province of Fujian..

  Those approved for essential travel will need to show a green health-code pass to prove they are “safe”.

  Religious sites, as well as large-scale conferences and events, have also been subject to close. Tourist attractions are required to work at half capacity and stagger the flows of people.

  In order to facilitate the mass testing in Harbin, vaccinations were suspended for three days. The outbreaks keep happening despite Beijing announcing earlier this month that it has fully vaccinated 1 billion of its population against the disease, with Chinese vaccines used at the forefront of the mammoth inoculation campaign.

  According to the SCMP, authorities haven’t linked the cases in Harbin to the delta variant outbreak in Fujian province, which is more than 1,400 miles away in the country’s southeast, where 13 new infections were recorded. No deaths were reported. Authorities have begun gene-sequencing efforts to determine the source.

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

• Watch: 'Liberal Media Darling' George W. Bush Confronted By Iraq Veteran
  Watch: ‘Liberal Media Darling’ George W. Bush Confronted By Iraq Veteran

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  An Iraq veteran gave George W. Bush a stark reminder this past weekend that although he’s now a liberal media darling, there are plenty of Americans who remember the lies that led to millions of deaths.

  

  Corporal Mike Prysner was captured on video launching into a tirade against Bush during a speech in Beverly Hills.

  “When are you going to apologize for the million Iraqis who are dead because you lied?” Prysner yelled at Bush.

  “You lied about weapons of mass destruction! You lied about connections to 9/11! You sent me to Iraq! You sent me to Iraq!” Prysner continued.

  Bush can be heard responding “you said you’d behave yourself.”

  As he was bundled out of the room, Prysner demanded Bush “apologise” adding “my friends are dead, you killed people.”

  Watch:

  Following a 9/11 memorial speech in which he directly compared supporters of President Trump to Al Qaeda terrorists, Bush is being held up as an icon by the left.

  As journalist Glenn Greenwald noted last week, “it turned into this love-fest. I mean they dripped with effusive praise for him because of what he said, essentially that the 9/11 attacks are the same as the three hour riot on January 6th, and more importantly that the people who did 9/11, Al Qaeda, are similar or identical to ‘the same foul spirit’ as he put it, Trump supporters essentially.”

  “A domestic war on terror against your fellow citizens is music to the ears of American liberals because they want nothing more than treating their political adversaries, like the Bush administration treated Al Qaeda,” Greenwald asserted.

  Watch:

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

• JPMorgan Being Investigated By Brazilian Authorities Over Potential Oil Bribes
  JPMorgan Being Investigated By Brazilian Authorities Over Potential Oil Bribes

  Another day, another “cost of doing business” fine likely on its way for one of the big banks. 

  J.P. Morgan is being investigated by Brazilian authorities about whether or not the bank “played a role in an alleged bribery and money laundering scheme that dated back to 2011 and involved state-run oil company Petrobras”, according to a new exclusive from Reuters. 

  The probe is in preliminary stages, according to the report. 

  Authorities are looking at the purchase of 300,000 barrels of Petrobras fuel by the bank in 2011, according to court documents and sources.

  The documents included email messages, witness testimony and bank records. Regulators are in the midst of trying to decypher whether or not bribery continued in subsequent years. 

  

  Testimony from a former Petrobras fuel trader named Rodrigo Berkowitz was reviewed by Reuters. The trader makes note two fuel cargoes that were sold to a JPMorgan unit in his testimony. 

  The investigation is one piece of a larger look by Brazilian authorities into wrongdoing in the commodity trading space. Authorities are seeking to figure out if JP Morgan secured oil shipments at artificially low prices by sending bribes to employees at Petrobras’ trading desk using middlemen. 

  Investigations are also ongoing into some of the world’s largest commodity traders after years of probes looking into whether or not bribes were offered to win contracts in countries in Latin America. 

  No charges have been brought in the ongoing investigation. Petrobras told Reuters it has “zero tolerance in relation to fraud and corruption.”

