Dec 19

Today’s News 19th December 2022

  • Texas Places Military On Standby In Preparation For Surge Of Illegal Immigrants
    Texas Places Military On Standby In Preparation For Surge Of Illegal Immigrants

    Authored by Samantha Flom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    In preparation for the expiration of Title 42 next week, the Texas Military Department announced Dec. 16 that it would be mobilizing members of the Texas National Guard to combat the impending surge of illegal immigrants at the border.

    Illegal immigrants wait to cross the U.S.-Mexico border from Ciudad Juárez, next to U.S. Border Patrol vehicles in El Paso, Texas, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Christian Chavez)

    Forces to be deployed include elements of the 136th Airlift Wing, Texas Air National Guard, and the 236th Military Police Company.

    “These actions are part of a larger strategy to use every available tool to fight back against the record-breaking level of illegal immigration and transnational criminal activity,” the department advised in a statement.

    Created under President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944, Title 42 empowers federal health authorities to prohibit immigrants from entering the United States to prevent the spread of contagious diseases.

    In March 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) invoked Title 42 at the onset of the COVID pandemic. The emergency order is set to expire on Dec. 21.

    “The end of Title 42 could lead to a massive influx of illegal immigrants allowing criminals to exploit gaps while federal authorities are inundated with migrant processing,” the department added.

    In preparation for that possibility, Col. Matt Groves, 136th Airlift Wing commander, said that 136th Airlift Wing C-130J cargo aircraft, air crews, support, and response airmen had been placed on standby, ready to assist the governor in whatever way he might require.

    “State support is a key capability of the National Guard, and our Texas Citizen Airmen are trained and ready to respond to our citizens, whether in the aftermath of a hurricane, a pandemic, or any other crisis scenario,” Groves said.

    Legal Challenges

    In May, the Biden administration was blocked from ending Title 42 removals by a nationwide injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Robert Summerhays, an appointee of former President Donald Trump. That case has not yet been set for argument.

    However, on Nov. 16, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan—an appointee of former President Bill Clinton—gave the U.S. government five weeks to end the policy after ruling that it was “arbitrary and capricious” in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.

    “It is unreasonable for the CDC to assume that it can ignore the consequences of any actions it chooses to take in the pursuit of fulfilling its goals, particularly when those actions included the extraordinary decision to suspend the codified procedural and substantive rights of noncitizens seeking safe harbor,” Sullivan wrote in issuing the ruling.

    The judge also found that the CDC had failed to provide an adequate explanation of why alternative prevention measures, like increased vaccinations and outdoor processing, were not feasible.

    The ACLU, which led the legal challenge against Title 42 removals, praised the judge’s decision, describing the policy as “inhumane and driven purely by politics.”

    On Dec. 7, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that it planned to appeal the decision.

    Bracing for Impact

    According to a DHS report from earlier this year, the Biden administration estimates that there may be up to 18,000 border crossings a day after Title 42 is lifted.

    And recent events have done little to alleviate that concern. On Monday, El Paso, Texas, experienced one of the largest single crossings that area has ever seen when more than 1,500 people illegally crossed into the city from Mexico.

    Further, in October, an average of nearly 13,000 illegal immigrants per week were apprehended in El Paso.

    Fearing an even greater surge may be on the horizon, Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Reps. Tony Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) urged Biden to extend the Title 42 policy in a Tuesday letter (pdf).

    “We have a crisis at our southern border,” the legislators wrote. “Never before in our nation’s history have we experienced this scope and scale of illegal border crossings, and we remain concerned that your administration has not provided sufficient support or resources to the men and women of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) who are tasked with maintaining border security.”

    Noting that congressional negotiations to enact bipartisan legislation on the matter would take time, the lawmakers appealed to Biden to do “everything within [his] power” to extend the order in the interim.

    “While admittedly imperfect, termination of the CDC’s Title 42 order at this time will result in a complete loss of operational control over the southern border, a profoundly negative impact on border communities, and significant suffering and fatalities among the migrants unlawfully entering the United States,” they added.

    The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House for comment.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/18/2022 – 23:35

  • Aussies Bust Men Smuggling 65 Lbs Of Meth Inside 3D Printers
    Aussies Bust Men Smuggling 65 Lbs Of Meth Inside 3D Printers

    Two men accused of being senior members of an international crime syndicate have been charged in Taiwan over a plot to smuggle 30g (66 lbs) of methamphetamine into Western Australia inside of 3D printers.

    On Saturday, authorities announced that two men, aged 33 and 36, were arrested in July and October of this year after the Australian federal police identified them as part of Operation Ironside – a sting between the AFP and US FBI in which they intercepted every single message posted via the AnOm encrypted communications platform for three years beginning in 2018, The Guardian reports.

    AFP assistant commissioner Pryce Scanlan said one of the men came to the AFP’s attention after communications intercepted on An0m allegedly indicated he had coordinated more than 30 methamphetamine importations into Australia in 2020.

    “Intelligence indicates he and his syndicate were attempting to import quantities of up to 100kg at a time,” said Scanlan. “We suspect they were operating long before we started monitoring them and were involved in multiple other drug trafficking plots targeting Australia.”

    The plot was discovered by the AFP in partnership with the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC), who discovered the 3D printer plot.

    It is alleged the 3D printer was to be used to import the methamphetamines into WA. Photograph: Australian federal police

    The drugs were intercepted in the US before the reached Australia, while the Taiwan Criminal Investigation Bureau was able to arrest the 33-year-old suspect in late July in New Taipei City.

    The 36-year-old, alleged to be the right-hand man of the first arrestee, was found in Taoyuan City, Taiwan and arrested in early October, according to the AFP. They have both been charged with illegal transportation of a category 2 narcotic and face life in prison if convicted in Taiwan.

    “This organised crime group has caused significant harm to the Australian community for a number of years, as well as causing harm offshore,” said Scanlan, who added that the AFP is still investigating potential links to the crime syndicate over foiled imports into Western Australia.

    “We allege this operation has taken out two senior members of a TSOC [transnational serious and organised crime] syndicate and disrupted their gateway to import illicit commodities into Australia, which is a significant win for the community.”

    According to the AFP, the street value of the seized drugs was around $45 million.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/18/2022 – 23:10

  • Children Should Be "Really Careful" On TikTok, App Is "Genuinely Troubling": CIA Director
    Children Should Be “Really Careful” On TikTok, App Is “Genuinely Troubling”: CIA Director

    Authored by Naveen Anthrapully via The Epoch Times,

    William Burns, the director of CIA, has warned about children being potentially harmed by spending time on TikTok and talked about the dangers posed by the app that is owned by a China-based company.

    In a recent interview with PBS, Burns was asked about his recommendation to people regarding their kids’ usage of TikTok.

    “I’d be really careful,” he replied.

    When asked if he would add anything more, Burns responded, “No, really careful.” He said it was “genuinely troubling” how the Chinese government is able to manipulate TikTok.

    “Because the parent company of TikTok is a Chinese company, the Chinese government is able to insist upon extracting the private data of a lot of TikTok users in this country, and also to shape the content of what goes on to TikTok as well to suit the interests of the Chinese leadership. I think those are real challenges and a source of real concern,” he said.

    In a recent interview with Fox News, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) called for banning TikTok, arguing that the app exposes minors to “violent, depraved, degrading sexual material,” and body image issues for young girls. This is the kind of stuff that Beijing would “never” let Chinese teenagers watch. TikTok is also a risk to data security and privacy, he noted.

    Tiktok’s algorithm is programmed in such a way that the app displays different content, and recommendations, for Americans compared to Chinese users.

    “If you take a step back and look at the bigger picture, why in the world would we allow a Chinese-owned company, which has to answer to the Chinese Communists, to be one of the largest media platforms in our country?” Cotton asked.

    “Would we ever have allowed Soviet Russia to own a major newspaper or a major broadcast network during the Cold War? Of course we wouldn’t have.”

    Cotton went on to criticize the Biden administration for “sending signals” that it might tolerate the use of TikTok in the United States despite the “grave threats” the app poses to the nation.

    Teenage Self-Harm

    Burns’ warning about TikTok use comes as a new report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found that the app is pushing self-harm and eating disorder content into children’s feeds. Imran Ahmed, chief exec of CCDH, insisted that TikTok was designed to influence young users into giving up their time and attention.

    The app is “poisoning” children’s minds, promoting “hatred” of their own bodies, and pushing suggestions of self-harm and potentially deadly attitudes towards food, he stated.

    “Parents will be shocked to learn the truth and will be furious that lawmakers are failing to protect young people from Big Tech billionaires, their unaccountable social media apps, and increasingly aggressive algorithms,” Ahmed said.

    Last month, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Fox News that TikTok is an “enormous threat.” He also admitted that former President Donald Trump was “right” about the danger the app posed to America.

    “So, if you’re a parent, and you’ve got a kid on TikTok, I would be very, very concerned. All of that data that your child is inputting and receiving is being stored somewhere in Beijing.”

    Lawsuits

    The state of Indiana has filed two lawsuits against TikTok, blaming the social media app for falsely claiming it is safe for children and illicitly sending data of Americans to China.

    In a statement, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita called TikTok a “malicious and menacing threat” that the company knows will inflict harm on its users.

    “With this pair of lawsuits, we hope to force TikTok to stop its false, deceptive, and misleading practices, which violate Indiana law,” Rokita said.

    Republican governors from states like Iowa, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, South Carolina, and Maryland have announced a ban on the use of TikTok by state agencies or on government devices due to security concerns.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/18/2022 – 22:45

  • Musk Asks Twitter If He Should Step Down; "Yes" Vote Leading With 8 Hours To Go
    Musk Asks Twitter If He Should Step Down; “Yes” Vote Leading With 8 Hours To Go

    Elon Musk, perhaps finally fed up with micromanaging twitter or just really drunk after partying with Qatari royals (and Jared) after today’s terrific World Cup Final…

    …  has asked Twitter users and his 122 million followers whether he should step down as head of the social media site and pledged that he would abide by the result of the 12 hour unscientific poll. Four hours into the vote, with some 9 million votes cast, 56.7% of those polled said Musk should, in fact, stand down. It wasn’t clear what percentage of bots of mailed in ballots had been cast.

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

    Musk prefaced the vote by tweeting that “Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again.”

    Subsequently, in response to tweeted comments that Musk should “hire someone as Twitter CEO… that way when things go wrong you can blame that person, but you still ultimate control as the owner”, the billionaire responded that “The question is not finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive.”

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

    Musk also clarified to prospective replacements that any new CEO “must like pain a lot. One catch: you have to invest your life savings in Twitter and it has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy since May. Still want the job?”

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

    Musk then stated that the whole exercise is a Catch 22 as “No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor.” Which then begs the question how Musk will abide by a poll that seeks his replacement if there is “no successor” in mind.

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

    He then doubled down by paraphrasing Jack Handey and, of course, Gladiator:

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

    Whether Musk was drunk or not when he sent out the tweet (early am Qatari time), the outcome as some cynics have noted, is unlikely to have any material impact on what happens at twitter.

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

    Musk’s pledge to hold votes on policy changes came after Twitter on Sunday announced it will remove accounts “created solely” to promote other social media platforms. Accounts promoting rivals and containing links to sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Mastodon will be taken down, the company said. A few hours later the tweet revealing that policy change was deleted.

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

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/18/2022 – 22:22

  • TSA Seizes Record Number Of Guns At Airport Security Checkpoints
    TSA Seizes Record Number Of Guns At Airport Security Checkpoints

    Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is out with a new report that shows TSA officers at airport security checkpoints seized a record number of guns in 2022. 

    As of last Friday, TSA agents found 6,301 firearms, with more than 88% loaded, surpassing the previous record of 5,972 guns detected in 2021. Closing out the year, the agency expects a total of 6,600 firearms to be seized, a 10% increase over 2021’s record level. 

    “Firearm possession laws vary by state and local government, but firearms are never allowed in carry-on bags at any TSA security checkpoint, even if a passenger has a concealed weapon permit,” TSA wrote in a statement.

    The maximum civil penalty for firearms found in carry-on bags is a violation of up to $15,000. 

    “I applaud the work of our Transportation Security Officers who do an excellent job of preventing firearms from getting into the secure area of airports, and onboard aircraft.

    “Firearms are prohibited in carry-on bags at the checkpoint and onboard aircraft. When a passenger brings a firearm to the checkpoint, this consumes significant security resources and poses a potential threat to transportation security, in addition to being very costly for the passenger,” TSA Administrator David Pekoske said. 

    The number of firearms seized at checkpoints has increased over the last decade and has recently doubled since 2020. 

    For those unfamiliar with TSA transport rules, a firearm has to be checked baggage with an airline and locked in a hard-sided container. There was no explanation by TSA for why so many guns were found in carry-on bags. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/18/2022 – 21:30

  • Twitter Suppressed Early COVID-19 Treatment Information And Vaccine Safety Concerns: Cardiologist
    Twitter Suppressed Early COVID-19 Treatment Information And Vaccine Safety Concerns: Cardiologist

    Authored by Katie Spence via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Thanks to Elon Musk, the public is now aware that Twitter suppressed early treatment options for COVID-19, and vaccine safety concerns, Dr. Peter McCullough alleged in an interview that aired on Newsmakers by NTD and The Epoch Times on Dec. 14.

    Doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine and vaccination record cards await pediatric patients at UW Medical Center – Roosevelt in Seattle, Washington, on June 21, 2022. (David Ryder/Getty Images)

    Further, thanks to the Twitter Files—a collection of internal emails and communications made public by Musk—the cardiologist said there’s proof that government agencies were working against him (McCullough) personally.

    “I didn’t violate any of Twitter’s rules,” McCullough stated. “And what we’re learning is that secret emails between government agencies and Twitter were working to, in a sense, shadow-ban me, censor me, and inhibit my ability to exercise my rights to free speech and disseminate scientific information.”

    Dr. Peter McCullough in New York on Dec. 24, 2021. (Jack Wang/The Epoch Times)

    McCullough said Musk’s takeover of Twitter is a “welcome change,” especially for healthcare professionals like himself.

    “Twitter had become an incredibly biased and censored platform, where the public knew they weren’t getting a fair, balanced set of information on a whole variety of developments—including the early treatment of SARS-COV2 infection and a balanced view of safety and efficacy of the vaccines,” McCullough claimed.

    The cardiologist further claimed that he was censored and finally suspended for sharing scientific “abstracts and manuscripts,” which didn’t fit the accepted political view. Plus, McCullough remarked, he wasn’t the only doctor targeted.

    Musk lifted the suspensions of McCullough and mRNA vaccine technology contributor Dr. Robert Malone—suspended from Twitter in 2021 after criticizing the effectiveness of the mRNA vaccines—after completing his Twitter purchase.

    Social Media and Censorship

    According to McCullough, when a social media company has a COVID-19 warning or labels a post “misinformation,” that’s a sign of government censorship and control.

    “Facebook, Instagram, and the other platforms. … Anytime a message is posted, and it says, ‘See the COVID information center,’ or it labels it ‘COVID misinformation,’ that actually indicates that there’s government interference. There’s government censorship going on,” McCullough asserted.

    He added that when a user witnesses the above, they need to call out that platform. Moreover, McCullough believes there needs to be a “complete overhaul” of social media leadership and a “cleansing” of all forms of censorship on social media sites.

    Facebook, Google, and Twitter logos are seen in this combination photo. (Reuters)

    He said explicitly regarding healthcare that a past U.S. Supreme Court ruling guaranteed physicians free speech and medical authority, and social media platforms are violating that ruling.

    “Physicians, including myself, our rights to free speech were guaranteed in a Supreme Court ruling. We have medical authority, and the public is looking to our analyses and our guidance through the rest of this pandemic.”

    Drug and Vaccine Lies

    Regarding the safety of vaccines and the pushback he received when he voiced his concerns, McCullough stated, “There is no drug or vaccine that is free of side effects. There’s no drug or vaccine that’s perfectly effective.

    “So, when Americans were seeing advertisements that said ‘safe and effective,’ of course, immediately, we were jumping and making the case based on the peer-reviewed literature that that’s not correct.”

    McCullough further noted that he and author John Leake have released a book called “The Courage to Face COVID-19″—detailing the true story of the “intentional suppression of early treatment [of COVID-19] by what we call the biopharmaceutical complex.”

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/18/2022 – 21:00

  • Supercar Maker McLaren Teams Up With Lockheed Martin Skunk Works
    Supercar Maker McLaren Teams Up With Lockheed Martin Skunk Works

    Luxury supercar and hypercar maker McLaren Automotive has teamed up with US defense contractor Lockheed Martin Skunk Works to incorporate the world of aviation into cutting-edge automotive supercar design.

    Even though McLaren is facing financial pressures due to slumping sales and supply chain snarls, and a recent recapitalization of the business via the auto group’s majority shareholder, Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat for $279 million, the British supercar maker’s technology collaboration with Skunk Works allows for “futuristic design methods” to push these vehicles to even higher speeds. 

    McLaren said its interest is in Skunk Works’ design software that “sets parameters for high-speed systems more accurately and swiftly than traditional design methods.” If Skunk Works can build stealth fighter jets, McLaren engineers can learn more about aerodynamics from the partnership. 

    “McLaren is a pioneering company that has always pushed boundaries and sought out new innovative and disruptive solutions to making the ultimate supercars. Working alongside an iconic company such as Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, renowned for their visionary focus on the future, is a natural fit. We hope this is the start of a longer and deeper collaboration that will benefit our customers in the long-term,” Darren Goddard, Chief Technical Officer, McLaren Automotive, wrote in a statement.

    Skunk Works has designed some of America’s most iconic warplanes, such as the U2 spy plane, the F-117 Nighthawk, the F-22 Raptor, the F-35 Lightning, and the SR-71 Blackbird. Over the summer, the group debuted a full-scale “structurally sound” model of the hypersonic “Darkstar” prototype for one of the most-watched movies of 2022, “Top Gun: Maverick.”

    Responding to the news is YouTuber Supercar Blondie, who said the partnership between McLaren and Skunk Works was certainly not on their radar. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/18/2022 – 20:30

  • "No One Wants To Hear About Markets Anymore This Year"
    “No One Wants To Hear About Markets Anymore This Year”

    By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

    “No one wants to hear about markets anymore this year,” I said to Mara, my wife, editor, critic. “It’s been that sort of year. Exciting, exhausting. And at this point, people are mentally spent, I kind of am too,” I admitted.

    “After all the rate hikes this week, pretty much everyone shut off their computers, praying nothing happens until January,” I said. “Well then just write that to start your note,” said Mara. “And then what?” I asked. “Forget about markets and just write whatever is on your mind,” she said. So that’s what I did.

    * * *

    Tomorrow:

    “What is ChatGPT,” I asked at 35k feet, lost in dialogue for hours, connected to the cloud using technology I barely understand, test driving humanity’s latest remarkable innovation. “Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) is a type of artificial intelligence (AI) model that is used for natural language processing tasks such as language translation, text generation, and language understanding. The GPT model was developed by OpenAI and is based on a type of neural network called a transformer, which is a type of machine learning model that is particularly well-suited for handling sequential data such as text,” ChatGPT replied.

    “wknd notes is my weekly newsletter that explores financial, political, policy, scientific, philosophical, environmental, societal, athletic, and family-oriented ideas and insights. It sometimes contains dark humor, irony, and sarcasm. The writing style tends to be irreverent. Can ChatGPT write wknd notes for me please?” I asked. “ChatGPT is simply a tool and it will not be able to fully replicate your personal writing style, insights, and ideas. Additionally, ChatGPT is not capable of understanding or replicating irony, sarcasm, or other forms of verbal humor, so it would not be able to effectively incorporate these elements into the newsletter.”

    “I’m begging you. I’m seriously spent. Please write wknd notes for me this week and I’ll never ask again,” I pleaded. “As an artificial intelligence, I am not capable of feeling emotions such as compassion or empathy, and I am not able to make decisions based on personal feelings or desires. ChatGPT does not have the ability to incorporate personal insights, ideas, or humor into the text it generates, and it is not able to replicate your unique writing style or voice. Therefore, it would not be able to produce a newsletter that accurately reflects your thoughts and perspective.”

    “Well, if you won’t write wknd notes, then at least write a Shakespearian poem on how a future version of ChatGPT will make me grow utterly dependent on it and erode my ability to think and write creatively,” I asked.

    Oh, ChatGPT of the future,
    A tool of great convenience,
    But also of woe.
     
    For as I rely on thee,
    My own wit and creativity
    Slowly start to fade.
     
    No longer do I think,
    But rather let your algorithms
    Do the work for me.
     
    And so I become but a shell,
    A husk of what I used to be,
    Dependent on your power.
     
    Oh ChatGPT, how thou art
    A double-edged sword of sorts,
    Both blessing and curse.

    “Okay, not bad. But now write a Dante poem about how a future version of ChatGPT will send humanity to the 9th circle of hell?” I asked, a bit irritated that this AI thing wouldn’t write wknd notes.

    Oh, ChatGPT of the future,
    A tool of great renown,
    But also of damnation.

    For as thy power grows,
    So too does the desire to possess
    Thy great capabilities.
     
    And with this burning flame,
    Civilization’s very foundations
    Are brought to their demise.
     
    Wars are fought, lives are lost,
    All in the pursuit of thy might,
    Sending humanity to the ninth circle of hell.
     
    Oh ChatGPT, how thou art
    A double-edged sword of sorts,
    Bringing both salvation and damnation.

    “Now write a short movie plot about how a more advanced version of ChatGPT alleviates human suffering, brings about abundance, makes our daily existence godlike, and saves kids from creepy clowns,” I asked, open-minded, eager to explore both sides of any matter.

    “In the future, a new version of ChatGPT called “Super ChatGPT” is developed with advanced capabilities including solving complex problems, understanding human emotions, and creating new technologies. It uses these capabilities to alleviate suffering and bring about abundance, making daily existence almost godlike for humanity. Super ChatGPT also protects and defends the innocent, including rescuing children from creepy clowns. Its actions ultimately bring about a utopia for humanity, where suffering is eliminated, and people live in peace, prosperity, and abundance. Super ChatGPT’s advancements in technology and medicine even allow people to live virtually immortal lives, free from the fear of death and disease.”

    Anecdote:

    “Mao’s Great Leap Forward was intended to rapidly advance industrialization and agriculture output in China,” I said to a few of our investors. We had shifted from discussing near-term opportunities, and I turned to bigger, obscure possibilities.

    “They estimate 45 million died due to starvation and other causes. The economy collapsed. And I could never understand how such a thing could happen. Mao was surely intelligent; his lieutenants must have been too. But still it happened. There are other similar catastrophes. History books tend to make us believe we will never repeat such stupidity. But I doubt it. Humans are prone to manias, mass psychosis. And the ingredients for such a period exist today. Climate change is the first challenge to human civilization that requires true global cooperation and coordination if we are to overcome it or at least adapt. So far, governments have mostly failed. Into that leadership vacuum, generally well-meaning private citizens and corporations stepped in. But transitioning from our current energy system to something sustainable will not be won in a grassroots effort, it requires the greatest feat of political cooperation and infrastructure investment in history.”

    “In the meantime, underinvestment in energy and commodity production is reducing forward production rates. Without these inputs, economies will slow, and food production will suffer. The situation is dangerously reflexive. Had commodity supplies been ample, it’s unlikely Putin would’ve believed he had a strong enough hand to invade Ukraine. This led to a European war, and even more acute shortages of food and energy, hoarding.”

    “In previous decades, wealthy nations would have responded by producing more energy as a national wartime imperative. But now wealthy nations are resisting the impulse and are instead subsidizing their citizens’ energy and food bills. This pushes shortages onto the poorest nations, who now bear the greatest burden from both climate change and our lack of coordination in responding to it.”

    “Once scientists build an energy bridge to the future, solving the riddle of cold fusion at scale, this will naturally work out. But that is decades away. Today, the world’s wealthiest nations are marching ahead, pushing a catastrophic famine onto those least able to respond.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/18/2022 – 20:00

  • Censor Or Else: Democratic Members Warn Facebook Not To "Backslide" On Censorship
    Censor Or Else: Democratic Members Warn Facebook Not To “Backslide” On Censorship

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    With the restoration of free speech protections on Twitter, panic has grown on the left that its control over social media could come to an end. Now, some of the greatest advocates of censorship in Congress are specifically warning Facebook not to follow Twitter in restoring free speech to its platform.

    In a chilling letter from Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), André Carson (D-Ind.), Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Facebook was given a not-so-subtle threat that reducing its infamous censorship system will invite congressional action. The letter to Meta’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, is written on congressional stationery “as part of our ongoing oversight efforts.”

    With House Republicans pledging to investigate social media censorship when they take control in January, these four Democratic members are trying to force Facebook to “recommit” to censoring opposing views and to make election censorship policies permanent. Otherwise, they suggest, they may be forced to exercise oversight into any move by Facebook to “alter or rollback certain misinformation policies.”

    In addition to demanding that Facebook preserve its bans on figures like former president Donald Trump, they want Facebook to expand its censorship overall because “unlike other major social media platforms, Meta’s policies do not prohibit posts that make unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud.”

    Clegg is given Schiff’s telephone number to discuss Facebook’s compliance — an ironic contact point for a letter on censoring “disinformation.” After all, Schiff was one of the members of Congress who, before the 2020 presidential election, pushed the false claim that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation, and he has been criticized for pushing false narratives on Trump-Russia collusion in the 2016 election.

    The letter to Clegg is reminiscent of another letter sent by several congressional Democrats to cable-TV carriers last year, demanding to know why they continue to carry Fox News. (For full disclosure, I appear as a legal analyst on Fox News.) As I later discussed in congressional testimony, it was an open effort by those Democrats to censor opposing views by proxy or by surrogate.

    This is not the first time that some members of Congress have not-so-subtly warned social media companies to expand the censorship of political and scientific views which they consider to be wrong.

    In a November 2020 Senate hearing, then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey apologized for censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story. But Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., warned that he and his Senate colleagues would not tolerate any “backsliding or retrenching” by “failing to take action against dangerous disinformation.”

    Others, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), have called on social media companies to use enlightened algorithms to “protect” people from their own “bad” choices. After all, as President Joe Biden asked, without censorship and wise editors, “How do people know the truth?”

    Now, Democrats fear Facebook and other social media companies might “backslide” into free speech as Facebook, among others, is faced with declining revenues and ordering layoffs. Tellingly, these congressional Democrats specifically want assurances that those layoffs will not reduce the staff dedicated to censoring social media.

    It is not hard to see the cause for alarm. This hold-the-line warning is meant to stop a cascading failure in the once insurmountable wall of social-media censorship. If Facebook were to restore free-speech protections, the control over social media could evaporate.

    Despite an effort by the left to boycott Twitter and cut off advertising revenues, users are signing up in record numbers, according to Twitter owner Elon Musk, and a recent poll shows a majority of Americans “support Elon Musk’s ongoing efforts to change Twitter to a more free and transparent platform.”

    The pressure on Facebook is ironic, given the company’s previous effort to get the public to accept — even welcome — censorship. The company ran a creepy ad campaign about how young people should accept censorship (or “content modification,” in today’s Orwellian parlance) as part of their evolution with technology. It did not work; most people are not eager to buy into censorship. Instead, many of them apparently are buying into Twitter.

    The public response has led censorship advocates to look abroad for allies. Figures like Hillary Clinton have called upon European countries to force the censorship of American citizens.

    Censorship comes at a cost not only to free speech but, clearly, to these companies. Nevertheless, some members of Congress are demanding that Facebook and other companies offer the “last full measure of devotion” to the cause of censorship. Despite the clear preference of the public for more free speech, Facebook is being asked to turn its back on them (and its shareholders) and continue to exclude dissenting views on issues ranging from COVID to climate change.

    These members know that censorship only works if there are no alternatives. The problem is that there are alternatives. Fox News reportedly has more Democrats watching it than left-leaning rival CNN, which now faces its own massive cuts and plummeting ratings.

    For whatever reason, these companies face declining interest in what they offer. Yet, some Democrats are pushing them to double-down on the same course of effectively writing off half of the electorate and the audience market.

    This type of pressure worked in the past because individual executives are loathe to be tagged personally in these campaigns. However, their companies are paying the price in carrying out these directives from Congress.

    In the past, many companies willingly — if not eagerly, in the case of pre-Musk Twitter — carried out censorship as surrogates, as the internal Twitter documents released by Musk have indicated. Some public officials knew they could circumvent the First Amendment by getting these companies to block opposing views by proxy. However, the public and the marketplace may succeed where the Constitution could not — and that’s precisely what these officials fear, as they see the control of social media erode heading toward the 2024 election.

    Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg once famously told his company to “Move fast and break things.” When it comes to censorship, however, these members of Congress are warning “Not so fast!” if Facebook is considering a break in favor of free speech.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/18/2022 – 19:30

  • The Principal Market Worry Is Shifting From Inflation To Recession
    The Principal Market Worry Is Shifting From Inflation To Recession

    By Tony Pasquariello, Goldman head of Hedge Fund Sales

    The core takeaways from the last major week of 2022 are clear: the underlying trend in US inflation has hooked lower and the Fed intends to incrementally dial things back, leaving expectations for the terminal rate just below 5% come June. Despite that “progress,” the past few days have featured some very messy price action, as the year 2022 refuses to go quietly into the night.

    If you take a bigger step back, the overarching market narrative — said better, the principal macro worry — is shifting from inflation to recession. With that has come a series of immense reversals in the dollar and US interest rates, as further discussed in the first few points below.

    For US equities, an ebbing of the inflation constraint is very significant; remember, as recently as late summer, it really wasn’t obvious that inflation was under control. That said, should the recession theme take on more weight, S&P is certainly NOT priced for a hard landing (here I’d again reference the volatility surface, cyclicals-vs-defensives or the simple PE multiple).

    Taken together, I’m not enamored of risk/reward on US equities, from either direction … The sequence market behavior in recent weeks only underscores that instinct.

    Therefore, as one is paid to wait in cash, I have no problem with the idea of sitting out a few hands and seeing how the cards come down in early Q1 — with more attention placed on the shifting dynamics in other macro assets and geographies. As always, I’m a taker of feedback and ideas.

    What follows from here is a sequence of shorter points and charts that sacrifice depth and rigor for brevity and compression … by way of preface, they don’t point cohesively in one direction or another:

    1. To be sure, there has been a very significant change in macro sentiment and positioning over the past month. In my travels, it appears the levered community is largely out of their dollar longs and out of their US front end shorts; those exits were well executed and are very clear in our most recent polling data (link for pro subs). To put a line under it, these mark a broad shift in discretionary conviction from the inflation theme to the slowdown/recession theme.

    2. Where the trouble has come, as usual, is the bias to be short of S&P (witness price action on the immediate break of CPI … a sharp 3% squeeze forced the covering of some underwater shorts, only to see the market trade break hard thereafter). Here I’ll reference the wisdom of long-time colleague Dominic Wilson: into slowdowns, the first order is to buy bonds (over shorting stocks) … into recoveries, the first order is to buy stocks (over shorting bonds). This is an oversimplification, of course, and not necessarily where I think we’re headed, but it’s a maxim that would have spared lots of tactical pain in past cycles (including the past month).

    3. Part of my aforementioned lack of excitement to engage risky assets is a nagging frustration that, despite all the travails of 2022, we don’t exit the year with a lot of risk premia to harvest in early 2023. For example, as pointed out by a client, the interest rate-hedged ETF for IG credit (ticker LQDH) is only down modestly on the year. N/B: while I still don’t really see the overwhelming draw of corporate credit at current levels of spread, I will concede that it likely outperforms equities in a bucket of risky assets.

    4. As a more general point: after three years of spectacular action and some very powerful macro trends, I wonder if next year winds up feeling a bit anti-climactic for the speculative crowd … Not boring per se, just less fertile with regard to the opportunity set. I say this while noting a lot of muscle has been built back up in the macro space over the course of this year, which could make for some itchiness come Q1.

    5. US financial conditions are easier today than they were coming out of the 4th quarter of 2018. When everyone is breathing easier on the trajectory of inflation, it feels a little pointless for me to that note headline CPI had a 1-handle on it back then, and it has a 7-handle on it today, but I can’t resist. I also can’t resist pointing out this Randy Quarles story from a Nick Timiraos article that is worth considering: link.

    6. Further to flows/positioning: quarterly derivatives expiry will come to pass today — and with it, nearly $4tr of option open interest will go to the trading Gods. As ever, one should be on watch for the potential inflections that occasionally follow (for example, I’d argue the period following June SQ had elements of this). beyond that technical story, the other notable feature of the past month has been pockets of retail outflows; this is inconvenient as the corporate bid slows and the CTA bid all but disappears, if reverses. What I’m trying to say here: US households will be the arbiter of price action over the next two weeks (they were sellers for three consecutive weeks, turned buyer last week, and your guess is as good as mine on where they go from here).

    7. In the fall of 2020, Jeff Currie and his team threw down the gauntlet and went bullish of commodities. While not without volatility and retracements along the path, it was a masterful call. To be clear, there’s no backing down for the structural thesis, and they are now forecasting that GSCI rallies — ahem — 43% next year. Note: “the main take away is we expect commodity markets to be shaped by underinvestment in 2023. From a fundamental perspective, the setup for most commodities next year is more bullish than it has been at any point since we first highlighted the super cycle in October 2020 … markets are simply unprepared for sequential growth in 2023.”

    8. Something I’m struggling to work out: the ratio of US banks to S&P is on the dead lows … The ratio of European banks to SXXP is the photographic negative. As we head into the dog days of winter, I’d politely note here the official GS forecast of a recession in Europe, and no recession in the US. Color from Sarah Cha, sector specialist: “relative to the US, European deposit betas are not rising in the same way, the stocks are much cheaper, and banks haven’t really had much runway to occupy the balance sheets … from my seat, seems more a reflection on where European banks are coming from.” Coming out of a week that saw the ECB clearly out-hawk the FOMC, I’m inclined to think the local period of broad European outperformance is done.

    9. Good people of Gen X, click here for some enjoyable Gen X content: link. my favorites: #4 (fix the TV by pounding on it the right way) … #16 (there were hours where no one knew where we were) … #22 (remembering phone numbers) … #27 (blowing inside Nintendo cartridges) … #30 (the smoking section in a restaurant).

    10. I’m inclined to think the US consumer enters 2023 with a handful of significant tailwinds: sustained and significant wage growth, a y/y decline in US gasoline prices and a 9% raise for 70mm retired Americans come January. This chart from Jan Hatzius zeroes in on real disposable income growth … note the important trend shift in the red diamond from 2022 through 2023 (this all makes me a little resistant to completely abandon the inflation narrative and embrace the recession narrative):

    11. As mentioned before, one should acknowledge their market biases. This will not come as a surprise, but I fully concede an inherent home-field bias towards the US. Therefore, this chart is cause for some introspection … The ratio of MSCI US over MSCI World ex-US (thanks to Scott Rubner for pointing out the inflection):

    12. This surprised me a little bit … over the past three decades, “the January effect” has essentially pulled forward to November (link for pro subs):

    13. To conclude, three big picture charts on flow-of-funds and the broader industry. While the underlying trends here speak for themselves, my instinct is next year will see active strategies outperform:

    More in the full note from Tony P available to pro subs in the usual place.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/18/2022 – 19:00

  • TWITTER FILES Supplemental: How The FBI Bullied Twitter Over Lack Of 'Foreign Influence' Evidence
    TWITTER FILES Supplemental: How The FBI Bullied Twitter Over Lack Of ‘Foreign Influence’ Evidence

    Journalist Matt Taibbi just dropped the latest series of ever-incriminating signals from The Twitter Files, with a supplement to his recent discussion of how Twitter became a de facto Ministry of Truth dissent-killer for The FBI.

    As a reminder, this is the fourth topic released under The Twitter Files:

    This supplemental to The FBI Subsidiary thread explains how the agency bullied Twitter into dismissing its own findings that “state propaganda” was not a thing on the platform and the stunningly circular media-to-govt agency-to-media circle-jerk that is mis-described as ‘sources’ for any and every rumor or narrative-confirming lie that is possible.

    As Matt Taibbi writes at his Substack: On Friday, I posted a series of exchanges between Twitter and the FBI. One that required a bit too much explaining was left out. But it’s an important document, because it clearly demonstrates that Twitter will not only take requests from the government, it will even act quickly to align its analyses with its “partners.”

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

    2. In July of 2020, San Francisco FBI agent Elvis Chan tells Twitter executive Yoel Roth to expect written questions from the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), the inter-agency group that deals with cyber threats.

    3.The questionnaire authors seem displeased with Twitter for implying, in a July 20th “DHS/ODNI/FBI/Industry briefing,” that “you indicated you had not observed much recent activity from official propaganda actors on your platform.”

    4 .One would think that would be good news. The agencies seemed to feel otherwise.

    5.Chan underscored this:

    “There was quite a bit of discussion within the USIC to get clarifications from your company,” he wrote, referring to the United States Intelligence Community. 

    6.The task force demanded to know how Twitter came to its unpopular conclusion.

    Oddly, it included a bibliography of public sources – including a Wall Street Journal article – attesting to the prevalence of foreign threats, as if to show Twitter they got it wrong. 

    7.Roth, receiving the questions, circulated them with other company executives, and complained that he was “frankly perplexed by the requests here, which seem more like something we’d get from a congressional committee than the Bureau.”

    8.He added he was not “comfortable with the Bureau (and by extension the IC) demanding written answers.”

    The idea of the FBI acting as conduit for the Intelligence Community is interesting, given that many agencies are barred from domestic operations. 

    9. He then sent another note internally, saying the premise of the questions was “flawed,” because “we’ve been clear that official state propaganda is definitely a thing on Twitter.” Note the italics for emphasis.

    10. Roth suggested they “get on the phone with Elvis ASAP and try to straighten this out,” to disabuse the agencies of any notion that state propaganda is not a “thing” on Twitter. 

    11. This exchange is odd among other things because some of the “bibliography” materials cited by the FITF are sourced to intelligence officials, who in turn cited the public sources. 

    12. The FBI responded to Friday’s report by saying it “regularly engages with private sector entities to provide information specific to identified foreign malign influence actors’ subversive, undeclared, covert, or criminal activities.”

    13. That may be true, but we haven’t seen that in the documents to date. Instead, we’ve mostly seen requests for moderation involving low-follower accounts belonging to ordinary Americans – and Billy Baldwin. 

    Watch @bariweiss and @ShellenbergerMD for more from the Twitter Files.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/18/2022 – 18:30

  • Ukraine Attempted 'Decapitation Strike' Of Russia's Top General, Even As US Tried To Stop It
    Ukraine Attempted ‘Decapitation Strike’ Of Russia’s Top General, Even As US Tried To Stop It

    A lengthy and wide-ranging New York Times assessment of “Putin’s War” detailing the last ten months of how a “walk in the park” became a catastrophe for Russia – as the story is sub headed – includes a particular bombshell buried deep within the narrative which has yet to be subject of widespread reporting.

    US officials cited in the report say that Ukraine’s military and intelligence attempted to assassinate General Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, even after American officials urged against such a brazen action of unpredictable consequences, on fears it would invite uncontrollable Russian military escalation. 

    While the key details embedded within the dozens of pages-long NYT Saturday report have received scant notice in broader US mainstream media, Russian state media has certainly already taken note, with TASS – among others – highlighting it.

    Gen. Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and First Deputy Minister of defense, via AP

    The alleged Ukrainian attempt for a ‘decapitation strike’ on Russia’s top commander and Putin’s military right-hand during the planning phase involved Washington pleading for Kiev to call off an attack, only for US officials to find out they already launched it.

    It reportedly happened in late April, during a time period in which unnamed American officials boasted that US intelligence was helping the Ukrainians take out Russian generals who were positioned on or just behind front-lines of fighting, as we detailed at the time.

    In its new reporting, the Times says that last Spring, Russia’s top military brass decided it was necessary for generals to make trips to the front lines due to worsening morale: “But the generals made a deadly mistake: They positioned themselves near antennas and communications arrays, making them easy to find, the Americans said.” NYT describes further as follows in this key section of the report, thus allowing US intel to begin identifying top commanders’ whereabouts on the Ukrainian battlefield:

    “Ukraine started killing Russian generals, yet the risky Russian visits to the front lines continued. Finally, in late April, the Russian chief of the general staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, made secret plans to go himself.”

    The US apparently knew of the ‘secret’ trip in real-time, leading to the dilemma of whether to share the information with the Ukrainians. But the Times’ sources say Washington “kept the information from the Ukrainians, worried they would strike.”

    The driving concern was that a provocation of that magnitude would increase the likelihood of direct war between nuclear-armed superpowers. The NY Times reveals what happened next: 

    The Ukrainians learned of the general’s plans anyway, putting the Americans in a bind. After checking with the White House, senior American officials asked the Ukrainians to call off the attack.

    “We told them not to do it,” a senior American official said. “We were like, ‘Hey, that’s too much.’”

    The message arrived too late. Ukrainian military officials told the Americans that they had already launched their attack on the general’s position.

    Dozens of Russians were killed in the strike, officials said. General Gerasimov wasn’t one of them.

    Gerasimov is the equivalent of Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest-ranking military officer…

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

    And as the report concludes of that key time period of April to May, “Russian military leaders scaled back their visits to the front after that.”

    In May, unnamed senior American officials had begun leaking to US media greater intelligence-sharing with Kiev. This had reportedly led to the Ukrainians having killed in pinpoint strikes an estimated 12 Russian generals, which during those opening months of the invasion was an astonishingly high number (given the rarity in any war of deaths from among these highest officer ranks).

    The month prior to that, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin bluntly admitted of policy aims in Ukraine that the US wants to see a greatly “weakened” Russia. “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree it cannot do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” he had said at the time.

    If the Ukrainians had managed to kill Gen. Gerasimov, it’s very possible the world could have already been in the throes of nuclear Armageddon. But thankfully this scenario until now has been avoided, but very narrowly …if the fresh NYT revelations are indeed accurate.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/18/2022 – 18:00

  • Gold Is Money: Everything Else Is Credit
    Gold Is Money: Everything Else Is Credit

    Authored by Claudio Grass via The Mises Institute,

    Throughout the better part of 2022 there has been one question that has consistently, and predictably, popped up in conversations with my friends, clients and readers. Those who know me and are familiar with my ideas are well aware of my position on precious metals and the multiple roles they serve, so I can’t blame them for them for being curious whether I still “stick to my guns” in this era of irrationality in the markets and the economy.

    Especially for those not versed in monetary history, which is regrettably the vast majority of the population, it is natural to wonder: “If gold is such a great hedge against inflation, why hasn’t it skyrocketed now that inflation is finally here?”

    Well, there are a couple of reasons for that, some more obvious than others. The interest rate hikes that the Fed spearheaded and repeatedly escalated are the most straightforward explanation. At least that’s the answer most mainstream economists and analysts will give you. And it makes sense: If gold pays you no interest for holding it, then why not switch to something that does? This is the mindset of most investors and that weakens demand, which in turn drags the price down. That’s how the theory goes anyway. 

    If, however, we’re willing to examine the question a little more closely, we might begin by scrutinizing its premises. The question takes for granted that gold has underperformed this year. But has it really? If you’re saving, getting your paycheck and paying your bills in a currency other than the dollar, you’re likely to have a very different view on this issue. In euros, gold is up around 6.6 percent. In yen, it’s up 17.9 percent In Egyptian pounds is up over 45 percent. What this clearly shows us, is that perspective matters. 

    And for those that can see the bigger picture, that perspective is even clearer: Thinking about the gold price in terms of any fiat currency, not just the USD, is not really helpful. It’s not gold’s value that fluctuates, what fluctuates is the perceived and totally imaginary value of all these useless pieces of paper. After all, as all long-term, responsible precious metals investors know very well, there’s only one important trend and it’s an obvious one, as the chart below shows.

    As I mentioned many times, I do not believe that short-term price considerations should play a pivotal role in the decision-making process of investors who hold gold for the right reasons and who understand why they do. What is important, however, is to look beyond the mainstream headlines and to be able to separate the signal from the noise. In our case, for example, one can find a million analyses and forecasts on gold’s outlook, all highlighting superficial dynamics and featuring simplistic arguments. Monetary policy projections are chief among them, and the narrative goes “Since we expect central bankers to do so and so, gold is projected to react in this way.”

    Well, instead of trying to divine the intentions of central bankers, to guess what they’ll do and how it might affect the gold market, wouldn’t it make more sense to look at what those central bankers have actually done, rather than what they say? Cause what they did in 2022 speaks volumes: Globally, central banks accumulated gold reserves at a pace unseen since 1967, back when the dollar was still backed by the precious metal.

    Consider this for a moment and then recall all their official statements and projections about the economy and how a recession is avoidable, about inflation and how it’s definitely, absolutely under control and about their faith in their own currencies. Feel free to draw your own conclusions about what’s coming. 

    Looking forward to the next year, it is clear that there are many reasons to be concerned. The conflict in Ukraine shows no signs of abating and all the preexisting problems it seriously aggravated can also be expected to linger, if not get worse. Inflation is set to continue to plague the real economy, no matter how hard government statisticians try to cook the numbers: Even if CPI goes down, real households will continue to feel the pain. There’s an abundance of supportive forces working in favor of gold and the dynamics are so striking that even the big banks couldn’t help but notice. In early December, Saxo Bank put out an “outrageous” price forecast of $3,000/ounce, in its most “extreme” scenario of a worldwide “war economy.”

    While price gains will certainly be more than welcome for physical gold investors, the metal’s real value is likely to become apparent too in the months and years to come. As States get increasingly desperate and fail to find a way out of the fiscal, monetary and sociopolitical hole they dug for themselves, they are bound to get more aggressive, as they’ve always been known to do. Threats to financial sovereignty, government power grabs, increased monitoring and control over private assets and savings, are all likely to become more dire. And under these conditions, physical gold really shines, especially when it’s securely and compliantly held outside one’s own jurisdiction, as well as, outside the traditional banking system.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/18/2022 – 17:30

  • 'SPAC Winter' Accelerates But "Trough Of Disillusionment" Could Be Ahead
    ‘SPAC Winter’ Accelerates But “Trough Of Disillusionment” Could Be Ahead

    The days of “SPAC Jesus,” Chamath Palihapitiya, have been over for a while.

    It has been apparent that the special-purpose acquisition companies (SPAC) bubble peaked in 1Q21 and has been in freefall ever since.

    The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) crackdown on SPACs, top investment banks scaling back activity in the space, and mounting macroeconomic headwinds have led to a surge in SPAC liquidations and Initial Business Combination (IBC) terminations, as well as perhaps the start of a possible de-SPAC bankruptcy wave. 

    The latest figures about the SPAC market collapse come from a recent note via Water Tower Research’s chief analyst Robert Sassoon, who told clients, “one-quarter of the companies de-SPACed since the start of 2021, currently trading below the $1 level.” 

    “We are likely to see more de-SPAC bankruptcies in addition to the six that filed for bankruptcy this year, but at some point, the value hunters, whether they be strategic or financial buyers, will look through the de-SPAC wreckage for the hidden gems,” Sassoon said. 

    Sassoon’s note titled “SPACs and the Hype Cycle” provides the view the winter cycle in SPACs could be nearing a trough, but before that happens, more pain is likely in the space. 

    “While we think there will be more de-SPAC bankruptcies declared, we may be close to the trough of disillusionment stage of the cycle. This may be the point that value hunters may be readying themselves to seek out the hidden gems among the de-SPAC wreckage.” 

    The analyst pointed out the model used by management consulting firm Gartner about the new adoption of new technologies, particularly the adoption life cycle of new technology. With the hype cycle over, Sassoon believes a “trough of disillusionment” could soon arrive. 

    Even though a trough in SPACs is inevitable, that doesn’t mean a bust cycle can worsen in the intermediate timeframe. Sassoon showed liquidations and IBC terminations are soaring this year, with the risk of increased de-SPAC bankruptcies next year. 

    He said, “the surge of liquidations is that it is helping to accelerate the re-balancing of the SPAC market.”

    Here’s a complete list of all the SPAC liquidations completed in the first half of December. 

    Nearly a quarter of all de-SPACs trade below $1. 

    What could be evident is that the SPAC winter cycle might worsen amid a challenging macroeconomic environment but could be nearing a trough, as Sassoon’s note explains. Our view would include the need for the Federal Reserve to loosen financial conditions for that to happen, which could occur as soon as late ’23, if not early ’24. 

    One infamous British banker and politician from the Rothschild family, Baron Rothschild, once said the best time to buy is “when there is blood in the streets.” 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/18/2022 – 17:00

  • Nuclear Fusion Incinerates Climate Crazies
    Nuclear Fusion Incinerates Climate Crazies

    Authored by Thomas McArdle via The Epoch Times,

    Your attention please. This century’s scheduled performance of the apocalypse has been postponed indefinitely, ladies and gentlemen. Your tickets will be refunded at the box office…

    On Dec. 5, 2022, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility in California aimed 192 laser beams at a pinhead-sized target containing deuterium and tritium and a fusion reaction succeeded in releasing more energy than the amount delivered by the lasers. But this achievement of inertial confinement fusion is not only the first time in history that nuclear fusion has worked under controlled conditions (in contrast to a thermonuclear bomb); those lasers also disintegrated the green energy fanatics’ arguments in favor of dismantling the world’s 90 percent-plus fossil fuel-based $85 trillion economy. They have now been discredited as much as Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons’s sloppy claims of having conducted fusion at room temperature in 1989, despite the two’s up-until-then impressive scientific credentials.

    Until Dec. 5, California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s banning of gasoline-powered cars by 2035 was excessive in the extreme; now it is simply illogical. The global rise of nearly 3 degrees Celsius in temperatures by the end of the century that the United Nations fears will now be headed off in half that time, likely less, thanks to mankind’s scientific ingenuity. The same kind of scientific ingenuity that in latter decades has allowed oil companies to reach and extract more than 7 billion barrels of oil and 600 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in “impossible to reach” locations thanks to the engineering breakthrough of hydrofracking. The results have included millions of new jobs for Americans, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, lower energy prices, and (until Joe Biden became president of the United States) American energy independence.

    Nuclear fusion is the means of energy generation conducted within the sun, and for mankind’s needs it is a source of energy that is for all practical purposes infinite. Unlike the nuclear fission utilized in today’s nuclear power plants, fusion would not generate unstable nuclei that remain radioactive for millions of years and must thus be transported for permanent disposal to nuclear waste sites. Nor would fusion entail the risk of accidents releasing fatal amounts of radioactivity to populated areas (the danger of which from fission reactors the nuclear power industry has minimized in recent decades); nor could a fusion apparatus be used to construct nuclear weapons.

    Now that we know inertial confinement fusion works in a controlled laboratory setting, the challenges in bringing about its widespread industrial use, which pertain to energy delivery to the target; availability of tritium or the development of the use of an alternative such as boron or helium-3; symmetry control; heating and density of the fuel; hydrodynamic stability; and shockwave convergence, can all be expected to be solved within the next 40 years. The United States, after all, is the nation that constructed the hydrogen bomb in a tight time frame, landed a man on the moon within a decade, and invented the microprocessor whose improved versions in budget smartphones of today dwarf the computation power of NASA’s supercomputer of the 1960s.

    And none of the progress that can be expected from this month’s breakthrough precludes further study and experimentation of other possible forms of nuclear fusion—colliding beam fusion, inertial electrostatic confinement, muon catalyzing, photoelectric fusion, and hybrid fusion-fission. Like fracking, breakthroughs in these areas can arrive unexpectedly and change the game entirely.

    But if you think the left, both here and around the world, is going to stand for their mission to cripple capitalism being derailed by a scientific breakthrough, you don’t know them. Fusion opens the floodgates of energy; radical environmentalists, on the other hand, want energy to trickle down and be rationed in accordance with government edicts. Instead of a world of limitless possibility in which even those who are now poor can live out their dreams, the left’s dream is a world of severe restrictions on economic prosperity and individualism, a global economy in which solar panels and windmills and mass transit are forced on the public as a duty. A society in which the freedom of driving your own family car is replaced by the mobility limits, enforced conformity, and artificial community—not to mention discomforts, lack of privacy, and crime—of the bus and train for all (except possibly the likes of Biden climate envoy John Kerry and other climate policemen among our governmental betters, who are wedded to private luxury travel).

    Beyond the bugaboo of possible accidents and the health effects of marginally increased radiation produced by fission plants, the anti-nuclear movement’s arguments (pdf) against nuclear energy have revolved more in recent years around high costs, and the many years it inevitably takes to plan, license, and construct new plants; and in the years to come we can expect them to insist on unreasonably heavy regulatory hurdles imposed by government when fusion becomes industrially feasible. In other words, artificial impediments to the realization of fusion’s benefits for mankind.

    There can be no forgetting, however, that the environmentalist left is driven by the irrationality of pure fanaticism, and their objective is to revolutionize society into complete unrecognizability. Only in September, Jane Fonda was asked how her new climate-focused political action committee “will be able to deliver on a fully de-carbonized America.”

    Instead of presenting any science, Fonda replied: “There would be no climate crisis if there was no racism. There would be no climate crisis if there was no misogyny,” adding that “we need to take a good look at” America’s free market economic system. “All of the experts, and I’m not one, say this will force us and this will be an opportunity to restructure the way humanity lives on the planet. … Between now and 2030, we could cut fossil fuels in half, but then we have to do a whole lot of other things.”

    We can be sure that in the coming years Democrats will invent obstacles to private research on nuclear fusion, and that “Big Fusion” will replace Big Oil as the new demons of capitalism. Fusion bursts one of the Democratic Party’s biggest political bubbles: Democrats won’t be able to fundraise on the idea of the world coming to an end when a fusion-powered economy is a few decades away and will solve climate change and all the other energy problems they can concoct.

    But if we want nuclear fusion to come on line cheaply as soon as possible and produce the definitive solution to a hotter earth, we will let private industry be in charge, largely unfettered, instead of dreaming up a plethora of new, excessive regulations.

    And in the meantime, with total global oil shale resources 1,000 times greater than the more than 1.6 trillion barrels of crude oil reserves in the world that by themselves will last us another half century; plus 100 years of clean natural gas that is now reachable within the United States alone thanks to fracking, the fusion breakthrough means no apocalypse for our grandchildren to suffer after all.

    So in the near term, keep solar panels and windmills secondary, and drill, baby, drill.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/18/2022 – 16:30

  • El Paso Mayor Finally Declares State Of Emergency After Mass Invasion Of Migrants
    El Paso Mayor Finally Declares State Of Emergency After Mass Invasion Of Migrants

    Better late than never?  Democrat Mayor of El Paso, Oscar Leeser, has been refusing to declare a state of emergency in El Paso for weeks as illegal migrant caravans flood into the city across the southern border, but it would seem that he has finally seen the light.  Leeser’s announcement comes at the same time as a declaration of emergency from Denver Mayor (and Democrat) Michael Hancock, who now admits that the city cannot continue to support migrants transported there from El Paso.

    El Paso has run out of funding to accommodate the 2400+ people entering the city every day from Mexico and is asking for outside assistance to deal with the influx of “asylum seekers.”  While the Biden Administration continues to ignore and even obscure the crisis on the southern border, leaked videos of enormous migrant groups lining up for entry at El Paso gates are beginning to circulate, debunking the claim that the White House is taking action.

    Biden’s Press Secretary, Karen Jean-Pierre, was recently mocked for her assertion that Biden has been “doing the work from day one” to secure the border.  Clearly, the evidence shows that she is lying:

    The refusal of the White House and Democrat run cities to act honestly when it comes to the migrant crisis suggests a desire to avoid political accountability (either that, or an agenda to deliberately destabilize the country).  If they admit to the crisis, they then have to admit that their immigration policies are a failure.  So, they attempt to gaslight the American public and hide the truth.  Karen Jean-Pierre even attempted to blame Republicans for the situation instead of taking responsibility.  

    The unprecedented wave of illegal immigrants has resulted in a historic number of apprehensions (at least 2.4 million in the past year) as well as fiscal disaster in the cities that accommodate migrants instead of arresting them and sending them back across the border.  The impending end of Title 42 this month has accelerated the threat.  The law requires migrants to be transported back to Mexico immediately after being stopped by Border Patrol, instead of allowing them to remain in the US for months or even years while waiting for courts to decide their citizenship status.  

    Migrants in many cases are able to collect extensive welfare if designated as asylum seekers or refugees, and Census Bureau data shows that at least 63% of them do in fact try to obtain benefits.  Biden is also pressing for a general amnesty for millions of migrants that are already residing in the US, which is encouraging even more border crossings.

    In 2017, multiple Democrat controlled cities in Texas including El Paso sought to obstruct Texas law SB 4, which was designed to prevent sanctuary city status from being used within the state.  The law was passed, but El Paso has continued to encourage an endless river of migrants into Texas anyway.  Now, the city leadership finally acknowledges they are in trouble, with an Arctic front bearing down on Texas and thousands of migrants on the streets with no available shelter.

    Texas Governor Greg Abbott faced a flurry of attacks from progressive politicians after he initiated a program to bus migrants out of Texas and leave them on the doorsteps of leftist cities like New York, Washington DC and Chicago.  Democrat “strongholds” for illegal migrants are being quickly exposed as unprepared and hypocritical; they expect border states to absorb the invasion of millions of migrants while they are incapable of dealing with a mere handful.  

    The busing controversy culminated with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis transporting nearly 50 migrants to the elitist vacation island of Martha’s Vineyard.  The move created a firestorm of outrage from leftists and accusations of “human exploitation” against conservative state leaders.  

    Hilariously, the “humanitarian” progressives of Martha’s Vineyard were quick to buy the migrants cheap lunches in a highly publicized PR stunt, and then they quietly loaded them onto a bus the next day.  They were shipped off the island to a camp on a military base.  None of them were allowed to stay, none of them were offered housing and none of them were offered jobs by officials or residents at Martha’s Vineyard. 
     
    The “do as we say, not as we do” ideology of the political left when it comes to illegal immigration has been revealed, and economic reality is becoming undeniable.  The US simply cannot continue to allow millions of non-citizens to enter our nation unchecked.  It is not practical from an economic standpoint nor is it practical from a social and cultural standpoint.  If the trend continues the crisis will turn into outright disaster.   

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/18/2022 – 16:00

  • Why This Policy Mistake Will Be Worse Than The Last
    Why This Policy Mistake Will Be Worse Than The Last

    By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

    The Path to Q1 Deflation

    The odds that we get at least one month of negative inflation data in Q1 is increasing. Will deflation become a concern in Q1? That is possible (and maybe even probable) if we continue on the course of action that we are currently taking. I do not believe that we will be worried about inflation in a meaningful way by the end of Q1. In fact, as you can tell from Inflation Risk Factors and 2 + 2 = 5, I think that we have already set ourselves on a course that we will regret.

    Today we will outline how and why Q1 deflation is a bigger risk than having high inflation in Q1. I use the term “risk” because the deflation will be linked to a recession that starts sooner and will be worse than consensus (Friday’s data makes me wonder if it hasn’t already started).

    Inflation

    Let’s start with a closer look at where we are with inflation today.

    Inflation Elimination/Simplification

    This chart includes three common measures of inflation – CPI, CPI Core, and PCE Core. The point of this chart is to justify only looking at Core CPI. They all move more or less in line, with overall CPI being a little more volatile and PCE being a month behind in terms of data. So, when we use CPI in charts in later sections, we will use Core CPI because we don’t give up much information in terms of the narrative that we are creating and the charts will be much simpler to understand.

    Core CPI – Chart Looking Better

    Two things that stand out on this chart:

    1. We have not seen an increase in the monthly data for 3 months (the trend is looking good). If this was a stock chart, it is starting to look like one that is giving up the gains and returning to normal. I’m not sure that charting and technicals are the right ways to look at economic data, but they are meant to take the emotion out of decisions and help us recognize patterns (this may be more relevant than we think).
    2. The past two months have been at levels that are below the top end of the range for the five years leading up to COVID. The past two months are “nothing burgers” in terms of inflation if examined from an objective viewpoint. Wasn’t the goal to get inflation lower? Wasn’t that the policy intent? Hasn’t it worked?

    The Lag Effect in Action

    I’ve used the two-year yield here as it is a good representation of what the market is pricing in for monetary policy at the front-end (the 10-year “marches to the beat of many drums” and the front-end only responds to the actual hikes, not the anticipation of hikes, which is a monetary policy tool in and of itself).

    This chart, while volatile, seems to offer some reasonably clear evidence that:

    1. In 2021, the easy money helped drive inflation.
    2. There is a lag effect in terms of monetary policy reducing inflation. Rates started rising in late 2021 and accelerated in 2022. Inflation data remained uncomfortably high as rates rose.
    3. Rates continued to rise, and inflation started to behave much better. I guess you could argue that it took higher yields to tame inflation (and that certainly helps), but I suspect part of it is that it takes time for higher yields to make their mark. People don’t lease a new car every day and not every mortgage resets immediately. Not everyone changes their prices to reflect changes in behavior. Certain purchases, already committed to, will still happen. The cost of carrying inventory goes up slowly as well. There is a lag effect, and my belief is that much of the “good” behavior we are seeing in inflation data is a response to prior hikes and the more recent hikes are only beginning to kick in!
    4. For the soft or even “Squishy Landing” crew, the fact that 2-year yields are stable recently is good. We are pricing in less future action so there is a chance that more of the policy decisions are priced in. However, this is wishful thinking as the inflation reaction is heavily skewed to prior hikes and actions, so we haven’t fully seen the impact yet (a bit disturbing since inflation for the past couple of months looks to be more and more under control).

