• Total Tyranny: We'll All Be Targeted Under The Government's New Pre-Crime Program
  Total Tyranny: We’ll All Be Targeted Under The Government’s New Pre-Crime Program

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

  “There is now the capacity to make tyranny total in America.”

  – James Bamford

  It never fails.

  Just as we get a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, there might be a chance of crawling out of this totalitarian cesspool in which we’ve been mired, we get kicked down again.

  In the same week that the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously declared that police cannot carry out warrantless home invasions in order to seize guns under the pretext of their “community caretaking” duties, the Biden Administration announced its plans for a “precrime” crime prevention agency.

  Talk about taking one step forward and two steps back.

  Precrime, straight out of the realm of dystopian science fiction movies such as Minority Report, aims to prevent crimes before they happen by combining widespread surveillance, behavior prediction technologies, data mining, precognitive technology, and neighborhood and family snitch programs to enable police to capture would-be criminals before they can do any damage.

  

  This particular precrime division will fall under the Department of Homeland Security, the agency notorious for militarizing the police and SWAT teams; spying on activists, dissidents and veterans; stockpiling ammunition; distributing license plate readers; contracting to build detention camps; tracking cell-phones with Stingray devices; carrying out military drills and lockdowns in American cities; using the TSA as an advance guard; conducting virtual strip searches with full-body scanners; carrying out soft target checkpoints; directing government workers to spy on Americans; conducting widespread spying networks using fusion centers; carrying out Constitution-free border control searches; funding city-wide surveillance cameras; and utilizing drones and other spybots.

  The intent, of course, is for the government to be all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful in its preemptive efforts to combat domestic extremism.

  Where we run into trouble is when the government gets overzealous and over-ambitious and overreaches.

  This is how you turn a nation of citizens into snitches and suspects.

  In the blink of an eye, ordinary Americans will find themselves labeled domestic extremists for engaging in lawful behavior that triggers the government’s precrime sensors.

  Of course, it’s an elaborate setup: we’ll all be targets.

  In such a suspect society, the burden of proof is reversed so that guilt is assumed and innocence must be proven.

  It’s the American police state’s take on the dystopian terrors foreshadowed by George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and Phillip K. Dick all rolled up into one oppressive pre-crime and pre-thought crime package.

  What’s more, the technocrats who run the surveillance state don’t even have to break a sweat while monitoring what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, how much you spend, whom you support, and with whom you communicate.

  Computers now do the tedious work of trolling social media, the internet, text messages and phone calls for potentially anti-government remarks, all of which is carefully recorded, documented, and stored to be used against you someday at a time and place of the government’s choosing.

  In this way, with the help of automated eyes and ears, a growing arsenal of high-tech software, hardware and techniques, government propaganda urging Americans to turn into spies and snitches, as well as social media and behavior sensing software, government agents are spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports aimed at snaring potential enemies of the state.

  It works the same in any regime.

  As Professor Robert Gellately notes in his book Backing Hitler about the police state tactics used in Nazi Germany: “There were relatively few secret police, and most were just processing the information coming in. I had found a shocking fact. It wasn’t the secret police who were doing this wide-scale surveillance and hiding on every street corner. It was the ordinary German people who were informing on their neighbors.”

  Here’s the thing as the Germans themselves quickly discovered: you won’t have to do anything illegal or challenge the government’s authority in order to be flagged as a suspicious character, labeled an enemy of the state and locked up like a dangerous criminal.

  In fact, all you will need to do is use certain trigger words, surf the internet, communicate using a cell phone, drive a car, stay at a hotel, purchase materials at a hardware store, take flying or boating lessons, appear suspicious to a neighbor, question government authority, or generally live in the United States.

  The following activities are guaranteed to get you censored, surveilled, eventually placed on a government watch list, possibly detained and potentially killed.

  Use harmless trigger words like cloud, pork and pirates: The Department of Homeland Security has an expansive list of keywords and phrases it uses to monitor social networking sites and online media for signs of terrorist or other threats. While you’ll definitely send up an alert for using phrases such as dirty bomb, Jihad and Agro terror, you’re just as likely to get flagged for surveillance if you reference the terms SWAT, lockdown, police, cloud, food poisoning, pork, flu, Subway, smart, delays, cancelled, la familia, pirates, hurricane, forest fire, storm, flood, help, ice, snow, worm, warning or social media.

  Use a cell phone: Simply by using a cell phone, you make yourself an easy target for government agents—working closely with corporations—who can listen in on your phone calls, read your text messages and emails, and track your movements based on the data transferred from, received by, and stored in your cell phone. Mention any of the so-called “trigger” words in a conversation or text message, and you’ll get flagged for sure.

  Drive a car: Unless you’ve got an old junkyard heap without any of the gadgets and gizmos that are so attractive to today’s car buyers (GPS, satellite radio, electrical everything, smart systems, etc.), driving a car today is like wearing a homing device: you’ll be tracked from the moment you open that car door thanks to black box recorders and vehicle-to-vehicle communications systems that can monitor your speed, direction, location, the number of miles traveled, and even your seatbelt use. Once you add satellites, GPS devices, license plate readers, and real-time traffic cameras to the mix, there’s nowhere you can go on our nation’s highways and byways that you can’t be followed. By the time you add self-driving cars into the futuristic mix, equipped with computers that know where you want to go before you do, privacy and autonomy will be little more than distant mirages in your rearview mirror.

  Attend a political rally: Enacted in the wake of 9/11, the Patriot Act redefined terrorism so broadly that many non-terrorist political activities such as protest marches, demonstrations and civil disobedience were considered potential terrorist acts, thereby rendering anyone desiring to engage in protected First Amendment expressive activities as suspects of the surveillance state.

  Express yourself on social media: The FBI, CIA, NSA and other government agencies are investing in and relying on corporate surveillance technologies that can mine constitutionally protected speech on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in order to identify potential extremists and predict who might engage in future acts of anti-government behavior. A decorated Marine, 26-year-old Brandon Raub was targeted by the Secret Service because of his Facebook posts, interrogated by government agents about his views on government corruption, arrested with no warning, labeled mentally ill for subscribing to so-called “conspiratorial” views about the government, detained against his will in a psych ward for having “dangerous” opinions, and isolated from his family, friends and attorneys.

  Serve in the military: Operation Vigilant Eagle, the brainchild of the Dept. of Homeland Security, calls for surveillance of military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, characterizing them as extremists and potential domestic terrorist threats because they may be “disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war.” Police agencies are also using Beware, an “early warning” computer system that tips them off to a potential suspect’s inclination to be a troublemaker and assigns individuals a color-coded threat score—green, yellow or red—based on a variety of factors including one’s criminal records, military background, medical history and social media surveillance.

  Disagree with a law enforcement official: A growing number of government programs are aimed at identifying, monitoring and locking up anyone considered potentially “dangerous” or mentally ill (according to government standards, of course). For instance, a homeless man in New York City who reportedly had a history of violence but no signs of mental illness was forcibly detained in a psych ward for a week after arguing with shelter police. Despite the fact that doctors cited no medical reason to commit him, the man was locked up in accordance with a $22 million program that monitors mentally ill people considered “potentially” violent. According to the Associated Press, “A judge finally ordered his release, ruling that the man’s commitment violated his civil rights and that bureaucrats had meddled in his medical treatment.”

  Call in sick to work: In Virginia, a so-called police “welfare check” instigated by a 58-year-old man’s employer after he called in sick resulted in a two-hour, SWAT team-style raid on the man’s truck and a 72-hour mental health hold. During the standoff, a heavily armed police tactical team confronted Benjamin Burruss as he was leaving an area motel, surrounded his truck, deployed a “stinger” device behind the rear tires, launched a flash grenade, smashed the side window in order to drag him from the truck, handcuffed and searched him, and transported him to a local hospital for a psychiatric evaluation and mental health hold. All of this was done despite the fact that police acknowledged they had no legal basis nor probable cause for detaining Burruss, given that he had not threatened to harm anyone and was not mentally ill.

  Limp or stutter: As a result of a nationwide push to certify a broad spectrum of government officials in mental health first-aid training (a 12-hour course comprised of PowerPoint presentations, videos, discussions, role playing and other interactive activities), more Americans are going to run the risk of being reported for having mental health issues by non-medical personnel. Mind you, once you get on such a government watch list—whether it’s a terrorist watch list, a mental health watch list, or a dissident watch list—there’s no clear-cut way to get off, whether or not you should actually be on there. For instance, one 37-year-old disabled man was arrested, diagnosed by police and an unlicensed mental health screener as having “mental health issues,” apparently because of his slurred speech and unsteady gait, and subsequently locked up for five days in a mental health facility against his will and with no access to family and friends. A subsequent hearing found that Gordon Goines, who suffers from a neurological condition similar to multiple sclerosis, has no mental illness and should not have been confined.

  Appear confused or nervous, fidget, whistle or smell bad: According to the Transportation Security Administration’s 92-point secret behavior watch list for spotting terrorists, these are among some of the telling signs of suspicious behavior: fidgeting, whistling, bad body odor, yawning, clearing your throat, having a pale face from recently shaving your beard, covering your mouth with your hand when speaking and blinking your eyes fast. You can also be pulled aside for interrogation if you “have ‘unusual items,’ like almanacs and ‘numerous prepaid calling cards or cell phones.’” One critic of the program accurately referred to the program as a “license to harass.”

  Allow yourself to be seen in public waving a toy gun or anything remotely resembling a gun, such as a water nozzle or a remote control or a walking cane, for instance: No longer is it unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later. John Crawford was shot by police in an Ohio Wal-Mart for holding an air rifle sold in the store that he may have intended to buy. Thirteen-year-old Andy Lopez Cruz was shot 7 times in 10 seconds by a California police officer who mistook the boy’s toy gun for an assault rifle. Christopher Roupe, 17, was shot and killed after opening the door to a police officer. The officer, mistaking the Wii remote control in Roupe’s hand for a gun, shot him in the chest. Another police officer repeatedly shot 70-year-old Bobby Canipe during a traffic stop. The cop saw the man reaching for his cane and, believing the cane to be a rifle, opened fire.

  Stare at a police officer: Miami-Dade police slammed the 14-year-old Tremaine McMillian to the ground, putting him in a chokehold and handcuffing him after he allegedly gave them “dehumanizing stares” and walked away from them, which the officers found unacceptable.

  Appear to be pro-gun, pro-freedom or anti-government: You might be a domestic terrorist in the eyes of the FBI (and its network of snitches) if you: express libertarian philosophies (statements, bumper stickers); exhibit Second Amendment-oriented views (NRA or gun club membership); read survivalist literature, including apocalyptic fictional books; show signs of self-sufficiency (stockpiling food, ammo, hand tools, medical supplies); fear an economic collapse; buy gold and barter items; subscribe to religious views concerning the book of Revelation; voice fears about Big Brother or big government; expound about constitutional rights and civil liberties; or believe in a New World Order conspiracy. This is all part of a larger trend in American governance whereby dissent is criminalized and pathologized, and dissenters are censored, silenced or declared unfit for society. 

  Attend a public school: Microcosms of the police state, America’s public schools contain almost every aspect of the militarized, intolerant, senseless, overcriminalized, legalistic, surveillance-riddled, totalitarian landscape that plagues those of us on the “outside.” From the moment a child enters one of the nation’s 98,000 public schools to the moment she graduates, she will be exposed to a steady diet of draconian zero tolerance policies that criminalize childish behavior, overreaching anti-bullying statutes that criminalize speech, school resource officers (police) tasked with disciplining and/or arresting so-called “disorderly” students, standardized testing that emphasizes rote answers over critical thinking, politically correct mindsets that teach young people to censor themselves and those around them, and extensive biometric and surveillance systems that, coupled with the rest, acclimate young people to a world in which they have no freedom of thought, speech or movement. Additionally, as part of the government’s so-called ongoing war on terror, the FBI—the nation’s de facto secret police force—has been recruiting students and teachers to spy on each other and report anyone who appears to have the potential to be “anti-government” or “extremist” as part of its “Don’t Be a Puppet” campaign.

  Speak truth to power: Long before Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden were being castigated for blowing the whistle on the government’s war crimes and the National Security Agency’s abuse of its surveillance powers, it was activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lennon who were being singled out for daring to speak truth to power. These men and others like them had their phone calls monitored and data files collected on their activities and associations. For a little while, at least, they became enemy number one in the eyes of the U.S. government.

  Yet as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, you don’t even have to be a dissident to get flagged by the government for surveillance, censorship and detention.

  All you really need to be is a citizen of the American police state.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 05/22/2021 – 00:00

• Watch Postmates Robot In The Wild Of Downtown Los Angeles 
  Watch Postmates Robot In The Wild Of Downtown Los Angeles 

  A new video that surfaced on TikTok showed what appeared to be a Postmates Serve delivery robot cruising down the sidewalk of Los Angeles, dodging a homeless man laying on the pathway, and continued on its route to deliver food to a customer. 

  

  If you had to ask us, this video is a glimpse of the dystopic future in liberal-run cities where automation displaces low-skilled workers and the homeless population continues to increase. 

  @supersnacksupreme

  ##postmates ##postmatesrobot ##delivery ##melrose ##losangeles ##la ##fyp ##foryoupage ##foodiemobbb

  ♬ original sound – supersnacksupreme

  https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js

  TikTok was awash with comments about the dystopic world ahead: 

  “This is the future, and it’s looking pretty bleak,” said glassfox. 

  “This is so dystopian,” Kendall Tichner said. 

  Another person said, “when are people going to realize they are replacing people’s jobs with robots this is the start.” 

  Someone else added: “There definitely something wrong with this” video. 

  This is a taste of the dystopic world ahead where automation displaces millions of humans. Some of them will wind up homeless or perhaps be given generous UBI checks as technological unemployment is set to soar by the end of this decade. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 23:40

• Caught Red-Handed: CDC Changes Test Thresholds To Virtually Eliminate New COVID Cases Among Vaxx'd
  Caught Red-Handed: CDC Changes Test Thresholds To Virtually Eliminate New COVID Cases Among Vaxx’d

  Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

  New policies will artificially deflate “breakthrough infections” in the vaccinated, while the old rules continue to inflate case numbers in the unvaccinated.

  

  The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) is altering its practices of data logging and testing for “Covid19” in order to make it seem the experimental gene-therapy “vaccines” are effective at preventing the alleged disease.

  They made no secret of this, announcing the policy changes on their website in late April/early May, (though naturally without admitting the fairly obvious motivation behind the change).

  The trick is in their reporting of what they call “breakthrough infections” – that is people who are fully “vaccinated” against Sars-Cov-2 infection, but get infected anyway.

  Essentially, Covid19 has long been shown – to those willing to pay attention – to be an entirely created pandemic narrative built on two key factors:

  1. False-positive tests. The unreliable PCR test can be manipulated into reporting a high number of false-positives by altering the cycle threshold (CT value)

  2. Inflated Case-count. The incredibly broad definition of “Covid case”, used all over the world, lists anyone who receives a positive test as a “Covid19 case”, even if they never experienced any symptoms.

  Without these two policies, there would never have been an appreciable pandemic at all, and now the CDC has enacted two policy changes which means they no longer apply to vaccinated people.

  Firstly, they are lowering their CT value when testing samples from suspected “breakthrough infections”.

  From the CDC’s instructions for state health authorities on handling “possible breakthrough infections” (uploaded to their website in late April):

  For cases with a known RT-PCR cycle threshold (Ct) value, submit only specimens with Ct value ≤28 to CDC for sequencing. (Sequencing is not feasible with higher Ct values.)

  Throughout the pandemic, CT values in excess of 35 have been the norm, with labs around the world going into the 40s.

  Essentially labs were running as many cycles as necessary to achieve a positive result, despite experts warning that this was pointless (even Fauci himself said anything over 35 cycles is meaningless).

  But NOW, and only for fully vaccinated people, the CDC will only accept samples achieved from 28 cycles or fewer. That can only be a deliberate decision in order to decrease the number of “breakthrough infections” being officially recorded.

  Secondly, asymptomatic or mild infections will no longer be recorded as “covid cases”.

  That’s right. Even if a sample collected at the low CT value of 28 can be sequenced into the virus alleged to cause Covid19, the CDC will no longer be keeping records of breakthrough infections that don’t result in hospitalisation or death.

  From their website:

  As of May 1, 2021, CDC transitioned from monitoring all reported vaccine breakthrough cases to focus on identifying and investigating only hospitalized or fatal cases due to any cause. This shift will help maximize the quality of the data collected on cases of greatest clinical and public health importance. Previous case counts, which were last updated on April 26, 2021, are available for reference only and will not be updated moving forward.

  Just like that, being asymptomatic – or having only minor symptoms – will no longer count as a “Covid case” but only if you’ve been vaccinated.

  The CDC has put new policies in place which effectively created a tiered system of diagnosis. Meaning, from now on, unvaccinated people will find it much easier to be diagnosed with Covid19 than vaccinated people.

  Consider…

  Person A has not been vaccinated. They test positive for Covid using a PCR test at 40 cycles and, despite having no symptoms, they are officially a “covid case”.

  Person B has been vaccinated. They test positive at 28 cycles, and spend six weeks bedridden with a high fever. Because they never went into a hospital and didn’t die they are NOT a Covid case.

  Person C, who was also vaccinated, did die. After weeks in hospital with a high fever and respiratory problems. Only their positive PCR test was 29 cycles, so they’re not officially a Covid case either.

  The CDC is demonstrating the beauty of having a “disease” that can appear or disappear depending on how you measure it.

  To be clear: If these new policies had been the global approach to “Covid” since December 2019, there would never have been a pandemic at all.

  If you apply them only to the vaccinated, but keep the old rules for the unvaccinated, the only possible result can be that the official records show “Covid” is much more prevalent among the latter than the former.

  This is a policy designed to continuously inflate one number, and systematically minimise the other.

  What is that if not an obvious and deliberate act of deception?

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 23:20

• "Mask Up To Keep It Up" – Study Finds Links COVID To Erectile Dysfunction
  “Mask Up To Keep It Up” – Study Finds Links COVID To Erectile Dysfunction

  A new study published in The World Journal of Men’s Health says aftereffects of contracting COVID-19 could cause erectile dysfunction in men.

  “Our research shows that COVID-19 can cause widespread endothelial dysfunction in organ systems beyond the lungs and kidneys. The underlying endothelial dysfunction that happens because of COVID-19 can enter the endothelial cells and affect many organs, including the penis,” said Ranjith Ramasamy, M.D., associate professor and director of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s Reproductive Urology Program.

  “In our pilot study, we found that men who previously did not complain of erectile dysfunction developed pretty severe erectile dysfunction after the onset of COVID-19 infection,” Ramasamy continued. 

  

  Ramasamy and researchers from UMiami discovered long after recovery, the virus may stay in mens’ penises for months on end. And if that wasn’t scary, researchers further hypothesize that the “widespread blood vessel dysfunction” caused by COVID could contribute to erectile dysfunction. 

  “The blood vessels themselves malfunction and are not able to provide enough blood to enter the penis for an erection,” Ramasamy said. “We found that the virus affects the blood vessels that supply the penis, causing erectile dysfunction.”

  The virus has been associated with damaging other organs, such as the lungs, kidneys, and brain. But now, after collecting penile tissue samples from two men with a history of COVID infections, UMiami researchers believe erectile dysfunction “could be permanent.”

  This isn’t the first study that has claimed COVID can cause erectile dysfunction. 

  In March, researchers from the University of Rome published a study in the medical journal Andrology titled “”Mask up to keep it up”: Preliminary evidence of the association between erectile dysfunction and COVID‐19,” which said those who contracted the virus were 5.6x more likely to have erectile dysfunction. 

  Ramasamy said more data is needed to understand better how widespread erectile dysfunction is post-COVID infection. 

  Both studies come as one of the biggest deflationary threats looms over the global economy: US birth rates have fallen to their lowest level in a generation. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 23:00

• Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, And Why It Matters
  Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, And Why It Matters

  Authored by Rupert Darwall via RealClearEnergy.com,

  On January 8, 2014, at New York University in Brooklyn, there occurred a unique event in the annals of global warming: nearly eight hours of structured debate between three climate scientists supporting the consensus on manmade global warming and three climate scientists who dispute it, moderated by a team of six leading physicists from the American Physical Society (APS) led by Dr. Steven Koonin, a theoretical physicist at New York University. The debate, hosted by the APS, revealed consensus-supporting climate scientists harboring doubts and uncertainties and admitting to holes in climate science – in marked contrast to the emphatic messaging of bodies such as Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

  

  At one point, Koonin read an extract from the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report released the previous year. Computer model-simulated responses to forcings – the term used by climate scientists for changes of energy flows into and out of the climate system, such as changes in solar radiation, volcanic eruptions, and changes in the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – “can be scaled up or down.” This scaling included greenhouse gas forcings.

  Some forcings in some computer models had to be scaled down to match computer simulations to actual climate observations. But when it came to making centennial projections on which governments rely and drive climate policy, the scaling factors were removed, probably resulting in a 25 to 30 percent over-prediction of the 2100 warming.

  The ensuing dialogue between Koonin and Dr. William Collins of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory – a lead author of the climate model evaluation chapter in the Fifth Assessment Report – revealed something more troubling and deliberate than holes in scientific knowledge:

  • Dr. Koonin: But if the model tells you that you got the response to the forcing wrong by 30 percent, you should use that same 30 percent factor when you project out a century.

  • Dr. Collins: Yes. And one of the reasons we are not doing that is we are not using the models as [a] statistical projection tool.

  • Dr. Koonin: What are you using them as?

  • Dr. Collins: Well, we took exactly the same models that got the forcing wrong and which got sort of the projections wrong up to 2100.

  • Dr. Koonin: So, why do we even show centennial-scale projections?

  • Dr. Collins: Well, I mean, it is part of the [IPCC] assessment process.

  Koonin was uncommonly well-suited to lead the APS climate workshop. He has a deep understanding of computer models, which have become the workhorses of climate science. As a young man, Koonin wrote a paper on computer modeling of nuclear reaction in stars and taught a course on computational physics at Caltech. In the early 1990s, he was involved in a program using satellites to measure the Earth’s albedo – that is, the reflection of incoming solar radiation back into space. As a student at Caltech in the late 1960s, he was taught by Nobel physicist Richard Feynman and absorbed what Koonin calls Feynman’s “absolute intellectual honesty.”

  On becoming BP’s chief scientist in 2004, Koonin became part of the wider climate change milieu. Assignments included explaining the physics of man-made global warming to Prince Philip at a dinner in Buckingham Palace. In 2009, Koonin was appointed an under-secretary at the Department of Energy in the Obama administration.

  The APS climate debate was the turning point in Koonin’s thinking about climate change and consensus climate science (“The Science”).

  “I began by believing that we were in a race to save the planet from climate catastrophe,” Koonin writes in his new book, “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, And Why It Matters.”

  “I came away from the APS workshop not only surprised, but shaken by the realization that climate science was far less mature than I had supposed.”

  “Unsettled” is an authoritative primer on the science of climate change that lifts the lid on The Science and finds plenty that isn’t as it should be.

  “As a scientist,” writes Koonin, “I felt the scientific community was letting the public down by not telling the whole truth plainly.”

  Koonin’s aim is to right that wrong.

  Koonin’s indictment of The Science starts with its reliance on unreliable computer models. Usefully describing the earth’s climate, writes Koonin, is “one of the most challenging scientific simulation problems.” Models divide the atmosphere into pancake-shaped boxes of around 100km wide and one kilometer deep. But the upward flow of energy from tropical thunder clouds, which is more than thirty times larger than that from human influences, occurs over smaller scales than the programmed boxes. This forces climate modellers to make assumptions about what happens inside those boxes. As one modeller confesses, “it’s a real challenge to model what we don’t understand.”

  Inevitably, this leaves considerable scope for modelers’ subjective views and preferences. A key question climate models are meant to solve is estimating the equilibrium climate sensitivity of carbon dioxide (ECS), which aims to tell us by how much temperatures rise from a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Yet in 2020, climate modelers from Germany’s Max Planck Institute admitted to tuning their model by targeting an ECS of about 3° Centigrade. “Talk about cooking the books,” Koonin comments.

  The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. Self-evidently, computer projections can’t be tested against a future that’s yet to happen, but they can be tested against climates present and past. Climate models can’t even agree on what the current global average temperature is. “One particularly jarring feature is that the simulated average global surface temperature,” Koonin notes, “varies among models by about 3°C, three times greater than the observed value of the twentieth century warming they’re purporting to describe and explain.”

  Another embarrassing feature of climate models concerns the earlier of the two twentieth-century warmings from 1910 to 1940, when human influences were much smaller. On average, models give a warming rate of about half of what was actually observed. The failure of the latest models to warm fast enough in those decades suggest that it’s possible, even likely, that internal climate variability is a significant contributor to the warming of recent decades, Koonin suggests. “That the models can’t reproduce the past is a big red flag – it erodes confidence in their projections of future climates.” Neither is it reassuring that for the years after 1960, the latest generation of climate models show a larger spread and greater uncertainty than earlier ones – implying that, far from advancing, The Science has been going backwards. That is not how science is meant to work.

  The second part of Koonin’s indictment concerns the distortion, misrepresentation, and mischaracterization of climate data to support a narrative of climate catastrophism based on increasing frequency of extreme weather events. As an example, Koonin takes a “shockingly misleading” claim and associated graph in the United States government’s 2017 Climate Science Special Report that the number of high-temperature records set in the past two decades far exceeds the number of low-temperature records across the 48 contiguous states. Koonin demonstrates that the sharp uptick in highs over the last two decades is an artifact of a methodology chosen to mislead. After re-running the data, record highs show a clear peak in the 1930s, but there is no significant trend over the 120 years of observations starting in 1895, or even since 1980, when human influences on the climate grew strongly. In contrast, the number of record cold temperatures has declined over more than a century, with the trend accelerating after 1985.

  Notes Koonin, “temperature extremes in the contiguous U.S. have become less common and somewhat milder since the late nineteenth century.” Similarly, a key message in the 2014 National Climate Assessment of an upward trend in hurricane frequency and intensity, repeated in the 2017 assessment, is contradicted 728 pages later by a statement buried in an appendix stating that there has been no significant trend in the global number of tropical cyclones “nor has any trend been identified in the number of U.S. land-falling hurricanes.”

  That might surprise many politicians.

  “Over the past thirty years, the incidence of natural disasters has dramatically increased,” Treasury secretary Janet Yellen falsely asserted last month in a pitch supporting the Biden administration’s infrastructure package. “We are now in a situation where climate change is an existential risk to our future economy and way of life,” she claimed.

  The sacrifice of scientific truth in the form of objective empirical data for the sake of a catastrophist climate narrative is plain to see. As Koonin summarizes the case:

  “Even as human influences have increased fivefold since 1950 and the globe has warmed modestly, most severe weather phenomena remain within past variability. Projections of future climate and weather events rely on models demonstrably unfit for the purpose.”

  Koonin also has sharp words for the policy side of the climate change consensus, which asserts that although climate change is an existential threat, solving it by totally decarbonizing society is straightforward and relatively painless.

  “Two decades ago, when I was in the private sector,” Koonin writes, “I learned to say that the goal of stabilizing human influences on the climate was ‘a challenge,’ while in government it was talked about as ‘an opportunity.’ Now back in academia, I can forthrightly call it ‘a practical impossibility.’”

  Unlike many scientists and most politicians, Koonin displays a sure grasp of the split between developed and developing nations, for whom decarbonization is a luxury good that they can’t afford. The fissure dates back to the earliest days of the U.N. climate process at the end of the 1980s. Indeed, it’s why developing nations insisted on the U.N. route as opposed to an intergovernmental one that produced the 1987 Montreal Protocol on ozone-depleting substances.

  “The economic betterment of most of humanity in the coming decades will drive energy demand even more strongly than population growth,” Koonin says.

  “Who will pay the developing world not to emit? I have been posing that simple question to many people for more than fifteen years and have yet to hear a convincing answer.”

  The most unsettling part of “Unsettled” concerns science and the role of scientists.

  “Science is one of the very few human activities – perhaps the only one – in which errors are systematically criticized and fairly often, in time, corrected,” Karl Popper wrote nearly six decades ago.

  That condition does not pertain in climate science, where errors are embedded in a political narrative and criticism is suppressed. In a recent essay, the philosopher Matthew B. Crawford observes that the pride of science as a way of generating knowledge – unlike religion – is to be falsifiable. That changes when science is pressed into duty as authority in order to absolve politicians of responsibility for justifying their policy choices (“the science says,” we’re repeatedly told). “Yet what sort of authority would it be that insists its own grasp of reality is merely provisional?” asks Crawford. “For authority to be really authoritative, it must claim an epistemic monopoly of some kind, whether of priestly or scientific knowledge.”

  At the outset of “Unsettled,” Feynman’s axiom of absolute intellectual honesty is contrasted with climate scientist Stephen Schneider’s “double ethical bind.” On the one hand, scientists are ethically bound by the scientific method to tell the truth. On the other, they are human beings who want to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change.

  “Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest,” Schneider said.

  “Being effective” helps explain the pressure on climate scientists to conform to The Science and the emergence of a climate science knowledge monopoly. Its function is, as Crawford puts it, the manufacture of a product – political legitimacy – which, in turn, requires that competing views be delegitimized and driven out of public discourse through enforcement of a “moratorium on the asking of questions.” This sees climate scientist gatekeepers deciding who can and cannot opine on climate science. “Please, save us from retired physicists who think they’re smarter and wiser than everyone in climate science,” tweeted Gavin Schmidt, NASA acting senior climate advisor, about Koonin and his book. “I agree with pretty much everything you wrote,” a chair of a university earth sciences department tells Koonin, “but I don’t dare say that in public.” Another scientist criticizes Koonin for giving ammunition to “the deniers,” and a third writes an op-ed urging New York University to reconsider Koonin’s position there. It goes wider than scientists. Facebook has suppressed a “Wall Street Journal” review of “Unsettled.” Likewise, “Unsettled” remains unreviewed by the “New York Times,” the “Washington Post” (though it carried an op-ed by Marc Thiessen based on an interview with Koonin) and other dailies, which would prefer to treat Koonin’s reasoned climate dissent as though it doesn’t exist.

  The moratorium on the asking of questions represents the death of science as understood and described by Popper, a victim of the conflicting requirements of political utility and scientific integrity. Many scientists take this lying down. Koonin won’t. For his forensic skill and making his findings accessible to non-specialists, Koonin has written the most important book on climate science in decades.

  *  *  *

  Rupert Darwall is a senior fellow of the RealClear Foundation and author of  Green Tyranny and Capitalism, Socialism and ESG. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 22:40

• US Hits Russian Entities With More Nord Stream 2 Sanctions After Removing Them For German Side
  US Hits Russian Entities With More Nord Stream 2 Sanctions After Removing Them For German Side

  In the continuing saga of contradictory US efforts to thwart the Russia to Germany natural gas pipeline Nord Stream 2, the US Treasury on Friday hit Russia with more sanctions – specifically announcing that three more Russian entities and 13 vessels will come under sanction for their work on the project.

  “Among the sanctioned vessels are the Akademik Cherskiy, the Vladislav Strizhov, the Yury Topchev and the Baltiyskiy Issledovatel, along with others,” Treasury announced. “The sanctioned companies are Russia’s Marine Rescue Service, Mortransservice, and the Samara Heat and Energy Property Fund.”

  

  Of course, the bizarre thing about this is that it was only on Tuesday of this week that the Biden administration revealed it would actually remove Trump-era sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG and CEO Matthias Warnig (considered a personal friend of Putin) – which is the German company overseeing the project.

  The removal of the punitive actions took place Wednesday and Axios’ Jonathan Swan wrote of the decision that it “indicates the Biden administration is not willing to compromise its relationship with Germany over this pipeline, and underscores the difficulties President Biden faces in matching actions to rhetoric on a tougher approach to Russia.”

  Germany had long rejected Washington’s punitive measures over the project as interference in its domestic affairs, but Wednesday’s removal for the overseer of the project served to drastically east tensions with Berlin over the matter, with German foreign minister Heiko Maas thanking the Biden administration for doing so: 

  “We understand the decisions that have been taken in Washington as taking into account the really extraordinarily good relationship that have been built with the Biden administration,” Maas said.

  Biden was immediately slammed for the act of “capitulation” after long vowing to get “tough” on Russia by Republicans but also Democrat hawks, including in conservative and independent media outlets which pointed out that Trump would have no doubt been accused of being under “Russian influence” had he been the one to relax sanctions.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 22:20

• 14 Cities In LA County Issue No-Confidence Resolutions Against Soros-Backed DA
  14 Cities In LA County Issue No-Confidence Resolutions Against Soros-Backed DA

  Authored by Vanessa Serna via The Epoch Times,

  Fourteen cities in Los Angeles county have issued no-confidence resolutions against District Attorney George Gascon, claiming his reforms went too far.

  

  Diamond Bar’s city council passed a no-confidence motion during its May 18 meeting, with some councilmembers wishing to address Gascon’s perceived leniency to horrific crimes throughout the county.

  “Gascon is making it less safe for our residents and businesses,” Diamond Bar Mayor Nancy Lyon told The Epoch Times.

   “He’s more concerned about the criminals than the victims. You can’t do special enhancements on things like hate crime, elder abuse, child physical abuse, trauma, [or] human trafficking.”

  Lyon added, “Even if they’re 17-and-a-half-year-old and they committed a double murder and tortured people, they can’t be tried as an adult… and he’s no longer going to seek the death penalty in any case.”

  The residents’ response to the agenda item was “overwhelming,” Lyson said, adding she has never seen the community more involved. While most residents were in favor of the no confidence vote, a few voiced opposition to it.

  One Diamond Bar resident said council should vote against the notion, as Gascon’s sweeping reforms were justifiable.

  “The common practice of conditioning freedom solely on whether an arrestee can afford bail is unconstitutional,” the speaker said.

  “DA Gascon’s policy encourages the use of diversion programs, which provide treatment rather than prosecution in jailing for many minor offenses.”

  The resident continued, “Public expense jails, prisons, and courts are not the best way to manage the root causes of many misdemeanors, we must step up the availability of community support services…We must stop thinking that imprisoning people longer reduces crime or addresses issues that our society fails to address…Depriving people of life and liberty after serving a sentence only keeps them from becoming productive members of society.”

  Conversely, some Diamond Bar residents who said they originally voted for Gacon expressed disappointment in the district attorney.

  “While I voted for him initially his truth was really a lie and he proved it on his first day in office,” a speaker said.

  “[We] did not elect him to destroy our system of justice.”

  The City of Manhattan Beach also voted in favor of no confidence for the district attorney on May 18.

  “We share the DA’s desire for criminal-justice reform,” Mayor Suzanne Hadley told The Epoch Times.

  “Our Concern is that the DA is choosing not to enforce the law—rather than tackle the necessary, difficult, and legislative work of true reform.”

  The no confidence votes from 14 cities came less than a year after the district attorney took office last December. Other cities to pass symbolic no confidence resolutions include Covina, Azusa, Beverly Hills, Lancaster, La Mirada, and Whittier, Santa Clarita, Pico Rivera, Redondo Beach, Arcadia, Rosemead, and Santa Fe Springs.

  On his first day in office, Gascon signed a special directive that announced policy changes including potential sentence reductions for inmates, a ban on sentence enhancements, and elimination of the death penalty.

  Gascon received $2 million in funding for his district attorney campaign from Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros, who is known for financing leftist causes.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 22:00

• "Xi Who Must Not Be Named": Ordinary Chinese Are Increasingly Afraid To Talk About Their Leader
  “Xi Who Must Not Be Named”: Ordinary Chinese Are Increasingly Afraid To Talk About Their Leader

  It’s a dynamic familiar to fans of the Harry Potter franchise: a villain so powerful that ordinary people fear to even mutter his name aloud. In Harry Potter world, characters use phrases like “You Know Who” to reference the series arch-villain, Voldemort. But in China (where Harry Potter is, unsurprisingly, banned), ordinary citizens (even those who genuinely support the CCP) are afraid to utter the name of President Xi Jinping, the most powerful Chinese leader since Chairman Mao.

  

  An interesting piece published in the latest issue of the Economist pointed to the dynamic:

  Open criticism of the most important man in China is taboo. Last year Ren Zhiqiang, a retired property tycoon and vocal critic of the government, published an essay about a speech by Mr Xi in which Mr Ren said he was not an “emperor” showing off his new clothes but a naked “clown”. Shortly afterwards, Mr Ren was sentenced to 18 years in prison for corruption.

  Chinese citizens’ euphemisms for President Xi – which include, most notoriously, comparing the leader to “Winnie the Pooh” – are evolving so fast by necessity that China’s online censors are having trouble keeping up.

  Earlier this month, Meituan CEO Wang Xing posted a classic ninth-century poem mocking an ancient Chinese emperor. While Wang insisted the poem was an oblique jab at the company’s competitors, too many people interpreted it as a jab at China’s leadership. Meituan’s stock subsequently slumped, wiping $2.5 billion off Wang’s net worth. The company, China’s largest food-delivery app, has since been caught up in the CCP’s anti-trust crackdown.

  Even at pro-Beijing media outlets and private gatherings of pro-government diplomats and executives, people take excessive precautions as soon as discussions veer toward the politically sensitive. In conversation, Chinese citizens use phrases like “you know who,” “big number one” and our “eldest brother” or “big uncle” to reference Xi.

  Others insist on turning off their mobile phones when the subject of Chinese politics arises.

  Such is the current climate that even those who broadly support the government are sometimes nervous about mentioning Mr Xi’s name. Some employees at a state-run media group have taken to substituting the word “Trump” for Mr Xi in chat groups. At small social gatherings, people frequently stop short of uttering the name, even in the most benign contexts. They use instead phrases such as “you-know-who”, “big number one”, “the eldest brother” or “our big uncle”.

  When, at a recent private gathering that included diplomats, executives and bankers, the talk turned to Chinese politics, it was suggested that all switch off their mobile phones. No one thought it likely that government snoops were really listening in and no one had anything particularly controversial to say. But all agreed it was better to be safe.

  Electronic eavesdropping isn’t the only tactic employed by China’s censors and secret police. Beijing is once again popularizing a tactic used during theCultural Revolution and Stalin’s Red Terror: encouraging people to snitch on their friends and neighbors.

  Electronic eavesdropping is not the only concern. The old-fashioned sort is also encouraged. Last month, the government launched a new system, with a website and hotline, for citizens to snitch on one another for making “harmful” political commentary. This can include “denying the excellent traditional Chinese culture, revolution culture and advanced socialist culture” as well as attacks on political leaders or their policies.

  If this trend continues, pretty soon, ordinary Chinese citizens will risk jail time just for mentioning Harry Potter, or Winnie the Pooh, or Xinjiang.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 21:40

• Rochester Mayor Vowed To Take "Illegal Guns Off The Street"; Police Just Found One In Her Home
  Rochester Mayor Vowed To Take “Illegal Guns Off The Street”; Police Just Found One In Her Home

  By Cam Edwards of BearingArms,

  Rochester, New York Mayor Lovely Warren is a typical Democrat politician when it comes to gun control. She’s complained about the number of “illegal guns on the streets” of the city, supported the state’s draconian gun control laws, and even announced a gun “buyback” earlier this week, claiming once again that “getting guns off our streets must be a priority.”

  “That’s why I’m glad our police department is partnering with the Attorney General’s Office and our churches to host a gun buy-back event next week. I know Chief Herriott-Sullivan and her team are working with their partners in law enforcement to stop the flow of illegal guns into our city. We must continue working together with our citizens to take these guns off our streets so our residents can feel safe in their neighborhoods and live the lives they deserve.”

  Turns out Warren should have been more concerned about illegally possessed guns in her home. On Wednesday, the New York State Police raided the home that Warren shares with her husband Timothy Granison and allegedly discovered him to be in possession of 31 grams of cocaine as well as a firearm, which is a no-no since Granison was convicted of armed robbery 24 years ago.

  

  According to the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, Granison was one of seven people arrested as part of an ongoing drug investigation that’s been going on for months.

  New York State Police stopped Granison’s vehicle Wednesday afternoon on Birch Crescent in Rochester and cocaine was found inside his car, said New York State Police Major Barry Chase.

  On Wednesday evening, New York State Police conducted a search at the home that Warren and Granison share at 93 Woodman Park.

  New York State Police on Wednesday and Thursday executed search warrants at seven locations within city limits, including Mayor Warren’s home. More than two kilos of powder and crack cocaine were recovered, as were three firearms and a semi-automatic rifle and more than $100,000 cash said Doorley.

  One unregistered hand gun, a loaded magazine and the semi-automatic rifle were recovered from the mayor’s house, New York State Police Major Barry Chase said. It was not yet clear if the rifle is illegal.

  For the moment, the only gun charge that Granison faces is possession of an unregistered firearm, though his felony conviction back in the 1990s makes him ineligible to legally own a firearm, regardless of whether or not it’s registered with the state of New York, as required under the terms of the state’s draconian SAFE Act. During a court hearing on Thursday, Granison pleaded not guilty to the drug and gun charges, and so far his wife has been silent about his arrest and the guns found in the couple’s home.

  In the past, however, Warren’s been a vocal supporter of the SAFE Act and other restrictions on legal gun owners in the state, even as she’s sought to cut the Rochester Police Department’s budget amidst a sharp increase in violent crime in the city. Last August, she even lauded the Rochester PD for confiscating hundreds of guns, and vowed to keep up the pressure against those possessing them illegally.

  “But we can’t legislate morality,” Warren said. “We can’t… We legislate consequences. So. The thing is. We are focusing on bringing these people do justice that are picking up these weapons but also getting the weapons off the street.

  Well, I suppose the good news for Warren is that there are two fewer guns in Rochester today. Too bad for her that they were seized from her own home. I wonder if Warren is still big on ensuring that there are consequences for possessing a gun illegally in the city she oversees, or if she’s suddenly had a change of heart over the past 24 hours.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 21:20

• US Special Forces Seek Amphibious Transport Plane For Pacific Combat
  US Special Forces Seek Amphibious Transport Plane For Pacific Combat

  The US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) explores options for transforming Lockheed Martin’s C-130 Hercules four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft into an amphibious plane that would support operations in the Indo-Pacific area as great power competition between China continues to gain steam, according to military intelligence website Janes. 

  USSOCOM revealed the interest in Lockheed’s MC-130J Commando II fitted with floats during a presentation at the virtual Special Operations Forces Industry Conference on Wednesday. 

  

  USSOCOM wants the MC-130J Amphibious Capability, or MAC, to operate from water and traditional land-based runways. An artist rendering of the concept plane is shown below. 

  

  MAC’s Program Executive Officer, Colonel Ken Kuebler, suggested during the virtual conference that the new plane could “land and take off” from land and sea during the same mission.

  USSOCOM’s Fixed Wing Technology Insertion Roadmap, which was illustrated at the event, said a timeline of the plane’s development and when it could operate would be between 2022–25. 

  Kuebler suggested there was “enough command interest” at USSOCOM to pursue building the MAC. 

  “There is enough of a focus on peer and near-peer as we look at emerging threats. Is it going to be cost effective? That’s why we have several lines of effort early on and there will be plenty of off-ramp [opportunities] along the way to determine if we move forward,” he said.

  USSOCOM is focusing on the great power competition in the Indo-Pacific region against China. The importance of an amphibious transport plane for special forces is imperative if conflict breaks out. 

  According to the foreign policy and national security website “War On Th Rocks,” the US currently operates zero military seaplanes. Japan and Russia operate a small number of seaplanes, but China has unveiled the largest and most modern operational seaplane, the AG-600.

  

  In a great power competition, one that is underway in the Pacific, the US is in desperate need of seaplanes if conflict breaks out because it currently has none.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 21:00

• Georgia Gov. Urges Educators Not To Teach Critical Race Theory’s ‘Dangerous Ideology’
  Georgia Gov. Urges Educators Not To Teach Critical Race Theory’s ‘Dangerous Ideology’

  Authored by Isabel Van Brugen via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) on Thursday wrote a letter to the state Board of Education opposing the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and its “dangerous ideology” in public schools.

  “This divisive, anti-American agenda has no place in Georgia classrooms,” the Republican governor said in a statement on Twitter.

  He urged educators in his letter “to take immediate steps to ensure that Critical Race Theory and its dangerous ideology do not take root in our state standards or curriculum.”

  

  Kemp said that parents, students, administrators, and educators in Georgia have come to him in recent weeks with concerns about the teaching of CRT in state schools.

  “Like me, they are alarmed this divisive and anti-American curriculum is gaining favor in Washington D.C. and in some states across the country.”

  CRT has gradually proliferated in recent decades through academia, government structures, school systems, and the corporate world. It redefines human history as a struggle between the “oppressors”—white people—and the “oppressed”—everybody else—similar to Marxism’s reduction of history to a struggle between the “bourgeois” and the “proletariat.” It labels institutions that emerged in majority-white societies as racist and “white supremacist.”

  Like Marxism, CRT advocates for the destruction of institutions, such as the Western justice system, free-market economy, and orthodox religions, while demanding that they be replaced with institutions compliant with the theory’s ideology.

  Proponents of CRT have argued that the theory is merely “demonstrating how pervasive systemic racism truly is.”

  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in March denounced critical race theory as hateful, while Republican lawmakers in Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, New Hampshire, and West Virginia have said that they aim to ban the teaching of critical race theory in schools, workplaces, and government agencies.

  Earlier this month, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed into law a bill mandating the teaching of CRT in schools, while Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill banning its teaching in the state’s public and charter schools.

  Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Education has proposed a grant priority that seeks to promote controversial racial concepts in the classroom. The proposal, known as the “Proposed Priorities: American History and Civics Education,” would incentivize schools to teach the quasi-Marxist critical race theory to its students.

  One of the priorities encourages schools to “incorporate culturally and linguistically responsive” teaching approaches that would contribute toward what the department calls an “identity-safe” learning environment.

  Referring to the proposal, Kemp said in his letter that it is “ridiculous” that the Biden administration is considering using taxpayer funds to push a “blatantly partisan agenda” in Georgia classrooms.

  The state must instead focus on its goal of providing the highest quality education to every child in Georgia “without partisan bias or political influence.”

  “Education in Georgia should reflect our fundamental values as a state and nation—freedom, equality, and the God-given potential of each individual,” the governor wrote.

  The State Board of Education didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times.

  Richard Woods, Georgia’s elected Republican state superintendent, said in a May 11 Facebook post for his campaign that the Georgia Department of Education has no current or proposed standards that include “CRT concepts.”

  “We will not be adopting any CRT standards nor applying for or accept any funding that requires the adoption of these concepts by our state, schools, or classrooms. We will not provide trainings that seek to promote these teachings to educators and support staff,” he said.

  Petr Svab contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 20:40

• Police Recruiting Plummets Ahead Of Violent Summer
  Police Recruiting Plummets Ahead Of Violent Summer

  Police departments across the country fail to attract new recruits after a year of social justice warriors and liberal-run city councils defunding police and the leftist media throwing the men and women in blue under the bus. 

  Recruiting deficits come ahead of what is expected to be another violent summer. Reduced funding and a hard time recruiting potential officers could cause overtime or burnout among law enforcement agencies, Axios reported Wednesday. 

  

  Demonstrations demand police reform last year crushed departments’ recruitment efforts leading to widespread pressure. The recruitment deficit could send some law enforcement agencies into crisis this summer: 

  “The warmer months always usually give us more problems when it comes to violence,” NYPD Chief of Department Rodney Harrison said, the WSJ reported.

  Axios noted officer applicants at several law enforcement agencies across the country had seen drastic drops compared to last year. 

  For instance, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department told Axios that applications plunged 26% during the first four months of 2021 compared to the same period last year.

  In Des Moines, Iowa, the metro’s police department received 300 applicants last month for its newest round of recruits, approximately 50% fewer than a year ago. 

  The Fayetteville Police Department in Northwest Arkansas hardly received any applicants this year. 

  There’s also the issue of officer exodus. In Minneapolis, the metro area where the police-killing of George Floyd sparked nationwide social unrest in spring 2020, has seen more than 105 officers leave, more than twice as normal.

  Over the past year and a half, about 20% of Seattle cops have quit. The revelation comes after police in the metro area have been battling anti-police protesters from BLM and Antifa, and a city council that has neutered cops’ ability to use crowd control devices. 

  In Denver, where police funds are running short, the city could not meet its goal in hiring the required quota of yearly officers it needed. 

  A tweet by the Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police recently disclosed the city is 500 cops short of what is needed to keep the city safe. 

  The bottom line is the systematic dismantling and shaming of police across the country ahead of what is expected to be a summer of violence continues to transform the county into a violent mess. 

  So it comes as no surprise that gun and ammo sales are through the roof and urban flight is at a record. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 20:20

• Two Ways To Push Back Against The Cultural Revolution
  Two Ways To Push Back Against The Cultural Revolution

  Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

  Fourteen year old Gao Yuan was attending a boarding school in China when the Cultural Revolution broke out in 1966. And that’s when his life changed forever.

  Even though the communists had won the Chinese Civil War and been in total power since 1945, Chairman Mao still believed that there was too much capitalist influence in China.

  So he decided to completely rewrite literature, history, and the entire education system.

  School instruction switched from teaching math and science, to activism.

  Students like Gao Yuan were encouraged to find and punish “revisionists” who sought to undermine the revolution’s progress, including their own parents and teachers.

  One teacher fell under suspicion because, even though he routinely spoke of China’s natural beauty, he didn’t ever praise Chairman Mao.

  Other teachers were denounced for wearing western clothes or engaging in borgeois activities—  like drinking wine or buying an expensive radio.

  Gao Yuan liked his teachers and hesitated to participate. But he was even more afraid of being labeled an evil revisionist himself. So he joined the mob and began accusing teachers and parents.

  The assistant headmaster committed suicide when accused of revisionism. Gao Yuan found his body, and even though he had liked him, Gao assumed the suicide proved the man must have been guilty of thought crime.

  Another teacher died under mysterious circumstances. Soon the rest of the faculty fled, and the school fell under the control of the students.

  That’s when the situation really turned bizarre.

  Factions quickly formed like rival gangs, and the students turned against one other. Each group accused the other of failure to live up to the full revolutionary spirit, finding micro-transgressions everywhere.

  Students were killed— one suffocated after have had a sock stuffed in his mouth. Another was tortured to death. One girl committed suicide rather than be captured by a rival student group. Several children died in an accidental explosion while attempting to make bombs.

  This was NOT an isolated incident; as the Cultural Revolution spread, similar incidents occurred across China in government offices, factories, schools, and the military.

  Gao Yuan eventually fled the school, only to find that his father had been “canceled” by local students for caring too much about farming and economics, and not enough about party politics. He lost a prominent position in county government.

  When Gao Yuan finally returned to his school months later, he found the campus destroyed— shattered windows, unmarked graves, bombed out buildings, and utter chaos.

  Years later he recounted his experience in a book called Born Red: A Chronicle of the Cultural Revolution.

  

  Now the US is entering its own Cultural Revolution. While any rational person can see many forms of discrimination that still exist, we are being force-fed a narrative that White Supremancy is at the core of everything.

  It has become so ridiculous that, according to one California state math education group, saying 2+2=4 perpetuates white supremacy.

  The only way to fix it is for “anti-racists” to identify and punish the oppressors, i.e. people who believe that 2+2=4.

  This is among the many lessons that now dominate school curiccula in many districts in the Land of the Free.

  Kids are being taught Critical Race Theory, and a brand new history based on the New York Times’s 1619 Project.

  Books that have been at the cornerstone of literature classes for more than a century are now being cancelled. Math and science are blasted as racist and transphobic.

  Students at an elite private school in Manhattan called Grace Church High School now dedicate hours each week to “anti-racism” instruction.

  Segregated sessions force white students to attend classes which teach them that objectivity and individualism are features of white supremacy.

  They are taught to find and report racial “micro-aggressions” of their teachers and peers— for instance, if someone insists they don’t care about someone’s skin color.

  Challenging, questioning, or engaging in discussion about systemic racism is taken as proof that the transgressor is racist.

  A former teacher at the school, Paul Rossi, attempted to introduce debate about the topic in a segregated, ‘whites only’ learning session.

  He was accused of harassment, and told his failure to accept as gospel the critical race narrative created “dissonance for vulnerable and unformed thinkers” and “neurological disturbance in students’ beings and systems.”

  This is what educators honestly believe— that differing opinions and constructive discussion are literally harmful to students’ brains.

  Rossi was forced to resign. But it’s not just teachers who are cancelled.

  Students are also punished for questioning Critical Race Theory, and they are reprimanded if they don’t speak up in support of it.

  Teachers suggested that the school “officially flag” students who remain silent, believe in meritocracy, or suggest that everyone be treated with respect regardless of skin color.

  Incredibly, a new government regulation proposed by the US Department of Education last month will prioritize special federal funding to schools which focus on this sort of thought control .

  The national media reinforces this dogma. When parents speak out against Critical Race Theory being taught in their children’s schools, the media blasts them as white supremacists.

  Recently, 70% of a Texas town voted for school board members vehemently opposed to Critical Race Theory, in a local election where about three times as many voters as usual turned out.

  Yet NBC reported it was a “bitterly divided election”.

  Really?

  Does a 70% to 30% victory with massive voter turnout sound bitterly divided?

  It’s clear based on these (and other) election results that the majority of the population opposes this cultural revolution.

  The people who are trying to cancel Western Civilization are just a small, extremely vocal minority. The problem is, they control the media, the big tech companies, the universities, and most of the federal government, so their message seems much more popular than it really is.

  This revolution has even spread to the military and intelligence agencies, with everyone from the CIA to US Special Operations Command prioritizing wokeness over national defense.

  And of course, dozes of major corporations from Disney to Coca Cola have jumped on the bandwagon too.

  History has much to teach us. And the key lesson from China’s cultural revolution is that these movements don’t suddenly disappear.

  Now, you might be surprised to hear me say that the strongest way to fight back against this movement is to VOTE.

  But I’m not talking about the broken political process.

  I’m talking about the vote you make with your money.

  If you disagree with a company’s woke politics, stop buying their products. Honestly. If you hate the fact that Disney is ultra-woke, but you’re not willing to give up your Disney+ membership, then you may need to rethink your priorities.

  Same goes for Woka Cola, or any other major brand.

  There’s also the vote you can make with your feet.

  If your state or local government has totally lost its mind, consider moving. You can’t fix your neighbors’ way of thinking, but you can might be able to find greener pastures elsewhere.

  *  *  *

  On another note… We think gold could DOUBLE and silver could increase by up to 5 TIMES in the next few years. That’s why we published a new, 50-page long Ultimate Guide on Gold & Silver that you can download here.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 20:00

• Handful Of Black COVID Survivors Experience Massively Enlarged Tongues
  Handful Of Black COVID Survivors Experience Massively Enlarged Tongues

  Doctors in Houston, Texas are scratching their heads after a handful of COVID-19 survivors developed massively enlarged tongues.

  

  The condition, called macroglossia, makes it impossible for patients to eat, drink or talk. Last fall, KHOU reported that there were two documented cases in the United States, which has swelled to nine patients – eight of whom are black, according to Dr. James Melville of the UTHealth School of Dentistry, who has become an expert in the condition.

  

  Two of the patients had suffered strokes, while the other seven were hospitalized with COVID-19 before developing the rare condition.

  More via KHOU:

  Melville says the patients who had survived COVID-19 had inflammatory cells in their tongue tissue, which means there’s something about the virus that is making certain people more prone to the rare condition.

  “I think it has a lot to do with where the virus is attaching itself and the body’s immune response to it,” said Dr. Melville.

  He is now doing a study to figure out if there’s a common link in those patients’ genes. If doctors can answer that question, they hope they can also figure out how to prevent it.   

   

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 19:40

• The Government's Emergency Powers Myth
  The Government’s Emergency Powers Myth

  Authored by Andrew Napolitono, originally published at Creators.com,

  “The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times and under all circumstances. No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government.”

  – Ex Parte Milligan, Supreme Court of the United States, 1866.

  Last week, the media in New Jersey began to ask Gov. Phil Murphy when he would surrender his emergency powers. He claimed emergency powers in March 2020, and he also claimed that those powers are not limited by the Constitution when he said on Fox that the Bill of Rights is above his pay grade. His reply to the media inquiries was that he will surrender them when he surrenders them!

  

  I am using the example of Murphy in order to address the concept of emergency powers, but there is no hyperbole here. Murphy quite literally issued executive orders barring folks from doing what the Constitution guarantees them the right to do, and he imposed criminal penalties for violating his orders, and he had folks who defied him arrested and prosecuted. Stated differently, he assumed the powers of the state legislature — which is to write the laws — and he violated his oath to uphold the Constitution.

  He claimed that somehow he can interfere with the exercise of basic human freedoms — like going to church, going to work, shopping for food, operating a business, assembling and traveling — because he declared a state of emergency.

  If the government declares an emergency, can it thereby acquire the lawful power to interfere with constitutionally guaranteed freedoms? In a word: No.

  Here is the backstory.

  When the states formed the federal government in 1789, they did so pursuant to the Constitution. The Constitution was written to establish and to limit the federal government. In 1791, just two years later, the Constitution was amended to add the Bill of Rights. The original understanding of the Bill of Rights was that it restrained only the federal government by articulating negative rights.

  A negative right restrains the government from interfering with the exercise of a preexisting right. Thus, the First Amendment does not grant the freedom of speech — because it comes from our humanity — but it does prohibit Congress from infringing upon it.

  After the War Between the States, Congress sent the 14th Amendment to the states for ratification. Its history is tortuous, and in part repellant, but it was ratified, and it is the law of the land. It has been interpreted and applied by the courts as imposing the Bill of Rights upon the states. Thus, any right expressly or arguably protected from federal interference by the Bill of Rights is protected from state interference as well.

  The Ninth Amendment — which today restrains the feds and the states — is the work of James Madison’s genius. Madison, who chaired the House of Representatives committee that wrote the Bill of Rights, wrestled along with his colleagues about the best way to protect unenumerated rights.

  The big-government crowd in Congress did not want any enumerated rights to be expressed. They argued that by listing a few, the unlisted rights would be subject to government assault.

  The small-government crowd argued that by listing no rights as immune from government interference, the Constitution would invite the government to assault whatever rights it wished.

  Madison’s solution to all this was to add a Bill of Rights and include the Ninth Amendment. That amendment recognizes that we all have pre-political, fundamental, natural rights — too numerous to enumerate — and prohibits all government from disparaging them.

  During the War Between the States, Abraham Lincoln did more than disparage them. He ordered the military to arrest newspaper editors and even public officials in the North and confine them without trial because he disapproved of their criticism of him. One of them, Lambdin P. Milligan, sued for his freedom, and he won.

  In a unanimous decision, cited hundreds of times, the Supreme Court rejected the concept that “emergency” somehow creates or increases government power. The court condemned “emergency” as a doctrine the fruits of which none is “more pernicious.” This condemnation is still the law of the land today, and it applies to the states as well as to the feds.

  Thus, no matter the exigency — war, floods, pandemic, fear, myth — individual natural rights, protected from government interference by the Ninth Amendment, trump the unconstitutional words of government officials and invalidate their efforts to enforce compliance. Murphy’s orders contain empty words because they do not have the force of law since they were not legislatively created and they directly contradict the Constitution and the Supreme Court’s most definitive interpretations of it.

  When Murphy became the governor of New Jersey, he took an oath to enforce the Constitution. Whatever personal ignorance or mental reservations he may have had, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and every public official, federal and state, is bound by it.

  If government officials could declare an emergency whenever they wished and thereby be relieved of the obligation to defend the Constitution — and the rights it guarantees — then no liberty is safe.

  Because our rights are natural and individual and because we did not all consent to their suspension, no government may morally or constitutionally suspend them, and we must resist all efforts to do so. Of course, there is a dark side to this. The government that has destroyed liberty and property has also immunized itself from financial liability for the consequences of those destructions.

  Yet, as Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, whenever any government destroys liberty and property, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 19:20

• Afternoons Running Errands In The Suburbs Are The New "Rush Hour"
  Afternoons Running Errands In The Suburbs Are The New “Rush Hour”

  With everybody moving out of cities and into the suburbs to work from home during the pandemic, there’s officially a “new rush hour”.

  Gone are the days of waiting on the interstate to get in and out of your local metro area around the edges of the nine to five workday. Here now are the days of a different kind of rush hour: one where running errands in the afternoon, while working from home, has suburban streets filling up.

  Afternoon traffic has “come roaring back” while traditional rush hour times across the U.S. still show traffic below pre-pandemic levels. 

  Marjorie Crosbie, profiled in a new Wall Street Journal article, experienced this change firsthand. The 10 mile trip to pick up her daughter at an after-school program recently took her 45 minutes instead of the usual 22-23 minutes. Crosbie works as a senior finance manager for PwC and has been working from home full time since the pandemic. 

  In her area, Tampa, afternoon vehicle trips are at 105% of levels they were at pre-pandemic. “In more than 40 of the 100 biggest U.S. metros, roads are more congested on weekday afternoons than they were pre-pandemic,” the report notes.

  Tim Rivers, Florida market director for commercial real-estate firm JLL, told the Journal: “People are working from home, so the suburbs have tremendous traffic. They’re going out for a morning coffee at Starbucks to take their Teams or Zoom call, or going for a workout midday.”

  

  Traffic in the afternoon has come back quicker in metro areas that have reopened earlier, the report notes. 7 of the top 10 trafficked areas have been in Florida, with notable upticks in areas like Fort Myers and Sarasota. In places like San Francisco, New York and Detroit, afternoon weekday trips are still below 80% of pre-pandemic levels, the report notes.

  Whit Blanton, executive director of Forward Pinellas, a land-use and transportation planning agency in Pinellas County, said: “As other states did more of a lockdown and more long-term restrictions on restaurants and indoor events, people flocked to Florida.” 

  Jeff Gabriel, 39, vice president of strategy at 23 Restaurant Services, said: “I have been stuck in traffic within 2 or 3 miles of my house.” He claims his commute takes longer in his neighborhood than on highways, which are still less congested than before the pandemic. 

  And of course, traffic is starting to pile up as people make their way to the beach in an effort to have a somewhat normal summer. Amanda Payne, president and CEO of Amplify Clearwater, a chamber of commerce, said: “It seems like it’s busier in the evening trying to get to the beach. You kind of time your trip across that bridge in the not-so-busy times. It is very crowded. Parking is a challenge. There are vehicles everywhere.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 19:00

• Watch: Rep. Jordan Exposes Democrats' Efforts To Stifle COVID Origin Investigation
  Watch: Rep. Jordan Exposes Democrats’ Efforts To Stifle COVID Origin Investigation

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  During a hearing Wednesday in the House, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan succinctly highlighted how everyone EXCEPT House Democrats wants answers to legitimate questions regarding the possibility of the coronavirus leaking from a Chinese lab.

  

  Republican lawmakers, intelligence officials, Journalists, and even members of the Biden administration have all said that there is credible evidence behind the theory.

  However, as Jordan outlines, House Democrats have stymied investigations and dismissed the notion as a ‘distraction’.

  “Where did this thing start? Did it jump from animal to humans or was it a leak from a lab, a lab in Wuhan china?” Jordan asked.

  “The American people would probably like to know, after all, they’ve had their liberties assaulted for the past year” Jordan asserted.

  Jordan quoted former New York Times science writer Nicholas Wafe who wrote :

  “It’s a stretch to get the pandemic to break out naturally outside of Wuhan and then without leaving a trace to make its first appearance in Wuhan. But he says this for the lab escape scenario, a Wuhan origin for the virus is a no-brainer.”

  Jordan continued:

  “Wuhan is home to China’s leading center for coronavirus research. Researchers were genetically engineering bat coronaviruses to attack human cells. They were doing so under minimal safety conditions. If the virus with an uninspected infectiousness had been generated there, its escape would be no surprise.”

  Jordan notes that it is unfathomable why Democrats are blocking efforts to find answers, unless they are seeking to protect Anthony Fauci from having to answer difficult questions about his involvement with the Wuhan Institute of Virology during the Obama/Biden years.

  Watch:

  This week, GOP representatives on the House Intelligence Committee demanded an update from the White House and the Director of National Intelligence on the possibility that the coronavirus leaked from the lab in Wuhan.

  The Republicans, led by Ranking Member Devin Nunes also want access to any intelligence on the “gain of function” research that was undertaken at the Wuhan lab in conjunction with US agencies.

  Even Biden’s own CDC Director said this week that there is a “possibility” that the COVID-19 virus was leaked from the Wuhan lab.

  Leftist media and ‘fact checking’ outlets have repeatedly dismissed the notion as a ‘conspiracy theory’, but are now doing an about face on the matter.

  As Infowars reported in April 2020, the NIH awarded a $3.7 million grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to conduct coronavirus gain of function research.

  Additionally, the results of the US-backed gain of function research at Wuhan was published in 2017 under the heading, “Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses provides new insights into the origin of SARS coronavirus.”

  White House Medical advisor Dr Anthony Fauci has come under increased scrutiny as the NIH’s involvement with the Wuhan lab is being called into question.

  As we reported earlier in the year, top US National Security officials have indicated that they believe the most credible theory on the origin of COVID-19 is that it escaped from the Chinese laboratory.

  The development also comes in the wake of a group of the world’s leading scientists penning an open letter urging more investigation into the possibility that the coronavirus pandemic was caused by a leak from Wuhan’s Institute of Virology, saying that the World Health Organisation has dismissed the notion without proper consideration.

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  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 18:40

• 63% Of Millennial Buyers Regret Purchasing New Home During Pandemic
  63% Of Millennial Buyers Regret Purchasing New Home During Pandemic

  As it turns out, buying at the market top can quickly lead to feelings of remorse.

  

  With prices of single-family homes soaring the most on record…

  

  …one recent survey found that millennials who decided to take advantage of low mortgage rates and buy a home during the COVID pandemic have mostly come to regret their decision.

  As the survey from BankRate pointed out, buyer’s regrets are even more of a factor in the pandemic, as agents compete even more ruthlessly for deals. Leave it to the millennial generation to normalize buying a home sight-unseen, and waiving contingencies that might allow them an escape hatch once problems emerge.

  Unsurprisingly, the rush to buy is leading some to settle for properties that aren’t quite right for them. Homebuyer regrets fell into two broad categories: financial and physical.

  Also of interest: the survey found that, generally speaking, older buyers had fewer complaints about their purchases. Perhaps that’s a reflect of the fact that older people have a better idea of what they want.

  In total, 64% of millennial homebuyers, aged 25 to 40, have some regrets about their purchase compared with just 33%of baby boomers, aged 57 to 75.

  By far the biggest regret among recent homebuyers was being unprepared for the cost of maintenance. More than 20% of millennial homeowners said they felt the costs of homeownership were too high, and that number jumped to 26% among those ages 25-31.

  

  Millennials, well known for being fickle trend-followers, also reported finding that their home wasn’t a good fit for them.

  

  That those who buy during a market boom end up disappointing isn’t surprising, since they have less time to make decisions, and are competing against a much larger pool of potential buyers.

  “Because the market is so competitive, you have less time to make a decision on a homebuying purchase than you do on a laptop at Best Buy,” said Olmsted. “You’ve already had, possibly, a couple of offers not accepted, you feel that pressure to make a decision and put an offer in.”

  For those looking to avoid being similarly dissatisfied, BankRate offered a list of helpful tips:

  • Work with an agent who understands the market.
  • Be ready to make some concessions, but stick to your guns on must-haves.
  • Focus on whether a home is somewhere you’d be comfortable living, even if it’s not your dream property.
  • Make a budget and keep it.
  • Don’t rush into a deal just because you’re frustrated.