  J.P. Morgan, on the other hand, declined to comment. 

  

   

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/22/2021 – 21:40

• House Progressives Strip $1BN In Military Aid For Israel From Stopgap Funding Bill
  House Progressives Strip $1BN In Military Aid For Israel From Stopgap Funding Bill

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  House Democrats removed $1 billion for additional military aid for Israel from a stopgap funding bill that was passed in the House on Tuesday.

  The $1 billion would be on top of the $3.8 billion the US already gives Israel each year. Israel requested the additional amount after its bombardment in Gaza in May, which killed over 250 Palestinians, including over 60 children.

  

  The Israelis say they need the money to restock the iron dome missile defense system. But when the request was first reported, Israeli officials also said they would also use the money to purchase munitions, mainly precision-guided bombs for the Israeli Air Force.

  The stopgap bill is being pushed through to avert a government shutdown, but it could fail in the Senate. The $1 billion for Israel was removed over protests by progressive Democrats, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI).

  Since no Republicans were expected to vote for the bill, Democratic leadership needed the support of the progressives to pass the legislation.

  US lawmakers were quick to assure Israel that it will get its money. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) promised to bring the extra $1 billion to a vote in the House as early as this week during a call with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.

  This evening, I announced on the Floor that the House will consider legislation this week to fully fund Iron Dome. We will act to ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself, and I expect strong, bipartisan support for this effort.

  — Steny Hoyer (@LeaderHoyer) September 22, 2021

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

  “This evening, I announced on the Floor that the House will consider legislation this week to fully fund Iron Dome,” Hoyer wrote on Twitter. Other members of Congress said the extra $1 billion will be included in the 2022 defense appropriations bill.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/22/2021 – 21:20

• Not The Onion: UN Mulling Taliban Request To Address General Assembly
  Not The Onion: UN Mulling Taliban Request To Address General Assembly

  A UN spokesman revealed late Tuesday that the Taliban has formally requested to address world leaders gathered this week in New York for the United Nations General Assembly meeting. 

  It comes after the international body received an official letter on Monday addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the group is “requesting to participate” in the high-level debate, according to AFP.

  “The credentials committee will now rule on the request,” the UN statement added, suggesting the body is actually taking the request seriously.

  

  As a now established government having control over all of Afghanistan following the late August US troop pullout and evacuation, the Taliban says it even has a permanent representative to the UN at this point, named as Doha-based spokesman Suhail Shaheen, which means it’s challenging the legitimacy of the current representative, Ghulam Isaczai.

  AFP has more details of the letter’s contents as follows: 

  It was signed by Amir Khan Muttaqi as “Minister of Foreign Affairs,” the spokesman said. The letter also indicated that Ghulam Isaczai “no longer represents” Afghanistan at the United Nations.

  …The note, which had the letterhead “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” said that former president Ashraf Ghani was “ousted” on August 15, the day he fled the country.

  The UN spokesman confirmed the letter had been submitted for consideration to the “credentials committee” to consider further action.

  That committee includes the US, Russia, China, South Africa, Sweden, Sierra Leone, Chile, Bhutan and the Bahamas. Likely China and Russia would push for allowing the Taliban’s participation at the UNGA, while Washington would no doubt see it as an embarrassment and deeply awkward. 

  #Taliban have challenged the credentials of Afghanistan’s former U.N. ambassador and are asking to speak at the #UNGA76…#UN says….https://t.co/oKPIUK5J9V

  — Sumaira Khan (@sumrkhan1) September 21, 2021

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  Continued US sanctions on the Taliban would prevent or at least complicate any Taliban official’s in-person trip to New York, so such a potential address to the assembly would take place via video link. This scenario is similar to the Iranian situation – with sanctions on him personally President Ebrahim Raisi was prevented from traveling and spoke via a pre-recorded video.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/22/2021 – 21:00

• Stunning Interview Sees China Warn "23 Million Australians" That US Pact Now Makes Them "Target" For Nuclear Attack
  Stunning Interview Sees China Warn “23 Million Australians” That US Pact Now Makes Them “Target” For Nuclear Attack

  During an Australian TV primetime segment this week, the well-known China-based expert Victor Gao, who is vice president of the Center for China and Globalization and once served as communist leader Deng Xiaoping’s translator, issued a chilling scenario and shock to his Aussie audience over the controversial AUKUS defense pact between the US, Australia and the UK.