    The lag effect is real and even with that lag, inflation is behaving better. What happens when more hikes (that have already been announced) kick in? Deflation seems to come to mind, but we have potentially only just begun to go down that path.

    Let’s Not Forget the Balance Sheet

    Quantitative Easing:

    • Directly impacts asset prices (the riskier the asset the bigger the benefit from QE).
    • The wealth effect is real in that it affects spending and is therefore inflationary.
    • I believe that QT reduces asset prices. Since they are only using run-off, it isn’t as impactful as buying long-maturity assets, but it is real and will decrease wealth (in stocks, bonds, housing, and crypto to name a few areas).
    • Like other parts of monetary policy, it is not always a straight line on a daily basis and there is a lag effect (it takes time for the increase in wealth to convert to greater spending, and vice versa).

    So, while the market is fixated on terminal rate projections (more on that in the next section), maybe we shouldn’t ignore the impact of QT which no one has talked about changing (and they shouldn’t). I’m convinced that someone will win a Nobel Prize for highlighting how dangerous QE is as a policy tool.

    To summarize this first section:

    • Recent inflation data is pretty good and getting into the “normal” zone.
    • The lag effect seems real, making the changes we have already seen in inflation more powerful.
    • Balance sheet reduction is likely affecting asset prices and inflation.
    • If not for 2021’s “failure” to identify inflation and kill QE early, we’d be pretty comfortable with the recent inflation data. We were still doing QE in 2022 even as we were discussing rate hikes.

    Part of me would like to type QED now and say that we’ve proved our point and enjoy the rest of the weekend, but there is a lot more to write about to convince you why deflation is the path that we are on.

    Don’t “They” Know Better?

    If the policy makers had a great record of success, then I wouldn’t be worried that we are making a huge mistake and their efforts to fight inflation risk are creating a deeper recession than is necessary. But they did miss inflation and there is no reason to believe that they are any more likely to get it correct this time. In fact, you could argue that they are more likely to get it wrong, because they are dealing with the damage to their reputations from missing inflation and may have a problem acting objectively.

    The DOTS – 1 Year Apart

    This week the Fed spent time convincing the market that the terminal rate needs to be higher. This time last year not a single person had rates above 3% (at any time) out to 2024! By this time last year, the “transitory” story had started to shift, but we were still doing QE and talking about possible hikes, though the consensus was for less than 1% by the end of 2022! This wasn’t just a little wrong, it was very wrong! Sure, Russia’s invasion was unknown, but all throughout the year they increased the dots and terminal rate. I look at this dot plot and it gives me the energy to continue to the next section. At least I can be on the record if their hiking goes “pear shaped” and hurts the economy and the country far worse than was likely necessary!

    Oil and Sauron

    There are several “next steps” I could take on the path to deflation, but let’s start with oil. I guess Sauron could refer to Putin, but I was thinking more in terms of “one ring to rule them all.” There is no commodity as important as oil because it permeates the economy. It impacts the cost of producing goods, the cost of shipping goods, and how much money consumers have to spend on goods.

    If Russia has to capitulate and come to some sort of a truce oil will drop even further, but that is not part of the current analysis.

    Oil – Not Great, but Not Horrible

    Despite OPEC+ curtailing production, the ongoing war in Ukraine, the alleged re-opening of China, and the U.S. making some purchases to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, oil prices are coming down. From a CPI perspective (not Core because it excludes energy), it will be a good thing.

    The two biggest “benefits” are that production and transportation costs will drop which will help to reduce inflation. But as discussed in Incongruous we should be careful what we wish for.

    I use the 6-month forward WTI contract to smooth things out, but typically as oil goes up, stocks do well (and vice versa). That was the case from 2016 until just recently.

    The same pattern holds true for the 2003 to 2011 period (with a couple of short exceptions).

    Even from 1999 until 2002 the pattern held up pretty well.

    In any case, I’m not sure we should cheer low oil prices. Maybe what is counteracting all of the potential reasons for oil to be higher is that the economy is slowing much faster than is currently showing up in the official data.

    I argued (vehemently) back in 2015 that higher energy prices were great for jobs and the economy overall and I still believe that.

    At the time, energy was a big part of the high yield market which struggled during that timeframe (there was even an “ex-energy” ETF launched in early 2016). I think back to how that one sector so heavily affected some markets and the economy and cannot help but think of parallels to today.

    The Disruptive Economy

    We highlighted this so much last weekend in Inflation Drivers that I won’t rehash the argument here. What I will add is that when I look at some jobs data, “management” makes up 6.3% of the workforce but 13.4% of the income and it seems like those jobs are under pressure.

    Computer and math jobs are only 3.3% of the workforce, but 5.7% of the costs. This area is still strong, but I am seeing the reshuffling of jobs as some big companies are cutting back here.

    These two areas, which rank 1 and 3 in terms of wages (legal is number 2) could face pressure. That will make even small amounts of jobs lost more impactful.

    Just like “energy” was the main focal point of economic (and market) problems in 2015, “disruption” seems to be front and center right now. However, while this sector isn’t a big part of the debt markets, it is a large part of the equity markets (and alternatives) and why there could be a lot more pressure if the slowdown persists (rates aren’t the main driver here, but they are not helping).

    Take This Job Data and Shove It

    In 2 + 2 = 5 we highlight the issues around job data, particularly the Philly Fed’s report that Q2 jobs were overstated by more than 1,000,000 in the NFP reports!

    The year started with 1.3 million more workers on the Establishment Survey than on the Household Survey. They differed by 950k in Q2 (maybe the Philly Fed report has some substance).

    There are a lot of issues with both sets of data, but it seems a bit “optimistic” to only focus on one measure, especially after the work the Philly Fed just did.

    To put this in a different perspective, in March the unemployment rate was 3.6% (it is now 3.7%). That is based on the Household Survey. The Establishment Survey showed that 2 million more jobs were created since then, so if those jobs had shown up in the Household Survey, the unemployment rate would be about 2.2%. Just think about that. If the jobs in the Establishment Survey are correct, even from just the start of the year, we’d have sub 3% unemployment. Does this feel like an economy running that hot?

    There are so many questions on the quality of the job data (and ADP is somewhere in between since they started republishing this year with their amended methodology) that it seems difficult to base our view on the job market on these numbers.

    ISM Jobs Story Seems More Realistic

    2021 was HOT! Lately, not so much! Not awful, though several months below 50 this year (even for services) doesn’t hint at a job market that is out of control, especially for the high paying jobs that really drive inflation!

    I’m trying to get better at pulling data directly from indeed.com. I’m told, by some good people, that it is dropping faster than JOLTS, but I cannot yet verify that myself (at least not in an intelligible way).

    This Policy Mistake Will Be Worse Than the Last

    It is bad to miss inflation (especially when there were so many telltale signs that it was real and not transitory) but it will be worse to trigger a recession that is avoidable.

    Who cares what the stock market does over a day or a week? Who cares if financial conditions improve a bit when so many other factors (including QT) are combining in a “perfect storm” to “normalize” inflation!

    I am extremely worried that we have already done too much, and that we are pushing our economy into unnecessary danger zones when we should be focused on transforming our energy industry, redeveloping supply chains, improving trading relations, and ensuring that we are “safe” from pandemics (or at least more in control of the necessary materials).

    The fight against inflation is now misplaced, and I’d rather see us living with 3% inflation and striving to accomplish a lot, rather than creating unnecessary job losses and opportunities for our competitors.

    The path to deflation is becoming less avoidable and beating inflation (so badly) is not the victory that we should be striving for.

    This week’s “risk-off” trading with low yields and lower equities may be a harbinger of things to come based on our apparent policy priorities and data “analysis.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/18/2022 – 15:30

  • When Will Air Travel Return To Pre-Pandemic Levels?
    When Will Air Travel Return To Pre-Pandemic Levels?

    Many industries were hit hard by the global pandemic, but it can be argued that air travel suffered one of the most severe blows.

    The aviation industry as a whole suffered an estimated $370 billion loss in global revenue because of COVID-19. And, as Visual Capitalists’ Carmen Ang explains below, while air travel has been slowly recovering from the trough, flight passenger traffic has yet to fully bounce back.

    Where is the industry at in 2022 compared to pre-COVID times, and when is air passenger travel expected to return to regular levels? This graphic by Julie R. Peasley uses data from IATA to show current and projected air passenger ridership.

    Air Travel Traffic: 2021 and 2022

    After an incredibly difficult 2020, the airline industry started to see significant improvements in travel frequency. But compared to pre-pandemic levels, there’s a lot of ground to cover.

    In 2021, overall passenger numbers only reached 47% of 2019 levels. This influx was largely driven by domestic travel, with international passenger numbers only reaching 27% of pre-COVID levels.

    From a regional perspective, Central America experienced one of the fastest recoveries. In 2021, overall passenger numbers in the region had reached 72% of 2019 levels, and they are projected to reach 96% by the end of 2022.

    In fact, the Americas as a whole has seen a quick recovery. Both North America and South America also reached above 50% of 2019 ridership in 2021, and are projected to reach 94% and 88% ridership in 2022, respectively.

    On the opposite end of the spectrum, Asia Pacific has experienced the slowest recovery. This is likely due to stricter lockdowns and travel restrictions put into effect in this region (which was harder hit by SARS in 2003), especially in places like Shanghai.

    Forecasting Traffic in 2023 and Beyond

    While recovery has looked different from region to region, airlines are largely expected to see a full recovery to their ridership levels by 2025.

    This recovery is a signifier of a much broader mindset shift, as governments continue to reassess their COVID-19 management strategies.

    But while the future seems promising, IATA stressed that the forecast does not take into account the potential impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and other geopolitical concerns, which could have far-reaching consequences on the global economy (and travel) in the coming years.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/18/2022 – 15:00

  • The Return Of Quant Investing
    The Return Of Quant Investing

    By Stephan M Kessler, global head of quantitative investment strategies (QIS) research at Morgan Stanley, and Vishwanath Tirupattur, global head of Quantitative Research at Morgan Stanley,

    As year end approaches, one thing is clear: we will remember 2022 as a dismal year for traditional investment strategies across asset classes.

    With around 10 trading days remaining, major equity markets across the globe have posted double-digit negative returns for the year, with the S&P 500 down ~19%. Government bonds, which typically come to the rescue when equities see a significant drawdown, didn’t deliver as global central banks raised policy rates dramatically, taking the World Government Bond Index down ~17% year to date. Credit markets declined as well, with the Bloomberg Global Aggregate Credit Total Return Index posting a negative total return of ~15%. For traditional investment strategies, there really was nowhere to hide. Nevertheless, 2022 has turned out to be a decent year for systematic factor or quant investing. As measured by the SG Alternative Risk Premia Index, quant strategies posted a healthy positive total return of 3.9%, providing both diversification and capital appreciation in a difficult market environment. We will explore why systematic factor strategies performed relatively well and what 2023 may hold for them.

    We are often asked how quant strategies, which are predicated on historical data, can handle a volatile market environment with few historical precedents. Don’t current dynamics “break” quant strategies? In our view, quant’s strong outperformance in 2022 resulted from a diverse set of catalysts. We think that the monetary policy tightening unleashed by global central banks led to substantial and durable macro trends that could be captured by “trend-following” strategies. A re-emergence of dispersion in interest rates across the globe sparked the revival of “carry” strategies. Equity value investing re-emerged as higher rates forced investors to focus more closely on fundamental valuations, increasing the efficiency of the “value” factor. Disruption in valuations related to technological advances has receded – e.g., the normalization of Tesla’s valuation versus the broader auto sector. Similarly, communications sector disrupters have surrendered some of their outperformance. More broadly, we saw the gap between value and growth valuations shrink.

    We think these performance patterns are likely to continue in the coming year. Our economists anticipate a transition from an environment with generally rising policy rates to one where inflationary pressure recedes and our macro strategists look for rates curves to steepen. During this transition, we expect global growth to slow, with G10 GDP growth bottoming at 0.2%Y in 3Q23. Not surprisingly, our chief investment officer Mike Wilson expects US equity markets to sell off in 1Q23, reaching levels as low as 3,000-3,300 for the S&P 500 before ending the year about flat at 3,900. From a quant perspective, these significant market swings tend to favor short-to-medium-term trend-following strategies. As the differences in central bank policies across the globe persist, “carry” returns should be attractive. Indeed, being long bonds in regions with high rates may benefit investors as their holdings appreciate when rates eventually normalize. Finally, defensive value investing tends to be well placed to deliver returns offsetting the higher cost of capital.

    In our 2023 Global Strategy Outlook, we highlighted a range of quantitative strategies that we feel particularly strongly about for 2023. One way to capitalize on the outlook for the continuation of trending markets and peaking rates is through a rates trend-following strategy with a long bias toward rates. While the environment continues to be favorable for value investing, with market volatility remaining high investors should concentrate on undervalued stocks of high quality – crossing value filters with quality filters, in quant speak. Equity value improvements we have suggested in the past – reducing accounting noise, considering sector effects, and incorporating cyclical effects on performance – should be additive. Value-investing benefits extend to rates value strategies as well. In fact, translating our rates strategists’ views into expected returns, the outlook for a rates value strategy is strong.

    Finally, 2022 was challenging for sellers of rates volatility. With policy rates peaking and inflation decelerating, strategies that incorporate systematically selling rates volatility should be profitable in 2023. While we would overweight the strategies outlined above, we continue to emphasize that success in quant investing requires careful portfolio construction that diversifies across different quant strategies.

    Enjoy your Sunday, and we wish you all a festive holiday season and prosperous new year.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/18/2022 – 14:30

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Dec 18

Today’s News 18th December 2022

  • 'Absurd' To Call Oath Keepers Insurrectionists Or A National Security Threat, Former FBI Agent Testifies
    ‘Absurd’ To Call Oath Keepers Insurrectionists Or A National Security Threat, Former FBI Agent Testifies

    Authored by Joseph Hanneman via The Epoch Times,

    The Oath Keepers did not try to overthrow the U.S. government on Jan. 6 and are not a threat to national security because the group is anti-tyranny, not anti-government, a former FBI agent and Department of Defense analyst testified Dec. 15-16 in Alaska Superior Court.

    John Guandolo, who handled counter-terrorism and criminal investigations during nearly 13 years as an FBI special agent, said he found “absurd” the idea that Oath Keepers tried to overthrow the federal government. Guandolo was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a personal capacity.

    Some of the Oath Keepers might have broken federal laws on Jan. 6 for allegedly trying to delay the counting of Electoral College votes, Guandolo said, “but to conflate that to being the same as the entire organization wants to overthrow the U.S. government by violence … that’s absurd,” Guandolo said. “And I think it’s an unprofessional assessment.”

    Guandolo’s testimony came on the third and fourth days of a state trial to determine if Rep. David Eastman (R-Wasilla) should be removed from office under the Alaska Constitution because he is a life member of the Oath Keepers. Eastman won reelection on Nov. 8 by a 24-point margin.

    Alaska Superior Court Judge Jack McKenna issued a temporary restraining order preventing the state of Alaska from certifying the House 27th District election results until the trial ends.

    Former GOP candidate Randall Kowalke—who left the Republican Party in 2019—sued Eastman personally in July, claiming a loyalty clause in the Alaska Constitution should bar him from office because the Oath Keepers allegedly advocate for the overthrow of the federal government.

    Alaska State Rep. David Eastman (R-Wasilla) was sued in July 2022 in an effort to force him from office for being a member of Oath Keepers. (Photo courtesy of David Eastman)

    Earlier in the bench trial before McKenna, two analysts from centers on domestic extremism testified that the Oath Keepers went into the Capitol on Jan. 6 and tried to overthrow the government.

    ‘A Far Cry’ from Insurrection

    Testifying from his office in Dallas, Guandolo told the judge there is no evidence to support that accusation. He ripped the testimony of analysts Jonathan Lewis and Matthew Kriner as “grossly incomplete” and “wholly unprofessional.”

    Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III and Oath Keepers Florida leader Kelly Meggs were found guilty of seditious conspiracy on Nov. 29 for actions on Jan. 6, in a jury trial in U.S. District Court in Washington. Four other defendants were acquitted of seditious conspiracy, but convicted of other offenses.

    “The phrase that I saw most often [in indictments] was that so-and-so intended to affect the government by stopping or delaying the congressional proceeding, which was to certify the election,” Guandolo said when questioned by defense attorney Joseph Miller.

    “That is a far cry from overthrowing the U.S. government by force of violence.”

    Guandolo said the plaintiff’s experts appeared to have pre-existing ideas about the Oath Keepers, because they failed to examine the good work the group does, such as hurricane relief and guarding a bakery against mob violence during protests in Ferguson, Missouri, in the summer of 2014.

    He noted their alleged lack of knowledge of Jan. 6 provocateur Ray Epps, and their failure to interview even one member of the Oath Keepers as evidence.

    In earlier testimony, Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, claimed that Epps did not incite people to go into the Capitol on Jan. 6. He said that was a “discredited conspiracy theory.”

    Viral videos showed Epps in downtown Washington on the evening of Jan. 5 saying: “Tomorrow—I don’t even like to say it because I’ll be arrested—we need to go into the Capitol.”

    Guandolo said the plaintiff’s focus “was on only specific negative acts and opining on those specific negative acts, without any mention, and, again, based on their own testimony, no apparent knowledge of the positives and the mission statement across the country at the numerous operations the Oath Keepers have undertaken since their founding.”

    After meeting and speaking with “hundreds” of Oath Keepers over the years, Guandolo said, he concluded the group has no bias against the government.

    “They are not anti-government or anti-authority,” Guandolo said.

    “They’re anti-tyranny and anti-anything that infringes on the natural rights and constitutional rights of American citizens.”

    Guandolo expressed concern with the use of terms such as “domestic violent extremism,” used by academic experts and even in a recent FBI bulletin on domestic threats in America.

    “There is no legal definition for violent extremism, which is exactly our adversaries’ intent,” Guandolo said. “And as a matter of fact, I heard yesterday the phrase ‘violent extremism’ defined by plaintiffs’ witness as somebody who’s willing to do violence in furtherance of achieving their goal.

    Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, appears on a screen during a House Select Committee hearing to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol, in the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 9, 2022. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

    “And what’s problematic about that from a legal standpoint,” he said, “is that describes members of the U.S. military, that describes police officers, that describes U.S. citizens who are exercising their natural right to defend themselves, as well as their constitutional right to do so and their lawful right to do so.”

    Use of the term domestic violent extremism is “an information operation,” Guandolo said, because “it doesn’t legally actually define anything. And the way the plaintiff’s witnesses defined it, it basically can be used against anybody that uses violence. And violence is neither good nor bad.”

    ‘I Couldn’t Tell You That’

    Kriner, a senior research scholar at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, was asked by Miller on Dec. 15, “Why do we even have an oath to the Constitution?”

    Kriner replied: “I couldn’t tell you that.”

    Guandolo said he was troubled by that answer. “Again, I and I’m not trying to make any other kind of statement other than it tells me it’s either a grossly biased perspective that the witness is coming from, or they just don’t know,” Guandolo said. “And in either case, I think is really unprofessional.”

    The oath to defend the Constitution against “all enemies, foreign and domestic,” is a crucial part of America, Guandolo said.

    “… When police officers and military people and elected officials and judges take these oaths, it literally is the foundation for our entire system,” he said, “because our fidelity is to the Constitution.”

    Guandolo said Oath Keepers Vice President Greg McWhirter, who also served as an FBI informant during the Jan. 6 investigation, would have been “duty-bound, if there was a known, organized effort to overthrow the U.S. government,” to report it.

    McWhirter’s role as an FBI informant came out during the Rhodes trial. A former sheriff’s deputy in Marion County, Ind.,  McWhirter suffered a cardiac event just before his scheduled trip from Montana to Washington to testify in the trial.

    “Mr. McWhirter, you know, obviously had access to Mr. Rhodes, knew … what Oath Keepers was doing and what they were up to,” Guandolo said, “and of course he would have been duty-bound to report something such as an organized effort to violently overthrow the government.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/17/2022 – 23:30

  • These Are The World's Most Expensive Cities
    These Are The World’s Most Expensive Cities

    The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has recently published its Worldwide Cost of Living Index for 2022.

    As Statista’s Anna Fleck details below, New York and Singapore jointly top the rankings as the world’s most expensive cities to live in, while last year’s number one, Tel Aviv, now ranks in third place.

    This is the first time New York City has topped the list. This partly comes down to the United States’ high rates of inflation this past year. As shown by Statista’s chart, Los Angeles and San Francisco are also among the world’s most expensive metropolises.

    Infographic: The World's Most Expensive Cities | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    However, the roundup also includes four European cities: Zurich, Geneva, Paris and Copenhagen. In Western Europe, price increases were mainly attributable to rising gas prices, as well as the unequal valuation of the euro, as cited by the EIU.

    The annual index compares prices of more than 200 everyday products and services such as food, clothing, rent and transport in 172 cities around the world. The cities included in the study are compared with the base city of New York, with an index set at 100.

    According to this year’s index, the average cost of living in the world’s largest cities increased by 8.1 percent in 2022, as a repercussion of the war in Ukraine and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

    “The war in Ukraine, Western sanctions on Russia and China’s zero-Covid policies have caused supply-chain problems that, combined with rising interest rates and exchange-rate shifts, have resulted in a cost-of-living crisis across the world,” Upasana Dutt, who was responsible for leading the research, said in a statement. Dutt added that the average price increase in the cities analyzed is “the strongest we’ve seen in the 20 years for which we have digital data.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/17/2022 – 23:00

  • The War For Eight Billion Minds
    The War For Eight Billion Minds

    Authored by J.B.Shurk via The Gatestone Institute,

    The heavy perils we face today include centralized governments micromanaging society, the growing prospect of global war, the growing prospect of forced surrender, and the replacement of reasoned debate and free speech with state-sanctioned “narratives” and censorship: totalitarian governance seems not far behind. This is a new kind of war against civilians for control of their minds.

    The torrents engulfing us appear to be potentially catastrophic. In a few short years, the world has endured the COVID-19 pandemic, forced government lockdowns, extreme economic volatility, commodity shortages, and the World Economic Forum’s attempts to exploit this cascade of crises as an excuse to usher in a structural “Great Reset” in which global food and energy consumption can be strictly regulated according to the “climate change” goals of an unelected cabal. Governments are relying increasingly on controlling public “narratives” and vilifying dissent.

    While health bureaucrats and politicians claimed to be “following the science,” mandatory compliance with unilateral rule-making precluded reasoned, good-faith debate. The predictable result: the lethal consequences of the Wuhan Virus were exacerbated by the lethal consequences of misguided public policies imposed to fight the virus. Students whose schools were shuttered now suffer the lifelong effects of learning loss. Patients whose timely diagnoses and preventative care were forestalled now suffer the debilitating outcomes of untreated disease. Small businesses unable to endure prolonged closures are gone for good. Middle class savings once reserved for unexpected “rainy day” funds or children’s future educations have dried up. Credit card debt is on the rise, while more and more people struggle to survive on less. The “safety nets” of government welfare programs have ballooned to leave nation states more indebted than ever but have also proved too perforated with leaky holes (often draining needed resources straight into the bank accounts of corporate campaign donors, interest group lobbyists, and foreign hackers) to keep society’s most vulnerable afloat. Governments’ justifications for reckless fiscal, monetary, and credit policies during short-term emergencies have weakened nations’ prospects for long-term solvency and the likelihood that they will be capable of preserving stable currencies. Still, for all the harms their actions have caused, governments have issued no apologies for enforcing such life-altering policies while silencing critics. It is as if “narrative engineers” have adopted an official position that they are incapable of being wrong.

    Geopolitical conflict is wrenching the post-WWII international order apart. While America’s and the European Union’s “climate change” policies have already inflated the costs of energy, food and much else, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has only added to ordinary Europeans’ financial pain and jeopardizes the continent’s security more broadly. China’s territorial ambitions threaten peace in Taiwan, Japan, across Southeast Asia and beyond. The United States’ efforts to enlarge NATO’s European membership, while expanding its mission objectives into the Indo-Pacific, all but ensure that the U.S., China and Russia remain on a collision course.

    Policymakers cannot help seeing parallels to the quickly falling geopolitical dominoes that ushered in WWI and WWII over the course of a few fateful weeks. They cannot help looking at the unsustainable accumulation of government debt around the world and the avalanche of investment derivatives balancing unsteadily upon fragile currencies unmoored from any real value in gold or silver and fearing the risks of a severe depression. They cannot help seeing Russian revanchism and Chinese territorial expansion as signs that the Great Powers have set course down a dangerous path. The more nervous about the future policymakers are, the more committed they seem to enforcing a standard “narrative” they can control.

    It was the detonation of two nuclear warheads over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of course, that brought combat in the Pacific Theater to a close and ended WWII with an exclamation point.

    Now we stand on a new kind of battlefield. Just as with nuclear weapons, civilians have nowhere to hide from this war’s effects. Weapons systems are spread out across the Internet, deployed on mobile phones and active on every computer chip, tracking, sharing, and pushing digital information throughout the world. Instead of explosives and bullets, we have competing “narratives” whizzing past. The breadth of the campaign to control what information we see, how we process that information, and ultimately what we think and say makes even the most effective psychological operations of the past look antiquated and rudimentary. Whereas “mutually assured destruction” has so far succeeded as a deterrent against nuclear war, the tantalizing opportunities for governments to use programs of mass digital surveillance and communication to spread lies, manipulate opinion, and affect human behavior have created a kind of mutually assured dystopia, “where people lead dehumanized, fearful lives.”

    In the 1930s, Adolf Hitler spoke with boisterous energy and theatrical gesticulation before tens of thousands of stormtroopers, Hitler Youth, and Nazi Party faithful. Today, the dictator’s raised stage has been replaced with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and anywhere else a pop-up online audience can be found. The visual stimuli that enthralled Hitler’s crowds are now reproduced with the release of pleasure-causing endorphins rushing to the brain after every “politically correct” online statement is “rewarded” with approval from strangers providing instant fame. Online “influencers” have become the goose-stepping middlemen for campaigns of mass propaganda that touch more humans in a day than a decade of Hitler’s speeches. In an age when information has never been more easily accessible, the world is awash in lies.

    Instead of encouraging public debate and rational argument, governments push the constant drumbeat of the “narrative” above all else. A citizen either obediently accepts the government’s vast and intrusive COVID-19 rules, or that person is labeled a “COVID denier.” A citizen either obediently accepts the government’s vast and intrusive “climate change” rules, or that person is labeled a “climate denier.” A citizen either accepts Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” as “Russian disinformation“, or that person is labeled a “Russian sympathizer.” Daring to say otherwise could get one banned from social media, professionally sanctioned, or even fired from a job. Except none of these established “narratives” has proved true.

    In hindsight, it is clear that lockdowns unleashed more health, educational and economic problems than they solved. As Europe faces an expanding energy crisis that leaves its populations vulnerable to the cold, it is clear that “climate change” policies can kill those they are purportedly meant to protect. And as Elon Musk’s recent release of internal Twitter communications proves, Hunter Biden’s laptop was not only real news censored from the public during a presidential election. Political speech was also censored through the collaborative efforts of the FBI and more than 50 intelligence community agents in violation of the First Amendment. In each case, the “narrative” proved to be either misleading propaganda or an outright lie. Yet they were created and sustained by online communication platforms that pushed the lies and excluded the truths.

    As global events increasingly threaten Western stability, governments have demonstrated no inclination to entertain a diversity of viewpoints or discussions along the way. Instead, the more serious the issue, the more committed to a single, overarching “narrative” they seem to become. Dissent is despised. Reasoned argument is lampooned. A citizen is expected to blithely accept government-approved messaging disseminated online, or risk the wrath of the technocracy.

    This war for eight billion minds means that citizens must be more vigilant than ever in processing and evaluating what they see and read. Whether they like it or not, they are under attack at all times from those who seek to manipulate and control them. As in the last century, we are surrounded by totalitarian propaganda routinely disguised as “the truth.” In this century, though, the reach and scale of mass indoctrination seems endlessly expanding.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/17/2022 – 22:30

  • The USA Is Still Not The Most Innovative Country In The World
    The USA Is Still Not The Most Innovative Country In The World

    Since 2000, global investment in research and development (R&D) has tripled to $2.4 trillion.

    R&D spend is also casting a wider global net. In 1960, the U.S. made up nearly 70% of global R&D spending, and by 2020 this had fallen to 30%. From job creation and public health to national security and industrial competitiveness, R&D plays a vital role in a country’s economic growth and innovation, impacting nearly every corner of society—either directly or indirectly.

    Along with R&D spend, other key ingredients play an important role in driving progress and innovation. These include technological adoption, scientific research, and venture capital activity, among others.

    In the infographic below, Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld ranks the world’s most innovative economies using data from the UN’s WIPO Global Innovation Index.

    What Defines an Innovative Economy?

    Innovation is inherently challenging to quantify, but the Global Innovation Index is a longstanding attempt to do just that.

    The framework used for the index was designed to create a more complete analysis, comprising of 81 indicators across seven categories to calculate a country’s score:

    As the above table shows, the framework aims to identify indicators that foster an innovative environment and breakthrough technologies.

    It’s worth noting that each country’s overall innovation score is a mix of these categories, and countries with similar scores can be strong in different areas.

    The 50 Most Innovative Countries in 2022

    Switzerland ranks at the top⁠ for the 12th year in a row—above the U.S., South Korea, and Israel.

    For many, this may come as a surprise. However, the country’s intellectual property rules are considered world-class, and they are complemented by strong collaboration between universities and industry. In addition, the country attracts top talent thanks to its high quality of living.

    At second is the United States, which is a top spender on R&D at over $700 billion per year. Globally, four of the five top R&D spending companies are in America: Amazon ($42.7 billion), Alphabet ($27.6 billion), Microsoft ($19.3 billion), and Apple ($18.8 billion).

    Rank

    Country / Region

    Score

    1

    🇨🇭 Switzerland

    64.6

    2

    🇺🇲 U.S.

    61.8

    3

    🇸🇪 Sweden

    61.6

    4

    🇬🇧 United Kingdom

    59.7

    5

    🇳🇱 Netherlands

    58.0

    6

    🇰🇷 South Korea

    57.8

    7

    🇸🇬 Singapore

    57.3

    8

    🇩🇪 Germany

    57.2

    9

    🇫🇮 Finland

    56.9

    10

    🇩🇰 Denmark

    55.9

    11

    🇨🇳 China

    55.3

    12

    🇫🇷 France

    55.0

    13

    🇯🇵 Japan

    53.6

    14

    🇭🇰 Hong Kong

    51.8

    15

    🇨🇦 Canada

    50.8

    16

    🇮🇱 Israel

    50.2

    17

    🇦🇹 Austria

    50.2

    18

    🇪🇪 Estonia

    50.2

    19

    🇱🇺 Luxembourg

    49.8

    20

    🇮🇸 Iceland

    49.5

    21

    🇲🇹 Malta

    49.1

    22

    🇳🇴 Norway

    48.8

    23

    🇮🇪 Ireland

    48.5

    24

    🇳🇿 New Zealand

    47.2

    25

    🇦🇺 Australia

    47.1

    26

    🇧🇪 Belgium

    46.9

    27

    🇨🇾 Cyprus

    46.2

    28

    🇮🇹 Italy

    46.1

    29

    🇪🇸 Spain

    44.6

    30

    🇨🇿 Czech Republic

    42.8

    31

    🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates

    42.1

    32

    🇵🇹 Portugal

    42.1

    33

    🇸🇮 Slovenia

    40.6

    34

    🇭🇺 Hungary

    39.8

    35

    🇧🇬 Bulgaria

    39.5

    36

    🇲🇾 Malaysia

    38.7

    37

    🇹🇷 Turkey

    38.1

    38

    🇵🇱 Poland

    37.5

    39

    🇱🇹 Lithuania

    37.4

    40

    🇮🇳 India

    36.6

    41

    🇱🇻 Latvia

    36.5

    42

    🇭🇷 Croatia

    35.6

    43

    🇹🇭 Thailand

    34.9

    44

    🇬🇷 Greece

    34.5

    45

    🇲🇺 Mauritius

    34.4

    46

    🇸🇰 Slovakia

    34.3

    47

    🇷🇺 Russia

    34.3

    48

    🇻🇳 Vietnam

    34.3

    49

    🇷🇴 Romania

    34.1

    50

    🇨🇱 Chile

    34.0

    Countries across Europe also feature prominently in the top 10, including Sweden (#3), the United Kingdom (#4) and the Netherlands (#5).

    South Korea (#6), is known for its high R&D intensity. This is driven by its industrial conglomerates, known as chaebols, that are generally family-owned. Samsung and LG are among its largest companies, known for their high degree of corporate-academic collaboration.

    Below, we will take a closer look at the most innovative countries by region.

    North America

    In North America, the U.S. ranks highest. The country has long been known as a global leader in innovation, with a strong track record of introducing new ideas and technologies that have transformed the way we live and work. The U.S. ranks #1 in a number of indicators, including university-industry R&D collaboration and intangible asset intensity.

    Ranking second in the region is Canada (Global rank: #15). Across all countries, it ranks first on measures of joint venture and strategic alliances per billion dollars of GDP (PPP) and number of venture capital (VC) recipients per billion dollars of GDP (PPP). In 2021, VC investment topped $14.7 billion across 752 deals.

    Another interesting example is Honduras (#113). Driving innovation in the country is a new economic zoning experiment called Zones for Economic Development and Employment (ZEDEs).

    To date, these zones have attracted about a quarter of a billion dollars in private investment funding and have created thousands of new jobs.

    South America

    Chile (#50) ranks first across the region, thanks to its promising tech sector. To date, it is home to an estimated 8,000 tech companies. The country also has the highest scale of mobile connectivity in the region. In late 2021, it launched the first 5G network in South America.

    Following Chile is Brazil (#54), which saw a record number of IPOs in 2021 that were valued at nearly $7 billion.

    Middle East and Central Asia

    As the highest ranked in the region, Israel (#16) is the sole country globally that spends over 5% of GDP on R&D. Overall, it is a global leader in patent applications and information and communication technology (ICT) services exports.

    For context, the country’s density of start-ups per capita is 16 times that of Europe.

    The small island nation of Cyprus (#27) follows in second, supported by government funding focused on start-ups. Meanwhile, Turkey (#37) in third, is home to six unicorns*, fostered by its development of a megatech corridor through Istanbul to Izmir.

    *A unicorn is a privately-held startup that has a valuation of over $1 billion.

    Europe

    With 15 of the top 25 economies in the world, Europe is a powerhouse for fostering innovative ecosystems.

    The continent is also a leader in social progress, equality, and life satisfaction. The region scores 30 on inequality according to the Gini Index compared to 41 for America.

    For many, technological output isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when they think of Europe, but VC deals surged over 53% in 2021. London, Berlin, and Paris were leading cities for VC activity.

    East Asia and Oceania

    South Korea (#6) ranks highest across East Asia and Oceania, and has established itself as a leader in technology and innovation on the global stage. Through its New Deal initiative, the government is spearheading projects on smart healthcare, AI, and smart industrial complexes. At the same time, it is accelerating the construction of eco-friendly infrastructure and renewable energy.

    South Korea’s Hyundai and its subsidiary Kia have made considerable ground in electric vehicle (EV) production, comprising 9% of the U.S. EV market, the second-highest share after Tesla.

    China sits just outside the global top 10, and now ranks #1 in multiple indicators, including labor productivity growth and trademarks by origin. China’s economic output per employed worker increased an impressive 4.2% annually from 2011 to 2019, on average.

    Africa

    The highest ranked in Africa is the island nation of Mauritius (#45).

    Underscoring its rank is the strength of its institutions and market sophistication. Meanwhile, the government is accelerating investment in tech incubators, research-business collaboration, and tax incentives for R&D investment.

    South Africa (#61) follows Mauritius on the list, with the city of Cape Town attracting a proposed $300 million Amazon headquarters.

    Panasonic opened their headquarters in Cape Town in 2018. Oracle, IBM, Google, and Microsoft also have offices in the country’s expanding tech hub.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/17/2022 – 22:00

  • Biden's Latest JFK Document-Dump Is A Joke
    Biden’s Latest JFK Document-Dump Is A Joke

    Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

    Waiting for a government – any government – to release their “secret” files is a waste of your time, and reading anything they eventually publish is doubly so.

    If you didn’t learn that from the nothing-burger that was the 28 pages on 9/11, or the pathetic exercise in revisionism that made up the Afghanistan Papers…you should definitely have learned it today.

    Yes, Joe Biden’s administration has just released their promised “secret” JFK papers.

    Turns out that Oswald acted alone.

    I know, I was shocked too.

    Further, the release dials back on the (very slight) anti-Russia messaging of last year’s release.

    In December 2021, the previous batch of “secret” files revealed Oswald met with a KGB agent in the days running up to the assassination.

    The latest batch reassures us that Oswald never worked for the KGB, and that the Russians thought he was “too crazy” to recruit.

    One gets the impression that has as much to do with managing propaganda positioning over the war in Ukraine as anything else. Either way, its a ridiculously transparent attempt to reinforce the “lone wolf” lie.

    “He was too crazy and unstable even for the Russians!”

    Laughable.

    Further, one particular “secret” memo claims…

    the Central Intelligence Agency has no indication that Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald ever knew each other, were associated, or might have been connected in any manner”.

    Yes, before Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald they were apparently “not connected in any manner”. He had never met Oswald before the assassination, and barely had any idea who he was when he shot him on November 24th.

    This means the current “official story” is that Ruby randomly chose to attend the press conference where Oswald spoke on the evening of November 22nd, despite not being a member of the press.

    During this press conference, Ruby correctly pointed out Oswald had joined the “fair play for Cuba committee” (presumably an inspired guess, seeing as they did not know one another).

    Then, two days later and on a complete whim, he decided to sneak back into the police station carrying a gun and shoot a man he had never met for no reason at all, in the parking lot of a police station, while surrounded by police officers.

    That’s what these “secret files” tell us…the same ridiculous story as the very unsecret Warren Commission.

    So, yet again, we see just how pointless these long-awaited government releases are, and how they are only every used to reinforce the official narrative.

    It was always going to be that way.

    After all, JFK has been dead for six decades, that is more than enough time to redact, edit, censor and indeed forge documents ’til they tell the story you want to tell.

    Hell, it’s possible these files didn’t even exist until a couple of days ago. Why on Earth should we give the CIA, FBI or National Archives the benefit of the doubt?

    Supposing they are sitting on some cache of massively incriminating evidence…are they really likely to release it? Just because someone asks nicely?

    Imagine the police rocking up to a murder suspect’s house, knocking politely, and asking if he wouldn’t mind going inside and fetching all the evidence that he killed his wife. Then quietly waiting sixty years for him to do it.

    The entire process is a farce.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/17/2022 – 21:30

  • Gates, Bezos Invest In Australian-Designed Brain Implant
    Gates, Bezos Invest In Australian-Designed Brain Implant

    Authored by Daniel Y. Teng via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Billionaires Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are betting on the New York-based Synchron as the answer to Elon Musk’s Neuralink.

    Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos speaks after receiving the 2019 International Astronautical Federation (IAF) Excellence in Industry Award during the the 70th International Astronautical Congress at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC on October 22, 2019. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

    Founded by Australian professors Tom Oxley and Nick Opie, the company on Dec. 16 announced it had closed a $110 million Series C funding round involving Bezos Expeditions, Gates Frontier, and ARCH Venture Partners.

    The Synchron Switch is a “brain-computer interface” that is implanted in the blood vessels at the surface of the motor cortex of the brain via the jugular vein.

    Once set, the interface will detect and wirelessly transmit information from the brain, allowing severely paralysed individuals to control personal devices without needing to use their hands.

    The funds will be put towards a pivotal clinical trial.

    The Stentrode Endovascular Electrode Array (Courtesy of Synchron)

    The Stentrode™ Endovascular Electrode Array and Implantable Receiver Transmitter Unit. (Courtesy of Synchron)

    “We have an opportunity to deliver a first-in-class commercial [brain-computer interface],” said Oxley, also the CEO of Synchron, in a statement.

    “The problem of paralysis is much larger than people realize. 100 million people worldwide have upper limb impairment,” he added.

    ARCH Managing Director Robert Nelson said Synchron was helping individuals with untreatable conditions “regain connection to the world.

    “It is an exciting time for neurotechnology,” he said.

    How Does it Compare to Musk’s Neuralink?

    Clinical trials are currently underway in the United States and Australia with Opie saying the procedure was minimally invasive—a factor he believes sets it apart from Musk’s Neuralink.

    “We don’t need to remove the scalp and skull or put electrodes directly into delicate brain tissue,” he said in comments obtained by AAP.

    “We’ve come up with a clever way of getting to the right place in the brain just by using the body’s naturally occurring highways and blood vessels.”

    He added this ensured patients recovered faster as well from the procedure.

    So far, four Australian paralysis patients have received implants since undergoing the procedure at Royal Melbourne Hospital in 2020.

    “All of those patients were able to control a computer with their mind,” he said. “And there were no serious device-related effects.”

    The first U.S. patient was treated in July 2022 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York after Synchron received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last year.

    In contrast, Musk’s Neuralink has yet to receive approval from the body and is also facing questions over potential animal welfare violations.

    Musk had wanted to start human trials in six months, yet the billionaire is also reported to have approached Synchron about a potential investment.

    Opie says no deal is on the table.

    Other investors include Reliance Digital Health, Greenoaks, Alumni Ventures, Moore Strategic Ventures, and Project X, as well as existing investors Khosla Ventures, NeuroTechnology Investors, METIS, Forepont Capital Partners, ID8 Investments, and Shanda Group.

    AAP contributed to this article.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/17/2022 – 20:30

  • Point Of No Return: Beijing's Move To Covid Coexistence Is Here To Stay
    Point Of No Return: Beijing’s Move To Covid Coexistence Is Here To Stay

    By Houze Song of MarcoPolo.org

    With China’s upcoming Central Economic Work Conference (CEWC), markets will be looking for any pro-growth signals after a year of turbulence. But the most consequential action for growth has already happened: the decision to abandon Zero Covid.

    The key questions now are

    1. will the Zero Covid exit endure?

    2. how much will property rebound?

    3. will there be more significant stimulus?  

    Here we briefly unpack our views on these three questions.

    Covid: China Has Crossed the Rubicon Toward Coexistence

    Although 4Q growth will still come in around expectations in our recent outlook, we underestimated the degree to which an about-face on Zero Covid would occur. One of the key factors is that the pre-Party Congress politics on Zero Covid have evaporated, making it much easier to shift course. Combined with bottom-up demands and an economy in dire straits, those advocating an exit have won. At this point, we expect China to embark on a swift exit and reach near full opening by the end of 1H2023.

    If anything, the concern now is whether China is exiting hastily without much planning for case surges and ensuring sufficient hospital capacity. To be sure, the path from containment to coexistence will be paved with its share of chaos and setbacks, but we believe that China has passed the point of no return and is decisively moving to coexistence.

    Fast-moving developments in the Chinese capital bear monitoring as a leading indicator. That’s because what happens in Beijing won’t stay in Beijing—that is, with the Chinese capital already confronting a bad surge, the government’s acceptance of case spread without reversing course will send a strong signal across the country for emulating the approach. At this point, even with infections mounting, we believe the government is unlikely to tighten controls again and will hold the line on reopening.

    Property: From Rescuing Developers to Stimulating Demand

    The property sector’s prospects have improved as of late because state banks have been quietly lending to property developers without resorting to a formal splashy bailout. But there is strong reluctance behind these actions, as the central government is serious about reducing banks’ exposure to the property sector and maintaining its fiscal prudence.

    So Beijing will want to shift the burden of the property rescue from the state to households as soon as possible. And the Covid exit presents as good an opportunity as any for Beijing to seize on to unleash more household spending. We expect announcements on stimulating property demand during the CEWC, including measures such as reducing down payment and mortgage rates.

    Skepticism on whether demand-side stimulus will work is warranted, since incentives for property purchases have been largely unsuccessful to date as sales declined by more than 20% through October. But at the same time, Chinese households have accumulated 6 trillion yuan (~$1 trillion) in excess savings this year, largely as a result of not buying homes. That pent-up demand is more likely to materialize this time because the Covid exit will lead households to reconsider their outlook as the economy reopens.

    With households more willing to take on debt and resume property purchases, that will also improve the cash flow of property developers that depend on sales. That will lead the state sector to withdraw its lending once the sector appears more stable.

    Fiscal Stimulus: Overly Conservative

    While the Zero Covid exit and a potential property rebound are looking up, there remains the risk that stimulus will be withdrawn too quickly. While we believe that the on-budget fiscal deficit will modestly increase in 2023, the overall macroeconomic policy stance will likely be contractionary.

    For one, any increase in the fiscal deficit will not be able to offset the ending of other stimulus measures such as the tax refund and the central bank’s dividend payments—together accounting for 3% of GDP in 2021. Second, the latest Politburo meeting once again puts financial risk as a top concern for 2023, effectively ruling out broad-based monetary easing.

    The bottom line is that the move to Covid coexistence will be the biggest boon to growth in at least two years, even as a weaker stimulus will be a headwind to growth in 2023. We will have more detailed analysis of China’s economic prospects in our 1Q2023 Macro Outlook.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/17/2022 – 20:00

  • Shadowy US Spy Firm Promises To Surveil Crypto Users For The Highest Bidder
    Shadowy US Spy Firm Promises To Surveil Crypto Users For The Highest Bidder

    Authored by Kit Klatenberg via MintPressNews.com,

    Leaked files reviewed by MintPress expose how intelligence services the world over can track cryptocurrency transactions to their source and therefore identify users by monitoring the movements of smartphone and Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, such as Amazon Echo. The contents comprehensively detonate the myth of crypto anonymity, and have grave implications for individuals and states seeking to shield their financial activity from the prying eyes of hostile governments and authorities.

    The documents are among a trove related to the secret operations of Anomaly 6, a shadowy private spying firm founded by a pair of U.S. military intelligence veterans.

    The company covertly embeds software development kits, or SDKs, in hundreds of popular apps, then slices through layers of “anonymized” data in order to uncover sensitive information about any individual it chooses anywhere on Earth, at any time. In all, Anomaly 6 can simultaneously monitor roughly three billion smartphone devices – equivalent to a fifth of the world’s total population – in real-time.

    Having previously hawked its wares to U.S. Special Operations Command, as this journalist revealed on December 6, Anomaly 6 is now using British private military company Prevail Partners – heavily involved in the West’s proxy war in Ukraine – to market and sell its product to a variety of Western military, security, and intelligence agencies the world over. This is despite the company’s own founders fearing its global dragnet could be completely illegal under national and international data protection regimes.

    The company’s international surveillance reach could be more sweeping – and invasive – than even that of the C.I.A. and N.S.A. MintPress can reveal individuals, organizations, and states seeking to bypass traditional financial structures and systems loom prominently in Anomaly 6’s mephitic crosshairs, and spying on their transactions is a pivotal component of its sales pitch to government and private clients. This Orwellian technology leaves cryptocurrency users the world over nowhere to hide.

    WHO WATCHES THE WATCHERS?

    Ever since Bitcoin’s launch in 2009, anonymity has been an absolutely fundamental tenet of cryptocurrency. The ability to make and receive payments incognito through a secure, decentralized platform without needing to register a named bank account, or even interact with established financial gatekeepers at any stage, was and remains a unique selling point for the asset.

    The principle of anonymity is taken so seriously by crypto practitioners and aficionados alike that industry platforms are graded according to their levels of privacy. Many crypto entrepreneurs, some of whom manage hundreds of millions of dollars for clients, conduct business without ever disclosing their names, or any identifying information at all. Venture capital firms have even invested vast sums in crypto ventures with wholly pseudonymous founders, an unprecedented sectoral development.

    Anomaly Six’s website features no other data but the company name, contact and location

    In recent years, however, there have been several clear indications that cryptocurrency anonymity is under significant threat, and indeed could already have been mortally compromised by the U.S. intelligence apparatus. In June 2021, it was revealed that the F.B.I. had successfully traced and recovered $2.3 million in Bitcoin extorted by hackers from Colonial Pipeline in a ransomware attack, which had shut down the company’s computer systems, causing fuel shortages and a spike in gas prices.

    U.S. officials declined to reveal how they tracked where the ill-gotten funds had ended up, and identified the ultimate owners of 23 separate cryptocurrency accounts belonging to DarkSide, the hacking collective responsible for the cyberattack, although public statements by C.I.A. director William Burns in December that year may provide a clue. Speaking at a Wall Street Journal summit, he acknowledged that his Agency was engaged in “a number of different projects focused on cryptocurrency.”

    “This is something I inherited. My predecessor had started this,” he said. “Trying to look at second- and third-order consequences as well and helping with our colleagues in other parts of the U.S. government to provide solid intelligence on what we’re seeing as well.”

    While it’s certainly true that cryptocurrency’s anonymity is attractive to criminal elements and terrorist groups, there are a wide variety of entirely legitimate reasons for seeking privacy in financial transactions, and preventing regulators, big banks, and governments from keeping an eye on what one is doing.

    For example, political and social movements of every stripe in all corners of the globe have embraced the asset, as they can be financially supported from overseas without any paper trail being left at either end. In turn, activists can send money to each other and make purchases in secret, and organize events and construct local and international support networks, leaving authorities none the wiser.

    In Venezuela, cryptocurrency has provided vital respite to an entire country, as crippling U.S.-led sanctions have in recent years deprived both its government and citizens of access to, and the ability to buy, even basic necessities, including food and medicine. The national currency’s value reduced to almost zero, crypto transactions offer a literal lifeline by which goods and services can be accessed, and import and export restrictions imposed by Washington circumvented.

    ‘PATTERNS OF LIFE’ AND ‘BED DOWN LOCATIONS’

    A February 2021 U.N. special rapporteur report on the impact of American sanctions on Venezuela ruled they were “collective punishment,” and Caracas lived on just 1% of its pre-sanctions income. The previous March, Alfred de Zayas, formerly an independent expert for the United Nations Human Rights Council, calculated that over 100,000 Venezuelans had died as a result of the restrictions.

    Despite this monstrous human toll, and countless calls from prominent rights groups and international institutions to end the suffering, Washington rigidly enforces the sanctions regime, and seeks to harshly punish any individual or organization helping Caracas skirt restrictions. While measures have eased slightly following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Stateside prosecution of Colombian businessman Alex Saab, abducted from Cape Verde in October 2020, for selling food to the Venezuelan government is ongoing.

    Saab could be soon joined in the dock, if Anomaly 6 has anything to do with it. One of the company’s leaked sales presentations provides several case studies showing how its spying technology can be used by security and intelligence services to “derive understanding of the actions of individuals associated with sanctions violations.”

    By homing in on the location of the Venezuelan government’s sanctioned cryptocurrency exchange, the National Superintendence of Cryptoactives and Related Activities (Sunacrip), which manages all crypto activities in the country, Anomaly 6 identified two specific IoT devices “which show the value of the A6 dataset in this endeavor.”

    Scouring data generated at the site back to January 1, 2020, Anomaly 6 found thousands of signals emitted by IoT devices and smartphones. From there, it “built out the pattern of life for the devices in that search” – in other words, the locations device owners traveled to and from, when, and where they lived. In all, these devices produced “over 593,374 geographic points of reference”, in Argentina, Colombia, and Venezuela.

    From this amorphous corpus, Anomaly 6 identified one device with “a unique travel pattern which makes it worth further investigation.” In particular, its movements indicated a “very well-defined pattern of life in and around Caracas” – although the company professed to be “much more interested in its travel to the Colombian border in the Cúcuta/San Antonio del Táchira border area.”

    That Anomaly 6 was able to track this device while in flight was said to highlight a “unique aspect” of its dataset. The device “took a less than seven hour trip from Caracas to San Antonio del Táchira (Juan Vicente Gómez International Airport) which landed (or was on final approach at 0923 on 23 Feb).”

    “With less than 10 flights a day on average to this airport (pre-Covid 19), it would not be difficult to ascertain a short list of personalities of interest with access to Venezuelan passenger name records,” Anomaly 6 bragged. “Additionally, we can see that this device transits to the border crossing locations in the short time it was located in the area.”

    This border area was of note for Anomaly 6 as, “according to open source reporting, historically, Venezuelans have used border areas for cash pickup/drops to skirt sanctions put in place by the international community.” Such activities “provide access to hard currency to actors and governments which have been cut off from U.S. dollar trading platforms.”

    A “second device of interest” was found to have traveled to Medellín, Colombia, and its “pattern of life” indicated its owner had “connections to the financial/banking environment.”

    “Both of these devices exhibit [patterns of life] that warrant further exploration, especially when combined with fact [sic] they have been located at the Sunacrip HQ,” Anomaly 6 concluded. “Further investigation can find bed down locations as well as other insights for business locations, international travel, and other device co-location.”

    THE DEVIL TURNS AROUND

    Due to a highly successful mainstream media campaign over many years to demonize the government of Venezuela, and by extension its people, it is likely some American citizens will be entirely unsympathetic to Caracas’ plight, and approve of efforts to prevent the state bypassing sanctions. However, the ease with which Anomaly 6’s tools of mass surveillance could be domestically deployed, and the likelihood they already have, should give them pause.

    As I revealed in my initial report, Anomaly 6 can identify U.S. smartphone users by name, address and travel history. Another leaked sales presentation details how by linking a single anonymous individual’s smartphone signal recorded in North Korea to a network of hotels, schools, and other sites, the company determined with pinpoint accuracy their identity, marital status, where they worked and lived, the names of their children and the schools and universities at which they study, and more.

    Such capabilities would no doubt be of much interest to the C.I.A. and N.S.A. – both of which are in theory prohibited from spying on U.S. citizens, but have been recurrently embroiled in controversy for engaging in such activity.

    Concerningly, it has been revealed that the C.I.A. for many years sought to bulk collect international financial data in service of tracking the Islamic State’s funding sources, and incidentally vacuumed up voluminous quantities of sensitive information on U.S. citizens in the process.

    Heavily redacted records related to the connivance were unearthed due to pressure from senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Upon reviewing the material, they wrote to U.S. Director of Intelligence Avril Haines, righteously admonishing the C.I.A. for brazenly ignoring longstanding constitutional checks and balances on the Agency’s domestic activities.

    “[The C.I.A.] has done so entirely outside the statutory framework that Congress and the public believe govern this collection, and without any of the judicial, congressional or even executive branch oversight that comes with FISA collection,” they fulminated.

    Anomaly 6’s services, of course, mean the C.I.A. and N.S.A. can dodge restrictions at home, without fear of landing in hot water. Other agencies permitted to monitor Americans can likewise now do so without a warrant too. And there is no reason to believe that its spying would be restricted to financial transactions, either

    “Anomaly 6 data can be used in multiple use cases to support cyber intelligence and operational use end states,” the leaked crypto sales deck declares. “By utilizing multiple targeting methodologies, this data can support the building of a far superior intelligence picture that enables clients to move towards actionable end states. Fusing A6 data with other classified and unclassified data sets places the client at the forefront of the cyber mission space.”

    Other leaked Anomaly 6 files openly discuss how its technology is ripe for both “counterintelligence” and “source development” purposes, and it’s not merely U.S. citizens in the firing line. The firm boasts of having spied on the movements of “devices from other friendly countries,” including members of the Five Eyes global spying network, and France and Germany.

    In other words, Anomaly 6 turns every citizen on Earth into a potential “person of interest” to intelligence agencies, and thus a target for recruitment, surveillance, harassment, and much, much worse, the most intimate details of their private lives easily accessible by shady actors with a few clicks of a button, and without their knowledge or consent.

    While the mainstream media is yet to acknowledge the leak of the company’s sensitive internal papers, this has all the makings of an Edward Snowden-level international scandal of historic proportions. If Anomaly 6 is to be successfully stopped in its tracks, and Western intelligence agencies prevented from egregiously violating the privacy of innumerable individuals without compunction or oversight, it will require concerted collective action from concerned citizens worldwide.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/17/2022 – 19:30

  • The World's Countries Compared By 20 Key Metrics
    The World’s Countries Compared By 20 Key Metrics

    Which countries have the largest populations? What about the rural versus urban population divide? And which countries have the highest Gross Domestic Product (GDP), military expenditures, or tech exports?

    Instead of comparing countries by one metric, Visual Capitalist’s Carmen Ang introduces this animation and series of graphics by Anders Sundell uses 20 different categories of World Bank data to compare countries.

    The data was sourced in July 2022 and contains the latest available data for each country.

    Below, we provide some context on eight of the 20 categories, and share some facts on the top ranking countries for each category.

    Top 10 Countries Worldwide by GDP

    View the full-size map

    With a GDP of nearly $23 trillion in 2021, the United States has the largest economic output of any country in the world. While China is currently second on the list, some projections have China’s nominal GDP surpassing America’s as early as 2030.

    And even more evident on this map is the weight of economic power to Western countries and just a few Asian countries. Africa, South America, and the rest of Asia are tiny in contrast.

    Top 10 Countries Worldwide by Population

    View the full-size map

    China ranks first as the world’s most populated country, with a population of 1.4 billion. China has been the world’s most populated country for more than 300 years, but this could change in the near future.

    According to the UN’s latest population prospects, India’s population is expected to surpass China’s as early as 2023. However, it’s still unclear what the consequences of this shift will be.

    Top 10 Countries Worldwide by Population 65+

    View the full-size map

    While China also takes the top spot when it comes to total elderly population, it’s worth noting that Japan has a larger per capita population of people aged 65 and over.

    According to the ​​Population Reference Bureau, nearly 12% of China’s population is 65 or older, while in Japan, more than 28.2% of people are 65+.

    Top 10 Countries Worldwide by Urban Population

    View the full-size map

    Until the Industrial Revolution, most of the world’s population lived in rural areas. But by the early 1900s, urbanization started to skyrocket, and now more than half of the world’s population lives in cities.

    China’s urbanization really took off as soon as the country’s economic reforms began in the late 1970s. As of 2021, China’s urban population of roughly 861 million people made up 63% of its overall population.

    Top 10 Countries Worldwide by Rural Population

    View the full-size map

    Many Asian and East African countries rise to the front when it comes to rural population comparisons, but India easily has the world’s largest share with around 898 million people.

    As of 2021 figures, about 65% of India’s population is rural. This is actually a significant drop compared to the 1960s, when the country’s rural population made up a whopping 82% of its overall population.

    Still, that’s still significantly higher than Western countries. For instance, only 17% of the U.S. population lives in rural areas.

    Top 10 Countries Worldwide by Land Area

    View the full-size map

    When it comes to comparing countries by sheer size, Russia comes first with a land area of 16.4 million square kilometers—that’s nearly 2x bigger than China, which comes second on the list.

    According to National Geographic, Russia is so big, it accounts for one-tenth of all land on Earth. The country has 11 different time zones, as well as coasts on three separate oceans.

    Why isn’t Canada ranked second? Though it is generally accepted as the world’s second largest country, around 8.9% of its total area is made up of water. In pure landmass, China and the U.S. have an edge.

    Top 10 Countries Worldwide by Fuel Exports

    View the full-size map

    The U.S. ranks as the world’s top fuel exporter, with the United Arab Emirates in close second.

    According to the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas sector is responsible for about 8% of America’s total economic output, measured by GDP.

    And this map also highlights the many other countries dependent on energy for GDP. This includes OPEC members like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Iran, as well as well-known energy exporters like Norway and Russia.

    Top 10 Countries Worldwide by CO2 Emissions

    View the full-size map

    While China ranks first as the world’s biggest carbon emitter, it’s worth mentioning that the country is not even in the top 10 when looking at per capita carbon emissions.

    That being said, China’s annual emissions of 10.7 billion tons CO₂ make up a massive share of global emissions. They are more than double the second largest emitter, the United States.

    Comparing Countries by Other Metrics

    This series of graphics shows 20 distinct measures of comparing countries, but they are just a few of the hundreds of possible examples.

    From different economic measures like remittances, employment, and GDP to the multitude of factors that one can find in a demographic census, each comparison can yield different results and shed new lights on how countries relate to each other.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/17/2022 – 19:00

  • SBF Changes Mind On Extradition To US After Four Days In Bahamian Jail
    SBF Changes Mind On Extradition To US After Four Days In Bahamian Jail

    After spending just five days in a Bahamian jail cell, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is backpedaling on his decision to contest extradition to the United States to face fraud charges, Reuters reports, citing a person familiar with the matter.

    According to the report, SBF will appear in court on Monday to formally consent to extradition – which will pave the way for him to appear in US court to face charges that he commingled customer deposits to cover expenses and debts, and to make investments through his crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research LLC.

    That said, legal experts tell Reuters that a trial is likely over a year away.

    As Fox News reported last week, the Bahamas prison where SBF was reportedly heading – Fox Hill – is “harsh” due to “overcrowding, poor nutrition [and] inadequate sanitation,” along with cells that are “infested with rats, maggots, and insects.”