  Another suggestion: remember, those who own their own homes are in the minority in the millennial generation. They should be grateful they aren’t being forced to move back into their childhood bedrooms with their partner – because that’s what some millennials are being forced to do to save for a down payment.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 18:20

• University Research Finds AOC, Bernie Sanders Highly Ineffective
  University Research Finds AOC, Bernie Sanders Highly Ineffective

  Authored by Alex Munguia via Campus Reform,

  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are some of the least effective members of Congress, according to a new study by researchers from Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia.

  

  The researchers, who generated their data using computers and basing their scores on 15 criteria, say the proof is in the math.

  Their equations factored how many of a congressman’s bills pass committee, make it to the other house, and eventually become law. They established a benchmark score of 1.5 and above as “Exceptional” and scores of .50 and below as “Below Expectations.”

  Among the lowest scoring House Democrats were Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (0.209) and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (0.058).

  They also identified several senators who were ineffective, with Sen.  Bernie Sanders of Vermont scoring 0.136, and Vice President Kamala Harris scoring just 0.512.

  The average score was 1.0.

  The highest scoring senators were Gary Peters (D-Mi.), Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) and Roger Wicker (R-Ms.), who scored 5.015, 3.589, and 3.558.

  Congressmen who practice bipartisanship are the most effect legislators, the study also said.

  “Collectively, these results imply that engaging in bipartisan behaviors contributes to a virtuous cycle: those who cosponsor across party lines attract cross-party cosponsors to their own bills, which translates into greater legislative success for their agendas.”

  And it found that regardless of political affiliations “those who acquired degrees from elite educational institutions tend to be more liberal than others in their respective parties.”

  Rep. Rashida Talib  had the highest score of the “squad” at 1.411, beating both Representatives Ilhan Omar (0.328) and  Ayanna Pressley (0.670).

  Speaking to Campus Reform Vanderbilt University Professor Alan Wiseman, who helped to organize the study, said bipartisanship is still a path to becoming a successful lawmaker in Congress. 

  Wiseman said that there is a “very strong relationship between bipartisanship and lawmaking effectiveness for our top 10 Democratic House and Senate members holds.”

  “Even in these politically challenging times,” he continued. “Bipartisanship appears to pay off for those who seek to advance their legislative initiatives.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 18:00

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Dogs More Effective Than PCR Tests At Detecting COVID
  Dogs More Effective Than PCR Tests At Detecting COVID

  Scientists and public health officials have been looking at all different kinds of alternatives to individual rapid COVID-19 tests to detect the presence of the virus, and in their search, they’ve landed on some strange alternatives. Some have resorted to testing poop in public sewers to detect traces of the virus, a method that has proven reliable in detecting outbreaks.

  

  And as it happens, dogs – which have been used to sniff out everything from drugs to bombs – are also effective at sniffing out COVID-19, according to a new French study published by Bloomberg.

  The dogs’ ability to detect the virus was clocked at 97% sensitivity, a level that puts this method on par with the most reliable rapid antigen tests. The sniffing method was also found to be 91% specific – a technical measure of the dogs’ ability to correctly identify negative samples. This ‘sensitivity rating’ is higher than that of many 15-minute antigen tests, which tend to be better at ruling out infection than at finding it.

  And with Europe reopening its economy to vaccinated tourists on Wednesday, these study results couldn’t have come at a better time. As Bloomberg points out, virus-sniffing dogs could be widely deployed in airports, train stations or anywhere crowds amass to screen people, much like they’re used for detecting drugs or bombs. Using dogs also means COVID could be identified at just a fraction of a second in a non-invasive manner, and in an extremely inexpensive manner (in theory, it wouldn’t cost all that much to train the dogs, and the methods would be simple to those used to train drug and bomb-sniffing dogs).

  The trial was carried out at France’s National Veterinary School, according to Bloomberg, which shared some more details about the trial.

  The trial, which was conducted at France’s National Veterinary School in Maisons Alfort near Paris, collected sweat samples from the armpits of the participants with cotton pads that were locked into jars and gave them to at least two different dogs for sniffing. None of the dogs had prior contact with the volunteers. There were 335 people tested, of which 109 were positive in a PCR test that served as a control. Nine dogs participated, and the researchers didn’t know which samples were positive.

  In July, German researchers showed trained dogs were able to distinguish between saliva sampled from people infected with the virus and those who were not more than 90% of the time. Finland, Dubai and Switzerland have started training dogs to sniff out infections.

  The latest study was conducted between March 16 and April 9, and the Ile-de-France region helped fund the trial, contributing 25,000 euros ($30,500).

  Efforts to train dogs to sniff out COVID are underway across Europe, and the world. In the UK, a team from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine are training six dogs in the hope that they will be able to detect COVID-positive people, even if they have no symptoms. In Finland, sniffer dogs have been working to detect infected travelers at Helsinki Airport since September.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 02:45

• Anti-Israel Protests Across Europe Descend Into Anti-Semitism
  Anti-Israel Protests Across Europe Descend Into Anti-Semitism

  Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

  Pro-Palestinian demonstrations in cities across Europe have descended into unrestrained orgies of anti-Semitism after protesters opposed to Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip openly called for the destruction of Israel and death to Jews.

  The protesters, numbering in the tens-to-the-hundreds of thousands, include a hodgepodge of anarchists, hard-left anti-Israel activists and immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa. Many demonstrators — carrying flags of Muslim countries, including Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Tunisia, Turkey and Syria, as well as the green flag of the Islamist terrorist group Hamas and the black flag of global Jihad — have shouted Islamist chants such as ‘Allahu Akhbar’ (‘Allah is the Greatest’), and have openly called for Jews to be murdered or raped.

  The anti-Semitic nature of the anti-Israel protests is further evidenced by there having been no anti-China protests, despite overwhelming evidence that massive human rights abuses are being carried out by the Chinese Communist Party against millions of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.

  Pro-Palestinian protesters, who also have been silent about the plight of Muslims in Afghanistan, Iran, Syria or Yemen, among other places, clearly are exercising selective outrage with their single-minded concern for Muslim human rights in Gaza.

  The spiraling anti-Semitism, and the apparent inability or unwillingness of European governments to stop it, has sounded alarm bells among Jewish communities in Europe, where anti-Jewish hatred is reaching levels not seen since the Second World War.

  The violence has also shed renewed light on the consequences of mass migration to Europe from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and especially on the failure of governments to require newcomers to integrate into European society.

  Some European lawmakers and security officials are now calling for migrants who commit anti-Semitic hate crimes to be deported back to their countries of origin. Given the iron grip of political correctness in Europe, this is unlikely to happen. In any event, it may be too little, too late for Europe’s Jewish communities. The current crisis of anti-Semitism is a testament to the failure of European multiculturalism, which is making Jewish life in Europe increasingly unviable.

  Germany: Ground Zero for Anti-Semitism in Europe

  Since the clashes between Israel and Hamas began on May 9, anti-Semitic protests have been held in dozens of cities across Germany, where mostly Arab and Turkish protesters have been chanting anti-Israeli slogans, burning Israeli flags and threatening Jews.

  

  The current wave of protests appears to have begun in earnest on May 13, when a highly aggressive group of at least 200 people brandishing Palestinian and Turkish flags and shouting anti-Semitic slurs gathered in front of a synagogue in Gelsenkirchen. Police were deployed to prevent the mob from entering the building.

  North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul vowed to prosecute the perpetrators:

  “I find it unbearable when anti-Semitic slogans are chanted on German soil. Our police are pursuing the perpetrators with all resoluteness so that they can be punished.”

  Synagogues and Jewish memorials have also been attacked in Bonn, Düsseldorf, Mannheim, Münster and Solingen.

  In Berlin, on May 15, at least 3,500 protesters gathered in different parts of the city to denounce Israel and Jews. Some brandished anti-Semitic slogans — “Israel Child Killers” and “Stop Doing What Hitler Did to You” — and chanted “Bomb Tel Aviv!“

  Some held banners describing Israel as a “genocidal settler state” and Zionism as racism. Others openly rejected Israel’s right to exist. A large red banner stated: “Palestine is sick and tired of paying the price for Europe’s Holocaust of the Jews.” Other banners called for the total elimination of Israel, which would be replaced by a “free Palestine” from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Protesters attacked an Israeli film crew reporting on the protests.

  Nearly 1,000 police officers were deployed to break up the demonstrations. They were pelted with stones, bottles and firecrackers. A total of 93 officers were injured in the melees.

  Correspondent Peter Wilke, who was assaulted by the mob, said that most of the protesters were Arabs or Turks. Writing for the German newspaper Bild, he reported that the protests in Berlin were “a new dimension of hatred and violence.” He added: “Open, disgusting hatred of Jews and Israel, but not only: It was also hatred of our free, tolerant democracy. Uninhibitedly displayed!”

  Anti-Israel protests also took place in Bremen, Cologne, Frankfurt, Göttingen, Hamburg, Hanover, Leipzig, Osnabrück and many other German cities, where demonstrators chanted anti-Jewish slogans and burned Israeli flags.

  Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is partially responsible for the anti-Semitic protests taking place in Germany:

  “These protests are predominated not by the far right, but rather by those who are Muslim oriented and provoked by the brutal speeches of President Erdoğan and others who believe that clashes must spread to German streets. If they do not possess German citizenship or permanent residence permits and if the laws allow, these people should leave our country.”

  Gerhard Schindler, a former head of Germany’s BND foreign intelligence service, warned that a red line of anti-Semitism had been crossed and that it cannot be ignored. In an interview Bild, he urged the government to deport migrants who commit anti-Semitic hate crimes in Germany:

  “The developments of the last few days are frightening and unbearable because they violate the German raison d’etre [Staatsräson]. Burning flags, throwing stones at synagogues, shouting anti-Semitic hate slogans on German soil — this is simply incompatible with our history.

  “Of course, we must not downplay anti-Semitism within the German population. But the anti-Semitism that we are seeing now among migrants is a fact that we have to face.

  “These people disregard our hospitality in two ways. On the one hand, by committing anti-Semitic crimes — insulting, threatening, depriving Israel of its right to exist. And secondly, by violating our basic socio-political consensus, namely that no anti-Semitic agitation should take place on German soil.

  “This is not a trivial offense. It affects the DNA of the German understanding of the state.

  “The security authorities can only address the symptoms. The basic cause of this problem is a social problem that everyone must address.

  “It is not enough that we address this fact openly. We also have to get those who abuse our hospitality out of the country.

  “We need these people to be better integrated. They are here, and we have to take care of them. But those who do not allow themselves to be helped must be removed from the country.”

  Scores of German political leaders have condemned the anti-Semitism. Apart from platitudes, however, few appear able or willing to take effective measures to remedy the problem — presumably because it would require them to admit that German multiculturalism is a failure.

  German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose open-door migration policies have greatly contributed to the current situation, has so far refused to personally make a statement on the anti-Semitic violence raging in Germany. Instead, she had her spokesman, Steffen Seibert, issue an anodyne declaration, summarized in the following tweet:

  “Chancellor #Merkel sharply condemned the missile attacks against #Israel and anti-Semitic incidents in Germany. Our democracy will not tolerate anti-Semitic rallies.”

  German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said:

  “Our Basic Law guarantees the right to freedom of expression and freedom of demonstration. But anyone who burns flags with the Star of David on our streets and shouts anti-Semitic slogans not only abuses the freedom to demonstrate, but also commits crimes that must be prosecuted.

  “Nothing justifies the threat to Jews in Germany or attacks on synagogues in German cities. Hatred of Jews — regardless of whom — we do not want and will not tolerate in our country.”

  German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, one of Europe’s leading apologists for Iran’s Islamic regime, which is dedicated to the elimination of Israel, said:

  “All of us are called on to make it very clear that it is unacceptable if Jews in Germany — either in the streets or on social media — are made responsible for the events in the Middle East.”

  German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer issued a vague threat to crack down on anti-Semitism:

  “We will not tolerate the burning of Israeli flags on German soil and attacks on Jewish facilities. Anyone who spreads anti-Semitic hatred will feel the full force of the law. Germany must not be a safe haven for terrorists. The security authorities are wide awake and do everything to protect the people in our country. Jews in Germany must never again live in fear.”

  German Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht said:

  “This anti-Semitic hatred is shameful. I condemn the most recent attacks on Jewish synagogues and the burning of Israel flags here in Germany. The perpetrators must be identified and held accountable. Synagogues and Jewish institutions must be consistently and comprehensively protected.”

  Wolfgang Schäuble, Speaker of the German Bundestag, added:

  “Our country protects the freedom of expression and people can criticize Israel’s policies and protest against them, but there is no justification for anti-Semitism, hatred and violence. We will not allow the conflict to be carried on here at the expense of Jewish Germans.”

  Berlin Mayor Michael Müller, a major proponent of mass migration to Germany, tweeted:

  “The violent riots at the demonstrations in Neukölln are unacceptable and intolerable for a free and cosmopolitan metropolis — and they have no place in our society. We will take a resolute stand against violence, anti-Semitism, hatred and agitation and protect the people who are affected by it.”

  Meanwhile, Germany in 2021 is marking 1,700 years of Jewish life in the country, which is now home to approximately 200,000 Jews. Andrei Kovacs, a Jewish-Hungarian descendant of Holocaust survivors, and who is managing director of the association, “321-2021: 1700 Years of Jewish Life in Germany,” questioned the continued viability of a Jewish presence in Germany:

  “Sadly, what we are experiencing these days is part of a recurring pattern. Unfortunately, living with anti-Semitically motivated hostility to Israel is part of the everyday normality for German Jews. For many years it has been tolerated and often even supported by numerous people and organizations. As soon as Israel is forced to defend its existence, these forms of anti-Semitism break out again.

  “It is astonishing that, only 76 years after the Shoah, many people fail to understand that the Jewish state cannot accept a threat to its existence without being able to defend itself.

  “The anti-Semitic attacks of the past few days have once again made it clear how fragile Jewish life is in Germany — and how resentments can be misused for political purposes…

  “Unfortunately, when you see the pictures from Gelsenkirchen and other cities in Germany, it doesn’t feel like a respectful coexistence.”

  United Kingdom

  In London, a motorcade of cars with Palestinian flags drove past a Jewish community center on Finchley Road. A man, using a megaphone, shouted: “F*ck the Jews, f*ck their daughters, f*ck their mothers, rape their daughters and free Palestine.”

  At the same time, an estimated 100,000 people gathered in downtown London, where many chanted, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” One protester was filmed tearing apart an Israeli flag after he was unable to light it on fire because it was raining. An on-duty uniformed female police officer joined the protesters and shouted, “Free, free Palestine!”

  Later, dozens of members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamist movement dedicated to establishing an Islamic caliphate, waved the black flag of Islamic Jihad and held signs calling for “Muslim Armies” to “liberate” Jerusalem. A large banner stated: “Whole of Palestine is occupied and all of it must be liberated.” One protester openly called for jihad:

  “This goes out to the Muslim armies. What are you waiting for? Jihad is your responsibility. Wipe out the Zionist entity. How dare they occupy Muslim lands. How dare they. Have you no honor? We, the Muslims in the West, are with you. We don’t fear anyone but Allah.”

  In Manchester, a mob carrying Palestinian flags gathered in front a bagel shop at Arndale Center, a large shopping mall, where the crowd appeared to be targeting Jewish shoppers.

  As in Germany, politicians in Britain have condemned the anti-Semitism, but few appear to know how to stop it from spreading.

  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted:

  “There is no place for antisemitism in our society. Ahead of Shavuot [a Jewish holiday], I stand with Britain’s Jews who should not have to endure the type of shameful racism we have seen today.”

  Conservative MP Christian Wakeford said:

  “As the Member with the largest Jewish community outside of London, I have been contacted by constituents scared to take their children to synagogue due to the appalling scenes on the streets of the UK over the weekend.”

  MP Robert Jenrick added:

  “As the father of Jewish children it shocks me every time I take my children to synagogue or to their nursery to see individuals stood there in stab proof vests guarding the entrance to those places.”

  Elsewhere in Europe

  • Austria: In Vienna, pro-Palestinian protesters held signs stating, “Well done Israel, Hitler would be proud” and “The Nazis are still around, they call themselves Zionists now.” Other signs read: “F*ck Zionism,” “End Zionism,” and “It is Kosher to boycott Israel.” One protester shouted at pro-Israel counter-demonstrators: “Shove your Holocaust up your ass!”Dozens of people, including many youths, burst into applause.

  • Belgium: In Brussels, protesters chanted, “Khaybar, Khaybar, Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Mohammed is returning.” The chant refers to the seventh century when Muslims massacred and expelled Jews from the town of Khaybar, located in modern-day Saudi Arabia. It is a battle cry for attacking Jews. Protesters also shouted, “Death to Jews.”

  • France: In Paris, thousands of people disobeyed a ban on protests. Mobs chanted slogans including “Death to Israel.” Police used water cannons to disperse the crowds.

  • Greece: In Athens, police used tear gas and water cannons against hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the American and Israeli embassies. Protesters held signs accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing.” Other signs said: “Stop doing what Hitler did to you.” A protester tweeted: “Until we free Palestine from the river to the sea, we will not stop.” In Thessaloniki, leftist groups and anarchist collectives organized anti-Israel protests that were attended by at least 700 people.

  • The Netherlands: In Amsterdam, thousands of people protested against Israel at Dam Square, a central plaza that is the country’s main monument in remembrance for those who died in the Second World War. They carried signs accusing Israel of genocide and vowed that, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” In The Hague, protestors shouted anti-Semitic slogans, including “Jews are a cancer” and “Heil Hitler.”

  • Spain: In Madrid, thousands of hard left and Arab protesters, some chanting ‘Allahu Akhbar’ (‘Allah is the Greatest’), gathered in the city center and falsely accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians. In Oleiros, a municipality in the northern Spanish region of Galicia, local officials, misusing outdoor municipal billboards, posted messages stating, “Zionist Terrorism in Palestine,” called for Israeli leaders to be investigated for war crimes.

  Select Commentary

  Julian Reichelt, editor-in-chief of Germany’s top-selling Bild newspaper, in an essay titled, “Our Country is in Peril,” wrote:

  “What we saw on our streets on Saturday was nothing less than a historical threat. Enabled by our government, belittled by our public media, an anti-Semitic mob, which was clearly Arab-Muslim, marched through almost all major German cities and hatefully demanded the erasure of Israel.

  “On Saturday I took my own pictures of the demos and came to the bitter realization: We who want Jewish life in our country are losing. We may be more numerically. But those who want Israel and Jewish life erased from us rule the streets whenever they want.

  “They do not fear the police, they have nothing to fear from our federal government, they bring their children to these demonstrations and raise the next generation of Israel haters in Germany. Their youth culture and their rap music conjures up the murderous myths that Hamas also glorifies. Their idols fire rockets from Gaza at Tel Aviv while they hunt kippah wearers in Berlin and other cities.

  “It is not Islam, but rampant Islamism, that is making German cities an inhospitable, dangerous country for Jews, as has already happened in France and Sweden. Angela Merkel’s refugee policy, which no longer bothers to identify true war refugees, has imported hundreds of thousands of times an ideology that focuses on the Jew as an eternal enemy. Here she has fallen on the fertile ground of failed integration.

  “Their identification mark is a map from which Israel has been wiped out, and their followers carry this mark roaring through German cities. To be clear: you cannot carry these banners and at the same time pretend to recognize our constitutional state, one of the foundations of which is Israel’s right to exist. Only one or the other is possible. Too many streets were in the hands of people at the weekend who want a different Germany, a country without Jews.

  “‘We can do it!’ was Angela Merkel’s most famous refrain in the refugee crisis. It was also her promise that our country would not change fundamentally, would not be shaped by political-religious ideologies that sow death and annihilation elsewhere.

  “This promise was broken a thousand times over this weekend. I would finally like to hear what the Chancellor intends to do about it, what her personal, unequivocal words are to these Jew haters, what she wants to DO against the rise of this extermination ideology, before she leaves office.

  “Angela Merkel should take responsibility for what has become a threat to our liberal society and oppose it with all her might.”

  The chairwoman of the Liberal Jewish Community in Hanover, Rebecca Seidler, in an interview with Norddeutscher Rundfunk, said:

  “The escalating situation in Israel… has massive effects on the Jewish communities and institutions here in Germany. Jews are seen as representatives of the State of Israel and are held responsible…. I would like to emphasize that these anti-Semitic incidents in Germany are not about expressing criticism of the political actions of the State of Israel, but that we are dealing with massive anti-Jewish threats, which must be condemned in the strongest possible way….

  “Ultimately, it’s not a new phenomenon. It has always been the case that the situation in Israel always has an impact on Jewish life outside of Israel. As I mentioned, we are always seen as representatives of the State of Israel. It should also not be denied that the hatred of Jews is very strongly represented and anchored in Islamist milieus and is thus also expressed in Germany. Anti-Semitism has many faces, occurs in many social environments, and also has links between them, which can generate enormous energy. This aggressiveness, which we are experiencing here these days, is very worrying for us as a Jewish community.”

  In an interview with Die Welt, German-Egyptian political scientist and author Hamed Abdel-Samad said:

  “One can of course criticize the action of the Israeli police in Jerusalem and also the settlement policy. I have done this in the past. But when this criticism is used as a pretext to stir up hatred against all Jews, then the problem begins. If you criticize Israeli politics but glorify Hamas, the problem begins. And that’s exactly what happens in Germany. I think it has nothing to do with solidarity with Muslim victims. Muslims are victims every day in the Arab world: in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen. A few days ago, a school in Afghanistan was bombed; 50 children died as a result of Taliban terror and there were no demonstrations by Muslims on the streets in Germany. And they didn’t shout: ‘F*ck the Taliban!’

  “There is a high level of emotionalism in this conflict. For Muslims, it is not the victims that are important, but rather: who is the perpetrator? If the perpetrators are Muslim terrorists, then it stays in the family. If the perpetrators are Israel or America, then this staged indignation occurs.

  “Turkish politics also play a role in this. Erdogan’s speeches, the Islamic associations here, Milli Görüs and so on. They stir up this hatred of Jews, even though they constantly complain about anti-Muslim racism or Islamophobia.

  “German politicians have not understood that immigration from Iraq and Syria, from the Arab countries, also brings more anti-Semitism to Germany. Anyone who says that is immediately branded as right wing and there is no fair discussion or debate about it. For me this is a racism of lowered expectations. Let us imagine that after every terrorist attack by Muslim terrorists, Germans take to the streets, besiege mosques and shout ‘Sh*tty Muslims.’ That would be right-wing extremism. That would be a Nazi, but when it comes from Muslims, they say: yes, the poor things. They are emotionally charged. No, that is racism of lowered expectations. I don’t expect the same from them what I expect from normal German young people. And that’s part of the problem.”

  When asked about anti-Semitism in the Arab world, Abdel-Samad replied:

  “People who come here also carry in their baggage many conflicts from their home countries. Anti-Semitism is part of the educational policy in the Arab world, so to speak. Hitler’s books are sold there as bestsellers. Conspiracies like the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ are among the best sellers there. And these people come here. And you are not allowed to even talk to them about such conflicts in schools or in integration courses. The anti-racism debate is also part of this problem, because Muslims or migrants are generally seen as a group as victims and only the White man is considered to be the perpetrator.

  “In the end, not even schools can talk about anti-Semitism or the Middle East conflict. Or about Erdogan or about Islamism. Even at universities, Muslim students refuse to speak about such topics. Universities should be a safe haven for opinions. But for many Muslim students, universities are now safe spaces from opinions and criticism, even though that is where we have to start. We need to talk to each other. We have to have controversial discussions on all issues, not just the Middle East conflict. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen. We have a very poisoned culture of debate in Germany. You get the stamp of racist or Nazi if you address any grievances in immigrant milieus or with minorities. The racist is always White, but never a Muslim or a Black or a migrant. For me that is racism of lowered expectations.”

  On his Facebook page, Abdel-Samad elaborated:

  “Let’s imagine a mob made up of German youths shouting ‘Sh*tty Muslims’ and throwing stones and fire at mosques in Germany after a terrorist attack in Paris, London or Berlin. What would we call these youngsters? Correct: Nazis! What would the anti-fascists and anti-racists do then? They would stir up outrage and fear that the return of the little man with the funny mustache is imminent.

  “But why don’t you hear from them now? Why do they consider terms like ‘Gypsy Sauce’ [the name of a German gravy] to be racist, but ‘Sh*tty Jews’ to be harmless? Why do they freak out when you ask someone with a migration background where they come from, but do nothing when people are insulted and beaten because of their origin?

  “A. Because for them it’s not about people, it’s about ideology!

  “B. Because in their racism industry, minorities can only be victims, and only the White man can be Nazi and racist.

  “C. Because their anti-racism is deeply intertwined with anti-Americanism and anti-capitalism, so some of them even sympathize with Hamas.

  “This is not just a double standard in dealing with the issue of racism, it is racism by definition. Because the White man is generally regarded as a person who was born with the original sin of racism, while all other ethnicities and cultures are acquitted of this charge. This, too, is racism against minorities, who are only viewed as objects of the White man and do not have to take responsibility for themselves. It is racism of lowered expectations when one demands something different from German young people than from Muslim young people.”

  Writing for the German blog Tichys Einblick, commentator Michal Kornblum noted:

  “A large part of this mob consists of people who came here as refugees and brought their hatred of Jews with them and continued to expand it here. It is no secret that many mosques and also left-wing German associations provide the breeding ground for this. In Germany, the most diverse social currents converge in anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel.

  “Another indication of the failure of politics and the judiciary is that many young Muslims from families who have been living here for two or three generations are more radical and anti-Semitic than their parents and grandparents, who often maintain a more Western view of the world. When the acquired ‘made in Germany’ hatred of Jews meets up with the imported anti-Semitism from Arab countries, it results in the explosive atmosphere on German streets that we are currently experiencing….

  “In reality, we are still moving from phrase to phrase in the anti-Semitism debate. The popular saying ‘no place for anti-Semitism’ turns out to be one of the biggest lies, since anti-Semitism obviously takes up a lot of space in Germany. Repeating a phrase like a prayer wheel does not change the realities. In the same way, ‘whoever lives here must accept the Basic Law and Israel’s right to exist’ tends only to be said. I am not aware of any cases of expulsions or deportations for these reasons. The deportation of all anti-Semitic rioters who do not have German citizenship would be a logical step.”

  Writing for the blog Achgut, the German-Israeli writer Chaim Noll blamed German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Germany:

  “The open hatred of Jews has returned to Germany, from a direction that surprised many unsuspecting people. Gradually, the word ‘Jew’ has again become a swear word, an epitome of the contemptible, in schoolyards dominated by Muslims. This time the anti-Jewish resentment is not rooted in Europe’s anti-Semitic tradition, but in a different one. Which only a few Europeans took notice. Who would have bothered to study the Koran, the hadith or the Hamas charter twenty years ago? Who knew the countless passages in the religious literature of Islam that call for the contempt, persecution or extermination of the Jews?

  “The few who read about it remained silent, or if they voiced their concerns, were declared ‘Islamophobic’ and ostracized. In the meantime, in thousands of mosques and Koran schools, what Germans have for decades mutually been forbidden to do with heavy prison sentences, has spread unhindered. All the while, the same demon was allowed to flourish with impunity in its new environment. Numerous reinforcements have arrived since 2015, and hatred of Jews is in renewed bloom. The shouting at the demonstrations is getting louder from year to year. So far, no German Muslim has been punished for hating Jews or for openly inciting the murder of Jews, although this has happened again and again….

  “The pictures that are now going around the world document Germany’s new shame. Angela Merkel can take credit for the fact that in a country where hatred of Jews, although it existed, remained quiet or inaudible, the roar of pogroms can be heard again. She betrayed and sold out the German Jews. And not just the Jews. Also many Germans, for example, everyone who feels sympathy for Israel or for whom hatred of Jews is unbearable. By demonstratively abstracting critics of Islam in Germany, she created an atmosphere of fearful silence. Which, not unlike in the later years of the Weimar Republic, makes the roar of the Jew haters all the louder.

  “Angela Merkel will go down in history as the Chancellor who made open hatred of Jews in Germany possible again. She simply brushes aside decades of ‘coming to terms with the past,’ of popular education and trying to overcome a traumatic German defeat. Under her government one can in Germany again openly call for the murder of Jews and at the same time be subsidized by the state. In the small as in the large. Just as thousands of Jew-haters raging on German streets are supported by state funds, so is the terrorist organization Hamas on a large scale via obscure ‘relief organizations’ and NGOs, so that in the end every rocket that hits Israel also contains a part of German money. Angela Merkel is also silent on this.”

  The inimitable blog, Elder of Zion, wrote:

  “This isn’t about Gaza. We’ve never seen such hate after any Western action in Syria or Afghanistan. No British crowds marching through malls to protest airstrikes in Iraq.

  “This is bigotry in its most ugly, rawest form.

  “Gaza is an excuse to find a socially acceptable way to publicly express Jew-hatred while pretending that your hate is righteous.

  “And while it is more subtle, that is exactly what is behind nearly all the obsessive hate of Israel we see every day of every year. Nothing else explains this level of hate, and clearly it isn’t because of the supposed victims — Arab persecution of Palestinians is ignored by the anti-Israel crowd as well.

  “The way we know that anti-Zionism is antisemitism is that the anti-Israel Leftists who swear up and down that they are against antisemitism have not said a word about these incidents. And certainly, none of them have popped up and said they would protect the Jewish right to counter-protest or even walk around unmolested.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 02:00

• Brandon Smith: There Will Never Be A "Woke" US Military, Here's Why…
  Brandon Smith: There Will Never Be A “Woke” US Military, Here’s Why…

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

  The social justice cult never sleeps, they are forever “woke”, and they want to own the US military. They want it so bad they are frothing at the mouth over it. Whether or not they actually get what they want is another matter entirely. The induction of Joe Biden into the White House has opened the door to a new propaganda narrative, and it goes a little something like this:

  “The military is rife with ‘white supremacists’ and extremists, and it needs to be purged to make way for more diversity…”

  One of Biden’s first actions upon entering the Oval Office was to use Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin as a foil to preach the critical race theory gospel and attack the current military framework as “racist”. Austin is black and he was a four-star general in the Army, so clearly there is not much racism holding minorities back in the armed forces. But ultimately this situation is not really about racism…

  

  The language of leftists and globalists can be rather confusing because they never mean exactly what they say. The word “diversity” generally means “more leftists/Marxists”, not more brown people. Leftists are incredibly racist towards any minority person that argues from a conservative or moderate position. The phrase “white supremacist” is usually a hatchet reference to all conservatives. So, to translate their woke gibberish, the goal of the Pentagon under Biden will be to divest the ranks of the military of conservatives and replace them with more regime friendly leftists.

  The goal of propaganda is often to create false word associations in the minds of the masses. The mainstream media constantly mentions “white supremacists”, “neo-nazis” and “extremists” within the same articles they mention “conservatives”. Though there is no evidence whatsoever to link the majority of conservatives with race identity groups, the hope within the establishment is that the conservative base in the US can be dismantled through guilt by manufactured association.

  Anyone who stands against the social justice mob is labeled “white supremacist”. Therefore, all conservatives are white supremacists, because the social justice cult controls who gets labeled. The social justice cult thus becomes the self anointed arbiters of who gets canceled and who does not. See how that works?

  As far as the military is concerned, the obvious intent is to link all conservative views with “extremism and racism”, thereby creating an artificial rationale for removing conservatives from the ranks or denying them the ability to sign up in the first place. The Pentagon is already openly discussing plans to comb through the social media histories of troops in order to root out those with “extremist backgrounds” (conservatives and constitutionalists). In theory, this would only leave devout social justice warriors behind. It is a political and ideological cleansing of the armed forces.

  The Cult of Woke is like a hive of parasitic termites that feeds its way through the various pillars of western society until they crumble; once a pillar is hollowed out, they move onto the next one, and the next one until the nation or civilization breaks apart completely. As the nation is destabilized, they then offer their own social model as a solution to the problem. Invariably, their model is one that eliminates all individual freedom and inherent rights in the name of collective “safety” and “equity”. It is totalitarianism posing as compassion.

  To be sure, the Department of Defense is fast-tracking the woke agenda. There’s no denying it after the latest promotional campaigns for military recruitment (not to mention the CIA’s bizarre ad campaign). Here is an example below which truly boggles the mind:

  Straight white men are noticeably absent from the Pentagon’s new series of commercials, and the people represented are a perfect pie chart of diversity hiring, even though the US is around 70% white and around 96% straight (according to Gallup).

  But who are these commercials really made for?  The Army admits they had to search a worldwide roster of soldiers, obtaining only 100 submissions that fit their woke criteria, and then filtered those submissions down to just a handful that met the diversity requirements of the marketing campaign. Some of the commercials are subtle, and some of them are not. The US campaign seems to be mimicking the “Snowflake” ad campaign used by the UK military in 2019 in a bid to attract what they call “Me Me Me Millennials”.

  Clearly, the percentage of soldiers that check most or all of the woke boxes is tiny. The commercials are also notably in cartoon form, because SJWs have a hard time absorbing information unless it is animated.

  Admittedly, there has been a quiet softening of military standards, including the reduction of boot camp training requirements. This is apparently meant to attract more women to the armed forces outside of the Air Force and Navy, as a majority of females have consistently failed basic physical standards. The US Army had to halt the “gender neutral physical fitness test” this year because women were failing at a rate of over 65% according to the Pentagon (they were failing at a rate closer to 85% according to instructors). The Army is now trying to establish a new “crossfit inspired” training routine in order to increase the success rate of women in boot camp.

  Women make up only 15% of active duty personnel among all the branches combined and are far more likely to leave service earlier than men. The data is cut-and-dry; trying to overtly appeal to women is a non-starter, particularly for the Army and the Marines.

  US Army training facilities have also recently been forced to remove the traditional “Shark Attack” from the first day of boot camp. The Shark Attack is basically a psychological wake up call, a way to send a message to recruits that they are no longer living in mommy and daddy’s basement and everything they do will now be scrutinized. Army brass felt that this tradition was “too abrasive” and that it needed to be “updated” with a kinder gentler first day program. In other words, the army wants to avoid upsetting people with weak dispositions so that they can increase recruitment stats.

  Within conservative and liberty movement circles there are rising concerns that globalists and leftists within our government are seeking to eliminate the principles of personal strength and merit because these elements are repellent to leftists. There is also the concern that the establishment intends to use a revamped “woke military” to subjugate the American public. While this might be the overall intention, I’m not all that worried, and here are the reasons why…

  The Numbers For A Woke Military Don’t Exist

  Globalists are very mindful of statistical realities, and they know that the current military dynamic is against them; hence their growing thirst for the wokification of our branches of defense. I want to remind conservatives that this is a good thing. They are trying to force social justice politics into the military because the military is the exact opposite of what they want it to be.

  For example, polling in 2016 showed that around 31% to 35% of the US military is Republican, while around 25% to 29% votes Democrat. But what about the remainder? The media often calls the remaining current serving voters “moderates” or “independents”. As it turns out, up to 40% of the military is actually libertarian or constitutionalist leaning according to polls.

  The mainstream media tries to hide this fact by only talking about “Republican votes” and “Democrat votes”, but the reality is that the vast majority of the military is conservative oriented, with values based in personal freedom and constitutionalism. That 40% of libertarians and constitutionalists is what the elites are really worried about. This is who they are referring to when they talk about “extremists” in the military.

  And what about the 25% to 29% of Democrats? That is the extent of the left’s hold within the general ranks of the military and it is improbable that most of these democrats are hard leftists. Further studies also show that the majority of veterans leaving the military identify overwhelmingly as Republican, conservative or “independent”, not as Democrat or leftist.

  This is probably why the latest social justice recruitment commercials by the Army are getting ratioed into oblivion by soldiers and the public alike. In response the Army YouTube page has shut down comments. Last I checked, the new LGBTQ and feminist inspired “Emma: The Calling” Army video had only 700 up-votes and over 33,000 down-votes. This is an epic fail. Where are all the hardcore social justice warriors just itching to join the military and “get some”? They don’t exist. The establishment is trying to appeal to a phantom demographic.

  The fact is, the only place you will find a preponderance of woke lunatics in the military is among the brass and sometimes in the officer corps; the leadership within the pentagon has been carefully groomed to create a leftist/globalist consolidation, and this has been going on for decades. Generals are for the most part politicians, not warriors (SPECIAL NOTE: Never trust retired generals or retired CIA agents, even if they claim to be on the side of liberty).

  While military leadership might go woke, this does not mean the rest of the military will, nor does it mean that troops will follow unconstitutional orders from such people.

  Leftists Don’t Want To Join Because They Cannot Cope With Meritocracy

  Not all of us are made for the military. To be clear, the military serves one basic purpose: It is a machine for killing people. The job of the military is to train the most efficient killers possible for the effective defense of the nation. It is not the job of the military to focus on “inclusion” or “intersectionality”. Anyone that says anything different is delusional or has an agenda.

  There are people that are born with the psychological traits and physical traits needed to fight effectively, and there are a whole lot of people out there who will never hack it. Finding the people with the right traits is something that the US military has mastered. This is undeniable.

  I also think that in our modern era of helicopter parents and equity training and participation trophies that the newest generation of Zoomers has been conditioned to be incredibly narcissistic as well as weak in mind and spirit, and the military is one of the last options left for these people to break that conditioning and become real adults instead of overgrown children. If you want to erase Woke cultism from our society just send all these kids to boot camp and they will be cured of their snowflake tendencies in a matter of months.

  There are of course constitutional concerns for military structure. America was never supposed to have a standing army in the first place; we were supposed to have local militias made up of every able bodied male citizen in a community. That said, I’ll be the first to admit that even within a militia system a warrior class is going to develop naturally. There will always be people who are set apart from everyone else in this regard.

  Another concern is the problem of leadership. As noted, today’s military leadership and American political leadership are not to be trusted, and for most warriors the question will always be this:

  “Will I be sent to fight and possibly die for a just cause, or a corrupt cause?”

  Under the current establishment war is indeed a racket, and most warriors will long for a real fight, a fight that is honorable. My personal conflict with the military is not the institution so much as the people in charge. I cannot fight for corrupt people.

  However, for leftists that avidly supported Barack Obama during his massive expansion of wars in the Middle East, the conflict is not about principles of leadership. No, their conflict is with the core values that make the military what it is. Trying to remove the merit based model from the US military will be extremely difficult. Social justice ideology and military standards of achievement are mutually exclusive; they cannot coexist in the same space. So, in order for the military to go full-on puritan the establishment would have to remove all the elements that make the military effective. They would have to destroy the military in order to “diversify” it.

  And maybe this is the ultimate goal. Maybe the globalists WANT to undermine the foundation of the US military with the intent to make America weak and easier to conquer. But then again, wherever there is a void, the physics of civilization seeks to fill it.

  The Establishment Is Unwittingly Creating A Counter-Military

  One positive outcome from the long running wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is that hundreds of thousands of veterans with extensive combat experience have come back home over the past 20 years, and most of them are conservatives. They are also very wary of the political dynamics in Washington DC. They know exactly what is going on in this country. Beyond this, any attempt to force social justice propaganda on the current serving is going to alienate more than 60% of soldiers. And while they are not legally allowed to speak out politically, they will not necessarily follow the Woke cult blindly and turn against their own.

  The establishment is now faced with a massive conundrum; by pressing their agenda within the military they are by default creating a separate and opposing military, one that could erase them from existence. Who would you put your money on? An army of limp-wristed, diversity obsessed progressives with velvet glove training? Or an army of battle hardened conservatives who walked through the pyre and came out the other side?

  Even if the objective is to debase the US military until it breaks apart, this does not mean America will go undefended. We would reorganize, perhaps as an unofficial militia system outside of federal control. In the end, a woke military cannot survive nor would it thrive; it would only inspire the revitalization of a liberty minded and free military force that would act as a counterpoint to the globalist agenda.

  *  *  *

  If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 00:00

• People Are Printing Weapons Disguised As Nerf Guns
  People Are Printing Weapons Disguised As Nerf Guns

  A couple of months ago, we noted deputies in a North Carolina drug raid seized cocaine, psilocybin mushrooms and marijuana, money, and a Glock 19 disguised as a Nerf toy gun. We weren’t quite sure if the seizure of the pistol, made to look like a harmless children’s gun, was an anomaly, but it appears today people are 3D-printing weapons that resemble Nerf guns. 

  Case in point, Twitter account “YoungBreezy” has printed a working 3D-printed gun that looks exactly like a Nerf gun. The weapon has a similar color scheme and even the Nerf logo printed on the side. 

  YoungBreezy appears to have taken the 3D-printed weapon to a range where he ran through an entire clip without the gun failing. 

  Never had a nerf blaster growing up, so I made my own.
  Thanks @NaviGoBoom @CtrlPew pic.twitter.com/1vMG6pzWyL

  — 🦀YoungBreezy🦀 (@M00BBB) May 15, 2021

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

  He said, “What it looked like before. Muzzle thing (not a suppressor) and brace broke off. Had a couple of failures to extract, and towards the end, the trigger wasn’t resetting reliably. Other than that, the test went well. Bolt didn’t break this time, and it was pretty consistent.” 

  

  The gun appears to be the FGC-9, which stands for “f**k gun control 9 mm.” As we’ve noted, the FGC-9 can be printed entirely at home for the cost of $350, including the printer’s cost. During the print, YoungBreezy used plastic filament to mimic Nerf gun colors and added the Nerf logo on the side of the weapon. 

  Democrats and gun control activists have been terrified of a decentralized network of 3D printed gun advocates quickly mobilizing online, revolutionizing gun designs, sharing blueprints, advising, and building a community. There’s no easy way the federal government can halt this movement as President Biden, not too long ago, declared war on ghost guns.

  Last Friday, the Justice Department proposed a rule that changes the definition of a firearm to require 80% lower kits to include serial numbers. Lawmakers have also reintroduced a bill that they say would ban ghost guns. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 23:40

• Victor Davis Hanson: Why Does The Left Seemingly Hate Israel?
  Victor Davis Hanson: Why Does The Left Seemingly Hate Israel?

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson, op-ed via The Epoch Times,

  With more than 3,000 rockets having been fired into Israel by Hamas recently, the Democratic Party seems paralyzed over how to respond to the latest Middle East war.

  

  It’s not just that they fear that “The Squad,” Black Lives Matter, the shock troops of Antifa, and woke institutions such as academia and the media are now unapologetically anti-Israel.

  They are also terrified that anti-Israelism is becoming synonymous with rank anti-Semitism.

  And soon, the Democratic Party will end up as disdained as the British Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn.

  The new core of the Democrats, as emblemized by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, has in the past questioned the patriotism of American Jews who support Israel, and occasionally has had to apologize for puerile anti-Semitic rants.

  The left in general believes we should judge harshly even the distant past without exemptions. Why then, in venomous, knee-jerk fashion, does it fixate on a nation born from the Holocaust while favoring Israel’s enemies, who were on the side of the Nazis in World War II?

  It wasn’t just that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, was a Nazi sympathizer. Egypt, for example, welcomed ex-Nazis for their hatred of Jews and their military expertise, including infamous death camp doctor Aribert Ferdinand Heim and Waffen-SS henchman Otto Skorzeny. The Hamas charter still reads like it is cribbed from Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.”

  The left claims it champions consensual government and believes the United States must use its soft-power clout to isolate autocracies. But the Palestinian Authority and Hamas refuse to hold free and regularly scheduled elections. If an Israeli strongman ever suspended free elections and ruled through brutality, U.S. aid would be severed within days.

  If history and democratic values can’t fully explain the apparent hatred of Israel on the left, perhaps human rights violations do. But here, too, there is another example of radical asymmetry. Arab citizens of Israel enjoy far greater constitutional protections than do Arabs living under either the Palestinian Authority or Hamas.

  Is the left bothered by the allies of Hamas? After all, most are autocracies such as Iran and North Korea.

  We return, then, to other reasons for the woke contempt directed toward Israel.

  In part, the Western left always despises the unapologetically successful—as if they are inevitably beneficiaries of unfair privilege. Underdog Israel was not so hated from 1947 to 1967. Then, it was poorer, more socialist, and in danger of being extinguished by its many neighboring enemies.

  But after the victories in the 1967 and 1973 wars, the Israeli military proved unconquerable in the region, no matter how large the numbers, wealth, and armaments of its many enemies.

  

  For the left, Israel’s current strength, confidence, and success mean it cannot be seen as a victim, but only as a victimizer. As its Iron Dome missile defenses knock down the flurry of Hamas rockets, and as its planes take out the military installations that launched those rockets, the left bizarrely believes Israel wins too easily and acts “disproportionately.”

  The left also has a strange idea of current “imperialism” and “colonialism.” The general rule is that Westerners cannot settle in numbers in the non-West. But the reversal is certainly not true. Millions of Middle Easterners are welcomed into Belgium, France, Germany, the UK, and the United States. Yet, Jews have been in what is now Israel since nearly the dawn of civilization. And their 1947 borders only grew after they were attacked and threatened with extinction.

  The left claims that its anti-Israelism has had nothing to do with anti-Semitism. But it is almost impossible now to make that distinction, when woke criticism obsesses over democratic Israel and ignores far greater oppressors and oppressed elsewhere.

  Why are there no demonstrations in major Western cities damning the Chinese government for putting 1 million Muslim Uyghurs in camps? Why are the world’s millions of former refugees—the Volga Germans, the East Prussians, the Cypriot Greeks—long forgotten, and yet the Palestinians alone are deified for being perpetually displaced?

  Our formal NATO ally, Turkey, received little global pushback for its treatment of the Kurds, or its frequent intolerance of religious minorities. Why does Israel alone always earn such venom?

  Hating democratic Israel while it’s under attack is not just a reflection of the new woke and ethically bankrupt left. It is also a symptom of a deeper pathology in the West, one of moral equivalence, amoral relativism, and self-loathing.

  

  [ZH: Victor Davis Hanson’s perspective is noteworthy given the fact  that today saw Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduce a resolution opposing the U.S. sale of $735 million in precision-guided weapons to the Israeli government, the Washington Post reports.]

  “At a moment when U.S.-made bombs are devastating Gaza, and killing women and children, we cannot simply let another huge arms sale go through without even a congressional debate,” Sanders told the Post in a statement.

  “I believe that the United States must help lead the way to a peaceful and prosperous future for both Israelis and Palestinians. We need to take a hard look at whether the sale of these weapons is actually helping do that, or whether it is simply fueling conflict.”

  Last week, before this bill, controversial lawyer Alan Dershowitz called Senator Bernie Sanders an “anti-Semite” and a “self-hating Jew” following an op-ed in the NYTimes titled, “The U.S. Must Stop Being an Apologist for the Netanyahu Government.”

  “But look what the internet allows us,” Dershowitz continued. “…you get the social media, supporting Hamas, The New York Times supporting Hamas, and it sends a very powerful message: do it again, kill children…kill civilians…commit war crimes, you’ll prevail on this because of the anti-Semitism…you can be a Jew and an anti-Semite. Biden has made some statements positively I commend them for that. But Bernie Sanders—who’s Jewish—is a self-hating Jew, a self-hating Jew who is willing to see Israel be defeated militarily by a terrorist group because he’s on the hard left.”

  

  [ZH: Which brings up one question we have seen raised numerous times in comments here and elsewhere online is various derivatives of “why do American jews democrat?”]

  The best – and least politically incorrect – explanation we have seen came from a Twitter thread by John Hayward:

  American Jews who vote Democrat should look at Dems rooting for Hamas and understand: this is all Critical Race Theory for them. It’s the brain rot that has utterly consumed their collective hive-mind. Oppressed brown people vs. evil rich white oppressors. 

  Jews are evil rich white oppressors to the left-wing hive mind – and yes, that includes American Jews who currently vote for them. They will grudgingly give you a limited parole from Critical Race Theory as long as they need your money and votes, and you pay tribute to CRT. 

  It should be more clear than ever, after the events in Israel and Gaza, that Jews are White Oppressors to the CRT hive mind. You’ll NEVER be People of Color. You’ll never sit atop the intersectional totem pole. You’re like Woke CEOs, receiving indulgences because you pay tribute. 

  The cost of that tribute will increase until you can’t pay it any more, the same way left-wing Israelis ought to have learned the “peace” they bought with concessions and giveaways was like a bubble mortgage. Now they have rockets flying at them from the land they gave away. 

  It will be the same way in America, as prosperity collapses and desperate left-wing groups scrabble for money and power. One day Jews will refuse to pay the tribute demanded by the Left, and you’ll snap back into the Evil White Oppressor slot reserved for you by CRT. 

  It already happens in Democrat cities during times of “civil unrest.” Soon all times will be times of civil unrest, and all American Jews will find themselves playing the Knockout Game with Critical Race Theorists. They’re telling you something by rooting for Hamas. Listen.

  [ZH: Sadly the hate from the Middle East has already spread to both coasts of the US]

  Authorities are investigating whether an attack on diners that occurred outside a Beverly Grove restaurant late Tuesday night was a Jewish hate crime.

  And jews on New York City’s Upper East Side were also attacked…

  Jews being attacked on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Can’t say I didn’t see this coming 😞 @jews_of_ny pic.twitter.com/s3mqaqR7Fj

  — Michal Divon מיכל דיבון ميخال ديفون (@michaldivon) May 19, 2021

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

  Palestinians throw some type of explosive device at Jews in Manhattan Diamond District. pic.twitter.com/icQW53lx71

  — Breaking911 (@Breaking911) May 21, 2021

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

  [ZH: Former NYTimes writer Bari Weiss attempts to explain the anti-semitism of newly progressive leftists]

  *  *  *

  As Victor Davis Hanson concludes, hating Israel has become the surrogate Western way of hating oneself.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 23:20

• First Images Of China Rover On Mars Released 
  First Images Of China Rover On Mars Released 

  The next battleground between the US and China is Mars. While space has always been a domain for superpower rivalry, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) successfully landed a rover, called Zhu Rong, on the Red Planet. Now two images have been sent back to Earth to show the success. 

  CNSA released a couple of pictures on its website of the rover, which touched down in the southern part of Utopia Planitia, a large plain on the northern hemisphere of Mars. Here are the first images from the rover since it landed on the Red Planet last Saturday. 

  “The first photograph, a black and white image, was taken by an obstacle avoidance camera installed in front of the Mars rover. The image shows that a ramp on the lander has been extended to the surface of Mars. The terrain of the rover’s forward direction is clearly visible in the image, and the horizon of Mars appears curved due to the wide-angle lens,” CNSA said. 

  

  “The second image, a color photo, was taken by the navigation camera fitted to the rear of the rover. The rover’s solar panels and antenna are seen unfolded, and the red soil and rocks on the Martian surface are clearly visible in the image,” CNSA said. 

  

  Space is no longer limited to the original Cold War superpowers (US & Russia). China has to been thrown into the mix after being the second country to land a rover on Mars. 

  NASA Administrator Bill Nelson congratulated China for successfully landing a rover on Mars and warned Congress of China’s competitive threat to US leadership in space.

  China is becoming more active in space, especially on the Red Planet, alongside the US who already has NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance probing for life. The US rover recently launched a helicopter, called Ingenuity, already performing five successful flights. 

  

  Mars will become the next domain for superpower rivalry because the planet has an abundance of rare metals that will power tomorrow’s economy. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 23:00

• Biden Hollows Out Trump-Era COVID Protections At The Border
  Biden Hollows Out Trump-Era COVID Protections At The Border

  Authored by Joseph Simonson via The Washington Free Beacon (emphasis ours),

  The Biden administration is preparing to gut COVID-19 safety restrictions on illegal immigrants and asylum seekers and essentially reverse the Trump administration’s pandemic health protections without public notice, according to documents circulating within U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

  

  While the Trump administration took a hardline approach to turning away immigrants to avoid “a serious danger of introduction of [a communicable] disease,” at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Customs and Border Protection is now quietly walking much of that guidance back. A May memo, reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, highlighted a potential work-around of the safety measures. The memo, authored by senior staff at CBP, emphasizes the ability of “customs officers [to] determine [who] should be allowed into the United States.”

  Customs and Border Protection officials say the Biden administration is looking to liberally interpret that provision, which was initially meant for migrants with extenuating circumstances related to humanitarian concerns or political repression. Broadening the humanitarian exemption would constitute a de facto reversal of the Trump administration’s guidance on limiting migration into the country. The shift in policy would come as border patrol agents encountered 178,622 migrants in April, among the highest-trafficked months on record.

  “They’re keeping in place Trump’s order while broadening it enough to please left-wing activists,” a senior Customs and Border Protection official told the Free Beacon. “If they rescind Title 42, they can’t deport single men.”

  The memo says the federal officials “will be relying” on immigrant-related, nongovernmental organizations “to identify undocumented individuals potentially amenable to be exempted on humanitarian grounds.” Customs and Border Protection officials say essentially outsourcing immigration processing to NGOs could flood the country with migrants, many of whom never attend their immigration court hearings. Critics say activists from border organizations like the United Nations Refugee Agency and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society coach migrants on how to gain asylum status, rather than seek out the most vulnerable.

  Trump invoked Title 42, a little known provision that enables the executive branch to curtail border crossings during a public health crisis, in a March 2020 executive order. Left-wing advocacy groups call Title 42 a violation of international human rights treaties and have demanded the Biden administration reverse his predecessor’s invocation of it. The Biden administration claims the “streamlined” process of admitting immigrants will combat COVID-19 by reducing “the amount of time undocumented individuals spend in congregate settings, thereby reducing the risk of COVID-19.”

  Using an expansive view of the pandemic exemptions and partnering with NGOs will ensure that more illegal immigrants and asylum seekers will enter the country, according to the senior CBP official.

  “What the Biden administration is doing is giving them the ability to play both sides,” the official said.

  President Biden fulfilled a campaign promise by publicly instituting Title 42 exemptions for all migrant children, a decision many have blamed for the surge of unaccompanied minors at the southern border. Border agents could soon face a secondary surge—broad humanitarian exemptions would allow most families and children to claim asylum, regardless of whether they test positive for COVID-19 or other diseases. Single men, Customs and Border Protection officials say, would likely still face deportation unless they say they fear for their safety in their home country.

  The release of the memo comes as border patrol agents increasingly see what the New York Times dubbed “pandemic refugees” from countries as far away as India on the southern border. April numbers released by the government showed 30 percent of families found on the border came from countries other than Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador—a 22.5 percent increase from April 2019.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 22:40

• Pentagon Marches Towards AI Taking The Kill Shot 
  Pentagon Marches Towards AI Taking The Kill Shot 

  Dozens of autonomous war machines capable of deadly force conducted a field training exercise south of Seattle last August. The exercise involved no human operators but strictly robots powered with artificial intelligence, seeking mock enemy combatants. 

  The exercise, organized by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a blue-sky research division of the Pentagon, armed the robots with radio transmitters designed to simulate a weapon firing. The drill was conducted last August and expanded the Pentagon’s understanding of how automation in military systems on the modern battlefield can work together to eliminate enemy combatants. 

  “The demonstrations also reflect a subtle shift in the Pentagon’s thinking about autonomous weapons, as it becomes clearer that machines can outperform humans at parsing complex situations or operating at high speed,” according to WIRED. 

  

  Its undeniable artificial intelligence will be the face of warfare for years to come. Military planners are moving ahead with incorporating autonomous weapons systems on the modern battlefield. 

  General John Murray of the US Army Futures Command told an audience at the US Military Academy in April that swarms of robots will likely force the military to decide if a human needs to intervene before a robot engages the enemy. 

  Murray asked: “Is it within a human’s ability to pick out which ones have to be engaged” and then make 100 individual decisions? “Is it even necessary to have a human in the loop?” he added.

  Michael Kanaan, director of operations for the Air Force Artificial Intelligence Accelerator at MIT and a top voice on artificial intelligence in the military, told a crowd at the conference in the Air Force last week that computers are rapidly evolving in how they are identifying and distinguishing potential targets while humans decide to engage. 

  Lieutenant General Clinton Hinote, deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration, and requirements at the Pentagon, who was also speaking at the same event, said the great debate of the early 2020s is whether a soldier can be removed from the decision-making of an autonomous weapon.

  Timothy Chung, the Darpa program manager in charge of the swarming project, told WIRED that last year’s exercise was to explore when a human should be involved in the decision-making of autonomous systems. When faced with complex attacks, Chung said the robots could perform the mission better than humans because people aren’t quick enough to react. 

  “Actually, the systems can do better from not having someone intervene,” Chung added.

  Even as artificial intelligence is rapidly developing capability, keeping a person in the loop may be necessary for the time being as algorithms still need to improve where they can identify enemies with enough reliability. 

  This all comes down to the reliability of the algorithms to have a high level of accuracy when identifying and engaging the enemy. So far, the Defense Department policy on autonomous weapons states that these systems need to have human oversight. 

  … and for some forecasted timelines of when robots surpass human intelligence, Ray Kurzweil, Googles chief of engineering, said a few years back, it could be around 2029. 

  By the end of the decade, or even earlier, the Pentagon may allow autonomous weapons to take the kill shot without any human intervention. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 22:20

• Boom To Bust: How Inflation Turns Into Deflation
  Boom To Bust: How Inflation Turns Into Deflation

  Authored by Frank Shostak via The Mises Institute,

  In order to understand the effects of inflation it is helpful to understand that inflation is not a general rise in prices as such, but an increase in the supply of money which then sets in motion a general increase in the prices of goods and services in terms of money.

  

  Consider the case of a fixed stock of money. Whenever people increase their demand for some goods and services, money is going to be allocated toward these goods and services. In response, the prices of these goods and services are likely to increase—more money will be spent on them.

  Since we have an unchanged stock of money, less money can now be allocated toward other goods and services. Given that the price of a good is the amount of money spent on the good, this means that the prices of other goods will decline, i.e., less money will be spent on them.

  In order for there to be a general rise in prices, there must be an increase in the money stock. With more money and no change in the money demand, people can now allocate a greater amount of money toward all goods and services.

  According to Mises in Economic Freedom and Interventionism,

  Inflation, as this term was always used everywhere and especially in this country, means increasing the quantity of money and bank notes in circulation and the quantity of bank deposits subject to check. But people today use the term “inflation” to refer to the phenomenon that is an inevitable consequence of inflation, that is the tendency of all prices and wage rates to rise. The result of this deplorable confusion is that there is no term left to signify the cause of this rise in prices and wages. There is no longer any word available to signify the phenomenon that has been, up to now, called inflation. (p. 99)

  Inflation is a process in which the last recipients of newly created fiat money are impoverished while the early recipients of this money are enriched. This process of impoverishment is set in motion as a result of an increase in the money supply.

  This increase activates an exchange of nothing for something. This amounts to the diversion of real savings from the last recipients of the newly generated money to the early recipients.

  Now, if the growth rate of money supply stands at 10 percent while the growth rate of the production of goods and services also stands at 10 percent, the prices of these goods and services on average will increase by 0 percent. In popular thinking, this will be seen as if there is no inflation here.

  However, knowing that inflation is an increase in money supply, it’s clear that the rate of inflation is 10 percent. What matters here is not changes in the prices of goods and services but the increase in money supply. This increase sets the process of impoverishment in motion.

  How Much Inflation Is There?

  So what is the present status of inflation? By popular thinking, represented by the yearly growth rate in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), inflation stood at 2.6 percent in March, against 1.7 percent in February and 1.5 percent in March 2020. However, in terms of money supply, the growth rate of inflation stood at 69.2 percent in March against 13.4 percent in March 2020. Massive monetary increases have weakened the process of real savings formation. As a result, businesses’ ability to grow the economy has been severely impaired.

  Moreover, the ability of businesses to grow the economy has weakened further because of massive government spending, which has diverted real savings from businesses toward various nonproductive government projects. Note that government spending is only likely to strengthen in the near term. Because of this massive fiscal and monetary spending, the pool of real savings—the heart of economic growth—could be in serious trouble.

  Thus, a likely decline in the pool of real savings is expected to significantly weaken economic activity ahead; subsequently, the quality of banks’ assets will likely deteriorate. Therefore, the yearly growth rate of banks’ inflationary credit, or lending out of “thin air,” is poised to weaken visibly, thus putting pressure on the growth rate of money supply. This happens because as bank assets decline in quality, and as potential borrowers decline in value, banks lend less and put downward pressure on the money supply.

  Note that the yearly growth rate of money supply has already eased to 69.2 percent in March from 79.1 percent the month before. In the midst of a financial bubble—as we likely are now—even a slight softening in the growth rate of money supply could be fatal.

  

  Note: this graph shows changes in the TMS money supply measure.

  This is because bubble activities cannot stand on their own feet; they require support from increases in money supply that divert to them real savings from wealth generators. Also, note again that a major cause behind the possible decline in the pool of real savings is unprecedented increases in money supply and massive government spending. While the pool of real savings is still growing, the massive money supply increase is likely to be followed by an upward trend in the growth rate of the prices of goods and services. This could start early next year. Once the pool of real savings starts to decline, however—because of massive monetary pumping and reckless fiscal policies—various bubble activities are will plunge. This, in turn, is likely to result in a large decline in economic activity and in the money supply.

  Ironically, although money supply growth is immense right now, as a result of the possible burst of bubble activities the prices of goods and services could actually decline in coming years. That is, deflation will come as industry bubbles pop. This could occur as early as the second half of 2022. Yet the possibility of deflation hinges on whether the pool of real savings is declining, and this is notoriously difficult to observe.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 22:00

• Lawmakers Demand Reinstatement Of Space Force Officer Removed For Denouncing Critical Race Theory
  Lawmakers Demand Reinstatement Of Space Force Officer Removed For Denouncing Critical Race Theory

  Authored by Isabel van Brugen via The Epoch Times,

  A group of Republican lawmakers on Wednesday sent a letter to the acting secretary of the U.S. Space Force, urging him to immediately reinstate a lieutenant colonel who was relieved of his command after publishing a book that warned of the spread of Marxism and critical race theory (CRT) in the military.

  

  Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier, a former instructor and fighter pilot, was relieved as commander of the 11th Space Warning Squadron “due to loss of trust and confidence in his ability to lead,” the Space Force said over the weekend.

  It came after he took part in podcasts to discuss his self-published book, titled “Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military,” that warns against the spread of Marxism and CRT in the military.

  During an appearance on the podcast “Information Operation,” he criticized Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s agenda. The department deemed Lohmeier’s comments to be “partisan political activity.”

  In their letter (pdf), the two dozen Republicans expressed their alarm over the decision to relieve Lohmeier. They said it appears to reflect the development of an “increasingly politicized environment” in the Department of Defense, which has now manifested in the Space Force.

  The lawmakers criticized the use of euphemisms such as “diversity training” in describing CRT. Such terms, they said, are “grotesque distortions of reality.”

  CRT has gradually proliferated in recent decades through academia, government structures, school systems, and the corporate world. It redefines human history as a struggle between the “oppressors” (white people) and the “oppressed” (everybody else), similar to Marxism’s reduction of history to a struggle between the “bourgeois” and the “proletariat.” It labels institutions that emerged in majority-white societies as racist and “white supremacist.”

  Like Marxism, it advocates for the destruction of institutions, such as the Western justice system, free-market economy, and orthodox religions, while demanding that they be replaced with institutions compliant with the CRT ideology.

  Proponents of CRT have argued that the theory is merely “demonstrating how pervasive systemic racism truly is.”

  “Those leaders who are complicit with this poisonous philosophy which promotes racial essentialism and collective guilt in our beloved military will be judged by history accordingly,” the lawmakers wrote.

  “Promoting critical race theory will disrupt the good order and discipline in the Space Force and eviscerate our nation’s ability to attract patriotic talent to serve in uniform and fight our wars.

  Signatory Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) said in a statement that the military should focus on threats to U.S. national security and “not pandering to one political ideology.”

  “I can’t imagine a better way to weaken ourselves in the midst of a great-power competition with China and Russia,” he added.

  “Lieutenant Colonel Lohmeier listened to the Secretary of Defense and stood up against extremism on the left. He should be praised for his courage.”

  Space Force officials didn’t immediately respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 21:20

• Wharton Receives Anonymous $5 Million Bitcoin Gift
  Wharton Receives Anonymous $5 Million Bitcoin Gift

  Blink and you missed the biggest crypto crash since last March: having plunged as much as 40% on Wednesday, bitcoin is up 40% on Thursday almost wiping out all its previous day’s jarring losses, with ether up more than 50% off its lows. Which is good news not only for Tom Brady who BTFD, but for UPenn which according to Bloomberg was set to announce it received its largest ever donation in a cryptocurrency — $5 million in Bitcoin to support the activities of a research center at its Wharton school of business. Naturally, the donation which was anonymous, would have been much worse had bitcoin failed to rebound.

  Even though the majority of the gift is still in the form of Bitcoin, John Zeller, Penn’s senior vice president for development and alumni relations, was unmoved despite the surge in volatility.

  “There is protection for us on the downside,” Zeller told Bloomberg. “We have what we needed to support the budget and we’ll just see where it goes in the future.” Penn’s approach differs from that of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which has accepted Bitcoin donations since 2016, and which immediately liquidates gifts received in the cryptocurrency.

  As Bloomberg notes, while Colleges typically sell gifts such as real estate and stocks right away to eliminate risks that come with holding and managing assets, in this case, the structure of the donation, which was received a few weeks ago, “allows Penn to capture any gains if the price of Bitcoin rises and protects it from losses if the value of the currency drops below that of the initial gift”, Zeller said.

  The portion of the $5 million still held in Bitcoin will be monetized over the coming years to meet the budgetary needs of the Stevens Center, which promotes education and research in the field of financial technology and is named after Ross Stevens, the chief executive officer of Stone Ridge Asset Management.

  “The beauty of this is the donor wanted to use Bitcoin as a vehicle and also had an interest in promoting it,” Zeller said. “For us, it is a bit of an experiment.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 21:00

• Beware The Rise Of Scamerica
  Beware The Rise Of Scamerica

  Authored by Roibert Wright via The American Institute for Economic Research,

  Scams, frauds, flim flams, and grifts are nothing new to America. In fact, confidence games were old hat when Clifton Wooldridge published his 1906 classic, The Grafters of America: Who They Are and How They Work, which describes common cons in fin de siecle Chicago. The recent death of notorious investment scamster Bernie Madoff should remind Americans that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. 

  

  As America descends into policy disarray, the scamming of others is increasing. Wire fraud is rampant, as is the impersonation of government workers, apparently because Americans now expect government officials to accost them for quick cash at least occasionally. I focus here on a much more insidious type of scam that also seems to be on the rise, something that I will politely refer to as “substandard work,” but that in informal adult conversation usually goes by a fecal four-letter word followed by “job.”

  Much of the substandard work being conducted across the country right now ultimately is the government’s fault, specifically a set of policies seemingly deliberately designed to induce Americans not to work: extra unemployment pay; major school systems remaining virtual until fall; bizarre summer camp masking requirements. The first entices lower income people to stay out of the labor market and the latter two make parents think twice, or thrice, about returning to work.

  As a result, many usually reliable businesses cannot find any workers, much less good ones. Robin Jones, a regional manager for a major fast food chain in the Upper Midwest, recently told me that April and May of this year have been the tightest labor market he can remember in his 43-year restaurant career, which includes stints in Arkansas, Missouri, Montana, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming. His back is giving out because his desk job has turned into a role as a stopgap line worker in the cheap taco wars. While he does what he can, he is only one man. The extreme dearth of workers means much longer wait times than usual and substandard service overall.

  A restaurant in a resort town in New Jersey recently purchased a robot called Peanut to deliver food to customers. It reportedly “can open kitchen doors, deliver orders to tables, and bus the dishes when everyone is done eating.” It works until it breaks down and doesn’t demand tips.