  Gao bluntly warned that the deal which will see Washington give Canberra nuclear submarine technology now makes all of Australia a target for nuclear strike:

  “The watershed moment will be if Australia is armed with nuclear submarines to be locally produced in Australia, Australia will lose that privilege of not being targeted with nuclear weapons by other countries,” Gao warned.

  He then appealed to the “23 million Australians” who will now live with this anxiety if the deal is completed in the coming years over “possible nuclear war” on their doorstep and over their cities.

  Gao posed that the stakes are incredibly high: “And that should be the wake up call for the Australians – the 23 million Australians. Do you really want to be a target in a possible nuclear war? Or do you want to be free from the ‘nuclear menace’ going forward?“

  Of course the subtext, almost unbelievably, is that Beijing is declaring that Australia will become fair game for nuclear first strike. The incredulous ABC Australia news host then questioned back at him: “It is extraordinary that you’re talking about nuclear war and attacks on Australia,” the anchor said.

  The questioning then turned to whether what Gao was saying reflects the position of Chinese government, to which he responded…

  Listen, as a general policy Australia is not targeted with nuclear warheads right now… now if the Australian government wants to… go nuclear, with nuclear submarines, they will lose that privilege of not being targeted with nuclear warheads going forward. It’s as simple as that… this is the most profound consequence.

  He charged that it’s a “gross violation” of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty by the US and UK, underscoring the “consequences” of this for Australia. 

  

  The ABC host questioned directly, “Are you saying that Australia will be targeted by China? Are you warning that Australia now is under threat?”

  Gao that repeated that his words have been “clear” – reiterating that China will see Australia as in breach of having a nuclear free zone and that this will carry with it profound consequences. He then repeated his “thinly-veiled threat that the AUKUS pact announced last week was a ‘gross violation of international law’ that will have ‘profound consequences’ for ‘brainless’ Aussies.”

  

  Meanwhile, here’s Rabobank’s take on the stunning interview and not so subtle threat….

  I have to share last night’s ABC interview with China’s Victor Gao as a sample of the current zeitgeist in this region. It is worth a watch in its entirety if you don’t live in the region: imagine if this was your prime-time TV slot last night.

  Gao was emphatic about Australia being “logically” targeted for a potential nuclear attack because it wants nuclear-powered submarines. Notably, he is correct in saying this threat is clear strategic logic. Yet geostrategists would point out that Australia wanting such subs is also clear strategic logic – of the need for a balance of power and deterrence against any threats.

  Also recall, this is happening as China lobbies Australia to support its entry into the CPTPP trade partnership – which would of course help Beijing prop up those soon-to-be-needed-even-more trade surpluses, structurally.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/22/2021 – 20:40

• UBS Trader Sues Bank, Claims "Toxic Environment" Destroyed His Mental Health
  UBS Trader Sues Bank, Claims “Toxic Environment” Destroyed His Mental Health

  Sympathy for the junior bankers who have been overworked to the bone waned a bit yesterday when it was revealed that the leader of the original uprising of Goldman junior bankers was the son of a vice chairman at TPG, the private equity giant and longtime Goldman client.

  But as it turns out, twenty-something analysts aren’t the only ones struggling with long hours and deteriorating mental health. One trader from UBS’s London office says his job was so psychologically demanding that he’s now suing UBS for the psychic damage to which he was subjected.

