Mar 17

Today’s News 17th March 2019

  • Trump's Coup In Venezuela: What You're Not Being Told

    Authored by Jorge Martin via Venezuelanalysis.com,

    Washington is growing increasingly desperate as its coup efforts go further south in Venezuela…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The failure of the February 23 “humanitarian aid” provocation on the Venezuelan border was a serious blow for Trump’s ongoing coup attempt. There were mutual recriminations between self-appointed Guaidó, Colombian President Duque and US Vice-President Pence. The US could not get a consensus from its own Lima Cartel allies in favour of military intervention.

    The coup was losing momentum. Then, on March 7, just days after Guaidó’s anti-climactic return to Caracas, the country was plunged into a nationwide blackout from which it has not yet fully recovered. What caused it? How is it related to the “regime change” attempt? And, most importantly, what are imperialism’s plans and how can they be fought?

    February 23 was supposed to be the coup’s D-Day. The idea was never to actually deliver “humanitarian aid” into the country, but rather to create a “people’s power” moment, where large crowds of opposition supporters on both sides of the border defied the Venezuelan armed forces, which, when faced with a large crowd of peaceful demonstrators, would then switch sides and join Trump’s puppet, Juan Guaidó. On the day, however, things did not go according to Washington’s plan. The crowds of opposition supporters did not materialise in the expected numbers. “Aid” trucks did not cross the border and by the end of the day, Rubio, Abrams and Guaidó were left with egg all over their faces.

    They made a big story about “Maduro burning the aid trucks” at the Santander bridge on the Colombian border. US officials even insisted this justified military intervention under the Geneva Convention. Never mind the fact that the Convention only applies in cases of war, the fact is that the aid truck that was burned was set on fire by a “peaceful” opposition supporter throwing a molotov cocktail at the Venezuelan border guards. Several media outlets (teleSUR, RT) explained that this was the case right from the beginning and even produced video footage to prove it. That did not stop US officials like Marco Rubio and John Bolton from blaming Maduro and the chorus of the world’s bourgeois mass media from parroting the lie:

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

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

    Now, two weeks too late, even the New York Times has been forced to admit that “one [Venezuelan government] claim that appears to be backed up by video footage is that the protesters started the fire.” The same NY Timesinvestigation also concludes that the Venezuelan government was right in saying the US and the opposition were lying about the trucks containing medicine: “the claim about a shipment of medicine, too, appears to be unsubstantiated, according to videos and interviews.”

    The admission by the NY Times, though it is unlikely to be covered as widely as the initial false reports, is very significant. We knew the US was lying, right from the beginning, as there was proof. Now it has been forced to admit it. This should provide a salutary lesson for the next time the US or its Venezuelan opposition make any outrageous claims about the “Maduro regime.” The lesson is: “question everything Washington and the mass media tell you about a government they want to overthrow.”

    That evening, as if on cue, the Venezuelan opposition social media operation started to explode with the hashtag #IntervencionMilitarYA (#MilitaryInterventionNOW), aimed at putting pressure on the US and its allies to launch a military intervention in the country. The campaign is very revealing as to the character of the opposition (pro-imperialist and traitors to their own country), but also as to the morale of their ranks (they do not think they are the agents of “change” but rather invest all their hopes in Trump).

    Having been defeated on February 23, the meeting of the Lima Group of countries in Bogotá the following morning was a further setback. Let us remember that the Lima Group (more accurately known as the “Lima Cartel”) is an ad-hoc group of countries created with the explicit aim of overthrowing the Venezuelan government when the US could not get enough votes at the Organisation of American States for its bellicose resolutions. Before the meeting even started, there were public statements by Chile, Brazil and Paraguay explicitly ruling out military intervention.

    The case of Brazil is noteworthy because there is a major split within Bolsonaro’s cabinet, and between him and the Armed Forces. Under pressure from the generals and his own vice-president, General Hamilton Mourão, the far-right president has been forced to retreat from several of his public statements, specifically, support for the transfer of the Brazilian embassy to Jerusalem and granting the US army access to a military base in Brazil. When the Lima Group decided in January to cut off all contact with the Venezuelan armed forces, the Brazilians kept communication lines open. The Brazilian army went as far as vetoing the presence of US soldiers in the border with Venezuela as part of the so-called “humanitarian aid” operation on 23 February.

    Contrary to the attitude of the Colombian state, which turned a blind eye and even helped the opposition rioters on the border with Venezuela, the Brazilians contained them and prevented clashes. The reason is not that the Brazilian generals are in any way progressive, nor that they stand by the principle of sovereignty, but rather they understand that any major conflict in Venezuela, including the possibility of a civil war, could have a major impact on Brazil, with which it shares a large and inhospitable border. The last thing the Brazilian generals want is accidentally getting sucked into a major armed conflict in Venezuela, which they know would not be a simple affair.

    Faced with such reluctance, the Bogotá meeting on 25 February ended with a statement that used strong words of condemnation and issued unspecified threats, but did not contain any serious commitment to the next steps in the “regime change” operation. The US announced the inclusion of a few more Venezuelan officials on their sanctions list, including four regional governors. Hardly the “military intervention now” that the opposition demanded.

    Media reports have talked of recriminations from Mike Pence (who had cut off his trip to South Korea to attend the meeting) to Guaidó. According to one report, Pence told Guaidó that “everything was failing in the offensive against the chavista regime, the biggest complaint was because of the continued loyalty of the armed forces to Maduro.” Apparently, Guaidó had promised the US that if they were to get “the main world leaders to recognise him… at least half of the high ranking officers would defect. It didn’t happen.” The other main criticism was regarding the Venezuelan opposition’s appraisal that Maduro’s “social base had disintegrated. The crisis revealed that support for the government has in fact diminished, but is not inexistent”.

    Of course, one should take such reports with a pinch of salt as sources are not quoted. However, the general frustration of the US with the Venezuelan coup is very real and makes this particular report plausible. Another reportin the Wall Street Journal talked of Chilean President Piñera and Colombian President Duque also being angry at Guaidó at the meeting:

    “The opposition had publicly sold the plan by promising that an outpouring of Venezuelans on both sides of the border would link up, Mr. Maduro’s security forces would back down and truckloads of aid would enter for hungry Venezuelans. ‘I think they built up expectations that weren’t carried out,’ said an opposition operative who was familiar with the discussions. ‘They built up that there was going to be more aid, that it would get in. And that the military would rise up. And it didn’t happen that way.’”

    The WSJ article is quite detailed:

    “‘As time passed, [Piñera] kept asking Guaidó where are the people who are coming from the other side?’ said the person. The responses weren’t satisfactory, he added. ‘Everything failed: coordination, information, organization,’ said a senior Latin American official.”

    The picture painted here is of an angry exchange in which all blamed Guaidó, when in reality Washington is responsible for the whole design of the coup. The US officials in charge of the coup were so frustrated that they started a completely ridiculous polemic against the media (CNN included), which had started to described Guaidó as “self-proclaimed” or “leader of the opposition” as opposed to giving him the title of “the interim president,” a title that Washington had worked so hard to create:

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

    The hawks in Trump’s administration – Bolton, Pompeo and Abrams – made a series of fatal miscalculations.

    First, they assumed Maduro had no support whatsoever, underestimating the strength of anti-imperialist feeling in the face of a brazen US coup attempt, and the fact that, while support for Chavismo has diminished, it still managed to get over 30 percent of the census to vote for Maduro a year ago. Moreover, in the last few weeks, there has been a series of impressive, anti-imperialist mass rallies led by Diosdado Cabello in all states in the country.

    Second, they thought that the opposition was able to mobilise large numbers of people who are prepared to go all the way in an open clash with the government. In fact, the opposition ranks, having been betrayed by their own leaders in 2017 and defeated in their previous attempts in 2013 and 2014, are distrustful of the opposition leaders and sceptical about their own ability to remove the government they hate. They have put all their illusions and hopes in a US-led military intervention and that is a state of mind which can produce a large rally (for instance on January 23) but not a sustained mobilisation to overthrow Maduro.

    The failure of February 23 furthermore left Guaidó abroad, in Colombia. He thought he would come back victorious, at the head of a US convoy of “humanitarian aid,” but found himself having violated a court order not to leave the country and stranded in Bogotá. He started a short tour of Latin America, on board a Colombian plane, but soon the US called him to order. He discarded a plan to continue his tour in Europe and was told in no uncertain terms that he had to return to Venezuela as “he was losing momentum.”

    Again, Abrams, Bolton and Rubio attempted to build up Guaidó’s return as another D-Day, baiting Maduro to arrest him on arrival in order to build a casus belli for foreign intervention. It resulted in another flop. Guaidó returned on March 4, the assembled EU ambassadors received him at the airport and then he went to a rally in the east of Caracas… But to his disappointment and that of his minders in the US, he was not arrested (although he should have been arrested, there were plenty of reasons to do so).

    Blackout

    Then came the blackout. Starting on Thursday, March 7, just before 5pm, a major power failure affected 18 out of the country’s 23 states and the Capital District. In Caracas, the Metro stopped working and tens of thousands had to walk their way home, in the dark. After a few hours it became clear that this was a major incident and power would not be restored quickly. The government decreed Friday a national holiday.

    The country’s main electricity generator, the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric plant, known as El Guri Dam, had crashed. El Guri produces about 80 percent of the country’s electricity and restoring it is a delicate operation. It is now more than four days since the initial incident and power is only slowly being restored in many parts of the country. Over the weekend, on several occasions, electricity was returned to different parts of the country, only to be switched off again.

    The situation is serious. The government decreed another holiday for March 11 and 12. Back-up electricity generators keep power supply to essential installations, like hospitals, but there are serious problems with public transport. Shops do not accept card payments and many have increased prices and resorted to only accepting payment in dollars. There are also problems with the water supply, telecommunications (phone and internet) are very intermittent, and food stored in fridges and freezers risks being lost, etc.

    The government has blamed the blackout on sabotage at El Guri and of course Washington and the opposition have been quick to reject such idea, blaming the power cut on a wildfire affecting the 765Kv power line between El Guri and the Malena substation. This would have brought down the power line and then in turn triggered a security stoppage at the El Guri Hydro plant. However, the opposition have produced no actual evidence of such a fire and the New York Times correspondent Anatoly Kurmanaev has rejected this hypothesis:

    The government’s claim is that there was a cyberattack against the system that controls the El Guri turbines and regulates power generation and supply down the 765KV line to Malena. The government has also declared that, when power was restored on Saturday, March 9, there was another such attack, and that these attacks have been carried out by US imperialism.

    For those tempted to dismiss these accusations as a “conspiracy theory,” let us look at the following facts. First, the US and the mass media blatantly lied about the burning of the “aid” truck just two weeks ago. Furthermore, what credibility has Marco Rubio got? On March 10, he tweeted there had been an explosion at a “German Dam,” when in reality a Venezuelan opposition journalist by the name of Germán Dam had reported an explosion at a power substation.

    In an even more callous twist, Rubio “reported” 80 babies having died at a hospital in Maracaibo due to the blackout, only to be corrected by the chief of the Wall Street Journal South America Bureau: the hospital had recorded no neonatal deaths. None. Zero. Ninguna. Why should we believe anythingthese people say?

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

    Secondly, such an attack is possible and has been carried out before, even on Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems that are not online. For those interested, just look up the US-and-Israeli-made Stuxnet virus, which was used to attack Iran’s nuclear power programme in 2010. That virus specifically attacked Siemens control systems, like many of those that run the El Guri turbines. An article in Forbes by a specialist admits:

    “In the case of Venezuela, the idea of a government like the United States remotely interfering with its power grid is actually quite realistic… Given the U.S. government’s longstanding concern with Venezuela’s government, it is likely that the U.S. already maintains a deep presence within the country’s national infrastructure grid, making it relatively straightforward to interfere with grid operations. The country’s outdated internet and power infrastructure present few formidable challenges to such operations and make it relatively easy to remove any traces of foreign intervention. Widespread power and connectivity outages like the one Venezuela experienced last week are also straight from the modern cyber playbook” [my emphasis].

    While the article in the end says a different scenario is highly likely, it nevertheless highlights “the inability to definitively discount U.S. or other foreign intervention.”

    Third, there is the matter of timing. The coup was stalling. Guaidó had returned to the country but was clearly losing momentum. What better time to implement a major attack on the electricity grid, to demonstrate that the government is not in control, turn the population against the government and further intensify the propaganda about “humanitarian crisis” and “chaos”? Minutes after the outage was reported, Rubio, Bolton and Guaidó were already furiously and callously tweeting blame for the government and almost gloating at peoples’ suffering. The blackout has also taken place just days before the arrival of the EU International Contact Group mission which is to investigate in situ whether there is a “humanitarian crisis” or not. How convenient!

    Of course, to any explanation of the blackout, its severity and its prolonged nature, we must add several other factors.

    One is the fact that the Venezuelan grid has been starved of investment and maintenance for several years, something the left wing of the Bolivarian movement has discussed openly. The US is quick to point out this as the main cause, forgetting that sanctions have prevented the country from re-negotiating its foreign debt, which has sucked in an increasing amount of the country’s foreign reserves. We must add that the Maduro government has chosen to pay the foreign debt and hand over preferential dollars to the capitalists rather than use these reserves differently. This means that sabotage is taking place in a system that has already been weakened and therefore can be more easily damaged.

    Another is the fact that thousands of workers have left their jobs in the industry as a result of the economic crisis which has destroyed completely the purchasing power of wages. The first to leave were the more experienced and highly skilled, precisely those who will be needed most now when it comes to bringing back a very delicate and finely tuned system. This process of abandonment was aggravated after the last currency conversion in August 2018, when the government destroyed collective bargaining and wage differentials in the public sector.

    A third is that some of these problems would have been alleviated, or perhaps prevented, had the workers in the industry maintained the levels of workers’ control introduced during the Chavez government. Let us not forget that electricity workers at one point were at the forefront of the struggle for workers’ control, which was undone by the bureaucracy.

    Finally, the more recent US sanctions on PDVSA have prevented Venezuela from importing and producing the fuel needed for the thermoelectric plants that should have provided a back up when El Guri Hydro went down.

    What next for imperialism?

    The situation in Venezuela depends greatly on factors that are developing behind the scenes. It is impossible to say what is actually happening in the military barracks and in the officers’ quarters. The whole policy of US imperialism is designed to put pressure on them, by making the situation in the country unbearable, so that the generals perhaps draw the conclusion that their interests might be best served by removing Maduro from power. This is achieved by sanctions designed to hurt the economy. The latest development on this front are the threats issued by Bolton and Abrams to punish, not only US companies trading with PDVSA or the Venezuelan government, but also financial institutions in third countries. The aim is clear: to completely strangle the Venezuelan economy until it chokes the government into giving up. This is a criminal policy that is hurting the poor and workers of Venezuela first and foremost, completely discrediting the idea that Washington is at all concerned about an alleged “humanitarian crisis.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    As we have argued before, this ongoing imperialist coup attempt can only be fought back with revolutionary measures, striking blows against the coup plotters at home and their puppet masters abroad. (Flickr/The White House)

    As for the possibility of military intervention, it is clear that the US would like Latin American countries to front it, but there is no appetite in the Lima Group for military adventures, which can prove costly and damaging. That leaves the US with very few options, the main one being to increase the pressure, through sanctions, sabotage, provocations, etc. This much was admitted by Elliot Abrams in a conversation with two Russian pranksterswhen he thought he was talking to the Swiss president. He said: “We think it is a mistake tactically to give them endless reassurances that there will never be American military action. But I can tell you this is not what we are doing. What we are doing is exactly what you see, financial pressure, economic pressure, diplomatic pressure.”

    To this we have to add the ideas likely harboured by some in the US administration about the creation of a “Free Venezuelan Army” and their “president” getting control of some territory (preferably close to the border, perhaps in Tachira), in a repeat of operations used in Syria and Libya. An article in Bloomberg has revealed that renegade Venezuelan former general Cliver Alcalá had a group of 200 armed men in Colombia ready to cross the border on 23 February, but he was stopped by the Colombians. Rubio has also played up the issue of military defectors and Guaidó met with a group of them in Cúcuta, praising them for “defecting” and warning that “we will have to cross back”.

    There is also a sense of urgency for the likes of Bolton, Pompeo, Abrams and Rubio. They hoped for a quick resolution in this push for “regime change” back in January, but they failed. They probably calculate that they need a resolution well before the 2020 election in the US. Frustration and impatience only make them more dangerous and ready to deploy tricks they have not yet used.

    As we have argued before, this ongoing imperialist coup attempt can only be fought back with revolutionary measures, striking blows against the coup plotters at home and their puppet masters abroad. That means arresting them and putting them on trial. Expropriating the coup-plotting oligarchy as well as the multinationals. Above all, the revolutionary organisation of the people from below needs to be strengthened by arming and developing the militias in every working-class neighbourhood, introducing workers control in all factories and workplaces and generally unleashing the revolutionary initiative of the masses.

    Internationally, we need to continue and strengthen the campaign against our own imperialist governments in the US, the EU and the Lima Group countries, all of whom are, to one degree or another involved in this reactionary plot.

  • Families Are Crossing Southern U.S. Border In Record Numbers

    Undocumented immigrants travelling in family units have been crossing the Southern U.S. border in record numbers, as inferred to by arrest counts from Customs and Border Protection. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    In February 2019, more than 36,000 people were apprehended while trying to cross the border with their families, exceeding the number of other apprehended people by almost 6,000. As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes, the number of families arrested has pushed total border apprehensions to an 11-year high in February.

    The number of immigrants apprehended with their family in fiscal year 2019 so far (October-February) has also exceeded the record for most family apprehensions in a whole year, set in FY2018.

    Infographic: Families are Crossing Southern U.S. Border in Record Numbers | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Recently, more immigrants that are coming across the Southern U.S. border have travelled from countries in Central America, like Honduras, Guatemala or El Salvador, while undocumented immigrants from Mexico remain the largest group. These migrants often claim asylum because of political turmoil in their home countries. Family units have been travelling as part of larger groups of up to 100 people, which have been branded as “migrant caravans” by different media outlets.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Customs and Border Protection said they had apprehended groups of 100 or more people on 53 occasions since October on the U.S.-Mexico border.

  • Social Media, Universal Basic Income, & Cashless Society: How China's Social Credit System Is Coming To America

    Authored by Brandon Turbeville via The Organic Prepper blog,

    Some well-informed Americans may be aware of China’s horrifying “Social Credit System” that was recently unveiled as a method of eradicating any dissent in the totalitarian state. Essentially freezing out anyone who does not conform to the state’s version of the ideal citizen, the SCS is perhaps the most frightening control system being rolled out today. That is, until you consider what is coming next.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Unbeknownst to most people, there appears to be a real attempt to create a system in which all citizens are rationed their “wages” digitally each month in place of a paycheck, including the ability to gain or lose money. This system would see any form of dissent resulting in the cut off of those credits and the ability to work, eat, or even exist in society. It would not only be the end of dissent but of any semblance of real individuality.

    Here’s how the Social Credit System operates in China.

    First, however, for those who are unaware of the Social Credit System as it operates in China, we should briefly describe just what has taken place there. The Social Credit System in China isn’t merely a punishment for criticizing the state as is the case in most totalitarian regimes, the SCS can bring the hammer down for even the slightest infraction such as smoking in a non-smoking zone.

    One summary of the SCS can be found in Business Insider’s article by Alexandra Ma entitled “China has started ranking citizens with a creepy ‘social credit’ system — here’s what you can do wrong, and the embarrassing, demeaning ways they can punish you,” where Ma writes,

    The Chinese state is setting up a vast ranking system that will monitor the behavior of its enormous population, and rank them all based on their “social credit.”

    The “social credit system,” first announced in 2014, aims to reinforce the idea that “keeping trust is glorious and breaking trust is disgraceful,” according to a government document.

    The program is due to be fully operational nationwide by 2020, but is being piloted for millions of people across the country already. The scheme will be mandatory.

    At the moment the system is piecemeal — some are run by city councils, others are scored by private tech platforms which hold personal data.

    Like private credit scores, a person’s social score can move up and down depending on their behavior. The exact methodology is a secret — but examples of infractions include bad driving, smoking in non-smoking zones, buying too many video games and posting fake news online. (source)

    The article points out that violating the “social code,” can result in being banned from flying or using the train, using the internet, decent schooling, getting a job, staying in hotels, and having your pet taken away. China is also taking advantage of the mob mentality by branding violators as “bad citizens.”

    Almost everyone one of these “punishments” have already taken place in China as of the writing of this article and the country has announced its plans to have the system fully in place and functioning by 2020.

    The most frightening part? That system is coming HERE. Soon.

    While most Americans have scarcely noticed their descent into a police state, they are quick to dismiss the idea that such a system could be implemented in the land they still perceive to be free. However, all the moving parts are in place in the United States. They only need to come together to form the Social Credit System here.

    And they are coming together.

    Social media is one important method of judging “social scores.” This is mainly because of the willful posting of social media users on virtually every aspect of their lives. This data is extremely useful to governments who monitor and store the information acquired freely by users who give away the most personal and intimate details of their lives and do so without charge.

    Whether it is political opinions, pictures of yourself and your food, or private conversations over Messenger, that data is being sent directly to the corporation and respective governments then have access to that data via a variety of means and they put that data to good use.

    But despite the fact that social media acts as a giant web, snatching users information and acting as a useful tool of NGOs and governments in engineering social movements and human behavior, major social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter have become ubiquitous and common. They are nearly as essential communication tools for the 21st Century as telephones were for the 20th.

    The Social Credit System goes along with the dark side of social media.

    This is also despite the fact that social media has been proven to make its users depressed, angry, and less social. Much like any other drug, however, social media is addictive, causing real-world loss of quality of life while the user simply cannot tear himself away even when he knows it is best for him to do so. For that reason, it appears social media, whatever platform it may take, is here to stay. It’s also an important part of the structure of the coming technological control grid.

    But beyond the negative effects social media has on the mind of the individual or in the creation of top-down social movements, the “internet mob mentality” has now become a fact of American life. Any celebrity, business owner, or just a regular person can be subject to digital flash mobbing simply as a result of a 2-second picture ( see the MAGA hat kids or the Chipotle girl, for instance) where a person’s reputation is destroyed, their job/business is lost, or their career is over as a result of virtue signaling and “outrage” by masses of people on the internet who are simply following what they believe the rest of the herd is doing. We are in the age of digital lynchings. It doesn’t matter whether the victim was truly wrong. What matters is that he/she is punished as harshly as possible.

    The Social Credit System goes along with the move to a cashless society.

    And then we must address the coming cashless society. Indeed, we already live in a world that is replacing cash with digital currency. In some cases, the move to become cashless is made by social engineering and predatory marketing to convenience. In others, such as India, the cashless society has been brought forward by law.

    As I have written in many articles in the past, cashless programs are almost always first introduced under the guise of convenience. Then, as more and more people take the bait, the older methods of payment are seen as cumbersome and, eventually, are phased out completely. Mandates then replace what was once a personal choice.

    Yet, what is so ironic about these programs is that, while the program is touted as providing so much more convenience, even when putting privacy and Cashless Society issues aside and, with the program running at its optimum, they aren’t often really much more convenient.

    But that doesn’t stop the rollouts and it certainly doesn’t stop the mandates. It’s as if people believe that masses of scientists, corporations, and DARPA are putting their noses to the grindstone for their convenience and not some other purpose. Do we really believe that those organizations have, as their top priority, our health, freedom, convenience, or happiness? Do we really believe this or do we just not think about it at all?

    Regardless, with the disappearance of cash also goes the ability to live outside the mandates of the State which has always been the goal of moving toward a cashless system. The United States is rapidly approaching the phase out of cash as a means of exchange. Don’t believe it? Just go to your local convenience store with a $100 dollar bill.

    Enter the Universal Basic Income scheme.

    Then there’s Universal Basic Income. The UBI has been tossed around as a legitimate solution to poverty and violation of workers’ rights for some time. It’s an old idea and even establishment philosophers/activists like Bertrand Russell espoused it in the early 20th Century. But while economists debate the idea’s success in regards to those two issues, no one seems to notice how the UBI, taken in concert with cashless society and social media addiction, will coalesce to produce just the world mentioned at the beginning of this article.

    Without getting into the details of why a UBI is a bad idea in terms of society and economics, it is still useful to point out that the building blocks of the technological control grid are already in place and, with a UBI, those building blocks form a rather solid foundation.

    Here’s how the Social Credit System is already being used in America.

    With the ubiquitous presence of social media and the current culture of social media outrage, the social credit scheme is already in place. The State only needs to implement a coherent strategy that is no doubt itself already in place and merely waiting to be rolled out. Already, employers are able to check prospective employees’ credit scores on a condition of hiring and many now require social media passwords for the same reason. The SCS is right around the corner.

    Pair the SCS with the UBI, however, and you can easily see how the SCS can be the litmus test for whether or not you receive your “benefits.” This means that, in the very near future, we will see someone who dares say something politically incorrect, makes a bad financial decision, or drinks before 10 am, literally frozen out of society.

    If the government (or some private corporation) is in charge of doling out your “benefits” and the government/corporation is in charge of rating your social credit, what do we think is going to happen to violators? Already, governments are cutting social safety net payments to individuals who do not meet what those governments deem to be “acceptable” healthcare decisions. Similar schemes are in place where recipients are drug tested as part of the requirement for receiving “benefits.”

    This is how society progresses into totalitarianism, by the way.

    There are no doubt some readers of this article who were horrified at the society described within it but who then reached the paragraph above and justified the methods currently used against “welfare families.” The truth is that those readers are just another step in bringing this system about.

    Now a younger generation is being used for the same purposes, manipulated by social engineers and reinforced by the generation before them, of bringing in the technological control grid, one giant leap at a time.

    Of course, many people who read dire predictions such as these may be tempted to laugh at the idea that such a system could be implemented in the United States, one thing is for sure – the Chinese aren’t laughing. And we shouldn’t be either.

  • 10,000 Legal California Marijuana Growers In Jeopardy As State Faces Pot "Extinction Event"

    The cannabis industry in California could be heading for an “extinction event” if a new law granting extensions on temporary licenses doesn’t pass, according to a Sacramento Bee article. This would (obviously) contrast with the optimistic outlook for the potential multibillion industry that has been so widely reported on and followed over the last few years, as the rest of the nation watches California for cues on marijuana legislation.

    California lawmakers are on the hook to pass Senate Bill 67, designed to grant about 10,000 marijuana growers extensions to their licenses in the coming months. The bill has been sponsored by Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg.

    McGuire recently said in a hearing:

    “The bottom line is this: This bill is going to protect thousands of cannabis farmers, in particular, who did the right thing and applied for a state license after the passage of Prop. 64 but their temporary license is about to expire.”

    As a result of Proposition 64, California regulatory agencies were allowed to grant cannabis businesses a temporary license that was good for 120 days, and that would be eligible for a 90 day extension. A temporary license holder also had the option to apply for a one-year provisional license, in the event of unanticipated delays in becoming compliant with the California Environmental Quality Act.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The point was to allow growers to work while working on applying for their permanent license. But this has contrasted with the state’s (lack of) action, which has only granted “just a handful” of provisional and annual licenses. Only 52 full annual licenses have been issued out of more than 6900 applications that were sent to the California Department of Farm and Agriculture.

    Many of the temporary licenses are already starting to expire and the deadline to apply for an extension, December 31, 2018, has already passed. This means that state law needs to change, otherwise these temporary license holders will technically wind up operating illegally again.

    The new proposed legislation will grant a one-year extension to the deadline, pushing it to December 31, 2019.

    McGuire continued:

     “This is the worst way to transition a multibillion-dollar agricultural crop, which employs thousands of Californians. Without legal licenses, there isn’t a legal, regulated market in California. In a time where the Golden State is working overtime to bring the cannabis industry out of the black market and into the light of a legal regulatory environment. We can’t afford to let good actors who want to comply with state law fall out of our regulated market just because timelines are too short and departments have been unable to process applications in time due to the sheer number of applications.”

    Jackie McGowan, whose firm K Street Consulting represents the cannabis industry in California, said: 

    “We’ve named these ‘extinction events. This bill is a bill that the industry is very anxious to see passed.”

    Terra Carver, executive director for the Humboldt County Growers Alliance commented:

    “If nothing is done, there will be dire consequences such as imminent market collapse of hundreds of businesses in the region and through the state.”

  • Researcher Warns: Algos Are "Using And Even Controlling Us!"

    Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

    One researcher is warning everyone that  “we are setting ourselves up for technological domination.” Dionysios Demetis warned that algorithms are “using and even controlling” human beings.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Humans are surrounded by algorithms and one researcher is not all that thrilled about the future prospects of technology and its grip on humanity. 

    “Our exploration led us to the conclusion that, over time, the roles of information technology and humans have been reversed,” Demetis, a professor at the Center for Systems Studies at Hull University in Yorkshire England, wrote in an essay for The Conversation. 

    “In the past, we humans used technology as a tool. Now, technology has advanced to the point where it is using and even controlling us.”

    This is not the first time Demetis has tried to warn humanity of the problems with advanced technology either. Demetis built on a paper he published last year with Allen Lee, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, in the Journal of the Association for Information Systems. The researcher also contends that we are in fact “deeply affected by them in unpredictable ways,” and humans made it that way. 

     “We have progressively restricted our own decision-making capacity and allowed algorithms to take over.”

    Demetis says that the worst case scenario would be a complete takeover of machines and artificial intelligence.  Already, most of the trading in foreign exchange markets is determined by algorithms that call the shots within tiny fractions of a second as opposes to humans, who are now seen as an “impediment.”

     “The people running the trading system had come to see human decisions as an obstacle to market efficiency,” Demetis wrote. Lawyers are also being replaced by artificial intelligence and some recruiters have an over-reliance on third-party tools to “weed out bad candidates.”

    This can set up humanity for a bleak and dystopian future where we will have no control over anything – machines will make all of our decisions for us.  “We need to decide, while we still can, what this means for us both as individuals and as a society.”

  • Housing Slump: Foreclosure Activity Jumps In Austin, Miami, San Diego, And Seattle

    ATTOM Data Solutions noticed that 60 of the 220 major U.S. metropolitan areas posted a y/y increase in foreclosure activity in January 2019, an ominous sign of deceleration in the housing market. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    According to the report, the hardest hit areas in January include Orlando, Florida (up 72% y/y); Austin, Texas (up 60% y/y); Miami, Florida (up 41% y/y); San Diego, California (up 12% y/y); and Seattle, Washington (up 10% y/y). 

    Across the U.S., a total of 29,382 U.S. properties started foreclosure proceedings in January, up more than 4% from the previous month and 2% from January 2018. January marked the second consecutive month with a y/y increase in foreclosure starts.

    More than two dozen states including Washington, D.C. posted annual increases in foreclosure starts. States with the highest activity include Florida (up 91% y/y); Texas (up 50% y/y); Washington (up 41% y/y); Hawaii (up 31% y/y); and Arizona (up 28% y/y).

    Mortgage companies repossessed 12,228 homes through foreclosure (REO) in January 2019, up 18% from the previous month but down 54% from 2018. The report notes that repossessions have moved higher for the third consecutive month with an overall y/y decrease. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Zerohedge readers have been well informed on recent housing market gyrations that could undoubtedly make 2019 one of the worst years for real estate in quite some time. Homeowners are struggling to sell their homes as inventory floods that market – forcing prices lower amid higher mortgage rates. Housing affordability continues to plague millions who have been priced out of starter homes. All this comes as the U.S. is expected to rapidly slow as recession fears soar. 

  • A College "Education" Has Little To Do With Education

    Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

    An old friend of mine, who taught political science for 25 years at the University of Colorado, was known to tell his students that the real reason they were there was to marry people from the right social class.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    While perhaps a little overly cynical, this assessment certainly wasn’t totally wrong. Few parents have ever been overly concerned with the supposed education their children receive at a University like CU. The real concern has primarily been the receipt of a degree from a respectable – although not “elite” in the case of CU – university. And, whether they are consciously aware of it or not, an additional benefit has been to ensure that little Susie and little Johnny also become accustomed to the social mores and habits of a certain socio-economic class.

    Even if Susie doesn’t meet a doctor at college, it’s still best to send Susie to a place where she learns to socialize and interact with the sorts of people who will eventually become doctors and engineers and successful business people. When one is finished with his or her “education,” one has a nice degree to show for it, plus a social circle comprised of  presumably soon-to-be-successful people.

    So, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that it turns out rich Hollywood actors with intellectually and academically mediocre children have become obsessed with getting their children into high-status colleges. They employ bribes and fake test scores to purchase what they’ve always been able to purchase otherwise: a stylish consumer product, which is essentially all a college degree is for most people.

    In a certain way, one has to admire these corrupt, cheating parents because they are too savvy to buy the nonsense that the higher education industry has been peddling for decades.

    As ridiculous as it sounds, there are still people in higher education who spout quaint theories about “liberal education” and how college is a time for self-reflection and becoming “immersed in the great books of the Western Tradition,” and so on.

    There is surely a tiny minority of college students who actually believe this — many of whom grow up to become professional students and college faculty — but college has long been largely about certification.

    While universities were founded in the Christendom of the middle ages with some lofty goals, the vast majority of families who sent their young people to universities didn’t share these goals. They sent their children to universities to attain degrees in subjects like canon law which afforded to the family greater social status and perhaps a coveted job in church or secular government.

    Yes, actually teaching certain skills has been important some of the time. Many of today’s oldest and most venerated universities, for example, were founded to train clergymen. Harvard University, after all, was created to deal with the problem of “an illiterate ministry,” was was thought to be all too common in colonial America. But by the nineteenth century, American universities had been converted to a broader model of education in which specific skills became less important, and the attainment of a degree became more important.

    Over time, training in other professions, such as secular legal studies, became important goals for colleges and universities, largely because the middle classes saw this sort of training as a ticket to prosperity.  Rarely was a college education sold to the middle classes as an exercise in intellectual self improvement or gaining an appreciation of Virgil and Dante. But even then, the educational aspects of a college “education” weren’t the most important part of the experience. Training could often be attained on-the-job in law as in other professions. The college degree, on the other hand, was valuable because it communicated a certain elite status.

    And this is what the middle classes really wanted most. After all, it’s hard to imagine an 1830s middle-class family patriarch, slaving away at the family shipping business, and scraping together tuition money for junior just so he can go have deep thoughts about the implications of the Peloponnesian War.

    On the other hand, there’s no doubt that the upper classes could afford more navel-gazing. Indeed, by the mid nineteenth century, American universities had adopted the ideas of the upper classes from England decades before: that universities are there to prepare members of the elite for “leadership” and “service” by making them broad-minded intellectuals.

    That, however, was never more than a boutique sort of education for the sons of the already-established elites.

    But if that vision of higher education ever reflected reality, it certainly doesn’t now. The idea that students go to college to attain a broad and liberal view of humanity and human history appears almost laughable today. Outside of the college programs that provide real professionally-relevant job skills, such as in engineering and computer science, a college education offers little more than daily recapitulation in learning the ideological views of today’s intellectual class. Outside a narrow worldview shared by a tiny elite of humanities and social science professors, very little is taught at all.

    Wealthy Hollywood types, being relentless and cynical social climbers, likely figured this out years ago. So they’ve now zeroed in on getting out of college all that college has to offer to someone who doesn’t have the intellectual chops to major in electrical engineering: a piece of paper that helps sustain membership in elite social circles.

  • NZ Threatens 10 Years In Prison For 'Possessing' Mosque Shooting Video; Web Hosts Warned, 'Dissenter' Banned

    New Zealand authorities have reminded citizens that they face up to 10 years in prison for “knowingly” possessing a copy of the New Zealand mosque shooting video – and up to 14 years in prison for sharing it. Corporations (such as web hosts) face an additional $200,000 ($137,000 US) fine under the same law. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Terrorist Brenton Tarrant used Facebook Live to broadcast the first 17 minutes of his attack on the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand at approximately 1:40 p.m. on Friday – the first of two mosque attacks which left 50 dead and 50 injured. 

    Copies of Tarrant’s livestream, along with his lengthy manifesto, began to rapidly circulate on various file hosting sites following the attack, which as we noted Friday – were quickly scrubbed from mainstream platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Scribd. YouTube has gone so far as to intentionally disable search filters so that people cannot find Christchurch shooting materials – including footage of suspected multiple shooters as well as the arrest of Tarrant and other suspects. 

    On Saturday, journalist Nick Monroe reported that New Zealand police have warned citizens that they face imprisonment for distributing the video, while popular New Zealand Facebook group Wellington Live notes that “NZ police would like to remind the public that it is an offence to share an objectional publication which includes the horrific video from yesterday’s attack. If you see this video, report it immediately. Do not download it. Do not share it. If you are found to have a copy of the video or to have shared it, you face fines & potential imprisonment.“

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

    Dissenter blocked in New Zealand

    Along with the censorship of online materials and investigation of content sharing platforms such as BitChute and 8chan – where the shooter posted a link to the livestream of his attack, social discussion service Dissenter has been blocked in New Zealand. Created by the people behind Twitter competitor Gab.ai – Dissenter is a browser extension which pops up a third-party comments section for any website where people can discuss content outside of the control of the website owner. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    On Saturday, Gab’s official accounts (@gab and @getongab) reported that “New Zealand ISPs have banned dissenter.com until it is “censorship compliant.””

    Update: Shortly after this article published, we were informed that ZeroHedge is unable to be reached by Votafone customers.

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

    Milo banned

    Meanwhile, far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos was banned from Australia in the wake of the New Zealand shootings after he said on Facebook that attacks like Christchurch happen because “the establishment panders to and mollycoddles extremist leftism and barbaric, alien religious cultures.”

    Australia’s immigration minister, David Coleman, said in a Saturday statement that Yiannopoulos’s comments were “appalling and forment hatred and division,” adding “Milo Yiannopoulos will not be allowed to enter Australia for his proposed tour this year.” 

    UK man arrested

    While the Christchurch attacks were utterly reprehensible, supporting them is now punishable in the United Kingdom. On Saturday afternoon, a 24-year-old man from Oldham was arrested on suspicion of sending malicious communications in support of the mosque attacks. It is unclear what he is alleged to have written. 

    The Greater Manchester Police said in a statement that they “became aware of a post on social media making reference and support for the terrible events in New Zealand,” adding “Police have made urgent enquiries and a man aged 24 from the Oldham area is now under arrest on suspicion of sending malicious communications.”

    “It is clear that people are worried and we really understand that… It is truly terrible what happened yesterday. It is hard to put into any form of words,” said Assistant Chief Constable Russ Jackson, who added “We have nothing to suggest any threat locally, but none of this can diminish how people feel and that is why we want to be there to offer more support at this difficult time.”

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

  • Firearms Registration Act Introduced In Pennsylvania

    Authored by John Crump via AmmoLand.com,

    A new bill introduced in Pennsylvania would establish a gun registry within the state.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    HB0768 is known as the Firearms Registration Act. The Democrats that introduced the bill were Mary Louise Isaacson (D), Angel Cruz (D), and Mary Jo Daley (D). Last Friday, the General Assembly referred the bill to the committee on judiciary.

    The bill would require gun owners in the Keystone State to register their firearms with the Pennsylvania State Police. Owners would have to provide the police with the make, model, and the serial numbers of all their guns.

    Along with the application that the gun owner must swear to under oath, the gun owner would have to submit fingerprints, two photographs that are no older than 30 days and go through a background check for each firearm that they own. This background check is the same one that they must go through to purchase a gun.

    In addition to this requirement, they must also provide the Pennsylvania State Police with their home and work address, telephone number, social security number, date of birth, age, sex, and citizenship. This requirement is more information than a person needs to vote.

    If the State Police rejects the person’s application, then they will have ten days to appeal the decision. The owner must turn their firearms into the State Police within three days of receiving notification of the rejection. If a person does not appeal the decision within ten days, their right is forfeit.

    A gun owner cannot transfer any unregistered firearm. Anyone caught with an unregistered gun is guilty of a crime even if they are unaware of the firearm registration status. Also just holding an unregistered firearm at a range is a crime.

    The gun owner must keep all firearms unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock. If a firearms owner doesn’t secure their firearm that way, they would be guilty of a crime. This rule even applies to homes with no children.

    The gun owner has 48 hours to update the State Police if they change jobs, phone numbers, addresses, or anything else on the application. If they do not update the State Police, then they could be prosecuted for violating the law.

    The certificate which will cost $10 per firearm will expire after one year. The gun owner would have to start the process over again to renew their certification. This process must be done 60 days before the certificate expires. The procedure can get confusing for gun owners with large collections.

    The bill makes no mention of how the state will enforce the law.

    Other states that have tried gun registration and bans have seen limited success. New Jersey has had zero magazines turned in since their magazine ban went into effect.

    New York saw nearly one million firearms owners defy the state law to register their “assault weapons.” The same thing played out in Connecticut when only 50,000 out of 350,000 registered their semi-automatic rifles.

    Expanding a registry to all firearms will be impossible to enforce without conducting door to door searches of houses. It is unclear how these Democrats plan to deal with this reality.

    None of the bill’s sponsor responded to our request for comment.

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Mar 16

Today’s News 16th March 2019

  • Pity The Nation: War Spending Is Bankrupting America

    Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “Pity the nation whose people are sheep

    And whose shepherds mislead them

    Pity the nation whose leaders are liars

    Whose sages are silenced

    And whose bigots haunt the airwaves

    Pity the nation that raises not its voice

    Except to praise conquerors

    And acclaim the bully as hero

    And aims to rule the world

    By force and by torture…

    Pity the nation oh pity the people

    who allow their rights to erode

    and their freedoms to be washed away…”

    —Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet

    War spending is bankrupting America.

    Our nation is being preyed upon by a military industrial complex that is propped up by war profiteers, corrupt politicians and foreign governments.

    America has so much to offer—creativity, ingenuity, vast natural resources, a rich heritage, a beautifully diverse populace, a freedom foundation unrivaled anywhere in the world, and opportunities galore—and yet our birthright is being sold out from under us so that power-hungry politicians, greedy military contractors, and bloodthirsty war hawks can make a hefty profit at our expense.

    Don’t be fooled into thinking that your hard-earned tax dollars are being used for national security and urgent military needs.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    It’s all a ruse.

    You know what happens to tax dollars that are left over at the end of the government’s fiscal year? Government agencies—including the Department of Defense—go on a “use it or lose it” spending spree so they can justify asking for money in the next fiscal year.

    We’re not talking chump change, either.

    We’re talking $97 billion worth of wasteful spending.

    According to an investigative report by Open the Government, among the items purchased during the last month of the fiscal year when government agencies go all out to get rid of these “use it or lose it” funds: Wexford Leather club chair ($9,241), china tableware ($53,004), alcohol ($308,994), golf carts ($673,471), musical equipment including pianos, tubas, and trombones ($1.7 million), lobster tail and crab ($4.6 million), iPhones and iPads ($7.7 million), and workout and recreation equipment ($9.8 million).

    So much for draining the swamp.

    Anyone who suggests that the military needs more money is either criminally clueless or equally corrupt, because the military isn’t suffering from lack of funding—it’s suffering from lack of proper oversight.

    Where President Trump fits into that scenario, you decide.

    Trump may turn out to be, as policy analyst Stan Collender warned, “the biggest deficit- and debt-increasing president of all time.”

    Rest assured, however, that if Trump gets his way—to the tune of a $4.7 trillion budget that digs the nation deeper in debt to foreign creditors, adds $750 billion for the military budget, and doubles the debt growththat Trump once promised to erase—the war profiteers (and foreign banks who “own” our debt) will be raking in a fortune while America goes belly up.

    This is basic math, and the numbers just don’t add up.

    As it now stands, the U.S. government is operating in the negative on every front: it’s spending far more than what it makes (and takes from the American taxpayers) and it is borrowing heavily (from foreign governments and Social Security) to keep the government operating and keep funding its endless wars abroad.

    Certainly, nothing about the way the government budgets its funds puts America’s needs first.

    The nation’s educational system is pathetic (young people are learning nothing about their freedoms or their government). The infrastructure is antiquated and growing more outdated by the day. The health system is overpriced and inaccessible to those who need it most. The supposedly robust economy is belied by the daily reports of businesses shuttering storefronts and declaring bankruptcy. And our so-called representative government is a sham.

    If this is a formula for making America great again, it’s not working.

    The White House wants taxpayers to accept that the only way to reduce the nation’s ballooning deficit is by cutting “entitlement” programs such as Social Security and Medicare, yet the glaring economic truth is that at the end of the day, it’s the military industrial complex—and not the sick, the elderly or the poor—that is pushing America towards bankruptcy.

    We have become a debtor nation, and the government is sinking us deeper into debt with every passing day that it allows the military industrial complex to call the shots.

    Simply put, the government cannot afford to maintain its over-extended military empire.

    “Money is the new 800-pound gorilla,” remarked a senior administration official involved in Afghanistan. “It shifts the debate from ‘Is the strategy working?’ to ‘Can we afford this?’ And when you view it that way, the scope of the mission that we have now is far, far less defensible.” Or as one commentator noted, “Foreclosing the future of our country should not be confused with defending it.”

    To be clear, the U.S government’s defense spending is about one thing and one thing only: establishing and maintaining a global military empire.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Then there’s the cost of maintaining and staffing the 1000-plus U.S. military bases spread around the worldand policing the globe with 1.3 million U.S. troops stationed in 177 countries (over 70% of the countries worldwide).

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

    The U.S. government is spending money it doesn’t have on a military empire it can’t afford.

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

    War is not cheap, but it becomes outrageously costly when you factor in government incompetence, fraud, and greedy contractors.

    As The Nation reports:

    For decades, the DoD’s leaders and accountants have been perpetrating a gigantic, unconstitutional accounting fraud, deliberately cooking the books to mislead the Congress and drive the DoD’s budgets ever higher, regardless of military necessity. DoD has literally been making up numbers in its annual financial reports to Congress—representing trillions of dollars’ worth of seemingly nonexistent transactions—knowing that Congress would rely on those misleading reports when deciding how much money to give the DoD the following year.

    For example, a leading accounting firm concluded that one of the Pentagon’s largest agencies “can’t account for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of spending.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Those who call the shots in the government—those who push the military industrial complex’s agenda—those who make a killing by embroiling the U.S. in foreign wars—have not heeded Johnson’s warning.

    The U.S. government is not making American citizens any safer. The repercussions of America’s military empire have been deadly, not only for those innocent men, women and children killed by drone strikes abroad but also those here in the United States.

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

    The transformation of America into a battlefield is blowback.

    All of this carnage is being carried out with the full support of the American people, or at least with the proxy that is our taxpayer dollars.

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

    As Martin Luther King Jr. recognized, under a military empire, war and its profiteering will always take precedence over the people’s basic human needs.

    Similarly, President Dwight Eisenhower warned us not to let the profit-driven war machine endanger our liberties or democratic processes.

    “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. […] Is there no other way the world may live?”

    We failed to heed Eisenhower’s warning.

    The illicit merger of the armaments industry and the government that Eisenhower warned against has come to represent perhaps the greatest threat to the nation today.

    It’s not sustainable, of course.

    Eventually, inevitably, military empires fall and fail by spreading themselves too thin and spending themselves to death.

    It happened in Rome. It’s happening again.

    The America empire is already breaking down.

    We’re already witnessing a breakdown of society on virtually every front, and the government is ready.

    For years now, the government has worked with the military to prepare for widespread civil unrest brought about by “economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters.”

    For years now, the government has been warning against the dangers of domestic terrorism, erecting surveillance systems to monitor its own citizens, creating classification systems to label any viewpoints that challenge the status quo as extremist, and training law enforcement agencies to equate anyone possessing anti-government views as a domestic terrorist.

    We’re approaching critical mass.

    As long as “we the people” continue to allow the government to wage its costly, meaningless, endless wars abroad, the American homeland will continue to suffer: our roads will crumble, our bridges will fail, our schools will fall into disrepair, our drinking water will become undrinkable, our communities will destabilize, our economy will tank, crime will rise, and our freedoms will suffer.

    So who will save us?

    As I make clear in my book, Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we’d better start saving ourselves: one by one, neighbor to neighbor, through grassroots endeavors, by pushing back against the police state where it most counts—in our communities first and foremost, and by holding fast to what binds us together and not allowing politics and other manufactured nonrealities to tear us apart.

    Start today. Start now. Do your part.

    Literally and figuratively, the buck starts and stops with “we the people.”

  • Australians Are Furious About Google's Delivery Drone

    Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. is on the verge of launching what the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) says will be the world’s first commercial drone delivery service in Australia. 

    Wing, a subsidiary of Alphabet has been testing its drone delivery service over Bonython, a suburb of Tuggeranong, a township in southern Canberra. The year-long trial, called Project Wing, wrapped up last week; now the company is planning for a commercial launch in June.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Wing says its drones will be able to deliver small items, such as food and medication, but residents of Canberra, where the program was tested and will soon be ready for commercial flight, are furious about drones buzzing above.

    Here is how Wing’s drone works 

    Alphabet and Wing are expected to face a fierce fight before the delivery program takes off, according to ABC.

    In response to the public backlash, Wing recently tested a quieter version of its delivery drone.

    “We’re trying to be as transparent and as open as we can,” Project Wing CEO James Burgess told the Canberra Times.

    Many Bonython residents told local Government officials the invasive drones had brought people to madness, and residents told police if the government did not intervene, they would shoot the drones out of the sky.

    “It is not inevitable, if the Government can be convinced that the great majority of Canberrans don’t want it,” local Neville Sheather said.

    Sheather leads Bonython Against Drones, a group that is trying to stop the progress of Alphabet and Wing from commercializing the delivery service.

     

    Even some advocates of drones, like Professor Roger Clarke, have said Project Wing had developed too quickly.

    “We’ve got to get the different segments of the public represented in these discussions, and they haven’t been,” Professor Clarke said.

    Clarke said Project Wing had been rushed through testing and is not following the traditional process of assessing new technologies.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    “Things fall out of the sky, it’s quite hard to get drones to work properly, it’s quite hard to deal with drones when they lose communications … we should be treating it that way and applying the precautionary principle and getting out ahead of the problem.”

    Australian Capital Territory Minister Andrew Barr denied claims the government was allowing Project Wing to be expedited during the testing phase. 

    Instead, he warned that if Canberra and its residents did not accept the drone delivery service, it would fall behind the technological curve.

    “Our choice is are we involved, are we trialing, are we engaging, are we finding ways to make this technology work in a way that benefits people, or are we just going to sit back and let it happen?” he said.

    Wing and Google are currently waiting for government approval to begin their next test in Gungahlin, limited to five suburbs: Crace, Palmerston, Franklin, Gungahlin, and Mitchell.

    The company expects to start drone deliveries midway this year.

    Just wait until drone delivery services come to the US. The public backlash will be much worse.

  • A Skeptic's Guide To The Russiagate Fixation

    Authored by Aaron Maté via TheNation.com,

    Robert Mueller has yet to allege collusion, and Democrats who accuse Trump of being a Kremlin conspirator are silent when his policies escalate tensions with Russia…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    As we await the rumored delivery of special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report, it is looking increasingly unlikely that the document will allege a Trump-Russia conspiracy. To date, Mueller’s numerous indictments and voluminous court filings have not accused a single American of collusion with Russia. And, tellingly, prominent media and political voices, who have spent two years raising expectations that Mueller will find collusion, are now quietly moving the goalposts.

    A significant hurdle in the hunt for collusion is that every close associate to “flip” on President Donald Trump has stated that they did not witness it.

    In his recent congressional testimony, former Trump fixer Michael Cohen said that he has seen no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, and knocked down several pillars of the conjecture surrounding it. In re-avowing that he has never been to Prague, Cohen rebuked a central claim of the Steele dossier that he traveled there to pay off Russian hackers. Cohen’s denial deals a serious blow to the credibility of the dossier’s author, Christopher Steele. It also underscores the credulousness of FBI officials, members of Congress, and the many news outlets that relied on and amplified Steele’s material. Cohen also poured cold water on suspicions fueled by Steele that Russians have compromising material on Trump.

    There are differing perspectives on how Cohen addressed another “bombshell” at which he was at the center. In January, Buzzfeed Newsreported that Mueller has evidence that President Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress about the failed Trump Tower real-estate project in Moscow. The story triggered wall-to-wall news coverage until Mueller’s office issued an unprecedented statement that called Buzzfeed’s reporting “not accurate.” Cohen echoed Mueller’s denial by asserting that “Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress.” When pressed on why he never corrected the Buzzfeed story and the multiple outlets that echoed it, Cohen responded, “We are not the fact-checkers for BuzzFeed.”