  The labor shortage is hardly restricted to food services. The pool business pictured below, for example, had a good reputation until recently, when it charged a friend of mine $260 to remove the cover from her pool. Just a regular cover. U.S. dollars, not Zimbabwean ones. Inflation is relatively high, but it ain’t that high! If the company had added some suddenly hyper-expensive chlorine to the pool, maybe it would have been okay but it appears the workers were inexperienced newbs flummoxed by simple problems. They removed and stored the cover successfully (bravo!) but couldn’t figure out how to get the pump pumping, got frustrated, and left. But they didn’t want to tell their new boss about their pathetic failure so they charged for the full spring opening service even though they didn’t provide it. Not so smart.

  

  All manner of employee malingering and moral hazard appear to be on the rise because every low wage worker knows that they can get fired one morning but hired elsewhere that same day, usually at higher pay. Although full official statistics are available only through 2019, it appears that sexual harassment and other types of employment-related complaints have increased of late. Some of the increase is due to stricter laws and enforcement and more awareness of workplace harassment issues but some may be due to employees hoping for a quick, lucrative settlement, confident that they will be able to find work elsewhere even if their claims are found meritless after investigation. Even remote workers are pressing harassment claims. Unwarranted harassment complaints are simply a more sophisticated type of pilfering than taking home office supplies or using Zoom rooms for personal use, which is also likely on the rise.

  Unlike the hapless pool company described above, some companies deliberately overbill lots of their customers less flagrantly, in the hopes that many won’t notice or care enough to complain. When some inevitably ask for refunds, such companies stall repayment or simply credit customers on the next bill and thereby finagle free loans. Investment bank Morgan Stanley got spanked for overbilling in 2017 but if inflation increases nominal interest rates will rise along with it, or if lending tightens due to various new banking regulations now in the works, more companies may give in to the temptation of cheap short-term financing by overbilling.

  Yet other companies with even deeper problems push boundaries between sharp business practices and outright fraud. They need to book business today or go under tomorrow and hence are unconcerned about bad reviews or negative publicity in the short run. 

  One such company that I personally recently fell victim to is a long distance moving and storage broker based in America. A portion of my possessions eventually made the long trip from South Dakota to the east coast but pickup was two weeks late, which cost me dearly, and dropoff was delayed several times as well, which inconvenienced my poor, hard working spouse. Maybe some bad luck was actually involved but over the month it took to complete the job, the moving broker told me more half-truths than Fauci has about Covid. An industry insider revealed to me its original sin: when they get a mark, I mean customer, on the phone, they pretend like they have scheduled a pickup when in fact they have simply estimated when they expect to be able to sell the contract to a long-haul shipper, who then gets blamed for the inevitable delays.

  Large, unexpected increases in the prices of inputs, from gasoline to timber, means that many construction contractors are also getting hit hard. They want to pass along the added costs, so owners need to watch out for “change order artistry,” sundry excuses contractors use to increase the contract price. When owners push back hard on change orders the contractor might not show up at all, or do substandard work/use substandard materials, so often it is better to negotiate a new price or not contract in the first place until some stability returns.

  The recent ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline is more malicious than substandard work but the purported perpetrator, a shadowy group called DarkSide, claims to be a business that gives its “customers” incentives to improve their cybersecurity protocols. While the precise vector of the ransomware infection remains unknown or under wraps, Covid restrictions and/or the tight labor market is likely the root cause of the colossal cluster. As AIER’s Peter C. Earle pointed out last year, lockdowns make countries more vulnerable to attack and, as freezing Texans learned this past winter, more vulnerable to natural shocks as well.

  Natural immunity and vaccines have scotched Covid, at least in the U.S. If only Americans would develop immunities against overreaching government! Right now, Uncle Sam is more likely to stab you in the back than to have your back. Scamerica will grift ever more fraudulently until government sheds its paternalistic mask and once again lets children be children, employers employ, innovators innovate, teachers teach, and workers work.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 20:40

• Survey Shows Half Of Non-Mask Wearers Will "Definitely Not" Consent To Being Vaccinated
  Survey Shows Half Of Non-Mask Wearers Will “Definitely Not” Consent To Being Vaccinated

  This looks like bad news for the CDC and the Biden Administration, which are desperate to entice more Americans to get vaccinated before international pressure forces the president to give away the entire US stock of vaccines (Biden announced yesterday that the US would send 20MM doses of vaccine that are authorized for emergency use in the US abroad for the first time as pressure from the international community grows).

  A recent survey found that half of Americans who don’t wear masks say they “definitely won’t” get vaccinated, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.Half of non-mask wearers said they would “definitely not” get vaccinated, according to a survey taken the week of March 15.

  

  By comparison, the data, which was leaked to Bloomberg, found that 13% of those who wear a mask some of the time or never said they had gotten vaccinated, while 34% of those who do wear masks all or most of the time said they had been vaccinated. Half of non-mask wearers said they would “definitely not” get vaccinated, versus 7% of those who wear masks regularly.

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  The findings follow an announcement by the CDC allowing fully vaccinated people to ditch masks in most settings.

  President Biden celebrated the decision as offering Americans a stark choice: Either get vaccinated, or wear a mask.

  The only problem with this is that many of those who are skeptical of the vaccine also don’t wear masks.

  One analyst who spoke to Bloomberg said she was surprised by the resistance to the vaccine.

  “But I think what stands out is the share that say they definitely won’t get the vaccine among those who say they don’t wear masks,” Hamel said in an interview.

  What’s more, the survey data support what many Americans probably see as common sense – although nobody apparently told the White House or the CDC.

  The findings already indicate that people who say they don’t want the vaccine are much less likely to believe that masks are effective. “And so certainly that relationship between the attitudes towards the vaccine and attitudes towards other sorts of protective measures exist, particularly among that group that says they’re just definitely not going to get vaccinated,” she said.

  The CDC was widely criticized for spurring confusion with its latest guidance for individuals and businesses, as states are now deciding whether they will follow the CDC guidance or opt to wait.

  Some employers are already saying they will require new hires to be vaccinated, although most employers still concede that it would be illegal to require all employees to go out and get the vaccine. Ultimately, however, they might still be forced to rely on the honor system as medical privacy laws might prevent them from asking to see evidence of the shot.

  The polling company, KFF, which has been running polling data through its COVID Vaccine Monitor, used data on self-reported masking behavior and people’s belief in whether wearing a mask prevents the spread of the vaccine as the basis for these findings.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 20:20

• To Get America Back To Work, Congress Needs Courage
  To Get America Back To Work, Congress Needs Courage

  Authored by Tarren Bragdon via RealClearPolitics.com,

  You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. You also don’t need an economist to know what happens when the government pays people to stay home. Unemployment rose to 6.1% in April despite thousands of U.S. businesses desperate to hire — especially in the restaurant and hospitality industries.

  If you are a business owner in the United States, you already know exactly what’s happening. Employers nationwide are reporting empty job fairs and job interview no-shows. Local shops and restaurants have closed their doors to give exhausted employees a break from covering extra shifts indefinitely.

  In New Jersey, a mom-and-pop deli recently closed for good, “not because business is bad,” the owners explained. “We just can’t find anyone to work.” Restaurants ranging from McDonald’s to the high-end restaurants are offering cash to get people to show up to interviews, and they’re giving away hundreds of dollars in signing bonuses to encourage people to fill open positions.

  People are staying home because it pays more, thanks to the $300 weekly federal unemployment check bonus. Can you blame them? The weather is getting warmer, lockdowns are loosening, and they are collecting their highest paycheck in years without having to leave the couch.

  There are more job openings right now than before the pandemic hit the United States, yet in March there were 8.4 million fewer job positions filled and the number of applications was 13% below the pre-pandemic level.

  

  People are not in a hurry to go to work because the government is paying them to stay home. If Congress wants people to return to the real workforce, it needs to give them a pay cut.

  Allowing the $300 weekly unemployment bonus to expire this fall would immediately incentivize people to get back to work and would light a match under the economy. We’ve seen this before — in 2013, there was a federal extension program in place similar to today. In the middle of the Great Recession, people could collect unemployment benefits for as long as 99 weeks — almost two years. Congress expanded and extended these benefits nearly a dozen times between 2008 and 2012.

  When Congress finally refused to extend the program in 2013, unemployment dropped to the regular state maximum durations overnight, around 26 weeks in most states, fewer in some. Research shows 2.1 million to 2.6 million people went back to work due to the duration cut. More than half of people taking advantage of the extended benefits wouldn’t have participated in the labor market at all if the unemployment extension had stayed in place.

  Contrary to the myth that losing extended unemployment benefits would make people drop out of the labor force, millions of Americans began providing for their families once again. A majority — up to 80% — of all job growth in 2014 was attributed to Congress having the courage to end the federal unemployment extension.

  The economy kicked into overdrive almost immediately. Job growth accelerated by 50% and more than 3 million jobs were added in 2014 alone. The number of new job openings outpaced even the best pre-recession years by nearly 30%. As more people joined the workforce, the unemployment rate dropped, people started spending more money, businesses thrived, and employers ramped up hiring efforts.

  Economists called the economic boom an “employment miracle,” but it doesn’t take an expert to know why people suddenly returned to work. The government finally stopped paying them to stay home.

  Like most things in Washington, the best action government can take to accelerate the recovery is no action at all.

  Allowing the $300 weekly unemployment bonus to expire on time in the fall won’t require complicated legislative action — just courage.

  *  *  *

  Tarren Bragdon is the chief executive officer at the Foundation for Government Accountability.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 20:00

• "That F*cking Lunatic": New Book Reveals Obama's 'Candid' Thoughts About President Trump
  “That F*cking Lunatic”: New Book Reveals Obama’s ‘Candid’ Thoughts About President Trump

  A new book called “Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats’ Campaigns to Defeat Donald Trump” by Edward-Isaac Dovere, a staff writer at the Atlantic, offers an inside look at what Barack Obama really thought about Donald Trump heading into the 2020 election.

  Obama, who had mostly remained publicly cordial with Trump after handing over the presidency to him in 2016 was, behind the scenes, being “candid” with his donors and advisers, the book says.

  This meant reportedly calling Trump a “madman”, a “racist, sexist pig”, “that fucking lunatic” and a “corrupt motherfucker”, according to The Guardian, who obtained a copy of the book that is set to be published next week.

  The book also says that Obama preferred Trump to Cruz as President, because “Trump was nowhere near as clever as the hard-right Texas senator”. Then, Trump won, prompting outrage from Obama, who reportedly said: “He’s a madman.” 

  

  Dovere also reported Obama as saying “I didn’t think it would be this bad” and “I didn’t think we’d have a racist, sexist pig.” 

  This was mixed in with the occasional comment calling Trump “that fucking lunatic”.

  Upon news breaking that Trump was speaking to foreign leaders, including Vladimir Putin, Obama reportedly said: “‘That corrupt motherfucker.”

  Conversely, Trump’s distaste for Obama is also well known, with the 45th President suggesting on more than one occasion that Obama’s incompetence was the sole reason he ran for President. Trump’s skepticism of Obama dates back to controversy he drummed up about the 44th President’s birth certificate after he won the presidency. 

  The book’s author, Dovere, has been known for his “candid” reporting, including once reporting that first lady Jill Biden suggest Kamala Harris “go fuck herself” after attacking President Biden during the Democratic Primaries. 

  Sounds like one big happy political family. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 19:40

• One Bank's Case For Bitcoin $500,000: The Fed's Balance Sheet Will Hit $40 Trillion In 2050
  One Bank’s Case For Bitcoin $500,000: The Fed’s Balance Sheet Will Hit $40 Trillion In 2050

  Yesterday, when bitcoin was crashing, ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood sparked some laughter (especially among the crypto bears) when in her interview with Bloomberg TV she presented her bitcoin price target: $500,000.

  While this was in keeping with Wood’s traditionally hyperbolic forecasts (like Tesla to $3,000 for example), one could make the argument that at least in 2020, the market did give Wood’s crazy forecasts the benefit of the doubt (if not so much in 2021). But more importantly, one could also make the argument that Wood may be right… even if she herself has no idea why.

  The real reason why one can make a case for bitcoin $500,000 (hardly very shocking: JPM’s “fair value” bitcoin price target has been $146,000 for months) comes from Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid who in his Thursday chart of the day mocks the market’s taper fears, saying that “even after a taper this is far from the end of balance sheet expansion”, and forecasts that “if the Fed balance sheet to debt ratio stays at the post GFC average (c.30% vs c.38% current) then the Fed balance sheet would be around $40tn in 2050 from just under $8tn today.“

  In other words, we are looking at a 5x increase in the Fed’s balance sheet, one which would unleash an unprecedented tsunami of liquidity and even more unprecedented destruction of the fiat system (which is also why the Fed is planning on rolling out the digital dollar in coming years). And since the Fed’s balance sheet growing 5x means that other central banks would have to keep pace or else see their own currencies soar, we are looking at global central bank liquidity of roughly $100 trillion by 2050.

  Seen in this light, is a bitcoin market cap of $10 trillion (which is what it would be at $500,000), or just 10% of global central bank balance sheets, really that crazy?

  Here is Reid’s full note:

  Thinking about thinking

  Did the Fed minutes last night give the first hints that the Fed is thinking about thinking about tapering? Even the subtle language shift was enough to prompt an immediate c.7bps sell off in 10yr real yields. In this very heavily indebted world real yields are crucial to financial stability so it’s slightly concerning that “thinking about thinking” could have such an impact. It hints that the taper may not be straight forward when it eventually arrives.

  Having said that, I strongly suspect that even after a taper this is far from the end of balance sheet expansion. Today’s CoTD shows the path of US public debt in recent years with the CBO’s forecast out to 2051. We also show the Fed balance sheet.

  The debt will need to be funded and if the Fed balance sheet to debt ratio stays at the post GFC average (c.30% vs c.38% current) then the Fed balance sheet would be around $40tn in 2050 from just under $8tn today.

  Clearly the realized outcome won’t be a smooth upward line, but it’s hard to imagine what is likely to be a heavily-indebted future without substantial increases in the Fed’s balance sheet, irrespective of what happens in the next few quarters.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 19:20

• Peddlers Of Russiagate Won't Take Truth For An Answer
  Peddlers Of Russiagate Won’t Take Truth For An Answer

  Authored by J. Peder Zane via RealClearPolitics.com,

  The Biden administration is vigorously pursuing key figures from the phony Trump/Russia collusion scandal that roiled the nation for four years. But instead of trying to punish the liars who perpetrated that fraud, it is targeting the truth-tellers who challenged and exposed the conspiracy to negate the 2016 election.

  

  Working from the same playbook used to smear dozens of Trump associates, the administration and its allies are planting stories based on blind quotes in friendly media outlets to seek revenge.

  On April 16, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius reported that the Justice Department is investigating Kash Patel – who had worked with Rep. Devin Nunes and later the Trump administration to reveal the Russiagate hoax – for the “possible improper disclosure of classified information.” Ignatius said he received the tip from “two knowledgeable sources” who “wouldn’t provide additional details.”

  Violating the bedrock principles of American justice and journalism, this article is an exercise in thuggery as the government uses a powerful media outlet to intimidate and besmirch a citizen without evidence. With nothing to respond to, how can Patel defend himself? If Patel is lucky, the federal government has only placed a sharp sword over his head that may not fall. If not, he might be dragged into a lengthy court battle that could drain his finances and also cost him his freedom.

  We don’t know if Patel broke the law, but note that the administration has shown no interest in pursuing former FBI leaders such as James Comey and Andrew McCabe, who improperly disclosed information regarding Russiagate.

  Trump’s former lawyer Rudolph Giuliani is also in the “cross hairs of a federal criminal investigation,” according to an April 29 article in New York Times that relied on “people with knowledge of the matter.”

  At issue, those anonymous sources say, is whether Giuliani was serving two masters when he counseled Trump to remove Marie L. Yovanovitch as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in 2019. “Did Mr. Giuliani go after Ms. Yovanovitch solely on behalf of Mr. Trump, who was his client at the time?” the Times reports. “Or was he also doing so on behalf of the Ukrainian officials, who wanted her removed for their own reasons?”

  I’ll leave it to the lawyers to determine the wisdom of bringing a case based on the parsing of tangled motives. What is clear is that the FBI is taking a thumb-screws page from the playbook of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who deployed the little-used Foreign Agents Registration Act to pursue the white whale of collusion. As Lee Smith reported for RealClearInvestigations, just three people had pleaded guilty to FARA violations in the half-century before Mueller deployed it to pressure and punish Trump allies.

  And note, the FBI’s zeal to crack down on unregistered foreign agents does not extend to the president’s son Hunter Biden, who, Paul Sperry reported for RCI, “failed to register as a foreign agent while promoting the interests of foreign business partners in Washington, including brokering meetings with his father and other government officials.” It appears that we have two tiers of justice: one for Biden administration enemies, another for its family and friends.

  The targeting of Giuliani looks especially suspect and politically motivated after three main news outlets that have driven much of the false Russiagate coverage – the New York Times, Washington Post and NBC News – were forced to correct a recent story, once again based on anonymous sources, claiming the FBI had warned Giuliani in 2019 “that he was a target of a Russian disinformation campaign during his efforts to dig up unflattering information about then-candidate Joe Biden in 2019.” Giuliani was never given such a briefing.

  Considering the numerous instances in which the press published bogus information from “informed sources” during Russiagate, one has to ask why they continue to serve as vehicles for falsehoods. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me a dozen times and you’re not fooling me – we’re acting in concert.  As RCI editor Tom Kuntz has argued, journalistic integrity demands, at the very least, that these organizations tell their audience who exactly had misled them. Confidentiality agreements should not protect liars.

  A third example of the Biden administration’s effort to punish Russiagate figures is its renewed effort to put former Manafort associate Konstantin V. Kilimnik behind bars. In an extensive new article for RCI, Aaron Maté reports that the Treasury Department provided no evidence to support its recent claim that Kilimnik is a “known Russian Intelligence Services agent implementing influence operations on their behalf.” It also refuses to explain how it was able to discover the truth of Kilimnik’s identity, which the two most extensive Russiagate investigations – the 448-page Muller report and the 966-page Senate Intelligence report – failed to uncover.

  This absence of evidence has not stopped the peddlers of the Trump/Russia conspiracy theory from claiming vindication. Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff casts Treasury’s unsubstantiated claim as smoking-gun evidence of collusion. The New York Times reports that the claim demonstrates that “there had been numerous interactions between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence during the year before the [2016] election.”

  Who needs proof when the government says it’s so?

  The FBI is also putting the screws to Kilimnik, offering $250,000 for information leading to his arrest on witness-tampering charges involving text messages he sent in 2018 to two people who have only been identified as “potential witnesses” involving Manafort’s lobbying work for Ukraine, not Russiagate.

  In an exclusive interview, Kilimnik told Maté, “I don’t understand how two messages to our old partners who helped us get out the message about Ukraine’s integration aspirations in [the] EU, and asking them to get in touch with Paul, can be interpreted as ‘intimidation’ or ‘obstruction of justice.’”

  Maté also reports that the $250,000 bounty on Kilimnik is more than double the amount the FBI is offering for information leading to the arrest of murder suspects.

  The Biden administration’s campaigns against Patel, Giuliani and Kilimnik suggest how the winners of the 2020 election are attempting to rewrite the history of Russiagate. Having been debunked and rebuked by their own investigators, the conspiracists are taking a second bite at the poisoned apple.  Using anonymous sources to make unsubstantiated charges in the nation’s most influential news outlets, they are seeking to punish people for the crime of exposing their malfeasance.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 19:00

• 22 States Now Dropping $300 Weekly Unemployment Boost Amid Mounting Job Shortage
  22 States Now Dropping $300 Weekly Unemployment Boost Amid Mounting Job Shortage

  Republican governors in nearly half of US states have all announced plans to scrap beefed-up federal unemployment benefits they say have disincentivized workers to reenter the workforce.

  

  The shift away from the $300-per-week handout started earlier this month with Montana and South Carolina ending the boost. This week, Indiana, Oklahoma and Texas joined the fray to bring the total number of states to 22.

  According to the Epoch Times, “Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, New Hampshire, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming—all plan to end the $300 boost, along with other federal unemployment benefit programs, at some point this summer.”

  On Monday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told the Biden administration that his state is “booming” and that employers are hiring in communities throughout the state.

  “In fact, the amount of job openings in Texas is far greater than the number of Texans looking for employment, making these unemployment benefits no longer necessary,” he wrote.

  

  Other states, meanwhile, have announced hiring incentives to get people back to work.

  New Hampshire’s Republican Gov. Chris Sununu said in a Wednesday tweet that “today we launched our SUMMER STIPENDS program to get people back to work, and announced we’re ending our participation in federal unemployment programs.”

  The Summer Stipends program offers $500 to $1,000 one-time bonuses for individuals who get a job that pays $25 an hour or less, and stay in that job for at least eight weeks.

  “Let’s get back to work,” Sununu said. –Epoch Times

  As we noted earlier today, despite the dismal payrolls print, initial jobless claims are just about to pre-COVID levels, with a better than expected 444,000 Americas filing for first-time unemployment benefits last week despite 8.1 million job openings.

  

  

  In an open letter to the nation’s governors, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and several colleagues urged states to “put America back to work” by ending the weekly pandemic stipend.

  “Unfortunately, we are now seeing the negative consequences of these misaligned economic incentives,” reads the letter. “An estimated 40 percent of the unemployed now earn more staying at home than working, causing severe labor shortages across the country” and impacting several industries.

  

  And according to a recent report by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), a record number of small businesses couldn’t find enough workers to hire in April.

  According to economists at Wells Fargo, on average, anyone who made less than around $34,000 per year was better off collecting unemployment benefits than returning to work.

  According to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), “It’s not because people are lazy — not accusing anyone of being lazy — it’s because people are logical, because it’s logic that if you’re going to make close to or as much and in some cases more than what you do when you’re at work, you’ll go back to work when that expires.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 18:40

• Robinhood Introduces New Product To Give Retail Traders Direct Access To IPOs
  Robinhood Introduces New Product To Give Retail Traders Direct Access To IPOs

  A couple of months ago, we heard the first reports about Robinhood, SoFi and potentially other rival brokerages developing platforms to allow retail traders something that has, until now, been off-limits to mom and pop investors: access to IPO allocations of newly public companies.

  It looks like Robinhood is winning the race: According to CNBC, Robinhood will soon roll out a new product called “IPO Access” that will do just that: give amateur investors access to IPO shares. It’s the latest move to help “democratize” finance, as Robinhood likes to argue. CNBC reported that the company aims to “antagonize” Wall Street by breaking down one more artificial barrier for retail traders.

  

  Demand for IPO access among retail traders is high: IPO stock pops on the first day averaged 36% in 2020, according to Dealogic. Until now, these gains have been off-limits to retail traders.

  Traditional IPOs have also been criticized for being broken, with investment banks allotting shares to the same big clients who reap instate first-day gains. But with IPO Access, Robinhood clients will be able to request to buy shares at their IPO price range, and when the final price is set, clients will be able to follow through with the purchase, change their order, or cancel.

  The product will be rolled out over the coming weeks, and medical scrubs company Figs will be the first company to go public with some of its allocation delivered through Robinhood Access.

  Medical scrubs company Figs — which filed its paperwork to go public to the SEC on Thursday — will be the first company to offer its share on the Robinhood app.

  “We currently anticipate that up to 1.0% of the shares of Class A common stock offered hereby will, at our request, be offered to retail investors through Robinhood Financial, LLC, as a selling group member, via its online brokerage platform,” Figs said in its S1 filing document.

  “This is the first initial public offering to be included on the Robinhood platform and there may be risks associated with the use of the Robinhood platform that we cannot foresee, including risks related to the technology and operation of the platform, and the publicity and the use of social media by users of the platform that we cannot control,” the company added.

  To be clear: Robinhood won’t be underwriting deals; instead, it plans to partner with investment banks to gain access to the share allocation.

  SoFi announced similar plans to offer IPO allocations to retail traders, but unlike Robinhood, SoFi plans to act as an underwriter.

  Robinhood’s launch of Robinhood Access also raises questions about whether Robinhood customers will be able to purchase shares of the brokerage’s hotly anticipated IPO via the platform.

  If trading on Robinhood’s IPO day goes poorly, the company can just pull the plug.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 18:20

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• Mapping The World's Top Countries For Military Spending
  Mapping The World’s Top Countries For Military Spending

  By practically any measure, the world today is more peaceful and less war-torn on a global scale, relative to the past.

  

  For instance, declarations of war between nations and soldier casualties have both dropped drastically since the 20th century. Yet, as Visual Capitalist’s Aran Ali notes, military spending has not followed this trend.

  The Top 10 Military Spenders

  According to SIPRI, global military spend reached almost $2 trillion in 2020. The top 10 countries represent roughly 75% of this figure, and have increased their spending by $51 billion since the year prior.

  Here’s how the worlds top 10 military spenders compare to each other:

  

  The U.S. isn’t labeled as a global superpower for nothing. The country is by far the largest military spender, and its $778 billion budget trumps the remainder of the list’s collective $703.6 billion. On its own, the U.S. represents just under 40% of global military spending.

  This year, Saudi Arabia has lost out on a top five seat to the UK, after a 7.1% decline in spending compared to a 21.5% increase for the UK.

  Military Spend as a Percentage of GDP

  Military expenditures as a percentage of GDP can be used to compare military spending relative to the size of a country’s economy.

  

  When looking at things this way, many of the top spenders above do not appear. This may be an indication of their economic prowess or a demonstration that the money might be used for other vital areas such as education, healthcare, or infrastructure.

  

  It’s pretty rare for countries to reach double digits for military spending as a percentage of GDP. In this case, Oman is an outlier, as the Middle Eastern country’s spending relative to GDP grew from 8.8% last year, to 11% in 2020.

  Many of the countries with the highest military spending to GDP are located in the Middle East—a reflection of the escalating conflicts that have persisted in the region for well over two decades.

  It’s worth noting that some data for the Middle Eastern region are estimates, due to the aforementioned regional instability.

  More Spending to Come?

  Global military spending figures are at a 32-year high, despite the pandemic’s effect on shrinking economic output.

  

  Although a major war hasn’t occurred in some time, it’s not to say the geopolitical mood hasn’t been tense.

  The last 12 months or so have witnessed some nail-biting moments including:

  • Border disputes between China and India

  • Heightening tensions between China and Taiwan

  • Russia’s military presence in eastern Ukraine

  • The hacking of SolarWinds, a Texas-based company, by Russia

  • The ongoing Yemen crisis

  • An Israel-Iran feud

  Will 2021 extend the trend of peace, or will rising military spending mean even higher tensions?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 02:45

• 71% Of French Say "We're Full": No More Immigration
  71% Of French Say “We’re Full”: No More Immigration

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  A new poll has found that 71 per cent of French people think the country has had enough immigration and that it can’t take any more.

  

  The 2021 Fraternity Barometer, a joint effort by the polling firm Ifop and le Labo de la Fraternité, found that almost three quarters of respondents desired to see no more immigration, while a clear majority of 64 per cent said France should no longer accept refugees because of the threat of terrorism.

  France has suffered numerous terror attacks carried out by jihadists who were let into the country as “refugees,” including the majority of the Paris massacre terrorists.

  As we previously highlighted, even so-called “moderate” Michel Barnier, who was the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, is calling for a 3-5 year total ban on all immigration into the EU.

  Perhaps reflecting the doublethink that still plagues people’s views on migration, although 74 per cent acknowledged that “diversity” creates problems and conflicts in society, 85 per cent of respondents still said it was a “good thing.”

  However, the poll results will make satisfying reading for populist National Rally candidate Marine Le Pen, who is likely to once again face off against Emmanuel Macron in next year’s presidential election.

  A recent poll found that 60 per cent of military and police officers would vote for Le Pen over Macron in a hypothetical second round run off.

  The survey results arrive amidst a national controversy in France prompted by two letters written by both retired and active duty military servicemembers.

  They warned that the country was headed towards “civil war” unless President Macron dealt with the “disintegration” of France being caused by Islamists and the “anti-racism” movement.

  “If a civil war breaks out, the military will maintain order on its soil because it will be asked to do so,” stated the second letter.

  A third letter written by 93 former police officers also warned that the country is on the brink of widespread social disorder.

  *  *  *

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

  *  *  *

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

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 02:00

• How COVID Put An End To Your Right To Due Process
  How COVID Put An End To Your Right To Due Process

  Authored by Daren Wiseley via The Mises Institute,

  Over a year ago, the covid panic shook the world. We were told it would only be “15 days to flatten the curve” as businesses were locked down, “nonessential” employees were forced out of work (I’ve written about the myth of the nonessential employee here), masks were mandated, and individuals were not allowed to gather in groups or attend religious services.

  

  In typical fashion, a government-mandated “temporary” usurpation of liberty turned into an indefinite infringement, as shown by the fact that we’re still under covid orders four hundred days later. Regardless of the length of time, the question remains that few have asked: What authority does the government have to lock us down and force us out of work?

  This brings us to the issue of due process, which at minimum requires the right to appear in front of a judge and represent oneself to a jury of his peers before being stripped of essential liberty. Did the thousands of businesses closed and millions put out of work get this opportunity? Of course not. They were unilaterally stripped of their ability to put food on the table and pay their bills without any opportunity to object.

  Sick until Proven Healthy

  The concept of “quarantine” has been well established in American jurisprudence for well over one hundred years. When an individual is sick, and at risk of infecting others, the individual could be put in quarantine or isolation by a court until they are no longer infectious. Quarantine still requires basic due process. The individual subject to potential quarantine is still entitled to a court proceeding and evidence must be established of the individual’s risk to public health.

  The past year has placed the entirety of the United States in de facto quarantine under the perceived threat of spreading covid. While quarantine is for the sick, most of those subject to the long list of restrictions have been healthy. Not a single person affected has had the opportunity to get in court and object. These blanket measures have denied every single citizen the constitutional right to due process they supposedly possess. Deemed sick until proven healthy, unfortunately, no one has had the opportunity to even prove their health. Governments have argued that “stay-at-home” orders are not quarantine as a way to end-run the issue. If that is the case, where do they get their authority? Neither the US Constitution nor that of any of the states provides an exception to due process in the case of a pandemic. Many states have relied on ambiguous statutes meant for use in a foreign invasion to justify these actions, but anyone who looks at the scenario objectively can see that there are no “pandemic exceptions” to due process of law. These powers were made up out of thin air, with absolutely no authority to grant itself this power.

  Eviction Moratorium

  If the lockdowns weren’t enough, all but seven states issued moratoriums on evictions or foreclosures, allowing tenants to squat on landlord property rent-free until further notice. It gets worse: landlords are still stuck with fulfilling the basic legal duties of landlord-tenant law, such as the warranty of habitability, even though they are receiving nothing in return. A landlord is not receiving rent for someone staying on his property, and is not allowed to evict a squatter from the land, stuck without the ability to use his property.

  The landlord’s property is essentially taken as a result of his deprivation, clearly a government “taking.”

  In a saner world, this would be regarded as a violation of the property rights ostensibly protected by the Fifth Amendment of the Bill of Rights. The basic idea there is that a property owner must be provided “just compensation” when private property is taken by a government agency. This can be violated in at least two ways. First, the landlord has his property taken and given to someone else without ANY compensation as a result of the moratoriums, flying in the face of the idea of “just compensation.” Second, the landlord is denied the right to a hearing to contest the taking, even though this is typically permitted in an eminent domain case. Certainly, the lack of ability to object to the property taken without a hearing is a violation of due process of law. Where does the authority rest to take property with no compensation and deny a hearing on the matter? As previously stated, there is no “pandemic exception”—another example of government granting itself authority out of thin air.

  Compounding these issues are violations of the right to a speedy trial (as mentioned in the Sixth Amendment of the Bill of Rights.) Courts around the country closed during the covid lockdowns, and since opening up have been left with an incredibly lengthy backlog. Many are still only doing proceedings via video after reopening. Defendants wait months and months in jail, as Ryan McMaken has written about here. The threat to basic due process rights should be obvious. 

  With states starting to end their eviction moratoriums, many landlords are still not receiving rent for those on their property. While they should be allowed to evict a delinquent tenant, the court backlog makes this impractical. With court proceedings delayed months due to the shutdowns, landlords are stuck with their property occupied by squatters indefinitely. The legal system prohibits a landlord from exercising the right of eviction on his own, requiring the landlord to do so via the courts. The delay on the landlord’s ability to use his own property until an indefinite court date, on which the court may still rule against him or grant the tenant a stay for more time, is another way landlords are deprived of due process under the covid orders.

  Conclusion

  The essential liberties Americans are told are protected by the Bill of Rights, such as freedom of assembly and religion, the ability to redress government, the right to a speedy trial, and due process of law, whatever they were prior to, have been routinely ignored in response to covid.

  The past year has made it ever more clear that due process and property rights—no matter how explicitly protected in both the federal and in state constitutions—are mere inconveniences to governments imposing their will on residents within their jurisdictions. These arms of the state will always use lawyers and judges to twist the law to achieve the ends they desire, granting the state whatever power is necessary to accomplish a desired goal. This abomination to natural rights shreds apart the fantasy that Americans live under a “limited government” system. Government power is instead limited only by the ambitions of those that occupy it. I’m sure Lysander Spooner would be saying, “I told you so.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 00:00

• US Army Reveals Range Of New Hypersonic Weapon
  US Army Reveals Range Of New Hypersonic Weapon

  The US Army has revealed the official range of its hypersonic boost-glide missile, otherwise known as the Long Range Hypersonic Weapon, or LRHW. 

  

  “The Long Range Hypersonic Weapon provides a capability at a distance greater than 2,775 km (1,727 miles),” an Army spokesperson said, according to Breaking Defense. This means the hypersonic missile could be stationed in Guam and surgically bombard the Chinese if they invade Taiwan. 

  

  For comparison, the Mid-Range Capability (MRC) missile has a distance of approximately 1,118 miles. The LRHW’S 1,727 miles range gives the Army about 600 miles of additional striking distance. 

  

  The LRHW missile system consists of a rocket booster with a boost-glide warhead on top. The rocket launches the boost-glide vehicle to the desired altitude, and the vehicle then zooms to its target at hypersonic speed (or above Mach 5). 

  

  Hypersonic boost-glide vehicles can outmaneuver some of the world’s most advanced missile defense shields due to their high degree of maneuverability. 

  The Army keeping the weapon’s range under wraps for so long is unsurprising. If the LRHW were deployed in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, or India, it could easily strike targets on Mainland China. 

  Meanwhile, China is building a wall of hypersonic missile launchers across from Taiwan. What this suggests is Beijing is accelerating the timeline for a possible invasion of Taiwan. 

  China and the US, already locked in a great power competition, quickly develop and deploy hypersonic weapons as Thucydides Trap brings these countries closer and closer to conflict. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/19/2021 – 23:40

• Blinken Accuses Russia Of Making "Unlawful" Claims In The Arctic
  Blinken Accuses Russia Of Making “Unlawful” Claims In The Arctic

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia of making “unlawful” claims in the Arctic, a region that the US military is increasingly focused on. Blinken made the comments from Iceland, where he is set to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov later this week for the first high-level in-person meeting between US and Russian officials of the Biden administration.

  “We’ve seen Russia advance unlawful maritime claims, particularly its regulation of foreign vessels transiting the Northern Sea Route, which are inconsistent with international law. And that is something that we have and will respond to,” Blinken said at a joint press conference with Iceland’s foreign minister.

  

  While in Iceland, Blinken will attend meetings of ministers of the Arctic Council, a group of eight Arctic nations, including the US and Russia. While he had harsh words for Moscow, Blinken also recognized the importance of cooperation with Russia in the Arctic and the danger of increased military activity in the region.

  “We have concerns about some of the increased military activities in the Arctic that increases the dangers or prospects of accidents, miscalculations, and undermines the shared goal of a peaceful and sustainable future for the region,” he said.

  Militarizing the Arctic is a key strategy in Washington’s confrontational approach to Moscow. Each branch of the US military has released strategy papers that call for more focus on the Arctic.

  Newspaper @izvestia_ru reported today that Russia is to deploy Su-34 fighter-bombers the in icy Arctic.

  The move comes as the US accuses Moscow of ‘provocations’ in the region and warns they may have ramifications for its national security.https://t.co/GDwBokRJZK

  — Bryan MacDonald (@27khv) May 19, 2021

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

  When the US Navy released its Arctic Strategy in January, then-Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite said the US could counter Russia’s claims by sailing warships through waters near Russia’s coast, similar to how the US challenges Beijing in the South China Sea.

  Braithwaite said at the time that “near-peer competitors” believe certain bodies of water in the Arctic belong to them. “Well, the international community recognizes that those are international waters we’re gonna operate there,” he said. “That’s the more bold posturing that we feel is our right, and our responsibility, frankly, as the predominant naval force in the world.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/19/2021 – 23:20

• New Cases Of H5N8 Bird Flu Confirmed In Tibet
  New Cases Of H5N8 Bird Flu Confirmed In Tibet

  As Beijing and the world keep an eye out for any new emerging diseases out of China, the country’s agriculture ministry on Wednesday said it had confirmed an outbreak of H5N8 avian influenza in a flock of wild birds at a wetlands park in the city of Nagqu in Tibet.

  The highly infectious disease has been detected among wild birds in two areas of Nagqu, including a national wetland park. So far, 268 wild birds have been infected and killed, according to the ministry. Local authorities have activated an emergency response, sterilized the area and disposed of all dead birds safely, in accordance with protocols, per Reuters.

  H5N8 isn’t nearly as harmful to humans as the H1N9, but it is highly lethal to wild birds and poultry posing a serious threat to China’s farmers and meat supplies.

  As we reported earlier this year, Russian authorities reported the first human infections of H5N8 back in February, just in time for President Joe Biden to confront his old nemesis.

  News of the latest bird flu threat is arriving just in time. As an Ebola outbreak in West Africa has finally subsided, financial authorities around the world are looking for their next excuse to unleash another flood of stimulus money.

  

  Michael Snyder at the Economic Collapse blog opined back in March that bird flu could be one of seven emerging “plagues” to afflict humanity (along with earthquakes, droughts, volcanic eruptions and swarms of locusts).

  #6 H5N8 Bird Flu In Russia

  When cases of H5N8 bird flu started to pop up in Russia, many experts started to become extremely concerned that it could start being transmitted from human to human.

  Because if it starts spreading widely among humans, the percentage of victims that will die will be far higher than for COVID.

  Unfortunately, one of the top experts in Russia says that there is “a fairly high degree of probability” that it is now being passed from one person to another…

  A mutating strain of bird flu that has emerged in Russia has “a fairly high degree of probability” of human-to-human transmission, the head of the country’s health watchdog warned in a report.

  Anna Popova, who heads Rospotrebnadzor, made the worrying prediction almost a month after scientists detected the first case of H5N8 transmission to humans at a southern Russia poultry farm, the Moscow Times reported.

  Russian authorities said that the virus spread from poultry to the humans infected, but in China scientists have insisted there’s no evidence of animal-to-human transmission. Sound familiar?

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/19/2021 – 23:00

• Border Officials Seize $685,000 In Counterfeit Currency From China
  Border Officials Seize $685,000 In Counterfeit Currency From China

  Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times,

  Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in Chicago recently stopped several shipments containing counterfeit currencies totaling $685,000 from China, the agency announced on Tuesday.

  

  The shipments arrived at Chicago’s International Mail Facility (IMF) between May 15 and 17, destined for cities in several states including Illinois, Indiana, New York, and Kentucky. The fake currencies came in the form of $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100 bills.

  One shipment was destined for the Bronx, New York containing 976 $100 bills. Another shipment was headed to Louisville, Kentucky containing 101 $20 bills and 103 $50 bills. All of these shipments were manifested as prop money.

  “Our CBP officers are always on the alert watching for any type of prohibited shipments that come through the IMF,” said Shane Campbell, area port director-Chicago, according to a statement.

  He added, “By stopping these shipments we are protecting our financial institutions, businesses, and the public.”

  China remains the top source of fake goods entering the U.S. market. According to statistics from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, CBP made 27,599 seizures in the fiscal year 2019. These goods would have had an estimated retail price of over $1.5 billion if they were genuine.

  Among these seizures in 2019, 13,293, or 48 percent, originated from China, followed by Hong Kong with 9,778 seizures, or 35 percent. The top category of seized products was counterfeit watches and jewelry, at 15 percent, followed by apparel and accessories at 14 percent.

  The fake money seized by CBP officers in Chicago was hardly an isolated incident.

  On April 23, CPB officers in the city announced a recent seizure of 281 shipments containing counterfeit bills and coins at Chicago’s IMF. Ninety-five percent of these shipments originated from China.

  281, that is how many parcels CBP officers in Chicago seized that contained counterfeit currency. Some of the bogus money was $100 bills, but the majority was coin currency with a lot of it heading to various cities across the U.S. https://t.co/0vY5uoee8e pic.twitter.com/cKKe2Uo9ct

  — CBP Chicago (@CBPChicago) April 23, 2021

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

  In total, the 281 shipments consisted of 39 fake 50-cent coins, 6,345 fake $1 coins, 283 fake $2.5 coins, and 1,589 fake $100 bills.

  “Counterfeiting is a lucrative business which is often used to finance illegal activities such as trafficking in human beings, drugs, and even terrorism,” stated Mike Pfeiffer, assistant area port director-Chicago, in a statement following the seizure of the fake bills and coins.

  Just weeks earlier, on April 6, CBP officers in Chicago also announced that they seized more than 100 shipments—nearly all coming from China—containing counterfeit currency totaling more than $1.64 million. The shipments arrived in the United States between Jan. 1 and March 31. The fake currency included U.S. bills, U.S. coins, and euros.

  Counterfeit currency has been plentiful during the past 3 months at the International Mail Facility at O’Hare. CBP officers seized 109 packages containing different denominations of paper currency, collectible coins & foreign currency; $1.64M seized.https://t.co/XLoemCXIzH pic.twitter.com/HcNQ5yweJ6

  — CBP Chicago (@CBPChicago) April 6, 2021

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

  For the fiscal year 2020, which spanned from Oct. 1, 2019 to Sept. 30, 2020, CPB officers in Chicago stated that they seized more than $10.6 million in fake money.

  Chicago was not the only area where counterfeit money was being stopped. In June 2020, CPB officers in Milwaukee stopped a shipment from Shanghai to a residence in Milwaukee. Inside the shipment were 3,515 fake $100 bills.

  In May 2020, CPB officers at an Express Consignment Operations hub in Cincinnati announced the seizure of a shipment containing 2,523 fake $100 bills. The shipment originated from Shenzhen, a city in southern China, and was headed to Guthrie, Oklahoma.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/19/2021 – 22:40

• James Dean's Crashed Porsche 550 Spyder Transaxle Is For Sale 
  James Dean’s Crashed Porsche 550 Spyder Transaxle Is For Sale 

  James Dean’s career as an actor and racer was tragically cut short when his Porsche 550 Spyder collided with another car at an intersection in Cholame, California, in 1955. 

  

  Dean’s car, which he’d nicknamed the “Little Bastard,” was parted out and transplanted into other Porsches. 

  

  Appearing on car auction website “Bring A Trailer,” is probably the “most expensive four-speed transaxle ever sold,” according to car blog Jalopnik. That is because this transaxle belongs to the 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder Dean died in. 

  

  “The transaxle was reportedly stored for several decades prior to acquisition from Massachusetts by its current owner in 2020. It is now fitted to a steel display stand with axles, axle tubes, drum brake assemblies, and a starter. This 550 Spyder transaxle is offered by the seller on behalf of its current owner in New York with a copy of a letter from Porsche verifying its origin and a documentation file,” the auction website said. 

  

  During the summer of 1955, Warner Brothers banned Dean from motorsport activities while filming the epic Western drama film “Giant,” which debuted in 1956. At the end of filming, Dean bought a new 550 Spyder to further his passion for Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) racing. 

  “The wrecked car was reportedly sold by Dean’s insurance company to another Southern California racer, and the transaxle was later separated from the vehicle before being placed in storage for several decades. The piece was acquired by its current owner in March 2020, and is now installed on a steel display stand that rolls on casters,” the auction listing said. 

  

  The seller provides official documentation from the California DMV, Porsche, and public records to authenticate the transaxle.

  Paperwork From Porsche 

  

  California DMV Documentation 

  

  The current bid is $100,000 with eleven days left on the auction. Still, most of the car, including the body, remains missing. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/19/2021 – 22:20

• "Governing As Looting" In Washington & Beyond
  “Governing As Looting” In Washington & Beyond

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

  At what point does a democracy become a kleptocracy? That type of degeneration routinely happens in Third World regimes but the same blight can occur in the United States. Few things epitomize “governing as looting” like the automated traffic ticket cameras that hundreds of local governments have inflicted on drivers across the nation.

  

  In 2015, the Missouri Supreme Court struck down St. Louis’s red light camera ticket regime for violating the U.S. Constitution because drivers were forced to prove they were innocent. But elsewhere, mayors and bureaucrats have not permitted constitutional rights to impede their fervent pursuit of revenue. 

  Some of the most brazen abuses occur in the District of Columbia, which issues almost a million speed camera tickets each year. The American Automobile Association (AAA) denounced one D.C. speed camera near the Maryland border as “an old-fashioned, money-making, motorist rip-off speed trap right out of the ‘Dukes of Hazzard.” A single camera in D.C. generated more than a hundred thousand tickets and $11 million in fines.

  The combinations of speed cameras and shameless bureaucrats can cast citizens into a Kafkaesque hell. Last November 2, Doug Nelson, a 73-year-old Postal Service employee and Vietnam veteran, was carjacked as he returned home from a late shift. Nelson quickly surrendered his vehicle to the pistol-wielding assailants. He filed a police report and his car was eventually recovered but the license plates were stolen by the thieves. 

  In the following weeks, Nelson was stunned to receive thousands of dollars in tickets for speed camera violations spurred by the thieves who stole his car. Nelson and his wife repeatedly notified the D.C. government of the unjust fines but their complaints were ignored. Because of the fines, they were prohibited from getting a new license plate and thus banned from driving their only vehicle. They were told they would have to pay the entire fine – which quickly rose to $5,000 – before they were permitted to formally challenge the penalties.

  Nelson’s experience exemplifies how “due process” nowadays means any damn process government does. The District has a Ticket Adjudication Ombudsman to deal with cases of gross injustice. But because Nelson failed to speedily file a “Reconsideration or a Motion to Vacate,” he was prohibited from any relief. A local television station put its “I-Team” on the case but D.C. government officials refused to sit down for a televised interview. But the embarrassing publicity finally spurred the city to finally cancel the fines. As Hannah Cox of the Foundation for Economic Education observed, “The District of Columbia unjustly deprived the Nelsons of the use of their car for far longer than the carjackers did.”

  The District is one of the more than 400 municipalities, including most of the nation’s largest cities, that have imposed red light cameras on their streets in recent decades. Red light cameras are notorious for increasing traffic collisions because they spur drivers to seek to stop suddenly to avoid being fined. In 2005, six years after the District of Columbia set up a red light regime that generated more than 500,000 tickets, a Washington Post analysis revealed that “the number of crashes at locations with cameras more than doubled.” The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles analyzed traffic crash data and reported in 2016 that “fatalities from accidents doubled” at intersections with red-light cameras. A Virginia Department of Transportation study concluded that cameras were associated with a 29% “increase in total crashes.” But policies that needlessly kill some citizens are worthwhile if they boost government revenue, at least according to the political morality prevailing in many cities. 

  Numerous federal studies have shown that the most effective step to reduce collisions at traffic lights is to lengthen the time of the yellow light to allow drivers more time to stop. A Federal Highway Administration report concluded that “a one second increase in yellow time results in 40 percent decrease in severe red light related crashes.” But in 2015, the District shortened the yellow lights at many intersections and the number of red light tickets skyrocketed. Some of the private companies that install and maintain red light cameras have contract provisions prohibiting cities from extending yellow lights because it would hurt their profits. 

  The vast majority of red light tickets are slapped on drivers who make right turns on red without coming to a dead stop. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration concluded that zero fatalities occurred nationwide in 1998 “from an accident resulting from a right hand turn on red when the driver yielded to oncoming traffic.” AAA spokesman John Townsend labeled right-turn-on-red cameras as “the biggest scandal in automated traffic enforcement.” 

  Despite a blizzard of automated penalties, traffic fatalities sharply increased in D.C. in recent years. So the mayor and City Council last year voted to triple the number of red light cameras and slashed the speed limit on most city streets to 20 miles per hour, creating new Yukon Territories for speed cameras. Mayor Muriel Bowser is a zealous champion of “Vision Zero” policies and she proclaimed a goal of zero traffic fatalities by 2024. That will never happen but her bogus idealism sanctifies tyrannizing drivers regardless. 

  Foul play is fair play as long as government profits. In 2018, the City Council enacted the Clean Hands Law, which prohibited driver license renewals for anyone with more than $100 in debt to the D.C. government. But local officials are not required to have “Clean Hands.” The D.C. Inspector General found that the automated ticketing system was so out of control that “drivers get speeding tickets for violations they don’t commit and for vehicles they’ve never owned.” The IG slammed the government for issuing tickets “without conclusive identification of the violating vehicle.” City bureaucrats were proud of how the ticketing system was rigged. A senior D.C. government official declared, “You are guilty until you have proven yourself innocent… That has worked well for us.” D.C. police and transportation officials responded with a statement scoffing that complaints “generally come from those relatively few people who feel entitled to speed on District streets or run red lights.” But hundreds of thousands of drivers have been nailed by a regime that is intentionally reckless and unjust.

  Mayor Bowser is a proud champion of social justice and last year renamed a street in front of the White House as “Black Lives Matter Plaza” and painted that slogan on the asphalt in giant yellow letters. But Bowser, like other D.C. politicians, ignores how their ticketing racketeering punishes the city’s neediest residents. According to a 2018 report by D.C. Policy Center, a think tank, “Neighborhoods where 80 percent or more of residents are black on average paid $322 per capita in automated traffic tickets compared to just $20 per capita in 80 percent white neighborhoods. Residents in black neighborhoods were 17 times more likely to receive a photo ticket.” But black neighborhoods did not have a higher rate of auto crashes than other neighborhoods. 

  Unnecessary and unjust tickets disrupt lives and destroy people’s ability to feed their families. A 2019 study by the Federal Reserve concluded that almost half of Americans “could not afford an unexpected expense of $400 or more.” The National Motorist Association warned, “The practical results for many poor people may be a lot like putting them in debtor prisons, unable to legally drive to work.” In 2018, the D.C. government created a “community service option” where low-income traffic violators could pay off tickets by working unpaid for the city at the minimum wage rate. At least the city has not yet created chain gangs sweating to pay their speed cameras debts. 

  The depredations of automatic ticket enforcement presume that government revenue is a magic wand that solves all problems. But surging revenue has done nothing to prevent the D.C. government from dismally failing its residents. The murder rate is soaring and the schools were dismally failing to educate low-income students even before the pandemic. The city would have collapsed to Baltimorean-levels of debility if not for the endless revenue streams from the federal government and its accompanying graft.

  Ticket cameras epitomize how democracy provides no protection against politicians willing to force citizens to pay any price to boost government revenue. The Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law noted last month, “Automated enforcement has also failed at the ballot box; red light and/or speed cameras were voted down in 39 of 43 local elections where the initiative appeared as a referendum.” But local politicians insulate themselves, buying support from other groups and blocking citizens from having a chance to pass judgment on at the polling booths. 

  Automatic ticket regimes have turbocharged many politicians’ lifestyles. Bribery scandals have enveloped automated ticketing regimes in Texas, Arizona, Ohio, Illinois, and elsewhere. The former top salesman for Redflex, one of the largest providers of red light cameras, testified that his company had “sent gifts and bribes to officials in at least 14 states.” (Redflex denied the allegation.) Last year, Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza condemned red light ticket regimes as “a program that’s broken and morally corrupt” and recommended ending them across the state.

  Automatic ticketing regimes provide a stark refutation to the illusion that governments automatically serve the people. Especially for policies shrouded in sanctimony, government agencies are almost always more wasteful or oppressive than the media portrays. How much longer will local politicians be permitted to plunder drivers and subvert safety with impunity?

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/19/2021 – 22:00

• Third Largest US Chicken Producer Runs Out Of Chicken Wings
  Third Largest US Chicken Producer Runs Out Of Chicken Wings

  At this point, shortages of everything from microchips to potato chips are forcing American businesses to adjust to higher prices and supply shocks, while consumers are forced to pay higher prices at the store. And while high commodity prices (which have come off their highs in recent days as lumber, oil and iron prices declined) have retreated in recent days, we noted that these shortages are expected to last a long time.

  One reason is that high prices are good for producers, and it’s too expensive for many companies to build out new production capacity right now. This dynamic is contributing to a looming chicken wing shortage in the US, which might remind some of the bacon-shortage hysteria that has occasionally gripped the US in the past.

  Case in point: Sanderson Farms, the third-largest poultry producer in the US (whose engineering firm likely recommended them to suspend plans for plant expansion because prices on everything from lumber to steel to concrete to plastic to copper to machinery to labor skyrocketed, making building unaffordable) has decided that it will pass on expanding its operation despite surging demand for its product that has put it on the cusp of running out of chicken wings.

  “I need a plant to open up next week, but it is not a good time to be building,” said Chief Executive Joe Sanderson, who Bloomberg quoted. 

  As we have reported, demand for chicken in the US is through the roof. Without expansion, the nation’s third largest poultry plant can’t take any new orders: 

  “We’re totally sold out and we’ve had people call us to service them and we cannot take on anymore business, and that’s not a good place,” Sanderson said.

  Sanderson said construction of the new chicken plant was expected to begin in the first half of the year. He said we’ve been “look very hard” at surging building costs and is mulling over plans to shelve the expansion until raw material costs come down. 

  

  Meanwhile, everyone from the White House to the Fed has downplayed blistering inflation in commodities as ‘transitory.’ However, it’s only now where hyperinflating prices are beginning to affect the recovery by pausing commercial construction builds.

  We urge readers to read the transcript from Warren Buffet’s address to shareholders earlier this month who warned: “We see very substantial inflation.” 

  Clearly, the world Buffett lives in is much different than the clueless career economists of the Fed Reserve and White House propagandists who act as everything is just fine. 

  “The costs are just up, up, up. Steel costs, you know, just every day, they’re going up,” Buffet told shareholders earlier this month. 

  Of course, producers’ reluctance to expand is a product of the same topsy-turvey markets inspired by the alliance between the Fed and the Treasury, that has stuffed the economy full of cheap money, making it more profitable for workers to stay at home, and more advantageous for producers to simply accept higher prices for their products – until the next plague shuts down the economy again, forcing another round of stimulus.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/19/2021 – 21:40

• US Stimulus Has Created A Boom… In China
  US Stimulus Has Created A Boom… In China

  Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

  Maybe maximizing corporate profits isn’t all that matters. Maybe national security and resilience matter, too, and if they do, then reshoring critical supply chains should be a higher priority than Corporate America’s (mostly tax-free) profits.

  As America’s trade deficit explodes higher and the costs of offshoring supply chains mount, the apologists for globalization are out in full force, attempting to shout down reality with their usual specious claims about how amazingly wunnerful globalization has been for America.

  Allow me to tote up the real-world cost savings:

  • Cost of cheap ill-fitting jeans dropped $10.

  • Cost of low-quality TV that will only last a few years dropped $50.

  • Cost of healthcare, annual increase: $3,000 per household

  • Cost of rent, annual increase: $1,200 per household

  • Cost of child care, annual increase: $1,300 per household

  • Cost of college tuition and room and board, annual increase: $1,500 per household

  So while domestic costs rose $6,000 annually due to predatory cartels, over-regulation, taxes, etc., we saved $60 by offshoring supply chains. Excuse me for being underwhelmed by the wunnerfulness of offshoring jobs and supply chains.

  Yes, the benefits of free trade, blah-blah-blah, I get it; but there is no such thing as free trade, there are only versions of managed trade, the vast majority of which are beneficial to corporations and elites on both sides of the trade.

  Trade is always about maximizing profits. That’s the only reason to bother with trade, though there are geopolitical considerations as well. The U.S. opened its vast markets to Western Europe and Japan and the Asian Tigers in the Cold War to strengthen their economies, as a means of suppressing the appeal of Communism in their domestic politics.

  This mercantilist strategy worked well, ushering in rapid growth in West Germany, Japan and other allied nations, but the problem is those economies never transitioned out of being mercantilist, export-dependent economies. The U.S. has remained the dumping ground for the world’s surplus production since the early 1950s.

  While it’s all too easy to blame China for soaring trade deficits, nobody forced Corporate America to transfer supply chains to China; it was all done to maximize profits, because that’s all that matters, right?

  If we examine the chart of U.S. corporate profits, we notice they were around $700 billion annually in the high-growth 1990s when America’s trade deficit in goods and services fluctuated between $100 billion and $175 billion annually. Once China entered the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, corporate profits — and trade deficits — skyrocketed.

  This is not coincidence. Corporate America reaped trillions in profits by offshoring production and supply chains. Three points need to made here: one is that trade in goods is grossly distorted by outdated rules for calculating imports and exports. Analysts estimate that as little as $10 of the value of every iPhone or iPad actually ends up in the Chinese economy, in the form of income paid directly to Foxconn or other contractors. But the iPhone–assembled in China with parts sourced globally–is counted as a $250 import from China when it arrives at the port of Long Beach, California.

  The other is that China paid a steep price for its rapid economic growth as the sweatshop for global corporations. The environmental damage of rapid industrialization has been immense, many workers were cheated by contractors who promised impossibly low prices to Western corporate buyers, and profit margins were razor thin for many suppliers.

  The American workforce paid a steep price, as did U.S. national security, as valuable intellectual property was lavished on China in exchange for those all-important quarterly increases in corporate profits.

  Corporate America made out like bandits. Everyone else–not so much. Thanks to fancy legalized looting footwork, most American corporation reaping staggering profits from overseas production pay little or no taxes that benefit the American citizenry.

  

  Let’s look at the charts of U.S. imports and exports. If trade deficits had risen along with U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in the 24 years since 1997, it would have risen 2.5-fold, to an annual rate of about $240 billion.

  The actual trade deficit is $600 billion higher: $850 billion annually. $600 billion here, $600 billion there, pretty soon you’re talking real money.

  

  Notice that thanks to trillions in stimulus, imports have soared back up while exports have lagged. That’s what happens when you offshore your critical supply chains.

  

  My insightful blogger colleague Wolf Richter recently posted an illuminating chart of service surpluses and goods deficits: it’s obvious that much of the stimmy spent at WalMart bought stuff from China.

  

  He added these thought-provoking comments in his post Just Keeps Getting Worse: Services Trade Surplus, the American Dream Not-Come-True, Falls to 9-Year Low, Total Trade Deficit Explodes to Worst Ever:

  “Note that during the Financial Crisis, the overall trade deficit improved substantially. Consumers cut back buying imported durable goods, while the trade surplus of services declined only briefly.

  The opposite happened during the Pandemic where stimulus fired up US consumer demand, boosted foreign manufacturing, but did nothing for US exports.

  Every crisis in the US over the past two decades has caused Corporate America to cut costs further by pushing offshoring to the next level. And after each crisis subsides, the trade deficits and US dependence on foreign manufacturing plants (no matter who owns them) are worse than before.

  This dependence has become painfully obvious in some of the shortages, including the semiconductor shortage now rippling through the US economy. The US, which for decades had led the world in semiconductor design and manufacturing, now makes only 12% of global semiconductors.”

  Maybe maximizing corporate profits isn’t all that matters. Maybe national security and resilience matter, too, and if they do, then reshoring critical supply chains should be a higher priority than Corporate America’s (mostly tax-free) profits.

  *  *  *

  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).

  Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World (Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

  Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($5 (Kindle), $10 (print), ( audiobook): Read the first section for free (PDF).

  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
  Wed, 05/19/2021 – 21:20

• Walgreens Closes 17 San Francisco Stores Due To "Out Of Control" Shoplifting
  Walgreens Closes 17 San Francisco Stores Due To “Out Of Control” Shoplifting

  The effects of allowing chaos to prevail in Democrat-controlled cities across America might not be evident to liberals and social justice warriors now, but when businesses close up, it’s going to be very transparent then. 

  According to the San Francisco Chronicle, 17 Walgreens Pharmacy locations have shuttered their doors in San Francisco during the past five years. At least ten of the stores in the city have closed since 2019. 

  

  Like many other retailers, Walgreens is blaming Proposition 47, which lowered penalties for thefts under $950 and sparked dramatic increases in shoplifting across the metro area over the last several years. Prop. 47 is supported by criminal justice reformers and the liberal establishment, who have also managed to defund the local police. 

  Combining the two has allowed professional shoplifters, homeless, and drug addicts to easily work the system and steal items under the monetary threshold from store to store with limited penalties. 

  Walgreens San Francisco Supervisor Ahsha Safaí told the Chronicle that the situation is “out of control,” adding:

  “People are scared to go into these stores — seniors, people with disabilities, children. It’s just happening brazenly.”

  The cost of business and shoplifting is staggering for Walgreens. Despite closing 17 stores, the company still has 53 open in the metro area but could close more by the end of the year. 

  Thefts at Walgreens’ in the city are four times the average for other stores across the country. The pharmacy chain spends 35 times more on security guards in the city than elsewhere, said Jason Cunningham, regional vice president for pharmacy and retail operations in California and Hawaii. 

  

  To address the widespread shoplifting problem, Safaí held a hearing Thursday, May 13, with other retailers, local police, District Attorney Chesa Boudin, and probation departments. The Chronicle said retailers at the hearing blamed “professional thieves instead of opportunistic shoplifters who may be driven by poverty.”

  The penalty for shoplifting is a “nonviolent misdemeanor” that carries a maximum sentence of 6 months. But in most cases, for simple shoplifting, the criminal is released with conditions. Stay under the $950 threshold, and repeat offenders can continue running amuck in shopping districts. 

  Other retailers are likely to follow Walgreens’ lead and exit the city as it descends into a socio-economic hellhole. San Francisco has likely peaked. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/19/2021 – 21:00

• US Blocks Shipment Of Japanese Shirts On Suspicion They Were Made In Xinjiang
  US Blocks Shipment Of Japanese Shirts On Suspicion They Were Made In Xinjiang

  In the first confirmed case of US retaliation against allegations of Chinese quasi slavery, a shipment of shirts for Japan’s Uniqlo chain was blocked from entering the U.S in January on suspicion they were made with forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. Uniqlo parent Fast Retailing protested the block, claiming that all the cotton involved was grown outside of China, but the US denied the protest because there was not sufficient evidence to disprove the claim.

  A Customs and Border Protection document dated May 10 shows that the agency confiscated the shirts at the Port of Los Angeles, suspecting they were made by Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, and follows a US ban in December of all cotton product shipments made by XPCC due to suspicions of forced labor in the region.

  In response, Fast Retailing – Japan’s sixth most valuable listed company – on Wednesday called the U.S. customs decision “very regrettable.”  In its customs document, Uniqlo said the raw cotton used in the shirts was produced in Australia, the U.S. and Brazil, with no connections to Uyghur labor.

  In response, the U.S. agency ignored the protest, and said Uniqlo failed to provide enough evidence that its products were free from forced labor, citing a lack of information on the production process and insufficient production records.

  CEO Tadashi Yanai declined to comment on questions regarding cotton in the Xinjiang region during a news conference in April, but the company addressed the matter in an August 2020 statement.

  “No Uniqlo product is manufactured in the Xinjiang region,” Fast Retailing said in the statement. “In addition, no Uniqlo production partners subcontract to fabric mills or spinning mills in the region.”

  While North American sales make up only small percentage of Fast Retailing’s total, and the blocked shipment is expected to have a minimal impact on the company’s earnings, the Nikkei notes that , “the seizure highlights how allegations of Chinese human rights abuses against the Uyghur ethnic minority in Xinjiang have become a risk for Japanese companies.”

  And in the context of already snarled supply chains which have sent the prices of countless products soaring, Rabobank’s Michael Every cautions, “think how tricky this will make exporting textiles ahead” if all it takes for a block at the US border is the mere suspicion that it originates in the contentious Chinese region.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/19/2021 – 20:39

• Biden Condemns Erdogan's Gaza Tirade As "Anti-Semitic" & "Reprehensible"
  Biden Condemns Erdogan’s Gaza Tirade As “Anti-Semitic” & “Reprehensible”

  On Monday Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave a fiery speech to supporters which blasted Biden’s “inaction” over the Gaza crisis, addressing Joe Biden to specifically say the US president has “blood on his hands”. He was further reacting to the recent reports that Biden approved a $735 million dollar weapons sale from the United States to Israel, essentially accusing the US of supporting genocide against the Palestinians. Erdogan had also lashed out at Europe, accusing Austria in particular trying to make Muslims “pay the price of their own genocide against the Jews” – after an Israeli flag was seen flying over a federal building. 

  In response the State Department has come out swinging, condemning “Erdogan’s recent anti-Semitic comments regarding the Jewish people” which the US finds “reprehensible,” according to State Department spokesman Ned Price on Tuesday.

  Some of Erdogan’s rhetoric had included the following: “They are murderers, to the point that they kill children who are five or six years old. They only are satisfied by sucking their blood,” the Turkish president had stated earlier, AFP reported.

  

  Price had further characterized Erdogan’s statements as follows: “Anti-Semitic language has no place anywhere,” the US spokesman continued. “The United States is deeply committed to combatting anti-Semitism in all of its forms. We take seriously the violence that often accompanies anti-Semitism and the dangerous lies that undergird it. We must always counter lies with facts and answer crimes of hate with justice.”

  To recap, Erdogan had focused much of the rebuke on the US president personally, saying:

  “Now, unfortunately, you (Biden) are writing history with your bloody hands with this event (in which) Gaza is being attacked with seriously disproportionate force causing the martyrdom of thousands of people. You have forced us to say this.”

  And specifically on the issue of Biden-approved weapons sales to the Jewish state, Erdogan scolded further:

  “Today we saw Biden’s signature on weapons sales to Israel,” Erdogan said in reference to US media reports of a new arms shipment approved by the Biden administration.

  “Palestinian territories are awash with persecution, suffering and blood, like many other territories that lost the peace with the end of the Ottomans. And you are supporting that,” Erdogan said.

  No doubt much of the outrage of Erdogan and his Islamist Justice and Development Party party also stems from the recent formal Biden administration recognition of the Armenian Genocide of last month.

  Previously on the campaign trail and since taking office, Biden has further vowed to get tough on Erdogan, while also generally condemning what was widely perceived as Trump and Erdogan’s close relationship, which critics say allowed Turkey to escape well-deserved sanctions and other punitive measures. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/19/2021 – 20:20

• State Department Issues Warning After Chinese Skycraper Wobbles Violently In Mysterious Incident
  State Department Issues Warning After Chinese Skycraper Wobbles Violently In Mysterious Incident

  The US Consulate in Guangzhou has issued a security alert to all US citizens to avoid the SEG tower in Shenzhen after footage of the tower shaking. The tower is located in the Huaqiangbei area  of Shenzhen, the fast-growing Chinese tech hub just across the border from Hong Kong.

  

  At 984 feet, the SEG Plaza is one of the tallest skyscrapers in Shenzhen. The tower houses a large electronics market, as well as numerous offices. Several video clips posted to social media showed the building swaying back and forth. One clip purportedly filmed inside the building showed the interior shaking in a dramatic way. The building was evacuated shortly after the shaking started.