  

  Simon Rope, a 35-year-veteran at UBS, is seeking $273K over alleged “negligence” by the bank’s management that led to him developing an anxiety disorder due to the extreme stress of the trading floor,

  According to Bloomberg, the case – which was filed in the UK – “offers a window into the stressful world of trading, and the mental toll it can have on workers under pressure to drive profits and not make costly mistakes.”

  Lawyers for Rope, who has been on medical leave and hasn’t been on a trading floor since 2018 (though Rope is still employed at the bank), claim their client was subjected to a “toxic environment” on the trading floor where “often bad tempered” traders would “shout across the trading floor and publicly shame” him. They added that this “generally pressured environment” represents “the unavoidable reality of the work of a City trader,” UBS lawyers said.

  By 2016, symptoms of a stress and anxiety disorder had begun to develop, and by 2018 he and his three colleagues were trading around 3,500 different stocks. “An exceptionally large number of companies for such a small team to cover,” they said in documents filed at the High Court in February.

  The trouble with Rope’s claim is that for years beforehand, Rope “not only coped but thrived in for decades, giving the bank a good basis for its belief that he was psychologically able to manage the demands” of his most recent role.

  Rope’s lawyers wrote that by the beginning of 2018, Rope was experiencing “exhaustion, finding it increasingly difficult to sleep, was no longer able to socialize, and was focusing all his efforts on functioning solely for work.”

  Most of the joy in Rope’s life at this point came from criticizing a group of UBS managers known as “the Shooting Party” (the nickname is related to a practice of leaving the office early on Friday to go “shooting”).

  Though we very much doubt the humor is intentional, UBS claimed in its defense papers that “disillusionment and discontent with management during times of structural change and rationalization is common on the workplace.”

  UBS did say that shouting sometimes occurred on the trading floor and that the language of traders was “intemperate” from time to time. The bank denies the claims made by Rope’s legal team, and claims he was not “drowning” in work.

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

• Biden To Stick Haitian Immigrants In Gitmo, Seeks Contractor With 'Creole-Speaking Guards'
  Biden To Stick Haitian Immigrants In Gitmo, Seeks Contractor With ‘Creole-Speaking Guards’

  The Biden administration is looking for a private contractor to operate a migrant detention facility at the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, according to NBC News, citing government records. One requirement – some of the guards must speak Spanish and Haitian Creole, and the contractor itself needs to be able to build temporary housing facilities.

  

  “The service provider shall be responsible to maintain on site the necessary equipment to erect temporary housing facilities for populations that exceed 120 and up to 400 migrants in a surge event,” reads the contract solicitation.

  A little-known immigrant holding facility on the base has a capacity of 120 people, the records say, and it “will have an estimated daily population of 20 people,” according to a solicitation for bids issued Friday by the Department of Homeland Security.

  The records provided no indication that the Biden administration is planning to transfer migrants from the southern border to Guantánamo Bay. In the recent past, migrants picked up at sea have been housed there for short periods. -NBC News

  What will Democrats say?

  In late 2019, then-anonymous Trump admin DHS official Miles Taylor claimed in a book that Trump proposed sending migrants to Guantánamo, leading to mass pearl-clutching on the left over the ‘inhumane’ president who was also both orange and bad.

  

  

  

  What will they say now?

  Gitmo’s history of housing immigrants

  In the early 90s during the George H.W. Bush administration, as many as 12,000 Haitians seeking asylum in Florida were sent to the Guantanamo Bay holding facility overseen by then-Attorney General William Barr. At the time, immigrants’ advocates said that the policy was driven in part by the fact that some Haitians were HIV-positive, according to the report.

  “It’s highly concerning that the administration may be considering using Guantánamo to detain Haitian asylum-seekers or others, according to Wendy Young, president of the immigrant advocacy group Kids in Need of Defense, who added “It’s a sense of déjà vu all over again.”

  According to Young, Guantánamo “was used in the early 1990s and proved highly deficient in terms of providing the services that migrant families and children urgently need, including legal representation,” and “Instead of defaulting to a law enforcement response grounded in deterrence, the administration should instead live up to our legal and ethical obligation to allow Haitians to apply for asylum. Conditions in Haiti underscore how essential that is.”