    Buzzfeed nonetheless claimed vindication because Cohen also told Congress that he had lied after inferring from Trump’s public and private statements that the president wanted him to. Buzzfeed’s editor in chief, Ben Smith, argued that Cohen had confirmed the story because one of its “core central pieces” was that “Cohen thought he had been told to lie.” But that is not what Buzzfeed had originally reported: The story claimed—and prompted impeachment talk as a result—that Trump had suborned perjury by “explicitly telling [Cohen] to lie” and because he “personally instructed [Cohen] to lie.” Assigning those actions directly to Trump hardly conforms to Cohen’s explanation that he had merely intuited or interpreted Trump’s intentions.

    However one construes Cohen’s comments, his testimony also undercut the innuendo and conjecturetriggered by reports that the Trump Organization planned to offer Vladimir Putin a $50 million penthouse apartment. Cohen dismissed it as “a marketing stunt” proposed by his colleague Felix Sater, and deflated speculation that Trump was involved.

    As Cohen fails to offer a collusion smoking gun, proponents of the collusion theory continue to hope one emerges in the case of former campaign chair Paul Manafort. In January, it emerged that Mueller has accused Manafort of lying to his team about sharing Trump polling data with his Ukrainian-Russian fixer, Konstantin Kilimnik, at some point during the 2016 campaign. According to Mueller, the FBI assesses that Kilimnik has an unspecified “relationship with Russian intelligence.” The alleged lie, a Mueller prosecutor told the court, goes to “the heart” of the special counsel’s mandate.

    No indictments have resulted from this issue, and it makes no appearance in Mueller’s two sentencing memos in Manafort’s case. There is also the fact that, although sharing polling data with a Russian associate could theoretically go to “the heart” of the Mueller probe, Manafort’s actual case has nothing to do with it. As Virginia Judge T.S. Ellis noted at Manafort’s first sentencing last week, Manafort “is not before this court for anything having to do with collusion with the Russian government.” Manafort was instead accused and convicted of financial crimes stemming from his lobbying work in Ukraine. In sharing the polling data, The New York Timesnoted, Manafort “might have hoped that any proof he was managing a winning candidate would help him collect money he claimed to be owed for his work on behalf of the Ukrainian parties.”

    If the the polling data is evidence of Trump-Russian collusion, or even if Kilimnik is an actual Russian intelligence official, then Mueller has yet to allege it. Manafort’s attorneys previously asked Mueller for any discovery showing contacts between Manafort and “Russian intelligence officials,” but were told that “there are no materials responsive to [those] requests.” The DC judge overseeing the case, Amy Berman Jackson, says, “Whether Kilimnik is tied to Russian intelligence or he’s not… I have not been provided with the evidence that I would need to decide.” Jackson has only ruled that Manafort’s alleged lie is material to the scope of Mueller’s inquiry. The language in Mueller’s appointment order, she ruled, “is sufficiently broad to get over the relatively low hurdle of materiality in this instance.”

    That makes any relevance of the polling-data issue to collusion entirely speculative, but that is not how it has been treated. Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, dubbed Manafort’s sharing of polling data “the closest we’ve seen yet to real, live, actual collusion.” If Warner is correct, then his assessment only makes clear just how far the Russia probe remains from actual collusion.

    Warner’s House Intelligence counterpart, Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), does not fare better. Asked by CBS News if he has “direct evidence” of Trump-Russia collusion, Schiff cited the infamous e-mail sent by music publicist Rob Goldstone offering Donald Trump Jr. compromising information about Hillary Clinton on the Russian government’s behalf. But by Goldstone’s own account, his overture to Trump Jr. was “publicist puff,” and his claims of Russian government support for Trump were invented out of thin air: “I had no idea what I was talking about,” he told NPR last year. To date, Mueller has given us no reason to challenge that assessment. Goldstone and every other participant in the Trump Tower meeting has been questioned by Congress or Mueller; none have faced any charges related to it. In short, if Goldstone’s letter is “direct evidence” of a crime, Mueller has yet to allege it.

    If this is the most damning evidence that the Democrats’ top Russia investigators can adduce, it is no wonder that the bipartisan Senate Intelligence probe has “uncovered no direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia,” as NBC News reported last month. And amid rumblings that Mueller is wrapping up his investigation, it is also no wonder that Schiff and others who have ceaselessly promoted the Trump-Russia collusion theory are preparing their audiences for a letdown.

    While insisting that there is “pretty compelling evidence” of collusion, Schiff now hedges by cautioning that Democrats should not attempt to impeach Trump “in the absence of very graphic evidence.” Asked by ABC News if he would accept it if Mueller “says definitively we find no collusion,” Representative Jerry Nadler (D-NY) said that we can “agree or disagree. But this investigation goes far beyond collusion.” After two years of our hearing about the “beginning of the end” for Trump, several outlets now proclaim that it’s in fact “the end of the beginning.” CNN legal analyst Renato Marrioti instructs his followers that “Mueller’s report will almost certainly disappoint you, and it’s not his fault. It’s your fault for buying into Trump’s false narrative that it is Mueller’s job to prove ‘collusion.’” It certainly cannot be the fault of pundits like himself who have argued that “collusion” has already been established, or even charged.

    Both Schiff and Nadler have now launched what two major outlets have described as “turbocharged” and “supercharged” congressional probes of Trump’s ties to Russia and alleged corruption. Perhaps they will uncover evidence that federal investigators have missed. Given that both probes are covering ground that the exhaustive and more powerful Mueller inquiry has already traversed, it would be wise not to get our hopes up.

    Caution seems all the more prudent as Trump-Russia innuendo continues to overshadow the very real dangers in US-Russia relations. There has been a noted absence of media and political pushback (with some exceptions) to Trump’s withdrawing the United States from the INF Treaty with Russia, despite the increasing threat of a renewed arms race between the two Cold War powers. The Trump administration is escalating its opposition to the Nord Stream 2, a massive German-Russia pipeline project, by reportedly preparing to impose sanctions on it. More than two-dozen Senate Democrats have endorsed a bill that joins Trump in calling for the project’s cancellation. Trump’s ongoing coup attempt against Russia’s ally Venezuela has not only received a tepid Democratic response (also with some exceptions), but even support from party stalwarts including Representatives Schiff (CA), Nancy Pelosi (CA), Eliot Engel (NY), former vice president Joe Biden, former president Bill Clinton, and Senators Chuck Schumer (NY) and Dick Durbin (IL).

    Democratic support for the hawkish foreign policy of a Republican White House is nothing new. The current dynamic, however, is unprecedented. Democrats and their media partisans frequently accuse the president of being soft on Russia or even a Kremlin conspirator, while simultaneously falling silent—or even offering an endorsement—when his reckless policies build tensions. That Trump’s dangerous moves against Russia are being overlooked amid the drive to prove that he and Putin are secretly in cahoots is one more reason to treat the Russiagate fixation with skepticism. Based on what it has yielded to date, the Mueller probe’s outcome may soon be another.

  • Trump Races To Secure Billions For Hypersonic Missiles 

    The Pentagon has requested a record-breaking $718 billion in its fiscal 2020 budget, a 5% increase over what Congress allocated for fiscal 2019, as per the Russian Times. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The White House published the details of President Donald Trump’s new fiscal budget request on Monday, requesting a massive $750 billion for national defense. About $30 billion for nuclear weapons programs under the Department of Energy.

    The $718 billion budget includes a base budget of $544.5 billion, $9.2 billion for the border wall and $164 billion for foreign wars.

     A sizeable portion of the funding will be used to operate multiple research and development programs, as the Pentagon is determined to mature and launch series production for new weapons and technologies, such as hypersonic missiles and fifth-generation fighters. 

    “With the largest research and development request in 70 years, this strategy-driven budget makes necessary investments in next-generation technology, space, missiles, and cyber capabilities,” Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick M. Shanahan said.

    The funding boost is needed to “strongly position the US military for great power competition for decades to come,” he added.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The funding includes $2.6 billion for hypersonic missiles that “complicate adversaries’ detection and defense,” another $3.7 billion for unmanned and even autonomous systems suitable for “contested regions. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Hypersonic missiles cruise at Mach 5 or faster, or about five times faster than the speed of sound. As of 2019, the Pentagon doesn’t have missile defense systems that can stop a hypersonic attack nor has hypersonic missiles that are deployed with forces.

    On the other hand, Russia last year sent its hypersonic weapons into series production and has already deployed missiles to its forces stationed around the country.

    The threat of a hypersonic missile attack made the Pentagon cut the word “ballistic” from its recent iteration of the “Missile Defense Review,” which was published last month. The last review, in 2010, was titled, “Ballistic Missile Defense Review.”

    “We are now recognizing the nature of missile threats to both the United States homeland, as well as to friends and allies abroad and our deployed forces go beyond just ballistic missiles,” said Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy David J. Trachtenberg said February 1 at CSIS.

    It’s now clear that the Trump administration and Pentagon are urgently requesting billions of dollars in taxpayers funds to build hypersonic missiles before the next conflict explodes. 

  • Here’s How Much Your Healthcare Costs Rise As You Age

    Submitted by Priceonomics

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Imagine working your entire life with the plan to retire at the age of 65, only to declare bankruptcy due to medical costs and losing all your assets.

    This isn’t some unlikely nightmare scenario; the rate of senior citizens declaring bankruptcy has more than doubled since 1999, and the leading cause is high healthcare costs. Despite the existence of Medicare insurance for seniors, it doesn’t cover all costs and healthcare can be extremely expensive, especially as you age.

    In this analysis, we decided to look at the most recent data on how healthcare spending increases as you age along with Priceonomics customer RegisteredNursing.org. The goal of this is for people to understand just how much higher healthcare costs are the older you get and how sensitive they are to medical inflation rates.

    By the time you reach 65 years old, average healthcare costs are $11.3K per person, per year in the United States. This is nearly triple the annual average cost of when you’re in your 20s and 30s. During your adult lifetime, average spending for women is nearly twice as high as for men. Healthcare spending for minority groups like Black and Hispanic Americans is approximately 30% less than on White Americans.

    During one’s lifetime, over $400K will be spent on the average American’s healthcare in today’s dollars. And that is if medical costs rise as the same rate as inflation. If medical costs rise at 3% more than inflation, your healthcare will cost over $2MM, the vast majority of which will take place after the age of 45.

    Even if your insurance company or Medicare covers most of that bill, the typical American can still be on the hook for a very large sum of money to cover their healthcare costs as they age.

    ***

    The Department of Health and Human Services commissions a detailed survey of medical costs dating back to 1999 all the way up to 2016 most recently. The data set, The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), provides detailed healthcare spending data segmented by age and demographics, among other things. The spending figures noted as total average spending per individual, regardless of who is paying it (the insurance company, the individual directly, or some combination between).

    When budgeting for your retirement, it’s tempting to think your costs may be much lower in old age. Afterall, your kids may (hopefully) be financially self-sufficient adults and the mortgage on your home may be paid off.

    But the big unknown is healthcare expenses. It turns out as you age, your annual healthcare costs go up a lot and despite having insurance you may be on the hook for copays, deductibles, and all sorts of things that aren’t actually covered.

    The MEPS data set shows the average spending per person in the United States based on their age group.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    It turns out being born is somewhat expensive and childhood costs peak when you’re under five years old. Healthcare costs are lowest from age 5 to 17 at just at $2,000 per year on average. From then on it’s a steady increase, however, with costs rising to over $11,000 per year when you’re over 65 years old.

    The costs of your care may be mostly covered by private insurance or Medicare, but not all costs are always covered and an unexpected bill can have devastating effects on your finances. As one senior citizen relates on their traumatic experience with health insurance:

    “My bankruptcy started with back surgery. I had several medical tests that my insurance did not cover. This caused me to fall behind in my medical payments. The next thing I knew, the bills began piling up. I got to the point I owed more than I was making on Social Security.”

    Healthcare costs are not evenly distributed. You could be among the tragically unlucky with much higher costs. But not only that, but healthcare spending varies substantially by gender and demographic.

    At each stage of life, health care spending for women is substantially higher than for men. The need for more gerontology nurse practitioners and wnhp in the coming years will be vitally important to the success of healthcare programs.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    During time period of age 18 to 44, health spending for females is 84% higher than men for years. Yes, much of this is due to the expense of childbirth, but from age 44 to 64 spending for women is 24% higher than for men and even at age 65+ spending for women is 8% higher.

    According to this data, women will need to budget more than men for health care expenses each year. Not only that but women tend to live two more years than men in the United States which requires additional savings. The MEPS data also reveals tremendous inequality in healthcare spending by race and demographic. The following chart shows average spending by demographic group for adults in America:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    There is an average of $3.6K annual healthcare spending on white adult Americans, approximately 70% higher than for Asian, Black, and Hispanic Americans. The root cause and implications of this unequal spending should be studied much further to see if their remedy can improve healthcare outcomes for all.

    So if we add up all these annual spending figures how much will your healthcare cost over the course of your lifetime? In today’s dollars, if you’re “average”, you can expect it to cost $414K.

    The following chart shows this total spending during various ages in your life. Nearly two-thirds of one’s healthcare spending takes place after your 45th birthday:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    However, there is a lot of reason to believe this estimate of $414K spent on your healthcare is being conservative. First of all, it’s for the “average” person. If you have a health catastrophe, your healthcare spending may be tremendously higher. Second, the above figures assume that healthcare costs in the future increase as the same rate as inflation to arrive at the $414K spending in today’s dollars.

    There is a lot of data to suggest that healthcare costs in the United States have been increasing much faster than inflation. One estimate is that over the last two decades, healthcare costs have increased twice as fast as inflation.

    Since projecting future healthcare costs is an impossible task to pinpoint with any accuracy, let’s show how much the cost of your healthcare will be under various assumptions about healthcare cost growth rates. The following chart shows how much your lifetime healthcare spending will be if healthcare spending grows at the same rate as inflation versus if it grows slightly faster.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    If healthcare costs increase just one percentage point faster than inflation, the total bill for your healthcare will be $710K, and even that could be a conservative estimate. If healthcare costs rise at three percentage points more than inflation your lifetime healthcare costs will exceed two million dollars!

    If this chart isn’t a good reason for why healthcare in America needs to be reformed, perhaps nothing is. Even small increases in healthcare spending rates result in runaway costs for your lifetime healthcare bill. You and your insurance company might be able to plan for a scenario where your lifetime healthcare bill is half a million dollars, but how about if it’s more than seven million dollars?

    ***

    As this analysis shows, your healthcare spending is tremendously expensive. Perhaps you might have great health insurance, but if money is spent on your healthcare, someone is paying for it. In large part you pay for it via healthcare premiums, but if that doesn’t cover it then other people’s premiums or taxes will. Either way, high healthcare costs mean high spending for someone. Not only that, but even with the best health insurance, senior citizens are often hit with expensive co-pays or need drugs that their plans won’t cover. These unexpected and large expenses can often wreck one’s finances and result in bankruptcy. As you save up for retirement, it’s important to understand the value of having savings for your future medical expenses, which would be much higher than they are today.

  • Libya's "Gaddafi 2.0" Eyes Military Takeover Of Tripoli, Could Rattle Global Oil Markets

    Libya is coming apart again — though of course it was never put back together in the first place after NATO’s regime change war to topple Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 in the first place. Since then it’s been a jihadist wasteland of three, or at times up to four, competing governments vying for control of land and resources. 

    And now, as Bloomberg reports this week “Libya’s most powerful warlord has his sights on the capital” of Tripoli and “even his international backers are nervous.” Who are Khalifa Haftar’s international backers? He was for a couple decades believed to be on the CIA’s payroll while living in suburban Virginia outside Washington, D.C. in exile during Gaddafi’s rule. He’s also financed by the UAE and quickly emerged as a main player collecting the spoils in the aftermath of the US-French-NATO bombing campaign in support of the rebels. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Libyan General Khalifa Haftar. Image source: Middle East Monitor

    Based in Libya’s oil-rich east, Haftar’s militia has already captured much of the country’s oil resources, especially after a successful blitz to take much of the south this year.

    And now he reportedly has his eye on the capital of Tripoli in the west — home to the UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) and Libya’s state-run National Oil Corporation, which when combined with small subsidiaries under its direction accounts for some 70% of the country’s oil output. 

    But has an increasingly powerful Haftar gone rogue, outside the bounds of his international political and financial backers? Or is he actually the external brokers’ “solution” to impose order after years of post-Gaddafi chaos? Are we witnessing the rise of Libya’s new strongman — a Gaddafi 2.0 who will be amendable to western and gulf interests? 

    Bloomberg reports the growing alarm of his international backers:

    Alarmed, international powers are clamoring to avert a military showdown that could rattle global oil markets and sow further chaos in a divided country already struggling to defeat Islamic State and stem the flow of migrants toward Europe.

    The UAE has reportedly tried to intervene with Haftar, urging him to put on the brakes and negotiate a power sharing situation, but to no avail. 

    Haftar’s forces, known as the Libyan National Army (LNA), have continued bulldozing their way across the country at lightning pace:

    But Haftar has continued to indicate that an offensive on Tripoli is looming, according to three Western diplomats who declined to be named. Rumors his self-styled Libyan National Army is building up troops and weapons in the west are adding to the anxious mood. LNA spokesman Ahmed al-Mismari said as recently as February that elections could only take place once the whole country was secure.

    “We should be in no doubt that everything Haftar has done until now has been to get to Tripoli, to be the man in Tripoli,” said Mohamed Eljarh, co-founder of Libya Outlook for Research and Consulting, a think-tank based in the east. He’s likely to continue planning for a takeover “whether peacefully or violently.”

    Interestingly, Haftar has also enjoyed the political backing of an unlikely assortment of powerful countries that include Russia, France, and Egypt. This is due to his purported secular identity and political platform, and his willingness to fight the jihadists, including Libyan ISIS. 

    As a “secular autocrat” with external backing and potentially “West-friendly”, he precisely fits the model of a nationalist type dictator uniting the various large feuding tribes in the mold of Gaddafi (the late Libyan 42-year ruler himself at various times enjoyed the backing of European powers). 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Libyan oil fields, pipelines, refineries and storage, via Wiki Commons.

    Bloomberg reports further his LNA already has immense leverage as a potential military and political showdown with Tripoli GNA officials looms:

    Already in control of Libya’s main oil-exporting terminals, the LNA has secured its biggest oil field since beginning its southern campaign in January. That puts Haftar in control of more than 1 million barrels of production a day, giving him crucial leverage over the OPEC member’s key source of income as well as command of its most powerful fighting force.

    Post-Gaddafi Libya has been largely forgotten about in the media after its “liberation” by NATO and Islamist militants, and since 2011 has existed in varying degrees of anarchy and chaos. Libya has remained split between rival parliaments and governments in the east and west, with militias and tribes lining up behind each, resulting in fierce periodic clashes. 

    The most significant of these warring militias nationwide has long been Haftar’s LNA, which has for the past couple years controlled much of eastern Libya and emerged as the chief rival to the UN-backed GNA in the western half of the country. 

    Haftar has since 2017 been reported to be planning a move on Libya’s vital “oil crescent region” while bolstering his forces with Chadian mercenaries, according to prior local reports. Now largely successful in this endeavor, control of the capital would constitute the endgame allowing him to solidify rule over all portions of the country. 

    Prior the 2011 Libyan war and NATO military intervention which ultimately led to the field execution of Muammar Gaddafi, the country produced about 1.6 million bpd, but years of turmoil and political instability in the aftermath have slashed that to 550,000 barrels per day as of 2018 output numbers. 

  • FEMA Contractor Arrested For Cocaine Distribution… To Kids

    Authored by John Paul Hampstead via FreightWaves.com,

    Joseph Lipsey III, CEO of Chattanooga-based transportation companies Lipsey Logistics and Lipsey Trucking, was arrested on Tuesday in Aspen, CO, for distribution of cocaine to a minor, three counts of serving alcohol to a minor, possession of drug paraphernalia, and providing nicotine to minors. Lipsey’s wife Shira and son, Joseph Lipsey IV, were arrested Monday on similar counts.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Under Colorado law, if convicted of the distribution charge, the Lipsey parents would each face a mandatory sentence of between eight and 32 years in prison.

    The Lipseys were each released on $100,000 cash-only bonds. In January, Joseph Lipsey IV was charged with two counts of vehicular assault after a Tesla SUV he was alleged to have been driving careened off the road, injuring himself and four other teens in the car.

    The Lipseys saw an opportunity in freight brokerage when the second Bush administration began privatizing and outsourcing disaster relief, where previously the federal government had leaned on the military.

    A small water company in the family’s portfolio helped the Lipseys secure an award to provide bottled water for hurricane relief.

    In 2003, Lipsey had engaged UPS for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) logistics and transportation support for disaster relief, but almost immediately Hurricane Isabel hit the global logistics conglomerate realized that the task of providing disaster relief logistics was more realistic with an asset-based truckload provider than through independent brokerage capacity. UPS handed over the business to US Xpress, which managed relief logistics on behalf of Lipsey.

    Joe Lipsey soon realized that there was a lot of money to be made in using brokerage capacity and by the 2005 hurricane season, the Lipseys had launched their own brokerage to move water and ice on a cost-plus basis for the government.

    Lipsey Logistics has been investigated on numerous occasions for failure to comply with federal rules around deadlines, botched paperwork, and according to a government investigation, in billing more than $800,000 in unsupported Federal payments.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    On September 5, 2017, Lipsey Water was awarded a $143 million FEMA contract to provide bottled water. As of October 2017, Bloomberg reported that Lipsey won at least $215 million in FEMA relief services since Hurricane Harvey.

    “Lipsey Logistics’ sister company, Lipsey Water, has numerous State and Federal emergency contracts providing Disaster Relief Services to communities affected by disasters, both natural and manmade. While working with thousands of carriers for FEMA relief, Lipsey quickly realized the need for a reliable logistics organization to manage the delivery of water, ice, and durable goods. Thus, Lipsey Logistics Worldwide was formed,” the company said on its website.

    If the cocaine charges stick, Lipsey’s government contracts could be under threat. FreightWaves estimates that Lipsey was able to build a nearly $200 million per year transportation and logistics operation on the back of FEMA and state government contracts. Not all of Lipsey’s logistics business is from FEMA. The firm, benefitting from being located in Chattanooga, has hired brokerage and trucking staff from truckload giants US Xpress, Covenant Transport, and Coyote Logistics. Major clients that Lipsey have provided 3PL services include Home Depot, Niagara Waters, and Proctor & Gamble.

    Reporting by the Aspen Times based on police accounts depicted the Lipsey’s’ Aspen home as a sordid drug den. According to a police affidavit, during a February 19 search of the Lipsey home, officers and deputies found charred tin foil, a crystalline powder-caked spoon, baggies of white powder that tested positive for cocaine, unprescribed Xanax pills, and codeine syrup.

    Needless to say, the prospect of multiple felony drug convictions, especially ones involving kids, puts Lipsey Logistics’ federal contracts under threat.

  • China's Looming Liquidity Shortage (Or Why Endless Stimulus Isn't Working)

    Chinese Premier Li promised yet more stimulus measures overnight from tax cuts to focused rate reductions (but, he admitted, not blanket liquidity provision).

    But, after over 60 different ‘stimulus’ measures in the last few months and last night’s promises, nothing seems to be working as China’s economic data continues to tumble.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    As Goldman’s Andrew Tilton (Chief Asia Economist) suggested:

    “There are reasons to be concerned [that easing is becoming less effective]. Local government officials who typically implement infrastructure spending and other forms of stimulus are facing conflicting pressures. The emphasis in recent years on reducing off-balance-sheet borrowing, selecting only higher-value projects, and eliminating corruption has made local officials more cautious. But at the same time, the authorities are now encouraging local officials to do more to support growth, like accelerate infrastructure projects. President Xi himself recently acknowledged the incentive problems and administrative burdens facing local officials.”

    And Nomura’s Ting Lu has an explanation for why China stimulus i snot working…

    Chinese easing- / stimulus- escalation being a likely requirement for any sort of “reflation” theme to work beyond a tactical trade: 

    yes, more RRR cuts are coming eventually (a better way for Chinese banks to obtain liquidity vs borrowing from MLF or TMLF, bc it’s cheaper and more stable)…

    …but that the timing of such a cut is primarily dependent on the Chinese stock market, as the “re-bubbling” happening real-time in Chinese Equities (CSI 300 +26.8% YTD; SHCOMP +24.4%; SZCOMP +34.0%)  likely then constrains the room and pace of Beijing’s policy easing / stimulus

    This “Chinese Equities rally effectively holding further RRR cuts hostage” then could become a serious “fly in the ointment” for near-term / tactical “reflation” (or bear-steepening) themes, as Q2 is on-pace to see a significant liquidity shortage.

    Ting estimates the liquidity gap could reach ~ RMB 1.7T in Q2 due to the following factors:

    • The size of the upcoming MLF maturities (est to be ~RMB 1.2T in Q2);

    • The size and pace of (both central and local) government bond issuance (Nomura ests a target of ~ RMB 1T for Q2);

    • Tax season effects; and

    • The shortage of money supply through the PBoC’s FX purchases

    CHINA’S COMING Q2 LIQUIDITY-SHORTAGE:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    So, simply put, China is merely refilling a rapidly leaking bucket of liquidity, as opposed to sloshing more into the bath of global risk – even if Chinese stocks were embracing it.

  • Artificial Intelligence Or Real Stupidity?

    Authored by David Robertson via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

    It’s hard to go anywhere these days without coming across some mention of artificial intelligence (AI). You hear about it, you read about it and it’s hard to find a presentation deck (on any subject) that doesn’t mention it. There is no doubt there is a lot of hype around the subject.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    While the hype does increase awareness of AI, it also facilitates some pretty silly activities and can distract people from much of the real progress being made. Disentangling the reality from the more dramatic headlines promises to provide significant advantages for investors, business people and consumers alike.

    Artificial intelligence has gained its recent notoriety in large part due to high profile successes such as IBM’s Watson winning at Jeopardy and Google’s AlphaGo beating the world champion at the game “Go”. Waymo, Tesla and others have also made great strides with self-driving vehicles. The expansiveness of AI applications was captured by Richard Waters in the Financial Times [here}: “If there was a unifying message underpinning the consumer technology on display [at the Consumer Electronics Show] … it was: ‘AI in everything’.”

    High profile AI successes have also captured people’s imaginations to such a degree that they have prompted other far reaching efforts. One instructive example was documented by Thomas H. Davenport and Rajeev Ronanki in the Harvard Business Review [here]. They describe, “In 2013, the MD Anderson Cancer Center launched a ‘moon shot’ project: diagnose and recommend treatment plans for certain forms of cancer using IBM’s Watson cognitive system.” Unfortunately, the system didn’t work and by 2017, “the project was put on hold after costs topped $62 million—and the system had yet to be used on patients.”

    Waters also picked up on a different message – that of tempered expectations. In regard to “voice-powered personal assistants”, he notes, “it isn’t clear the technology is capable yet of becoming truly useful as a replacement for the smart phone in navigating the digital world” other than to “play music or check the news and weather”.

    Other examples of tempered expectations abound. Generva Allen of Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University warned [here], “I would not trust a very large fraction of the discoveries that are currently being made using machine learning techniques applied to large sets of data.” The problem is that many of the techniques are designed to deliver specific answers and research involves uncertainty. She elaborated, “Sometimes it would be far more useful if they said, ‘I think some of these are really grouped together, but I’m uncertain about these others’.”

    Worse yet, in extreme cases AI not only underperforms; it hasn’t even been implemented yet. The FT reports [here], “Four in 10 of Europe’s ‘artificial intelligence’ startups use no artificial intelligence programs in their products, according to a report that highlights the hype around the technology.”

    Cycles of inflated expectations followed by waves of disappointment come as no surprise to those who have been around artificial intelligence for a while: They know all-too-well this is not the first rodeo for AI. Indeed, much of the conceptual work dates to the 1950s. In reviewing some of my notes recently I came across a representative piece that explored neural networks for the purpose of stock picking – dated from 1993 [here].

    The best way to get perspective on AI is to go straight to the source and Martin Ford gives us that opportunity through his book, Architects of Intelligence. Organized as a succession of interviews with the industry’s leading researchers, scholars and entrepreneurs, the book provides a useful history of AI and highlights the key strands of thinking.

    Two high level insights emerge from the book.

    One is that despite the disparate backgrounds and personalities of the interviewees, there is a great deal of consensus on important subjects.

    The other is that many of the priorities and concerns of the top AI researches are quite noticeably different from those expressed in mainstream media.

    Take for example, the concept of artificial general intelligence (AGI). This is closely related to the notion of the “Singularity” which is the point at which artificial intelligence matches that of humans – on its path to massively exceeding human intelligence. The idea has captured people’s concerns about AI that include massive job losses, killer drones, and a host of other dramatic manifestations.

    AI’s leading researchers have very different views; as a group they are completely unperturbed by AGI.

    Geoffrey Hinton, Professor of computer science at the University of Toronto and Vice president and engineering fellow at Google said, “If your question is, ‘When are we going to get a Commander Data [from the Star Trek TV series]’, then I don’t think that’s how things are going to develop. I don’t think we’re going to get single, general-purpose things like that.”

    Yoshua Bengio, Professor of computer science and operations research at the University of Montreal, tells us that, “There are some really hard problems in front of us and that we are far from human-level AI.” He adds, “we are all excited because we have made a lot of progress on climbing the hill, but as we approach the top of the hill, we can start to see a series of other hills rising in front of us.”

    Barbara Grosz, Professor of natural sciences at Harvard University, expressed her opinion, “I don’t think AGI is the right direction to go”. She argues that because the pursuit of AGI (and dealing with its consequences) are so far out into the future that they serve as “a distraction”.

    Another common thread among the AI researches is the belief that AI should be used to augment human labor rather than replace it.

    Cynthia Breazeal, Director of the personal robots group for MIT media laboratory, frames the issue: “The question is what’s the synergy, what’s the complementarity, what’s the augmentation that allows us to extend our human capabilities in terms of what we do that allows us to really have greater impact in the world.”

    Fei-Fei Li, Professor of computer science at Stanford and Chief Scientist for Google Cloud, described, “AI as a technology has so much potential to enhance and augment labor, in addition to just replace it.”

    James Manyika, Chairman and director of McKinsey Global Institute noted since 60% of occupations have about a third of their constituent activities automatable and only about 10% of occupations have more than 90% automatable, “many more occupations will be complemented or augmented by technologies than will be replaced.”

    Further, AI can only augment human labor insofar as it can effectively work with human labor.

     Barbara Grosz pointed out, “I said at one point that ‘AI systems are best if they’re designed with people in mind’.” She continued, “I recommend that we aim to build a system that is a good team partner and works so well with us that we don’t recognize that it isn’t human.”

    David Ferrucci, Founder of Elemental Cognition and Director of applied AI at Bridgewater Associates, said, “The future we envision at Elemental Cognition has human and machine intelligence tightly and fluently collaborating.” He elaborated, “We think of it as thought-partnership.” Yoshua Bengio reminds us, however, of the challenges in forming such a partnership: “It’s not just about precision [with AI], it’s about understanding the human context, and computers have absolutely zero clues about that.”

    It is interesting that there is a fair amount of consensus regarding key ideas such as AGI is not an especially useful goal right now, AI should be applied to augment labor and not replace it, and AI should work in partnership with people. It’s also interesting that these same lessons are borne out by corporate experiences.

    Richard Waters describes how AI implementations are still at a fairly rudimentary stage in the FT [here]:

    “Strip away the gee-whizz research that hogs many of the headlines (a computer that can beat humans at Go!) and the technology is at a rudimentary stage.”

    He also notes, “But beyond this ‘consumerisation’ of IT, which has put easy-to-use tools into more hands, overhauling a company’s internal systems and processes takes a lot of heavy lifting.”

    That heavy lifting takes time and exceptionally few companies are there. Ginni Rometty, head of IBM, characterizes her clients’ applications as “Random acts of digital” and describes many of the projects as “hit and miss”. Andrew Moore, the head of AI for Google’s cloud business, describes it as “Artisanal AI”. Rometty elaborates, “They tend to start with an isolated data set or use case – like streamlining interactions with a particular group of customers. They are not tied into a company’s deeper systems, data or workflow, limiting their impact.”

    While the HBR case of the MD Anderson Cancer Center provides a good example of a moonshot AI project that probably overreached, it also provides an excellent indication of the types of work that AI can materially improve. At the same time the center was trying to apply AI to cancer treatment, its “IT group was experimenting with using cognitive technologies to do much less ambitious jobs, such as making hotel and restaurant recommendations for patients’ families, determining which patients needed help paying bills, and addressing staff IT problems.”

    In this endeavor, the center had much better experiences: “The new systems have contributed to increased patient satisfaction, improved financial performance, and a decline in time spent on tedious data entry by the hospital’s care managers.” Such mundane functions may not exactly be Terminator stuff but are still important.

    Leveraging AI for the purposes of augmenting human labor collaborating with humans was also the focus of an HBRpiece by H. James Wilson and Paul R. Daugherty [here]. They point out, “Certainly, many companies have used AI to automate processes, but those that deploy it mainly to displace employees will see only short-term productivity gains. In our research involving 1,500 companies, we found that firms achieve the most significant performance improvements when humans and machines work together … Through such collaborative intelligence, humans and AI actively enhance each other’s complementary strengths: the leadership, teamwork, creativity, and social skills of the former, and the speed, scalability, and quantitative capabilities of the latter.”

    Wilson and Daugherty elaborate, “To take full advantage of this collaboration, companies must understand how humans can most effectively augment machines, how machines can enhance what humans do best, and how to redesign business processes to support the partnership.” This takes a lot of work that is well beyond just dumping an AI system into a pre-existing work environment.

    The insights from leading AI researchers combined with the realities of real-world applications provide some useful implications. One is that AI is a double-edged sword: The hype can cause distraction and misallocation, but the capabilities are too important to ignore.

    Ben Hunt discusses the roles of intellectual property (IP) and AI in regard to the investment business [here], but his comments are widely relevant to other businesses. He notes,

    “The usefulness of IP in preserving pricing power is much less a function of the better mousetrap that the IP helps you build, and much more a function of how neatly the IP fits within the dominant zeitgeist in your industry.

    He goes on to explain that the “WHY” of your IP must “fit the expectations that your customers have for how IP works” in order to protect your product. He continues, “If you don’t fit the zeitgeist, no one will believe that your castle walls exist. Even if they do.” In the investment business (and plenty of others), “NO ONE thinks of human brains as defensible IP any longer. No one.” In other words, if you aren’t employing AI, you won’t get pricing power, regardless of the actual results.

    This hints at an even bigger problem with AI: Too many people are simply not ready for it. 

    Daniela Rus, Director of the Computer science and artificial intelligence laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT, said, “I want to be a technology optimist. I want to say that I see technology as something that has the huge potential to unite people rather than divide people, and to empower people rather than estrange people. In order to get there, though, we have to advance science and engineering to make technology more capable and more deployable.” She added, “We need to revisit how we educate people to ensure that everyone has the tools and the skills to take advantage of technology.”

    Yann Lecun added, “We’re not going to have widely disseminated AI technology unless a significant proportion of the population is trained to actually take advantage of it”. 

    Cynthia Breazeal echoed, “In an increasingly AI-powered society, we need an AI-literate society.”

    These are not hollow statements either; there is a vast array of free learning materials for AI available online to encourage participation in the field.

    If society does not catch up to the AI reality, there will be consequences.

     Brezeal notes, “People’s fears about AI can be manipulated because they don’t understand it.” 

    Lecun points out, “There is a concentration of power. Currently, AI research is very public and open, but it’s widely deployed by a relatively small number of companies at the moment. It’s going to take a while before it’s used by a wider swath of the economy and that’s a redistribution of the cards of power.”

    Hinton highlights another consequence, “The problem is in the social systems, and whether we’re going to have a social system that shares fairly … That’s nothing to do with technology.”

    In many ways, then, AI provides a wakeup call. Because of AI’s unique interrelationship with humankind, AI tends to bring out its best and the worst elements. Certainly, terrific progress is being made on the technology side which promises to provide ever-more powerful tools to solve difficult problems. However, those promises are also constrained by the capacity of people, and society as a whole, to embrace AI tools and deploy them in effective ways.

    Recent evidence suggests we have our work cut out for us in preparing for an AI-enhanced society. In one case reported by the FT [here], UBS created “recommendation algorithms” (such as those used by Netflix for movies) in order to suggest trades for its clients. While the technology certainly exists, it strains credibility to understand how this application is even remotely useful for society.

    In another case, Richard Waters reminds us, “It Is almost a decade, for instance, since Google rocked the auto world with its first prototype of a self-driving car.” He continues [here]: “The first wave of driverless car technology is nearly ready to hit the mainstream — but some carmakers and tech companies no longer seem so eager to make the leap.” In short, they are getting pushback because current technology is at “a level of autonomy that scares the carmakers — but it also scares lawmakers and regulators.”

    In sum, whether you are an investor, business person, employee, or consumer, AI has the potential to make things a lot better – and a lot worse. In order to make the most of the opportunity, an active effort focusing on education is a great place to start. If AI’s promises are to be realized it will also take a lot of effort to establish system infrastructures and to map complementary strengths. In other words, it’s best to think of AI as a long journey rather than a short-term destination.

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Mar 15

Today’s News 15th March 2019

  • Italians Outraged After Court Rules Woman 'Too Ugly' To Be Raped

    The Italian Justice Ministry has ordered a preliminary investigation into an appeals court ruling by all-female judges which overturned a rape verdict by arguing in part that the woman who was attacked was too ugly to be a credible rape victim, according to The Star.

    The ruling has sparked outrage in Italy, prompting a flash mob Monday outside the Ancona court, where protesters shouted “Shame!” and held up signs saying “indignation.”

    The appeals sentence was handed down in 2017 — by an all-female panel — but the reasons behind it only emerged publicly when Italy’s high court annulled it on March 5 and ordered a retrial. The Court of Cassation said Wednesday its own reasons for ordering the retrial will be issued next month. –The Star

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

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

    Two Peruvian men were initially convicted in 2015 of raping a 20-year-old Peruvian woman in Ancona – however the Italian appeals court overturned the verdict, absolving the men. In their decision, the judges ruled that the men “didn’t find her attractive,” and that “she was too masculine.“

    A lawyer for the victim, Cinzia Molinaro, said that the woman’s appeal to the Court of Cassation cited the “absolute unacceptability” of the Italian court’s decision to refer to the victim’s physical appearance. 

    The appeals court quoted one of the suspects as saying he had listed the woman as a “Viking” on his cellphone, adding that the “photograph present in her file would appear to confirm this.”

    The woman, who has since returned to Peru, required 14 stitches in her vagina after the attack. 

    “She had confused memories of what exactly happened during the night because she was drugged,” said Molinaro, adding that doctors had confirmed the presence of a “date rape” drug in her blood. 

    “I don’t remember how it all started, but I remember I shouted ‘enough, enough'” the woman reportedly told police. 

    In 2016, one of the accused rapists was originally sentenced to five years in prison for the rape, while the other was sentenced to three years for standing guard. While the ruling was overturned in 2017, the reasons for the acquittal only became known last week after the Italian supreme court annulled the appeal and ordered a retrial. 

  • The Trump Phenomenon As Seen From Europe

    Authored by Philip Giraldi via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    President Donald Trump is frequently seen through the prism of an American media that despises him and wants to discredit him so that he can either be impeached soon or defeated in 2020. To a certain extent the foreign media has picked up on that depiction of Trump, emphasizing his boorish qualities and narcissism while neglecting what he has or has not accomplished while in office. To be sure there have been major missteps which have driven the Europeans and others crazy, including the withdrawal from the international climate treaty and the nuclear agreement with Iran, but Trump, to his credit, has also recognized the futility of Washington’s Asian wars and is serious in his intent to reduce the American footprint in places like Syria and Afghanistan. He is also an enemy of what is seen as the Establishment in global policymaking, choosing instead to promote national interests rather than international treaties and obligations.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    My wife and I recently spent a week in Venice for the Carnival that precedes the beginning of Lent. It was quite an experience as the event attracted literally tens of thousands of visitors from all over the world. On the Sunday preceding Ash Wednesday there were so many tourists crammed into the vast Piazza San Marco that it was impossible to move, but everyone was having fun and both my wife and I remarked on how polite and well behaved the crowds were. And the food was wonderful!

    In the course of the week we managed to speak to many of the co-celebrants, primarily those from Italy, Germany and Britain and the conversations inevitably turned to the subject of Donald Trump and what he is doing. I fully expected that I would receive an earful, but what actually developed was quite a surprise. Nearly everyone had good things to say about the American president, though there were suggestions that he might be more than just a little bit pazzo, verrückt, or bonkers.

    Their arguments went something like this:

    …world government has proven to be a disaster for most of the ordinary people in most developed countries. Wealth has been concentrated in the hands of the few who constitute the Establishment in each country and benefit primarily from globalism.

    Examples cited by the Europeans included the Clintons, who have become de facto billionaires, and Tony Blair, who is well on his way to doing the same. In Europe, the Common Market, which started out as a free trade and labor zone, has now morphed into a European Union and become a government that is far more heavy-handed and intrusive than the national governments that it has to a large extent replaced. The disastrous creation of a unified currency has crushed weaker national economies, but somehow the elites in each country seem to continue to thrive amidst all the damage being done to ordinary people.

    As a response, an increasing number of Europeans are entertaining following the Brexit model of either leaving the European Union altogether or abandoning the currency union while also reducing the power of the European Parliament. Nationalism is on the rise as Europeans realize that any aspiration to create something like a United States of Europe was from the start an illusion. Today, the Europeans continue to be betrayed by their elected leadership and the time has come to put a stop to it, which is why they admire Trump as they see him serving as a wrecking ball demolishing the entrenched Establishment and the globalism that it has promoted. People are demanding change and the last election in Italy, the repudiation of the policies of Angela Merkel in Germany, and the unrest in France demonstrate that the problem is not going to go away.

    There were some other lessons learned from Carnival. Post-Christian Europe is continuing to hang on to some vestiges of the Ancient Faith. I was amazed when the speaker at the final ceremony on Martedi Grasso introduced the finalists for Carnival Queen as being young women exemplary for their “Christian virtues and beauty.” I turned to my wife and commented how much I would like to hear similar words once in a while in the United States at a public gathering.

    We also encountered many recent refugees from South Asia and the Middle East, working in shops and restaurants. Most of them spoke excellent Italian and were clearly fully accepted by their Italian colleagues. As Venice has a huge tourism economy, it was not exactly a model for dealing with the waves of immigrants in parts of Europe where there is no work, but it was refreshing to see how people will come together if they are just allowed to cooperate without a whole lot of interference from the government and the loud agenda driven groups that proliferate on the political left of center.

    Finally, it was difficult being in Venice and not noticing that the largest group of foreigners in the city was Chinese, numbering certainly in the thousands, possibly as many as ten thousand. While Washington wastes its money on weapons and endless wars the Chinese are making deals and expanding both their personal and economic presence. Many shops in Venice and elsewhere in Italy are now owned by the Chinese. In Venice they sell their own cheap glass products to compete with the high-quality local Murano glass and they find plenty of buyers. As long as the Chinese glass is labeled “Made in China” it is perfectly legal, as much as the Venetians themselves hate it. We went into one shop that had an Italian salesperson. He told us not to buy anything as it was all Chinese junk.

    The Chinese, to their credit, have been promoting the so-called Belt and Road Initiative or BRI plan, which aims to establish a trade link connecting China by sea and land with southeast and central Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa using a network of roads and both rail and sea connections. It is not unlike the ancient Silk Road which spanned Asia and penetrated into Europe by way of the Italian merchant republics, most notably Venice. Northern Italy is seen as a key component or even the European hub for the new venture and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is prepared to sign an agreement with Beijing to develop the initiative further. Conte is doing so over objections from Washington, of course.

    As Mark Twain put it, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” Indeed.

  • US Airstrike Wipes Out Allied Afghan Base In 'Friendly Fire' Incident

    In the latest bizarre story to come out of the US “endless war” in Afghanistan, American warplanes obliterated an allied Afghan military post in an act of “self defense” on Wednesday. 

    The incident took place in the tribal Uruzgan province of south-central Afghanistan and reportedly began when a joint convoy of US troops and Afghan Special Forces came under fire by another unit of Afghan ground troops in what appears a major instance of accidental friendly fire resulting in a devastating two dozen total casualties on the Afghan side.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    US DoD file photo: coalition jets in operation over Afghanistan. 

    The incident is under investigation, but US mission spokesman Bob Purtiman appeared to excuse US actions in a statement on Thursday: “We are operating in a complex environment where enemy fighters do not wear uniforms and use stolen military vehicles to attack government forces,” he said.

    American forces indicate they came under attack by an unknown entity. US planes flying overhead then destroyed the Afghan army post (described by the Pentagon as a “checkpoint”), which killed at least six soldiers and wounded nine others at the small base which housed a total of 17.

    The US side reported no deaths or injuries, though the Pentagon would likely not release such information until a full investigation is concluded. 

    The US Department of Defense confirmed the incident on Wednesday, which it described as a mistaken “example of the fog of war”. Pentagon Spokesperson Sgt. First Class Debra Richardson told The New York Times: “The U.S. conducted a precision self-defense airstrike on people who were firing at a partnered U.S.-Afghan force.”

    Ironically US officials described the aerial bombing of the allied Afghan post as a “precision airstrike,” per the AP: 

    The soldiers were killed by friendly fire Wednesday in what was supposed to be a precision airstrike by U.S. forces supporting Afghan soldiers battling insurgents near the city of Tarin Kot in Uruzgan province.

    It was the second major incident to cause Afghan casualties following a prior fight with Taliban: “For the second time in a few days, an Afghan Army base was destroyed on Wednesday — but this time by American airstrikes that followed a firefight between the Afghans and Americans, Afghan officials said,” the NYT report noted. 

    Last year the Pentagon acknowledged that war in Afghanistan is costing American taxpayers $45 billion per year, with a number of public studies putting the total figure at over $1 trillion since the US war began nearly two decades go. 

    The “endless war” has become more expensive, in current dollars, than the Marshall Plan, which was the reconstruction effort to rebuild Europe after World War II.

  • Whistleblowers Say NSA Still Spies On American Phones In Hidden Program

    Authored by Nafeez Ahmed via Medium.com,

    Meanwhile, the bulk of the NSA’s surveillance and “offensive” information warfare capabilities remain completely unknown…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    On Monday 4th, the New York Times reported that the National Security Agency has “quietly” shut down a controversial phone records surveillance program revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013.

    The claim was made by a senior Republican congressional aide who told the newspaper that the Trump administration had stopped using the program, which analyses the domestic call and text logs of American citizens, due to technical problems.

    On Twitter Snowden hailed the news as a “victory”, while Intercept journalist Glen Greenwald, who broke the Snowden story to international acclaim, took the story at face value. Neither of them raised the obvious question  –  is the “shut down” of this program merely a smokescreen to continue spying on American phones under new or different secretive programs?

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

    Since then, further doubt was cast on the NYT report when NSA chief General Paul Nakasone refused to confirm or deny the story. But he did tell a major security conference on Wednesday that the agency was still “in a deliberative process” about whether to use a revamped version of the vast database of American phone records.

    All of this, however, is an elaborate ruse. According to two former top NSA officials interviewed by INSURGE, there is no credible reason to believe that NSA phone surveillance has truly been shut down.

    What shut down?

    When the NYT story broke, I reached out to two former senior NSA officials, Russ Tice and Thomas Drake, to find out what they thought.

    Both of them told me that the NSA’s shut down of this particular program did not imply an end to domestic phone record surveillance, but quite the opposite — that the program had been superseded by superior technology.

    According to Russ Tice, a former senior NSA intelligence analyst who had previously worked with the US Air Force, Office of Naval Intelligence and Defense Intelligence Agency, the latest claim that the NSA was rolling up phone surveillance beggared belief.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    “Why would anyone believe a bloody word of what NSA says about their mass domestic surveillance programs?” said Tice, who was the first NSA whistleblower who exposed unlawful surveillance and wiretaps of American citizens as early as May 2005.

    “They have lied repeatedly in the past and they are likely lying now. They have been collecting meta data and content, word-for-word, both voice and text, for some time now.”

    I asked Tice how certain he was that the NSA was still conducting phone surveillance of Americans in the United States. “Of course NSA is still conducting phone and computer comms surveillance and yes, ‘wider programs’ go on and a new massive program that is more efficient is likely to have already been implemented,” he told me.

    The real reason the current program has become defunct is because there is now better technology for more advanced surveillance.

    “If anything, they no longer need this particular program to parse the card catalog — meta data — and can mine the content data directly with enhanced algorithms and processing and strapping. And when there is no pushback capability, congress is at the mercy of NSA to inform them on NSA’s abuses.”

    Hidden programs under secret interpretations of different laws

    Thomas Drake, a former senior executive of the NSA who blew the whistle on illegal mass surveillance, waste and mismanagement at the agency several years before Snowden’s revelations, agreed that NSA phone surveillance “continues in other forms” in spite of the closure of this particular program.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Much has been made of the impending expiry of the USA Freedom Act of 2015, due this December, under which the current phone surveillance program is run. But Drake told me that the NSA simply doesn’t need the Freedom Act to authorise continued warrantless phone surveillance of American citizens in the homeland.

    Surveillance can still continue, he said, “under yet other special, exigent, exceptional authorities and programs — including Section 702 and Executive Order 12333 — hiding in secret.”

    Drake acknowledged that the NSA was also shifting toward adapting to widespread the changes in technology use, which could well have made the old program less than useful. “Communications using traditional land line and cell phone numbers and regular cellular text messaging is increasingly taken place on other messaging apps,” he added. “With respect to other authorities and cut outs, there are yet still other surveillance players and actors, too.”

    In a series of tweets about the subject, Drake warned that the NSA’s recent history hardly vindicated the agency’s claims:

    “All these domestic spying programs fundamentally violated the Constitution, FISA & 4th Amendment on a mass scale, then went under cover of secret FISC approval, secret interpretations of law & then passage of unconstitutional ex post facto laws to make them ‘legal’.”

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

    Tice and Drake’s views corroborate an independent analysis by The Register, which observes that the association of the Freedom Act’s Section 215 program with phone metadata could be advantageous for the agency:

    “If the NSA offers to give up its phone metadata collection voluntarily, it opens up several opportunities for the agency. For one, it doesn’t have to explain what its secret legal interpretations of the law are and so can continue to use them. Second, it can repeat the same feat as in 2015 — give Congress the illusion of bringing the security services to heel. And third, it can continue to do exactly what it was doing while looking to everyone else that it has scaled back.

    Here’s one thing we are sure of: the NSA has already figured out how to get all the information that was gathered through the metadata part of Section 215. It will be through a different law under a different secret legal interpretation.”

    A history of subversion

    According to Tice, illegal NSA surveillance was targeted across the federal government in order to secure political leverage. He describes this use of surveillance as a counter-democratic tool allowing the agency to pressure elected leaders across the House and Senate.

    Between 2002 and 2005, he said, he discovered that the NSA had been targeting all communications of Congress, FISA, the Supreme Court, senior Pentagon officials, the media, and even future presidential prospects.

    The NSA was essentially “collecting fodder for their lists of dirt for blackmailing all levels of top government officials”, said Tice. The idea was “to ensure they had leverage with those that could conduct oversight.”

    But NSA surveillance extends far beyond this to offensive capabilities which remain undisclosed to this day.

    Tice said that due to his role at the NSA, he was aware of a highly classified program of activity which has never been revealed before, concerning ‘Special Access Program (SAP) Offensive Information Warfare’.

    SAP refers to what Tice describes as the “black world”, an arena of completely unaccountable projects to develop technologies with frightening reach and power. “These programs go very far beyond just collecting communications — they can reach out and touch you, and cause great, even grave, tangible harm.”

    “I am talking hardcore offense. The Title 10 and Title 50 restriction did not apply to my world. As I was once told at an after action briefing when I brought up some collateral damage we had caused, ‘We are above the laws and any form of oversight, we do a we please. So just chill out Russ’. I was thinking, holy shit, we are out of control. Then later I was even more horrified to realize he was correct, we had no controls on us.”