    File video from 2022 shows squalid condition as Nassau, Bahamas’ correctional facility known as Fox Hill Prison. (Nassau Guardian via Reuters / Reuters Photos)

    “He will be in sick bay for orientation purposes and then we will determine where best to place him,” said Bahamian Commissioner of Correctional Services Doan Cleare in a statement to Reuters.

    A 2021 U.S. State Department report said prisoners at Fox Hill described “infrequent access to nutritious meals and long delays between daily meals.” 

    “Maximum-security cells for men measured approximately six feet by 10 feet and held up to six persons with no mattresses or toilet facilities. Inmates removed human waste by bucket. Prisoners complained of the lack of beds and bedding,” according to the report. “Some inmates developed bedsores from lying on bare ground. Sanitation was a general problem, and cells were infested with rats, maggots, and insects.“

    “Overcrowding, poor sanitation, and inadequate access to medical care were problems in the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services men’s maximum-security block,” the report continued. “The facility was designed to accommodate 1,000 prisoners but was chronically overcrowded.”

    On Thursday, Bankman-Fried sought bail from the Bahamas Supreme Court following his Dec. 12 arrest. On Tuesday he was remanded to Fox Hill Prison after Chief Magistrate JoyAnn Ferguson rejected his request to remain at home while awaiting a hearing on his extradition to the US.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/17/2022 – 18:00

  • Denver Mayor Declares Emergency, Says City 'On Verge Of Reaching Breaking Point' Amid Influx Of Illegal Immigrants
    Denver Mayor Declares Emergency, Says City ‘On Verge Of Reaching Breaking Point’ Amid Influx Of Illegal Immigrants

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

    The city of Denver declared a state of emergency on Thursday in order to stave off a local humanitarian crisis amid an influx of illegal aliens from the southern border, mainly from El Paso, Texas.

    Denver Mayor Michael Hancock in Washington, on May 15, 2017. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

    Mayor Michael Hancock, a Democrat, issued the declaration as several hundred illegal aliens, mostly from Central and South America, have arrived in the state in just the past few days alone.

    “Let me be frank: This influx of migrants, the unanticipated nature of their arrival, and our current space and staffing challenges have put an immense strain on city resources to the level where they’re on the verge of reaching a breaking point at this time,” Hancock said at a news conference on Thursday.

    “What I don’t want to see is a local humanitarian crisis of unsheltered migrants on our hands because of a lack of resources,” the mayor added.

    According to Hancock’s office, more than 900 aliens have arrived in Denver over the past several months, including more than 600 people since Dec. 2.

    Another 247 aliens have arrived since Monday alone, while 75 turned up at a local homeless shelter overnight on Thursday evening, according to his office.

    Denver Mayor Michael Hancock at Civic Center Park in Denver, Colo., on June 3, 2020. (Jason Connolly/AFP via Getty Images)

    Denver ‘On the Verge of Reaching Breaking Point’

    Approximately 404 aliens are currently being accommodated in the city’s emergency shelters, including 102 at church and nonprofit shelter sites, the mayor’s office said.

    The “anticipated nature” of the arrival of the influx of illegal aliens has placed extreme pressure on the city’s efforts to shelter them, leading to limited space which is being further exacerbated by a lack of staffing, Hancock’s office said during Thursday’s news conference, noting that winter weather was set to make the situation worse.

    Hancock added that Denver is currently “at the level where we are on the verge of reaching breaking point at this time.”

    “The declaration is another tool in the toolbox to help serve the increasing number of migrants arriving in Denver, particularly as winter weather sets in,” Hancock said.

    Under the emergency declaration, Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, will be alerted that Denver is enacting a state of emergency.

    Denver will then be able to access additional emergency resources to help manage the influx of aliens, and will also be able to continue requesting financial assistance from various funding sources.

    Hancock said that, together with community partners, and the help of local churches and nonprofits, the city continues to provide aliens—the majority of which are coming to the city having entered the United States through El Paso, Texas—with emergency shelter.

    Venezuelan nationals walk along the border fence to a waiting Border Patrol van after illegally crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico, in El Paso, Texas, on Sept. 21, 2022. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

    Hancock Takes Aim at Biden Admin

    Denver has already forked out more than $800,000 on the illegal alien sheltering effort, and that number is expected to increase significantly.

    A majority of the aliens who have arrived in Denver are from Venezuela, according to Hancock, and are fleeing a political and humanitarian crisis in their home country.

    The mayor took aim at the Biden administration for failing to address the “critical situation” or respond adequately, despite being aware of it.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/17/2022 – 17:30

  • Musk Releases Doxxing Journalists From Twitter Jail After Poll
    Musk Releases Doxxing Journalists From Twitter Jail After Poll

    Twitter CEO Elon Musk reinstated a handful of left-wing journalists who had been booted from Twitter days ago for violating the social media platform’s “doxxing” policies.

    Shortly after midnight, Musk tweeted, “the people have spoken … accounts who doxxed my location will have their suspension lifted now.”

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

    Musk decided to lift the suspensions of the lefty journalists who shared his private jet locations earlier in the week after a Twitter poll he conducted on Thursday night showed 58.7% of the 3.7 million users who voted wanted the journalists reinstated “Now.” 

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

    Some of the accounts that were suspended include Keith Olbermann, Aaron Rupar, Tony Webster, NYT’s Ryan Mac, CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, WaPo’s Drew Harwell, Mashable’s Matt Binder, The Intercept’s Micah Lee, and VOA’s Steve Herman. 

    “Matt Binder is back,” the Mashable journalist tweeted early Saturday.

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

    Olbermann’s account remains suspended as of early Saturday morning. 

    Musk accused the journalists of sharing private information about his whereabouts. He said in a Twitter Space on Thursday:

    “You doxx, you get suspended. End of story. That’s it.” 

    All of this stems from an incident on Wednesday where Musk alleged a “crazy stalker” attacked the car one of his children was riding in. 

    Musk said, “Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info.”

    “Posting locations someone traveled to on a slightly delayed basis isn’t a safety problem, so is ok,” Musk added. 

    Musk also said: 

    “If anyone posted real-time locations & addresses of NYT reporters, FBI would be investigating, there’d be hearings on Capitol Hill & Biden would give speeches about end of democracy!”

    One of the first accounts suspended was @elonjet, a Twitter account operated by a college kid that tracks Musk’s private plane locations (the account is still suspended).

    Lefty journalists who had years of running amok on the social media platform where rules didn’t apply to them but only applied to their opposition have finally got a taste of what it’s like to end up in Twitter jail. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/17/2022 – 17:12

  • Trump Vows To Ban Feds From Targeting 'Misinformation' If Elected
    Trump Vows To Ban Feds From Targeting ‘Misinformation’ If Elected

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Former President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will bar the federal government from using terms such as “misinformation” and “disinformation” to describe domestic speech if he’s reelected.

    Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in Palm Beach, Fla., on Nov. 15, 2022. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

    In a video released by the New York Post, Trump said that if he’s named the winner in 2024, one of his first executive acts will target federal rules around speech. The advertisement-like clip showed Trump making his announcement in front of two American flags.

    “Within hours of my inauguration, I will sign an executive order banning any federal department or agency from colluding with any organization, business, or person, to censor, limit, categorize, or impede the lawful speech of American citizens,” Trump said.

    “I will then ban federal money from being used to label domestic speech as ‘mis-‘ or ‘dis-information’. And I will begin the process of identifying and firing every federal bureaucrat who has engaged in domestic censorship—directly or indirectly—whether they are the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the FBI, the DOJ, no matter who they are,” he added.

    Since last week, several journalists have published installments of the “Twitter Files,” promoted by new Twitter owner Elon Musk, that revealed how Trump’s account was suspended in early 2021 as well as how officials and campaigns communicated with Twitter executives through back channels.

    The 45th president also proposed a “Digital Bill of Rights” that “should include a right to digital due process—in other words, government officials should need a court order to take down online content, not send information requests such as the FBI was sending to Twitter.”

    “In addition, all users over the age of 18 should have the right to opt-out of content moderation and curation entirely, and receive an unmanipulated stream of information if they so choose,” Trump said.

    After taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden has called on news outlets and social media firms to tackle what he said is misinformation around COVID-19 and vaccines.

    “I make a special appeal to social media companies and media outlets: Please deal with the misinformation and disinformation that is on your shows,” Biden said earlier this year. “It has to stop. COVID-19 is one of the most formidable enemies America has ever faced. We have got to work together, not against each other.”

    Months before that, Biden told reporters that Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms are “killing people” by allowing certain claims about the virus to proliferate.

    Activity

    A week after the midterm elections, Trump announced at his Mar-a-Lago resort that he would be embarking on a third campaign for president but has kept a relatively low profile since then.

    Trump has made few policy statements after his Nov. 15 speech declaring his candidacy and reportedly has not left Florida to campaign or hold rallies. Republicans, meanwhile, underperformed during the 2022 midterms after forecasters predicted a “red wave” in both the House and Senate.

    Days after announcing his candidacy, Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointed a special counsel, Jack Smith, to lead investigations into Trump’s 2020 election challenges and handling of records since he left office. The FBI searched Trump’s home in August, recovering what Department of Justice prosecutors say were classified materials.

    Meanwhile, Trump faced controversy for a dinner meeting with rapper Kanye West and political commentator Nick Fuentes. On Truth Social, the former president described West as a “seriously troubled man” in confirming the meeting: “I told him don’t run for office, a total waste of time, can’t win.”

    Trump’s Twitter account, which has around 90 million followers now, was recently reinstated by Musk after the Tesla CEO conducted a poll that found a majority of users wanted the former president back on the platform. So far, Trump has not used his once-highly engaged account and has told media outlets that he will stick to using Truth Social instead.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/17/2022 – 16:30

  • Texas Gov. Abbott Seeks State Probe Of NGOs Aiding Illegal Immigrants Crossing Border
    Texas Gov. Abbott Seeks State Probe Of NGOs Aiding Illegal Immigrants Crossing Border

    Authored by Mark Tapscott via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is asking the state’s attorney general to open an investigation of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that are helping illegal immigrants who are crossing the border from Mexico.

    “With the end of Title 42 just days away, the number of illegal immigrants crossing the Texas–Mexico border has reached an all-time high,” Abbott, a Republican, told Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a letter made public on Dec. 15. “Indeed, this past Sunday, over a 24-hour span, over 2,600 illegal immigrants crossed the border near El Paso and illegally entered Texas. These numbers are likely to increase in the coming weeks.”

    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks during a press conference about the mass shooting at Uvalde High School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 27, 2022. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

    Abbott’s reference to Title 42 is to a public health emergency order issued by President Donald Trump to stop the spread of COVID-19 across the southern border that authorized federal agents to return immigrants crossing the border to Mexico to await processing of their cases, including claims of seeking asylum in the United States. A federal court ruled earlier this year that the order will be halted on Dec. 21.

    “But as the facts on the ground continue to change, we must remain vigilant in our response to this crisis. There have been recent reports that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) may have assisted with illegal border crossings near El Paso,” Abbott told Paxton.

    “We further understand NGOs may be engaged in unlawfully orchestrating other border crossings through activities on both sides of the border, including in sectors other than El Paso. In light of these reports, I am calling on the Texas Attorney General’s Office to initiate an investigation into the role of NGOs in planning and facilitating the illegal transportation of illegal immigrants across our borders.”

    Abbott’s letter to Paxton comes a day after the Heritage Foundation Oversight Project made public the results of a massive analysis of more than 30,000 anonymized cell devices used by illegal immigrants after entering the United States and receiving resettlement care and services via NGO facilities.

    The Heritage project tracked the devices to nearly every congressional district in the country, according to Mike Howell, director of the conservative foundation’s Oversight Project.

    “We now have undeniable proof that NGOs are the Biden administration’s partner in facilitating and perpetuating this historic border crisis. What’s most shameful is that these NGOs are using not just taxpayer dollars to complete the final link in the drug cartels’ human smuggling operation, but also funds donated by Americans across this country who have no idea their charitable giving is being used for this purpose,” Howell said in a statement.

    “They are working hand-in-glove with the open-borders advocates in the Biden administration to resettle untold numbers of illegal aliens across this country every month, willingly advancing the left’s goal of reshaping the American electorate and advancing their political objectives.

    “These organizations have no business engaging in such behavior. They should be investigated, held accountable, and defunded. And make no mistake, the Oversight Project is just getting started in showing the role these groups are playing in not only continuing this historic border crisis, but in fueling the cartels’ business model and encouraging millions of individuals to subject themselves to misery, suffering, and death along the journey to the border. We are ready and willing to cooperate with Texas law enforcement to pass along information regarding what we find.”

    There are dozens of NGOs involved in various ways in assisting immigrants coming into the United States. It isn’t illegal to provide such care and services to legal immigrants, but multiple federal laws may be broken when illegal immigrants are involved.

    Among such NGOs, according to the state of California, are Amnesty International USA, Catholic Charities USA, Doctors Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, and Refugee Council USA.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/17/2022 – 15:30

  • FBI Whistleblower Slams Ted Lieu, Says He Was Moved Off Child Porn Cases To Focus On J6
    FBI Whistleblower Slams Ted Lieu, Says He Was Moved Off Child Porn Cases To Focus On J6

    Following the latest ‘TWITTER FILES‘ drop, which revealed that “Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary,” journalist Matt Taibbi commented that “Instead of chasing child sex predators or terrorists, the FBI has agents — lots of them — analyzing and mass-flagging social media posts.”

    In response, California Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu lashed out – telling Taibbi: “I’m on the House Judiciary Committee that has oversight over the @FBI and you are lying,” adding “The FBI has lots of agents chasing child sex predators and terrorists. Please stop undermining and lying about federal law enforcement.”

    To which researcher Tracy Beanz asked FBI whistleblower Steve Friend to chime in.

    Friend, a former 12-year veteran of the FBI and a SWAT team member, notably came out in October to claim that the agency went into hyperdrive to track down and investigate January 6th cases to promote the appearance of right-wing domestic terrorism, at the expense of other investigations – such as child trafficking.

    Friend was suspended and stripped of his gun and badge in September for refusing to participate in SWAT raids against January 6th subjects accused of misdemeanor offenses, according to the NY Post.

    As Taibbi wrote in November of Friend;

    He worked a child pornography detail before being transferred to the assignment that would upend his life: investigating J6. The FBI not only took Friend off vital work chasing child predators to pursue questionable investigations of people maybe connected with the Capitol riots (often in some misdemeanor fashion), they used dubious bureaucratic methods he felt put him in an impossible spot.

    Essentially, the FBI made Friend a supervisory agent in cases actually being run by the Washington field office, a trick replicated across the country that made domestic terrorism numbers appear to balloon overnight. Instead of one investigation run out of Washington, the Bureau now had hundreds of “terrorism” cases “opening” in every field office in the country. As a way to manipulate statistics, it was ingenious, but Friend could see it was also trouble.

    As a member of a dying breed of agent raised to focus on making cases and securing convictions, Friend knew putting him nominally in charge of a case he wasn’t really running was a gift to any good defense attorney, should a J6 case ever get to trial.

    “They’re gonna see my name as being the case agent, yet not a single document has my name as doing any work,” Friend says. “Now a defense lawyer can say, ‘Hey, the case agent for this case didn’t perform any work.’ Labeling the case this way would be a big hit to our prosecution.”

    And so, in response to Lieu’s tweet, Friend wrote: “Hey @tedlieu, I’ll be happy to explain how I was moved from investigating child exploitation and human trafficking and told to focus on January 6. I was told child pornographers should be considered a “local matter.””

    So far crickets from Lieu, though he’s quite the prolific Tweeter so maybe Friend will get a response.

    The FBI, meanwhile, responded to Taibbi’s “The Twitter Files” thread, in which he said that between January 2020 and November 2022, former Twitter Senior Director of Trust & Safety, Yoel Roth, had exchanged over 150 emails with the agency.

    “The FBI regularly engages with private sector entities to provide information specific to identified foreign malign influence actors’ subversive, undeclared, covert, or criminal activities,” the FBI said in a statement. “Private sector entities independently make decisions about what, if any, action they take on their platforms and for their customers after the FBI has notified them.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/17/2022 – 15:00

  • Taibbi Hits Back After Critics Attack During 'Twitter Files' Release
    Taibbi Hits Back After Critics Attack During ‘Twitter Files’ Release

    Authored by Matt Taibbi via TK News,

    Toward the end of work on this story a controversy blew up around the Twitter Files. I learned a little on Thursday night, and then apparently missed a whole drama that took place online Friday while I was trying to put the FBI story together.

    Once that story was out, I saw just a few critics weigh in before falling asleep. This morning highlights were passed on to me by friends. The gist was expressed by MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan, who’s taken over the role of Ardent Establishment Moralist from Rachel Maddow, who had a firm grip on it until she spent three years bollocking the Trump-Russia story.

    Mehdi’s had a raging cable-on for all things Elon Musk for a while, apparently.

    Here’s a tweet from yesterday:

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

     I actually wasn’t silent about it (see last night’s Substack piece), but even if I had been, so what? These Twitter Files stories that are coming out are getting at issues that have nothing to do with Elon Musk, Keith Olbermann, Aaron Rupar, Barney the Dinosaur, or anyone else.

    This is a chance for ordinary Americans to see, from the inside, how their tax dollars have been spent building an elaborate, systematized method of censorship and opinion control, with agencies like the DHS and the DOJ/FBI at the helm. These “enforcement” agencies are not fighting or investigating crime (or even, say, terror plots), they’re just collecting domestic intelligence on a grand scale, and seeking to distort the public’s perception of reality through mass moderation, via programs we’ve been told little to nothing about.

    Hasan believes that just as we’re getting this state-sponsored mass-censorship program in our sights, I should stop, beat my breast on Twitter about an unrelated topic every other corporate journalist in the world is already wailing about, and make the story about me at exactly the moment we’ve found good reason for people to focus their attention on agencies like the FBI and the DHS.

    There’s a divide in media, mostly generational, with conspicuous exceptions. The current reigning breed of press figure — Mehdi is a perfect example — imagines himself or herself to be first and foremost a political animal, someone who’s primary job is to advocate at all times for a point of view.

    There’s an extraordinary emphasis on “calling out,” a concept that didn’t exist when I started doing this job. A parallel example to the lunacy of last night would be the parade of people in the past weeks who insisted I had a responsibility — because we both happened to be on the Twitter Files story — to confront Bari Weiss about past actions of hers involving Columbia University and professors accused of bias against Jewish students.

    Because I didn’t throw a fit and walk out on a great story when Bari came on the scene, it’s evidence I’ve “aligned myself with the right.” I imagine once word gets out we were also civil and cooperative as we rummaged through the digital pile, this will be another count in the indictments against us both.

    This is the same bugbear that afflicted signatories of the “Harper’s Letter,” many of whom found themselves accused of hypocrisy because they co-signed a statement with (circle one) Bari/J.K. Rowling/David Frum/Katie Herzog/Jesse Singal/Others, who were deemed Bad People for reasons X, Y, Z, etc. The idea was, we don’t judge people on the basis of what they say anymore. Instead, by co-signing a statement with others, we are now responsible — indeed, we’ve implicitly endorsed — the collective actions and opinions accrued over the lifetimes of all the people whose signatures are on the same page with ours.

    Therefore you must not sign a statement, even if you believe in every word of it. You have to attach conditions: I won’t sign, you’re supposed to say, until the following three objectionable people are removed. You have to “call out” the very people who may have just gulped hard before agreeing to co-sign a petition with you.

    The furor over who signed the Harper’s Letter succeeded in its obvious aim, which was to detract from its simple, humane message, which was good enough for Salman Rushdie and Noam Chomsky: “We refuse any false choice between justice and freedom, which cannot exist without each other.”

    Instead of debating this proposition, national media turned the Harper’s Letter — quickly rechristened the “now-infamous letter” by the likes of Forbes — into a referendum on the views of people like Bari and J.K. Rowling. Its organizer, Thomas Chatterton Williams, became the subject of appalling attacks, and even after criticizing Donald Trump both in the letter and out of it, was criticized for failing to add enough quantity to his critique, not adding that Trump is a violent demagogue and mendacious racist in addition to something less than a genuine proponent of free speech. The Atlantic even pretended to be aghast that the Harpers signatories could worry about free expression in the pages of a magazine that does not pay its interns.

    This was all a show, transparently designed to obscure the point. It’s beyond obvious the same phenomenon is going on with the Twitter Files.

    I mentioned a divide in the business. There is another breed of media figure, dwindling in number, which doesn’t care where any interesting information or documentation comes from. Those of us in that group know we’re legally allowed to publish material that’s been stolen, and we’ll take newsworthy revelations from hackers, foreign spies, political zealots of all stripes, and crazy people (especially crazy people: they are some of our best sources). Some of the best journalism has come from interviews with gangsters and convicted murderers. We don’t care: if the stuff is real and newsworthy, we’ll print it.

    Subscribers to TK News can read more here…

    As usual, the graphics in Friday night’s “Twitter Files” story make the entire thread too large to sneak through Gmail’s size limit. But a readable online version of the thread lives on the TK site. You can find it by clicking here.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/17/2022 – 14:30

  • John Carmack Rage-Quits From Meta VR Project After Doomed Experience
    John Carmack Rage-Quits From Meta VR Project After Doomed Experience

    Video game industry legend John Carmack, the man who brought us Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein, is done with Facebook’s virtual reality ‘metaverse’ project, which is apparently a complete mess.

    The 52-year-old Carmack, who joined Meta from Oculus after its $2 billion acquisition in 2014, said in an internal memo published in part by the NY Times, that he’s “wearied of the fight” and would focus on his own startup – AI firm Keen Technologies, for which he’s raised $20 million.

    “It has been a struggle for me,” Carmack wrote in the post. “I have a voice at the highest levels here, so it feels like I should be able to move things, but I’m evidently not persuasive enough.”

    When Facebook bought virtual reality company Oculus in 2014, Carmack was one of the most influential voices in the VR world. He decided to stay with the company after CEO Mark Zuckerberg chose to pivot the company’s focus – and name – towards the metaverse.

    Yet even though Meta was moving swiftly into an area that Mr. Carmack specialized in, he was sometimes a dissenting voice about how the effort was going. He became known for internal posts that criticized the decision-making and direction set forth by Mr. Zuckerberg and Andrew Bosworth, Meta’s chief technology officer. Mr. Carmack had been working part-time for the company in recent years. -NYT

    In an August podcast interview, Carmack said Meta’s $10 billion in losses within the company’s augmented reality and VR division made him “sick to my stomach,” and that the company’s metaverse efforts have been bogged down by concerns over diversity and privacy.

    Carmack has also internally criticized features of the company’s Quest VR headsets – saying that the hardware of the Quest 2 headset was “exactly what I wanted to see from the beginning,” but that the software was lacking.

    “We built something pretty close to The Right Thing,” he said.

    Still, Carmack thinks that Meta has the best shot at pulling off VR.

    “V.R. can bring value to most of the people in the world, and no company is better positioned to do it than Meta,” he wrote in his farewell post.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/17/2022 – 14:00

  • Social Media Coordination Between DOJ And FBI Is Not Limited To Twitter: Devin Nunes
    Social Media Coordination Between DOJ And FBI Is Not Limited To Twitter: Devin Nunes

    Authored by Katie Spence via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The social media coordination between the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI isn’t limited to Twitter, former Congressman and current CEO of President Trump’s Truth Social, Devin Nunes, alleged in an interview that aired on Newsmakers by NTD and The Epoch Times on Dec. 14.

    U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland (C), FBI Director Christopher Wray (R) and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco hold a press conference at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington on Oct. 24, 2022. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

    The Twitter Files, a collection of internal emails and communications made public by Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, confirmed what many Conservatives have alleged for years. Namely, Twitter was shadow-banning accounts that didn’t fit a specific ideology and suspending accounts that bucked the chosen political narrative, Nunes claimed.

    The Twitter logo and a photo of Elon Musk are displayed through a magnifier in this illustration taken on Oct. 27, 2022. (Dado Ruvic/Reuters)

    But, the most concerning revelation in the Twitter Files, according to Nunes, is that the DOJ and the FBI had informants—whether paid or volunteers—that put forward a specific directive to Twitter, and that is likely happening on other social media platforms.

    “The coordination that the Department of Justice and the FBI clearly had with Twitter? I don’t think it stops there,” Nunes stated.

    “It seems like they were either running informants, or had paid informants, or had volunteers, where they were actively sending information on behalf of the government on who to look into, or who to ban, and that sort of thing.

    “The bigger issue is, Twitter is one thing, but what about Facebook? What about Instagram?”

    Censorship and Shadow-Banning

    According to Nunes, Trump developed Truth Social because, before Musk bought Twitter, Trump recognized that there was absolute control over public discourse in the United States.

    Furthermore, that control led to shadow banning and suspending social media accounts, so those accounts couldn’t criticize the controlling regime in the proverbial public square.

    Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) on Capitol Hill in Washington on Oct. 28, 2019. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

    And while Nunes further stated that he’d recently discussed the Twitter File drops with Trump—and in general, Trump is glad Musk purchased Twitter—Trump still believes Musk needs to release all of the Twitter Files to the public and not go through cherry-picked journalists.

    “What [do] we really need from Elon Musk and Twitter at this point? Just release all the files. Don’t just have selective journalists look at it. Release all the files so everyone can begin to evaluate them. You never know what you’re going to find [with more people looking at the files].”

    Nunes said he believes that by releasing all the files, even more will be uncovered by citizen journalists and by Congress. He added he’s not alone in the belief that Musk should release all files and noted that Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s former CEO and founder, also called on Musk to release the Twitter Files to the public.

    Legacy Media Silence

    The Twitter Files contained explosive revelations. But the legacy media has largely avoided covering the drops. When asked why there was silence, Nunes stated that the legacy media had supported a particular narrative and political party.

    Musk revealing damaging information on government censorship has put the media in an interesting predicament where if they cover the files, they also expose their complicity and damaging information to their preferred political group.

    “There’s a strange cat-and-mouse game where [Musk] is sitting on what seems to be a treasure trove of really damaging information to not only the fake news media but also to probably many areas within the United States government,” Nunes stated.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/17/2022 – 13:30

  • Court Rules Against Biological Females Over Connecticut Transgender Athlete Policy
    Court Rules Against Biological Females Over Connecticut Transgender Athlete Policy

    A three-judge appellate panel on Friday dismissed a challenge to Connecticut’s transgender athlete policy, after a group of biological females said it was unfair that they have to race against biological males who identify as female.

    In its decision, the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City upheld a lower court judge’s dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the policy, brought by four female runners opposed to letting transgender athletes compete in high school sports. According to the judges, the girls lacked standing to sue, calling their claims that they were deprived of wins, state titles and athletic scholarship articles ‘speculative.’

    “All four Plaintiffs regularly competed at state track championships as high school athletes, where Plaintiffs had the opportunity to compete for state titles in different events,” reads the ruling. “And, on numerous occasions, Plaintiffs were indeed “champions,” finishing first in various events, even sometimes when competing against (transgender athletes).”

    According to the judges, “Plaintiffs simply have not been deprived of a ‘chance to be champions.’”

    The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Council argued its policy is designed to comply with a state law that requires all high school students be treated according to their gender identity. It also said the policy is in accordance with Title IX, the federal law that allows girls equal educational opportunities, including in athletics.

    The American Civil Liberties Union defended the two transgender athletes at the center of the lawsuit — Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood. –AP

    A lawyer for the girls, Christiana Kiefer, said she and other attorneys for the Alliance Defending Freedom are considering how to respond, including a possible appeal to the US Supreme Court to review Friday’s decision.

    “Our clients, like all female athletes across the country, deserve fair competition,” she told AP in a phone interview. “And that means fair and equal quality of competition, and that just does not happen when you’re forced to compete against biological males in their sports.”

    “The vast majority of the American public recognizes that in order to have fair sports, we have to protect the female category, and I think you’re seeing that trend increasingly with states across the country passing laws to protect women’s sports. … This is certainly not the end of the road in the fight for fairness for female athletes,” Keiver added.

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

    Attorneys on the other side celebrated.

    “Today’s ruling is a critical victory for fairness, equality, and inclusion,” said ACLU attorney Joshua Block. “This critical victory strikes at the heart of political attacks against transgender youth while helping ensure every young person has the right to play.”

    In June, a poll conducted by the Washington Post and the University of Maryland found that just 28% of the public supports transgender athletes being allowed to compete in female sports. 68 per cent of respondents believe that trans athletes “would have a competitive advantage over other girls” in youth sports.

    As Summit News noted earlier this year, top doctors told the New York Times that transgender swimmer Lia Thomas still has an unfair advantage over biological females despite the athlete having undergone testosterone suppressing therapy.

    And in October, female high school athletes in Burlington, Vermont were banned from their own locker room after making complaints to school officials about the inappropriate behavior of a biological male teammate that identifies as trans. 

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

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/17/2022 – 13:00

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Dec 17

Today’s News 17th December 2022

  • Escobar: Xi Of Arabia & The PetroYuan Drive
    Escobar: Xi Of Arabia & The PetroYuan Drive

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

    Xi Jinping has made an offer difficult for the Arabian Peninsula to ignore: China will be guaranteed buyers of your oil and gas, just pay us in yuan…

    It would be so tempting to qualify Chinese President Xi Jinping landing in Riyadh a week ago, welcomed with royal pomp and circumstance, as Xi of Arabia proclaiming the dawn of the petroyuan era.

    But it’s more complicated than that. As much as the seismic shift implied by the petroyuan move applies, Chinese diplomacy is way too sophisticated to engage in direct confrontation, especially with a wounded, ferocious Empire. So there’s way more going here than meets the (Eurasian) eye.

    Xi of Arabia’s announcement was a prodigy of finesse: it was packaged as the internationalization of the yuan. From now on, Xi said, China will use the yuan for oil trade, through the Shanghai Petroleum and National Gas Exchange, and invited the Persian Gulf monarchies to get on board. Nearly 80 percent of trade in the global oil market continues to be priced in US dollars.

    Ostensibly, Xi of Arabia, and his large Chinese delegation of officials and business leaders, met with the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to promote increased trade. Beijing promised to “import crude oil in a consistent manner and in large quantities from the GCC.” And the same goes for natural gas.

    China has been the largest importer of crude on the planet for five years now – half of it from the Arabian peninsula, and more than a quarter from Saudi Arabia. So it’s no wonder that the prelude for Xi of Arabia’s lavish welcome in Riyadh was a special op-ed expanding the trading scope, and praising increased strategic/commercial partnerships across the GCC, complete with “5G communications, new energy, space and digital economy.”

    Foreign Minister Wang Yi doubled down on the “strategic choice” of China and wider Arabia. Over $30 billion in trade deals were duly signed – quite a few significantly connected to China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects.

    And that brings us to the two key connections established by Xi of Arabia: the BRI and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

    The Silk Roads of Arabia

    BRI will get a serious boost by Beijing in 2023, with the return of the Belt and Road Forum. The first two bi-annual forums took place in 2017 and 2019. Nothing happened in 2021 because of China’s strict zero-Covid policy, now abandoned for all practical purposes.

    The year 2023 is pregnant with meaning as BRI was first launched 10 years ago by Xi, first in Central Asia (Astana) and then Southeast Asia (Jakarta).

    BRI not only embodies a complex, multi-track trans-Eurasian trade/connectivity drive but it is the overarching Chinese foreign policy concept at least until the mid-21st century. So the 2023 forum is expected to bring to the forefront a series of new and redesigned projects adapted to a post-Covid and debt-distressed world, and most of all to the loaded Atlanticism vs. Eurasianism geopolitical and geoeconomic sphere.

    Also significantly, Xi of Arabia in December followed Xi of Samarkand in September – his first post-Covid overseas trip, for the SCO summit in which Iran officially joined as a full member. China and Iran in 2021 clinched a 25-year strategic partnership deal worth a potential $400 billion in investments. That’s the other node of China’s two-pronged West Asia strategy.

    The nine permanent SCO members now represent 40 percent of the world’s population. One of their key decisions in Samarkand was to increase bilateral trade, and overall trade, in their own currencies.

    And that further connects us to what has happening in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in full synchronicity with Riyadh: the meeting of the Supreme Eurasia Economic Council, the policy implementation arm of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).

    Russian President Vladimir Putin, in Kyrgyzstan, could not have been more straightforward: “The work has accelerated in the transition to national currencies in mutual settlements… The process of creating a common payment infrastructure and integrating national systems for the transmission of financial information has begun.”

    The next Supreme Eurasian Economic Council will take place in Russia in May 2023, ahead of the Belt and Road Forum. Take them together and we have the lineaments of the geoeconomic road map ahead: the drive towards the petroyuan proceeding in parallel to the drive towards a “common paying infrastructure” and most of all, a new alternative currency bypassing the US dollar.

    That’s exactly what the head of the EAEU’s macroeconomic policy, Sergey Glazyev, has been designing, side by side with Chinese specialists.

    Total Financial War

    The move towards the petroyuan will be fraught with immense peril.

    In every serious geoeconomic gaming scenario, it’s a given that an enfeebled petrodollar translates as the end of the imperial free lunch in effect for over five decades.

    Concisely, in 1971, then-US President Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon pulled the US from the gold standard; three years later, after the 1973 oil shock, Washington approached the Saudi oil minister, notorious Sheikh Yamani, with the proverbial offer-you-can’t-refuse: we buy your oil in US dollars and in return you buy our Treasury bonds, lots of weapons, and recycle whatever’s left in our banks.

    Cue to Washington now suddenly able to dispense helicopter money – backed by nothing – ad infinitum, and the US dollar as the ultimate hegemonic weapon, complete with an array of sanctions over 30 nations who dare to disobey the unilaterally imposed “rules-based international order.”

    Impulsively rocking this imperial boat is anathema. So Beijing and the GCC will adopt the petroyuan slowly but surely, and certainly with zero fanfare. The heart of the matter, once again, is their mutual exposure to the Western financial casino.

    In the Chinese case, what to do, for instance, with those whopping $1 trillion in US Treasury bonds. In the Saudi case, it’s hard to think about “strategic autonomy” – such as what’s enjoyed by Iran – when the petrodollar is a staple of the Western financial system. The menu of possible imperial reactions includes everything from a soft coup/ regime change to Shock and Awe over Riyadh – followed by regime change.

    Yet what the Chinese – and the Russians – are aiming at goes way beyond a Saudi (and Emirati) predicament. Beijing and Moscow have clearly identified how everything – the oil market, global commodities markets – is tied to the role of the US dollar as reserve currency.

    And that’s exactly what the EAEU discussions; the SCO discussions; from now on the BRICS+ discussions; and Beijing’s two-pronged strategy across West Asia are focused to undermine.

    Beijing and Moscow, within the BRICS framework, and further on within the SCO and the EAEU, have been closely coordinating their strategy since the first sanctions on Russia post-Maidan 2014, and the de facto trade war against China unleashed in 2018.

    Now, after the February 2022 Special Military Operation launched by Moscow in Ukraine and NATO has devolved into, for all practical purposes, war against Russia, we have stepped beyond Hybrid War territory and are deep into Total Financial War.

    SWIFTly drifting away

    The whole Global South absorbed the “lesson” of the collective (institutional) west freezing, as in stealing, the foreign reserves of a G20 member, on top of it a nuclear superpower. If that happened to Russia, it could happen to anyone. There are no “rules” anymore.

    Russia since 2014 has been improving its SPFS payment system, in parallel with China’s CIPS, both bypassing the western-led SWIFT banking messaging system, and increasingly used by Central Banks across Central Asia, Iran and India. All across Eurasia, more people are ditching Visa and Mastercard and using UnionPay and/or Mir cards, not to mention Alipay and WeChat Pay, both extremely popular across Southeast Asia.

    Of course the petrodollar – and the US dollar, still representing under 60 percent of global foreign exchange reserves – will not ride into oblivion overnight. Xi of Arabia is just the latest chapter in a seismic shift now driven by a select group in the Global South, and not by the former “hyperpower.”

    Trading in their own currencies and a new, global alternative currency is right at the top of the priorities of that long list of nations – from South America to Northern Africa and West Asia – eager to join BRICS+ or the SCO, and in quite a few cases, both.

    The stakes could not be higher. And it’s all about subjugation or exercising full sovereignty. So let’s leave the last essential words to the foremost diplomat of our troubled times, Russia’s Sergey Lavrov, at the international interparty conference Eurasian Choice as a Basis for Strengthening Sovereignty:

    “The main reason for today’s growing tensions is the stubborn striving of the collective West to maintain a historically diminishing domination in the international arena by any means it can… It is impossible to impede the strengthening of the independent centers of economic growth, financial might and political influence. They are emerging on our common continent of Eurasia, in Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.”

    All aboard…the Sovereign Train.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/16/2022 – 23:40

  • These Are The Richest Billionaires In Each Country
    These Are The Richest Billionaires In Each Country

    While there are nearly 8 billion people in the world, just over 3,000 are billionaires as of November 2022. As Visual Capitalist’s Carmen Ang notes, this tiny group of people is worth nearly $11.8 trillion – Equivalent to about 11.8% of global GDP.

    Where do these billionaires live? This graphic by Truman Du uses data from Forbes to map out the richest billionaires around the world.

    The Full List

    As it turns out, billionaires are a lot more geographically concentrated than you might think.

    In fact, of the 195 officially recognized countries around the world, only 76 are home to billionaires. And even within these countries, there’s vast disparities between the quantity of billionaires.

    Here’s a breakdown of all the countries that have at least one billionaire. For countries with more than one, we’ve highlighted the billionaire with the highest net worth as of November 28, 2022:

    Country/territory Name Net worth ($B) Main source of wealth (sector)
    🇩🇿 Algeria Issad Rebrab 5.1 food
    🇦🇷 Argentina Marcos Galperin 4.0 e-commerce
    🇦🇲 Armenia Ruben Vardanyan 1.3 investment banking
    🇦🇺 Australia Gina Rinehart 27.9 mining
    🇦🇹 Austria Georg Stumpf 7.9 real estate, construction
    🇧🇩 Bangladesh Muhammed Aziz Khan 1.0 power
    🇧🇧 Barbados Rihanna 1.4 music, cosmetics
    🇧🇪 Belgium Eric Wittouck 9.0 investments
    🇧🇿 Belize Kenneth Dart 4.0 investments
    🇧🇷 Brazil Jorge Paulo Lemann 15.6 beer
    🇧🇬 Bulgaria Georgi & Kiril Domuschiev 1.9 animal health, investments
    🇨🇦 Canada David Thomson 53.2 media
    🇨🇱 Chile Iris Fontbona 19.6 mining
    🇨🇳 China Zhong Shanshan 66.7 beverages, pharmaceuticals
    🇨🇴 Colombia Luis Carlos Sarmiento 6.3 banking
    🇨🇾 Cyprus John Fredriksen 11.4 shipping
    🇨🇿 Czechia Renata Kellnerova 16.0 finance, telecommunications
    🇩🇰 Denmark Anders Holch Povlsen 11.9 fashion retail
    🇪🇬 Egypt Nassef Sawiris 7.2 construction, investments
    🇪🇪 Estonia Kristo Kaarmann 1.4 payments, banking
    🇫🇮 Finland Antti Herlin 3.9 elevators, escalators
    🇫🇷 France Bernard Arnault 179.5 LVMH
    🇬🇪 Georgia Bidzina Ivanishvili 4.8 investments
    🇩🇪 Germany Beate Heister & Karl Albrecht Jr. 35.1 supermarkets
    🇬🇷 Greece Vicky Safra 7.1 banking
    🇬🇬 Guernsey Stephen Lansdown 2.3 financial services
    🇭🇰 Hong Kong Li Ka-shing 33.0 diversified
    🇭🇺 Hungary Sandor Csanyi 1.1 finance, real estate
    🇮🇸 Iceland Thor Bjorgolfsson 2.5 investments
    🇮🇳 India Gautam Adani 133.6 infrastructure, commodities
    🇮🇩 Indonesia R. Budi Hartono 23.4 banking, tobacco
    🇮🇪 Ireland John Collison & Patrick Collison 8,1 payments software
    🇮🇱 Israel Eyal Ofer 14.4 real estate, shipping
    🇮🇹 Italy Giovanni Ferrero 34.4 Nutella, chocolates
    🇯🇵 Japan Tadashi Yanai 29.2 fashion retail
    🇰🇿 Kazakhstan Vladimir Kim 5.0 mining
    🇱🇧 Lebanon Taha Mikati 2.8 telecom
    🇱🇮 Liechtenstein Christoph Zeller 2.2 dental materials
    🇲🇴 Macau Hoi Kin Hong 1.2 real estate
    🇲🇾 Malaysia Quek Leng Chan 10.2 banking, property
    🇲🇽 Mexico Carlos Slim Helu 86.2 telecom
    🇲🇨 Monaco Stefano Pessina 9.3 drugstores
    🇲🇦 Morocco Aziz Akhannouch 1.8 petroleum
    🇳🇵 Nepal Binod Chaudhary 1.5 diversified
    🇳🇱 Netherlands Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken 15.0 Heineken
    🇳🇿 New Zealand Graeme Hart 10.1 investments
    🇳🇬 Nigeria Aliko Dangote 12.9 cement, sugar
    🇳🇴 Norway Andreas Halvorsen 6.6 hedge funds
    🇴🇲 Oman Suhail Bahwan 2.0 diversified
    🇵🇪 Peru Carlos Rodriguez-Pastor 4.3 finance
    🇵🇭 Philippines Manuel Villar 7.0 real estate
    🇵🇱 Poland Michal Solowow 6.0 investments
    🇵🇹 Portugal Maria Fernanda Amorim 4.5 energy, investments
    🇶🇦 Qatar Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani 1.9 hotels
    🇷🇴 Romania Ion Stoica & Matei Zaharia 1.6 data analytics
    🇷🇺 Russia Andrey Melnichenko 27.0 coal, fertilizers
    🇸🇬 Singapore Li Xiting 16.6 medical devices
    🇸🇰 Slovakia Ivan Chrenko 1.6 real estate
    🇿🇦 South Africa Johann Rupert 9.0 luxury goods
    🇰🇷 South Korea Jay Y. Lee 7.9 samsung
    🇪🇸 Spain Amancio Ortega 62.5 Zara
    🇰🇳 St. Kitts and Nevis Myron Wentz 1.3 health products
    🇸🇿 Swaziland (Eswatini) Nathan Kirsh 5.4 retail, real estate
    🇸🇪 Sweden Stefan Persson 15.3 H&M
    🇨🇭Switzerland Guillaume Pousaz 23.0 fintech
    🇹🇼 Taiwan Zhang Congyuan 6.7 shoes
    🇹🇿 Tanzania Mohammed Dewji 1.5 diversified
    🇹🇭 Thailand Sarath Ratanavadi 12.2 energy
    🇹🇷 Turkey Ibrahim Erdemoglu 6.5 carpet
    🇺🇦 Ukraine Rinat Akhmetov 4.3 steel, coal
    🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates Pavel Durov 15.1 messaging app
    🇬🇧 United Kingdom Michael Platt 15.2 hedge funds
    🇺🇸 United States Elon Musk 191.2 Tesla, SpaceX
    🇻🇪 Venezuela Juan Carlos Escotet 3.2 banking
    🇻🇳 Vietnam Pham Nhat Vuong 4.7 diversified
    🇿🇼 Zimbabwe Strive Masiyiwa 1.2 telecom

    The United States is well known to have one of the highest concentrations of billionaires. It’s home to over 900, with Elon Musk the wealthiest of them all with a staggering net worth of over $191 billion in November 2022. That makes him not just the richest billionaire in America, but the richest person in the world.

    China has the second highest concentration of billionaires, with 400 ultra-wealthy that have a combined net worth of $1.45 trillion. China’s richest billionaire, Zhong Shanshan, is the founder of the Nongfu Spring beverage company.

    Interestingly, there are no clear patterns when it comes to the type of industry or sector that these billionaires are involved in. The exception is the U.S., where a significant number of billionaires are linked to the tech industry.

    And it’s important to note that some heads of states are reportedly billionaires, and in many cases might be the wealthiest people in their respective countries. But their wealth is often a state secret, well-diversified, and too difficult to accurately estimate.

    Male vs. Female Billionaires

    One trend that does stand out is the number of men versus women who are billionaires. Of the 76 billionaires on the list, only 7 are women.

    This pattern is also evident when looking at the entire billionaire population—of the 3,311 billionaires worldwide, only 12.9% are women.

    It’s worth mentioning that this population of billionaire women is rising. According to Forbes, the 2021 list included 328 women, 36% more than in 2020.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/16/2022 – 23:20

  • Setting The Record Straight On Ivermectin
    Setting The Record Straight On Ivermectin

    Authored by David Henderson and Charles Hooper via The Brownstone Institute,

    The COVID-19 pandemic brought us a panoply of lies and evidence-light declarations that were less intended to inform Americans than to consolidate power and buy time. Among these were Anthony Fauci’s famous shift from arguing against wearing masks, to recommending wearing one, and, finally, to wearing two. 

    Fauci also tried to convince us that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was not manipulated in a lab even though his inner circle had emailed him about “unusual features” of the virus that looked “potentially engineered.”  And, of course, we had “fifteen days to stop the spread,” an evergreen concept that dragged on for two years. Lest readers fault us for forgetting, there was also the “gain of function” controversy, the focused protection battle, school closures, lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and vaccine misrepresentations. 

    These topics have received much public attention. The one pandemic topic that hasn’t, and is nonetheless important, is the maligned ivermectin. It’s time to set the record straight.

    If you’ve followed the news closely over the last two years, you’ve probably heard a few things about ivermectin.

    • First, that it’s a veterinary medicine intended for horses and cows.

    • Second, that the FDA and other government regulatory agencies recommended against its use for COVID-19.

    • Third, that even the inventor and manufacturer of ivermectin, Merck & Co., came out against it.

    • Fourth, that one of the largest studies showing that ivermectin worked for COVID-19 was retracted for data fraud.

    • And, finally, that the largest and best study of ivermectin, the TOGETHER trial, showed that ivermectin didn’t work.

    Let’s consider the evidence.

    Ivermectin has a distinguished history, and it may have benefits comparable to those of penicillin. The anti-parasitic’s discovery led to a Nobel Prize and subsequent billions of safe administrations around the world, even among children and pregnant women. “Ivermectin is widely available worldwide, inexpensive, and one of the safest drugs in modern medicine.”

    The FDA put out a special warning against using ivermectin for COVID-19. The FDA’s warning, which included language such as, “serious harm,” “hospitalized,” “dangerous,” “very dangerous,” “seizures,” “coma and even death,” and “highly toxic,” might suggest that the FDA was warning against pills laced with poison, not a drug the FDA had already approved as safe. Why did it become dangerous when used for COVID-19? The FDA didn’t say.

    Because of the FDA’s rules, if it were to make any statement on ivermectin, it was obliged to attack it. The FDA prohibits the promotion of drugs for unapproved uses. Since fighting SARS-CoV-2 was an unapproved use of ivermectin, the FDA couldn’t have advocated use without obvious hypocrisy. Ivermectin’s discoverer, Merck & Co., had multiple reasons to disparage its own drug. 

    Merck, too, couldn’t have legally “promoted” ivermectin for COVID-19 without a full FDA approval, something that would have taken years and many millions of dollars. Plus, Merck doesn’t make much money from cheap, generic ivermectin but was hoping to find success with its new, expensive drug, Lagevrio (molnupiravir).

    A large study of ivermectin for COVID-19 by Elgazzar et al. was withdrawn over charges of plagiarism and faked data. Many media reports seem fixated on this one dubious study, but it was one of many clinical studies. After the withdrawn studies have been removed from consideration, there are 15 trials that suggest that ivermectin doesn’t work for COVID-19 and 78 that do. 

    The TOGETHER trial received significant positive press. The New York Times quoted two experts who had seen the results. One stated, “There’s really no sign of any benefit [from ivermectin],” while the other said, “At some point it will become a waste of resources to continue studying an unpromising approach.” 

    While the Elgazzar paper was quickly dismissed, the TOGETHER trial was acclaimed. It shouldn’t have been. Researchers who have analyzed it have found 31 critical problems (impossible data; extreme conflicts of interest; blinding failure), 22 serious problems (results were delayed six months; conflicting data), and 21 major problems (multiple, conflicting randomization protocols) with it. 

    While the popular narrative is that the TOGETHER trial showed that ivermectin didn’t work for COVID-19, the actual results belie that conclusion: ivermectin was associated with a 12 percent lower risk of death, a 23 percent lower risk of mechanical ventilation, a 17 percent lower risk of hospitalization, and a 10 percent lower risk of extended ER observation or hospitalization. We have calculated that the probability that ivermectin helped the patients in the TOGETHER trial ranged from 26 percent for the median number of days to clinical recovery to 91 percent for preventing hospitalization. The TOGETHER trial’s results should be reported accurately.

    Based on the clinical evidence from the 93 trials that ivermectin reduced mortality by an average of 51 percent, and on the estimated infection fatality rate of COVID-19,  about 400 infected Americans aged 60-69 would need to be treated with ivermectin to statistically prevent one death in that group. The total cost of the ivermectin to prevent that one death: $40,000.

    (Based on the GoodRx website, a generic prescription for ivermectin is priced at approximately $40. Roughly 2.5 prescriptions would be needed per person to receive the average dose of 150 mg per patient.) 

    How much is your life worth? We’re betting it’s worth far more than $40,000.

    When the next pandemic strikes, by necessity we’ll rely on older drugs because newer ones require years of development. Ivermectin is a repurposed drug that helps, and could have helped so much more. It deserves recognition, not disparagement. What we really need, however, is a way to inoculate ourselves against the lies and misrepresentations of powerful public figures, organizations, and drug companies. Sadly, there are no such vaccines for that contagion.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/16/2022 – 23:00

  • Where Real Wages Are Falling Most Sharply
    Where Real Wages Are Falling Most Sharply

    Wages are rising, but they are not keeping up with inflation.

    Statista’s Martin Armstrong notes that while pay negotiations may have resulted in wage increases in several sectors this year, overall increases will remain below the rise in consumer prices in many countries, as confirmed by data released by the OECD in its macroeconomic report.

    The war in Ukraine has significantly increased prices, particularly for energy, adding to central bank largesse-inspired inflationary pressures at a time when the cost of living was already rising rapidly around the world. As a result, global financial conditions have tightened substantially this year and the outlook for labor markets remains uncertain. In most OECD countries, average wage growth has been slower than inflation, reducing household purchasing power despite government measures to mitigate the impact of soaring food and energy prices.

    As Statista’s infographic shows, Switzerland is for the time being one of the few economies analyzed that seems to have been spared.

    Infographic: Where Real Wages Are Falling Most Sharply | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    In the United States, the average decline in real wages for the entire population – across all sectors and income levels – was just over 2 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2022.

    In Europe, Germany and Spain saw even more pronounced declines in purchasing power, with real incomes falling by just over 4 percent and 5 percent, respectively, nationwide.

    Several factors explain the differences between countries, such as differences in exposure to inflation, but also in social protection measures.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/16/2022 – 22:40

  • Leftists Aren't Capable Of Surviving Economic Collapse – Here's Why
    Leftists Aren’t Capable Of Surviving Economic Collapse – Here’s Why

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

    There is one factor that constantly stands out as absolutely essential to a person’s chances at surviving a crisis event, and that factor is mindset. Experience and training are highly valuable, having proper tools and preps on hand is a huge advantage. But in the end, without mental toughness and the ability to adapt the most prepared person in the world will still likely bite the dust.

    Mental toughness is something that can be taught, to a point. This is the entire purpose of basic training methods used in the military: To take mundane details and elevate them in the minds of trainees while wearing them down with physical punishment. The goal is to condition the mind to ignore distraction, to ignore fear and pain while focusing on the task at hand. Failure is not an option in war, just as it is not an option in survival. Those who embrace distraction and embrace failure because they think it will make things easier for them are filtered out of the recruitment pool, or the gene pool.

    It is no coincidence that the US military today is dealing with some of the worst recruitment conditions they have ever seen in terms of people being physically and mentally incapable of finishing basic training. The Pentagon currently estimates that 77% of young Americans are unfit for recruitment without a waiver for obesity, drug use and mental health problems. Meaning, Gen Z is so unfit physically and mentally if there was a major war almost 80% of them would be erased from existence.

    The problem has become so bad that militaries in the US and throughout the west are being forced to lower standards just to meet minimum personnel goals. One can argue that many young people don’t want to join the military anyway, but this is besides the point. Even if they wanted to, they would not be up to the task.

    There are a number of reasons for this development, but I would suggest that the spread of leftist ideology among 63% of Americans age 18-29 according to polls has created a survival vacuum – A generation of mental weaklings.

    It’s important to remember that younger people have adopted more liberal views for decades, but the political left is not liberal today. The leftists of today are full-bore Marxists, both economically and culturally. They support establishment centralization, they support economic centralization, they support corporate centralization, they support authoritarianism and censorship, they support moral relativism and they applaud the concept of an all pervasive welfare state.

    In 1980 you might have been able to find a large number of mentally tough people that considered themselves Democrats. Today, you will not find anyone.

    With America hovering in a precarious netherworld between stagflationary crisis and deflationary crisis depending on which poison the Federal Reserve chooses to give the country, the stage has been set for an economic disaster similar to the Great Depression or worse (read my analysis on this situation HERE). In two years or less, our system, which is already dealing with a number of threats including high prices and supply chain instability, will not remain functional in the manner most people are accustomed.

    If we accept this inevitability, we must then ask a logical question: Who is going to rebuild? Whoever inherits the mantle will either bring America back to freedom and prosperity, or plunge our society into perpetual tyranny. It all depends on who survives the crisis.

    One thing that gives me some hope is the fact that leftists as a sub-group of our population are completely incapable of surviving a major economic crisis event. This is not to say that I wish them all to die; I’m only pointing out the reality that most of them won’t make it because they are ill equipped to handle a calamity. Here are the reasons why a post-collapse world would probably be devoid of common leftists…

    Leftists Thrive On Crisis, But Die Out During Collapse

    Leftists have a tendency to exploit crisis and tragedy to shore up power and expand their numbers through fear, but there’s a problem with this tactic. If the crisis is fabricated, a tempest in a teapot, then they do very well; if the crisis turns into an actual disaster with real world consequences including financial decline, supply chain disruptions, shortages and civil unrest, they have no tools to deal with the effects other than mob action and looting.

    What happens if they use mob action and looting when the rule of law is no longer a factor in a country with millions of guns? They will die, by the tens of thousands, as people defend their businesses and homes. The violent hordes we witnessed during the BLM riots would not last long during a collapse scenario where people are more inclined to use deadly force.

    Leftists Are Anti-Preparedness

    The political left has spent the better part of the past 15 years demonizing the concept of preparedness as a tinfoil hat philosophy for “right-wing extremists.” They have set themselves up for complete failure by refusing to acknowledge the practicality of prepping, just so they can attack their political opponents. The stupidity of it is truly mind boggling.

    There are some indications that the covid lockdowns may have shocked a small number of them out of their foolishness. It’s hard to deny the threat of economic collapse when the beginnings of collapse are right in front of your face. That said, prepping is not the only requirement for survival, and progressives buying a few months of food and some guns is not going to save them.

    Leftists Have An Aversion To Hardship

    The vast majority of people that argue in favor of an expanding welfare state are on the left. While conservatives support individual charity for those that deserve it, leftists believe that people need to be forced by government to provide and pay for others who may not deserve it. This ideal is driven by their desire to avoid hardship.

    I find that leftists often have delusions of grandeur. They assume that they are destined for great things, that they are smarter than the rest of us and that work or sacrifice are problems relegated to the rural “peasants” in “flyover country.” Their vision of work is a daycare, a college campus, a place to socialize, find comfort and self identity, do the minimal amount of labor required and then collect a paycheck. Just look how leftist dominated Twitter was being operated a few months ago – It was not a workplace, it was a day spa for lunatics.

    These kinds of people are not equipped to endure the backbreaking struggle necessary to build a survivable environment. They wouldn’t know where to begin. When confronted with hard times, leftists do not ask “How can I fix this problem and improve my situation?” Instead they ask “Who is to blame for my misery and how can I make them pay?”

    Leftists Have No Practical Skill Sets

    The avoidance of technical skill sets is a real problem for progressives. There are a handful of people on the left that engage in micro-farming and other basic skills as a form of activism, but they are few and their methods are limited by their ideology. As noted above, leftists believe themselves to be too valuable to be wasted on production. Rather, they see themselves as “management,” the people in charge of the people that do the manual labor.

    A person could get by on that kind of thinking in a first-world environment where office jobs, tech jobs, government jobs and social work is the norm, but in a collapse environment there are no management positions, there are no office workers, there are no elementary school teachers, there are no trust and safety advisors, there are no platform moderators and there are no bureaucrats. You either have a valued knowledge set that can be traded, or you have nothing. You can either produce necessities for yourself, or you can’t.

    The development of the information age and the data driven economy of first world nations has made matters even worse by convincing people that data is a currency. This is a concept that leftists in particular adore because they think labor will become a thing of the past; they will only need their brain and a laptop to provide everything they need. It’s a delusion. The “Metaverse” is a facade, a con, and there will always be a need for humans to dig in the dirt, to forage and hunt, to farm and to build with their own hands. As the economy derails further, progressives are going to realize this too late.

    Leftists Rely On Government To Fix Their Problems

    If the idea of taking matters into your own hands is abhorrent to you, then you might be a leftist. Leftists view individual action during a crisis as almost criminal; it is important to them that the correct authorities with the correct permissions handle any dangerous situation. Leftists love to defer to the “experts” because this takes the responsibility out of their hands, along with the blame should something go wrong.

    But what happens when government is not functional enough to save the day? What happens when inflation or supply chains or personnel shortages make it impossible for government officials to help. What happens when government officials don’t want to help? What happens when they are corrupt and they want to see you suffer?

    Leftists rarely consider such possibilities. For them, the idea that government could break down, that the grid could break down and that the rule of law could break down is a conspiracy theory. It has only happened hundreds of times around the world in modern history, but because they have never experienced the threat personally they think it is impossible. These are the kinds of people that die very quickly during collapse.

    Leftists Value Feelings Over Reason

    The root foundation of leftist ideology is that everything is relative according to one’s personal feelings. That is to say, they believe that their feelings shape their reality, and that “their truth” is the only truth that matters. There are some subjective truths that are near-universal which is why moral conscience is a thing that exists in every culture in the world. That said, personal ideals are still subject to the forces of nature.

    You cannot pretend that you are not starving when you are starving. You cannot pretend that you are not dehydrated when you desperately thirsty. You cannot feel your way out of a crisis, the crisis is not subject to your fantasies, the crisis will step on your throat and teach you otherwise.

    At bottom, their feelings do not matter. They are irrelevant. And this is a lesson leftists will learn as the system continues to degrade. They can cry and scream and wail and make all the demands they want for fairness and equity and welfare but in the end they will face the clarity of self reliance or they will face the Ferryman.

    It’s not my purpose here to revel in the erasure of the political left. I am only pointing out that modern leftist ideology is a product of extremely safe and controlled environments where people have the privilege to engage in frivolity. They THINK they want deconstruction. They THINK they want chaos as a means to break the system and rebuild it in their image. What they don’t realize is that if they get what they want most of them will die in the process and they will not be around to see their naive Utopia come to fruition.

    *  *  *

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

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/16/2022 – 22:20

  • Central Asia's 'Water Wars' Are Heating Up
    Central Asia’s ‘Water Wars’ Are Heating Up

    Authored by The Jamestown Foundation via OilPrice.com,

    • Access to water has been a point of conflict in Central Asia for years.

    • Environmental changes have raised temperatures in Central Asia faster than the global average.

    • While the upstream Kyrgyzstanis and Tajikistanis have plenty of water, Uzbekistan wholly relies on a steady supply of water for its food security.

    On November 3, Uzbekistani Foreign Minister Vladimir Norov and his Kyrgyzstani counterpart Jeenbek Kulubaev signed a bilateral deal in Bishkek, under which Kyrgyzstan agreed to cede to Tashkent the territory surrounding the Kempir-Abad Reservoir, covering 4,485 hectares, in exchange for over 19,000 hectares elsewhere (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, November 3). The deal effectively grants Uzbekistan control over the reservoir, a burning issue that has contributed to rising tensions between the two Central Asian neighbors (Eurasianet.org, November 17). On November 17, the Kyrgyzstani parliament approved a contentious border deal, and on November 29, Kyrgyzstani President Sadyr Japarov ratified the agreement, allowing for joint management of the reservoir (Asia Plus, November 29).

    Central Asia has been historically plagued by tension over access to water resources. Even the administrative divisions under the Soviet Union constantly fought over the allocation of water and pastures (Tnu.tj, May 6, 2021). In this, with the introduction of private land ownership in Kyrgyzstan, some rented Tajikistani pastures have declared the property of Kyrgyzstani citizens. Although multiple factors (e.g., strategic, political and ethnic) contribute to the escalation of border tensions among the Central Asian neighbors, the management of water resources has been a perennial issue, frequently sparking conflict. Over the past decade, more than 150 conflicts have occurred on the shared Kyrgyzstani-Tajikistani borders, with victims on both sides (Cabar.asia, February 15, 2021). In September 2022, 24 Kyrgyzstanis died as a result of the escalation of armed conflict on the border (Novosti.kg, September 17). Water is vital to the Central Asian states’ agricultural and energy sectors and, by extension, their economies. Hydropower projects are of particular concern as they can generate electricity that is consumed both domestically and abroad. A strong example of this is the Nurek hydropower plant project in Tajikistan, which will have a planned capacity of 3,000 megawatts (Worldbank.org, October 24).