  The new DHS contract solicitation says that the winning bidder would have to supply tents and cots and that “the contractor must be able to have these assembled and ready with little notice,” adding, “In addition, the service provider must maintain a roster of at least 50 individuals who meet the minimum requirements of the unarmed custody officer job classification and have a viable contingency plan to deploy these individuals within 24 hours of notification.“

  “At least 10% of the augmented personnel must be fluent in Spanish and Haitian Creole. Air transportation to/from the facility is the sole responsibility of the service provider,” the contract ads.

  Will AOC condemn Biden’s new kids in cages – island edition?

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/22/2021 – 20:00

• FDA Agrees With Advisors, Limits Booster Jabs To Older & Immunocompromised Americans
  FDA Agrees With Advisors, Limits Booster Jabs To Older & Immunocompromised Americans

  Following Friday’s decision by the FDA’s vaccine advisory panel to only recommend the use of boosters for patients who are a) immunocompromised, b) overweight or c) both, Bloomberg reports that the FDA has decided to accept the advisory panel’s conclusions, as expected – representing a major victory for “the science” over President Biden’s political priorities.

  

  The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee – also known as VRBPAC – is a panel of senior advisors for the FDA, and after a long public meeting on Friday, it voted overwhelmingly against approving a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech jab for every patient over the age of 16 (though it did leave a door open to approving booster jabs for all eventually).

  Now, the FDA on Wednesday has decided to accept VRBPAC’s recommendations, according to Bloomberg.

  FDA TO AUTHORIZE 3RD PFIZER SHOT FOR 65 AND OVER, HIGH-RISK

  In keeping with panel reco

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 22, 2021

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  NEW: The FDA is set to authorize Pfizer boosters tonight, in line with VRBPAC recommendations, per a source.

  Boosters for 65 and up, those at high risk of severe cases, or in workplaces with high exposure risk, per source. Announcement said to be imminent but not confirmed.

  — Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) September 22, 2021

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  The expected emergency clearance for the number of booster jabs will be for people 65 and older, those most susceptible to severe disease and people whose jobs put them at risk, Bloomberg’s source added.

  Most importantly, the FDA’s decision will scuttle – well, at least for now – the Biden Administration’s plan to start doling out third “booster” jabs to any American over the age of 16 (in Israel, they have been available to anyone over the ae=ge ofthat the Biden administration would have to forgo, temporarily, a wider rollout of boosters that it had proposed last month. Third doses are already authorized for certain people with compromised immune systems.

  While hundreds of thousands of Americans have already received a third dose (the CDC has allowed them for older, sick patients), only 54.8% of America’s adult population has been fully inoculated.

  Along with the Biden Administration, which is scrambling to do everything in its power to combat the delta variant (even if some of those moves, like mandatory masking, aren’t as effective as one might expect) Pfizer is also bound to be disappointed by the FDA’s decision.

  The FDA’s decision to defy Biden follows by nearly two weeks the president’s own decision to abandon his promise not to mandate vaccines, when Biden ordered all federal employees, as well as employees for government contractors and other private small and medium size businesses, to get vaccinated. Polls have shown nearly half of Americans disapprove of the rule.

  This isn’t the final word on whether the entire population will eventually be required – or aggressively “incentivized” – to get a third dose of one of the mRNA vaccines. The FDA has room to change its recommendations or decisions as more scientific data and research comes in.

  Looking ahead, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is expected to meet Thursday to make its own recommendations about who should receive the additional dose.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/22/2021 – 19:40

• Biden's Debt Limit Game Of Chicken
  Biden’s Debt Limit Game Of Chicken

  By Philip Marey of Rabobank

  Summary

  • In October we could see both a government shutdown and a government default if the spending and debt bill approved by the House of Representatives yesterday does not pass the Senate.
  • This is a game of chicken in which the Democrats try to force the Republicans to share the blame for suspending the debt limit in light of the midterm elections in 2022.
  • This stand-off is completely unnecessary and if the Republicans don’t blink, the Democrats can still raise the debt limit and adopt a spending patch through budget reconciliation.
  • However, this will raise the internal pressure in the Democratic Party regarding Biden’s legislative agenda by adding another time constraint.