    When I asked Tice to provide further detail on these offensive information warfare capabilities, he said that he declined to elaborate.

    But he did emphasise that Snowden’s revelations on mass surveillance represent a tiny tip of the iceberg on what the NSA has been doing. He claims that a whole black world of secret programs exists, largely funded by the trillions of dollars that have gone missing from the US Department of Defense. These have gone to “black programs that are hidden, in many cases, from Congress.”

    ‘Ghost’ black programs

    There are three different forms of SAP, Tice said: acknowledged, unacknowledged, and “Ghost” black programs. ‘Acknowledged’ programs are known to Congressional and Senate representatives sitting on the defense and intelligence committees.

    In contrast, ‘unacknowledged’ black programs are known to a select number of representatives — the top majority and minority chairs and members in the defense and intelligence committees. On rare occasion, a single select member of the House might come to know by invitation only.

    Then there are ‘Ghost’ black programs which the Pentagon and intelligence agencies “hide from all of Congress,” said Tice. “Many of these programs involved cutting edge technologies that are extremely expensive. I was an advanced technology analyst for many of these programs that included applications in space technology.”

    During Tice’s tenure, these programs were only operational outside the United States. “The real question is whether the NSA has now begun to subject the citizens of the USA to their formidable black world offensive information warfare capabilities. There will be no recourse against Big Brother when it wields NSA’s weapons domestically against us all.”

    Twelve years ago, Tice testified before the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations. He told the committee that although the NSA’s Special Access Program might have violated the Constitutional rights of millions of American citizens, neither the committee members nor even the NSA inspector general had the necessary security clearances to be told about the programs, let alone reviewing them more formally.

    Tice was scheduled to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee a week later about a “different angle” of NSA surveillance, but this never happened. Tice said that at the time the Pentagon and NSA had “told Congress they could not talk to me because they did not have the proper security clearances.”

    In short: don’t believe the chorus of headlines implying that the NSA is shutting down its bulk surveillance program. Far from it. The agency is merely evolving and recalibrating, and as usual, very few in the press, Congress and US government are asking the awkward questions that urgently need to be asked.

    *  *  *

    Published by INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a crowdfunded investigative journalism project for people and planet. Please support us to keep digging where others fear to tread.

  • What Happens In An Internet Minute In 2019?

    During an average workday, a single minute might seem negligible.

    If you’re lucky, a minute might buy you enough time to write a quick email, grab a coffee from the break room, or make small talk with a coworker.

    But, as Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins notes, in other situations, a minute can also be quite extraordinary. Imagine being a quarterback in the Superbowl in overtime, or finding yourself in a life-and-death situation in which every second counts towards the outcome.

    Visualizing an Internet Minute

    When it comes to gauging the epic scale of the internet, it would seem that each minute leans closer to the extraordinary side of the spectrum.

    Today’s infographic from @LoriLewis and @OfficiallyChadd aggregates the online activity of billions of people globally, to see what an internet minute looks like.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    How is it possible that 188 millions of emails are sent every minute? How does Google process 3.8 million search queries in such a short span of time?

    Simply put, the number of actions packed into just 60 seconds is extraordinary.

    A Side-by-Side Comparison

    The internet is incredibly dynamic, which means there are always new and interesting segments that are emerging out of the internet’s ether.

    To get a sense of this, take a look at the comparison of last year’s version of this graphic with the more recent entry:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Platforms such as Instagram and Netflix continue to grow at a blistering pace, while new categories such as smart speakers are quickly building a strong foundation for the future.

    Last year, for example, only 67 voice-first devices were being shipped per minute – and in 2019, there are now 180 smart speakers being shipped in the same window of time.

    What will this look like in 2020?

    Going Sideways or Backwards

    Interestingly, even as more and more people gain access to the internet around the world each year, there are still parts of the web that are plateauing or even shrinking in size.

    You’ll see that Facebook logins and Google searches both increased only incrementally from last year. Further, the amount of emails getting sent is also quite stagnant, likely thanks to to the rise of workplace collaboration tools such as Slack.

    Snap is another story altogether. In the last year, the app saw a decrease in millions of users due to the infamous redesign that helped torpedo the app’s rising popularity.

    Regardless, we’re certain that by this time next year, an internet minute will have changed significantly yet again!

  • North Korea Mulls Suspending Nuclear Talks, Kim To Announce Decision Shortly

    Shortly after a de minimus reaction to the Bank of Japan’s economic downgrade, JPY surged against the dollar on headlines from Russian news agency Tass that North Korea is mulling suspending denuclearization talks with the US.

    TASS reports, citing Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui at a press conference in Pyongyang, that North Korea is mulling suspending denuclearization talks with the US.

    “We have no intention to make concessions to the US requirements [put forward at the Hanoi summit] in any form, much less the desire to conduct such negotiations,” said Choi Son-Hee.

    North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un will make an announcement on his decision about the nation’s further plans after the failed talks in Vietnam, Tass says.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    At the same time as these headlines hit, Reuters reports that Chinese Premier Li Keqiang , coincidentally, called for “patience in dealing with Korean peninsula issues,” adding that “China’s stance on denuclearization in North Korea is unchanged.”

    Li urges “promoting dialogue between North Korea and the U.S. toward eventual outcome that all parties would like to see.”

    Coordinated?

    Safe-haven bid for Yen as carry traders derisk (perhaps as first in line of any missile tests)…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    And cue the “fire and fury” tweet from President Trump.

     

  • US Officials Offered My Friend Cash To Take Down Tehran’s Power Grid

    Authored by Sharmine Narwani, commentator and analyst of Mideast geopolitics based in Beirut

    It took a country-wide power outage in Venezuela, whispers of a cyberattack, and smug tweets from US officials to make me suddenly recall the cloak-and-dagger story of a close Iranian-American friend nine years ago.

    My friend, an engineer  —  who I will not name for obvious reasons and who I will call ‘Kourosh’ for the purpose of this article  —  revealed to me in 2010 that he was approached by two “State Department employees” who offered him $250,000 to “do something very simple” during his upcoming trip to Tehran.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Kourosh was freaking out because he didn’t know how these guys knew he was going to Iran in the first place, and how they knew he was “cash-strapped,” in the second.

    He wasn’t a particularly political person, though he had participated in some DC protests in the aftermath of the hotly contested 2009 presidential elections. He was just one of thousands of Iranian-American engineers in the Washington-Maryland-Virginia technology belt looking to make a decent living.

    Kourosh told the US officials that he was not interested, that if Iran needed to make changes, Iranians inside the country were the only ones who should do it.

    I begged him to let me write this story, but he was very nervous and declined. Over the next year or two, I pushed some more and he gave me further information, but wouldn’t budge on its publication.

    Here’s what he revealed: The State Department guys had since approached him a second time. They offered him further details about the job. They wanted him to disable Tehran’s power grid in exchange for the $250k. They needed someone with technical skills, but said the job was a simple one. He would have to go to a specific location in the Tehran area with a laptop or similar communication device and punch in a code.

    Kourosh even told me the code. Said he had memorized it and could recite it in his sleep. Here it is: 32-B6-B10–40-E (symbol for epsilon).

    Okay, that’s not the actual code, but it looks exactly like that  —  same format, same sequence and amount of numbers and letters. I don’t feel comfortable publishing the code in case it is still relevant  —  sorry. If anyone knows what this code could be, please comment below.

    A colleague with an engineering background has this to say about it:

    “This could be a password for power grids or any equipment that is governed by an electronic or computer system. Manufacturers have codes they use for de-bugging or resetting a system. Control systems are all electronic and sometimes for any reason (like an earthquake) something is triggered and the system goes off. And then you reset it within the vicinity of the system usually and feed in the new code. You don’t have to physically be there if you can hack into it, but that’s of course harder. If they (the Americans) needed to have someone physically there during the sabotage attempt, it probably means they didn’t have remote access to the system.”

    I don’t actually know why Kourosh received that level of detail unless he was willing to go through with this act of sabotage on behalf of the US government, but he assured me he would never consider it — that he was just “curious” during the second meeting. “No way,” he told me. “Imagine it I did it and someone’s grandmother or father died because their life support machine switched off.”

    I remember these details because I discussed it with a number of people in and around 2010, without disclosing Kourosh’s name. Today, I dug up the old Facebook message I sent to Iranian-American author and activist Trita Parsi of the DC-based National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), a fellow Huffington Post blogger at the time. Trita gave me permission to post screenshots here:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Disclosure: My Iranian-American husband and I ran an internet company in the telecommunications industry in Washington years ago and I was a founding member of the Iranian-American Technology Council, so I knew a lot of engineers and technology folks from that very background.

    I recall writing to Trita precisely because he was so keyed into the political heart of this community. It would be extremely dangerous for myself and colleagues in my industry if the US government was recruiting Iranian-American civilian engineers as saboteurs in third countries.

    This deep-dive by investigative journalist Whitney Webb into Venezuela’s power outage reveals some interesting details about a Bush administration cyberattack plan against Iran. Exposed by the New York Times in 2016, the “Nitro Zeus” plan — which involved the US Cyber Command — would, among other things, target crucial parts of Iran’s electricity grid.

    Take note, however, that US officials asked Kourosh to sabotage Tehran’s power grid during the Obama administration. Obviously aspects of the Nitro Zeus plan remained on the table despite a switch in government, political parties and policies.

    Back to Venezuela

    It’s been a grueling week for Venezuelans dealing with the nationwide blackout that has brought the country to a standstill. Last Thursday an “accident” at the Guri Dam power plant in Bolivar state — which generates around 80% of the country’s electricity — left at least 20 out of 23 Venezuelan states without electricity.

    As power started to flood back to central states, a second “cyber attack” on Saturday plunged the country back into darkness. Government authorities have charged US officials with launching the attack on Venezuela’s electricity infrastructure and say they will present evidence of this to the United Nations and other international organizations.

    The US has countered, blaming the power outage on corruption and infrastructure neglect by the government of President Nicolás Maduro — against whom Washington has been staging a rather unsuccessful coup effort these past months.

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

    But in the midst of this to-and-fro between longtime adversaries, insightful news reports and analysis are starting to emerge, suggesting that a US cyberattack against Venezuela’s power grid is actually a very possible — even likely — scenario.

    Says Forbes Magazine‘s Kalev Leetaru:

    “In the case of Venezuela, the idea of a government like the United States remotely interfering with its power grid is actually quite realistic. Remote cyber operations rarely require a significant ground presence, making them the ideal deniable influence operation.”

    “Widespread power and connectivity outages like the one Venezuela experienced last week are also straight from the modern cyber playbook. Cutting power at rush hour, ensuring maximal impact on civilian society and plenty of mediagenic post-apocalyptic imagery, fits squarely into the mold of a traditional influence operation,” he continues.

    For those of us who have spent years covering US irregular warfare in the Middle East, infrastructure targets are part and parcel of these wars — sometimes via direct strikes, other times via proxies and sabotage operations.

    I’m not just talking about cyberattacks like the US/Israeli-made Stuxnet virus that destroyed hundreds of centrifuges at Iranian nuclear facilities.

    In Syria, for instance, the US military specifically targeted major economic infrastructure under the guise of ‘fighting ISIS.’ These include but are not limited to oilfields, wells and facilities, electrical transformer stations, gas plants, bridges, canals, a number of vital dams and reservoirs in the country’s northern agricultural belt — and power generation facilities.

    And US-backed proxies  —  part of the Pentagon and CIA’s ‘irregular army’ in Syria  — targeted bread factories, wheat silos and flour mills to deprive a population of basic food staples.

    As opposed to conventional wars, US irregular warfare seeks to covertly use influence ops to turn the largest part of a country’s population, the “uncommitted middle,” into supporting regime-change. Destroying infrastructure, creating shortages, unleashing political violence, propaganda dissemination — these are all steps outlined in the US military’s Special Forces Unconventional Warfare manual to create a disgruntled population that will turn on its government.

    And cyber warfare is the newest theater of engagement for the Pentagon, which is now openly ramping up its investment in “lethal cyber weapons,” regardless of the civilian casualties these attacks will leave in their wake.

    So far in Venezuela around 20 people are reported dead due to the blackouts, though I’ve seen some opposition sources place that number north of 70.

    Is Venezuela’s blackout part of US cyber warfare against a Latin American adversary? Has the US engaged in cyber warfare against Iranian infrastructure?

    Does a duck quack?

    Follow me on Twitter and Facebook if you like. All my work is archived on my website Mideast Shuffle.

  • Citadel May Scrap Plan For New York Headquarters After Amazon Fiasco

    Shortly after it was revealed that Citadel’s billionaire founder, Ken Griffin, purchased a New York penthouse for the record price of $240 million in January confirming once and for all that frontrunning retail orders really does pay, speculation grew that the Chicago-based hedge fund was relocating from the Windy City to the Big Apple. However, following Amazon’s recent close encounter with New York socialists which prompted Bezos to scrap plans for a Long Island City HQ2, Griffin may stick to frontrunning the CME instead of the NYSE.

    In an interview with David Rubenstein on Bloomberg TV, Griffin said he’s less likely to move Citadel’s headquarters to New York City in the wake of Amazon.com’s decision to abandon plans to expand into Queens.

    “Amazon opting out of New York is heartbreaking,” Griffin said, noting that he had been contemplating shifting his main office from Chicago and making New York his primary home when he spent a quarter billion dollars for a modest pied-a-terre near central park.

    Griffin’s purchase came two years after Citadel signed a lease to become the anchor tenant in a skyscraper at 425 Park Avenue (which will be completed in 2020), eight-tenths of a mile from Griffin’s new apartment (vertical travel not included). Griffin reportedly bought the place because he needed somewhere to stay when in town.

    However, Griffin said he has been discouraged by the political climate in the city that resulted in Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos’s decision in February to reverse plans to make Long Island City the retail giant new hub.

    “The Amazon event has been a huge backtrack in our internal planning,” Griffin told Bloomberg after the broadcast interview. “The current climate in New York has dramatically reduced our interest in moving our headquarters here. Successful firms develop talent. That creates success within those firms and then some people leave to start other businesses or drive other success stories. That’s why Silicon Valley is so remarkable.”

    Griffin said Amazon’s decision was “a loss for everybody.”

    There may be another reason why Griffin may be having a case of record buyer’s remorse: In the wake of his splashy apartment purchase, New York lawmakers promptly floated the idea of levying a tax on non-resident owners of luxury units to help finance $40 billion in upgrades to the regional transit system. The so-called “pied-à-terre tax” could raise as much as $9 billion, according to Robert Mujica, the budget director for Governor Andrew Cuomo.

    Is is unclear how much of a discount Griffin would have to offer to a prospective buyer it he wishes to engage in some “high frequency” flipping of his 220 Central Park South apartment.

    Separately, in his interview for “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations” on Bloomberg TV, Griffin said his outlook for the U.S. economy is bright and that the nation is seeing “real wage growth we haven’t seen in a decade.” Echoing views he made in an investor letter in February, he said Italy is headed for “a debt dynamic that’s unsustainable.” Regarding Brexit, the single biggest issue gripping the U.K. is indecision, he said. “Until they pick a path, it deters capital investment,” he said. “Politicians don’t appreciate when they create uncertainty it kills the willingness to invest.”

    Watch the full interview below.

  • Media Hit-Job Continues As Colbert Ambushes Tulsi Gabbard

    Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

    Hawaii Congresswoman and Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard recently appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where instead of the light, jokey banter about politics and who she is as a person that Democratic presidential candidates normally encounter on late night comedy programs, the show’s host solemnly ran down a list of textbook beltway smears against Gabbard and made her defend them in front of his audience.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Normally when a Democratic Party-aligned politician appears on such a show, you can expect jokes about how stupid Trump is and how badly they’re going to beat the Republicans, how they’re going to help ordinary Americans, and maybe some friendly back-and-forth about where they grew up or something. Colbert had no time to waste on such things, however, because this was not an interview with a normal Democratic Party-aligned politician: this was a politician who has been loudly and consistently criticizing US foreign policy.

    After briefly asking his guest who she is and why she’s running for president, Colbert jumped right into it by immediately bringing up Syria and Assad, the primary line of attack employed against Gabbard by establishment propagandists in American mainstream media.

    Colbert: Do you think the Iraq war was worth it?

    Gabbard: No.

    Colbert: Do you think that our involvement in Syria has been worth it?

    Gabbard: No.

    Colbert: Do you think that ISIS could have been defeated without our involvement and without our support of the local troops there?

    Gabbard: There are two things we need to address in Syria. One is a regime change war that was first launched by the United States in 2011, covertly, led by the CIA. That is a regime change war that has continued over the years, that has increased the suffering of the Syrian people, and strengthened groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS, because the CIA was using American taxpayer dollars to provide arms and training and equipment to these terrorist groups to get them to overthrow the government. So that is a regime change war that we should not have been engaging.

    Colbert: So, but if it is someone like Bashar al-Assad, who gasses his own people, or who engages in war crimes against his own people, should the United States not be involved?

    Gabbard: The United States should not be intervening to overthrow these dictators and these regimes that we don’t like, like Assad, like Saddam Hussein, like Gaddafi, and like Kim Jong Un. There are bad people in the world, but history has shown us that every time the United States goes in and topples these dictators we don’t like, trying to end up like the world’s police, we end up increasing the suffering of the people in these countries. We end up increasing the loss of life, but American lives and the lives of people in these countries. We end up undermining our own security, what to speak of the trillions of dollars of taxpayer money that’s spent on these wars that we need to be using right here at home.

    Like I said, this is not a normal presidential candidate. How often do you see a guest appear on a network late night talk show and talk about the CIA arming terrorists in Syria and the fact that US military interventionism is completely disastrous? It just doesn’t happen. You can understand, then, why empire propagandist Stephen Colbert spent the rest of the interview informing his TV audience that Tulsi Gabbard is dangerous and poisonous.

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

    Colbert: You got some heat for meeting with Bashar al-Assad. Do you not consider him a war criminal? Why did you meet with that man?

    Gabbard: In the pursuit of peace and security. If we are not willing to meet with adversaries, potential adversaries, in the pursuit of peace and security, the only alternative is more war. That’s why I took that meeting with Assad. In pursuit of peace and security.

    Colbert: Do you believe he is a war criminal? Do you believe he gassed his own people or committed atrocities against his own people?

    Gabbard: Yes. Reports have shown that that’s a fact.

    Colbert: So you believe the intelligence agencies on that. Because I heard that you did not necessarily believe those reports.

    The reason I call Colbert a propagandist and not simply a liberal empire loyalist who happens to have been elevated by billionaire media is because these are carefully constructed narratives that he is reciting, and they weren’t constructed by him.

    Trying to make it look to the audience as though Gabbard is in some way loyal to Assad has been a high-priority agenda of the mainstream media ever since she announced her presidential candidacy. We saw it in her recent appearanceon The View, where John McCain’s sociopathic daughter called her an “Assad apologist” and demanded that Gabbard call Assad an enemy of the United States. We saw it in her recent CNN town hall, where a consultant who worked on Obama’s 2008 campaign was presented as an ordinary audience member to help CNN’s Dana Bash paint Gabbard’s skepticism of intelligence reports about an alleged chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government as something that is weird and suspicious, instead of the only sane position in a post-Iraq invasion world. We saw it in her appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe last month, where the entire panel piled on her in outrage that she wouldn’t call Assad an enemy of the United States. It’s such a common propaganda talking point that the New York Times’ Bari Weiss famously made a laughingstock of herself by repeating it as self-evident truth on The Joe Rogan Experience without having the faintest clue what specific facts it was meant to refer to, just because she’d heard establishment pundits saying it so much.

    This is an organized smear by the mass media attempting to marry Gabbard in the eyes of the public to a Middle Eastern leader whom the propagandists have already sold as a child-murdering monster, and Colbert is participating in it here just as much as the serious news media talking heads are. It’s been frustrating to watch Gabbard fold to this smear campaign by acting like it’s an established fact that Assad “gases his own people” and not the hotly contested empire-serving narrative she knows it is. Gabbard is being targeted by this smear because she challenges US political orthodoxy on military violence (the glue which holds the empire together), so no amount of capitulation will keep them from trying to prevent the public from trusting her words.

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

    “I don’t know whether America should be the policemen of the world,” Colbert said after Gabbard defended her position.

    “It is my opinion that we should not be,” Gabbard replied, causing Colbert to launch into a stuffy, embarrassing sermon on the virtues of interventionism and US hegemony that would make Bill Kristol blush.

    “If we are not, though, nature abhors a vacuum, and if we are not involved in international conflicts, or trying to quell international conflicts, certainly the Russians and the Chinese will fill that vacuum. And we will step away from the world stage in a significant way that might destabilize the world, because the United States, however flawed, is a force for good in the world in my opinion. Would you agree with that?”

    Again, this is a comedy show.

    Gabbard explained that in order to be a force for good in the world the United States has to actually do good, which means not raining fire upon every nation it dislikes all the time. Colbert responded by reading off his blue index card to repeat yet another tired anti-Gabbard smear.

    “You’ve gotten some fans in the Trump supporter world: David Duke, Steve Bannon, and, uh, Matt, uh, Gaetz, is that his name? Matt Gaetz? What do you make of how much they like you?”

    This one is particularly vile, partly because Gabbard has repeatedly and unequivocally denounced David Duke, who has a long-established and well-known history of injecting himself into the drama of high-profile conversations in order to maintain the illusion of relevance, and partly because it’s a completely irrelevant point that is brought up solely for the purpose of marrying Tulsi Gabbard’s name to a former Ku Klux Klan leader. Colbert only brought this up (and made Newsweek totally squee) because he wanted to assist in that marrying. The fact that there are distasteful ideologies which also happen to oppose US interventionism for their own reasons does not change the undeniable fact that US military interventionism is consistently disastrous and never helpful and robs the US public of resources that are rightfully theirs.

    This interview was easily Colbert’s most blatant establishment rim job I’ve ever seen, surpassing even the time he corrected his own audience when they cheered at James Comey’s firing to explain to them that Comey is a good guy now and they’re meant to like him. Colbert’s show is blatant propaganda for human livestock, and the fact that this is what American “comedy” shows look like now is nauseating.

    When Tulsi Gabbard first announced her candidacy I predicted that she’d have the narrative control engineers scrambling all over themselves to kill her message, and it’s been even more spectacular than I imagined. I don’t agree with everything she says and does, but by damn this woman is shaking up the establishment narrative matrix more than anybody else right now. She’s certainly keeping it interesting.

    *  *  *

    Thanks for reading! My articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish.

    Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Mar 14

Today’s News 14th March 2019

  • Watch Norwegian F-35 Stealth Jet Test Fire First Air-to-Air Missile

    A Norwegian fifth-generation F-35 stealth fighter jet assigned to 332 Squadron of the Royal Norwegian Air Force conducted the first air launch of an AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) in Norway, according to the Defence Blog.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Norway joined the F-35 program in 2008 to replace its F-16 fleet. The first two stealth jets were delivered for Norway to Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, in late 2015, where they were used to train Norwegian pilots. The first Norwegian F-35s arrived in-country for permanent basing at Ørland Air Base in November 2017.

    The Norwegian government funded the procurement of 40 of 52 F-35s, expected to mostly arrive in the early 2020s.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Norwegian Armed Forces published the F-35 firing the AMRAAM missile on March 09.

    “The shooting was carried out by 332 squadrons in cooperation with the TTT squadron (testing, training, and tactics) and the maintenance and logistics organization and was the first of its kind with F-35 in Norway,” the video’s description read.

    Defense Blog said the AMRAAM missile is operational on all F-35 variants (the F-35A conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) variant, the F-35B short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) variant, and the F-35C carrier variant (CV)). It’s the only radar-guided, air-to-air missile cleared to air-launch from the fifth-generation fighter.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The AMRAAM air-to-air missile is capable of all-weather day-and-night operations. With more than two decades of design, upgrades, testing, and production, the AIM-120 missile continues to be the best weapon for dogfights.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Raytheon is the main defense contractor that makes the missile. The weapon’s advanced active guidance section provides pilots with high hit rates.

    Procured by 37 countries including the U.S., the AMRAAM missile is now integrated on the F-35 and has been used on F-15, F-16, F/A-18, F-22, Typhoon, Gripen, Tornado, and Harrier.

    More importantly, the Pentagon is creating an F-35 friends circle around Russia and China, and with the stealth jets armed with new AMRAAM missiles, it seems like the preparation for conflict is more obvious than ever.

  • Bulgaria Is A New Battleground In The New Cold War

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via Oriental Review,

    Russian Prime Minister Medvedev traveled to Bulgaria last week.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The Russian premier’s visit was intended to explore the possibility of extending the TurkStream gas pipeline to the Balkan country and then onwards to Serbia and Central Europe, which is dependent on Sofia securing firm legal guarantees from Brussels in order to avoid a repeat of the South Stream fiasco that gave rise to the current project in the first place.

    The timing of his trip also coincided with his host’s Liberation Day celebrations when Bulgaria remembers how it fought for freedom against the Ottoman Empire with Russian assistance, making this a very somber occasion and the perfect moment for any Russian leader to visit. Ties between the two Slavic countries have traditionally been close, though they’ve nevertheless had their fair share of problems as well, most notably during the two World Wars when they found themselves on opposite sides.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The complexity of Russian-Bulgarian relations explains why it’s a lot easier said than done to propose TurkStream’s extension to Bulgaria, especially given the recent context of the Balkan state becoming a joint US and EU protectorate and all but functioning as one of their vassals. That said, it speaks to the sincere desire of the Bulgarian authorities to advance their nation’s interests that they’re even trying to go forward with this possibility anyhow. The EU obviously needs the energy, and while they’d prefer to diversify more fully from their Russian supplier for political reasons or at the very least retain pipeline transit through Ukraine, they might be willing to accept TurkStream since they don’t have any other realistic options available to them under the circumstances. Bulgaria’s American ally, however, is clearly against this since it intends to sell more costly LNG to the continent instead.

    It can therefore be said that a struggle for influence is taking place in Bulgaria nowadays.

    The EU could leverage its economic and institutional weight in the country to promote TurkStream’s extension to “mainland Europe” from Turkey while the US could lean on its military influence through NATO and the national authorities under its sway to try to stop this from happening. Amidst all of this, there are evidently some Bulgarian decision makers who – despite their political faults and loyalty to one or another patron – nevertheless still care about their national interests and understand how important it is for their country that this Russian initiative succeeds, hence why some headway has already been made in that direction thus far. It’ll remain to be seen who comes out on top in this struggle for influence, but Bulgaria just became an important New Cold War battleground.

  • While Everyone Sleeps, The Courts Are Abolishing All Immigration Enforcement

    Authored by Daniel Horwitz via ConservativeReview.com,

    Congress could never get away with creating constitutional rights for illegal aliens to remain here, yet a single lower court just did so on Thursday. And where Congress would face deep reprisal in the next election, faceless judges will never feel the heat.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Conservatives fear that extreme Democrats might actually abolish ICE and all immigration enforcement, but the lower courts are already systematically abolishing ICE’s authority, nullifying immigration enforcement statutes, violating separation of powers, and constantly increasing the wave of bogus asylum-seekers that they originally spawned with other radical rulings. The latest ruling from the Ninth Circuit demonstrates that unless Republicans and the president begin pushing back against these radical judges and delegitimizing their rulings, Democrats will get everything they want without ever facing electoral backlash or even the need to win elections.

    It’s truly hard to overstate the outrageously harmful effects of Thursday’s Ninth Circuit ruling. For the first time in our history, the courts have fabricated a constitutional right for those denied asylum to appeal to federal courts for any reason.

    Here’s the background.

    Hundreds of thousands of migrants are flooding our border, claiming the formula of “credible fear” of persecution. They get to stay indefinitely while they ignore their court dates in immigration court. Because of an amalgamation of several prior activist court rulings, mainly by this very circuit, roughly 90 percent of credible fear claims are approved by asylum officers and the claimants shielded from deportation, even though asylum status is ultimately rejected almost every time by an immigration judge. Unfortunately, by that point it’s too late for the American people, who are stuck with the vast majority of these claimants remaining indefinitely in the country. Yet rather than ending this sham incentive, the Ninth Circuit drove a truck through immigration law by asserting that there is now a constitutional right for even the few who are denied initial credible fear status and are placed in deportation proceedings to appeal their denials, not just to an administrative immigration judge but to a federal Article III judge for any reason.

    In past cases, the courts merely twisted statutes and contorted their plain meaning. In this case, for the first time ever and in direct contrast to a ruling by the Third Circuit in 2016, the Ninth Circuit ruled that the immigration statute that denies the federal courts jurisdiction to hear such appeals is unconstitutional under the constitutional requirement of habeas corpus, thereby giving 7.8 billion people in the world habeas corpus access to our courts. This will allow numerous illegal aliens, including the brand-new ones entering now, to stay indefinitely while they litigate themselves into status. The ACLU, which of course led this lawsuit on behalf of a Sri Lankan migrant denied asylum, wasn’t kidding when it proclaimed, “The historical and practical importance of this ruling cannot be overstated.”

    This is one of many recent violations of sovereignty doctrine, known as “plenary power doctrine.” This long-standing principle in the courts is that while aliens have due process rights against criminal punishment, they have no rights to litigate against deportation, which is a mere extension of sovereignty, other than the process laid out by Congress. This principle “has become about as firmly embedded in the legislative and judicial tissues of our body politic as any aspect of our government,” not “merely” by “a page of history … but a whole volume” (Galvan v. Press). The concept is “inherent in sovereignty,” consistent with “ancient principles” of international law, and “to be exercised exclusively by the political branches of government.” (Kleindienst v. Mandel).

    What is so outrageous about this case is that Congress explicitly stripped the courts of any jurisdiction to hear such claims. The reason why the district judge, who was an Obama appointee, refused to even hear this case is because 8 U.S.C. §1252(e)(2) prohibits the federal courts (not to be confused with DOJ administrative courts) from hearing habeas corpus claims against expedited removal of those denied their credible fear claims unless of course they have a claim that they are a citizen or a legal permanent resident. In this case, the three Clinton appointees of this Ninth Circuit panel, Wallace Tashima, Margaret McKeown, and Richard Paez, ruled for the first time that this provision is unconstitutional and that the district court must hear the case.

    The court used the Boumediene v. Bush decision, which created a right to habeas corpus for enemy combatants being held at Guantanamo Bay, as the basis for its decision. That decision in itself was an egregious warping of the Constitution, a decision that Scalia angrily predicted that “the Nation will live to regret.” However, the important distinction is that Boumediene was a case of indefinite detention, whereas this is a case where we are enforcing our sovereignty and getting rid of the person, who can live freely wherever he wants. Applying habeas corpus to deportation is bonkers even by the Boumediene standard.

    Now that there is a circuit split on this revolutionary idea, court watchers on all sides predict the Supreme Court will take up the case. While conservatives are fairly confident that this will be added to the endless list of Ninth Circuit reversals by SCOTUS (although I have my concerns about Gorsuch in this case), conservatives need to realize the factors creating an emergency with sovereignty and the lower courts:

    • We’ve seen over and over again how lower courts create a legal, political, and policy momentum for creating new rights. If they are not nipped in the bud and delegitimized immediately, they wind up growing and eventually being codified, even if initially reversed by the Supreme Court. This has happened with almost every phantom right created by the courts and has already begun with immigration law. We are at the cusp of the courts doing with immigration what they did with abortion and gay marriage, even though it took years for the Left to win in those cases. All of the justices except for Clarence Thomas succumb to pressure to varying degrees and will eventually go along with much of the anti-sovereignty doctrine building in the lower courts.

    • Many conservatives are suggesting that we “fix” our immigration laws to stop the asylum fraud, among other problems at the border. What this case demonstrates is that courts are so radical they are not just twisting the wording of statutes, they are downright invalidating them by creating new constitutional rights to immigrate. They are even brazenly invalidating statutes that block the courts from hearing cases, as we saw with the TPS amnesty case. Keeping out and deporting aliens as well as defining court jurisdiction are two of the most unquestionable and categorical powers of Congress, and they are backed by case law dating back to our Founding. This is no longer about any one statute. There is no statute to fix. Remember, we already fixed our immigration laws in 1996. Many of the things we want to do, including kicking the courts out of these cases, were already done in 1996, including the statute at issue here. This law passed the Senate unanimously! Passing more laws while continuing to legitimize lower court supremacy won’t help. If we continue to agree that lower courts rule over immigration, no amount of congressional changes could help, because the courts will rule the changes unconstitutional. This is why it’s time to grab the bull by the horns and attack the notion of judicial jurisdiction over these issues to begin with. The Trump administration needs to begin pushing back against the courts.

    • There is something much bigger occurring here. Putting aside particular smaller areas of immigration law, the legal profession has now pulled the trigger on a long-standing goal of what they refer to as “applying constitutional norms” to foreign nationals, not just in terms of criminal proceedings, but in the context of immigration claims themselves.

    Justice Robert Jackson, the great champion of due process and the dissenter in the Japanese internment case, described it this way: “Due process does not invest any alien with a right to enter the United States, nor confer on those admitted the right to remain against the national will.” Due process for aliens in the context of immigration decisions is whatever Congress says it is. As the court said in Lem Moon Sing v. United States, “The decisions of executive or administrative officers, acting within powers expressly conferred by Congress, are due process of law.” Liberals have been trying to attack this for decades and ensure that even the aliens we successfully deport expeditiously (increasingly a small number) can remain here indefinitely and tie up our courts with lawsuits. If we allow this game to continue, the flow at our border will make what Europe is dealing with look like child’s play.

    Every week, we cede another piece of our sovereignty to unelected courts who are actually violating longstanding Supreme Court precedent. The conservative movement needs to push this administration to stand up and put the Supreme Court on notice to guard its own precedents and doctrines and that if it fails to rein in its own quite inferior courts, the administration will certainly not regard those decisions as superior to our own laws. Trump has no other choice.

  • China's Leadership More Popular Globally Than U.S. Counterpart

    It’s been a fact since 2017: The Chinese leadership has higher median approval ratings around the world than its U.S. counterpart. While the gap was miniscule in 2017, Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes that it widened in the previous year to three percentage points, as reported by Gallup.

    Infographic: China's Leadership More Popular Globally Than U.S. Counterpart | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    The last time the U.S. was this unpopular around the world was during the financial crisis in 2008. But even then, the U.S. leadership’s approval rating was higher than any of those of the current Trump cabinet, which assumed office in early 2017. China has earned high ratings in Africa, where the country has invested large sums in the past decade.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Approval ratings in its home region were on par with the median global result of 34 percent and were somewhat lower in Europe and the Americas.

    Yet, Mexican citizens, whose country has been at loggerheads with the Trump administration over trade deal NAFTA and the construction of a border wall, also rated China significantly higher in the past year, as did citizens of Venezuela.

  • The Federal Reserve: A Failure Of The Rule Of Law

    Authored by Alexander Salter via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    “Money is power.” We’ve all heard this aphorism many times before. Too often it’s a lazy shorthand dismissal of the finding of mainstream economics, which show that the pursuit and possession of money often entails innocuous or even beneficial consequences for society. Dr. Johnson was right after all: “There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    But there are some contexts in which the saying is apt. An obvious case is the Federal Reserve. The Fed has a monopoly on the creation of base money, the fundamental asset underlying the banking and financial system. And over decades, with each instance of financial turbulence, the Fed has become less constrained in how, when, and why it creates base money. Since the Great Recession, the Fed has been able to bestow purchasing power, liquidity, and solvency on just about any financial organization it pleases. If that isn’t power, there’s no such thing.

    The Federal Reserve System was created in 1913. It was intended to be a formalization of the interbank clearing system that then existed in the National Banking System. It was not intended to be a central bank. Even in the early 20th century, economists and politicians had some idea of what central banks did and how they behaved, and the existence of such an institution was widely regarded as inherently un-American, in the sense that it could not be reconciled with a self-governing society. That’s why so many proponents of the Federal Reserve System bent over backward to insist they were not advocating the creation of a central bank. And at the time, their repudiations were reasonable; there was no reason the Federal Reserve System had to acquire the powers it did.

    But then the US entered the First World War. Wars have a way of eroding society’s long-established institutions. And the political process has a logic of its own. These forces combined to transform the Fed into what its critics feared it might become: a genuine central bank.

    The Fed began supporting the market for US government debt during the First World War using techniques that were the forerunners of modern monetary policy. Once the Fed got a taste for tinkering with credit and money markets, it insisted benign monetary management was consistent with its mandate. And it’s been tinkering ever since, often to the detriment of millions of workers who have no control over the Fed but must suffer the consequences of its errors.

    It’s well accepted in macroeconomics that the Fed bears a large share of the blame for putting the “Great” in Great Depression. The turmoil that gripped not only US but global markets starting in 1929 was so disruptive, in part, because the Fed bungled its handling of the money supply. Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz famously demonstrated this in their much-celebrated Monetary History of the United States. So compelling was their case that in 2002, future Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke admitted, “I would like to say to Milton and Anna:Regarding the Great Depression. You’re right, we did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again.”

    But the Fed did do it again. The 2007-8 crisis was a replay of central bank mismanagement. Bernanke’s Fed focused more on shoring up the balance sheets of politically connected banks and nonbank financial houses than combating the liquidity crunch that characterized the early day of the crisis. The result was many irresponsible banks got bailouts, while financial markets as a whole were left scrambling for liquidity. The reverberations of this misdiagnosis were not limited to financial markets: as the spike in unemployment and the precipitous decline in output demonstrate, the Fed’s actions had dire consequences for those far removed from the financial sector.

    But through various rounds of loaning banks money on unsound collateral, such as the now-infamous mortgage-backed securities, as well as outright purchases of bad assets to prop up banks’ balance sheets, the Fed has de facto acquired the authority to allocate credit to preferred banks and other financial institutions. Before the crisis, the Fed’s tinkering could still, with some mental gymnastics, be reconciled with the view that the central bank can be and should be a financial-market referee. But now, with its powers to allocate credit in a manner that much more resembles fiscal policy than monetary policy, the Fed has stepped into the game as a player, and one that plays by an entirely different set of rules.

    More than a decade after the financial crisis, we’re left grappling with the Fed as an organization with incredible power but subject to minimal responsibility. History shows that the Fed is eager to expand its own powers with each macroeconomic snafu. From clearinghouse to monetary tinkerer to direct allocator of purchasing power, each real or perceived crisis has been used by the Fed to move one step further on the road to monetary central planning. At no time has this process been approved through any of the institutions of collective action Americans recognize as lawful. Nor can it be justified by circumstances, since the only durable beneficiaries of the Fed’s transformation are politically connected bankers and would-be monetary policy makers. 

    In the case of the Fed, money is indeed power, and power of the most pernicious kind. There’s no reason to continue to put up with this lawless market manipulator. Free societies require any who would wield power on the public’s behalf to submit themselves to the rule of law. It’s long past time we demanded that of the Fed.

  • Dick's Chops Off Revenue From Gun Enthusiasts Amid Shrinking Sales

    Despite shrinking sales following their last anti-gun corporate decision, Dick’s Sporting Goods has announced it is scaling back its gun business yet again.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    During its Tuesday earnings call, CEO Edward Stack said that the sporting goods retailer would no longer carry firearms at 125 locations – roughly 17% of US stores. The company will replace the firearms sections with other categories such as clothing and shoes. Of note, the retailer is beefing up its private-label strategy in a bid to become less reliant on wholesale partners such as Under Armour and Nike. 

    Of note, net income for the quarter fell to $102.6 million from $116 million during the same period last year, per Marketwatch. Adjusted same store sales fell 3.1% y/y for the 12 month period ending Feb 2. 

    The shift away from firearms is the second such step over the last 13 months, after the store decided in late February 2018 to stop selling guns to customers younger than 21 in the wake of the Valentine’s day mass-shooting weeks before at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The company also pulled intimidating looking assault rifles from their shelves as well as high-capacity magazines from all store locations, along with subsidiary Field & Stream.

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

    The company also hired three gun control lobbyists, and announced that it would destroy all of the weapons it had stopped selling. 

    In response to the 2018 corporate decision, gunmakers Springfield Armory and O.F. Mossberg stopped doing business with Dick’s. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Sales, meanwhile, dipped nearly 4 percent as of November 2018 amid vows by gun rights activists to never patronize the sporting goods chain. During Wednesday’s call, Stack noted that the company had continued to see “double-digit declines” in its gun business, and that they expect the trend to continue. 

  • Study Shows Migrants Use Almost Twice The Welfare Benefits As Native-Born Americans

    Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

    New research has discovered that foreign non-citizens use nearly two times the amount of welfare as native-born Americans. Both legal and illegal aliens fall into the category of foreigners who take from the welfare system.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    According to a report by Breitbart, in recently released research by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), analysts discovered that about 63 percent of non-citizen households, those who live legally and illegally in the U.S., use some form of public welfare while only about 35 percent of native-born American households are on welfare.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    California and Texas have the most expansive welfare-dependent immigration. For example, more than 7-in-10 non-citizen households in California use at least one form of welfare compared to just 35 percent of native-born American households that use welfare in the state.

    In Texas, nearly 70 percent of non-citizen households use welfare. Similar to California, only 35 percent of native-born American households are on welfare.-Breitbart

    In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News earlier this week, President Donald Trump said he wanted an end to all welfare-dependent legal immigration that burdens American taxpayers with the costs.

    “I don’t like the idea of people coming in and going on welfare for 50 years, and that’s what they want to be able to do – and it’s no good,” Trump said. 

    And it is an obvious burden.  For what one receives without working for, another must work for without earning.  It’s a vicious and immoral practice to steal money from some in order to give it to others.

    The Trump administration is considering a new regulation this year that would limit immigrants’ ability to live off the producers (taxpayers). It would effectively ban legal immigrants from permanently resettling in the U.S. if they are a burden on American taxpayers. This would be a net win for those being stolen from (“taxpayers”).

    Legal immigration controls suggested by the government would be equal an annual $57.4 billion tax cut – the amount taxpayers spend every year on paying for the welfare, crime, and schooling costs of the country’s mass importation of 1.5 million new, mostly low-skilled legal immigrants.

  • Yuan Slides After China Jobless Rate Spikes, Industrial Production Growth Tumbles

    After January’s record surge, February saw China’s credit growth unexpectedly collapse prompting notable downgrades in expectations for tonight’s macro data bonanza.

    Chinese central bank reported that in February, aggregate financing increased by a paltry 703 billion yuan, roughly half the expected 1.3 trillion…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    … and the lowest print on record in the recently revised series. Additionally, growth in China’s broad money supply, or M2, once again slumped and after a modest rebound in January, in February M2 Y/Y growth dropped back to 8.0%, the lowest print in series history.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The February collapse in credit creation following January’s extravagant print likely means that just like most other Chinese data in the pre-New Year period, this too was distorted by the Lunar New Year, and as a result the January surge, far from indicative of a major new reflationary boost may simply suggest that China will maintain a prudent approach to overall economic leverage, which however will be bad news for the stock market which in the second half of February went all in on bets that China has doubled-down on reflating both its, and the global economy.

    And China’s credit impulse has weakened back after January’s rebound:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Heading into the data, Chinese macro data has been extremely weak despite endless streams of stimulus:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    But, as Bloomberg reports, the latest PMI figures out of China have suggested some stabilization in an economic slowdown that hit last year. Though the blow from the trade war to exports and production probably hasn’t fully hit as yet.

    So what did February’s data look like:

    • China Industrial Production YoY MISS +5.3% vs +5.6% exp and +6.2% prior

    • China Retail Sales YoY MEET +8.2% vs +8.2% exp and +9.0% prior

    • China Fixed Asset Investment YoY MEET +6.1% vs +6.1% exp and +5.9% prior

    • China Property Investment YoY BEAT +11.6% vs +9.5% prior

    • China Surveyed Jobless Rate WEAKER 5.3% vs 4.9% prior

    This is the weakest Industrial Production growth since March 2009 and Retail Sales growth is hovering near its weakest since May 2003. But perhaps the most worrisome for Chinese officials is the surge in the surveyed jobless rate to 5.3%, the highest since Feb 2017.

    Graphically:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Of course, all of this comes with a warning that figures for this time of year can be volatile due to the lunar new year holiday in China, when factories and offices are significantly affected by a week-long break. The timing of the holiday shifts. Early February 2019, mid-February 2018 and late January to early February 2017, for example. So it really distorts the Jan/Feb data.

    Offshore yuan was fading into the data (and ChiNext was extending its losses from the last two days) and extended its losses after the data disappointment…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The soft reading on industrial output is probably the key takeaway from these numbers, opening the big question of whether this is reflective of a deeper downturn than anticipated as the trade war effects start to bite in earnest (or if it can be blamed on the Lunar New Year effect)?

  • CIA Is Conspiring With ISIS, Turning Syrian Refugee Camps Into ISIS Hotbeds

    Submitted by SouthFront

    The CIA is conspiring with ISIS commanders in northeastern Syria supplying them with fake documents and then transferring them to Iraq, according to reports in Turkish pro-government media.

    About 2,000 ISIS members were questioned in the areas of Kesra, Buseira, al-Omar and Suwayr in Deir Ezzor province and at least 140 of them then received fake documents. Some of the questioned terrorists were then moved to the camps of al-Hol, Hasakah and Rukban, which are controlled by US-backed forces. The CIA also reportedly created a special facility near Abu Khashab with the same purpose.

    Israeli, French and British special services are reportedly involved.

    An interesting observation is that the media of the country, which in the previous years of war, used to conspire with ISIS allowing its foreign recruits to enter Syria and buying smuggled oil from the terrorists, has now become one of the most active exposers of the alleged US ties with ISIS elements.

    Another issue often raised in Turkish media is the poor humanitarian situation in the refugee camps controlled by US-backed forces. These reports come in the course of other revelations. According to the International Rescue Committee, about 100 people, mostly children, died in combat zones or in the al-Hol camp controlled by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces just recently.

    In its turn, the Russian Defense Ministry released a series of satellite images revealing the horrifying conditions in the al-Rukban camp. The imagery released on March 12 shows at least 670 graves, many of them fresh, close to the camp’s living area. The tents and light constructions used to settle refugees are also located in a close proximity to large waste deposits.

    A joint statement by the Russian and Syrian Joint Coordination Committees for Repatriation of Syrian Refugees said that refugees in al-Rukban are suffering from a lack of water, food, medication and warm clothing, which is especially important during winter. According to the statement, members of the US-backed armed group Maghawir al-Thawra disrupt water deliveries to the camp, using this as a bargaining chip for blackmailing and profiteering purposes.

    Tensions are once again growing between Syria and Israel. Earlier in March, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad submitted an official letter to the head of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) Kristin Lund that Damascus ”will not hesitate to confront Israel” if it continues refusing  to withdraw from the Golan Heights.

    Israeli media and officials responded with a new round of allegations that Hezbollah is entrenching in southern Syria therefore justifying a further militarization of the Golan Heights.

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Mar 13

Today’s News 13th March 2019

  • Where Are The Landmines?

    Due to their indiscriminate and devastating effects, the long-lasting threat posed by their presence and the painstaking efforts required to remove them, anti-personnel landmines have rightfully been prohibited by the United Nations since 1997 – a treaty joined by over 150 countries.

    Nevertheless, as Statista’s Martin Armstrong notes, there is still an alarmingly large number of them contaminating countries across the world.

    This infographic presents facts and figures from the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, shedding light on the places landmines still threaten life, the countries with the largest stockpiles and the progress being made in the fight to clear the contaminated areas.

    Infographic: Where are the Landmines? | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

  • Germany's Über Hypocrisy Over Venezuela

    Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Germany has taken the lead among European Union member states to back Washington’s regime-change agenda for Venezuela. Berlin’s hypocrisy and double-think is quite astounding.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Only a few weeks ago, German politicians and media were up in arms protesting to the Trump administration for interfering in Berlin’s internal affairs. There were even outraged complaints that Washington was seeking “regime change” against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government.

    Those protests were sparked when Richard Grenell, the US ambassador to Germany, warned German companies involved in the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with Russia that they could be hit with American economic sanctions if they go ahead with the Baltic seabed project.

    Earlier, Grenell provoked fury among Berlin’s political establishment when he openly gave his backing to opposition party Alternative for Germany. That led to consternation and denunciations of Washington’s perceived backing for regime change in Berlin. They were public calls for Grenell to be expelled over his apparent breach of diplomatic protocols.

    Now, however, Germany is shamelessly kowtowing to an even more outrageous American regime-change plot against Venezuela.

    Last week, the government of President Nicolas Maduro ordered the expulsion of German ambassador Daniel Kriener after he greeted the US-backed opposition figure Juan Guaido on a high-profile occasion. Guaido had just returned from a tour of Latin American countries during which he had openly called for the overthrow of the Maduro government. Arguably a legal case could be made for the arrest of Guaido by the Venezuelan authorities on charges of sedition.

    When Guaido returned to Venezuela on March 4 he was greeted at the airport by several foreign diplomats. Among the receiving dignitaries was Germany’s envoy Daniel Kriener.

    The opposition figure had declared himself “interim president” of Venezuela on January 23 and was immediately recognized by Washington and several European Union states. The EU has so far not issued an official endorsement of Guaido over incumbent President Maduro. Italy’s objection blocked the EU from adopting a unanimous position.

    Nevertheless, as the strongest economy in the 28-member bloc, Germany can be seen as de facto leader of the EU. Its position on Venezuela therefore gives virtual EU gravitas to the geopolitical maneuvering led by Washington towards the South American country.

    What’s more, the explicit backing of Juan Guaido by Germany’s envoy was carried out on the “express order” of Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, according to Deutsche Welle.

    “It was my express wish and request that Ambassador Kriener turn out with representatives of other European nations and Latin American ones to meet acting President Guaido at the airport,” said Maas.

     “We had information that he was supposed to be arrested there. I believe that the presence of various ambassadors helped prevent such an arrest.”

    It’s staggering to comprehend the double-think involved here.

    Guaido was hardly known among the vast majority of Venezuelans until he catapulted on to the global stage by declaring himself “interim president”. That move was clearly executed in a concerted plan with the Trump White House. European governments and Western media have complacently adopted the White House line that Guaido is the legitimate leader while socialist President Maduro is a “usurper”.

    That is in spite of the fact that Maduro was re-elected last year in free and fair elections by a huge majority of votes. Guaido’s rightwing, pro-business party boycotted the elections. Yet he is anointed by Washington, Berlin and some 50 other states as the legitimate leader.

    Russia, China, Turkey, Cuba and most other members of the United Nations have refused to adopt Washington’s decree of recognizing Guaido. Those nations (comprising 75 per cent of the UN assembly) continue to recognize President Maduro as the sovereign authority. Indeed, Russia has been highly critical of Washington’s blatant interference for regime change in oil-rich Venezuela. Moscow has warned it will not tolerate US military intervention.

    Russia’s envoy to the UN Vasily Nebenzia, at a Security Council session last month, excoriated the US for its gross violation of international law with regard to Venezuela. Moscow’s diplomat also directed a sharp rebuke at other nations “complicit” in Washington’s aggression, saying that one day “you will be next” for similar American subversion in their own affairs.

    Germany’s hypocrisy and double-think is, to paraphrase that country’s national anthem, “über alles” (above all else).

    German politicians, diplomats and media were apoplectic in their anger at perceived interference by the US ambassador in Berlin’s internal affairs. Yet the German political establishment has no qualms whatsoever about ganging up – only weeks later – with Washington to subvert the politics and constitution of Venezuela.

    How can Germany be so utterly über servile to Washington and the latter’s brazen criminal aggression towards Venezuela?

    It seems obvious that Berlin is trying to ingratiate itself with the Trump administration. But what for?

    Trump has been pillorying Germany with allegations of “unfair trade” practices. In particular, Washington is recently stepping up its threats to slap punitive tariffs on German auto exports. Given that this is a key sector in the German export-driven economy, it may be gleaned that Berlin is keen to appease Trump. By backing his aggression towards Venezuela?

    Perhaps this policy of appeasement is also motivated by Berlin’s concern to spare the Nord Stream 2 project from American sanctions. When NS2 is completed later this year, it is reckoned to double the capacity of natural gas consumption by Germany from Russia. That will be crucial for Germany’s economic growth.