  SEG Building in Huaqiang Bei #Shenzhen has been evacuated after the building started to shake today. Currently the reason is being investigated after it was confirmed that no #earthquake occured. pic.twitter.com/KwNZ1Ip12d

  — Shenzhen Pages (@ShenzhenPages) May 18, 2021

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  pic.twitter.com/tR8JdbkqiM

  — Shenzhen Pages (@ShenzhenPages) May 18, 2021

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

  At one point, the skyscraper’s wobbling caused a near-stampede as people fled the area. Shouts and honking horns could be heard as residents, some periodically turning around to look at the skyscraper, fled. After everyone was evacuated, the building was sealed shut.

  pic.twitter.com/kumTi27mVX

  — Shenzhen Pages (@ShenzhenPages) May 18, 2021

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

  pic.twitter.com/DhavRgVavw

  — Shenzhen Pages (@ShenzhenPages) May 18, 2021

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

  According to Bloomberg, tower owner Shenzhen Electronics Group said that tenants felt the building shake at 1231 local time Tuesday and building management immediately organized an evacuation. No signs of cracking on the ground or damaged curtain walls were detected, it said in a statement on its website.

  Emergency management officials said in a statement that no earthquake was registered in the city today, and that relevant government agencies were looking into what caused the skyscraper to wobble. Shenzen has seen a boom in skyscraper construction over the last two decades as the number of buildings more than 150 meters tall has exploded to nearly 300. Given the haste to build new office space and housing, the notion that some short-cuts may have been taken seems possible.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/19/2021 – 20:09

• Chip Shortage Enters "Danger Zone" As Lead Times Reach New Record
  Chip Shortage Enters “Danger Zone” As Lead Times Reach New Record

  Semiconductor lead times, the time it takes for a company to order a chip and taking delivery, increased to 17 weeks in April, indicating shortages of these critical components are intensifying, according to Bloomberg. 

  Companies that use semiconductors in their end products use lead times to gauge the balance between supply and demand. Rising levels suggest customers are racing to secure chips. If leads exponentially jump, as what has been happening since December, some customers will purposely order more chips to avoid future supply shortfalls. Inventory accumulation can also exacerbate chip shortages. 

  Susquehanna Financial Group reports chip lead times increased to 17 weeks in April, a level that surpasses the all-time high in 2018 and is described as a “danger zone.” The firm began tracking lead times in 2017. 

  

  Susquehanna analyst Chris Rolland told clients in a Tuesday note that “all major product categories up considerably,” citing power management and analog chip lead times were up the most. “These were some of the largest increases since we started tracking the data,” he added. 

  Chip shortages could result in global automakers losing upwards of $110 billion in sales this year. Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co., and other vehicle makers are idling plants as critical tiny chips cause supply chain bottlenecks. 

  We obtained satellite imagery showing Ford has parked thousands of trucks with missing chips at a Kentucky Speedway. There’s no timeline when the trucks will return to the Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville to have chip components installed. 

  

  Besides autos, the chip shortage also affects the farming industry, where farmers cannot source new tractors and machinery. Besides vehicles and equipment, anything from game consoles to refrigerators has also been affected. 

  “Elevated lead times often compel ‘bad behavior’ at customers, including inventory accumulation, safety stock building and double ordering,” Rolland wrote. “These trends may have spurred a semiconductor industry in the early stages of over-shipment above true customer demand.”

  Industry insiders are warning the shortage may last for years. 

  Intel’s CEO Pat Gelsinger has been the latest in a chorus of voices to warn about the ongoing semiconductor shortage that will last for a “couple of years.”

  Gelsinger said U.S. dominance in the chip industry had dropped so much that only 12% of the world’s semiconductor manufacturing is made in the U.S., down from 37% about 25 years ago.

  “And anybody who looks at supply chain says, ‘That’s a problem.’ This is a big, critical industry and we want more of it on American soil: the jobs that we want in America, the control of our long-term technology future,” he said.

  Chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is also warning that the shortage will continue throughout this year and maybe extended into 2022. 

  Whenever there’s a problem in the economy, the Federal Reserve and big Wall Street banks, and especially the corrupt politicians on Capitol Hill, love the quick-fix solutions of bailouts and helicopter money. This time, however, that solution will not work to solve the shortage. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/19/2021 – 19:00

• The Dystopian Future In Which Almost No One Owns A Car
  The Dystopian Future In Which Almost No One Owns A Car

  Authored by Zachary Yost via The Mises Institute,

  By this point readers are more than familiar with the previously unthinkable infringements on our traditional rights and liberties due to “health and safety” lockdowns that the state has inflicted upon us over the last year. While thankfully more and more restrictions are being lifted, it is important not to forget the period of veritable universal house arrest that was enacted in many states, in which even the freedom to go for a drive was denied to us. It unfortunately seems inevitable that we will face such scenarios again when a convenient excuse comes along, though I fear that the next time will be even worse thanks to the advent of self-driving cars.

  Self-driving cars seem like a truly amazing advancement in human technology. As someone who is not particularly fond of driving, I once followed their development with great interest and hopeful anticipation. However, the advent of lockdowns as an acceptable government policy has shown just a taste of the kind of dangers that would come with their widespread adoption. While they would liberate us from many of the dangers of the road and free up time in which to work or enjoy ourselves on a ride, the price of this liberation is actually an unprecedented level of government control.

  Some advocates of self-driving cars argue that their adoption would mean that very few people would actually own a vehicle anymore, and that instead everyone would basically Uber everywhere. Oftentimes such predictions are espoused by people who lament how evil American prosperity is and cringe at the thought of our car culture’s carbon footprint.

  It is not difficult to see how this could go very wrong. Can you imagine how much worse government lockdowns would have been at their height last year if the state merely needed to apply pressure to Uber-like ride services to cease general operation to stop people from moving? Ride services would almost certainly be forced to require government-issued documents in order to book a ride in such a scenario, leaving the vast majority of the population completely stranded and unable to go anywhere.

  Fortunately, there are many reasons to believe that without massive government intervention America is not likely to willingly let go of its deeply ingrained car culture in favor of ubiquitous Ubering.

  

  However, even if people do own their self-driving cars, the danger remains.

  Tesla is a case in point. Unlike a “traditional” car that drives off the lot and disappears into the traffic, Tesla cars are perpetually connected to the internet and Tesla itself. As the pioneer in self-driving cars, it seems likely that other manufacturers will also build around Tesla’s concept, which is itself similar to numerous other “smart appliance” trends in everything from house lighting to fridges, ovens, and washing machines. While this connectivity has great uses, such as allowing repairs to be completed remotely, the danger is obvious.

  Customers have complained about having features of their Tesla being removed without their notice or authorization, prompting one reporter to remark that “if someone buys a used car with cruise control, there isn’t an expectation that the manufacturer will then arrive and ask to remove it,” yet something similar has already happened. Similarly, Tesla collects vast amounts of data from its cars, which is no doubt useful and needed for continuing to improve the system and work out kinks, but it is dangerously naïve to believe that such data would remain outside the reach of the government if it wanted it.

  Finally, the same danger with universal Ubering still remains. Tesla or any self-driving car that would naturally require some level of internet connection can be remotely shut down. As cool as Tesla may seem, the odds are very slim that it would defy a state order to render its fleet inoperable in the name of “public safety” or any other excuse the government may come up with.

  Think back to the hysteria of last spring. You are kidding yourself if you believe that people like Governor Whitmer of Michigan wouldn’t have ordered all cars rendered inoperable until “essential workers” were granted permission to drive if such a thing had been within her power.

  The picture becomes even more bleak if one thinks of the nefarious uses such control could be used for beyond “public health” lockdowns. What if our current cancel culture craziness were to continue into a death spiral that resulted in something akin to the Chinese social credit system? Such a thing seems unthinkable—“this is America,” after all. But if in 2019 we had been visited by a time traveler who told us that in a year Americans would be forbidden from leaving their homes or going to church and that businesses would be forced to close en masse, we likely would have thought such a person was crazy. Yet here we are.

  It is easy to see all the benefits that would come with self-driving cars, but at the end of the day the potential for dramatically increased government control and abuse is horrifying to contemplate.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/19/2021 – 18:40

• Nearly 20% Of Seattle Cops Quit Amid National Protests, Budget Cuts
  Nearly 20% Of Seattle Cops Quit Amid National Protests, Budget Cuts

  Just under 20% of Seattle police have quit the force over the past year and a half, according to CBS News, citing the city’s interim Chief of Police.

  

  The revelation comes after more than a year of violent clashes with anti-police protesters from BLM and Antifa, and a city council which has neutered the Seattle PD’s ability to use crowd control devices that social justice activists say didn’t go far enough.

  To review the last 18 months of policing in Seattle:

  • Seattle city council member suggests firing white officers in massive reduction

  • Left-Wing CHOP Zone Responsible For 525% Spike In Seattle Crime

  • Seattle Police Chief Resigns After City Approves Plan To Defund Department, Axe 100 Cops

  • Seattle Officials Back Defunding Police By 50%

  • Seattle Moves To Replace ‘Racist’ Police With ‘Trauma-Informed, Gender-Affirming, Anti-Racist’ Organizations

  •  ‘I Refuse To Work For This Socialist City Council’: Seattle Cops Go Scorched Earth In Exit Interviews

  In short, the situation is abysmal, leading to roughly 260 officers packing it up for good.

  “The support that we had in my generation of policing is no longer there,” said Seattle officer Clayton Powell, who is retiring three years before his 30th year on the force. “When you see businesses get destroyed and families lose their livelihood because of that destruction and we can’t do anything about it. We’re not allowed to intercede.”

  Last summer’s protests over the killing of George Floyd led to violent clashes with Seattle police. Powell said the stress on officers was compounded by city leaders’ decisions to abandon a police precinct and letting demonstrators, some armed, occupy an entire neighborhood for a whole month. As a result, Powell said he and other officers had rocks, bottles, and in some cases, cinder blocks thrown at them, and they had to “stand there and take it.”

  City leaders allowed the police-free zone after protesters were repeatedly hit by tear gas but closed it down after weeks of violence. City Councilwoman Tammy Morales voted for a 13% cut in the police budget in November — and $5 million of funding cuts are still on the table for the police department.

  Meanwhile, the money cut from the police budget has yet to be re-allocated. In other words, it was done out of spite to appease the public.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/19/2021 – 18:20

• Johns Hopkins Doctor: Closed-Schools Are An "American Disgrace"
  Johns Hopkins Doctor: Closed-Schools Are An “American Disgrace”

  Authored by Ben Zeisloft via Campus Reform,

  A Johns Hopkins University medical professor said that closed schools are an “American disgrace.”

  

  Dr. Marty Makary — a professor at Johns Hopkins University’s prestigious School of Medicine and a Fox News contributor — said during an interview with “Coffee With Closers” ripped public health officials’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

  During the interview, Makary explained his thinking on herd immunity and his correct prediction that the United States would see a slowing of COVID-19 infections by April of 2021.

  “What we’re seeing is a divergence in the data right now. You’re going to see two pandemics — one among at-risk people and the other is among young people who are healthy,” he said.

  Makary also challenged Dr. Fauci’s representation of herd immunity.

  “When people say we need to vaccinate 70-85% of the population in order to reach herd immunity — which is a quote you’ll hear again and again, especially coming from Dr. Fauci — that’s not true,” he remarked.

  “Because half the country has natural immunity from prior infection. And some doctors — especially the old school doctors — have dismissed that.”

  Makary was particularly critical of medical officials’ decisions to close schools and slammed groupthink in the medical community.

  “Why do adults get their bowling alleys and restaurants, but kids are shut out of their livelihoods?” he said.

  “It’s an American disgrace. And I think what we’ve lost a little bit in the medical profession is to speak your mind. Too many people are worried about what folks are gonna think of you.”

  Noting that self-harm claims among children have risen several hundred percent since the beginning of the pandemic, Makary said that “from a medical standpoint, from a public health standpoint, kids need to be in school.”

  Campus Reform recently reported that the editorial team of a student newspaper at Johns Hopkins retracted an article featuring a university study claiming that COVID-19 did not significantly increase the death rate in 2020.

  One editor said that the article was being used to spread “dangerous inaccuracies” online.

  Campus Reform reached out to Makary for comment; this article will be updated accordingly

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/19/2021 – 18:00

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• "Tough On Russia" Biden Blinks – Waives Sanctions On Company Overseeing Nord Stream 2 Pipeline
  “Tough On Russia” Biden Blinks – Waives Sanctions On Company Overseeing Nord Stream 2 Pipeline

  In his continuing drive to show that he’s getting “tough” on Russia, Biden has blinked. Axios’ Jonathan Swan reports a major development Tuesday related to Washington’s push to prevent the Russia-Germany natural gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 from being completed: the US administration has moved to waive previously imposed sanctions on the company overseeing construction of the NS2, as well as its CEO. So much for the big “threat” to Europe’s “energy security” – as the refrain has been endlessly for years…

  Swan writes, “The decision indicates the Biden administration is not willing to compromise its relationship with Germany over this pipeline, and underscores the difficulties President Biden faces in matching actions to rhetoric on a tougher approach to Russia.”

  

  While the State Department still considers the corporate entity – Nord Stream 2 AG and CEO Matthias Warnig (who is said to be close to Putin) – to be engaged in “sanctionable activity”, it now plans to waive the implementation of the sanctions, Axios’ sources say.

  Currently the “controversial” pipeline which reaching back into the Trump administration saw US officials accuse the Kremlin of attempting to “punish” Ukraine by denying it vital gas transit fees is estimated to be at 95% completion.

  Aggressive Trump-era sanctions did little to actually thwart construction even after major Swiss and other European companies bowed out under the pressure, given Russian energy giant Gazprom vowed to push through with the final construction by outfitting additional of its vessels as pipelaying ships. 

  “This planned move also sets up a bizarre situation in which the Biden administration will be sanctioning ships involved in the building of Nord Stream 2 but refusing to sanction the actual company in charge of the project,” Axios continues.

  

  And again this clearly contradicts the longtime US and Biden administration position that NS2 constitutes a “threat” to Europe’s energy security – this despite leading EU member Germany certainly not seeing it that way. The driving fear has remained that those nefarious Russians! are always looking for major leverage over Europe and the West, and the joint pipeline will give them plenty of that.

  * * * 

  It didn’t take long at all for the Russia hawks to get raging angry.

  So a bunch of Russians can shut down our pipelines, but we can’t shut down construction of theirs.https://t.co/qhgNHSDlfQ

  — Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 18, 2021

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  And imagine if guess who had gone this “soft” on Russia…

  A week after Russian hackers shut down a U.S. pipeline, President Biden lifted sanctions on a Russian pipeline.

  What does Vladimir Putin have on President Biden??

  — Jim Banks (@RepJimBanks) May 18, 2021

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/19/2021 – 02:45

• EU Has A New Crisis… A Frenchman Named Barnier Who Has Held It Hostage
  EU Has A New Crisis… A Frenchman Named Barnier Who Has Held It Hostage

  Authored by Martin Jay via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  Curiously, it might well be Michel Bernier who emerges as a veiled presidential anti-EU runner in France’s presidential elections in 2022 as his latest whacky idea could be the demise of the entire project.

  Hardly a day passes since Brexit, when the EU doesn’t appear to be in some kind of political tailspin. The constant petulant attacks on the UK by both France and Brussels, which only make the EU look like a really sour loser, are trumped by the relentless comical calamity of a vaccine crisis.

  Trade wars with the EU is probably what the hardline Brexiteers in the cabinet of Boris Johnson were expecting all along. A whole new crisis of confidence, which EU folk think will push non-Eurozone countries in the EU towards their own exit strategies, while even threatening the giants themselves like France, is happening. And at quite some speed.

  Consequently the highest echelons of the EU itself are panicking and are desperate for a solution.

  On the 8th of May, the EU launched a grandiose new talkshop which aims to find a roadmap for the EU itself. Given that the EU needs to find a new identity it is perhaps worrying enough, but we shouldn’t forget the last time it did this, exactly twenty years ago, when it was called The European Convention, and it failed. Under the auspices of Valerie Giscard d’Estaing, the only French President refused membership of the freemasons due to him faking his own aristocratic credentials, it imploded under a cloud of graft allegations about the former French president and his dodgy expenses while in the Belgian capital.

  What finally did emerge was a new European Constitution but which in the end didn’t make it over the line after French and Dutch referendums.

  

  Take more power

  And now Brussels is at it again. Few could argue with its argument that it has a new pile of problems which need to be tackled head on. But the hardcore federalist mentality in the Belgian capital will always argue that the way out of the EU’s problems is always to take more power. This time around, this jaded mindset though met with considerable opposition from a dozen EU member states who wanted the whole conference to be played down and made distinctly low key. In the end, they couldn’t even agree on a former president to run the whole circus. Macron would have been an obvious choice but curiously he was not the man of the moment

  Perhaps some in the EU believe that Macron’s inept anti Brexit stunts and blinded dogma that the EU with more power (in particular around the world) is more part of the problem rather than the solution.

  The EU has massive problems which stem from its own diabolical management and growing discontent from smaller member states who previously used Britain’s power to do its bidding. Sure, climate change is a huge subject it needs to grapple. But way more importantly are the economies and immigration policies of its own vanguard member, France.

  Immigration both in Germany and France has come with huge political consequences on the elite and how they govern. While Germany can weather the storm on the impact of almost 1 million Syrian refugees, Macron is showing signs that he is prepared to get tougher on all immigrants simply to stop Marine Le Pen from taking what everyone expects will be huge gains in the first round of the next presidential elections.

  But he stops short of calling the EU’s Schengen policy to be scrapped.

  The 1985 accord, which on paper looks like a great solution to Europeans who want free access to move around Europe but in reality is a nightmare for controlling huge swathes of migrants looking for the best asylum deal they can find.

  Which is why EU darling Michel Barnier, who is planning to stand as a candidate in France’s presidential elections in 2022, has dropped a bombshell both on the EU and France by his latest declaration: he wants a five-year freeze on immigration in France.

  While hacks may argue over whether there is any strong argument that this would help the French economy – some taking the view that it would at least prevent a Le Pen win – others might say that it could help France, but at the EU’s expense. If France can renegotiate its place in the EU immigration deal, then others will follow and the overall implications will be an even bigger crisis for the EU. Critics will say: “If Schengen isn’t working and we can opt out of it, what else should we opt out of?”. It will make the EU look incredibly weak and ineffective. The well worn cliché of the EU being an arbiter of the “free movement of goods, services and people” will have to be downgraded to just goods and services – which many Eurosceptics have argued for years is its best option for long term survival. A trade block. Nothing more, nothing less.

  And then there is even the bigger problem of the widening gap between southern EU member states and Brussels itself. A reworked Schengen – or a scrapped one – will mean that EU member states like Italy will be obliged to contain all of their refugees themselves, rather than allow them to cross the border into other countries in their search for a better deal. That alone, could be the spark which ignites a full-on Eurosceptic momentum in Italy which calls for an exit altogether from the European Union.

  Jobs for the boys

  Combined, the Barnier stunt represents a new nadir for the European Union and its apparatchiks in Brussels. With a radical emergence of far-right parties already threatening to take a majority stake in the next EU elections, lowest ever confidence in the EU in key member states like Italy and Spain and a very real worry that at least one EU heavyweight will follow Britain (watch Denmark, Sweden or the Netherlands), the EU will fall on its knees with a shattered Schengen.

  The end of Schengen could mark the end of the EU as we know it. And all for the political ambitions of Michel Barnier who wants to have his cake and eat it in Brussels. Like any good Europhile, Brussels has its own distinct role to play in giving jobs to the boys and this final act of getting the ultimate job at the EU’s expense is certainly going to set a new precedent; usually the EU gets its main officials from member states as politicians lose their seats and look to their own political party to give them a cosy retirement present in the Belgian capital. But Barnier is doing the opposite. The EU actually propelled him into the media limelight via the Brexit so-called “negotiations” and he’s milking it for all he can get. The huge question in the coming weeks will be how the French press treat him and how Brussels will react to this new storm on the horizon. Now the European Union has a new migraine to add to the headache of Brexit. Its demise is guaranteed if more of the big thinking is to keep on pushing for a bigger power grab. A new European constitution is not the answer if the aggregate of this delusional pontificating is that the EU somehow gets bigger. And there simply isn’t time. Something’s got to be done about Barnier.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/19/2021 – 02:00

• Alliance Of Democracies Summit: The Glass House Where The Power Elite Gather To Throw Stones
  Alliance Of Democracies Summit: The Glass House Where The Power Elite Gather To Throw Stones

  Authored by Alan Macleod via MintPressNews.com,

  The lineup of presidents, generals and CEOs makes it clear that what was stated is effectively the collective view of the world’s elite and a window into their thinking and the debates they are having. What they decide will affect all of us, whether we realize it or not.

  

  The United States is the nation that most threatens democracy worldwide, far more than Russia or even China. That is the headline finding from a new worldwide poll of 53 countries commissioned by the Alliance of Democracies (AoD). The poll also found that the global public considers rising inequality and the increased power of the super rich to be the greatest threat to liberty and democracy.

  This was likely not the response the Alliance of Democracies wished to hear as it opened its third annual Democracy Summit in Copenhagen this week — precisely because the organization represents the U.S. government and the wealthy elite more generally. Featuring an all-star panel of American officials, Western heads of state and military leaders, this year’s summit was somber in tone and focused on the “urgent need” for Western nations to unite and come up with a “transatlantic response” to counter both Russia and China. To that end, there was talk of building an “Asian NATO” and of further controlling what can be said online, all in the service of defending and upholding democracy from these foes.

  The Alliance of Democracies was founded in 2017 by former Prime Minister of Denmark Anders Fogh Rasmussen. As Secretary General of NATO between 2009 and 2014, he also oversaw the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations, as well as the attack and regime-change operation in Libya, which saw ISIS-affiliated jihadists take control of the country. Together with future President Joe Biden and former Director of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Rasmussen also founded the Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity (TECI), an AoD body at the forefront of accusing Russia of election meddling in the U.S. Biden was one of the inaugural speakers at the first Democracy Summit in 2018.

  The great and the good — including presidents, journalists and business magnates — gathered both in person and virtually to discuss the supposed threats to the democratic order, with Rasmussen in particular pushing for a more formal military, political and economic alliance among the world’s “democracies” against Russia and China. The well-dressed and soft-spoken Dane also introduced lineups of speakers who argued for regime change in states the alliance does not feel are democratic enough for their liking.

  

  The AoD’s 2021 conference featured a who’s who of the world’s elite representing the public and private sectors and the media

  The Alliance of Democracies is indirectly funded by the United States government through both the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute, as well as by the European Endowment for Democracy, Europe’s version of the National Endowment for Democracy. It also takes money from the Atlantic Council, a NATO cutout organization, as well as a host of big tech companies like Microsoft and Facebook. Other key sources of funding include the Taiwanese government, the George W. Bush Institute, and the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, named after the anti-Putin Ukrainian oligarch.

  📣 Thank you to our #CDS2021 sponsors and partners.@Facebook@Microsoft@Twitter@TFDemocracy@LatanaBrand@triforknews@usembdenmark@DanskeBank_DK@LakridsbyBulow@CentralNic@pfapension@VL_Forum@TheBushCenter@EEDemocracy@NDI@IRIglobal@Cloudfare@ProjectGalileo pic.twitter.com/orgl7BixbW

  — Alliance of Democracies (@AoDemocracies) May 11, 2021

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

  Both Rasmussen and then-Vice President Biden were key players in the Western-backed Maidan Revolution in Ukraine in 2014, with Biden himself traveling to the country, successfully uniting the opposition. Meanwhile, Rasmussen, as head of NATO, developed a “Readiness Action Plan” for the nation, drastically ramping up tensions, as well as the likelihood of a hot war. Soon after, Rasmussen was appointed as a formal advisor to the new anti-Moscow president, Petro Poroshenko. Together, Biden and Rasmussen set up TECI’s Ukraine task force, dedicated, in their own words, “to exposing foreign [i.e., Russian] meddling in Ukraine’s Presidential and Parliamentary Elections.” Needless to say, they did not see their own actions as outside interference.

  Yellow peril

  While Russia remains a target, the Alliance of Democracy’s attention this year was chiefly devoted to China and ways to counter the Asian powerhouse’s rise. Virtually every panel mentioned Beijing, and many were directed towards it entirely.

  In a panel entitled “Protecting Democracy from Authoritarianism: Views from the Asia Pacific,” longtime speechwriter for the British Crown and European Commision turned Politico Senior Editor Ryan Heath described the current era as a global “battle between democracy and [Chinese] authoritarianism.” Former Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani was of a similar opinion, calling for an all-out economic war against Beijing, suggesting Japan and other countries could help Australia cut itself off from China economically by assisting in the import substitution of Chinese goods.

  Later, Heath asked Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, Donald Trump’s national security advisor, what he saw was the number one threat to the world and to democracy. McMaster responded, “It is certainly the Chinese Communist Party, I would put that at the very top.” “The whole world’s problem is China’s promotion of its authoritarian mercantilist model, its stifling of human freedom,” he added, accusing China of creating a “technologically enabled Orwellian police state.”

  McMaster, who represented a government that spies on its citizens and even such allies as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, painted China as trying to control the internet and called for a more aggressive strategy of democracy promotion worldwide as a counter to it. “It’s not just an exercise in altruism, it is actually the best way to compete with this very dangerous authoritarian model that China is promoting,” he said.

  If viewers were expecting Heath to push back on the idea that the U.S. had a long history of altruistic interventions, they were disappointed. In fact, Heath went further, floating the idea of creating “an Asian NATO” against China and even suggesting that if China “bullies” other nations economically, democratic nations should band together to counter it — invoking the creation of a sort of economic charter akin to NATO’s Article 5, which states that if one NATO member is attacked, it is deemed an attack on all of them.

  China has been the top concern among war planners and policymakers in Washington for some time now. In 2012, President Barack Obama signaled the beginning of this with his “Pivot to Asia” strategy, which entailed winding down U.S. forces in the Middle East in order to redeploy them to the Pacific. Today, there are over 400 American bases encircling China. The military has taken a number of provocative steps in recent months, including conducting war games in the South China Sea with Beijing’s adversaries. In July, the U.S.S. Peralta sailed to within 41 nautical miles of the coastal megacity of Shanghai, while in December the Navy flew nuclear bombers over Chinese ships near Hainan Island.

  In February the Atlantic Council, the NATO think tank that sponsors the Alliance of Democracies, released an anonymous, 26,000-word study advising President Biden to draw a number of red lines around China that, if broken, should result in a military response. These included cyber attacks or attempts to further its control of Taiwan. Others have suggested conducting an extensive psychological war against China, including publishing “Taiwanese Tom Clancy” novels designed to paint China as an aggressor and demoralize its citizens with tales of defeat. A recent Director of National Intelligence report notes that China and its supposed “push for global power” represent an “unparalleled priority,” for the U.S., something that is invoking the “very real possibility” of a hot war, according to Admiral Charles A. Richard, the head of Strategic Command.

  The resentment of China in Washington is being consciously stoked by the independence-minded government of Taiwan. A recent MintPress study found that the Taiwanese embassy is spending millions of dollars yearly in donations to influential think tanks, such as the Atlantic Council, the Brookings Institute, the Hudson Institute and the Center for American Progress, all of which have pushed a particularly hawkish line against Beijing. Taiwanese agents have also made 143 contributions to U.S. politicians and had contact with almost 90% of the members of the House of Representatives.

  The Taipei-backed Taiwan Foundation for Democracy also gave an undisclosed sum to the Alliance of Democracies. Considering that its name appears in a more prominent position on the Alliance’s list of backers than even Google, BMW, and the European Endowment for Democracy, one could infer that the sum was considerable.

  Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen was a prominent speaker at the conference, and was given an entire event to herself, in which she called for the democracies of the world to come together to defend Taiwan from foreign threats, stating:

  Taiwan’s commitment to freedom and democracy has made us a target of disinformation campaigns, economic coercion, and even military intimidation. Many in the international community are concerned about the potential for conflict caused by these anti-democratic tactics, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. Our government is fully aware of the threats to regional security and is actively enhancing our national defense capabilities to protect our democracy.”

  Throughout the talk, Ing-wen was very careful never to utter the word “China,” although it was clear to all listening that this was exactly who the threat was. Indeed, the Alliance of Democracies’ moderator, former CNN and ABC correspondent Jeanne Meserve, gave the game away, introducing her by stating:

  China is taking an increasingly aggressive stand towards Taiwan, both rhetorically and military, raising concerns that it could move some time soon to try and take control of the island. Here to address the need to strengthen democracy and the alliance of democracies is Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen.”

  Ing-wen also called for a European Union-Taiwan free-trade deal and for Western nations and organizations to recognize the island’s independence, something that none currently do. She concluded: “We are determined never to surrender these freedoms. With liberty and democracy once again under threat, we in the international community must come together to address the challenges of a new era.”

  After Ing-wen, Hong Kong protest leader Nathan Law spoke, and described the “complete crackdown on the democratic system” in the city by the “Communist Party dictatorship.” “Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, China became much more authoritarian, exporting authoritarianism through its global initiative,” he said, accusing Western nations of being “complacent” and calling for worldwide sanctions on China.

  Twisted democracy promotion

  The anti-China rhetoric was broken up by a talk from the self-declared President of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, entitled “Fighting for Freedom and Democracy: Reports from the Frontlines.” Guaidó claimed that his country was filled with terrorists and drug traffickers and asked for a worldwide boycott of Venezuelan goods and an economic blockade of his nation. “We must not allow the world banking system to accept blood-stained money,” he explained. Guaidó then asked the International Criminal Court to charge President Nicolas Maduro with crimes against humanity. He also presented himself as the leader of a democratic majority in Venezuela, stating:

  We Venezuelans are fighting. We have built a majority. We have organized and mobilized… The situation is critical because we have lost our democracy. I have an essential message for countries around the world: democracy is always at stake. It is only through the strengthening of institutions, the promotion of human rights, the empowerment and strengthening of society, of citizens and of youth that we can defend our democracy, but also make it last.”

  .@Jguaido at #CDS2021: “I have an essential message for countries around the world: #Democracy is always at stake. It is only through strengthening institutions, the promotion of human rights, the empowerment…of society, citizens and youth, that we can defend our democracy.” pic.twitter.com/U6hFiF7JuK

  — Alliance of Democracies (@AoDemocracies) May 10, 2021

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  While the elite audience appeared impressed by his words, it is less clear whether Guaidó’s countryfolk, already living under crippling sanctions that have killed more than 100,000 people,  would be so enthused. His approval ratings inside Venezuela are often in the single digits and, for all the talk of democracy and building a majority, he has attempted six coup attempts since January 2019, the last of which included his employing American mercenaries to conduct an amphibious invasion of his country, shoot their way to the presidential palace, and install him as dictator. Guaidó’s contract for the job was leaked, and showed he had agreed to pay the ex-Green Berets over a quarter-billion dollars — presumably from public funds — and that the mercenaries would become a private death squad that answered only to him, crushing any and all dissent to his rule once he was in power. The attempt ended in a fiasco, as the elite force of commandos was immediately overpowered by local fishermen carrying box cutters and old revolvers.

  Controlling the internet

  Day two of the conference focused more on the coronavirus and the threat to democracies posed by fake news and disinformation online. In one panel titled “Regulating Social Media and Protecting the Public From Harm,” participants discussed how the U.S. and Europe could come together to formulate a united approach to controlling digital communications. The discussion was particularly notable because panelists included Michael Chertoff, co-author of the PATRIOT Act, which stripped Americans citizens of a wide range of rights under the guise of national security and fighting terrorism. Also on the panel were two British conservative members of parliament, an advisor to the executive vice president of digital affairs for the European Commission, and a member of Facebook’s oversight board, the body that regulates what the platform’s 2.6 billion people see in their news feeds. These individuals are so influential that their opinions and decisions could well affect virtually the entire world.

  Together, they agreed that more cooperation between big tech and big government was necessary in order to reduce the amount of false information and harmful content online. This in itself is little new: in 2018 Facebook announced that it had partnered with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Lab to help regulate and curate its newsfeeds, effectively giving up partial control to the NATO-aligned organization. It also hired a former NATO press officer as its intelligence chief earlier this year.

  

  The AoD conference pushed an agenda encouraging even more cooperation between tech and media

  Other big social media companies like Reddit have similar ties to the military alliance. When organizations like the Atlantic Council, whose board features no fewer than seven former CIA directors, control what the world sees and reads online, it becomes difficult to see where the fourth estate ends and the deep state begins. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that the entire conference was sponsored by Facebook and Google, there was little talk of breaking up or nationalizing these online behemoths.

  While very few people actually watched any of these events (the livestream rarely had more than 30 viewers at any time), that does not mean it was not important. The lineup of presidents, generals and CEOs makes it clear that what was stated is effectively the collective view of the world’s elite and a window into their thinking and the debates they are having. What they decide will affect all of us, whether we realize it or not.

  A threat to democracy, not its champion

  The entire premise of the conference —  that China is a threat to global democracy and that Western business and political leaders must rally together to save it —  was heavily undermined by its own study, published just days before the event.

  The poll showed that only around 53% of people worldwide think they actually live in a democracy, including fewer than half of Americans. Fewer than 50% of respondents in other key Alliance of Democracy countries such as Italy and Belgium felt their countries were democratic. Embarrassingly for the AoD, Chinese people were among the most confident in the world that their country is democratic — far more so than most of the countries the Alliance of Democracies would like to represent. Almost three-quarters of Chinese people polled claimed to live in a democracy, more than in Germany, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Israel, and even famously “democratic” Sweden. Indeed, the only states of the 53 scoring significantly higher on the democracy scale with their citizens than China were Norway, Switzerland and Denmark. Vietnam, another country ruled by a Communist Party and also labeled a dictatorship by Western NGOs, scored as highly as China did. Acknowledging this enormous contradiction with its own position, the Alliance of Democracies report explained that, “people don’t think their countries are very democratic — even in democracies,” a statement equal parts Orwellian and patronizing at the same time.

  Another, even more embarrassing finding for the study, which polled more than 53,000 people in countries representing more than three-quarters of the world’s population, was that despite global media concern over China’s aggressive actions, the international public still considers the United States to be a considerably greater threat to their democracy than China, with 44% of the planet identifying the U.S. as such.

  Across East Asia, in countries openly hostile to China (such as Japan, the Philippines and South Korea), populations still see the U.S. as the chief danger. Therefore, the AoD summit’s calls for an Asian NATO to protect the continent from a rampaging China are likely to alarm Asians rather than assuage their fears. And although more Taiwanese see China as a threat, still 58% of the population considers the U.S. a serious danger to their democracy. So when President Ing-wen asks for more Western intervention in the South China Sea, it is far from clear that the Taiwanese population is behind her.

  Even among the U.S.’ closest allies — such as Canada, Israel, the United Kingdom and Ireland — Washington is seen as a far greater threat than Beijing by their populations. The study also showed that fear of the U.S. is rising year-on-year.

  Also undermining Nathan Law and the U.S.’ argument on Hong Kong is the finding that only slightly more than one third of Hong Kongers say their nation is not democratic enough. There has also been a notable decline in Hong Kongers stating they want to see more “democracy” on the island.

  However, by quite some way the biggest threat to democracy, according to the world’s population, is economic inequality and the power and influence of the super wealthy. The malign influence of Russia and China were the least threatening, with the U.S. higher and inequality higher still — with 64% of respondents identifying it as a chief problem. This is another embarrassing finding for the AoD, which is funded by giant corporations belonging to Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and many of the other richest and most powerful people on the planet and featured a number of extremely wealthy and well-connected speakers.

  Upside down world

  We live in an upside down world, where those responsible for destroying the Middle East can present themselves as defenders of liberty everywhere, proudly proclaiming their intentions to bring their visions of democracy worldwide. As Secretary General of NATO, Rasmussen said he was “proud” of his achievement in bringing freedom and democracy to Libya in 2011 — that liberty apparently including open-air slave markets and the complete destruction of society.

  Rasmussen’s Orwellian conference brought together the people and organizations his own polling data shows the planet thinks are the chief threats to democracy and freedom, so they could wax lyrical about upholding and enforcing their twisted view of democracy over the entire planet. The world does not want this version of “democracy” that these tech billionaires, senior politicians and military generals are offering. But, considering their overwhelming power and the lack of an organized opposition to it, we might just get it anyway.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/19/2021 – 00:05

• China Resisting US Attempts At Nuclear Talks, Says UN Envoy
  China Resisting US Attempts At Nuclear Talks, Says UN Envoy

  In recent years the Trump administration had attempted to bring China into so-called trilateral arms control negotiations, which Beijing consistently balked at. Trump had considered landmark 20th century arms treaties with Russia to be “weak” due to not accounting for China’s rapidly advancing defense technology and arsenal. 

  For example, in summer of 2019 the US announced its formal withdrawal from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia, citing that a “new, better” agreement was needed which will bring in China. Also of note is that the INF had prevented the US from deploying ground-based intermediate-range missiles in Asia. The New START nuclear arms control agreement had also reportedly been on the chopping block by the tail end of the Trump administration, but among Biden’s first major actions in office was to extend it by five years. 

  But it now appears that Biden agrees with Trump’s fundamental principal of the urgency to bring China to the nuclear negotiating table. Trump’s central rationale was articulated in one July 2020 statement as follows: “The president believes that it shouldn’t just be the U.S. and Russia… The days of unilateral American disarmament are over.”

  

  On Tuesday US disarmament Ambassador Robert Wood indicated in new statements that China is still “resisting” nuclear talks:

  “Despite the PRC’s dramatic build-up of its nuclear arsenal, unfortunately it continues to resist discussing nuclear risk reduction bilaterally with the United States,” Woods told a United Nations conference.

  “To date Beijing has not been willing to engage meaningfully or establish expert discussions similar to those we have with Russia,” Woods said. “We sincerely hope that will change.”

  At the same conference focused on the “Prevention of Nuclear War” which was held by 65-member UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, China’s envoy appeared to reject the US accusation, saying the Beijing is indeed “ready” for “positive” dialogue. 

  “We stand ready to carry out positive dialog and exchange with all parties to jointly explore effective measures to reduce nuclear risk and to contribute to global strategic security,” Chinese envoy to the conference Ji Zhaoyu said.

  The exchange comes after last month the head of US Strategic Command, Adm. Charles Richard, briefed Congress on the faster than expected modernization rate of both China and Russia’s nuclear arsenals. “It is easier to describe what they are not modernizing — nothing — than what they are, which is pretty much everything,” he had described. 

  Most Western estimates put China’s arsenal at about 320 warheads at the high estimate range, while the US and Russia each have over 1,500 deployed; however, the US is believed behind in terms of modernizing and updating its nuclear weapons systems, including ICBM capabilities. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/18/2021 – 23:45

• Will 2020 Prove To Be The Beginning Of The End Of Modernity?
  Will 2020 Prove To Be The Beginning Of The End Of Modernity?

  Authored by Daniel Boudreaux via The American Institute for Economic Research,

  Daniel Hannan – Lord Hannan of Kingsclere – is today among Britain’s wisest and most articulate champions of classical liberalism.

  He’s also today very pessimistic about the future of liberalism. This pessimism is on full display in this recent video.

  Hannan predicts that the post-Covid-19 world “will be poorer, colder, grayer, more pitched, more authoritarian.”

  I ardently wish that I found his stated reasons for pessimism to be unpersuasive, but this wish is not granted.

  Hannan’s pessimism, to me, seems warranted.

  I urge you to watch the entire video. At under seven minutes, it’s short.

  But I believe that my summary here of Hannan’s point is accurate:

  We humans are evolved to put our trust in hierarchy, for hierarchical methods of decision-making were quite effective at protecting the small tribe, as it roamed the countryside, from predators and privation. And our deep past was in fact fraught with dangers that, when not quickly avoided, killed us. In that long-ago era, anyone refusing to follow the leader’s commands was indeed a threat to the survival of the tribe. As a result, fellow tribe members turned on renegades. ‘Renegadeness’ was thus largely drained from the gene pool and replaced with the instinct to conform, especially whenever there was a perception of danger, which there was quite often.

  Confidence in hierarchy, hair-trigger alarm, and fear of strangers (who back then usually were sources of real danger) helped our ancestors to survive. And survive they did for 300,000 years, nearly all of which time was spent hunting and gathering in small tribes. But these genetically encoded instincts that are so useful to members of the always-imperiled tribe do not support a liberal, open society of the sort that arose in the West over the past few centuries.

  We humans have been around for at least 300,000 years. Nearly all – 97 percent – of this time was spent as hunters-gatherers in a perilous world. Yet only in the past two or three centuries have we stumbled upon a set of beliefs and institutions that suppressed many of our primitive instincts in a way that encouraged the emergence of modernity. By historical standards, the world that we know today is freakishly abnormal.

  And while the material blessings of modernity – the likes of indoor plumbing, endless supplies and varieties of food, dwellings with solid floors and roofs, artificial lighting, faster-than-galloping-horses transportation, and miracle medicines – are easily noticed, all of these blessings as we know them today require a deep and globe-spanning division of labor. This division of labor is more unlikely and (hence) more of a marvel than are any of its most stupendous fruits, such as antibiotics, airplanes, and astronauts.

  Modernity is not normal; it has been around for a paltry 0.1 percent of humans’ time on earth. And the reason modernity is not normal is that liberalism – the source of the division of labor and, thus, of modernity – is not normal. We humans are not genetically encoded to be liberal. Therefore, Hannan argues, there is every reason to expect that we humans will revert to our historical norm – the norm that is in our genes.

  The reaction to Covid-19 is powerful evidence that our primitive instincts remain alive and ready to reestablish their dominance over the happy accident that is the culture, and resulting institutions, of liberalism.

  The hysterical fear that Covid stirred in so many people – including in many who are highly educated, of a scientific mindset, and, until Covid, of a liberal bent – and the sheepishness with which people followed the “leaders” who promised protection from Covid prompts Dan Hannan to worry that 2020-2021 is the beginning of the end of modernity.

  

  Chances are high that he’s correct. And if he is, civilization as we know it will end.

  Modernity Is Not Natural

  My Hannan-like pessimism on this front is only furthered by reading Notre Dame philosopher James Otteson’s remarkable new book, Seven Deadly Economic Sins. This must-read work is not about Covid; nor is Otteson himself especially pessimistic. But in his luminous explanation of some of the foundational features of modern society, Otteson identifies the thinness of the reed upon which modernity rests. His Chapter 4 (“Progress Is Not Inevitable”) is worth quoting at length:

  What has changed over humanity’s recent history is not biology, psychology, physiology, ecology, or geography. What has changed, instead, is their attitudes. As economic historian Deirdre McCloskey has demonstrated in her magisterial three-volume investigation under the general title The Bourgeois Era, the most salient factor distinguishing the post-1800 era from anything that went before is the attitudes people held toward others. Before that period, the standard background assumption people had was that some people are superior to others – more specifically, one’s own people are superior to those other people – and hence people believed they were under no obligation, moral or otherwise, to treat all human beings as their moral equals. What began as an inkling in the sixteenth century, gained some traction in the seventeenth century, and then began to spread in the eighteenth century was the idea that cooperation was not only allowable, but morally appropriate; and not only with some people, but with ever more people and ever more groups of people. As that idea spread, more and more cooperative behavior was engaged in, leading to mutually beneficial exchanges and partnerships, which launched world prosperity on the precipitate upward slope we have seen since.

  If people are to engage in voluntary transactions and partnerships with one another, however, they also need to trust one another….

  [C]ulture is critically important for growing prosperity, but culture can change – and quickly. The culture that enabled the growth in worldwide prosperity we have experienced over the last two centuries is not only recent but rare. And it is fragile…..

  People have gone from a default of regarding people different from them with suspicion and as likely enemies to a default of viewing them at least neutrally and even as opportunities. They have gone from viewing trade, commerce, and mutually voluntary and mutually beneficial exchange as unworthy of virtuous human beings, to viewing it neutrally, to, finally, viewing it as at least possibly worthy of dedicating one’s life to. They have gone from viewing human beings as fungible atoms in undifferentiated masses to seeing them as unique and precious individuals possessing moral dignity and deserving both liberty and respect. They have gone from viewing violence and torture as acceptable, even natural, ways to treat and engage with others to believing that violence should be a regrettable last resort – and that torture is inhumane and should be minimized, if not abandoned altogether. And they have gone from automatically distrusting everyone they meet but do not know to increasingly being willing to extend to others, even strangers, the benefit of the doubt.

  Modernity is impossible without widespread peaceful engagement with strangers. And such engagement is impossible without mutual trust. Yet abruptly starting 16 months ago, we were told to abandon our modern, liberal sensibilities.

  Abruptly starting 16 months ago we were warned not to trust strangers and not to engage with them commercially or socially. Abruptly starting 16 months ago, we were instructed to see strangers – indeed, to see even members of our extended families – as being chiefly carriers of death. Abruptly starting 16 months ago, we were initiated into the cult of pathogen avoidance; we were urged to behave as if avoiding a headline-grabbing virus is not only the main responsibility of each individual, but a responsibility that should be pursued at all costs.

  Abruptly starting 16 months ago, modern men and women were not only given license to revert to atavistic dread of strangers, but positively encouraged to harbor such dread and to act on it. Such atavistic attitudes and actions came all too naturally.

  Abruptly starting 16 months ago, humanity was encouraged to hold in contempt – even to censor – the relative few persons who refused to abandon liberal sensibilities.

  Abruptly starting 16 months ago, we prostrated our panicked selves before our “leaders,” begging that they use their god-like knowledge and powers (called “the Science”) to safeguard us from one particular source of illness, believed to be demonic.

  Abruptly starting 16 months ago, there quite possibly began the end of liberal civilization.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/18/2021 – 23:25

• Which Jobs Are Seeing The Fastest Wage Growth
  Which Jobs Are Seeing The Fastest Wage Growth

  While it is a well-known fact that most prices are surging, serving as the basis for the “transitory” inflation argument, it has been far more difficult to pinpoint what is really going on with wages as a result of the rapidly transforming fabric of the labor market where the lowest paid workers are dropping out fast thanks to Biden’s generous unemployment benefits, in the process distorting conventional wage metrics such as average hourly wages (as a reminder, prices have to feed through to wages to make inflation permanent).

  Which is why a key question for the US labor market as the economy emerges from the pandemic is the outlook on wage growth. To isolate signal from the noise, BofA has introduced a novel dataset on job postings and salaries from Revelio Labs to glean insight. The biggest advantage of this dataset compared to publicly available JOLTS data is that it provides salary information for job openings.

  At the aggregate, the data reveals that annual salary of job openings on online job boards fell meaningfully during the pandemic but in the latest few readings salaries are starting to trend higher, with BofA’s industry-weighted annual salary measures stands at $50,150 as of April 2021 compared to a low of around $47,400 during the pandemic.

  

  While the aggregate salary measure is still below pre-Covid levels, data broken out by industry and occupation show significant variation in salary. In industries where persistent chronic labor shortages have been reported during the reopening phase (e.g. construction, real estate, rental & leasing, accommodation & food services and other services), salaries have been quicker to recover on new job postings compared to other industries.

  

  Similarly, wage growth has been the strongest in occupations where there has been the greatest demand during the pandemic. Occupations related to transportation (e.g. drivers) and housing (e.g. realtors, home loan officers, agents) have seen both a surge in new job postings and higher annual salaries compared to pre-pandemic levels.

  

  Drilling down into the average salary of job postings by 2-digit industry North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes reveals wide dispersion of wage trends. While almost all sectors saw a drop in average salary on job postings, some sectors have recovered faster than others. In particular, housing-related (e.g. construction, real estate, rental & leasing) and manufacturing sectors, where demand was robust throughout the pandemic, saw less of a dip in salaries during the pandemic and have recovered almost back to prepandemic levels.

  Service related industries (e.g. educations services, healthcare &  social assistance, and accommodation & food services) have seen stronger wage gains of late as demand has recovered amid the reopening process. Meanwhile, retail trade and professional & business services sectors continue to lag behind.

  By occupation, a similar story plays out where we see the greatest wage increase in roles that experienced the highest demand throughout the pandemic. For example, job postings for “drivers”, “agents”, “realtors”, and “mortgage loan officers” surged during the pandemic relative to prepandemic levels and saw the strongest boost in salary in job postings.

  Looking ahead, BofA sees good reason for wages to rise further in coming months as the economy reopens. The latest JOLTS data show the job openings rate at an all-time high since the series began in 2000 while labor supply lags behind demand, which will take time to clear. Moreover, wage growth tends to move contemporaneously with a rise in job openings.

  

  These dynamics suggest we should see even stronger wage growth in coming months, solidifying the case that the surge in inflation is anything but transitory.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/18/2021 – 23:05

• Organ Donation Worker Exposes China’s Money-Driven Transplant Industry
  Organ Donation Worker Exposes China’s Money-Driven Transplant Industry

  By Frank Fang of Epoch Times

  In China, state-run media have been promoting a job called “organ donation coordinators,” trumpeting how people in this line of work are making a difference in society. Their role is to convince families of dying patients to agree to donate their loved one’s organs—needed to supply China’s booming transplant industry. The families that agree, in return, are paid for their consent.

  

  Due to deeply-rooted cultural beliefs that hold that the human body must be kept intact even after death, Chinese people are generally reluctant to donate their organs. The creation of this role appears to be an attempt to lessen such a barrier to the country’s organ donation program.

  But the job is less noble than it is depicted by the Chinese regime, according to an account by Liang Xin (a pseudonym), a former organ donation coordinator from northeast China. The work was more akin to being a salesperson, Liang told The Epoch Times, and much of it involves using money to manipulate the poor into agreeing to donate their dying relatives’ organs.

  The coordinators’ methods are unethical and violate internationally recognized principles on transplantation that forbid the payment of money for an organ donor’s consent, according to an organ transplant expert.

  Liang’s revelations further shine a light on abuses in China’s organ transplant system—which already attracts heavy scrutiny over the communist regime’s practice of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience. The former coordinator said he decided to speak out about his job in the hopes that more people will know the truth behind it.

  Targeting the Poor

  Organ donation coordinators mainly targeted poor families, in particular those of rural migrant workers, Liang said. These people often did not have enough money to pay for the expensive medical bills, and were therefore more susceptible to the coordinators’ monetary offers.

  Liang recounted one case involving a very poor family. Their dying family member could still have been saved with proper medical treatment. But the family decided not to proceed with this. Instead, they chose to starve him—and cash out.

  “After the person was deprived of food for a week, he was in the right condition for organ donation,” Liang said.

  This case, according to Liang, was among many where patients were declared brain dead—a precondition to organ extraction—but did not strictly meet the criteria for it.

  Liang and his colleagues were good salespeople. To the relatives, they sold organ donation as an act of “all-encompassing love” and “devotion to a greater cause.” But in reality, the coordinators thought of the donor’s organs as nothing more than “merchandise,” he said.

  The coordinators, Liang said, had one specific strategy in their playbook that was particularly effective: They would target the most “greedy” family member. After these soft targets were converted to the cause, they could then be relied on to convince the other immediate family members who may have been less open to the idea of organ donation.

  China’s official organ donation program requires the consent of the donor, or that of their immediate kin if the donor is already dead. While the Chinese regime claims all organs used for transplant are sourced from this donation system, mounting research and an independent people’s tribunal have found that Beijing has been killing prisoners of conscience for their organs on a “significant scale,” with detained Falun Gong practitioners being the main source of organs.

  The Job

  Liang didn’t have a medical background before taking up the role; the same as many of his colleagues. He got the job through his mother, who was already working at the hospital where Liang was hired. It is a major transplant hospital in a city in northeastern China’s Liaoning province.

  Whenever a dying patient in the region was determined to be suitable for organ donation, Liang’s team would be contacted. They would then send Liang or another team member to the hospital to talk to the patient’s immediate family. If they managed to successfully convince the family to agree to the donation, then the doctor overseeing the patient would also be paid a small commission.

  According to China’s state-run media, there were about 2,800 organ donation coordinators in the country as of the end of 2020. Like Liang, some of these worked for hospitals, while others worked for China’s Red Cross, which unlike its international counterparts is funded and operated by the Chinese regime.

  China has in place a so-called humanitarian aid policy to support impoverished families of organ donors. According to China’s state-run media, the provincial Red Cross in central China’s Hubei province implemented a payment plan of between 50,000 yuan to 90,000 yuan ($7,720 to $13,880) per family in 2015.

  In January 2020, Hubei’s Red Cross announced that it paid a total of 9.77 million yuan ($1.5 million) to 128 families in 2019.

  Liang, who worked in the job for six months before quitting, likened his role to a sales representative—he earned about 2,000 to 3,000 yuan ($310 to $460) every time he was able to get a family to sign up to organ donation.

  What the hospital paid Liang and what the families received accounted for only a tiny fraction of what hospitals charged for transplant surgeries. According to Liang, hospitals in China charged about 550,000 yuan ($84,870) for a liver transplant surgery, and 450,000 yuan ($69,440) for a kidney transplant surgery.

  Therefore, a donor who gave up both of their kidneys and liver would generate an income of about 1.45 million yuan ($223,760) for a hospital. That amount, after accounting for the hospital’s medical expenses to procure the organs and carry out the surgeries, would leave the hospital with the tidy sum of 700,000 yuan ($108,010), according to Liang.

  A small portion of this money would be used to pay the donor’s family, while the rest would go to the chief surgeon carrying out the transplants, Liang said.

  The surgeon would also use some of this money to pay the local police. In return, the police would turn over the patient’s personal information, including their financial situation. The doctors would then pass this information on to the organ donation coordinators. The family’s financial details helped the coordinators find out if certain families were more susceptible to pressure.

  China’s transplant industry is also rife with bribery. Liang said he knew that chief doctors at hospitals’ transplant centers would accept bribes to move people up the waiting list.

  The Money

  Liang recalled a specific incident in October 2020 involving a 28-year-old single man who had a brain hemorrhage. The man was admitted to the intensive care unit of a local hospital and was later declared brain dead.

  The man’s organs were identified as very valuable, given his young age and his O blood type, according to Liang. People with O type blood can donate to every other group.

  Liang’s coworker then got to work. The man’s older sister was identified as the soft target—she needed money as she had been footing her brother’s medical bill. The coworker was successful. In effect, they were able to convince the sister to “sell her younger brother for money to pay off her debt,” Liang said.

  The sister then went on a mission, telling her parents that they should agree to donate their son’s organs since it was for the “greater good.” Despite their initial rejections, the parents eventually relented and agreed to donate their son’s two kidneys and liver.

  In the end, the son’s heart was also donated, to the dismay of his mother who hadn’t agreed to it.

  Sometimes organ donation coordinators and donors’ immediate families would haggle over the amount of the payment. In another incident around October 2020, Liang said that he and his colleague jointly worked on a case involving a prisoner from southwestern China’s Sichuan province. The prisoner was a member of China’s Yi ethnic minority.

  Liang and his coworker located the prisoner at a hospital in Shenyang, the capital of northeast China’s Liaoning province. Liang had no idea how the prisoner ended up in hospital and where he was imprisoned, but suspected that the man was beaten while in detention.

  The initial negotiation resulted in the coordinators agreeing to pay the prisoner’s family 50,000 yuan ($7,720) for their consent to donate the prisoner’s organs. However, the family then demanded more money, eventually being paid an additional 50,000 yuan.

  While the negotiations were pending, doctors at the Shenyang hospital used medication to keep the prisoner alive for about five days. Eventually, his liver and two kidneys were retrieved and donated.

  ‘Ruthless’

  Dr. Torsten Trey, executive director of Washington-based medical ethics advocacy group Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, said China’s organ donation system has for years relied on using monetary incentives to induce donations. Liang’s account, according to Trey, shows that the Chinese regime continues to fail to abide by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) transplantation principles.

  “In five out of the 11 guiding principles there is explicit mention that NO PAYMENTS should be made in exchange for organs,” Trey said in an email to The Epoch Times.

  “The examples show that China pays for organs,” he added. “Even more so, they approach families in their greatest moments of sorrow, when a relative is about to die, that they offer money for his organs. That is unethical and ruthless.”

  Trey also criticized the global health body for not holding the Chinese regime to account for these breaches .

  “The WHO betrays its own ethical guidelines by failing to call out China for its breaking of WHO ethical guidelines,” Trey said. “The WHO would not hesitate to scold other countries if they would systematically pay money for organs.”

  He urged the international community, and particularly the global transplant community, to demand the regime end the practice.

  “We need to uphold ethical standards in medicine,” Trey said.

  The lack of ethics in China’s transplant system extends far beyond using financial incentives to induce organ donations, Trey added, citing the regime’s state-sanctioned practice of harvesting organs from prisoners of conscience, in particular Falun Gong adherents. Liang said he was never personally involved in any organ donation cases involving Falun Gong. However, he suspected that their organs continue to be a source for transplants since he’s seen Falun Gong mentioned in doctors’ reports.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/18/2021 – 22:45

• India Reports 50 Doctors Dead In A Single Day As COVID Mortality Peaks
  India Reports 50 Doctors Dead In A Single Day As COVID Mortality Peaks

  As the number of confirmed cases in India has pulled back in recent days, but that didn’t stop India from reporting a record jump in daily deaths attributed to the virus on Tuesday as the total number of confirmed cases in the country finally topped 25 million.

  

  Some 260K new cases were registered, along with the record 4,329 deaths. In a promising sign, the number of active cases also declined. Still, over the past month, the number of daily cases has tripled, while the number of daily deaths has risen 6x.

  

  Earlier today, media reports claimed that India’s Serum Institute, one of the world’s largest vaccine producers, will be so preoccupied producing jabs for the Indian citizenry that it won’t be able to continue with exports until the end of the year, extending an earlier freeze.

  “We continue to scale up manufacturing and prioritise India,” said Serum CEO Adar Poonawalla on Tuesday. “We also hope to start delivering to Covax and other countries by the end of this year,” he added, a reference to the WHO’s woefully under-funded program to distribute vaccines to the developing world.

  Now, an Indian TV station is reporting that a record 50 doctors died across India in the span of a single day this week.

  According to the Indian Medical Association, 244 doctors have lost their lives due to COVID in the second wave. Of these, some 50 deaths were recorded on Sunday alone. The highest number of fatalities have been reported from Bihar (69) followed by Uttar Pradesh (34) and Delhi (27). Only 3% of the deceased were fully vaccinated, which stems from the shortage in vaccine supplies. Five months into India’s vaccination drive, only 66% of the country’s healthcare workers have been fully vaccinated. The IMA said it is making all possible efforts to encourage doctors to take the jab.

  Dr. Jayesh Lele, the General Secretary of IMA, told NDTV: “It is very unfortunate that we lost 50 doctors yesterday across India and 244 in the second wave since the first week of April.” The IMA, he said, has found that many doctors have not taken the vaccine and the organisation will do everything it can to ensure that all doctors who are on the frontline take the jab.

  “Secondly we want to highlight that doctors are understaffed and overworked. They sometimes work for 48 hours at a stretch without any rest. This adds to the viral load and they ultimately succumb to the infection. The government needs to take measures to boost the healthcare workforce,” he added.

  One young doctor who died in New Delhi was only 26 – a junior resident at Delhi’s Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital. The doctor, Anas Mujahid, is the youngest of the 244 doctors who have died since the start of the year. Mujahid had minor symptoms like sore throat and tested positive in an antigen test at the hospital. But in a rare case of sudden progression, he collapsed soon after and died due to an outbreak of intracranial bleeding. He had no comorbidities.

  Since last spring, the IMA has counted at least 1,000 deaths of physicians due to the virus, though NDTV warned the actual number is likely higher, as many deaths haven’t been accurately recorded.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/18/2021 – 22:25

• Think Gas Shortages Are Bad? Buckle Up
  Think Gas Shortages Are Bad? Buckle Up

  Authored by Jason Isaac, op-ed via The Epoch Times,

  If the gas shortages plaguing the Southeast left you high and dry last week, buckle up. This is just a taste of our future under President Joe Biden’s energy policies.

  

  Though these shortages were largely driven by panic buying, rather than by actual supply constraints due to the Colonial Pipeline hack, they demonstrate just how much energy—something the average American likely doesn’t think much about during their normal daily routine—defines our lives.

  If the Green New Deal becomes a real deal, whether through Congress or by executive fiat (which is apparently Biden’s preferred strategy), gas shortages and skyrocketing prices at the pump are just the beginning.

  If Biden succeeds, we can kiss energy independence goodbye. In 2019, the United States finally achieved the mission that founded the U.S. Department of Energy in the 1960s—freedom from dependence on foreign oil—when we became a net energy exporter. Just over 100 days into the Biden administration, our claim to that title is already fading.

  Problems with just one pipeline led to a significant increase in oil imports; imagine how the global balance of power would shift if the federal government tried to recklessly shut down all U.S. fossil fuel production. We would once again become dependent on Russia, Saudi Arabia, and other unstable nations for our energy needs—ceding negotiation power, weakening our national security, and enabling irresponsible overseas producers with shoddy environmental and labor standards.

  We could also expect the cost of living to rise dramatically. Consumer goods prices are already rising at the highest rate since the 2008 Great Recession, with inflation over 4 percent. An energy shortage would make inflation even worse—and affect the poorest Americans the most.

  Low-income households—which represent nearly 44 percent of the American population—already spend nearly three times the percentage of their income on energy bills than non-low-income citizens. In some communities, energy burdens are as high as 30 percent of household income. Families struggling to make ends meet have less room in their budget to afford higher energy prices—or the resulting higher prices for everything we do.

  Every product we use, from our smartphones to the food in our fridge to the clothes we wear, depends on energy. We don’t just need electricity to power manufacturing facilities and fuel for delivery trucks, planes, and farm equipment; the chemicals derived from oil and gas are also critical to our everyday lives. Petrochemicals including plastics, rubber, synthetic fabrics, inks and dyes, and more are the building blocks for nearly everything in the room around you right now—not to mention our health care facilities, technology and communication infrastructure, public safety and military systems, and more.

  Ironically, if Biden’s so-called green energy agenda succeeds, we can also expect our environment to get worse, not better. While the media trumpets that the planet is dirty and getting dirtier—and that we’re to blame—America is leading the world in environmental protection. We have the cleanest air on record, with air pollution down 77 percent in the last 50 years (far safer to breathe than most other highly populated nations), and rank number one in the world for clean drinking water.

  Wind turbines, solar panels, and electric cars might sound environmentally conscious, but these power sources are anything but. They rely heavily on mining (not for bitcoin, but for rare minerals) to produce parts that can rarely be recycled, instead piling up in landfills and leaching toxic chemicals all the while. And renewables produce a tiny fraction of energy per unit of land compared to fossil fuels. This low energy density means going 100 percent renewable would require clearing vast swaths of land, destroying private property and wildlife habitat. So much for “green.”

  Wind and solar have proven decade after decade they are incapable of providing more than a tiny fraction of our energy, even after receiving tens of billions in subsidies funded by our tax dollars.

  The gas shortages following the Colonial Pipeline hack should be a stark wake-up call to the Biden administration, whose ignorance of the numerous flaws of the Green New Deal agenda is a real threat to our economy, national security, and way of life.

  *  *  *

  The Honorable Jason Isaac is director of Life:Powered, a national initiative of the Texas Public Policy Foundation to raise America’s energy IQ. He previously served four terms in the Texas House of Representatives.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/18/2021 – 22:05

• Pelosi Joins Call To Boycott 2022 Winter Games Over China's Human Rights Abuses
  Pelosi Joins Call To Boycott 2022 Winter Games Over China’s Human Rights Abuses

  With the Tokyo Summer Olympics expected to be the most underwhelming event in the history of the modern games (that is, if safety officials from the IOC ultimately allow it to continue), pressure for an international boycott of the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing is growing. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just became the first senior American official to call for a boycott of the China games over Beijing’s treatment of Uygher Muslims in the far-flung northwestern province of Xinjiang.

  

  Heads of state who go to China for the Olympics in light of genocide would not have moral authority to speak out about human rights, Pelosi insisted according to a newswire report.

  She also called out the corporate sponsors of the game for “looking the other way” at China’s human rights abuses.

  “How sad it is to see the Olympic corporate sponsors look the other way on China’s abuses out of concern for their bottom line.”

  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls for diplomatic boycott of 2022 Beijing Olympics over China’s forced labor practices:

  “How sad it is to see the Olympic corporate sponsors look the other way on China’s abuses out of concern for their bottom line.” pic.twitter.com/S16nUOGCiZ

  — The Recount (@therecount) May 18, 2021

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  Beijing has responded to accusations that it’s carrying out a genocide of the Uyghers have turned accusations back around on the US, citing instances of police brutality, and America’s history of slavery, as signs of hypocrisy.

  Pelosi’s decision follows an even more forceful call from a group representing other other minorities who have been oppressed by Beijing. The group explicitly accuses those who support the Games of giving tacit approval of genocide representing the people of Hong Kong, Uyghur Muslims and Tibetans, released a statement calling for the boycott on Monday. It also accused the IOC of deciding “to put profit before human lives and turn a blind eye to genocide,” according to the Daily Caller and Associated Press.

  Support for a boycott is bipartisan, with high-profile Republicans like former UN Ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikke Haley responding to calls from the group mentioned above by endorsing their call and saying it would be “unthinkable” for the world to ignore what Beijing has done to the Uyghers.

  It is unthinkable that the world will participate in the Beijing Olympics while Communist China commits genocide.

  I stand with the Uyghurs, Tibetans, and the residents of Hong Kong for a boycott of the 2022 Beijing Olympics.https://t.co/AhgJtShaQb

  — Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) May 17, 2021

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  Thank you to these groups for helping lead the charge.@UyghurCongress @SFTHQ @CUyghurs @wethehongkonger @KeepTaiwanFree_ @tibetaction

  — Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) May 17, 2021

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  The statement said that the time for negotiations with Beijing over its abuses has passed, and that a full-on boycott is the only moral option available. “The time for talking with the IOC is over,” Lhadon Tethong of the Tibet Action Institute said in an exclusive interview with the AP. “This cannot be games as usual or business as usual; not for the IOC and not for the international community.”

  Human Rights groups have met several times in the past year with the IOC, asking that the games be removed from China. A key member in those talks was Zumretay Arkin of the World Uyghur Congress.

  And just last week, human rights groups and Western nations led by the US, the UK, and Germany accused China of massive crimes against the Uyghur minority and demanded unimpeded access for UN experts. At the meeting, Britain’s UN Ambassador, Barbara Woodward, called the situation in Xinjiang “one of the worst human rights crises of our time.”

  “The evidence points to a program of repression of specific ethnic groups,” Woodward said. “Expressions of religion have been criminalized and Uyghur language and culture are discriminated against systematically and at scale.”

  While President Joe Biden is probably a little too cozy with China to openly call for a boycott of the Winter Games, we wouldn’t be surprised to see President Trump, or other senior GOP, to highlight the president’s hypocrisy when it comes to China by joining with their own calls to back the boycott.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/18/2021 – 21:45

• The $392,000 Lifeguard: "Baywatch" As Union Shop
  The $392,000 Lifeguard: “Baywatch” As Union Shop

  Submitted by Adam Andrzejewski, CEO and founder of OpenTheBooks.com,

  Being a lifeguard isn’t easy, but in Los Angeles it can be lucrative. Auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found 82 county lifeguards earning at least $200,000 including benefits and seven making between $300,000 and $392,000. Thirty-one lifeguards made between $50,000 and $131,000 in overtime alone.

  

  After 30 years of service, they can retire as young as 55 on 79% of their pay. The Los Angeles County Lifeguard Association makes all this possible. Since 1995 the union has bargained for better wages, hours, benefits and working conditions.

  Over the past five years, lifeguard captain Daniel Douglas brought home $630,000 in overtime alone. His total employment costs in 2019 were $368,668—$140,706 base bay, $131,493 in overtime, $21,760 in “other pay” and $74,709 in benefits.

  In 2009 the city of Santa Monica signed a 10-year, $25 million contract with the county for lifeguard services. In 2019 the city extended the contract for five years and $17 million. There were no identified competitors and the contract wasn’t put out for bid.