  Introduction: Pelosi is raising the stakes

  Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would fund the government through December 3, 2021, and suspend the debt limit through December 16, 2022. Note that this would remove the debt limit from the legislative agenda until after the midterm elections on November 8, 2022. There were 220 Democratic votes in favor of the bill, and 211 Republican votes against it. This bill is supported by the Democratic leadership, including President Biden. However, before he can sign this into law, the Senate has to vote on it. This is expected to happen later this week or early next week. On Monday, Senate Minority Leader McConnell said the Republicans will support a clean continuing resolution that includes disaster aid and refugee resettlement funding, but not legislation to raise the debt limit. If the spending and debt bill does not pass the Senate, we could see both a shutdown and a default of the US government in October, a probability that is growing by the day according to the T-Bill market.

  

  Each October, the start of the new fiscal year requires either a spending bill1 or a continuing resolution (a spending patch that does not last the entire fiscal year). If such a measure is not adopted before October 1, the federal government will have to shut down, because the authority to spend money is lacking. The House bill would delay this until after December 3, giving Congress more time to come up with a full fiscal year spending bill. However, if the Senate does not pass it, the government will partially shut down on October 1.

  Meanwhile, August 1 saw the return of the debt limit, which had been suspended in 2019. The Treasury is taking extraordinary measures to allow the federal government to keep fulfilling its obligations, but in a September 8 letter to House Speaker Pelosi, Treasury Secretary Yellen indicated that these measures will be depleted sometime “during the month of October.” If the debt limit is not raised before this occurs, the federal government will be in default.

  

  The bipartisan route or via budget reconciliation?

  The first observation we would like to make is that the possible standoff that could lead to a government shutdown and default is entirely unnecessary. The Democrats could have chosen to raise the debt limit through budget reconciliation. This would not require a single Republican vote. So keeping it out of budget reconciliation and asking the Republicans for support is a conscious decision by the Democratic leadership. The main reason is that raising the debt ceiling could hurt the Democrats in the midterm elections in 2022, so they prefer sharing the blame with the Republicans by forcing them to support a suspension of the debt limit. In other words, the Democrats have set up a game of chicken to get the Republicans’ fingerprints on the debt limit suspension. The Democrats are counting on business leaders to pressure the Republican Party into avoiding a government default. However, the Republican Party’s relationship with corporate America has suffered in recent years as the party has moved toward economic populism. Of course, Biden only needs 10 Republican votes. However, in August 46 Republican senators signed a letter that they would not raise the debt limit. Hence, at most 54 votes are available, which is not enough.

  As long as this spending and debt bill is not approved, the government will partially shut down on October 1 and “during the month of October” the government will no longer be able to meet all its obligations, thus being in default. So Congress has about a week to prevent a government shutdown and at most 5 weeks to avert a government default.

  If the Republicans don’t blink

  The Republicans have said they won’t raise the debt limit, because the Democrats are trying to pass a $3.5 trillion package through budget reconciliation and passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan earlier this year without any Republican votes. However, President Biden is calling their bluff by attaching the debt limit suspension to a spending patch and a hurricane relief bill. This will make it more difficult for Republicans to explain to the voters that they are going to shoot this down in the Senate. If they do, the federal government will be heading for default in October.

  However, if the Republicans don’t blink, the Democrats can still raise the debt limit and adopt a spending patch through budget reconciliation, without a single Republican vote. Of course, this implies an additional deadline on the $3.5 trillion health care, education and climate package. There is already a weaker deadline because Pelosi has promised to bring up the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill for a vote by September 27, which is also a time constraint on the $3.5 trillion package because progressives do not want to pass the infrastructure bill before the health care, education and climate bill. This is the second reason why the Democratic leadership has chosen this confrontational route to a game of chicken: it will give them more time for the $3.5 trillion deal.