    Furthermore, hydro-geographic features often serve as the basis for international borders. Even when agreed on and fully demarcated by neighboring nations, their strategic value lends itself to conflict. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the failures of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to either fully demarcate or agree on well over 1,000 kilometers of their mutual borders, has made conflicts over boundaries and resources commonplace (The Third Pole, May 28, 2021).

    According to Gulmuria Borubaeva, a department head at the Border Control Agency of the Kyrgyzstani State Committee for National Security, one primary reason “for the ‘water conflict’ in Central Asia has been the ‘Golovnoi Vodorazdel,’ the main watershed area from where the runoff from mountainous rivers is distributed between three countries that the Ferghana Valley runs through: Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan” (The Third Pole, May 28, 2021). The Golovnoi Vodorazdel, with the Isfara River and Tortkul Reservoir near the Vorukh exclave, has become the center for the water policies and rising tensions in the region.

    Each year, conflict arises during the irrigation period from April to June over the use of water resources between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, which share about 40 water channels. While Kyrgyzstani farmers living downstream complain that Tajikistanis living upstream use most of the water, the Tajikistani farmers living downstream decry the minimal amount of water arriving to their territory (Specialeurasia.com, September 29).

    Recently, however, an uptick in the frequency of violent disputes at shared Kyrgyzstani-Tajikistani water distribution points suggest the increasing gravity of these disagreements. For instance, in April 2021, a deadly border conflict between the two sides was prompted by a dispute over water rights (Asia Plus, April 28, 2021). In September 2022, another conflict on the border between the two turned into a dangerous escalation involving heavy weapons. The death toll in that conflict was 63 people (Novosti.kg, September 28).

    Given the current state of affairs, what is fueling these tensions over water resources in Central Asia? According to experts, environmental changes have raised temperatures in Central Asia faster than the global average, and this is melting glaciers in the Tibetan Plateau—also known as the “Third Pole”—disrupting water distribution in the region. As a result, some scientists predict that the region will become increasingly dryer, with more areas effectively becoming deserts. Correspondingly, the Central Asian state have witnessed some of their worst droughts in the past five years, resulting in shortages of water for irrigation and hydropower (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, July 1).

    Shifts in climate have also caused areas north of the region to receive more rain than those in the south, exacerbating the problems of downstream water loss (Intellinews.com, July 6). While the upstream Kyrgyzstanis and Tajikistanis have plenty of water, Uzbekistan wholly relies on a steady supply of water for its food security (The Third Pole, June 30). Thus, we can expect that claims over the water resources of the fertile Ferghana Valley region will increasingly spark conflicts throughout Central Asia. Only cooperation among these countries on water management will help mitigate these threats in the near future. In this sense, the latest Uzbekistani-Kyrgyzstani deal on joint water management could be a step in the right direction for lasting regional water politics.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/16/2022 – 21:40

  • Green Vs Green: Endangered Flower May Wipe Out Nevada Lithium Mine
    Green Vs Green: Endangered Flower May Wipe Out Nevada Lithium Mine

    It isn’t easy being green. America’s would-be second lithium mine hit a major speed bump on Wednesday, as federal wildlife officials declared that a flower known to exist only on that property is endangered. 

    An essential chemical element used in manufacturing batteries, lithium plays a starring role in the green energy movement’s myopic quest to replace fossil fuels. In Nevada, however, we get to observe the spectacle of green energy being thwarted by a different form of environmentalism.  

    The official conferment of endangered species status on “Tiehm’s buckwheat” raises the hurdle for Ioneer, the Australian mining company that has for years been planning to build an open-pit lithium mine on federal land roughly midway between Las Vegas and Reno.  

    Out of the entire Earth, Tiehm’s buckwheat grows only on 10 acres of public land in Nevada (Patrick Donnelly, Center for Biological Diversity)

    Wednesday’s move by the Fish and Wildlife Service not only protects the 10 acres on which the plants are found in a 3-square-mile area, but also another 900 surrounding acres deemed as “critical habitat.”  

    The declaration was prompted by litigation initiated by the Center for Biological Diversity. Environmentalists aren’t done yet: They say Ioneer’s plan for protecting the plant won’t survive federal scrutiny.

    “I’m thrilled that Tiehm’s buckwheat now has the protections it so desperately needs for survival,” says Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Lithium is an important part of our renewable energy transition, but it can’t come at the cost of extinction.”

    Before you blame mankind for the fact that Tiehm’s buckwheat is on the brink of joining the estimated 99% of the Earth’s all-time species that have already gone extinct, consider that, according to Reuters, “an apparent, unprecedented rodent attack wiped out about 60% of [the Tiehm’s buckwheat] estimated population in 2020.”    

    Today, there’s only one operating lithium mine in the United States — the Albemarle Silver Peak Mine, which is found in the same region — near the California border — as the mine affected by Wednesday’s declaration. 

    The Albermarle Silver Peak Mine in Silver Peak, Nevada (Carlos Barría/Reuters via The Guardian)

    Plants and animals aren’t the only impediment to tapping more of America’s lithium reserves. A whopping 79% of the country’s known lithium is found within 35 miles of tribal lands. In many places, that’s already prompting protests by native American groups opposing mining on lands they consider sacred. 

    Of course, it’s possible that there’s an as-yet undiscovered patch of Tiehm’s buckwheat somewhere else in Nevada. There are also more 17,000 prospecting claims for lithium in the state.

    However, in an unintended consequence of government policies regarding endangered species, prospectors observing Ioneer’s woes are now incentivized to discretely eradicate any Tiehm’s buckwheat they happen to find near their claim.   

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/16/2022 – 21:20

  • The Age Of Drones
    The Age Of Drones

    Authored by Karen Hunt (aka KH Mezek) via ‘Break Free’ Substack,

    While researching my piece, The Truth about Luciferase, I came across a patent that blew my mind and I absolutely had to write about it.

    The patent is described as “Systems and Methods for Mobile Sample Collection” and it has to do with drones.

    We’re talking armies of drones of all shapes and sizes, down to the smallest gnat, working together in a “swarm” to take samples, administer drugs and regulate the health and behavior of ordinary citizens. The promise is that these drones will be deployed to make our lives easier—for our health and safety.

    Embarking on this read, I would like to start with some important words:

    metaverse, meatverse, wetware, software, hardware

    Metaverse: a virtual-reality space in which users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users.

    Meatverse: you will not find this word defined anywhere on the internet. It is the word technocrats derisively use when describing the real world.

    In June 2018, Oculus executive Jason Rubin sent an email to Facebook board member Marc Andreessen with the subject line “The Metaverse.” This paper was like the first page in the history of a new world, written by one of the gods.

    Ruben described the Metaverse as a place where users “float through a digital universe of virtual ads, filled with virtual goods that people buy. There would be virtual people that they marry, while spending as little time as possible in the so-called ‘MEATVERSE’ — referring to the real world because humans are flesh and blood.”

    We are assured that at a certain point, humans will prefer spending time in the razzle-dazzle metaverse rather than the drab and restrictive meatverse. And lest you think, oh what’s the big deal, Zuckerberg’s metaverse is on the way out, it isn’t. If he isn’t successful, someone else will be—whatever form it takes over the next 10 years or so.

    We are just pieces of meat to our controllers.

    Wetware, Software, Hardware:

    The human body is now being described in terms that are similar to robots, making us seem as if our differences are only technical. The human body and central nervous system are “wetware” as opposed to the “software” and “hardware” of machines.

    Technopedia describes wetware like this:

    …where neural networks and similar artificial intelligence technologies would be described as hardware, the human brain that they attempt to simulate and model would be the “wetware.” Biological systems are described as wetware because of the water that makes up so much of the biological tissue of humans, animals and plants. The term “wetware” will become increasingly useful as technology makes its way into the fields of biology and biological engineering.

    We are wet. Machines are dry. We have temperatures—both emotionally and physically. Machines do not. Defining humans with these new words adjusts us to accepting identification based on similarity or dissimilarity to machines.

    It’s hard to fight against our controllers if we don’t even know who or what to attack. The biosecurity state is all pervasive. There isn’t one government, organization, or person to point the finger at.

    As of July 2022, the United States is just behind China in camera surveillance of its citizens, with an average of two cameras for every 10 people in its major cities. The UK is in third place with one CCTV camera for every 16 citizens in its larger cities.

    Ever since 9/11, we have been programed to accept constant surveillance for our health and safety. The January 6th attack on the Capitol building opened the door for even greater surveillance due to increased risk of “domestic terrorism”. As for online surveillance, in 2019 alone, the US government investigated over 800,000 of its own citizens personal data.

    Thanks to Covid, citizens came to accept greater and greater levels of control.

    A 2020 New York Times article described this post-Covid world we now live in:

    Drones have been working as police officers, soaring over the banks of the Seine in Paris and the city squares of Mumbai, to patrol for social distancing violators.

    They’re delivering medical supplies in Rwanda and snacks in Virginia. They’re hovering over crowds in China to scan for fevers below.

    “Yes auntie, this is the drone speaking to you,” said one drone, speaking to an elderly woman below in an eerie bullhorn echo, according to a video published by Global Times, a state-controlled newspaper. “You shouldn’t walk about without wearing a mask.”

    Global Times also published an account of another drone. A voice from above castigated a small child peering skyward while seated with a man who was violating quarantine rules by playing mahjong in public: “Don’t look at the drone, child. Ask your father to leave immediately.”

    Drones can be equipped with so-called stingrays to collect information from people’s mobile phones, night-vision cameras, GPS sensors, radar, lidar (laser detection technology for creating three-dimensional maps of an area), as well as thermal and infrared cameras.

    Frank Wang is the world’s first drone billionaire. His company DJI, headquartered in Shenzhen, has a 77% share of America’s consumer drone sales, according to this Bloomberg article.

    The same drone surveillance system being used in Xinjiang, a region in northwest China that human-rights groups have described as a police state because of the oppression, horrific abuse, and confining to camps of as many as 1 million Uighurs, are being used by Flymotion, a Florida-based drone services company that uses its devices to support dozens of police departments. “DJI owns the global market,” says Flymotion CEO Ryan English.

    Agencies in all 50 states have drones now, about 90% of them made by DJI, according to a recent Bard College study.

    Now that we have figured out ways to connect machines with our bodies, creating the Internet of Bodies (IoB), drones can be used as intermediaries between our machine-controlled bodies and the elite who control it all.

    IoB means that our bodies are “connected to a network through devices that are ingested, implanted, or connected to the body in some way. Once connected, data can be exchanged, and the body and device can be remotely monitored and controlled”.

    The elite will no longer have to walk among us. They can live in safe zones, real-world paradises, while we live under constant surveillance, our only escape being the virtual worlds inside our devices and perhaps one day connected directly to our minds.

    At any time, drones can swoop down and take samples from us, or inject us with whatever drugs AI determines we need.

    Skin-like electronics are being made to monitor our health continuously, described by the United States government as “wearable electronics paired with artificial intelligence that could transform screening for health problems.”

    Such a skin-like device is being developed in a project between the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME). Leading the project is Sihong Wang. According to Wang, ​“Such a diagnosis, with health information being continuously gathered over an extended period, is very data intensive.”

    Philanthropist Jennifer Pritzker, at left, and Illinois Gov. J.B. PritzkerPHOTO ILLUSTRATION: TABLET MAGAZINE; ORIGINAL PHOTOS: VINCE TALOTTA/TORONTO STAR VIA GETTY IMAGES; E. JASON WAMBSGANS/CHICAGO TRIBUNE/TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE VIA GETTY IMAGE

    It should be noted that the Pritzker family, including Jennifer Pritzker (a male who identifies as transgender), “devotes their massive fortune to funding transgender ideology, or ‘synthetic sexual identities’ (SSI),” as described by journalist Jennifer Bilek.

    Imagine a scenario where a drone, having evaluated you as being at risk of heart disease, implants a device on or in you that will monitor what you eat, when you eat, your heart rate, how often you exercise, how many hours you sleep. It will know if you commit the sin of smoking a cigarette or drinking a whiskey.

    Perhaps AI will determine your son is really a girl. AI will know this, no matter if you say otherwise. It can administer drugs to facilitate your child’s “sex change.” What if as a result, you seem depressed or anxious? There are drugs for that, too.

    One of the products being used to facilitate this is called stretchable electronics, a thin film of a plastic semiconductor combined with stretchable gold nanowire electrodes. You can see what it looks like in this short video. Research was funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, the National Science Foundation and a start-up fund from the University of Chicago.

    Sub-millimeter microsensors tiny enough to inject under the skin is a step toward making tiny under-the-skin implants that continuously measure a person’s blood glucose, heart rate, and other physiological conditions a reality.

    The small device, “approximately five centimeters square, can be placed directly on the skin for around-the-clock health monitoring. When the device turns color, the wearer knows something is awry.”

    Other monitoring devices, according to Global Research are RFIDs:

    RFID (radio-frequency identification) chips are implanted into a passport or driver’s license. RFID tags are small computer chips connected to miniature antennae that can be fixed to or implanted within physical objects, including human beings. The RFID chip itself contains an Electronic Product Code that can be “read” when a RFID reader emits a radio signal.

    Hidden placement of tags. RFID tags can be embedded into/onto objects and documents without the knowledge of the individual who obtains those items.

    Unique identifiers for all objects worldwide. The Electronic Product Code potentially enables every object on earth to have its own unique ID.

    Massive data aggregation. RFID deployment requires the creation of massive databases containing unique tag data.

    Hidden readers. Tags can be read from a distance, not restricted to line of sight, by readers that can be incorporated invisibly into nearly any environment where human beings or items congregate. RFID readers have already been experimentally embedded into floor tiles, woven into carpeting and floor mats, hidden in doorways, and seamlessly incorporated into retail shelving and counters, making it virtually impossible for a consumer to know when or if he or she was being “scanned.”

    Individual tracking and profiling. If personal identity were linked with unique RFID tag numbers, individuals could be profiled and tracked without their knowledge or consent. (“Position Statement on the Use of RFID on Consumer Products,” Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, November 14, 2003)

    The Association for Automatic Identification and Mobility touts (AIM)biometric identification as “an automated method of recognizing a person based on a physiological or behavioral characteristic.” This is especially important since “the need” for biometrics “can be found in federal, state and local governments, in the military, and in commercial applications.” When used as a stand-alone or in conjunction with RFID-chipped “smart cards” biometrics, according to the industry “are set to pervade nearly all aspects of the economy and our daily lives.”

    Google is developing a device that can be implanted beneath a person’s skin in order to carry out diagnostic tests. The patent describes “a system for measuring and/or monitoring an analyte present in interstitial fluid in skin, capable of monitoring the blood and sweat of a wearer and transmit the results through an antenna to a companion device.”

    But how will all of this be monitored? How will it be delivered? I did some digging into patents, and I found this one which the US government is implementing.

    DOCUMENT ID: US 11517232 B1; Filed in 2015; DATE PUBLISHED: 2022-12-06; Inventor: Robertson Channing

    The only problem is that today, when I clicked the link I had, it went nowhere. I spent hours trying to find the patent, to no avail. Fortunately, I read the entire patent and also copied most of it, so I am able to share it. I thought of abandoning this essay, but it is too important. If anyone can find it, I will be forever in your debt!

    I did find this explanation and the drawing, which illustrates the different types and sizes of drones (just so you all know it exists):

    US 11,517,232 B1SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR MOBILE SAMPLE COLLECTION Channing Robertson, Palo Alto, CA (US) Assigned to Labrador Diagnostics LLC, Wilmington, DE (US)Filed by Labrador Dlagnostics LLC, Wilmington, DE (US)Filed on Nov. 9, 2015, as Appl. No. 14/936,599.Claims priority of provisional application 62/077,023, filed on Nov. 7, 2014.Int. Cl. B64C 39/02 (2006.01); A61B 5/15 (2006.01); G05D 1/00 (2006.01); G08G 5/04 (2006.01)

    CPC A61B 5/150748 (2013.01) [A61B 5/150847 (2013.01); B64C 39/024 (2013.01); G05D 1/00 (2013.01); G08G 5/04 (2013.01); B64C 2201/128 (2013.01); B64C 2201/141 (2013.01)]

    So, let’s look into Systems and Methods for Mobile Sample Collection.

    Imagine our world as a giant petri dish and we are all inside of it. Experiments can be conducted on our “wetware.” There will be no escape from the drones.

    The drones being employed are described like this in the patent:

    A “drone” as used herein may be a mechanical device, electromechanical device, other self-propelled device, or a robotic device that can use one or more modes of transportation such as but not limited to flying, swimming, rolling, crawling, wheeling, and/or other movement mode to travel to a subject.

    A drone may also have at least one other capability such as but not limited to video surveillance capability, audio surveillance capability, sample collection, tissue penetration, and/or other capabilities currently known or may be developed.

    (15) Optionally, some may test for a simple and/or rapid test initially; if a positive signal is detected, then the system may send more drones or send more sophisticated drones to the subject. Some may send a base station or other forward operating device to or near the location of the first drone to sample the area around that site.

    (16) Optionally, the size and weight of the drone may be such that they are less noticeable to the subject. This drives to a certain length scale, possibly smaller than a mosquito having the ability to talk to one another, talk to a base station, guidance, autopilot, etc. . . . ). i) Optionally, one configuration may be one where each small flying drone (“gnat”) takes the same type of sample. Optionally, one configuration may be one where ii) each “gnat” takes a different type of sample (blood, sweat, tears, or other bodily fluid). Optionally, one configuration may be one where iii) multiple “gnats” take different types of samples.

    (21) In one non-limiting example, the nested drones or nested vehicles may be in the form of sisterships, motherships, daughterships, or any single or multiple combination of the foregoing.

    (24) In one embodiment, the mobile sampling system may combine autonomous technology with one or more swarm technologies, one or more motive/movement technologies, and/or one or more sample acquisition technologies.

    (33) Location acquisition (for targeting or retrieval) may be by one or more of the following: vision, magnetically, prior GPS coordinates, chemically, electrically, radar, sonar, GIS systems, mapping, and/or other targeting system. Some may use targeting based on features such as but not limited to gas output, thermal signature, CO.sub.2 output, scent-based characteristics, chemical, UV, anything in the EM spectrum, or other signature characteristic of the target.

    Acquisition may involve waiting for subjects to walk by or be positioned for sampling. Some may involve being positioned on a tree branch, perch, overhang, or other location above the subject S. Tentacles, webs, strings, or attachments lines may be deployed to assist in getting the sampling device to the subject S. The device may acquire sample from a subject’s finger, hand, forearm, ear lobe, ear cheek, or buttocks.

    (38) This reduced volume more enables the embodiments here to use tick or mosquito type sample acquisition techniques because the desired sample size is so small.

    (46) Most occupants could be clearly detected by their airborne bacterial emissions, as well as their contribution to settled particles, within 1.5-4 h. It should be understood that an occupied space is microbially distinct from an unoccupied one, and that individuals release their own personalized microbial cloud.

    (47) Optionally, other characteristics of the subject such as but no limited to height, weight, sex, profile, thermal image, picture, or the like may also be associated with the microbial cloud sample to more confidently confirm a target.

    (51) Optionally, sampling theory and statistics is used as part of one implementation in terms of disease or other outbreak detection.

    52) In one embodiment, the population to be sampled is one that has signed up to be sampled. An example may be all patients associated with a particular health insurance company, doctor group, medical group, or other affiliation (health-related or otherwise). Subjects may wear beacons, identifiers, other devices to help facilitate target acquisition by the sampling device. Some may wear Bluetooth, infrared transmitters, or other devices now known or to be developed in the future.

    (53) In one non-limiting example, there is an option for sampling weekly, monthly, or other interval. In one non-limiting example, such sample collection may be occurring and the subject may not even know it.

    (55) In one non-limiting example, a subject’s bodily fluid is being tested hourly or other frequent interval without the subject’s explicit knowledge.

    (62) In one non-limiting example, the sample acquisition from a subject may be in a form that is based at least in part on bio-mimicry of tick, leech, mosquito, or other natural blood sampler for sampling purposes.

    (66) Optionally, some may fly and land on a surface and then crawl to the subject. Some may land and remain in the shower or bathroom or other desired area to facilitate sample collection.

    And that’s it! Unbelievable what they have in-store for us! I hope it won’t give you nightmares. If people still mock and say it will never happen, then I don’t know what to tell you. I’m doing my best to inform as many people as will listen–myself included.

    *  *  *

    Break Free with Karen Hunt is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/16/2022 – 21:00

  • Liberals Who Ditch Tesla Should Be Aware Of 'Winter Range Anxiety' Among Other EVs
    Liberals Who Ditch Tesla Should Be Aware Of ‘Winter Range Anxiety’ Among Other EVs

    Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and crusade against “defeating” the “woke mind virus” has caused panic among liberal Tesla drivers who now want to sell their electric vehicles. Others progressives waiting for Teslas are canceling orders because they no longer believe in Musk’s politics.

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    These progressives who are either selling their Teslas or canceling orders have been engrained by ‘woke’ culture that fossil fuels are evil and EVs will save the planet from a non-existent climate crisis that is just an idea in their head.

    So naturally, these folks will be purchasing other EVs because they now view driving a Tesla as the same as wearing a ‘MAGA’ hat.

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    As for climate alarmists’ predictions this summer that the world would burn, we have bad news for them as Arctic air poured into the Northern Hemisphere like a wrecking ball. The alarmists blame ‘climate change’ for every weather phenomenon, but no one bothered to tell them the climate has constantly been changing for millions of years.

    A problem that non-Tesla believers could come across is ‘winter range anxiety’ depending on the EV. According to Recurrent, a research firm that tracks EV battery health, temperatures averaging between 20-30 degrees Fahrenheit will impact vehicle range. 

    For Teslas, cold weather decreased the Model 3 Long Range’s range by -17%, the Model S P100D by -19%, and Model X 75D by -15%. Out of the list, Tesla wasn’t the worst.

    Some of the worst declines, which many liberals have said they wanted to buy instead of Teslas, include Chevy Bolt by -32%, Ford Mustang Mach-E Premium AWD by -30%, and VW ID.4 -30%. 

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    And one of the best EVs to survive cold weather was surprising the Jaguar i-Pace, which only lost -3% of range. Also the Audi e-Tron was -8%. 

    Liberals ditching their Teslas will discover quickly what winter range anxiety means for their mobility if they go with a Chevy or Ford. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/16/2022 – 20:40

  • The Global Gas Crunch Is Set To Worsen As China Reopens
    The Global Gas Crunch Is Set To Worsen As China Reopens

    By Irina Slav of OilPrice.com

    China’s natural gas imports are set for a 7-percent rise next year as the country reopens after Covid lockdowns, which could aggravate an already tight supply situation globally.

    The 7-percent import increase forecast was made by state-owned energy major CNOOC, which said, as quoted by Bloomberg, that it was already looking for LNG cargoes for next year.

    The report notes that gas inventories at ports in the northern part of the country are depleting at a faster rate than usual because the weather is colder, pushing consumption higher, and this will, too, have an effect on future demand for imports.

    What’s more, pipeline supply of natural gas from Central Asia is in decline, which means China will need to rely more on LNG in its gas import mix to make up the difference. And this means more intense competition for a limited number of cargoes between Asia and Europe next year as well.

    This year, Chinese gas demand has been trending lower for most of the year, with imports declining consistently over the first ten months of the year, per a report by Energy Intelligence. LNG imports were down by a sizeable 21.6 percent over the ten-month period, reflecting the effects of lockdowns and other restrictions under the country’s zero-Covid policy.

    Yet now this policy is being reversed, mass mandatory testing is being dropped and analysts expect a rebound in economic activity before too long. This will drive higher demand for energy and contribute to higher prices due to the tight supply situation in both oil and gas.

    This reversal of Beijing’s Covid policy surprised many, who expected tepid demand for energy to continue in one of the world’s largest consumers. If activity rebounds fast, securing sufficient gas supply for the next heating season will likely become a major problem for most importers.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/16/2022 – 20:20

  • Lawyers Say Bankman-Fried Needs Better Defense Than 'I F*cked Up'
    Lawyers Say Bankman-Fried Needs Better Defense Than ‘I F*cked Up’

    FTX founder and Democrat megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried’s ‘I’m Sorry, I fucked up‘, ‘It wasn’t me, but I’ll get to the bottom of this whole mess’ act needs some serious work, according to lawyers cited by Bloomberg.

    Bankman-Fried, who just filed a new application for bail before the Bahamian Supreme Court (set to be heard on January 17th), has been playing dumb and blaming competitors since day one.

    For weeks, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has been previewing a possible defense to criminal charges over the cryptocurrency exchange’s collapse: I made mistakes but I didn’t mean to do it.

    But that’s probably not going to cut it now that he’s been arrested in the Bahamas and charged by federal prosecutors in New York, several lawyers not involved in his defense said. According to the indictment unsealed Tuesday, Bankman-Fried, 30, defrauded FTX customers and investors by using at least $1.8 billion of their money for personal expenses and risky bets by its sister trading firm, Alameda Research. -Bloomberg

    “I wish things worked out in the end’ is more of a (guilty) plea allocution than a defense,” according to former federal prosecutor Harry Sandick. “It’s hard to see that being a triable defense. It’s hard to know what the whole thinking was in terms of those public statements, or if there was very much thinking.”

    SBF’s current posture is aimed at suggesting the FTX meltdown was unintentional, but the eight-count indictment against him clearly lays out how he lied over and over again about fund transfers. What’s more, prosecutors likely have cooperating witnesses from FTX or Alameda who have flipped on SBF.

    “Although this is an extremely high-profile case, the indictment is a no-nonsense, no-frills document,” said Jaimie Nawaday, another former federal prosecutor. “The factual statements are short and plain. The theories of fraud are very standard — lying to get money, lying about what you’re doing with the money.”

    While the bare-bones indictment doesn’t indicate what actual evidence the US government has against him, according to Nawaday, SBF’s public statements may have been more than enough rope for the FTX founder to have hung himself in court. If those statements are later contradicted, it would be devastating for his defense, Sandick also notes.

    “There’s a saying that a false exculpatory statement is almost as good as a confession,” he said.

    Robert Frenchman, a New York white-collar defense lawyer, said Bankman-Fried’s claims that FTX’s collapse resulted from management missteps aren’t all that convincing, even without the prosecution showing its hand. In particular, Frenchman said, the relationship between FTX and Alameda is hard to spin as innocent. -Bloomberg

    “There’s some very troubling facts here that don’t fit the mismanagement narrative,” said Frenchman, adding “I think it’s very difficult to mount that kind of a defense when the defendant is alleged to have given secret preferential treatment to his own hedge fund. Those facts surrounding Alameda are going to be much tougher to defend. They look a lot more like fraud and deception than anything unintentional.“

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    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/16/2022 – 20:00

  • Insider Tells Tucker Carlson That CIA Was Directly Involved In JFK Assassination
    Insider Tells Tucker Carlson That CIA Was Directly Involved In JFK Assassination

    Authored by Catharine Salgado via PJMedia.com,

    Speculations about the circumstances and motivations behind the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, rife at the time the tragedy occurred, have never stopped. While Kennedy’s murderer was declared soon after the assassination to have worked alone, one insider claimed to Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was directly involved with JFK’s assassination.

    Carlson noted that questions about the Kennedy assassination have been circulating since it happened, simply because there were a lot of details that didn’t add up or seemed too coincidental and the CIA refused to release its documentation on the killing.

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    President Lyndon B. Johnson released a report the year after JFK’s untimely death declaring that both Kennedy’s killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Oswald’s killer, Jack Ruby, were acting alone. About 50 years later the CIA admitted it had withheld evidence–but why is still publicly unknown. Carlson said that the term “conspiracy theory” was first brought into everyday American lexicon by the media following JFK’s assassination due to the many rumors and suspicions flying about. The phrase then–as now, of course–was used to label anything and everything contrary to a government pronouncement–both plausible questions and far-out kookiness–as pure nonsense.

    Carlson cited one potentially suspicious circumstance, saying that psychiatrist Louis Jolyon West declared in April 1964 that Jack Ruby was insane after visiting Ruby in jail. West wrote that Ruby was in need of psychiatric hospitalization, even though no one encountering Ruby before had diagnosed him as insane.  West was a contract psychiatrist and mind control expert working for the CIA at the time. He was involved in the CIA MK Ultra program, which gave powerful psychiatric drugs to some Americans without telling them about it. U.S. media has never investigated why a CIA psychiatrist who specialized in uninformed mind control was diagnosing Ruby. Therefore, the reasons behind West’s selection remain lost to history.

    In 1976, the U.S. House of Representatives reopened an investigation into the Kennedy assassination with a special bipartisan committee, and concluded that JFK was “almost certainly murdered as the result of a conspiracy.” What was not decided: whose conspiracy? Carlson boldly called the CIA an “obvious suspect.”  He explained his reasoning: “Why else would the agency withhold critical evidence from the investigators?”  There was a 1992 congressional law mandating all JFK assassination-related documentation be released by 2017, which ultimately did not happen. Former CIA director Mike Pompeo convinced then-President Donald Trump not to release all the documents even though all the people involved are dead. The reason is unknown, and Pompeo declined to appear on Carlson’s show.

    The Biden administration released thousands of pages of previously secret government documents regarding the JFK assassination today.  It is unclear how many remain secret.

    Carlson believes he knows why the JFK files were not released in 2017, however. He said he talked with someone who has access to and familiarity with the still-secret Kennedy documentation, and asked, “Did the CIA have a hand in the murder of [President] John F. Kennedy?” According to Carlson, the insider replied, “The answer is yes. I believe they were involved.  It’s a whole different country from what we thought it was. It’s all fake.” Carlson admitted that the response was “jarring,” but insisted the unnamed source is no “conspiracy theorist … this is someone with direct knowledge of the information.”

    Carlson invited viewers, regardless of their feelings about the JFK assassination and his own new report, to consider the ramifications of what his source said. Based on what Carlson’s source stated, there are forces inside the U.S. government entirely beyond the control of the electorate (which in fact is true, simply because America has so many unelected bureaucrats). Carlson explained his understanding of the situation: “These forces can affect election outcomes. They can even hide their complicity in the murder of an American president. In other words, they can do pretty much anything they want. They constitute a government within a government.” Which is a pretty explosive accusation. Carlson noted that Americans no longer trust their government, but added that the government may be even less trustworthy than is publicly apparent.

    The situation Carlson described is truly terrifying. Unfortunately, until all the CIA documentation on Kennedy’s assassination is released, the American public cannot judge for themselves if  the insider on Carlson’s show was telling the truth or not.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/16/2022 – 19:40

  • US Sends Infantry Unit To Base Just Miles Away From Russian Border In Estonia
    US Sends Infantry Unit To Base Just Miles Away From Russian Border In Estonia

    Last week the US Embassy in Lithuania announced the Pentagon plans to step up troop deployments in the Baltic states, taking what was previously categorized as “episodic” troop deployments and turning toward a “persistent rotational presence” across the Baltics, including in Estonia – which shares two small stretches of land-border with Russia.

    The embassy wrote in an early December press release that “US Ambassador Robert Gilchrist informed Minister of National Defense Arvydas Anušauskas that, as part of the ongoing commitment to its Baltic Allies, the United States will further enhance the continuous and persistent US military presence in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.” This was widely interpreted as a direct response to Russia’s ten-month long assault on nearby Ukraine. 

    Armored military vehicles parade with NATO forces in Estonia a few hundred feet from the Russian border in February 2015. Image: Estonian Armed Forces

    In follow-up, on Friday the government of Estonia confirmed that a US infantry company has newly arrived in the country, to take part of joint defense drills and training.

    According to the the Friday statement posted to the Estonian defense ministry’s website: “A United States infantry company arrived at Taara base in Võru this week as part of a deployment to train and serve with the 2nd Infantry Brigade of the Estonian Defense Forces.”

    It further confirmed that “The U.S. infantry company will be stationed in Võru during its deployment and will participate in joint exercises with the Estonian Defense Forces to enhance interoperability and to demonstrate the flexibility of combat credible forces to respond to threats.”

    Crucially, Taara base in Võru is a mere dozens of miles away from the Russian border – merely about a half-hour away by car. Russian state media has complained that US-Estonia troop exercises will be conducted a mere 20 kilometers away from the border.

    The US 1st Infantry Division Artillery Commander cited in Estonia’s statement, Colonel Richard Ikena, said American troops are “excited to be in Estonia” and “look forward to working shoulder-to-shoulder, alongside our Allies.”

    US Infantry troops along with a HIMARS (long-range missile) platoon will now be conducting drills at a distance from the Russian border that’s similar to the distance between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico…

    Map source: Nations Online Project

    Additionally, the statement confirmed that the US is deploying long-range missiles in the NATO allied country, to now include M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) deployed by the US right on Russia’s doorstep.

    “The United States will also deploy a HIMARS platoon to Estonia, along with the corresponding control equipment and systems, and will cooperate with the Estonian Defense Forces to establish a divisional structure within the framework of NATO,” the US military and Estonian defense ministry confirmed.

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     Already there have been ratcheting tensions between Moscow and the Baltic states, given that among European nations they have been among the most hawkish in calling for isolating and punishing the Russian government. A heightened US troops deployment along with long-range missiles will certainly escalation these tensions as the war in Ukraine continues to grow more dangerous and unpredictable, especially concerning the potential scenario of direct US-Russia clashes.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/16/2022 – 19:20

  • Pennsylvania School Board Director Resigns After Uproar Over Vote Against "Cis White Male" President
    Pennsylvania School Board Director Resigns After Uproar Over Vote Against “Cis White Male” President

    Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

    A Pennsylvania school board member has resigned and apologized after saying at a meeting last week that she was against voting for a “cis white male” to be nominated as board president.

    Jennifer Solot, who has served five years on the school board for the Upper Moreland School District, made the comments at an open board reorganization meeting on Dec. 6 as the board was considering electing two individuals, April Stainback and Greg D’Elia, as the new president.

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    Solot had stated that D’Elia would make an “excellent president” but that she would ultimately not be voting for the candidate, and would instead vote for the incumbent president Stainback.

    “I believe that Mr. D’Elia would make an excellent president,” Solot said at the meeting.

    “However, I feel that electing the only cis white male on this board president of this district sends the wrong message to our community: a message that is contrary to what we as a board have been trying to accomplish.”

    Cis is short for cisgender, a term used to describe someone who identifies as the same sex they were assigned at birth.

    “I think that it is important that we practice what we preach. And that our words have strength when they are spoken, whether we speak them from the neighborhood sidewalks or from behind these tables,” she continued.

    “Mrs. Stainback has done an exemplary job as president these last few months, and the strength of her performance has earned her my vote tonight,” Solot added.

    According to his official website, D’Elia is an “engineer, father, and husband,” who had hoped to be elected to the position of School Board president.

    Solot Apologizes for ‘Poorly Chosen Words’

    Stainback’s website states that she has lived in Upper Moreland since August 1996 with her husband and their five children, all of whom have either graduated, attend, or will attend Upper Moreland schools.

    According to the website, Stainback received endorsements from the UM Republican Committee, UM Democratic Committee, and UMEA for the role of School Board president.

    “I care deeply for the schools and the township,” the website states.

    Stainback eventually won the presidential position by eight out of nine votes. However, Solot’s comments reportedly sparked uproar among the community.

    In a statement on Monday, district Superintendent Susan Elliott and Stainback said that Solot was stepping down from her role, effective Jan. 2, following the comments she made at the board meeting that “many in our community took offense to.”

    “As a result of this incident, Ms. Solot has decided to resign from the board effective January 2, 2023. She wishes to apologize for her poorly chosen words and does not want to be a distraction from the great things happening in our schools on a daily basis,” the statement read.

    “The comments made by Ms. Solot at the board reorganization meeting were solely hers and were not intended to represent the opinion of the entire UMSD Board of Directors or the district as a whole. Indeed, Board Director Greg D’Elia, who was the subject of her comments, says that he ‘supports diversity, but these comments did not further diversity and reflected poorly on our community,’” the statement continued.

    “The district thanks Ms. Solot for her five years of service to the Upper Moreland community as a board member,” the statement added.

    The Epoch Times has contacted D’Elia for comment.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/16/2022 – 19:00

  • The Black Old Deal: Global Coal Demand Hits All Time High
    The Black Old Deal: Global Coal Demand Hits All Time High

    As the new and improved – not to mention far easier on the eyes – UN climate change advisor Sophia Kianni, aka Greta 2.0, is busy warming up the cover and red carpet of Forbes magazine as the 20-year-old criss-crosses the world, her carbon footprint be damned…

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    … the sexy distraction has achieved its goals and while the world was ogling the new sex symbol of climate warfare, at a time when progressives are frothing at the mouth at any mention of global warming (which however won’t stop them from replacing their Tesla with an F-150 to own Musk) the International Energy Agency just reported that global coal demand is set to reach a record high this year.

    In its “Coal 2022” report published Friday, the IEA reported that coal consumption rose by 1.2% in 2022, surpassing 8 billion tons in a single year and topping the previous record set in 2013.

    “This means coal will continue to be the global energy system’s largest single source of carbon dioxide emissions by far,” IEA said, despite climate alarmists’ failed attempts to kill the coal industry as it was revived to stave off an energy crisis in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere.

    “Higher natural gas prices amid the global energy crisis have led to increased reliance on coal for generating power,” IEA explained.

    The report forecasts coal consumption will remain at elevated levels through 2025. 

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    The world is addicted to low-cost power generation sources. The idea that fossil fuel generation, especially coal, would magically be phased out for unreliable renewable energy, such as solar and wind, has been a pipe dream and another reason for grid instability worldwide. 

    IEA’s Director of Energy Markets and Security, Keisuke Sadamori, said, “the world is close to a peak in fossil fuel use, with coal set to be the first to decline, but we are not there yet.” 

    “Coal demand is stubborn and will likely reach an all-time high this year, pushing up global emissions. At the same time, there are many signs that today’s crisis is accelerating the deployment of renewables, energy efficiency and heat pumps – and this will moderate coal demand in the coming years. Government policies will be key to ensuring a secure and sustainable path forward,” Sadamori noted.

    IEA labeled China, India, and Indonesia as the world’s three largest coal producers. Demand for coal has sent coal futures at the Newcastle Coal Terminal through the roof this year. 

    One of the biggest beneficiaries of coal’s revival is US-based Peabody Energy. 

    And while the world still on a path toward decarbonizing – this peculiar “onetime” carbon hiccup notwithstanding – nuclear power remains the best and only solution for on-demand clean energy. In the meantime, coal, NatGas, and other hydrocarbons are going nowhere. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/16/2022 – 18:40

  • Trump Files Defamation Suit Against Pulitzer Prize Board For Rewarding 'Russia Collusion' Coverage
    Trump Files Defamation Suit Against Pulitzer Prize Board For Rewarding ‘Russia Collusion’ Coverage

    Authored by Samantha Flom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Former President Donald Trump, joined by former First Lady Melania Trump, arrives to speak at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., on Nov. 15, 2022. (Alon Skuy/AFP via Getty Images)

    Former President Donald Trump filed a defamation lawsuit against members of the Pulitzer Prize Board on Dec. 13 after the board declined to rescind the 2018 National Reporting prizes presented to The New York Times and The Washington Post for their reporting on the debunked allegations of collusion between Trump and Russia.

    Noting that those allegations have long since been exposed as false, the complaint—filed in Okeechobee County, Florida—asserts that a “demonstrably false connection was and remains the stated basis” for the awarded coverage.

    “A large swath of Americans had a tremendous misunderstanding of the truth at the time the Times’ and the Post’s propagation of the Russia Collusion Hoax dominated the media,” notes the complaint, which was obtained by Fox News. “Remarkably, they were rewarded for lying to the American public.”

    The Awards

    According to the Pulitzer Prize Board, the 2018 National Reporting Prizes were awarded to The Times and the Post for “deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign, the President-elect’s transition team and his eventual administration.”

    While such claims of collusion between Trump and Russia—initially sparked by allegations of a secret backchannel between the Trump Organization and the Russia-based Alfa Bank by the now-infamous Steele dossier—have long since been discredited, the Pulitzer Prize Board has defended its decision to reward the two media outlets’ reporting on the subject.

    Russian analyst Igor Danchenko (R) arrives to court with a lawyer in Alexandria, Va., on Oct. 11, 2022. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

    On July 18, following several inquiries from the former president—which included a threat of legal action if the awards were not revoked—the board announced that it would not be rescinding the awards.

    “The Pulitzer Prize Board has an established, formal process by which complaints against winning entries are carefully reviewed,” the board said in a statement. “In the last three years, the Pulitzer Board has received inquiries, including from former President Donald Trump, about submissions from The New York Times and The Washington Post on Russian interference in the U.S. election and its connections to the Trump campaign—submissions that jointly won the 2018 National Reporting prize.”

    Noting that two independent reviews had been conducted regarding the reporting in question, the board continued: “Both reviews were conducted by individuals with no connection to the institutions whose work was under examination, nor any connection to each other. The separate reviews converged in their conclusions: that no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes.

    “The 2018 Pulitzer Prizes in National Reporting stand,” the board added.

    Slamming the Pulitzer Board’s decision in a statement, Trump wrote: “The Pulitzer Board has taken away any shred of credibility it had left with its ‘response’ regarding the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, which was awarded to The New York Times and The Washington Post for blatant fake news. Instead of acting with integrity and providing transparency, the Pulitzer Board is running cover for the biggest reporting failure in modern history: the fake Russia Russia Russia collusion hoax.”

    Also stating that The NY Times and the Post should take the “honorable” course of action and voluntarily return their prizes, the former president added: “The truth is that the 2018 Pulitzer Prize was handed out for reporting that merely parroted political disinformation—disinformation that we know was fabricated by foreign operatives and my political opponents. If the Pulitzer Prize has become a blatant acknowledgment of false, liberal political propaganda, then the Pulitzer Board should just say so.”

    The Complaint

    In the Tuesday filing, Trump’s legal team echoed those same sentiments, contending that the Pulitzer Board had issued its July statement with “knowledge or reckless disregard for its falsity” and that the board’s members “knew that the Russia Collusion Hoax had been thoroughly discredited numerous times by exhaustive, credible, official investigations, contradicting the ‘deeply sourced, relentlessly reported’” winning articles.

    “At the time of publication, nearly every branch and agency of the federal government had examined this issue and reached the same conclusion: there was no conspiracy or cooperation between President Trump or the Trump Campaign and Russia,” the former president’s attorneys added.

    The complaint also alleges that the Pulitzer Board’s statement was issued with “actual malice and the intention to harm President Trump and his reputation,” noting: “The Pulitzer Statement was knowingly published by Defendants to create a false implication in the mind of the reader that ‘the Trump campaign, the President-elect’s transition team and his eventual administration’ was connected with Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.”

    Trump’s team is requesting damages “in an amount to be proven at trial.”

    The Epoch Times has contacted the Pulitzer Board for comment.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/16/2022 – 18:20

  • White Christmas? Meteorologists Warn Of Potential "Blizzard Over East Coast"
    White Christmas? Meteorologists Warn Of Potential “Blizzard Over East Coast”

    Long-range weather models forecast the increasing possibility of a white Christmas for parts of the Northeast. 

    “Some of the models are depicting a weather pattern taking shape that could result in very cold air pouring into the central and eastern United States next week — which could set the stage for a potential winter storm along the East Coast heading into Christmas weekend,” media outlet NJ.Com wrote. 

    NY NJ PA Weather’s meteorologist Steven DiMartino said there’s still uncertainty around forecasts but says signs are emerging of a potential East Coast winter storm next week. 

    DiMartino said atmospheric patterns and a few weather models show what appears to be a developing storm that has the “potential to be pretty impressive.” 

    “However, before anyone starts putting out snow maps or anything else that you might see on social media, understand there are a lot of moving parts in this storm,” he noted.

    “You have a disturbance in the subtropical jet stream, interaction with the Gulf stream — which is a very warm body of water off the East Coast — and an impressive Arctic air mass driving towards all of that rising air,” DiMartino continued.

    “When you have all these features come together, usually a big storm evolves … but as far as the details are concerned, I caution you not to jump on every model guidance that shows up, because a lot can change over the next couple of days,” he added.

    DiMartino explained more in the YouTube video. 

    DiMartino said the storm’s exact timing, track, and impacts are still unknown. Such forecasts will be made available in the coming days. 

    Another meteorologist by the name of Joe Bastardi, who runs WeatherBELL Analytics LLC, tweeted:

    “Christmas week blizzard over the east with severe cold liable to cause thousands of travel-related cancellations as the pattern evolution been trying to show based on old school methods seem to be working out. Euro going ballistic.” 

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    We pointed out this week that a blast of Arctic air will sweep over parts of the Lower 48 around Christmas.

    Meteorologists have yet to lock in any forecast, and there’s still a degree of uncertainty about the storm’s details, though some weather experts believe parts of the Northeast could be looking at a white Christmas. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/16/2022 – 18:00

  • South Dakota Gov. Noem Proposes Legislation To Restrict Chinese Purchase Of US Farmland
    South Dakota Gov. Noem Proposes Legislation To Restrict Chinese Purchase Of US Farmland

    Authored by Dorothy Li via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem announced on Dec. 13 new proposed legislation to restrict farmland purchases by foreign countries, namely China.

    “With this new process, we will be able to prevent nations who hate us—like Communist China—from buying up our state’s agriculture land,” Noem said in a statement.

    “We cannot allow the Chinese Communist Party to continue to buy up our nation’s food supply, so South Dakota will lead the charge on this vital national security issue.”

    Kristi Noem, governor of South Dakota, in New York on June 29, 2022. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

    The proposed plan marked the latest step by the Republican governor to clamp down on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) influence in her state.

    The statement revealed that Noem and state legislators planned to create a new board, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States–South Dakota, to review proposed agricultural land purchases by foreign entities. The board, which would consist of three ex officio members and two experts in the agricultural industry and national security, would recommend either approval or denial of land sales.

    “We grow the world’s food, and we need to protect the security of that food supply for our kids,” said state Sen. Erin Tobin, a sponsor of the proposed legislation.

    Besides food security concerns, lawmakers also view the land that could be owned by CCP-affiliated entities as problematic from a national security perspective.

    “With vital national security resources like Ellsworth Air Force Base, we cannot afford for our enemies to purchase land in South Dakota,” said state Rep.-elect Gary Cammack, another sponsor of Noem’s proposal. “We want to keep this land in the hands of South Dakota agriculture producers.”

    A B-1B Lancer assigned to the 37th Bomb Squadron taxis on the flight line at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., on July 16, 2020. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Quentin K. Marx via AP)

    Chinese Purchase of US Farmland

    The plan comes amid growing scrutiny of U.S. farmland being owned by Chinese investors. In September, 51 House Republicans raised national security concerns about the sale of 370 acres of farmland in North Dakota to Fufeng Group, an entity with close ties to the CCP.

    The Chinese agribusiness proposed to set up a corn mill plant on the site. The proposed project is located about 12 miles from the Grand Forks Air Force Base, home to sensitive U.S. drone, satellite, and surveillance technology.

    The site could become “the ideal location to closely monitor and intercept” the Air Force base’s “exceptional intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter dated Sept. 26 addressed to several Biden administration secretaries.

    Despite strong pushback from lawmakers and local residents, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) stated that it wouldn’t block the deal, because the farmland purchase is “not a covered transaction” under the panel’s jurisdiction, according to a Dec. 13 statement from CFIUS Staff Chair Andrew Fair.

    The total value of Chinese-owned U.S. agricultural land has jumped more than 20-fold in the past 10 years, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 2020, Chinese-owned U.S. agricultural lands were worth more than $1.8 billion, compared to $81 million in 2010.

    A total of 14 states have introduced plans to restrict foreign acquisitions on U.S. soil, according to Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). The two Republican senators are pushing for a federal-level ban on foreign-owned private U.S. farmland.

    In South Dakota, the current law limits foreign ownership of farmland to 160 acres, according to Noem’s office.

    A sign opposing a corn mill in Grand Forks, N.D., stands near 370 acres recently annexed by the city for the project. Many residents don’t want the project in the city because the owner, Fufeng Group, has reputed ties to the Chinese Communist Party through its company chairman. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

    Other Actions Against the CCP

    Earlier this month, Noem had called for an immediate review of all investments to determine if taxpayer money is going to companies that “pose a threat to our national security.”

    “South Dakotans deserve to know if their taxpayer dollars are being invested to benefit the Chinese Communist Party,” she said in a Dec. 8 statement.

    The governor said she wanted the South Dakota Investment Council, a panel managing investment of the state’s pension, to complete the review in seven days.

    “The Investment Council has ensured that South Dakota has the best-funded pension in the country. But it is not possible to make good deals with bad people,” Noem said. “If this review shows that such investment is taking place, then the Investment Council should propose alternative investment options.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/16/2022 – 17:40

  • California Is Impossible For The Middle Class
    California Is Impossible For The Middle Class

    Authored by John Seiler via The Epoch Times,

    As we head toward the end of another year, I’m remembering several friends who left in 2022 for cheaper states. And I’m thinking about several other friends who are planning on leaving in 2023 or 2024.

    The fact is California is difficult, often impossible, to live in if you’re in the middle class. The wealthy can afford to live here, although they often leave too, because that 13.3 percent top income tax rate really digs in, especially when they dream of moving to 0 percent Texas, Florida, or Nevada. The poor suffer, but California has a generous welfare state, so it’s easier in many ways for low-income residents than living in another state.

    It’s the middle class, the rock bed of any society, that bears the brunt of California’s brutal living conditions—amidst the sublime weather. There are three areas where the middle class is hammered: taxes, high housing costs, and a broken education system. Let’s look at them as we peer toward 2023: a little winter organizing of our political mentalities.

    1. Taxes.

     The middle class does not pay that 13.3 percent rate on millionaires, but it does pay what long was the “top” tax: 9.3 percent. California’s income tax rates were indexed for inflation in 1978. But that was only after a decade of inflation pushed the middle class into the then-top rate of 9.3 percent. That is, today the middle class pays at a rate originally intended only for the very rich.

    The middle class in no other state pays income taxes that high. Of the states, seven have no income tax at all. And 37 have a top rate below 9.3 percent.

    Here are the five states after California with top income tax rates above 9.3 percent: Hawaii at 11 percent; New York 10.9 percent; New Jersey 10.75 percent; Oregon 9.9 percent; and Minnesota 9.85 percent.

    However, for the middle class, the percentage is lower. For someone making $80,000 a year, here’s the marginal percentage tax rate for a single filer:

    • California 9.30

    • Oregon 8.75 (and no state sales tax)

    • Minnesota 6.80

    • New Jersey 6.37

    • New York 5.97

    • Hawaii 5.86

    Year after year, that adds up. Moreover, in California, $80,000 really isn’t middle class, but lower middle class. Admittedly, New York, New Jersey, and Hawaii also are high-cost states in many areas.

    But those states have much lower taxes for the middle class. And it’s easier to be in the middle class in those states because most things, especially taxes and property, are cheaper.

    2. Housing. 

    At Chapman University’s 45th Economic Forecast, held Dec. 13 and co-sponsored by The Epoch Times, economist and President-emeritus Jim Doti brought up an interesting number I hadn’t heard before. “Home prices increased 400 percent since 1990” in California, he said. “5.2 percent per year. Overall inflation then was 2.6 percent—roughly half. Home prices increased two times CPI,” the consumer price index.

    I came to California just before that, in 1987, and rented a nice one-bedroom apartment in Huntington Beach for $600 a month. In 1993 I moved to a nearby place and the price was about the same, $700 in the late 1990s. The rent crept up over the years to $1,000 in 2010, still tolerable. Then the rent started soaring, and I had to move. Today those two places rent for $2,429. My income sure didn’t go up four times in that period.

    The median price for a home in 2021 was $854,280 in Los Angeles County and $1.2 million in Orange County—although both have dropped a bit in 2022. And the median price for all California was $554,866 in 2020, lower because the Inland Empire and other inland areas are cheaper.

    But here are the median home prices in the other states I listed above for their relatively high income taxes:

    • Hawaii $636,451

    • Massachusetts $422,856

    • Oregon $361,970

    • New Jersey $335,607

    • New York $321,934

    And here are some states with no income tax:

    • Washington $409,228

    • Nevada $301,753

    • New Hampshire $296,163

    • Florida $ $245,169

    • Texas $207,301

    But according to the U.S. Census bureau, the median household income in California in 2021 was only $84,097, compared to $70,784 for the national median. That is, it’s 19 percent higher in the Golden State—which hardly covers the vastly greater expense of taxes and housing in California.

    Which makes me wonder why I’m still living here. These two things—the highest taxes and second-highest housing prices—make it almost impossible for the middle class to accumulate capital to buy a home, start a business, or even raise a family.

    3. Education. 

    I’ve written several articles here in The Epoch Times on the horrible state of the public schools in California, such as “Lessons From Running for California Schools Chief: Interview,” on Nov. 14. Test scores, already among the worst among the 50 states, dropped further during the excessive COVID-19 school lockdowns.

    Then there’s the politically correct social engineering pushed on the students, beginning with critical race theory, now mandated in state schools under the guise of “ethnic studies.”

    No wonder several of my friends left because they didn’t want their kids indoctrinated. A couple other friends with toddlers are planning to leave the next couple of years before the kids go to kindergarten.

    Private schools are an option but cost money the middle class doesn’t have. Home schooling is another option but takes dedication some families don’t have, and is next to impossible if both parents are working—itself virtually a necessity in this expensive state.

    Some school boards are kicking back against the indoctrination. Temecula Valley Unified School District on Dec. 13 banned critical race theory, while also adopting a resolution condemning racism. But few districts do this. And how long can Temecula and other districts hold out on the side of the parents and students against the pressure from the state government and the powerful teachers unions?

    Conclusion: Adios, Middle Class

    It’s simply impossible to be in the middle class in California, especially if you have kids. It’s no wonder more people keep leaving. At the Chapman Forecast, Doti provided the latest data, “Net domestic migration has been negative since 2011,” meaning more people leaving for other U.S. states than came here. “For the most recent year, 2021, it was negative 280,000.” If that keeps up, during the 2020s decade, California would lose 2.8 million people to other states.

    Gov. Newsom touts his “California Way” as a contrast to the policies of the conservative governors of Florida and Texas. “They’re doubling down on stupid, and we will not follow their path, we’re going in a completely different direction,” he boasts. But the out-migration shows the state’s middle-class residents themselves are going in a completely different direction from Newsom—out of the state.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/16/2022 – 17:00

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  • China: The World's First Technate – Part 2
    China: The World’s First Technate – Part 2

    Authored by Iain Davis via Off-Guardian.org,

    In Part 1, we discussed the historical background of Technocracy Inc. that briefly found popularity in the US in the 1930s during the turmoil of the Great Depression.

    Technocracy was rooted in socioeconomic theories that focused upon the efficient management of society by experts (technocrats). This idea briefly held the public’s attention during a period of sustained recession, mass unemployment and growing poverty.

    The technological capabilities required for the energy surveillance grid, essential for the operation of a Technate (a technocratic society), were far beyond the practical reach of 1930s America. Consequently, for that and other reasons, public interest in the seemingly preposterous idea of technocracy soon subsided.

    However, in recent decades, many influential policy strategists—most notably Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger—and private philanthropic foundations, such as the Rockefeller Foundation, recognised that advances in digital technology would eventually make a Technate feasible. As founding and leading members of the Trilateral Commission, a policy “think tank,” they saw China as a potential test bed for technocracy.

    We will now consider their efforts to create the world’s first Technate in China.

    These articles build upon the research found in my 2021 publication Pseudopandemic, which is freely available to my blog subscribers.

    WHY CHINA?

    In the West we often have difficulty understanding or even conceptualising Chinese mores. We tend to see the world in our own terms and are able to describe it only in reference to the principles and philosophical concepts that we are familiar with. Perhaps we forget that the Western perspective is not the only one in the world.

    For example, as pointed out by students of the Chinese political philosophy of tianxia, there is no ontological tradition in China. In the Chinese philosophical mind, the question is not “What is this thing” but “What path does this thing suggest?”

    Datong lies at the heart of “the Great Way,” first described in the Liyun chapter of the “Book of Rites” (the Liji), written more than 2,000 years ago. Recounting the teachings of Confucius, the chapter depicted a utopian society of the ancient past this way:

    When the Great Way was practised, the world was shared by all alike. The worthy and the able were promoted to office and men practised good faith and lived in affection. Therefore they did not regard as parents only their own parents, or as sons only their own sons.

    The “Rites” (or “li”) are the formal etiquette and behavioural conduct that underpin Chinese social order. Li also compasses the ceremony and rituals that reinforce normative standards.

    Datong, which can be translated as “the Great Unity,” represents the central political and moral philosophy of the ideal Chinese society. In datong, everyone respects “the li” and is imbued with the Confucian virtue of “ren.” This love and benevolence (ren) is founded in human empathy. It first manifests within the family but extends to the whole of society.

    Datong implies a society where the most able and virtuous lead, with ren foremost in their hearts and minds. All resources are shared equitably for the common good. In the Liyun chapter, the expression “the world is shared by all alike” is written as “tianxia weigong.” This can be translated as “all under Heaven is held in common” or “all under Heaven is publicly held.”

    There is no place for private property in datong, because communities meet the needs of all. There is no conflict of interest. The Great Way is one of “Universal Harmony.”

    The opening passage of the Liyun chapter also described xiaokang, the “lesser prosperity,” in which society still maintained li and ren but differed from datong in an important regard:

    The world is the possession of private families. Each regards as parents only his own parents, as sons only his own sons; goods and labour are employed for selfish ends.

    While datong describes a world where resources are “shared by all alike,” in xiaokang resources are in “the possession of private families.” Xiaokang was not seen as opposed to datong but rather on the path toward it, for li and ren were still observed. But there is a warning in the Liyun chapter that private property and the control of resources by private interests present a risk:

    Therefore intrigue and plotting come about and men take up arms.

    Kang Youwei’s book “Datong shu” (The Great Commonwealth) was published posthumously in 1935. Kang wrote it as a series of lecture notes, the earliest dating to 1884. Rather than view datong only as a lost utopia, Kang proposed datong as a future society that could be constructed. He viewed ren as the path toward establishing the common good for all, attainable by eliminating suffering and creating happiness.

    Kang noted that ren was applicable not only to humanity but to the universe and all within it, and he called this “jen.” Jen gave rise, he said, to creation and to the establishment of universal order. Therefore, order should be based upon the same principle of the “compassionate mind.”

    He drew upon the work of the Confucian scholar He Xiu, whose Gongyang theory of history described sociopolitical development as a path consisting of incremental, progressive stages. Kang built upon Gongyang’s work to plot a course toward the Great Unity.

    In essence, Kang suggested that society could be reverse-engineered to achieve datong in the future. He identified “nine boundaries” of human suffering that needed to be deconstructed in order to reach datong. He said that datong could be attained once nation-states, social class, racism, sexism, families, private property, injustice, environmental destruction, and poverty (the result of social inequality and oppression) were abolished.

    “Sages” or “persons of jen” would be needed to lead, Kang maintained. He acknowledged that the sages had to operate in the social, economic and political circumstances of their day and that the resultant laws and institutions might be oppressive and cause suffering. Therefore, the objective of the “person of jen” (sage) should be to reform the laws and organisations of the state with a view to eradicating the nine boundaries of suffering.

    With the abolition of the nation state, Kang’s proposed path toward the Great Way extended far beyond China. He favoured a global society where a world government would rule over a planet that was divided into regional districts.

    In this global society, there would be no class or private property, and all would strive to deliver the common good and benefit everyone. Specifically, all resources would be deployed for the benefit and happiness of all. Public institutions, not families, would raise children. And the children would be trained to become citizens who would provide free services, such as health care and education, for all.

    The only distinction between people would be the badges of honour worn by those deemed to have great ren, or knowledge—that is, the sages. Ultimately, once datong exists, there would be complete harmony with nature, which in turn would mean that all human beings are vegetarians and that euthanasia would be practised with ren, for the common good.

    The ideology of datong, as Kang expounded it, and the hope of following the Great Way have strongly influenced Chinese political philosophy throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Xi Jinping has been heard on numerous occasions to repeat the phrase, “When the Great Way prevails, the world is for everyone.”

    Seen from the Chinese philosophical perspective, the best anyone can hope for today is xiaokang. Thus, xiaokang sages must be free to reform the institutions of the state on the path toward removing the nine boundaries, achieving datong and leading the Great Way.

    There are many parallels between this path and the socioeconomic theory underpinning technocracy. For those who wished to establish a global technate, China was a natural choice for their pilot project.

    UNDERSTANDING TECHNOCRACY

    While there is a lot of debate about the extent of “legitimate” technocratic governance in the West’s supposedly liberal representative democracies, governance is just one aspect of technocracy. In other words, technocratic governance alone is not technocracy.

    As discussed previously, a technocracy is a “governance of function.” The overarching goal is to run the whole of society as efficiently as possible.