    Another factor is possible blackmail of Berlin by Washington. Recall the earth-shattering revelations made by American whistleblower Edward Snowden a few years back when he disclosed that US intelligence agencies were tapping the personal phone communications of Chancellor Merkel and other senior Berlin politicians. Recall, too, how the German state remarkably acquiesced over what should have been seen as a devastating infringement by Washington.

    The weird lack of action by Berlin over that huge violation of its sovereignty by the Americans makes one wonder if the US spies uncovered a treasure trove of blackmail material on German politicians.

    Berlin’s pathetic kowtowing to Washington’s interference in Venezuela begs an ulterior explanation. No self-respecting government could be so hypocritical and duplicitous.

    Whatever Berlin may calculate to gain from its unscrupulous bending over for Washington, one thing seems clear, as Russian envoy Nebenzia warned: “One day you are next” for American hegemonic shafting.

  • Putin Now Thinks Western Elites Are "Swine"

    Authored by Dmitry Orlov via Russia Insider,

    An article I published close to five years ago, “Putin to Western elites: Play-time is over”, turned out to be the most popular thing I’ve written so far, having garnered over 200,000 reads over the intervening years. In it I wrote about Putin’s speech at the 2014 Valdai Club conference. In that speech he defined the new rules by which Russia conducts its foreign policy: out in the open, in full public view, as a sovereign nation among other sovereign nations, asserting its national interests and demanding to be treated as an equal. Yet again, Western elites failed to listen to him.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Instead of mutually beneficial cooperation they continued to speak the language of empty accusations and counterproductive yet toothless sanctions.

    And so, in last month’s address to Russia’s National Assembly Putin sounded note of complete and utter disdain and contempt for his “Western partners,” as he has usually called them. This time he called them “swine.”

    The president’s annual address to the National Assembly is a rather big deal. Russia’s National Assembly is quite unlike that of, say, Venezuela, which really just consists of some obscure nonentity named Juan recording Youtube videos in his apartment. In Russia, the gathering is a who’s-who of Russian politics, including cabinet ministers, Kremlin staffers, the parliament (State Duma), regional governors, business leaders and political experts, along with a huge crowd of journalists. One thing that stood out at this year’s address was the very high level of tension in the hall: the atmosphere seemed charged with electricity.

    It quickly became obvious why the upper echelon of Russia’s state bureaucracy was nervous: Putin’s speech was part marching orders part harangue. His plans for the next couple of years are extremely ambitious, as he himself admitted. The plank is set very high, he said, and those who are not up to the challenge have no business going near it. Very hard work lies ahead for almost everyone who was gathered in that hall, and those of them who fail at their tasks are unlikely to be in attendance the next time around because their careers will have ended in disgrace.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The address contained almost no bad news and quite a lot of very good news. Russia’s financial reserves are more than sufficient to cover its entire external debt, both public and private. Non-energy-resource exports are booming to such an extent that Russia no longer needs oil and gas exports to maintain a positive balance of trade. It has become largely immune to Western sanctions. Eurasian integration projects are going extremely well. Russian government’s investments in industry are paying dividends.

    The government has amassed vast amounts of capital which it will now spend on domestic programs designed to benefit the people, to help Russians live longer, healthier lives and have more children. “More children—lower taxes” was one of the catchier slogans.

    This was what most of the address was about: eradication of remaining poverty; low, subsidized mortgage rates for families with two or more children; pensions indexed to inflation above and beyond the official minimal income levels (corrected and paid out retroactively); high-speed internet for each and every school; universal access to health care through a network of rural clinics; several new world-class oncology clinics; support for tech start-ups; a “social contract” program that helps people start small businesses; another program called “ticket to the future” that allows sixth-graders to choose a career path that includes directed study programs, mentorships and apprenticeships; lots of new infrastructure projects such as the soon-to-be-opened Autobahn between Moscow and St. Petersburg, revamped trash collection and recycling and major air pollution reductions in a dozen major cities; the list goes on and on.

    No opposition to these proposals worth mentioning was voiced in any of the commentary that followed on news programs and talk shows; after all, who could possibly be against spending amassed capital on projects that help the population?

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Perhaps the most ambitious goal set by Putin was to redo the entire system of Russia’s government regulations, both federal and regional, in every sphere of public life and commerce. Over the next two years every bit of regulation will be examined in order to determine whether it is necessary and whether it responds to contemporary needs and if it isn’t or doesn’t it will be eliminated. This will significantly ease the burden of regulatory compliance, lowering the cost of doing business.

    Another goal was to continue growing the already booming agricultural export sector. Last year Russia achieved self-sufficiency in wheat seed stock, but the overall goal is to achieve complete self-sufficiency in food and to become the world’s provider of ecologically clean foodstuffs. (As Putin pointed out, Russia remains the only major agricultural producer in the world that hasn’t been contaminated by American-made GMO poisons.) Yet another goal is to further grow Russia’s tourism industry, which is already booming, by introducing electronic tourist visas that will be much easier to obtain.

    Last year’s address surprised the world with its second part, in which Putin unveiled a whole set of new Russian weapons systems that effectively negate every last bit of US military superiority. This year, he added just one new system: a supersonic cruise missile called “Zirkon” with a 1000 km range that flies at Mach 9. But he also provided a progress report on all the others: everything is going according to plan; some new armaments have already been delivered, others are going into mass production, the rest are being tested. He spoke in favor of normalized relations with the EU, but accused the US of “hostility,” adding that Russia does not threaten anyone and is not interested in confrontation.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Putin’s sharpest words were reserved for the US decision to abandon the INF treaty. He said that the US acted in bad faith, accusing Russia of violating the treaty while they themselves violated it, specifically articles 5 and 6, by deploying dual-use launch systems in Romania and Poland which can be used for both air defense and for offensive nuclear weapons which the treaty specifically prohibits. Nuclear-tipped Tomahawk cruise missiles, which the US could deploy in Poland and Romania, would of course pose a risk, but would not provide the US with anything like a first-strike advantage, since these cruise missiles are obsolete to the point where even Syria’s Soviet-era air defenses were able to shoot down most of the ones the US lobbed at them as punishment for the fake chemical weapons attack in Douma.

    Speaking of the American dream of a global air defense system, Putin called on the US to “abandon these illusions.” The Americans can think whatever they want, he said, but the question is, “can they do math?” This needs unfolding.

    First, the Americans can think whatever they want because… they are Americans. Russians do not allow themselves the luxury of thinking complete and utter nonsense. Those who are not grounded in fact and logic tend to get the Russian term “likbez” thrown in their faces rather promptly. It literally decodes as “liquidation of illiteracy” and is generally used to shut down ignoramuses. But in the US shocking displays of ignorance are quite acceptable. For an example, you need to look no further than the astonishingly idiotic “Green New Deal” being touted by the freshman congresstwit (how’s that for a gender-neutral appellation?) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. If she were Russian she’d have been laughed right out of town by now.

    “But can they do math?” Apparently not! There is another Russian term—“matchast”—which literally decodes as “material part” but stands for the understanding that can only be achieved through the knowledge of mathematics, the hard sciences and engineering. In Russia, ignoramuses like Ocasio-Cortez, who think that transportation needs can be provided by electric vehicles powered by wind and solar, get shut down by being told to go and study “matchast” while in the US they are allowed to run wild in the halls of congress.

    In this case, if Americans could “do math,” they would quickly figure out that there is no conceivable defensive system that would be effective against the new Russian weapons, that there are no conceivable offensive weapons that would prevent Russia from launching an unstoppable retaliatory strike, and that therefore the “new arms race” (which some Americans have been daft enough to announce) is effectively over and Russia has won. See above: Russia is not spending its money on weapons; it is spending it on helping its people. The US can squander arbitrary amounts of money on weapons but this won’t make an iota of difference: an attack on Russia will be the last thing it ever does.

    Russia does not plan to be the first to violate the ABM treaty, but if the US deploys intermediate-range nuclear weapons against Russia, then Russia will respond in kind, by targeting not just the territories from which it is threatened but the locations where the decisions to threaten it are taken. Washington, Brussels and other NATO capitals would, clearly, be on that list. This shouldn’t be news; Russia has already announced that in the next war, should there be one, will not be fought on Russian soil. Russia plans to take the fight to the enemy immediately. Of course, there won’t be a war—provided the Americans are sane enough to realize that attacking Russia is functionally equivalent to blowing themselves up with nuclear weapons. Are they sane enough? That is the question that is holding the world hostage.

    It is in speaking of them that Putin used the most withering word in his entire address. Speaking of Americans’ dishonesty and bad faith in accusing Russia of violating the ABM treaty while it was they themselves who were violating it, he added: “…and the American satellites oink along with them.” It is rather difficult to come up with an adequate translation for the Russian verb “подхрюкивать”; “oink along with” is as close as I am able to get. The mental image is of a chorus of little pigs accompanying a big swine. The implication is obvious: Putin thinks that the Americans are swine, and that their NATO satellites are swine too.

    Therefore, they shouldn’t expect Putin to scatter any pearls before them and, in any case, he’ll be too busy helping Russians live better lives to pay any attention to them.

  • Making America's Kids Smarter – It's So Easy

    Participation trophies for all has now escalated from the sports arena to public education…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    via WCNC.com,

    NC lawmakers consider bill that would change school grades

    A new bill under consideration would adjust the current grading scale, making a score of 85 an A and a score of 70 a B.

    RALEIGH, N.C. – The North Carolina General Assembly is considering a bill that would adjust the grading scale used to grade state public schools.

    House Bill 145, which promotes a 15-point grading scale, passed its first reading in the House on Monday and has been referred to the Committee on Education K-12.

    The proposed bill would mean higher grades for lower scores by changing the grading scale as follows:

    • A: 100 to 85 percent

    • B: 84 to 70 percent

    • C: 69 to 55 percent

    • D: 54 to 40 percent

    • F: Anything below 40 percent

    The old scale was a 10 point scale, meaning students would need to score a 90 for an A, 80 for a B, etc. If passed, the new grading scale would go into effect for the 2019-20 school year.

    *  *  *

    Every school and student deserves an A, right? It’s their right! It’s racist otherwise.

    h/t The Burning Platform

  • Venezuela Blackout: Cyber-Attacks, Sabotage, & 'Mighty' Cuban Intelligence

    Via Southfront.org,

    During the past few days, Venezuela was suffering a major blackout that left the country in darkness. The crisis started on March 7 with a failure at the Guri hydroelectric power plant, which produces 80% of the country’s power. Additionally, an explosion was reported at Sidor Substation in Bolivar state.

    Since then, the government has been struggling to solve the crisis with varying success.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    President Nicholas Maduro says that the blackout is the reason of “the electric war announced and directed by American imperialism.”

    According to Maduro, electrical systems were targeted by cyberattacks and “infiltrators”. He added that authorities managed to restore power to “many parts” of the country on March 8, but the restored systems were knocked down after the country’s grid was once again attacked. He noted that “one of the sources of generation that was working perfectly” had been sabotaged and accused “infiltrators of attacking the electric company from the inside.”

    Communication and information minister Jorge Rodriguez described the situation as “the most brutal attack on the Venezuelan people in 200 years”. He also described the situation as the “deliberate sabotage” on behalf of the US-backed opposition.

    In own turn, the US continues to reject claims accusing it of attempts to destabilize the situation in the country. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo even claimed that Washington and its allies would not hurt the “ordinary Venezuelans.” According to him, what’s hurting the people is the “Maduro regime’s incompetence.”

    “No food. No medicine. Now, no power. Next, no Maduro,” Pompeo wrote in Twitter, adding that “Maduro’s policies bring nothing but darkness.” Unfortunately, the top diplomat did not explain how wide-scale economic sanctions imposed to wreck the country’s economic should help the “ordinary Venezuelans”.

    The State Department attitude was expectedly supported by US-proclaimed Venezuelan Interim President Juan Guaido, who recently returned to country after an attempt to get more foreign support for US-backed regime change efforts. Guaido accused the “Maduro Regime” of turning the blackout during the night in a “horror movie” with his “gangs” terrorizing people.

    Another narrative, which recently set the mainstream media on fire, is the alleged Cuban meddling in the crisis.

    According to this very version of the event, “forces of democracy” were not able to overthrow the Venezuelan government because its political elite is controlled by Cuban intelligence services. President Donald Trump even said Maduro is nothing more than a “Cuban puppet.”

    Taking account already existing allegations about the presence of Hezbollah and Russian mercenaries in Venezuela and an expected second attempt to stage US aid delivery provocation on the Colombian-Venezuelan border, it becomes clear that chances of US direct action to bring into power own political puppet are once again growing.

    The February attempt to stage a provocation failed and make a final step toward a regime change by force failed after it was publicly revealed that the US-backed opposition was intentionally burning “aid trucks” to blame the Maduro government. Furthermore, the military backed Maduro, and the scale and intensity of protests across the country were not enough to paralyze the government.

    The blackout in Venezuela was likely meant to bring the country into disorder and draw off army and security forces. Therefore, an attempt to stage a new provocation to justify a foreign intervention to overthrow the Venezuelan government could be expected anytime soon.

  • US Navy’s Stealth Destroyer Departs From San Diego On First Operational Cruise

    U.S.S. Zumwalt (DDG-1000), a 16,000-ton next generation guided-missile destroyer, left its San Diego homeport for its first “operational period at sea,” the U.S. Navy said in a March 8 statement.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The Navy said the milestone demonstrates the service’s commitment to advancing the lethality of stealth warships through cutting-edge technologies in combat systems, weapons, and engineering plant.

    “Zumwalt is designed for stealth,” said Capt. Andrew Carlson, the ship’s commanding officer.

    “This aids her role as a multi-mission surface combatant and improves the fleet commander’s options for delivery of naval combat power to meet the Navy’s emergent mission requirements.”

    The ship was commissioned in October 2016. Following the commissioning, the Zumwalt was stationed in San Diego where advanced weapon systems were installed. According to the statement, the ship’s crew completed a post-delivery maintenance examination of the destroyer’s electronic, powerplant, and weapons systems before the departure.

    “My crew has been looking forward to continued testing and operations at sea, leveraging the newly installed capabilities of this platform,” said Carlson. “Our primary focus is executing a safe underway, while building both competence and confidence in operating Zumwalt across the spectrum of naval warfare.”

    U.S. Indo-Pacific Command snapped an image of the newly-commissioned @ZUMWALT_DDG1000 departing from San Diego late last week.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The Zumwalt is about 100 feet longer and 13 feet wider than the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, is powered by two Rolls-Royce turbine generators capable of producing 78 megawatts (105,000 hp), and also has enough power to fire electrically-powered weapons.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Armed with 80 missiles in vertical launch tubes within the hull and two 155-caliber cannons, the vessel is expected to have directed-energy weapons once the technology matures.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    While the Navy provided limited details on the vessels next stop, CTV Vancouver Island said the ship is scheduled to make a port call to Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt on Vancouver Island later this month.

    “While the exact date of the ship’s arrival and duration of its stay remain closely guarded secrets of the U.S. Navy, the ship’s oddly angular design, stealth capabilities and state-of-the-art electric drive system are sure to attract the attention of naval watchers and neophytes alike,” read the report.

  • RussiaGate As Organised Distraction

    Authored by Prof. Oliver Boyd-Barrett, via Organisation for Propaganda Studies,

    For over two years RussiaGate has accounted for a substantial proportion of all mainstream US media political journalism and, because US media have significant agenda-setting propulsion, of global media coverage as well. The timing has been catastrophic.

    The Trump Administration has shredded environmental protections, jettisoned nuclear agreements, exacerbated tensions with US rivals, and pandered to the rich.

    In place of sustained media attention to the end of the human species from global warming, its even more imminent demise in nuclear warfare, or the further evisceration of democratic discourse in a society riven by historically unprecedented wealth inequalities and unbridled capitalistic greed, corporate media suffocate their publics with a puerile narrative of alleged collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The RussiaGate discourse is profoundly mendacious and hypocritical. It presumes that the US is a State whose electoral system enjoys a high degree of public trust and security. Nothing could be further from the truth. The US democratic system is deeply entrenched in a dystopian two-party system dominated by the rich and largely answerable to corporate oligopolies; it is ideologically beholden to the values of extreme capitalism and imperialist domination. Problems with the US electoral system and media are extensive and well documented.

    US electoral procedures are profoundly compromised by an electoral college that detaches votes counted from votes that count. The composition of electoral districts have been gerrymandered to minimize the possibility of electoral surprises. Voting is dependent on easily hackable corporate-manufactured electronic voting systems.

    Right-wing administrations reach into a tool-box of voter-suppression tactics that run the gamut from minimizing available voting centers and voting machines through to excessive voter identification requirements and the elimination of swathes of the voting lists (e.g. groups such as people who have committed felonies or people whose names are similar to those of felons, or people who have not voted in previous elections).

    Even the results of campaigns are corrupted when outgoing regimes abuse their remaining weeks in power to push through regulations or legislation that will scuttle the efforts of their successors.

    Democratic theory presupposes the formal equivalence of voice in the battlefield of ideas. Nothing could be further from the reality of the US “democratic” system in which a small number of powerful interests enjoy ear-splitting megaphonic advantage on the basis of often anonymous “dark” money donations filtered through SuperPacs and their ilk, operating outside the confines of (the somewhat more transparently monitored) ten-week electoral campaigns.

    Regarding media, democratic theory presupposes a public communications infrastructure that facilities the free and open exchange of ideas. No such infrastructure exists.  Mainstream media are owned and controlled by a small number of large, multi-media and multi-industrial conglomerates that lie at the very heart of US oligopoly capitalism and much of whose advertising revenue and content is furnished from other conglomerates.

    The inability of mainstream media to sustain an information environment that can encompass histories, perspectives and vocabularies that are free of the shackles of US plutocratic self-regard is also well documented.

    Current US media coverage of the US-gestated crisis in Venezuela is a case in point. The much celebrated revolutionary potential of social media is illusory. The principal suppliers of social media architecture are even more corporatized than their legacy predecessors. They depend not just on corporate advertising but on the sale of big data that they pilfer from users and sell to corporate and political propagandists often for non-transparent AI-assisted micro-targeting during ‘persuasion’ campaigns.

    Like their legacy counterparts, social media are imbricated within, collaborate with, and are vulnerable to the machinations of the military-industry-surveillance establishment. So-called election meddling across the world has been an outstanding feature of the exploitation of social and legacy media by companies linked to political, defense and intelligence such as – but by no means limited to – the former Cambridge Analytica and its British parent SCL.

    Against this backdrop of electoral and media failures, it makes little sense to elevate discussion of and attention to the alleged social media activities of, say, Russia’s Internet Research Agency. Attention is being directed away from substantial, and substantiated, problems and onto trivial, and unsubstantiated, problems.

    Moreover, in a climate of manufactured McCarthyite hysteria, RussiaGate further presupposes that any communication between a presidential campaign and Russia is in itself a deplorable thing. Even if one were to confine this conversation only to communication between ruling oligarchs of both the US and Russia, however, the opposite would surely be the case. This is not simply because of the benefits that accrue from a broader understanding of the world, identification of shared interests and opportunities, and their promise for peaceful relations.

    A real politik analysis might advise the insertion of wedges between China and Russia so as to head off the perceived threat to the USA of a hybrid big-power control over a region of the world that has long been considered indispensable for truly global hegemony.

    Even if we address RussiaGate as a problem worthy of our attention, the evidentiary basis for the major claims is weak. The ultimate unfolding of RussiaGate discourse now awaits the much-anticipated report of Special Counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller. Mueller’s indictments and investigations have to date implicated several individuals for activities that in some cases have no connection whatsoever to the 2016 Presidential campaign.  In some other instances they appear to have been more about lies and obstructions to his investigation rather than material illegal acts, or amount to charges that are unlikely ever to be contested in a court of law.

    The investigation itself is traceable back to two significant but extremely problematic reports made public in January 2017. One was the “Steele dossier” by former MI6 officer Christopher Steele. This is principally of interest for its largely unsupported allegations that in some sense or another Trump was in cahoots with Russia. Steele’s company, Orbis, was commissioned to write the report by Fusion GPS which in turn was contracted by attorneys working for the Democratic National Campaign.

    Passage of earlier drafts of the Steele report through sources close to British intelligence, and accounts by Trump adviser George Papadopoulos concerning conversations he had concerning possible Russian possession of Clinton emails with a character who may as likely have been a British as a Russian spy, were instrumental in stimulating FBI interest in and spying on the Trump campaign.

    There are indirect links between Christopher Steele, another former MI6 agent, Pablo Miller (who also worked for Orbis) and Sergei Skripal, a Russian agent who had been recruited as informer to MI6 by Miller and who was the target of an attempted assassination in 2018. This event has occasioned controversial, not to say highly implausible and mischievous British government claims and accusations against Russia.

    The  most significant matter raised by a second report, issued by the Intelligence Community Assessment and representing the conclusions of a small team picked from the Director of Intelligence office, CIA, FBI and NSA, was its claim that Russian intelligence was responsible for the hacking of the computer systems of the DNC and its chairman John Podesta in summer 2016 and that the hacked documents had been passed to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. No evidence for this was supplied.

    Although the hacking allegations have become largely uncontested articles of faith in the RussiaGate discourse they are significantly reliant on the problematic findings of a small private company hired by the DNC. There is also robust evidence that the documents may have been leaked rather than hacked, and by US-based sources.

    The fact that the documents revealed that the DNC, a supposedly neutral agent in the primary campaign, had in fact been biased in favor of the candidature of Hillary Clinton, and that Clinton’s private statements to industry were not in keeping with her public positions, has long been obscured in media memory in favor a preferred narrative of Russian villainy.

    Why then does the RussiaGate discourse have so much traction? Who benefits?

    First, RussiaGate serves the interest of a (1)corrupted Democratic Party, whose biased and arguably incompetent campaign management lost it the 2016 election, in alliance with with (2)powerful factions of the US industrial-military-surveillance establishment that for the past 19 years, through NATO and other malleable international agencies, has sought to undermine Putin’s leadership, dismember Russia and the Russian Federation (undoubtedly for the benefit of western capital) and, more latterly, further contain China in a perpetual and titanic struggle for the heart of EurAsia.

    In so far as Trump had indicated (for whatever reasons) in the course of his campaign that he disagreed with at least some aspects of this long-term strategy, he came to be viewed as unreliable by the US security state. While serving the immediate purpose of containing Trump, US accusations of Russian meddling in US elections were farcical in the context of a well-chronicled history of US “meddling” in the elections and politics of nations for over 100 years. This meddling across  all hemispheres has included the staging of coups, invasions and occupations on false pretext in addition to numerous instances of “color revolution” strategies involving the financing of opposition parties and provoking uprisings, frequently coupled with economic warfare (sanctions).

    A further beneficiary (3)is the sum of all those interests that favor a narrowing of public expression to a framework supportive of neoliberal imperialism. Paradoxically exploiting the moral panic associated with both Trump’s plaintive wailing about “fake news” whenever mainstream media coverage is critical of him, and social media embarrassment over exposure of their big data sales to powerful corporate customers, these interests have called for more regulation of, as well as self-censorship by, social media.

    Social media responses increasingly involve more restrictive algorithms and what are often partisan “fact-checkers” (illustrated by Facebook financial support for and dependence on the pro-NATO “think tank,” the Atlantic Council). The net impact has been devastating for many information organizations in the arena of social media whose only “sin” is analysis and opinion that runs counter to elite neoliberal propaganda. The standard justification of such attacks on free expression is to insinuate ties to Russia and/or to terrorism.

    Given these heavy handed and censorious responses by powerful actors, it would appear perhaps that the RussiaGate narrative is increasingly implausible to many and the only hope now for its proponents is to stifle questioning. These are dark days indeed for democracy.

  • Stormy Daniels & Lawyer Michael Avenatti Sever Ties "For Undisclosed Reasons"

    It’s over!!

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Michael Avenatti and Stormy Daniels – the porn actress who alleged she had an affair with President Donald Trump – have severed ties.

    In the last year, the duo rose to become household names in their fight against Trump, dominating cable news shows for months and taunting the president in interviews.

    For posterity, let’s look back at Avenatti and Daniels track-record: (via The Hill)

    Avenatti represented Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, in lawsuits that she filed against President Trump and Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney to Trump.

    Daniels sued Trump and Cohen to void a nondisclosure agreement stemming from an alleged 2006 affair between Daniels and the president. Daniels was paid ahead of the 2016 election to keep quiet about the affair. A judge threw out the lawsuit this month, ruling that it was irrelevant because she had not been held to the terms of the agreement.

    Daniels also filed a defamation suit against both men.

    That lawsuit was dismissed by a federal judge in October.

    But the writing was on the wall that clouds were forming over Stormy and Michael’s ‘relationship’:

    In November, Daniels told the Daily Beast that Avenatti had filed a defamation case against Trump “against my wishes” and alleged that he refused to give her an accounting of the funds collected by her supporters, would not tell her how the money was spent or how much was left in the crowdsourced legal defense fund.

    So Avenatti was 0 for 3 in his representation of Daniels, which is maybe not a total surprise, as AP reports, before Avenatti began representing Daniels in February 2018, he was virtually unknown outside of the California legal community. But in months, he had become known as a no-holds-barred lawyer with a media style parallel to Trump’s. Avenatti had toyed with a 2020 presidential run, but ultimately ruled that out. He’s also been involved in some of America’s biggest cases in the last year, including representing dozens of parents whose children were separated from them at the U.S. border as a result of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. More recently, he’s been representing women who said they were sexually abused by R&B star R. Kelly.

    Daniels has not done quite so well, turning her hand to stand-up most recently…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The question is who fired whom? The answer is actually simple:

    Stormy Daniels tweeted at 1112am that “I have retained Clark Brewster as my personal lawyer and have asked him and his firm to review all legal matters involving me.”

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

    And Michael Avenatti quickly responded at 1123am claiming that “on February 19, we informed Stormy Daniels in writing that we were terminating our legal representation of her for various reasons that we cannot disclose publicly due to attorney-client privilege… This was not a decision we made lightly and it came only after lengthy discussion, thought and deliberation, as well as consultation with other professionals,” he added. “We wish Stormy all the best.”

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

    So why did Avenatti not – in all his any-publicity-is-great-publicity-and-I-may-still-run-for-President blufftardism – relay his severing ties with Daniels in February?

    Bloomberg’s White House correspondent Jennifer Jacobs has the answer – straight from the horse’s mouth (as it were): “To an audience of women at The Wing in DC, she says her ex lawyer, Michael Avenatti, pulled the old “you can’t fire me, I quit” trick.“

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

    And just like that, 1000s of media types around the world felt a great disturbance in the farce, cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

  • How Rent Control Harms Those It Hopes To Help

    Authored by Hal Snarr via The Mises Institute,

    The State of Oregon is on the precipice of “solving” its housing shortage with state-wide rent control . It would be the first state to do so. The policy is being sold as a way to make housing more affordable in a state where three of its cities, Eugene, Portland, and Salem, are ranked among the forty most expensive housing markets on the planet.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    To understand how Oregon’s housing solution will harm those it hopes to help, consider the rental market modeled below. The State is not interfering in the voluntary transactions between landlords and tenants. Supply and demand efficiently allocate 100 rental units at $1500 per month.

    The red line represents the demand for rentals. The height of point 1 gives the rent the richest renter is willing to pay ($2500). The height of point 2 gives the rent the poorest renter is willing to pay (under $500). The height of the equilibrium (black point) gives the rent a person of average income is willing to pay ($1500).

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The blue line represents the supply of rentals. Since some landlords have mortgages and some do not, some units are in large complexes and some are single units, and some complexes have lots of amenities and some have few, this line represents a queue that sorts rentals from least to most expensive to finance and maintain. The rental at point 1 costs its landlord $500 to maintain and finance, while the unit at point 2 costs its landlord over $2500 to finance and maintain.

    Regarding the first rental, its landlord and tenant both benefit from the transaction. The tenant thinks he got the better end of the deal because he is willing to pay $2500 but only pays $1500. The landlord thinks she got the better end of the deal because she is was willing to accept $500 but gets paid $1500. Both sign the lease because both parties are winners in trade.

    All 100 rented units represent win-win transactions. The tenants were willing to pay rents in decreasing order from $2500 to $1500 but each only pays $1500 per month. Relative to the landlords, they all feel like they got the better end of these deals. The pink triangle measures this great feeling. On the other hand, landlords collect $1500 from each tenant but were willing to accept rents in increasing order from $500 to $1500. Relative to their tenants, they feel like they got the better end of these deals. The blue triangle measures this great feeling. Thus, all parties in these trades are winners.

    Some renters have been priced out of the market. They populate the faded section of demand. During high school, I was one of them. I wanted to fly the coop but could not afford to do so. Others included in this group are perhaps older workers with low job skills or singles just out of college and looking for first jobs. These folks, if subletting is illegal, find apartments in nearby low-rent markets. Their exit from this market is why the lower section of demand is faded.

    Housing laws can adversely impact rents and apartments. An Oregon zoning law shrinks the areas where apartment complexes can be constructed. This decreases supply, raises rents, and reduces the number of available units. NYC restricts subletting. That reduces supply and raises rents. Since renters would have had a room in the absence of subletting restrictions, the restrictions result in higher demand as more people search for rooms. That pushes rents up too. In the absence of all restrictions, markets will find creative ways to solve housing shortages. For example, prior to zoning laws, early Americans turned their homes into boarding houses or residential hotels, which are not unlike the no-frills rooms listed on Airbnb.

    When rents get too high, rent control becomes popular among politicians who are either wanting to do the right thing or are shopping for votes. The figure below shows what happens when government sets rental rates (the green line). At the imposed rent, the people who populate the demand line between points 3 and 4 reenter this market to look for apartments. This is why that section of demand is no longer faded. Since the financing and maintenance expenses of the rental units on supply between the blue point and point 3 exceeds the legislated rent, the landlords take these units off the market (e.g., they get listed on Airbnb instead). Thus, the rent ceiling reduces the number of units to 50 but increases the number of people in the market to 150. If subletting is illegal, unsuccessful apartment seekers live in cars or on streets as they wait for tenants to vacate.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Recall that demand represents a queue with the richest renter on the left and the poorest on the right. With the rich owning homes, the upper middle class populates the line between points 1 and 2, the lower middle class populates the line between 2 and 3, and the poor populates the line between 3 and 4. Since the upper middle class are willing and able to pay more than the lower middle and poor classes, they have the most impressive applications or can afford the largest bribes. Thus, the renters with the 50 highest incomes get the 50 apartments that are offered in the market. Those in the lower middle class, who had apartments prior to rent control, are now without homes. The poor were not homeless prior to rent control, as they had low-rent units in nearby neighborhoods. But now they are homeless.

    Though rent control is sold as a policy that is intended to help the poor, it induced homelessness among the poor and lower middle classes. It also increased the spoils of trade accruing to renters with the highest incomes. Their spoils increased from what it was prior to rent control (the light pink area) to what is after rent control (the light and dark pink areas).

    The consequences of rent control are well understood by economists, from one end of the political spectrum to the other. Given this rare consensus in economics, it is surprising that states like Oregon are on the verge of voluntarily wrecking their housing markets.

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Mar 12

Today’s News 12th March 2019

  • Where Cash Is King In Europe

    How much cash do you have with you at the moment?

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    As Statista’s Martin Armstrong explains,  the answer to this question will probably depend, not only on your bank balance, but also on the country in which you live.

    As figures from the Access to Cash Review show, there are significant cultural differences in the use of cash in Europe.

    Infographic: Where Cash is King in Europe | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    In Greece and Spain, the vast majority of in-person purchases are made with cash – 88 and 87 percent respectively. While in Sweden, Denmark and the UK, most items are paid for digitally.

    In the report, which focuses on the UK, despite the relatively low share of people relying on cash in their everyday lives, it was found that over 8 million adults – about 17 percent of the population – would struggle to cope in a cashless society.

  • Could Brexit Trigger The Demise Of Sterling As A Reserve Currency? – Part Two

    Authored by Steven Guinness,

    In part one of this series we looked briefly into the history of sterling crises that originated after the end of World War II.

    Two important aspects were highlighted. The first is that over the past seventy years, a depletion of international sterling reserves has routinely coincided with exchange rate crises, whilst the second indicates that a slew of sterling downturns since 1945 have weakened substantially its role as a reserve currency.

    We will now examine why Britain leaving the European Union through a ‘hard‘ Brexit may prove a harbinger for the first major sterling crisis of the 21st century.

    In 2018 the media began publishing what mutated into incessant warnings about the dangers of leaving the EU with no withdrawal agreement. The majority were and continue to be focused on possible disruptions to food and medical supplies, the UK’s beleaguered car industry and the prospect of a Brexit induced recession.

    What has not been given the same degree of analysis is the impact a no deal scenario could have on the position of sterling as a reserve currency. Ever since the post referendum decline of the pound, it generally only attracts attention if its value against the dollar rises significantly above daily fluctuations, or declines a percentage point or more amidst fears of a ‘disorderly‘ exit.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Let’s briefly summarise the few occasions where the pound’s reserve status has been called into question since 2016, as well as matters interconnected with the subject.

    May 2016

    A month before the referendum, ratings agency Standard and Poor’s issued a warning that sterling could cease to be a reserve currency if the UK left the EU. They also declared that Britain’s triple A credit rating could come under pressure. The line was that national governments might seek alternatives to the pound as a store of value should a leave vote materialise. As for why they could do this, a breakdown in existing trading arrangements, a depreciation of sterling and an increasing current account deficit were all cited as reasons by S&P.

    July 2016

    With S&P having stripped the UK of its triple A credit rating (as they suggested would happen following a leave vote), Reuters reporter Jamie McGeever penned an article which detailed how the decline of sterling since the referendum had so far been the biggest of any of the world’s four major currencies since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s.

    The day after the vote (June 24th) saw sterling’s value drop by 8%, marking the largest one day fall in the pound since the introduction of free-floating exchange rates following the collapse of Bretton Woods.

    October 2016

    Five months before Article 50 was invoked, Standard and Poor’s issued a new warning about the pound’s reserve status.  Ravi Bhatia, the director of sovereign ratings for Britain, was reported by The Independent as saying a ‘hard‘ Brexit eventuality could jeopardise sterling’s reserve currency role. Bhatia summarised reserve status as countries having trust in a currency, with governments and traders content to hold assets in a particular denomination.

    At the time of S&P’s latest intervention, the pound was down 17% against the dollar since June 2016.

    S&P were at it again later in the month, with the Financial Times detailing that pronounced falls in sterling could end up ‘reducing confidence and eventually threaten its role as a global reserve currency.’ They added that sterling would no longer be considered a reserve currency by the S&P if its share of reserves dropped below 3%. They currently stand at 4.49%.

    On top of this, S&P warned of further cuts to Britain’s credit rating should they ‘conclude that sterling will lose its status as a reserve currency or if public finances or GDP per capita weaken markedly beyond our current expectations‘.

    November 2016

    Reuters Jamie McGeever followed up his article from July 2016 by questioning the pound’s position in global foreign exchange reserves. Here, McGeever linked sterling’s role as a reserve currency to the UK’s current account deficit, which to this day remains one of the largest in the world. He pointed out that this particular deficit requires hundreds of billions of overseas capital inflows every year to balance Britain’s books. According to McGeever, central bank demand for sterling reserves are a vital and stable source of these inflows. He went on to report that the amount the UK needs to attract in order to balance its books is around £100 billion a year.

    S&P’s fellow ratings agency Moody’s were credited by McGeever as warning about the danger of ‘substantial and persistent‘ capital outflows, and how this would raise serious doubts about the pound’s reserve status.

    McGeever also quoted Brad Setser, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former economist at the U.S. treasury, as saying that a fall in reserve share to 3% would be sterling ‘punching a little below its weight‘.

    August 2018

    As no deal Brexit coverage gathered momentum in the press, an article again published by Reuters on sterling’s future as a reserve currency gained next to no attention. This time it was the turn of Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML), who made a connection between the UK leaving the EU with no withdrawal agreement and central banks selling the pound in response. BAML estimated that a 1% decline in sterling’s share of international reserves would equate to upwards of £100 billion of selling. This calculation was based on the pound’s average share of 3.6% of reserves since 1995. Should banks re-denominate their holdings in line with this long term average, the theory goes that this would point to over a £100 billion reduction in reserves.

    BAML stressed that this potential scenario would be off the back of a no deal exit from the EU. ‘Central bank flows are an important source of flow which could determine whether sterling succumbs to a more protracted current account crisis‘.

    December 2018

    As demonstrated above, both Jamie McGeever at Reuters and Bank of America Merrill Lynch have touched on the subject of Britain’s current account deficit. Latest figures released in December showed that the deficit in the third quarter of 2018 was the highest in two years at £ – 26.5 billion (4.9% of GDP).

    When you look at how this was interpreted within the financial media, the link back to sterling’s position as a reserve currency – although not raised directly – lingers in the background. The current account deficit has not only called into question its sustainability, but also whether foreign investors will continue to finance the deficit to the same level by purchasing UK assets after Brexit.

    Other noteworthy data released at the same time as the current account numbers included a cut in investment by firms of 1.1% from July to September. This represented three consecutive quarters of cuts, the first time this has occurred since 2008-2009. Households were shown as net borrowers for the eighth straight quarter – the biggest stretch since the 1980s. Lastly, the UK’s household savings fell to 3.8%, the lowest on record.

    Conclusions

    Looking back on the EU referendum of 2016, my perspective is that the depreciation of sterling in the aftermath cannot be construed as a crisis. Before the result was confirmed, the pound was trading as high as $1.50. Once the reality of the leave vote had dawned, an initial sharp drop of 8% was followed by further declines leading to a low of $1.19 recorded in January 2017. In seven months, sterling had shed as much as 20% of its value (for a limited time at least).

    The reason why this is not befitting of a crisis is due to global reserves of sterling remaining consistent throughout the period. Indeed, international reserves of the pound grew in 2018 amidst the rising uncertainty of the Brexit withdrawal process.

    At no stage so far have the Bank of England acted to defend the currency from speculators or central banks adapting their compositions. Their initial reaction post referendum was to cut interest rates by 0.25% and expand quantitative easing by £60 billion.

    Fifteen months later, with inflation running at over 3% and the value of sterling remaining suppressed, the BOE raised interest rates for the first time in a decade. They followed this up with another quarter point hike in August 2018.

    It is logical to think that the impact of a ‘hard‘ Brexit on sterling would precipitate a far steeper decline than witnessed three years ago. Consider that the fall witnessed then was simply off the back of a referendum result. Nothing material had changed in the relationship between the UK and EU.

    I believe it is also logical to surmise that in response to a renewed depreciation, not only would inflation pick up once more, but the Bank of England would defy conventional wisdom and raise interest rates. The bank themselves have indicated that the most likely ramifications of a no deal Brexit would be inflationary. They continue to state publicly that the response to such a scenario would likely be to tighten rather than loosen monetary policy.

    However, this does not account for what would happen to global reserves of sterling. Historically, exchange rate crises have seen a depletion in reserves of the pound. Whereas inflationary pressures take time to feed through the system, a run on sterling can materialise in a matter of minutes. Therefore, it is conceivable that the Bank of England could raise interest rates in response to try and stabilise the currency, a measure entirely separate to their mandate of 2% inflation.

    Allied to this measure would likely see the BOE convert foreign currency holdings into sterling to counteract international holders dumping the pound.

    As documented in part one, the BOE hold close to $150 billion in foreign currency total reserves. Total reserve assets amount to around $180 billion. The majority of these assets are denominated in dollars and euros.

    How sustained any selling could be is impossible to gauge at this stage, as is the scale of damage which may be inflicted on sterling reserves.

    If warnings issued by Standard and Poor’s and Bank of America Merrill Lynch are taken at face value, the pound is in danger of diminishing to the level of no longer being a global reserve currency should a ‘disorderly‘ Brexit happen. Only if this does occur would we be able to assess the validity of their warnings.

    Anyone who regularly follows communications emanating from national central banks, the IMF and the Bank for International Settlements will have seen a developing narrative of ‘money in the digital age‘ and how currencies in future could be provided. The combination of a possible ‘hard‘ Brexit and an escalation in the ‘trade war‘ between the United States and China may not only put sterling at risk, but also the role of the dollar as world reserve currency. Brexit is one strand of what I have suspected for some time is an attempt by globalists (think the IMF and the BIS) to administer institutional reforms in the manner of a currency framework, which would mean a realignment in currency compositions with the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights part of this process.

    As ever, to achieve this scale of reform globalists would require sustained crises events to distract away from what are long held intentions. Will Brexit and actions stemming from the Trump administration prove to be to their benefit? 2019 will surely begin to answer that question.

  • Yellow Vests Ransack Masonic Lodge 

    A group of Yellow Vest protesters ransacked a Masonic lodge in the French village of Tarbes during the 17th straight weekend of anti-government demonstrations, according to La Dépêche. 

    After around 450 protesters gathered in Tarbes, a small group split off around midnight – reportedly shouting “We’re going to be freemasons!” – as they threw rocks at the lodge and broke down the door of the secretive organization’s meeting place. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The group flipped over furniture and generally made a mess, however it does not appear they defaced any of the lodge’s wall hangings.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Four ceremonial swords were stolen, however they were later returned. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    In a statement, the Grand Lodge of France condemned the “unspeakable acts that are part of a context of surreptitious threats and hate speech against Freemasons.”

    French interior minister Christophe Castaner reacted over Twitter on Sunday, writing: “After the Jews, the Freemasons … When stupidity competes with intolerance the worst.”

  • Is The Boeing 737 Max Crisis An Artificial Intelligence Event?

    Authored by James Thompson via The Unz Review,

    Conventional wisdom is that it is too early to speculate why in the past six months two Boeing 737 Max 8 planes have gone down shortly after take off, so if all that follows is wrong you will know it very quickly. Last night I predicted that the first withdrawals of the plane would happen within two days, and this morning China withdrew it. So far, so good. (Indonesia followed a few hours ago).

    Why should I stick my neck out with further predictions?

    First, because we must speculate the moment something goes wrong. It is natural, right and proper to note errors and try to correct them.(The authorities are always against “wild” speculation, and I would be in agreement with that if they had an a prior definition of wildness).

    Second, because putting forward hypotheses may help others test them (if they are not already doing so).

    Third, because if the hypotheses turn out to be wrong, it will indicate an error in reasoning, and will be an example worth studying in psychology, so often dourly drawn to human fallibility. Charmingly, an error in my reasoning might even illuminate an error that a pilot might make, if poorly trained, sleep-deprived and inattentive.

    I think the problem is that the Boeing anti-stall patch MCAS is poorly configured for pilot use: it is not intuitive, and opaque in its consequences.

    By the way of full disclosure, I have held my opinion since the first Lion Air crash in October, and ran it past a test pilot who, while not responsible for a single word here, did not argue against it. He suggested that MCAS characteristics should have been in a special directive and drawn to the attention of pilots.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    I am normally a fan of Boeing. I have flown Boeing more than any other plane, and that might make me loyal to the brand. Even more powerfully, I thought they were correct to carry on with the joystick yoke, and that AirBus was wrong to drop it, simply because the position of the joystick is something visible to pilot and co-pilot, whereas the Airbus side stick does not show you at a glance how high the nose of the plane is pointing.

    Pilots are bright people, but they must never be set a badly configured test item with tight time limits and potentially fatal outcomes.

    The Air France 447 crash had several ingredients, but one was that the pilots of the Airbus A330-203 took too long to work out they were in a stall. In fact, that realization only hit them very shortly before they hit the ocean. Whatever the limitations of the crew (sleep deprived captain, uncertain co-pilot) they were blinded by a frozen air speed indicator, and an inability to set the right angle of attack for their airspeed.

    For the industry, the first step was to fit better air speed indicators which were less likely to ice up. However, it was clear that better stall warning and protection was required.

    Boeing had a problem with fitting larger and heavier engines to their tried and trusted 737 configuration, meaning that the engines had to be higher on the wing and a little forwards, and that made the 737 Max have different performance characteristics, which in turn led to the need for an anti-stall patch to be put into the control systems.

    It is said that generals always fight the last war. Safety officials correct the last problem, as they must. However, sometimes a safety system has unintended consequences.

    The key of the matter is that pilots fly normal 737s every day, and have internalized a mental model of how that plane operates. Pilots probably actually read manuals, and safety directives, and practice for rare events. However, I bet that what they know best is how a plane actually operates most of the time. (I am adjusting to a new car, same manufacturer and model as the last one, but the 9 years of habit are still often stronger than the manual-led actions required by the new configuration). When they fly a 737 Max there is a bit of software in the system which detects stall conditions and corrects them automatically. The pilots should know that, they should adjust to that, they should know that they must switch off that system if it seems to be getting in the way, but all that may be steps too far, when something so important is so opaque.

    What is interesting is that in emergencies people rely on their most validated mental models: residents fleeing a burning building tend to go out their usual exits, not even the nearest or safest exit. Pilots are used to pulling the nose up and pushing it down, to adding power and to easing back on it, and when a system takes over some of those decisions, they need to know about it.

    After Lion Air I believed that pilots had been warned about the system, but had not paid sufficient attention to its admittedly complicated characteristics, but now it is claimed that the system was not in the training manual anyway. It was deemed a safety system that pilots did not need to know about.

    This farrago has an unintended consequence, in that it may be a warning about artificial intelligence. Boeing may have rated the correction factor as too simple to merit human attention, something required mainly to correct a small difference in pitch characteristics unlikely to be encountered in most commercial flying, which is kept as smooth as possible for passenger comfort.

    It would be terrible if an apparently small change in automated safety systems designed to avoid a stall turned out have given us a rogue plane, killing us to make us safe.

  • More Desperate Hong Kongers Are Living Illegally In Steel Shipping Containers

    Though it recently entered correction territory following the longest streak of falling prices since 2016, Hong Kong’s housing market remains one of – if not the most – unaffordable in the world.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>Cheaper

    And as struggling locals look for somewhere – anywhere – to live for a relatively modest price, more are turning to an innovative, if illegal, solution. According to Bloomberg, the latest housing trend in the New Territories, a region of Hong Kong that is mostly wetlands, parks and mountains, is building illegal houses out of prefabricated steel boxes.

    Locals call them container homes. And while they’re growing in popularity, almost all of them are illegal, having been built on land not zoned for housing, and/or without the government approval necessary to ensure it meets standards for ventilation and fire-safety.

    After walking through a deserted plot of rural land on an unevenly paved road, Gilbert Wong arrives at a metal-fenced gate that looks like the entrance to a warehouse, or maybe a car park – ubiquitous in Hong Kong’s New Territories.

    But behind this seemingly hostile facade is Wong’s humble home: a prefabricated steel box that looks a lot like a basic shipping container. Such dwellings, dubbed container homes, have become an increasingly popular option for residents squeezed out of the world’s least affordable property market.

    The vast majority are also illegal.

    “Of all the prefabricated homes in the style of a container that I have seen in ads or online, I can tell you 99.9 percent aren’t in compliance with the law,” said Vincent Ho, a managing director at surveying and property consultancy firm Freevision Ltd.

    Estimating the number of container homes is difficult because they’re usually tucked away in far-flung areas across the territory, but orders for containers have doubled since 2016, with 40% built specifically for dwelling purposes, according to Ivan Chan, a director of portable building manufacturer Markbox. Chan’s company is producing about 200 containers for living every year. The most popular costs about $19,000 – roughly half of the down payment for an apartment.

    The low-cost of container homes has attracted some government interest, with the city authority launching a project to build 90 legal container homes to be placed in the city’s poorest districts, where they will be a “stop-gap” option for people waiting for public housing.

    But already, the average waiting time for the program – which was launched in 2012 – has more than doubled to five-and-a-half years.

    Even middle-class Hong Kongers are opting to try the container home life, despite the longer commute times they face from living in more remote parts of the territory. And the downsides like leaks during severe weather.

    Wong, 30, didn’t have a container home in mind when he and his girlfriend started to look for a place to live last year. But they quickly realized apartment rents were way out of their budget.

    It took the couple about a month to settle on their current 19-square meter home that rents for HK$4,500 a month. To rent just one room of a similar size in a nearby apartment costs roughly 20 percent more than that.

    The couple like the cheap cost and the air quality is better than on Hong Kong Island. There are downsides, however. Container homes aren’t built to withstand extreme weather, so when Typhoon Mangkhut hit last September, there were leaks. The remote location also means the couple spend more time, and money, commuting.

    Wong said he didn’t ask whether the home was a legal residential property when he moved in, and doesn’t plan to. He admits there’s a chance the land it sits upon hasn’t been zoned for residential use.

    But until circumstances change, Wong plans to stay put.

    “Home prices will definitely remain high,” he said. “There’s a mentality among Hong Kong people that one must own an apartment, and that pushes up prices.”

    And though the average home price fell more than 10% by the end of 2018 from its peak in August, sheer supply-demand dynamics suggest that the city will remain extremely unaffordable for the forseeable future, virtually guaranteeing a niche for the container home market.

  • The Sharing Economy Was Always A Scam

    Authored by Susie Cagle via OneZero.Medium.com,

    ‘Sharing’ was supposed to save us. Instead, it became a Trojan horse for a precarious economic future…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Founded in 2014, Omni is a startup that offers users the ability to store and rent their lesser-used stuff in the San Francisco Bay Area and Portland. Backed by roughly $40 million in venture capital, Omni proclaims on its website that they “believe in experiences over things, access over ownership, and living lighter rather than being weighed down by our possessions.”

    If you’re in the Bay Area, you can currently rent a copy of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo from “Lan” for the low price of $1 per day; “charles” is renting a small framed lithograph for $10 a day; and “Tom” is renting a copy of the film Friends With Benefits (68 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) on Blu-ray for just $2 a day. Those prices don’t include delivery and return fees for the Omni trucks traversing the city, which start at $1.99each way.

    In 2016, Omni’s CEO and co-founder Tom McLeod said that “lending enables Omni members to put their ‘dormant’ belongings to good use in their community.” That same year, Fortune said Omni “could create a true ‘sharing economy.’” For a while, the tenets of the sharing economy were front and center in Omni’s model: It promised to activate underutilitized assets in order to sustain a healthier world and build community trust. In 2017, McLeod said, “We want to change behavior around ownership on the planet.”

    Just three years later, those promises seem second to the pursuit of profit. In 2019, the Omni pitch can be summed up by the ads emblazoned on its delivery trucks: “Rent things from your neighbors, earn money when they rent from you!”

    For years, the sharing economy was pitched as an altruistic form of capitalism — an answer to consumption run amok. Why own your own car or power tools or copies of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up if each sat idle for most of its life? The sharing economy would let strangers around the world maximize the utility of every possession to the benefit of all.

    In a 2010 TED Talk, sharing economy champion and author Rachel Botsman argued that the tech-enabled sharing economy could “mimic the ties that used to happen face to face but on a scale and in a way that has never been possible before.” Botsman quoted a New York Times piece in saying, “Sharing is to ownership what the iPod is to the eight track, what solar power is to the coal mine.” In 2013, Thomas Friedman proclaimed that Airbnb’s true innovation wasn’t its platform or its distributed business model: “It’s ‘trust.’” At a 2014 conference, Uber investor Shervin Pishevar said sharing was going to bring us back to a mythical bygone era of low-impact, communal village living.

    More than 10 years since the dawn of the sharing economy, these promises sound painfully out of date. Why rent a DVD from your neighbor, or own a DVD at all, when you can stream your movies online? Why use Airbnb for a single room in your home when you can sublease an entire apartment and run a lucrative off-the-books hotel operation? Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb — startups that banked on the promises of the sharing economy — are now worth tens of billions, with plans go public. (Lyft filed for an IPO on March 1.) These companies and the pundits who hyped them have all but abandoned the sharing argument that gave this industry life and allowed it to skirt government regulations for years. Sharing was supposed to transform our world for the better. Instead, the only thing we’re sharing is the mess it left behind.

    The first glimpses of the sharing economy emerged years before the term came into popular use. In 1995, Craigslist mainstreamed the direct donation, renting, and sale of everything from pets and furniture to apartments and homes. Starting in 2000, Zipcar let members rent cars for everyday errands and short trips with the express goal of taking more cars off the road. And CouchSurfing, launched as a nonprofit in 2004, suddenly turned every living room into a hostel. This first wave of sharing was eclectic and sometimes even profitable, but before the mass adoption of the smartphone, it failed to capture the public’s imagination.