  To be sure, being a lifeguard isn’t all fun in the sun: Some are EMTs and paramedics, and some are part of an underwater recovery team and participate in diving operations. Some are marine firefighters with specialized training for fireboat operations. Some are on duty for 24 hours at a time—though they’re allotted eight hours for sleep, and if they have a call that interrupts their slumber after five hours or less, “the entire 24-hour period shall be counted as hours worked,” the contract states.

  Still, they’re handsomely paid beyond what virtually all other EMTs receive. By comparison, the top-paid public lifeguard in Florida made $118,000, including benefits—though the pay goes further in the Sunshine State, which has no income tax. Even in New York City, the top-paid lifeguard made only $168,000.

  Think of the Los Angeles Country Lifeguard Association as the teachers union of “Baywatch.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/18/2021 – 21:25

• Two Months After Biden Blasted "Neanderthal Thinking", Texas Reports Zero COVID Deaths
  Two Months After Biden Blasted “Neanderthal Thinking”, Texas Reports Zero COVID Deaths

  Texas Gov. Greg Abbott elicited criticism from Dr. Fauci and a host of Democrats when he decided to drop all COVID-19-linked restrictions in the Lone Star State back in March. Now, as states across the country are falling in line with President Biden’s aggressive new mask guidance (clearly intended to encourage more holdouts to accept the vaccine) Texas is reporting a milestone that many of these critics once believed unthinkable: On Sunday, the state’s Department of State Health Services reported its first day without a single COVID-19 deaths since March 21, 2020.

  

  Confronted in an interview last month, Dr. Fauci finally acknowledged that he couldn’t explain Texas’ success. And President Biden memorably slammed Republicans in Texas (and in other southern states like Mississippi that followed Texas’ lead) as “Neaderthal-thinking” Republicans.

  President Biden on Texas and Mississippi lifting their statewide mask mandates: “I think it’s a big mistake…It’s critical, critical, critical that they follow the science…” pic.twitter.com/ETcTJw04ij

  — CSPAN (@cspan) March 3, 2021

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  That good news was quickly overshadowed when state officials reported 23 new deaths on Monday, the highest daily count in two months.

  Still, as the Houston Chronicle admits, it’s clear Texas has “turned a corner” and that the takeaway from the zero-death day is that the state has done remarkably well in combating COVID.

  

  And in a social media post, Gov. Abbott recently rattled off a host of stats illustrating just how successful the state has been.

  Today Texas reported:

  * 0 Covid related deaths–the only time that’s happened since data was tracked in March, 2020.

  * the fewest Covid cases in over 13 months

  * the lowest 7-day Covid positivity rate ever

  * the lowest Covid hospitalizations in 11 months.

  Thanks, Texans!

  — Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) May 17, 2021

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  Adding to this, the state reported a record low seven-day positivity rate of 3.9% last week, and cases and hospitalizations have fallen to their lowest marks since last summer.

  Funeral homes in the area rejoiced at finally seeing business return to a more normal pace.

  Bradshaw-Carter Funeral Home owner Tripp Carter said they haven’t had a COVID-related service since early March, which she credited in part to Houstonians abiding by precautionary measures.

  “We are right in the heart of the city, and so it’s just great that we haven’t seen any more cases,” Carter said. “Houstonians, or at least certainly in the inner loop, were very conscious about following CDC guidelines.”

  Texas counted only 624 new confirmed infections on Wednesday according to state data, with a seven-day average of 2,072 new cases per day.

  

  Source: State of Texas

  To put this all in context, Texas was reporting nearly 30,000 new cases per day and upward of 400 deaths a day earlier this year. It once was home to the worst outbreak in the country, and last summer became the first state to top 1 million confirmed cases.

  Deaths finally began to slow in March, as vaccine eligibility was gradually expanded. To date, 41% of Texans have received at least one vaccine dose, and nearly one in three are fully vaccinated against coronavirus, which lags the rate in many other states.

  Now, the state can focus its attention on the new crisis of 2021: the fester crisis at the southern border caused by a surge in migrants responding to Biden’s pledge to welcome immigrants.

  At least now, with the COVID numbers down, maybe Biden will deem it safe enough to hold more photo-ops at the border where he lectures the GOP on immigration policy.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/18/2021 – 20:55

• 'Sickcare' Is The Knife In The Heart Of Employment… And The Economy
  ‘Sickcare’ Is The Knife In The Heart Of Employment… And The Economy

  Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

  We need to change the incentives of the entire system, not just healthcare, but if we don’t start with healthcare, that financial cancer will drag us into national insolvency all by itself.

  American Healthcare is a growth industry in the same way cancer is a growth industry: both keep growing until they kill the host, which in the case of healthcare is the U.S. economy.

  While a great many individuals in the system care about improving the health of their patients, the healthcare system itself only cares about one thing: maximizing profits by any means available, including sending many patients to an early grave via medications which corporations declared “safe” and rigged the political-regulatory-research systems to comply.

  

  I call this maximizing profits by any means available system sickcare, for obvious reasons: this system profits by managing sickness, i.e. chronic diseases, rather than addressing the causes, which in most chronic disorders trace back to lifestyle: SAD (standard American diet), poor fitness and a generally unhealthy lifestyle of convenience (i.e. sedentary), heavy work/financial stress and addictions to meds, drugs, social media, etc.

  Sickcare’s single-minded profiteering would be bad enough if we could afford its spiraling ever higher cost, but we cannot: as I noted way back in 2011, Sickcare Will Bankrupt the Nation all by itself. three years ago I noted that U.S. Healthcare Isn’t Broken–It’s Fixed (5/26/18), as generic meds that cost $22.60 for a month’s supply are pushed by Big Pharma as branded meds for $1,120 per month. Such a deal!

  I’ve been discussing employment recently, and one of my patrons pointed out the enormously negative impact sickcare costs have on employment. I covered the incredibly negative impact of soaring sickcare insurance costs on small business back in 2011: Here’s Why Small Business Isn’t Hiring, and Won’t be Hiring (7/11/11), but the same soaring-costs dynamic makes Corporate America reluctant to hire anyone in America, too.

  You’d have to be insane to pick America as your global base, given the grossly asymmetrical cost of healthcare in the U.S. compared to our developed-world competitors in Europe and East Asia (Japan and South Korea). Sadly, the treatment for your insanity will be so costly in America that your psychiatric problems will soon be exacerbated by financial ruin.

  Those with heavily subsidized healthcare insurance may not realize that insurance for a family can cost more than a wage earner’s entire monthly net income. This generates a perverse incentive (from the perspective of a healthy economy, as opposed to a corrupt, rigged economy run for the exclusive benefit of profiteers, fraudsters, speculators and political fixers) for one spouse to quit their jobs or cut their hours to reduce the household income to the point that federal subsidies (ObamaCare) kick in and pay much or most of the insanely overpriced sickcare insurance tab.

  The subsidies are of course ultimately paid by the taxpayers; sickcare profiteers thank you.

  Needless to say, employers facing monthly healthcare insurance costs of $1,500 for an employee earning $2,500 will be looking for automation or overseas alternatives. How can the employer afford to keep paying healthcare insurance costs that spiral far above the Consumer Price Index (CPI)? Ultimately these higher costs come out of the employee’s paycheck, as employers could have given raises but instead had to fork over all the dough to the sickcare profiteers.

  One driver of wages’ ever-declining share of the national income is trillions of dollars have been siphoned off by sickcare. As the comparison chart below shows, the U.S. pays roughly $5,000 more per capita (per person) per year for healthcare than other equally developed nations: the U.S. pays $10,966 per person per year and the average paid by other developed nations pay roughly half: $5,697 per person per year.

  330 million Americans X $5,000 is $1.65 trillion a year. No wonder wages have gone nowhere for decades and corporations couldn’t wait to offshore jobs in America. (Not that the Corporate America needed much more of an incentive to offshore U.S. jobs, but let’s recognize that sickcare costs put American companies at a huge global disadvantage.)

  Please examine the chart below of healthcare expenses per capita (per person) in the U.S. from 2000 to 2018 (the last year available on the St. Louis Federal Reserve database). I’ve marked up the chart to indicate where healthcare costs per capita would be if healthcare had tracked the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the past two decades.

  

  Strikingly, the cost had U.S. healthcare risen by the same percentage as everything else–$5,852 per capita per year–is very close to the average costs in comparable developed nations: $5,697 per capita per year. Instead, U.S. healthcare costs per person were $9,000 per year as of 2018.

  

  The third chart shows that the results of this asymmetric expenditure on health hasn’t done much in terms of life expectancy or other broad measures of national health and well-being. America is Number One in costs but far down the list of life expectancy and other measures of well-being.

  

  The human and financial costs of this sick system are pervasive. Those trying to provide care within the sickcare system’s perverse incentives are burning out (see last chart), and businesses are crushed by ever-higher costs for everything related to healthcare. The “solution” for employers is to push more of the insane cost increases onto employees, who are already staggering under the weight of stagnant wages and skyrocketing inflation in sectors other than healthcare.

  

  Small business entrepreneurs end up not hiring any workers because they can’t afford to provide the mandated healthcare. Having to do all the work needed to keep the business afloat burns out the owners and they close the business, to the detriment of their community and the local government, which loses the tax revenues generated by the enterprise.

  Here’s a real-world example of how healthcare has become unaffordable for employers: in the mid-1980s I could buy comprehensive healthcare insurance for my single employees (mostly young) for 6 hours’ pay for the average employee and 4 hours of my pay. (My partner and I paid all the healthcare insurance costs, the employees paid zero, I’m just using the hours and pay as a means of measuring the cost of healthcare in terms of the purchasing power of wages.)

  Can an employer buy equivalent comprehensive healthcare insurance today for 6 hours’ of the employees’ pay? No, not even close. (Note that I’m talking about real insurance, not bogus simulacra of insurance, i.e. catastrophic coverage.)

  

  Sickcare is a win for the sickcare profiteers and a loss for employers, employees, communities, government and the nation. Like cancer, sickcare will keep growing until it kills the host. We’re getting close.

  Sickcare is the knife in the heart of employment. Sickcare puts the nation at a tremendous competitive disadvantage, crushes small businesses and generates perverse incentives to automate and offshore jobs just to get out from underneath the dead weight of ever-higher sickcare costs.

  We need a whole new approach to healthcare that includes every aspect of American culture, society, education, economics and governance. We need to ditch SAD (standard American diet) and our unhealthy lifestyle, and incentivize improving health from the ground up rather than generating chronic lifestyle diseases such as metabolic disorders and then managing these disorders as a means of maximizing profits. The national goal should not be profiting from an over-medicated populace, it should be eliminating the need for medications. (A healthy person has no need for handfuls of medications.) Rather than profit from 74% of the populace being overweight and 40% being obese, the national goal should be to eliminate lifestyle diseases entirely by changing behaviors and incentives, not costly procedures and medications. That would free healthcare to serve those suffering from non-lifestyle diseases.

  As Charlie Munger famously noted, “Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.” That’s how humans operate: we respond to the incentives presented, even if they diminish the health of the populace and bankrupt the nation. We need to change the incentives of the entire system, not just healthcare, but if we don’t start with healthcare, that financial cancer will drag us into national insolvency all by itself.

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/18/2021 – 20:45

• Silicon Chip Shortage Leads To Potato Chip Shortage: Farmers Halt Equipment Shipments To Dealers
  Silicon Chip Shortage Leads To Potato Chip Shortage: Farmers Halt Equipment Shipments To Dealers

  Readers have been briefed on the ongoing semiconductor shortage that may last a “couple of years.” The auto industry has grabbed the spotlight as the hardest-hit industry, with some of the world’s biggest manufacturers restricting production. 

  According to a new report, the worldwide chip shortage is impacting the agriculture industry that may last for a couple of years and has already impacted the price of potato chips.

  Hoosier Ag Today reports, “The biggest factor impacting the ability of US farmers to produce the food we need has nothing to do with the weather, the markets, trade, regulations, or disease. The worldwide shortage of computer chips will impact all aspects of agriculture for the next two years and beyond… farm equipment manufacturers have halted shipments to dealers because they don’t have the chips to put in the equipment… not only have combine, planter, tillage, and tractor sales been impacted, but even ATV supplies are limited. Parts, even non-electric parts, are also in short supply because the manufacturers of those parts use the chips in the manufacturing process. As farmers integrate technology into all aspects of the farming process, these highly sophisticated semiconductors have become the backbone of almost every farming operation.” 

  Rabobank’s Global Economics & Markets desk commented on the Hoosier Ag Today report and cautioned on the “technological wonders of a global economy based on just-in-time supplies of a few key inputs from only a few locations; and then demand surged due a virus that ran rampant through said global economy; and supply chains got snarled for that, and other reasons; and now a lack of silicon chips even impacts on the price of potato chips (in the US) and chips (in the UK).” 

  The shortage has caused Reynolds Farm Equipment, one of Indiana’s largest John Deere dealers, to inform customers that order times are unknown at the moment because production for specific equipment has been disrupted because of the lack of chips. 

  

  Bane Welker Equipment, which carries Case farm equipment and several other notable brands with dealerships in Indiana and Ohio, urged customers to plan ahead. The dealership warned customers that combine harvesters, planters, tillages, and tractor supplies have been limited because of the chip shortage. They even said ATV supplies are limited. All of this has severely dented sales for the dealership. 

  Farmers have been rapidly integrating technology into the farming process for the last decade. Agricultural technology has enabled farmers to produce higher crop yields, decrease water, fertilizer, and pesticides, which keeps food prices down and saves the environment. Though as Rabobank described earlier when chips go missing the technological wonders of a global economy come crashing down. 

  “In the U.S., we love our quick-fix solutions, which usually involve federal government bailouts. This time, however, that solution will not work to solve the shortage,” said Hoosier Ag Today. 

  Intel’s CEO Pat Gelsinger has been the latest in a chorus of voices to warn about the ongoing semiconductor shortage that will last for a “couple of years.”

  Gelsinger said U.S. dominance in the chip industry had dropped so much that only 12% of the world’s semiconductor manufacturing is made in the U.S., down from 37% about 25 years ago.

  “And anybody who looks at supply chain says, ‘That’s a problem.’ This is a big, critical industry and we want more of it on American soil: the jobs that we want in America, the control of our long-term technology future,” he said.

  Chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is also warning that the shortage will continue throughout this year and maybe extended into 2022. 

  The worsening shortage is not just crushing the auto industry. It’s also spilling over into farming, where some farmers are unable to source new equipment. What this means is used farm equipment prices are about to skyrocket in price. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/18/2021 – 20:25

• BLM Founder Who Went On Property-Buying-Spree Complains About "White Supremacy" In Housing Market
  BLM Founder Who Went On Property-Buying-Spree Complains About “White Supremacy” In Housing Market

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  After going on a personal home buying spree, including one property located in one of the whitest areas of California, BLM co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors is now complaining about “white supremacy” in the housing market.

  

  Cullors recently spent a total of $3.2 million on four homes, including a $1.4 million property in L.A.’s rustic and semi-remote Topanga Canyon, which has a black population of just 1.6 per cent.

  Another of the homes, a “custom ranch” located in Georgia, is surrounded by “3.2 rural acres” and features a “private airplane hangar with a studio apartment above it” in addition to an indoor swimming pool.

  Over the weekend, Cullors highlighted a story by NPR on the low rate of black home ownership in areas like Compton, which is 33% black.

  “Thank you @npr for highlighting the history of racism inside of the housing market and why Black homeownership has always been a way to disrupt white supremacy,” wrote Cullors.

   

   

   

   

  View this post on Instagram

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  A post shared by Patrisse Cullors-Brignac (@osopepatrisse)

  //www.instagram.com/embed.js

  “Over the last 15 years, Black homeownership has declined more dramatically than for any other racial or ethnic group in the United States,” the NPR report states, adding that black homeownership in 2019 was as low as it was in the 60s.

  However, for Cullors, who has generated significant wealth for herself grifting off of race baiting and divisive Black Lives Matter agitating, she has no such worries.

  After her spending spree was revealed, the establishment went into full panic mode, with Facebook blocking links to a New York Post report about the issue and a black conservative activist being suspended by Twitter for highlighting the matter.

  After an African-American BLM activist demanded an investigation into how the money was being spent, the national BLM organization threatened legal action before Cullors went on to claim that questions over her property buying spree were a “false and dangerous story” being pushed by “right wing forces” and “white supremacists.”

  Cullors is a self-described “Marxist” who apparently thinks she’s the only one exempt when it comes to the sharing of private property.

  BLM as a whole raked in a staggering $90 million dollars in donations last year alone, with the national organization being accused by local chapters of hiding “untold millions of dollars” while keeping the cash away from grassroots activists.

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/18/2021 – 20:05

• Predatory Lenders Charging Up To 589% Interest Posted Record Profits In 2020 Thanks To "Stimulus"
  Predatory Lenders Charging Up To 589% Interest Posted Record Profits In 2020 Thanks To “Stimulus”

  “I can’t even think about how much money I just paid in interest,” 44 year old Jamie Johnson said, thinking back to a payday loan he took out in April 2020.

  His $5,000 loan – which eventually accrued interest at a clip of up to 589% annualized – was the topic of a new Bloomberg article on payday and predatory lending.

  “It was just a big mess,” Johnson said, telling Bloomberg he used pandemic-relief unemployment insurance checks of $965 each week to hurriedly help pay back the debt for fear of being trapped in a neverending cycle of compounding interest and fees.

  

  It’s stories like his that are the driving force behind payday and other high interest loan companies “emerging from the pandemic stronger than perhaps ever before”. The lenders raked in record earnings while Americans suffered during the pandemic. 

  Lauren Saunders, associate director at the National Consumer Law Center, a non-profit that advocates for low-income borrowers, said: “Debt collectors had a big year, and so did predatory lenders. The idea that any company could keep charging 100% or 200% interest or more during this time of crisis is really outrageous.”

  Additionally, studies have shown these types of loans are disproportionately targeted to black and Latino communities. In Michigan, where Johnson is from, “areas that are more than a quarter Black and Latino have 7.6 payday stores for every 100,000 people, or about 50% more than elsewhere,” the report notes.

  

  The irony is that it was the trillions in government stimulus that allowed these predatory companies to prosper. As we noted throughout 2020, many consumers used their stimulus to save and pay down debt. The New York Fed estimates about 33% of all cash received from stimulus checks was used to pay down debt. This equates directly to a boon for companies like Enova International Inc. and Elevate Credit Inc., who engage in these types of loans.

  Moshe Orenbuch, an analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG, said: “Earnings were definitely higher than we would have expected because they benefited from an improvement in the credit environment. Consumers tended to pay back debt with funds they were given by the government.”

  Kimberly Richardson found herself in an equally ugly scenario: she fell into a debt trap that caused her to go from borrowing $1,500 to bankruptcy. Interest on her $1,500 loan was accumulating at a rate of 276% and she was prompted by her loan provider to take additional borrowings under her credit line. She paid CashNetUSA more than $10,000 on the $1,500 loan and then filed for bankruptcy.

  

  Elevate told Bloomberg “it is committed to serving those with non-prime credit scores who are locked out of traditional financial products.” Enova told Bloomberg “its policy is to provide customers with flexibility and to help them be successful with their loan.”

  The kicker is that the National Consumer Law Center had urged Congress to cap these types of rates after Covid-19 was declared a pandemic. But just the opposite happened: in July 2020, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “repealed substantial portions of a 2017 rule that would have required lenders to determine consumers’ ability to repay loans.”

  This rule could have wiped out as much as 68% of the industry’s revenue from payday loans.

  Now, more than 12 states have caps limiting payday loans to 36% or less. Michigan and Tennessee remain excluded from this list, however.

  

  And while there are some indications that the Biden administration may try to reverse course and regulate these loans further, the reality is that companies like Enova are once again licking their chops at a post-Covid boom.

  Enova Chief Executive Officer David Fisher said on an April conference call: “As the economy opens back up, we believe that consumers will raise their spending potentially to elevated levels due to increased activity and pent-up demand. We saw the same dynamic following the financial crisis, which led to strong origination growth in 2010 and 2011.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/18/2021 – 19:45

• Lumber, Labor, & Gas Markets Tell SAD Stories
  Lumber, Labor, & Gas Markets Tell SAD Stories

  Authored by Art Carden via The American Institute for Economic Research,

  The hits just keep coming. First, lumber prices exploded. Second, there was a terrible jobs report. Third, there was a gas shortage. These are all SAD stories–Supply And Demand. They are also, of course, stories about adaptation, adjustment, resilience, and unintended consequences.

  

  First, consider the lumber market. As my AIER colleague Peter C. Earle points out, lumber prices at the beginning of May 2021 were about six-and-a-half times what they were at the beginning of April 2020. On the supply side of the lumber market, lockdowns have limited production. In August, the Financial Post reported that “A plague of tiny mountain pine beetles…has already destroyed 15 years of log supplies in British Columbia, enough trees to build 9 million single-family homes.” Good, old-fashioned protectionism is at play, as well, but the Wall Street Journal reports that tariffs and trade restrictions on Canadian lumber don’t play that large a role.

  On the demand side, the US is in the middle of another housing and construction boom. Zillow is calling it “The Great Reshuffling” and reports that about 11% of Americans “have already moved during the pandemic.” My family is among them: we moved this past fall in search of more space, home office space in particular. Not long after moving, we added stairs to our back deck in no small part because we expect to be spending more of our time with friends outdoors. Moving, new building, and remodeling is being driven at least in part by low interest rates–we knocked our rate down from 3.75% to 2.49% when we moved–and, I suspect, aggressive Fed purchases of mortgage-backed securities during the pandemic. The Fed has added about $800 billion in mortgage-backed securities to their holdings since March 11, 2020:

  

  It will be a while before people have done the empirical work that will untangle and measure the contributions of these different causes, but at a fundamental level, it’s a Supply And Demand story. The massive increase in lumber prices, of course, has some people worried, but as Thomas Sowell constantly reminds people, “There are no solutions. Only trade-offs.” People adjust to the new reality by making incremental substitutions that might not be terribly revolutionary or that might not be especially easy to see but that still reflect exactly how people respond to the signals they are getting from rising prices. High lumber prices say “Are you sure you need to do that project right now?” Sometimes, the answer is yes and other times the answer is no. We considered buying lumber and building a doghouse, but at current prices, we’re going to delay that project for a while.

  Second, there is the labor market. The rhetorical battle is between people outraged by the laziness and moral failings of people who “don’t want to work anymore” and people outraged by the rapacity and callousness of people who expect others to go back to work for low wages. Maybe it is a sudden explosion of laziness. Maybe it is a sudden development of class consciousness that finally has us on the brink of Solidarity Forever.

  Or maybe it’s a change in people’s incentives–specifically, the extension of high unemployment benefits. As David R. Henderson points out, “Paying people an extra $400 a week as long as they’re unemployed is a bad idea.” In a post for EconLog, Henderson notes that he got this wrong–”it’s ‘only’ $300,” but with these extra benefits, it shouldn’t be surprising that people aren’t jumping at employment opportunities. In his article on unemployment in the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, Lawrence Summers explains:

  “…government assistance programs contribute to long-term unemployment…by providing an incentive, and the means, not to work. Each unemployed person has a ‘reservation wage’–the minimum wage he or she insists on getting before accepting a job. Unemployment insurance and other social assistance programs increase that reservation wage, causing an unemployed person to remain unemployed longer.” 

  Why? A sign at a local fast food place advertises starting wages of $11 per hour. That doesn’t sound like much, but two people each working 35 hours per week at that rate would have a household income of $40,040. That’s about 80% of the Alabama median household income of about $50,000 and well above the federal poverty guideline of $26,500 for a family of 4.

  According to this unofficial unemployment benefits calculator, someone in Alabama who earned $20,020 by working in fast food would, upon becoming unemployed, be eligible for $193 per week in unemployment benefits for 20 weeks. If you add to that the additional $300 per week in the new stimulus bill, you get $493 per week. Is it any surprise that fewer people want to work 40 hours a week at $11 an hour when they could take home about $50 a week more than that by remaining unemployed?

  Scott Sumner offers an interesting hypothesis: “Because millions of unemployed workers in low pay service sector jobs earn more on unemployment than they did on their previous jobs, and because most of those jobs are unpleasant, employment will likely remain quite depressed all summer, before bouncing back in the fall.” Alabama is ending the payments on June 19, but that’s still more than a month from this writing of reservation wages propped up by high unemployment benefits.

  Third, a cyberattack shut down an oil pipeline. This led to panic buying at gas stations, a tweet from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission saying, “Do not fill plastic bags with gasoline,” the usual social media hand-wringing about people panic-buying gasoline and storing it stupidly, and, of course, the usual sabre-rattling about “price gouging,” which I’ve previously called “knowledge embargoes.”

  Once again, supply and demand does the explanatory work–and if we had left the mechanism alone and let prices rise after the pipeline shutdown, we wouldn’t have had the mess we were in (or, it must be admitted, the entertaining memes). People who don’t pay attention to current events would get the message that they need to conserve gas pretty quickly, and we wouldn’t be dealing with shortages. It’s a minor inconvenience, but when your gas light comes on (as mine did the other day), it’s cold comfort to pull into a gas station and discover that there is no gas at $2.89 a gallon rather than some gas at $5 a gallon. A station across the street had gas, fortunately–but they had run out of premium (which I don’t need for my Toyota Corolla) and customers were limited to $20 purchases. As economists emphasize whenever price gouging rules kick in, ignoring what supply and demand analysis has to teach us usually means making the problem worse rather than better.

  An apparently apocryphal curse says “May you live in interesting times.” Alas, we do. We needn’t be confused, however. I tell my students that I love economics because it gives me a simple set of tools that makes a lot of sense out of seemingly-disparate situations. Are we wondering what is going on with lumber? It’s a SAD story. Labor? Also a SAD story. Gas? Another SAD story made genuinely sad by politicians ignoring the story’s lesson. While I wish I could say “They’ll know better next time,” it saddens me to say “They won’t.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/18/2021 – 19:25

• China Furious As Japan Refuses To Address Its Radioactive Fukushima Water Dumping Concerns
  China Furious As Japan Refuses To Address Its Radioactive Fukushima Water Dumping Concerns

  Angry that Japan has yet to respond directly to the concerns of the international community, China again urged Japan on Monday to face up to its responsibility and refrain from “wantonly” disposing the radioactive, polluted Fukushima water before reaching consensus with all stakeholders and international agencies through consultations.

  China Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian made the remarks at a daily news briefing when asked to comment on Seoul’s request to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) calling for exploring ways to cooperate with the UN nuclear watchdog to ensure safety in Japan’s planned release of Fukushima nuclear polluted water.

  

  Zhao expressed China’s understanding and support for the South Korean side’s actions, saying the international community as well as within Japan have expressed deep concern and opposition over the past month after Japan announced its decision.

  And in the most harshly worded indication that China will not stand idly by as Tokyo releases 1 million tons of radioactive Fukushima water into the Pacific, Zhao said that “Regrettably, the Japanese government has turned a deaf ear to the protests from many governments, international organizations, environmental groups and people in various countries and has to date refused to respond directly to the concerns of the international community.”

  He reiterated that Japan’s decision to dump the nuclear polluted water into the sea will endanger the global marine environment and international public health and safety.

  The spokesperson stressed that Japan’s move lacks transparency and is irresponsible, adding that its attempts would only serve its own selfish gains while leaving the international community and future generations with endless problems.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/18/2021 – 19:05

• PBS Journalist Implies That Ending Mask Mandates Is Racist
  PBS Journalist Implies That Ending Mask Mandates Is Racist

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  During a White House press briefing, a PBS journalist suggested that ending mask mandates was racist.

  

  Yes, really.

  Last week, the CDC disappointed face diaper extremists by lifting restrictions on mask wearing in numerous settings.

  This prompted a massive backlash from those who have adopted the face covering as a kind of cult symbol, with a PBS journalist attempting to argue that not masking up will lead to the deaths of more black people.

  “The CDC guidelines on masks is putting front line workers and especially people of color at risk and they’re calling for the CDC to reverse that, what’s the White House’s stance on…people of color (being) at risk,” said the journalist.

  Leftists continue to be infuriated that mask mandates are ending because for the past year, they’ve been able to use them as a justification to ostracize and publicly shame conservatives, while the entire time claiming masks “aren’t political.”

  Despite the CDC’s advice, authorities throughout liberal states are refusing to fully lift the mandates while zealots like AOC are insisting they will continue to mask up.

  Meanwhile, two months after lifting its mask mandate, Texas recorded zero COVID deaths, the first time that has happened since data began to be collected.

  Today Texas reported:

  * 0 Covid related deaths–the only time that’s happened since data was tracked in March, 2020.

  * the fewest Covid cases in over 13 months

  * the lowest 7-day Covid positivity rate ever

  * the lowest Covid hospitalizations in 11 months.

  Thanks, Texans!

  — Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) May 17, 2021

  Even after the pandemic ends, those who have cemented mask wearing as a signal of virtue, compliance and political obedience will fight tooth and nail to keep the mandates in place under any flimsy justification.

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/18/2021 – 18:45

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• Sweden Records More Than 30K Cases Of Side Effects Tied To COVID Jabs
  Sweden Records More Than 30K Cases Of Side Effects Tied To COVID Jabs

  As Europe pushes ahead with its vaccination program, the Nordic countries are reporting a surge in damaging side effects. In the country, the tally has surpassed 30K with the majority of these reactions reported in patients who received the AstraZeneca jab.

  Sweden’s Medical Products Agency reported that as of last week, the Scandinavian nation had tallied 31,844 reports of adverse reactions linked to its vaccine rollout.

  

  Sweden presently offers 3 different COVID-19 jabs: Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca, with the latter being the most widely available (while other European states like Germany have sought to offer substitutes to younger patients, who are more vulnerable to dangerous cerebral blood clots, which are a rare – but not unheard of – side effect).

  The number of suspected adverse reactions from the two shots seems relatively small when compared to the 19,961 reports linked to AstraZeneca’s Vaxzevria, while the AstraZeneca shot only accounts for about 26% of the roughly 2.7MM vaccines that have been administered so far in Sweden, but makes up around 63% of the side effects reports.

  Ebba Hallberg, an official with the Medical Products Agency, told Swedish media that it was unusual to receive so many reports of side effects. She added that the tally was likely higher because of public focus on the new vaccines.To head off complaints that many of the incidences of side effects were minor, she said healthcare providers are likely only reporting the more “serious” side effects.

  One Swedish media outlet said the number of complaints filed in just a few months exceeded the number typically filed over 4 years, which underscores the public anxieties about the COVID vaccines.

  In March, Sweden was one of several nations to temporarily suspend the use of the AstraZeneca jab, following reports of abnormal blood clotting in recipients. AstraZeneca, as well as the European Medicines Agency, have insisted that the vaccine is safe after it came under scrutiny.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/18/2021 – 02:45

• Government Scientific Advisors Admit Using "Totalitarian" Fear Tactics To Control People During Pandemic, Report
  Government Scientific Advisors Admit Using “Totalitarian” Fear Tactics To Control People During Pandemic, Report

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  Scientists in the UK working as advisors for the government have expressed regret for using what they now admit to be “unethical” and “totalitarian” methods of instilling fear in the population in order to control behaviour during the pandemic, according to a report.

  

  The London Telegraph reports the comments made by Members of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour (SPI-B), a sub-committee of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) the government’s chief scientific advisory group.

  The report quotes a briefing from March 2020, as the first lockdown was decreed, that stated the government should drastically increase “the perceived level of personal threat” that the virus poses because “a substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened”.

  One scientist with the SPI-B admits that “In March [2020] the Government was very worried about compliance and they thought people wouldn’t want to be locked down. There were discussions about fear being needed to encourage compliance, and decisions were made about how to ramp up the fear.”

  The unnamed scientist adds that “The way we have used fear is dystopian.”

  The scientist further confessed that “The use of fear has definitely been ethically questionable. It’s been like a weird experiment. Ultimately, it backfired because people became too scared.”

  Another separate scientist on the subcommittee professed “You could call psychology ‘mind control’. That’s what we do… clearly we try and go about it in a positive way, but it has been used nefariously in the past.”

  Another scientist warned that “We have to be very careful about the authoritarianism that is creeping in,” adding “people use the pandemic to grab power and drive through things that wouldn’t happen otherwise.”

  According to the report, another researcher with the group acknowledged that “Without a vaccine, psychology is your main weapon,” adding that “Psychology has had a really good epidemic, actually.”

  Yet another scientist on the subcommittee stated that they have been “stunned by the weaponisation of behavioural psychology” over the past year, and warned that “psychologists didn’t seem to notice when it stopped being altruistic and became manipulative.”

  “They have too much power and it intoxicates them”, the scientist further warned.

  The comments were collected by author Laura Dodsworth, for her book A State of Fear, out today, that explores the government’s actions during the pandemic.

  “Use of fear to control behaviour in Covid pandemic was ‘totalitarian’, admit scientists”

  ⁦From ‘A State of Fear: how the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic’ https://t.co/gD6HFUkQqW

  — Laura Dodsworth (@BareReality) May 14, 2021

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  https://t.co/yBiQU5qgTn

  — Laura Dodsworth (@BareReality) May 14, 2021

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  When the Telegraph asked the subcommittee for comment on the findings, SPI-B psychologist Gavin Morgan replied “Clearly, using fear as a means of control is not ethical. Using fear smacks of totalitarianism. It’s not an ethical stance for any modern government.”

  Morgan added that “By nature I am an optimistic person, but all this has given me a more pessimistic view of people.”

  Commenting on the revelations, Conservative Steve Baker, a member of a group of anti-lockdown MPs said “If it is true that the state took the decision to terrify the public to get compliance with rules, that raises extremely serious questions about the type of society we want to become.”

  “Do I fear that Government policy today is playing into the roots of totalitarianism? Yes, of course it is,” Baker urged.

  🚨From the book by @BareReality:

  🗣️”Clearly, using fear as a means of control is not ethical. Using fear smacks of totalitarianism. It’s not an ethical stance for any modern government.” – SPI-B member

  Story via @Telegraph,https://t.co/43oMh99H7e https://t.co/NcbxY0Gt2p

  — Steve Baker MP FRSA (@SteveBakerHW) May 15, 2021

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  The government state of fear continues minute by minute as government ministers are now suggesting that so called ‘freedom day’ in the UK (a situation where the government permits people to have basic rights is not freedom) on June 21st is under threat because a sizeable portion of the population is refusing to take the vaccine:

  🚨 | NEW: There is a moral debate taking place in government with some arguing that they have a duty to prevent deaths among those who refused the vaccine, and others privately suggesting that vaccine refusers cannot hold back the rest of the country, even if some die@politico

  — Politics For All (@PoliticsForAlI) May 17, 2021

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

  🚨 | NEW: The UK remains on track for the June 21 date, however a significant minority of people are refusing to take the vaccine. A senior minister described this as the “principal threat to June 21”

  Via @POLITICOEurope

  — Politics For All (@PoliticsForAlI) May 17, 2021

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/18/2021 – 02:00

• "Blood On Your Hands": Erdogan Issues Worst Rebuke To Biden Since Taking Office
  “Blood On Your Hands”: Erdogan Issues Worst Rebuke To Biden Since Taking Office

  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday blasted the Joe Biden administration for standing idly by while the civilian body count piles up in Gaza after one week of unrelenting Israeli airstrikes. And even more than this Turkey is outraged over new reports that Biden approved a $735 million dollar weapons sale from the United States to Israel.

  “You are writing history with your bloody hands,” Erdogan said in remarks addressed to President Biden. The stinging rebuke came after a meeting with this cabinet over the continuing Gaza crisis. Turkey has long been a staunch supporter of Palestinian rights, though Erdogan’s rule has in recent years seen relations with Israel reach a low-point given the hardline Islamist leanings of his Justice and Development Party. The Hill reports of the massive US weapons sale to Israel that “A majority of the possible sale is of Boeing-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions, equipment that can make unguided bombs dropped from aircraft into guided missiles, the aide confirmed.” 

  

  “The window for Congress to block this sale is for all intents and purposes closed,” The Hill wrote, also noting outrage among a handful of Democrat progressives.

  Following a meeting with his Cabinet, Erdogan issued a rebuke to the U.S. president, saying:

  “Now, unfortunately, you (Biden) are writing history with your bloody hands with this event (in which) Gaza is being attacked with seriously disproportionate force causing the martyrdom of thousands of people. You have forced us to say this.”

  And specifically on the new reports of Biden-approved weapons sales to the Jewish state, Erdogan scolded further:

  “Today we saw Biden’s signature on weapons sales to Israel,” Erdogan said in reference to US media reports of a new arms shipment approved by the Biden administration.

  “Palestinian territories are awash with persecution, suffering and blood, like many other territories that lost the peace with the end of the Ottomans. And you are supporting that,” Erdogan said.

  This apparently marks the end of previously reported attempts of Erdogan to reach out to the administration, following warmer (despite at times tense) personal relations with Trump, given that Monday’s comments mark the harshest words Erdogan has unleashed on Biden since his January arrival in the White House. 

  After all this, Erdogan apparently offered his vision for peace in the region…

  BREAKING — Erdogan says Jerusalem should be governed by a commission that has representatives from three religions, Islam, Christianity and Judaism to reach security and peace in the city. pic.twitter.com/E8slyxUCCq

  — Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) May 17, 2021

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  But Turkey’s leader also went after some European countries, especially Austria – over reports of the Austrians flying an Israeli flag from a government building. He said Austria is trying to make Muslims “pay the price of their own genocide against the Jews” – a reference to the large number of Austrian Nazis that during WWII helped facilitate the Holocaust there.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/18/2021 – 01:15

• US And Its Allies Try To Split The World In Two
  US And Its Allies Try To Split The World In Two

  Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  America is using its post-WWII position of being the world’s hegemon, so as to compel every other nation either to join them (as a banana republic or vassal nation) or else to become their enemy by destroying them.

  

  America’s response to the increasing economic success of China and other nations that until recent decades were impoverished former colonies is to organize its own allies – especially the English-speaking countries – to become a totally separate global economic trading and military alliance standing against that “third world” – and thereby force all non-aligned nations to have to either choose to be allied with the United States or else become conquered by the U.S. and its allies. It’s “Us,” or “Them,” all the way. The top “enemies” (the “Them”) are the same countries that America and its allies were against during the anti-communist Cold War, Russia and China, even though Russia is no longer communist, and China has become a mixture between communism and capitalism.

  America has on its side Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar, UAE, and all four of the fascist nations during World War II: Germany, Japan, Italy, and Spain — as well as many other nations.

  Russia and China were both allies of the United States during the war against Hitler and his allies, but Franklin Delano Roosevelt had to fight against considerable American support for the fascist powers (overwhelmingly coming from Republicans) during the years before Japan’s Pearl Harbor attack on 7 December 1941. (In fact, on 23 November 1937, Hitler’s agents Kurt von Tippleskirch and Manfred von Killinger, two Barons, were secretly negotiating with top Republicans — including the racist Irénée du Pont — what would have been the Duponts’ second coup-attempt against FDR, but neither attempt succeeded.) As soon as Harry S. Truman (whom the Democratic Party’s billionaires chose to be FDR’s VP in 1944) became President on FDR’s death on 12 April 1945, the alliance with the Soviet Union ended, and the Cold War gelled in Truman’s mind on 25 July 1945 because of advice from General Dwight Eisenhower, whom Truman practically worshipped. On 19 June 1945, Truman wrote to his wife, Bess, “He’s done a whale of a job. They are running him for President, which is O.K. with me. I’d turn it over to him now if I could.” And, on 25 July 1945, Ike told Truman that either the Soviet Union would conquer the world or else America would — and this apparently convinced Truman to go for global empire and to conquer the Soviet Union.

  America’s increasingly used method for conquest is the method that was first done against Iraq starting in 1991: international sanctions, followed by coup-attempts that, if unsuccessful, are then followed by an outright military invasion — with or without U.N. approval. More recently, this stepwise method (sanctions, failed coup, then invasion) is being used against Syria, but America no longer applies its own troops for its invasions, and instead uses hired proxy-forces (mercenaries), such as, in Syria, jihadists who are hired from around the world and paid for by the Sauds, and also uses separatist Kurds are hired who have long wanted to break away from Iraq, Syria, and Turkey in order to establish their own Kurdistan nation, and who are controlled more directly from Washington (since the Sauds don’t control Kurdish forces). America’s troops in Syria train and arm (usually with money being supplied by the royal families of Saudi Arabia and Qatar) the jihadists (who are Al Qaeda-affiliated) and the Kurds.

  Right now, America is using its post-WWII position of being the world’s hegemon or globally dominant nation, so as to, basically, compel every other nation either to join them (as a banana republic or vassal nation) or else to become their enemy by destroying them, as Washington and its allies have done to Syrians, Yemenis, Palestinians, Ukrainians, Venezuelans, Bolivians, Ecuadorans, and, before that, Hondurans, Guatemalans, El Salvadorans, Argentinians, Chileans, Iranians, and many others in what Washington calls “The Free World.” Ideology is no longer the excuse. Now the excuses are “democracy,” “human rights,” “fighting against corruption,” and, of course “national defense” (which likewise was Hitler’s main excuse).

  In other words: America is trying to do everything it can to avoid becoming downgraded to become the world’s #2 nation, in terms of power. America’s billionaires are behind this; America’s Government is controlled by them.

  The best single statement of America’s position is the speech that Barack Obama gave to the graduating cadets at West Point Military Academy on 28 May 2014, saying:

  The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation. That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come. … Russia’s aggression toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe, while China’s economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors. From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with us, and governments seek a greater say in global forums. … It will be your generation’s task to respond to this new world.

  America “responds” to the rising power of nations that formerly had been colonies, by means of offering them this choice: Join with us, or else be destroyed.

  As the U.S. Establishment presents and promotes this, it is ‘justified’ because only America is “indispensable”: all other nations are “dispensable.” (Hitler, too, felt that way about all other nations — and most Germans endorsed that supremacism then, just like most Americans support it today.) FDR had planned a non-fascist future for the world, but then he died and (because of whom FDR’s successor was) we got a fascist future, instead, and that’s what we have. Mussolini called fascism “corporationism.” And America is more and more corporationist every decade that passes.

  Under the bigoted Hindu-nationalist Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is now clearly part of the U.S.-UK-led alliance. On 4 March 2021, Munira Lokhandwala headlined “Google Invests Billions in India as Modi and Allies Stage Corporate Takeover of Agriculture” and reported that

  In particular, Google’s multi-billion dollar investment in the telecommunications company owned by oil and gas billionaire Mukesh Ambani shows how US Big Tech will stop at nothing to make a bigger profit, even if this includes legitimizing a key supporter of the authoritarian-leaning government that is now a target of mass revolt. Ambani is India’s richest man and a strong corporate ally to BJP leadership, perceived by many as a major beneficiary of the hated agricultural reforms.

  In September 2020, the Indian Parliament approved the Indian Agriculture Acts of 2020, also known as the “Farm Bills.” In response, Indian farmers who opposed these bills launched one of the largest protests and series of cross-sectoral strikes that the world has ever seen.

  It’s estimated that over 250 million people have participated in protests against the passage of these bills that Indian farmers see as another phase in the continued attack on their livelihoods and an attempt to deregulate the farming industry to allow for greater private-sector control of food distribution. These changes would favor large corporations like Ambani’s Reliance Industries, who would thrive under the free market conditions that these Farm Bills would create.

  India, in the Rhodesist plan, would be a major counter-weight to China.

  Japan is another. On 23 April 2021, Craig Mark bannered “From Five Eyes To Six? Japan’s Push To Join The West’s Intelligence Alliance”, and he reported that

  As tensions with China continue to grow, Japan is making moves to join the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing alliance. This week, Japan’s ambassador to Australia, Shingo Yamagami, told The Sydney Morning Herald he was “optimistic” about his country coming on board. “[I] would like to see this idea become reality in the near future.”

  This comes as New Zealand voices its concerns over using the Five Eyes process to pressure China.

  What is this spy alliance? And what are the benefits and risks to bringing Japan on board?

  What is the Five Eyes?

  Beginning as an intelligence exchange agreement between the United States and United Kingdom in 1943, it formally became the UKUSA Agreement in 1946. The agreement then extended to Canada in 1948, and Australia and New Zealand in 1956.

  UK has gotten Japan’s Ambassador to Australia to assist Australia to pressure progressive New Zealand to remain in the Rhodesist alliance and thereby help to bring Japan into the Rhodesist core as being the first-ever non-English-speaking country to be admitted into the Rhodes-core (and thereby turn the “Five Eyes” into six). That would achieve what David Rockefeller and his sidekick Zbig Brzezinski (who was a member of Poland’s nobility) had been attempting to do by means of their Trilateral Commission, which was intended to expand beyond the Bilderberg group of NATO countries so as to include also Japan.

  On 30 April 2021, the geostrategic analyst Alexander Mercouris headlined a video “Blinken Goes To Ukraine With A Tough Message For Zelensky” and explained that because Putin recently established “red lines” that would provoke a direct military conflict between Russia and the United States if violated by the U.S., Biden has refocused America’s top target to be conquered as being no longer Russia but instead now China. Mercouris says that Ukraine’s U.S.-stooge President Volodmyr Zelensky will probably now be forced to stop threatening to invade the breakaway formerly Ukrainian Donbas region.

  However, whereas the U.S. aristocracy’s main medium-term objective is to retain control over Ukraine so as to become enabled to blitz-launch missiles from there to eliminate Moscow’s ability to retaliate against America’s first-strike hit (the U.S. alliance’s updated version of the Nazis’ Operation Barbarossa), the UK’s main medium-term objective is for the U.S.-UK-Saud-Qatar alliance to arm and train jihadists and separatist Kurds to conquer Syria so that the Sauds will control that country. The long-term objective, both of America’s and UK’s aristocrats, is their shared dictatorship over all nations.

  On 30 April 2021, the international investigative journalist Finian Cunningham interviewed at Strategic Culture the former UK Ambassador to Syria, the astoundingly courageous Peter Ford, and headlined “Syria Regime Change Still on Western Agenda – Ex-Ambassador Peter Ford”. This whistleblowing former UK Ambassador opened his comments by saying:

  The Western powers are like dogs with an old bone on the subject of alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria. There is no meat on it but they continue to gnaw away. Why? Because the trope that “Assad gasses his own people” has become a cornerstone of the whole Western propaganda narrative on Syria. Without it, justifying the cruel economic war on Syria, largely through sanctions, would be harder to justify. And with military efforts at regime change having failed, economic warfare is now the last hope for the Western powers of destabilizing Syria enough to topple the government. For this strategy to work the Western powers are more than ready to undermine the credibility of the OPCW by abusing their ability to manipulate it in the Syrian context.

  The interview closed with:

  Question: Finally, Syria is holding presidential elections on May 26 in which incumbent Bashar al-Assad is running for re-election. The Western powers disparage Syria as an “undemocratic regime”. How do you view Syria’s polity? Is Assad likely to win re-election?

  Peter Ford: Of course Assad will win and of course the Western powers will try to disparage his victory. But I can state with certainty that if you could offer the Conservative party in Britain a guarantee of achieving in the next general election anything anywhere near Assad’s genuine level of support, albeit some of it reluctant from a war-weary people, the Tories would bite your hand off for such an electoral gain. Much of the current Western propaganda effort against Syria is geared at trying to spoil Assad’s victory and deny it legitimacy. But inside Syria itself, the people will see the election as setting the seal on 10 years of struggle, and Assad will emerge strengthened as he faces the next phase in the Western war on Syria.

  Furthermore, just the same as the U.S. and their allies were funding, training, and arming jihadists (technically called “Salafist Muslims”) in order to bring about regime-change in Syria, they’re doing the very same thing in order to bring about regime-change in China — in that instance by propagandizing ‘human rights’ for Uyghur Chinese who have been indoctrinated with the Sauds’ extremist-Sunni variant of the Islamic faith (Salafism). (Many of those Salafists, because of their Turkic culture, have recently become more favorable to Turkey than to Saudi Arabia, and therefore on 18 July 2019, Reuters headlined “Saudi Arabia defends letter backing China’s Xinjiang policy”, and reported that the Sauds “defended signing a letter along with 36 other countries in support of China’s policies in its western region of Xinjiang, where the United Nations says at least 1 million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims have been detained.” The U.S. and UK were now backing pro-Turkish jihadists, instead of pro-Saudi ones. Turkey is a NATO nation; and, so, the Rhodesists don’t care which brand of jihad they are backing in order to break up, or bring regime-change to, China.)

  So, even if the U.S. regime might be placing Ukraine onto the back burner, the UK regime, apparently, is unwilling to place the conquest of Syria onto its back burner. And, for both American billionaires and UK billionaires, China is unrelentingly in the gunsights of both aristocracies, to conquer. In fact, on 10 April 2021, Strategic Culture issued an editorial, “Ukraine, Taiwan… Two-Prong U.S. Aggression Toward Russia, China”, which noted:

  Biden is advancing the same policy under the previous Trump and Obama administrations of military buildup near China’s territory. This week saw the fourth U.S. guided-missile destroyer passing through the Taiwan Strait since Biden took office. That narrow sea separates the breakaway island from China’s mainland. Beijing has sovereign territorial claim to Taiwan which is recognized by the vast majority of nations, including up until recently the United States under its so-called “One China” policy. Biden, like his predecessor Donald Trump, is deliberately eroding the One China policy by sending delegates to the island on official visits, increasing weapons sales and most provocatively making public declarations that the U.S. will “defend” Taiwan in the event of “an invasion” by Chinese forces.

  Similar to the Ukraine, the Biden administration’s rhetoric and conduct is serving to fuel an ever-more provocative stance by the Taiwanese leaders. This week, a senior official warned that the island’s forces would shoot down Chinese aircraft that approach the territory. This is nothing but a flagrant challenge to China’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. As in the case of the Ukraine and Russia, it is Washington’s words and actions that are inflaming the tensions between Taiwan and China. Yet the Americans accuse others of “aggression” and claim to be providing “defense”.

  The only entity that could possibly stop all this would be the U.S.-created European Union. Either they will turn against their creator, and join with Russia and China against U.S. and UK (which would put an end to the Rhodesist team’s insanity), or there will be World War III (though probably not in the near-term future), in which the U.S. regime will blitz-nuclear attack Russia, though that would destroy the planet.

  If the EU does break away from the U.S., then it will also be able to relocate the U.N. out of NYC to Europe and reform the U.N. in what had been its inventor’s, FDR’s, intention, that the U.N. become the democratic global federation of nations controlling all nuclear and other geostrategic weapons and forces, and that serves as the sole and authoritative executive, legislative, and judicial, authority for all international-relations issues throughout the world, the democratic federal world government. That’s what Truman and Churchill prevented, and what would produce a world that will have no future world wars, no future wars between empires, because there would no longer be any empires, nor any imperialism.

  Either there will be FDR’s intention, or there will be nuclear annihilation. The EU will decide. For the EU to impose FDR’s intention would be for the EU to turn against its creator, which was Truman and all subsequent U.S. Presidents (and their Congresses, which likewise have been controlled by America’s billionaires). However, a likelier alternative would be for some nations to do as UK did and break away from the EU, but for them to do it as UK did not, to realign themselves with Russia, China, and Iran, and away from the U.S. That, too, might prevent WWIII and enable the U.N. to be reformed as FDR had been intending it to be: as the global democratic federal republic and sole source and judge and enforcer of international laws — the post-imperialist world, which FDR had planned for. If FDR’s plan doesn’t happen, then WWIII will happen, and this was the reason why he had been planning the U.N. as he did. But as soon as he died, on 12 April 1945, the billionaires’ agents worked on Truman, who finally, on 25 July 1945 (based on General Eisenhower’s advice), decided to go for America’s global conquest; and, so, the ceaseless string of subversions, coups, and invasions, by the U.S. (the permanent-warfare state), started. The first coup was 1948 in Thailand, in order to install rulers who would let the OSS-CIA skim from the international narcotics traffic so as to supply the needed off-the-books funding for the CIA’s Special Operations.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/18/2021 – 00:30

• Visualizing The History Of Psychedelics, Part 1
  Visualizing The History Of Psychedelics, Part 1

  Due to their counterculture connotations and rigid legal status, psychedelics were once considered a highly stigmatized topic.

  Over the last decade however, a steady stream of groundbreaking research has proven that these powerful substances have the potential to safely treat a wide range of diseases.

  Today, attitudes toward the industry have changed, and capital is flowing- resulting in a market that analysts predict could eventually be worth $100 billion.

  

  The graphic above from Tryp Therapeutics is the first in a two-part series that explores how psychedelics have evolved over the last 6,000 years.

  From Ancient Antidote to Breakthrough Medicine

  Before we dive into the history of psychedelics, it’s important to understand what they are and how they work.

  Psychedelics are drugs that alter cognitive processes and produce hallucinogenic effects. Broadly speaking, there are two categories that psychedelic substances fall into: entheogens, and synthetic drugs. Entheogenic psychedelics are derived from plants, while synthetic psychedelics are created in a laboratory.

  Here are some of the most well known psychedelic substances explained:

  

  Certain psychedelics work by binding to serotonin receptors in the brain which produces psychoactive effects. Research suggests that when this happens, the structure of the brain changes—such as the number of connections between neutrons. This means that psychedelics could have the potential to rewire or repair circuits in the brain, hence their reputation for having healing powers.

  Ancient Times

  While the science behind these mind-altering plants is only now beginning to become clear, they have in fact been used in rituals and ceremonies for thousands of years.

  As a result, psychedelic substances have been hugely influential in shaping certain cultures and religions dating back to 4,000 BC. These cultures, particularly in the Americas, learned how to utilize psychoactive plants and mushrooms for medicinal purposes or to reach an altered state of consciousness.

  

  With that being said, evidence of how psychedelics were used in ancient times is often anecdotal, and therefore widely debated.

  The Prohibition Era

  In the 1800s, scientists and psychiatrists began discovering new kinds of drugs such as psilocybin and subsequently became advocates of psychedelic medicine. Unfortunately, uncontrolled drug use for recreational purposes led to governments across the world debating their legal status, and clamping down on restrictions.

  

  Within decades, the recreational use of psychedelics undermined promising medical discoveries, and put the future of the industry into question, eventually triggering the War on Drugs.

  An Industry, Reborn

  With these strict legal changes around the world, the psychedelics industry became largely inactive. But today, an explosion of unprecedented research findings surrounding the therapeutic potential of psychedelics has triggered many countries to reassess their decision to criminalize.

  Now, the industry is back, and bigger than ever before. In Part 2 of The History of Psychedelics, we’ll dive into The Psychedelics Renaissance the industry is currently experiencing and discuss the exciting future of this promising sector.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/18/2021 – 00:10

• Liz Cheney: Biden Military Budget 'Too Low' Despite Being Highest Of All Time
  Liz Cheney: Biden Military Budget ‘Too Low’ Despite Being Highest Of All Time

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  President Biden requested a $753 billion military budget for the 2022 fiscal year, which would be the highest of all time. But this number is not enough for Republican hawks in Congress. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WI) said not increasing the budget by three to five percent would be a “red line” for Republicans. Biden’s budget request would be about a 1.6 percent increase from 2021.

  “In my view, that is a red line, and if the administration is not going to be proposing a budget that meets that requirement, then I think they will need to explain to the American people why they’re unwilling to fund defense at the levels the nation needs,” Cheney said at the McAleese Defense Programs Conference, which was held virtually last week.

  

  “I would clearly oppose budgets that were below that number, and I think we’re going to have a very healthy debate and discussion about the administration’s proposal because it is coming in significantly below that number,” she said.

  While Cheney might have fallen out of favor with the GOP over her criticisms of Trump and has been removed from her position as party leadership, her opinion on the military budget is still the prevalent view of Republicans in Congress. Leading Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee have been urging Biden to increase the budget by three to five percent.

  The Pentagon has recently identified China as the top “pacing threat” to the US military, and Beijing is serving as the hawks’ justification to spend more.

  After Biden requested his $753 billion budget, Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Richard Shelby (R-AL) released a joint statement calling for more spending.

  Biden Wants to Spend Even More on Defense than Trump https://t.co/pIKGLvPxJH

  — Anirvan Chatterjee (@anirvan) April 14, 2021

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  The statement reads: “President Biden recently said, ‘If we don’t get moving, [China] is going to eat our lunch.’ Today’s budget proposal signals to China that they should set the table.” The senators claimed China “aspires to overtake America as the world’s dominant superpower.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 05/17/2021 – 23:50

• Illinois Jeep Factory Set To Lay Off 1,600 Workers Amid Global Semiconductor Shortage
  Illinois Jeep Factory Set To Lay Off 1,600 Workers Amid Global Semiconductor Shortage

  A Jeep Cherokee factory is cutting 1,600 jobs in Northern Illinois as the auto industry continues to struggle with the global shortage of semiconductors.

  The U.S. arm of Stellantis announced this week is was going to cut one of its two work shifts at the Belvidere Assembly Plant as of July 26. 1,641 workers could be affected, a local NBC affiliate reported over the weekend. 

  Company spokeswoman Jodi Tinson claimed that the company was trying to “balance sales with production,” and that the factory’s situation “has been further exacerbated by the unprecedented global microchip shortage.”

  This stands at odds with comments made by the company’s CFO earlier this month, when we reported that Chief Financial Officer Richard Palmer said the semi shortage impact would be higher in Q2, but also said it “is still very controlled”.

  The plant has been idled since late March, the report notes. Its re-opening has been delayed and isn’t expected until “at least” later this month. 

  

  Recall, we last wrote about Stellantis at the beginning of May, after the auto maker said there was “no end in sight” to the ongoing semi chip shortage. 

  The company said in its report earlier this month that it lost production of 190,000 vehicles due to the shortage. The world’s fourth largest carmaker said that 8 of its 44 plants were affected by the shortage, ultimately resulting in reductions in shifts and slowing, or shuttering, of vehicle lines. 

  The company had been making changes to its lineup, including changing the dashboard of the Peugeot 308, to try and adapt to the crisis. 

  “We don’t have great visibility. As such it would be imprudent to assume the issue is going to go away,” Palmer continued, sounding less like the issue is “still very controlled”. 

  Recall, Intel’s CEO, speaking on 60 Minutes earlier this month, said: “We have a couple of years until we catch up to this surging demand across every aspect of the business.” Days prior, we wrote that Morgan Stanley had also suggested the shortage could continue “well into 2022”. 

  Stellantis was created out of the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Peugeot.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 05/17/2021 – 23:30

• Common Sense Wins As Supreme Court Backs Energy Companies Over Baltimore In Climate Case
  Common Sense Wins As Supreme Court Backs Energy Companies Over Baltimore In Climate Case

  Via The Federalist Papers,

  The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favor of BP PLC, Chevron Corp, Exxon Mobil Corp, Royal Dutch Shell PLC and other energy companies contesting a lawsuit filed by the city of Baltimore seeking monetary damages from them due to costs caused by global climate change.

  

  The 7-1 ruling, authored by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, came on a technical legal issue that could help the companies in their effort to have the case heard in federal court, as they would prefer, instead of state court, which the city favors as it is seen as a more amenable venue.

  The high court decided that the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not correctly analyze whether the case could be heard in federal court.

  The Democratic-governed Maryland city’s lawsuit targeted 21 U.S. and foreign energy companies that extract, produce, distribute or sell fossil fuels, arguing that their activities contribute to emissions of carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases linked to climate change. An important port city, Baltimore noted that it is vulnerable to sea-level rise and flooding driven by climate change.

  The Supreme Court’s ruling could affect around a dozen similar lawsuits brought by various U.S. states, cities and counties.

  Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented in the ruling. Conservative Justice Samuel Alito, did not participate in the case, likely because he owns stocks in two oil companies involved in the litigation.

  The legal question concerned a provision of U.S. law that puts limits on appeals courts reviewing decisions by federal district court judges to remand a case to state court. The companies have said that in this instance the 4th Circuit had broad scope to review a district court’s decision because of a provision that permits appeals of such rulings when a case directly concerns federal officials or government entities.

  The energy companies have argued that energy production is an inherently federal issue, meaning the case should be heard in federal court. Greenhouse gas emissions that cross state and international lines are likewise an issue that cannot be addressed under state laws, the companies added.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 05/17/2021 – 23:10

• India Sees Cases Slow As Outbreak Spills Into Nepal; Regional Mutant Arrives In US
  India Sees Cases Slow As Outbreak Spills Into Nepal; Regional Mutant Arrives In US

  It finally looks like India’s brutal second wave of COVID-19 is easing, as cases again slowed on Monday, while daily deaths remained near record highs. New cases dropped below 300K on Monday, to 281,386, while deaths remained stubbornly above 4K at 4,106. In total, India has counted 24,965,463 cases (with many more likely uncounted) and 274, 390 deaths.

  Vaccinations, meanwhile, have lagged with just 182M doses administered across the country of 1.4 billion.

  

  Source: Johns Hopkins

  However, there’s a new threat on the horizon that could cripple India’s health-care system at what is probably its most vulnerable moment: a cyclone called Cyclone Tauktae, which is hammering the western part of the country, including drenching the financial capital of Mumbai.

  In Gujarat, where on Sunday and overnight nearly 150,000 people from 17 districts were evacuated, all Covid-19 patients in hospitals with five kilometres of the coast were also moved. In some places, to ensure that hospitals are not faced with power outages, 1,383 back-up generators have been installed, according to local officials.

  

  Virus safety protocols such as wearing masks, social distancing and the use of sanitisers would be observed in the shelters for evacuees, officials added.

  Data released Monday showed new cases in Mumbai have declined 70% in the past week, from 11,000 daily cases to fewer than 2,000 in Mumbai.

  Across India, active cases number more than 3.6 million, meaning hospitals are still swamped by patients.

  Izhaar Hussain Shaikh, an ambulance driver in Mumbai, drove about 70 patients to the hospital last month. Two weeks into May, he’d carried only 10 patients, according to Newsweek. “We used to be so busy before, we didn’t even have time to eat.”

  Meanwhile, more signs that India’s outbreak is spreading beyond its borders emerged as the worsening outbreak in neighboring Nepal made headlines in the West. NBC News reported that cases have exploded in Nepal in recent weeks, which is one reason why China installed a border “line” at the summit of Mt Everest to warn mountaineers to stay out of China.

  Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, expressed worry about the unfolding crisis.

  “India remains hugely concerning,” he said at a news briefing. “But it’s not only India that has emergency needs. Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Egypt are just some of the countries that are dealing with spikes in cases and hospitalizations.”

  Others warned that the situation in Nepal might worsen in the coming days as some 9K cases are reported daily, while many more likely go undiagnosed.

  “We are in the initial phase,” said Sushila Pandit, a Nepalese aid worker with Mercy Corps, an international nongovernmental aid group. “I think the condition will be more critical in the the coming days.”

  Experts in Europe warned last week that mutant strain known as B.1.617 and some of its variants had been traced to parts of Europe and the UK. Well on Monday, scientists warned that B.1.617 had officially been tracked to the US, according to USA Today.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 05/17/2021 – 22:50

• The Corrupted January 6 Commission
  The Corrupted January 6 Commission

  Authored by Technofog via The Reactionary,

  Late last week, House Democrats unveiled their Bill to “establish the National Commission to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol Complex.”

  We previously warned about the Democrats’ roadmap to use their investigative authority to further their political goals. We advised that Democrats make the investigation broad enough to subpoena records from conservative groups and websites – and their investors. We warned that they would seek donor lists and personal communications from those having little to do with the events on January 6.

  

  The Democrats’ Bill – which elevates the January 6 “riot” to a “domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol” – proves us right.

  The Bill establishes a Commission of 10 members, five appointed by Democrats and five appointed by Republicans. It will be chaired by a Democrat nominee.

  The Commission will have powers to:

  “Issue subpoenas requiring the attendance and testimony of witnesses and the production of evidence relating to any matter which the Commission is empowered to investigate.”

  

  From that language we look to what the Commission is “empowered to investigate.” This power is extremely broad. And this is where the trouble lies. It includes:

  “The facts and causes relating to the January 6, 2021 domestic terrorist attack upon the United States Capitol Complex.”

  “The influencing factors that fomented such attack on American representative democracy while engaging in a constitutional process.”

  

  The Danger

  The dangerous part about all this is that the subpoena power is limited to the imagination of the Democrat appointees. (We assume the likelihood that at least one Republican member of the Committee will go along with anything the Democrats want, thus giving them majority vote for a subpoena.)

  We also note that the Commission is given the power to obtain information from “the intelligence community” to further its investigation.

  

  We cannot stress strongly enough the danger of such powers. The House Democrats – those who have leaked false intelligence to the press and lied to the public about the Carter Page FISA applications – will have access, via their appointees, to raw intelligence data. Their history shows they will not use this information responsibly.

  All this just proves that the Commission will be their instrument to inflict massive political harm on the Right. Remember Pelosi’s occupation of the Capitol?

  

  As I said on March 5, 2021:

  “If you question the seriousness of the game they’re playing, just look at the security around the Capitol. Currently, over 5,000 National Guard troops, along with fencing and razor wire, protect against a non-existent threat. The occupation is theater to make January 6 more than what it was to justify what is to come.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 05/17/2021 – 22:30

• World Economic Forum Cancels Annual Meeting After Moving It To Singapore
  World Economic Forum Cancels Annual Meeting After Moving It To Singapore

  After initially rescheduling the forum from May to the late-summer months, the World Economic Forum has decided to cancel its annual gathering of powerhouses in the worlds of markets, business and politics, which is usually held in Davos, Switzerland, but had been moved to Singapore in the face of the coronavirus, according to Bloomberg. 

  Back in February, the WEF announced that it would delay the week-long event until August, hoping that would give it enough time. But as India’s COVID-19 outbreak continues to spill across Asia, while a mutant strain first identified in India has finally been traced to the US.

  

  As Brits travel on their first international flights in more than a year, the WEF announced Monday that it would cancel its annual meeting in Singapore as the city-state sees a jump in COVID-19 cases.

  Singapore’s new restrictions announced over the weekend include requiring all primary, secondary and junior colleges to shift to full home-based learning from Wednesday until the end of the school year later this month.

  This comes after health authorities in the city-state confirmed 38 locally transmitted cases, the highest daily number since mid-September, with 17 currently unlinked. The cases included four children linked to a cluster at a tuition center.

  In recent years, the WEF and its attendees have taken up the twin causes of climate change and economic inequality (which are linked, scholars say, because the ‘global south’ will bear the brunt of the negative impact of climate, or at least that’s what they say). Which is ironic, since the best thing the WEF could possibly do to lower carbon emissions would be to cancel the annual event, which draws legions of private jets ferrying the global elite.

  No Davos this year! The World Economic Forum is canceling the annual meeting it was planning to hold this August in Singapore, as the city has seen a jump in coronavirus cases in recent weeks. https://t.co/wBxO90evW6

  — Holger Zschaepitz (@Schuldensuehner) May 17, 2021

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  In other bad news for Singapore, a travel bubble between Hong Kong and Singapore that was due to start on May 26 has been postponed for a second time, according to officials on Monday, as new COVID cases spiked, derailing hopes for quarantine-free travel.

  Singapore, one of Asia’s trade and financial hubs with a tiny population of 5.7 million people, had until recently been reporting almost zero or single-digit new COVID cases until just last week.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 05/17/2021 – 22:10

• Newsom Turns To Bribery, Opens Up Big Bag Of Goodies To Californians In Bid To Head-Off Recall
  Newsom Turns To Bribery, Opens Up Big Bag Of Goodies To Californians In Bid To Head-Off Recall

  Authored by Monica Showalter via AmericanThinker.com,

  Politicians in trouble frequently wheel out the freebies ahead of a tough election.

  California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom, however, is taking it to 11.

  

  Seems, he’s not all that confident that Democrats will be able to rig him into victory to keep him in office in this year’s coming recall referendum on him. Internals must be horrible.

  Which is why he’s now holding out monster goodie bag to angry voters as a last-ditch bribe to secure their votes.