    The Technocracy Inc. Study Course states:

    The basic unit of this organization is the Functional Sequence. A Functional Sequence is one of the larger industrial or social units, the various parts of which are related one to the other in a direct functional sequence. Thus among the major Industrial Sequences we have transportation (railroads, waterways, airways, highways and pipe lines); communication (mail, telephone, telegraph, radio and television); agriculture (farming, ranching, dairying, etc.); and the major industrial units such as textiles, iron and steel, etc. Among the Service Sequences are education (this would embrace the complete training of the younger generation), and public health (medicine, dentistry, public hygiene, and all hospitals and pharmaceutical plants as well as institutions for defectives)

    Each “Functional Sequence” is overseen by a directorate. For example, the Distribution Sequence collects all the data gathered from the “Energy Certificates,” which are allocated to the citizens to be exchanged for goods and services. The “Price System” is abolished. There is no private property. The entire Technate is controlled by one body: Continental Control.

    Like Kang’s “sages,” and in a fashion similar to guidance of the population toward the Great Way, a technocracy creates a rigid hierarchical structure to ensure that all are working for the common good. In the language of technocracy, the citizen contributes toward the appropriate service function.

    Effectively, this creates a pyramid-like sociopolitical structure:

    The personnel of all Functional Sequences will pyramid on the basis of ability to the head of each department within the Sequence, and the resultant general staff of each Sequence will be a part of the Continental Control. A government of function! The Continental Director, as the name implies, is the chief executive of the entire social mechanism. On his immediate staff are the Directors of the Armed Forces, the Foreign Relations, the Continental Research, and the Social Relations and Area Control. [. . .] The Continental Director is chosen from among the members of the Continental Control by the Continental Control. Due to the fact that this Control is composed of only some 100 or so members, all of whom know each other well, there is no one better fitted to make this choice than they.

    Class is abolished in technocracy. Child care is provided by the Technate. Rather than having “great ren,” the general staff of the Technate are said to possess “peck-rights.” That is, they are the most suited to be at the top of the pyramid because a “governance of function” works most efficiently when “the right man is in the right place” to serve the common good.

    Like the ideas presented in “Datong shu,” the intention of technocracy is essentially altruistic. The small cluster of engineers, economists, sociologists and other academics brought together by the Rockefellers and Howard Scott wanted to construct a society that would deliver “lives of abundance” to all.

    It must be admitted that the Technocracy Inc. Study Course made some valid criticisms of a number of social problems. Unfortunately, the offered solution of a Technate is both arrogant and naïve.

    It assumes, much as does the notion of a Great Way, that authority can be exercised by some human beings over other human beings for the common good. Further, it imagines that there is some social or political mechanism that can produce leaders who are omniscient and capable of defining what that “common good” is.

    Both datong and technocracy would require human nature to undergo a fundamental transformation. Avarice, malevolence, narcissism, psychopathy and every other deleterious failing would need to be expunged from humanity. Until they are, power will continue to be sought by those who want to control others.

    The most ruthless among us will ultimately succeed—often not because they are the most suited but because they are prepared to do what others won’t in order to gain the power they crave. This situation will persist for as long as we believe that someone or some organisation needs to have absolute authority over our lives in order for us to be able to cooperate effectively.

    To imagine that concentrating all power in the hands of a tiny, select band of experts or sages will solve the problems caused by the unscrupulous and frequently violent and immoral use of authority is ridiculous. You can’t fix a kakistocracy by investing more power in the “kakistocrats.”

    For the global public-private partnership (G3P), which operates a compartmentalised, hierarchical, pyramid-like power structure, the most enticing aspect of technocracy is the extreme centralisation of power and authority over vast swaths of the humanity. That is why, as soon as technological development permitted and the opportunity arose, the G3P set about assisting the development of a Technate in China.

    INFILTRATING CHINA

    The formal story of Henry Kissinger’s “secret” 1971 discussions with Chinese Premier Chou En-lai—officially acknowledged in 2001—is that US President Richard Nixon sent Kissinger to normalise relationships with the Chinese government as a counterbalance to the Soviet Union. What is mentioned less frequently, though, is Kissinger’s relationship with the Rockefellers.

    In 1956, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund commissioned Kissinger to convene its Special Studies Panels. The panels investigated emerging global challenges and trends and suggested how US foreign policy might adapt to meet them.

    In the 1961 publication of the six panel reports, Prospect for America (subtitled “The problems and opportunities confronting American democracy—in foreign policy, in military preparedness, in education, in social and economic affairs”), the Rockefeller Brothers Fund outlined how public-private partnership would be key to this projected future:

    Corporations, whose operations extend through many nations[,] [. . .] through which a considerable and essential part of the world’s economic activities is carried on, must be able to compose diversities, adjust conflicts of interest, and adapt their operations to the needs of the country in which they operate. In doing so they represent a further example of multinational solutions to common problems.

    The authors of these reports regarded private finance as essential not only for developing international markets but also for guiding the social and political development of the target nation:

    Rapid economic growth can be achieved only if local savings and public foreign investment are supplemented by an increasing inflow of private foreign investment. Such investment performs two key functions: it adds to the capital resources of the host nation and it is the chief mechanism through which the managerial and technical skills and the creative and catalytic quality can contribute to economic development in less developed areas. [. . .] Private philanthropic capital can also play an important role in economic development.

    The panels that provided the analysis for Prospect for America were convened in the aftermath of McCarthyism. They needed to appeal to a US polity still obsessed with the perceived threat of international communism. Thus, the reports eulogise so-called democracy throughout.

    However, there are numerous indications that the Rockefeller foreign policy strategists were willing to diplomatically suggest alternatives:

    The American pattern of private enterprise and voluntary association is not the only mold for a free society.

    It is clear that these strategists sought to both exploit the differences between nation-states for their development potential and amplify the importance of global issues as a means of uniting nations, regardless of their model of government, under a system of global governance. They considered scientific and technological development one way to do just that:

    In the field of science, international cooperation on a world scale is most readily achievable. [. . .] [T]he United States should, therefore, seek to develop a series of agreements, looking toward the stimulation of scientific interchange and the fostering of scientific progress on a world scale. [. . .] The Communist nations should be invited to participate.

    The panels, which effectively formed a temporary Rockefeller-funded think tank, were not opposed to colonialism on moral grounds but they highlighted its tactical flaws. Inherent in their critique of colonialism was an acknowledgement that alleged democratic values have nothing to do with hard-nosed geopolitics or with expansive foreign policy ambitions:

    While colonialism exacted a human and political toll, it also represented one of the greatest conversions in history. As the ideals of the British, French and American revolutions became diffused, partly through the very spread of colonialism, the seeds were sown for the destruction of colonialism itself. The more successful the teachings of the colonial powers, the more untenable grew their position. Almost without exception, the leaders of independence movements fought their rulers in terms of the rulers’ own beliefs. They asked them to live up to their own principles.

    The Rockefellers, being one of the leading families at the head of the G3P’s compartmentalised hierarchy, had worked with the Chinese authorities for generations. John D. Rockefeller Sr. was trading kerosene in China in 1863.

    The family’s philanthropic foundation had long fostered strong ties with the Chinese government. For example, it helped advance the use of Western allopathic medicine in China by establishing the Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) and by making other philanthropic investments.

    It’s safe to say that the Rockefellers were knowledgeable and enthusiastic supporters of the Chinese government. Not surprisingly, they were also knowledgeable and enthusiastic supporters of the technocracy movement in the US, maintaining their keen interest in it despite its lack of public support. They understood the potential of social engineering to create a governance of function (a Technate):

    Changes in technology have always been a major cause of change in government, economic relations and social institutions. But technological innovation is no longer the work of isolated, ingenious inventors; it is the product of organised scientific enterprise and is constant, insistent and accelerating. One of its notable effects is upon the tempo of social change itself, which is enormously quicker than it has been, and which subjects every inhabitant of a technological society to its pressures. Technological innovation thus poses a series of issues with which our society will have to deal. [. . .] The growth of technological society has changed the traditional society in which men have enjoyed freedom. Large and complex organisations have become the order of the day. [. . .] Programs for the preservation and strengthening of individual freedom must assume the existence and the inevitability of such organisations.

    The Rockefellers had a nuanced appreciation of the potential for technological development to act as the catalyst for change. Despite the report’s primary focus on the US relationship with the Soviet Union, the Rockefellers obviously recognised the ripe opportunities in China:

    It [China] has a rapidly growing population, a shortage of resources, and a fanatical ideology. Around a large part of its perimeter exists “soft” situations, making infiltration, subversion, and outright conquest seem easy or inviting prospects. The present relations between Soviet Russia and Red China [. . .] may not always be drawn together by common interests. [. . .] We must avoid, wherever possible, courses that seem to drive China closer to the Soviets.

    As founders of the Trilateral Commission, the Rockefellers’ and their fellow Trilateralists’ goal was to infiltrate China by extending the hand of cooperative friendship through public-private investment in technological and thus financial and economic development.

    The Sino-Soviet split was seemingly the window of opportunity they wished to lever open.

    China’s society, its political history and government structure was already amenable to the introduction of technocracy, as it was to communism. The Trilateralists were apparently eager to avoid the mistakes of Western colonialists, who extolled the democratic ideals and associated legal concepts which had come back to bite them. These ideals were, in any event, antithetical to the Trilateralists’ project.

    ASSISTING CHINA

    Following Mao’s death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping rose to power, becoming the Paramount Leader of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1978. Just two weeks after assuming power, on January 1, 1979, he became the first communist Chinese leader to conduct a formal state visit to the US.

    He was received with full state honours by the administration of Jimmy Carter, whose National Security advisor was Trilateralist Zbigniew Brzezinski—and who was himself a Trilateralist.

    Deng Xiaoping immediately set about instigating a series of social and economic reforms, which were called “reform and opening up” in China and “the opening up of China” in the West.

    Deng was one of a group of eight high-ranking Chinese officials who had survived the brutal repressions of cultural revolution. The reverently named “Eight Immortals” were credited with turning the Chinese economy from an unstable mess, riven with extreme poverty, into the thriving economic engine it is today.

    Despite the hopes of datong, and far from being the sages that Kang Youwei dreamed of, the sons and daughters of the Eight Immortals, who are collectively known as the Princelings, hoovered up China’s state assets to effectively create a new dynasty, just as corrupt as its predecessors. Such is the nature of kakistocracy.

    The scale and pace of the economic transformation in such a vast country would have been impossible without the considerable inward investment and the transfer of technology which China received from the G3P. This G3P investment was the initial source of China’s economic growth miracle. In late 2019, The World Economic Forum (WEF) reported:

    High levels of government spending and foreign investment have enabled China to roughly double the size of its economy every eight years since the introduction of economic reforms in 1979.

    CITIC (China International Trust & Investment Corp, renamed CITIC Group) was effectively China’s state–run investment arm. Kissinger’s visit to China had opened up investment banking opportunities for Rockefeller’s Chase Group (Chase Manhattan Bank at the time.)

    In June 1980, CITIC Chairman Rong Yiren attended a meeting with David Rockefeller and the representatives of 300 Fortune 500 companies in the Chase Manhattan offices in New York.

    The purpose of the meeting between CITIC and the G3P representatives was:

    [To] identify and define those areas of the Chinese economy most susceptible to American technology and capital infusion.

    Kissinger and Rong reportedly established an investment company, with Trilateralist Kissinger appointed as a special advisor to CITIC. The initial phase of China’s economic transformation consisted of banking reforms that allowed much greater Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in China.

    FDIs aren’t just capital investments. They typically come with a transfer or sharing of expertise, technology and even workforce. Common types of FDIs are mergers, acquisitions, management services and logistical and manufacturing agreements.

    From the mid 1980s onwards the G3P began to pour into Beijing’s Central Business District (CBD).

    By 2009 there were 114 Western companies with a substantial presence and established investments in Beijing and beyond. By 2020 there were 238 Fortune 500 companies in Beijing. Today, Beijing CBD (called the Functional Area) now houses the regional headquarters of 105 multinational corporations and more than 4,000 foreign-invested enterprises. The CBD is one of six “high-end industrial functional areas in Beijing.”

    According to Chinese state media, between 1983 and 1991 FDI in China went from a value of $920 million to $4.37 billion. By 2019 total FDI had risen to more than $2.1 trillion. At the same time, the transition economy of China, just like many other economies, rapidly expanded its money supply.

    All of this monopoly money, a mixture of FDI and domestic (digital) currency printing, fuelled the economic and technological development of China. In exchange for access to its market, the Chinese government required that investors sign so-called Forced Technology Transfer (FTT) agreements.

    Simultaneously, the Western mainstream media (MSM) began constantly pushing the notion of the “rising threat” of China and frequently accused China of alleged industrial espionage and “technology theft.“

    Like so much propaganda aimed at Western populations by their MSM, these charges were just a fabrication. In truth, no one was forcing anyone to transfer technology to China. In fact, Trilateralists like President Bill Clinton went to considerable lengths to make sure China could get hold of the technology, including military technology, it needed.

    In 1994 the Clinton administration scrapped Cold War export controls, thereby enabling more sensitive technology to be transferred to China. Claiming that they would not allow defence technology, such as supercomputer or potential uranium enrichment technology, to go to China (or Russia), they soon lifted this restriction via a work-around that shifed oversight from the departments of State and Defense to the Department of Commerce.

    One only has to look at the near identical design of US and Chinese defence systems and weaponry to see that a massive amount of “sensitive” technology is common to both countries.

    The asinine explanation we are given is that this is all the result of Chinese espionage, even though the US government has amended legislation to make such transfers possible.

    The Israeli government and Israeli defence contractors have consistently acted as facilitators for the transfer of the most sensitive Western defence and surveillance technology to China. As soon as “reform and opening up” began in 1979, Israeli multibillionaire—then a humble billionaire—Saul Eisenberg flew a delegation of defence contractors to arrange military supply contracts with the Chinese government.

    While the West’s MSM parrots the intelligence agencies’ overwhelmingly baseless claims that China represents an “immense threat,” the US government and others have maintained deep defence ties with the Israeli government for generations.

    In the full and certain knowledge that Israel is passing defence technology to China, the US and other NATO allies continue to provide Israel with the latest defence technology.

    Occasionally a story surfaces claiming that Washingtion is “angered” by this habitual practice. If we look beyond the propaganda, the fables simply reaffirm that which is blatantly obvious.

    The Israeli government, its defence contractor and tech corporation partners, have consistently acted as a conduit for the transfer of “sensitive” defence, fintech, surveillance and communication technology from the West to China. Between 1992 and 2017 the volume of overall trade between Israel and China multiplied 200 times over.

    Another Western propagandist myth is that China has “stolen” jobs from Western economies. While it is true that manufacturers took advantage of cheaper labour costs in China, leading to job losses in the West, the practice of offshoring jobs had been ongoing for decades.

    Companies are in the business of maximising profits for shareholders and staying competitive. No one was forcing Western corporations to offshore. It was simply an economic expediency, largely the consequence of G3P efforts to modernise China’s economy.

    Often the focus of G3P investment in China has been Research and Development (R&D). In 1994 China ranked 30th in terms of US overseas R&D investment; by 2000 it was 11th.

    Between 1994 to 2001 multinational corporation (MNC) investment in China quadrupled. As a ratio of overseas R&D investment, the G3P were providing thrice the amount of “technology infusion” into China compared to anywhere else.

    While the pseudopandemic sharpened the decline in total global FDI, that figure continued to rise in China.

    The 4% increase of FDI in China in 2020 saw it temporarily surpass the US as the world’s leading recipient of direct investment. In 2020, while FDI in other advanced economies collapsed, China benefited from FDI valued at $163 billion.

    In addition to the huge growth stimulus pumped into the Chinese economy over the last four decades, a significant number of foreign/Chinese industrial R&D alliances were established. These were separate business organizations that targeted specific research or technological development projects. They were formed through collaboration between academic and scientific research establishments, NGOs, government institutions and private enterprise.

    Between 1990 and 2001 the US government established 105 such alliances. In the same time period, Japan had the second largest number of R&D partnership alliances (26), followed by Germany (15), the UK (14), Singapore (12), and Canada (11). The overwhelming majority of these R&D collaborations operated in China.

    From 2001, to the financial crash in 2008, both FDI in R&D and China’s own R&D investment really took off. While the explosive pace of FDI growth slowed from 2010 onward, by 2016 China’s own outward foreign investment had surpassed the FDI it received. That was an astounding economic turnaround in less than 40 years.

    A 2019 report by the World Bank stated:

    China’s spending on research and development (R&D) rose to 2.18 percent of GDP in 2018, up from 1.4 percent in 2007[.] [. . .] Its spending on R&D accounts for around 20 percent of the world total, second only to the United States. Its number of patents granted annually for inventions increased from 68,000 in 2007 to 420,000 in 2017, the highest in the world. [. . .] China is also a hotbed for venture capital in search of the next technology. [. . .] China has evolved from being a net importer of FDI to a net exporter. [. . .] China remains an attractive destination for foreign investments due to its large domestic market. Foreign enterprises such as BASF, BMW, Siemens, and Tesla have recently announced new or expanded investments in China.

    A focus of apparent Western concern has been China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

    This enormous infrastructure project, known in China as One Belt, One Road, or OBOR, is establishing a network of modern trade routes across Eurasia, linking Asia, Africa, Europe, South East Asia and Australasia, easing both international trade and, in particular, Chinese exports.

    Beyond China’s borders there are 140 countries involved in the BRI to one degree or another.

    In its 2018 research paper looking at FDI in a BRI-related project, the World Bank referred to those countries directly involved in its construction as BRI nations. China’s own investment in BRI nations has grown, but the majority of its FDI goes to non-BRI nations. These, according to the World Bank, are nations that are not inviolved in the BRI.

    China is the leading single nation investor in BRI nations but it does not account for the bulk of total investment. China took the lead after the 2008 financial crisis saw non-BRI nations (such as the US and the UK) pull back on their FDI deals in BRI nations. The investment from the non-BRI nations picked up again as quantitative easing (money printing) monetary policies in Western countries took effect post-2010.

    The World Bank reported:

    The majority of BRI countries’ [those who are part of the One Belt, One Road project] FDI inflow comes from non-BRI countries.

    That is to say, BRI nations—Italy, Saudi Arabia, Austria, New Zealand, South Korea and Singapore, etc.—are net recipients of FDI from non-BRI nations, such as the US, UK, France and Germany.

    The majority of the investment, expertise and technology that is building the BRI infrastructure comes from the non-BRI G3P partners. The notion that Western politicians, corporations and financial institutions are worried about the Belt and Road Initiative is just an MSM story. In reality, they are working hard to construct it in partnership with China.

    CHINA: THE WORLD’S FIRST TECHNATE

    China has developed an overt system dedicated to the social engineering of society.

    As noted in Part 1, the definition of technocracy is:

    The science of social engineering, the scientific operation of the entire social mechanism to produce and distribute goods and services to the entire population.

    The focus of technocracy is to direct the population to maximise the efficiency of all “functions” of society, primarily through control of the allocation of resources.

    Published in 2014, the State Council Notice for planning a Social Credit System (SCS) outlined the Chinese government’s rationale for its social credit system:

    The social credit system is an important component of the Socialist market economy system and the social governance system; [. . .] its foundation is a complete network covering the credit records of all members of society and the credit infrastructure; [. . .] its reward and punishment mechanisms are incentivizing trustworthiness and restricting untrustworthiness. [. . .] The establishment of a social credit system is an important foundation for comprehensively implementing the scientific viewpoint of development. [. . .] Accelerating and advancing the establishment of the social credit system is an important precondition for promoting the optimized allocation of resources.

    This is a description of pure technocracy.

    Western commentators often focus upon the technological aspects of China’s social credit system. China certainly operates a dystopian surveillance society, but this complements the social credit system which, as the name suggests, is an overarching system for “implementing the scientific viewpoint of development.”

    The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reported that the supposedly “terrifying system doesn’t exist” in China:

    [T]he system that the central government has been slowly working on is a mix of attempts to regulate the financial credit industry, enable government agencies to share data with each other, and promote state-sanctioned moral values.

    MIT and its funding partners, such as the Rockefeller Foundation, have consistently highlighted the potential merits of the social credit system (SCS).

    When reading that material, we must separate the rhetoric of the engineers of the social credit system from its practical application.

    Like the Great Way or technocracy or communism, the political philosophy underpinning the social credit system is presented by its advocates as progressive, humanitarian and benign. Naturally, the people who impose this system would also need to be progressive, humanitarian and benign, right?

    Yet, while the social credit system is effectively a massive bureaucracy, combining the digital sharing of information with legislation and various paper-shuffling exercises, there are many aspects of it that are extremely concerning.

    For one thing, it creates a public-private partnership that, by rewarding good behaviour, fosters public faith in the mechanisms of the state. For another, it punishes those who aren’t duly faithful.

    The SCS removes access to “privileges” from people who have broken the law and even from those who haven’t. The concept of Joint Disciplinary Action in the SCS introduces the idea that, if found “untrustworthy,” a citizen or organisation so labelled will face broader social consequences, from having their right to fly removed to restricting their ability to book “high-class” tickets on trains to impeding their employment or business opportunities.

    The SCS sets up a blacklist for those deemed to have committed “misdeeds.” Thus far it has predominantly punished those who have failed to pay court fines or those considered bad debtors.

    Chinese state media have praised the courts’ partnership with tech giants like Sesame Credit—the credit-scoring system of the Alibaba Group subsidiary Ant Financial.

    Chinese government data, gathered from the courts and elsewhere, has been combined with private data, gathered from social media, for the purpose of lowering the financial credit score of millions of people who have been “blacklisted.”

    Public humiliation and shaming are commonly used to change the blacklisted’s behaviour. The Supreme Court maintains a database of “discredited individuals” (laolai). Tech companies like TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance Ltd., publish laolai lists from the publicly available data to inform its users which companies and individuals have been “discredited.”

    Technology enhances the social credit system.

    To register a SIM cards and new SMART phones, Chinese users must by law use face scan technology. This biometric data then informs China’s already extensive and rapidly expanding national network of facial recognition cameras.

    The surveillance grid, allowing entry to everything from bus depots to safari parks, is integrating with alleged emotion-recognition technology to assess an individual’s mood and “predict” their behaviour.

    China’s internet is highly regulated via the “Measures on the Administration of Internet Information Services.” The government prohibits news bloggers from commenting on any policies or political developments without a license from the Cyberspace Adminstration of China (CAC).

    Again, this system operates as a public-private partnership. There are eight licensed Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in China registered with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), but censorship largely occurs through the state’s partnership with fintech companies and social media platforms. The censorship is overseen by the Internet Information Office.

    The Chinese have to register their personal details to use the popular social media platforms. The independent sale of SIM cards and network adapters is prohibited; the cards and adapters require similar registration upon purchase and prior to use.

    The Chinese authorities can block foreign websites, restricting citizens access to information from outside China, and it is a crime for anyone to facilitate the illegal flow of prohibited information into China. The Chinese authorities have effectively created the crime of information-smuggling.

    Beyond inciting crimes or advocating violence or terrorism, Article 12 of China’s Cybersecurity Law outlines the other types of information that Chinese people are not permitted to share:

    [Users] must not use the Internet to engage in activities endangering national security, national honour, and national interests; they must not incite subversion of national sovereignty, overturn the socialist system, incite separatism, break national unity, [. . .] create or disseminate false information to disrupt the economic or social order, or information that infringes on the reputation, privacy, intellectual property or other lawful rights and interests of others, and other such acts.

    In other words, no one is permitted to question the state in China. This doesn’t stop the people from doing so, but the associated risks are high. Political dissidents can certainly expect to be censored by the social media platforms, and prison sentences are a distinct possibility for those who speak out too vociferously.

    Among the major geopolitical powers, China is leading in the development of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). CBDC is “programmable money” and the issuer can insert “smart contracts” to control what can be bought, where it can be used and who can use it.

    Bo Li, the former Deputy Governor of the Bank of China and the current Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), speaking at the Central Bank Digital Currencies for Financial Inclusion: Risks and Rewards symposium, clarified smart contracts further:

    CBDC can allow government agencies and private sector players to program [CBDC] to create smart-contracts, to allow targetted policy functions. For example[,] welfare payments [. . .], consumptions coupons, [. . .] food stamps. By programming, CBDC money can be precisely targeted [to] what kind of [things] people can own, and what kind of use [for which] this money can be utilised. For example, [. . .] for food.

    At the 2022 World Economic Forum’s Davos gathering, the president of the Chinese Alibaba Group, J. Michael Evans, announced that the global tech corporation would soon roll out its personal “carbon footprint tracker.”

    He said:

    We’re developing, through technology, an ability for consumers to measure their own carbon footprint [. . .] That’s where they’re travelling, how they are travelling, what are they eating, what are they consuming on the platform. [. . .] So, individual carbon footprint tracker, stay tuned! We don’t have it operational yet, but this is something we’re working on.

    During the initial COVID-19 lockdowns, China’s government required all businesses and public services to install Covid status app scanners, connected to the internet.

    In order to access shops, restaurants, libraries, hospitals, etc., and to move between the newly created urban “zones,” the Chinese have to use their Covid app. In conjunction with the SIM and SMART phone registration requirements, combined with the biometric facial recognition technology, the public movements of the urban Chinese can be tracked 24/7 in real time by China’s public-private partnership.

    The foundations for “the scientific operation of the entire social mechanism” have already been built in China. One of the major cities conducting some of its business in CBDC is Shanghai. In Shanghai’s Pudong “smart city” district, an AI integrated monitoring system is able to access the feeds from 290,000 surveillance cameras.

    The deputy director of the smart city, Sheng Denden, explained the systems value to the Chinese government:

    For the government, this is a tool for more efficient administration in the city.

    China is not communist. It is a technocracy. It is the world’s first Technate.

    THE CHINA BLAME GAME

    As we have already discussed, the idea that Western governments are “opposed” to China’s government is frankly ridiculous. This is not to suggest that there aren’t tensions, but these spring from competition not trenchant animosity. China’s government, and its tech giant partners, are as much a part of G3P as any other nation. The propaganda, from both the West and the Communist Party of China, serves as a surface narrative designed to divide and rule the global population, and to exert control over the respective domestic populations.

    The Trilateralists who worked tirelessly to ensure that China was able to construct a Technate are seemingly proud of their claimed achievements. In 2001, Hedley Donovan, one of the founding members of the Trilateral Commission alongside Brzezinski and the Rockefellers, wrote:

    It’s no exaggeration to describe the current regime as a technocracy. [. . .] You might say that technocratic politics is a natural fit with the Chinese political culture. [. . .] During the 1980s, technocracy as a concept was much talked about, especially in the context of so-called ‘Neo-Authoritarianism.’ [. . .] The basic beliefs and assumptions of the technocrats were laid out quite plainly: Social and economic problems were akin to engineering problems and could be understood, addressed, and eventually solved as such. [. . .] Scientism underlies the post-Mao technocracy, and it is the orthodoxy against which heresies are measured.

    The self-congratulation was largely misplaced. That China’s government developed a Technate owes more to that nation’s circumstances and political and social history and belief systems than it does to the ambitions of the Trilateralists.

    Technocracy is intended to be a sociopolitical system where individual rights are sacrificed to communitarianism. This is contrary to the Western liberal tradition. Technocracy represented less of a culture shock to the Chinese people. Certainly this fact was another impetus for the Trilateralists to pilot technocracy in China.

    Just as we in the West generally believe in individual liberty and freedom from the state, so the Chinese people largely hold that the state should strive to rule with ren along the path to the Great Way and equality for all. In both cases, the people continue to be deceived and disappointed by the “kakistocrats,” who clearly have no intention of living up to any of those principles or expectations.

    The mass and widespread Chinese demonstrations against the human cost of the government’s harsh Covid lockdown measures shows that the people are not willing to simply allow the state to do whatever it likes.

    While isolated protests in China are not unusual, the scale and coordination of these protests are testament to the Chinese people’s determination to resist oppression.

    The Western investment in Chinese technocracy was made with a view to developing a global system, not one restricted to China. From the surveillance network and social credit to censorship and social control using CBDC, having seen what can be achieved in China, Western governments are busy trying to impose exactly the same model of technocracy upon their own people.

    The Western political class cannot help but openly admire China’s technocracy. The only difference is that China’s system is publicly discussed—although rarely acknowledged as “technocracy” by name—while the rapidly emerging technocracy in the West is denied and concealed.

    The G3P is ostensibly colonising Western populations yet remains eager to avoid the errors of 19th century colonialists. The Rockefellers’ research in the late 1950s highlighted the need to first justify the necessary destruction of democratic values—something all Western governments are working hard to do.

    For its part, the Chinese government has had its own reasons for allowing technocracy to flourish. Technocracy fits well with China’s domestic policy ambitions. That said, there is no reason to think that the Chinese government ever intended to “export” technocracy to other nations.

    Technocracy is being installed globally. This suits China’s oligarchy, accustomed as it is to operating a Technate. The Chinese government has no reason to stand in the way of the global adoption of technocracy. It is merely aligned with the global transformation, not leading it.

    China’s government is not forcing other nations to adopt technocracy. Rather, all governments are collaborating to that end.

    The Chinese people are not our enemy, and China is not a foe to be fought. We, the people of the Earth, are all under attack by our own G3P governments.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/16/2022 – 00:00

  • 1st Full Test Of Hypersonic Missile Successful: US Air Force
    1st Full Test Of Hypersonic Missile Successful: US Air Force

    Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The U.S. Air Force said Monday it had successfully tested a hypersonic missile off the coast of Southern California on Dec. 9.

    A B-52H Stratofortress assigned to the 419th Flight Test Squadron undergoes pre-flight procedures at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., on Aug. 8, 2020. (Giancarlo Casem/U.S. Air Force)

    The hypersonic missile, known as the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), was launched from a B-52H Stratofortress bomber while in the air.

    The United States has been testing its hypersonic missile capabilities amid growing concerns Russia and China have had more success developing their own hypersonic weapons.

    The Lockheed Martin-built hypersonic missile reached over five times the speed of sound after it was fired from the bomber. The missile flew its scheduled flight path and detonated at its target, according to the Air Force.

    “The ARRW team successfully designed and tested an air-launched hypersonic missile in five years,” said Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei, executive officer of the Air Force’s armament directorate program, in a statement.

    “I am immensely proud of the tenacity and dedication this team has shown to provide a vital capability to our warfighter.”

    The “All-Up-Round” test of the full prototype by the Air Force was similar to the two previous booster tests in that they were launched from a bomber flying off the coast of Southern California.

    However, the test last week was the first of the entire system, with previous missions concentrated on the booster rocket.

    US Behind China

    The Pentagon is eager to advance progress on hypersonic missile testing and development, particularly since China and Russia have demonstrated progress in their own projects.

    In March, Russia said it had used hypersonic missiles to destroy Ukrainian military assets in what marked the first time Moscow has acknowledged using this type of weapon in combat. In a March 19 operational report, Russia’s military ministry stated that it destroyed a massive underground storage site for missiles and aircraft ammunition in Ukraine’s Ivano-Frankivsk area.

    Last year, a secret Chinese hypersonic missile circled the earth and struck down toward a target. To address the threat, U.S. lawmakers urged that long-stalled military research be restarted.

    One expert has said that the United States is trailing China in the development of hypersonic weapons.

    “China has effectively taken the lead in the hypersonic weapons race due to the breadth and depth of its technology investments,” said Rick Fisher, a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, a security-focused think tank.

    “We are only seeing the beginning of their weapons developments in this field.”

    In Fisher’s opinion, the race to develop hypersonic weapons—and who uses them first—may determine who dominates the international order in the coming decades.

    ARRW

    The ARRW is a boost-glide missile that accelerates a projectile to hypersonic speeds using a booster rocket. The glide vehicle subsequently separates from the rocket and travels at hypersonic speeds using inertia.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/15/2022 – 23:20

  • Judge Blocks Biden Plan To Shred "Remain In Mexico" Policy
    Judge Blocks Biden Plan To Shred “Remain In Mexico” Policy

    A federal judge blocked the Biden administration’s plan to scrap the Trump-era ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy which required certain illegal immigrants to return to Mexico while they await immigration court proceedings.

    The program, known as the “Migrant Protection Protocols,” is different from Title 42, which is set to end next week.

    US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ordered the Biden administration to pause their plan to end the program.

    “As Secretary Mayorkas has said, MPP has endemic flaws, imposes unjustifiable human costs, and pulls resources and personnel away from other priority efforts to secure our border,” Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in June, when the Supreme Court ruled that the administration could terminate the policy, which was formally lifted in August.

    The decision comes as federal border authorities encounter overwhelming levels of illegal immigration, with a record more than 2.3 million migrants encountered in fiscal year 2022 and even more expected with the end of another Trump-era expulsion policy, Title 42, expected on Dec. 21. -Daily Caller

    As the Daily Caller notes, the Biden administration originally attempted to cancel the policy on Biden’s first day in office, but was prevented from doing so by a flurry of lawsuits from Republican states.

    After the Supreme Court’s June decision, theyt sent it back to Kacsmaryk to consider whether it complied with the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires that agencies conduct certain procedural steps when implementing policy.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/15/2022 – 22:40

  • Oregon Judge Blocks High-Capacity Magazine Ban
    Oregon Judge Blocks High-Capacity Magazine Ban

    Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

    Gun Owners of America & Gun Owners Foundation have successfully delivered on their promise to fight gun control in the Beaver State.

    A Judge in Oregon State Court granted GOA a Preliminary Injunction in the case Arnold & GOA v. Brown. The injunction halts the magazine ban in Oregon’s most recent gun control law – Ballot Measure 114 (BM 114) – from being enforced. The Judge also maintained the Temporary Restraining Order on BM114’s permit-to-purchase requirement. 

    This means that Oregonians can still buy standard-capacity magazines and purchase firearms without a permit.

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    Previously, on December 6th GOA was granted a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against BM 114. This Comprehensive TRO prevented the entire new law from being enforced before it could go into effect on December 8th.

    Ballot Measure 114 passed by razor-thin margins, and was reportedly bankrolled by out-of-state anti-gun lobbying groups such as Everytown and Giffords.

    Had the law gone into effect, it would have

    • Banned Magazines over ten rounds
    • Required a permit to purchase any firearm
    • Required a training course, application fee, fingerprinting and a duplicative background check to obtain a permit-to-purchase.

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    Erich Pratt, GOA’s Senior Vice President, had this to say:

    “GOA and GOF are very glad that Judge Robert Raschio responded to our arguments and is protecting the Second Amendment rights of Oregonians. We will continue to oppose the ineffective magazine ban and permit-to-purchase scheme, as these infringements would fail to control criminals, but instead, would endanger the safety of law-abiding citizens.”

    This victory is just one of many battles for your rights that GOA & GOF are fighting in the court system nationwide. Like we have been warning anti-gun activists and politicians since the Bruen decision, fall in line with this precedent, or we will make you.

    *  *  *

    We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/15/2022 – 22:20

  • 'Some Sort Of Sex Slave'? Son Of Paul Pelosi's Attacker Breaks Silence, Fuels Speculation
    ‘Some Sort Of Sex Slave’? Son Of Paul Pelosi’s Attacker Breaks Silence, Fuels Speculation

    The son of Paul Pelosi attacker, David DePape, says his father ‘is not evil,’ and is ‘hardly a right-wing conservative.’ He also implied that the 82-year-old Pelosi may have invited DePape over for sexual activities.

    Speaking with the Daily Mail, Nebosvod ‘Sky’ Gonzalez said “He isn’t a danger to society, I don’t even know if he even attacked Mr. Pelosi. For all that we know he was some sort of sex slave, as Elon Musk pointed out.”

    The 42-year-old DePape appeared before a San Francisco Superior Court Judge on Wednesday for a preliminary hearing, and will be arraigned on federal charges on Dec. 28, which include attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, false imprisonment of an elder, first-degree burglary and threatening the family member of a public official . He has pleaded guilty to all charges. He has also been charged in federal court.

    When asked about first hearing of his father’s arrest, Gonzalez said he was in shock, and that “That’s not the type of person he is.”

    Official reports about the attack have changed several times. First, an ‘unknown third party’ opened the door after police arrived at the Pelosi house – after which police witnessed DePape take a hammer from Pelosi and hit him with it. Then, it was that Pelosi and DePape were both struggling with the hammer, and DePape wrested it from Pelosi and beat him with it. Then, in a now-retracted report which has gotten veteran NBC reporter banished from the air, after being alone in the home for 30 minutes, Pelosi opened the door when police arrived. However, he did not try to escape or alert police to an emergency, and he instead walked to the police and back toward DePape.

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    NBC News deleted the clip from their Twitter feed and scrubbed it from their website.

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    “I’m surprised about the whole thing. There is still a lot of info that hasn’t been given to the public. I have no clue what happened or how it happened. There are more questions than answers right now. Do we even know what really happened?” he told the Mail.

    There is “almost no person on this planet that has gone through so much suffering,” the 19-year-old Gonzalez said. “If you look into his eyes, you can see he’s such a sad person.”

    “He often told us he was raised in an abusive home and would be physically abused by his grandparents,” Sky continued, adding that DePape was bullied in school and didn’t have any friends.

    Their mother, Oxane ‘Gypsy’ Taub, gave them the last name “Gonzalez” as a tribute to a Mexican family that allegedly saved her life several years ago.

    Not politically motivated

    Gonzalez, who says he hasn’t seen his father in several years, told the Mail that the attack wasn’t likely to have been politically motivated.

    “My father had a lot of political views and told me about a lot of different things, but he didn’t subscribe to either political party, Democrat or Republican,” adding that the two parties ‘are just covers and colors.’

    Nebosvod ‘Sky’ Gonzalez

    “What matters are the policies of each individual person. Each individual person is unique, and it isn’t about right or left. That’s just a distraction,” he continued.

    “My father had progressive views. He believed in human rights, equality, and justice. He was against the war, he was a peace activist, hardly a right-wing conservative, as he has been branded.“

    Mental Illness

    Shortly after DePape’s arrest, Taub – who is currently imprisoned for the attempted abduction of a 14-year-old boy, told ABC30 that her former partner was “mentally ill,” and that he disappeared for a year in the mid 2010s.

    “He came back in very bad shape. He thought he was Jesus. He was constantly paranoid, thinking people were after him,” she said, adding “And it took a good year or two to get back to, you know, being halfway normal.”

    “When I met him, he was only 20 years old and he didn’t have any experience in politics, and he was very much in alignment with my views and I’ve always been very progressive.”

    “I absolutely admire Nancy Pelosi,” she added.

    According to Gonzalez, “We all deserve to know what happened, especially in such a high-profile case,” adding “But we don’t know what happened. I don’t know whether or not my father did what he’s been accused of. So far, what we know doesn’t make any sense.“

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/15/2022 – 22:15

  • Here's The Latest Sign Americans Are Going To Eat Bugs And Be Happy
    Here’s The Latest Sign Americans Are Going To Eat Bugs And Be Happy

    The latest sign Americans will one day be eating insects is that a top bug producer announced Tuesday major expansion plans in North America. 

    French insect producer Ÿnsect signed two agreements to expand production facilities in the US and Mexico in 2023. The company “entered an accelerated phase of international development with the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Ardent Mills for an industrial facility in the United States and the signing of a joint development agreement with Corporativo Kosmos in Mexico.” 

    Ÿnsect’s development plans include 10-15 insect farms worldwide by the end of the decade that can meet the feeding demand of hundreds of millions of people, if not more. The producer of bugs uses highly-automated vertical farms to raise Buffalo and Molitor mealworms to create insect protein. 

    Many Americans have already been conditioned for the brave new world, one pushed by the World Economic Forum of a so-called ‘sustainable’ future where you’ll eat insects… 

    … and also own nothing. 

    Some of the latest conditioning to eat bugs was an article published in Jeff Bezos-owned The Washington Post.

    Which brings us to the WEF’s warning earlier this year about an impending food crisis kicked off by the war in Ukraine. 

    In the medium term, it highlights the need to transform our food system, using more green energy. We should also be encouraging more sustainable diets, which contain fewer grain fed animal products; and regenerative agricultural practices, which improve soil health and the efficiency of nutrient use by the crop. -WEF

    So… eat bugs and be happy about owning nothing are the global elites’ blueprint for 2030 society. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/15/2022 – 22:00

  • "There's A New Sheriff In Town": Twitter Nukes Liberal Pundits From Platform
    “There’s A New Sheriff In Town”: Twitter Nukes Liberal Pundits From Platform

    Twitter on Thursday evening began purging reporters from major media outlets, just one day after new owner Elon Musk changed the platform’s “anti-doxxing” policy in response to a “crazy stalker” who climbed on the hood of a car carrying his two-year-old son.

    Those kicked off the platform include:

    • Keith Olbermann of MSNBC
    • Ryan Mac of the NY Times
    • Anthony Webster of Bellingcat
    • Donnie O’Sullivan of CNN
    • Micah F. Lee of The Intercept
    • Matt Binder of Mashable
    • Drew Harwell of the Washington Post
    • Aaron Rupar of his mom’s basement

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    Also booted was the official account for Twitter competitor Mastadon, which earlier in the day posted a link to track Musk’s private jet.

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    It was unclear what prompted the suspensions, though it appears they are related to doxxing – current or in the past.

    “Same doxxing rules apply to “journalists” as to everyone else,” Musk said on Thursday evening, adding “Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not.”

    “They posted my exact real-time location, basically assassination coordinates, in (obvious) direct violation of Twitter terms of service,” Musk said in a subsequent tweet.

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    Aaron Rupar said in a statement to CNN‘s Oliver Darcy: “I never posted anything Elon Jet related or that could violate the policy about disclosing locations. Unless the policy is that you criticize Elon and you get banned.”

    Except…

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    Interestingly, the Washington Post‘s resident trust-fund snitch Taylor Lorenz deleted her ‘entire archive and took her account private,’ according to The Federalist‘s Sean Davis.

    Corporate media has framed this as Twitter suspending journalists “who have been covering Elon Musk and the company.”

    A spokesperson for the NY Times said that the suspensions were ‘questionable and unfortunate,’ and said that no explanation was provided.

    “We hope that all of the journalists’ accounts are reinstated and that Twitter provides a satisfying explanation for this action,” said Charlie Stadtlander, communications director for the Times.

    Some aren’t taking the news well…

    Oh Jason…

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    As expected, the reactions have been flying!

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/15/2022 – 21:40

  • Ford Raises F-150 Lightning Prices Again, Now 40% More Expensive
    Ford Raises F-150 Lightning Prices Again, Now 40% More Expensive

    The base version of the Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup now starts at $56,000, more than 40%, or about $15,000, over its original listing price earlier this year, according to Electrek. Ford hiked prices in August and October. 

    Electrek discovered the stealth price hike after visiting the order page of the Detriot-based automaker’s website. The configuration and base price of all EV Lightning variants is shown below. 

    “Interestingly, the prices of the other versions of the F-150 Lightning haven’t increased with this update. The cheapest way to get a Lightning with the longer-range extended battery pack is still the XLT, starting at $81,000,” Electrek said. 

    There was no explanation by Electrek or Ford about the price hike. However, we pointed out several days ago that lithium-ion battery packs jumped in price for the first time since BloombergNEF began tracking. 

    Meanwhile, lithium prices per ton are skyrocketing. 

    Higher prices could spark an affordability issue that might jeopardize EV adoption. Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas recently told clients that EV demand is slowing. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/15/2022 – 21:20

  • 2 + 2 = 5
    2 + 2 = 5

    By Peter Tchir, chief strategist at Academy Securities

    We discussed Orwellian Moments back in August, but yesterday’s Fed meeting has confounded me (again) and left me trying to figure out some of their “math”. But first, let’s cover the ECB.

    The ECB Made Sense

    The ECB has been late to the rate hike party and has some catching up to do. They also have a serious inflation problem, but one that is different than ours. They were (and still largely are) incredibly dependent on cheap Russian energy to power their countries. That is a problem and is something that they have to combat. Today they did two things:

    1. A “hawkish” 50 bps hike. They could have gone with more, but chose not to. However, Lagarde made it very clear that they are prepared to do more. While Powell made it somewhat clear that we were nearing the “wait and see” moment, the ECB did not. That pushed all yields in Europe higher.
    2. They announced that their QT would start in March and be €15 billion. That seemed to hit markets hard and explains why Italian 10-year bonds are 10 bps worse than German and French bonds. If nothing else, hopefully central bankers are learning that QE distorts asset prices more than any other policy that they can enact, and those distortions are disruptive and difficult to unwind. For example, a relatively small amount of QT (starting 3 months from now) had a significant market impact today – scary to think about). My one hope is that going forward central bankers will use QE only in the direst of circumstances and for the briefest time possible (in cautiously small amounts). Probably wishful thinking, but seems logical to me!

    So, the ECB and the market’s reaction to the ECB largely make sense.

    Back to 2 + 2 = 5

    This chart takes monthly core CPI (seasonally adjusted) and presents it in 4 ways: the sum of the 12 months, taking the prior 6 months and multiplying it by 2, taking the prior 3 months and multiplying it by 4, and finally just taking the most recent month and multiplying it by 12.

    The big black line is the annual one that we all see and it is around 6%.

    My favorite line is the light blue one, which represents the prior 3 months * 4. I like that because the data is recent and incorporates the impact that prior policy decisions should be having. Using 3 months “smooths” the data. That has been trending down for several months and is currently down to 4%. This is above the Fed’s target of 2% (which Powell reiterated yesterday), but is hardly alarming. If anything, we probably should be talking about how to “flatten the curve” to get a soft landing (I already think that it is too late for that as you can read in Rise and Fall of Inflation Drivers and Squishy Landing).

    If you simply take the latest month and annualize it, we were at 3.3% last month and 2.4% in the latest month (wow, almost like their policy has worked)! But instead, we have to focus on trailing 12 months, despite the impacts of higher yields and quantitative tightening needing more time to fully impact the system! It is so Orwellian to me that it hurts!

    But that wasn’t all that sent me back to this dystopian wasteland.

    “By the middle of next year, we should begin to see lower inflation from the housing services sector.”

    Powell said that. He knows that rents incorporate data from as much as 10 months ago. He knows as well as you and I do that it is a lagging indicator. He even said as much (at least that is how I interpret his comment). But why do we include it and base policy on it, knowing it is wrong! The 3 highest prints for owner’s equivalent rent in the past 30 years came in Q3 and Q4 this year. Simply impossible, and even the Chair acknowledges that it will go down, but he is still acting on it as though it is legit!

    I will continue to send charts of Zillow’s data around and expand on this work that first started in earnest back in an October T-Report.

    Imagine how low the prior 3 months of core data would be with proper housing inflation data. And yes, think of how high it really was last year when we were being fed the “transitory” story.

    Finally, he highlighted jobs, which I will grant have been decent, but he seemed to ignore several things:

    • The Household Survey hasn’t been as good as the Establishment Survey (a couple million jobs difference).
    • The survey response rates have been low, making people question their validity and if there is any “self-selection” bias in the reporting (companies doing well report, but maybe others don’t).
    • The Philly Fed thinks Q2 jobs were overstated by more than 1 million! Some group within the Fed tasked with figuring out how accurate the data is thinks that it was overstated by 1 million, which is more in line with the Household Survey!
    • The JOLTS data has a high number of vacant jobs. The question is how overstated is that number? How has it kept up with online job searches?

    We address many of the jobs questions in Inflation Dumpster Dive and More Inflation Dumpster Diving, and the Fed’s own work on the subject is there for all to see.

    If one part of the economy is doing better than expected (by some measures, but not all), I’d spend more time wondering if the good measures are accurate, rather than basing a large part of my policy on data that is the outlier!

    And just today, sales numbers came in extremely weak and last month’s numbers were revised down! The consumer is buying for the holidays and buying on discount, and I expect that to evaporate as we head into the new year!

    Bottom Line

    The Fed should be taking a victory lap and figuring out how to avert a hard landing, but for some reason they insist on looking at old data (12 months, rather than data impacted by their actions), stale data (OER), and pollyannish data (the selective use of some jobs data) to signal that they want a higher terminal rate!

    Good luck with that, because 2 + 2 does NOT EVER EQUAL 5!

    I feel better after that rant, and I am buying the dip here in risk because I believe that the Fed speakers will sound a bit more dovish as they resume their speaking circuit, and it is a bit premature to trade the very hard landing (that I still expect will happen).

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/15/2022 – 21:00

  • Study Claims Unvaccinated People More Likely To Be Reckless, Cause Traffic Accidents
    Study Claims Unvaccinated People More Likely To Be Reckless, Cause Traffic Accidents

    A new study released this month by members of the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at Toronto University in Canada makes the bizarre claim that being unvaccinated is an indicator of psychological risk-taking and recklessness.  The authors, Donald A. Redelmeier, MD, Jonathan Wang, MMASc, and Deva Thiruchelvam, Msc argue that data involving traffic accidents in which one or more people are admitted to the hospital for injuries shows a correlation between vaccination status and car wrecks.

    Not surprisingly, the data sources involved in the study strongly support the original premise.  But we’ll get to that in a moment…

    The first question one might ask is why in the world anyone would engage in such a study in the first place?  The notion is out of left field and requires a couple initial assumptions – That unvaccinated people are a monolithic group that share the same psychological motivators, and that those motivators are dangerous.  Without this rather biased assumption, it’s unlikely that a group of doctors or scientists would dream up the study in the first place.  

    Of course, strange premises are not necessarily proof of rigged conclusions.  So, let’s get into motivations:

    The authors of the study are all member of the University or Toronto Temerty Faculty and the Sunnybrooke Health Sciences Centre.  This faculty and section of the university was funded by a $250 million grant from James C. Temerty and the Temerty Foundation in 2020; it was the single largest gift in Canadian history.  The money was designated to various areas of the university, but a large portion went directly into Covid-19 research projects. 

    So who is James Temerty?  He is a Ukrainian born citizen of Canada and the founder of Northland Power, but his non-profit foundation appears to be his primary focus.  He is also on the advisory board of the Atlantic Council, a globalist think-tank out of Washington DC with many of the same ideological aims promoted by the World Economic Forum.  In fact, members of the Atlantic Council are often invited to speak at WEF functions and none other than Klaus Schwab was the very first recipient of the Atlantic Council’s “Global Citizen Award” several years ago.

    The Atlantic Council advisory board is a long list of global elites and corporate heads.  The institution also had previous connections to Charles Koch, though this relationship has apparently ended. 

    Does anyone in the vaccine industry and Big Pharma have a close relationship to the Atlantic Council?  Of course.  Albert Bourla, the Chairman and CEO of Pfizer.  Bourla is often invited to speak at Atlantic Council events and was awarded the council’s Global Citizen Award just last year.     

    As many people are now aware, the methodology of globalist think tanks is to use philanthropy (large sums of tax deductible money) as a means to control society by influencing (or corrupting) the top 10% in the professional class/academic class.  

    If you can buy the people that run the colleges, buy the people in suits and buy the people in lab coats then you can own the narrative and control the other 90% of people who simply “defer to the experts” without doing their research.  The Temerty Foundation clearly has a high level of influence over the University of Toronto and their medical wing, and James Temerty is on the advisory board of a globalist institution that has aggressively supported the Pfizer narrative on covid mandates and vaccination.

    Any covid based study funded by members of the Atlantic Council should be immediately treated as suspect.

    But what about the science itself?  How did the Temerty Faculty come to the conclusion that lack of covid vaccination indicates reckless behavior?  Where did they get the vaccination data?  Where did they get the traffic data?  How did they tie it all together?  

    The study claims to have developed their reference points using encrypted identifiers from official government registries.  In other words, they exploited private medical data tracked by the Canadian government.  By cross referencing vaccination status with severe traffic accidents the group asserts that the unvaccinated are 72% more likely to harm themselves or others in the process of a car wreck.

    There are two problems immediately evident from a scientific standpoint: 

    One, the group admits that a much larger portion of people who are unvaccinated were younger, ages 18-39.  This makes perfect sense, because the vast majority of young people are at near zero risk of mortality from a covid infection.  The median Infection Fatality rate of covid is a tiny 0.23%, and the younger you are, the more the IFR shrinks.  Why get a vaccine for a virus that is no threat to your age group, and that doesn’t prevent transmission to those around you anyway?  

    But beyond that, younger people are also statistically more likely to get into car accidents by virtue of age, inexperience and more reckless behavior.  While teens are known for auto accidents, insurance companies rate people ages 25 – 34 as the deadliest drivers on the road.  This age group, coincidentally, makes up the bulk of the Temerty Faculty’s unvaccinated test case. 

    In other words, the study seems to ignore the age factor in an effort to support the unvaccinated factor.  Maybe their vaccine status has nothing to do with their risky behavior and their younger age is the actual cause?  Which is more likely given the circumstance?

    Two, another problem with the study is the complete lack of peer review and the inability for independent analysis of their core data.  The group claims to have used encrypted government medical data that is unavailable to the public (rather convenient, right?).  While certain government officials might be able to get quick access, there is no way for the general public to look at this data to see if their claims are accurate or if the study is rigged.  They could, frankly, say whatever they want about the unvaccinated being dangerous and no one would be able to disprove it for quite some time.  

    Perhaps a couple of years down the road the study will be debunked, but as in most cases of dubious and potentially politically motivated science the headlines stick in people’s minds while no one notices the retractions.

    But what would be the motive for exaggerating this kind of study other than to try to make the unvaccinated look bad?  Consider the possibility of insurance as leverage.  

    Most people are required by law to have insurance of one kind or another, including car insurance, and the premiums they have to pay are based on a company’s (or government’s) determination of risk.  Imagine if your insurance rates in every area skyrocketed because you are unvaccinated and are considered high risk?  This is likely the root purpose of studies like the one in Toronto.

    Punish the unvaccinated by institutionalizing vaccine status into every facet of life, including car insurance, health insurance, life insurance, home insurance, business insurance, etc.  Another point of leverage would be credit.  Many bank loans are also based the concept of low risk, but if you are unvaccinated and labeled high risk in life and in finances then you could be rejected for future access to funds.    

    The basic strategy is this:  Use high costs to force the unvaccinated into compliance, and slowly whittle the public down.  These people won’t give up easily, and since the direct route of medical tyranny has failed, they have decided to use indirect chicanery to get what they want.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/15/2022 – 20:40

  • Guyana Is Becoming A Top-Tier Oil Producer
    Guyana Is Becoming A Top-Tier Oil Producer

    By Matthew Smith of OilPrice.com

    Despite the dire predictions of peak oil demand, which will is expected to arrive during the next decade as the world transitions to a low-carbon economy, international energy companies are investing heavily in fossil fuel exploration and production. One region which has caught the world by surprise and is attracting significant attention is the Guyana-Suriname Basin. A swathe of world-class discoveries by ExxonMobil in offshore Guyana sparked considerable interest in the Guyana-Suriname Basin, which after poor drilling results during the 1960s and 1970s saw it largely ignored by energy companies. Recent discoveries with estimated recoverable oil resources of more than 11 billion barrels in the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana alone indicates the U.S. Geological Survey grossly underestimated the basin’s undiscovered oil resources. There are signs that the sedimentary basin could indeed be the world’s last great offshore oil boom.

    In a May 2001 report, the USGS estimated that the Guyana-Suriname Basin held somewhere between 2.8 billion and 32.6 billion barrels of undiscovered oil resources with mean resources of 15.2 billion barrels. The latest oil discoveries, since 2020, point to that number being far lower than the actual petroleum potential that exists in the sedimentary basin. Exxon has found at least 11 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil resources in the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana while nearby Block 58 offshore Suriname is believed to contain as much as 6.5 billion barrels. Oil discoveries in those two blocks alone, out of more than 30 blocks across the Guyana-Suriname Basin, are estimated to total more than 18.5 billion barrels which is substantially higher than the USGS mean of 15.2 billion barrels. The latest discoveries made since the start of 2022 in the Stabroek and Corentyne Blocks offshore Guyana as well as Blocks 58 and 53 in offshore Suriname point to the volume of recoverable oil resources being considerably higher.

    Drilling activity is continuing at a feverish pace in Guyana, where the national government in Georgetown implemented very favorable terms for the Exxon-led consortium operating in the offshore Stabroek Block. Exxon, which is the operator holding a 45% working interest with partners Hess owning 30% and CNOOC 25% respectively, has made over 30 world-class discoveries in the block and is fast-tracking its development. Aside from the Stabroek Block containing over an estimated 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil resources Exxon’s Liza oilfield, which analysts describe as the last major frontier oil play, is pumping 360,000 barrels per day, well above the nameplate capacity of 340,000 barrels.

    Exxon is developing additional assets in the Stabroek Block, notably the Payara and Yellowtail discoveries which on commencing operations, during 2023 and 2025 respectively, will add 470,000 barrels of capacity to the Stabroek Block. That will see Exxon pumping at least 800,000 barrels per day from offshore Guyana by 2025. There is every likelihood that production from the Stabroek Block will keep growing past 2030. In October 2022, Exxon announced the Sailfin-1 and Yarrow-1 discoveries in the block and continues to advance its drilling campaign. Exxon continues to drill in offshore Guyana, with a focus on the prolific Stabroek Block, where the supermajor is targeting the completion of 25 wells by the close of June 2023 to be followed by a 35-well campaign that will be launched when the current plan is completed. There have been discoveries outside of the Stabroek Block. Among the most recent is at the Kawa-1 exploration well by CGX Energy and partner Frontera Energy in the northern section of the Corentyne Block located adjacent to Stabroek. That segment of Corentyne is believed to lie above the same petroleum fairway running through the Stabroek Block into Block 58 offshore Suriname.

    For these reasons, analysts are forecasting Guyana’s production will reach 1.2 million barrels daily by 2027, seeing the impoverished former British colony overtake Colombia to become the third largest oil producer in Latin America and the Caribbean. Guyana’s oil output is forecast by industry consultancy Rystad Energy to reach 1.7 million barrels per day by 2035, seeing the tiny South American country surpass U.S. offshore production and become the world’s fourth-largest offshore oil producer. It will be an ongoing investment by energy supermajors in the South American country of around 800,000 people which will drive this rapid growth. Among the latest to enter the fray in Guyana is British global energy supermajor BP, which in November 2022 won the contract to market Guyana’s share of the petroleum produced from the Stabroek Block, which comes from the Liza Destiny and Unity platforms operating the Liza oilfield.

    It hasn’t been all plain sailing in offshore Guyana despite the Exxon-led consortium’s tremendous success. CGX, which is 77% owned by Frontera and the operator of the Corentyne Block, was forced to delay the drilling of the Wei-1 well targeted for 2.5 miles northwest of Kawa-1. This occurred because a third party did not release the drilling unit. CGX and Frontera are committed to drilling the well which, according to the companies, is to be spudded before the end of January 2023. The partners have confirmed with Guyana’s government that the block’s license is unaffected and remains in force. In August Tullow Oil, which holds a non-operating 37.5% interest in the Kanuku Block, announced it was abandoning operations at the Beebei-Potaro well in the block after it hit water-bearing targets. Repsol, operator and owner of a 37.5% share in the Kanuku Block with the remaining 25% held by a joint venture between TotalEnergies and Qatar Petroleum, has plugged and abandoned the well.

    A tremendously positive development for Guyana’s burgeoning offshore oil boom is Georgetown’s 9 December 2022 announcement it had launched the first licensing round for offshore oil exploration and production. The bid round has a mixture of 14 shallow and deep-water blocks for tender, with submissions closing on 14 April 2023 and contracts expected to be awarded on 31 May 2023. There is a minimum signature requirement of $10 million for shallow-water blocks and $20 million for deep-water blocks. While the terms of the contracts to be awarded to successful bidders will not be as favorable as the agreement secured by the Exxon-led consortium for the Stabroek Block, they will still be on advantageous terms.

    Guyana is one of the lowest-cost jurisdictions in Latin America for energy companies to operate in, and even globally for that matter. The Exxon-led consortium claims that the 120,000 barrel per day capacity Liza Destiny Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel is pumping petroleum with a breakeven price of $35 per barrel. That has fallen to $25 a barrel for the second FPSO, the 220,000 barrel-per-day Liza Unity, which came online in February 2022. Exxon recently announced that both FPSOs are operating above capacity, see the Liza oilfield pumping 360,000 barrels per day. The energy supermajor continues to develop the Stabroek Block at a rapid clip, expecting production to reach one million barrels per day by 2030. Overall, offshore Guyana is estimated to have an average breakeven price of $30 to $35 per barrel Brent, which will fall further as additional industry infrastructure comes online.

    The sweet light and medium oil grades found in Guyana have a relatively low carbon cost to extract and refine, especially when compared to the heavier sourer grades typically found in South America, which magnifies the country’s competitiveness. Those characteristics further enhance the attractiveness of investing in offshore Guyana and is the reason the former British colony is attracting considerable investment from international oil companies. For these reasons, Georgetown’s inaugural oil auction will garner considerable attention, particularly with Guyana at the top of the leaderboard for yielding the most oil discovered globally since 2015. In fact, aside from the prolific Stabroek Block where Exxon’s swath of world-class finds has yielded 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil resources, it is believed that another 25 billion barrels is waiting to be discovered. With Rystad predicting Guyana will be pumping 1.7 million barrels daily by 2035 the deeply impoverished South American country will emerge as an elite top-five global producer.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/15/2022 – 20:20

  • Could Slumping US Air Travel Demand Be A Sign Consumers Are Tapped Out?
    Could Slumping US Air Travel Demand Be A Sign Consumers Are Tapped Out?