    Though its origin is vague, many credit the introduction of the term “sharing economy” into the broader tech lexicon to Lawrence Lessig, who wrote about sharing in his 2008 book Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy. The Great Recession was just setting in, and the sharing economy was touted as a new DIY social safety net/business model hybrid. The contours of the term were never particularly clear. It was used loosely to describe peer-to-peer projects and tech-enabled rental markets but also included old barter, co-op, and casual carpooling models. The sharing economy was a broad, eclectic movement with ambitious if utopian goals. The online magazine Shareable launched in 2009 to document this “movement of movements.”

    Sharing would help reduce overconsumption and our impact on the environment. Venture capitalist and tech trend spotter Mary Meeker saidAmericans were moving from an “asset-heavy lifestyle to an asset-light existence” with the sharing economy leading the charge. Environment and politics researcher Harald Heinrichs suggested the sharing economy was a “potential new pathway to sustainability.” Greenpeace’s Annie Leonardframed sharing in opposition to consuming: The sharing economy, she wrote, would “conserve resources, give people access to stuff they otherwise couldn’t afford, and build community.”

    Sharing also promised social benefits. It would be the instrument by which we’d be able to know one another again, a counterbalance to the alienation of a burgeoning tech dystopia. Sharing economy expert April Rinne said sharing would recreate the social fabric of tight-knit communities. “Engaging in collaborative consumption — and getting used to it — lowers the trust barrier over time,” she wrote at Shareable. New startups like TrustCloud would gather all of our disparate platform ratings and social trails from across the web and compile them into a new kind of social credit score that would enable trust and accountability in the sharing economy.

    The new opportunities to earn money by freelancing part-time as a handyman, innkeeper, or taxi driver would bridge the wealth gap and ameliorate global inequality. In 2013, CNN contributor Van Jones said that sharing could lead us to “a more sustainable, prosperous future.”

    Adam Werbach was president of the Sierra Club and a corporate sustainability consultant before he co-founded the used goods sharing marketplace Yerdle in 2012. A sort of proto-Omni, Yerdle’s original tagline was, “Stop buying. Start sharing.” The site incentivized renters to rent their own things by rewarding them with credits and keeping used goods recycling in the Yerdle community.

    “There was a mix of venture-backed companies, social-benefit companies, and nonprofits all in the space, all fighting for it. And all of the companies were small, and all the founders hung out — it was a community,” Werbach says of those heady early times.

    “I had hoped this would be the taming of capitalism.”

    Janelle Orsi, attorney, co-founder, and executive director of the Sustainable Economies Law Center, used to call herself a sharing lawyer, which, she says now, “a lot of people thought was a joke.” Orsi helped set up small workers cooperatives and worked on cottage food legislation to make it possible for people in California to sell food they cooked at home on a small scale both on and off digital platforms.

    For Orsi, the sharing pitch had some value in selling an idea that was uncomfortable at the time. “It took a certain kind of community-oriented person willing to take a risk and book an Airbnb or get in an Uber early on,” says Orsi. For her, and likely for many of the early sharing adopters, truly cleaner, lighter living through platform technology was seductive and incredibly promising. But that innocence was short-lived.

    “I had a very grassroots community-based vision of it,” she says.

    “And then all of a sudden, here comes the big tech companies. It was totally hijacked.”

    Perhaps no company is as emblematic of the sharing economy sector and its rapid evolution as Lyft. Zimride, Lyft’s original parent company, was a service that focused on college campuses and long-distance rides in areas with few other transit options. Co-founder Logan Green told reporters he was inspired by the slow grind of Los Angeles traffic, thick with single-occupant cars. If he could find a way to entice more people to carpool, Green reasoned, there would be less traffic on the road.

    In 2012, Zimride launched Lyft to service shorter rides in cities. Lyft advertised “friendly rides,” encouraging passengers to sit up front alongside the driver and pay a suggested donation if they felt like it. The company argued that because the platform only acted to connect riders and drivers, with payment optional, it couldn’t be regulated as a taxi service provider. But just a year after it was spun out, Lyft instituted set ride fares and had already raised $83 million in financing. It was a sharing economy success story: In 2015, Lyft was recognized by the Circulars economy awards at Davos for “helping to decongest roads.”

    Over the first half of the 2010s, the so-called sharing economy evolved into a powerful new multibillion-dollar economic model. At about the same time, the definition of “sharing” began to shift. Sharing still referred to the peer-to-peer model of leveraging underutilized assets — sharing our goods with each other — but it was also increasingly applied to more traditional centralized rental models.

    Seemingly everything was a part of this new economy: bike-sharing sponsored by multinational banks, apps that allowed people to rent parking spaces on public streets, and platforms that allowed for the peer-to-peer sale of used clothes. Sharing was the donor-funded nonprofit Wikipedia, and it was the massive unicorn WeWork. When the Avis Budget Group bought short-term car-rental service ZipCar in 2013, investor Steve Case said it was an indicator of the sharing economy’s growing potential. “Sharing is not a passing fad,” he wrote in the Washington Post. “Fasten your seatbelts: It’s just the beginning.”

    Even though the term “sharing” was quickly being drained of any meaning, industry insiders still touted its social benefits. In 2014, Airbnb global head of community Douglas Atkin told a sharing economy conference, “The sharing economy deserves to succeed. There’s a decentralization of wealth and control and power. That’s why this economy is a better economy.”

    Bythe mid-2010s, the narrative around the innovative, cure-all sharing economy had started to sour. As platforms banking on “collaborative consumption” edged toward multibillion-dollar valuations, sharing began to feel naive.

    “I sort of observed the shift happening beginning in 2016,” says labor attorney Veena Dubal, who was working with freelance taxi drivers in San Francisco before sharing hit the road. “There was a moment of novelty but then a realization that these were the same things. Just much cheaper and unregulated.”

    Three years ago, in a piece co-authored with entrepreneur and model Lily Cole, Adam Werbach also suggested that corporations had hijacked sharing. “Whilst modern rental platforms offer enormous value… they do not reflect the sentiment of sharing that has defined communities as communities for thousands of years.” They offered another word instead: rent.

    In some instances, the sharing economy appeared to inflame the very problems it purported to solve. The supposed activation of underutilized resources actually led to more, if slightly different, patterns of resource consumption. A number of studies have shown that the ease and subsidized low cost of Uber and Lyft rides are increasing traffic in cities and apparently pulls passengers away from an actual form of sharing: public transportation. Students at UCLA are reportedly taking roughly 11,000 rides each week that never even leave campus. In putting more cars on the road, ride-hail companies have encouraged would-be drivers to consume more by buying cars with subprime loans or renting directly from the platforms themselves.

    Alongside making it easy to rent out spare rooms, vacation rental platforms encouraged speculative real estate investment. Whole homes and apartment buildings are taken off the rental market to act as hotels, further squeezinghousing markets in already unaffordable cities.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Early sharing champions were ultimately correct about technology enabling a shift away from an ownership society, but what came next wasn’t sharing. The rise of streaming services, subscription systems, and short-term rentals eclipsed the promise of nonmonetary resource sharing. The power and control wasn’t decentralized; it was even more concentrated in the hands of large and valuable platforms.

    Why go through the trouble of swapping your own DVDs for a copy of Friends With Benefits, after all, when you can stream it through Amazon Prime Video for $2.99? The idea of paying for temporary access to albums rather than outright owning them may have been galling at first, but we’re increasingly comfortable with renting all our music, along with our software, and our books. Downloading and sharing the materials that live on these streamed resources is impossible, illegal, or both.

    The new trust never materialized. Government regulation typically plays an important role in mediating consumer relationships with corporate firms and for good reason. Peer-to-peer platforms can make discrimination easier, and they often claimed limited or zero liability when things went wrong. New social media reputation tools couldn’t prevent inevitable problems, especially when sharing companies did not institute background checks for their freelance workers or inspect homes and vehicles for safety.

    Sharing didn’t deliver broad financial stability either. The jobs eventually created by the sharing economy were poorly regulated and hastened the broader growth of contract labor, pushing down already low wages for freelancers and employees alike. A few frequently quoted studies have claimed that soon, most of us will be freelancers. But most of that freelance work appears to be extremely part-time and merely supplemental income, and ride-hail driver turnover in particular is high.

    Sharing doesn’t have the positive market power it wielded 10 years ago. Since 2016, tech entrepreneurs and their promoters in the press seem to have largely ditched the language of sharing. It’s now about “platforms,” “on-demand services,” or, most recently, “the gig economy.”

    Labor attorney Dubal is not thrilled with the new “gig” language either. The term may seem honest — it places the precarious nature of the contract labor front and center — but it doesn’t assuage broader structural concerns. “Even people who’ve stopped using the ‘sharing economy’ haven’t necessarily seen the light in terms of what kinds of work the company has propagated more broadly,” Dubal says. “They’ve normalized unregulated business.”

    Some of sharing’s earliest, most outspoken champions have distanced themselves from the term. Originally launched in 2013 as “a grassroots organization to support the sharing economy movement,” the nonprofit Peers purported to “grow, mainstream, and protect the sharing economy,” essentially acting as a corporate lobby firm for sharing, on-demand, and gig startups. Peers’ partners included Lyft, Airbnb, TaskRabbit, Getaround, and dozens of other mostly for-profit companies. The organization said the bulk of its funding came from “mission-aligned independent donors” and foundations, but it also had investment from Airbnb.

    By 2016, Peers had pivoted to portable benefits — an infrastructure to sustain gig workers as they labored without an employment safety net. Peers became “an organization for people working in new ways,” and it merged with the newly created Indy Worker Guild. Peers co-founder Natalie Foster went on to co-found the Economic Security Project, which lobbies for a new solution to help struggling gig workers and job-havers alike: universal basic income.

    In 2018, April Rinne, who previously pushed the sharing economy’s promise of a “tighter social fabric,” acknowledged “the dark side” of the sharing economy but wrote that “the challenges faced by the sharing economy today are largely a result of its success.” Rachel Botsman, who argued that sharing would allow us to trust one another again, now writes about how technologyand the concentration of power on large centralized platforms has led to “an erosion of trust.”

    The demand for Botsman’s mythical community-shared power drill never seemed to materialize. Neighborly goods-sharing platforms Crowd Rent, ThingLoop, and SnapGoods are all many years dead, and meal-sharing Josephine ended long ago. CouchSurfing has gone for-profit, with venture capital investment.

    It turns out sharing “is not really a mass-market idea, which is sort of depressing,” says Werbach, who’s pivoted Yerdle into a logistics firm for large brands interested in re-selling their used goods. “Kindergarten teachers are interested in that, but consumers are really interested in what’s in it for them.”

    Some of the early, true sharing believers have decamped for the growing platform cooperative movement. “Now there’s a whole consortium of platform cooperatives,” says Orsi of the Sustainable Economies Law Center.

    And these companies don’t bank on sharing. Organizations like Loconomics, Fairbnb, and Stocksy see their efforts at cooperative consumption and production less as altruism and more as collectively owning the means of production.

    Sharing tapped into economic anxiety, isolation, and frustration with contemporary U.S. middle-class life in a unique and ultimately profitable way. It was another iteration of Silicon Valley’s excruciating trope of changing the world by way of disruption, wrapped in a soft packaging of eco-friendly, feel-good liberalism. We were encouraged to give companies like Lyft and Airbnb a chance, to nurture them and help them along for the greater good. If we didn’t believe in sharing, we weren’t just cynics but enemies of progress.

    Many of the corporations and the pundits who sold us on the promises of sharing stopped using the term because consumers no longer found it believable or attractive. But it was consumers who really did sharing in. A true sharing economy is full of friction and discomfort, and the margins — if there are any to speak of — are paper thin. Real sharing is time-consuming and not particularly profitable for anyone.

    In order to make money, especially the kind of money that tech investors expect, venture-backed companies couldn’t just activate underutilized resources — they had to make more. For-profit businesses demand growth, and platforms demand scale. More than a decade into the sharing experiment, we’ve been able to fully assess the costs. Capitalism wasn’t tamed, as Werbach had hoped — it was stoked.

    “Now it’s just a transaction,” Werbach says.

    “It doesn’t need to be dressed up in any language about changing the world or whatever.”

    And though sharing is largely dead, other tech-driven models have taken its place: VC-backed enterprises that still skate on the promise of solving inequality, promoting justice, fixing broken systems, and doing what regulators and big, old businesses have failed to do for decades.

    These days, it’s not a shared drill that’s redefining trust and supplanting institutional intermediaries; it’s the blockchain. Botsman now says that the blockchain is the next step in shifting trust from institutions to strangers.

    “Even though most people barely know what the blockchain is, a decade or so from now, it will be like the internet,” she writes. “We’ll wonder how society ever functioned without it.”

    The ambitious promises all sound very familiar.

  • DHS Facial Recognition Scanners To Be Deployed At Top 20 Airports By 2021

    The Department of Homeland Security is rushing to implement a March 2017 executive order issued by President Trump mandating the use of facial recognition to identify “100 percent of all international passengers” – including American citizens, according to BuzzFeed. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Originally signed into law by President Obama in 2015, Trump’s EO accelerates the program, which will be implemented by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in 20 top US airports by 2021 (Of note, seventeen international airports already use facial recognition, including “Atlanta, New York City, Boston, San Jose, Chicago, and two airports in Houston”).  

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Many major airlines are on board with the idea — Delta, JetBlue, British Airways, Lufthansa, and American Airlines. Airport operations companies, including Los Angeles World Airports, Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, Mineta San Jose International Airport, Miami International Airport, and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, are also involved. –BuzzFeed

    According to a 346-pages of “as-yet-unpublished” documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center and reviewed by BuzzFeed News, US Customs and Border Protection is furiously rushing to meet the deadline for this “biometric entry-exit system” – which will use facial recognition technology on more than 100 million passengers in as little as two years, or roughly 16,300 flights per week. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    As BuzzFeed notes, the biometric systems are being implemented “despite questionable biometric confirmation rates and few, if any, legal guardrails.”

    What’s more, there are no limits to how airlines can use facial recognition data. 

    These same documents state — explicitly — that there were no limits on how partnering airlines can use this facial recognition data. CBP did not answer specific questions about whether there are any guidelines for how other technology companies involved in processing the data can potentially also use it. It was only during a data privacy meeting last December that CBP made a sharp turn and limited participating companies from using this data. But it is unclear to what extent it has enforced this new rule. CBP did not explain what its current policies around data sharing of biometric information with participating companies and third-party firms are, but it did say that the agency “retains photos … for up to 14 days” of non-US citizens departing the country, for “evaluation of the technology” and “assurance of the accuracy of the algorithms” — which implies such photos might be used for further training of its facial matching AI. –BuzzFeed

    “CBP is solving a security challenge by adding a convenience for travelers,” said an agency spokesperson in an email to BuzzFeed. “By partnering with airports and airlines to provide a secure stand-alone system that works quickly and reliably, which they will integrate into their boarding process, CBP does not have to rebuild everything from the ground up as we drive innovation across the travel experience.” 

    Meanwhile, it appears that CBP has simply skipped part of the “rulemaking process” – foregoing public feedback prior to implementing the technology. Beyond “privacy, surveillance and free speech implications,” this is worrisome according to BuzzFeed, which notes that last summer the ACLU reported that Amazon’s facial recognition technology falsely matched 28 members of congress with arrest mugshots. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    According to a Homeland Security OIG report, CBP was able to provide biometric confirmation for just 85% of passengers processed, while mexican and Canadian citizens were “particularly problematic” reports BuzzFeed. 

    “The low 85-percent biometric confirmation rate poses questions as to whether CBP will meet its milestone to confirm all foreign departures at the top 20 US airports by fiscal year 2021,” said the audit – while a spokesperson said that the rate has risen to 98.6% since the report. 

    “I think it’s important to note what the use of facial recognition [in airports] means for American citizens,” said Jeramie Scott – director of EPIC’s Domestic Surveillance Project. “It means the government, without consulting the public, a requirement by Congress, or consent from any individual, is using facial recognition to create a digital ID of millions of Americans.” 

    “CBP took images from the State Department that were submitted to obtain a passport and decided to use them to track travelers in and out of the country,” said Scott. 

    “Facial recognition is becoming normalized as an infrastructure for checkpoint control,” said ACLU senior policy analyst Jay Stanley. “It’s an extremely powerful surveillance technology that has the potential to do things never before done in human history. Yet the government is hurtling along a path towards its broad deployment — and in this case, a deployment that seems quite unjustified and unnecessary.”

    CBP has suggested that privacy concerns are overblown, and that “CBP is committed to protecting the privacy of all travelers and has issued several Privacy Impact Assessments related to [its biometric entry-exit program], employed strong technical security safeguards, and has limited the amount of personally identifiable information used in the transaction,” according to an agency spokesperson. 

    “THE MOST OPERATIONALLY FEASIBLE AND TRAVELER-FRIENDLY OPTION”

    According to CBP’s Concept of Operations document released in June 2017, “Airlines, airports, TSA, and CBP are facing fixed airport infrastructure with little opportunities for major investment, increased national security threats with pressures for solutions, and increased traveler volume.”

    “Collectively, this is a status quo that is not sustainable for any of the main stakeholders, and failure to change will ultimately result in increases in dissatisfied customers, use of alternative modes of travel, and vulnerability to serious threats.”

    In June 2016, CBP began its first pilot for facial recognition technology in airports at the Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Once a day, for a flight from Atlanta to Tokyo, Japan, passengers’ passport photos were biometrically matched to real-time photographs. Before travelers proceeded to the passenger loading bridge to board their flight, CBP officers told passengers to scan their boarding passes, then a camera snapped a digital image of the traveler’s face; a CBP-developed back-end system called the Departure Information System used facial recognition to automatically compare photos during boarding against a photo gallery. Everyone between the ages of 14 and 79 was expected to participate. –BuzzFeed

    CBP says that the stated goal is to “identify any non-U.S. citizens subject to the exit requirements who may fraudulently present” travel documents, and that the agency has “no plans to biometrically record the departure of U.S. citizens.”

    That said, the CBP also says that it “does not believe there is enough time to separate U.S. citizens from non-U.S. citizen visitors prior to boarding” … “therefore, facial images will be collected for U.S. citizens as part of this test so that CBP can verify the identity of a U.S. citizen boarding the air carrier.”

    Once a traveler is identified and confirmed as a US citizen, the CBP claims their image is deleted. 

    Three months after the 2016 pilot, CBP switched to monitoring a daily flight from Atlanta to Mexico City. By the end of November that year, the test was being run on approximately seven flights per week. 

    The result of these tests? “CBP concluded that facial recognition technology … was the most operationally feasible and traveler-friendly option for a comprehensive biometric solution,” according to a DHS Inspector General audit of the government’s facial recognition biometrics program. 

    As the system expanded, in June 2017 CBP replaced it’s Departure Information System with a more advanced automated matching system known as “Traveler Verification Service” (TVS) which could “[operate] in a virtual, cloud-based infrastructure that can store images temporarily and operate using a wireless network.” Once a passenger boarded a plane, TVS transmits confirmation of a biometric match across other DHS systems, according to BuzzFeed. 

    CBP says it allows U.S. citizens to decline facial verification and to instead have their identities confirmed through the usual manual boarding process. “CBP works with airline and airport partners to incorporate notifications and processes into their current business models, including signage and gate announcements, to ensure transparency of the biometric process,” an agency spokesperson said in an email to BuzzFeed News. But of 12 flights observed by OIG during its audit in 2017, only 16 passengers declined to participate.

    According to Delta, less than 2% of its weekly 25,000 passengers going through the Atlanta airport’s Terminal F, which features “curb to gate” facial recognition systems, opt out of using the tech. –BuzzFeed

    Meanwhile, CBP is allowing people wearing “religious headwear” to pass through security checkpoints at the discretion of airport personnel.  

    Read the rest of the report here. 

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

  • Schlichter: Has Nervous Nancy Lost Control Of Her Crazy Party?

    Authored by Kurt Schlichter, op-ed via Townhall.com,

    The only thing that should keep you from roaring in laughter as Nancy Pelosi freaks out trying to keep a lid on the freak show that is the Democratic caucus is the knowledge that the freshmen freakettes giving her fits would impose an ideology of tyranny and murder if given the chance. But you can still allow yourself a good giggle as you watch Nancy’s dreams of a Democrat majority die on the altar of anti-Semitism, taking away your health insurance, and banning cheeseburgers.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    This was on display as the Democrats struggled to find a way to publicly pretend to condemn their superstar bigot’s hatred of Jews without annoying all the Democrats for whom hatred of Jews is a key component of their intersectional web of leftist prejudices. Nancy essentially tried to excuse it by explaining that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Berlin) is too stupid to know she’s anti-Semitic which, to be fair, is plausible.

    She could only get her caucus to agree to condemning all prejudice, sort of, including the tsunami of prejudice against Pacific Islanders that we all see around us so much in our daily lives. Take that, people who hate Pacific Islanders.

    Of course, the Democrats never named the actual bigot because the Democrat base is affirmatively pro-bigotry. They hate Jews, Christians, white people, dissident non-white people, men, women who like men, and people who blaspheme against the creepy climate cult, among others. The list of Bad People Who Are Bad goes on and on – the key element of intersectionality is that it always intersects with ugly prejudices against groups that leftists see as insufficiently supportive of their sick ideology.

    Which is Nancy’s problem, because she won the House back last year by hiding the left-wing evil bubbling under the surface of her party’s collective dogma. She defeated the feckless Paul Ryan – what a loser – by running candidates in largely purple suburban districts who promised that if the voters tossed out the squishy Republican incumbent, the sensible Democrat moderate challenger would not go to Washington and do anything kooky. And, of course, the Lucy’s football phenomena was in full effect as these Nanchurian Candidates trooped up Capitol Hill and promptly got sucked into the crazy. 

    Suddenly, instead of playing the fake moderate game, Nancy’s minions had to suck up to a bunch of braying bimbos from safe blue seats. All the nonsense Reps. Talib, Omar, and Ocasio-Cortez spewed on social media and MSNBC thrilled the Democrat base. But what Normal people heard was, “We hate Israel. We hate the idea that you can have cars. We hate you.”

    And the fact that these commie-come-latelys are so inept is icing on the cake. Rep. Omar couldn’t help but run her fool mouth about what she really thought of the Jews. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez could not manage to let fly with her Green New Deal without making the rookie mistake of telling the people what was actually in it. Free money for those unwilling to work? Maybe that dog hunts among the simpletons in her New York City district, but in America, not so much.

    Not only does it rile up Nancy because these clumsy radicals have stolen the spotlight and made it immeasurably harder to pull off her “We’re sensible” scam on the swing seat suckers but it rankles because none of these debutantes have paid their dues. Nancy and the rest of her leadership worked for years and years accumulating power, rising through the ranks, and when they finally regained power suddenly these newbies who paid no dues but have a lot of Twitter followers showed up and took over the Democrat agenda.

    That’s got to be infuriating, and you can see it when Nancy talks about them – she can’t say it out loud, but you know what’s running through her mind is, “Who the hell do these upstarts think they are?”

    Well Nancy, they seem to be your party’s future.

    The thing is that the Democrat base loves them. These radicals are out of the moderate closet and letting their freak flags fly. Death to Israel! Death to borders! Death to private property. Death to Big Macs!

    Nancy could barely manage to applaud (while staying seated) the idea that America will never be socialist. These radicals are now forcing her to stop hiding the party’s real objectives far too soon. The truth was only supposed to come out after they had hold of total power, not so early that we Normals could wake up and stop the onslaught. But now, 2020 is going to provide a whole bunch of great questions to smart Republican candidates, in the off chance there are any:

    Do you support the Democrat plan to ban cars and planes?

    Do you support the Democrat plan to take away your private insurance and force you onto government healthcare?

    Do you support the Democrat plan to abandon Israel?

    Do you support the Democrat plan for open borders?

    Do you support the Democrat plan for illegal alien voting?

    Do you support the Democrat plan to allow doctors to kill babies?

    Even the wimps in the purple districts, the gooey mommies who found Trump icky and their Fredocon hubbies who said “Yes, dear” to wifey’s command to vote against the part of Bad Orange Man last November, are going to think twice about backing these nutty Dem plays. It’s all fun and games until Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shows up and tells you that you gotta lose the SUV you use to cart Kaden and Ashleigh to soccer practice.

    The moderate Dems will have to turn on the radicals or get turned out. It already happened once as a couple dozen Dems joined Republicans to add an amendment to a gun grab bill that mandated reporting illegal aliens to ICE if they tried to buy a firearm. Ocasio-Cortez and her group opposed it. In fact, the Lil’ Kommissar even threatened to put these rebels on a list to be terminated (via primary now) for daring to *squints real hard* want to report to immigration authorities any illegal aliens trying to illegally buy guns. 

    Do it, AOC. DO IT!

    Nothing like intra-pinko cannibalism. Turn the Democrat Party into the Donner Party. While you consume each other, I’ll be here gobbling cruelty-free, carbon neutral popcorn.

    But, of course, there is always a chance that things don’t go the way we hope, and that there are enough historically ignorant suckers in the big blue cities to allow these freaks to take over the levers of power. Sure, the Democrats’ pain is hilarious, but the fact that a major political party has surrendered itself to the zealots of an ideology that has murdered 100 million people is not so hilarious. Maybe if the socialists get in charge here, they won’t bring misery and murder. Maybe the ones in Congress now are so smart and competent that they can actually make this blood-splattered ideology work. But it’s going to be a hard sell for the Dems to get us to bet our lives on it.

    *  *  *

    I write about an America split apart into red and blue in my novels People’s Republic, Indian Country and Wildfire, and if we let these psychos prevail, then we’ll be lucky if that’s the worst thing that happens. 

  • JFK Canvas Bought for $16,900 Set to Sell For $50 Million

    A major upcoming auction of a painting by Robert Rauschenberg is set to “prime the market” for the late artist, according to a new Bloomberg report. And the early signs of what his work will fetch look to be optimistic, to put it lightly. The artist’s 1964 work “Buffalo II” is set to be auctioned off by Christie’s on May 15 and is estimated to be offered for $50 million. That’s triple the artist’s auction record and 300,000% more than what the original buyers of the work paid.

    The canvas is in the style of a collage and depicts president John F. Kennedy.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The canvas was created shortly after the President’s assassination and was purchased from art dealer Leo Castelli, who represented Rauschenberg at the time. The upcoming sale of the piece will likely “reset” the artist’s market, breaking his $18.6 million auction record and the records of other contemporary artists like Jasper Johns, whose “Flag” sold in 2014 for $36 million. 

    Sara Friedlander, Christie’s international director and head of its postwar and contemporary art department in New York told Bloomberg: “Everyone has been waiting for this painting. It’s the very best of the silkscreen paintings that’s left in private hands.’’

    The canvas is part of a collection owned by Robert and Beatrice “Buddy” Mayer, who was an heiress to the Sara Lee fortune. In total, Christie’s is set to offer more than $125 million of Mayer’s works. This collection includes Roy Lichtenstein’s $30 million 1962 “Kiss III,” and other Impressionist and modern art, in addition to Chinese ceramics and Latin American paintings.

    Mayer was a Montreal native, art patron and an activist who was a founding member of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

    “It was a very exciting, politically charged time. And that’s the art they wanted to buy,” Friedlander said of its owners. 

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Mar 11

Today’s News 11th March 2019

  • Russian Warship Packing 'Vomit Weapon' Sparks Fear After Sailing Down English Channel

    A Russian warship carrying a “hallucination” weapon that “makes enemies vomit” successfully navigated the English channel over the weekend after conducting “air defense and countersabotage exercises” near Scotland’s only air force base, according to the UK’s Sunday Times. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Royal Navy warship HMS Defender was deployed to shadow the Russian frigate Admiral Gorshkov and three auxiliary vessels, which performed “provocative drills” in territorial waters, according to SNP defense spokesman Stewart McDonald. 

    The Gorshkov – the first of a new class of Russian frigates – embarked from the Barents Sea port town of Murmansk, home to Russia’s northern fleet. 

    Hallucinating device

    According to the Times, the Gorshkov is equipped with a “5P-42 Filin” or “Owl” optical device which can “provoke hallucinations and sickness in enemies using fast pulses of high-intensity light beams.” 

    The non-lethal Filin can be used at night or during twilight and is said to be effective from up to two kilometres away. In tests, volunteers who had the weapon turned on them found it was impossible to aim a firearm at a target protected by it. A fifth experienced something like a hallucination and about half noticed “signs of spatial disorientation, as well as nausea and dizziness”. The device is said to agitate the optic nerves of the enemy by modulating the brightness of the light. –The Times

    A Royal Navy spokesman said that the Defender was “monitoring the Russian task group and keeping track of their activity in areas of national interest.” 

    Scottish politicians, meanwhile, weren’t reassured by the Royal Navy’s response to the Russian ships. 

    “The UK’s Ministry of Defence is failing Scotland, allowing Russian navy vessels sailing through our territorial waters at will to conduct provocative drills like this,” said SNP Defense spokesman Stewart McDonald. 

    That said, a Royal Navy insider tells the Times that the Russian group was forced to take shelter in the Scottish islands due to bad weather, and continued their journey when conditions improved. 

    “They were waiting out the weather. Anyone who says they were trying to agitate is pushing fake news,” said the insider. 

    For anyone who wants to make their own barf gun, watch below:

  • The Orientalism Of Western Russophobia

    Authored by Max Parry via Off-Guardian.org,

    Last year marked the 40th anniversary of the publication of Edward W. Said’s pioneering book, Orientalism, as well as fifteen years since the Palestinian-American intellectual’s passing. To bid farewell to such an important scholar shortly after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, which Said fiercely criticized until his dying breath before succumbing to leukemia, made an already tremendous loss that much more impactful.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    An illustration from a Wall Street Journal article entitled “Russia’s Turn to its Asian Past” depicting Vladimir Putin as Genghis Khan.

    His seminal text forever reoriented political discourse by painstakingly examining the overlooked cultural imperialism of colonial history in the West’s construction of the so-called Orient. Said meticulously interrogated the Other-ing of the non-Western world in the humanities, arts, and anthropology down to its minutiae. As a result, the West was forced to confront not just its economic and political plunder but the long-established cultural biases filtering the lens through which it viewed the East which shaped its dominion over it.

    His writings proved to be so influential that they laid the foundations for what is now known as post-colonial theory. This became an ironic category as the author himself would strongly reject any implication that the subjugation of developing countries is a thing of the past. How apropos that the Mandatory Palestine-born writer’s death came in the midst of the early stages of the ‘War on Terror’ that made clear Western imperialism is very much alive.

    Despite its history of ethnic cleansing, slavery, and war, the United States had distinguished itself from Britain and France in that it had never established its own major colonies within the Middle East, Asia or North Africa in the heart of the Orient. According to Said, it was now undergoing this venture as the world’s sole remaining superpower following the end of the Cold War with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

    Today’s political atmosphere makes the Bush era seem like eons ago. Thanks to the shameful rehabilitation of neoconservatism by centrist extremists, Americans fail to understand how Trumpism emerged from the pandora’s box of destructiveness of Bush policies that destabilized the Middle East and only increased international terrorism. Since then, another American enemy has been manufactured in the form of the Russian Federation and its President, Vladimir Putin, who drew the ire of the West after a resurgent Moscow under his leadership began to contain U.S. hegemony. This reached a crescendo during the 2016 U.S. Presidential election with the dubious accusations of election interference made by the same intelligence agencies that sold the pack of lies that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction. The establishment has even likened the alleged intrusion by Moscow to 9/11.

    If a comparison between the 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans and the still unproven allegations of Russian meddling seems outrageous, it is precisely such an analogy that has been made by Russiagate’s own biggest proponents, from neoconservative columnist Max Boot to Hillary Clinton herself.

    Truthfully, it is the climate of hysteria and dumbing down of discourse to such rigid dichotomies following both events where a real similarity can be drawn. The ‘with us or against us’ chasm that followed 9/11 has reemerged in the ‘either/or’ post-election polarity of the Trump era whereby all debate within the Overton window is pigeonholed into a ‘pro vs. anti-Trump’ or ‘pro vs. anti-Russia’ false dilemma. It is even perpetrated by some on the far left, e.g. if one critiques corporate media or Russiagate, they are grouped as ‘pro-Trump’ or ‘pro-Putin’ no matter their political orientation. This dangerous atmosphere is feeding an unprecedented wave of censorship of dissenting voices across the spectrum.

    In his final years, not only did Edward Said condemn the Bush administration but highlighted how corporate media was using bigoted tropes in its representations of Arabs and Muslims to justify U.S. foreign policy. Even though it has gone mostly undetected, the neo-McCarthyist frenzy following the election has produced a similar travesty of caricatures depicting Russia and Vladimir Putin. One such egregious example was a July 2018 article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Russia’s Turn to Its Asian Past” featuring an illustration portraying Vladimir Putin as Genghis Khan.

    The racist image and headline suggested that Russia is somehow inherently autocratic because of its past occupation under the Mongol Empire during its conquest of Eastern Europe and the Kievan Rus state in the 13th century. In a conceptual revival of the Eurocentric trope of Asiatic or Oriental despotism, the hint is that past race-mixing is where Russia inherited this tyrannical trait. When the cover story appeared, there was virtually no outcry due to the post-election delirium and everyday fear-mongering about Russia that is now commonplace in the media.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The overlooked casual racism used to demonize Russia in the new Cold War’s propaganda doesn’t stop there. One of the main architects of Russiagate, former Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper, in an interviewwith NBC‘s Meet the Press on the reported meddling stated:

    And just the historical practices of the Russians, who typically, almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, which is a typical Russian technique. So we were concerned.”

    Clapper, whose Office of the DNI published the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections”, has been widely praised and cited by corporate media as a trustworthy source despite his previous history of making intentionally false statements at a public hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee denying that the National Security Agency (NSA) was unconstitutionally spying on U.S. citizens.

    The disclosures of NSA activities by whistleblower Edward Snowden that shocked the world should have discredited Clapper’s status as a reliable figure, but not for mainstream media which has continuously colluded with the deep state during the entire Russia investigation. In fact, the scandal has been an opportunity to rehabilitate figures like the ex-spymaster complicit in past U.S. crimes from surveillance to torture. Shortly after the interview with NBC, Clapper repeated his prejudiced sentiments against Russians in a speech at the National Press Club in Australia:

    But as far as our being intimate allies, trusting buds with the Russians that is just not going to happen. It is in their genes to be opposed, diametrically opposed, to the United States and to Western democracies.”

    The post-election mass Trump derangement has not only enabled wild accusations of treason to be made without sufficient evidence to support them, but such uninhibited xenophobic remarks to go without notice or disapproval.

    In fact, liberals have seemingly abandoned their supposed progressive credence across the board while suffering from their anti-Russia neurological disorder. In an exemplar of yellow journalism, outlets like NBC News published sensational articles alleging that because of the perceived ingratiation between Trump and Putin, there was an increase in Russian ‘birth tourism’ in the United States.

    More commonly known by the pejorative ‘anchor babies’, birth tourism is the false claim that many immigrants travel to countries for the purpose of having children in order to obtain citizenship. While there may be individual cases, the idea that it is an epidemic is a complete myth — the vast majority of immigration is motivated by labor demands and changes in political or socio-economic factors in their native countries, whether it is from the global south or Eastern Europe. Trump has been rightfully criticized for promoting this falsehood regarding undocumented immigrants and his executive orders targeting birthright citizenship, but it appears liberals are willing to unfairly apply this same fallacy toward Russians for political reasons.

    In order to make sense of the current groupthink hysteria towards Moscow, it must be understood in its context as an extension of the ongoing doctoring of history regarding U.S.-Russia relations since the Cold War. Americans living within the empire are proselytized into a glorified and nationalist version of their entire background, beginning with merchants and explorers ‘discovering’ the continent and the whitewashing of indigenous genocide. This imaginary narrative includes the version of WWII taught in U.S. schools and the arms race with the Soviet Union that followed. The West presents an entirely Anglospheric perspective of the war starting with its very chronology.

    For example, it is said that the conflict ‘officially’ began with the September 1st, 1939 invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany. This mythology immediately frames the war from an Eurocentric viewpoint by separating the Sino-Japanese war that was already underway as the Pacific Ocean theater began long before the ‘surprise’ Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and U.S. entry into the conflict.

    The truth is that nearly everything Americans are taught about U.S. participation in the war is either a mischaracterization or a lie, with its role in the Allied victory inflated exponentially. The widely held misconception that the 1944 Normandy landings in the Allied invasion of France was the decisive turning point in Europe is a fairy tale. The ‘D’ in D-Day does not stand for ‘decision’ as many Westerners assume, and when the Allied forces converged on Germany from East and West it was the Soviets who captured Berlin.

    Although Operation Overlord may have been the largest invasion transported by sea in history, the real watershed in the Great Patriotic War was the Soviet victory in the Battle of Stalingrad the previous year, the biggest defeat ever suffered by the German army. The U.S. only took on the Wehrmacht once it was exhausted by the Red Army which bore the real burden of overcoming Germany.

    Just three years earlier, the British army had been completely vanquished by the Nazi armed forces. Omitted from Hollywood folklore like Christopher Nolan’s film Dunkirk is that the Germans were entirely capable of pressing on with an invasion of the British isles but abruptly halted their advance — what stopped them? Quite simply, Hitler’s fanatical desire to conquer the Soviet Union and eradicate communism which he regarded as a greater threat to the Third Reich than Western capitalism. It is not surprising that the Eastern Front became a higher priority considering that the ruling classes in Britain, France and the U.S. had previously financed the German rearmament in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.

    The Germans did not hold the same hatred for the West that it reserved for the Russians. In fact, the Führer personally admired the U.S. so much for the extermination of its natives that he named his armored private train ‘Amerika’, a mobile version of the Wolf’s Lair. The Nuremberg race statutes were partly inspired by Jim Crow segregation laws in the U.S. and many of the defendants at the Nuremberg trials tried to excuse their atrocities by arguing the similarity between Nazi race theories and the eugenicist movement which actually originated in the United States.

    Auschwitz physician Josef Mengele was even previously employed as an assistant to the head of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics institute that was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.

    Hitler also preferred an attack on the Soviets over an invasion of Britain because of the eugenics of Lebensraum. Nazi Germany, like Britain and France, was really an imperial settler colonialist state and Hitler viewed the Slav inhabitants of the USSR as ethnically inferior to the ‘master race.’ The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact had been a strategic move to buy time for the Soviets in preparation for a German onslaught, at the time the most powerful military power in the world.

    Britain and France had rebuffed Stalin’s efforts to form an alliance in 1938, leaving the USSR no choice but to sign a non-aggression pact with Germany, knowing full well it was only a matter of time until Hitler would eventually embark on his Masterplan for the East.

    Operation Barbarossa, in June 1941, broke the agreement and the German dictator ultimately sealed his own fate. Although the Soviets were victorious, the slaughter that proceeded it had no parallel in human history as 27 million citizens would lose their lives in the fight compared to less than half a million Americans. Even worse, the West has made a mockery of this sacrifice with their refusal to fully acknowledge the USSR’s contribution despite the fact that they did the vast majority of the fighting and dying while 80% of all German casualties were on the Eastern Front.

    Meanwhile, the Cold War had already begun before the Second World War even ended. Whether or not Stalin was fully aware of either the U.S. capability or plans to use the atomic bomb against Japan is still a matter of debate, as U.S. President Harry S. Truman changed his story numerous times over the years.

    Nevertheless, their use is incorrectly attributed by the West to have brought the war’s end and very few Americans realize this tale was told entirely for political reasons. The purported rationale was to allegedly save the lives of American soldiers that would be lost in a future Allied invasion of Japan planned for the Autumn of 1945. Controlling the narrative became crucial in ‘justifying’ the use of such deadly weapons which held the secret motivation to begin an arms race with the Soviets.

    Stalin and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had agreed at the Yalta Conference in February 1945 that the USSR would eventually break its neutrality treaty with Japan and enter the Pacific theater later in the year. That was until Roosevelt died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage just a few months later while American nuclear physicists were busy at work enriching uranium in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

    Then, just a day prior to newly inaugurated President Truman’s meeting with Stalin at the Potsdam Conference in July, the U.S. army and Project Y successfully detonated a nuclear weapon for the first time with the Trinity test as part of the expensive Manhattan Project. After his face-to-face with Truman at Potsdam, whom everyone agrees at least hinted to Stalin of the new U.S. weaponry, the Soviet premier suspected the new U.S. leader would go back on the previous agreement at Yalta with Roosevelt that included compromises with the USSR in the Pacific.

    The ugly truth is that the U.S. was well aware that the Japanese were willing to conditionally surrender on the basis of immunity for Emperor Hirohito. However, the U.S. secretly wanted to achieve an Allied victory ideally without Soviet participation so it could demonstrate its exclusive nuclear capability in order to dominate the post-war order. Japan didn’t relinquish following the first bombing of Hiroshima but the second, Nagasaki, three days later — both of which mostly impacted civilians, not its military.

    What else happened on August 9th, 1945? The Soviet Union declared war on Japan upon realizing that the U.S. was backtracking on its pledge with the underhanded use of ‘Fat Man and Little Boy’ that instantly killed more than 200,000 civilians. The timing gave the appearance that the bomb resulted in the surrender when it was the Soviet invasion of occupied Manchuria in the north against Japan’s military stronghold that was the real tipping point which led to an unconditional acceptance of defeat.

    According to the Western narrative, the Cold War only began following Winston Churchill’s invitation to the U.S. by Truman after being surprisingly voted out of office in 1946. At Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, he gave a speech entitled “Sinews of Peace”, widely known as the Iron Curtain speech, where he condemned Soviet policies in Europe and popularized the moniker for the boundary dividing the continent after the war:

    From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an “iron curtain” has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Although the term ‘iron curtain’ predates Cold War usage to describe various barriers political or otherwise, what is not commonly known is that Churchill likely appropriated the term from its originator, none other than the German Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels himself, who used it in reference to the Soviet Union. In February 1945, he wrote in Das Reich newspaper:

    If the German people lay down their weapons, the Soviets, according to the agreement between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, would occupy all of East and Southeast Europe along with the greater part of the Reich. An iron curtain would fall over this enormous territory controlled by the Soviet Union, behind which nations would be slaughtered.”

    The ‘Nazi megaphone’ himself may have gotten the term from the Wehrmacht propaganda publication Signal which in 1943 published an article entitled “Behind the Iron Curtain” that described:

    He who has listened in on the interrogation of a Soviet prisoner of war knows that once the dam is broken, a flood of words begins as he tries to make clear what he experienced behind the mysterious iron curtain, which more than ever separates the world from the Soviet Union.

    Is it any wonder that British newspaper The Guardian is now illustrating cartoons in its anti-Russia propaganda today that imitate Goebbels’ anti-Soviet posters during WWII?

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Although Stalin was unaware of Churchill’s lifting of Nazi phraseology, he still detected the resemblance between Western and Third Reich policies toward the Soviet Union in the Fulton speech during an interview with Pravda:

    A point to be noted is that in this respect Mr. Churchill and his friends bear a striking resemblance to Hitler and his friends. Hitler began his work of unleashing war by proclaiming a race theory, declaring that only German-speaking people constituted a superior nation.

    Mr. Churchill sets out to unleash war with a race theory, asserting that only English-speaking nations are superior nations, who are called upon to decide the destinies of the entire world. The German race theory led Hitler and his friends to the conclusion that the Germans, as the only superior nation, should rule over other nations. The English race theory leads Mr. Churchill and his friends to the conclusion that the English-speaking nations, as the only superior nations, should rule over the rest of the nations of the world.

    Actually, Mr. Churchill, and his friends in Britain and the United States, present to the non-English speaking nations something in the nature of an ultimatum: “Accept our rule voluntarily, and then all will be well; otherwise war is inevitable.”

    But the nations shed their blood in the course of five years’ fierce war for the sake of the liberty and independence of their countries, and not in order to exchange the domination of the Hitlers for the domination of the Churchills. It is quite probable, accordingly, that the non-English-speaking nations, which constitute the vast majority of the population of the world, will not agree to submit to a new slavery.”

    It is easy to see the parallels between Stalin’s explanation for the geopolitical tensions underlying the Cold War and Edward Said’s postcolonial theory. From a Marxist perspective, one of Said’s shortcomings was a reductionism in understanding empire to cultural supremacy, one of the reasons he unfortunately conflated Marxism with Orientalism as well. When it came to the Cold War, Said also demonstrated a lack of understanding of internationalism. He wrote:

    By the time of the Bandung Conference in 1955, the entire Orient had gained its independence from the Western empires and gained a new configuration of imperial powers, the United States and the Soviet Union. Unable to recognize “its” Orient in the new Third World, Orientalism now faced a challenging and politically armed Orient.”

    Yet who foremost ‘armed’ the movements of national liberation? The USSR, including support for the Palestinians during most of its history. Nevertheless, Stalin’s description of the West’s prerogative for post-war hegemony based on the belief in its primacy has many overlaps with the idea that the Occident exercised patronizing dominance over the East.

    Today, even though the Berlin Wall has long since fallen and Eastern Europe is under free enterprise, the political establishment in the West is still clinging to this attitude and misunderstanding of Moscow to fulfill its need for a permanent global nemesis with a desire to eventually colonize Russia with foreign capital as it did under Boris Yeltsin.

    Russia has historically possessed a unique and ambivalent identity located between the East and West, having been invaded by both European and Asian empires in previous centuries. Said included Russia in Orientalism in his analysis of European countries and their attitude toward the East, but did not note that Russia is in many respects the Orient within the Occident, as more than 75% of its territory as the largest nation in the world is actually located in Asia while three quarters of its population live on the European side.

    Russia may be partly European, but it is certainly not Western. Then again, Europe is not a continent unto itself but geographically connected to Asia with the arbitrary division between them based on cultural differences, not landmass, where Russia is an intermediate. Expansionism under Peter the Great may have brought Western European ‘cultural values’ and modernization to Russia, but the majority of its territory itself remains in Asia.

    Even after the presumed end of the Cold War, Russia has been excluded from the European Union and instead joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), while developing strong ties with China. As recently disclosed documents from the National Security Archive prove, NATO has broken its promise to Mikhail Gorbachev during the George H.W. Bush administration that it not expand eastward following Germany’s enrollment. It has since added 13 countries since 1999, 10 of which were former Warsaw Pact states.

    Russia’s alliance with China has been solidified precisely because it is still not treated in the same regard as other European nations even after the adoption of a private sector economy. In order to justify its continued armament and avoid obsolescence, NATO has manufactured an adversarial relationship with Moscow.

    Contrary to the widespread perception of his rhetoric, in terms of policy-making President Trump has been equally as hostile to Moscow as his predecessors, if not more so in light of the U.S. withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). What the usual suspects behind the attempted soft-coup against him fail to understand is that Trump’s tact toward Putin is more likely an inverted version of the ‘only Nixon could go to China’ strategy, an unexpected style of diplomacy based on the pragmatic objective of containing Beijing by dividing America’s two primary foes.

    The liberals still in denial about their election defeat continue to underestimate Trump, but the Chinese are not fooled. The architect behind Nixon’s détente with Mao, Henry Kissinger, is even believed to have encouraged Trump to ease tensions with Moscow in order to quarantine China and don’t think they haven’t noticed. Ultimately, the divide between Trump and his enemies in the establishment is really a disagreement over strategy in how to surround China and prevent the inevitable downfall of the U.S. empire.

    The ongoing demonization of Moscow is ultimately about China as well. It was only a matter of time until the uncertain allegations of election interference were also leveled against Beijing without proof as a Joint Statement from the U.S. intelligence agencies recently showed.

    Make no mistake  –  underneath the West’s Russophobia lies Sinophobia and as Washington’s real geopolitical challenger, China will in due course emerge as the preferred bogeyman. The bipartisan hawkishness has created an environment where rapprochement and diplomacy of any kind is seen as weakness and even a sign of treason, making the prospect of peace seemingly impossible. As China continues to grow, it will find itself more squarely in the crosshairs of imperialism, regardless of whether Trump’s strategy to renew relations with Moscow against Beijing is successful. Until then cooler heads at the highest levels of government must prevail as they thankfully did at the height of the first Cold War for the sake of peace between Russia, the U.S. and the entire world.

  • Air Force Releases Video Of XQ-58A Valkyrie Supersonic Stealth Combat Drone

    The Air Force Research Laboratory (ARL) has just published a never before seen video of the Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie, an unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV), which completed its first flight on March 5, 2019, at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    According to a statement published by the US Air Force, the inaugural test flight of the XQ-58A was a joint effort within ARL’s Low-Cost Attritable Aircraft Technology portfolio, which has been instructed by the Air Force to provide the service with supersonic stealth drones at an affordable cost. These objectives are met by designing and manufacturing drones faster by developing innovative tools, and maturing and leveraging commercial manufacturing processes to reduce build time and cost.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Tuesday’s first test flight is an important step forward for the experimental “loyal wingman” concept that can escort fifth-generation fighters, like the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II, into combat, conduct surveillance missions, and even absorb enemy fire.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Developed for runway independence, the XQ-58A “behaved as expected and completed 76 minutes of flight time,” said the Air Force statement.

    ARL and Kratos spent 2.5 years from contract award to develop the XQ-58A. The statement said the stealth drone would have five planned test flights in two phases that evaluate the functionality, aerodynamic performance, and launch and recovery systems.

    Doug Szczublewski, AFRL’s XQ-58A Program Manager said, “XQ-58A is the first example of a class of UAV that is defined by low procurement and operating costs while providing game-changing combat capability.”

    XQ-58A will have an impressive range of about 3,000 miles. It can carry a payload of 600 lb., including small-diameter bombs and missiles.

  • Calling Dr. Strangelove: The Threat Of Nuclear War Cannot Prevent World War III Forever

    Authored by Robert Bridge,

    Today, humanity is confronted with an ugly paradox in that the world’s foremost peacekeepers are nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. One bad move on the geopolitical chessboard, however, could trigger a global catastrophe.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    On July 25, 1945, in the waning moments of World War II, then US President Harry S. Truman jotted the following words in his diary, “We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world.” But not terrible enough to employ them, it seems.

    Just weeks later, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese industrial cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, indiscriminately killing some 200,000 civilians in, literally, a flash. Many others died in the years that followed from radiation poisoning and other associated illnesses. If there is a special place in hell for those who would expose the planet to such horrific weapons, Truman must certainly be there.

    The historic tragedy is not without some dark irony. Albert Einstein, whose theory of relativity spearheaded the development of atomic weapons, was worried that Adolf Hitler would acquire the deadly know-how before the West. This prompted him in 1939 to write a letter to Truman’s predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, advising him to expedite research into nuclear fission. American scientists, working in the secret Manhattan Project, succeeded beyond Einstein’s wildest dreams.

    The famous physicist, appalled by the devastation visited upon the two Japanese cities, expressed regret over his fateful decision to warn the Americans.

    “Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb,” he said, “I would have never lifted a finger.”

    Since then, the world has been forced to live with the knowledge that all life on earth could be quickly extinguished in the event of some mishap or conflict. Yet this knowledge has not stopped most governments from coveting nuclear weapons because they understand this technology is their best life insurance policy, so to speak.

    Indeed, only the simple-minded could have failed to take away lessons with regards to the West’s top hits list. A brief glance at the candidates designated for US-led regime change – Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, Yugoslavia and Syria as the most obvious – demonstrated an obvious fact: only unarmed countries need to worry about foreign actors determining their ‘democratic’ future.

    In marked contrast to those weaker countries that ‘suffer what they must’, members of the nuclear club (US, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea, while it is generally recognized that Israel possesses nuclear weapons although it does not officially acknowledge them) can rest easy in the belief that they are safe from outside attack.

    Lately, however, that self-confidence has been greatly shaken by a spate of dramatic events that have given the entire world pause. The most recent wake-up call came this month with a series of aerial dogfights between Pakistan and India – two countries that possess over 100 nuclear warheads apiece. The incident demonstrated exactly how fast things can spiral out of control, especially when third-party actors i.e. terrorists are involved in the equation.

    On February 14, the Pakistan-based terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed carried out a suicide attack on an Indian military convoy in the Pulwama District that killed over 40 soldiers. Less than two weeks later, New Delhi – accusing Islamabad of going soft on terrorism (sound familiar?) – retaliated by hitting a “terrorist camp” in a Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir. Tensions mounted the following day as the Pakistani military carried out airstrikes along the Line of Control (LoC), shooting down two Indian aircraft that crossed into its territory and capturing one pilot, who has since been released.