  According to National Review:

  This week, Newsom began a statewide tour to brag about a $75.7 billion state “surplus” that is burning a hole in his recall jeans. That “surplus” alone is larger than the total expenditures of 44 other states in 2020. Combining substantial capital-gains revenues from the bank accounts of Big Tech billionaires and an embarrassing amount of federal stimulus funds, to the tune of $371 billion in total payments, the governor is taking credit for the windfall. Promising to hand out wads of cash and pay off overdue rent and utility bills while hoping middle-class voters will forget Newsom’s cavalier statewide lockdowns over the past year reeks of bribery.

  It comes from a one-time slush fund surplus coming from the federal government, courtesy of Joe Biden and his congressional Democrats, and ironically, as Sacramento legislators are proposing tax hikes on normal taxpayers. Nice.

  But he’s got a recall referendum coming in November, so like Hugo Chavez, he’s wheeling out the free washing machines and bags of beans, as Hugo and other corrupt Latin autocrats used to do to “win” elections.

  Here’s Newsom’s own tweet advertising the crowd-pleasers he’s holding out to voters; the electoral junk food:

  $600 checks.

  Wiping away rental debt.

  Grants for small businesses.

  Universal Pre-K.

  Cutting the cost of college.

  Housing for 65,000 homeless Californians.

  Historic amounts to combat wildfires.

  CA is coming roaring back. pic.twitter.com/WHkMeu78ns

  — Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) May 14, 2021

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  High as this spending is, and universal as these solutions are, they are nothing but Band-Aids onto the festering economic wounds he’s inflicted on the state last year, through high taxes, lockdowns, and police defundings, all problems which now require tourniquets.

  Anybody think the billions for the homeless he’s proposing are actually going to fix homelessness in this state? It should employ a lot of bureaucrats and probably backfill some bloated public pensions, as has been the story in the past.

  And where the heck is he going to get the permits to build all these free houses for the homeless in any case, given the state’s other NIMBY-inspired laws. Malibu?

  That’s just one problem, and there are a ton of others:

  Number one, it’s unsustainable. According to the Associated Press:

  But it is a budget on the edge. Nearly all of the $100 billion in extra money is a one-time surplus, meaning it won’t be available next year. Newsom and the Legislature have already approved a massive tax cut for small businesses that will reduce revenues by more than $6 billion over the next five years.

  In the years to come, budget officials predict the state’s revenue will grow slightly while its expenses keep increasing. For now, they say the two sides of the budget will balance and not cause a deficit. But that leaves no room for error in a time when the pandemic has made it impossible to predict the future.

  It’s enough for Keely Martin Bosler, Newsom’s budget director, to remark on “how incredibly uncertain things continue to be.”

  He’s basically proposing to spend now, get people addicted to freebie programs, and then either cut them off cold when the cash runs out, or drive the state into bankruptcy. Taxes, of course, already the nation’s highest, will go into the stratosphere.

  Number two, it sends terrible messages. The guy who practically killed himself in the pandemic to pay his rent after losing his job, maybe defaulting on his other bills in the process and paying that price through his credit rating, gets nothing. The deadbeat who didn’t pay even though he could pay, or who didn’t apply for otherwise free federal aid, taking advantage of the eviction moratorium instead, gets his back rent paid. And who knows if the landlords get paid. Based on Newsom’s tweet, he might just pass a law or issue an executive action declaring that nobody needs to pay and let the landlords eat the losses. The unpaid traffic fines, meanwhile, giving the nominally poor a pass for speeding, bad driving, endangering others, expired registrations, parking in the middle of the road, taking up handicapped spaces, parking in red fire zones, any number of nightmare violations, get wiped out, while once again, the guy who moved heaven and earth to pay his parking fines at the expense of food or something, gets the news from Newsom that he’s a sucker. The whole thing smacks of a program to increase contempt for rule of law. After all, if all you have to do is wait for relief from Newsom, same as if you’re waiting for the next subway to stop, why pay anything at all?

  Number three, there’s a heckuva lot that he didn’t mention. California is flooded with drug-addicted homeless, now seeping into ordinarily placid middle-class areas now. Yesterday I tried to cross a highway pedestrian bridge in San Diego into a poorer neighborhood to buy some fresh vegetables and was blocked at the entrance by three homeless people doing drugs together right in that pedestrian walkway, blocking it. Passing them by was so close that any of them could have pulled a knife on me and I went home by a longer way that involved a chancy highway underpass, which also could have been a home to bums, given that it was trash-strewn, meaning, it probably was at some point. I didn’t even call the cops, given the knowledge that they aren’t enforcing anything anymore. My conclusion from that is that it’s going to get worse, way worse, spilling into the placid, previously crime-free areas and Newsom has no intention of backing up the police to enforce this very necessary quality of life measure for the law-abiding taxpayers who pay his big-budget bills.

  Newsom also didn’t mention his big plan for free health care for elderly illegal aliens over the age of 60. Elderly people have the biggest of all medical bills, and rest assured, now with Joe Biden’s border surge on, the dinner triangle has just been rung for the nation’s illegals to bring in their ailing elderly relatives because the ride is now free. If you were a citizen of someplace like Honduras and heard this, and you will, you’d be a fool not to. California’s Gov. Gray Davis was fired by voters in a recall referendum back in 2003 over the issuing of drivers’ licenses to illegals. You can see why Newsom didn’t quite put that as a selling point to voters in his tweet. But rest assured, he’s got special interests who harvest ballots who are very, very happy with him.

  Number four, there’s a heckuva lot that he ought to be spending money on, yet he refuses to do. Where is the cash for more police to remove the riff-raff and criminal element that is plaguing both rich and poor areas now throughout California’s cities and making life unlivable? Where are the tax cuts in this highest-of-all high tax states? He considers that “his” money, so no tax cuts of any significance for the tax-battered. What’s he doing about monster health care costs for those who actually pay? Nothing, of course. Where is the housing and land-policy reform, which is keeping new housing from being built, and contributing to this state’s monster real estate bubble, which is pricing ordinary families out of homes? Price controls create shortages, Gav. And of course, this fool is clueless.

  It’s such a bad picture, so cynical, so Peronist, (or just see that 1999 Mexican masterpiece movie “Herod’s Law” about the “crumbling, rotting, 70-year old regime of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)” as one reviewer put it, to get a whiff) that one hopes that California’s voters might just see through it. The fact that Newsom’s doing this is proof, all by itself, that he’s unfit to be governor.

  Governors in this state, as National Review notes, are historically balancing elements who can say ‘no’ to spendthrift legislators, Jerry Brown before him being one example. The fact that Newsom also wrecked the state’s economy through his fanatic lockdowns while red-state governors showed real judgment and leadership in doing all they could to keep their state’s economies open is another strike against this clown. Now we have this budget-bankrupting spendfest to put the cherry on top of his rotten cake. He’s so bad even Caitlyn Jenner looks like a better potential governor than Newsom is.

  Throw him out.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 05/17/2021 – 21:50

• One Bank Spots "A Huge Worry On The Horizon"
  One Bank Spots “A Huge Worry On The Horizon”

  The big banks may be dismissing the current wave of soaring prices, which as we noted previously has been driven mostly economic reopening categories such as soaring used car prices where a pandemic-induced demand surge has run headfirst into temporary shortages, production bottlenecks, and supply chain disruptions…

  

  … but they are increasingly zeroing in on what may well be the source of non-transitory inflation over the coming years. Just last night, Goldman highlighted three such risks for longer-term inflation pressures including:

  • A sharper rise in wage growth: The first risk is that wage growth could rise to a much faster pace than reached last cycle if current signs of worker shortages and labor market tightness prove more persistent than many expect. The starting point for wage growth is unusually high for an economy emerging from a recession.
  • A multi-year boom in home prices boosts rent inflation: The second risk is that a multiyear boom in US home prices could drive shelter inflation much higher.
  • Temporary price spikes raise inflation expectations substantially: The third risk is that the current price spikes caused by temporary pandemic effects could have a more lasting impact if they raise long-term inflation expectations substantially (i.e. transitory proves to be non-transitory). Last week brought hints in this direction, including a 0.4% jump in the University of Michigan’s measure of long-term household inflation expectations, a modest increase in long-term inflation expectations in the Survey of Professional Forecasters, and further increases in market-implied inflation compensation.

  Of these three, Goldman is most concerned about the second one, and dedicated a separate research report (discussed here) precisely about the risk of sharply higher home prices.

  In a report from Goldman’s economists, the bank warned that “a national housing shortage will fuel substantial home price appreciation for at least a couple more years.” Goldman now expects that shelter inflation is likely to surge to 3.8% YoY by end-2022 — boosting core PCE by about 0.3% relative to today — and to exceed 4% in 2023 (!), a higher rate than at any point in the prior economic cycle. At that point anyone countering that (hyper)inflation is transitory will be laughed right out of the room.

  

  In other words, Goldman just predicted that by 2024 home prices will be rising at a pace far faster than the widely recognized 2006-2007 housing bubble, and that the spillover from this surge in prices will make the coming hyperinflation anything but transitory.

  We bring this up again because this morning another prominent bank analyst – Deutsche Bank’s chief credit strategist Jim Reid – published a similar note of caution regarding soaring home prices.

  Reid begins with the familiar background: “around many parts of the world housing markets have surged during the pandemic. Huge stimulus, low and suppressed interest rates, government tax incentives, demand for more space in the new world, and limited supply have created a boom that surely few could have predicted when the pandemic started.“

  Next, the credit strategist shows the US housing boom in perspective with his Monday Chart of the Day…

  

  … and writes that real home prices were the same in 1999 as they were in 1894. So, remarkably, besides being a good inflation hedge, home prices are little besides having been range bound around inflation for over 100 years. However, over the next 7 years they rose over 60% inflation adjusted before slumping 35% in the next 6 years when the housing bubble burst.

  Well, second time may be the charm because from these lows, they are now back up nearly 55% and less than 1% off their all-time real adjusted highs and over 10% above pre-pandemic levels. Indeed, as Reid predicts, they will probably hit record real adjusted highs when the latest data is released next week (they already have according to Black Knight and other pricing services).

  Reid’s ominous conclusion is that the recent surge in home prices “is nearly on the same national scale as it was in the lead-up to the US housing bust that precipitated the GFC”, and he concludes rhetorically: “a new paradigm or a huge worry on the horizon?”

  Spoiler alert: it’s the latter.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 05/17/2021 – 21:30

• Iran Preps Return To Oil Market As Vienna Talks "Within Reach" Of Agreement
  Iran Preps Return To Oil Market As Vienna Talks “Within Reach” Of Agreement

  US and Iranian diplomats which are still engaged in ongoing ‘indirect’ negotiations via intermediaries in Vienna (now over a month in) have signaled that a major nuclear agreement is now “within reach” – and now as Bloomberg reports, “Iran is preparing to ramp up global oil sales as talks to lift U.S. sanctions show signs of progress.”

  Following years of Trump-imposed biting sanctions which particularly targeted Iran’s oil exports, and with in some cases Iranian tankers even being seized, the Islamic Republic is actively prepping to get its global exports flowing once again. “State-controlled National Iranian Oil Co. has been priming oil fields — and customer relationships — so it can increase exports if an accord is clinched, officials said,” Bloomberg continues. “Under the most optimistic estimates, the country could return to pre-sanctions production of almost 4 million barrels a day in as little as three months. It could also tap a flotilla’s worth of oil that’s hoarded away in storage.”

  

  However, even with such positive momentum and optimism on both sides, it remains that the Trump administration “boxed-in” Biden in terms of what can and can’t be done rapidly. At issue is the “mine field” of sanctions and punitive actions slapped on over 700 entities and officials. Most notably this includes two dozen financial institutions at the heart of which is Iran’s central bank.

  This had also been designed to scare off even willing buyers, given the complex labyrinth of legal hurdles related to shipping insurance and other red tape. The Iranians are said to be expectant of an extended gradual process of undoing sanctions, yet hardliners and the Ayatollah himself have warned their patience will soon run out, and that talks cannot “drag on”. 

  Over the weekend Vienna talks continued without pause despite a fierce bombing campaign by Israel on Gaza reaching the end of a week, leaving about 200 Palestinians in the strip dead, and thousands wounded.

  The Vienna talks on #JCPOA are conducted in various informal settings, as well as in the working groups on #sanctions lifting, nuclear issues and practical measures to restore the deal. The drafting process is under way. If the need arises a Joint Commission can be convened. https://t.co/EoazrUyH8r

  — Mikhail Ulyanov (@Amb_Ulyanov) May 15, 2021 

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  There have been growing fears that the outbreak of fighting in Gaza, which saw Hamas and Islamic Jihad launch some 2,000 total rockets into Israel, killing ten Israel civilians, could derail the attempts to restore the JCPOA nuclear deal. Tel Aviv has consistently blamed Iran for supporting and supplying Hamas with its sizable missile stockpile. 

  Netanyahu as well as Mossad chief Yossi Cohen have lately personally attempted to intervene with the Biden White House, arguing that restoration of a “bad deal” will all but assure that Iran acquires nukes. Israel has also gone so far as to allegedly bomb and sabotage Iranian tankers delivering oil and fuel to its ally Syria. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 05/17/2021 – 21:10

• Welcome To The DarkSide: Why The Biden Administration Will Not Define The Pipeline Attack As Terrorism
  Welcome To The DarkSide: Why The Biden Administration Will Not Define The Pipeline Attack As Terrorism

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  Below is my column on the recent Colonial Pipeline attack. President Joe Biden and his Administration (as well as the media) has referred to the actors as “criminals” and “hacker” but notably not “terrorists.” Many cyberattacks are forms of extortion. They seek money from businesses to release data.  This is different. This was an effort to coerce a population; to cause economic chaos.

  Notably, DarkSide announced that it would shutdown its operations after receiving the ransom, an announcement heralded by many. It is a dubious claim. First, the declaration serves assure the public and to tamp down calls for a global hunt for the culprits. Second, it is meaningless. Whether DarkSide continues as a moniker or as a functioning organization, we just paid off terrorists. We long maintained a policy not to yield to terrorism because it fuels more attacks. DarkSide and other such attacks have proven how ineffective we are in preventing such attacks or defying such demands. These are despicable people willing to cause deaths and social disarray, but they are also rationale actors. 

  For the moment, cyber terrorism works and the success of this attack is not going to lead to a unilateral ceasefire from cyber gangs.

  

  Here is the column:

  We’ve heard calls in recent years for an ever-widening category of “terrorists” to encompass groups from the Jan. 6 rioters to antifa to the the Ku Klux Klan. So it is surprising that the White House and the media have referred to the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attackers simply as “hackers.” “DarkSide” is not just a collection of hackers — it’s a group of terrorists. And the only thing more concerning than the failure to label them correctly is the possible reason for not doing so.

  From the White House to The Washington Post, the mantra has been uniform: Gas to the East Coast was cut off by hackers who demanded — and reportedly received — $5 million in ransom to give us back control of a critical pipeline. The White House not only called these individuals hackers but — when pressed about its position on paying the ransom — insisted it was just a decision for a private company. Deputy national security adviser Anne Neuberger said, “Colonial is a private company, and we’ll defer information regarding their decision on paying a ransom to them.” She and others in the Biden administration insisted the ransom payment was a “private sector decision” and said that “the administration has not offered further advice at this time.”

  After the ransom was widely reported as having been paid and gas began to flow again, President Biden gave a “no comment” when asked if he was aware of the payment. It was a curious response since the media apparently knew. The company certainly knew, and, most importantly, DarkSide knew. Yet, the White House wanted to portray itself as a pure observer to a private decision on how to handle “hackers.”

  The reason is obvious: Colonial just paid a ransom to terrorists. Moreover, gas pipelines are not just “a private company” but a highly regulated industry that closely follows the government’s directions.

  The fact is that most of Washington wanted the company to pay off the terrorists because our East Coast was rapidly melting down over shortages. While The New York Times bizarrely issued (and later quietly deleted) a statement that the attack had not led to any gas station lines or higher prices, other news stories were filled with images of long lines, fights at pumps and cascading shortages.

  The White House narrative has been to treat this as a type of cost of doing business for Colonial. The problem is that this is not some nuisance cost but a terrorist demand for payment.

  While definitions vary, DarkSide meets key elements of terrorism crimes. Key provisions such as 18 U.S.C. 2331 focus less on the motivation of terroristic acts as opposed to the intent: “(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.” Congress has extended domestic terrorism classifications to include drug gangs, but laws such as the Controlled Substances Act still refer to “premeditated, politically motivated violence.” The State Department uses the same definition to designate Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Those definitions may have to be changed as groups seek to terrorize populations in economically motivated attacks. Cyber terrorism can have either economic or political motivations or both. Indeed, DarkSide has claimed to use the money for charity and suggested it has policy goals. Moreover, such gangs can be enlisted or enabled by foreign powers such as Russia or Iran to carry out such attacks.

  For those of us who have long opposed expansive definitions of terrorism, there remains a danger of converting everything from extortion to identity theft into terrorism. However, DarkSide clearly attempted to “intimidate or coerce” the entire population of the United States, and it succeeded. It used hacking as its means, but that does not change its status as a terrorist group — any more than the use of food poison would make al Qaeda a “food tamperer” rather than a terrorist organization. When you threaten an individual if they don’t pay you, you are an extortionist. When you seek to coerce an entire population, you are a terrorist — whether you claim to do so for Allah or for moolah.

  Once you acknowledge that DarkSide is a terrorist organization, however, it is harder for the White House to shrug and dismiss this as merely a “private sector decision.”

  We have long maintained a policy of not yielding to terrorists, and outsourcing ransom payments does not change the implications of this decision. DarkSide and other cyber terrorists now know they not only can succeed but can do so surprisingly quickly. Indeed, ransomware has been profitably used around the world for years with businesses. Indeed, my suspicion is that the vast majority of ransoms paid have not been made public by businesses but are known to the FBI. This incident, though, was different. It was designed to cause widespread social and political havoc among our population.

  If the Biden administration did not want to pay terrorists, it could have used a wide array of powers to pressure Colonial not to pay. Colonial is tied into our infrastructure and largely exists by the grace of federal and state agencies. If Biden declared publicly that the company should not yield to terrorists, he would have presented no less of an existential threat to the company than DarkSide did.

  It may be true that the Biden administration concluded we are defenseless to cyber terrorism despite years of ransomware attacks and hundreds of billions of dollars in cybersecurity programs. If that is the case, the public should be informed. The failure of Congress and our government to defend against such terror attacks is a national security failure of breathtaking proportions. The Colonial Pipeline attack was the cyber equivalent of Pearl Harbor. In both cases, we were caught unprepared and unable to deal with a threat we knew was coming. Yet President Roosevelt did not issue a “no comment” on the critical facts after the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941.

  

  Back then, we believed FDR when he stated in his first inauguration that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  If we are going to defeat this new form of terrorism, we must first call it for what it is. Not fear it, face it.

  What the Biden administration seems to fear most is public recognition that it is afraid — afraid of the vulnerability of our infrastructure, afraid that the public will learn what cyber terrorists already know.

  This should not be treated as just another political dodge, however. During the 2020 election, Biden simply refused to share his views on key issues such as packing the Supreme Court. Yet this is a far more serious matter, and we do not have time for another study commission to give the president cover. We need to call DarkSide what it is — a terrorist organization — and to acknowledge what we did: We paid off terrorists. Then, perhaps, we can get some answers as to whether our country remains only days away from another meltdown due to a failure to defend against ransomware.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 05/17/2021 – 20:50

• EV Anxiety? World's Largest Lithium Producer Crashes On Chilean Political Storm
  EV Anxiety? World’s Largest Lithium Producer Crashes On Chilean Political Storm

  As we detailed earlier, as Chileans overwhelmingly chose leftist and independent candidates for the country’s constitutional convention, the new non-free-market-friendly political regime is generating a lot of uncertainly in Chilean markets.

  One of the biggest equity losers on the session is Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile SA (SQM), the world’s largest producer of lithium, down more than 10% in the US cash session. 

  

  A new left-leaning constitution could include even tighter lithium mining operations in the country. 

  “Even, possibly, to the point that those old, grandfathered, licenses are revoked. Or the lithium operations (intimately tied in with the potassium and iodine ones, they’re not separable) might be taken back under direct state control. There are those, as above, who still would relitigate that initial privatization,” former Forbes writer Tim Worstall wrote in a Seeking Alpha piece in late 2020. Back then, he was writing about SQM’s path in light of a new constitution in 2021. 

  Worstall added:

  “The process here is a constitutional convention and it’s really difficult to predict what the end result of one of those is going to be. After all, they are, by there mere declaration of what they’re doing, insisting that they’re going to change the basic rules of the country. And SQM does have that slightly anomalous position – as does more strongly lithium mining in Chile – which means we might want to worry here.”

  A new constitution could change SQM’s position in the country and even affect their legal right to mine. No wonder the stock crashed. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 05/17/2021 – 20:30

• Taibbi: Is Slack Destroying American Companies? Q&A With Antonio Garcia-Martinez
  Taibbi: Is Slack Destroying American Companies? Q&A With Antonio Garcia-Martinez

  Authored by Matt Taibbi via TK News

  ​

   

  Late last week, amid a Slack-driven furor over his confessional memoir Chaos Monkeys, Apple fired ads engineer Antonio Garcia-Martinez. I wrote Friday about the specific hypocrisy of Apple’s move — the company has the author of Bitches Ain’t Shit on its board but claimed it fired Garcia-Martinez as a statement of its devotion to “inclusivity” — but over the weekend spoke to Antonio about the larger issue of his case, which extends past his own predicament.

  “This business of Slack at work,” he said.

  After George Floyd’s death last summer, corporate leaders found themselves in an unusual position. With water-cooler conversations turbo-charged by chat programs like Slack, many firms saw outpourings of anger. Employees demanded their employers do something, or at least be seen doing something, to “confront racism.”

  In some shops, employers were asked to recognize Juneteenth as a paid holiday. In others, there was a demand for more diverse hiring procedures. Significant donations to political organizations, scholarship funds, or product lines targeted to African-Americans were expected.

  Responses became more idiosyncratic. Walmart, CVS, and Walgreens pledged to stop putting “multicultural cosmetic products” behind locked cases in retail outlets. YouTube deleted 100,000 videos and 100 million comments as part of an expanded hate speech policy. HBO Max took down Gone With the Wind, then restored it with a disclaimer that it showed “ethnic and racial prejudices” that “were wrong then and are wrong today.” Disney later did something similar with The Muppet Show, Lady and the Tramp, The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, Dumbo, Peter Pan, and Swiss Family Robinson.

  In some places, the connections between the companies’ core businesses and structural racism were apparent. For instance, many of the banks that made the most ostentatious pledges of support for Black Lives Matter were the same firms that targeted black communities with exotic subprime mortgage products, Wells Fargo’s “ghetto loans” episode being among the more infamous.

  In other places, the connection was less clear. What should FitBit be doing to fix police brutality? How could Pinterest contribute? (They ended up removing ads on Black Lives Matter search results, so readers could “focus on learning about the movement”). Was it axiomatic that every company had a political role to play?

  Soon, a new type of controversy arose, ironically at some of the companies with the reputations for most progressive management. The questions were less about race than workflow. At cryptocurrency firm Coinbase, employees demanded that CEO Brian Armstrong make a statement in support of Black Lives Matter. Armstrong, for a while, demurred. Then some employees and executives began what Wired called a “virtual walkout,” in which “senior engineers encouraged junior staff to close their laptops in solidarity.”

  Armstrong quickly got religion, or so it seemed. He went on Twitter to announce, “I want to unequivocally say that Black Lives Matter.” Then, within weeks, Armstrong and Coinbase leadership flipped completely, announcing that the firm would no longer engage in “social activism,” and any employee who didn’t like the new policy could get the fuck out.

  Coinbase offered 4-6 months of severance (depending on service time) and six months of COBRA, in a statement saying — in the thickest corporate sarcasm — that the arrangement could be a “win-win” for the politically minded, as “life is too short to work at a company you’re not excited about.” Only about 60 of the company’s 1,200 employees took the buyout.

  At another tech firm, Basecamp, CEO Jason Fried — long the owner of a rep as a progressive corporate leader, as his company has published five books on workplace culture — put the kibosh on controversial talk at work, banning “societal and political discussions.” Shopify, an e-commerce firm that broke ground after the January 6th riots by closing online stores tied to Trump or MAGA merchandise, has now become a symbol of corporate pushback. CEO Tobi Lütke just sent an email to employees explaining that work is not life and life is not work, and employee demands should be adjusted accordingly:

  Shopify, like any other for-profit company, is not a family. The very idea is preposterous. You are born into a family. You never choose it, and they can’t un-family you. It should be massively obvious that Shopify is not a family but I see people, even leaders, casually use terms like “Shopifam” which will cause the members of our teams (especially junior ones that have never worked anywhere else) to get the wrong impression. The dangers of “family thinking” are that it becomes incredibly hard to let poor performers go. Shopify is a team, not a family…

  Shopify is also not the government. We cannot solve every societal problem here.

  There’s a Frankensteinian irony to all this. Our biggest corporations spent decades steeping the public in weird Me Generation propaganda stressing the primacy of personal fulfillment, which fast became our real national faith as traditional religion lost influence. The result was a work-centric culture most of the rest of the world looked on as a kind of insanity. Alone among peoples who have a choice in such matters, Americans have long bragged about working themselves to death, feeling real pride in putting off distractions like marriage, kids, or “meaning” as they ran hamster wheels in pursuit of status and rock-hard abs, alone and at full speed toward the great beyond.

  Americans in my age group, Gen-Xers, were poorly prepared for corporate jobs in that a lot of us were somehow surprised to learn our ethnomusicology or (in my case) creative writing degrees were fairly useless for finding paying work. In conjunction with the huge sums many people borrowed to get those educations, the whole thing was a bit of a scam, though of course we should have known better.

  Millennials had it worse. They attended the same academic resort spas, and were handed the same oft-preposterous degrees, but were additionally indoctrinated in affirming ideological oat-baths stressing the righteousness of their lived experiences. If the big surprise my generation faced was that our educations were worth bupkes to employers, the next generation had to deal with the shock of corporate bosses being indifferent to their emotional needs.

  Meaning, we’ve come full circle. After training generations of Americans to forego personal lives and work their brains to mush in service of bigger profits, corporate leaders are waking up to find their companies staffed by people so psychologically dependent upon validation from work that they’re a net minus from a production standpoint, forcing bosses to beg them to shut up, go home, and get lives. Not many modern Americans know how to do any of those things, however, as can be seen in cases like that of Garcia-Martinez, where 2,000 employees claimed to be literally incapable of sharing a vast corporate structure with someone who once wrote a book containing passages they might have disagreed with, if they’d actually read it.

  “The thought of conflating your entire political, moral, social, family, and religious being with your professional persona,” Garcia-Martinez says, “I think is extraordinarily fraught and difficult.”

  Another irony: despite the progressive sheen of these campaigns, Slack agitation doesn’t represent a resurgence of labor. Unions used the strength of the whole workforce to protect the rights of the individual employee, among other things insisting that management not act without due process, evidence, etc. Slack, as has been seen in cases like Antonio’s, or the oustings at the New York Times of editor James Bennet and reporter Donald McNeil, often urges companies to bypass process and act in the heat of the moment. In any case, it’s a weird kind of liberalism that tries to override management to get employees fired, but that’s where we are in the modern American workplace.

  I asked Antonio about these and other issues, from his perspective:

  TK: You’ve had multiple careers, and clearly took writing seriously. How will episodes like this affect people who might try to write or take creative detours in their careers?

  Antonio Garcia-Martinez: Kat Rosenfield was tweeting about this and I love her and it’s great that she’s defending me. Do you want art? People are saying, “Well, you should have realized the consequences… I feel like saying: “Do you realize if an artist went into producing their art, whatever it is, literary or nonfiction or whatever, and thought about the consequences, the art would be total shit?”

  Looking at it bigger, there’s a lot of political ideologies like Nazism and communism that thought that art should be subservient to politics, and that art can only serve a political end. Those movements did not end well. I don’t think we want that in our liberal democratic society. I think that’s a bizarre ideological way of looking at the world, from the wokesters who treat this as a quasi-religion.

  This is an excerpt from today’s subscriber-only post. To read the entire article and get full access to the archives, you can subscribe for $5 a month or $50 a year.

  Subscribe Now

   

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 05/17/2021 – 20:10

• Lumber Industry Has No Interest In New Mills As They Reap Rewards Of Record Prices 
  Lumber Industry Has No Interest In New Mills As They Reap Rewards Of Record Prices 

  The problem with the North American lumber industry is that supply is controlled by just a few firms that can easily manipulate prices. For instance, WSJ reports lumber mills are in no rush to bring on additional capacity as they reap the rewards of consumers paying four times the average price. 

  North America’s sawmills, such as Weyerhaeuser Co., West Fraser Timber Co., Canfor Corporation, Interfor Corporation, and PotlatchDeltic, are in no hurry to boost new capacity as they rake in the cash as lumber prices soar. Consumers have been on the opposite side of the stick, and soaring lumber prices added nearly $36k to the cost of building a new home in less than one year. 

  Lumber executives told WSJ they “aren’t racing out to build new mills” as they are contempt with elevated prices boosting their quarterly net incomes. Usually, when commodity prices soar, new supplies flood the market, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. 

  By now, readers know soaring lumber prices have been due to a combination of factors, including record-low mortgage rates sparking a housing frenzy, home renovations, and, of course, sawmills reduced capacity at the beginning of the pandemic anticipating lower demand. 

  Executives at Weyerhaeuser Co. and West Fraser Timber Co. said they would increase budgets to boost efficiency and output at their existing mills in the South, where a glut of cheap timber resides. Some executives don’t mind accumulating a surplus amount of cash as the times are good but aren’t using the money to construct new mills. 

  “We are going to be ultra-cautious on what we do in those regards,” Canfor Corp. Chief Executive Don Kayne told investors last month when he announced record quarterly profits.

  “We don’t mind at all having a little extra cash around for sure, considering what this industry goes through.”

  Chad Hesters, who advises lumber executives and investors as managing partner in the Houston office of consulting firm Korn Ferry, told his clients not to build any mills during this cycle because “they are too late.” He said that by the time a new mill comes online, the industry’s cyclical nature could quickly turn, and new investments shift into “a good way to lose money.” 

  So in the meantime, the North American lumber industry has no incentive to bring on additional capacity as they remain cautious and enjoy the fact their quarterly net income is some of the highest in years – all at the expense of the consumer. 

  

  Why would lumber companies ruin the profit-making party with added supply? 

  What’s concerning is that lawmakers on Capitol Hill are more concerned about GameStop retail daytraders in their parents’ basements than consumers paying four times the amount for lumber than a year ago. 

  Will there be an inquiry when this bubble bursts too?

  

  A Lumbear market.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 05/17/2021 – 19:50

• Biggest Shorting Of Tech Stocks By Hedge Funds In 5 Years: Goldman Prime
  Biggest Shorting Of Tech Stocks By Hedge Funds In 5 Years: Goldman Prime

  Last week we noted that one of the clear trends to emerge as a result of the recent horrific price action in tech stocks, was the continued aggressive selling – and shorting – of tech stocks by hedge funds. The latest weekly report from Goldman’s Prime Brokerage confirms this.

  Starting at the macro level, Goldman Prime writes that the GS Prime book “was net sold for the first time in three weeks (-1.3 SDs), driven by short sales outpacing long buys 2.4 to 1. Single Names saw the largest net selling in two months, while Macro Products (Index and ETF combined) saw the largest net buying in seven weeks. Nearly all regions were net sold led by North America and EM Asia, while Europe was net bought for a 7th straight week and saw the largest $ net buying since Feb ‘18. 7 of 11 global sectors were net sold led by Info Tech, Consumer Disc, Financials, and Comm Svcs, while Health Care, Industrials, and Utilities were the most net bought.”

  As noted previously, however, the real action was in the tech sector, with GS Prime noting that “Info Tech was net sold for a 4th straight week and saw the largest $ net selling in more than 5 years, driven entirely by short sales.”

  Far from a one-off event, the report then notes that “the sector has seen increased shorting in 4 of the past 5 weeks (8 of the past 10), which is in contrast to long flows which have seen buying in 7 of the past 10 weeks.“

  

  Drilling down, the Goldman Prime desk reveals that 4 of the 6 Info Tech subsectors were net sold on the week, led in $ terms by Semis & Semi Equip, Tech Hardware, and IT Services, while Software and to a lesser extent Comm Equip were net bought.

  As a result, and as the latest batch of 13F filings reveals, “hedge funds are now U/W Info Tech stocks by 1.5% vs. the MSCI World, the lowest level since last November and in the 2nd percentile vs. the past five years. By industry group, hedge funds are still O/W Software & Svcs by 4.7% (28th percentile) and U/W Semis & Semi Equip and Tech Hardware by 1.7% (8th percentile) and 4.4% (18th percentile), respectively.”

  What is remarkable is that even as the HF sector is now positioned uniformly bearish in the tech sector, the GS Equity Fundamental L/S Performance Estimate fell for a second straight week by -1.83% between 5/7 and 5/13 (vs MSCI World TR -1.96%),
  driven by beta of -1.44% (from market exposure and the market sensitivity factor combined) and to a lesser extent alpha of -0.39%. In fact, as shown in the chart below, hedge funds are now once again underperforming not only broader market indexes but are down on the year…

  

  … while being levered to the hilt: according to GS Prime, overall book Gross leverage rose another 1.3% to 248.4% – the highest on record – while Net leverage fell -1.7 pts to 86.6% (73rd percentile one year) as a result of continued pressing of tech shorts.

  In short, we are now at max pain levels for the hedge fund sector.

  

  And in light of the recent rebound in the FAAMG sector which has moved higher in the past 3 days amid a reassessment of reflation concerns with the “transitory” camp now winning, the question – as we asked a week ago – is when will this massive one-sided short position push max levered funds over the edge, and lead to a powerful squeeze higher in the tech sector.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 05/17/2021 – 19:35

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• Russian Navy Says It's Closely Monitoring UK & French Warships In Black Sea
  Russian Navy Says It’s Closely Monitoring UK & French Warships In Black Sea

  Russia’s Defense Ministry on Sunday said that its Black Sea Fleet is now closely monitoring a British Royal Navy patrol vessel which just entered the Black Sea. 

  “The forces and means of the Black Sea Fleet have started tracking the activities of the Trent patrol vessel of the British Navy, which entered the Black Sea waters on May 16,” a statement from Russia’s defense ministry said of its Black Sea Fleet operations.

  

  The HMS Trent passed through the Bosporus Strait on Sunday, after a month ago the UK said its navy was planning to send patrols to the region in response to Ukraine tensions and the prior Russian troop buildup in Crimea and along the border. The Kremlin confirmed it’s since withdrawn the additional forces, which numbered in the many tens of thousands. 

  Regardless it appears to the UK is seeking to send a “message” against another potential near future Russian troop build-ups or large scale drills in the region. 

  📸 🇬🇧 Royal Navy River-class Batch 2 offshore patrol vessel HMS TRENT P224 transited Istanbul strait this morning towards the Black Sea. pic.twitter.com/D6bSf3LPLO

  — Cavit Ege Tulça (@egetulca) May 16, 2021

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

  Further according to TASS the Russian fleet is monitoring a French military vessel as well, since it entered the waters about five days ago.

  “On May 11, the report said the Black Sea Fleet started keeping a close eye on the French Navy’s patrol ship Commandant Birot, which had entered the Black Sea,” the report said.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 05/17/2021 – 02:45

• A Primer For The Propagandized: Fear Is The Mind-Killer
  A Primer For The Propagandized: Fear Is The Mind-Killer

  Authored by Margaret Anna Alice via Off-Guardian.org,

  “Totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere.”

  – George Orwell

  The noose is dangling gently around our necks. Every day, they cinch it tighter. By the time we realize it’s strangling us, it will be too late.

  

  Those who – gradually and gleefully – sacrifice their freedoms, their autonomy, their individuality, their livelihoods, and their relationships on the altar of the “common good” have forgotten this is the pattern followed by every totalitarian regime in history.

  Everyone wonders how ordinary Germans could have been manipulated to participate or stand dumbstruck while their government was transformed into a genocidal juggernaut. This is how. Read Sebastian Haffner’s Defying Hitler memoir to see how this can happen anywhere—including here.

  Everyone wonders how Russians could have permitted and even zealously reported fellow citizens for imprisonment and execution under Article 58, the penal code invented to incarcerate anyone who dared express the slightest whisper of noncompliance under Stalin’s homicidal state. This is how. Read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s meticulously documented The Gulag Archipelago to witness this progression of authoritarian lunacy.

  Everyone wonders how Hutus could have suddenly started axing their Tutsi neighbors to death after being inundated with waves of anti-Tutsi propaganda from Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines. Read Philip Gourevitch’s We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda.

  The list goes on. And on. And on. From Machiavelli’s The Prince to Étienne de la Boetie’s The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude to Edward Herman’s and Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent (and accompanying documentary) to BBC’s The Century of the Self, mechanisms of mass control have been chronicled for millennia.

  George Orwell wrote,

  As far as the mass of the people go, the extraordinary swings of opinion which occur nowadays, the emotions which can be turned on and off like a tap, are the result of newspaper and radio hypnosis.”

  Can you imagine what master propagandist Edward Bernays would have done with access to today’s mainstream media conglomerate combined with the global surveillance infrastructure of Big Tech? And you really think that’s not happening now—with another century of psychological, neurological, and technological research under their belts?

  The present ability to curate reality and coerce obedience is unprecedented, far beyond what Orwell envisioned in 1984, Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451, Huxley in Brave New World, and Burgess in A Clockwork Orange.

  A textbook example of Problem Reaction Solution, the current tsunami of worldwide hysteria is the latest and potentially most threatening example of mass control in history.

  The recipe is simple. Take a naturally occurring phenomenon, say a seasonal virus, and exaggerate its threat far beyond every imagining—despite exhaustive evidence to the contrary. Suppress, silence, ostracize, and demonize every individual who dares present facts that expose the false mono-narrative.

  Whip up a witches’ brew of anger, envy, and, most importantly, fear, escalating emotions to a boil so as to short-circuit our faculties of reason and logic.

  Isolate us from one another, supplant real-world interactions with virtual feuds, label nonconformists as a threat to the group, and pump the public with a disinformation campaign designed to confuse and atomize. In essence, foster a cultlike mentality that shuts down thought to guarantee assent.

  Cultivate and wield our cognitive biases—especially ingroup bias, conformity bias, and authority bias—against us in a comprehensive divide-and-conquer policy that keeps us too busy squabbling amongst each other to recognize and unite against those corralling us into a Matrix-like collective delusion that enables the powerful to extract our resources for their own gain.

  This ideological mass psychosis is religion—not science. If this were about science, the Media–Pharmaceutical–Big-Tech complex would not be memory-holing every dissenting voice, vilifying every thought criminal, and censoring every legitimate inquiry in quest of the truth.

  Mark Twain said, “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”

  He also said:

  “In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”

  The next time you’re watching the news, reading a social media post, listening to a friend repeat a scripted talking point, pay attention. Learn to identify the earmarks of propaganda, the clickbait used to trigger your emotions, the mechanisms employed to engineer your cognitive biases.

  Don’t let your pride prevent you from seeing—and admitting—the Emperor is naked. We are losing our last sliver of opportunity to resist authoritarianism.

  This is not a partisan issue. Those who wish to control us have made it such because disunited lemmings are easier to steer than independent, critical thinkers.

  This is a human issue. This is about crushing the middle class—the backbone of a democratic republic—and transferring trillions from the middle and lower classes to the ruling plutocracy. This is about demolishing the foundations of a free society and building it back—not better, but better-controlled.

  I will close by recommending a series of illuminating videos on menticide (“the systematic effort to undermine and destroy a person’s values and beliefs … to induce radically different ideas”) throughout history by Academy of Ideas. This analysis of mass psychosis is nonpartisan and of value to every thinking human being.

  • Is a Mass Psychosis the Greatest Threat to Humanity?

  • The Mass Psychosis and the Demons of Dostoevsky

  • The Manufacturing of a Mass Psychosis – Can Sanity Return to an Insane World?

  Dare to question. Dare to disbelieve. Dare to defy ideology in favor of science while you still can.

  *  *  *

  NOTE: This originated as a response to a Nextdoor.com post titled, “So many people think these Covid rules are for our safety but it’s really about control.” By the time I finished writing it, the post had vanished.

  *  *  *

  Originally published under the same title at Margaret Anna Alice Through the Looking Glass.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 05/17/2021 – 02:00

• Just Whose Coast Is The Coast Guard Guarding?
  Just Whose Coast Is The Coast Guard Guarding?

  Authored by Ted Galen Carpenter via AntiWar.com,

  Most Americans likely assume that the mission of the U.S. Coast Guard is to protect the coasts of the United State from maritime threats. Increasingly, though, that is no longer true, as Coast Guard vessels and personnel now routinely operate thousands of miles from the US homeland. Moreover, they frequently are not engaged in “defensive” missions, but are instead part and parcel of Washington’s arrogant force projection around the world.

  The traditional missions were not always sensible or achievable ones, to be sure. During the 1920s and early 1930s, Coast Guard cutters were tasked with trying to intercept shipments of liquor trying to reach thirsty consumers in the United States. Not surprisingly, that mission proved to be utterly futile and frustrating. More recently, the Coast Guard (along with other agencies, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration) has pursued a similar quixotic effort to intercept vessels carrying cargoes of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and other currently illegal drugs. Indeed, the Coast Guard itself boasts that it is “the nation’s first line of defense” against drug smugglers.

  

  During both prohibition crusades, such efforts have proven more symbolic than substantive. Authorities confiscate only about 10 percent of the targeted contraband, and bootleggers and drug traffickers simply write-off such losses as part of the normal cost of doing business. Attempts to hype successful intercepts do not change that economic reality.

  The Coast Guard’s level of success on another mission is scarcely better. Although most illegal migrants try to enter the United States over land (primarily through the US border with Mexico), a significant number attempt to enter by landing in boats of their own or as the human cargo of professional smugglers. An unlucky minority are intercepted, but most people fleeing poverty and violence in their home countries for a better life in the United States reach their destination, despite the Coast Guard’s best efforts.

  As misguided as some of those traditional missions might be, they at least involve operations in waters close to the United States. However, more and more of the Coast Guard’s time, budget, and personnel are devoted to operations far from America’s shores.

  Late last month, a Coast Guard cutter, the USCGC Hamilton entered the Black Sea as part of the US Navy’s show of strength against Russia. According to a Navy press release, that part of the voyage took place “after Hamilton conducted logistics visits to Naples, Italy and Rota, Spain. The US Coast Guard is conducting a routine deployment in US Sixth Fleet, working alongside Allies, building maritime domain awareness, and sharing best practices with partner nation navies and coast guards.” That doesn’t sound like a mission that had any relevance to the defense of America’s coasts.

  

  Wall Street Journal reporter Gordon Lubold likewise missed the underlying irony in the lead paragraph of his April 26, 2021, story about another Coast Guard operation: “A group of boats from Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps harassed two US Coast Guard ships earlier this month in the Persian Gulf.” Later, the story mentioned that US military officials charged that one Iranian vessel had come within 70 yards of the US ship in “unsafe and unprofessional” maneuvers. Neither Lubold (nor anyone else) bothered to ask what a US Coast Guard ship was doing 6,000 miles from home operating as part of a hostile display of force close to another country’s coastline. An objective observer might conclude that the Iranian ships were the ones defending their country from a maritime threat.

  The Coast Guard is even more active in the western Pacific as part of Washington’s effort to contain China’s power. In late 2020 and early 2021, two of the service’s most advanced cutters were deployed to those waters. Wall Street Journal reporters Lucy Craymer and Ben Kesling noted that their location was “nearly 4,000 miles closer to Shanghai than it is to San Francisco.” In 2019, a Coast Guard cutter, the USCGC Bertholf, even transited the extraordinarily sensitive Taiwan Strait to show US military backing for Taiwan’s resistance to China’s growing pressure. Lyle Morris, a senior policy analyst at the Rand Corporation, asserts that “the biggest transition [in US security strategy in the Pacific] has been the Coast Guard’s more overt signaling about its role in the great power competition with China.”

  Some of the official rationales for these new missions are transparently disingenuous. The US Coast Guard cutter Kimball just completed a multi-week mission to “counter illegal fishing” in the “Philippine Sea.” That body of water is much better known as the South China Sea, and the ship was there as tangible evidence of Washington’s support for Manila in its increasingly tense territorial dispute with China over islands there.

  One should be able to insist that the architects of Washington’s imperial foreign policy at least practice truth in labeling. It is no longer clear that the Coast Guard’s dominant focus is to protect America’s coasts. Even though the service is officially part of the Department of Homeland Security, it increasingly operates as an adjunct of the Navy in projecting US power around the world. It is an Orwellian euphemism to portray it as an agency dedicated to coastal defense when it routinely performs such offensive functions thousands of miles from home.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 05/17/2021 – 00:00

• As COVID Concerns Ease, DHS Reminds Americans Terrorists May Attack At Any Time
  As COVID Concerns Ease, DHS Reminds Americans Terrorists May Attack At Any Time

  Be afraid, very afraid.

  That appears to be the message from the Biden administration.

  As they cede “control” over the populace’s fear of COVID to the reality of a virus that doesn’t spread outdoors, or on surfaces, or via mask-blocking droplets and are increasingly unable to ‘scientifically’ explain the political problem that non-restrictive states have not suffered measurably different outcomes from lockdown states; the timing of the latest fear-filled Department of Homeland Security’s ‘National Terrorism Advisory System’ Bulletin is questionable at best.

  

  DHS is warning that terrorists may attack as COVID restrictions ease across the US, citing social media platforms and online forums used by perpetrators to spread their violent rhetoric.

  “Today’s terrorism-related threat landscape is more complex, more dynamic, and more diversified than it was several years ago. We know that providing timely and useful information to the public is critical as we all work together to secure the homeland.  With the issuance of today’s NTAS Bulletin, we are advising the public to be vigilant about ongoing threats to the United States, including those posed by domestic terrorism, grievance-based violence, and those inspired or influenced by foreign terrorists and other malign foreign influences,” said Secretary Mayorkas.

  “In this evolving threat environment, DHS is redoubling our efforts to detect and disrupt all forms of foreign and domestic terrorism and targeted violence, while safeguarding privacy protections, civil rights, and civil liberties.”

  As a reminder, in February, Secretary Mayorkas designated combating domestic violent extremism as a National Priority Area for the first time.

  As Robert Higgs wrote, fear, like every other “productive” resource, is subject to the laws of production. Thus, it cannot escape the law of diminishing marginal productivity: as successive doses of fear-mongering are added to the government’s “production” process, the incremental public clamor for governmental protection declines. The first time the government cries wolf, the public is frightened; the second time, less so; the third time, still less so. If the government plays the fear card too much, it overloads the public’s sensibilities, and eventually people discount almost entirely the government’s attempts to frighten them further.

  So it’s time to change the tune from ‘fear’ of a biological virus to fear of a much more insidious belief-based virus (belief in anything but the establishment narrative of anything).

  

  By keeping the population in a state of artificially heightened apprehension, the government-cum-media prepares the ground for planting specific measures of taxation, regulation, surveillance, reporting, and other invasions of the people’s wealth, privacy, and freedoms. Left alone for a while, relieved of this ceaseless bombardment of warnings, people would soon come to understand that hardly any of the announced threats has any substance and that they can manage their own affairs quite well without the security-related regimentation and tax-extortion the government seeks to justify.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 05/16/2021 – 23:30

• Former Professor Sentenced To 37 Months In Prison For Using Federal Grants To Aid China’s Medical Research
  Former Professor Sentenced To 37 Months In Prison For Using Federal Grants To Aid China’s Medical Research

  By Cathy He of The Epoch Times,

  A biomedical professor has been sentenced to 37 months in prison for carrying out a scheme to use millions of dollars in federal grant money to advance research in China, according to the Justice Department.

  Zheng Songguo, a former professor at Ohio State University (OSU), pleaded guilty in November to lying on his National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant applications, in order to use $4.1 million in research grants to develop the fields of rheumatology and immunology for China, the department said.

  

  He was arrested last May in Anchorage, Alaska, as he was preparing to board a charter flight to China in an attempt to flee the United States. When taken into custody, he was carrying multiple items, including two laptops, three cell phones, several USB drives, several bars of silver, expired Chinese passports for his family, and deeds for property in China.

  The judge also ordered Zheng to pay more than $3.4 million in restitution to the NIH and about $413,000 to OSU.

  “For years the defendant concealed his participation in Chinese government talent recruitment programs, hiding his affiliations with at least five research institutions in China,” Assistant Director Alan E. Kohler Jr. of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division said in a statement.

  The case is among a string of federal actions targeting academics who collaborate with Chinese institutions while receiving research funding from U.S. taxpayers. Many of these cases involve researchers who allegedly hid their participation in Chinese state-backed recruitment programs, such as the “Thousand Talents Plan,” which U.S. officials say serve as a vehicle for the transfer of U.S. research and know-how to China.

  “American research funding is provided by the American taxpayer for the benefit of American society—not as an illicit gift to the Chinese government,” said Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers for the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

  Zheng admitted to making false statements in his NIH grant applications, hiding his participation in Chinese state-sponsored talent plans, and masking his collaboration with a Chinese university, prosecutors said.

  The former professor led a team conducting autoimmune research at OSU and Pennsylvania State University. According to court documents, while employed at OSU, Zheng was also working at the Third Affiliated Hospital at Sun Yat-Sen University, a state-controlled school in southern China’s Guangdong Province. The university’s homepage named him as an expert under the Thousand Talents Plan court documents said. The website is no longer accessible.

  Prosecutors said that Zheng had been participating in a Chinese talent plan since 2013. Since then, he used research conducted in the United States to benefit the Chinese regime.

  According to court documents, at times, Zheng was receiving money from both the NIH and China’s National Natural Science Foundation of China, which is managed by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

  Zheng didn’t disclose these conflicts of interest to his U.S. employers or the NIH.

  Last June, a former chair of Harvard University’s chemistry department was indicted on charges of making false statements about funding he received from the Thousand Talents Plan while working on sensitive U.S. research. He has pleaded not guilty.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 05/16/2021 – 23:00

• 48 Shot, Including 2 Police Officers In Another Out Of Control Chicago Weekend
  48 Shot, Including 2 Police Officers In Another Out Of Control Chicago Weekend

  Yet another deadly Chicago weekend has seen shootings soar with as of Sunday mid-evening 48 people shot since Friday night, including 5 killed from their wounds. “A violent weekend in Chicago left at least 48 people shot in separate incidents, including two police officers who were wounded on Sunday morning when they responded to a ShotSpotter detection alert, authorities said,” ABC News reports in a mid-evening update.

  Tragically this included a 2-year old girl who was wounded after a vehicle pulled up beside the one she was riding in the backseat of and opened fire. Thankfully she survived the ordeal after being wounded with a bullet to the leg.

  This adds to an already record-smashing year as Newsweek observed at the start this month: “In Chicago, 956 people were shot in the first four months of 2021—217 more than the same point in 2020, which was a record-setting year for shootings in the Illinois city.”

  

  On Sunday the Chicago Sun-Times detailed some among the growing casualty list from shootings as follows…

  • In the weekend’s latest fatal shooting, a man was shot dead Saturday afternoon in Woodlawn on the South Side… The 21-year-old was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
  • Early Saturday morning, two people were killed and three others wounded in a shooting at a party in Gresham on the South Side.
  • Several people were at a gathering in the 7800 block of South Loomis Boulevard when a gunman opened fire shortly after 3 a.m., according to police.
  • A 26-year-old man suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead, police said.
  • A 21-year-old was also struck in the head and taken to the same hospital, where he later died, police said.

  And in once instance police arrested an 18-year old male with a rifle fleeing on foot in an urban neighborhood street after gunshots rang out, only to later find that a man was shot in the head and died in the same vicinity, which is now under investigation. 

  On Sunday morning two police officers were shot after they approached a suspect who “immediately began firing a gun at the officers,” Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown told a news briefing. Thankfully their wounds were considered minor, and both are “stable, recovering and in good condition.”

  A gunman in an alley opened fire and wounded two Chicago police officers Sunday morning before being shot himself. https://t.co/b2ZsTurUx4

  — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) May 16, 2021

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  Chicago’s situation echoes that of many other liberal-run cities, where crime has run rampant since last summer’s “peaceful protests,” which consisted of property damage, assaults, looting, and lighting cities on fire.

  Police and emergency responders are no doubt bracing for another likely violent summer, given civic leaders in many of the hardest-hit cities appear content to simply continue the same failed policies while simply blaming endemic and “structural” inequalities, leading to more rhetoric and proposals of “banning the police” and other insane measures. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 05/16/2021 – 22:30

• New Video Reveals Capitol Police Officer Giving Protesters Permission To Enter Building
  New Video Reveals Capitol Police Officer Giving Protesters Permission To Enter Building

  Authored by Julie Kelly via American Greatness (emphasis ours)

  

  A newly-obtained video shows United States Capitol Police officers speaking with several January 6 protestors—including Jacob Chansley, the so-called “Q shaman”—inside the Capitol that afternoon.

  One officer, identified in the video and confirmed by charging documents as Officer Keith Robishaw, appears to tell Chansely’s group they won’t stop them from entering the building. “We’re not against . . . you need to show us . . . no attacking, no assault, remain calm,” Robishaw warns. Chansley and another protestor instruct the crowd to act peacefully. “This has to be peaceful,” Chansley yelled. “We have the right to peacefully assemble.”

  Watch:

  The video directly contradicts what government prosecutors allege in a complaint filed January 8 against Chansley: “Robishaw and other officers calmed the protestors somewhat and directed them to leave the area from the same way they had entered. Chansley approached Officer Robishaw and screamed, among other things, that this was their house, and that they were there to take the Capitol, and to get Congressional leaders.”

  Chansley later is seen entering the Senate chambers with a police officer behind him; he led several protesters in prayer and sat in Vice President Mike Pence’s chair. (The man in the yellow sweatshirt is William Watson, a drug dealer out on bond. He was arrested in January.)

  Chansley is not charged with assaulting an officer; he faces several counts for trespassing and disorderly conduct. He has been incarcerated since January, denied bail awaiting trial. He has no criminal record.

  American Greatness obtained the video from RMG News. The 44-second clip is reportedly part of a much longer video that has yet to be released.

  * * *

  Meanwhile:

  Who the hell was this “cop”?? Why encouraging people through? pic.twitter.com/OcXWCh33P9

  — Greg Kelly (@gregkellyusa) May 16, 2021

  I’ve watched this clip 100 times and I still can’t believe it pic.twitter.com/7vYfmPJoxB

  — Tim Hogan (@timjhogan) January 8, 2021

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 05/16/2021 – 22:00

• "Where's My Wife's Car?": UFC Star Beneil Dariush Calls Out Elon Musk After His Fight On UFC 262
  “Where’s My Wife’s Car?”: UFC Star Beneil Dariush Calls Out Elon Musk After His Fight On UFC 262

  In addition to dealing with the entire bitcoin community, who is none too pleased with him at the moment, Elon Musk also got a “special” shoutout during UFC 262 when Beneil Dariush called him out on national television for late delivery of a Tesla. 

  Dariush beat aging UFC star Tony Ferguson before taking to the mic to ask Musk: “Where’s my wife’s car, bro?”

  “Where’s my wife’s car, bro?!”@beneildariush used his mic time to call out Elon Musk about the delivery of his Tesla 😅 #UFC262 pic.twitter.com/ohLy0p07a2

  — ESPN MMA (@espnmma) May 16, 2021

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  “I wanna call somebody out,” Dariush said after the fight to Joe Rogan. “I wanna call out your buddy, Elon. Elon Musk, where’s my wife’s car, bro? I’ve been waiting six months. I’ve had the baby, I need a good car, I gotta protect my daughter. Let’s go Elon, get me my car.”

  He then dedicated his fight win to to everyone “affected by Marxist ideologies,” according to RT. 

   

   

   

   

  View this post on Instagram

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  A post shared by ufc (@ufc)

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  Post-fight, Dariush was told that Elon Musk was on the board of UFC’s parent company, Endeavor.

  Dariush wasn’t phased, replying: “I’m sorry, Elon, but I’m not sorry. I’m sticking with what I said.”

  Beneil Dariush when he’s told that Elon Musk is kind of his boss now. #UFC262 pic.twitter.com/XQ0g9IzQ6P

  — Helen Yee (@HelenYeeSports) May 16, 2021

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  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 05/16/2021 – 21:30

• Hedge Fund CIO: "Trading Is Truly An Awful Pursuit"
  Hedge Fund CIO: “Trading Is Truly An Awful Pursuit”

  By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

  Anecdote

  “What are you thinking about markets here?” asked the entrepreneur, wedging the question into our conversation, but working hard to sound barely interested.

  I laughed, unable to contain it. “Oh, so you really called to ask about bitcoin,” I said, smelling his quiet panic.

  “Well, you know, yeah basically, I mean what do think about all this stuff going on?” he asked, not wanting anything other than reassurance.

  “You don’t get to make a lot of money without enduring an even greater amount of pain – that’s just the way the universe works,” I explained, having a little fun while trying to be helpful. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not someone who enjoys the suffering of others. It’s just that I’ve endured so much of it myself that when I observe it in people who casually trade, thinking it’s fairly easy, I find it funny they believe trading somehow defies natural law.

  Ask an athlete or actor how much pain they endured in exchange for glory. Ask an artist or entrepreneur the depth of their sacrifice, made in exchange for even a chance at greatness. You’ll hear stories of endless hours, repeated failures, humiliation, tortured lives, often nearly destroyed.

  And never in those fields is there a guarantee of ultimate success. Quite the opposite – the odds are stacked heavily against survival, let alone triumph. In any game that does not award participation trophies, it can work no other way.

  “This week was nothing compared to what you’ll need to endure in the years to come. Three negative headlines hit a market filled with leveraged retail longs,” I explained, sensing longer-term silver linings in each piece of bad news.

  “It was the kind of week that can get even fairly committed traders to puke, cutting out the source of their pain. That’s how markets operate – trading is truly an awful pursuit,” I said.

  “And you should generally hope for news that’s just bad enough to maintain the wall of worry, without being fatal. It’s only after the news becomes universally good, volatility collapses, and leveraged carry traders start picking up pennies that you should really worry.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 05/16/2021 – 21:00

• Police Across America Brace For Another Violent Summer
  Police Across America Brace For Another Violent Summer

  Donald Trump may not be president anymore, but that won’t stop Anitfa and BLM from getting their riot willies out this summer in response to any number of social justice triggers.

  

  To that end, the Wall Street Journal reports that police departments across the country are “bulking up patrols and implementing new tactics to prepare for what they say could be a violent summer” as states lift COVID-19 restrictions – as if they had any impact on last year’s summer of leftist violence. Also cited is a spike in firearm purchases during the pandemic as gun crimes spiral out of control in major cities.

  Shootings and homicides in big U.S. cities are up this year again after rising last year. In the last three months of 2020, homicides rose 32.2% in cities with a population of at least one million, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Quarterly Uniform Crime Report.

  In New York City, the number of homicides has reached 146 for the year so far, an increase of 27% from 115 during the same period in 2020. In Dallas, police have counted 75 homicides this year, up from 58 during the same period last year. Chicago police have recorded 195 homicides, up from 160 in the year-ago period. -WSJ

  And while y/y crime stats spiking 12 months after the country was locked down is may seem like more of a ‘no shit’ than anything else, keep in mind that New York saw its most violent summer last year since 1996. Meanwhile, the country currently finds itself extremely polarized over more than just police reform, as ongoing tensions in the Middle East have spilled over into US streets, and anti-lockdown activists around the world have been fiercely protesting economy-killing pandemic measures – which we imagine our ‘wise and benevolent’ leaders like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) won’t hesitate to re-implement if COVID-19 even thinks about surging again.

  

  “We’re coming out of the pandemic, life is starting again and more people are going to be out on the street,” said James Shea, Jersey City NJ director of public safety, adding that the city decided to increase the deployment of officers on foot patrol in high-crime areas, as well as expanded the department’s closed-circuit video system.

  In Dallas, more officers will be deployed this summer to hot-spots of criminal activity as part of the city’s Violent Crime Reduction Plan, according to Police Chief Eddie Garcia.

  In New York, the NYPD will dispatch 200 additional officers and add patrols to 100 blocks in the city with the most gun violence, according to the report, after last year’s chaos. Additional officers have also been deployed to Manhattan business districts in recent weeks, including Times Square, where a recent shooting left three bystanders – including a 4-year-old girl – were injured.

  “The warmer months always usually give us more problems when it comes to violence,” said NYPD Chief of Department, Rodney Harrison, who added that gang activity accounts for around half of the shootings in the city – while officers struggled to solve cases during the pandemic due to the NYPD’s strained relationship with residents amid demonstrations against police brutality.

  Year-to-date, shootings in New York City are up 86% over 2020, from 242 to 451.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 05/16/2021 – 20:30

• Microsoft Board Members Wanted Gates Gone In 2019 After Investigation Into Sexual Relationship
  Microsoft Board Members Wanted Gates Gone In 2019 After Investigation Into Sexual Relationship

  Update (1920ET): In a Sunday night bombshell, the Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft’s board of directors wanted Bill Gates gone following an internal investigation into an inappropriate sexual relationship with a female Microsoft employee.

  

  The investigation, conducted in late 2019, was launched after the woman in question – a Microsoft engineer, blew the whistle over a years-long sexual relationship she had with Gates – right around this time that Gates’ relationship with notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein had spilled into the public sphere and Melinda Gates began exploring divorce.

  During the probe, some board members decided it was no longer suitable for Mr. Gates to sit as a director at the software company he started and led for decades, the people said. Mr. Gates resigned before the board’s investigation was completed, another person familiar with the matter said. -WSJ

  “Microsoft received a concern in the latter half of 2019 that Bill Gates sought to initiate an intimate relationship with a company employee in the year 2000,” said a spokesman for the company. “A committee of the Board reviewed the concern, aided by an outside law firm to conduct a thorough investigation. Throughout the investigation, Microsoft provided extensive support to the employee who raised the concern.”

  Bill and Melinda Gates announced earlier this month that they were ending their 27-year marriage because, according to Melinda, the marriage was “irretrievably broken.” She had been working with attorneys since at least 2019 to end it according to the Journal. And while the couple hasn’t revealed what prompted the split, the Journal also reported that Bill’s dealings with Epstein was a ‘source of concern.’

  Members of the Microsoft board became aware in late 2019 of the letter from the female engineer, who demanded changes to her Microsoft job and also shared details of her relationship with Mr. Gates, the people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Nadella and other senior executives were aware of the woman’s allegations, some of the people said.

  Some board members asked about Mr. Gates’s dealings with Mr. Epstein, one of the people said. Board members were told the relationship was focused on philanthropy and nothing more, this person said.

  In December 2019—before the end of the probe—Mr. Gates was re-elected to Microsoft’s board at the annual shareholder meeting. As more became clear about the matter, board members were concerned Mr. Gates’s relationship with the woman had been inappropriate and they didn’t want a director associated with this situation in the wake of the #MeToo movement, the people said.

  As part of her discussions with Microsoft, the employee asked that Ms. French Gates read her letter, people familiar with the matter said. It couldn’t be learned whether Ms. French Gates read the letter.

  The question is – who knew what, and when? Either way, looks like Gates will be eating bugs for one for the foreseeable future.

  *  *  *

  Bill Gates is being urged to come forward with evidence about his former pedo-pal Jeffrey Epstein, after their years-long relationship continued after Epstein was a known pedophile – and has been cited by anonymous sources as a key factor in Melinda Gates’ decision to divorce him, which she began pursuing in 2019 after Gates’ relationship with Epstein came under the spotlight. 

  

  Attorney Spencer Kuvin, who represents nine Epstein accusers, told The Sun that Gates should step up and volunteer any information on Epstein and his associates that might help in the ongoing investigation into Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s ‘Madam.’

  

  “Why are you taking business meetings with a person like that? I question anyone’s moral character who chooses to take business meetings with someone who’s exhibited that kind of behavior and admitted to that type of behavior.” said Kuvin, adding “With Bill Gates, his wealth and investigatory powers, I find it incredibly hard to believe that he would not have known the full extent of the allegations that have been brought against Epstein here for that.”

  

  “Remember there’s an ongoing investigation regarding Ghislaine Maxwell,” Kuvin continued. “So if Mr. Gates, has information that could assist in that investigation, I would say he should step forward.”

  Gates, much like Prince Andrew, has denied any wrongdoing, and has sought to distance himself from the dead ‘financier’ despite evidence that the two were much closer than he claims.

  “I met him [Epstein]. I didn’t have any business relationship or friendship with him,” Gates previously claimed.

  Yet, according to the New York Times, Gates and Epstein met at least six times, including visits to Epstein’s New York mansion on ‘multiple occasions,’ staying at least once into the night.

  Later that spring, on May 3, 2011, Mr. Gates again visited Mr. Epstein at his New York mansion, according to emails about the meeting and a photograph reviewed by The Times.

  The photo, taken in Mr. Epsteins marble-clad entrance hall, shows a beaming Mr. Epstein in blue-and-gold slippers and a fleece decorated with an American flag flanked by luminaries. On his right: James E. Staley, at the time a senior JPMorgan executive, and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. On his left: Mr. Nikolic and Mr. Gates, smiling and wearing gray slacks and a navy sweater. –New York Times

  Curiously, Gates adviser Boris Nikolic (pictured below) was named as a fallback executor in an will Epstein amended days before his August 10 death in a Manhattan jail cell. 

  

  “We know historically that numerous other people that and took meetings with Epstein after his conviction, we’re just slowly peeling away the layers of this onion of the numerous individuals, high profile individuals that continued with their social and business relationships with that scene after his convictions,” said Kuvin. “There are academic institutions and business individuals that were continuing associations with Epstein after his conviction in admissions about what he’d done to young girls.“

  While Gates has come under renewed fire for his relationship with Epstein, he’s also been accused of creepy workplace behavior.

  A couple of examples of Bill Gates’s inappropriate workplace conduct. pic.twitter.com/P2tjZHUrw7

  — David Enrich (@davidenrich) May 16, 2021

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  Will Bill come forward?

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 05/16/2021 – 20:24

• America's Housing Future Remains Murky At Best – Part 1
  America’s Housing Future Remains Murky At Best – Part 1

  Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,

  The housing market in America is not one but many markets that generally share a few common threads. In America, the government, coupled with a slew of builder and Realtor associations control the housing narrative. Housing prices in Canada have been on fire for years now we are seeing this type of buying frenzy spreading to America.  This has allowed some buyers to ignore the reality that soaring lumber prices over the past 12 months have caused the price of an average new single-family home to rise by $35,872, according to the National Association of Home Builders. 

  

  The two questions that loom large are, who is buying these houses and where are they coming up with the cash to make such offers? Part of this is driven by the government continuing to cloak itself in the guise of being a good and kind friend to first-time buyers and helping them buy homes. This has helped move many a buyer into a home they can’t afford, cannot take care of, or simply don’t need. The long-term ramifications of such policies have destroyed many lives by putting people under tremendous financial pressure and taken its toll on neighborhoods across America.

  

  Buyers And Sellers Should Beware

  This buying frenzy has brought a lot of money into housing with the promise of weaseling out a profit. This means the housing sector is in some ways begun to mimic the auto sector with a “Buy here, Pay here” group opening on every corner. It has also created a massive industry where houses are bought to “flip,” This generally means buyers put a few dollars into glossing over flaws and place the house back on the market at a much higher price looking for a gullible buyer that doesn’t understand the poor product beneath the glitter.