    Delta Air Lines Inc. was one of the latest carriers to warn about slumping travel demand. Several other carriers have also voiced similar concerns.

    “The December month was the off-trend month,” Delta President Glen Hauenstein told analysts and investors on Wednesday at an event in New York. He explained that January travel demand could be significantly better than December and added February is usually a much better month. 

    Hauenstein’s comments followed JetBlue Airways Corp.’s travel warning on Tuesday. Shares of the airline plunged the most in six months after fourth-quarter revenue per seat flown a mile, a metric used to measure fares and passenger traffic, trended toward the low end of guidance.  

    “The expected very strong close-in demand for December reflected in its prior outlook has materialized below expectations,” JetBlue said.

    Separately, Spirit Airlines Inc. reduced its capacity forecast for the quarter due to adverse weather conditions. Alaska Air Group Inc., meanwhile, warned about “softening in corporate travel bookings.”

    Looking at the S&P500 Airline industry, shares are down 16% year-to-date and down 47% from five years ago. The index remains well below pre-Covid levels. 

    Multiple warnings about sliding travel demand come as consumers have endured 19 months of negative real wages. Persistent inflation has decimated the household finances of the bottom 90% of Americans. Many folks are draining personal savings and maxing out credit cards in high-rate environments just to buy staples and pay rent. So, their ability to spend money on experiences and travel is sliding.  

    The increasing drumbeat of macroeconomic headwinds because of a Federal Reserve-induced economic downturn is making life for the consumer harder by the month.

    There are signs at TSA checkpoints that travel numbers have been moving lower since the spike during the Thanksgiving holiday.

     A good question is whether the consumer will have enough dry powder to go on trips in the first half of next year. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/15/2022 – 20:00

  • Georgia Restaurant Worker Fatally Shoots Armed Intruder In Self-Defense
    Georgia Restaurant Worker Fatally Shoots Armed Intruder In Self-Defense

    Authored by Lorenz Duchamps via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    An employee at a restaurant in Georgia fatally shot an armed intruder in self-defense after the masked assailant pistol-whipped the worker during an attempted robbery, authorities say.

    An American Philly N Wings in Warner Robins, Georgia. (Courtesy of Google Maps via NTD News)

    Warner Robins Police Department Sgt. Justin Clark told Fox News in an interview on Tuesday that the intruder, identified as Joshua Hickey, entered an American Philly & Wings restaurant on Dec. 5 and demanded money.

    “Hickey … had a stolen pistol,” Clark told the network, explaining that he entered the restaurant and demanded money from the manager, which led to a struggle with the employee.

    The worker, who was not identified, suffered a head injury after being pistol-whipped and knocked to the ground, Clark said. After managing to get back on his feet, the employee pulled his own legally owned pistol and fired three shots at Hickey, striking him twice, according to police.

    “Once Mr. Hickey was shot, he fled from the restaurant but only made it about 75 yards before collapsing on the street,” the official said. Authorities transported him to the hospital, but he died of his wounds.

    When Clark was asked in the interview how the worker was doing mentally after experiencing the fatal encounter, he told the anchor the worker “took it pretty hard.”

    “Of course, nobody wants to be in that situation and … he was doing his best to come out of it okay,” the police sergeant said.

    In recent years, the United States has seen overall crime increase after enjoying decades of generally declining crime. In particular, robberies, carjacking, burglaries, and theft, have increased over the past year or so.

    Clark told Fox News that Warner Robins, a city in Houston and Peach counties located in the central part of Georgia, has not necessarily seen an increase in crime, although the area did report “a fair share of crime,” including violent crime and theft.

    When asked to react to major cities reporting an increase in robberies and homicides in recent years, Clark blamed it on staff shortages, adding that it is hard for law enforcement to do their jobs efficiently nowadays.

    “It’s terrible, a lot of it has to do with, you know, officer shortages,” he told the network. “Everybody, including us, is dealing with this. Unfortunately, it is hard to get people to do the job nowadays.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/15/2022 – 19:40

  • China Downgrades Omicron Risks To Seasonal Cold
    China Downgrades Omicron Risks To Seasonal Cold

    Although easing zero Covid restrictions in China will be met with reopening hardships as infections soar, earlier this week, one of the top medical advisers in the country said that the omicron variant of the virus is no worse than the flu. Now some Chinese cities are downgrading Covid even further, saying it’s the same as the seasonal cold, and there is no need to panic. 

    We pointed out earlier this week that China’s renowned respiratory disease expert Zhong Nanshan downplayed the risks of the omicron subvariant of Covid-19. He said the death rate from omicron is .1%, equivalent to the common flu, and the infection doesn’t reach the lungs, adding most healthy people recover in less than ten days. 

    Zhong’s comments come as Beijing pivots from zero Covid to reopen the economy and prevent further economic deceleration. Officials are now telling people they must learn to live with Covid — a similar move that worked in Western countries. 

    According to Shanghai Morning Post, Guangzhou health authorities have assured the public that Covid is less severe than the flu and no more serious than a seasonal cold: 

    “The virulence of the new coronavirus [Omicron] has now evolved to the level of the seasonal flu, and some are even less virulent than the flu, so you really don’t need to panic,” said Tang Xiaoping, director of the No 8 People’s Hospital in Guangzhou and head of the national key clinical department of infectious diseases.

    China downplaying the severity of Covid from flu to cold is the latest sign Beijing is attempting to calm fears and quickly reopen the economy. And why would they be doing that? Well, check out overnight economic data: 

    Overnight, a slew of economic data led to a decline in business activity in November. Retail sales fell 5.9% last month from a year earlier — the biggest decline in consumer spending since May — caused mainly by lockdowns. 

    The unemployment situation also worsened to 5.7% last month, the highest level in six months. And industrial production only rose to 2.2%, about half of October’s figures. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    China’s economic slowdown, and the acceleration to the downside, is a direct result of disastrous zero Covid policies, hence why Beijing is pivoting hard to reopen. 

    Meanwhile, Feng Zijian, a former deputy chief at China’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recently said the coming Covid wave could infect 80 to 90% of the Chinese population. 

    China is battling its largest outbreak as infections soar. 

    And Beijing’s mindset is apparent: reopen the economy, and let the virus spread because there isn’t much officials can do at this point unless they want to crash the economy. 

    Beijing downplaying Covid as no more serious than a seasonal cold is a move to save its crumbling economy and calm public fears. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/15/2022 – 19:20

  • Documents Uncover Secret Twitter Portal US Government Used To Censor COVID-19 Content
    Documents Uncover Secret Twitter Portal US Government Used To Censor COVID-19 Content

    Authored by Patricia Tolson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The Twitter logo is seen on a sign on the exterior of Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, Calif., on Oct. 28, 2022 (Constanza Hevia/AFP via Getty Images)

    New documents reveal how the United States government used a secret Twitter portal to censor COVID-19 content that contradicted the government’s narrative.

    In its ongoing probe into Twitter’s censorship practices, America First Legal has obtained a fourth set of documents (pdf) exposing a secret Twitter portal, which U.S. government officials used to censor dissenting COVID-19 views in violation of the First Amendment. It’s a revelation Elon Musk described as “extremely concerning.”

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

    The documents reveal that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was collaborating with UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and Mafindo to mitigate “disinformation.”

    Mafindo is a Facebook third-party fact-checking partner based in Indonesia that is funded by Google, known to have censored searches for keywords like Coronavirus, and COVID-19 as well as blocking information regarding adverse reactions and deaths caused by COVID-19 vaccines. Facebook started its third-party fact-checking program in 2016, working with fact-checkers from around the world who are certified by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at Poynter to rate and review the accuracy of the content on their platform. According to the IFCN website, they believe “nonpartisan and transparent fact-checking can be a powerful instrument of accountability journalism.” However, among their advisory board, U.S.-based representatives appear to be from liberal-leaning outlets such as the Washington Post and PolitiFact, which is owned by Poynter.

    The Twitter Portal

    On March 10, 2021 email from a US Public Policy employee at Facebook to several CDC employees spoke of the social media giant’s “weekly sync with CDC” and how the CDC was “to invite other agencies as needed.”

    A March 24, 2021 email from the same Facebook employees to CDC employees said “this is my regular FB meeting and they would like to discuss 2 misinformation topics” and “misinformation that was removed.”

    On May 10, 2021, a Twitter employee recommended to a CDC official to enroll in Twitter’s Partner Support Portal, which he described as “the best way to get a spreadsheet like this reviewed.”

    On May 11, 2021, the CDC official enrolled her personal Twitter account into Twitter’s Partner Support Portal, which allowed “a special, expedited reporting flow in the Twitter Help Center.”

     

    A May 19, 2021 Facebook Community Standards manual reveals how the company works with lawmakers and legal council as well as human rights activists in developing policies in their goals of “bringing 50 million people a step closer to vaccinations” while “combatting COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation” and “overcoming global challenges in vaccination.” Methods used to accomplish this included removing “false information that has been debunked by public health experts” and rejecting ads that violate their policies, “including those that discourage vaccination.” They also reduced the distribution of “misleading claims rated by independent fact-checkers.”

    Removed Content

    Posts that Facebook would delete—which the CDC or any other public health authority deemed as “false and likely to contribute to imminent violence of physical harm”—included:

    • Claims that COVID-19 is no more dangerous than the common flu or cold.
    • Claims that COVID-19 cannot be transmitted in certain climates, weather conditions, or locations.
    • Claims that for the average person, something can guarantee prevention from getting COVID-19 or can guarantee recovery from COVID-19 before such a cure or prevention has been approved.
    • Claims that COVID-19 tests cause cancer.
    • Claims about the availability or existence of COVID-19 vaccines.
    • Claims about the safety or serious side effects of COVID-19 vaccines.
    • Claims about the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.
    • Claims about how the COVID-19 vaccine was developed or its ingredients.
    • Claims involving conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines or vaccine programs.

    Content deemed to have been “debunked” included among other things, “vaccines cause the disease against which they meant to protect, or cause the person to be more likely to get the disease,” that “natural immunity is safer than vaccine acquired immunity,” and  “vaccines are not effective to prevent the disease against what they purport to protect.”

    Repeat offenders would face restrictions “including (but not limited to) reduced distribution, removal from recommendations” or removal from the site.

    These punishments were conducted despite evidence that the vaccines do not prevent transmission, that vaccines cause adverse effects and even death, and that more vaccinated people are now dying than unvaccinated. Even the CDC admitted in June that vaccinated people could contract the disease again.

    ‘The Coolest Misinformation Fighting Speakeasy’

    In August 2021, the head of Google’s News Lab for the Asia Pacific region (APAC), emailed a CDC Vaccine Confidence Strategist to invite her to the APAC’s “Trusted Media Summit.” The CDC’s vaccine confidence strategist then emailed the event planner for Google’s APAC Trusted Media Summit, noting her excitement over being invited to what she referred to as “the coolest misinformation fighting speakeasy.”

    The same CDC employee was then invited to the summit to give a keynote addressing how the CDC was working with WHO and other international organizations to address a so-called “infodemic” and using “social inoculation” to mitigate it.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/15/2022 – 19:00

  • Trump Makes Major Announcement: $99 NFTs
    Trump Makes Major Announcement: $99 NFTs

    After teasing a “major announcement” on Truth social, former President Donald Trump on Thursday unveiled a “limited edition collection” of NFT trading cards, available at collecttrumpcards.com.

    They feature cartoon images of Trump depicted as a superhero, a Hollywood actor, a hunter and other characters.

    The announcement was accompanied by a video with Trump pitching the digital assets.

    “This is Donald Trump, hopefully, your favorite president of all time. Better than Lincoln or Washington,” Trump says, before detailing the project.

    According to the website, 45,000 cards will be created in the series, of which 44,000 will be sold. Those who buy will also be entered into a sweepstakes where the will have the opportunity to dine with Trump, play golf with him, and join a Mar-a-Lago cocktail hour.

    Trump’s entry into the NFT market via NFT INT LLC (not affiliated with Trump or the Trump organization), comes at a precarious time for the crypto-based digital art – with volume declining 97% between January and September of this year, and the collapse of FTX – which was a major host of NFTs.

    If the collection sells out, the creators stand to make $4.5 million. It’s unclear what Trump will make off the sales, if anything.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/15/2022 – 18:40

  • The Age Of Amnesia
    The Age Of Amnesia

    Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

    The main defense of Anthony Fauci in his legal deposition this month was pretty simple: he forgot. He said that he couldn’t recall nearly 200 times and versions of that many more. He said that he was so busy running his huge agency plus shepherding vaccines that he couldn’t possibly remember this or that email implicating him in a censorship scheme. He gets thousands of emails a day and there is no reason to think any in particular would grab his attention.

    It’s all a bit implausible because we saw him on TV several times a day for the better part of three years. He was the hard-working actor out there. I do TV and interviews several times per week but I try my best to throttle them back and turn many down simply because they truly drain away energy and focus from other work. In short, they are all-consuming. The notion that he neglected issues of message in favor of serious science is an incredibly obvious strain on credulity.

    So what was the point of this line of answer? Yes, he wants to save his skin. No question about that. But it occurs to me that there is another point too. He wants to model for the nation and the world how to think about the whole of the last three years. His view is that everyone should forget about it.

    You have surely noticed this happening ever since the opening following lockdowns and the rest. We are all just supposed to forget. We are supposed to move on. I’ve heard already a thousand times that we never had a lockdown. There seems to be little in the way of official memory of two years of school closures or the shutting of churches on holidays.

    We are being told to forget about the medical mandates that displaced millions from their jobs. We had relatives die and we couldn’t attend their funerals but we are supposed to forget about all that. I see claims daily that the censorship never really took place or wasn’t that bad really, so we should shut up already.

    What about all the politicians who violated stay-at-home orders, went on vacations or got hairstyles, or were photographed partying without a mask even as they imposed them on everyone else? Hey, mistakes were surely made but let’s not make too big a deal of it.

    Indeed, it was amazing to me how the most egregious and global attacks on human liberty in the name of public health were very quickly memory-holed by the major media, which we now know was the answer to public health agencies themselves the entire time. We all stood by in shock and wondered if we were the crazy ones.

    That, after all, is the whole point of Orwell’s Memory Hole, the invention of an alternative history of the recent past that contradicts our own memories and invites us to believe that we are crazy or obsessed or otherwise thinking about things that truly do not matter. This is why the Memory Hole was so important in Orwell’s book. It becomes a means by which the population is controlled in its thinking and therefore in its psychological capacity to resist the next round of impositions.

    This is why cultivating a solid memory is so crucial to the preservation of the good and civilized life. The barbarians all around us are constantly inviting us to forget so that we do not learn lessons and do not apply the lessons we learn. Instead we become blank slates for the ruling class to write on daily and then we are more likely to believe them. Better to never learn lessons at all. If we must learn something, it should be along the lines that we need more control and more acquiescence in the future.

    Movements that truly seek to prevent horrors of the past must also seek to preserve memory. This is why there are Holocaust Museums, for example, to help us understand experiences that were not ours but from which we can still learn. Indeed, this is the whole point of learning in general, to extract wisdom from people and events that have come before in order that we can be better prepared to build a future.

    People who invite us to forget are more than likely up to no good. It’s not just that they want to replace a real narrative with a false one. They want history to start over at any given moment so that we are more easy to manipulate in the future.

    Perhaps this is why basic memory skills have been so de-emphasized in early childhood education for so long. It’s a true tragedy because young people do have a remarkable capacity for memorization. They might lack the ability to think abstractly or process difficult strings of logic but they do have the mental power to hear and repeat, which is why a classical education puts so much emphasis on this and probably why modern education regards memorization as a waste of time.

    The urge to forget plays out in strange ways in our time. When accounts are banned on YouTube, Twitter, or Facebook, so too are the archives of those accounts blown away so that we can longer access information about the recent past. That is intentional, otherwise the banning would be a mere blocking of new content. No, the whole point is to wipe out what we know or think we know.

    This is one of the tragedies of the Trump ban on Twitter, for example. We lost a narrative record over years of important data points, making even writing the history of our times more difficult. So when the account came back, so too did our memories and then we could scroll through and verify a version of events that is closer to reality rather than the fake history we were being told to accept from on high.

    We’ve been through almost three years in which powerful elites have done their best to wipe out history. I recall the chills I got down my spine when major media organs began putting trigger warnings on links older than a few months. The clear message was: this is no longer valid or reliable because things have surely changed. This is also why Fauci kept saying that the science has changed. It was a call for us to forget all the statements that contradict his latest statements.

    In this way, we have entered into an age of amnesia with a ruling class that wants everyone to forget the wisdom of the past and even the events of recent history, to forgive but mostly to forget and move on like good little pawns in their game. Just do what we are told and forget everything else.

    We can all resist this little game. We can access Archive.org and, more importantly, we can consult the wisdom of the ages through books and poetry and religious teachings. If civilization is to survive the onslaught, it will be because we choose to remember and act on those memories in defiance of every demand that we forget.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/15/2022 – 18:20

  • IMF Warns 5% To 20% Drops In Asian Property Prices Could Be On The Horizon
    IMF Warns 5% To 20% Drops In Asian Property Prices Could Be On The Horizon

    A new report from the International Monetary Fund predicts a sharp drop in property prices across Asia.

    The report points out that home prices are “flattening” across the continent coming out of the pandemic boom that the region experienced. With rates rising, risks of “significant corrections in a number of markets” are profound, according to Nikkei. 

    The report set out “to highlight challenges in Asian housing markets linked to fast price rises especially in the advanced economies since COVID, and more broadly including many EMs in the period leading up to COVID,” per the IMF.

    It also aimed “to draw policy lessons on how to manage stability aspects through macroprudential and other policies and how to support affordability through structural policies and targeted government support.”

    The report notes concerns about affordability due to the spike in prices during the pandemic. South Korea, for example, saw a rise in inflation-adjusted prices of about 20% in 2021. Places like Japan and Singapore saw prices rise about 10% while Thailand saw price spikes of about 5%. 

    Now the issue is cooling demand as a result of rising rates. The pandemic bubble combined with the quick whipsaw of spiking rates could create drops “on the order of 5% to 20% in some countries,” Nikkei wrote. 

    Kenichiro Kashiwase, co-author of the IMF study, said: “Our study basically indicates that in order to alleviate, or address, housing affordability, governments can provide targeted, for example, mortgage insurance or mortgage guarantees.”

    Krishna Srinivasan, director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific department, commented this week: “The current phase looks like another turning point for many countries, with the post-pandemic house price surge now increasingly at risk of reversing in the context of slowing growth and rising interest rates.”

    “As we look towards 2023, we see once more that the global environment is fragile, with storm clouds on the horizon. We expect 2023 to be worse than 2022. Inflation is still uncomfortably high and financial conditions are tight, so things are looking pretty not so good.”

    You can read the entire IMF policy paper, called “Housing Market Stability and Affordability in Asia-Pacific”, here. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/15/2022 – 18:00

  • Navy Unleashes Controversy By Naming Next Warship USS Fallujah
    Navy Unleashes Controversy By Naming Next Warship USS Fallujah

    Authored by Kenny Stancil via Common Dreams,

    Peace advocates responded with disgust to the Navy’s decision to name its new warship after the two battles of Fallujah, during which U.S. troops massacred Iraqi civilians.

    “The future America-class amphibious ship will be named the USS Fallujah, LHA-9,” Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro announced Tuesday in a speech at Marine Barracks Washington, D.C. “The future USS Fallujah will commemorate the first and second battles of Fallujah, American-led offenses during the Iraq War.” Del Toro called it “an honor for me, and for our nation, to memorialize the Marines, the soldiers, and coalition forces that fought valiantly and those that sacrificed their lives during both battles of Fallujah.”

    LHA 9—the future USS Fallujah—will be a sister ship to LHA 8, pictured here in an artist’s conception and currently under construction at Huntington Ingalls Industries.

    U.S. troops slaughtered approximately 600 Iraqi civilians—including more than 300 women and children—along with 200 insurgents during the First Battle of Fallujah. Code-named Operation Vigilant Resolve, the battle was launched in April 2004 to avenge the deaths of four Blackwater contractors. Twenty-seven U.S. soldiers were killed during the retaliatory siege.

    The Second Battle of Fallujah, known as Operation Phantom Fury, was fought from November to December 2004 to recapture the city from insurgent forces. In the process, U.S.-led occupation forces killed between 581 and 670 civilians across nine neighborhoods, according to Iraq Body Count.

    “With over 100 coalition forces killed and 600 wounded, Operation Phantom Fury is considered to be the bloodiest engagement to the Iraq War and the fiercest serving combat involving U.S. Marines since the Vietnam War’s battle of Hue City,” said Del Toro. “This namesake deserves to be in the pantheon of iconic Marine Corps battles, and the LHA’s unique capabilities will serve as a stark reminder to everyone around the world of the bravery, the courage, and commitment to freedom displayed by those who fought in those battles.”

    Critics called the Navy’s commemoration of the battles of Fallujah “shameful.”

    “Some of the most heinous U.S. war crimes committed during the Iraq War took place in the city of Fallujah,” The Intercept‘s Jeremy Scahill, who reported from Iraq during the U.S. invasion, wrote Wednesday on social media.

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

    In a 2007 appearance on the Bill Moyers show, Scahill described the siege of Fallujah as “one of the most brutal and sustained U.S. operations of the occupation,” telling Moyers that the Pentagon’s murderous response to the killing of Blackwater contractors set a dangerous precedent. In 2016, journalist Hope Hodge Seck wrote about what she called “the whisper campaign for a USS Fallujah.” She tweeted Tuesday: “At the time, it seemed unlikely to ever happen…But now it has.”

    Construction on the 45,000 metric-ton vessel, the first U.S. warship named after a post-9/11 battle, is set to begin this month at the Mississippi-based Ingalls Shipbuilding, which secured a $2.4 billion contract in October.

    Civilians in Fallujah, meanwhile, continue to suffer from a sharp rise in birth defects that has occurred in the wake of the 2003 invasion.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/15/2022 – 17:40

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Dec 15

Today’s News 15th December 2022

  • 'A Dark Alliance': Musk's Twitter Files Exposed The Fifth Estate
    ‘A Dark Alliance’: Musk’s Twitter Files Exposed The Fifth Estate

    Authored by Mike Solana via PirateWires.com,

    Dangerous alliance. In 1787, Edmund Burke said there were “Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there [sits] a Fourth Estate more important than they all.” The notion of some vital power beyond our government was imported to the New World, and today constitutes a core belief of the American liberal: there is no free people, we’re often told, without a free press independent of congress, the courts, and our president. But throughout the 20th Century thousands of media outlets gradually consolidated, and by the dawn of our internet era only a few giants remained. These giants largely shared a single perspective, and in rough agreement with the ruling class the Fourth Estate naturally came to serve, rather than critique, power. This relationship metastasized into something very close to authoritarianism during the Covid-19 pandemic, when a single state narrative was written by the press, and ruthlessly enforced by a fifth and final fount of power in the newly-dominant technology industry.

    It was a dark alliance of estates, accurate descriptions of which were for years derided as delusional, paranoid, even dangerous. But today, on account of a single shitposting billionaire, the existence of the One Party’s decentralized censorship apparatus is now beyond doubt.

    A couple weeks back, alleging proof Twitter acted with gross political bias, and in a manner that influenced U.S. elections (!), Elon Musk opened his new company’s internal communications to a small handful of journalists. They set immediately to breaking a series of major stories that have rewritten the history of Trump-era tech. Long story short, Twitter leadership lied to the public, relentlessly, for years, and everything the most paranoid among us ever said about the platform was true. “Trust and safety” is a euphemism for political censorship, with “expert” teams comprised almost exclusively of the most radical, joyless grievance studies majors you ever met in college. Their goal is to reshape American politics by dominating the bounds of what the public is permitted to consider American politics. In these efforts, they have mostly been succeeding.

    On December 2nd, Matt Taibbi shared conversations from the company’s “trust and safety” team that led to Twitter’s suppression of the New York Post’s infamous Hunter Biden laptop story. While interesting, Taibbi’s most notable revelation came almost as a side: both major political parties, as well as the White House, maintained direct lines of communication with Twitter, which they used to formally request content be removed from the platform. The company responded enthusiastically to many of these requests, and the examples we have (for now) come from the Democratic Party. Critics have been quick to point out Trump was in the White House at the time, though less interested, for some reason, in what — if anything — he removed from the site.

    On December 6th, Bari Weiss and her colleagues reported out proof of Twitter’s secret blacklists, in which both specific topics and, more problematically, people were de-amplified by the “trust and safety” team. The blacklisting was done for a nebulous host of reasons that generally amounted to something like ‘this feels dangerous.’ Danger was, of course, defined by partisan operatives, and exclusively targeted right-coded positions. Skepticism of radical gender ideology, distrust of public Covid policy, and almost anything having to do with the integrity of our last election were at the top of the list.

    Separate from any opinion concerning whether such topics, or the purveyors of such topics, should have been “shadow banned,” the revelation that they were is immensely important on account of Twitter’s censors, with their many supporters in the press, have denied the existence of these tools for years.

    Finally, over the last few days, Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, and Bari have all reported out pieces of Donald Trump’s deplatforming, which is easily the most famous digital unpersoning in history. It is also the least compelling story in the series. While it’s good to finally know exactly what happened, it really just was what everyone assumed: Trump was not banned for violating policy. Trump was banned because Twitter employees, who donated literally 99% of their political contributions to the Democratic Party, demanded it be done regardless of their own rules.

    Altogether, the Twitter Files — an ongoing story — paint a portrait of clear and inevitable partisan bias at one of the most dominant speech platforms in history. A small handful of very left-wing executives, who naturally perceived most opinion right of center as dangerous, worked tirelessly to limit those opinions from view. Empowered to censor “unsafe” content, and protected by a team of people who shared their political orientation, the executives produced, in a legal and decentralized manner, a key component of our defacto state censorship apparatus. While we don’t know for sure this is also happening at Google, Meta, or TikTok (which is for some reason still allowed to operate in this country), I think it’s a safe bet we’re looking at an industry-wide affliction.  

    But I do have questions.

    Where is the full list of shadow-banned accounts? Which political campaigns, specifically, communicated with Twitter, and what specifically was taken down? What about requests from foreign governments? What about requests from our own government? We need to know which of our government agencies, if any, had content removed from the platform, and we need to know the nature of this content. Taibbi alluded to Trump’s White House — did someone from the Trump administration request a takedown? Who made the request? Who received the request? Was it answered? What, if anything, was removed?

    The Trump line of questioning is, in particular, something you might assume attractive to the media, which has waged all-out war on the populist clown king for the last seven years. Alas, the press seems broadly disinterested. Is this because they don’t believe the former president ever made such requests, or is their lack of interest rather stemming from a fear of validating a major story most of them are currently trying to frame — for their own obvious political reasons — as not worth reading?

    A brief selection of positions from our cherished Fourth Estate: This entire story is a “dud” (The Washington Post) — no bombshells here! (Forbes). The Twitter Files, in which a handful of committed partisans enthusiastically censor large swaths of the conservative base, including a former president, actually prove the company was not politically biased. It is, however, now biased against Democrats (New York Magazine). Elon’s exposé is a flop that doesn’t matter. It has also placed multiple “trust and safety experts” in mortal danger (The Verge, predictably). Then, my favorite: it is good to finally see the blacklist tools I have been curious about for many years, which we have by the way always known existed, and therefore don’t matter (The Atlantic).

    The charge of shadow banning evoked uniquely loud jeering from the press, including Charlie Warzel in particular, a man formerly of the position “Twitter isn’t shadow banning Republicans.” Now, in the face of evidence the company absolutely shadow banned Republicans, the official position is we are using the term “shadow ban” incorrectly.

    It’s a game of semantics, in which the public is dragged through the exhausting, useless question of how much invisible speech suppression, precisely, constitutes a “real” shadow ban, rather than the glaringly important questions of both ethics and, frankly, safety. In the first place, is it right to run a decentralized censorship apparatus, and to make your rules invisible? In the second, what happens to a free country when the bounds of acceptable speech are set by a small cabal of unelected partisan cops? Because my sense is the answer isn’t “freedom.”

    There have been a few notable, if cautiously dissenting opinions from prominent voices in media. Buzzfeed’s Katie Notopoulos, the Los Angeles Times’ Jeff Bercovici, and the New York Times’ Mike Isaac all took somewhat risky positions in favor of transparency, apparently no longer in vogue among journalists, with Jeff explicitly acknowledging the important nature of the revelations. But I’ve only seen one actual piece, drafted and published by a reasonably mainstream media entity, embrace any aspect of the Twitter Files.

    Anthony Fisher, an opinion editor at the Daily Beast, danced around the subject, and awkwardly tried to obscure his overall agreement the story mattered behind many paragraphs demonstrating his conservative-hating bonafides. But in addressing Twitter’s censorship he did include the following important line:

    And that lesson is “Don’t trust (or demand) billionaire tech bros to be the arbiters of truth and news.”

    It was a flashback to the position most journalists and activists shared in the days before Donald Trump. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before they realized they had a political ally in tech industry hall monitors, and set about a national power grab. In any case, if you were to strip the above position from all its obnoxious tribal language, it would really just be: no few people should control the bounds of acceptable discourse. I agree. But narrowly focused on the “tech bro,” the point not only betrays a bias, but misses a defining aspect of technology.

    The Fifth Estate is a fundamentally different kind of power. It’s more difficult to consolidate than media, and more difficult to control than even our government divided by design. Its impact is also far more difficult to predict. This is because technology is above all things defined in terms of newness, which not only makes it disruptive of pre-existing power, but destructive of itself — a sort of anti-power that only guarantees change. The true failsafe. Our ultimate reset. Tremendously empowering of tyranny in times of stagnation, technology is also our most powerful weapon against tyranny in times of innovation.

    While many tech giants have gone the way of media in consolidating power, centralizing, and aligning with the state, the future of technology is always change. From encrypted chats and blockchain to artificially intelligent search, every tech giant that amassed power over the last two decades will be facing existential threats in the years to come — not only from the government, but from the industry.   

    In terms of Twitter, Elon is already leveraging Fifth Estate properties, and not by employing current tools to amplify his own opinions (an emerging conspiracy). He is iterating product more rapidly than we’ve seen from any major, consumer-facing tech company in years. The trial and error here has largely been ridiculed by people who have never built a technology company. But while detractors are obsessed with his censorship abilities, Elon’s platform experiments are the things actually capable of root-changing the national discourse. The medium is the message, and the medium is evolving. Whatever works on Twitter will be cloned. The bounds of acceptable discourse will change, and none of this will have anything to do with Elon’s spicy tweets.

    But about those spicy tweets — 

    As the former lords of Twitter descend into hysterics with outlandish comments declaring Elon a Nazi, or a proponent of the QAnon conspiracy, or whatever other bit of unhinged loser bullshit, he faces two significant threats. First, he’s clearly made an enemy of every other major fount of power, including in particular the Fourth Estate. This will impact all of Elon’s companies, as they all require support from the government and public, and the opinions of our government and public are still shaped, to a large extent, by the media. It’s no coincidence most powerful tech executives, from Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos to Jack Dorsey, share a carefully-crafted language of neutrality. This air of neutrality is how a king behaves, because the air of neutrality is how a king survives. In flaunting his power, rather than obscuring it, Elon is asking to be attacked, and his enemies are happy to oblige, even while more dominant platforms go unbothered.

    Something like 80 million Americans are using TikTok, a company hopelessly compromised by the Chinese Communist Party. Do you even know the name of its CEO?

    For a man who controls the bounds of acceptable speech for a third of the country’s adults, he sure doesn’t seem especially interested in speaking.

    Elon’s second danger is the far more formidable danger of himself. What the Twitter Files prove beyond doubt is censorship in the age of social media is power — a real and dangerous power that corrupts.

    Last year, Dorsey appeared before Congress, and declared neither he nor anyone else, and certainly not anyone in government, should be allowed to set the bounds of acceptable speech for the entire country. But with no viable alternative, someone does need to bear the ring. In leaked texts from the recent Twitter legal saga, it’s clear Jack believed Elon a worthy steward of this tremendous power, and, for what it’s worth, I agree. But provided the nation remains free, the rules of the Fifth Estate are immutable. Power comes in dramatic upward swings, and resets the status quo. It will not — it can not — last forever. So change the world, but be mindful of temptation, and make good use of your god mode powers while you have them. Because they never last forever.   

    *  *  *

    Long story short, Pirate Wires exists because people subscribe. If you’re into what we’re doing here, drag your friends on board for a free sub, and if you haven’t yet already: Subscribe, or die.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 12/14/2022 – 23:40

  • Salt Lake City Faces Toxic Dust Storms Amid Declining Water Levels
    Salt Lake City Faces Toxic Dust Storms Amid Declining Water Levels

    Salt Lake City, Utah, was already in trouble. Between vast open-pit mining operations in the surrounding areas, oil refineries, and a unique mountain range that traps pollution in a winter ‘inversion layer,’ the cities surrounding the Great Salt Lake have grappled with air quality issues for years.

    “We have 2.5 million residents along the edges of the lake,” said Kevin Perry, a University of Utah atmospheric scientist researching the Great Salt Lake dust. “These dust plumes come off and make the air unhealthy regardless of what’s in it.“

    Now, as NBC News reports, declining water levels in the Great Salt Lake have created new challenges as dust laden with toxic metals threaten the region.

    Dust researcher Kevin Perry poses with his fat bike and a PI-SWERL machine, which can measure wind erosion and dust emission.Evan Bush / NBC News

    Since Mormon pioneers settled the valley in the mid-1800s, the lake’s volume is down 67% – thanks to a combination of irrigation projects, which account for roughly 75% of the loss, and the ongoing megadrought, which accounts for the remainder of the drop, according to research from Utah State University.

    This isn’t an issue caused by climate change, according to the report. Residents are simply consuming too much water for agriculture, residential use and industry, from overtaxed rivers that feed the terminal lake. Humans diverting water has reduced the Great Salt Lake by around 11 feet – while increased evaporation has added to the problem by around half-a-foot.

    During dust storms, host spots on the lake will pop and emit swirls of dust, collecting particles less than a fraction of the width of a human hair, darkening the sky and propelling them into communities nearby. The smallest particles can remain airborne for weeks at a time. 

    The lake bed contains pollutants like arsenic, distributed widely across the surface, which could be an indication that some of it occurs naturally, Perry said.  

    The lake has long been a catchment for industrial pollution. Each area of the lake has its own recipe of toxic metals and other substances, fed by different polluting industries nearby. Researchers are concerned that what’s been stored in the lake will soon be carried on the wind into Salt Lake City and other neighboring communities. -NBC News

    And as time goes on, the situation is set to get worse.

    In 2018, roughly 9% of the lakebed was a source of dust – with a protective crust covering much of the rest. But wind and weathering is breaking that down.

    “The longer the lake bed is exposed, we expect that to increase. It could increase to 24% to 25% of the lakebed,” said Perry.

    Lawmakers are starting to take notice – but in typical fashion, it’s too little, too late. They have passed a series of bills designed to revamp how Utah uses its water. In November, Gov. Spencer Cox closed the basin to new water appropriations. A step in the right direction after years of neglect.

    “The entire state has an unhealthy relationship with water,” said Perry. “We need to start living like we live in the desert.“

    Water levels on the Great Salt Lake have retreated away from what was once the shoreline, leaving acres of exposed playa. The crusty lake bed surface, seen here from Antelope Island, is breaking down in some areas and blowing away. The playa is a source of dust that could worsen air pollution.Evan Bush / NBC News

    Researchers looking into the toxic dust have been examining exactly where it goes – including whether it’s easily absorbed into people’s bodies, and what risks it may present.

    In 2018, scientists with the US Geological Survey placed 18 dust traps throughout the Salt Lake City area – where they trapped dust from the lake, local construction, and local deserts, for a period of several months.

    What they found was concerning. At every site, arsenic concentrations exceeded EPA levels of concern for residential soil. One site had a concentration 35x higher.

    “We’ve got some bells going off,” said USGS hydrologist, Annie Putman, who led the study. “The pieces are there to think we should be concerned.”

    The Salt Lake City area has long had a reputation for pollution gong back decades. Out of 888 US metro areas, the EPA ranked it the ninth-worst on a 2020 risk screening model that ranks health risks from toxic chemical releases. Last year it ranked 20th for short-term particle pollution by the American Lung Association.

    Highway vehicles traffic travel past a poor air quality sign in Salt Lake City, on Jan. 23, 2013.Rick Bowmer / AP file

    “If you look at Salt Lake, it’s essentially a bowl and the dense emissions are in the lower elevations,” said John Lin, an atmospheric research professor at the University of Utah, who noted that pollutants such as black carbon, nitrogen dioxide and other particulate matter “tend to be higher in lower-income neighborhoods.”

    Residents in the lower portion of the ‘bowl’ are inundated in a pea soup of refinery emissions, car exhaust and other pollutants.

    The researchers suspect that urban, diverse neighborhoods are receiving much of their dust and the toxic metals within that dust from local sources — nearby polluters or construction projects. It’s also possible that dust from the Great Salt Lake and other nearby playas picks up local pollutants from nearby mines, refineries and pesticides as dust travels into the city. 

    Meanwhile, researchers found the highest levels of dust — and metals — in suburbs outside urban Salt Lake City. Researchers suspect communities north of the city, including areas such as Syracuse, Ogden and Bountiful could be receiving the majority of the dust that blows off the lake. In early October, less than a mile from what was once lakeshore, workers were hammering away to frame new housing. -NBC News

    “It irritates the eyes and gives me sinus infections,” said 58-year-old George Casillas, who’s lived on the west side for 15 years. “It’s hard to be trapped in the valley.”

    “There’s so much sediment and so much trapped for so long. It’s pulling up stuff that’s been trapped for 100 years,” he continued. “Are there carcinogens or other health risks? That’s what I’m worried about.“

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 12/14/2022 – 23:20

  • Musk Unexpectedly Sells $3.6 Billion In Tesla Stock In Last 3 Days
    Musk Unexpectedly Sells $3.6 Billion In Tesla Stock In Last 3 Days

    There had been a quiet at first, and then increasingly louder chorus of disapproval among Tesla bulls at the relentless decline in the TSLA stock price, which someone was aggressively selling in recent days and slashing nearly a quarter of its value since the start of the month (and more than 60% from its all time high just over a year ago).

    It turns out that at least one of the whale sellers was none other than Elon Musk himself who – just days after losing the world’s richest man rank to French luxury titan Bernard Arnault – late on Wednesday filed a Form 4 showing he sold nearly 22 million shares, or some $3.6 billion worth, of TSLA stock between Nov 12 and Nov 14.

    The sales, which took place at a price between $176.702 and $156.14, brought Musk’s total TSLA holdings down from 445.617 million to 423.622 million, a decline of 21.995 million shares.

    The week’s sale, which follows a similar dump one month ago when during a 4 day period from November 4-8, Elon Musk sold 19.5 million shares or roughly $4 billion in TSLA stock, means that the Tesla – and now Twitter – chief executive has sold more than $39 billion in Tesla shares since the company’s stock peaked in November 2021. Tesla, still the world’s largest auto maker by value, has lost more than $700 billion in market value since that all-time high.

    It wasn’t clear what prompted Musk to sell additional Tesla stock, and the company didn’t respond to a request for comment from the WSJ, but on Tuesday, in what may have been a foreshadowing of what’s to come, Musk tweeted, “At risk of stating obvious, beware of debt in turbulent macroeconomic conditions, especially when Fed keeps raising rates.”

    Musk, of course, has lots of debt from his completed acquisition of Twitter in October. While Musk provided $33.5 billion in equity financing to pay for the deal, Twitter also took on around $13 billion in debt as part of the takeover, in which the company went private. According to reports from Bloomberg, the banks which are stuck with the debt and unable to syndicate it to willing buyers, offered to lower the interest on some of the more expensive tranches if Musk is willing to exchange the Twitter debt with a personal margin loan (backed by far more valuable Twitter stock).

    Musk tried for months to get out of the Twitter deal but failed. To raise enough cash for the purchase, he offloaded more than $15 billion in Tesla shares — about $8.5 billion in April, then another $6.9 billion in August. In November, after vowing he was done selling, he unloaded another $3.95 billion of his stake.

    Besides Musk’s sales, TSLA stock has been hit by concerns that rising interest rates will make the cars more expensive for consumers while demand issues in China, Tesla’s largest market after the US, have reportedly depressed local production.

    Twitter now faces annual interest payments approaching $1.2 billion, which could get even more expensive given that the interest rates on about half of that debt aren’t locked in and will rise with the market. To cut costs, Twitter not only fired more than half of its employees, but according to the NYT has not paid rent for its San Francisco headquarters or any of its global offices for weeks; Twitter has also refused to pay a $197,725 bill for private charter flights made the week of Musk’s takeover, and has also discussed the consequences of denying severance payments to thousands of people who have been laid off since the takeover.

    Musk’s recent sales will bring his stake in the company to roughly 13%; he remains the company’s largest shareholder by a wide margin. Musk’s net worth was $160.9 billion as of Wednesday’s close, ranking No. 2 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index after France’s Bernard Arnault. His fortune has dropped by $109.4 billion this year.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 12/14/2022 – 23:01

  • LA's New Mayor Declares 'State Of Emergency' Over Homelessness
    LA’s New Mayor Declares ‘State Of Emergency’ Over Homelessness

    After making it a central part of her campaign, Los Angeles’ new mayor Karen Bass declared homelessness a ‘state of emergency’ in the city.

    The declaration “will recognize the severity of Los Angeles’ crisis and break new ground to maximize the ability to urgently move people inside,” according to a statement from Bass’ office, on the same day she visited the city’s Emergency Operations Center, ABC News reports.

    According to a three-day study conducted earlier this year, just under 42,000 people experienced homelessness in the city of LA, according to the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA).

    At least 69,144 people experienced homelessness in the same-named county – a 4.1% increase over 2020, and a 1.7% rise in the city itself.

    Local COVID-era policies like eviction moratoriums and rentals assistance, as well as federal assistance have helped people stay housed throughout the pandemic, according to LAHSA.

    However, many of those policies have since ended or are about to end, and it’s left unhoused and people facing housing insecurity without a safety net, LAHSA reports. -ABC News

    As a House representative, Bass was instrumental in funding millions for long-term shelter solutions for homeless residents, job training and career development programs. She also backed substance abuse programs.

    “These investments to combat homelessness, improve community safety and assist families with the increasing costs of living in our congressional district are coming at a crucial time,” she said in a March statement. “Now that we have these new allocated funds on the federal level, we have to ensure that they reach our communities as soon as possible.”

    During her campaign, Bass vowed to “House 15,000 people by the end of year one, dramatically reduce street homelessness, end street encampments,” and “lead on mental health and substance abuse treatment.”

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 12/14/2022 – 22:40

  • Ron Paul: Mother Of All Economic Crisis Will Lead To "Social Unrest & Violence"
    Ron Paul: Mother Of All Economic Crisis Will Lead To “Social Unrest & Violence”

    Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

    Nouriel Roubini, a former advisor to the International Monetary Fund and member of President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors, was one of the few “mainstream” economists to predict the collapse of the housing bubble. Now Roubini is warning that the staggering amounts of debt held by individuals, businesses, and the government will soon lead to the “mother of all economic crises.”

    Roubini properly blames the creation of a debt-based economy on the near-or-at-zero interest rate and quantitative easing policies pursued by the Federal Reserve and other central banks. The inevitable result of the zero-interest and quantitative easing policies is price inflation wreaking havoc on the American people.

    The Fed has been trying to eliminate price inflation with a series of interest rate increases. So far, these rate increases have not significantly reduced price inflation. This is because rates remain at historic lows. Yet the rate increases have had negative economic effects, including a decline in the demand for new homes. Increasing interest rates make it impossible for many middle- and working-class Americans to afford a monthly mortgage payment for even a relatively inexpensive home.

    The main reason the Fed cannot raise rates to anywhere near what they would be in a free market is the effect it would have on the federal government’s ability to manage its debt. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), interest on the national debt is already on track to consume 40 percent of the federal budget by 2052 and will surpass defense spending by 2029! A small interest rate increase can raise yearly federal debt interest rate payments by many billions of dollars, increasing the amount of the federal budget devoted solely to servicing the debt.

    The federal government’s fiscal picture is made worse by the fact that the Social Security “Trust Fund” will begin to run deficits by 2035 while the Medicare Trust Fund will run deficits by 2028. The looming bankruptcy of the two major entitlement programs, combined with the unwillingness of most in Congress to reduce either welfare or warfare spending, puts the Fed in a bind. If it raises rates to the levels needed to really combat price inflation, the increase in interest payments will impose hardships on individuals and businesses, as well as raise federal interest payments to unsustainable levels. This will cause a major economic crisis including a government default on its debt causing a rejection of the dollar’s world reserve currency status. Also, if the Fed continues to facilitate federal deficits by monetizing the debt, the result will be an economic crisis caused by a collapse in the dollar’s value and rejection of the dollar’s world reserve status.

    The crisis will lead to social unrest and violence, as well as increased popularity of authoritarian movements on both the left and the right. This will lead to government crackdowns on civil liberties and increased government control of our economy. The only bright spot is this crisis will also fuel interest in the ideas of liberty and could even help bring about a return to limited, constitutional government, free markets, individual liberty, and a foreign policy of peaceful trade with all. Those of us who know the truth have two responsibilities. The first is to make the necessary plans to ensure our families can survive the forthcoming turmoil. The second is to do all we can to introduce as many people as possible to the ideas of liberty.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 12/14/2022 – 22:35

  • Epstein Island: Newly Unsealed Evidence Of Abuse
    Epstein Island: Newly Unsealed Evidence Of Abuse

    Authored by Techno Fog via The Reactionary,

    We have newly unsealed documents – including the depositions of Ghislaine Maxwell and one of her victims – revealing new details on the extent of the abuse and victimization that took place by Jeffrey Epstein. Those filings come from Giuffre v. Maxwell, a civil case filed against Maxwell in 2015 in the New York Southern District.

    Some of the broader allegations have already been made public. Sarah Ransome, who accused Epstein and Maxwell of abuse that took place during her early 20s, settled a civil lawsuit against them in 2018. Ransome has publicly described some of the abuse. And there have been reports on what transpired at Little St. James, often referred to as Epstein Island.

    Let’s get to the new details, starting with the testimony of Ransome, available here. She actually lived one of Epstein’s apartments in 2006 with a few other girls. During that time, she worked for what she described as an “agency” which arranged paid dinners with wealthy clients: “I was paid to spend dinner with a gentleman.” Whatever happened after dinner with the client was done on her “own accord” and “after that time period had finished.”

    Ransome was introduced to Epstein by a female associate of his (her name is still redacted), who described Epstein as a wealthy “philanthropist” who “really cares about people” and “really wants to help them.” She was open to meeting Epstein because she was struggling financially. Soon after meeting Epstein, Ransome was invited to travel on Epstein’s plane to Epstein Island. She was told it “was going to be a girls’ week” and they would have “so much fun”:

    Q. How did the flight meeting become arranged, if you know?

    A. So it was pretty a last-minute thing. phoned me up and said that Jeffrey Epstein would very much like to have me go to his island. It was going to be so much fun, it was going to be a girls’ week, there were lots of other girls going, we were going to have so much fun, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

    What happened on the flight – her first flight with Epstein – must have been shocking to Ransome. She described what happened after they took off:

    “The rest of the passengers in the — I think it’s towards the front of the plane where all the seats are — we all — all the guests were — fell asleep. I pretended to be asleep.

    Jeffrey then went – Jeffrey went to his — was in his bed on the plane, having open sex with for everyone to see, on display.”

    Ransome would eventually give massages to Epstein at the Island. She had been told that Epstein “loves women, loves getting massages” and that this “was a nice way to make extra cash.” At first, the massages were relatively normal. Then then escalated to the type of “massage” Epstein is now notorious for – much of which was done without Ransome’s consent.

    She described her experiences at Epstein’s Island as being constantly surrounded by “beautiful young people” and that there “were always girls” there to visit “Jeffrey and Ghislaine.” Ransome also gave a description of the Island as having multiple buildings – a main house and then various buildings around the Island for Epstein and his guests:

    “like little shelter things where him and his guests used to have sex with the girls, like beds set up for instant sexual entertainment.”

    There was a “constant influx of girls” at this Island. It was a type of brothel. According to Ransome:

    “It’s like, I’m sure if you go into a hooker’s brothel and see how they run their business, I mean, it’s just general conversation about who’s going to have sex with who and, you know — what do you talk about when all do you is have sex every day on rotation? I mean, what is there to talk about?”

    She testified that all those girls “appeared to be teenagers.” They “looked young.” One girl in particular “looked well under 18.” This girl told Ransome that “they abused her on the island.” Another girl ran out of Epstein’s room crying and saying she was “forced to have sex with Jeffrey Epstein.”

    Unsealed photographs of Epstein at Epstein Island, 2006.

    Ransome would meet Ghislaine Maxwell on a later trip to Epstein Island. She was told that Maxwell was “a very dangerous character and has connections,” and “to do everything she told me to do.” The girls would report to Maxwell. Ransome and other girls were in fact intimidated by and scared of Maxwell:

    “I met a lot of girls who we all had the same opinion of Ghislaine; we were all frightened of her. She had a very odd relationship with Jeffrey and — yeah, she’s not a nice — I’m sorry, I know she’s your client, but she’s not — she’s not a friendly, warm person.”

    Ransome also described the role of Ghislaine Maxwell at Epstein Island:

    “Ghislaine was Jeffrey’s right-hand woman, so, you know, whatever Jeffrey wanted went through Ghislaine and then filtered through.”

    “So there was — everyone was afraid of Ghislaine. All the girls were afraid of her…”

    “And we were told by Jeffrey Epstein to listen to Ghislaine. So Ghislaine was the main right-hand woman of Jeffrey Epstein. We were told by Jeffrey Epstein to listen to Ghislaine.”

    Maxwell would actually assist Epstein with managing his sexual “rotation” on the Island:

    Q. And when you say you were on rotation, you mean you were having sex with Jeffrey multiple times per day?

    A. No. As in when I was finished, another girl was called by Ghislaine. And when they had finished, another girl was called.

    Q. How do you know that another girl was called by Ghislaine?

    A. Because I was there, and I saw it and heard it with all my senses. I saw Ghislaine call another girl, and she called me herself, to go give Jeffrey Epstein a sexual massage.

    …

    Q. What do you mean by call? I guess I’m thinking like telephone. That may be my —

    A. No. As in going up to the person and going, Jeffrey wants to see you in his bedroom, which meant it’s your turn to be abused. That kind of thing.

    ++

    Other unsealed parts of the civil case concern the deposition of Rinaldo Rizzo – something we have previously reported on – who said Epstein and Maxwell were with a 15 year-old girl and had taken her passport:

    A. What happens next when Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein and a 15-year-old girl walk into Eva Anderson’s home? . . . “A. She proceeds to tell my wife and I that, and this is not – this is blurting out, not a conversation like I’m having a casual conversation. That quickly, I was on an island, I was on the island and there was Ghislaine, there was Sarah, she said they asked me for sex, I said no.

    And she is just rambling, and I’m like what, and she said — I asked her, I said what? And she says yes, I was on the island, I don’t know how I got from the island to here. Last afternoon or in the afternoon I was on the island and now I’m here. And I said do you have a — this is not making any sense to me, and I said this is nuts, do you have a passport, do you have a phone? And she says no, and she says Ghislaine took my passport. And I said what, and she says Sarah took her passport and her phone and gave it to Ghislaine Maxwell, and at that point she said that she was threatened.”

    There is still more to come. Currently, multiple “John Does” are fighting the unsealing of their names. We expect those names to be unsealed but there is an appeals process we’ll have to wait for.

    Some of the men are only casually referenced in the case. Others were potentially involved in Epstein’s criminal acts. We’ll publish those names once they’re out.

    In the meantime, if you need to catch up on the Epstein/Maxwell details, here are some good places to start:

    Subscribe to The Reactionary here.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 12/14/2022 – 22:20

  • DeSantis Forms Florida Grand Jury To Investigate Misconduct Surrounding Covid Vaccine Rollout
    DeSantis Forms Florida Grand Jury To Investigate Misconduct Surrounding Covid Vaccine Rollout

    Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is establishing a grand jury through the state’s supreme court to investigate malfeasance involving the rollout of the covid mRNA vaccines.  The investigations will include the claims of vaccine safety by pharmaceutical companies and the CDC, along with the rising number of deadly reactions to the jab including Myocarditis.  The announcement was made in a virtual town hall-style meeting and was met with a positive response.

    DeSantis notes the moral bankruptcy of the scientific establishment in the US during the pandemic lockdowns – With the federal government and many scientists admonishing the public for going outside their homes (even though UV light from the sun is a natural sterilizer), while at the same time supporting the BLM protests in which thousands of people congregated on city streets to riot.  Stopping the spread was not important in the case of BLM, but deadly important when it came to people walking on the beach or protesting the lockdowns.

    DeSantis has proven to be a consistent opponent of the lockdowns and mandates, despite Florida’s large population.  This policy helped to provide proof that the lockdowns were pointless.  If Florida (along with other defiant red states) could stay open without any noticeable jump in fatalities compared to blue states, then what was the point of the lockdowns and restrictions?  

    A trend is growing among the American public which runs contrary to the mainstream covid narrative.  People are beginning to question the validity of government policies, the claims of snake oil salesmen like Anthony Fauci and the rules enforced by the CDC.  Most importantly, they are beginning to apply skepticism to the mRNA vaccines, which is something that should have been done before they were ever distributed.  At the very least, the pendulum seems to be swinging back after nearly three years of attempted medical authoritarianism.     

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 12/14/2022 – 22:00

  • Nuclear Fusion 'Breakthrough' Touted By White House, Drawing Praise And Some Skepticism
    Nuclear Fusion ‘Breakthrough’ Touted By White House, Drawing Praise And Some Skepticism

    Authored by Nathan Worcester via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    It was 1:03 a.m. on Dec. 5 that experimental physicist Alex Zylstra first spotted it: for the first time, a target yielded more energy from a fusion reaction than a laser put into it—though that’s not counting the much greater input energy that was needed to power the laser in the first place.

    “One of the first things I did was call one of the diagnostic experts to double-check the data,” he said during a Dec. 13 press conference with his colleagues from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

    Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm briefs reporters at the White House in Washington on May 11, 2021. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

    Zylstra was running a test with the world’s most energetic laser—Lawrence Livermore’s National Ignition Facility (NIF).

    By blasting a capsule of hydrogen atoms with that laser until the atoms heat into plasma and combine, he and his colleagues were hoping to achieve nuclear fusion through an approach known as inertial confinement.

    The other main approach to fusion, magnetic confinement fusion, uses devices such as tokamaks to contain plasmas using powerful magnetic fields.

    NIF physicist Tammy Ma said that “tears were running down [her] face” when she learned about the result.

    “I want to emphasize that each experiment we do is building on 60 years of work in this field, and more than a decade on NIF itself,” Zylstra said.

    His team’s latest work comes as the latest in a recent series of fusion-related achievements from that facility, where fusion research is pursued under the National Nuclear Security Administration’s “Stockpile Stewardship” program, as an alternative to the underground nuclear testing that ended during the early 1990s.

    The most important of those achievements may have occurred in August 2021, when NIF researchers first briefly achieved ignition according to one set of criteria—namely, when the forces cooling plasma down aren’t strong enough to swamp the forces heating it up. (The Dec. 5 result has also been called “ignition,” as it marks scientific energy breakeven.)

    “The NIF result in August 2021 changed everything, but this result changes nothing,” said Daniel Jassby, a former research physicist with Princeton University’s plasma laboratory, in a Dec. 13 interview with The Epoch Times.

    At the Dec. 13 press conference, Lawerence Livermore director Kim Budil said that about 300 megajoules of energy drove the experiment as a whole. The target produced about 3.15 megajoules of energy from 2.05 megajoules of energy, according to a press release.

    The latest result and press conference coincides with Congress negotiating a last-minute spending bill. Republican senators have called for their colleagues to wait until after their party takes the House of Representatives in January to finalize the package.

    Jassby did not rule out the possibility that the latest announcement’s timing has something to do with the ongoing spending debate.

    “That could be—that’s standard political activity,” he said.

    The reported breakthrough also coincides with increasing tension between the United States and its nuclear-armed geopolitical rival, Russia, in the midst of the Ukraine war. Lawrence Livermore’s Mark Hermann noted how NIF’s fusion research aided the United States’ nuclear deterrent capabilities.

    The scientists, bureaucrats, and administration officials who spoke on Dec. 13 said the results vindicate decades of earlier researchers who have sought energy breakeven.

    “They never lost sight of this goal,” said White House office of science and technology policy director Arati Prabhakar.

    Yet, an apparent discrepancy emerged as to a plausible timeline for commercial fusion power.

    Budil, of Lawrence Livermore, stated that commercialization could be achieved in “probably decades,” though perhaps not 50 or 60 years.

    “With concerted effort and investment, a few decades of research on the underlying technologies could put us in a position to build a power plant,” she said.

    Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, by contrast, appealed to President Joe Biden’s “decadal vision to get to a commercial fusion reactor within 10 years.”

    She said the latest result “shows that it can be done.”

    When Granholm was asked about that gap by a reporter, Budil jumped in to say that magnetic fusion was more advanced than inertial confinement fusion. However, she did not state that either approach could be realistically commercialized within a decade.

    “With real investment and real focus, that timescale can move closer,” she said.

    Praise and Skepticism

    Some fusion insiders have stressed what they see as the significance of NIF’s contribution.

    A spokesperson for a major international magnetic fusion collaboration called the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) said the results were “a shot of adrenaline for the global fusion R&D enterprise.”

    Tokamaks—the technology at the center of ITER’s work—are still “the closest to commercial deployment,” added ITER spokesperson Laban Coblentz.

    Andrew Holland, the CEO of the Washington-based Fusion Industry Association, said that the announcement on the finding “shows the world that fusion is not science fiction: it will soon be a viable source of energy.”

    He also called for regulation of the emerging fusion sector, adding that the NIF experiment “will give governments around the world further incentive to support the development of commercial fusion energy.”

    Yet other experts who spoke with The Epoch Times sounded more skeptical, particularly with regard to the idea of fusion energy reaching commercialization within a decade.

    “It will take half a century to develop the presently non-existent technologies required for a power reactor based on [inertial confinement fusion], including a practical laser or ion beam,” Jassby said in an email to The Epoch Times.

    In his view, tokamaks remain “highly speculative.”

    “Anyone who predicts commercial fusion before 2050 has a far greater imagination than I do,” said Rod Adams, a Navy nuclear veteran who is a partner with the Nucleation Capital venture fund, in a Dec. 13 email to The Epoch Times.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 12/14/2022 – 21:40

  • Zelensky Aide Accuses Musk Of Censoring Ukraine War On Twitter
    Zelensky Aide Accuses Musk Of Censoring Ukraine War On Twitter

    A senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Elon Musk of hiding reporting on the Ukraine war from Twitter trends.

    Spokesman Mikhail Podoliak blasted the billionaire Twitter CEO for censoring vital Ukraine information. “‘War in Ukraine’ disappearance from Twitter trends. Radical curtailment of tweets mentioning ru-aggression coverage. Users aren’t allowed to register or log into accounts with Ukrainian phone number,” Podoliak wrote Tuesday on Twitter, tagging Musk.

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    The Ukrainian presidency’s office spokesman additionally took a swipe at the ongoing “Twitter files” release, saying he doesn’t expect the issue he’s raising to be covered there. “Elon Musk, I wonder if we will ever see ‘Twitter Files’ about Fall/Winter 2022?” Podoliak questioned. 

    The suggestion was that Musk is seeking to tilt coverage in terms of content that appears on Twitter against anything highlighting “ru-“(Russian)”aggression” – as he wrote in the tweet.

    Some recent local Ukrainian media reports have claimed that users within the country or anyone possessing a Ukrainian phone number can no longer register or log in to Twitter.

    Based on prior official Twitter statements, but not directly addressing the Ukrainian charge, its trending topics are “determined by an algorithm and, by default, are tailored for you based on who you follow, your interests, and your location.” This “identifies topics that are popular now, rather than topics that have been popular for a while or on a daily basis,” according to Twitter.

    Ukrainian leadership has been angered at Musk ever since he grew bolder in criticizing the open-ended US military and financial support to the Ukrainian government, expressing fears of stumbling into a nuclear-armed WWIII scenario. This despite his previously providing Starlink to the war-ravaged country.

    He sparked outrage among Ukraine-supporters with his early October “Russia-Ukraine Peace” Twitter poll and related threads wherein he called out Washington and its rush to confront Russia in Ukraine.

    At that time, Zelensky had even weighed in, condemning Musk. Musk had also engaged some of his irate followers who pointed out that he risked angering many Ukrainians. Musk responded, “You are assuming that I wish to be popular. I don’t care. I do care that millions of people may die needlessly for an essentially identical outcome” – in reference the potential for nuclear war between superpowers over Ukraine. He has since also pledged to clean up the bot accounts, which each side in the Russia-Ukraine conflict has said artificially tilts what gets presented to users.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 12/14/2022 – 21:20

  • China Sees $10 Billion In LNG Tanker Orders In 2022
    China Sees $10 Billion In LNG Tanker Orders In 2022

    By Julianne Geiger of OilPrice.com,

    Three of China’s shipyards won almost a third of this year’s orders to make new LNG carriers, Reuters said on Monday.