    It is impossible to read such reports without recalling that both Pakistan and India possess nuclear weapons. This places the enemy combatants in a curious position in that they must practice extreme restraint so as to avoid a ‘worse-case scenario’, and we all know what that is. Whether or not the two regional rivals can continue to keep cool heads remains to be seen.

    Another recent incident involving nuclear powers came as a tragic accident, although no less disconcerting. In September, four Israeli F-16 fighter jets launched a reckless attack on Latakia, Syria that resulted in the downing of a Russian military aircraft, which was accidentally hit by Syrian ground fire. The incident resulted in the death of 15 Russian crew members, as well as heightened global tensions.

    The Russian Ministry of Defense accused Israel of deliberately using the Russian aircraft to attract fire in that the Israeli aircraft failed to either change their approach to the intended targets or give Moscow enough time to move the Il-20 to safety.

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

    Although tensions eventually calmed down between Moscow and Tel Aviv, the incident provided a grim reminder that the world is becoming chaotic to the point where accidents between nuclear powers are increasingly likely.

    By far, the most disturbing development on the global stage, however, is the spectacle of Washington unilaterally withdrawing from arms control treaties – specifically the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). Needless to say, these moves will rekindle the global arms race – a positive development for defense contractors, no doubt, but an unmitigated disaster for everyone else.  

    Most worrisome is that the US is trashing these landmark treaties at the very same time it has built a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, while actively building up its military footprint smack on Russia’s border. Moscow, naturally, has responded in kind, with Vladimir Putin having recently unveiled an array of weapon systems that will make US-led NATO think twice about making any aggressive moves against Russia.

    Judging by such American antics, one almost gets the impression that it believes a nuclear war is somehow a winnable venture. And there are grounds to believe that is the case. According to a 2017 report, for example, a panel of Pentagon officials have called on the president to consider a “tailored nuclear option for limited use.”

    As described in the National Interest, using low-yield nuclear weapons against an adversary’s conventional forces will “demonstrate that you mean serious business and might be crazy enough to launch an all out nuclear attack.”

    Judging by what transpired in 1945 against the Japanese, is there any reason to doubt that many people could believe that America is “crazy enough” to do the unthinkable for a second time?

    With such deranged ideas floating around, it’s no wonder that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a non-profit group of academics devoted to the study of security issues, said the world is now perched at “two minutes before midnight” with regards to a nuclear cataclysm due to ongoing events that place the world in “extraordinary danger.” 

    To paraphrase the 1964 black political comedy, Dr. Strangelove, maybe we should all just stop worrying and love the bomb?

  • China's Gold-Buying Spree Extends To Third Month

    After China’s official gold reserves rose for the first time in around two years (since Oct 2016) in December, Beijing appears to have joined the global gold rush, increasing its gold reserves for the third month in a row in February to 60.26 million ounces.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    As we previously noted, China has long been silent on its holdings of gold as many countries are turning away from the greenback.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The value the country’s holdings of the precious metal reached US$79.5 billion, increasing by more than $3 billion compared to the end of last year.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Goldman Sachs has flagged central-bank buying as a plank supporting its bullish outlook for gold, which it expects to rally to $1,400 an ounce over six months.

    China is also trying “to diversify its reserves” away from the greenback, according to Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at currency broker OANDA. The analyst told the South China Morning Post that the state of affairs in global politics, including a trade war with the US, are driving China’s interest to buy gold as a “safe haven hedge.” 

    Just as we saw in 2015/2016, it appears China is reducing its US Treasury exposure as it increases its gold holdings…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    In January, China dropped to sixth place among the world’s largest holders of the yellow metal behind Russia. With its 67.6 million ounces of gold, Russia now stands in fifth place behind the US, Germany, France, and Italy.

    Last month’s inflow of 9.95 tons follows the addition of 11.8 tons in January and 9.95 tons in December. Should China continue to accumulate bullion at that pace over 2019, it may end the year as the top buyer after Russia, which added 274.3 tons in 2018.

    Crucially, the size of the gold addition are far less important than the signaling effect – why did China decide now was the right time to publicly admit its gold reserves are rising?

    After months of seeming stability in the yuan relative to gold, Q4 2018/Q1 2019 saw China seemingly allow gold to appreciate relative to the yuan (although the last week or so has seen Yuan strengthen against gold)

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    One wonders if Alasdair Macleod is on to something when he notes that if the yuan is to replace the dollar for China’s trade, officials will have to back it with gold…

    It is hard to see how the US can match a sound-money plan from China. Furthermore, the US Government’s finances are already in very poor shape and a return to sound money would require a reduction in government spending that all observers can agree is politically impossible. This is not a problem the Chinese government faces, and the purpose of a gold-linked jumbo bond is not so much to raise funds; rather it is to seal a price relationship between the yuan and gold.

    Whether China implements the plan suggested herein or not, one thing is for sure: the next credit crisis will happen, and it will have a major impact on all nations operating with fiat money systems. The interest rate question, because of the mountains of debt owed by governments and consumers, will have to be addressed, with nearly all Western economies irretrievably ensnared in a debt trap. The hurdles faced in moving to a sound monetary policy appear to be simply too daunting to be addressed.

    Ultimately, a return to sound money is a solution that will do less damage than fiat currencies losing their purchasing power at an accelerating pace. Think Venezuela, and how sound money would solve her problems. But that path is blocked by a sink-hole that threatens to swallow up whole governments. Trying to buy time by throwing yet more money at an economy suffering a credit crisis will only destroy the currency. The tactic worked during the Lehman crisis, but it was a close-run thing. It is unlikely to work again.

    Because China’s economy has had its debt expansion of the last ten years mostly aimed at production, if she fails to act soon she faces an old-fashioned slump with industries going bust and unemployment rocketing. China offers very limited welfare, and without Maoist-style suppression, faces the prospect of not only the state’s plans going awry, but discontent and rebellion developing among the masses.

    For China, a gold-exchange yuan standard is now the only way out. She will also need to firmly deny what Western universities have been teaching her brightest students. But if she acts early and decisively, China will be the one left standing when the dust settles, and the rest of us in our fiat-financed welfare states will left chewing the dirt of our unsound currencies.

    Is China’s “signal” an explicit warning of the end to the dollar era that has existed since August 1971, when gold as the ultimate money was driven out of the monetary system.

    In fact, that appears to be exactly what is happening as for the first time since the end of the second world war, and catalyzed by the GFC 2008/9, central banks have begun to aggressively diversify into gold and away from the US dollar…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

  • Sunday Satire (Or Not?): "Eveything Is Bad, The World Is Ending, & You Shouldn't Have Kids"

    Via BabylonBee.com,

    The United States birth rate has continued to fall as millennials increasingly believe that everything is bad, the world is going to end, and to bring kids into this nightmarish hellscape would be tantamount to child abuse.  

    “The world is going to end in twelve years. If you have kids, it will end in probably like six years or something because they’ll just breathe more,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on a recent Instagram Live broadcast.

    “I have the science right here.”

    Ocasio-Cortez held up a copy of National Geographic.

    She later realized she had been referencing an article from 1989 warning that the world would end in 2001 if deep and wide environmental policies were not enforced.

    “If scientists from thirty years ago said the world was going to end in 12 years, who am I to doubt science?” she said upon realizing this.

    ”Science is science.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    “The most progressive thing we can do is abort as many of the next generation as possible so they don’t have to be brought into this apocalyptic nightmare,” said progressive blogger Martina Bridges on a live stream over her iPhone from the driver’s seat in her Lexus on a sunny day in Santa Monica while drinking a cucumber lime acai iced tea.

    However, in conflict with the traditional progressive view of not having children, some evidence suggests that one of the world’s greatest resources is the bright young minds of tomorrow. Research shows that children born today could be tomorrow’s innovators, finding solutions to the world’s problems this generation never even thought of.

    “That’s junk science,” said progressive researcher Darrell Lyons from the University of Henshaw. “Name one generation who was improved by the next generation. It’s a myth. People are born, they pollute the Earth, the world ends. That is how it has always worked out as long as the Earth has existed.” 

    “Name one person who isn’t born yet who could fix the world’s problems,” Lyons went on. “I’ll wait.”

    Lyons sat with his arms crossed for close to thirty minutes before reporters began exiting the conference room.

    “True progressivism knows the truth: this generation is the last possible hope for mankind,” Bridges continued on her live stream.

    “We know that the most brilliant minds to ever exist, past or future, are ours. If we don’t have our way, that’s the real Armageddon.”

    What is the truly progressive solution if it is not continuing to have kids? Bridges, Ocasio-Cortez, and many other progressives believe that the only hope for true progress is to bring about a system of government from the early 1900s that has led to the death of millions and to vote for the oldest presidential candidate in history.

    *  *  *

    Fact or Fiction?

  • U.S. "Gets Its Ass Handed To It" In World War III Simulation: RAND

    In simulated World War III scenarios, the U.S. continues to lose against Russia and China, two top war planners warned last week. “In our games, when we fight Russia and China, blue gets its ass handed to it” RAND analyst David Ochmanek said Thursday.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    RAND’s wargames show how US Armed Forces – colored blue on wargame maps – experience the most substantial losses in one scenario after another and still can’t thwart Russia or China – which predictably is red – from accomplishing their objectives: annihilating Western forces.

    “We lose a lot of people. We lose a lot of equipment. We usually fail to achieve our objective of preventing aggression by the adversary,” he warned.

    In the next military conflict, which some believe may come as soon as the mid-2020s, all five battlefield domains: land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace, will be heavily contested, suggesting the U.S. could have a difficult time in achieving superiority as it has in prior conflicts.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The simulated war games showed, the “red” aggressor force often destroys U.S. F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters on the runway, sends several Naval fleets to the depths, destroys US military bases, and through electronic warfare, takes control of critical military communication systems. In short, a gruesome, if simulated, annihilation of some of the most modern of US forces.

    “In every case I know of,” said Robert Work, a former deputy secretary of defense with years of wargaming experience, “the F-35 rules the sky when it’s in the sky, but it gets killed on the ground in large numbers.”

    So, as Russia and China develop fifth-generation fighters and hypersonic missiles, “things that rely on sophisticated base infrastructures like runways and fuel tanks are going to have a hard time,” Ochmanek said. “Things that sail on the surface of the sea are going to have a hard time.”

    “That’s why the 2020 budget coming out next week retires the carrier USS Truman decades early and cuts two amphibious landing ships, as we’ve reported. It’s also why the Marine Corps is buying the jump-jet version of the F-35, which can take off and land from tiny, ad hoc airstrips, but how well they can maintain a high-tech aircraft in low-tech surroundings is an open question,” said Breaking Defense.

    Meanwhile, speaking purely hypothetically of course, “if we went to war in Europe, there would be one Patriot battery moving, and it would go to Ramstein. And that’s it,” Work complained. The US has 58 Brigade Combat Teams across the continent but doesn’t have anti-air and missile-defense capabilities required to handle a barrage of missiles from Russia.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    RAND also war-gamed cyber and electronic attacks in the simulations, Work said; Russia and China tend to cripple US communication networks.

    “Whenever we have an exercise and the red force really destroys our command and control, we stop the exercise,” Work said without a trace of humor. Beijing calls this “system destruction warfare,” Work said. They aim to “attack the American battle network at all levels, relentlessly, and they practice it all the time.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The Air Force asked RAND to formulate a plan several years ago to improve the outcomes of the wargames in favor of the US, Ochmanek said. “We found it impossible to spend more than $8 billion a year” to fix the problems. 

    “That’s $8 billion for the Air Force. Triple that to cover for the Army and the Navy Department (which includes the US Marines),” Ochmanek said, “and you get $24 billion.”

    Work was less concerned about the near-term risk of war, and he said, China and Russia aren’t ready to fight because their modernization efforts have not been completed. He said any major conflict is unlikely for another 10 to 20 years from now.

    He said “$24 billion a year for the next five years would be a good expenditure” to prepare the military for World War III.

    RAND offers a sobering assessment that America could lose a multi-front war in the future, which is quite shocking considering that the US spent nearly three times as much as the second biggest war power, China, did in 2017.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    With the defense budget stuck around $700 billion per annum for the remainder of President Trump’s term, America’s Warhawks are inciting fear through simulated wargames with one purpose only: demand more taxpayers’ money for war spending.

  • Greenwald: Coordinated Lie Over Maduro Burning Aid Trucks Reveals How Fake News Spreads

    Authored by Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept

    NYT’s Exposé on the Lies About Burning Humanitarian Trucks in Venezuela Shows How US Govt and Media Spread Fake News

    EVERY MAJOR U.S. WAR of the last several decades has begun the same way: the U.S. Government fabricates an inflammatory, emotionally provocative lie which large U.S. media outlets uncritically treat as truth while refusing at air questioning or dissent, thus inflaming primal anger against the country the U.S. wants to attack. That’s how we got the Vietnam War (North Vietnam attacks U.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin); the Gulf War (Saddam ripped babies from incubators); and, of course, the war in Iraq (Saddam had WMDs and formed an alliance with Al Qaeda).

    This was exactly the tactic used on February 23, when the narrative shifted radically in favor of those U.S. officials who want regime change operations in Venezuela. That’s because images were broadcast all over the world of trucks carrying humanitarian aid burning in Colombia on the Venezuela border. U.S. officials who have been agitating for a regime change war in Venezuela – Marco Rubio, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, the head of USAid Mark Green – used Twitter to spread classic Fake News: they vehemently stated that the trucks were set on fire, on purpose, by President Nicolas Maduro’s forces.

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

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

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

    As it always does – as it always has done from its inception when Wolf Blitzer embedded with U.S. troops – CNN led the way in not just spreading these government lies but independently purporting to vouch for their truth. On February 24, CNN told the world what we all now know is an absolute lie:  that “a CNN team saw incendiary devices from police on the Venezuelan side of the border ignite the trucks,” though it generously added that “the network’s journalists are unsure if the trucks were burned on purpose.”

    Other media outlets endorsed the lie while at least avoiding what CNN did by personally vouching for it. “Humanitarian aid destined for Venezuela was set on fire, seemingly by troops loyal to Mr Maduro,” The Telegraph claimed. The BBC uncritically printed: “There have also been reports of several aid trucks being burned – something Mr Guaidó said was a violation of the Geneva Convention.”

    That lie – supported by incredibly powerful video images – changed everything. Ever since, that Maduro burned trucks filled with humanitarian aid was repeated over and over as proven fact on U.S. news outlets. Immediately after it was claimed, politicians who had been silent on the issue of Venezuela or even reluctant to support regime change began issuing statements now supportive of it. U.S. news stars and think tank luminaries who lack even a single critical brain cell when it comes to war-provoking claims from U.S. officials took a leading role in beating the war drums without spending even a single second to ask whether what they were being told were true:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    But on Saturday night, the New York Times published a detailed video and accompanying article proving that this entire story was a lie. The humanitarian trucks were not set on fire by Maduro’s forces. They were set on fire by anti-Maduro protesters who threw a molotov cocktail that hit one of the trucks. And the NYT’s video traces how the lie spread: from U.S. officials who baselessly announced that Maduro burned them to media outlets that mindlessly repeated the lie.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    While the NYT’s article and video are perfectly good and necessary journalism, the credit they are implicitly claiming for themselves for exposing this lie is totally undeserved. That’s because independent journalists – the kind who question rather than mindlessly repeat government claims and are therefore mocked and marginalized and kept off mainstream television – used exactly this same evidence on the day of the incident to debunk the lies being told by Rubio, Pompeo, Bolton and CNN.On February 24, the day the lie spread, Max Blumenthal wrote from Venezuela, on the independent reporting Grazyzone site, that “the claim was absurd on its face,” noting that he “personally witnessed tear gas canisters hit every kind of vehicle imaginable in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, and I have never seen a fire like the one that erupted on the Santander bridge.” He compiled substantial evidence strongly suggesting that the trucks were set ablaze by anti-Maduro protesters, including Bloomberg video showing them using Molotov cocktails, to express serious doubts about the mainstream narrative. On Twitter, in response to Marco Rubio’s lie, he wrote:

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

    Meanwhile, others – who use their brains to critically evaluate what the U.S. Government says when it’s trying to start a new war, rather than mindlessly recite those claims as Truth, as U.S. media stars do – used the exact same evidence cited by the NYT last night to show that it was anti-Maduro protesters, not Maduro troops, who set the trucks on fire. But they were able to do it in the hours immediately following the incident, not three weeks later – but, needless to say, they were ignored by U.S. media outlets:

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

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

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

     

    Those last two tweets – using video footage to debunk the lies spread by Marco Rubio, CNN and the U.S. Government – happen to be from a correspondent with RT America. Please tell me: who was acting here as lying propagandists and agents of State TV, and who was acting like a journalist trying to understand and report the truth?

    So everything the New York Times so proudly reported last night has been known for weeks, and was already reported in great detail, using extensive evidence, by a large number of people. But because those people are generally skeptical of the U.S. Government’s claims and critical of its foreign policy, they were ignored and mocked and are generally barred from appearing on television, while the liars from the U.S. Government and their allies in the corporate media were, as usual, given a platform to spread their lies without any challenge or dissent, just like the manual for how to maintain State TV intructs.

    Indeed, none of the people questioning the original claim about the burning trucks, or citing this evidence to argue that the U.S. Government and its Venezuelan ally Guaidó were lying, ever made it onto national television to present their dissent. They weren’t allowed on. To the extent they were acknowledged at all, it was to defame them as Maduro apologists – for telling the truth – just as those who tried to combat the propaganda of 2002 and 2003 were smeared as being pro-Saddam. Only Rubio, Bolton, Pompeo, and various other U.S. officials were permitted to spread their lies without any challenge.

    That’s particularly notable since the Russian Government, a long-time ally of the Maduro government, themselves published the evidence showing this was a lie. Claims from the Russian or Venezuelan governments deserves as much skepticism as the claims of any other government, but they at least deserve to be heard. But the corporate U.S. media – precisely because it is State TV even as it is loves to accuse others of being that – never airs the views of governments adverse to the U.S. Government except in the most cursory and mocking way:

    It should be noted that this is not the first time outrights lies were spread by the U.S. Government and the U.S. media to inflame regime change against Venezuela. A photograph of a bridge between Colombia and Venezuela was broadcast all over the world as proof that Maduro was blocking humanitarian aid.

    But the CBC – to their great credit – published a long apology noting that they, too, had fallen for this propaganda by publishing the photo of the bridge to support this narrative when, in fact, that bridge had been closed years earlier due to tensions between the two countries. Few, if any, of the U.S. media outlets that spread that lie offered a similar correction or apology.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Equally false is the widespread, popular media claim that Maduro has refused to allow any humanitarian aid to enter Venezuela. That, too, is an outright lie. The Venezuelan government has allowed substantial amountsof aid into their country from countries that have not threatened to overthrow the President with an external coup; Maduro has only blocked trucks and planes from entering that come from those countries (the U.S, Brazil, Colombia) that have been threatening Venezuela. something any country would do.

    Indeed, both the Red Cross and the United Nations expressed concerns about “humanitarian aid” from the U.S. on the ground that it was a pretext for regime change and would politicize humanitarian aid). Even NPR recognized that “the U.S. effort to distribute tons of food and medicine to needy Venezuelans is more than just a humanitarian mission. The operation is also designed to foment regime change in Venezuela — which is why much of the international aid community wants nothing to do with it.”

    That concern is obviously valid given the history of Elliott Abrams, the envoy leading U.S. policy in Venezuela, of exploiting “humanitarian aid” as a scam to smuggle weapons and other tools to overthrow Latin American governments he dislikes – another fact rarely if ever mentioned in U.S. media reports.

     

    What we have here is classic Fake News – spread on Twitter, by U.S. officials and U.S. media stars – with the clear and malicious intent to start a war. But no western proponents of social media censorship will call for their accounts to be cancelled nor call for their posts to be deleted. That’s because “Fake News” and the war against it is strictly a means of combating propaganda by U.S. adversaries; the U.S. and its alliesmaintain extensive programs to spread Fake News online and none of those anti-Fake News crusaders call for those to be shut down.

    And the next time claims are made about Venezuela designed to fuel regime change and wars, the independent journalists and analysts who were absolutely right in this instance – who recognized and documented the lies of the U.S. Government weeks before the New York Times did – will again be ignored or, at best, mocked. Meanwhile, those in the media and Foreign Policy Community who uncritically amplified and spread this dangerous lie will be treated as the Serious People whose pronouncements are the only ones worth hearing. With rare exception, dissent on Venezuela will continue to be barred.

    That’s because the U.S. media, by design, does not permit dissent on U.S. foreign policy, particularly when it comes to false claims about U.S. adversaries. That’s why skeptics of U.S. regime change in Venezuela, or dissenters on the prevailing orthodoxies about Russia, have largely been disappeared from mainstream media outlets, just as they were in 2002 and 2003.

    That’s not because U.S. media stars are ordered to do this. They don’t need to be ordered. They know propaganda is their job. More to the point, they are über-patriotic jingoists who revere U.S. officials and thus do not possess a single cell of critical thinking in their brain. That’s why they have TV programs in the first place. If they weren’t this way, they wouldn’t be on TV, as Noam Chomsky put it to the BBC’s Andrew Marr so perfectly in this short clip from many years ago (the whole three-minute context, well worth watching, is here). This tells the whole story of this sordid affair in Venezuela:

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

  • Brookings Says China Overstated Size Of Its Economy By 12%

    Since China managed to weather the fallout from the financial crisis without registering much of a slowdown in its “official” GDP figures, playing “guess the real growth rate” has become one of the most popular parlor games among the professional economist set. Whereas the stakes are much higher for academics on the mainland (one of whom was censored and threatened by government thugs after speculating that GDP growth on the mainland might be closer to 2%), researchers at American think tanks have freely offered estimates ranging from 2% to 4% (which, admittedly, would still put China well ahead of the US).

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>China

    But as investors and economists once again cast a wary eye toward China as signs of flagging growth are once again threatening to sink the whole world into a recession, a team of researchers from the Brookings Institute has published a carefully researched paper detailing the exact mechanism by which authorities in Beijing inflate the country’s GDP figures, while estimating that China’s economy is roughly 12% smaller than the official figures would suggest. Brookings published the paper on Thursday, just two days after Party leaders at the annual National Party Congress lowered their economic growth forecast to between 6% and 6.5% of GDP.

    Though the paper focused on the period between 2008 and 2016, it’s the latest evidence that China’s economic slowdown has been more severe than believed, and that the growth rate from last year – China’s worst since the early 1990s – might, in reality, be just under 6% (compared with 6.6%).

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>China

    According to Brookings, much of the manipulation in Chinese official government statistics takes place at the local level. In what the FT described as “a legacy of Maoist state planning”, authorities in Beijing hand down growth targets to local officials, who use it to goalseek the official statistics they hand back.

    “China’s national accounts are based on data collected by local governments. However, since local governments are rewarded for meeting growth and investment targets, they have an incentive to skew local statistics. China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) adjusts the data provided by local governments to calculate GDP at the national level,” the study’s authors said.

    Evidence of this is relatively obvious: Year after year, the sum total of China’s provincial growth figures is larger than the unadjusted national figures reported by Beijing. Though central authorities accused three provinces of doctoring their data back in 2017, authorities have done little else to discourage the practice.

    Inflated data in hand, China’s National Bureau of Statistics struggles to adjust it, and though readings before 2008 were reportedly more accurate, more recently, the figures have been further off the mark, according to Brookings.

    “NBS has done a lot of work to weed out the fake numbers added by local government, but it just doesn’t have enough power and capacity, nor the right incentives,” Michael Zheng Song, economics professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a co-author of the paper, told the FT. “It would be unfair to blame NBS for fabricating GDP numbers.”

    So, now that we’ve once again affirmed what many have widely suspected, what does this mean for US-China trade talks? Well, it would seem to confirm the argument made by an FT columnist earlier this week that President Xi has just as much to lose from a failed trade deal as President Trump.

    Here are a few other conclusions from the paper:

    • Official data overstated growth of nominal GDP by an average of 1.7% per year between 2008 and 2016
    • This made the economy 12% smaller in 2016 than figured indicated
    • GDP growth in real terms was overstated by 2% over the same period
    • The paper’s authors are more confident about GDP data in nominal terms versus real terms
    • Overstatement of industrial and investment output were the most severe
    • Data on consumption was found to be the most reliable

    But with authorities anxious to suppress any information that would contradict their economic narrative, we now wait to see whether Beijing will declare former Fed Chair and Brookings Institute economist Ben Bernanke (along with the study’s authors) ‘persona non grata’.

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Mar 10

Today’s News 10th March 2019

  • Intelligence Contractors Make Second Attempt In One Week To Provoke Tensions With North Korea

    Authored by William Craddick via Disobedient Media,

    It’s the second, but no less ludicrous, attempt in one week to sway the opinion of the public and President Donald Trump against the concept of denuclearization and peaceful dialogue with North Korea.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    A March 8, 2019 report from National Public Radio (NPR) follows another by NBC News with sensational and misleading claims that satellite imagery released by private corporations with contractual ties to government defense and intelligence agencies show imminent preparations by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to engage in missile testing or the launch of a satellite from their facilities in Sanumdong, North Korea. An examination of the photos provided shows absolutely no indication of such activity.

    I. Satellite Footage Of Sanumdong Facility Shows No Sign Of Imminent Launch

    Images provided to NPR by private contractor DigitalGlobe consist of two low resolution images, one of a building in the Sanumdong complex and the other of a train sitting along a rail line. In neither photo is there any discernible amount of unusual activity.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Credit: Image ©2019 DigitalGlobe, Inc. Graphic: Alyson Hurt/NPR

    The first image of a “production hall” bears a striking resemblance to a similar photo run by the Washington Post in July 2018 where unnamed intelligence officials claimed that North Korea was building one or possibly two liquid fueled ICBMs which appear to have never materialized or been used in any launch. The claims came one month after President Trump met with Chairman Kim Jong Un in Singapore for a historic summit between the United States and the DPRK.

    NPR’s claims that the imagery shows “vehicle activity” occurring around the facility. Yet close inspection shows that the “activity” consists of a few inert vehicles, which appear to be a white pickup and white dump truck or flatbed parked in a permanent position next to piles of metal. The scene does not appear to be different from any number of sleepy yards of businesses that can be examined by members of the public on Google Maps.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Credit: Image ©2019 DigitalGlobe, Inc. Graphic: Koko Nakajima/NPR

    The second image, according to NPR, shows rail cars sitting “in a nearby rail yard, where two cranes are also erected.” The photo simply shows a train car sitting inert with empty flatbed cars and hopper cars that are either filled with coal or empty. A second rail line similarly holds a number of hoppers and flatbed cars. Hopper cars in particular are totally unsuitable for the transportation of military technology such as missiles.

    The tracks in the lower left corner are covered in snow, meaning that the train sat for many months through the winter or was backed into its position. Considering that US and international sanctions have caused an extreme scarcity of fuel in the DPRK it is likely that the trains have not moved for quite some time, unless their diesel engines were converted to burn coal or wood.

    In short, there is absolutely no indication that several low resolution photos of a facility in North Korea have any activity in them outside of a few rusting vehicles that have sat without moving for some time.

    II. NPR’s Sources Of Satellite Imagery Are Contractors For The CIA And Pentagon

    The report by NPR lists two sources of satellite imagery – DigitalGlobe, Inc. and Planet Labs, Inc. As Disobedient Media has previously reported, DigitalGlobe is an American vendor of satellite imagery founded by a scientist who worked on the US military’s Star Wars ICBM defense program under President Ronald Reagan. DigitalGlobe began its existence in Oakland, CA and was seeded with money from Silicon Valley sources and corporations in North America, Europe and Japan. Headquartered in Westminster CO, DigitalGlobe works extensively with defense and intelligence programs. In 2016, it was revealed that DigitalGlobe was working with CIA chipmaker NVIDIA and Amazon Web Services to create an AI-run satellite surveillance network known as Spacenet.

    Planet Labs is a private satellite imaging corporation based in San Francisco, CA that allows customers with the money to pay an opportunity to gain access to next generation surveillance capabilities. In February 2016, Federal technology news source Nextgov noted a statement from former CIA Information Operations Center director and senior cyber adviser Sue Gordon that Planet Labs, DigitalGlobe and Google subsidiary Skybox Imaging were all working with the Pentagon’s National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) to provide location intelligence. Planet Labs’ own website also lists press releases detailing past contracts for subscription access to high resolution imagery with the NGA.

    *  *  *

    The pervasive involvement of intelligence agencies and defense contractors in attempts to undermine negotiations with North Korea does not create confidence in the already shaky claims made by NPR regarding alleged preparations by the DPRK to participate in a missile launch.

    These contentions are not supported in substance by any tangible facts. As claims and pressure continue to build on President Donald Trump to abandon the peace process, there are multiple factions of the United States government who are running a real risk of behaving in manners which could be interpreted as open sedition or refusal to carry out the stated goals and policies of the President.

  • Self-Proclaimed "Nerd" Wins $10,000 After Discovering Hidden Contest In Insurance Contract

    Self-proclaimed nerd Donelan Andrews of Thomaston, Georgia won $10,000 after discovering a hidden contest in the often-ignored fine print of a travel insurance contract bought from Tin Leg, a subsidiary of Florida-based Squaremouth. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    “If you’ve read this far, then you are one of the very few Tin Leg customers to review all of their policy documentation,” the fine print read. “We estimate that less than 1 percent of travelers that purchase a travel insurance policy actually read all of their policy information — and we’re working to change that.”

    To Andrews – the first person to win the hidden contest out of 73 policies sent out a day earlier, reading the fine print comes naturally. 

    “I always read all the fine print,” according to the Washington Post, which noted that her college major was consumer economics. “I know I sound like a nerd, but I learned to read contracts so you don’t get taken advantage of.” 

    According to Andrews, her friends and family aren’t surprised. 

    “Most of the comments from people who know me have been, ‘that doesn’t surprise me at all, you’re that kind of person,” she said. “Particularly in my family, I’m the one who gets things straight.”

    The contest reminded the 59-year-old Andrews of an old trick she’s used on her high school students. 

    She thought back to the days when she used to write high school tests, and she’d sneak in a bonus for students who carefully read the instructions. For example, the fourth sentence of test instructions would say something like: Circle the number 10 three times for 10 extra points. –Washington Post

    “About a third of the class would read it and the rest would get mad,” she said. “The lesson they learned is they need to read the directions.”

    The day after Andrews discovered the contest on Feb. 12 and emailed Squaremouth, a company representative contacted An and said she’d won $10,000. 

    “It was my lucky day” 

    In addition to the $10,000 Andrews won, Squaremouth donated an additional $20,000; $5,000 to each of the Georgia schools she works for, and $10,000 to children’s literacy charity “Reading Is Fundamental.” 

  • Mueller's Manafort Scam: 4 Years In The Slammer For Helping Ukraine Against Russia!

    Authored by Andrew McCarthy via The National Review,

    Paul Manafort Was an Agent of Ukraine, Not Russia

    He is a scoundrel, but he was never a Kremlin operative.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Paul Manafort, the clandestine agent of Russia at the heart of the Trump campaign’s “collusion” scand – oh, wait.

    Have you ever noticed what Paul Manafort’s major crime was? After two years of investigation, after the predawn raid in which his wife was held at gunpoint, after months of solitary confinement that have left him a shell of his former self, have you noticed what drew the militant attention of the Obama Justice Department, the FBI, and, ultimately, a special counsel who made him the centerpiece of Russia-gate?

    According to the indictment Robert Mueller filed against him, Manafort was an unregistered “agent of the Government of Ukraine.” He also functioned as an agent of Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s president from 2010 to 2014, and of two political parties, the Party of Regions and its successor, the Opposition Bloc.

    Manafort was not an unregistered agent of Russia. Mueller never alleged that Manafort was a clandestine operative of the Kremlin. He worked for Ukraine, not Putin. Indeed, for much of his time in Ukraine, he pushed his clients against Putin’s interests.

    Mueller’s prosecutors looked on glumly Thursday as Manafort was sentenced to a mere 47 months’ imprisonment by Judge T. S. Ellis III of the federal court in Alexandria, Va. After rescinding the cooperation agreement they had extended Manafort following his convictions at trial, Mueller’s team had pressed for a sentence of up to 24 years for the 70-year-old former Trump campaign chairman. The judge demurred, pointedly observing that Manafort was “not before this court for anything having to do with collusion with the Russian government to influence [the 2016] election.”

    The prosecutors won’t be chagrined long, of course. Against Manafort, one case with a potential century of jail time was not enough. There’s a case in Washington, too. There, Manafort will be sentenced next week, by a different judge who will surely impose a sentence more to the special counsel’s liking. The knowledge of that, more than anything else, explains Judge Ellis’s comparative wrist-slap, which ignored sentencing guidelines that called for a severe prison term.

    Those guidelines were driven by prodigious financial fraud, not espionage. No one has even alleged espionage — even though the investigation was aggressive, even though the two indictments charge numerous felonies, and even though Mueller has had as his star informant witness Manafort’s longtime sidekick, Richard Gates, a fellow fraudster who was deeply involved in his partner’s work for foreign governments.

    Understand:

    Paul Manafort would never have been prosecuted if he had not joined Donald Trump’s campaign. He would not have been prosecuted if Hillary Clinton had won the 2016 election and spared Democrats the need to conjure up a reason to explain their defeat – something other than nominating a lousy candidate who stopped campaigning too early.

    Manafort’s Ukrainian work was not a secret. By the time of the 2016 campaign, he’d been at it for over a dozen years. He wasn’t alone. Not even close. An array of American political consultants flocked to post-Soviet Ukraine because that’s where the money was. Manafort worked for the Party of Regions, led by Yanukovych. The Obama consultants worked for Yanukovych’s rival, Yulia Tymoshenko — the populist-socialist who sometimes colluded with Putin and other times posed as his opponent. The Clinton consultants lined up with Viktor Yuschenko, Putin’s generally pro-Western bête noire, who was nearly assassinated by Kremlin operatives and who navigated between east and west.

    What you may already notice is that Ukraine is complicated. That collusion narrative you’ve been sold since November 8, 2016? It’s a caricature.

    The people peddling it know that Americans are clueless about the intricacies of politics in a former Soviet satellite and the grubby bipartisan cesspool of international political consultancy. You are thus to believe that the Party of Regions was nothing but a cat’s paw of Moscow; that Manafort went to work for Yanukovych, the party’s Putin puppet; and that Manafort’s entrée into the Trump campaign was a Kremlin coup, a Russian plot to control of the White House.

    Sure. But then . . . where’s the collusion charge? If that’s what happened, where is the special counsel’s big indictment of a Trump–Russia conspiracy, with Manafort at its core?

    There is no such case because the collusion narrative distorts reality.

    Manafort is not a good guy. He did business and made lots of money with Ukrainian and Russian oligarchs who, largely through their organized-crime connections, made their fortunes in the post-Soviet gangster-capitalism era, when the spoils of an empire were up for grabs.

    Manafort got himself deeply in hock with some of these tycoons. He may owe over $25 million to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian aluminum magnate. Deripaska, you’ve repeatedly been told, is Putin’s oligarch. That may be true — they are close enough for Putin to have intervened on his behalf when the U.S. government imposed travel restrictions. But former senator Bob Dole intervened on Deripaska’s behalf, too. So did the FBI, when they thought Deripaska could help them rescue an agent detained in Iran. So did Christopher Steele, the former British spy of Steele-dossier infamy.

    Having business with Deripaska did not make Manafort a Russian spy. No more than taking $500,000 from a Kremlin-tied bank made Bill Clinton a Russian spy. For a quarter century, the United States government encouraged commerce with Russia, notwithstanding that it is anti-American and run like a Mafia family. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton worked with the Putin regime to develop Moscow’s version of Silicon Valley. Business with Russia was like what the Clintons used to tell us about lies about sex: Everybody does it.

    Manafort’s business eventually soured. There is good reason to believe that, once he was installed as chairman of the Trump campaign — when Trump looked like a sure GOP-nomination winner and general-election loser — Manafort tried to monetize his position of influence. He hoped to make himself “whole,” as he put it, by demonstrating that he was once again a political force to be reckoned with — offering Deripaska briefings on the campaign, offering his Ukrainian oligarch benefactors polling data showing that Trump had a real chance to win.

    Manafort likes the high life. Running with this crowd helped him live it, and helped him hide most of his money overseas, in accounts he could stealthily access without sharing his millions with the taxman.

    But all that said, Manafort was not a Russian agent. Even Robert Mueller, who went after him hammer and tongs, never accused him of that.

    When his Ukrainian oligarch sponsors asked him to take Yanukovych on as a client, Manafort was reluctant. Yanukovych was essentially a thug who grew up in the Soviet system. The corruption of the 2004 presidential election, which Yanukovych’s Kremlin-backed supporters tried to steal, ignited Kiev’s Orange Revolution. Manafort, a cold-blooded Republican operative who had cut his teeth fighting off the Reagan revolution in the 1976 Ford campaign, calculated that Yanukovych was damaged goods.

    But in the shadowy world of international political consultancy, money talks and scruple walks. Manafort’s oligarch patrons made the Regions reconstruction project worth his while. He remade Yanukovych from the ground up: Learn English, warm to Europe, embrace integration in the European Union, endorse competitive democracy, be the candidate of both EU-leaning Kiev and Russia-leaning Donbas.

    This was not a Putin agenda. It was an agenda for Ukraine, a country with a split personality that needs cordial relations with the neighborhood bully to the east as it fitfully lurches westward. Regions was a pro-Russia party, but that is not the same thing as being Russia. What the oligarchs want is autonomy so they can run their profitable fiefdoms independent of Kiev. They leverage Moscow against the EU . . . except when they talk up EU integration to ensure that they are not swallowed up by Moscow. What the oligarchs mainly are is corrupt, which suited Manafort fine.

    The unsavory business was successful for a time. Regions returned to power. Yanukovych finally won the presidency and immediately announced that “integration with the EU remains our strategic aim.” It was a triumph for Manafort, but a short-lived one. While Yanukovych rhapsodized about rising to Western standards, he ran his administration in the Eastern authoritarian style, enriching his allies and imprisoning his rivals.

    The latter included Tymoshenko, who was prosecuted over a gas deal she had entered when she was prime minister — with Putin. Russia bitterly criticized her prosecution, and when she was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment, the Kremlin blasted Yanukovych’s government for pursuing her “exclusively for political motives.” Manafort, meanwhile, continued to airbrush Yanukovych’s image in the West, scheming with lobbyists and a law firm to help him defend the controversial Tymoshenko trial — a scheme abetted by lawyer Alex van der Zwaan, who eventually pled guilty to making false statements to Mueller’s investigators.

    Yanukovych’s moment of truth came in late 2013. He was poised to sign the Association Agreement with the EU, a framework for integration. Putin furiously turned up the heat: blocking Ukrainian imports, drastically reducing Ukrainian exports, bleeding billions of trade dollars from Kiev’s economy, threatening to cut off all gas supplies and drive Ukraine into default. Manafort pleaded with his client to stick with the EU. Yanukovych caved, however, declining to enter the Association Agreement and making an alternative pact with Putin to assure gas supplies and financial aid.

    It was over this decision that the Euromaidan protests erupted. Yanukovych fled the country in early 2014, given sanctuary in Moscow. Subsequently, Regions renounced Yanukovych, blaming him for the outbreak of violence and for looting the treasury. The party disbanded, with many of its members reemerging as the Opposition Bloc, the party to which Manafort gravitated — along with his partner, Konstantin Kilimnik, and his lobbyist associate, W. Samuel Patten. (Like Manafort, Patten has pled guilty to working as an unregistered agent of Ukraine; Kilimnik, who is in Russia, was indicted by Mueller for helping Manafort tamper with witnesses.)

    Paul Manafort is a scoundrel. He was willing to do most anything for money – even offering to burnish Putin’s image as he burnished Yanukovych’s. But Manafort was never a Kremlin operative working against his own country, except in the fever dreams of the Clinton campaign’s Steele dossier. And his crimes notwithstanding, he’d be a free man today if Mrs. Clinton had won. Instead, he’ll be sentenced yet again next week. And this time, he’ll get slammed.

  • NYC's Chrysler Building To Sell At Massive Discount

    Signa Holding, Austria’s largest privately owned real estate company, has reached an agreement to purchase the iconic Chrysler Building in New York City in partnership with property firm RFR Holding for about $150 million, according to Reuters.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The price is at a steep discount compared to the $800 million the Abu Dhabi Investment Council paid for a 90% stake in the building right before the 2008 financial crisis. Shortly after the investment arm of the Government of Abu Dhabi bought the property, commercial real estate prices crashed.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Sources told Reuters that the deal includes both the office building and the pyramid-topped Trylons on the land between the tower and 666 Third Avenue.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The Art Deco–style skyscraper, was completed in 1930 on the East Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is a recognizable symbol of Manhattan’s skyline, was for a short time in the early 1930s the tallest building in the world, only to be surpassed by the Empire State Building.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The most significant factor weighing on the price is out of control expenses tied to the building’s ground lease. The land under the tower is owned by the Cooper Union school, which raised the rent to $32.5 million last year from $7.75 million in 2017.

    “The ground lease is a glaringly obvious negative,” Adelaide Polsinelli, a broker at New York City-based Compass, told Bloomberg. “The other negatives are that the space is not new and it is landmarked, therefore it’s twice as hard to get anything done.”

    Tishman Speyer Properties and the Travelers Insurance Group bought the Chrysler Building in 1998 for about $230 million. In 2001, a 75% stake in the building was sold, for $300 million to TMW, the German arm of an Atlanta-based investment fund. Abu Dhabi bought the German fund’s share as well as part of Tishman’s in June 2008. Reuters said Signa and RFR were extremely close to a deal to purchase the tower.

    Signa has an extensive portfolio of landmark buildings in prime locations. Its holdings include KaDeWe and the Upper West Tower in Berlin, Goldenes Quarter with the Park Hyatt Hotel in Vienna, Alte Akademie in Munich, and Alsterhaus and Alsterarkaden in Hamburg.

    RFR has also made a name for itself in commercial real estate by owning and managing some of Manhattan’s most prestigious commercial properties, including the Seagram Building and Lever House, which are located on Park Avenue.

    Signa and RFR had completed several deals together in the past,  including in 2017, when Signa bought five landmark properties from RFR in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, and Munich for about 1.5 billion euros.

  • Seven Things Saudi Women Still Can't Do, Despite Driving Ban Lift

    Authored by Nadine Dahan via Middle East Eye,

    In a decree issued in September 2017, Saudi King Salman ruled that women would be allowed to drive cars in 2018, a move which ended the kingdom’s status as the only country in the world where it was forbidden.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Saudi’s law against women drivers was one of many controversial laws presenting a web of restrictions to women.

    Saudi women are required to get permission from a male family member, sometimes even a younger brother, for some of the most important decisions of her life.

    And whilst they are now allowed to drive, here is a list of things Saudi women still can’t do:

    1. Eat freely in public

    As part of the kingdom’s dress code, women are required to wear a face veil. This, whilst selectively enforced, means that wherever it is, women must then eat under their face veil.

    2. Dress ‘for beauty’

    They must cover their hair and bodies. The kingdom’s dress code requires women to wear an “abaya,” a dress-like full length cloak.

    3. Freely socialise with non-relative males

    Women are not free to socialise with men outside of their immediate families, and can even be imprisoned for committing such an offence.

    4. Marry whomever they like

    There are rulings against Saudi marrying non-Muslim, Shia, or atheist men.

    5. Travel

    Travelling without a male guardian’s permission is prohibited.

    6. Open a bank account

    In Saudi Arabia, women still need their husband’s permission before they are allowed to open a bank account.

    7. Get a job

    Although the government no longer requires a woman to have a guardian’s permission in order to work, many employers still demand the permission before hiring.

    The struggle for greater women’s rights in the kingdom has been a difficult one, with activists arrested for defying the driving ban last year. In recent months, a model was arrested for wearing a short skirt.

  • Chaos Continues At Tesla As Company Now "Freezing" Store Closures And Layoffs

    When even the pro-Tesla crowd at electrek begins to describe the company’s sales strategy transition as “chaotic”, you know there’s real problems afoot for Elon Musk and his merry band of world changers. This happened following reports that Tesla was “freezing current store closures” less than two weeks after telling the public that it would close most of its retail locations in a move to try and cut costs. 

    Employees are being told that Tesla is freezing both store closures and layoffs “until at least the end of the month”. Tesla has reportedly already closed 29 stores between the U.S. and Canada, following the February 28 announcement. Sales management at the company reportedly held a conference call with regional management last Friday, indicating to them that the company was stopping short on any more closures or layoffs until the end of the month.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Some retail stores that didn’t close were told to stop booking test drives last week. On Friday, some of them were prompted to go back to “business as usual”, despite retail employees not having access to commission and bonuses, resulting in far lower compensation. Many employees are “walking away” due to the pay cut and some suspect that Tesla is suspending the transition period for store closures simply to push out employees, in order to avoid paying them severance. 

    Tesla currently owes lease obligations of $1.6 billion, with $1.1 billion due between now and 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier. This includes payments for store leases, galleries and real estate abroad. Robert Taubman, chief executive officer of Taubman Centers Inc., is quoted as saying at the Citi 2019 Global Property CEO conference: “Tesla is a company with a viable balance sheet that is going to owe a lot of landlords a lot of money.”

    The decision to close down all of its retail stores and move to an online-only sales model surprised many of the company’s employees and investors. For instance, we pointed out one investor who sold his shares in the company as a result of being blindsided by the news.

    “This was a total 180-degree turn. Tesla had been talking about expanding stores, and all of a sudden they are closing them. To me, this signals a huge financial concern and a possible cash-flow issue for Tesla,” former investor in Tesla, Alex Chalekian, said.

    It pains me to say this, since I really love the company, but we have sold our position in #Tesla for our advisory clients. I believe that the decision to close retail stores is a bad one and points to the weakness in sales and financial strength of the company. $TSLA

    — Alex Chalekian (@AlexChalekian) March 1, 2019

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

    Members of the media were equally as stunned.

    This is not an adjustment to strategy. This is a total reversal. They had a retail plan 2 months ago and concluded they had to tear the whole thing up and come up with a radical new plan. What does that say about the company? @elonmusk @tesla https://t.co/3k04m0pW5i

    — Neal Boudette (@nealboudette) March 1, 2019

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

    Tesla was “negotiating and signing leases” as recently as last month, according to executives at Taubman and Macerich.

    It’s estimated that a “few hundred” employees have already been laid off with severance. The remaining ones have viewed this freeze as an “opportunity to prove themselves” – so it’s probably a good time to avoid a trip into your local Tesla showroom, in order to avoid the “hard sell” that Tesla hated so much about the traditional dealer model to begin with. 

    For now, we’ll just leave you with electrek’s take:

    This is a chaotic situation for retail employees who are left in the dark for the most part.

    It’s either turning into what feels like an extremely poorly managed, haphazard transition or it is intentionally made that way to push out employees like some are suspecting.

    It is hard to say which is worse. Probably the latter, which would reek of corporate greed and would be disappointing to see from Tesla.

  • Bruce Ohr's Testimony Contradicts Testimony Provided By Rosenstein And Simpson

    Authored by Sara Carter,

    Department of Justice senior official Bruce Ohr’s testimony contradicts testimony given by other senior government officials and key witnesses who testified before Congress regarding the FBI’s investigation into President Trump’s 2016 campaign and alleged collusion with the Russian government, according to the full transcripts released Friday.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Ohr’s 268-page testimony, released by Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, reveals inconsistency and contradiction in testimony given by Glenn Simpson, founder of embattled research firm Fusion GPS and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is set to leave his post sometime this month.

    It also reveals that many questions are still left unanswered.

    The Contradictions and The Revelations 

    1. Glenn Simpson suggests in his testimony to the Senate that he never spoke to anyone at the FBI about Christopher Steele, the former British spy he hired to investigate the Trump campaign during the election. However, Ohr suggests otherwise telling former Rep.Trey Gowdy under questioning “As I recall, and this is after checking with my notes, Mr. Simpson and I spoke in August of 2016. I met with him, and he provided some information on possible intermediaries between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.”

    2. In another instance, Simpson’s testimony also contradicts notes taken by Ohr after a meeting they had in December, 2016. Unverified allegations were decimated among the media that the Trump campaign had a computer server that was linked to a Russian bank in Moscow: Alpha Bank. Simpson suggested to the Senate that he knew very little about the Trump -Alpha Bank server story and couldn’t provide information. But Bruce Ohr’s own handwritten notes state that when he met with Simpson in December 2016, Simpson was concerned over the Alpha Bank story in the New York Times. “The New York Times story on Oct. 31 downplaying the connection between Alfa servers and the Trump campaign was incorrect. There was communication and it wasn’t spam,” stated Ohr’s notes. This suggests that Simpson was well aware of the story, which was believed by congressional investigators to have started from his research firm.

    3. Ohr testified to lawmakers that Simpson provided information to federal officials that was false regarding Cleta Mitchell, a well-known Republican campaign finance lawyer, and information regarding the National Rifle Association. Sean Davis, with the Federalist pointed this out in a tweet today. Read one of those stories here.

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

    4. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein would not answer questions to lawmakers during testimony about when he learned that Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, was working for Fusion GPS. Just check this out from Rep. Matt Gaetz’s interview with Judge Jeanine on Fox News.

    “Rod Rosenstein won’t tell us when he first learned that Nellie Ohr was working for Fusion GPS,” said Gaetz, in August, 2018.

    “So I want to know from Bruce Ohr, when did he tell his colleagues at the Department of Justice that in violation of law that required him to disclose his wife’s occupation his sources of income. He did not do that. So when did all of the other people at the Department of Justice find this out because Rod Rosenstein, I’ve asked him twice in open hearing and he will not give an answer. I think there’s a real smoking gun there.”

    However, in Ohr’s testimony he says he told the FBI about his wife’s role at Fusion GPS but only divulged his role to one person at the DOJ: Rosenstein. At the time, Rosenstein was overseeing the Trump-Russia probe, and had taken the information from Ohr and gave it to the FBI. Just read The Hill’s John Solomon full story here for the full background on Ohr’s testimony. I highlighted an important date below: remember Rosenstein wouldn’t answer lawmakers questions as to when he knew about Nellie Ohr. It also appears he failed to tell lawmakers about the information he delivered to the FBI.

    Ohr stated in his testimony: “What I had said, I think, to Mr. Rosenstein in October of 2017 was that my wife was working for Fusion GPS… The dossier, as I understand it, is the collection of reports that Chris Steele has prepared for Fusion GPS.”

    Ohr added: “My wife had separately done research on certain Russian people and companies or whatever that she had provided to Fusion GPS…But I don’t believe her information is reflected in the Chris Steele reports. They were two different chunks of information heading into Fusion GPS.”

    5. Ohr also told lawmakers in his testimony that the former British spy, Christopher Steele was being paid by the FBI at the same time he was getting paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC. However, there was another player paying Steele and it was a Russian oligarch named Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska, a tycoon connected to Russian President Vladimir Putin, had well known animus toward his former friend Paul Manafort.

    Rep. Mark Meadows asked Ohr during testimony “Did Chris Steele get paid by the Department of Justice?

    Ohr’s response: “My understanding is that for a time he was a source for the FBI, a paid source.

    In the testimony Ohr also revealed that Steele had told him details about his work with Deripaska saying Deripaska’s attorney Paul Hauser “had information about Paul Manafort, that Paul Manafort had entered into some kind of business deal with” Deripaska. Ohr said Manafort “had stolen a large amount of money from” the Russian Oligarch and that Hauser was “trying to gather information that would show that.”

  • $250M Lawsuit Against CNN Imminent; Covington High MAGA Student Suffered "Vicious" And "Direct Attacks" 

    CNN is about to be sued for more than $250 million for spreading fake news about 16-year-old Covington High School student Nicholas Sandmann. 

    Sandmann was viciously attacked by left-leaning news outlets over a deceptively edited video clip from the January March for Life rally at the Lincoln Memorial, in which the MAGA-hat-wearing teenager appeared to be mocking a Native American man beating a drum. Around a day later, a longer version of the video revealed that Sandmann did absolutely nothing wrong – after the media had played judge, jury and executioner of Sandmann’s reputation. 

    CNN will be the second MSM outlet sued over their reporting of the incident, after Sandmann launched a $250 million lawsuit against the Washington Post in late February. 