  One trend that has grown rapidly is the “Cash for Keys” market where houses are sold to people with little money down. These deals are often structured more like a lease with an option to buy with a contract that includes a great deal of small print tilted completely in the seller’s favor. The means they sell you a house that is overpriced, milk everything they can out of the buyer, and wait to take it back so they can start the scheme all over again. Common sense dictates that to maximize profits they must really be hammering any foolish buyer willing to go down this path.

  Just yesterday a woman and her son that had lived in an apartment at my complex for eight years moved back in after several months in one of these houses. She described the four months in the house as a “horrible ordeal.” This includes things like, unexpectedly large utility bills as well as receiving estimates for needed repairs that shook her to her core. Maintenance costs can be substantial and something the average person leasing never has to deal with because they are usually included in the rent.

  The argument that the “housing game” is a racket and moves on the promise of “big money” is highlighted by several facts. For those accepting this argument, in some ways, this can be linked to the World Economic Forum’s 2030 agenda that states in 2030 you will own nothing and be happy. In the piece below, Krystal Ball of the Rising explains why the housing market is booming for those in the upper-middle class. She opines what it means for costs of homes in the future. Seven minutes into this YouTube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBb9zf_zWvU) starts a rant, ending with, “however this ends up ordinary people are going to get screwed.”

  Many of the messages being promoted as common knowledge do not pass serious scrutiny. As I wrote this post I tried to do a bit of additional research to supplement what I know as a contractor and apartment owner. What I found was more like a pack of lies and half-truths spun to fit an agenda. Those of us in the trenches and with our boots on the ground often see things from a different perspective than what is being presented by the media.

  An interesting piece by Emma Diehl (https://www.homelight.com/blog/how-many-homes-does-a-realtor-sell-a-yea…) of the Homelight.com blog points out that in the U.S., there are over 2 million active real estate licensees and 1.3 million Realtors®, or real estate licensees who’ve taken an extra step to become certified members of the National Association of Realtors (NAR). This means, some agents may sell a single house per year for their friend, while others such as Ben Caballero, have built empires to facilitate thousands of sales annually using sophisticated tech systems. 

  In 2013, CareerBliss announced that being a real estate agent is the single most satisfying job a person could have. This led many people into this line of work. The fact is, most realtors are hard-pressed to make a decent living. This is something we are seldom told and supports the idea much of what we are told about the housing sector is hype and pure bunk. This is supported by the numbers put out by Statista which reported there were 683 thousand houses sold in the United States in 2019. This is the largest figure since 2008 but when divided by the number of real estate licensees does not mean multiple sales for each.

  While the market has responded to the housing needs of higher-income households, trends suggest a growing inability or desire to supply housing that is affordable for middle and working-class people. It appears developers have little interest in, or they simply can’t afford to add anything but luxury units. It should be noted that at the same time many houses in America sit empty or underutilized and we are hearing about a lack of new listings. I attribute this to sellers holding units off the market because they think prices will rise, they owe more for the house than they can get, or they fear the selling process will be complicated.

  Many economists may use housing starts as an indicator of the health of the economy but such numbers are only a small part of a much larger picture. This number reflects many things other than just the number of new houses under construction or started in a given period. The data is generally divided into three categories: single-family houses, townhouses or small condos, and apartment buildings with five or more units. Still more important than just the number of units being built and the type is who is buying these units and why.

  

  Affordability Is A Growing Issue

  While people talk about the cost of buying a home more attention should be directed towards the ability of the buyer to maintain the home after they purchase it. Another factor looming large in this sector of the economy centers on affordability. When it comes to affordability, much depends on which part of the country you live but in many coastal and popular areas prices remain high. Even with current rates by the time you add in rising real estate taxes and other costs new homes are expensive.  

  Not only are new home prices are on the rise but so are real estate taxes and other fees. There is nothing inexpensive about a new home. Sadly, even the construction is often suspect, while code enforcement has increased, many of the items used in new construction no longer outlive the mortgage a buyer takes on. Whether replacing a door after just a few years or windows, it seems everything is expensive and nothing matches the original design. My house is over a hundred years old and still has the same doors and windows. How many homes built thirty years ago support this claim, enough said. 

  While the number of permits and building starts give some indication on the direction of housing, this is a complicated and this fickle market that is subject to attitudes and economic factors which can change on a dime. Adding to the recent discussion are claims of people buying homes away from big cities in an effort to escape growing violence and the effects of covid-19, this is interlaced with stories about surging gun sales.

  

  New Construction Is Still Below 2008 Levels

  The chart to the right shows that new construction is still below 2008 levels. Much of the new construction has been in apartments and not single-family dwellings. In much of the country, housing units are being built using cheap money flowing from the Fed and Wall Street under the idea that if it is built “they will come.”

  Home-ownership, a large part of the America dream, has been in decline. It could be argued that demographics are not greatly supportive of higher prices, it is also difficult to ignore the fact that when people “double-up” fewer homes are needed. This adds credence to the argument that if prices rise it most likely will be as a result of inflation. Today, huge discrepancies exist in the cost of housing in the various markets across America and while price variations are not uncommon they should be seen as a red flag and reason for caution.  

  While many people claim the formation of new households and pent-up demand drives this construction I beg to differ. I contend it is a combination of too much money looking for a safe place to hide. Unnoticed by many Americans is how money from Wall Street has entered this arena and is pushing out the average American. One thing is certain that when inflation raises its ugly head and interest rates increase, housing construction will suffer. The intention of this post is to dispel and explore some of the myths and trends surrounding the future of housing while causing people to think about this subject. Hopefully, it has added some clarity to the discussion.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 05/16/2021 – 20:00

• "Ever Heard Of Paypal?": Elon Musk Has Epic Meltdown Arguing With Bitcoin Fanatics
  “Ever Heard Of Paypal?”: Elon Musk Has Epic Meltdown Arguing With Bitcoin Fanatics

  With Elon Musk’s “stand” against bitcoin last week, claiming that Tesla would not longer accept the coin for payments due to the environmental impact of mining it, the Tesla CEO quickly wound up doing an about-face in terms of his popularity with bitcoin fanatics. 

  And that “new” relationship was on full display Sunday when the Tesla CEO had an epic meltdown after a spat that started with podcast host Peter McCormack. The spat sent cryptos crashing:

  

  And subjected Musk to ridicule…

  pic.twitter.com/VJ6vqdymv5

  — Ali H (@articbaboon) May 16, 2021

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  It began when McCormack had written a thread to Musk, accusing him of “trolling” with his support of Dogecoin, which led Musk to respond:

  Obnoxious threads like this make me want to go all in on Doge

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2021

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  This set off the coining community, with Dogecoin creator @BillM2K asking of Musk’s comment: “Do you see what being a toxic idiot does to your coin and community?”

  Mic drop.

  Do you see what being a toxic idiot does to your coin and community? https://t.co/E4OSi5lzLn

  — Shibetoshi Nakamoto (@BillyM2k) May 16, 2021

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  Musk’s response also opened the door for a spat wherein he called bitcoin “highly centralized” and boasted “Hey cryptocurrency ‘experts’, ever heard of PayPal? It’s possible…maybe…that I know [more] than you realize about how money works”. 

  

  To which McCormack replied…

  PayPal, LMAO. You mean the company which froze Wikileaks account? The company which routinely censors payments?

  — Peter McCormack🇸🇻 (@PeterMcCormack) May 16, 2021

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  Musk’s meltdown drew additional jeers from all over Twitter. Max Keiser wasted no time with critiquing Musk’s arguments and went directly for an ad hominem shot at his mother, Maye Musk. Others claimed Musk was ready to “rage quit” bitcoin.

  Watching @elonmusk about to rage quit bitcoin because his ego is too big it prevents him from understanding it is 🤌 #bitcoin literally doesn’t give a fuck who you are or how much money you have.

  — 🟩 Xefe Bezos 🟩 (@xefebezos) May 16, 2021

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  Well known Tesla critic @TeslaCharts chimed in:

  Elon is used to dumb people kissing his ass. He can’t tolerate smart people calling him a fraud, or worse, laughing at him. Crypto is full of really smart people. I hope they ridicule him relentlessly. He’ll implode.$BTC $ETH

  — TC, Master of Chart (@TESLAcharts) May 16, 2021

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  Others accused Musk of not being able to stay in his lane…

  A narcissistic inability to stay even approximately in his own lane was always one of Elon’s biggest risks.

  — Economic Man (“Muskago Delenda Est”) (@EconomicManBlog) May 16, 2021

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  Max Keiser joked that Elon made Peter Schiff, who he is notoriously at odds over bitcoin with, rational.

  Elon makes @PeterSchiff seem rational. pic.twitter.com/S0tdNYEVcu

  — 🍊💊 Max Keiser (@maxkeiser) May 16, 2021

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  Finally, one Twitter user summed up Musk’s “cradle to grave” experience with bitcoin:

  Musk’s year in crypto:

  Discovers Bitcoin. Loves it

  Learns about Bitcoin mining. Hates it!

  Discovers Dogecoin. Loves it

  Learns about throughput limitations. Hates it!

  Proposes “fixing” Dogecoin with 10-year obsolete kluges

  Gets clowned by cryptosphere

  Keeps digging https://t.co/hlX0K0oTd4

  — Bachman (@ElonBachman) May 16, 2021

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  When one user suggested Musk should dump his bitcoin as a result of the treatment he was getting, Musk replied “indeed”:

  Indeed

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2021

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  This caused the following headline to hit the Bloomberg terminal: “MUSK IMPLIES TESLA MAY SELL OR HAS SOLD BITCOIN HOLDINGS”.

  

  The headline and the spat had Bitcoin trading with a $45,000 handle by mid day Sunday.

  

  Recall, after Elon Musk royally pissed off cryptoworld by announcing that Tesla would no longer accept Bitcoin last week (just three months after Tesla announced they would take it), Dogecoin co-creator, Jackson Palmer, slammed Musk in a now-deleted Tweet, calling him a ‘self-absorbed grifter.’

  

  The co-creator of Dogecoin, Jackson Palmer, steps out of shadows to tweet & delete:
  Tweet1: “Elon Musk is and always will be a self-absorbed grifter”
  Tweet2: “Removing this in 1 min as that’s all I have to say and I enjoy the quite life”
  Tweet3: “ps. SNL episode was cringe, bro” https://t.co/StkV8u1JyN

  — 🟩Preston Pysh🟩 (@PrestonPysh) May 14, 2021

  Musk’s announcement caused a brutal selloff in most cryptocurrencies, including Dogecoin – which fell precipitously during the Tesla founder’s lame appearance on Saturday Night Live, where he called himself the “Dogefather” and pumped the digital coin while also calling it a “hustle.”

  So goes the new state of the crypto world…

  Dan Loeb, Steve Cohen, Ray Dalio in

  Elon out.

  Fair trade

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 16, 2021

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  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 05/16/2021 – 19:50

• The $100 Million New Jersey-Based Hometown Deli Has Fired Its Wrestling Coach CEO
  The $100 Million New Jersey-Based Hometown Deli Has Fired Its Wrestling Coach CEO

  Last month, we highlighted when fund manager David Einhorn pointed out a New Jersey deli that was trading with an insane market cap of over $100 million as one of the hallmarks of the bubble the market is in. Einhorn wrote:

  “Strange things happen to all kinds of stocks. Last year, on one day in June, the stocks of about a dozen bankrupt companies roughly doubled on enormous volume. Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported a boom in penny stocks.

  Someone pointed us to Hometown International (HWIN), which owns a single deli in rural New Jersey. The deli had $21,772 in sales in 2019 and only $13,976 in 2020, as it was closed due to COVID from March to September. HWIN reached a market cap of $113 million on February 8. The largest shareholder is also the CEO/CFO/Treasurer and a Director, who also happens to be the wrestling coach of the high school next door to the deli. The pastrami must be amazing. Small investors who get sucked into these situations are likely to be harmed eventually, yet the regulators – who are supposed to be protecting investors – appear to be neither present nor curious.”

  The deli was subsequently covered in the news – as was its mysterious CEO Paul Morina, who doubled as both a wrestling coach and school principal (as you do when you’re a $100 million company CEO). 

  And now, it looks as though – for one reason or another (perhaps due to the spotlight) – the company has decided to move forward from the “talents” of Morina, who has been fired as CEO, according to CNBC. 

  

  The company’s majority shareholders voted to remove him and “the company’s only other executive, vice president and secretary Christine Lindenmuth, who works with Morina as an administrator at nearby Paulsboro High School,” CNBC wrote. 

  Recall, back in late April, we noted that the deli was linked to another shell company whose stock recently exploded, E-Waste. That company, which has multiple connections to Hometown, announced its President had resigned last week. 

  E-Waste is a self-admitted shell company and had total assets of about $183,000 and liabilities of $412,400 as of its most recent SEC filings. It posted a net loss of $58,000 for the 9 months ended November 30. The company’s own filings state it was created in 2012 “to develop an e-waste recycling business” but “was not successful in its efforts and discontinued that line of business.”

  It has been a shell company since then and has been looking to “engage in a business combination with a private entity whose business presents an opportunity for its shareholders.”

  But E-Waste’s stock, like Hometown’s, had recently rocketed to a high of $10.25 per share. It put the company’s market cap at over $100 million. 

  Not unlike Hometown Deli, E-Waste also had little ongoing business. Yet this didn’t stop Hometown Deli from lending E-Waste $150,000 late last year – even while the deli was closed due to the pandemic. E-Waste CEO John Rollo also had an interesting former gig for someone in the waste business: he worked another job as a patient transporter at a northern New Jersey hospital, at a healthcare system CNBC says he’s still employed at. 

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  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 05/16/2021 – 19:30

• This Is Not The Inflation You Are Looking For, Move Along
  This Is Not The Inflation You Are Looking For, Move Along

  “This is not the inflation you are looking for. Move along.”

  In recent weeks a veritable cottage industry of financial experts has cropped up, seeking to defuse ever louder fears that the burst in inflation observed in the past month is “transitory” and won’t impact the Fed’s medium-term thinking or its timeline for tapering/liftoff (not least of all due to the growing political blowback against soaring inflation as captured in “Biden Aides See Political, Not Economic, Peril in Inflation Data” and “Inflation fears grow for White House“). The latest to hammer the “transitory” point is Goldman economist David Mericle who has doubled down on the bank’s sanguine view on inflation, writing in a Sunday note that the data surprises of the past two weeks “have left our Q1 2022 forecast for the start of QE tapering unchanged” adding that “if our taper timeline is right, then liftoff will probably not be on the table for about two years.” This is because the bank’s economists believe that that the inflation risks that matter most for the Fed’s rate hike decisions are not those that have emerged in the past few weeks, but rather those “that will remain relevant at a multiyear horizon.”

  So what are those multiyear horizon inflationary risks? Let’s dig in.

  First, we start with Goldman concession that inflation is indeed running amok:

  The last ten days produced a flurry of startling data surprises that added fuel to inflation fears: a 0.7% increase in average hourly earnings in April and even larger gains in low-wage industries, the largest increase in core CPI in 40 years, and a 0.4pp jump in the University of Michigan’s measure of long-term household inflation expectations to the highest level in a decade

  That said, when looking at last week’s show-stopping CPI print, which Goldman admits was “a huge upside surprise” it is one of little lasting significance according to the Goldman and here’s why. As shown in the next chart which decomposes the largest increase in the core since 1981 by category, the main contributors fall into two groups:

  1. travel and related services categories where prices are experiencing quick reopening rebounds from deeply depressed levels, and
  2. goods categories like used cars where a pandemic-induced demand surge has run headfirst into temporary shortages, production bottlenecks, and supply chain disruptions. In contrast, other large core service categories remained soft in April.

  

  While these forces might also generate high inflation prints in coming months – as the full normalization of prices in pandemic-depressed categories like airfares as reopening progresses would add another 30bps to core CPI and 15bps to core PCE, while supply chain disruptions including the semiconductor shortage also remain severe, as shown in the next chart and their impact on goods prices has probably not yet run its course…

  

  … Goldman again trots the familiar party line that “these disruptions and shortages look unlikely to boost inflation on net beyond this year”.

  Many arose because producers initially made the natural assumption last year that demand would fall in a recession, as it usually does. Instead, fiscal support boosted household incomes and the unavailability of services led to a surge in demand for goods, resulting in the supply-demand imbalances that have pushed up prices. But this problem should be resolved from both directions over the rest of the year: producers are ramping up to meet demand and consumers are increasingly free to shift their consumption basket back toward services. And encouragingly, the most prominent example of the current supply chain disruptions—the shortage of microchips for autos—is set to fade later in Q2.

  It remains to be seen if the chip shortage somehow resolves itself in the next month, but until we wait here is another chart from Goldman, this time showing the impact of reopening effects and temporary shortages on the year-on-year rate of core inflation, which Goldman believes is likely to peak in April and May, and should gradually fade later this year and will turn negative next year as prices in categories such as used cars normalize from their current elevated levels.

  

  Here Goldman is quick to counter that its observations do not mean that there are no inflation fears. After all, just hours earlier we discussed another Goldman note according to which the bank saw “substantial home price appreciation for at least a couple more years”, in which the bank projected that we projected “that shelter inflation will exceed 4% in 2023, a higher rate than at any point in the prior economic cycle”, even surpassing the housing bubble of 2006-2007.

  How does one reconcile the two? As Goldman’s econ team explains, it’s not that there are no inflation fears “but rather that investors should focus on the right risks, those that could have more lasting significance.“

  Going down the list, Goldman starts off with the broadest upside inflation risk which is the possibility that fiscal support, pent-up savings, and easy financial conditions could persistently push demand well above potential GDP, leading to a serious inflationary overheating: “our forecast instead implies that GDP will rise about 1% above our estimate of potential, which we would view as consistent with inflation rising moderately but not dramatically above 2%.”

  Here, Goldman notes that “so far the consumer spending data appear roughly consistent with our expectations” and the next chart shows that Goldman’s consumer spending tracker jumped after both rounds of stimulus checks, but that spending is now running about 3% above the pre-pandemic level, meaning it is only about 1% above the pre-pandemic trend (Friday’s disappointing retail sales only confirmed this hypothesis). In other words, while further reopening is likely to raise spending, the boost from the stimulus checks is likely to continue to fade.

  

  Next, Goldman lists three specific upside risks that could have more meaningful and lasting consequences for inflation and monetary policy than the current post-pandemic price spikes.

  Risk #1: A sharper rise in wage growth

  The first risk is that wage growth could rise to a much faster pace than reached last cycle if current signs of worker shortages and labor market tightness prove more persistent than many expect. The starting point for wage growth is unusually high for an economy emerging from a recession. The next chart shows that Goldman’s composition-adjusted wage growth tracker barely slowed from its pre-pandemic pace and remains at about 3% year-on-year.

  

  Adding fuel tot he fire, a number of recent labor market indicators hint at an acceleration. Average hourly earnings rose 0.7% in April, wage growth is up sharply over the last year in low-wage industries and industries with particularly tight labor markets, and lower-wage workers report much higher pay expectations for potential jobs.

  

  Moreover, a range of other indicators discussed here, such as a very high job openings rate, a high quits rate, worker surveys reporting that it is easy to find a job, and employer surveys reporting that it is hard to find workers, all point to a very tight labor market where workers have the upper hand.

  Incidentally, even Goldman has no problems identifying the reason for this record labor market imbalance: as the bank admits, “the underlying reason seems to be that effective labor supply is much more constrained than the 6.1% unemployment rate suggests, owing to unusually generous unemployment insurance benefits and lingering virus-related impediments to working” but “we expect both of these temporary factors to fade by the fall, which should relax these supply constraints and cool the current wage pressures.”

  Risk #2: A multi-year boom in home prices boosts rent inflation

  The second risk is one we discussed earlier, namely that a multiyear boom in US home prices could drive shelter inflation much higher. The chart below shows that shelter inflation has fallen during the pandemic, and Goldman’s shelter inflation tracker suggests that rent growth should remain modest for the time being.

  

  But the shelter category is highly cyclical and is very likely to accelerate as the economy improves and the effects of temporary pandemic drags like eviction moratoriums fade. On top of this, Goldman expects that a national housing shortage will fuel substantial house price appreciation for at least a couple more years. Bottom line: “the tightest national housing market since the 1970s nevertheless poses some additional upside risk.”

  Risk #3: Temporary price spikes raise inflation expectations substantially

  The third risk noted by Goldman is that the current price spikes caused by temporary pandemic effects could have a more lasting impact if they raise long-term inflation expectations substantially (i.e. transitory proves to be non-transitory). Last week brought hints in this direction, including a 0.4% jump in the University of Michigan’s measure of long-term household inflation expectations, a modest increase in long-term inflation expectations in the Survey of Professional Forecasters, and further increases in market-implied inflation compensation.

  Goldman’s own monthly version of the Fed’s index of Common Inflation Expectations (CIE) has risen further to 2.08% in a preliminary May reading. The Fed’s index is smoothed, and if the underlying measures held steady at their current levels, the bank estimates that the CIE would eventually rise to 2.1%.

  

  Another point to note is that at least half of the rebound over the last year appears to reflect mundane co-movement with gasoline and other energy prices, which correlate strongly even with longer-term expectations. The remainder of the increase likely reflects other factors, such as the latest price spikes and the Fed’s new average inflation targeting framework. So far, Goldman concludes, that “the increases are healthy, indeed, as Chair Powell said at his last press conference, the Fed’s new framework will only succeed in centering inflation on the 2% target if it succeeds in boosting inflation expectations.” But if the CIE moved well above its historical range as news of sharp prices increases makes headlines this year, Goldman warns of upside risk to its own inflation forecast.

  Finally, what does all this mean for Goldman’s inflation outlook and what the Fed will do next?

  As Goldman’s economists conclude, all three of these sources of upward pressure on inflation are expected to materialize to some degree in the years ahead. Indeed, each of them is an essential contributor to our forecast that core PCE inflation will reach 2.1% by end-2022, 2.15% by end-2023, and 2.2% by end-2024, higher numbers than reached last cycle and enough to generate liftoff in early 2024.

  

  But, as a surprisingly cautious Goldman concedes in its final paragraph, “each of the three factors discussed above also carries some additional upside risk that we take seriously and watch closely in our Monthly Inflation Monitor. While another month of rapidly rising airfares or used car prices would probably not change our medium-run inflation views much, substantial surprises on these three key risks likely.“

  In closing, it’s worth reminding readers that earlier today Morgan Stanley’s economists also warned that there is just one substantial threat to the “red hot global recovery”, and that would of course be inflation, i.e., “the biggest threat to this cycle is an overshoot in US core PCE inflation beyond the Fed’s implicit 2.5%Y threshold – a serious concern, in my view, which could emerge from mid-2022 onwards” but like Goldman, MS economists don’t see much risk of runaway (or hyperinflation) just yet and is why Morgan Stanley’s chief US economist Ellen Zentner still expects the Fed to signal its intention to taper asset purchases at the September FOMC meeting, to announce it in March 2022 and to start tapering from April 2022.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 05/16/2021 – 19:09

• Druckenmiller: "There's Been No Greater Engine Of Inequality Than The Fed"
  Druckenmiller: “There’s Been No Greater Engine Of Inequality Than The Fed”

  After his status-quo-shattering appearance on CNBC this week, during which he warned that “Fed policy is endangering the dollar’s reserve status,” billionaire fund manager Stan Druckenmiller spoke to The USC Marshall Center for Investment Studies’ Student Investment Fund Annual Meeting via Zoom, and shocked the on-lookers with his frank assessment of our current perceptions and realities.

  After The Bank of Canada sheepishly admitted this week that “some of the monetary policy tools it is using to address the COVID-19 pandemic, such as quantitative easing (QE), could widen wealth inequality,” Druckenmiller drops the proverbial hammer on all the hedged-speak (“could”), and blasts that

  “I don’t think there has been a greater engine of inequality than the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States… so hearing the Chairman [Powell] talking about visiting homeless shelters is very rich indeed…”

  The outspoken fund manager went on to note that “everyone wealthy that I know is making fortunes” because “this guy [Powell] is printing money like there’s no tomorrow” adding that the kids is Harlem are not benefitting from money-printing but wealthy people are, exclaiming that

  “…for the life of me I can’t understand why the left is so excited about money-printing when all the data shows that the people who benefit from money-printing are rich people.”

  “The odds-on bet is that we’re going to have inflation,” he continues:

  “and inflation is going to hurt poor people, again, a lot more than rich people.”

  How does this all end?

  “The asset bubble which [Powell] is blowing up into unbelievable proportions busts before the inflation ever really manifests itself, that’s what happened in the housing bubble in 08/09. We never really got to the inflation because the asset bubble burst… not dis-similar to what happened in 1929.”

  And Druck reminds us all, “there is no one, no group, that will be hurt more by a bust than the poor… they will be first in line to get screwed.”

  Here’s the clip. This is epic. pic.twitter.com/TRg49e47wG

  — Rudy Havenstein, cloud-based digital disruptor. (@RudyHavenstein) May 16, 2021

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  Can’t believe it’s true? Take a look…

  

  While publicly glorified by the media as “heroes” and “saviors” of the economy, Sven Henrich pointed out earlier that the true impact of Fed policy is much more sinister.

  Inflation, as Druckenmiller rightly points out hurts the poor the most as living expenses take up most if not all of their monthly budgets.

  Watch the full Druckenmiller discussion here.

  This revelation to some (not all) came after his earlier-in-the week, WSJ Op-Ed that “keeping emergency settings after the emergency has passed carries bigger risks for the Fed than missing its inflation target by a few decimal points. It’s time for a change.”

  Pointing out, rather awkwardly that The Fed’s independence is supposed to act as a counterbalance to these political whims.

  “America’s deep divisions also make the central bank’s independence crucial. Fighting inequality and climate change are very far from the Fed’s central mission.”

  The long-term risks from asset bubbles and fiscal dominance dwarf the short-term risk of putting the brakes on a booming economy in 2022.

  “If they want to do all this and risk our reserve currency status, risk an asset bubble blowing up, so be it. But I think we ought to at least have a conversation about it,” Druckenmiller said.

  “If we’re going to monetize our debt and we’re going to enable more and more of this spending, that’s why I’m worried now for the first time that within 15 years we lose reserve currency status and of course all the unbelievable benefits that have accrued with it,” he added.

  Central banks have been the root of a lack of confidence in dollar stability.

  “5-6 years ago I said Crypto was the solution in search of a problem. That’s why I didn’t play crypto the first wave because we already have the dollar, why do we need crypto for?

  The problem has been clearly identified. It is Jerome Powell and the rest of the world’s central bankers. There is a lack of trust.“

  Druckenmiller is not alone in his acknowledgement that The Fed is at the heart of driving wealth inequality in America as even left-leaning Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, admitted:

  “The low-interest environment increases inequality by increasing the wealth of people who are well off.”

  As ProPublica reports, economists are beginning to view the interplay of the Fed’s actions and inequality in a new light. Central bankers used to think that “we didn’t have to worry about inequality when we did monetary policy,” Olivier Blanchard, former director of research for the International Monetary Fund, said during a December virtual forum sponsored by the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Blanchard said he has since come to believe that monetary policy does impact economic inequality because a change in interest rates has “major, major distribution effects between borrowers and lenders, between asset holders and not.”

  “Inequality is a cumulative process,” said Karen Petrou, author of “The Engine of Inequality: The Fed and the Future of Wealth in America” and managing partner of the Washington-based consulting firm Federal Financial Analytics.

  “The richer you are, the richer you get, and the poorer you are, the poorer you get, unless something puts that engine in reverse,” she said.

  “That engine is driven not by fate or by untouchable phenomena such as demographics but most importantly by policy decisions.”

  Bernanke, currently a fellow at the Brookings Institution, admitted in a 2017 Brookings paper that:

  “all else equal, higher stock prices mean greater inequality of wealth.”

  Janet Yellen, now Treasury secretary, asked in a 2014 speech whether income inequality is “compatible with values rooted in our nation’s history,” but she largely defended ultra-low rates during a Q&A at a 2013 conference of business journalists.

  Older savers were “suffering from low returns on their CDs,” she said, but “they have children and they have grandchildren” who will benefit from the stronger economy.

  Except, as Druckenmiller began this diatribe, as the Fed pumps more money into the financial system by buying Treasury securities and indirectly supporting federal stimulus programs, the run-up in stock markets is likely to continue – and leave people even further behind than they already were.

  

  Glaring and expanding wealth inequality is destructive to society. While there will always be inequality and successful capitalism should rightfully reward those that work hard and come up with great business concepts the artificial exponential enrichment of the few by a “government created agency” (Jay Powell) is not in the purview of the Fed’s mandate.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 05/16/2021 – 18:30

• New York's Pride March Bans Police Officers From Marching
  New York’s Pride March Bans Police Officers From Marching

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  One of the oldest celebrations of the LGBTQ community in the world has been New York City’s annual Pride celebration. The parade began 51 years ago and has long been a symbol of the strength, defiance, and pride of this community. The whole idea was to show the full spectrum of LGBTQ influence, participation, and expression in our society. This year, however, activists have decided to discriminate against one group: police officers.

  In a parade that was found to reject discrimination in every form, the organizers have told the Gay Officers Action League and other such groups that they will not be allowed to march. Their presence is viewed as a threat to others in the parade and a denial of a “safe space” for LGBTQ members. It is hard to imagine a more antithetical position for the parade in excluding officers who are part of the community and who want to publicly stand with other LGBTQ members.

  

  The organizers have announced that police and corrections officers will be barred from participating in the parade until at least 2025.  They declared “The sense of safety that law enforcement is meant to provide can instead be threatening, and at times dangerous, to those in our community who are most often targeted with excessive force and/or without reason.”

  The Gay Officers Action League, an organization of L.G.B.T.Q. police, denounced the decision on Friday night. In addition, the NYPD is being asked to remain at least a block away from all events to ensure a safe environment for participants.

  Activists have long opposed police participation and cite the anti-police riot  outside the Stonewall Inn in Manhattan. However, the police participants have marched to show that the NYPD does not just support the LGBTQ community but includes officers from the community. It is the very rejection of the image of the Stonewall Inn riot and a testament to the progress made not just by the LGBTQ community but the NYPD.

  Nevertheless, Beverly Tillery, the executive director of the New York City Anti-Violence Project insists that “[t]he issue is, how do we make Pride safe for the people who feel the most marginalized and have often been left out of the conversations about how Pride is run?”

  It is a terrible setback and insult for officers and their predecessors, who had to sue for the right to march in uniform and did so for the first time in 1996. They have fought to diversify the ranks of the NYPD and show that there are officers not just supportive but part of the LGBTQ community. That would seem an incredibly powerful and reassuring message to send to community members. The growing numbers each year showed the progress that has been achieved since 1978 when New York City mayor Ed Koch banned discrimination in police hiring on the basis of sexual orientation (over the objection of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association).

  On November 2, 1969, Craig Rodwell, Fred Sargeant, Ellen Broidy and Linda Rhodes called for an annual march  for all “Homophile organizations.” The march was envisioned as a statement against exclusionary limits of every kind for members of the community:

  We propose that a demonstration be held annually on the last Saturday in June in New York City to commemorate the 1969 spontaneous demonstrations on Christopher Street and this demonstration be called CHRISTOPHER STREET LIBERATION DAY. No dress or age regulations shall be made for this demonstration.

  We also propose that we contact Homophile organizations throughout the country and suggest that they hold parallel demonstrations on that day. We propose a nationwide show of support.

  GOAL is one such organization and shows how much has changed since this call for a unifying celebration of everyone within this community. It was created in 1982 and each year around 200 of its members and their families participated in the march.

  

  They have now been told that they are not welcomed as a perceived threat to their own community. I cannot think of a message more counter to traditions or values of the annual parade.  A movement based on inclusion has now embraced exclusion as a defining value.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 05/16/2021 – 18:00

• Following The 'Science'? CDC Shifts From "Impending Doom" To 'You're Free' In 6 Weeks
  Following The ‘Science’? CDC Shifts From “Impending Doom” To ‘You’re Free’ In 6 Weeks

  At the end of March, amid absolutely no signs of trouble whatsover in “the data” – and after the establishment excoriated the “neanderthal thinking” of several red states for ‘prematurely’ and ‘recklessly’ lifting their COVID restrictions, freshly-appointed CDC Director Rochelle Walensky went “off-script” (though if one watches here eyes it appears she is very much reading a script) to warn the public about her “impending doom” following a very modest rise in COVID cases and hospitalizations.

  “Right now, I’m scared,” Walesky, choking back tears, exclaimed.

  CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky goes off script with an emotional plea to the public about an “impending doom” following rise in COVID cases:

  “Right now, I’m scared.” pic.twitter.com/UKjrRhr7He

  — The Recount (@therecount) March 29, 2021

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

  Fauci doubled-down with the doom finger-pointing…

  “I think the reason we’re seeing this plateauing and the increase that I hope doesn’t turn into a surge is because we are really doing things prematurely right now with regard to opening up.”

  At the time we pointed out that Walensky’s level of fearmongering is disgusting and disingenuous and the American people are growing more and more insensitive to such evocations.

  Now, just 6 weeks later, as all the doomsaying, fearmongering, panic-inducing double-speak was proven completely misplaced, and amid political pressure from even the leftest of leftists to “do something”, the masks are off and freedom (for the vaccinated) is offered back to ‘we, the people’.

  Just two weeks after announcing a mask revision on April 27 to allow people who are fully vaccinated to do most things outdoors, with some precautions – again amid political pressure from an increasingly confused American public –  CDC announced it revised its mask guidance again, now enabling those who are fully vaccinated to forgo wearing masks both indoors and outdoors.

  “Anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities — large or small — without wearing a mask or physically distancing,” said Walensky.

  “Based on the continuing downward trajectory of cases, the scientific data on the performance of our vaccines and our understanding of how the virus spreads, that moment has come for those who are fully vaccinated,” she continued.

  The message from the CDC could not have changed more drastically in this brief 45 days period…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  And if the goal of the ‘big lie’ of impending doom was to ‘encourage’ scared Americans to get vaccinated or die, once again the ‘science’ in the data shows it didn’t work either as daily vaccination rates have basically trended lower since Walensky’s scaremongering…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  As Stephen Miller notes, Fauci said on Mother’s Day (one week ago) that the country would not be close to back to normal until a year from now, including masks… and today, he told CBS’s “Face The Nation” on Sunday that:

  “the accumulation of all of those scientific facts, information and evidence brought the CDC to make that decision, to say, now when you’re vaccinated, you don’t need to wear a mask, not only outdoors, but you don’t need to wear it indoors.”

  Amazing what politics science can do!?

  But Walensky assures the country that, “We followed the science here.”

  Political science?

  In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Walensky was asked what went into the CDC’s decision to shift from its previous position on wearing masks. As host Chris Wallace noted, as of Wednesday night, Walensky was still arguing that fully vaccinated Americans should continue to wear masks indoors. On Thursday, however, the updated CDC guidelines stated that those who have been fully vaccinated “can resume activities that you did prior to the pandemic” and do not have to wear a mask or socially distance in most indoor and outdoor settings.

  Wallace then pointed to the “increasing pressure” from the public and members of Congress, such as Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who expressed during a Senate hearing “incredible frustration” with an apparent disconnect between science and health officials who say they follow science.

  “Can you state flatly to the American people that pressure had nothing to do with the abrupt shift in the CDC guidelines?” Wallace asked.

  “Yes, I can,” Walensky responded. “I can tell you it certainly would have been easier if the science had evolved a week earlier and I didn’t have to go to Congress making those statements, but I’m delivering the science as the science is delivered to the medical journals.”

  “And, you know, it evolved over this last week, the cases came down over the last two weeks,” she continued. “I delivered it as soon as I can when we had that information available.”

  Walensky’s comments also come as the CDC faces allegations that it changed its school reopening guidelines under the influence of American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the second-largest teachers’ union in the United States. According to numerous emails obtained by the New York Post, AFT reviewed a draft of those guidelines, and the CDC adopted at least two of the union’s recommendations nearly verbatim in the final release.

  “Recently released emails reportedly show that the CDC has been taking its cues from teachers’ unions instead of following the science,” a group of four Republican members of Congress wrote in a letter to Walensky, demanding explanation regarding the NY Post exposé.

  “This political interference has resulted in months-long delays in the opening of schools to the detriment of American children.”

  Science, schmience!

  Of course there are some who refuse to believe the CDC’s “new science” – that masks are not required because outdoor spread is for all intent and purpose non-existent for anyone and indoor spread from or to the vaccinated is negligible at worst – and choose to continue to signal their virtue…

  I feel the need to continue wearing my mask outside even though I’m fully vaccinated because the inconvenience of having to wear a mask is more than worth it to have people not think I’m a conservative 😬

  — David Hogg (@davidhogg111) May 14, 2021

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  And of course, AOC told her instagram followers…“Personally I’m going to keep wearing my mask in shared indoor public spaces…it’s also a nice accessory when you don’t want to do all your make-up…”

  

  “Science-deniers?”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 05/16/2021 – 17:55

• The Fed Is Going To Make A Mistake
  The Fed Is Going To Make A Mistake

  Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

  Well, that didn’t work out as planned. Last week, we said:

  “Notably, the ‘money flow buy signal’ seemed to cross; however, we need some follow-through action on Monday to confirm. As shown, the uptick in money flows did allow us to add some exposure to portfolios in holdings we had taken profits in with the previous ‘sell’ signal.”

  

  Well, that follow-through failed to occur. Not only did the “buy signal” not trigger, but the market also broke down through the previous consolidation range. As I said, it did not work out as planned. The last exposure we took on is now pressuring the portfolio momentarily, but we should benefit from the turn if we are correct.

  With markets deeply oversold on a short-term basis, with signals at levels that generally precede short-term rallies, the rally on Thursday and Friday was not unexpected. Notably, the S&P 500 did hold support at the 50-dma and rallied back into the previous trading range. Furthermore, institutional investors have cut their exposures by 50% in just two weeks, primarily big tech, which provides fuel for a rally.

  

  We will hold exposures at current levels for now. However, instead of looking for a more extended rally into mid-summer, we suspect this rally will be pretty short-lived.

  As stated last week, overall, the market trend remains bullish, so there is no need to be overly defensive. We still expect to see a deeper correction as stimulus fades from the system in the next month. At that point, we will become more defensive in positioning as the peak of economic growth and earnings becomes more apparent.

  An Inflation Primer

  On Thursday’s “3-Minutes” video, I review the recent inflation numbers to put them into perspective. While there is some panic over the headline numbers, there are valid reasons to expect inflationary pressures to be transient.

  As stated above, we expect inflation to subside later this year, along with economic growth.

  As such, we continue to focus on our risk management accordingly for now. If we are correct in our assessment about the roll-off effect of stimulus and liquidity, we could well see bonds outperform stocks in 2022. We are watching very closely as we currently hold minimal duration in our fixed-income portfolios. If we begin to see the very negative sentiment on bonds reverse, as inflationary pressures subside, we could well see an excellent buying opportunity.

  

  The problem for the markets is the Fed is going to be late.

  Rates Doing The “Fed’s Work”

  In last week’s message, we said:

  “Over the next couple of months, there will be an evident surge in inflation, which the Fed wanted. However, that surge in inflation may come in a lot “hotter” than they anticipated. If that occurs, bond yields will jump higher, effectively “tightening” monetary policy very quickly.”

  Such is what we saw on Thursday as bond yields jumped to nearly 1.7%. While rates did fall back mildly on Friday, the rise in rates from the August lows increases the cost of capital. (Chart shows the percentage increase in rates versus the annual inflation rate,)

  

  Given the long and highly correlated history of GDP, Inflation, and Interest Rates, it is no surprise to see rates pacing inflation currently. As noted in “No, Bonds Aren’t Over-Valued.”

  “As shown, the correlation between rates and the economic composite suggests that current expectations of sustained economic expansion and rising inflation are overly optimistic. At current rates, economic growth will likely very quickly return to sub-2% growth by 2022.”

  Note: The “economic composite” is a compilation of inflation (CPI), economic growth (GDP), and wages.

  

  At the peak of nominal economic growth over the last decade, interest rates rose to 3% as GDP temporarily hit 6%. However, rates correctly predicted that economic growth would return to its long-term downtrend, and inflation would decline. Bonds were right as the economy fell into recession in 2020.

  Once again, economists predict 6% or better economic growth, yet interest rates are roughly 50% lower than previously. The bond market is screaming that:

  • Economic growth will average between 1.75% and 2% over the next few years; and,

  • Deflation still trumps inflation.

  Moreover, the Fed is manipulating inflation expectations.

  The Fed Is Driving Inflation Expectations

  In recent months, market participants continue to rely heavily on implied inflation expectations. The reliance led to much media-driven commentary relating to allocation decisions in the “inflationary environment.” From that analysis, investors piled into materials, energy, and financial companies, which did indeed provide short-term outperformance. The more deflationary sectors of technology, staples, and utilities, not surprisingly, underperformed.

  The problem is that the “market-based” expectations aren’t market-based at all. The first graph below shows the massive amounts of inflation-protected Treasury bonds and notes. Such large purchases create distortions in the very market investors are relying on for inflationary information. Instead, the Fed is skewing the implied inflation calculations.

  

  The following chart from our analyst, Nick Lane, shows the history of these purchases and the impact on inflationary expectations.

  

  Just as the Fed’s monetary interventions distorted signals in the asset market, those interventions are now distorting signals in the TIPs market.

  In other words, investors depend on signals from the market to allocate capital and adjust allocations. However, when those signals get manipulated, false readings can lead to significant future dislocations when reality collides with fantasy.

  Such is why the Fed will make a mistake.

  The Fed Is Going To Make A Mistake

  As discussed, the “base effects” (comparison versus last year’s data) make price inflation appear much higher than it is. The graph below puts the CPI indexes in context with their trends of the previous five years.

  

  Currently, the broad CPI index is only .011% above its trend. The Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, is 1.06% above its trend. If the inflationary impulse is transitory and dies out over the next few months, inflation data will end close to where it was pre-pandemic.

  The Fed is now potentially in a difficult position with inflationary “expectations” rising, caused by their actions, which  increases the risk of a “policy mistake.” 

  Given the Fed waited so long into the economic cycle to hike rates they weren’t able to gain much of a spread before the economy contracted. Historically, there have been ZERO times the Federal Reserve hiked rates that did not negatively affect outcomes.

  

  The problem for the Fed is that the bond market is not worried about surging inflation. Despite economic growth expectations of as much as 6%, interest rates are trading below 2%. Given the close correlation shown above, it is a message you should not dismiss quickly.

  The “real economy” is heavily debt-financed, and as such, cannot withstand substantially higher rates. Consequently, the Fed is caught between hiking rates to quell transient inflationary pressures, thereby deflating the most significant asset bubble in financial history, or doing nothing and hoping no one pushes the “big red button.”

  Unfortunately, history is full of instances where someone panicked.

  Portfolio Update

  “The road to hell gets paved with good intentions.” – Unknown

  As noted above, our attempt to “front-run” our “money flow signal” did not work out as planned as the signal did not turn.  While we did not take on a tremendous amount of exposure, the increased exposure to the decline mid-week was certainly not part of our plans.

  As is always the case, technical analysis works best when you wait for the signals to occur. While a harsh lesson to relearn, the damage was minimal. With market risk reduced, our entry levels should perform over the next couple of weeks.

  Timing is always the tricky part.

  As Michael Lebowitz concluded in “Fortify Your Wealth:”

  “Given the economic climate and extreme market risks and rewards, we continue to take an agnostic view of markets. We do not get wed to opinions of economic activity or inflation, or how they may steer markets. 

  Paying top dollar for assets requires independent thinking and careful attention to market activity. From the brightest traders on Wall Street to the halls of the Federal Reserve and in the studios of the self-anointed media economic experts, there is zero appreciation for the potential of massive forecasting errors.”

  Historically, investors get rewarded for going against the crowd. Such is especially the case when the masses are in agreement on what the future holds.

  “When all experts agree, something else is bound to happen.” – Bob Farrell.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 05/16/2021 – 17:00

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• The End Of Western Globalia?
  The End Of Western Globalia?

  Via TheSwarmBlog.com,

  Since the 1970’s, international trade has continuously been promoted by leaders of developed countries and economic agents.

  Several theoretical frameworks have been put forward to explain the benefits of a free trade environment, from Adam Smith’s concept of absolute advantages to more recent firm-based theories. However, the reality is much more nuanced, especially after China’s entry into the WTO in 2001, and questions arise as to the sustainability of the current model.

  

  While the development of free trade activity could be regarded as a sound intellectual victory for Western capitalism, such trend has paradoxically weakened several countries in Europe and America.

  • The first side effect of economic globalism in the West has been the retreat of manufacturing in several economies like the United States, with durable unemployment issues as a result. Beyond social impacts, Canadian author Vaclav Smil argued that a manufacturing decline is structurally problematic as it affects the ability of a country to innovate on the long run.

  • The second reason to be skeptical about international trade is the multiplication of structural imbalances in the global economy, with unstainable surpluses and deficits everywhere. An economy displaying a growing trade deficit is getting poorer with respect to foreign economies, leading to a financial and/or social crisis in the end. To understand that, it is necessary to imagine a country whose currency is backed by something tangible (e.g. gold). In that case, a deficit means that the country owes metals to the rest of the world. Of course, current account deficits can be offset by financial inflows, but as there’s no free lunch in economics, that should not be seen as a long-term solution.

  • Last but not least, the rise of global trade and countries specialization has led to a system full of frictions and highly vulnerable to shocks (whatever their size). This has been well documented and explained by research in complex systems including econophysics (see It’s the Complexity Stupid). One could imagine a local natural disaster disrupting the global car industry supply chain (e.g. Japan earthquake and tsunami 2011), a small shipping incident blocking a large part of maritime trade (e.g. Suez Canal obstruction 2021), or even a tiny pathogen freezing the global economy for several months (e.g. COVID-19 pandemic).

  In other words, a problem affecting local factories in some regions of Asia or mining facilities in Chile is likely to impact most economies in the world. In other words, the more specialized countries are in terms of economic production, the more dependent on foreign production they become, and the more vulnerable to distant events they will be.

  The Trade War Black Swan

  All that being said, imagine what happens if US-China tensions keep on rising and if the global economy gradually splits into two different markets. While America has turned more protectionist since Trump’s election in 2016, China has made it clear that they will implement a “Made in China for China” economic policy for the coming years (and even decades) as economic independence has become one of the main goals of Xi Jinping.

  I do not know how well Western economic agents are prepared for such a scenario, as most people display Gaussian-like behavior and always bet on a return to normal. But the consequences of a structural change in the global trade activity could be significant for the rest of the world, especially for net importers depending too much on foreign producers for materials or key technological components.

  People may argue that the world is getting more and more interconnected and that a large-scale economic network is likely to continue to expand on the long run. That is correct on a long timeline, but it could be proven wrong during our lifetimes.

  From that perspective, interesting lessons can be learned from the decline of the Western Roman Empire.

  The Fall of Rome

  Studying the transitional period from the Roman Empire to Middles Ages (also known as Late Antiquity), British archeologist Bryan Ward-Perkins explained that “the fall of Rome” was a brutal decline during the 5th and the 6th century.

  More interestingly, Ward-Perkins argued that before the 5th century, a large and complex trade network had emerged in the Western Empire, leading to strong economic activity in most provinces and a high level of technology with respect to Middles Ages. For instance, regions specialized in the production of weapons for the legions, others on certain types of pottery, etc.

  Ward-Perkins noted that after decades of so-called “Barbarians invasions,” economic activity showed serious signs of decline in the Empire, as evidenced by the collapse of manufactured goods such as pottery or “high-end” building materials. Besides, archaeological excavations also lead to the conclusion that the use of coins significantly diminished during that period.

  Since every region became dependent on the others, the economic foundations of the Western Empire became vulnerable to any disruptive event. And this is what happened for two centuries. It is interesting to note that in the same time the Byzantine Empire was experiencing relative peace and economic boom, as evidenced by archaeological findings.

  As the economy of the West was hit by several shocks, the Roman Empire got caught in a vicious circle, meaning that wars and defeats led to weaker supply activity in some regions, resulting in economic problems everywhere, budget issues, less transfers to the legions, social unrest, and thus further military defeats, and so on.

  The example of the Western Roman Empire is striking, as its collapse also led to a serious decline in terms of technology. Thus, the question is whether it is a relevant proxy for the current Western capitalist empire.

  No one knows for sure, but as Ward-Perkins wrote in 2005: “Romans before the fall were as certain as we are today that their world would continue forever substantially unchanged. They were wrong. We would be wise not to repeat their complacency.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 05/15/2021 – 23:30

• Visualizing Key Generation-Defining Events In US History
  Visualizing Key Generation-Defining Events In US History

  Looking back at history is a necessity when trying to understand what the future may hold.

  Using insights from our Generational Power Index 2021 report, along with survey data from Pew Research in 2016, Visual Capitalist’s Iman Ghosh identified some key milestones for each cohort, to understand how these events helped shape each generation’s unique perspectives.

  

  Quick Context on Generational Definitions

  Before diving in, it’s important to clarify which generations we’ve included in our research, along with their age and birth year ranges.

  

  These generational categories aren’t universal, but we went with the most widely cited definitions from reputable U.S. sources including the Pew Research and the U.S. Federal Reserve. It’s also worth noting that these generational definitions are somewhat specific to North America. For this reason, the focus is on U.S. historic events.

  Defining Events: Silent Generation

  The oldest members of the Silent Generation were 11 years old at the start of World War II, and were teenagers by the time it ended. In other words, their formative years fell smack dab in the middle of one of the biggest international conflicts in modern history.

  Because of this, it makes sense that World War II ranks as the second most impactful event in their lifetimes, trailing only the far more recent Sept. 11 terrorist attacks (2001).

  Most Impactful Historic Events, Silent Gen (Survey Results)

  

  In fact, the Silent Generation cited four different wars on their list, more than any other cohort. For context, Boomers identified three conflicts (including the Cold War), while Millennials only referenced one (Iraq/Afghanistan).

  Of course, other not-so-violent events made the list as well. And interestingly, some of these impressionable moments occurred later on in life.

  For example, the youngest members of The Silent Generation were already in their mid-t0-late forties when cellphones became common in the ‘90s—yet, 27% identified the tech revolution as one of the top 10 most impactful events that happened in their lifetime.

  Clearly, life never stops throwing you curve balls—no matter how far along you might be.

  Most Notable Historical Events: Baby Boomers

  Many of the historical experiences cited by Baby Boomers were related to war and violent acts. For instance, Boomers identified two assassinations on their list—John F. Kennedy’s in 1963, and Martin Luther King’s in 1968.

  Most Impactful Historic Events, Boomers (Survey Results)

  

  For this generation, the moon landing in 1969 made the cut, as did Barack Obama’s election win in 2008.

  Baby Boomers only identified one event that was unique to their cohort (Martin Luther King’s death). It’s worth noting that responses varied between Americans of different racial backgrounds. Not surprisingly, Black Americans were far more likely to name MLK’s death as a top defining moment.

  Most Notable Historical Events: Gen X

  For Gen Xers, two unique events made their list: the Challenger disaster (1986) and the Gulf War (1991). Interestingly, neither of of these events stood out for other generations.

  The Challenger disaster impact was widely felt because it involved civilians alongside astronauts, making the space shuttle’s explosion all the more notorious.

  Most Impactful Historic Events, Gen Xers (Survey Results)

  

  Hurricane Katrina (which occurred in 2005) is the only natural disaster to make it on any of these lists. The hurricane—which caused a significant share of New Orleans’ population to resettle—left a lasting impression on the nation.

  Most Notable Historical Events: Millennials

  Millennials remember the September 11 attacks the most of all generations, with 86% citing it as their most influential event. They also paid close attention to the aftermath of this occurrence, as marked by the inclusion of both the Iraq/Afghanistan wars and the death of Osama Bin Laden among their most notable events.

  Most Impactful Historic Events, Millennials (Survey Results)

  

  Sadly, a lot of Millennials recollect instances of gun violence more than any other generation, from Orlando and Columbine to Sandy Hook.

  Last but not least, Millennials are the only generation to note the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, and the subsequent Great Recession, as a momentous event. This makes sense considering many of them began their careers in its aftermath.

  Gen Z and Younger

  The Pew Research survey data was collected in 2016, so opinions on more recent events have not been collected.

  That said, it could be premature to say in the short term which events will leave a lasting impression on generations, young and old.

  According to the above data, the election of Barack Obama was a lasting milestone in recent history. Will the election of Donald Trump leave a similar impact? How will COVID-19 be regarded in the future? Time will tell which events will define future generations.

  Moments, Movements, and Everything in Between

  One key takeaway worth emphasizing is just how varied these formative events can be. Some were experienced as a single moment, while others were a culmination of shifts over several years.

  It’s also clear that timing and duration are not the only determining factors behind an event’s influence on American society. For example, the moon landing was a tangible moment with a date stamp, whereas the tech revolution has a much fuzzier start (before exploding in significance alongside the Dotcom boom and bust).

  Also interesting is what is absent from the top results. For example, the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 is barely referenced.

  In short, a variety of impactful events and more gradual revolutions have made their mark on American society. Some have influenced specific generations, while others have transcended generational boundaries and unified the American public.

  Download the Generational Power Report (.pdf)

   

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 05/15/2021 – 23:00

• Denying Reality Leads To Tyranny And Societal Failure
  Denying Reality Leads To Tyranny And Societal Failure

  Authored by Patrick Barron via The Mises Institute,

  The common thread that connects failed societies, from Weimar Germany to the Soviet Union, is an almost pathological insistence on denying reality. Weimar Germany denied that masses of printed money would destroy civilized society. The Soviet Union insisted that Soviet Man would emerge spontaneously from the ashes of capitalist society. Weimar Germany spawned Nazi Germany. Nazi Germany was completely destroyed, both physically and politically, by the World War II Allies. Mercifully, the Soviet Union simply collapsed after seventy years of consuming capital to achieve the phantom of the classless society. Today both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union are synonymous with tyranny and failure. Both nations murdered millions. Both nations no longer exist. True, Germany exists as does Russia, but I contend that both are new nations. Neither is perfect, but neither claims a political heritage to the nation that preceded it.

  Pathological policy errors flowed inexorably from a skewed view of reality in both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Once this view of reality was deemed to be above criticism, its champions adopted increasingly tyrannical policies. Nazi Germany’s Aryan Supremacy racial theories seemingly justified the murder of the handicapped, Gypsies, those of alternative sexual orientation, Jews, and Slavs. In the name of birthing a new Soviet Man, the Soviet Union murdered anyone who stood in the way of its program to confiscate all businesses, including small farms. When businesses and farms failed, there was no soul searching as to root causes that might lie in Marxism itself. No, the problem had to be saboteurs within society. Reality, you see, was what the Soviet Union’s Politburo said it was. As the vanguard of the proletariat, the Politburo stood outside society and saw its flaws. Those who disagreed were blind to this insight and had to be eliminated.

  Chasing the Phantoms of Alternative Reality

  Today the West especially is adopting policies that flow from alternative realities that, frankly, do not exist.

  Here I list just a few:

  1. Catastrophic global warming/climate change is caused by man and must be stopped. I prefer to qualify the term “global warming/climate change” by the adjective “catastrophic”. Is the world warming? Who knows? Is the climate changing? Probably. But neither global warming nor climate change is “catastrophic”. Yet it has become almost an article of faith that the earth is on the precipice of an environmental catastrophe, requiring ever more radical handicaps on our freedoms and the economy.

  2. White privilege in the US is responsible for crimes against minorities and disparities in wealth. This critical race theory has spawned witch hunts for secret and shadowy white supremacist groups especially in the military, which has empowered investigators to find evidence of these groups and root them out. It will be imperative that these investigators actually uncover such groups, whether they exist or not. Critical race theory is the old Marxist class struggle theory in new clothes. The Marxist class struggle theory postulated that we all are born into a class and cannot escape its prejudices. But notice that the Marxist and now the Race theorists consider that they themselves are not susceptible to the prejudices in which all the rest of us are trapped. Very convenient, eh?

  3. Covid-19 is an existential threat to human life on earth. Constitutionally guaranteed human rights may be violated with impunity. Who gets to decide all this? Why, elected officials and government bureaucrats, of course.

  4. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) explains that government need not moderate its spending. Government can always manufacture more money in order to fund new programs and pay its debts . More government spending can always prevent a drop in aggregate demand. Government debt is irrelevant, because “we owe it to ourselves”. MMT gave government elected officials exactly what they always wanted–carte blanche to spend, spend, and spend some more and not worry about justifying or prioritizing spending. As Keynes actually said, pay people to dig holes in the ground and pay others to fill them back up. What could possibly go wrong?

  Champions of the above denials of reality refuse to discuss whether their view of reality is accurate. All are articles of faith and cannot be questioned. In fact, to question them is considered to be an admission of ignorance, guilt, or perfidy. One wants to destroy Mother Earth, enslave minorities, kill innocent people, and prevent all in society from enjoying unlimited prosperity. It’s the old straw man fallacy on steroids. Furthermore, resources will be expended to pursue these phantoms, and more resources will be expended to protect oneself from being caught in a witch hunt. Society will live in fear–fear of global warming, fear of being branded a racist, fear of contracting a dread disease. Unfortunately, what society does not fear is that our lifetime’s savings will be wiped out by inflation made possible by MMT.

  

  The Basics of Reality

  Contrast these phantoms with the pragmatic basics of sound economics: namely, that in order to prosper man must face the reality of human existence—primarily scarcity and uncertainty. People’s preferences must be accepted at face value. Man acts. This is an irrefutable axiom in that to deny it is to confirm its validity. His action is rational in the sense that he believes that his action will improve his condition. He understands cause and effect. He performs one act at a time. He performs the most important act first; in other words, he ranks his actions in order of importance. Performing an act means that he must sacrifice the execution of others until later; in other words, acting means giving up some other preference, at least until some later time. Man’s ordinal ranking of preferences means that the cost of an action is determined by what he eschews until later. No two men have the identical ordinal ranking of preferences; plus, the preferences cannot be assigned a cardinal value in order to compare one man’s preferences with another. Man discovers the concept of comparative advantage and adopts the division of labor in order to accomplish more. Through the market process, man adopts a universal medium of exchange (money) in order to break the tyranny of direct barter. Now man can indirectly exchange his specialized production for a universal medium of exchange in order to obtain his real wants. Man invents government as a specialized service in order to protect his person and his property at a lower cost. He invents law in order to adjudicate inevitable disputes.

  All this is reality. Peaceful exchange requires social cooperation, which brings about peace and prosperity among men everywhere. As advice columnist Ann Landers used to say, Wake up and smell the coffee!

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 05/15/2021 – 22:30

• IRS Launches Crackdown To Ensure Crypto Investors Pay Their Taxes
  IRS Launches Crackdown To Ensure Crypto Investors Pay Their Taxes

  Yesterday’s news that the DoJ and IRS are digging into Binance amid whispers about allegations of tax fraud, manipulation and AML violations was just the latest indication from the government that it is taking enforcement of securities taxes tied to crypto wealth very seriously. In case that wasn’t already clear, WSJ published a story in its “Tax Report” section (with the federal tax deadline just days away at May 17) reminding readers that the IRS under President Joe Biden is coming for your crypto wealth – and those that don’t cough it up might be subject to harsh penalties, both financial and criminal.

  

  It starts by reminding readers that two new IRS investigations to catch crypto tax cheats targeting various exchanges have been launched in recent months. In April, a judge in Boston approved an IRS summons to the payments company Circle and its affiliates, including the crypto exchange Poloniex. In May, a judge in San Francisco approved a similar summons for records from Kraken, another exchange based in California. Both summonses apply to customers who have traded more than $20K in crypto in any single year between 2016 and 2020.

  “With these summonses and other actions, the IRS is mounting a full-court press to show taxpayers how seriously it takes cryptocurrency compliance,” says Don Fort, a former chief of IRS criminal investigation now with Kostelanetz & Fink. “Taxpayers should take it seriously too.”

  Crypto exchanges don’t report client information to the IRS like discount digital brokerages do, so there’s temptation for traders to try and skate by. But if this approach worked in the past, be warned: that could change this year now that the Dems are back in power.

  Binance doesn’t even allow American customers to trade on its platform (though it has been accused of illegally doing so by turning a blind eye to users trying to skirt this rule), but other investigations and summonses of note go back even further. In 2016, the IRS received approval for a similar summons for Coinbase and obtained information for about 13K customers. The agency sent letters urging many of them to make sure their crypto taxes were paid, as the IRS might soon be taking a hard look.

  Admissions from the IRS in court filings suggest this tactic has been working for the agency. In one filing to justify its summonses, the the agency said it had received more than 1,000 amended tax returns and collected $13 million from crypto holders with more than $20,000 of transactions, plus another $12 million from other crypto notices, and audits are ongoing.

  Remember, those who are caught skirting taxes often are forced to enter the IRS’s Voluntary Disclosure program for taxpayers with criminal liability, a program that usually lets participants out of prosecution but imposes large penalties.

  Another filing hinted at a different strategy being employed by the agency: the agency plans to compare data it receives from Kraken to data on offshore crypto transactions. It didn’t identify the source of this offshore data to look for discrepancies. Kraken may also soon need to turn over phone numbers, email addresses, DoBs, tax ID numbers and other sensitive details as part of the subpoena.

  With all this in mind, here’s a few quick reminders from WSJ:

  When it comes to crypto tax laws, here are the basics: In 2014, the IRS declared that cryptocurrencies are property, not currencies like the dollar, and therefore are treated like an investment property akin to stocks. If an investor sells crypto after holding it for longer than a year, the profit is a typically considered a long-term capital gain, and taxed at lower rates than ordinary income under current law (although Congress may soon change this for the highest earners).

  If the holding period is a year or less, the profit is a taxed as a short-term capital gain as the same rate as ordinary income like wages. Capital losses on crypto investments can offset taxable capital gains on other assets as well as crypto, plus up to $3,000 of ordinary income such as wages a year—a valuable benefit. Unused losses can be carried forward to future years.

  Tax triggers: Any time a cryptocurrency is bought or sold or spent is a taxable transaction. If you trade bitcoin for dogecoin, that transaction has tax exposure.

  If you buy a tesla, you will owe an additional tax on the transfer on top of any sales taxes you pay. These rules make bitcoin difficult to use for payments, something that regulators no doubt intended.

  Lot identification: Investors who bought the same coin at different prices can often minimize taxes by selling the lot that would give them the smallest tax exposure. For example, say that someone sold bitcoins at $22,000 each in December 2020 and had coins bought in 2016 for $600 and 2017 for $16,000. Selling the 2016 coins would mean a taxable gain of $21,400 each, while selling the 2017 coins would mean a gain of $6,000 each—a big difference.

  Offshore holdings: In late 2020, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a Treasury Department unit known as FinCEN, announced that it may soon require US taxpayers holding more than $10,000 of cryptocurrencies offshore to file FinCEN Form 114, known as the FBAR, to report these holdings. But this rule has yet to be adopted, and wasn’t in effect for 2020.

  * * *
  Source: WSJ

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 05/15/2021 – 22:00

• Portland Police Union President Says City Is "On The Precipice Of A Gang War"
  Portland Police Union President Says City Is “On The Precipice Of A Gang War”

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

  The president of Portland, Oregon’s police union said in a blistering new statement that the city is on the brink of war.

  “We need to talk about the elephant in the room: gun violence. We are on the precipice of a gang war,” said Daryl Turner, head of the Portland Police Association.

  

  Police in the state’s largest city had responded to 357 shootings as of May 9, an increase of over 100 percent from the same time period the year prior.

  Portland dealt with a jump in violence in 2020, with both shootings and murders skyrocketing, along with near-nightly riots that regularly diverted attention from 911 calls.

  Officials in the city have tried addressing both matters, escalating the response to rioting and approving $6 million to combat shootings.

  But the city has not brought back the Gun Violence Reduction Team (GVRT) and none of the new funding went to the police. That’s on top of the City Council cutting money for the police force in 2020.

  Turner said that commissioners “only use data when it serves their political agendas” and called what he sees as a continued ignorance of statistics and shifting of blame unacceptable.

  “The GVRT proactively policed with a holistic approach, building partnerships and relationships to get illegal guns off the street. It’s obvious to everyone except for City Council that more guns and increased gang activity mean more violence,” he said in the new statement.

  City Council members are now focused on making additional cuts to the Portland Police Bureau’s budget, which will not address the gun violence epidemic, according to Turner.

  “The answer is that our community deserves a fully staffed police force with a minimum of 1,000 officers and a full budget commitment to addressing gun violence, AND our community deserves adequate social service resources. Forcing us to choose one over the other is short-sighted. Social services and alternatives resources are not a replacement for police officers and common-sense public safety infrastructure,” he said.

  A spokesman for Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Democrat who also serves as police commissioner and sits on the council, declined to comment, referring The Epoch Times to Portland’s Office of Violence Prevention. The office did not respond to an inquiry.

  Nike Green, the office’s director, last month called the jump in shootings “a public health crisis.” Green said the office was using “data, research, and evidence-based practices to prioritize partnerships designed to interrupt cycles of gun violence,” such as programs with violence interrupters, who seek to stop shootings before they happen.

  The other city commissioners did not respond to requests for comment.

  The council on Thursday approved a 2021 budget that includes a $3 million cut to the police bureau, local media reported.

  Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, a Democrat, said in a statement that she appreciated the budget not adding “ongoing funds back into the Portland Police Bureau after council reallocated money from the bureau into the Portland Street Response and other community investments last year.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 05/15/2021 – 21:30

• PFAS Crisis: Toxic "Forever Chemicals" Found In US Mothers' Breast Milk
  PFAS Crisis: Toxic “Forever Chemicals” Found In US Mothers’ Breast Milk

  New research conducted by Toxic-Free Future, a Seattle-based non-profit fighting for safer products free of deadly chemicals, found that women’s breast milk, especially in the US, contains dangerous levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). 

  Erika Schreder, a co-author and science director with Toxic-Free Future, said the findings “are cause for concern” and highlight a possible threat to newborns.

  Schreder collected 50 breast milk samples and discovered that the PFAS contamination was nearly 2,000 times higher than the level of regular drinking water.

  “The study shows that PFAS contamination of breast milk is likely universal in the US and that these harmful chemicals are contaminating what should be nature’s perfect food,” Schreder said.

  

  PFAS consists of approximately 9,000 compounds and is used in manufacturing clothing, food packaging, cooking products with Teflon, and cleaning products. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down and build-up in humans. 

  

  The study, titled “Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in Breast Milk: Concerning Trends for Current-Use PFAS,” was peer-reviewed and published in the Environmental Science and Technology journal on Thursday. It said PFAS chemicals are linked to various diseases such as cancer, thyroid, lower sperm counts, and liver disease. 

  “The study provides more evidence that the PFAS that companies are currently using and putting into products are behaving like the ones they phased out, and they’re also getting into breast milk and exposing children at a very vulnerable phase of development,” she said.

  “Moms work hard to protect their babies, but big corporations are putting these, and other toxic chemicals that can contaminate breast milk, in products when safer options are available,” Schreder continued. 

  Besides breast milk, a separate study by the non-profit Environmental Working Group (EWG) reported 19 million Americans had been exposed to PFAS in their drinking water. EWG researchers found 610 locations, including public water systems, military bases, military and civilian airports, industrial plants, dumps, and firefighter training sites, across the country with dangerous levels of PFAS chemicals in the ground. 

  America appears to have a PFAS problem. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 05/15/2021 – 21:00

• A Timeline Of "The Great Reset" Agenda
  A Timeline Of “The Great Reset” Agenda

  Authored by Tim Hinchliffe via GlobalResearch.ca,

  Say it’s 2014 and you’ve had this idea for a technocratic Great Reset of the world economy for some time now, but it only works if the entire planet is rocked by a pandemic. How do you go about selling your idea?