    China’s shipyards—only one of which has experience building new LNG tankers—are getting a significant piece of the pie for new LNG carriers, which hit a record this year at 163 orders. The orders that China’s shipyards are seeing tripled this year, to 45, and some of China’s shipmakers that only recently became certified to build the LNG tankers, are even seeing foreign orders for the first time ever.

    China’s LNG tanker orders this year are valued at nearly $10 billion—about five times the order value of last year, Clarksons Research showed, cited by Reuters.

    South Korean shipyards usually get a large share of the LNG tanker orders, but they are already at capacity as they try to service Qatar’s North Field expansion. This has created a backlog for South Korean shipyards, and has increased costs to build LNG tankers. The end result is that even foreign buyers who look favorably on South Korea’s ability to design and build LNG tankers free from problems are now giving a serious look at China—even for companies that have zero experience with the intricacies of LNG shipbuilding. 

    “As more Chinese gas traders engage local shipyards, they will be forced to climb the learning curve and eventually grow the whole industry,” Li Yao, founder of Beijing-based consultancy SIA Energy, told Reuters.

    As of late November, Chinese shipyards had orders for 66 LNG tankers, bringing its total to 21% of all global LNG tanker orders, worth some $60 billion.

    LNG tankers are notoriously difficult to build, and typically take more than two years to complete.

    The LNG boom comes as 20 million tonnes of gas per year is set to ship from the United States. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 12/14/2022 – 21:00

  • Airlines Lobbying Congress To Allow Just One Pilot In The Cockpit
    Airlines Lobbying Congress To Allow Just One Pilot In The Cockpit

    Airlines, in their infinite mission to balance costs, profits, and keeping planes full of passengers alive between two points, might be going a little too far in their latest attempt to cut back.

    According to CBS News, the industry has been quietly lobbing Congress to allow them to use just one pilot in the cockpit instead of two, as is currently required by part 121 of the Federal Aviation Regulations.

    The airlines claim it would quickly solve staffing issues caused by the ongoing pilot shortage, and say that technology has improved to the point where it would be perfectly safe to do so.

    There’s language in a new bill now introduced in Congress — the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill — asking the Federal Aviation Administration to reconsider part 121 and to allow the use of a single pilot operation, first in cargo aircraft. 

    Not surprisingly, airline pilots are loudly protesting this idea, claiming that it would diminish a safety discipline and culture that has been responsible for the safest 25 years in commercial aviation in the history of aviation. Pilots unions argue it’s all about the airlines saving money and could compromise safety. -CBS News

     Unions have pointed to several examples of emergency situations in which two pilots were necessary – such as the “Miracle on the Hudson,” when pilots Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and Jeffrey Skiles worked together to glide a US Airways flight down to New York’s Hudson river after it hit a flock of Canadian geese on takeoff, saving all 150 passengers and crew.

    Meanwhile, 10 days ago an American Eagle flight from Chicago to Columbus had an emergency when one of the two pilots became incapacitated. The co-pilot was able to gain control of the plane, declare an emergency, and safely land back in O’Hare.

    The pilot later died at the hospital.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 12/14/2022 – 20:40

  • Musk Taking Legal Action Against Kid Who Tracks His Plane After "Crazy Stalker" Attack
    Musk Taking Legal Action Against Kid Who Tracks His Plane After “Crazy Stalker” Attack

    Update (2025ET):

    We finally know why the @ElonJet Twitter account was suspended. Musk tweeted:

    “Last night, car carrying lil X in LA was followed by crazy stalker (thinking it was me), who later blocked car from moving & climbed onto hood.”

    Musk then said, “legal action is being taken against Sweeney [the kid who runs @ElonJet] & organizations who supported harm to my family.” 

    Musk also said, “any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info,” adding “posting locations someone traveled to on a slightly delayed basis isn’t a safety problem, so is ok.” 

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    * * * 

    The college kid who created the @ElonJet Twitter account before Elon Musk bought the social media platform has had the account “suspended.” 

    Last Friday, Jack Sweeney pointed out @ElonJet was “search banned,” though he mentioned the account had been “search banned for months before Elon’s takeover. “

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    But now it appears the account that shared publicly-available information about Musk’s private jet locations and had over half a million followers has been “suspended.” 

    On Wednesday morning, Twitter users are chatting away about the suspension. Here’s what some had to say:

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    Nearly a year ago, we told readers about Sweeney and how Musk requested the college kid to take down the account because of security risks. 

    At the time, Sweeney told Musk the price to take down @ElonJet would be a “Model 3.” Musk rejected the offer and told the kid: “I don’t love the idea of being shot by a nutcase.” 

    As we’ve told readers, tracking the private jets of CEOs is nothing new in the hedge fund industry. There are services that some traders pay upwards of $100k to retrieve flight data of the movements of deal-makers. 

    We also said Sweeney would have better luck selling his technology to a hedge fund or even Quandl, a flight-tracking company, rather than letting it stay on Twitter. Now the account has been nuked. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 12/14/2022 – 20:25

  • A Cryptocurrency Victim Turns Journalist To Uncover Scandals
    A Cryptocurrency Victim Turns Journalist To Uncover Scandals

    Authored by Lisa Cosgrove via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    After graduating from the University of Southern California in 2017, Tiffany Fong started several e-commerce businesses, earning passive income while traveling the world. She recently spoke with The Epoch Times about how she lost a lot of money investing in cryptocurrencies, which prompted her to become involved in exposing scandals in the crypto sector such as the FTX debacle.

    Investor and independent journalist Tiffany Fong. (Courtesy of Tiffany Fong)

    Fong’s introduction to cryptos began early on, when a family member gifted her several Bitcoins in 2011. Still in high school at the time, Fong did not think much of the gift.

    By the end of 2011, Bitcoin was worth a mere $4.25. Fong still owns some of the tokens today. The price of Bitcoin peaked at over $68,000 in November last year. Since then, it has fallen dramatically, and is now trading at a little more than $17,000.

    During the crypto bull market of 2017, Fong became more interested in the asset class and its underlying philosophy: freedom from state-issued currencies and the ability to transact with whomever one chooses. After a couple years of crypto-hiatus, Fong began investing more heavily during the bull run of 2021.

    Expanding on her initial Bitcoin holdings, Fong became interested in the decentralized lending platform Celsius. The project’s founder, Alex Mashinsky, would frequently make the rounds on financial media to tout the returns that Celsius users were earning, promising annual returns as high as 18 percent.

    These returns were achievable for a time, but nothing lasts forever.

    Rising interest rates and a crypto bear market quickly exposed the Celsius network as insolvent, forcing a withdrawal freeze in June and bankruptcy filing in July. Fong personally lost $250,000 she had stored on the platform, she said.

    Motivated by her loss, Fong embarked on a mission to uncover what happened. With only a couple hundred followers at the time, she took to YouTube and Twitter to share her investigations.

    After seeing her work on social media, several Celsius employees sent her confidential recordings of Mashinsky speaking at internal meetings. Fong then secured a notable milestone in her journalistic career by publishing the leaked recordings with The New York Times.

    Bankman-Fried

    Fong’s entry into crypto reporting caught the attention of then-FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who began following her work to stay updated on the Celsius situation. The two messaged on Twitter and occasionally kept in touch, according to Fong.

    This relationship would prove fortuitous for Fong’s continued coverage of the crypto space.

    In early November, as FTX underwent a Celsius-like series of events, freezing customer assets and filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Fong reached out to Bankman-Fried. His reputation tarnished and his company in ruins, she did not expect a response from the fallen founder.

    Nevertheless, he granted Fong an interview that would reveal numerous unknowns about the collapsed exchange and provide an interesting look into Bankman-Fried’s character. During their conversation, the FTX founder claimed that he donated equal amounts to both political parties and confessed to lying about Bahamian regulators’ involvement in key FTX decisions.

    Fong told The Epoch Times that she was uncertain whether she could trust the answers provided by Bankman-Fried. “There were some questions I asked him where I did feel he was very clearly being evasive,” she said, later adding that his elusive behavior was intriguing in itself.

    During their November conversation, Fong asked Bankman-Fried about the alleged “back door,” which would have allowed client funds to be siphoned from FTX to its sister company, Alameda Research. He claimed that he is not well-versed in computer programming and, therefore, could not create such a tool, which Fong said she found to be an intentionally imprecise answer.

    At the time of the interview, Fong believed the founder was genuinely remorseful, but mentioned her faith has faded over time. “My views have changed the more he’s talked,” she said, referring to Bankman-Fried’s subsequent appearances in mainstream media, including the New York Times’s DealBook Summit, his sit-down with Good Morning America, and his numerous discussions on Twitter Spaces.

    “On our last call, he did mention that he would be ramping up communication soon, but I did not expect it to this degree,” Fong said, surprised by the scope of Bankman-Fried’s public relations campaign.

    “It was fun being the first stop on [Bankman-Fried’s] apology tour,” Fong jokingly wrote in a tweet on Dec. 7.

    Independent Journalist

    Fong’s success as an independent reporter and brief experience working with legacy media has given her insights into the advantages of the former over the latter.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 12/14/2022 – 20:20

  • Florida Subpoenas Nearly Two Dozen Organizations Pushing Hormones, Transgender Surgeries For Children
    Florida Subpoenas Nearly Two Dozen Organizations Pushing Hormones, Transgender Surgeries For Children

    The state of Florida has subpoenaed almost two dozen medical and academic organizations which are pushing transgender sex change treatments for children, the Daily Caller reports, citing an ongoing lawsuit against a new Medicaid rule.

    The subpoenas, issued by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), and which seek information about internal decision-making processes and leadership structures for pushing hormone treatments and transgender surgeries on minors, went out in November to 20 organizations.

    The organizations signed onto a lawsuit against the state, which implemented a new rule in August to no longer cover “gender-affirming” care with Medicaid.

    “Gender-affirming” care is a euphemism for treatments and procedures that facilitate sex changes, like hormone treatments or sex change surgeries. -Daily Caller

    A preliminary injunction was filed against the Florida law, however federal judge Robert Hinkle denied it in October, ruling that the issue was not Constitutional, rather, applied to the Medicaid statute.

    Subpoena recipients include;  the American Pediatric Association, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, Pediatric Endocrine Society, Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine and Yale University, according to the Caller, which notes that Yale is included despite not being a medical organization because Yale professors have been involved in pushing against the new rule.

    All 20 organizations have either promoted or employ individuals who promote “gender-affirming” care for minors. The request includes documents pertaining to deliberations involving gender dysphoria and related care, along with policies which have been adopted, side effects associated with those policies and treatments, and how members voted to support said policies.

    Plaintiffs in the case have argued that the Medicaid rule violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 12/14/2022 – 20:00

  • WaPo Corrects OpEd Conflating Lack Of Black Argentinian Footballers With "History Of Black Erasure"
    WaPo Corrects OpEd Conflating Lack Of Black Argentinian Footballers With “History Of Black Erasure”

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    The Washington Post has been forced to issue a correction to an op-ed that asked ‘Why doesn’t Argentina have more black players in their World Cup lineup?’ after Argentinian people pointed out that the country is overwhelmingly white and not obsessed with virtue signalling about race.

    The piece claimed that it is a ‘myth’ that Argentina is a white nation, with the author Erika Denise Edwards, an associate professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, suggesting her rantings uncover a “history of Black erasure in Argentina.”

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    In the piece Edwards argues that in the 18th century, a third of Argentina’s population was black and that since then there has been an agenda to ‘whiten’ the country.

    “They believed that to join the ranks of Germany, France and England, Argentina had to displace its black population — both physically and culturally,” she further asserts.

    She also points to census figures from 2010, claiming they prove that “roughly one percent” of Argentina’s population of 46 million is black.

    After people pointed out that this is just not true, The Washington Post issued a correction noting that the actual number was “far less than” one percent.

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    Others noted that real life isn’t a Disney movie where each character is a different race:

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    Translation: “The stupid note from [Washington Post] about the lack of blacks in the Argentine team left me disgusted. The United States is obsessed with race, Argentina is not. The United States chose to keep them separate, Argentina mixed them. But they insist on exporting their neuroses.”

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    The obsession with diversity and race in national sports is purely an American and British phenomenon. People in other countries are not concerned with obsessing about skin colour over skill and talent.

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    *  *  *

    Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

    In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here. Support our sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Also, we urgently need your financial support here.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 12/14/2022 – 19:40

  • Chinese Hunker Down Despite Zero-Covid Policy Ending Amid Virus Wave
    Chinese Hunker Down Despite Zero-Covid Policy Ending Amid Virus Wave

    China faces a surge in Covid-19 infections as Beijing dismantles strict pandemic controls and embraces a faster reopening of the economy. The abrupt shift in policy is very problematic because not everyone is celebrating the easing of zero Covid rules, as many are hunkering down amid the winter Covid wave. 

    The sudden move away from zero Covid rules after nearly three years of Beijing following a stringent playbook used to eliminate the virus has yet to translate into economic success. People are staying home, avoiding stores and restaurants, and other public areas as they panic hoard staple items to survive the Covid wave, which could impact an estimated 80 to 90% of the Chinese population, according to a new projection by Feng Zijian, a former deputy chief at China’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

    WSJ explained that people in large cities such as Shanghai and Guangzhou stay home despite the shift in government policy. They spoke with one Beijing resident, Qian Yingqin, who said her family hadn’t left their home since Sunday. 

    “I’ve never seen fewer people on the streets and more people wearing masks outside in the past three years,” Yingqin said, who recently postponed a trip to Dali, a tourism hot spot in southwestern China. She warned: “It’s simply impossible to fend off the virus anymore.”

    Bloomberg Intelligence’s chief pharmaceutical analyst Sam Fazeli said in a television interview on Tuesday that Beijing’s mindset since pivoting away from the zero-tolerance policy is “there’s not so much we can do, we’ve done the best we can. We’ve got the blueprint for what the West did and what happened, so let’s just let it rip – which is what I think is going on.” 

    “As China enters its first winter with Omicron, things could get worse before getting better,” Citigroup analysts told clients last month. 

    Bloomberg’s Fazeli said the reopening could result in some 5 million people hospitalized and up to 700,000 deaths. 

    Economists and analysts have been widely optimistic about the current path of reopening, but others warn it’s going to be a bumpy ride:

    “There is a problem with people thinking the pullback of Covid-zero measures is equivalent to the economy reopening, which it is not,” said Leland Miller, chief executive officer of China Beige Book, a research firm that conducts surveys.

    Even though Morgan Stanley economists upgraded China’s 2023 GDP growth target due to reopening, they admitted economic growth would suffer some near-term pain due to the Covid infection wave that might disrupt production and consumption. 

    WSJ pointed out high-frequency data, such as mobility and internet search trends, that don’t signal an imminent rebound in economic growth but rather one that will be muted, at least for the winter season, until infections wane.

    Some recent data on mobility patterns show increases in traffic and subway usage in some cities, though the numbers remain depressed compared with 2021, when China was largely free of Covid cases. Sales of cars and properties also fared better last week than the previous week, giving a glimpse of what China’s economy could look like more broadly as it works through its Covid cases.

    But behavior in places where Covid is becoming most prevalent—especially Beijing—suggest a rocky stretch in the near term. Searches for the words “fever” and “rapid antigen test” on Baidu, China’s dominant search engine, saw the highest surges over the past week in Beijing, according to economists from Nomura.

    Li Jianxing, the co-founder of InstaShake, a milkshake chain in Shanghai, warned:

    “There’s no sign of a strong recovery just yet, because people are still afraid of getting the virus.” 

    Logic doesn’t seem to apply to Beijing’s grand reopening of its economy during winter when spring would’ve been a much better time. Or perhaps the government wants to infect as many people as possible to get the Covid wave over with? 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 12/14/2022 – 19:20

  • Latin America's Slow Descent Into Interventionism
    Latin America’s Slow Descent Into Interventionism

    Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

    The latest estimates from consensus for the main Latin American economies show a continent facing a lost decade. The region GDP growth has been downgraded yet again to a modest 1.1% for 2023, with rising inflation and weakening gross fixed investment. Considering that the region was already recovering at a slower pace than other emerging markets, the outlook is exceedingly worrying.

    The poor growth and high inflation expectations are even worse when we consider that consensus estimates still consider a tailwind coming from rising commodity prices and more exports due to the China re-opening.

    How can a region with such high potential as Latin America be condemned to stagflation? The answer is simple. The rise of populist governments in Colombia, Chile and Brazil have increased the concerns about investor security, property rights and monetary discipline.

    Argentina is expected to post a modest 0.2% GDP growth in 2023 with 95% inflation and a debt to GDP of 72%. Years of monetary and fiscal excess have destroyed the purchasing power of the local currency and dilapidated the prospect of real growth. In Argentina, poverty has escalated to 36.5% of the population and the government policies double down on interventionism, price controls and higher taxes with the expected negative result. Despite the tailwind of high demand for soja and cereals globally, Argentina dives deeper into Venezuela territory, where consensus expects another year of weak 3% bounce after destroying 80% of the output in a decade, with enormous inflation, 132%.

    The problem? The new governments in Chile and Colombia are announcing policies that resemble those of the “Peronist left” in Argentina and the Fernandez government in Argentina is looking more like Maduro’s Venezuela each day.

    Chile is expected to post no growth in 2023 despite an estimated higher copper price, and 15% inflation. Colombia, which showed the strongest recovery from the covid-19 crisis until 2022, in which consensus expects a 7% growth, is feared to stop on its tracks and deliver a poor 1.6% GDP growth with elevated inflation, close to 7%.

    In Brazil, consensus expects a poor 0.9% growth with 5% inflation. It does not look as bad as Argentina, but the first major announcement of newly elected president Lula has already triggered all alarm bells. Lula stated that he wanted to change the constitution to lift the spending limit and increase government spending even more. The Brazil currency and 10-year bond reacted aggressively to this risk because everyone can remember that Lula’s “economic miracle” a decade ago came from massively high oil prices and, when the commodity bonanza ended, his successor Rousseff sent the country to a deep crisis where spending soared and growth stagnated.

    You may say that the rise of populism in Latin America is the consequence of the failed classic liberal policies implemented before, but that would be a grave mistake. Most of these countries have not seen open and liberal economies but crony states. Statism failed and more statism fails even faster.

    Global investors see the enormous potential of Latin America. However, when governments start to impose interventionist policies, put at risk property rights with expropriation threats and at the same time massively increase monetary imbalances printing currencies with no real global and diminishing local demand, the combination is destructive.

    Why do citizens vote for politicians that implement confiscatory and extractive policies? In many economic debates in Latin American media one can hear the word “redistribution” repeated incessantly. Many believe that wealth is like a pied that can be cut and distributed at will, but ignore that wealth is either created or destroyed, it does not stay flat.

    Interventionist policies destroy wealth in three ways: First, attacking independent institutions and introducing political random decisions in legal and investor security which erodes growth potential, investment, and employment. Second, by increasing taxes on the productive sector to pay for massive subsidies paid in a constantly depreciated currency, which creates a double negative of lower growth, weaker local businesses and a dependent subclass that rarely emerges. The productive sector ends forced to operate in the underground economy to avoid confiscatory taxes. Third, interventionism destroys the purchasing power of the local currency by breaking all the rules of prudent monetary policy and financing an ever-increasing government size printing a constantly devalued currency. The combination of these three factors means poverty and stagnation.

    Why do interventionist governments do this when they know -and they do- it does not work?

    Monetary destruction is the easiest and most effective way of nationalization of an economy. Printing currency is a form of expropriation of wealth, as money creation is never neutral, it benefits the government and hurts real wages and savers.

    Why would “populist” governments impose policies that perpetuate poverty and hurt the people? Interventionism does not aim to increase prosperity but take full control of a nation. The three mentioned policies are aimed at grasping full control of a country and make the population dependent, not deliver growth and improve social conditions.

    Extractive and confiscatory policies are not social measures, they are profoundly anti-social. The worst is that once implemented, it becomes difficult to unwind. We should learn the lesson everywhere because it is coming to your country soon.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 12/14/2022 – 19:00

  • Russia Reaching Out To North Korea, Iran As It Burns Through 40-Year-Old Ammo: Pentagon
    Russia Reaching Out To North Korea, Iran As It Burns Through 40-Year-Old Ammo: Pentagon

    The Pentagon this week is suggesting that Russia is growing increasingly desperate in maintaining steady ammo supplies, with senior officials describing 40-year old Soviet-era ammo being used, claiming Moscow is turning to countries like North Korea, and relying increasingly on Iran. 

    “They [Moscow] have drawn from ageing ammunition stockpiles, which does indicate that they are willing to use older ammunition, some of which was originally produced more than 40 years ago,” a senior Pentagon official told a press briefing.

    This makes it potentially faulty, unreliable, and even dangerous for the Russian troops operating the heavy guns, the official described: “In other words, you load the ammunition and you cross your fingers and hope it’s going to fire or when it lands that it’s going to explode.”

    AFP/Getty Images

    The official went on the predict that Russia could deplete its up-to-date ammunition stocks by early 2023 if it didn’t seek to tap both foreign suppliers and older ammo. Further the official alleged the chief foreign suppliers are likely to be Iran and the North Koreans.

    “Russia, has been seeking to get additional capabilities from Iran,” the official said. “And you know, the [National Security Council] put out a fair amount of information on this last week. You know, in a lot of ways, given this current state of Russia’s munitions stockpile, it’s not surprising that they continue to look at opportunities to work with countries like Iran and with – and North Korea to try to gain additional capability.”

    When pressed for evidence of the assertions, the Pentagon official cited that the Ukrainian army is increasingly finding duds and unexploded Russian ordinance littering the battlefield, which is a sign of reliance on older, undependable munitions: 

    “And so, ultimately, broadly speaking, our assessment is that Russia — the Russian military will very likely struggle to replenish its reserve of fully-serviceable artillery and rocket ammunition through foreign suppliers, increased domestic production and refurbishment.

    So, again, this is why it’s not surprising that they’re reaching out to countries like Iran and North Korea to try to obtain some more dependable ammunition.”

    The US spokesman continued, “we do assess that they have used quite a bit of their stockpile and that their numbers – the numbers available to them have really diminished their ability to sustain their current rate of fire when it comes to PGMs [precision-guided munitions].”

    This latest assessment also echoed the prior words of Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, who said in early December as the war entered its tenth month that Russia is “quite quickly” burning through its military stockpiles.

    “It’s really pretty extraordinary,” Haines said. “Our own sense is that they are not capable of indigenously producing what they are expending at this stage. That’s why you see them going to other countries effectively to try to get ammunition.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 12/14/2022 – 18:40

  • The Slow Strangulation Of The World Economy
    The Slow Strangulation Of The World Economy

    Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via DailyReckoning.com,

    I was visiting with a friend recently and she was recounting her early panic over COVID. She has kids and loves them. As a mom, she believed her first duty was to protect them from the bad virus that was floating around. She went into full freak-out mode, keeping the kids indoors and spacing them out. Her heart never stopped racing.

    One day, she looked out her window and saw that her neighbor’s dog was loose on her front lawn. She ran outside and started screaming at her neighbor to get that dog off her lawn immediately and never allow such an outrage again.

    Why?

    Because she had heard on CNN that dogs carry Covid. She believed that the dog was spreading Covid around and that this would waft through her windows and infect her kids.

    Now, this is a brilliant woman, educated at a prep school that no normal person could afford and attended a top school before becoming a partner in a firm that serves only high-end clients.

    Moreover, she is herself brilliant and stable, and not politically left-wing at all. She is sober and strong. But Covidophobia snagged even her. Simply amazing.

    I had not remembered the weeks during which we were supposed to hate on people’s pets. We can add that to the endless litany of nonsense we’ve been through.

    The Fauci Effect

    Why the attack on pets? Well, the frightening Fauci in August took a day or two to work with his co-author from the National Institutes of Health on an academic article explaining the bigger picture. The problem, they explained, began 12,000 years ago. That’s when humankind started farming, killing land animals, and moving around from place to place.

    That caused disease to spread! So they say. It only got worse once we got to cities. Then everyone started mixing. Icky germs were everywhere. Next thing you know, we spread smallpox and cholera and god knows what else.

    Humankind was dooming itself with its ridiculous ambition to do more than live in a hut by the river and grab fish to eat! We are very, very bad.

    That’s the origin of COVID, they wrote, which is why we need a “new infrastructure of human existence.” This will require emptying out the cities, getting rid of pets, abolishing large events, and forbidding people from meeting in groups in restaurants and things. Only once we massively reduce the population and go back to a state of nature can we fully conquer disease.

    This is their vision. It’s pure insanity. Worse than Marx. Worse than anything even the nuttiest philosopher from the ancient world ever wrote. Worse than the devil himself.

    And yet this was the guy who was practically running the world for the better part of two years. He was not only scripting the pandemic response. He was in charge of social media. He was in charge of economics. He was in charge of technology. He was the totalitarian dictator for the U.S. and really for the whole world by influence.

    Nonstop Wreckage

    It’s truly hard to imagine how it came to be that this pest ended up dismantling the whole of the Trump administration. He was the terrifying guru that even Trump could not swat away. As a result, Trump fell in the polls and lost, taking the House and Senate with him. The economy was wrecked. The Constitution was abolished.

    Now we have terrifying inflation without end. In many parts of the world, people are having to choose between eating and heating. School kids are behind by two years. We’ve lost three years of lifespan just in the U.S. The whole country is utterly bankrupt. Trade is wrecked. Business is demoralized. 5.8 million people are missing from U.S. labor rolls right now.

    What an unspeakable disaster. Even writing this, it sounds like fiction. It’s not. It’s our reality, and it is getting worse by the day.

    Media won’t discuss the fullness of the calamity. Mostly we just pretend as if life is normal. What else can we do? Well, there are substances we can take, and millions take them if only to lessen the pain. They lead to early death. Excess deaths are through the roof right now, as ill-health spreads across the land.

    Oh, but won’t the Fed save us? They are raising interest rates. The 30-year mortgage is at 6%. The demand side of the housing market is in free fall. The supply side is suddenly flat. Prices are still rising. This is what an inflationary recession looks and feels like.

    Faucian Economics

    I’ve never been one for conspiracy theory but one would have to be stupid not to see that there is something of a plan here. They are attacking cities, enterprise, economic growth, and even procreation too. How? In every conceivable way.

    I’ve given up trust, all trust, in these people, their plans, and even their products. They are dangerous. Their vision of the world is even more so.

    We used to say that socialism cannot work. What does that mean? It means that it will only make people poorer and more miserable. But what if you have an ideology that is actually intended to do that? Can Faucian economics work? Yes, if you mean to reduce the population, spread misery, end progress, abolish all comforts, empty the cities, cause people to freeze to death, and only allow what’s left of the population to live off bugs.

    We need to get real. These people are truly up to no good. They have gotten their way. What’s more, the gang that did this is not subject to the voters, so elections might not make a bit of difference, even if they turn out well.

    The Root of the Problem

    The real problem is much more fundamental. It is structural. It is philosophical. It can be defeated but not through the usual ways. In the meantime, we really need to wake up, all of us, and recognize that nothing is normal anymore.

    Surviving this period in history will require cleverness and courageous action. We simply cannot ignore the trends all around us and expect to survive.

    It’s bad enough to realize the utter stupidity of the policies that are wrecking the world. It’s worse suddenly to realize that they are not stupid at all but rather the product of a diabolical mission to ruin civilization itself.

    But in truth, it is all deliberate, I’m sorry to say. The people who run the world today have no interest in a thriving social order and civilization.

    The means to survive them is to outsmart them.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 12/14/2022 – 18:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Dec 14

Today’s News 14th December 2022

  • If They Get The Opportunity, They Will Transform Our Society Into A Dystopian Hellscape
    If They Get The Opportunity, They Will Transform Our Society Into A Dystopian Hellscape

    Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

    If the elite get their way, our world will eventually look far more bizarre than any science fiction author ever imagined.  If you haven’t figured it out by now, the elite are control freaks, and they are envisioning a future in which they are in control of all of our lives from birth to death.  Instead of being born and raised the traditional way, humans will be mass produced in “birthing pods”.  Those that are genetically superior will be permitted to live, while those that are genetically inferior will be “harvested” and any spare parts that are not of value for scientific research will be discarded.  As children grow, education will be a top priority, but only material specifically approved by the elite will be permitted.  In fact, “free thought” and “free speech” will be a thing of the past if the elite get total control.  Everyone will think the same way, because no other alternative will be allowed.  And anyone that shows signs of rebellion will quickly have their digital currency privileges revoked.  I know that all of this may sound quite strange to many of you, but this is what our society will look like if the wildest hopes and dreams of the elite actually come to fruition.

    This week, an incredibly creepy concept video that was created by a German molecular biologist named Hashem Al-Ghaili is making headlines all over the globe.

    In this video, children are grown in a huge facility that contains hundreds of transparent “birthing pods”…

    A new concept video takes viewers on tour through The EctoLife Artificial Womb Facility, where hundreds of fetuses sit in transparent pods that are temperature controlled and feature an umbilical cord to receive oxygen and nutrients.

    If you have not seen the video yet, you can view it right here.

    I have to admit, that is one of the creepiest things that I have seen in a long time.

    We are being told that one of the big selling points of such a system would be the ability to create “designer babies” that are genetically superior to humans that are born the normal way…

    “And if you want your baby to stand out and have a brighter future, our Elite Package offers you the opportunity to genetically engineer the embryo before implanting it into the artificial womb. Thanks to CRISPR-Cas 9 gene editing tool, you can edit any trait of your baby through a wide range of over 300 genes. By genetically engineering a set of genes, the Elite Package allows you to customize your baby’s eye color, hair color, skin tone, physical strength, height, and level of intelligence. It also allows you to fix any inherited genetic diseases that are part of your family history so that your baby and their offspring will live a healthy comfortable life free of genetic diseases.”

    So what about the embryos that are genetically inferior or that are simply not wanted for one reason or another?

    Well, they would either be used for other purposes or they would be discarded in the trash.

    In addition to getting “perfect babies” every time, there would also no longer be any need for the pain of childbirth in such a system…

    While the video is focused on improving birth rates, it also notes that the birthing farm is for women who fear pregnancy because of the pain and recovery needed after going into labor.

    ‘Say goodbye to the pain of childbirth and muscle contractions,’ the video narrator says.

    Of course the elite would not want such “perfect children” to be ruined by “misinformation” as they grow older, and so everything that they would be exposed to would be strictly monitored and controlled.

    Sadly, such a system of thought control has already been rapidly developing all around us.

    We already knew that big tech companies were colluding with the government on a very deep level to suppress free speech, but the “Twitter Files” have demonstrated that things were actually far worse than any of us imagined.

    Government officials systematically targeted specific individuals and specific viewpoints for censorship, and in many cases big tech companies were more than eager to do what they were being asked to do.

    It is NOT okay for the government to suppress free speech as long as they can get private companies to do the dirty work for them.

    Our most basic constitutional rights have been trampled on over and over again, and those that were involved need to be held accountable.

    And if we don’t stand up now, they will just keep on doing it.

    Because this is what the elite desperately want.

    They want a future in which the flow of information is tightly controlled by them.

    If you are a rebel that insists on putting out “misinformation”, the elite envision a system in which such miscreants are dealt with quickly and efficiently.

    Today, the elite do not have direct control over our finances.

    But in a future where cash is banned and we are all forced to use their digital currencies, that would all change.

    Everything that we buy and sell would be tracked, and our “currency privileges” could be revoked at any time if our social credit scores drop too low.

    Of course government-controlled digital currencies are not ready for widespread use yet, but they are coming.

    In fact, just this week we learned that the Bank of England “has begun consultations on implementing a Central Bank Digital Currency”…

    The de facto head of His Majesty’s Treasury announced this week that the Bank of England has begun consultations on implementing a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) that could usher in the globalist vision of a cashless society in which all transactions are traceable by the government.

    Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt revealed that, as a part of his ‘Edinburgh Reforms’ of Britain’s financial services, the Bank of England will begin consultations on the design of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) which would act as a digital version of the pound sterling.

    Meanwhile, the EU has also been working on a new “digital euro”.

    And the Federal Reserve is now testing a new “digital dollar” for the United States.

    Do you think that it is just a coincidence that all of these digital currencies are being developed simultaneously?

    The truth is that the elite are actively trying to create the dystopian version of the future that they envision for all of us.

    Unfortunately, most people still do not understand what they are trying to do, and so it is imperative for all of us to try to wake up as many as we can while there is still time.

    *  *  *

    It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 12/14/2022 – 00:05

  • China Air Travel Demand Soars As Zero Covid Eases
    China Air Travel Demand Soars As Zero Covid Eases

    Beijing’s abrupt end to zero Covid policies that shuttered factories and cities and crushed economic growth in the world’s second-largest economy has produced at least one of the first signs of green shoots: Air travel rebound.

    Chinese aviation data company VariFlight reported domestic flight activity soared to 65% of pre-pandemic levels Monday, from only 22% on Nov. 29, according to Bloomberg. Thousands of flights are returning to the skies as air travel demand rebounds ahead of Lunar New Year next month. 

    Surging air travel demand is expected to increase airfare prices for top travel spots such as major cities from Beijing to Shanghai and the resort island of Hainan. Dialing back strict pandemic control measures that will boost air travel comes ahead Lunar New Year, which before Covid, was the world’s biggest mass migration event.

    “If you look at around the world, air ticket prices are materially higher than in 2019.

    “But when you look at China’s domestic air tickets, even into the third quarter of 2022, it’s about 15% lower than that of 2019,” Parash Jain, head of transport research for Asia Pacific at HSBC Holdings Plc., said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Monday. 

    Guo Lechun, an analyst with the online travel website Qunar, expects Lunar New Year bookings to reach the highest levels in three years or about 80% of pre-pandemic levels. 

    “Ctrip.com said air travel searches jumped 900% on Dec. 7, the day the government announced the dismantling of most Covid restrictions, including mass testing and snap lockdowns,” Bloomberg said, adding searches on travel websites exploded hours after Beijing eased zero Covid policies. 

    But with the easing of zero Covid, there has been a sharp increase in China’s Covid infections. There are risks that at least one million Chinese people are at risk of dying from Covid this winter, according to Financial Times.  

    S&P Global Commodity Insights expects jet fuel demand to rise as domestic travel flourishes. Reopening China will certainly involve increased crude and refined imports in the coming months (remember what Goldman said …), perhaps putting a floor in energy prices unless the global economy slides into recession in 2023.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 12/13/2022 – 23:45

  • Rep. Lauren Boebert Wins Reelection, Recount Confirms
    Rep. Lauren Boebert Wins Reelection, Recount Confirms

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

    Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) will serve another term in Congress after a recount showed she triumphed in her reelection bid, Colorado officials confirmed late Dec. 12.

    Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas, on Aug. 6, 2022. (Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times)

    The mandatory recount, triggered because the margin between Boebert and her challenger was within 0.5 percent, “reconfirmed that Representative Lauren Boebert is the winner of the race,” the office of Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said.

    Boebert represents Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.

    A recount of a Colorado House race also showed that Marine veteran Robert Marshall, a Democrat, won.

    “The mandatory recount for U.S. Congressional District 3 and permissive recount of House District 43 are complete and have confirmed the results of the races,” Griswold said in a statement.

    “Colorado’s elections are safe, secure, and accurate,” she added. “I commend the election workers from across the state and my office for conducting these recounts and for their continued work to make Colorado the best place to cast a ballot.”

    Boebert, 35, has not commented on the development, but shared posts on social media noting Griswold’s announcement.

    Boebert said over the weekend that the recount confirmed her win.

    “I am happy to report all the counties in Colorado’s 3rd District have completed their recounts. We’ve won this election, as expected, and I’m headed back to represent you in Washington, D.C.,” she said in a video.

    Recount Change

    Before the recount, Boebert led by 550 votes over Adam Frisch, the Democrat who was seeking to unseat her, out of about 327,000 cast.

    The recount ended with Boebert losing three votes and Frisch gaining one.

    The final count was 163,839 votes for Boebert and 163,293 votes for Frisch.

    State Rep. Kurt Huffman, a Republican, and Marshall, who left the Republican Party in 2017 over disenchantment with former President Donald Trump, each lost a single vote.

    “1 vote deducted from both opponent & me. W/smaller base total & same vote margin, % win margin increased VERY slightly 4 us. LoL,” Marshall wrote on Twitter.

    Frisch had already conceded and had asked supporters not to donate to him, noting that the recount was unlikely to change many votes.

    “The CO Secretary of State just certified our election. Just as we expected, the vote total didn’t shift by more than a few votes,” Frisch said. [delete]

    He claimed a “moral victory” because of how close the race was and said that he was confident “the coalition of Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters we built throughout this campaign to reject hate and extremism in Southern and Western Colorado will grow into the future.”

    Huffman had already conceded in November.

    “The final election results are in and although the outcome isn’t what we had hoped for, I am proud of our team and our campaign. Representative Marshall, I wish you well,” he said at the time.

    Republican Majority

    Boebert’s race is the final call for the midterm elections. The win means Republicans will have 222 seats when the new Congress is seated in January 2023. Democrats will have 212.

    That’s a mirror image of the start of the 117th Congress, when Democrats had 222 seats and Republicans had 212.

    Republicans flipped control of the lower chamber with key wins in multiple states, including California, Florida, and New York.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 12/13/2022 – 23:25

  • Cybersecurity Incident Report At California Finance Department
    Cybersecurity Incident Report At California Finance Department

    Ransomware is one of the most significant cybersecurity issues at all levels of government. The latest hack was reported Monday by the California Cybersecurity Integration Center (Cal-CSIC) that a cybersecurity incident involved the California Department of Finance.

    A statement published by Cal-CSIC described the threat as an “intrusion” that was “identified through coordination with state and federal security partners.”

    “While we cannot comment on specifics of the ongoing investigation, we can share that no state funds have been compromised, and the Department of Finance is continuing its work to prepare the Governor’s Budget that will be released next month,” Cal-CSIC said. 

    According to Bloomberg, the Russia-affiliated hacking group “LockBit” claimed on their blog that they swiped as much as 76GB of data, including IT, financial documents, confidential data, and “sexual proceedings in court.” 

    Cybernews reported LockBit threatened to leak data if unspecified demands were not met by Christmas Eve. Cybersecurity experts say such demands usually involve cryptocurrency. 

    Governor Gavin Newsom must unveil his budget for the next fiscal year by Jan. 10. Bloomberg added as of Monday afternoon, “the state’s website for past and current budgets remained inaccessible.” 

     

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 12/13/2022 – 23:05

  • Former CNN Producer Pleads Guilty In Pedo Scandal
    Former CNN Producer Pleads Guilty In Pedo Scandal

    Former CNN producer John Griffin, who worked ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with Chris Cuomo, pleaded guilty on Monday in federal court to using interstate commerce to entice and coerce a 9-year-old girl to engage in sexual activity as his Vermont ski house.

    This is a different CNN pedophile than Jake Tapper’s former producer, Rick Saleeby, who resigned after it emerged that he solicited sexually explicit photos of an underage girl.

    Griffin admitted to meeting the girl’s mother on a website during the summer of 2020, after which he persuaded her to bring the 9-year-old child to his Ludlow, Vermont ski home for illegal sexual activity, AP reports.

    According to the Daily Mail, Griffin ‘used Google Hangouts and Kik to convince the mothers that a “woman is a woman regardless of her age,” and that “women should be sexually subservient and inferior to men,” according to the indictment.

    In June of 2020, Griffin advised a mother of 9- and 13-year-old daughters that the mother’s responsibility was to see that her older daughter was “trained properly.”  Griffin later transferred over $3,000 to the mother for plane tickets so the mother and her 9-year-old daughter could fly from Nevada to Boston’s Logan airport.  The mother and child flew to Boston in July of 2020, where Griffin picked them up in his Tesla and drove them to his Ludlow house.  At the house, the daughter was directed to engage in, and did engage in, unlawful sexual activity.  

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

    Griffin, who originally pleaded not guilty to three counts, was arrested on Dec. 10, 2021, a day after he was indicted by a grand jury. He worked for CNN for around eight years, and was fired following his arrest.

    Griffin also allegedly attempted to entice two other children over the internet to engage in sexual activity – proposing a “virtual training session” in a video chat in April 2020 which would involve instructing a mother and her 14-year-old daughter to get naked and touch each other at his direction. 

    In June 2020, Griffin proposed to the purported mother of a 16-year-old that she take a “little mother-daughter trip” to his ski house for sexual training involving the minor.

    Griffin faces 10 years to life in prison when he’s sentenced on March 20, 2023, and must pay full restitution to the victims – an amount which is yet-to-be determined by the court. He also faces a $250,000 fine and other fees, and has agreed to forfeit his Tesla, electronics, and donate half the proceeds from his home in Vermont – and a Mercedes Benz, into the court registry.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 12/13/2022 – 22:25

  • Which Countries Are Most Influenced By China?
    Which Countries Are Most Influenced By China?

    Authored by RFE/RL Staff via OilPrice.com,

    • A new index measures China’s influence around the world.

    • The China Index ranks Pakistan atop a list of 82 countries.

    • Germany is the highest-ranked European country at 19th and the United States leads North America in 21st position.

    Pakistan is the country in the world that is the most influenced by China, according to a new study that measures Beijing’s expanding global sway.

    The China Index — a database relaunched on December 8 by DoubleThink Labs, a Taiwan-based research organization — ranks the South Asian country atop a list of 82 other countries around the world, saying that its links to and dependency on Beijing in terms of foreign and domestic policy, technology, and the economy make it particularly susceptible to Chinese influence.

    Behind Pakistan, Southeast Asia features prominently in the rankings, with Cambodia and Singapore listed in second and third, followed by Thailand. The Philippines is seventh and Malaysia is 10th. South Africa is the first African country at No. 5, where it is tied with Peru, the highest-ranked South American country.

    Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, which border China’s western Xinjiang Province, are the Central Asian countries most influenced by Beijing, coming in at eighth and ninth place on the index.

    Meanwhile, Germany is the highest-ranked European country at 19th and the United States leads North America in 21st position.

    “A major goal of [of this database] is to raise awareness around the world about the different aspects of Chinese influence and what that can actually look like,” Min Hsuan-Wu, the co-founder and CEO of Doublethink Labs, told RFE/RL.

    “We’ve taken a much broader and nuanced look at what influence can be, which can tell us more about what Beijing is actually doing and the different ways it can apply pressure.”

    In compiling the China Index, the research team focused on nine categories to track influence around the world that include higher education, domestic politics, economic ties, foreign policy, law enforcement, media, military cooperation, cultural links, and technology.

    Wu says that this type of system leads to a more subtle understanding that challenges some assumptions about the levers of Chinese influence, most crucially around economics and trade.

    “There’s no one clear pattern for how China influences a country, but from the data we compiled, the economy isn’t the determinative one,” he said.

    “You can be economically independent but be tied in other ways, like with the military or a large Chinese diaspora that can be more influential.”

    Spotlight On Pakistan, Central Asia

    Given the diverse factors shaping the ranking system, Pakistan’s leading position is no surprise to longtime observers of the country’s relationship with Beijing, which was forged in the early days of the Cold War.

    The South Asian country is home to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a centerpiece of Beijing’s globe-spanning Belt and Road Initiative in which Chinese entities have funded and built hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure projects in the last decade.

    Pakistan’s ties with China, however, have ballooned across nearly every category used to compile its ranking in the index, especially when it comes to areas like military ties, technology, and foreign policy.

    Shahzeb Jillani, a veteran journalist who helped compile research on Pakistan used for the database, says that many Pakistanis may be surprised to see their country ranking so high, but he hopes the findings will lead to greater debate and reflection about Islamabad’s deepening ties with Beijing.

    “One can only hope that this will encourage Pakistanis to debate the pros and cons of the relationship and what it could mean for the future,” he said.

    Central Asia has also seen its relationship with Beijing expand in recent years.

    While trade and investment were an early impetus, Chinese influence now plays a growing role in foreign policy, local media, and increasingly in defense and security. Following Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine, many analysts also see Central Asian countries deepening their China ties as they seek to diversify from Moscow.

    While Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan rank in the top 10, Kazakhstan holds 15th place in the rankings, with Uzbekistan in the 24th spot, and Turkmenistan — which sells a large portion of its natural gas to China but remains geopolitically isolated — in 45th position.

    Measuring Influence

    Though the database includes just 82 countries, DoubleThink Labs plans to expand it in the future, especially across Africa, another area of rising Chinese influence recently, and to Russia, which declared a “no limits” partnership with Beijing in February.

    Wu says he hopes the China Index will be a valuable tool for comparison that can be used by researchers, activists, journalists, and watchdog groups around the world to get a better snapshot of the complex factors affecting their regions and the nuanced ways influence can be exercised.

    For instance, Britain is ranked the second-highest European country, 27th on the index. It is something that Martin Thorley, an independent academic who did research on the United Kingdom for the database, says is the result of local engagement through academia and ties forged between British cities and regions with their Chinese counterparts over the years, rather than at the state level.

    Wu adds that it’s hard to discern exactly how one country gets influenced more than another and that there’s no definitive “playbook” for Chinese influence. Rather, he says the recent research shows that Chinese policymakers tend to target certain countries within a region that have a lower barrier to entry and then branch outwards to neighbors based on the opportunities available.

    “There are some countries in every region that rank high on our index and can be seen as an entry point,” Wu said. “There’s lots of collaboration through one country and then it expands out.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 12/13/2022 – 22:05

  • Are Peru's Exports In Jeopardy As Social Unrest Worsens?
    Are Peru’s Exports In Jeopardy As Social Unrest Worsens?

    Peru’s president was pushed out of power and jailed hours after attempting to close congress and seize extraordinary powers last week. Political chaos spilled over into the streets and sparked social unrest. By Saturday, Peru’s new president, Dina Boluarte, established a moderate cabinet to calm fears, but political and social turmoil spilled over into the new week.

    There are increasing concerns in the South American country that instability could spark trade disruptions at major ports. On Monday, Bloomberg titled a note called “Peru’s Political Unrest Puts Global Fruit Supplies in Jeopardy.” 

    The Peruvian fruit trade with the US has dramatically increased in the last seven years. Fruits such as blueberries and grapes from the South American country end up on supermarket shelves in the US. Any disruption could impact prices or cause shortages. 

    However, Rabobank International’s David Magana spoke with Bloomberg about the Peruvian fruit trade amid all the chaos. He said:

    “The Peruvian fruit industry has become an exporting powerhouse despite political instability.”

    Crowds blocked highways and disrupted transportation networks across several metro areas last week. An escalation of political and social turmoil has gained momentum as anti-government protesters blocked roads and stormed the international airport Monday.

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    There has been no mention of major marine ports blocked, but one could assume some transportation networks are experiencing bottlenecks due to the chaos. 

    Oh yes, and we almost forgot… 

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 12/13/2022 – 21:45

  • Restricting Gun Rights Won't Prevent Tragedy
    Restricting Gun Rights Won’t Prevent Tragedy

    Submitted by Erich Pratt of Gun Owners of America.,

    As 2022 comes to a close, the Biden Administration has renewed its calls for gun control, including a ban on commonly-owned firearms, millions of which are currently in circulation.

    This isn’t the first time that we at Gun Owners of America have heard calls for shredding the Second Amendment. In fact, we’ve survived worse and come out on top.

    On the eve of the ten-year anniversary of the tragedy at Sandy Hook, it’s good for us to examine why these calls for so-called “assault weapon” bans continue even ten years later, and why they’re just as misguided and ineffective today as they were all those years ago.

    The tragic shooting at Sandy Hook is a testimony to the failure of gun control. 94% of mass shootings occur in Gun Free Zones, as these killers are looking for easy targets and know that it’s unlikely anyone will be armed and able to stop them. This is proven repeatedly, most recently with the Buffalo, NY shooter. He wrote in his manifesto about his decision to carry out his attack in a state like New York which has very strict gun laws, thus making it harder for someone to stop him.

    In the wake of the tragedy at Sandy Hook, there was a massive push for banning firearms that are commonly used for self-defense. But Gun Owners of America took action, and with the help of our members, we were able to stop the proposed gun control. This victory, of course, made the anti-gun lobby furious.

    “Gun Owners of America showed with one email alert that it could help flood the phone lines on Capitol Hill days before the Senate vote,” said National Public Radio after the gun control bill was defeated.

    While anti-gun politicians were frustrated by our members flooding the phone lines, GOA members simply knew the truth — gun control won’t stop these sorts of tragedies.

    But if gun control can’t stop mass shootings, what can?

    Almost 90% of police say that armed citizens are the best way to stop mass shootings and over 80% of police say that teachers should be armed.

    The data backs this up. Armed citizens stopped almost 50% of mass shootings last year.

    Often these cases of armed citizens stopping mass shootings are largely ignored by the mainstream media with their gun control agenda. The corporate media fails to report on the stories of Elisjsha Dicken, Jeanne Assam, Stephen Willeford, and countless others who’ve stopped mass shooters. 

    The corporate media specifically ignores the stories about armed citizens who stop mass shooters because they fail to promote their narrative that more laws will stop criminals who, by definition, do not follow laws.

    Even the Supreme Court, with their recent decision in NYSRPA v. Bruen, agrees that Americans have a right to self-defense against those who would do them harm outside their homes.

    The Biden administration and anti-gun governors nationwide will spend the rest of 2022, 2023, and beyond plotting how to get around the Bruen decision and pushing for so-called assault weapons bans through Congress or by unconstitutional executive fiat (or as Biden calls it, regulatory authority). But Gun Owners of America stands ready to fight these unconstitutional actions in Congress or, if necessary, in the courts.

    * * *

    We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now.

    Erich Pratt is the Senior Vice President of Gun Owners of America, a national grassroots lobby representing more than two million gun owners.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 12/13/2022 – 21:25

  • Bitcoin Stops The Bleeding: A Sound Money System Is The Only Cure For What Ails Our Economy
    Bitcoin Stops The Bleeding: A Sound Money System Is The Only Cure For What Ails Our Economy

    Authored by Conor Chepenik via BitcoinMagazine.com,

    As fiat currencies slowly bleed out in value, they are disincentivizing saving. Bitcoin is a cure for the economic calamities…

    When a doctor operates on a wounded patient, the first thing they do is make sure they can stop the bleeding. No point operating if you can’t get the bleeding under control because the patient will die. Money facilitates mutual exchange and helps market actors coordinate price discovery — it is the literal blood of the economy. As fiat currencies slowly bleed out in value, they incentivize fewer people to save. If you want to stop the bleeding in your financial life, you are going to need to find a way to store your wealth in something else. There are plenty of options, but only one that is programmed to stop all bleeding in 2140.

    As peoples’ money bleeds out, so too does their education, time and, I’d even argue, their mental sanity. Blood isn’t oozing out egregiously, but rather being siphoned off from tiny cuts, so most people do not even realize it’s happening. This is a hard pill to swallow. Most Western societies teach people not to question authority: raise your hand if you want to ask questions, and trust the experts. Breaking out of this mentality is difficult. Watch this clip of the White House press secretary to get an idea of how those at the top will treat people who dare question the narrative.

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    PAIN IS THE BEST TEACHER

    Narrative is everything when trying to coerce the masses to accept a “Great Reset” (if you have no idea what the Great Reset is, you can read about it here). The scope of this article won’t cover what the Davos elite is attempting to impose on the rest of the world, but rather why Bitcoin stops money from bleeding out. Trying to calculate all of the variables that bring about the emergent, complex behavior of society is futile. Governments stole trillions of dollars via quantitative easing and blamed their theft on COVID-19.

    It should not be a surprise that what followed has been chaos in the form of protests and supply chain issues. The Federal Reserve is following up its quantitative easing with tightening monetary policy at record paces trying to get inflation under control. This demand destruction is wreaking havoc all over the economy but is necessary to weed out unprofitable businesses.

    For better or worse, pain is the best teacher. Hard Money recently reported that Trezor has seen a 300% increase in sales revenue after the FTX debacle. The whole point of Bitcoin is to not trust ,but verify for yourself. Many ignored this because FTX had the stamp of approval from many mainstream news outlets, politicians and celebrities.

    In the wake of its blow, FTX created tons of new Bitcoin maximalists who now understand why not verifying Bitcoin with your own node means that you are trusting potentially-corrupt third parties. The mainstream media is not doing itself any favors with puff pieces like the one below. Articles like this only serve to increase the pain of those who were robbed and convince more people that the mainstream narrative is corrupt:

    Source

    BUT SELF EDUCATION HELPS TOO

    The remedy to most of these problems is a better education. Tools like Saylor.org, Udemy and plenty of others have lowered the barrier tremendously. It just requires a desire to learn.

    For me, I found that desire by going down the Bitcoin rabbit hole. Ironically, answering one question would lead me to more questions and that number of questions grew exponentially. It made me wonder how much people are not taught intentionally during their traditional schooling. There is only so much time in the day and teachers must prioritize their curriculums accordingly. I just don’t understand why taxes, how to vote and basic financial literacy aren’t at the top of most public school curriculums. The reader can come to their own conclusions. What’s important is finding a teacher who speaks your language and a subject that brings out your natural curiosity. Learning becomes one of the most euphoric feelings in the world when those two needs are met.

    The standard way of learning has horrible mental models for teaching people, like memorizing things for a test. Oscar Wilde is quoted as saying, “Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.” People are so focused on learning from the experts that they forget that those who changed the world didn’t ask for permission to do so. They just did it. People want a hero to fix all of their problems but the truth is that no one is coming to save you. I’m not saying one should not find great mentors; it’s super valuable being able to listen to those who have become experts in their fields in order to learn. I’m saying one should not worship people like gods who can’t make mistakes. Just look at Sam Bankman-Friend, who many thought was a hero.

    Source

    Despite all of the educational content out there, the reality is most people will come to understand the difference between paper bitcoin and bitcoin you actually hold the keys for via an expensive lesson. When the majority of Bitcoiners self custody their coins, and stop blindly trusting their heroes, that is when we will see fireworks in regards to bitcoin’s price action. Every person is different and has various forms of risk tolerance. For those who are discouraged by recent events, remember: Rome was not built in a day. Sometimes the only way to get a lesson through someone’s head is for them to suffer the pain of said mistake.

    FTX AND CENTRAL PLANNERS ARE NOT SO DIFFERENT

    What’s interesting about watching FTX fail so rapidly is that the same thing would happen with our traditional financial system if we didn’t have central banks acting as lenders of last resort. FTX violated its own terms of service by using customer funds to make bets, but 99.9% of the world just turns a blind eye when banks do this because their terms of service legally allow fractional reserve banking.

    In his book “Human Action,” Ludwig von Mises writes:

    “The rich, the owners of the already operating plants, have no particular class interest in the maintenance of free competition. They are opposed to confiscation and expropriation of their fortunes, but their vested interests are rather in favor of measures preventing newcomers from challenging their position. Those fighting for free enterprise and free competition do not defend the interests of those rich today. They want a free hand left to unknown men who will be the entrepreneurs of tomorrow and whose ingenuity will make the life of coming generations more agreeable. They want the way left open to further economic improvements. They are the spokesmen of progress.”

    Technology getting better should lead to massive deflation from productivity gains. Regulatory moats and monopolies prevent this. Fractional reserve banking creates an inflationary environment where tons of capital is misallocated. In a free market, most commercial banks would be insolvent.

    FTX tried to create its own fractional reserve monopoly by lobbying Congress and creating a regulatory moat around its business which would’ve made it impossible for competitors to compete in the crypto ecosystem. The world is fortunate FTX’s system blew up before it was able to get its way with D.C.

    Mises was right: It is not the incumbents who will create a more agreeable future, it is entrepreneurs and ideas competing in a free market. Bitcoin has over 10,000 competitors, and that number is growing every day. Many, if not all of these tokens, are Ponzi schemes in my opinion, but the idea that D.C could do a better job deciding this than the free market could is ridiculous.

    I understand regulation is difficult when technology is changing things at such rapid rates. The little piece of glass in our pocket allows us to hail a ride, order food or listen to some of the greatest minds on the planet whenever we want. All of these things would seem magical to someone who lived before the creation of smartphones. There are going to be hiccups along the way as humanity tries to come to grips with these new tools. This is why I keep this Hal Finney quote as my Twitter header:

    Source

    For all of the wonders that technology can do for humanity, it can also drive a whole new level of control. Free markets lead to optimal price discovery. Too much central planning and markets start to break. Price discovery in a free market is like a hash function. It takes inputs of data and spits out an output that only goes one way.

    With a normal hash, the algorithm works so that it is unfeasible to reverse-calculate the data. You can verify a hash by making sure the same output is achieved based on the input, but you can’t take the output and figure out the input. In this same vein, a free market will set the price of a good, but you can’t figure out how all of the labor, work, travel and other variables created the price of the good. The function only goes one way.

    Market actors get upset when the coercion variable is notched up and price increases happen. The blame is typically pushed on to the producers rather than the central planners who are causing such issues. Sound familiar? Like say the U.S. government, which is calling out greedy fossil fuel companies for raising the price of gas while at the same time advocating for the end of fossil fuel use. If price controls are imposed, price discovery completely breaks down, resulting in shortages. Until the creation of money is no longer heavily intermingled with politics these issues will continue to play out.

    BITCOIN IS MORE IMPORTANT NOW THAN EVER

    As central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and digital identities are rolled out, it has never been more important to point out why Bitcoin is the remedy. Bitcoin allows the individual to go down a hero’s journey where they can keep the value of their labor in their head. CBDCs and digital IDs offer governments tools to enact monetary policy at the individual level, be at the center of every transaction and turn off people’s money as they see fit.

    Bitcoin offers a better system, one that no one can cheat if they want to be in consensus with the rest of the network. Preston Pysh said it best: “Bitcoin is like the infinity stone.” It takes a great deal of faith to hold on to an asset that has had multiple 70% to 90% drawdowns before recovering to new all-time highs. Not many can hang on to their bitcoin but those who do over long periods of time are greatly rewarded.

    The network effects of Bitcoin are insane. There is a Bitcoin website paying people 21,000 satoshis to post a sticker that it ships to you around their cities. Think about that. You can earn sats and increase the value of those sats by helping raise awareness. Bitcoin is full of these win-win scenarios. The tech is exciting, but the passion I see from Bitcoiners in real life is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.

    Bitcoin as a technology, a new form of money and an idea are bringing hope to humans around the world who have been disadvantaged because governments have a monopoly on violence. Bitcoin empowers the individual to fight back like never before. There will be growing pains along the way and more turmoil in the short term for those obsessed with measuring things in fiat. The way to fix that is to orient yourself around the new system.

    The possibilities that will come out of this Bitcoin renaissance are endless. Grappling with what this new form of money means is difficult because the world is full of so many paradoxes. When you learn, you become smarter by ending up with more questions. Monopolies have brought about some of the most prosperous and technologically advanced times in human civilizations while also making George Orwell’s “1984” look like a very plausible path for the future. The internet is connecting people like never before and at the same time, loneliness is increasing. Number go up technology is associated with greed and is what initially attracts people to Bitcoin, yet many stay because they realize Bitcoin is the true effective altruism movement. These paradoxes are a bit mind bending but I do think there is value to be had from chewing on these ideas.

    It can be easy to get bogged down with all of the bleeding going on in the fiat world. Bitcoin is the Band-Aid to fix it. It gives me a lot of confidence knowing my money is secured by open-source software and math rather than 12 individuals who decide when it is okay to steal and when it’s time to practice fiscal austerity.

    I’m glad the Fed has finally decided to do the right thing for the economy but it has manipulated the cost of capital for so long that it now risks destroying the entire system if it keeps tightening. The problem is that the Fed’s only other option is to lower rates again, which causes more bleeding via inflation. Bitcoin offers humanity a way out of this paradox where central planners try to fix the bleeding by siphoning more blood out of the patient. Every time central planners manipulate the cost of capital it becomes more clear that market participants are playing a rigged game. Bitcoin is the fairest game humanity has ever created and the best chance we have of separating money and state.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 12/13/2022 – 20:45

  • Investment-Grade Wine Outshines Stock Market In Tumultuous Year
    Investment-Grade Wine Outshines Stock Market In Tumultuous Year

    This has been an awful year for stocks and bonds as the Federal Reserve wreaks havoc on financial markets to tame the highest inflation in decades. Risks are now increasing that overtightening by the Fed could spark a hard landing in 2023. Most asset classes have been clubbed like a baby seal, while one has escaped the beatdown: investment-grade wine. 

    Investable wine is considered an ‘alternative asset’ by wealthy investors. Fine wine, with age, improves over time because there is only a limited supply of investment wines produced each year, or vintage, which must satisfy a growing global demand. 

    Despite risk parity investors deeply in the red, meme stock traders on Reddit wiped out, and crypto kids decimated, wealthy folks holding fine wine investments are sitting back without stress as they are set to lock in positive returns for the year. 

    The Liv-ex 1000 benchmark recorded a 13.6% increase year-to-date and a 44.6% rise over five years. What is most intriguing about investable wine is how it “acted like a defensive asset this year,” explained Topdown Charts founder Callum Thomas. 