  In table 1 we have summarized the four deadlines that are coming together in just a few weeks.

  

  The game

  If the US government shuts down or even defaults, this is entirely a self-inflicted event. In fact, this can be seen as a three stage game. Pelosi has made the move in the first stage, by choosing to attach debt suspension to the spending patch. If she had put forward a clean CR, the Republicans in the Senate were willing to accept. However, now she is triggering a game of chicken (stage 2) where the Republicans will either stick to their promise not to raise the debt limit or blink.

  If they blink, a government shutdown and default will be avoided. If they don’t, the Democrats will have to decide whether to shut down the government and risk a default or raise the debt limit through budget reconciliation (stage 3).

  In the final stage of the game, the Democrats have the power to raise the debt ceiling and adopt a spending patch, through budget reconciliation, without any Republican vote. Therefore it will be difficult to blame a government shutdown or even a default on the Republicans. The mainstream media may try to do so anyway, but conservative media – which are relevant to Republican voters – will explain the realities to their audience. Therefore, there is no electoral need for the Republicans to blink. If they have the stomach for it, they can win this game and force the Democrats to “own” their spending spree. What’s more, if the Democrats fail to stick together under pressure, Biden’s ambitious legislative agenda could dissolve in October.

  By forcing the debt limit legislation into the budget reconciliation process the Republicans will also increase the internal pressure in the Democratic Party regarding the Biden agenda, by adding another time constraint on the $3.5 trillion plan and the $1 trillion infrastructure bill. This is also an incentive for the Democrats to keep the debt limit out of budget reconciliation. From this perspective, we could draw the conclusion that the internal divisions in the Democratic Party are contributing to the choice of the Democratic leadership to play a game of chicken on the debt ceiling that could result in a government default. However, this plan could very well backfire and force the Democrats to raise the debt ceiling through budget reconciliation. The main challenge will then be to keep the Democratic Party together on the $3.5 trillion package, which could very well result in a substantial reduction of that number.

  Conclusion

  We could have called this special report “McConnell’s Game of Chicken.” After all, in August 46 Republican senators signed a letter that they would not raise the debt limit. However, the Democrats don’t need Republican support to adopt a spending patch and raise the debt limit: it can all be done through budget reconciliation. However, the Democrats made a conscious decision to take the bipartisan route, a route they usually shun. But they don’t want to be seen as the party that raised the debt limit and rather share the blame of suspending it, in light of the midterm elections in 2022. This appears particularly weird since the Democrats want to get a $3.5 trillion package through budget reconciliation, without the need of Republican votes. So the Democrats want to go on a spending spree, but they don’t want to be seen as the party that raises the credit card limit.

  This is why we call it “Biden’s Game of Chicken.” At first sight it would appear that the Republicans are up to their old tricks again of sabotaging Democratic policies through the debt limit, jeopardizing the reputation of US government debt. However, this is not a repeat of the Tea Party obstruction of the Obama administration. This time the Democrats are intentionally looking for a confrontation they can easily avoid. In fact, McConnell has already indicated that he would support a clean CR, without a debt limit suspension attached to it. The Democrats won the elections, they want to spend trillions on Democratic priorities without Republican support, and they can raise the debt limit in the same process.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/22/2021 – 19:20

• China's Xi Jinping Promises No New Coal Plants Abroad As It Ramps Up Domestic Production
  China’s Xi Jinping Promises No New Coal Plants Abroad As It Ramps Up Domestic Production

  Chinese leader Xi Jinping pledged at the United Nations General Assembly meeting on Tuesday to halt the construction of coal-fired power plants abroad. 

  “China will step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low-carbon energy, and will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad,” Xi said in a prerecorded video. The announcement comes one year after he said China is on a path to reach carbon-neutral by 2060. 