    Speaking with Fox News host Mark Levin in an interview set to air Sunday, Sandmann’s attorney, L. Lin Wood, said “CNN was probably more vicious in its direct attacks on Nicholas than The Washington Post. And CNN goes into millions of individuals’ homes. It’s broadcast into their homes.” 

    “They really went after Nicholas with the idea that he was part of a mob that was attacking the Black Hebrew Israelites, yelling racist slurs at the Black Hebrew Israelites,” continued Wood. “Totally false. Saying things like that Nicholas was part of a group that was threatening the Black Hebrew Israelites, that they thought it was going to be a lynching.”

    “Why didn’t they stop and just take an hour and look through the internet and find the truth and then report it?” Wood asked. “Maybe do that before you report the lies. They didn’t do it. They were vicious. It was false. CNN will be sued next week, and the dollar figure in the CNN case may be higher than it was [against] The Washington Post.”

    Watch: 

  • A Modest Proposal For The Fed

    Authored by Jeff Deist via The Mises Institute,

    Quantitative easing, the program of asset buying initiated by the US Federal Reserve Bank in 2008, represents the most profound monetary experiment in the history of the world. Between fall of 2008 and fall of 2014, three successive rounds of QE quadrupled the monetary base of the world’s most-used and dominant currency, from less than $1 trillion to more than $4 trillion. The Fed literally created new money, bought Treasury debt and mortgage-backed debt (of dubious character) from commercial banks, and credited them with new reserves.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    It was a great trick. 

    If QE can be done without adverse effects or with few adverse effects, it represents nothing short of monetary alchemy (h/t Nomi Prins). Everything we thought we knew about the Fed as backstop lender of last resort to commercial banks, as hallway monitor of inflation and unemployment, is out the window.

    If QE works, then every government on earth must take notice of the opportunity to effectively recapitalize their own banks and industries free of charge. QE turns central banks into kings of capital markets, into active participants in the economy. As one twitterati put it, expansionary QE created the biggest untold American story of the last twenty years: the Fed can now inflate and deflate assets, devalue savings, influence wages and productivity, encourage corporate malfeasance, and engineer balance sheets—all the while creating economic winners and losers. 

    What politician or central banker could resist?

    Recall how defenders of QE not only argued it was necessary, but beneficial. Paul Krugman was among the worst offenders, insisting that low interest rates would mitigate any harms from such rapid monetary expansion. These defenders dismissed, and continue to dismiss, what is now obvious: since 2008 the US economy has experienced significant asset inflation in equity markets and certain housing markets, plus a creeping but steady rise in many consumer prices.  

    This is no surprise. Did it never occur to QE cheerleaders that 1% money market yields might chase money into the stock market? Or that 2% interest rates might not encourage US businesses, households, and individuals to get solvent?

    But monetary stimulus, like fiscal stimulus, is a heady drug for politicians and their central bank enablers. Once you accept consumption rather than production as the basis for a healthy economy, creating new money starts to sound like a good idea. And if creating money is a good idea, why not create a lot of it—especially in the midst of an economic crisis? 

    In 2008 Ben Bernanke was at least honest about the radical nature of what the Fed had embarked upon. He used the term “extraordinary monetary policy” for the unprecedented expansionary QE program, a program he insisted was made necessary by a potentially catastrophic global financial crisis. 

    But there were dissenters. David Stockman, for one, strongly disputes whether Main Street needed to save Wall Street. Chapter 26 of The Great Deformation lays out Stockman’s case against more debt and credit in an already overleveraged corporate landscape, not to mention the moral hazard of bailing out investment banks by creating money. And of course virtually all Austrian economists, plus plenty of non-Austrians, loudly opposed QE from the start: new bank reserves don’t magically create new goods and services in the economy. Low interest rates discourage capital formation and encourage malinvestment. More debt is not the answer for too much debt. And why should banks, flush with QE reserves, lend at all in a shaky economy when (since 2008) the Fed pays them interest on those excess reserves? 

    So here’s a modest proposal for the Federal Reserve officials, and a challenge to economists who reject Austrian views on QE and business cycles in general:

    Return the Fed’s balance sheet to its pre-2008 level, by selling assets and/or letting assets mature. Do this over an identical six year period that mirrors the timeline for QE 1, 2, and 3. Do so at a rate and volume similar to which purchases were made during that period. For transparency, and to calm markets, announce this plan ahead of time. 

    In other words, return the country to “ordinary” monetary policy. After all, the crisis is over and the economy is healthy, right? If Austrians are wrong, if in fact QE saved the country and wasn’t merely an artificial process of juicing the economy and monetizing debt, it can and must be fully unwound. 

    In fact the St. Louis Fed president James Bullard nearly promised as much back in those quaint days of 2010:

    The (FOMC) has often stated its intention to return the Fed balance sheet to normal, pre-crisis levels over time. Once that occurs, the Treasury will be left with just as much debt held by the public as before the Fed took any of these actions.

    So how about it, Mr. Powell? A real economy operates without ultra-low interest rates and activist central bank stimulus. You’ve wavered lately; suggesting even the painfully slow process of QE tapering may be halted. Don’t make Mr. Bullard a liar, or at least a bad prognosticator. And don’t make Mr. Bernanke your permanent silent partner when it comes to Fed governance. Do what must be done, take the patient off its feeding tube, and make history as the first modern Fed Chair who allowed the US economy to rebuild itself on real capital instead of debt.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Shrink the Fed’s balance sheet and we can talk about whether QE “worked.”  Until then, we can’t know if economic growth is real or artificial. 

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Mar 09

Today’s News 9th March 2019

  • Syria Accuses US Of Stealing Over 40 Tons Of Its Gold

    Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    The Syrian National News Agency headlined on February 26th, “Gold deal between United States and Daesh” (Daesh is ISIS) and reported that,

    Information from local sources said that US army helicopters have already transported the gold bullions under cover of darkness on Sunday [February 24th], before transporting them to the United States.

    The sources said that tens of tons that Daesh had been keeping in their last hotbed in al-Baghouz area in Deir Ezzor countryside have been handed to the Americans, adding up to other tons of gold that Americans have found in other hideouts for Daesh, making the total amount of gold taken by the Americans to the US around 50 tons, leaving only scraps for the SDF [Kurdish] militias that serve them [the US operation].

    Recently, sources said that the area where Daesh leaders and members have barricaded themselves in, contains around 40 tons of gold and tens of millions of dollars.

    Allegedly, “US occupation forces in the Syrian al-Jazeera area made a deal with Daesh terrorists, by which Washington gets tens of tons of gold that the terror organization had stolen, in exchange for providing safe passage for the terrorists and their leaders from the areas in Deir Ezzor where they are located.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    ISIS was financing its operations largely by the theft of oil from the oil wells in the Deir Ezzor area, Syria’s oil-producing region, and they transported and sold this stolen oil via their allied forces, through Turkey, which was one of those US allies trying to overthrow Syria’s secular Government and install a Sunni fundamentalist regime that would be ruled from Riyadh (i.e., controlled by the Saud family). This gold is the property of the Syrian Government, which owns all that oil and the oil wells, which ISIS had captured (stolen), and then sold. Thus, this gold is from sale of that stolen black-market oil, which was Syria’s property.

    The US Government claims to be anti-ISIS, but actually didn’t even once bomb ISIS in Syria until Russia started bombing ISIS in Syria on 30 September 2015, and the US had actually been secretly arming ISIS there so as to help ISIS and especially Al Qaeda (and the US was strongly protecting Al Qaeda in Syria) to overthrow Syria’s secular and non-sectarian Government. Thus, whereas Russia started bombing ISIS in Syria on 30 September 2015, America (having become embarrassed) started bombing ISIS in Syria on 16 November 2015. The US Government’s excuse was “This is our first strike against tanker trucks, and to minimize risks to civilians, we conducted a leaflet drop prior to the strike.” They pretended it was out of compassion — not in order to extend for as long as possible ISIS’s success in taking over territory in Syria. (And, under Trump, on the night of 2 March 2019, the US rained down upon ISIS in northeast Syria the excruciating and internationally banned white phosphorous to burn ISIS and its hostages alive, which Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama had routinely done to burn alive the residents in Donetsk and other parts of eastern former Ukraine where voters had voted more than 90% for the democratically elected Ukrainian President whom Obama’s coupin Ukraine had replaced. It was a way to eliminate some of the most-undesired voters — people who must never again be voting in a Ukrainian national election, not even if that region subsequently does become conquered by the post-coup, US-imposed, regime. The land there is wanted; its residents certainly are not wanted by the Obama-imposed regime.) America’s line was: Russia just isn’t as ‘compassionate’ as America. Zero Hedge aptly headlined “’Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away’: US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes”. Nobody exceeds the United States Government in sheer hypocrisy.

    The US Government evidently thinks that the public are fools, idiots. America’s allies seem to be constantly amazed at how successful that approach turns out to be.

    Indeed, on 28 November 2012, Syria News headlined “Emir of Qatar & Prime Minister of Turkey Steal Syrian Oil Machinery in Broad Daylight” and presented video allegedly showing it (but unfortunately providing no authentication of the date and locale of that video).

    Jihadists were recruited from throughout the world to fight against Syria’s secular Government. Whereas ISIS was funded mainly by black-market sales of oil from conquered areas, the Al-Qaeda-led groups were mainly funded by the Sauds and other Arab royal families and their retinues, the rest of their aristocracy. On 13 December 2013, BBC headlined “Guide to the Syrian rebels” and opened “There are believed to be as many as 1,000 armed opposition groups in Syria, commanding an estimated 100,000 fighters.” Except in the Kurdish areas in Syria’s northeast, almost all of those fighters were being led by Al Qaeda’s Syrian Branch, al-Nusra. Britain’s Center on Religion & Politics headlined on 21 December 2015, “Ideology and Objectives of the Syrian Rebellion” and reported: “If ISIS is defeated, there are at least 65,000 fighters belonging to other Salafi-jihadi groups ready to take its place.” Almost all of those 65,000 were trained and are led by Syria’s Al Qaeda (Nusra), which was protected by the US

    In September 2016 a UK official “FINAL REPORT OF THE TASK FORCE ON COMBATING TERRORIST AND FOREIGN FIGHTER TRAVEL” asserted that, “Over 25,000 foreign fighters have traveled to the battlefield to enlist with Islamist terrorist groups, including at least 4,500 Westerners. More than 250 individuals from the United States have also joined.” Even just 25,000 (that official lowest estimate) was a sizable US proxy-army of religious fanatics to overthrow Syria’s Government.

    On 26 November 2015, the first of Russia’s videos of Russia’s bombing ISIS oil trucks headed into Turkey was bannered at a US military website “Russia Airstrike on ISIS Oil Tankers”, and exactly a month later, on 26 December 2015, Britain’s Daily Expressheadlined “WATCH: Russian fighter jets smash ISIS oil tankers after spotting 12,000 at Turkish border”. This article, reporting around twelve thousand ISIS oil-tanker trucks heading into Turkey, opened: “The latest video, released by the Russian defence ministry, shows the tankers bunched together as they make their way along the road. They are then blasted by the fighter jet.” The US military had nothing comparable to offer to its ‘news’-media. Britain’s Financial Times headlined on 14 October 2015, ”Isis Inc: how oil fuels the jihadi terrorists”. Only America’s allies were involved in this commerce with ISIS — no nation that supported Syria’s Government was participating in this black market of stolen Syrian goods. So, it’s now clear that a lot of that stolen oil was sold for gold as Syria’s enemy-nations’ means of buying that oil from ISIS. They’d purchase it from ISIS, but not from Syria’s Government, the actual owner.

    On 30 November 2015 Israel’s business-news daily Globes News Service bannered “Israel has become the main buyer for oil from ISIS controlled territory, report”, and reported:

    An estimated 20,000-40,000 barrels of oil are produced daily in ISIS controlled territory generating $1-1.5 million daily profit for the terrorist organization. The oil is extracted from Dir A-Zur in Syria and two fields in Iraq and transported to the Kurdish city of Zakhu in a triangle of land near the borders of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. Israeli and Turkish mediators come to the city and when prices are agreed, the oil is smuggled to the Turkish city of Silop marked as originating from Kurdish regions of Iraq and sold for $15-18 per barrel (WTI and Brent Crude currently sell for $41 and $45 per barrel) to the Israeli mediator, a man in his 50s with dual Greek-Israeli citizenship known as Dr. Farid. He transports the oil via several Turkish ports and then onto other ports, with Israel among the main destinations.

    After all, Israel too wants to overthrow Syria’s secular, non-sectarian Government, which would be replaced by rulers selected by the Saud family, who are the US Government’s main international ally.

    On 9 November 2014, when Turkey was still a crucial US ally trying to overthrow Syria’s secular Government (and this was before the failed 15 July 2016 US-backed coup-attempt to overthrow and replace Turkey’s Government so as to impose an outright US stooge), Turkey was perhaps ISIS’s most crucial international backer. Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s leader, had received no diploma beyond k-12, and all of that schooling was in Sunni schools and based on the Quran. (He pretended, however, to have a university diploma.) On 15 July 2015, AWD News headlined “Turkish President’s daughter heads a covert medical corps to help ISIS injured members”. On 2 December 2015, a Russian news-site headlined “Defense Ministry: Erdogan and his family are involved in the illegal supply of oil”; so, the Erdogan family itself was religiously committed to ISIS’s fighters against Syria, and they were key to the success of the US operation against Syrians — theft from Syrians. The great investigative journalist Christof Lehmann, who was personally acquainted with many of the leading political figures in Africa and the Middle East, headlined on 22 June 2014, “US Embassy in Ankara Headquarter for ISIS War on Iraq – Hariri Insider”, and he reported that the NATO-front the Atlantic Council had held a meeting in Turkey during 22-23 of November 2013 at which high officials of the US and allied governments agreed that they were going to take over Syria’s oil, and that they even were threatening Iraq’s Government for its not complying with their demands to cooperate on overthrowing Syria’s Government. So, behind the scenes, this conquest of Syria was the clear aim by the US and all of its allies.

    The US had done the same thing when it took over Ukraine by a brutal coup in February 2014: It grabbed the gold. Iskra News in Russian reported, on 7 March 2014, that “At 2 a.m. this morning … an unmarked transport plane was on the runway at Borosipol Airport” near Kiev in the west, and that, “According to airport staff, before the plane came to the airport, four trucks and two Volkswagen minibuses arrived, all the truck license plates missing.” This was as translated by Michel Chossudovsky at Global Research headlining on 14 March, “Ukraine’s Gold Reserves Secretly Flown Out and Confiscated by the New York Federal Reserve?” in which he noted that, when asked, “A spokesman for the New York Fed said simply, ‘Any inquiry regarding gold accounts should be directed to the account holder.’” The load was said to be “more than 40 heavy boxes.” Chossudovsky noted that, “The National Bank of Ukraine (Central Bank) estimated Ukraine’s gold reserves in February to be worth $1.8 billion dollars.” It was allegedly 36 tons. The US, according to Victoria Nuland (Obama’s detail-person overseeing the coup) had invested around $5 billion in the coup. Was her installed Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk cleaning out the nation’s gold reserves in order to strip the nation so that the nation’s steep indebtedness for Russian gas would never be repaid to Russia’s oligarchs? Or was he doing it as a payoff for Nuland’s having installed him? Or both? In any case: Russia was being squeezed by this fascist Ukrainian-American ploy.

    On 14 November 2014, a Russian youtube headlined “In Ukraine, there is no more gold and currency reserves” and reported that there is “virtually no gold. There is a small amount of gold bars, but it’s just 1%” of before the coup. Four days later, Zero Hedge bannered “Ukraine Admits Its Gold Is Gone: ‘There Is Almost No Gold Left In The Central Bank Vault’”. From actually 42.3 tons just before the coup, it was now far less than one ton.

    The Syria operation was about oil, gold, and guns. However, most of America’s support was to Al-Qaeda-led jihadists, not to ISIS-jihadists. As the great independent investigative journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva reported on 2 July 2017:

    “In December of last year while reporting on the battle of Aleppo as a correspondent for Bulgarian media I found and filmed 9 underground warehouses full of heavy weapons with Bulgaria as their country of origin. They were used by Al Nusra Front (Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria designated as a terrorist organization by the UN).”

    The US had acquired weapons from around the world, and shipped them (and Gaytandzhieva’s report even displayed the transit-documents) through a network of its embassies, into Syria, for Nusra-led forces inside Syria. Almost certainly, the US Government’s central command center for the entire arms-smuggling operation was the world’s largest embassy, which is America’s embassy in Baghdad.

    Furthermore, On 8 March 2013, Richard Spenser of Britain’s Telegraph reported that Croatia’s Jutarnji List newspaper had reported that “3,000 tons of weapons dating back to the former Yugoslavia have been sent in 75 planeloads from Zagreb airport to the rebels, largely via Jordan since November. … The airlift of dated but effective Yugoslav-made weapons meets key concerns of the West, and especially Turkey and the United States, who want the rebels to be better armed to drive out the Assad regime.”

    Also, a September 2014 study by Conflict Armaments Research (CAR), titled “Islamic State Weapons in Iraq and Syria”, reported that not only east-European, but even US-made, weapons were being “captured from Islamic State forces” by Kurds who were working for the Americans, and that this was very puzzling and disturbing to those Kurds, who were risking their lives to fight against those jihadists.

    In December 2017, CAR headlined “Weapons of the Islamic State” and reported that “this materiel was rapidly captured by IS forces, only to be deployed by the group against international coalition forces.” The assumption made there was that the transfer of weapons to ISIS was all unintentional.

    That report ignored contrary evidence, which I summed up on 2 September 2017 headlining “Russian TV Reports US Secretly Backing ISIS in Syria”, and reporting there also from the Turkish Government an admission that the US was working with Turkey to funnel surviving members of Iraq’s ISIS into the Deir Ezzor part of Syria to help defeat Syria’s Government in that crucial oil-producing region. Moreover, at least one member of the ‘rebels’ that the US was training at Al Tanf on Syria’s Jordanian border had quit because his American trainers were secretly diverting some of their weapons to ISIS. Furthermore: why hadn’t the US bombed Syrian ISIS before Russia entered the Syrian war on 30 September 2015? America talked lots about its supposed effort against ISIS, but why did US wait till 16 November 2015 before taking action, “’Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away’: US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes”?

    So, regardless of whether the US Government uses jihadists as its proxy-forces, or uses fascists as its proxy-forces, it grabs the gold — and grabs the oil, and takes whatever else it can.

    This is today’s form of imperialism.

    Grab what you can, and run. And call it ‘fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption’. And the imperial regime’s allies watch in amazement, as they take their respective cuts of the loot. That’s the deal, and they call it ‘fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption around the world’. That’s the way it works. International gangland. That’s the reality, while most of the public think it’s instead really “fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption around the world.” For example, as RT reported on Sunday, March 3rd, about John Bolton’s effort at regime-change in Venezuela, Bolton said: “I’d like to see as broad a coalition as we can put together to replace Maduro, to replace the whole corrupt regime,’ Bolton told CNN’s Jake Tapper.” Trump’s regime wants to bring clean and democratic government to the poor Venezuelans, just like Bush’s did to the Iraqis, and Obama’s did to the Libyans and to the Syrians and to the Ukrainians. And Trump, who pretends to oppose Obama’s regime-change policies, alternately expands them and shrinks them. Though he’s slightly different from Obama on domestic policies, he never, as the US President, condemns any of his predecessors’ many coups and invasions, all of which were disasters for everybody except America’s and allies’ billionaires. They’re all in on the take.

    The American public were suckered into destroying Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, Syria in 2011-now, and so many other countries, and still haven’t learned anything, other than to keep trusting the allegations of this lying and psychopathically vicious and super-aggressive Government and of its stenographic ‘news’-media. When is enough finally enough? Never? If not never, then when? Or do most people never learn? Or maybe they don’t really care. Perhaps that’s the problem.

    On March 4th, the Jerusalem Post bannered “IRAN AND TURKEY MEDIA PUSH CONSPIRACY THEORIES ABOUT US, ISIS: Claims pushed by Syrian regime media assert that US gave ISIS safe passage out of Baghuz in return for gold, a conspiracy picked up in Tehran and Ankara”, and simply assumed that it’s false — but provided no evidence to back their speculation up — and they closed by asserting “The conspiracies, which are manufactured in Damascus, are disseminated to Iraq and Turkey, both of whom oppose US policy in eastern Syria.” Why do people even subscribe to such ‘news’-sources as that? The key facts are hidden, the speculation that’s based on their own prejudices replaces whatever facts exist. Do the subscribers, to that, simply want to be deceived? Are most people that stupid?

    Back on 21 December 2018, one of the US regime’s top ‘news’-media, the Washington Post, had headlined “Retreating ISIS army smuggled a fortune in cash and gold out of Iraq and Syria” and reported that “the Islamic State is sitting on a mountain of stolen cash and gold that its leaders stashed away to finance terrorist operations.” So, it’s not as if there hadn’t been prior reason to believe that some day some of the gold would be found after America’s defeat in Syria. Maybe they just hadn’t expected this to happen quite so soon. But the regime will find ways to hoodwink its public, in the future, just as it has in the past. Unless the public wises-up (if that’s even possible).

  • Prosecutors Charge Alleged Masterminds Of $4 Billion Crypto Pyramid Scheme

    Anybody who was following developments in the crypto-universe during the ICO boom of 2017 already knows – or at least suspects – that the cryptocurrency industry is littered with scams and hackers eager to separate uncritical and gullible investors from their hard-earned money. Some of bitcoin’s harshest critics have likened the mother of all cryptocurrency to a pyramid scheme.

    But as thousands of marginal buyers have learned, that distinction can be subjective. But when it comes to OneCoin, a cryptocurrency project launched in 2014 that purportedly attracted more than $3.5 billion in investor capital, that label is unquestionably appropriate. To wit, federal prosecutors in Manhattan this week busted what they described as an “old-school” pyramid scheme supercharged by blockchain technology when they arrested one of the founders of OneCoin at LAX.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>Ruja

    Ruja Ignatov

    The Bulgarian heads of the alleged fraud, Konstantin Ignatov and his sister Ruja, have both been charged with an array of felonies, including wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering. While Konstantin was taken into custody in the US, Ruja hasn’t been apprehended, according to Bloomberg.

    The alleged head of the scheme, Konstantin Ignatov, was arrested Wednesday at Los Angeles International Airport and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said in a statement. Ignatov’s sister Ruja, the founder and original leader of OneCoin, was charged with wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering. She hasn’t been arrested.

    So far, prosecutors have located $1.2 billion in investor money, which had reportedly been laundered through 21 countries. OneCoin operated by paying customers commissions if they managed to recruit more members. The company has been accused of lying to customers, telling them that the value of the coins was determined by market forces when it was actually artificially set by the company, which “mined” coins internally on its servers.

    According to Reuters, the company’s records show sales of nearly $4 billion and profits of $2.5 billion (though what actually happened with the money, and what distinctions like “profit” and “sales” even mean within the context of this scheme, isn’t really clear).

    Prosecutors said OneCoin, which still operates, claimed to have more than 3 million members, who would receive commissions for recruiting new members to buy cryptocurrency packages.

    Much of the $1.2 billion of investor money located so far was laundered through at least 21 countries, prosecutors said.

    OneCoin records, meanwhile, show profit of 2.23 billion euros (US$2.51 billion) on sales of 3.35 billion euros (US$3.77 billion) in the two years ended Sept. 2016, they added.

    Prosecutors accused the founders of building their company on “lies and deceit.”

    The defendants “created a multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency company based completely on lies and deceit,” U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman in Manhattan said in a statement. “Investors were victimized while the defendants got rich.”

    Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance added: “These defendants executed an old-school pyramid scheme on a new-school platform.”

    Ruja, who was known online as “cryptoqueen” allegedly created the company, before handing management off to her brother. She hasn’t been heard from since late 2017, when she disappeared. She is believed to still be at large.

    Prosecutors also have evidence that the founders knew the company was a scam, and actively tried to deceive their customers.

    Ignatova was quoted as telling a co-founder that “I cheat currently on coins,” and that one possible “exit strategy” was to “take the money and run and blame someone else.”

    Ignatov, meanwhile, allegedly told a OneCoin member recently in Las Vegas: “If you are here to cash out leave this room now because you don’t understand what this project is about.”

    Another defendant, Mark Scott, 50, of Coral Gables, Fla., pleaded guilty in September of helping the company launder some $400 million. Scott is a former partner at law firm Locke Lord.

    This is the second major crypto scam to be exposed so far this year, after the “collapse” of QuadrigaCX, the disgraced Canadian crypto exchange that was apparently drained of its customers’ $150 million in deposits last spring, months before the founder mysteriously “died” while traveling in India late last year, leaving his widow and former company to declare bankruptcy.

    Whatever happens next, one thing’s for sure: With bitcoin mired in the second year of a bear market, this news certainly doesn’t inspire confidence in the crypto space.

  • Which States Have The Highest Taxes On Marijuana?

    Submitted by Priceonomics

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    When comparing cannabis prices across states that have recreationally legalized, it’s easy to assume that the rates at which cannabis is taxed dictate the prices consumers are paying in dispensaries. For example, California has high tax rates for their cannabis, and also have some of the most expensive prices on the legal market.  

    As an online cannabis price comparison and dispensary locator service, Wikileaf has access to data on weed prices across the country. We ranked the recreationally legal states, first by tax rates, and then by the average cost per eighth. We found that while Washington has the highest tax on cannabis at 47%, they find themselves one of the less expensive state to buy cannabis.

    Conversely, Alaska is the most expensive state to purchase cannabis in, while having lower taxes.  While taxes certainly do have an effect on the price that consumers pay for cannabis in dispensaries, Wikileaf’s data shows that the rate at which cannabis is taxed is not the only factor that dictates market price.

    These are the sales tax rates on cannabis from each recreational state on consumer-facing sales taxes through January 2019:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Washington tops the list, taking up to 37 percent from cannabis purchases, followed by Oregon at 17 percent, California and Colorado at 15 percent, Maine and Nevada at 10 percent and Massachusetts at 6.3 percent. Alaska is the only state on the list so far that doesn’t tax on cannabis purchases.

    Sales Tax Isn’t The Only Cost Passed On To Consumers

    Somewhere between 37 and 0 percent is a big difference. However, those sales tax rates aren’t the only tax you’re paying. Many states have additional taxes and fees to pair with their tax rates on purchases.

    For example, while Alaska doesn’t tax their cannabis purchases, they do charge growers $50 per ounce, and growers in Maine are charged anywhere between $94 and $325 per pound on top of their 10 percent sales tax rate. These are the additional taxes that consumers end up paying per recreational state:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    When you add up the taxes on dispensaries, growers, sales, and local government taxes, you get a fuller picture of how taxed the cannabis industry actually is. With all of those costs together, here’s a clearer picture of which states are collecting the most from legal cannabis.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Washington cannabis is taxed at 47.1%, making that state’s marijuana the most taxed in the country. California comes in second, at a tax rate of 40.3%. Yet, according to Wikileaf’s menu data below, the average price of an eighth after all taxes in Washington is the fifth most expensive out of eight states, while California comes in two spots more expensive.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    If taxes are the main reason why cannabis prices are high, then it’s tough to explain why, despite Washingtonian cannabis buyers being taxed 7 percent more overall than Californians, their price per eighth is around $8 less. What’s even more surprising is Alaska, only the fifth most taxed state, is actually the most expensive state to purchase weed in. So while there may be a correlation between taxes and prices, our data indicates that there is not a direct causal relationship between the two.

    Since each state has its own regulations and framework for recreational cannabis, there isn’t any blanket reason for why prices are the way they are across all states. However, those particular factors that affect the price of cannabis in every single state all seem to affect one thing: supply. Let’s look closer at California as an example.

    California: Other Causes of High Prices

    California has an extensive application process for obtaining their licenses, one that has been muddled with roadblocks. This makes it both difficult AND expensive to obtain legal licenses, severely choking off the cannabis supply in a state once flush with legal weed. According to Bloomberg, there were a grand total of 1,100 registered cannabis dispensaries in the state prior to legalization. Now, there are only 410 registered dispensaries.

    Considering that those 410 dispensaries are competing with a massive Californian black market (which estimates say is much larger than the current legal market in 2018,) the industry in California is worse off than it seems.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    According to those estimates, the legal sales in California totaling $2.5 billion in 2018 are more than doubled by the nearly 5.9 billion the black market accounted for in 2017. That’s a massive portion of a very lucrative pie that the legal cannabis industry in California has to contend with.

    On top of the red tape and political issues, the supply (volume of growers) and environmental factors need to be considered as well. Droughts and wildfires raging through the state has limited crop yields and driven up the prices, with some producers claiming to have lost as much as an entire year’s crop in the most recent wildfires.

    While taxes certainly do affect the price of weed, they don’t tell the whole story. We took data that ranked recreationally legal states in order of highest tax rates and compared it against Wikileaf’s pricing data for the average cost of an eighth in each of these states. If the rates at which each state taxes cannabis determines its market price, then you would expect the rankings from the two data sets to match. However, the fact that they don’t match leads us to two conclusions. The first is that there is a correlative, not causal, relationship between taxes and marijuana prices. The second conclusion is that there are other culprits for both high and low prices of cannabis, such as in the case of California.

  • China's Social Credit System Just Blocked Tens Of Millions Of Plane And Train Tickets

    China’s social credit system prevented people from buying 17.5 million flights and 5.5 million train tickets in 2018, according to the Associated Press, which obtained a document from the National Public Credit Information Center.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The AP reports that millions were attempting to make travel purchases were blocked because they ended up on the government’s blacklist for social credit offenses. The report didn’t discuss how these people had become “discredited.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The Communist Party of China (CPC) says the social credit system is an essential component of the Socialist market economic system and the social governance system. Its aim is to encourage trustworthy behavior through a blend of penalties and rewards for citizens to improve a fast-changing society after three decades of economic reform. Offenses can include failure to pay taxes or fines, jaywalking, smoking, shoplifting, or taking drugs. Penalties include restrictions on travel, business, obtaining loans, or access to education. Companies can lose access to low-interest bank loans or be dropped from government contracts.

    One government slogan for the scheme says: “Once you lose trust, you will face restrictions everywhere.”

    The social control system is part of efforts by President Xi Jinping’s Communist regime to use artificial intelligence and surveillance cameras to control more than a billion people.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    CPC launched social credit in 2014 and is currently piloting it in multiple cities around China. The system is expected to roll out nationwide by 2020, giving the government control to almost all people and businesses.

    Human rights activists warn that social credit is too hard on citizens and might unfairly label people as untrustworthy without telling them.

    U.S. Vice President Mike Pence condemned social credit in October as “an Orwellian system premised on controlling virtually every facet of human life.”

    AP said some of the offenses last year penalized people for false advertising or violating drug safety rules.

    Since inception, the system has caused 3.5 million people to “voluntarily fulfill their legal obligations,” the report said, which included 37 people who paid a total of 150 million yuan ($22 million) in overdue fines or confiscations.

    The report gave limited details on how many citizens live in areas where social credit is operating.

    In the West, social credit is very controversial and is often portrayed as a futuristic society controlled by the illusion of a perfect society through artificial intelligence and surveillance cameras.

  • New Houses Are Getting Smaller – But They're Still Much Larger Than What Your Grandparents Had

    Authored Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

    The average square footage in new single-family houses has been declining since 2015. House sizes tend to fall just during recessionary periods. It happened from 2008 to 2009, from 2001 to 2002, and from 1990 to 1991.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    But even with strong job growth numbers in recent years, it looks like demand for houses of historically large size may have finally peaked.

    According to Census Bureau data, the average size of new houses in 2017 was 2,631 square feet. That’s down from the 2015 peak of 2,687.

    2015’s average, by the way, was an all-time high and represented decades of near-relentless growth in house sizes in the United States since the Second World War.

    Indeed, in the fifty years from 1967 to 2017, the average size of new houses increased by two-thirds (67 percent) from 1,570 to 2,631 square feet. At the same time, the quality of housing also increased substantially in everything from insulation, to roofing materials, to windows, and to the size and availability of garages.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Source: Department of Labor, Census Bureau, HUD.

    Meanwhile, the size of American households during this period decreased 22 percent from 3.28 to 2.54 people. Needless to say, the amount of square footage per person has expanded greatly over the past fifty years. (Square footage in new multifamily construction has also increased.)

    And yet, we continue to hear in survey data that Americans are “overworked,” “stressed out,” and pushed to the limit when it comes to paying for living space. If that’s the case, why do so many Americans continue to buy new housing that’s more than 50 percent larger than what their parents grew up in?

    Part of it is a matter of demonstrated preference versus what they say in surveys. The demonstrated behavior or many people is simply that they prefer more house to less, even if it means more stress in making that mortgage payment every month. Another factor is the low-low mortgage rates that continue to be available to a great many borrowers. Sure, that extra 500 square feet above and beyond what your dad shared with 3 siblings might be a bit much, but if you can spread the payments out over 30 years, why not just get it?

    How Government Policy Led to a Codification of Larger, More Expensive Houses

    But there are other factors as well. In recent decades, local governments have continued to ratchet up mandates as to how many units can be built per acre, and what size those new houses can be. As The Washington Post reported last month, various government regulations and fees, such as “impact fees,” which are the same regardless of the size of the unit, “incentivize developers to build big.” The Post continues, “if zoning allows no more than two units per acre, the incentive will be to build the biggest, most expensive units possible.”

    Moreover, community groups opposed to anything that sounds like “density” or “upzoning” will use the power of local governments to crush developer attempts to build more affordable housing. However, as The Post notes, at least one developer has found “where his firm has been able to encourage cities to allow smaller buildings the demand has been strong. For those building small, demand doesn’t seem to be an issue.”

    Many involved in home sales likely won’t be shocked to hear this. In many markets, it’s the mid-priced homes that sell the fastest. In the Denver metro area, for example, homes priced in the $300,000-400,000 range are quickly snapped up. But luxury homes coming in around $700,000 or a million dollars can languish. Indeed, the Washington Post article features a Denver-area couple who were delighted to buy a new downsized 1,400 square foot house for $257,000.

    As much as existing homeowners and city planners would love to see nothing but upper middle-class housing with three-car garages along every street, the fact is that not everyone can afford this sort of housing. But that doesn’t mean people in the middle can only afford a shack in a shanty town either — so long as governments will allow more basic housing to be built.

    Local housing has become so inflexible as a combination of a variety of historical trends which later become nearly set in stone thanks to government policy. We have seen this at work as decades of federal housing policy has worked to encourage ever-larger debt loads which in turn leads to larger houses as well. Eventually, this sort of housing — and the sort of people who live in it — reach a critical mass politically. The people who live in the larger houses then want to make sure that the “character of the neighborhood” is preserved — by force of law — which ends up excluding new types of more economical housing. This doesn’t necessarily mean apartment buildings, of course. It can simply mean smaller, more simple single-family housing. But once existing homeowners begin to dominate the local political process, the deck becomes stacked against new homeowners who can only afford basic housing that the old-timers don’t want to see.

    The result is an ossified housing policy designed to reinforce existing housing, while denying new types of housing that is perhaps more suitable to smaller households and a more stagnant economic environment.

    Eventually, though, something has to give. Either governments persist indefinitely with restrictions on “undesirable” housing — which means housing costs skyrocket — or local governments finally start to allow builders to build housing more appropriate to the needs of the middle class.

    For now, the results have been spotty. But where developers are allowed to actually build for a middle-class clientele, it looks like there’s plenty of demand.

    Not Really Downsizing

    The Post’s article covering this downsizing phenomena is titled “Downsizing the American Dream,” but this represents nothing that might be called a downsizing when compared to the alleged Golden Age of the American Dream in postwar America.

    After all, by the standards of the 1950s and 1960s, the new “smaller” houses remain large and luxurious by comparison. According to a 1956 report by the US Department of Labor, “The 2-bedroom, 1-bathroom house, with less than a thousand square feet of floor area … typified new houses in 1950.”

    Keep in mind, moreover, that the average household size in 1950 was 3.37 (compared to 2.62 in 2000). Those two bedrooms and that one bathroom in 1950 say a lot more traffic than would typically be the case today.

    House-sizes grew considerably into the 1960s, but even those homes — which were often three-bedroom two-bathroom houses for families with children — still came in around 1,500 square feet well into the 1970s.

    Today, the average new house has more than 1,000 square feet than a home of the 1960s — often housing no more than a couple and its dog.

    But do new home buyers need all that house? It’s hard to know since housing production is caught up in a complex web of government financing, government regulation, and neighborhood NIMBYism.

    To know the answer, we’d have to allow developers to build less-expensive housing, but that would require a great simplification of the political and regulatory processes developers must deal with. Expectations for housing have changed so much over the past fifty years, it’s hard to imagine a return to what households of the past would have considered to be normal, middle-class housing.

    It would be an interesting experiment, though: would city planners and neighborhood groups welcome a developer who planned to build a neighborhood of 1950s retro housing? That is: new two-bedroom, one-bathroom houses of 1,000 square feet? (They’d have to exclude the asbestos siding typical of the time, and the terrible insulation of the time would need to be replaced with something more modern.)

    It would be interesting to see someone try it.

  • Mark Zuckerberg's Elaborate Security Measures Rumored To Include 'Panic Chute'

    Thanks to weekly death threats and bipolar stalkers, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his #2, Sheryl Sandberg, are protected by an elaborate security apparatus to monitor, track and intercept threats against the Billionaire and his Chief Operating Officer. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    According to an in-depth investigation by Business Insider into Facebook’s security practices, Zuckerberg used to be a security nightmare during his mid-20s; randomly wandering off while his security detail scrambled to keep up. 

    “He was in his mid-20s,” said one BI source.”He was developing a platform he truly believed was good. At the time he didn’t grasp the concept that there were haters out there.”

    In the years since, the 34-year-old billionaire has adopted a far more cautious schedule more closely resembling that of a dignitary than a tech executive. 

    During company all-hands meetings, members of Zuckerberg’s Praetorian Guard sit at the front of the room and are dotted throughout the crowd, just in case an employee tries to rush him. They wear civilian clothes to blend in with nonsecurity employees. –Business Insider

    Panic chute?

    Zuckerberg’s fortifications include armed executive protection officers on constant guard in and around his several gated Bay Area homes – at least one of which has a panic room, according to the report. Meanwhile, while Zuckerberg’s desk is in an open workspace instead of a walled-off office, guards are always nearby – while an adjacent conference room near his desk has bulletproof glass and a panic button. 

    And according to employee rumors, the conference room even has a secret “panic chute” to evacuate Zuckerberg to safety. 

    The truth of this matter remains murky: One source said they had been briefed about the existence of a secret exit route through the floor of the conference room into the parking garage, but others said they had no knowledge of it. Facebook declined to comment. –Business Insider

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

    Facebook employs more than 70 security personnel – lead by former US Secret Service special agent Jill Leavens Jones. The company’s board approved a $10 million annual security allowance for Zuckerberg and his family, “and with good reason,” according to the report. 

    Both Zuckerberg and Sandberg receive near-constant threats; from stalkers and those who wish to do them harm. 

    The billionaire chief exec lives an extraordinarily public life, with 118 million followers on Facebook alone (making him both an icon of Facebook’s ideals and, increasingly, a magnet for public ire after his company’s recent scandals), and the threats he faces are severe.

    He receives numerous of death threats each week, and the security team monitors social media for mentions of him and Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, to detect them. The pair also have stalkers, who alternately declare their undying love for the execs and harbor worrying vendettas against them. –Business Insider

    The Facebook execs are also at risk of being subject to political stunts – such as when Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates was smacked in the face with a pie while touring Brussels in 1998. 

    Zuckerberg receives unsolicited presents at home – “everything from cookies to a gift from a rabbi after the birth of one of his children. (These get sent to the security team for inspection; Zuckerberg doesn’t open them himself.)”

    Things are a bit less extreme inside of the Facebook offices – however the security team is always on high alert, and very menacing. 

    “If you’ve ever been close to his office, you’ll see there are big burly people sitting there staring at screens. They pretend to be software engineers, but everyone knows that they are security guards,” said one Facebook employee in a Quora post. “Once I was there at 7 a.m., and tried to take a picture of his office (he was not inside) to send to my family, but immediately, 3 of the men came seemingly out of nowhere and asked me to delete the picture.” 

  • Vietnam's Energy Dilemma Is About To Become A Crisis

    Authored by Tim Daiss via Oilprice.com,

    Vietnam can’t seem to get a break. The country lies just beneath China, its giant neighbor to the north, and shares many of the same socialist ideals that Beijing promulgates. However, Sino-Vietnamese relations have been a source of tension for years dating back to the colonization of Vietnam by China centuries ago – a historical fact that the average Vietnamese citizen has never forgotten. Even after the protracted and costly war between North Vietnam and the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government, that ended more than 40 years ago, China (which had proven a valuable ally for Hanoi during the war) turned on its smaller communist ally and invaded the country in 1979. It was a brief but bloody border war which showed Beijing that Vietnam could still hold its own.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Fast forward several decades and Hanoi is still trying to placate Beijing while at the same time rapidly improving relations with one-time adversary Washington. In fact, U.S.- Vietnamese relations, both trade and bilateral, have improved so much recently that the two sides could now arguably be called allies in the Asia-Pacific region. Of course, much of that alliance, similar in some respects to the decades-old U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia, is born of necessity. The U.S.-Saudi alliance was berthed in the aftermath of World War 2, held together amid shared concerns during the cold war, and remains amid worries over Iranian hegemony ambitions in the Middle East. The U.S.-Vietnamese alliance is largely held together over the mutual aim of both Washington and Hanoi to keep China’s economic and military ambitions in check in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in the volatile South China Sea, where Beijing claims as much as 90 percent of the troubled body of water.

    Vietnam’s energy quandary

    However, Hanoi’s angst with Beijing isn’t just political, it also related to Vietnam’s energy sector.

    China’s increased muscle-flexing in the region has negatively impacted Vietnam’s ability to develop its own offshore natural gas resources.

    Last March, according to a BBC report at the time, state-owned Petro Vietnam ordered Spanish energy firm Repsol to suspend an oil and gas project, which was in its final stages, off the country’s southeast coast within Vietnam’s, own 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The pull-out cost Repsol some $200mn in lost investment, an amount that the company has to date been unsuccessful at recouping. It was the second time in less than a year that Hanoi had bowed to Chinese pressure in its own waters. In July 2017, Hanoi also ordered Repsol to stop oil drilling operations at an adjacent location, Block 136/3, in response to what media at the time called “threats from China.” The geopolitical squabble in 2017 came just days after Repsol reportedly made a major gas discovery in the area.

    Consequently, to offset both its blockage of developing its own gas resources and to help Vietnam meet its growing energy demand amid stellar economic growth, the country needs to turn to renewables. However, it’s still in the early stages of developing renewable energy sources and needs to introduce more incentive policies to attract more investment, media in the country reported last week, citing both domestic and international experts.

    Hoang Quoc Vuong, Vietnam’s deputy minister of industry and trade, said that the rapid increase in energy demand and consumption of around 10 percent per year is having negative impacts on the environment, exhausting natural resources and also impacting the country’s energy security. Nonetheless, he reasoned, Vietnam’s clean energy development still has limitations, including unstable supply, difficulty in energy transmission and high costs. He added that the ministry was studying solutions to efficiently develop renewable energy towards a low-carbon economy.

    For more than a decade, Vietnam’s economic growth has been second only to China as the country continues to develop and modernize. According to a report by the country’s Central Economic Commission, Vietnam’s economic growth stood at 7.08 percent last year. Vietnam ranks second among Southeast Asian countries with a total power system capacity of nearly 50,000 MW and is ranked 23rd on a global scale.

    However, Vuong added that it’s necessary for Vietnam to develop a structure of energy supply sources, including hydroelectric, thermoelectric and renewables. Promoting an energy transition towards a low-carbon economy was critical, he said. By the end of last year, total hydropower capacity in the country of more than 90 million reached 22,000 MW, while solar capacity and wind power capacity is estimated to reach 1,000 MW and 1,500 MW, respectively. Vuong added that the ministry was also receiving a number of proposals to develop wind and solar power projects in the country.

    However, hurdles remain to achieve those goals. The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently said that Vietnam in the early stages of developing renewable energy, thus the government needed to develop appropriate mechanisms to reduce risks for investors in renewable energy development. Pham Huong Giang, deputy head of the Renewable Energy Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, said the ministry was studying mechanisms to promote investment in developing renewable energy.

  • Trump May Charge Allies Up To 600% More For Hosting US Troops

    President Trump has ordered his administration to draw up formal demands for Germany, Japan and all other countries hosting American troops to pay the full price of US soldiers deployed on their soil, along with a 50% premium for the privilege of hosting them, reports Bloomberg, citing a dozen administration officials and people briefed on the matter. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    President Donald Trump speaks to troops at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, Thursday, Dec. 27, 2018. (Photo by Brian Ferguson via Stars and Stripes)

    In some cases, nations hosting American forces could be asked to pay five to six times as much as they do now under the “Cost Plus 50” formula. –Bloomberg

    Trump has long-complained that countries hosting US troops aren’t paying enough, to the point where he nearly derailed recent talks with South Korea over how much they’re paying for the 28,000 US troops on their soil – overruling his negotiators and telling National Security Advisor John Bolton “We want cost plus 50.” 

    The president’s team sees the move as one way to prod NATO partners into accelerating increases in defense spending — an issue Trump has hammered allies about since taking office. While Trump claims his pressure has led to billions of dollars more in allied defense spending, he’s chafed at what he sees as the slow pace of increases. –Bloomberg

    “Wealthy, wealthy countries that we’re protecting are all under notice,” said Trump during a January 17 speech at the Pentagon. “We cannot be the fools for others.“

    Bloomberg‘s sources caution that the idea is “one of many under consideration,” in order to try and convince US allies to pay more, and the plan may be toned down. That said, “it has sent shock waves through the departments of Defense and State, where officials fear it will be an especially large affront to stalwart US allies in Asia and Europe.” 

    Other current and former administration officials “describe it as far more advanced than is publicly known,” reports Bloomberg. In addition to seeking more money from allies hosting US troops, the Trump administration wants to use the new policy as means of leverage over countries to do what the US demands overseas. 

    As evidence, they say officials at the Pentagon have been asked to calculate two formulas: One would determine how much money countries such as Germany ought to be asked to pay. The second would determine the discount those countries would get if their policies align closely with the U.S. –Bloomberg

    The warning to South Korea was a deliberate move, says Victor Cha, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. By demanding “Cost Plus 50” from Seoul, Trump is signaling a paradigm shift. 

    “We have a more integrated military with South Korea than with any other ally,” said Cha. “To send this message to a front-line Cold War ally is trying to say very clearly that they want a paradigm shift with the way they do host-nation support.”

    Others think that the “Cost Plus 50” plan will spark debates within allied governments over whether they even want US troops on their soil. Both Germany and Japan, two of the three defeated WWII Axis powers, have long-resisted the presence of American troops on their soil. Other countries such as Poland, on the other hand, welcome US troops. 

    Germany currently pays around 28% of the costs of US forces on German soil – or around $1 billion per year. Under the “Cost Plus 50” plan, their payment would skyrocket – along with payments from Japan and South Korea. 

    “You start tipping over rocks and see what crawls out and you’ve got to be ready for it,” said American Enterprise Institute defense policy expert MacKenzie Eaglen. “You’re going to see domestic political debates wrapped around these military bases once you reopen the discussion.” 

    Trump has been musing about the idea that countries should pay the full cost, plus a premium, since taking office. His ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, said it’s all about making sure other countries have “skin in the game.”

    “If you have countries which clearly can afford to do it and are not doing it because they think we’ll just step in and do it for them, the president has a problem with that,” he said in an interview.

    Sondland declined to say which countries would be targeted and wouldn’t elaborate when asked specifically about the “Cost Plus 50” approach. –Bloomberg

    The “Cost Plus 50” plan reportedly originated at the National Security Council – however officials have declined to confirm or deny the proposal. 

    “Getting allies to increase their investment in our collective defense and ensure fairer burden-sharing has been a long-standing U.S. goal,” said NSC spokesman Garrett Marquis. “Getting allies to increase their investment in our collective defense and ensure fairer burden-sharing has been a long-standing U.S. goal.” 

    Critics of the plan say it ignores the benefits the US enjoys from having US troops stationed abroad. 

    “Getting allies to increase their investment in our collective defense and ensure fairer burden-sharing has been a long-standing U.S. goal,” said former US Ambassador to NATO, Douglas Lute. “The truth is they’re there and we maintain them because they’re in our interest.”

    In Germany, for instance, the U.S. relies on several crucial installations: the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center and the Ramstein Air Base. Landstuhl is a world-class medical facility that has provided emergency care to U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq and other trouble spots.

    Germany is also home to the headquarters of the U.S. Africa Command. Estimating how much Germany ought to pay for those bases, which serve so many other interests, would be complicated. –Bloomberg

    “There are a lot of countries that would say you’ve got it absolutely wrong — you think we’re going to pay for this?” said former deputy assistant secretary of defense, Jim Townsend, who added: “I hope cooler heads prevail.”

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

  • UN Panel Says North Korea Obtained $670 Million In Crypto & Fiat Via Hacking: Report

    Authored by Ana Berman via CoinTelegraph.com,

    North Korea has reportedly amassed $670 million in fiat and cryptocurrencies by conducting hacking attacks, Asia-focused financial newspaper Nikkei Asian Review reports on Friday, March 8. The publication cites a U.N. Security Council report.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

    The report, prepared by a panel of experts, was presented to the Security Council’s North Korea sanctions committee ahead of its annual report. According to the documents obtained by Nikkei, the hackers attacked overseas financial institutions from 2015 to 2018 and purportedly used blockchain “to cover their tracks.”

    As cited by Nikkei, the report states that the attack were allegedly conducted by a specialized corps within the North Korean military, forming part of country’s government policy. The experts believe that the corps is responsible for hacking Interpark, a South Korean e-commerce site, and luring $2.7 million in exchange for stolen data.

    According to Nikkei, the experts came to the conclusion that virtual currencies helped North Korea to circumvent economic sanctions – as they are harder to trace and can be laundered multiple times – and obtain foreign currency. The authors of the report recommended that U.N. member nations share information on possible North Korean attacks with other governments to prevent them in the future.

    Nikkei also alleges that blockchain has been previously used by a Hong Kong-based startup, Marine Chain, to circumvent sanctions against North Korea. As the newspaper writes, the company, which traded ships around the world via blockchain, was suspected of supplying cryptocurrencies to the North Korean government and shut down in September 2018.

    As Cointelegraph previously reported, in 2018 a study revealed that hacker group “Lazarus,” reportedly funded by North Korea, has stolen $571 million from cryptocurrency exchanges since early 2017. Out of fourteen separate exchange breaches analyzed, five have been attributed to “Lazarus,” including the industry record-breaking $532 million NEM hack of Japan’s Coincheck in January, 2018.

    Meanwhile, other countries sanctioned by the world community, such as Iran and Venezuela, also have reported seeing cryptocurrencies as an effective way to circumvent financial restrictions. For instance, four Iranian banks reportedly developed a gold-backed cryptocurrency called PayMon, and the country is allegedly negotiating with Switzerland, South Africa, France, the United Kingdom, Russia, Austria, Germany and Bosnia to carry out financial transactions in cryptocurrency.

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Mar 08

Today’s News 8th March 2019

  • US Admiral Warns About 'Hazardous' Military Buildup In South China Sea

    Though it rarely makes headlines in the US, the simmering rivalry between American and Chinese military forces has prompted some to declare the South China Sea – where Beijing has been building out its military and naval infrastructure in defiance of international court rulings – the “world’s most dangerous hotspot”.

    And as China has transformed rocky atolls into stationary aircraft carriers, nobody has been more vocal about the dangers of China’s increasingly aggressive posture in the Pacific than Admiral Philip Davidson, the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, who has warned about the growing geopolitical threat even as many established economists have played down the risk of a conflict because, in theory, the economic links between the world’s two largest economies represent a reliable counterweight.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>Davidson

    Admiral Philip Davidson

    Offering yet another ominous warning just days after Washington again provoked Beijing by flying two B-52 bombers over the contested sea, Davidson told a group of reporters that he had observed a rise in Chinese military activity in the Pacific.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>Nine Dash

    Asked about the US’s “freedom of navigation” operations in the region, Davidson declined to offer specifics but said only that the US would remain “an enduring Pacific power.” But turning the focus again to China, Davidson warned that China’s military buildup was a “hazard” to trade flows and financial information that circulates via fiber optic cables running on the ocean floor under the South China Sea.