  “The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world to create a healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous future” — Klaus Schwab, WEF

  

  If you are World Economic Forum (WEF) Founder Klaus Schwab, you attempt to sell your vision of a global Utopia via a Great Reset of the world order in three simple steps:

  1. Announce your intention to revamp every aspect of society with global governance, and keep repeating that message

  2. When your message isn’t getting through, simulate fake pandemic scenarios that show why the world needs a great reset

  3. If the fake pandemic scenarios aren’t persuasive enough, wait a couple months for a real global crisis to occur, and repeat step one

  It took Schwab and the Davos elite about six years to watch their great reset ideology grow from a tiny Swiss seed in 2014 to a European super-flower pollinating the entire globe in 2020.

  

  The so-called “Great Reset” promises to build “a more secure, more equal, and more stable world” if everyone on the planet agrees to “act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions.”

  But it wouldn’t have been possible to contemplate materializing such an all-encompassing plan for a new world order without a global crisis, be it manufactured or of unfortunate happenstance, that shocked society to its core.

  “In the end, the outcome was tragic: the most catastrophic pandemic in history with hundreds of millions of deaths, economic collapse and societal upheaval” — Clade X pandemic simulation (May, 2018)

  So, in May, 2018, the WEF partnered with Johns Hopkins to simulate a fictitious pandemic — dubbed “Clade X” —  to see how prepared the world be if ever faced with such a crisis.

  A little over a year later, the WEF once again teamed-up with Johns Hopkins, along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to stage another pandemic exercise called Event 201 in October, 2019.

  Both simulations concluded that the world wasn’t prepared for a global pandemic.

  And a few short months following the conclusion of Event 201, which specifically simulated a coronavirus outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared that the coronavirus had reached pandemic status on March 11, 2020.

  “The next severe pandemic will not only cause great illness and loss of life but could also trigger major cascading economic and societal consequences that could contribute greatly to global impact and suffering” — Event 201 pandemic simulation (October, 2019)

  Since then, just about every scenario covered in the Clade X and Event 201 simulations has come into play, including:

  • Governments implementing lockdowns worldwide

  • The collapse of many industries

  • Growing mistrust between governments and citizens

  • A greater adoption of biometric surveillance technologies

  • Social media censorship in the name of combating misinformation

  • The desire to flood communication channels with “authoritative” sources

  • A global lack of personal protective equipment

  • The breakdown of international supply chains

  • Mass unemployment

  • Rioting in the streets

  • And a whole lot more!

  After the nightmare scenarios had fully materialized by mid-2020, the WEF founder declared “now is the time for a “Great Reset” in June of this year.

  Was it excellent forecasting, planning, and modeling on the part of the WEF and partners that Clade X and Event 201 turned out to be so prophetic, or was there something more to it?

  Timeline

  Below is a condensed timeline of events that tracks the Great Reset agenda that went from just a “hope” in 2014 to a globalist ideology touted by royalty, the media, and heads of state the world-over in 2020.

  2014-2017: Klaus Schwab calls for Great Reset and WEF repeats message

  Ahead of the 2014 WEF meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Schwab announced that he hoped the WEF would push the reset button on the global economy.

  The ‘Great Reset’: A Technocratic Agenda that Waited Years for a Global Crisis to Exploit

  The WEF would go on to repeat that message for years.

  Between 2014 and 2017, the WEF called to reshape, restart, reboot, and reset the global order every single year, each aimed at solving various “crises.”

  • 2014: WEF publishes meeting agenda entitled “The Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business.”

  • 2015: WEF publishes article in collaboration with VOX EU called “We need to press restart on the global economy.”

  • 2016: WEF holds panel called “How to reboot the global economy.”

  • 2017: WEF publishes article saying “Our world needs a reset in how we operate.”

  Then in 2018, the Davos elites turned their heads towards simulating fake pandemic scenarios to see how prepared the world would be in the face of a different crisis.

  2018-2019: WEF, Johns Hopkins & Gates Foundation simulate fake pandemics

  On May 15, 2018, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security hosted the “Clade X” pandemic exercise in partnership with the WEF.

  The Clade X exercise included mock video footage of actors giving scripted news reports about a fake pandemic scenario (video below).

  The Clade X event also included discussion panels with real policymakers who assessed that governments and industry were not adequately prepared for the fictitious global pandemic.

  “In the end, the outcome was tragic: the most catastrophic pandemic in history with hundreds of millions of deaths, economic collapse and societal upheaval,” according to a WEF report on Clade X.

  “There are major unmet global vulnerabilities and international system challenges posed by pandemics that will require new robust forms of public-private cooperation to address” — Event 201 pandemic simulation (October, 2019)

  Then on October 18, 2019, in partnership with Johns Hopkins and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the WEF ran Event 201.

  During the scenario, the entire global economy was shaken, there were riots on the streets, and high-tech surveillance measures were needed to “stop the spread.”

  Two fake pandemics were simulated in the two years leading up to the real coronavirus crisis.

  “Governments will need to partner with traditional and social media companies to research and develop nimble approaches to countering misinformation” — Event 201 pandemic simulation (October, 2019)

  The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security issued a public statement on January 24, 2020, explicitly addressing that Event 201 wasn’t meant to predict the future.

  “To be clear, the Center for Health Security and partners did not make a prediction during our tabletop exercise. For the scenario, we modeled a fictional coronavirus pandemic, but we explicitly stated that it was not a prediction. Instead, the exercise served to highlight preparedness and response challenges that would likely arise in a very severe pandemic.”

  Intentional or not, Event 201 “highlighted” the “fictional” challenges of a pandemic, along with recommendations that go hand-in-hand with the great reset agenda that has set up camp in the nefarious “new normal.”

  “The next severe pandemic will not only cause great illness and loss of life but could also trigger major cascading economic and societal consequences that could contribute greatly to global impact and suffering” — Event 201 pandemic simulation (October, 2019)

  Together, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation submitted seven recommendations for governments, international organizations, and global business to follow in the event of a pandemic.

  The Event 201 recommendations call for greater collaboration between the public and private sectors while emphasizing the importance of establishing partnerships with un-elected, global institutions such as the WHO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the International Air Transport Organization, to carry out a centralized response.

  One of the recommendations calls for governments to partner with social media companies and news organization to censor content and control the flow of information.

  “Media companies should commit to ensuring that authoritative messages are prioritized and that false messages are suppressed including though [sic] the use of technology” — Event 201 pandemic simulation (October, 2019)

  According to the report, “Governments will need to partner with traditional and social media companies to research and develop nimble approaches to countering misinformation.

  “National public health agencies should work in close collaboration with WHO to create the capability to rapidly develop and release consistent health messages.

  “For their part, media companies should commit to ensuring that authoritative messages are prioritized and that false messages are suppressed including though [sic] the use of technology.”

  Sound familiar?

  Throughout 2020, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have been censoring, suppressing, and flagging any coronavirus-related information that goes against WHO recommendations as a matter of policy, just as Event 201 had recommended.

  Big tech companies have also deployed the same content suppression tactics during the 2020 US presidential election — slapping “disputed” claims on content that question election integrity.

  2020: WEF declares ‘Now is the time for a Great Reset’

  After calling for a great reset in 2014, the Davos crowd repeated the same ideology for a few more years before pivoting towards simulating faux pandemic scenarios.

  A few months after the WEF established that nobody was prepared to deal with a coronavirus pandemic, the WHO declared there was a coronavirus pandemic.

  All of a sudden! the great reset narrative that the WEF had been nurturing for six years, found a place to pitch its tent in the “new normal” camp.

  “The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world to create a healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous future,” Schwab declared on June 3, 2020.

  And that’s where we’re at today.

  • The Davos elites said they wanted a global reset of the economy many years ago

  • They role-played what would happen if a pandemic were to occur

  • And now they’re saying that the great reset ideology is the solution to the pandemic, and it must be enacted quickly

  The great reset is a means to an end.

  Next on the agenda is a complete makeover of society under a technocratic regime of un-elected bureaucrats who want to dictate how the world is run from the top down, leveraging invasive technologies to track and trace your every move while censoring and silencing anyone who dares not comply.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 05/15/2021 – 20:30

• These Are The World's Top 50 Social Media 'Influencers'
  These Are The World’s Top 50 Social Media ‘Influencers’

  In the modern digital world, social media reach is power.

  The people with the most followers on Twitter, for example, have a massive platform to spread their messages, while those with large, engaged followings on Instagram are an advertiser’s dream sponsor partner.

  Social media can also be an equalizer of power. As Visual Capitalist’s Omri Wallach notes, while it’s true that many celebrities boast large followings across platforms, social media has also enabled previously unknown personalities to turn YouTube or TikTok fame into veritable star power and influence.

  Who has the biggest reach across the entire social media universe? Instead of looking at who has the most followers on Instagram, Twitter, or other networks, we ranked the most-followed personalities across all major platforms combined.

  

  Who Has the Most Overall Followers on Social Media?

  We parsed through hundreds of the most-followed accounts on multiple platforms to narrow down the top influencers across social media as of April 2021.

  Sources include trackers of the most followers on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok, verified directly on site and with social media tracker Socialblade.

  The results? A top 50 list of social media influencers consisting of athletes, musicians, politicians, and other personalities.

  

  Unsurprisingly, celebrities reign supreme on social media. As of April 2021, soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo was the most-followed person on social media with almost 500 million total followers.

  But there are other illuminating highlights, such as the global reach of music. With large and diverse fanbases, artists account for half of the top 50 largest social media followings.

  Also notable is the power of Instagram, which was the biggest platform for 67% of the top 50 social media influencers. This includes hard-to-categorize celebrities like the Kardashians and Jenners, which turned reality TV and social media fame into business and media empires.

  Download the Generational Power Report (.pdf)

  The Most Followers on Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube

  However, it’s not only celebrities that dominate social media.

  Personalities that started on one social media platform and developed massive followings include TikTok’s most-followed star Charli D’Amelio and YouTubers Whindersson Nunes Batista, Germán Garmendia, and Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg.

  Politicians were also prominent influencers. Former U.S. President Barack Obama has the most followers on Twitter, and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has more than 175 million followers across social media.

  Former U.S. President Donald Trump would have also made the list with more than 140 million followers across social media before being banned from multiple platforms on January 8, 2021.

  A Generational Look at Social Media Influence

  While older generations have had to adapt to social media platforms, younger generations have grown up alongside them. As a measure of cultural importance, this gives Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z a rare leg-up on older generations.

  Millennials, in particular, hold the lion’s share of spots in this top 50 list:

  

  The average age of the top 50 influencers was just over 37.

  In our Generational Power Index (GPI), which measures the share of power generations hold in various categories, digital platforms were a key area where Millennials derived their power and influence. Overall, Baby Boomers—and to a lesser extent, Gen X—still run the show in most areas of society today.

  Social Media Influence, Going Forward

  As most fans and advertisers know, not all social media accounts and followings are homogenous.

  Many influencers with relatively small followings have more consistent engagement, and are often able to demand high advertising fees as a result.

  Conversely, most social media platforms are reckoning with a severe glut of fake accounts or bots that inflate follower counts, impacting everything from celebrities and politicians to personalities and businesses.

  Regardless, social media has become a mainstay platform (or soapbox) for today’s cultural influencers. Billions of people turn to social media for news, engagement, recommendations, and entertainment, and new platforms are always on the rise.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 05/15/2021 – 20:00

• What Is Proof-Of-Stake? How It Differs From Proof-Of-Work
  What Is Proof-Of-Stake? How It Differs From Proof-Of-Work

  Authored by Jeff Benson and Matt Hussey via Decrypto.co,

  In brief

  • Proof of stake is a consensus mechanism, which makes sure that only legitimate transactions get added to blocks.

  • It works by having validators lock up their cryptocurrency to secure the network.

  Mining cryptocurrency is an energy-intensive business. But it doesn’t have to be.

  The Ethereum community has been working to change how the currency is created in order to radically reduce the blockchain’s carbon footprint. The method it’s working toward is called proof of stake (PoS).

  Proof of stake is an alternative to proof of work (PoW), which Bitcoin and Ethereum currently use.

  

  Both PoS and PoW are examples of consensus mechanisms.

  Consensus Mechanisms

  Public blockchains, at their most basic level, are just databases.

  Most databases set permissions for who can access and edit them. This centralized control is convenient but makes them vulnerable to hacks. By contrast, blockchains make everyone running the software—from exchanges to traders in their basement—responsible for updating them.

  That sounds like it would be messy, which is why blockchains use “consensus mechanisms” or “consensus algorithms.” Consensus mechanisms keep the network humming, making sure that only legitimate transactions get added to blocks. It’s all the nodes—or computers running the blockchain software—checking together to say, “Yes, this is true.”

  In doing so, they guard against 51% attacks, which is when someone gets more than half of the computing power in a distributed network and can then control it.

  Proof of Work

  To prevent attacks, which make it possible to spend funds twice, Bitcoin uses the proof-of-work consensus algorithm. That system asks people to use hardware and electricity to help the network process transactions. In proof of work, miners (or, their computers, to be precise) try to solve fiendishly difficult puzzles in order to be the first to complete a block of transactions. Their work helps to verify the transactions are legitimate. As compensation, they’re rewarded with cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin.

  Proof of work was built into the design of Bitcoin, and replicated by other cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum. However, one of the by-products of this system is it requires a lot of electricity and machines working on a problem in order to solve it.

  Proof of Stake

  Ethereum developers are building a separate set of upgrades, Ethereum 2.0 that will run on proof of stake and will eventually merge with the Ethereum mainnet.

  Proof of stake on Ethereum 2.0 aims to achieve the same outcome as proof of work: to securely verify transactions on the blockchain.

  But whereas PoW miners dedicate hardware resources (large, expensive computers) to secure the network, PoS “validators” dedicate their cryptocurrency. With PoS, to get a chance to verify transactions in a block—and get the associated fees—validators must lock up, or stake, at least 32 ETH that they can’t spend. The blockchain uses that locked-up crypto to secure the network.

  According to the Ethereum Foundation, proof of stake has several advantages over proof of work.

  • 🖥️ Since earning rewards isn’t based on having the most computing power, you don’t need super-fancy hardware.

  • 👨‍💻 That opens up the possibility for more people to participate in running an Ethereum node, which will allow for further decentralization and more resistance to 51% attacks.

  • 🔌 Because of the lower hardware requirements, proof of stake uses far less energy than proof of work.

  How Does the Network Choose?

  Validators are chosen at random by the network to propose new blocks.

  They are also randomly grouped into committees of 128 nodes, which change daily. Every time a new block of transactions is created and added to the blockchain database, the PoS consensus mechanism selects multiple committees to “attest” that the block that’s been proposed is correct.

  Validators receive rewards for both making blocks and attesting to seeing other blocks being made. If validators are offline or not making correct attestations, they receive a penalty. If they try to attack the network, they can lose up to their entire stake.

  The algorithm is designed to make an attack on the network statistically improbable. According to ConsenSys (which funds an editorially independent Decrypt), “There is less than a 1 in a trillion chance that an attacker controlling 1/3 of the validators on the network would control ⅔ of the validators in a committee to successfully execute an attack.”

  The Future

  Ethereum isn’t the first cryptocurrency to use proof of stake.

  Algorand, Cardano, Cosmos, EOS, Polkadot, and Tezos have all implemented a version of proof of stake.

  The Ethereum network is currently in Phase 0 of its upgrade to Ethereum 2.0. While people have staked ETH to the network, it’s not yet ready to be built upon.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 05/15/2021 – 19:30

• NASA Rocket Launch Could Dazzle Saturday Night Sky In Eastern US
  NASA Rocket Launch Could Dazzle Saturday Night Sky In Eastern US

  Tens of millions of Americans could be in for a dazzling optical treat Saturday evening as NASA gears up to launch its Black Brant XII sounding rocket carrying the KiNET-X payload from its Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. 

  A four-stage Black Brant XII rocket carrying the KiNET-X payload will be launched around 2010 ET Saturday. There is a 40-minute launch window. 

  LAUNCH UPDATE 🚀 The Black Brant XII launch is now scheduled for no earlier than Saturday, May 15, with the window opening at 8:10 p.m. ET. The team continues to inspect the rocket and launcher after the vehicle came in contact with a launcher support during launch preparations. pic.twitter.com/2IMEkZ8wMn

  — NASA Wallops (@NASA_Wallops) May 13, 2021

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

  The rocket “will be used for the mission that includes the release of barium vapor that will form two green-violet clouds that may be visible for about 30 seconds,” NASA said. 

  The mission is called KiNETic-scale energy and momentum transport eXperiment, or KiNet-X. Researchers want to study a fundamental problem in space plasmas: how are energy and momentum transported between different regions of space magnetically connected? 

  What makes this launch so different from Central Florida ones is that barium vapor tracers will be visible for much of the eastern US from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River.

  

  Here’s an example of what millions of Americans might see on Saturday night, weather permitting, of course…

  

  Live coverage of the launch will be made available on the Wallops IBM video site around 1940 ET on launch day. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 05/15/2021 – 19:00

• Fed Goal: Destroy 26% Of Dollar's Buying Power In 15 Years
  Fed Goal: Destroy 26% Of Dollar’s Buying Power In 15 Years

  Authored by Brian McGlinchey via Stark Realities,

  As Americans warily eye new data showing both consumer and producer price inflation heating up beyond expectations, few of them realize the Federal Reserve has an explicit goal to relentlessly degrade the purchasing power of their savings.

  The Fed weakens the dollar—and pushes prices higher—by creating new money and pushing it out into the economy. If the Fed hits its stated target, the U.S. dollar will lose 10% of its buying power over the next 5 years, 26% over the next 15, and 40% over the next 25. As bad as that sounds, history suggests the dollar will fare even worse than the Fed intends it to.

  

  The Fed’s Evolving Mandate: So Long, “Stable Prices”

  For much of its 108-year history, the Federal Reserve had either an implied or explicit mandate to preserve the value of the U.S. dollar—and it failed spectacularly. Between the Fed’s founding in 1913 and 2012, the dollar lost approximately 96% of its buying power.

  In 2012, the Fed formally dropped the value-preservation pretense, brazenly declaring that, henceforth, it will deliberately cultivate price inflation at 2% a year.

  In the context of a single year, that may not sound like much. However, just as small plumbing leaks quietly cause devastating damage over time, a steady loss of a modest amount of purchasing power accumulates to a major blow to the dollar. Naturally, the Fed didn’t say it wants to cut the value of a dollar by 26% in 15 years, but that’s how the math plays out.

  When announcing its new philosophy, the Fed claimed a 2% inflation rate is “most consistent over the long run with the Fed’s statutory mandate.” Is it? The Federal Reserve Reform Act of 1977 directs the Fed to “promote the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.”

  The Fed is clearly applying a creative interpretation of the word “stable.” Would a doctor use that term to describe a patient’s pulse that keeps losing two beats per minute at hourly intervals?

  It wasn’t long until the Fed was straining at the longer monetary leash it had given itself. Next, the central bank declared that, rather than viewing 2% as an upper limit on annual price increases, it will feel free to let inflation run hotter in a given year, pursuant to hitting a 2% average over time.

  Given history’s many examples of runaway inflation, that sounds a lot like the Fed is playing with fire.

  An August 2020 elaboration on the central bank’s philosophy offered little reassurance: Fed chair Jerome Powell said, “We are not tying ourselves to a particular mathematical formula that defines the average. Thus, our approach could be viewed as a flexible form of average inflation targeting.”

  An “average” without “a particular mathematical formula” sounds all too flexible indeed.

  Has the Inflation Virus Already Escaped the Fed’s Lab?

  This spring, Fed officials have been assuring Americans that recent price increases are merely “transitory“—that they don’t mark the start of a major upward trend.

  In the wake of April inflation data, those assurances are looking increasingly empty. First came a market-jarring report that consumer prices were 4.2% higher than the previous year. Next, we learned the Producer Price Index soared 6.2% from April 2020—the largest jump since the index started in 2010.

  Remember that 2% inflation target? Consumer prices have already risen 2% in the first four months of 2021 alone, with month-to-month increases growing steadily larger. So far this year, the Consumer Price Index has risen:

  • +0.2% in January
  • +0.4% in February
  • +0.6% in March
  • +0.8% in April

  The Fed’s Unspoken Mandate

  Since consumer price increases are driven in large part by the Fed’s creation of new money, there’s ample reason to think inflationary pressures will continue to grow, thanks to the Fed’s unspoken mandate: aiding and abetting federal government deficit spending.

  For the first seven months of the 2021 fiscal year, the federal government spent 90% more money than it took in—since October, $4.075 trillion in outlays against $2.14 trillion in receipts.

  When the government spends more money than it takes in, it covers the difference by issuing debt in the form of Treasury bonds, bills and notes. To create artificial demand for that debt and force interest rates lower than what a rational market would demand from an entity that’s $28 trillion in debt, the Fed has been buying much of the new debt with money it creates out of thin air.

  This eyebrow-raising practice is called “monetizing the debt,” and in recent times, the Fed has been taking it extreme levels. For example, in March and April of 2020 alone, the Fed monetized over $1.5 trillion of federal debt—everything the Treasury borrowed during that span.

  

  The Fed is barred from buying debt directly from the government. In what is essentially a sham transaction, the Fed defeats the spirit of that law by simply waiting until the debt is issued to the public and then buying it from a select group of large financial firms who are in on the arrangement.

  It bears repeating that it does so by creating new money, with the consequence of reducing the value of the other money already in circulation. As a means of financing government, then, inflation is a tax everyone pays, but nobody votes for—unless you count the unelected appointees to the Federal Reserve.

  A Cornered Fed Won’t Stop Printing Money Now

  The U.S. government-Federal Reserve cartel has painted itself into a corner.

  Absent the Fed’s purchase of Treasury debt, the federal government’s cost of borrowing would soar, as investors demand full compensation for the growing risk of loaning money to the increasingly debt-laden U.S. government. Since Treasury rates serve as a benchmark, consumer and corporate borrowing costs would soar too, tanking the economy.

  At the same time, the prospect of higher inflation puts upward pressure on rates, prompting the Fed to create more money to buy Treasury debt and push rates lower—yet that new money is itself an additional source of inflationary pressure.

  Meanwhile, blissfully oblivious to the growing peril, Congress and President Biden are eager to keep stacking trillion-dollar spending plans that hand out money to mismanaged municipalities, give cash payments to people who lost no income during the pandemic, finance a sprawling global empire, award cronies and incentivize unemployed people to stay unemployed.

  There’s no telling how or when this will end, but it won’t end well.

  Read more and subscribe at https://starkrealities.substack.com/

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 05/15/2021 – 18:30

• Meet The Bank Of America Exec Accused Of Ruling Through COVID With An "Iron Fist"
  Meet The Bank Of America Exec Accused Of Ruling Through COVID With An “Iron Fist”

  Thomas K. Montag, Bank of America’s second in command, oversees about 17,000 people and still gets thing done in an “old school” kind of way.

  Such was the topic of a new profile on Montag, that highlighted his business practices as inclusive of favoritism and “ruling with an iron fist”, according to the New York Times.

  Montage was born in Portland, Oregon and started his career in 1985 at Goldman Sachs. He was a former offensive tackle for his high school football team before going on to work in swaps at a Goldman trading desk. In 2008, he joined Merrill Lynch to run its markets division, and was soon put in charge of the merger between B of A and Merrill. Anne Finucane, Bank of America’s vice chairman said: “The early days were certainly rocky, but he made it work.”

  But divisions that Montag was in charge of “blossomed” and spoke to his ability to cultivate large clients. Some of his employees, however, found his expectations unreasonable: 

  On Friday afternoons over the years, after the markets had closed, Mr. Montag sometimes sought out floor managers at their desks, current and former employees said, leaving Post-it notes scrawled with the words, “Where are you?” if they weren’t around.

  Montag would also routinely clip or add to bonuses for reasons that weren’t clear, at the last minute, employees said. Those who got additional bonuses were known as “FOT” or friends of Tom.

  

  One FOT was Gene Reilly, a hedge-fund manager who worked for him as Bank of America’s global head of quantitative trading in the early 2010s. He told the NYT:  “Tom really cares about people in an old school way that’s not typical in today’s corporate world. Whether a colleague needs heart surgery or someone’s parent is dying in the hospital, Tom makes the phone call and helps anyway he can.”

  His old school style has led to sexual harassment within his divisions, however. “Montag’s divisions confidentially settled about 15 complaints annually” from employees who made “credible allegations of misconduct or a toxic work environment”. Bank of America spokeswoman Jessica Oppenheim called the number “grossly inaccurate”. 

  And the profile specifically takes exception with Montag’s handling of the pandemic – he was insistent in his employees still showing up to the office during the beginnings of Covid. These employees called themselves “warriors” who referred to those who stayed home as “tapped out”. At the time, “some of Mr. Montag’s workers grew fearful that if they didn’t go into the office, they would lose their jobs or their bonuses,” the report says. Those who didn’t show up were put on something called the “can’t be bothered” list – an idea he first developed in 2014 as “an annual roster of employees whose bonuses would be docked because they did not carry out administrative tasks such as participating in colleague performance reviews.”

  All the while, Montag monitored the efficiency and profitability of employees who stayed home, versus those who came to the office, via spreadsheet. In essence, the piece notes, he “[kept] score”.

  During the pandemic, the productivity spreadsheet, titled “Tom/Dashboard,” according to an image of it, allowed Mr. Montag to track individual profits and losses of employees working at home versus those still in the office, according to that and other images and two people with knowledge of the spreadsheets. In the office, said one of those employees, Mr. Montag would sometimes pop by individual desks and say, “I knew you’d be here.”

  Montag himself went into the office in the early days of the pandemic, telling the NYT: “I was the battlefront for us in a way.” He would cycle into the office in jeans and sneakers every day instead of showing up in his usual coat and tie, the report notes. 

  

  As the second best paid executive at Bank of America, it’s a stark contrast from many other corporate COOs who are happy to collect their compensation and who are busy focusing on things like not offending their employees. Or, as the New York Times put it, the 64 year old’s “hard-driving approach has been increasingly out of step with the contemporary world of finance”.

  While some describe him as shrewd and charismatic, other employees say his management style is “demanding and erratic”. 

  Robert Grillo, who was a managing director in the bond division of Bank of America from 2009 to 2016, said: “Tom demanded excellence. He was very motivational in speaking. He had an incredible work ethic. But his favoring of certain groups, and people, I think, was detrimental to the total culture.”

  Compared to other banks, Montag was slower to embrace working from home during the pandemic. This resulted in attrition and slumping morale. “At least 11 senior markets employees, including several traders and some department heads, have left Mr. Montag’s divisions, along with the chair of global corporate and investment banking,” the profile notes.

  More than 100 other people took layoff packages to exit while keeping their stock. The Times talked to more than 2 dozen current and former employees and found that the mood amongst them was one of “resignation”. 

  “They’re going to kick me out of here,” Montag said in February. Last July, he wrote to some of his employees: “I came to New York to make a few dollars, go back to Oregon, and buy a house. Everything else has been gravy.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 05/15/2021 – 18:00

• COVID Deaths Plummet As Excess Mortality Falls To Pre-Pandemic Levels
  COVID Deaths Plummet As Excess Mortality Falls To Pre-Pandemic Levels

  Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

  In any given year during the past decade in the United States, more than 2.5 million Americans have died – from all causes.

  The number has grown in recent years, climbing from 2.59 million in 2013 to 2.85 million in 2019. This has been due partially to the US’s aging population, and also due to rising obesity levels and drug overdoses. In fact, since 2010, growth rates in total deaths has exceeded population growth in every year.

  

  In 2020, preliminary numbers suggest a jump of more than 17 percent in all-cause total deaths, rising from 2.85 million in 2019 to 3.35 million in 2020.

  The increase was not all due to covid. At least one-quarter to one-third appear to be from other causes. In some cases, more than half of “excess deaths” were attributed to “underlying causes” other than covid. But whether due to untreated medical conditions (thanks to covid lockdowns), or drug overdoses, or homicides, total death increased in 2020. In other words, total excess mortality is a partial proxy for covid deaths. Whatever proportion of total deaths covid cases may comprise, it stands to reason that if total deaths decline, then covid deaths are declining also. Moreover, looking at total deaths helps cut through any controversies over whether or not deaths are properly attributed to covid. 

  What has been the trend with these “excess deaths” in recent months?

  Well, according to data through mid-March reported by Our World in Data and by the Human Mortality Database, excess mortality began to plummet in early January and is now back to levels below the 2015-2019 average:

  

  Excess mortality peaked the week of January 3 and then it began to collapse, dropping back to summer 2020 levels by mid February. By March 14, excess mortality was at 1 percent above the 2015-2019 average. All this occurred even as very few Americans were vaccinated. When excess deaths began to drop, less than one percent of Americans had been fully vaccinated. At the end of January, less than two percent of Americans had been fully vaccinated. By the end of March, when excess mortality returned to 2019 levels, 15 percent of the population had been fully vaccinated. 

  As of May 11, only one-third of Americans had been fully vaccinated, although “experts” insist 60 to 70 percent of the population must be vaccinated before we can expect to see a drop-off in deaths like that which occurred earlier this year.

  Yet, as of the week of March 22—excess mortality was below both the 2015-2019 average and below the total for the last year before the official beginning of the covid pandemic (2019).

  

  It’s likely these facts won’t stop “public health” bureaucrats from continuing to insist that another “wave” of covid deaths and cases is right around the corner. These activists have many strategies for pushing vaccine passports, mask mandates, and even continual precautionary business closures. They’ll tell us that new covid variants are sweeping the globe. This is what they were saying in January, for instance, when Vox was telling us it was too dangerous to even visit the grocery store. At least one expert in late January warned us that the coming weeks would be “the darkest weeks of the pandemic.”

  It’s now clear such predictions were spectacularly wrong. By late January, totals deaths were already in precipitous decline. 

  But what about the lag in data? We’re only looking at data up to mid-March because it tends to take several weeks for estimates of total deaths to become reasonably reliable. Yes, that data shows a big drop off. But what about the numbers for April and May? Should we expect those death totals to surge again with a promised “fourth wave” of new covid death?

  If we consider the more recent case and death totals attributed to covid, we see few signs of a new surge.

  Although Anthony Fauci and other government employed technocrats have been unable to provide any explanation at all for it, the fact remains that months after Texas and Florida and Georgia have either abolished or greatly scaled back all social-distancing and mask mandates, cases and deaths are generally declining, and total deaths per million (attributed to covid) remain below what we’ve seen in states with severe lockdowns. 

  

  The trend in the United States overall is similar.  Indeed, it appears that nearly all states have seen sizable drops in both cases and deaths, regardless of the mask or social-distancing policies in place. 

  Notably, it’s only in recent weeks that “CDC guidelines” are beginning to admit the reality. It wasn’t until April 26 that the CDC declared that fully vaccinated Americans are allowed to venture outside without masks on. The CDC states these “recommendations” unironically as if it weren’t the case that most Americans—outside of true-believer hotspots like San Francisco and Chicago—stopped wearing masks outside a long time ago. The hermetically sealed world of government employees and corporate journalists appears unaware that at least half the country pretty much went back to normal last fall. 

  So now what?

  The technocrats know that they need to keep pressing hard for more de facto vaccine mandates—pushed mostly by corporate America for low-risk younger populations.  Most Americans can already see that covid numbers are already in decline in spite of months of Americans flouting mask mandates and social distancing guidelines. People can see that children—an increasing number of whom are returning to schools—aren’t a significant factor in the spread of disease. So it will be important for the regime to push vaccines for children more aggressively before people stop listening to the “experts” completely. 

  Don’t expect the regime to admit it has been wrong about anything. If anything, it will double down on the usual narrative. It’s worked pretty well so far. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 05/15/2021 – 17:30

• 3 Reasons Why Goldman Now Sees Almost No Upside For Stocks In 2021
  3 Reasons Why Goldman Now Sees Almost No Upside For Stocks In 2021

  Just over a month ago, in our preview of earnings season, we said that “Q1 earnings will be stellar, but are fully priced in and only guidance will matter“, and sure enough the broader market is now below where it was a month ago despite the strongest earnings season in modern history: with 90% of S&P500 companies having reported, the results show EPS rose by 46% year/year… 

  

  … the fastest pace since 1Q 2010, while a whopping 68% of S&P 500 firms have beat consensus by more than one standard deviation, a record high. Even crazier, equity analysts expected EPS growth of 20% at the start of the season, but realized growth was more than double that 46% with Consumer Discretionary (+187%) and Financials (+135%) posting the strongest results. Behind these shockingly good results? Better-than-expected net profit margins… although with inflation soaring, fears are spreading that profit margins are about to get clobbered.

  It’s this growing realization that “goldilocks” is behind us and profit-crushing inflation – or worse, stagflation – lies ahead that explains why the market was not impressed and punished both companies that missed as well as those that beat expectations:

  

  It’s also why as Goldman notes, even though 1Q EPS came in 20% above expectations, analyst estimates for 2Q-4Q 2021 and 2022 have been revised up by less than 5%.

  

  Here Goldman disagrees with the near-term consensus and as chief strategist David Kostin writes on Friday, “we raise our 2021 EPS forecast to $193 (from $181), driven by a roughly equal contribution from 1Q beats and our expectation of stronger EPS in the remainder of 2021. We also raise our 2022 EPS estimate to $202 (from $197). The combination of global reopening, elevated consumer savings, and strong corporate operating leverage will drive sharp recoveries in both economic and earnings growth. GDP growth is generally the primary driver of earnings growth. Our economists expect real US GDP growth will average +7% in  2021 and +5% in  2022. Following EPS growth of 35% in 2021 and 5% in 2022, we forecast growth of 5% in 2023 and 5% in 2024 as GDP growth decelerates to trend (see Exhibits 3 and 4)”

  

  The key reason, however, why Goldman is feeling especially optimistic on the near-term is another blockbuster quarter for tech names as well as bank which stand to benefit from sharply higher rates (unless of course we get a huge flattener next):

  At the sector level, our $12 upward revision to 2021 EPS is driven primarily by Financials (+$7) and Info Tech (+$3). The two sectors accounted for half of the beat vs. consensus 1Q estimates. Financials benefited in large part from the release of $10 billion in reserves. While future reserve releases are difficult to forecast, our Banksanalysts estimate only 36% of the reserves built since the peak of the COVID crisis have been released. Info Tech earnings, particularly among the largest stocks, continued to  impress; the sector posted sales growth of 19% and record high margins of 24.2% in 1Q 2021. Tech’s growing share of S&P 500 revenues have helped lift S&P 500 profit margins back to the 3Q 2018 record high of 11.6%

  A strong 2021 notwithstanding, Goldman is far less optimistic about 2022 where its EPS estimate of 202 for the S&P is $7 below consensus largely due to expectations of higher corporate tax rates next year:

  We assume a smaller version of President Biden’s tax proposal will be passed later this year. Our EPS estimate assumes a hike in the federal statutory corporate tax rate from 21% to 25% as well as a higher tax rate on foreign income. The 5% earnings impact of tax reform that we model reduces our 2022 EPS estimate from $212 (10% growth) to $202 (5% growth) – see Exhibit 5 above. Both our investor conversations and the performance of our tax baskets suggest portfolio managers have not incorporated higher taxes into their forecasts, meaning negative revisions to 2022 EPS are likely later in the year.

  This, together with other factors is why Goldman is turning increasingly cautious on the market and unlike many of its Wall Street peers, has refused to chase price action higher by lifting its S&P price target. Instead, as Kostin admits, Goldman’s year-end price target remain 4300 for 2021 (+3% from today) and just 7% higher – or 4,600 – for 2022, reflecting Goldman’s expectation that US equities will continue to appreciate, “albeit at a slower pace than has characterized the past 12 months.” As Kostin also notes, this dynamic is consistent with the typical pattern as economic growth peaks and starts to decelerate – i.e., the best is now behind us – which the bank’s economists believe is currently the case in the US and will be true on a global basis later this year. This phase of the cycle is also consistent with the view that earnings growth will drive returns while valuations cease to expand.

  Combining these observations, Kostin concludes that what little upside is left for the S&P, it will come entirely from earnings growth as valuation will only shrink going forward, or as Kostin puts it: three factors will prevent further valuation expansion during the remainder of 2021:

  1. Decelerating US growth,
  2. a real rate-driven rise in interest rates
  3. the likely passage of tax reform.

  While we previously expanded on point 1 here last week, regarding point two Goldman writes that its rates strategists expect the 10-year Treasury yield to rise to 1.9% in 2021 and 2.1% in 2022. And with breakeven inflation now a blistering 2.5%, the highest since 2006…

  

  … they expect higher yields will be primarily driven by real rates, a mix that has historically been less favorable for equities. In addition, echoing what he wrote above, Kostin says that the passage of Biden tax reform – even if watered down substantially – later this year should weigh on equity multiples. Along with higher corporate rates, Goldman’s political economists expect the capital gains tax rate for those making more than $1 million in annual income will rise to roughly 28% (below the 43% proposed). And although past capital gains hikes have been associated with lower equity prices and allocations ahead of the hike, these effects were ultimately short-lived.

  Finally, since Goldman still expects the S&P to rise modestly (instead of dropping), and since all of this upside will come from profit increases, the bank expects the S&P 500 P/E multiple to remain flat at roughly 21-22x through 2022.

  

  And addressing his preferred valuation measure (since it is the only one that says markets are not a crazy bubble right now), Kostin says he models the S&P 500 equity risk premium as a function of growth expectations, policy uncertainty, the size of the Fed balance sheet, and consumer confidence. Here, Kostin’s model suggests that the ERP will continue to decline and more than offset higher interest rates in 2021 as the global economy reopens.

  So despite predicting no valuation (multiple) expansion in 2021, Goldman’s forecasts imply a nosebleed inducing NTM P/E of 21.3x at year-end 2021, which would rank in the 93rd percentile since 1976 (i.e., crazy asset bubble), but a yield gap vs. Treasuries of 280 bp that would rank in just the 42nd percentile. Should yields jump materially higher than Goldman’s 2.1% 2022 year-end target (and according to many they will), then naturally all bets are off.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 05/15/2021 – 17:00

• "This Is All About Stagflation… The U.S. Is Walking Into The Early Stages Of The Fourth Turning"
  “This Is All About Stagflation… The U.S. Is Walking Into The Early Stages Of The Fourth Turning”

  By Larry McDonald of The Bear Traps Report

  We believe the U.S. is walking into the early stages of the Fourth Turning, a subject entertained below. In this note we break down the ideal 2020-2030 portfolio and why it is so different from the 2010-2020 vintage. Above all, by now it should be clear to a five year old; Global Central Banks are working together in a dollar containment regime. With conviction, we laid out this thesis a year ago (April 2020) in our “Lessons from Omaha” and it became the foundation under our overweight positioning in commodities, global large cap value, and emerging markets.

  The good news is, the commodity cycle is still in the early innings.

  

  There are trillions of U.S. dollars married to deflation bets (fixed income bonds and tech stocks) and the lawyers are writing up the divorce papers as we speak. Unintended consequences are popping up weekly, the latest variety points to a significant labor shortage developing in the U.S. with colossal side effects moving our way.

  It’s going to be hilarious. Just when the last economist threw in the Phillips Curve towel, wrote the long winded obituary it will come roaring back to life. Wage inflation is about to explode, and this sword is swinging in the direction of profit margins.

  Above all, the Fed is staring down the barrel of  runaway inequality, inequality that the Fed itself has created. The American Dream just isn’t the 1950s-2000s bright blue, a touch of grey has moved in forging left wing populism. If you listen carefully to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Fed Chair Jay Powell, they are focused on U 6 unemployment near 11% and the 9 million Americans who have left the Non Farm Payrolls since January 2020.

  Now listen to the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, planet earth has new alpha male central banks positioning themselves FAR more hawkish than the FOMC – dollar bearish. Strategically so, it’s all part of the plan. These brain trusts have FINALLY figured out a runaway dollar will obliterate emerging market balance sheets loaded with fresh and deep, Covid 19 wounds.

  

  The $64T of global GDP outside the U.S. is stabilizing relative to the $20T inside the 50 U.S. states. This is a colossal dollar bearish driver just what Powell placed on the menu. Today, inflation expectations are finally moving faster than bond yields, placing a strong bid under the emerging market equities, and delivering a gold silver tailwind that is picking up speed. The dollar is the near term problem solver, but once they lose control of the beast they will move face to face with the inflation shock around the corner.

  An interesting market development this week was Treasuries rallying despite commodities continuing to surge. Bonds likely rallied with growth stocks in major pain again (investors looking for safety) however; wheat, platinum, corn, soybeans, crude oil, etc. were ALL green, so this was not a ‘deflationary scare’.

  “This is all about stagflation. I think the yield curve is going to flatten, front end less anchored. The Fed is handcuffed. Not good. Inflation is going to choke growth in 3q/4q into 2022… This is a big problem for high yield and small caps in the longer term.“ – Senior Credit Portfolio Manager

  But first inflation gets really hot.

  “Larry I spoke to a number of our Food Brokers today (they represent man y manufacturers). Of the 30 Consumer Products Manufacturers, they represent 12 who have already taken a price increase this year. Three took Price Increases YESTERDAY. Increases range from 7% to 10%. (Everything from Frozen Potatoes to Baby Food going up). The companies that are not raising prices are reducing product sizes ( Hidden Cost Increase ) or reducing promotions. Net, Net a Hidden Price Increase. The majority of manufacturers give a 60 90 Day notice on price increases. The increase to consumers in stores will hit in Q3/Q4 2021, and Q1 2022″

  Even billionaire Sam Zell is now pitching gold as an antidote to 1970s style inflation: “Obviously one of the natural reactions is to buy gold, it feels very funny because I’ve spent my career talking about why would you want to own gold? It has no income; it costs to store. And yet, when you see the debasement of the currency, you say, what am I going to hold on to? Oh boy, we’re seeing it all over the place,” Zell said of inflation.

  “You read about lumber prices, but we’re seeing it in all of our businesses. The obvious bottlenecks in the supply chain arena are pushing up prices. It’s very reminiscent of the ‘70s.”

  

  Bloomberg’s Commodity Spot Index hit its highest level in 9 years this week. This is directly correlated to the continued rotation from growth to value equities. Higher inflation and higher yields means a higher discount rate for the net present value of future cash flows. Growth equity valuations discounted DECADES of future cash flows in 2020 when credit risk was ‘taken off the table’. These cash flows are now being eroded by inflation expectations. Meanwhile, the cash flows coming fro m commodity producers will likely surge higher with inflation.

  

  The Long View – The reversal in the Russell 1000 value to growth ratio looks eerily like the early 2000s reversal. This points to a looooong way to go in the value vs. growth trade (value outperformance to continue )… A decade of austerity, tea parties, taper tantrums, brexits trade wars, covid has pushed trillions into overcrowded deflation assets. Exit visas are in many hands today.

  

  Stay overweight global value, EM, and commodities. The tremors have joined us nearly every month this year, but the quake will soon have assets pouring out of tech in search of inflation protection.

  Millennials and the Fourth Turning

  The commodity bull case and the Fourth Turning go hand in hand. Also known as the Strauss Howe generational theory, our awareness is crucial here. Discovered by William Straus and Neil Howe, historical events are related to repeated, cyclical generation types. Each  generation starts a fresh era (a turning) lasting about 20-25 years, after having grown up in the prior era. Every four generations equals a “saeculum” or a long human life of 80-100 years. The Fourth and last phase of a saeculum is a crisis. There follows a First Turning, a recovery. During the recovery generation, community values dominate. The next generations after that attack the communal institutions in the name of autonomy , freedom, and individualism. This eventually leads to another crisis .

  On the balance sheet the good news is over the next 15 years $65T to $70T will pass from Baby Boomers and Gen Xers to Millennials. The bad news is the $30T of U.S. national debt and $160T of unfunded liabilities that will be hoisted upon these blossoming youngsters. After a colossal feast at the dinner table, Millennials are NOT happy with being left the check! Can you blame them?

  The Fourth Turning gets rid of the old order and replaces it with a new one. The First Turning is “the High,” followed by “the Awakening,” followed by “the Unraveling,” followed by “the Crisis,” which is the Fourth Turning. After that, there is another First Turning, another “High.” The last 1st Turning, the last “High,” was the generation of the post World War II era, starting in 1946. It ended with JFK’s assassination. During “the Awakening,” the Second Turning, formerly beloved institutions are criticized and the focus shifts to spiritual independence. Social progress leads to exhaustion with the discipline that created it. Self awareness becomes more important. The most recent Second Turning lasted from the campus and racial unrest of the 1960’s to the rejection of high taxes in the 1980s. The Third Turning, “the Unraveling,” is quite different than the First. At this point social institutions are weak, and people have lost faith in them. Individualism is now at its height. People of this generation just want to enjoy themselves. Society is not cohesive. The last Third Turning began in the 1980s through the 1990s economic boom and our culture wars.

  Then comes the Fourth Turning. The crisis can be extreme and take the form of a war or revolution or civil war. The nation’s survival is at stake. In response, old institutions are replaced with new ones. The slate is wiped clean in a period of creative destruction. A new consensus is formed from selective synthesis of certain ideas generated by both sides of the opposing camps from the prior period.

  The last Fourth Turning began with the crash of 1929 and ended with the conclusion of WWII. As traumatic as this period was, it was also foundational for the world we live in today, but that world is going away as new foundations are being prepared. The G.I. generation was the generation of heroes. Born between 1901 and 1924, they had guts, self confidence, and a collective view. In many ways, so does the Millennial Generation, with its confidence in collective action and sensitivity to others (politeness). During the generation of crisis, the nation itself appears to society to be at risk. As a result, profound secular change occurs. The external orders reconfigure, and private behavior goes through profound change. These Fourth Turning crises are not purely bad, provided one survives them.

  We are in the Fourth Turning now. It began with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the crash it engendered. The rise of left wing populism (think AOC) is classic Fourth Turning.

  This helps contextualize who the Millennials (also known as Gen Y) really are. And they clearly aren’t Boomers. They hold very different ideals on the government’s role in society, on community, on the goals of the nation, on markets. Millennials were raised by helicopter moms who convinced each one that they are special, but also on the ideal of cooperation. They were protected, coddled, and schooled in the value of teamwork. They are highly attached to their families. They build through consensus and are personally most confident once team consensus has been established. And they care about the world at large. This is just the type of generation that will create the new world order out of the crisis and conflict of the Fourth Turning.

  When polled about what is more important, individualism or community, Boomers split close to 50% 50%, but Millennials favor community overwhelmingly, 71% 29%. The favoriting of the community over individualism is irrespective of political party affiliation.  These forces are large scale MMT (modern monetary theory) debt forgiveness drivers and are NOT deflationary. Bullish commodities, ten year view.

  Generation X, the generation after the Baby Boomers, born 1961-1981, was raised in the opposite way of the Millennials: they were left alone by parents focused on their own self awareness and voyages of self discovery. They were taught to survive on their own, to exercise personal agency. Generation X are often the parents of Millennials. Generation X is also referred to as the “latchkey generation” since they enjoyed (or suffered) much less parental oversight vs prior generations as a result of much higher divorce rates and more mothers in the workforce. This is the disaffected and cynical generation of punk and heavy metal. However, in mid life they often achieve a work life balance precisely because of their rejection of their Baby Boomer parents’ self absorption. Thus, they spent and spend much more time actively and directly engaged in raising the next Greatest Generation: the Millennials. So, it is the Millennials’ collectivism that will create a new cultural norm out of the crisis of the Fourth Turning.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 05/15/2021 – 16:35

• Biden Phones Netanyahu After Israel Flattens AP Offices In Gaza – Doesn't Condemn Attack
  Biden Phones Netanyahu After Israel Flattens AP Offices In Gaza – Doesn’t Condemn Attack

  update(4:10pm): According to the White House readout of Biden’s Saturday call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the US president “reaffirmed his strong support for Israel’s right to defend itself against rocket attacks from Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza,” while condemning the “indiscriminate attacks” coming from the Gaza Strip.

  NEW: Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and raised concerns about civilian casualties in Gaza and the bombing of the building that housed AP and other media offices.https://t.co/Siva3uENZa

  — Axios (@axios) May 15, 2021

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  He merely “raised concerns” about the “safety and security of journalists” – and glaringly absent was any specific mention in the call readout of the intentional targeting of the media building which was hit by a reported six airstrikes earlier in the day, causing it to be flattened.

  According to Axios in the call with Netanyahu Biden stopped short of an outright condemnation of the attack, but merely “raised concerns about civilian casualties in Gaza and the bombing of the building that housed AP and other media offices, according to Israeli officials.”

  The opening section from the White House statement on the call is as follows:

  The President spoke today with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. The President reaffirmed his strong support for Israel’s right to defend itself against rocket attacks from Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza. He condemned these indiscriminate attacks against towns and cities across Israel. The President updated the Prime Minister on high-level U.S. engagement with regional partners on this issue and discussed ongoing diplomatic efforts. The President noted that this current period of conflict has tragically claimed the lives of Israeli and Palestinian civilians, including children. He raised concerns about the safety and security of journalists and reinforced the need to ensure their protection.

  Statement from @AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt on the Israeli attack against our bureau in Gaza:

  “The world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today.”https://t.co/CqoDxogAJ3

  — Samya Kullab | سامية كُلاّب (@samya_kullab) May 15, 2021

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  Biden also phoned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian officials confirmed, which marks a first during his administration. Axios details the call as follows:

  • “President Biden updated President Abbas on U.S. diplomatic engagement on the ongoing conflict and stressed the need for Hamas to cease firing rockets into Israel,” a White House readout of the called said.
  • The Palestinian Authority on Friday criticized the U.S. position on the Gaza crisis and called the Biden administration to intervene.

  And further, Abbas’s spokesperson, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, was quoted in a statement: “The silence by the Biden administration about what Israel is doing and the claim it is self defense led to massacres in Gaza and the West Bank. We ask the U.S. to take action because it is the only party in the world who can stop Israeli aggression.”

  Meanwhile, more and more protests are popping up across Europe – and some in the United States – expressing solidarity with Palestinians. “Protesters gathered in London, Berlin, Madrid and Paris as the worst violence in years raged between Israel and militants in Gaza,” AFP and others observed.

  Thousands of protesters in London and Madrid marched in support of Palestinians on Saturday as the worst violence in years raged between Israel and militants in Gazahttps://t.co/syzUFfODAc

  — AFP News Agency (@AFP) May 15, 2021

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  The death toll continues to climb into the night Saturday, with regional media counting at least 145 deaths in Gaza from the airstrikes. 

  In Israel, at least eleven have been killed by the continuing onslaught of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket fire. Amid increased international condemnation for the appalling civilian death toll and especially high number of children killed and wounded, Netanyahu’s office released a statement placing blame squarely on Hamas for the casualties…

  After the reported death of a family of 10 in an Israeli strike in Gaza this morning, eight of them children, the prime minister’s Arab-language spokesman blames Hamas, Channel 12 reports.

  “Hamas bears full blame for the deaths of civilians in Gaza,” he says in a statement. “It sought this escalation and started it when it attacked Jerusalem. It intentionally buried its rocket launchers and weapons caches and posts in the center of residential areas and this is a war crime. It attacks our citizens to kill as many of them as possible and that is another war crime.”

  Death toll from ongoing Israeli bombardment on besieged Gaza climbs to 145, including 41 children and 23 women, while US repeats support for Tel Aviv https://t.co/FETPmVuIQY

  — TRT World (@trtworld) May 15, 2021

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  In the US, many are taking increasing notice of the apparent complete lack of any US plan or diplomatic intervention toward a ceasefire.

  Once again, Netanyahu’s govt is slaughtering Palestinian Arabs in Gaza for political reasons to avoid a 5th election, and to impede his pending prosecution. Once again, Biden/Pelosi show no compassion to the mounting Palestinian civilian fatalities, using U.S. weapons and aid.-R

  — Ralph Nader (@RalphNader) May 14, 2021

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  For now it seems the Biden White House is merely content to express “concerns” as the region burns.

  * * *

  update(12:49pm): So far the Biden administration has stopped short of condemning the Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza offices of US-based Associated Press and other international media outlets, which flattened the 12-story Al-Jalaa tower, resulting in widespread outrage from journalists and media rights organizations across the globe. 

  Hours after the attack Joe Biden as reportedly phoned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to express Washington’s “concerns” and to convey the “paramount responsibility” to protect journalists.

  #BREAKING Israel’s Netanyahu, US president Biden speak after Israel flattens AP news office in Gaza: statement pic.twitter.com/ItqTbUH1Sh

  — AFP News Agency (@AFP) May 15, 2021

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  This also as the death toll continues to soar amid unrelenting airstrikes – also as Hamas rockets continue to fly toward Israel – at over 140 Gazans killed since Monday.

  Al Jazeera’s office in Gaza destroyed by an Israeli airstrike. The building also housed residential apartments and the AP bureau. This is the 6th consecutive day Israel has been bombing Gaza. The Gaza death toll is at 140, including 39 children. pic.twitter.com/2rNm9eMIaG

  — IMEU (@theIMEU) May 15, 2021

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  * * *

  update(12:30pm): The White House has said it communicated its “concerns” to Israel over the safety of journalists after IDF airstrikes obliterated the 12-story office building that housed international media headquarters in Gaza, most notably the AP and Al Jazeera…

  “We have communicated directly to the Israelis that ensuring the safety and security of journalists and independent media is a paramount responsibility,” White House press secretary Psaki wrote.

  We have communicated directly to the Israelis that ensuring the safety and security of journalists and independent media is a paramount responsibility.

  — Jen Psaki (@PressSec) May 15, 2021

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  AP CEO Gary Pruitt previously said in a statement: “We are shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP’s bureau and other news organizations in Gaza. They have long known the location of our bureau and knew journalists were there. We received a warning that the building would be hit.”

  * * *

  Israel has targeted yet another large office and residential tower in the Gaza Strip, but this time its warplanes have destroyed the 12-story building housing the media offices of the U.S.-based Associated Press and Qatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera, the AP itself as well as Reuters eyewitnesses confirm.

  The outlets have said that Israel issued advanced warning of the airstrikes of up to one hour before the attack on Al-Jalaa tower. Representatives with the AP and the building owner had reportedly pleaded with IDF officials to give more time to enable a safe evacuation and also to take out crucial media equipment. 

  Oh my god. The building where al Jazeera’s office is housed has just been taken down by Israeli airstrikes. There was a warning and evacuated. It houses offices and private homes. I can’t believe it. pic.twitter.com/Q4luRYk9H9

  — Stefanie Dekker (@StefanieDekker) May 15, 2021

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  However, eyewitnesses say they were not given extra time, but merely made it out with whatever they had in hand and with their own lives.

  The building can be seen essentially collapsing in its own footprint, the same way that three prior residential apartment buildings did during days past. “The building was hit approximately six times before collapsing in plumes of black smoke, which engulfed the entire neighborhood,” international press reports noted.

  ⭕ LIVE footage of the moment an Israeli air raid bombed the offices of Al Jazeera and The Associated Press in Gaza City ⬇️

  🔴 LIVE updates: https://t.co/RvtP1lEX1x pic.twitter.com/RBO1ZiDAl0

  — Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) May 15, 2021

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  The moment Israel bombed Al-Jalaa tower in Gaza housing international media outlets including Al Jazeera and AP. Reports and media personnel were not even allowed time to grab their equipment before evacuating the building #GazaUnderAttack #Palestine pic.twitter.com/jR2oMDyr68

  — Marwa Fatafta #SaveSheikhJarrah (@marwasf) May 15, 2021

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  “The strike on the high-rise came nearly an hour after the military ordered people to evacuate the 12-story building, which also housed Al-Jazeera, other offices and residential apartments. The strike brought down the entire structure, which collapsed in a gigantic cloud of dust,” AP writes. 

  “There was no immediate explanation for why it was attacked,” AP adds.

  The IDF in a later follow-up statement alleged the media offices contained Hamas military intelligence units…

  After providing advance warning to civilians & time to evacuate, IDF fighter jets struck a multi-story building containing Hamas military intelligence assets.

  The building contained civilian media offices, which Hamas hides behind and deliberately uses as human shields. pic.twitter.com/zeDjEquePD

  — Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 15, 2021

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  The devastating attack brought swift condemnation by various international media organizations and advocates, with a number of prominent journalists expressing their shock, saying they “can’t believe” the media building was so blatantly targeted by Israel’s military.

  AP president Gary Pruitt issued a statement saying “we are shocked and horrified” at the “incredibly disturbing” attack wherein “we narrowly avoided a terrible loss of life.” 

  

  WATCH: The owner of al-Jalaa tower pleads with an Israeli officer on live TV to let journalists collect their gear before he bombs it.

  Moments later, Israeli air strikes demolish the #Gaza building that housed several international media offices used by AlJazeera and MEE pic.twitter.com/a5PRzQNOkC

  — Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) May 15, 2021

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  “Journalists who worked there had been reporting on the Israeli attacks on Gaza,” Al Jazeera said in a social media statement. “Targeting journalists is a war crime.”

  An Israeli airstrike destroyed the Al Jazeera office in Gaza. The Israeli military warned they would hit the building that houses media organizations including the AP.

  Journalists who worked there had been reporting on the Israeli attacks on Gaza. pic.twitter.com/fZVo3TFEoO

  — AJ+ (@ajplus) May 15, 2021

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  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 05/15/2021 – 16:15

• "I Upended My Life For Apple": Newly-Hired Engineer Livid After Woke Witch-Hunt Gets Him Fired
  “I Upended My Life For Apple”: Newly-Hired Engineer Livid After Woke Witch-Hunt Gets Him Fired

  A former Facebook project manager, author, and journalist who uprooted his life in Washington to take a job with Apple is livid, after a woke mob of employees circulated a petition demanding his ouster over controversial statements from a book he wrote five years ago.

  

  The petition took aim at Cuban-American Antonio García Martínez over his book, Chaos Monkeys  (dedicated to “all my enemies”) – an autobiography which traces his journey from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. Martínez has described the book as “total Hunter S. Thompson/Gonzo mode.”

  According to woke Apple employees, it’s both racist and sexist. And of course, when it comes to Silicon Valley, divergent opinions need not apply. Except, he did apply, and was hired – despite Apple being “well aware” of his writing, according to a pissed-off Martinez.

  In Chaos Monkeys, Martínez describes a broad-shouldered British woman he met in his travels who “made Bob Vila of This Old House look like a fucking pussy.” Bay Area women in tech, by comparison, are “soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit. They have their self-regarding entitlement feminism, and ceaselessly vaunt their independence, but the reality is, come the epidemic plague or foreign invasion, they’d become precisely the sort of useless baggage you’d trade for a box of shotgun shells or a jerry can of diesel.” Unlike, we assume, broad-shouldered, self-sufficient women.

  Obviously, the jerry can brigade didn’t take too kindly to that, and organized a woke cancel mob.

  

  According to a Friday Twitter thread by Martínez, Apple knew about his writing going in, and is now defaming him.

  1. Apple actively recruited me for my role on the ads team, reaching out via a former colleague to convince me to join. Apple found my experience in the ads space, specifically around data and privacy, highly relevant to their efforts and persuaded me to leave my then role.

  — Antonio García Martínez (@antoniogm) May 14, 2021

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  3. Apple was well aware of my writing before hiring me. My references were questioned extensively about my bestselling book and my real professional persona (rather than literary one).

  This set of prominent Valley VCs and execs are all willing to assert as much under oath.

  — Antonio García Martínez (@antoniogm) May 14, 2021

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  5. Apple has issued a statement that clearly implies there was some negative behavior by me during my time at Apple. That is defamatory and categorically false.

  — Antonio García Martínez (@antoniogm) May 14, 2021

  He also notes that his book was extremely well received before the witch-hunt.

  Just to do a sanity check on my awful book and just how boiled our political frog has been over the past five years, this is just a small sample of the globally positive reviews from elite mainstream institutions at the time.

  “Who controls the past controls the future.” pic.twitter.com/LnWNOrdDnF

  — Antonio García Martínez (@antoniogm) May 15, 2021

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  Antonio has received overwhelming support from friends and ideological allies alike. 

  The tiny screenshots from your book were funny and written well enough that I put it on my list of books to read.
  Besides, why does it matter what you write in a book when all that matters should be how you perform at work?

  — Rising serpent 🇺🇸 (@rising_serpent) May 14, 2021

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  It’s getting to the point where I can’t really take someone seriously as a public intellectual unless they’ve been cancelled at least once.

  — Mike Saint-Antoine (@mike20731) May 14, 2021

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  As a woman who has worked in Tech/Bay Area for over 12 years I support @antoniogm
  . Cancel culture is out of control. To be an expert in your career is no longer enough. You now have to be defined by others’ expectations of what a “good person should say/do. This is terrifying.

  — mdsjql80 (@mdsjql80) May 15, 2021

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  Just read about the case, fucking idiots, the whole thing has just gone too far. The whole thing sucks but you’re gonna find a better place. Talent always has a space. All the best.

  — Martín del Palacio Langer (@martindelp) May 15, 2021

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  Stay strong, Antonio!

  — Cristian Nyari (@Cnyari) May 14, 2021

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  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 05/15/2021 – 16:10

• Karl Marx's Road To Hell Is Paved With Fake Money
  Karl Marx’s Road To Hell Is Paved With Fake Money

  Authored by MN Gordon via EconomicPrism.com,

  “The way to Hell is paved with good intentions,” remarked Karl Marx in Das Kapital.

  The devious fellow was bemoaning evil capitalists for having the gall to use their own money for the express purpose of making more money.

  

  Marx, a rambling busybody, was habitually wrong.  The road to hell is paved with something much more than good intentions.  Grift, graft, larceny, corruption and fake money are what primarily composes the pavement.  Good intentions are merely dusted in to better the aesthetic.

  If you want to understand what’s going on with exploding price inflation then you must understand this…

  Right now in the United States we have a scam currency that’s controlled by central planners.  Specifically, we have what Marx envisioned in Plank No. 5 of his Communist Manifesto:

  “No. 5.  Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.”

  The Federal Reserve System, created by the Federal Reserve Act of Congress in 1913, is indeed a ‘national bank’ and it politically manipulates interest rates and holds a monopoly on legal counterfeiting in the United States.

  Without the Fed’s policies of mass credit creation the U.S. government could have never run up a national debt over $28 trillion.  Without the Fed’s policies of extreme credit market intervention the U.S. trade deficit for March of $74.4 billion – a new record – would have never been possible.  Without the Fed’s printing press money the U.S. government could have never run annual budget deficits over $3 trillion.

  The fact is centralized credit in the hands of a central bank always leads to money supply inflation.  Asset price inflation and consumer price inflation then follow in strange and unpredictable ways.

  These price distortions are not defects of capitalism.  They’re symptoms of a scam currency managed by central planners.

  Here’s why…

  The Nobel Planner

  The economy is a complex living organism.  It continuously evolves and is always subject to change.  One relationship at one moment can be completely different at another moment.  Supply and demand are incessantly adjusting and readjusting to meet the conditions of the market.

  These continuous interactions provide a natural and efficient response to supply shortages and gluts.  Even in a moderately free market economy, bakeries do not run out of bread when there’s a wheat crop shortage.  The shelves never go empty.  Rather, the price of bread rises and consumers adjust their spending accordingly.

  Centrally planned economies, on the other hand, are inclined to frequent, intensive and chronic shortages.  Bureaucrats, armed with spiral bound planning reports and pie graphs, are incapable of fixing the proper prices for gumballs and gasoline by diktat.  There’s simply too much going on and too many moving parts for them to consider.

  With the best of intentions, the noble planner makes their best guess of the appropriate price control.  So, too, graft and corruption takes over to ensure the fake money flows to preferred industries and providers.  Then things invariably go haywire.

  The supply of certain goods or commodities may be more than adequate.  But when a price administrator enforces an artificially low price, consumers are prone to wasteful behavior.  They’re compelled to demand a greater amount than is supplied.  Hence, the store shelves remain perpetually empty.

  Certainly, uniform standards work well for units and measurements.  They’re critical to building consistency and standardization of hardware and parts.  They’re even necessary to effective communication and computer programming.  For certain things, however, uniform standards come up short…

  When it comes to the pricing of goods, commodities and services, commanding fixed prices by a central authority is an utter failure.  This was effectively proven by the experiences of the centrally planned economies of the old communist Eastern Bloc countries during the second half of the 20th century.

  Without market determined prices for goods and services via free exchange it is impossible to establish prices that reflect actual conditions.  Without prices that are grounded in reality the production and consumption relationship becomes distorted.  In the absence of the natural corrective mechanism of market determined prices, oversupply or scarcity conditions extend out to absurdity.

  Karl Marx’s Road to Hell is Paved with Fake Money

  The planners are never able to get things quite right.  In time, these absurdities become ubiquitous.  For example, in a socialist economy you’ll find supermarkets with long lines of people and empty shelves.  Another definitive gift of socialist economies is toilets without toilet seats.  How is this even possible?

  Regrettably, price controls don’t stop with just goods, commodities, and services.  The United States – like Europe and Japan – has been doing its darnedest during the early years of the 21st century to illustrate how the experiences of the old Eastern Bloc also apply to credit.

  Remember, credit, like a commodity or good, has a price attached to it.  The price of credit is the rate of interest a lender charges to a borrower.  Like fixing the price of a commodity or good by a central planning authority, fixing the price of credit by a central bank – such as the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, or Bank of Japan – is also an utter failure.

  Someone with even a dim perception of the world around them can peer out and discern many strange and grotesque occurrences: Housing prices that far outpace incomes.  Total household debt at $14.56 trillion.  Crypto millionaires.  And an entire generation of Millennials that went $1.57 trillion in student loan debt for college degrees that have been debased in stature to what a high school diploma represented for prior generations.

  These represent gross misallocations of capital.  What’s more, they would’ve never come into existence or ballooned out to this magnitude without the Fed’s credit market price controls and counterfeiting operations.

  Indeed, the results of government intervention are always the same.  Stagnation, inflation, declining living standards, and widespread social disorder.  No doubt, they’ll be repeated to insanity.

  True capitalism requires an honest currency and market determined pricing.  Remember this in the weeks to come.  As prices rise, politicians and central planners – people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Janet Yellen – will look to pin inflation on evil capitalists and price gouging business owners.

  Don’t believe their lies.  Just follow the fake money back to its origin…

  There you’ll find the Fed, hard at work, applying the pavement to Karl Marx’s road to hell.

  Buckle up!

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 05/15/2021 – 15:45

• Concept App Pays Users In Crypto To Name-Drop Brands 
  Concept App Pays Users In Crypto To Name-Drop Brands 

  Readers have all experienced the moment when an advertisement has creepily shown up on their social media feed after talking about it. And while companies swear they’re not using smartphone apps to tap into your conversations for advertising purposes, there’s a concept app that throws fuel on this fire. 

  The concept app brought to you by Matt Reed, a creative technologist at Red Pepper who made a tool that allowed Zoom users to create a digital twin of themselves, so they didn’t have to sit in calls – said his latest creation is still in the “development phase” but would one day allow people to name-drop brands in everyday conversations and get “immediately compensated in return.” 

  “Once permissions are granted, SayPal eavesdrops on your background microphone feed and applies advanced Natural Language Processing AI for keyword identification. If a sponsored brand is detected, you get paid. The more you name-drop, the more you earn. It’s that simple,” Reed said. 

  

  He said SayPal would send crypto to a person’s wallet for saying brand names in conversations. 

  We’re not entirely sure if the app is a joke or if Reed is for real. Because someone could repeat the word “Quesalupa” or “Big Mac” for hours and potentially get paid. There needs to be filters or perhaps geolocation for this app to viable and for brands to go along with the idea. 

  If you want a taste of a dystopic world where people get paid to name-drop brands in conversations – look no further than the movie “Idiocracy.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 05/15/2021 – 15:20