  

  Xi provided no timetable for ending overseas coal-fired power projects and didn’t address China’s increasing need to fire up domestic coal and fossil fuel power plants. 

  Watch part of Xi’s speech here:

  While China could hinder future coal development across Belt and Road Initiative countries, domestic coal consumption continues to boom at home amid increasing power demand. 

  Last month, China announced it would restart dozens of coal mines in the Inner Mongolia region and may produce as much as 44 million tons of coal, satisfying the growing calls for power amid the pick up in industrial activity this year. 

  The news of Xi’s support for emerging market countries in developing green and low-carbon energy contradicts what’s happening in Mainland China. 

  “China will step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low-carbon energy, and will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad.”

  President Xi at #UNGA

  — Chinese Mission to UN (@Chinamission2un) September 21, 2021

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

  

  … but long before 2060, China plans on taking coal-based pollution on a domestic level to new heights to satisfy power demand. 

  Renewable energy has grown significantly in China, though coal power is cheap and will remain king and is expected to continue growing. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/22/2021 – 19:00

• Space Force Unveils Prototypes Of Uniform For Guardians
  Space Force Unveils Prototypes Of Uniform For Guardians

  Authored by GQ Pan via The Epoch Times,

  The very first group of Guardians on Tuesday unveiled the U.S. Space Force’s (USSF) first prototype service dress uniform, which features a dark navy color, an upturned collar, and a diagonal row of six buttons.

  During a speech at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond called two Guardians onto the stage to showcase the prototype. He noted that the service is open to “comments and tweaks” in the coming months before the uniform goes into wear testing.

  Today, @SpaceForceCSO Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond unveiled the Guardian Service Dress prototype a modern, distinctive, professional uniform during the @AirForceAssoc‘s #ASC21. pic.twitter.com/tnDJnMkCMo

  — United States Space Force (@SpaceForceDoD) September 21, 2021

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  The coat’s six silver buttons, according to Raymond, are meant to represent the fact that the USSF is the sixth branch of the U.S. Armed Services. Photos released by the official USSF Twitter account reveal more details, including the service’s delta emblem on the buttons and mirror-finished “U.S.” pins on the collar.

  Raymond also revealed the USSF’s physical training uniform, which is being wear-tested. A video shows the uniform and a gray T-shirt bearing the stylized words “Space Force” in white on the back, and black shorts with the delta emblem in white.

  The Guardians will continue to wear the Operation Camouflage Pattern (OCP) uniform as their combat uniform. The OCP is already in use by the Army and the Air Force.

  The uniform announcement comes after USSF Chief Master Sergeant Roger A. Towberman showed off the new insignia on social media.

  Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force Roger A. Towberman announced today the new design of the #SpaceForce‘s enlisted rank insignia. #SemperSupra pic.twitter.com/2O6P441u8h

  — United States Space Force (@SpaceForceDoD) September 20, 2021

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  “The delta is the foundation for all USSF enlisted insignia,” read an infographic shared by Towberman. “The six-sided border surrounding the insignia represents the USSF as the sixth branch of the U.S. Armed Forces.”

  According to Towberman, each specialist stripe represents “terra firma, a solid foundation of skills” upon which Space Force operations are built. Changing the straight stripes to chevrons at higher ranks symbolizes the change Guardians go through as they take on greater responsibilities.

  “The placement of the Delta above the globe further signifies this higher level of responsibility, while the Delta breaking through the orbits shows their willingness to explore and innovate,” he explained.

  [ZH: we still think this is better…]

  

  Meanwhile, other sci-fi fans have pointed out the similarity to various shows:

  A friend just texted me: “Tell me the space force uniform isn’t a complete rip-off of battlestar galatica” and reader— https://t.co/UEyvBY573A pic.twitter.com/8teKYBPWC5

  — Valerie Insinna (@ValerieInsinna) September 21, 2021

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/22/2021 – 18:40