    “It’s building, it’s not reducing in any sense of the word,” Davidson told reporters on Thursday in Singapore when asked about China’s military activities in the South China Sea. “There has been more activity with ships, fighters and bombers over the last year than in previous years, absolutely.”

    “It’s a hazard to trade flows, the commercial activity, the financial information that flows on cables under the South China Sea, writ large,” Davidson added.

    As Bloomberg pointed out, Davidson’s comments appeared to assuage US allies’ concerns about a possible US pullout from the region, which have intensified thanks to President Trump’s isolationist rhetoric.

    Davidson’s comments are the latest from a senior U.S. official seeking to reassure allies in Southeast Asia of the American commitment to what Washington refers to as the Indo-Pacific region. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo last week in Manila assured the Philippines that a defense treaty would apply if its vessels or planes are attacked in the South China Sea.

    However, many of the US’s regional allies, particularly the Philippines, have questioned whether the US has done enough to curb Beijing’s ambitions. Some top Philippine military officials have even questioned whether the US defense pact needs to be changed.

    Top Philippine officials have clashed over whether the mutual defense pact with the U.S. needs to be changed. While Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin has said the 1951 accord should stay the same, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana wants it reviewed, even after Pompeo’s assurances.

    The U.S. hasn’t stopped Chinese “aggressive actions” so far, Lorenzana noted in a statement earlier this week, while warning that vagueness in the document could cause “chaos during a crisis” and that the Philippines didn’t want to be dragged into a shooting war it didn’t start.

    China has targeted a 7.5% increase in defense spending in 2019, a slowdown from last year’s projected 8.1% increase though still seen as consistent with President Xi Jinping’s plans to grow and advance the military.

    And even with domestic growth slowing, China continues to spend on its military buildup. And Davidson doesn’t expect this to change. And Beijing’s increasingly belligerent rhetoric about its plans for “reunifying” with Taiwan would seem to confirm this assessment.

  • "America First": A Stronger Monroe Doctrine

    Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    The previous articles (first, second) examined what appears to be a coordinated strategy between Moscow and Beijing to contain the damage wrought by the United States around the world. This strategy’s effectiveness relies heavily on the geographical position of the two countries vis-a-vis the United States and the area of contention. We have seen how the Sino-Russian strategy has been effective in Asia and the Middle-East, greatly stemming American disorder. Moscow and Beijing have less capacity to contain the US and influence events in Europe, given that much depends on the Europeans themselves, who are officially Washington’s allies but are in reality treated as colonies. With the new “America First” doctrine, it is the central and southern parts of the American continent that are on the receiving end of the US struggling to come to terms with the diminishment of its hitherto untrammelled influence in the world.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    South and Central American countries blossomed under the reign of socialist or leftist anti-imperialist governments for the first decade of this century. Such terms as “21st-century socialism” were coined, as was documented in the 2010 Oliver Stone documentary film South of the Border. The list of countries with leftist governments was impressive: Fernando Lugo (Paraguay), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Lula da Silva (Brazil), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (Argentina), Fidel Castro (Cuba), Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua) and Hugo Chávez (Venezuela).

    We can establish a close correlation between Washington’s actions since 1989 and the political roller-coaster experienced in South America in the ensuing thirty years.

    Washington, drunk on the experience of being the only superpower in the post-Soviet period, sought to lock in her commanding position through the establishment of full-spectrum dominance, a strategy that entails being able to deal with any event in any area of ​​the globe, treating the world as Washington’s oyster.

    Washington’s endeavor to shape the world in her own image and likeness meant in practical terms the military apparatus increasing its power projection through carrier battle groups and a global missile defense, advancing towards the land and sea borders of Russia and China.

    Taking advantage of the US dollar’s dominance in the economic, financial and commercial arenas, Washington cast aside the principles of the free market, leaving other countries to contend with an unfair playing field.

    As later revealed by Edward Snowden, Washington exploited her technological dominance to establish a pervasive surveillance system. Guided by the principle of American exceptionalism, combined with a desire to “export democracy”, “human rights” became an enabling justification to intervene in and bomb dozens of countries over three decades, aided and abetted by a compliant and controlled media dominated by the intelligence and military apparatuses.

    Central and South America enjoyed an unprecedented political space in the early 2000s as a result of Washington focusing on Russia, China, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Georgia and Ukraine. The Latin Americans exploited this breathing space, with a dozen countries becoming outposts of anti-imperialism within a decade, advancing a strong socialist vision in opposition to free-market fundamentalism.

    Both Washington and Moscow placed central importance on South America during the Cold War, which was part of the asymmetric and hybrid war that the two superpowers undertook against each other. The determination by the United States to deny the Soviet Union a presence in the American hemisphere had the world holding its collective breath during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

    As any student of international relations knows, the first objective of a regional power is to prevent the emergence of another hegemon in any other part of the world. The reason behind this is to obviate the possibility that the new power may venture into other regions occupied by other hegemonic powers, thereby upsetting the status quo. The second primary objective is to prevent access by a foreign power to its own hemisphere. Washington abides by this principle through its Monroe Doctrine, set forth by President James Monroe, with the United States duly expelling the last European powers from the Americas in the early 19th century.

    In analyzing the events in South America, one cannot ignore an obvious trend by Washington. While the United States was intent on expanding its empire around the world by consolidating more than 800 military bases in dozens of countries (numbering about 70), South America was experiencing a political rebirth, positioning itself at the opposite end of the spectrum from Washington, favoring socialism over capitalism and reclaiming the ancient anti-imperialist ideals of Simon Bolivar, a South American hero of the late 18th century.

    Washington remained uncaring and indifferent to the political changes of South America, focusing instead on dominating the Middle East through bombs and wars. In Asia, the Chinese economy grew at an impressive rate, becoming the factory of the world. The Russian Federation, from the election of Putin in 2000, gradually returned to being a military power that commanded respect. And with the rise of Iran, destined to be the new regional power in the Middle East thanks to the unsuccessful US intervention in Iraq in 2003, Washington began to dig her own grave without even realizing it.

    Meanwhile, South America united under the idea of a common market and a socialist ideology. The Mercosur organization was founded in 1991 by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. But it was only when Venezuela, led by Chavez, became an associate member in 2004 that the organization assumed a very specific political tone, standing almost in direct opposition to Washington’s free-market template.

    Meanwhile, China and Russia continued their political, military and economic growth, focusing with particular attention on South America and the vast possibilities of economic integration from 2010. Frequent meetings were held between Russia and China and various South American leaders, culminating in the creation of the BRICS organization (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). Brazil, first with Lula and then with Dilma Rousseff, was the unofficial spokesperson for the whole of South America, aligning the continent with the emerging Eurasian powers. It is during these years, from the birth of the BRICS organization (2008/2009), that the world began a profound transformation flowing from Washington’s progressive military decline, consumed as it was by endless wars that ended up eroding Washington’s status as a world power. These wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have deeply undermined US military prestige, opening unprecedented opportunities for alliances and future changes to the global order, especially with the rise of Iran’s influence in the region as a counterweight to US imperialism.

    China, Russia and the South American continent were certainly among the first to understand the potential of this political and historical period; we can recall meetings between Putin and Chavez, or the presence of Chinese leaders at numerous events in South America. Beijing has always offered high-level economic assistance through important trade agreements, while Moscow has sold a lot of advanced military hardware to Venezuela and other South American countries.

    Economic and military assistance are the real bargaining chips Moscow and Beijing offer to countries willing to transition to the multipolar revolution while having their backs covered at the same time.

    The transformation of the world order from a unipolar to a multipolar system became a fact in 2014 with the return of Crimea to the Russian Federation following the NATO coup in Ukraine. The inability for the US to prevent this fundamental strategic defeat for Brussels and Washington marked the beginning of the end for the Pentagon still clinging on to a world order that disappeared in 1991.

    As the multipolar mutation developed, Washington changed tactics, with Obama offering a different war strategy to the one advanced during the George W. Bush presidency. Projecting power around the globe with bombs, carrier battle groups and boots on the ground was no longer viable, with domestic populations being in no mood for any further major wars.

    The use of soft power has always been part of the US toolkit for influencing events in other countries; but given the windfall of the unipolar moment, soft power was set aside in favor of hard power. However, following the failures of explicit hard power from 1990 to 2010, soft power was back in favor, and organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the International Republican Institute (IRI) set about training and financing organizations in dozens of hostile countries to subvert governments by underhanded means (colour revolutions, the Arab Spring, etc.).

    Among those on the receiving end of this soft-power onslaught were the South American countries deemed hostile to Washington, already under capitalist-imperialist pressure for a number of years in the form of sanctions.

    It is during this time that South America suffered a side effect of the new multipolar world order. The United States started retreating home after losing influence around the globe. This effectively meant focusing once again on its own backyard: Central and South America.

    Covert efforts to subvert governments with socialist ideas in the hemisphere increased. First, Kirchner’s Argentina saw the country pass into the hands of the neoliberal Macri, a friend of Washington. Then Dilma Rousseff was expelled as President of Brazil through the unlawful maneuvers of her own parliament, following which Lula was imprisoned, allowing for Bolsonaro, a fan of Washington, to win the presidential election.

    In Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, the successor of Correa, betrayed his party and his people by being a cheerleader for the Pentagon, even protesting the asylum granted to Assange in Ecuador’s embassy in London. In Venezuela following Chavez’s suspicious death, Maduro was immediately targeted by the US establishment as the most prominent representative of an anti-imperialist and anti-American Chavismo. The increase in sanctions and the seizure of assets further worsened the situation in Venezuela, leading to the disaster we are seeing today.

    South America finds itself in a peculiar position as a result of the world becoming more multipolar. The rest of the world now has more room to maneuver and greater independence from Washington as a result of the military and economic umbrella offered by Moscow and Beijing respectively.

    But for geographic and logistical reasons, it is more difficult for China and Russia to extend the same guarantees and protections to South America as they do in Asia, the Middle East and Europe. We can nevertheless see how Beijing offers an indispensable lifeline to Caracas and other South American countries like Nicaragua and Haiti in order to enable them to withstand Washington’s immense economic pressure.

    Beijing’s strategy aims to limit the damage Washington can inflict on the South American continent through Beijing’s economic power, without forgetting the numerous Chinese interests in the region, above all the new canal between the Atlantic and the Pacific that runs through Nicaragua (it is no coincidence that the country bears the banner of anti-imperialist socialism) that will be integrated into the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Moscow’s objective is more limited but just as refined and dangerous to Washington’s hegemony. A glimpse of Moscow’s asymmetrical military power was given when two Russian strategic bombers flew to Venezuela less than four months ago, sending an unmistakable signal to Washington. Moscow has the allies and the technical and military capacity to create an air base with nuclear bombers not all that far away from the coast of Florida.

    Moscow and Beijing do not intend to allow Washington to mount an eventual armed intervention in Venezuela, which would open the gates of hell for the continent. Moscow and Beijing have few interlocutors left on the continent because of the political positions of several countries like Argentina, Brazil and Colombia, which far prefer an alliance with Washington over one with Moscow or Beijing. We can here see the tendency of the Trump administration to successfully combine its “America First” policy with the economic and military enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine, simultaneously pleasing his base and the hawks in his administration.

    Leaving aside a possible strategy (Trump tends to improvise), it seems that Trump’s domestic political battle against the Democrats, declared lovers of socialism (naturally not as strident as the original Soviet or Chavist kind), has combined with a foreign-policy battle against South American countries that have embraced socialism.

    The contribution from China and Russia to the survival of the South American continent is limited in comparison to what they have been able to do in countries like Syria, not to mention the deterrence created by Russia in Ukraine in defending the Donbass or with China vis-a-vis North Korea.

    The multipolar revolution that is changing the world in which we live in will determine the rest of the century. One of the final battles is being played out in South America, in Venezuela, and its people and the Chavist revolution are at the center of the geopolitical chessboard, as is Syria in the Middle East, Donbass in Central Europe, Iran in the Persian Gulf, and the DPRK in Asia. These countries are at the center of the shift from a unipolar to a multipolar world order, and the success of this shift will be seen if these countries are able to resist US imperialism as a result of Moscow and Beijing respectively offering military help and deterrence and economic survival and alternatives.

    Russia and China have all the necessary means to place limits on the United States, protecting the world from a possible thermonuclear war and progressively offering an economic, social and diplomatic umbrella to those countries that want to move away from Washington and enjoy the benefits of living in a multipolar reality, advancing their interests based on their needs and desires and favoring sovereignty and national interest over bending over to please Washington.

  • Rubio Demands US Initiate "Widespread Unrest" In Venezuela

    Predictably during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Thursday, Republican chairman Marco Rubio condemned Venezuela’s Maduro as a “clear danger” and a “threat to the national security of the US.” To be expected the hearing was filled with plenty of threats and talk of flipping “military elites” and enforcing tougher sanctions. 

    But perhaps unexpected was just how out in the open and brazen Rubio’s own admissions of how far he’s willing to go in promoting regime change in Caracas. In public testimony he called on the US to promote “widespread unrest” in order to eventually bring down the Maduro government.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Rubio previously at the Colombian border, near the Simon Bolivar international bridge in Cucuta, Colombia on February 17. Image source: AFP

    It appears Rubio is now urging the White House to initiate a full-on “Syria option” for Venezuela, which implies covert arming, funding, and militarization of the opposition to reach peak escalation and confrontation with the government, perhaps inviting broader external military intervention, similar to efforts to topple Syria’s Assad over the past years. 

    We’ve commented before about how popular anti-Maduro protests seemed to have lost significant momentum of late, pretty much fading out altogether over the past couple weeks, after tensions came to a head on Feb. 23 when US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido led a failed attempt to get an unauthorized humanitarian aid convoy across the Colombian-Venezuelan border.

    This as it appeared the opposition was itching for a provocation that might draw the US and regional allies into some of kind of more direct intervention, and as a significant uptick in US military flights went to and from Colombia near the border with Venezuela. 

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

    During Thursday’s Senate hearing, there appeared a willingness to admit the fact that it appears Maduro is not going anywhere anytime soon, for example, when the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, said, “Confronting tyranny requires sustained commitment. But Maduro is not invincible. He’s far from it.”

    Though issuing plenty of threats of tighter sanctions and strangling Venezuelan oil exports, the Democrats on the committee stopped short of endorsing military action: “The support that we have lent unequivocally on Venezuela does not include the use of force,” Menendez said further.

    However, Rubio’s extreme “regime change by any means possible” hawkishness was on full display. Journalist Max Blumenthal reports: 

    At Senate hearing on Venezuela just now, Marco Rubio called for the US to promote “widespread unrest” as a means of encouraging regime change. His proposal was met with approval.

    Blumenthal noted this was a reference to instigating further “violent guarimba riots” — referencing the local Spanish word — that have been a feature of Venezuelan city streets since Maduro was sworn in for a second six year term in January, and which has further represented the more violent side of Venezuelan politics for years. 

    Journalist Clifton Ross, who has long reported from on the ground in Venezuela, explained the term as follows: 

    Your Spanish lesson for the day is guarimba, (feminine, as in ‘me voy a la guarimba’ I’m going to the guarimba) the blocking of roads, lighting of tires, and sometimes involving defensive acts of rock-throwing, a practice adopted by the Venezuelan opposition in response to elections they feel are unfair. Those who participate in the guarimbasare known as guarimberos. It is presently the season of guarimbas, and one can only hope, for the sake of the nation, that they will soon come to an end.

    Though Maduro has survived the latest round of international pressure to succumb to internal coup efforts led by a US-supported opposition, the fires of unrest Venezuela don’t look to be extinguishable anytime soon.

    As Ben Norton also pointed out on Thursday while speaking of using “humanitarian aid” as a pretext for regime change: “They’re not even hiding it at this point.”

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

    Indeed, Rubio personally promised just this during hearing: “To those in Venezuela: Your fight for freedom and restoration of democracy is our fight, and the free world has not and will not forget you,” he said, and added, “We [the United States] will be [focused] on this as long as it takes.” Earlier in the day Rubio told Fox News that:

    “Trump won’t give up until Maduro is gone in Venezuela.”

    More ominously, Rubio predicted during the hearing, “Venezuela is going to enter a period of suffering no nation in our hemisphere has confronted in modern history,” in reference to the Venezuelan military blocking US aid shipments and tightening sanctions.

    Of course Rubio laid all blame for the dire future plight of common Venezuelans on the Maduro regime alone, and not on his own admitted desire to stir yet more unrest in the country. 

  • Craddick: Today's Korea Quake & The Path Forward After The Hanoi Summit

    More than a few eyebrows were raised this evening after reports, from South Korean news, that an “artificial” quake has taken place in North Korea, which was immediately spun as a possible underground nuclear test. This is not entirely unexpected as President Trump has already been barraged by a wave of special interests hoping to derail peace talks. However, as Disobedient Media’s William Craddick details below, the end goal of denuclearization and peace for North Korea is within reach, stay the course.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Although the Hanoi Summit did not result in a signed deal between the negotiating teams, both North Korea and the United States should not come away from their meetings discouraged. As President Donald Trump said during a post-Summit press conference, both parties have come away with the information they needed to understand each other’s perspective. An agreement is within reach if dialog is continued with adequate frequency.

    With proper planning for the next meeting between the leaders of the United States (US) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), proper perspective for Chairman Kim Jong Un and cooperation from the Global Powers the mutually beneficial goal of denuclearization and an end to hostilities in the Korean Peninsula is within sight.

    I. Feedback On Hanoi

    The length of negotiations were unfortunately hampered not only by partisan bickering at home, but also the looming threat of the nearby border war that was breaking out between India and Pakistan as well as apparent harassment of North Korea by intelligence agencies.

    Both President Trump and Chairman Kim also miscalculated in their approach to negotiations. Kim’s insistence that sanctions be dropped before denuclearization was an unrealistic expectation borne out of North Korean fears of a potential US invasion that failed to account for US sensitivities about previous North Korean failures to conform to past agreements between the members of the Six Party Talks. Trump’s modus operandi of walking from negotiations to increase pressure and the likelihood of a favorable deal was also an unnecessary solution to a problem that could have been resolved by an extension of the Summit’s timeframe to hammer out points of contention.

    None of these mistakes were terminal however, and there is a very clear road forward towards peace and stability.

    II. Recommendations For Future Summit

    To overcome the stumbling block that hampered a total success in Hanoi a step by step process for denuclearization must be laid out. The most logical method of execution would be to agree to a road plan whereby North Korea would progressively disarm specific sites and dispose of weapons systems, verified by outside inspection. In return, the US would remove specific sanctions as benchmarks are met. Such a clear and controlled process will help boost North Korean confidence in the intention of the United States to deal fairly in relation to sanctions and assuage US fears about any unfaithful dealing by North Korea. If an agreement that allows for the DPRK to retain a limited number of nuclear weapons is reached it will need to include arrangements for routine inspections to ensure that the ordinance can be tracked to the satisfaction of the international community.

    Any deal that is reached must include a signed agreement by the United States pledging not to attack the DPRK or overthrow Kim Jong Un. Ideally, such promises would also be accompanied by a framework outlining the ways in which the United States will assist North Korea with economic development. Because North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons was incentivized by fear of foreign invasion by the US there must be assurances, publicly memorialized in writing, to reduce these kinds of tensions. These promises should not necessarily be expected to include the removal of American troops from South Korea since their presence is aimed to protect South Korea and Japan from a hypothetical invasion by China. As such an invasion would also necessitate the occupation of North Korea, the US deployment in South Korea also provides an element of security to Kim Jong Un, his people, and government.

    Although the process of nuclear disarmament is a priority that must be resolved before other concerns, a formal ending to the Korean War must also be a primary objective of both the DPRK and the United States. If both parties were to schedule disarmament strategically there is an outside possibility that the next summit could include the signing of an armistice. The choice of Seoul as the location for the next summit would also allow for representatives of South Korea and China to be present in the event that denuclearization talks had progressed satisfactorily to the point that the topic of the Korean War could be properly broached. Hosting a summit in Seoul would also create an opportunity for Kim Jong Un and President Moon Jae-in to discuss various issues relating to inter-Korean affairs and future partnerships as relations continue to warm.

    III. Recommendations To Chairman Kim Jong Un

    The young leader of North Korea certainly did not ask to come to power in the manner that he did and has faced a number of challenges while navigating power struggles and grappling with a country suffering from isolation and collapsing infrastructure. Kim Jong Un has an unprecedented opportunity to show the world that he will be a truly great ruler of North Korea that will take them from a hermit kingdom to a regional powerhouse on par with their southern neighbor. Steps that Chairman Kim could take towards this goal include voluntary denuclearization and an international diplomacy campaign to build new bridges and put his country on the map geopolitically.

    A. Voluntary Denuclearization

    Pre-emptively taking steps to denuclearize certain sites in the DPRK would be a maverick move from a country that has long caused consternation to its neighbors by behaving unpredictably. Such actions would also help North Korea make a stronger case to their American counterparts for progressively removing sanctions in return for verified movement towards denuclearization.

    It is a common trope amongst some political commentators that North Korea sought nuclear weapons with the primary goal of using them as a deterrent against the United States. But as journalists such as Julian Assange have correctly noted, North Korea’s WMD stockpiles were primarily acquired due to their fears of strategic threats from China. Chinese troops have already once become a de facto occupier of North Korea during the Korean War. Establishment media outlets such as Foreign Policy have also openly advocated for Chinese troops to occupy North Korea in recent years. Korea has a long history with China, which has generally ruled the region as a pseudo-vassal state in a similar manner the other areas such as Tibet and Xinjiang. There is little doubt that any direct Chinese military involvement in North Korea would lead to disastrous policies of Hanification in the region. It is through this lens that the DPRK’s behavior must be interpreted.

    B. Nuclear Technology Acquisition

    North Korea’s nuclear technology sounds worrying when described in lurid headlines, but the reality is that their stockpiles are more of a risk to themselves than the countries they supposedly would use them to attack.

    North Korea is notoriously cash starved, but their communist economy has been effective at producing conventional weaponry en mass. It is this one overabundant resource that has allowed the hermit kingdom to strike the deals needed to acquire second hand nuclear technology. Nations who have seemingly engaged in such transactions with the DPRK generally appear to be Middle Eastern and include Syria, Iran and potentially Egypt. This policy has also created some significant liability for North Korea, as the weaponry they sell often ends up on the black market or in the hands of rebel and terror groups which creates a chain of attribution tying the DPRK to organizations engaged in activities which they never had any intention of supporting.

    • Syria – As outlined by the Council on Foreign Relations’ Foreign Affairs, North Korea has had a collaborative relationship with the Syrian government since the 1960’s which has involved the frequent sale by the DPRK of conventional weaponry and missiles. It would appear that the terms of these sales included arrangements to transfer nuclear technology. In 2004, World Tribune reported the deaths of several technicians from the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, an institute responsible for the research and development of nuclear, biological, chemical and missile technology and weapons, in the Ryongchon province of North Korea. In 2008, Japanese national public broadcaster NHK cited South Korean military sources who stated that as many as ten North Koreans may have been killed in an Israeli airstrike of a facility in Deir ez-Zor, Syria that was allegedly a secret nuclear reactor capable of producing plutonium.

    • Iran – Iran and North Korea have also enjoyed a close relationship since the Iran-Iraq war, where North Korea began selling conventional weapons and military technology to Iran while also providing military advisors. The business relationship has opened another avenue for North Korea to acquire nuclear technology. A 2003 report by the Los Angeles Times highlighted the Iranian government’s connections to nuclear programs in Russia, China and Pakistan as well as North Korea. While the first three had long-established nuclear programs at the time, North Korea did not. This provides yet another indication that conventional weapons and technology transfers by the North Korean government were made with the goal of acquiring nuclear materials, technology and know-how.

    • Egypt – A third potential venue for the DPRK to barter for hand-me-down nuclear technology was Egypt. According to the Federation of American Scientists, Egypt launched a nuclear program in 1954, but shifted their focus to research and civilian applications in 1967 after being defeated in the Six Day War. Much like with Syria and Iran, Egypt has a long-standing military and diplomatic relationship with North Korea that has drawn the ire of the United Nations. Although their nuclear reactors were originally provided by the Soviet Union, Egypt has also acquired reactors for research purposes from other countries such as Argentina as recently as 1992. Given the long history of weapons sales by North Korea to Egypt, both directly and indirectly through brokerage services, it is likely nuclear technology transfers could have occurred in the course of these dealings.

    C. North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons And Technology Are A Danger To Itself

    Although North Korea believes their nuclear stockpiles are a deterrent, they are actually a double-edged sword that places them in danger because of the risk posed by the radiation they create as well as the fact that the mere possession of such assets will make the DPRK a target in the event of any nuclear war between the great powers that would suck them into a conflict they cannot win.

    Because of the aged condition of the technology purchased second-hand by the DPRK to develop nuclear capabilities it is likely that the radiation risk to the entire country is high. The many failures of North Korea’s missile tests have long been noted by Western and international media. Considering the run down materials and apparently shoddy construction of nuclear facilities, reactors and, missile technology there is a very real possibility that some of the North’s nuclear weapon “tests” were in fact accidental explosions. The potential for another disaster on the scale of Chernobyl or Fukushima may be far higher than publicly acknowledged.

    The risk of radiation poisoning to North Korea’s population could also be extreme based on the record high statisticsof cancer death rates in South Korea. Additionally, if the death of Kim Jong Il was in any way aggravated by radiation exposure, then the risk to Kim Jong Un’s health in the long term could become a concern for the overall wellbeing of his country.

    Nuclear weapons provide North Korea with a false sense of protection. In the event that war might break out between North Korea and one of the Great Powers or between the Great Powers themselves the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) would ensure that North Korea would become a target for multiple nations with more nuclear and conventional firepower than it could ever hope to muster in return.

    The possession of nuclear weapons is not a fix-all for North Korea and would in fact doom them to destruction in the event of a war. North Korea might fear that to relinquish them would condemn the country to the same fate as Libya or the Ukraine. But North Korea does not play into any strategies relating to regional destabilization like Libya or Venezuela. Nor does it factor into long term expansion plans for organizations like NATO. There is far more to gain by reducing or totally eliminating stockpiles of nuclear weapons than there is to retain them.

    D. A Diplomatic Charm Campaign

    Kim Jong Un is a man who is happy while traveling abroad, but who seems to merely be going through the motions when at home in a nation whose infrastructure is built with relics of the Japanese and Soviet eras. Embarking on a series of outreach efforts to project a more positive image of North Korea, build diplomatic ties and lay the groundwork for the establishment of embassies around the world is a much needed first step in transforming his country.  Meetings with European and Asian leadership will be essential if Kim wishes to communicate that the DPRK is open for business. Such a campaign could also include a historic visit to the White House in the same manner as the 1987 summit between General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan near the end of the Cold War.

    IV. Recommendations To The Big Three Powers

    With Trump’s walk-away in Hanoi, Russia and China have a fresh opportunity to step into negotiations and win a PR victory that will ultimately help make the world a safer place. All three great powers have the necessary experience working with WMDs and considerable incentive to peacefully eliminate the threat from North Korea. Yet only the United States has stepped up to the plate to do the heavy lifting involved with the process. Russia and China must begin to understand the benefits they stand to gain from assisting the DPRK on the path to peace.

    China’s incentive to bring peace and stability to the Korean Peninsula is one that plays into their long term geopolitical goals. Actions taken to help solve the crisis would allow Beijing to recuperate their image around Asia, particularly after years of contentious strife with countries such as Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam over territorial water disputes. Proof that China can resolve their conflicts peacefully will speak far louder than any words will be able to.

    Russia also has every reason to take an increased role in the peace process since they have begun to build a reputation as a stabilizing global power after their intervention to prop up the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war. Their cooperation with North Korea would create a new avenue for economic cooperation within the DPRK, whose economy is being eyed by many different corporate interests that hope to secure lucrative deals while assisting with infrastructure and trade development.

    V. Conclusion: Stay The Course, Ignore Naysayers

    It is little surprise to see that in the aftermath of the Hanoi Summit, President Trump has been barraged by a wave of special interests hoping to derail peace talks. This is very much analogous to the pressure that was placed on President Ronald Reagan in the aftermath of the 1986 Reykjavík Summit. Trump’s response must be, like Reagan’s, to ignore it and persevere.

    Institutions such as the Heritage Foundation have already begun baying for a return to hardline policies that will stifle any hope of a future deal. In the media, NBC News, an outlet that previously worked with the CIA and parts of the defense industry to undermine Korea negotiations, has once again been active in using any imaginable excuseto argue against the peace process. These distractions detract from the promising future of a prosperous, peaceful Korean Peninsula that no longer is a liability to the world, but an asset.

    Chairman Kim Jong Un must continue with open arms to work with the global powers and the DPRK’s neighbors to pursue denuclearization and an armistice. President Trump and Kim walked away from Hanoi with a continued feeling of goodwill and a clear vision of each other’s perspectives and desires. This understanding must be built on to achieve a total success that will become the toast of the international community for years to come.

  • Deadbeat Nation? 37 Million Credit Cards Were 90 Days Past Due In 4Q18 

    As those who follow our monthly consumer credit updates already knew, aggregate household debt balances jumped in 4Q18 for the 18th consecutive quarter, and were $869 billion (6.9%) above the previous peak (3Q08) of $12.68 trillion. As of late December, total household indebtedness was at a staggering $13.54 trillion, $32 billion higher than 3Q18. Overall household debt is now 21.4% above the 2Q 2013 trough, according to quarterly data from the Fed.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    “The increase in credit card balances is consistent with seasonal patterns but marks the first time credit card balances re-touched the 2008 nominal peak,” according to the report.

    There are approximately 480 million credit cards in US circulation, that is 1.47 credit cards per citizen, and up more than 100 million since the 2008 financial crisis.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    More troubling is that according to the Fed, 37 million Americans had a 90-day delinquent strike added to their credit report last quarter, an increase of two million from the fourth quarter of 2017. These 37 million delinquent accounts held roughly $68 billion in debt.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Credit-card balances slipping into serious delinquency have been growing for the last several years, according to the Fed.  As of 2019, a record number of Americans also have auto loans that are 90 days past due.

    “The substantial and growing number of distressed borrowers suggests that not all Americans have benefited from the strong labor market and warrants continued monitoring and analysis of this sector,” economists Andrew Haughwout, Donghoon Lee, Joelle Scally, and Wilbert van der Klaauw noted in a Feburary report. 

    Rising delinquency levels pose a serious risk to consumer spending, which accounts for more than 2/3 of economic activity.

    Almost a third of the credit card debt is held by the baby boomer generation, while millennials are up to their eyeballs in student loans. That could be troubling because some of the oldest and youngest borrowers are financially dependent on family members, according to Josh Wright, the chief economist at iCIMS and a former Federal Reserve staffer.

    “This tells us that if the expected economic slowdown gets serious, these are the groups that will pose the biggest threat to the economy,” he said.

    While President Trump continues to promote the “greatest economy ever” on Twitter, 1Q19 GDP expectations have crashed, a troubling sign that consumers have topped out.

    Last week, Goldman published its 1Q19 GDP tracking estimate at a paltry +0.9%. This forecast, as Goldman’s chief economist Jan Hatzius said, “reflects an expected drag from inventories, sequentially slower consumption growth, a decline in residential investment, and a four-tenths drag from the government shutdown.”

    Goldman wasn’t the only one echoing low-growth forecasts for 1Q19, but also the NY Fed’s GDP Nowcast, which showed growth crumbled from 1.22% (and 2.17% as recently as a month ago), to a stunning 0.88%, as a result of the collapse in Personal Consumption, Housing Starts, Wholesale Inventories, and others.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The most shocking: Atlanta Fed’s 1Q19 GDP nowcast – recently tumbled to just 0.5%. And while it is possible that consumers hit their maximum threshold of borrowing ahead of the holiday spending season, the growing refusal to service their credit card debts is an ominous sign of a nearing recession.

  • Chinese Exports Collapse In February Despite Largest Credit Injection Ever

    While a few will blame the total and utter collapse in China exports in February on the lunar new year’s early date this year, the scale of the miss is simply stunning.

    For a few brief seconds, everything was awesome as Bloomberg’s initial headline proclaimed a big RISE in exports, but they quickly corrected – causing heart attacks across every tape-reading algo in the world…

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

    Exports plunged 20.7 percent in February while imports fell 5.2 percent, leaving a trade surplus of $4.12 billion, the customs administration said Friday.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Economists forecast both exports and imports would shrink, although not as much as the fall. The Lunar New Year break fell about 10 days earlier than last year, likely boosting January’s shipments and weighing on February’s.

    But Chinese imports from the US crashed the most on record…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    In addition to the shutdown that happens each year, February was an uncertain period for Chinese exporters, with negotiations through the month on whether the U.S. would raise tariffs from March 1.

    Analysts were quick to defend the crash as an outlier…

    “There is big progress in the trade talks compared with a few months ago. But the trade tension itself brings uncertainties to companies, who could slow or delay their investment, or even move some of their production overseas” UBS AG economist Tao Wang said in a conference call on Thursday. A potential economic slowdown in the U.S. and Europe, together with their monetary policies, will also add to the external challenges for China, she said.

    And the rest of the world better hope so too… because if this correlation holds up – all hell is about to break loose back in the ‘decoupled’ USA…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    US equity futures dropped on the headlines…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    And Chinese stocks were already suffering their biggest drop of the year…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    As a reminder, this collapse is occurring after the PBOC announced it had flooded the economy with a gargantuan 4.64 trillion yuan in various new forms of debt which comprise China’s Total Social Financing in January, including notably, the “shadow” credit which Beijing had been aggressively cracking down on: an aggressive credit expansion which many took as a tacit confirmation that China was losing the fight with deleveraging.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    So if 4.64 trillion didn’t help… and RRR cuts… and promises of tax cuts… just what is the US and Chinese equity market pricing in?

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

  • Amazon Vendors Panic After Online Giant Suddenly Halts Purchases

    After Amazon successfully put a majority of its retail “brick and mortar” competitors out of business, it is now cracking down on its own supply chain.

    In Jeff Bezos latest move to boost flagging profits and razor-thin margins at the company’s core e-commerce business, Amazon abruptly stopped buying products over the past two weeks from many of its wholesale vendors, encouraging them to instead sell their products directly to consumers on Amazon’s marketplace, even if that means disrupting relationships with longtime suppliers and potentially limiting customer choice. And, according to Bloomberg which cited consultants who help clients sell on Amazon, thousands of vendors are affected.

    The departure from the company’s traditional business model of serving as logistical middleman between buyers and sellers, is pushing suppliers directly onto the marketplace – rather than selling products itself – and lets Amazon offload the risk but more importantly, the cost of purchasing, storing and shipping the merchandise. Instead, leveraging its quasi-monopolistic scale, Amazon is moving to charge suppliers for these services while taking a commission on each transaction, resulting in much higher margins per transaction. The disruptive strategy is part of a larger effort to reduce overhead by getting more suppliers to use an automated self-service system that requires no input from Amazon managers.

    Commenting on the change in the company’s traditional operating model, Amazon responded to Bloomberg that it regularly reviews its selling partner relationships “and may make changes when we see an opportunity to provide customers with improved selection, value and convenience.” What it meant is that it is now big enough to extract an even greater profit from each transaction as the company’s vendors have no other choice.

    And while their options may be limited, the vendors were not only shocked by the change in strategy, they are also furious: the abrupt cancellation of orders prompted panic this week at the ShopTalk retail conference that drew more than 8,000 retailers, brands and consultants to Las Vegas.

    Some attendees said Amazon stopped submitting routine orders last week for a variety of products, often without explanation. The drought continued this week, affecting more vendors and leaving them frustrated about the lack of communication from Amazon.

    One vendor who has been selling products to Amazon for five years said he got a canned response when he inquired why his routine weekly purchase order never came through. The response gave him no clarity about his standing as a vendor, he said.

    Meanwhile, unless sellers adopt to the new way of transacting they could be stuck with massive losses as they find themselves with significant inventory they are unable to find buyers for. As Bloomberg explains, because many suppliers source products from manufacturers months in advance, “they’ll have to quickly shift their sales tactics if the expected Amazon orders don’t come in.”

    Now more Amazon vendors will be forced to sell on the marketplace or risk getting stuck with unsold inventory, said Will Land, CEO of Marketplace Valet, an e-commerce logistics provider and consulting firm in Riverside, California.

    “When you get used to those big checks,” he said, “it’s hard to pull away.”

    “If you’re heavily reliant on Amazon, which a lot of these vendors are, you’re in a lot of trouble,” said Dan Brownsher, Chief Executive Officer of Channel Key, a Las Vegas e-commerce consulting business with more than 50 clients that sell more than $100 million of goods on Amazon annually. “If this goes on, it can put people out of business.” Brownsher was among several consultants who said Amazon’s move has affected thousands of vendors.

    In some ways the move shouldn’t have come as a surprise: in recent years, Amazon has increasingly prioritized its marketplace. More than half of all products sold on Amazon in 2018 came from marketplace merchants, while revenue providing services to those merchants is growing at double the pace of revenue from the online store. This is reflected in the company’s “sum of the parts” valuation: according to Evercore ISI analyst Anthony DiClemente, the marketplace business is worth about $250 billion, more than double the value of the online retail business.

    It’s almost as if having put many of its less efficient competitors out of business, Amazon has “gone hostile” against the very people who made its ascent to the throne of online retail monopoly possible in the first place.

    Which once again begs the question: is Amazon a monopoly, and when will the FTC finally be forced to me a determination. One thing is certain: as Bezos – and Amazon – seek to also directly influence consumer behavior, don’t be surprised not to find any mention of just how “capitalistic” Amazon has become, say, on the pages of the Washington Post, which is bundled as a “free” subscription to any paying member of Amazon Prime.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

  • World's Most Successful Hedge Fund Manager Ever Reveals Some Of Medallion's Secrets

    Two years ago, when profiling the world’s most successful hedge fund in history, Bloomberg stared like this:

    Sixty miles east of Wall Street, a spit of land shaped like a whale’s tail separates Long Island Sound and Conscience Bay. The mansions here, with their long, gated driveways and million-dollar views, are part of a hamlet called Old Field. Locals have another name for these moneyed lanes: the Renaissance Riviera.

    That’s because the area’s wealthiest residents, scientists all, work for the quantitative hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, based in nearby East Setauket. They are the creators and overseers of the Medallion Fund—perhaps the world’s greatest moneymaking machine. Medallion is open only to Renaissance’s roughly 300 employees, about 90 of whom are Ph.D.s, as well as a select few individuals with deep-rooted connections to the firm.

    The fabled fund, and we are of course talking about Renaissance Technologies’ employees-only Medallion fund, known for its intense secrecy and “black box”-like mystery of what actually goes on there, has produced about $55 billion in profit over the last 28 years, making it about $10 billion more profitable than funds run by billionaires Ray Dalio and George Soros. What’s more, it did so in a shorter time and with fewer assets under management. Just like Berie Madoff, the fund almost never loses money. Its biggest drawdown in one five-year period was half a percent.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    “Renaissance is the commercial version of the Manhattan Project,” says Andrew Lo, a finance professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and chairman of AlphaSimplex, a quant research firm. Lo credits Jim Simons, the 78-year-old mathematician who founded Renaissance in 1982, for bringing so many scientists together. “They are the pinnacle of quant investing. No one else is even close.”

    Yet while many have tried to emulate and reverse engineer Medallion’s success, nobody has come close to the inner workings of the world’s most successful money machine.

    At least until Wednesday, when fabled code-breaker and Renaissance founder, Jim Simons spoke at MIT, at the second of three talks about his iconic career; the talk, which followed last week’s conversation about mathematics and precedes next week’s on philanthropy, attracted an overflowing crowd that included MIT investing chief Seth Alexander. Andre Stern of the U.K.’s Oxford Asset Management introduced Simons.

    Simons launched Renaissance after leaving academia and in 1988 started the Medallion Fund, which through last year generated an unrivaled annual average return of about 40 percent, according to calculations by Bloomberg. “That’s net of fees,” Simons said in response to a question from a reporter.

    As discussed here extensively in the past, while Renaissance manages money across a handful of funds, the in-house only Medallion evokes the greatest mystery, and as Bloomberg notes, it employs trading strategies to predict price changes in global markets that over three decades no one on Wall Street has been able to replicate. That’s why the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission came calling after the Bernard Madoff scandal broke in 2008, Simons said.

    “They did study us,” said Simons as he spoke about his career in money management. “Of course, they didn’t find anything.”

    What was more unique, is that the traditionally media-shy Simons offered a some clues into what sets Renaissance apart:

    At the core of the company, which employs about 300 people, Simons said “is a great computing system, good scientists and low turnover.” Employees, who get a piece of the profits, sign non-disclosure agreements when they are hired and non-compete contracts after a couple of years on the job.

    “It’s fun to work there,” Simons said in a question and answer format led by MIT professor Andrew Lo, who started the quant fund AlphaSimplex Group. “People get paid a lot of money.” Some, like former co-CEO Robert Mercer may not find it that much fun to work there, but that’s why he recently quit the firm.

    According to Simons, the East Setauket-New York company never stops improving its models as it tries to stay a step ahead of the competition, which has flourished in recent years as quant firms attracted more assets than traditional, fundamental shops. Simons stepped down as head of the company in 2010 but remains as non-executive chairman. He said he meets with the company monthly, encouraging management to keep hiring good, young scientists.

    Sharing some more details into the company’s “secret sauce”, Simons said that the Medallion strategy is continually being reinvented, though some parts have remained for as many as two decades. Initially launched as a systematic, trend-following fund that traded in commodities markets, it was losing money after the first six months. So the fund was completely revamped.

    Still, the company realized after about 15 years that there were limits on how much Medallion could manage without pushing markets too much, Simons said in a conversation after the talk. So Renaissance finished booting outside investors in the fund in 2005, and since then has sought to limit its size.

    While Simons refused to say how much Medallion has in assets, Bloomberg calculations put it at about $10 billion. Simons did say there is about $45 billion in the firm’s other funds, which are still open to outside investors, and generate far smaller returns than Medallion.. They employ longer-term trading strategies, so the funds haven’t delivered the same level of returns as Medallion.

    “Yes inefficiencies do get traded out, but the market is dynamic,” Simons said, quoted by Bloomberg, in response to a question from the audience. “There’s room for new inefficiencies to materialize. We keep finding new things and throwing out old things.”

    After his talk, students descended on the former mathematician who had broken ground in the field decades ago, winning the American Mathematical Society’s Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry in 1976.

    In the middle of the scrum, Simons vaped, producing a cloud of smoke as he answered more questions.

    Below we publish a video recording of the first part of Simons’ three part presentations, discussing the role of mathematics in money.

  • Nonfarm Payroll Preview: Beware The Snow Shock, But All Eyes On Wages

    After January’s blockbuster report, analysts forecast Friday’s headline nonfarm payrolls will drop to a far more muted pace of 180k (12-month average: 234k), with the February jobs drop due to more seasonal temperatures weighing on weather-sensitive industries. Survey quirks may contribute to firmer wage growth, which could tick up to a pace last seen in 2009.

    Here’s what to expect from the BLS at 830am EST on Friday morning courtesy of RanSquawk:

    • Non-farm Payrolls: Exp. 180k, Prev. 304k.
    • Unemployment Rate: Exp. 3.9%, Prev. 4.0% (NOTE: the FOMC currently projects unemployment will stand at 3.5% at the end of
    • 2019, and 4.4% in the longer-run).
    • U6 Unemployment Rate: Prev. 8.1%.
    • Average Earnings Y/Y: Exp. 3.3%, Prev. 3.2%.
    • Average Earnings M/M: Exp. 0.3%, Prev. 0.1%.
    • Average Work Week Hours: Exp. 34.5hrs, Prev. 34.5hrs.
    • Private Payrolls: Exp. 175k, Prev. 296k.
    • Labour Force Participation: Prev. 63.2%.

    JOB GROWTH: While consensus expects a sharp drop from last month’s 304K payrolls print, predicting a number around 180K, Goldman is bracing for a big miss on the headline jobs print, estimating that nonfarm payrolls increased 150k in February, 30k below consensus and the slowest pace in five months. Goldman believes the trend in job growth has likely slowed from the 232k average pace of the last six months, and expects a drag of at least 40k from above-average snowfall during the February survey week. The February seasonal factors have also evolved unfavorably in recent years—perhaps reflecting the unusually mild weather of recent Februaries. If so, this would also restrain payroll growth in tomorrow’s report.

    WAGE GROWTH: While the Street expects a healthy 0.3% MM rise in average hourly earnings (3.3% for the YY), Nomura is slightly more optimistic, and forecasts the annualised rate will rise to 3.4%, the firmest pace since April 2009. “We expect average hourly earnings to increase 0.34% MM in February, partly due to a positive bias related to where the BLS survey week falls relative to the first of the month,” Nomura writes, “in addition, we see some upside risk to February AHE arising from unusual declines for certain industries during January including manufacturing and construction that could revert.”

    Meanwhile, Goldman estimates average hourly earnings increased 0.4% month-over-month, with the year-over-year rate rising two tenths to a new cycle high of 3.4% (consensus is +0.3% mom and +3.3% yoy). Our forecast reflects quite favorable calendar effects (the February survey week ended on the 16th of the month). Supervisory earnings have also been somewhat soft in recent months and could rebound, as headline average hourly earnings (+0.77% over the last three months) have underperformed the production and non-supervisory subset (+0.96%).

    JOBLESS CLAIMS: For the week of the February NFP survey period, US initial jobless claims for the week were reported at 236k vs 200.5k for the January survey period. Some desks had noted that the trend-pace of jobless claims has weakened (jobless claims ticking higher), which is likely to be a function of slowing economic growth. This may continue in the coming months, though  positive developments on China/US trade and Brexit may see some flattening in the summer. Additionally, claims have been rising from very low levels.

    ADP PAYROLLS: The ADP reported 179k payrolls were added to the US economy in November, short of the 195k the Street was looking for. Crucially, Moody’s chief economist stated that while the report was strong, job growth has likely peaked: “This month’s report is free of significant weather effects and suggests slowing underlying job creation. With very tight labour markets, and  record unfilled positions, businesses will have an increasingly tough time adding to payrolls.” Others noted that the data followed months of above-trend prints, so may not signal any meaningful shift in job growth. Additionally, Pantheon Macroeconomics says it  looks for an official NFP reading above the ADP print since the BLS data will include people returning to work following hurricanes. “ADP isn’t directly affected by hurricanes because it counts names on payroll lists, while the BLS only counts people who were paid during the survey period, so hourly-paid part-timers can drop off the numbers after storms, and then return the following month,” Pantheon said.

    BUSINESS SURVEYS: The employment sub-index in the manufacturing ISM report for February ticked down by 3.2 points, taking it to 52.3, signalling employment growth for a 29th straight month. “Employment continued to expand, but at the lowest level since November 2016, when the index registered 51.6 percent,” ISM said, noting that an Employment Index above 50.8 percent, over  time, is generally consistent with an increase in the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data on manufacturing employment. The  nonmanufacturing ISM employment sub-component fell by 2.6 points, taking it to a still healthy 55.2, representing the  60th consecutive monthly print above 50. The survey compiler noted comments from respondents, which included “lower employment  makes higherpaying positions elsewhere more attractive” and “It is more difficult to find well-qualified workers. Our backlog of  unfilled jobs is stubbornly the same despite the efforts of the HR department.”

    JOB CUTS: Challenger reported US employers announced 76.8k job cuts in February – the highest monthly total in over threeand-a-half years; that’s a 45% jump vs January, and 117% jump vs February 2018. Challenger noted that the sharp rise was primarily due to the US Army cutting over 50k jobs, as well as the fall in oil prices which caused thousands of job cuts within the energy  sector.

    “Job cuts have been trending upward since the last half of 2018,” Challenger wrote, “we continue to see companies respond to shifting consumer behaviour, new technology, as well as trade and market uncertainty through workforce restructuring,” and added that retailers, meanwhile, “are closing or revamping brick-and-mortar locations, leading to job loss or going bankrupt and cutting their entire workforces.” The organisation also drew attention to the auto sector, where job cuts are up by over 200% YY. “The Auto industry is one in which shifting consumer demand and new tech is creating the need to pivot in a different direction. Tech companies like Apple and Tesla are competing for the self-driving market, causing disruptions to traditional manufacturers and suppliers like Apple and Tesla are competing for the self-driving market, causing disruptions to traditional manufacturers and suppliers.”

    Here are they key qualitative considerations headed into tomorrow’s jobs print, via Goldman:

    Arguing for a weaker report:

    • Winter weather. Mild winter weather likely boosted job growth in December and January by 100k or more cumulatively, and the unwind of these effects is likely to weigh on job growth in February and early spring. Furthermore, survey-week snowfall swung above average in February, with a 1-inch seasonally adjusted rise vs. January (population-weighted basis, see left panel of Exhibit 1). The February seasonal factors have also evolved unfavorably in recent years (see right panel) – note the possibility that the seasonal adjustment software is fitting to the unusually mild weather of recent Februaries. If so, the seasonal factors could amplify the impact of snowy weather in tomorrow’s report. Goldman’s February payroll growth estimate embeds a -40k weather effect, but there is risk of a considerably larger drag.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    • Jobless claims. Initial jobless claims rose over the five weeks between the payroll reference periods (+8k to 229k on average, a 10-month high). This increase is consistent with some slowing in the underlying pace of job growth. Continuing claims also rose from survey week to survey week (+89k to 1,805k), but we continue to believe that residual seasonality is currently boosting that measure (by 100-150k).
    • Job cuts. Announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas increased by 23k in February to 66k (SA by GS). On a year-over-year basis, announced job cuts rose 41k, mostly reflecting increases in the industrial goods (+28k yoy) and retail (+13k yoy) sectors, the latter of which may include the impact of retailer bankruptcies (Payless Shoes, Charlotte Russe).

    Arguing for a stronger report:

    • Job availability. Three measures of labor demand all rose to new cycle highs in their most recent readings. The Conference Board labor market differential—the difference between the percent of respondents saying jobs are plentiful and those saying jobs are hard to get—rose 0.2pt to +34.3 in February. JOLTS job openings also rose (+169k to 7,335k in December). Third, the Conference Board’s Help Wanted Online (HWOL) index—whose methodology has been improved to remove duplicate ads and other sources of volatility—rose to 0.3pt to 104.0 in February.
    • Labor supply constraints. Historically, labor supply constraints are less likely to bind in February, as first-reported job growth is often relatively strong when the unemployment rate is below estimates of NAIRU (for example, in 1997-99, 2006, and 2017-18). This may reflect the seasonally elevated pool of unemployed workers available to be hired (following end-of-year layoffs). Relatedly, firms may pull forward some spring hiring into February if they expect difficulty finding workers.

    Neutral Factors:

    • Business surveys. Service-sector business surveys generally improved in February, as our headline non-manufacturing tracker  rose by 4.0pt. While the employment component also increased (+1.3pt to 54.0), it has still declined notably in recent months and remains well below the elevated levels seen in mid-2018. Manufacturing-sector surveys were mixed in February, and our manufacturing employment tracker remained relatively stable (+0.2pt to 55.8). Taken together, business surveys suggest a slowdown in the pace of job growth but hardly a collapse (see Exhibit 2). Service-sector job growth rose 224k in January and averaged 173k over the last six months. Manufacturing payroll employment rose 13k in January and increased 19k on average over the last six months.
    • ADP. The payroll-processing firm ADP reported a 183k increase in February private payroll employment—7k below consensus and moderately below the average pace over the prior six months (+214k). While slightly below expectations, the February ADP report suggests that the underlying pace of job growth remains above potential. We also note that winter weather tends to affect the official payroll measure more so than it affects the ADP series.
    • End of Government Shutdown. While the partial government shutdown (Dec. 22 through Jan. 25) did not significantly affect January’s federal employment figures (+1k mom sa), contractor layoffs may have weighed on the information (-4k) and business services (+30k vs. six month average of +43k) categories in that report. In terms of February job growth, while a rebound in contractor activity could conceivably boost employment in some services categories, federal office closures in the first two weeks of the payroll month may have depressed federal hiring.

    Source: RanSquawk, Goldman

Digest powered by RSS Digest