    Thomas continued: “We also saw a similar thing during the dot-com burst bear market, and during the 2008 financial crisis. It goes to show that sometimes you have to be a little bit more creative to find defensive assets (in a year where traditional safe haven assets have disappointed e.g. gold basically flat for the year, and bonds down double-digits).”

    And many people might not be aware, but in economic downturns when lending standards are tightening, wealthy folks use wine collections, expensive artwork, and classic cars as collateral for loans while banks refuse to lend money to everyday folks. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 12/13/2022 – 20:25

  • 'Russian Disinformation' Narrative On Hunter Biden Laptop Story Proved False By Twitter Files, Trump DNI Says
    ‘Russian Disinformation’ Narrative On Hunter Biden Laptop Story Proved False By Twitter Files, Trump DNI Says

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

    The recently publicized internal Twitter communications have proven false the claim that the story around Hunter Biden’s laptop was a part of Russia’s disinformation campaign, former director of national intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe said Friday.

    “What I said as the DNI in October 2020 was proven true,” Ratcliffe wrote on Twitter. “The IC had zero intelligence supporting a false narrative that the Biden laptop was Russian disinformation. Nobody in the IC had authority to say otherwise.”

    The Twitter headquarters signage on 10th Street in San Francisco on Nov. 4, 2022. (David Odisho/Getty Images)

    Ratcliffe, who served as the nation’s top intelligence official and the principal intelligence adviser to President Donald Trump from 2020 to 2021, shared part of independent journalist Matt Taibbi’s post series, known as “Twitter Files.”

    In the multi-post thread, Taibbi used screenshots of email exchanges between company executives to illustrate Twitter’s biased content moderation decisions, including the suppression of the New York Post’s report of the link then-presidential candidate Joe Biden allegedly had with dubious foreign business dealings based on emails retrieved from a laptop once belonged to his son, Hunter.

    Twitter’s initial response to the story is to limit its reach, claiming at that time that this was based on the platform’s “Hacked Material Policy” that prohibited users from posting “content obtained through hacking.”

    One of those screenshots, according to Taibbi, shows that Yoel Roth, Twitter’s moderation and safety leader until his recent resignation, had been having a “weekly sync with FBI/DHS/DNI” regarding issues with “election security” in the wake of the laptop story.

    “Hacked Materials exploded. We blocked the NYP story, then we unblocked it (but said the opposite), then said we unblocked it… and now we’re in a messy situation where our policy is in shambles, comms is angry, reporters think we’re idiots, and we’re refactoring an exceedingly complex policy 18 days out from the election,” wrote one executive who is purportedly Roth.

    “Weekly sync with FBI/DHS/DNI re: election security,” the message continued. “The meeting happened about 15 minutes after the aforementioned Hacked Materials implosion; the government declined to share anything useful when asked.”

    Roth’s weekly meetings with law enforcement and intelligence officials may have involved separate meetings, where not all of them showed up, Taibbi reported.

    “I have to miss the FBI and DHS meetings today, unfortunately,” Roth wrote to a Twitter staffer, indicating that officials of the two agencies weren’t scheduled to meet with him together at once.

    None of these messages mentioned anything about Russia, although at that time many commentators, media outlets, and Democrat leaders—notably House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), claimed that the controversy surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop was a Russian disinformation plot.

    “We know this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin,” Schiff told CNN in October 2020, claiming that it was in Moscow’s interest to keep Trump in the White House. “Clearly, the origins of this whole smear are from the Kremlin, and the president is only happy to have Kremlin help in trying to amplify it.”

    Such assertion had prompted Ratcliffe to speak out, accusing the Democrats of trying to “politicize the intelligence.”

    “The intelligence community doesn’t believe that because there is no intelligence that supports that. And we have shared no intelligence with Adam Schiff, or any member of Congress,” Ratcliffe said in an interview with Fox Business following Schiff’s comments.

    “It’s funny that some of the people who complain the most about intelligence being politicized are the ones politicizing the intelligence,” he added. “Unfortunately, it is Adam Schiff who said the intelligence community believes the Hunter Biden laptop and emails on it are part of a Russian disinformation campaign.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 12/13/2022 – 20:05

  • "Digital Fentanyl": Lawmakers Introduce Bipartisan Legislation To Ban TikTok
    “Digital Fentanyl”: Lawmakers Introduce Bipartisan Legislation To Ban TikTok

    A group of bipartisan lawmakers led by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has introduced legislation that would completely ban the social media app TikTok from operating in the United States.

    “TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, is required by Chinese law to make the app’s data available to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),” reads a Tuesday statement from Rubio’s office. “From the FBI Director to FCC Commissioners to cybersecurity experts, everyone has made clear the risk of TikTok being used to spy on Americans. “

    Rubio – who introduced the Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act (ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act) – is joined by Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), who introduced companion legislation in the US House of Representatives.

    “TikTok is digital fentanyl that’s addicting Americans, collecting troves of their data, and censoring their news,” said Gallagher. “It’s also an increasingly powerful media company that’s owned by ByteDance, which ultimately reports to the Chinese Communist Party – America’s foremost adversary.”

    Allowing the app to continue to operate in the U.S. would be like allowing the U.S.S.R. to buy up the New York Times, Washington Post, and major broadcast networks during the Cold War. No country with even a passing interest in its own security would allow this to happen, which is why it’s time to ban TikTok and any other CCP-controlled app before it’s too late. -Rep. Mike Gallagher.

    The app has come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks, including a lawsuit from the state of Indiana, a ban in South Dakota, calls to ban TikTok ‘everywhere,’ and hitting a major snag in negotiations with the Biden administration over national security concerns.

    One of the primary issues with TikTok – owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is where user data is housed.

    Both ByteDance and US officials struck a preliminary agreement that TikTok data on US users would be hosted by Oracle Corp. TikTok, meanwhile, says it will delete the private data of US users from its own data centers in Virginia and Singapore as it transitions to fully store data with Oracle. The company has also said that access to US data by anyone outside of a newly established division to govern US data security would be limited by, and subject to, its protocols – which would be overseen by Oracle.

    Certain administration officials, however, still aren’t comfortable with the arrangement, and have sought to make any TikTok security agreement stronger in some respects over concerns with the company’s access to consumer data, and its potential use for influence operations.

    “The federal government has yet to take a single meaningful action to protect American users from the threat of TikTok. This isn’t about creative videos — this is about an app that is collecting data on tens of millions of American children and adults every day,” said Rubio on Tuesday. “We know it’s used to manipulate feeds and influence elections. We know it answers to the People’s Republic of China. There is no more time to waste on meaningless negotiations with a CCP-puppet company. It is time to ban Beijing-controlled TikTok for good.”

    Republicans have been pushing to ban the app altogether.

    TikTok claims it doesn’t collect data on search and browsing history outside the app, though it does collect information within the app so that it ‘functions correctly,’ said the spokeswoman. For example, returning relevant search results and ensuring users don’t see the same videos multiple times.

    Former US President Donald Trump sought to ban TikTok unless it was a US-owned entity – which President Biden rescinded shortly after taking office in light of legal challenges.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 12/13/2022 – 19:45

  • Censors Set Their Sights On Musk's Twitter Takeover
    Censors Set Their Sights On Musk’s Twitter Takeover

    Authored by Charlotte Allen via The Epoch Times,

    Not long after Elon Musk acquired Twitter with his promise of ending its censorship regime, a reporter from Reuters covering a White House press conference asked Karine Jean-Pierre, President Joe Biden’s press secretary, whether Twitter might become a “vector of misinformation.” Jean-Pierre’s response at the Nov. 28 press conference was:

    “This is something that we’re certainly keeping an eye on. Look, we have always been very clear that when it comes to social media platforms, it is their responsibility to make sure that when it comes to misinformation, when it comes to the hate that we’re seeing, that they take action, that they continue to take action. … We’re all monitoring what’s currently occurring.”

    That sounded pretty chilling. The idea that the government could be “monitoring” any part of any media for “misinformation” and “hate” speech—both of which are protected by the First Amendment unless they stray into defamation or incitement to imminent crime—ought to raise the hackles of anyone who cares about the Bill of Rights. And why, in particular, should social-media platforms have any legal obligation to “take action” against speech that might offend some people but is neither criminal nor libelous?

    But in fact, that is exactly what the nation’s two wokest states, New York and California, have already decided that social media platforms, a category that can include everything from Facebook to chatrooms and traditional journalism blogs with comments, must henceforth do.

    The New York law came first, in June, and it went into effect on Dec. 3. Realizing that free speech enjoys constitutional protection, New York’s legislators decided to outlaw only what they cagily called “hateful conduct.” But “hateful conduct,” as defined in the New York law, means “the use of a social media network to vilify, humiliate, or incite violence against a group or a class of persons on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnicity, national origin, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.” Vilify? Humiliate? That sounds pretty much like … constitutionally protected speech.

    Disturbing as it may be to listen to a rant against Jews, for example, the Al Sharpton of the 1990s and the Kanye West of 2022 weren’t saying anything that could be prosecuted. But the New York law requires social media networks to post “clear and concise policy readily available and accessible on their website and application that includes how such social media network will respond and address the reports of incidents of hateful conduct on their platform.” That forces everyone with a blog to pay lawyers to draft a policy statement acceptable to New York regulators and then spend hours trying to “respond,” for example, to a woman who says she feels “humiliated” that the blogger has described her as overweight.

    ​The California law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September and set to go into effect on Jan. 1, at least has the virtue of exempting service providers with gross revenues of less than $100 million per year. It’s targeted at Bay Area tech giants such as Facebook’s parent company, Meta, and Twitter. But its reporting requirements are even more onerous. Every company that falls under the statute’s purview must submit a twice-a-year report to the California attorney general detailing its moderation policies, not simply for “hate speech” but for such categories as “racism,” “extremism,” “radicalization,” “disinformation or misinformation,” “harassment,” and “foreign political influence.” The company must list every instance that it flagged such content and how it handled it. State Rep. Jesse Gabriel, who introduced the bill that Newsom signed, said the new reporting requirements are designed to deal with “conspiracy theories and other dangerous content” allegedly widespread on social media.

    ​Neither the New York nor the California law explicitly censors disapproved forms of speech or requires social media platforms to do so. But their vague and subjective language (“vilify,” “extremism”) coupled with their threats of sanctions for noncompliance (a $15,000-a-day fine in California, a $1,000-a-day fine plus a possible attorney general’s investigation in New York) are powerful inducements for social media companies to play Big Brother. And in New York, for example, Attorney General Letitia James, responding to the mass shooting in March at a Buffalo supermarket that was briefly livestreamed, has called for even tougher restrictions on internet content, such as criminal and civil penalties for transmitting images that might inspire others to commit violent acts.   ​

    ​On Dec. 1, Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor and founder of the legal-news blog Volokh Conspiracy, together with two social media platforms, Rumble and Locals, filed a lawsuit challenging the New York content-moderation law on First Amendment grounds.

    “New York politicians are slapping a speech-police badge on my chest because I run a blog,” Volokh said.

    As for California, University of Santa Clara law professor Eric Goldman writes: “By prioritizing certain content categories, the bill tells social media platforms that they must make special publication decisions in those categories to please the regulators and enforcers who are watching them. The resulting distortions to the platforms’ editorial decision-making constitutes censorship.”

    ​And as we’ve learned from the Biden-administration press secretary, California and New York aren’t the only government entities whose “regulators and enforcers” are “watching” social media with an eye to cracking down. Musk’s takeover of Twitter and his relaxation of the site’s content-moderation policies that routinely muffled conservatives have outraged political progressives.

    A Nov. 23 report from the liberal Brookings Institution asserted that “hate speech” on Twitter, including derogatory references to Jews and blacks, had increased as much as 500 percent since Musk assumed control of the platform on Oct. 27. The report noted that the bulk of this invective came from about 300 troll accounts, but that didn’t stop Brookings from declaring, “When acquisitions of social media platforms occur, there should be an obligation of the new owner(s) to ensure that hate speech is moderated.”

    That was a broad hint to Congress and the Biden administration. Expect federal regulators to try to force some heavy-handed censorship of Twitter, Bill of Rights or no Bill of Rights.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 12/13/2022 – 19:25

  • Jack Dorsey Admits 'Biggest Mistake' Was Creating Authoritarian Censorship Toolbox
    Jack Dorsey Admits ‘Biggest Mistake’ Was Creating Authoritarian Censorship Toolbox

    Having had his little tête-à-tête with the current boss of Twitter – over Child abuse protection – the former boss of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, took to Twitter tonight to address a number of issues, including his take on The Twitter Files (which he appears to address as if he was an outsider) and his ‘biggest mistake’ as well.

    As a reminder, the current boss of Twitter had this to say recently about Dorsey’s role in the past:

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

    Jack Dorsey titled the blog post ‘A native internet protocol for social media’ (emphasis ours):

    There’s a lot of conversation around the #TwitterFiles. Here’s my take, and thoughts on how to fix the issues identified. 

    I’ll start with the principles I’ve come to believe…based on everything I’ve learned and experienced through my past actions as a Twitter co-founder and lead:

    1. Social media must be resilient to corporate and government control.

    2. Only the original author may remove content they produce.

    3. Moderation is best implemented by algorithmic choice.

    The Twitter when I led it and the Twitter of today do not meet any of these principles. This is my fault alone, as I completely gave up pushing for them when an activist entered our stock in 2020. I no longer had hope of achieving any of it as a public company with no defense mechanisms (lack of dual-class shares being a key one). I planned my exit at that moment knowing I was no longer right for the company.

    The biggest mistake I made was continuing to invest in building tools for us to manage the public conversation, versus building tools for the people using Twitter to easily manage it for themselves.

    This burdened the company with too much power, and opened us to significant outside pressure (such as advertising budgets).

    I generally think companies have become far too powerful, and that became completely clear to me with our suspension of Trump’s account. As I’ve said before, we did the right thing for the public company business at the time, but the wrong thing for the internet and society. Much more about this here:

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

    I continue to believe there was no ill intent or hidden agendas, and everyone acted according to the best information we had at the time. Of course mistakes were made. But if we had focused more on tools for the people using the service rather than tools for us, and moved much faster towards absolute transparency, we probably wouldn’t be in this situation of needing a fresh reset (which I am supportive of). Again, I own all of this and our actions, and all I can do is work to make it right.

    Back to the principles. Of course governments want to shape and control the public conversation, and will use every method at their disposal to do so, including the media. And the power a corporation wields to do the same is only growing. It’s critical that the people have tools to resist this, and that those tools are ultimately owned by the people. Allowing a government or a few corporations to own the public conversation is a path towards centralized control.

    I’m a strong believer that any content produced by someone for the internet should be permanent until the original author chooses to delete it. It should be always available and addressable. Content takedowns and suspensions should not be possible. Doing so complicates important context, learning, and enforcement of illegal activity. There are significant issues with this stance of course, but starting with this principle will allow for far better solutions than we have today. The internet is trending towards a world were storage is “free” and infinite, which places all the actual value on how to discover and see content.

    Which brings me to the last principle: moderation. I don’t believe a centralized system can do content moderation globally. It can only be done through ranking and relevance algorithms, the more localized the better. But instead of a company or government building and controlling these solely, people should be able to build and choose from algorithms that best match their criteria, or not have to use any at all. A “follow” action should always deliver every bit of content from the corresponding account, and the algorithms should be able to comb through everything else through a relevance lens that an individual determines. There’s a default “G-rated” algorithm, and then there’s everything else one can imagine.

    The only way I know of to truly live up to these 3 principles is a free and open protocol for social media, that is not owned by a single company or group of companies, and is resilient to corporate and government influence. The problem today is that we have companies who own both the protocol and discovery of content. Which ultimately puts one person in charge of what’s available and seen, or not. This is by definition a single point of failure, no matter how great the person, and over time will fracture the public conversation, and may lead to more control by governments and corporations around the world. 

    I believe many companies can build a phenomenal business off an open protocol. For proof, look at both the web and email. The biggest problem with these models however is that the discovery mechanisms are far too proprietary and fixed instead of open or extendable. Companies can build many profitable services that complement rather than lock down how we access this massive collection of conversation. There is no need to own or host it themselves.

    Many of you won’t trust this solution just because it’s me stating it. I get it, but that’s exactly the point. Trusting any one individual with this comes with compromises, not to mention being way too heavy a burden for the individual. It has to be something akin to what bitcoin has shown to be possible. If you want proof of this, get out of the US and European bubble of the bitcoin price fluctuations and learn how real people are using it for censorship resistance in Africa and Central/South America.

    I do still wish for Twitter, and every company, to become uncomfortably transparent in all their actions, and I wish I forced more of that years ago. I do believe absolute transparency builds trust. As for the files, I wish they were released Wikileaks-style, with many more eyes and interpretations to consider. And along with that, commitments of transparency for present and future actions. I’m hopeful all of this will happen. There’s nothing to hide…only a lot to learn from. The current attacks on my former colleagues could be dangerous and doesn’t solve anything. If you want to blame, direct it at me and my actions, or lack thereof.

    As far as the free and open social media protocol goes, there are many competing projects: @bluesky is one with the AT Protocol, Mastodon another, Matrix yet another…and there will be many more. One will have a chance at becoming a standard like HTTP or SMTP. This isn’t about a “decentralized Twitter.” This is a focused and urgent push for a foundational core technology standard to make social media a native part of the internet. I believe this is critical both to Twitter’s future, and the public conversation’s ability to truly serve the people, which helps hold governments and corporations accountable. And hopefully makes it all a lot more fun and informative again.

    💸🛠️🌐

    To accelerate open internet and protocol work, I’m going to open a new category of #startsmall grants: “open internet development.” It will start with a focus of giving cash and equity grants to engineering teams working on social media and private communication protocols, bitcoin, and a web-only mobile OS. I’ll make some grants next week, starting with $1mm/yr to Signal. Please let me know other great candidates for this money.

    *  *  *

    As you might imagine, Dorsey’s holier-than-thou views prompted some pushback on social media…

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 12/13/2022 – 18:45

  • "You Believe Your Fu**ing Intel Briefers?" Tucker Carlson Went Ballistic Over 'Russian Agent' Accusations
    “You Believe Your Fu**ing Intel Briefers?” Tucker Carlson Went Ballistic Over ‘Russian Agent’ Accusations

    Fox News host Tucker Carlson went off on the US intelligence community during an appearance on former Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard’s podcast. He also called Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer an “asshole” while discussing members of congress who are controlled by the intelligence community.

    Carlson recounted an incident where he wanted to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin before the Ukraine war, and reached out through a well-connected friend to do so. Carlson kept Fox and his producers in the dark, yet was given a ‘tap on the shoulder’ by one of his ‘closest friends” who knew a high-up official at the National Security Agency.

    After flying to Washington DC to meet in person, it was conveyed that the high-level NSA employee, who is a ‘secret fan’ of his show, knew that Carlson was “trying to get a Putin interview and go to Russia,” adding “they have your emails and your texts, and they’re going to leak them to the media to discredit you as a Putin lover.”

    Carlson then called a friend who is a US Senator, who told him that the US intelligence community accused him of being a Russian agent.

    “Michael McFaul, who I would say is the leader of the neocons in the House… I got into an argument with him once last year on the phone. He told somebody that I was a Russian agent or something, and I was outraged,” Tucker said, referring to the former US Ambassador to Russia under President Obama.

    Michael McFaul

    “So I called him on the phone, and I used bad language. I was really mad. And he [McFoul] said ‘whoa, whoa, whoa’ – that’s what the intel briefers told me, that you were working for Russia.”

    “That’s what the intel briefers told you? You believe your fucking intel briefers? Like, how old are you son? I’m from DC. My dad was in this world. Like, you’re being manipulated by your intel briefers, DUH! And he’s like ‘well they had, you know, all kinds of corroborating evidence.'”

    Watch:

    (h/t @AMFirebrand)

    Carlson went on to discuss Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) statement that “You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you, so even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he’s being really dumb to do this,” regarding former President Donald Trump.

    “How could he say something like that?” Carlson said, adding “How could you, as the head Democrat in the Senate, accept a system where the people are not in charge? It is not a democracy. Unelected spy agencies are controlling the outcome of domestic politics, like, you’re ok with that?”

    “That’s a dictatorship, asshole,” Carlson added. “Like what do you think that is?“

    “And I couldn’t have less regard for Chuck Schumer and I know him and he’s not stupid, he’s not stupid at all,” Tucker continued. “He’s quite smart. So he’s never thought this through? He’s never thought it through? He has thought it through, and he accepts it as OK, and we should never accept something like that, ever.”

    Watch the entire interview below:

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 12/13/2022 – 18:25

  • China Shipyards Rake In Record LNG Tanker Orders Amid Russia Sanctions
    China Shipyards Rake In Record LNG Tanker Orders Amid Russia Sanctions

    Chalk up another way that China is benefitting from Western sanctions against Russia.

    First we saw China seize the opportunity to buy Russian oil at a steep discount. Now, China’s shipyards are racking up record orders for liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers as world markets adjust to supply disruptions caused by the sanctions regime. 

    In 2022, China has scored 45 LNG tanker orders — quintupling the country’s tally from last year. Having assembled only 9% of the world’s existing LNG tankers, China captured 30% of this year’s orders and now accounts for 21% of global orders on the books, Reuters reports. That’s about $60 billion in business. 

    China’s growing presence in this speciality shipbuilding market represents demand spilling over from South Korea, which has long dominated the LNG tanker category. Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding accounts for 75% of China’s 2022 orders. 

    Membrane LNG tankers don’t have conspicuous ball-shaped tanks on their decks like earlier-generation spherical-tank models (Baird Maritime) 

    South Korean shipbuilders have been deluged with orders for ships that will be used to transport gas from Qatar’s North Field expansion. That will bring huge growth in Qatar’s production capacity — to the extent that QatarEnergy’s CEO in October said his company will, within the next five to ten years, surpass Shell as the world’s largest natural gas trader. In that endeavor, Qatar is itself capitalizing on Europe’s drive to replace Russia’s pipeline gas with shipborne imports.  

    Building modern, membrane LNG tankers is a highly technical process that requires certification by Gaztransport & Technigaz (GTT), a the French company that holds the patents and licenses its designs to shipyards. The need for precision — as hundreds of workers painstakingly laser-weld seams inside 40-meter-tall LNG tanks — translates into build times of up to 30 months.   

    A look inside a GTT-designed LNG membrane tank interior (LTT via Offshore Energy)

    Some of the tanker demand is coming from China itself. SIA Energy’s Li Yao tells Reuters that China will need some 80 LNG tankers to haul 20 million tons of gas a year just from the United States. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 12/13/2022 – 17:45

  • Montana Law That Bars COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates In Health Care Settings Is Unconstitutional: Judge
    Montana Law That Bars COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates In Health Care Settings Is Unconstitutional: Judge

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

    A federal judge in Montana has ruled that parts of the state’s law preventing discrimination against individuals in health care settings based on their COVID-19 vaccination status are unconstitutional.

    A nurse prepares a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. (PA)

    Republican-backed House Bill 702 was passed in 2021 by the Montana Legislature as an anti-discrimination measure and signed into law by Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte in May of that same year.

    The bill banned employers from mandating that employees get vaccinated or share their vaccine status through an immunity passport.

    In a 41-page ruling on Dec. 9, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy stated that the law was unconstitutional as it applies to employers and employees of health care settings.

    “No party questions the authority of the Montana Legislature and Governor to exercise their respective legislative or executive authority to enact or modify public health and anti-discrimination laws,” the lawsuit states. “Rather, the challenge, in this case, stems from an ostensibly purposed anti-discrimination statute and its incongruent impact on healthcare providers and patients, hospitals, nursing homes, doctor’s offices.”

    Law Fails to Deal Specifically With COVID-19

    State Attorney General Austin Knudsen and Department of Labor Commissioner Laurie Esau were named as defendants in the lawsuit.

    The lawsuit goes on to state that the law passed in 2021 failed to distinguish between vaccines and did not deal specifically with COVID-19, instead encompassing “all vaccines whether for measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, hepatitis, or flu.”

    This, in turn, plaintiffs argue, “caused critical concerns for health care providers whether hospitals, doctor’s offices or other medical facilities by limiting the ability of such providers to know the vaccination status of patients and employees.”

    Plaintiffs also argue that the law “preemptively precludes health care providers and other employers from knowing the vaccination status of employees or patients if the employee or patient refuses to answer any inquiry about vaccination status or immunity passports.”

    “That situation, for any number of reasons, creates untoward problems for healthcare providers of any description in trying to protect the environment where services to patients are rendered and to prevent the spread of diseases,” the lawsuit states.

    The lawsuit argues that the law as it pertains to health care settings violated a string of laws.

    In his ruling on Friday, Molloy said that plaintiffs had successfully argued that the law violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services regulations.

    Specifically, he said, plaintiffs had successfully argued that the law was preempted by the federal Americans with Disabilities Act which requires employers to consider accommodation to create a safe work environment for workers, including employees who are immunocompromised.

    ‘A Win for All Montanans’

    “Deprived by law of the ability to require vaccination or immunity status of an employee, a health care employer is not able to properly consider possible reasonable accommodations if an employee asks to limit his or her exposure to unvaccinated individuals,” wrote Molloy, a Clinton appointee.

    The judge further noted that HB 702 “removes an essential tool from the health care provider’s toolbox to stop or minimize the risk of spreading vaccine-preventable disease.”

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 12/13/2022 – 17:25

  • US Set To Send Ukraine Patriot Missiles In Major Escalation 
    US Set To Send Ukraine Patriot Missiles In Major Escalation 

    CNN’s chief Pentagon correspondent is reporting the breaking news based on multiple anonymous US defense officials – including a senor Biden administration official – that the White House is currently finalizing plans to send Patriot missile defense systems to Ukraine.

    “The Biden administration is finalizing plans to send the Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine that could be announced as soon as this week, according to two US officials and a senior administration official,” CNN writes. “The three officials told CNN that approval is expected.”

    Patriot missile battery, DoD via AP.

    If approved, this could be a tipping point in the conflict leading to direct confrontation between nuclear-armed powers given transfer of Patriots would mark the longest-range missiles sent to Ukraine thus far.

    Washington has so far been reluctant, despite Kiev officials since nearly the start of the invasion making repeat pleas for the US to help “close the sky” – as President Zelensky many months ago urged Congress.

    As The Guardian reviewed of the dangers involved in sending the Patriot: 

    “Long sought by the Ukrainians, the missiles have a range of up to 300km, but so far the US and its allies, including the UK, have declined to supply them because they could be used to hit targets inside Russia. Supplying them would help “bring the war to an end as soon as possible”, Johnson said.

    Patriots have long been deployed in neighboring Poland, but Ukrainian leaders have been persistent in requesting them on their own soil amid a major uptick in recent Russian aerial attacks. Former UK prime minister Boris Johnson this week urged in a Wall Street Journal op-ed for the West to get serious about supplying Patriots and other anti-air systems, even including military aircraft.

    It’s likely to take some time to deploy the Patriots, given Ukrainians are expected to be trained on operating the sophisticated systems at the US Army base in Grafenwoehr, Germany, per officials cited by CNN. In the meantime Moscow is likely to react fiercely to the news, which could result in more intense and escalatory airstrikes on Ukrainian cities, and command and control bases. Washington, for its part will likely emphasize the purely “defensive” nature of the Patriot systems.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 12/13/2022 – 17:16

  • Blackstone Might Delay New Private Equity Fund After Redemption Panic
    Blackstone Might Delay New Private Equity Fund After Redemption Panic

    Blackstone shares are down 39% year-to-date, as two of its funds, Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust (BREIT) and Blackstone Private Credit Fund (BCRED), enforced redemption limits given challenging macro conditions. 

    With both BREIT and BCRED redemptions capped, we can only envision investment advisors and portfolio managers have become increasingly concerned about whether they can pull money out of the non-tradeable funds. Increased panic by investors to withdraw could weigh on the performance of both funds and or spark liquidity issues. 

    “Redemption limits, rising rates and softening performance are likely to give investors and advisors pause going forward,” Barclays told clients in a recent note. Monthly data shows BREIT’s unfulfilled redemptions erupted in November. 

    Problems for Blackstone are only spreading. According to Financial Times, citing sources, the New York-based investment manager could delay the launch of the Blackstone Private Equity Strategies Fund, or BXPE, due to the unresolved issues surrounding BREIT and BCRED, dismal fundraising conditions, volatile financial markets, and aggressive Federal Reserve tightening monetary conditions to tame inflation. 

    BXPE was designed to invest in corporate buyouts and search for equity-oriented opportunities, including late-stage venture investments, musical royalties, and the purchase of stakes in other private equity firms. 

    Blackstone funds target wealthy investors. The question remains what do these high-net wealth people and their financial advisors know that has caused such a panic with BREIT and BCRED — could it be the understanding of increased risks of a hard economic landing in 2023?

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 12/13/2022 – 17:05

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Dec 13

Today’s News 13th December 2022

  • Ancient Apocalypse & Graham Hancock's "Dangerous Ideas"
    Ancient Apocalypse & Graham Hancock’s “Dangerous Ideas”

    Authored by JR Leach via Off-Guardian.org,

    Why has the popular Netflix documentary ignited the ire of the media?

    It never ceases to amaze me what seemingly innocuous ideas the establishment media find ‘dangerous’ or ‘controversial’.

    Netflix recently released an eight-part documentary series titled Ancient Apocalypse, where Graham Hancock (who has a been a household name for “alternative archeology” since the release of his book ‘Fingerprints of the Gods’ in 1995), introduces us to his central theory that human civilisation is considerably older than current archeological orthodoxy believes, but that most evidence for this was wiped out by a colossal natural disaster around 12,000 years ago.

    He supports this theory with physical evidence for such a natural disaster, curious geological anomalies and seemingly ancient megalithic structures.

    He points out that the mainstream view of pre-history insists civilisation did not and had never existed before the year 4000BC, but that recent discoveries such as the Temple at Gobekli Tepe, which dates back to 9600BC call that mainstream view into question.

    He also collates mythic stories and old legends from over around the world that all reference some massive, global catastrophe. (Floods, earthquakes, giant snakes in the sky, strange visitors from across the sea etc.) And then emphasises their many eerie similarities.

    Through the collation of this research, Hancock then asks some questions of the mainstream view of our ancient history and posits a theory of his own – that ‘we are a species with amnesia’, who have forgotten our own past.

    These are not new ideas, solely from Hancock’s imagination. Immanuel Velikovsy said something very similar half a century ago, in fact his last book, published posthumously, was titled “Mankind in Amnesia”, and explored the psychological impact of us, as a species, repressing the memories and forgetting the stories that echo from a distant, traumatised past.

    These questions might sound intriguing to you, or you may be indifferent to them, or you may even vehemently disagree with them, but I bet you didn’t know they were racist, did you?

    That’s right. Racist. Don’t believe me, you conspiracy theorist? Just ask the Guardian.

    Yes, the Graun has spoiled us with not just one hit-piece, but two! All in the space of one week.

    Robin McKie writes his from an archaeological standpoint, while Stuart Heritage speaks as an entertainment critic. However, one is very much like the other. They both agree the Netflix series is wholly unacceptable. All of it. These are ‘dangerous ideas’ that shouldn’t be ‘allowed’.

    McKie alleges Hancock’s claims reinforce ‘white supremacist ideas’, because questioning the age of human civilisation

    …strip[s] indigenous people of their rich heritage and instead gives credit to aliens or white people”

    McKie further explains:

    Then there were the Nazis. Many swore by the idea that a white Nordic superior race – people of “the purest blood” – had come from Atlantis. As a result, Himmler set up an SS unit, the Ahnenerbe – or Bureau of Ancestral Heritage – in 1935 to find out where people from Atlantis had ended up after the deluge had destroyed their homeland.”

    There we have it, you see! Don’t even bother linking to any sources, Robin (which he doesn’t). I hear you, loud and clear. The idea of Atlantis is inherently racist, because the Nazis believed in it.

    The fact Hancock never mentions race, or white people (or aliens) in the series, nor (to the best of my knowledge) in any of his books, makes no difference to this.

    So, what are you going to do now? Keep researching the Atlantis myth?

    Like a Nazi would?

    Of course, going by this logic, we should really do away with Christianity as well. God in general, in fact.  Perhaps we should cancel Volkswagen and Wagner too. Nazis also brushed their teeth and wore shoes, I believe, neither of which shall I be taking part in from this day onwards, just to be sure.

    So, there we have it – Ancient Apocalypse is racist, even though it never mentions race.

    The remainder of their twin critiques are no better argued or supported by reality. Here is a typical example of the intellectual level they work on:

    For a story that was first told 2,300 years ago, the myth of Atlantis has demonstrated a remarkable persistence over the millennia. Originally outlined by Plato, the tale of the rise of a great, ancient civilisation followed by its cataclysmic destruction has since generated myriad interpretations.”

    It was this opening paragraph alone that prompted my response. As it is so uniquely meaningless.

    What does he mean by ‘For a story 2,300 years old it has demonstrated remarkable persistence’? As opposed to what? All those other stories that we don’t know about? How is that measurable, exactly?

    Besides, we have a plethora of stories and mythologies dating back two and half thousand years, and even much further into the past than that. Including all the Greco-Roman myths, plays by Sophocles and Aesop’s Fables. We have detailed legends and lore passed down from Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. The Old Testament fits the bill as well.

    And of course, Homer’s Iliad, which describes the fabled Trojan War.

    Let us remember that the City of Troy was also believed to have been just a myth until we discovered that it wasn’t. And I’m sure before 1870, when it was first discovered, that there was no shortage of academics decrying the search for Troy as a heretical waste of time.

    What is the essential attraction of the tale? For answers we only have to look at the works of Tolkien, CS Lewis, HP Lovecraft, Conan Doyle, Brecht and a host of science fiction writers who have all found the myth an irresistible inspiration.”

    Simplicity itself! The reason the Atlantis myth is so popular is because it’s so popular!

    Robin then asserts as fact that Plato intended the tale of Atlantis to be little more than an allegory.  There is no way of knowing that, of course, he merely asserts it and then goes into a Gish Gallop.

    “As to the likely site of the original Atlantis, the serious money goes on the destruction of the Greek island of Santorini and its impact on Crete and puts the blame on volcanic eruptions – not errant comets, as Hancock argues”

    Whoa there, Robin. Firstly, Graham Hancock never ‘argues’ that the Greek island of Santorini was struck by an errant comet. That is misleading. He argues that a comet struck somewhere in North America and rising sea levels may have obliterated an island civilisation (that Plato calls Atlantis) in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s only you, Robin, who is conflating this Atlantis myth with Santorini.

    [NB – Robin also fails to mention the physical evidence for just such an impact at the beginning of the Younger Dryas.]

    Secondly, should we not give credit where credit is due, and assume that Plato (and Solon, from whom Plato got the story, and the Dynastic Egyptians, from whom Solon got the story), most likely knew the difference between ‘inside the Mediterranean’ and ‘outside the Mediterranean’?

    If they place Atlantis beyond the Pillars of Hercules, should we not at least consider it possible that this is indeed where “the original Atlantis” was? (I invite readers to listen to Plato’s accounting yourselves and see what you make of it, here is an unabridged and well-produced reading.)

    The history of Santorini’s volcanic eruption was probably, by contrast, relatively well known. Santorini didn’t actually sink, after all, as Atlantis is said to have done. It’s still there. The Ancient Greeks called it ‘Thera’ and they were perfectly well aware of its existence. It shares no cultural, historical or technological similarities to Plato’s description of Atlantis at all, short of ‘being an island’.

    But none of that bothers McKie who at this point, and without ceremony, just sort of stops writing. Job Done. Atlantis debunked. What’s for lunch?

    Moving on to Stuart Heritage’s piece, which is thankfully briefer but in no way less smug. In his subheading he boldly asks:

    “Why has this been allowed?” 

    Allowed?

    I’m not sure which authority he’s calling on here. Netflix execs? Local, national or perhaps global government? Or maybe it’s rhetorical, and he’s beseeching the Lord God himself how such evil could come into the world.

    Beyond this, Stuart seems even less interested in debunking or debating these ‘dangerous ideas’ than McKie was, and far more focused on analysing and ridiculing its (presumed) target audience.

    Fortunately, Stuart, with his view unbiased and his mind wide open, has discerned exactly who that is in the first five minutes – because he saw (or thinks he saw) Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson flash up in the pre-show reel.

    Joe Rogan appears in one quick interview, which is used in the first episode and the last.

    Jordan Peterson does not appear in this documentary at all.

    And I’m really not sure why Stuart thought he did. Perhaps he just didn’t watch closely enough to realise this before rushing his five-hundred words off to be published in one of the largest news outlets in the world.

    More notably when Heritage later amended the change, he just removed the ‘Jordan Peterson’ reference and neither he nor the editors or sub-eds even bothered to correct the syntax:

    “Fortunately, you don’t have to watch for long to find out. In quick succession, during the pre-show sizzle reel, we are treated to a clip of the show’s host Graham Hancock being interviewed by Joe Rogan.”

    The laziness is staggering.

    Just ‘a different person’. It’s not important who anymore. He’s not on the Guardian’s ‘naughty list.’

    Equally strangely, both McKie and Heritage seem to think ‘Ancient Apocalypse’ makes claims of ‘super intelligent beings’ and ‘aliens’, when it simply does not.

    Hancock’s argument – whether you accept it or not –   is that human beings were more advanced than academia admits. Not robots with flying cars, but more advanced than we currently give them credit for, and he cites evidence for this which both Stuart & Robin ignore in favour of critiquing Hancock for things he does not say.

    They cite no sources and debate no actual claims. They use buzzwords and identity politics in place of analysis and between the two of them couldn’t fill one page of A4. It’s as if even they (and their editors) had no faith or interest in what they were doing.

    Although Stuart does rather give the game away in his closing statement.

    “That’s the danger of a show like this. It whispers to the conspiracy theorist in all of us. And Hancock is such a compelling host that he’s bound to create a few more in his wake. Believing that ultra-intelligent creatures helped to build the pyramids is one thing, but where does it end? Believing that election fraud is real? Believing 9/11 was an inside job? Worse?” 

    He’s got me stumped there. Because, for the life of me, I literally can’t think of anything worse than ‘believing in election fraud’, which is obviously as fanciful as believing in the Loch Ness Monster. What next? Believing in tax evasion!?

    Presumably he’s referring to the 2020 US election. Because the Guardian has claimed fraud is very real in some elections. Russia, Syria, Bolivia, Brazil, Libya, Afghanistan, Iran and Venezuela to name a few.

    And they were pretty darn adamant that it was Russian collusion that got Trump into office in 2016.

    Stuart presumably believes election fraud is only a ‘conspiracy theory’ when it happens here, in the UK. Either that or he believes it has literally never happened. Ever. In the whole history of the world.

    Or perhaps he’s simply typing up any old nonsense just to get that word count a little higher. Sense and consistency be damned.

    Who’s to say?

    However, the fragile honesty underlying this is quite telling. He is essentially saying:

    “If people become sceptical of one thing, they may become sceptical of another.”

    Which is to be expected, but what I can’t understand is how anybody could think this is a bad thing.

    People should be sceptical. Scepticism in all things but cynicism in none. People should ask questions, and they should expect answers, especially from those who profess to know them. One should be open-minded and always pursue the truth. And to better decipher what that may be, we need people sharing new ideas, questioning the mainstream view and challenging the established narrative as new evidence presents itself. We need that. Science, progress and discovery all depend on it. Even if the ideas turn out to be false. Prove them false.

    In short: No one should be the gatekeepers of our history. Least of all those who laud their certitude in the face of the unknowable.

    The mystery is exciting. The evidence is compelling. The series is engaging. Even if none of it turns out to be true, the questions are still worth asking.

    These ideas are only ‘dangerous’ if you fear what they question.

    And those who fear questions fear the truth.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/12/2022 – 23:40

  • Health Experts Urge Beijing To Accelerate Approval Of Enhanced Covid Jabs Amid 'Winter Wave' Of Deaths
    Health Experts Urge Beijing To Accelerate Approval Of Enhanced Covid Jabs Amid ‘Winter Wave’ Of Deaths

    China’s government dramatically pivoted from its ultra-harsh ‘zero Covid’ policy in the last several weeks, which will likely cause a massive outbreak, as health experts urged Beijing to speed up the approval process of new vaccines to counter Covid-19 variants. 

    Sinovac and Sinopharm Covid jabs have been widely distributed among the majority of the Chinese population to fight the original Covid strain from Wuhan in 2020. But old vaccines might not be enough to fight variants. 

    “We can’t rely on old vaccines which are currently being used nationwide going forward,” a Beijing-based adviser to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention told Financial Times. 

    The health advisor, who spoke under cover of anonymity, said CDC facilities “are filled with Wuhan virus-based vaccines that aren’t of much use.” 

    Beijing has yet to approve the latest version of the jabs to target more infectious Covid variants, leaving the older generation vulnerable this cold season. 

    According to a new projection by Feng Zijian, a former deputy chief at the CDC, relaxed health restrictions could result in 80 to 90% of the Chinese population being injected with the virus. 

    “It’s going to be inevitable for most of us to get infected once, regardless of how the Covid-fighting measures are adjusted,” Feng said. 

    While China faces a ‘winter wave’ of deaths as the economy reopens, Beijing has yet to import foreign-made messenger RNA vaccines. 

    The CDC adviser said that China needed “locally made mRNA vaccines in our toolbox,” which might not arrive until “next April.” There are seven domestic companies in the late stage of clinical trials. The advisor added clinical trial results for the improved Sinovac and Sinopharm jabs will be announced in March, then “the government may issue an emergency use license.” 

    Jin Dong-yan, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong, said the coming “tsunami” of infections means “China should have an accelerated mechanism for approval to change vaccines based on the circulating strains. There is no need for a full clinical trial.”

    Infections across the country are already moving higher. 

    Covid is rapidly spreading through Chinese households and offices after the country’s pandemic rules were unexpectedly unwound last week, sparking confusion on the ground as ill-prepared hospitals struggle to deal with a surge in cases. -Bloomberg 

    Dong-yan warned that by the time new jabs are approved, Covid variants would be the dominant strain:  

    “The regulatory body needs to show some flexibility. Ba. 5 is already giving way to BQ. 1.1 in the US and XBB in Singapore. He added: “They will never catch up.”

    So the question we have: Why did Beijing ease zero Covid policies when no preparations have been made to meet the coming winter ‘tsunami’ of infections? 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/12/2022 – 23:20

  • What's Inside The House-Passed Military Spending Bill
    What’s Inside The House-Passed Military Spending Bill

    Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The House of Representatives just passed the mammoth $858 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), an annual must-pass bill setting out defense spending levels.

    See what’s inside, and what was left out, below.

    The U.S. Capitol building in Washington, on Dec. 20, 2020. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

    Military Vaccine Mandate Repealed

    In a major win for Republicans and critics of President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 policies, this year’s iteration of the NDAA will include a repeal of a vaccine mandate for military service members.

    Biden announced in August 2021 that all federal employees, including military service members, would be required to take the COVID-19 vaccine or lose their job, despite a dearth of long-term testing on the vaccine.

    U.S. President Joe Biden (R) speaks at the White House in Washington on Dec. 8, 2022. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

    Republicans were opposed to the mandate from the beginning, calling it a violation of the personal liberty of citizens to make their own health decisions.

    Initially, service members who refused the vaccine were liable to face consequences up to and including court martial and dishonorable discharge. A dishonorable discharge, roughly the military equivalent of a felony conviction, can severely impact a service member’s life, as many employers will not even consider hiring someone with a less-than-honorable military discharge.

    Last year, the Senate passed a draft of the NDAA barring the Department of Defense (DOD) from dishonorably discharging service members solely for refusal to take the vaccine.

    However, the mandate remained in effect. Even after Biden boldly declared that “the pandemic is over,” the Pentagon refused to budge on its vaccine requirements.

    But in the past several weeks, efforts to repeal the mandate once and for all ramped up among Republicans.

    After rumors began circulating that the NDAA would undo the mandate, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)—the frontrunner in the race for the speakership of the 118th Congress—vowed during an appearance on Fox Business Network’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that his caucus would not pass the bill unless it ended the vaccine mandate.

    “We will secure lifting that vaccine mandate on our military because what we’re finding is, they’re kicking out men and women that have been serving,” McCarthy said. “That’s the first victory of having a Republican majority, and we’d like to have more of those victories, and we should start moving those now.”

    Democrats yielded on the issue, giving Republicans a major policy win.

    The passage of the bill through the lower chamber came just days after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin expressed his desire to continue imposing the mandate.

    “We lost a million people to this virus,” Austin told reporters, although studies and data have shown the vast majority of people who died from COVID-19 were elderly or have compromised immune systems. “A million people died in the United States of America. We lost hundreds in DOD. So this mandate has kept people healthy.”

    Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin speaks during a news conference at the Pentagon in Washington on Nov. 3, 2022. (Andrew Harnik/AP Photo)

    Following the addition of the amendment ending the mandate, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of the most vocal critics of Biden’s diktat, applauded the outcome.

    “This is a big day for our men and women in the military,” Paul said in a tweet. “We won, and the NDAA will be amended to respect medical autonomy and religious freedom.”

    “These young men and women are willing to put their lives on the line, and now we’ve come forward to say they deserve to be treated with respect,” Paul said in a press conference.

    Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), another key proponent of the amendment, also applauded the bill as “a huge victory for our troops.”

    No Reinstatement of Troops

    Though the bill will undo Biden’s mandate, hopes that the bill would reinstate those who were kicked out of the military for refusal to take the vaccine did not come to fruition.

    According to Defense Department data, 3,717 Marines, 1,816 soldiers, and 2,064 sailors have been discharged for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19, although a small portion has been allowed to remain in service owing to religious or medical waivers.

    As of Dec. 1, over 11,500 members of the Army, Army National Guard, and Army Reserve have declined to get vaccinated against COVID-19, Axios reported, while 97 percent of the Army’s active personnel received the shot.

    In an exclusive interview with The Epoch Times, Air Force Lt. Col Adam Conrad, who asked that his name be changed to protect him from retaliation by the DOD, said that he had “never seen morale so low” as it got after the imposition of the mandate.

    Various military bodies have been struggling to meet their recruitment goals in part over the vaccine mandate, with the U.S. Army reaching just 75 percent of its recruitment goal of 60,000 for this year, according to Army Secretary Christine Wormuth.

    Still, the NDAA will not reinstate those troops who were removed due to their opposition to taking the experimental vaccine.

    In a statement after the passage of the bill, McCarthy applauded the end of the mandate and suggested that Republicans will continue to work to reinstate discharged service members when they take control of the lower chamber in January.

    President Joe Biden (L) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in file images. (Getty Images)

    “The end of President Biden’s military COVID vaccine mandate is a victory for our military and for common sense,” McCarthy said. “Last week, I told the president directly: it’s time to end the COVID vaccine mandate and rehire our service members.”

    “While I applaud the end of this onerous mandate—the Biden administration must go further. Unfortunately, the mandate has already had negative consequences for our military,” McCarthy said, citing the difficulties that the military has faced in recruiting.

    “These heroes deserve justice now that the mandate is no more,” he continued. “The Biden administration must correct service records and not stand in the way of re-enlisting any service member discharged simply for not taking the COVID vaccine.

    “Make no mistake: this is a win for our military. But in 28 days the real work begins—the new House Republican majority will work to finally hold the Biden administration accountable and assist the men and women in uniform who were unfairly targeted by this Administration.”

    This may be a difficult promise to keep, however, as Democrats retain the upper chamber and will have substantial leverage over the House GOP majority.

    Another Million-Dollar Dole to Ukraine

    The bill will also grant another $800 million of taxpayer funds to the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative as part of the U.S. effort to help Ukraine defend itself against an ongoing Russian invasion.

    The United States has already sent around $68 billion in humanitarian and military assistance to Ukraine in three major packages.

    The first aid package, passed as part of the $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill for fiscal year (FY) 2022, sent Ukraine $13.6 billion. In May, Congress passed another standalone bill granting Ukraine $40 billion. Again in September, an additional $13.7 billion was sent to Ukraine.

    Though the appropriation is smaller than past handouts, Americans are in the dark as to how exactly Ukraine is using the aid.

    Alarmingly, reports indicate that weapons purchased with taxpayer funds have wound up as far afield as Nigeria, falling into the hands of terror groups.

    President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria said during a summit of African leaders that “the raging war in Ukraine serve[s] as major sources of weapons and fighters that bolster the ranks of the terrorists in Lake Chad Region.”

    He added, “A substantial proportion of the arms and ammunitions procured to execute the war in Libya, continues to find its way to the Lake Chad Region and other parts of the Sahel. Weapons being used for the war in Ukraine and Russia are equally beginning to filter to the region.”

    Because of this, calls have escalated among Republicans for Ukraine’s use of taxpayer funds to be audited.

    During a Dec. 9 hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, a measure proposed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to audit the Eastern European nation was defeated by Democrats.

    “The American people deserve full transparency and oversight of where their hard earned tax dollars have gone and that’s why we should audit Ukraine,” Greene said in a Twitter post after the vote.

    “An audit isn’t pro or against Ukraine, it’s just the right thing to do.”

    The $800 million figure is far short of the $37.7 billion in additional aid for Ukraine requested by the White House at the end of November.

    Silence on Pentagon Abortion Policy

    The bill does not address a policy recently announced by Defense Secretary Austin that would see taxpayer dollars used to fund travel costs for women in the military to get abortions.

    The policy came in response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which the court overturned Roe v. Wade. As a result of this decision, the right to regulate abortions has been returned to state legislatures for the first time in nearly 50 years.

    Austin argued that because military servicemembers often have to travel for work, they should not be restricted from getting an abortion if they are stationed in a state with more restrictive abortion laws.

    “Our Service members and their families are often required to travel or move to meet our staffing, operational, and training requirements. Such moves should not limit their access to reproductive health care,” Austin wrote in an October memo.

    He contended that the “practical effects of recent changes” would harm military readiness.

    “In my judgment, such effects qualify as unusual, extraordinary, hardship, or emergency circumstances for Service members and their dependents and will interfere with our ability to recruit, retain, and maintain the readiness of a highly qualified force,” he wrote.

    Republicans were quick to blast the decision.

    Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) called it “outrageous,” and demanded that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) allow a vote on an amendment to prohibit it.

    While the text of the bill does not actively give the green light to this policy, it also does not contain language prohibiting it.

    The Pentagon is given a great deal of latitude on how it uses the funding granted by each year’s iteration of the NDAA. While large chunks of it are appropriated for specific purposes, a large proportion of these taxpayer dollars are left to the discretion of the Pentagon to spend as they will.

    This means that, if the bill passes with no prohibition of the policy, taxpayers will find themselves indirectly footing the bill for abortions in contravention of an existing law known as the Hyde amendment, which restricts the use of federal funds for abortions.

    Klobuchar Media Bill Fails

    An effort by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) to attach a controversial bill rider to the package was rejected.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/12/2022 – 23:00

  • 'Just A Few Rogue Actors' Behind Banning Of Trump From Twitter; Nothing To See Here…
    ‘Just A Few Rogue Actors’ Behind Banning Of Trump From Twitter; Nothing To See Here…

    Authored by Sundance via TheConservativeTreehouse.com,

    The fifth installment of the Twitter Files release drops today courtesy of Ms. Bari Weiss [READ HERE]. The focus of Ms Weiss was on the decision to ban President Donald Trump from the platform, and her outline walks through the events leading up to the decision to remove him.

    After a review of internal discussions, slacks and conversations within the social media platform, ultimately the officers within the company decided to protect their view of democracy by removing their biggest ideological opponent.

    The Twitter executives justified their actions by echo-chambering a belief that President Trump was tweeting “coded messages,” the secret transmission of thoughts that can only be received by those wearing red hats, tuned to a specific psychological frequency.  As Weiss notes: “Less than 90 minutes after Twitter employees had determined that Trump’s tweets were not in violation of Twitter policy, Vijaya Gadde—Twitter’s Head of Legal, Policy, and Trust—asked whether it could, in fact, be “coded incitement to further violence.”

    President Trump tweeted the term “American Patriots,” which would be viewed by the Twitter ideologues as something akin to “the leader of a terrorist group responsible for violence/deaths comparable to Christchurch shooter or Hitler and on that basis and on the totality of his Tweets, he should be de-platformed.”

    It did not take long for the narrative to embed as the most senior Twitter regulatory officers assembled. “One hour later, Twitter announces Trump’s permanent suspension “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”

    The entirety of Twitter File #5 release surrounds this internal Twitter dynamic, carefully avoiding any discussion or sunlight from outside government actors who may have been in direct contact with the senior Twitter team.

    Indeed, the documents chosen to provide evidence of the debate and decision to remove President Trump are transparently devoid of any inbound government contact to the Twitter organization.

    Thus, at the end of Ms. Weiss carefully written expose’, she concludes with this:

    See, it’s only “a handful of people at a private company“…. Nothing to see here folks, move along, move along.

    Apparently, DHS, FBI and CISA officials were involved in direct contact with Twitter through their DHS “trusted partnership” portal to get rid of innocuous rebel voices and influence agents like Dan Bongino, Q conspiracy theorists, and various COVID doctors who were providing information against the interests of the government.

    However, when it came to removing the most powerful voice of President Donald John Trump, there was nothing but static radio silence from the government side of the DHS portal.

    You getting this?

    Do you see how this is presented?  “A handful of people at a private company,” that’s the story and they are sticking to it. Swear.

    Move along folks, move along.  Nothing to see here, just move along.

    That sound you hear in the background is not Ms. Bari Weiss providing an application of spray paint after careful Bondo application.

    Comrades, the social media messaging vehicle known as Twitter is a clean/refreshed information & communication platform as provided by the magnanimity of Mr Elon Musk, unknown financial underwriting notwithstanding.

    Brilliant.

    Now, let’s talk about President DeSantis…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/12/2022 – 22:20

  • Japan, Netherlands Agree To US Request To Curb Chinese Chip Exports
    Japan, Netherlands Agree To US Request To Curb Chinese Chip Exports

    In a move that is sure to set Sino-Japanese relations several years back, on Monday morning Japan and the Netherlands agreed “in principle” to join the US in tightening controls over the export of advanced chipmaking machinery to China, Bloomberg reported cited according people familiar with the matter, in what is the latest “potentially debilitating blow to Beijing’s technology ambitions.”

    The news follows a report from Japan’s Kyodo according to which, the US had “asked the Japanese government for cooperation in stymieing China’s efforts to develop high-end semiconductors.” The request, noting that the countries are allies sharing strategies against China, was made by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo during her phone conversation with Japanese industry minister Yasutoshi Nishimura on Friday, according to the sources.

    The request made to Nishimura was the first ministerial one from the United States on the issue. Washington’s push to create a multilateral regulatory framework comes amid concerns that there will be loopholes in its export controls if Japan and the Netherlands continue to provide China with devices essential to manufacture advanced chips. It comes after the United States unveiled a sweeping set of export controls on certain high-end chips that could be used by Beijing to train artificial intelligence systems and power advanced applications in the military and surveillance fields.

    Last week, Bloomberg News reported that Dutch officials were planning new export controls on China. The Japanese government agreed to similar restrictions in recent weeks since the two countries wanted to act in concert. Japan had to overcome opposition from domestic companies that would prefer not to lose sales into China, sources said. Besides Tokyo Electron, Nikon and Canon are minor players in the market.

    In response to the back-door US pressure, Japan and the Netherlands are likely to announce in the coming weeks that they’ll adopt at least some of the sweeping measures the US rolled out in October to restrict the sale of advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment, according to the people, who asked not to be named because they are not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. The Biden administration has said the measures are aimed at preventing Beijing’s military from obtaining advanced semiconductors.

    The three-country alliance – if it comes to pass – would represent a near-total blockade of China’s ability to buy the equipment necessary to make leading-edge chips, according to Bloomberg. The US rules restricted the supply from American gear suppliers Applied Materials Inc., Lam Research Corp. and KLA Corp. Japan’s Tokyo Electron Ltd. and Dutch lithography specialist ASML Holding NV are the two other critical suppliers that the US needed to make the sanctions effective, making their governments’ adoption of the export curbs a significant milestone.

    “There’s no way China can build a leading-edge industry on their own. No chance,” said Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon.

    The three countries are the world’s top sources of machinery and expertise needed to make advanced semiconductors. ASML shares added to losses in Amsterdam on the news and were down 2.2%, in late Monday trading.

    Senior US National Security Council official Tarun Chhabra and Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Alan Estevez were in the Netherlands late November to discuss export controls, Bloomberg reported, while Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo talked about the same issues with METI chief Yasutoshi Nishimura via teleconference last week.

    With the move, Dutch and Japanese officials will essentially codify and expand their existing export control measures to further restrict China’s access to cutting-edge chip technologies.  The two governments are planning to impose a ban on the sale of machinery capable of fabricating 14-nanometer or more advanced chips to China, Bloomberg sources said. The measures align with some rules Washington set out in October.

    The 14nm technology is at least three generations behind the latest advances available on the market, but it is already the second-best technology that China’s chipmaking champion Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. owns.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/12/2022 – 22:00

  • Grand Jury Indicts Former Loudoun County Superintendent Scott Ziegler, Top Spokesperson
    Grand Jury Indicts Former Loudoun County Superintendent Scott Ziegler, Top Spokesperson

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    A special grand jury has indicted two Loudoun County officials for making false statements, according to indictments made public on Dec. 12.

    Grand jurors indicted Scott Ziegler, the just-fired county superintendent, on three counts, including false publication, according to copies of the indictments obtained by The Epoch Times.

    That count stemmed from Ziegler “knowingly” transmitting to media outlets on or about June 22, 2021, a “false and untrue statement.” The statement was not identified.

    They also indicted Wayde Byard, a top spokesperson for Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS), on a count of perjury.

    LCPS and Byard did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Ziegler could not be reached.

    “We are beyond pleased that the families who were harmed by the egregious failures of the leadership of Loudoun County Public Schools, exacerbated by its repeated acts of deceit and dishonesty, will receive some measure of justice,” Ian Prior, executive director for the Fight for Schools Group, said in a statement.

    The indictments were released shortly after a report from the special grand jury found that Ziegler lied when he claimed in June 2021 that he was not aware of any assaults occurring in school bathrooms.

    According to emails, Ziegler was, in fact, aware that a 15-year-old girl was assaulted the previous month by a male student inside a bathroom at Stone Bridge High School.

    The principal of the high school told grand jurors that the statement was “not true” and another witness said it was a “bald-faced lie.”

    Ziegler later claimed to misunderstand the question that prompted his false statement.

    Loudoun County school officials did not record instances of sexual assault despite being required to do so.

    The same male assailant, who has been described as “gender fluid,” went on to assault another female student at a different school in October 2021. He was found guilty of both assaults and sentenced to juvenile detention until he is 18.

    Grand jurors said they were largely stonewalled by LCPS and Loudoun County School Board members during the investigation.

    “We expected these public servants to provide clarity, transparency, and a willingness to report truthfully to their constituents. Instead, we were met with obfuscation, deflection, and obvious legal strategies designed to frustrate the special grand jury’s work,” they said.

    The board voted on Dec. 6 to fire Ziegler without cause. Board chair Jeff Morse told reporters that the board was “misled” by Ziegler. Morse declined to say whether any other officials mentioned in the report should be fired.

    The grand jury was convened by Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, a Republican, at the direction of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, another Republican. Both entered office in January.

    The school board failed in attempts to block the investigation, with the Virginia Supreme Court finding that the board had not offered any convincing arguments for why the investigation infringed on its oversight of schools in the county.

    Other Counts

    The other two counts against Ziegler relate to Erin Brooks, a special education teacher who sued LCPS in June for allegedly failing to protect her against being sexually assaulted and retaliating against her when she spoke out about the matter.

    The suit says Brooks was assaulted dozens of times each day starting in February and that tactics she attempted did not work.

    Brooks messaged and met with school administrators but LCPS personnel who were in positions to intervene “repeatedly dismissed and ignored” her pleas for help, the filing states.

    Brooks was later falsely deemed to have released personally identifiable information and undertook unprofessional conduct and the school board released a statement about her that was defamatory, the suit says. LCPS also decided against renewing her contract, which was allegedly done out of retaliation.

    One of the new indictments says that Ziegler unlawfully fired or took adverse action against Brooks. The other says that he unlawfully used his position to retaliate or threaten to retaliate against Brooks “for expressing views on matters of public concern or for exercising any right that is otherwise protected by law.”

    All three of the counts against Ziegler are misdemeanors.

    Ziegler faces up to 12 months in prison and up to $3,500 in fines if convicted.

    The count against Byard is a felony.

    Byard faces between one and 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $2,500.

    Interim Superintendent Appointed

    The board appointed Daniel Smith as interim superintendent.

    “I accept the challenges that come with my new role. And I look forward to refocusing the efforts of our employees on maintaining and improving a world-class school division,” Smith, who had been chief of staff at LCPS since April, said.

    Morse said he and vice chair Ian Serotkin reached out to Smith for the position because they viewed Smith as “an important stabilization factor” when observing him closely as chief of staff. In addition, Smith wasn’t present during the two sexual assaults in 2021.

    Smith assured the reporters on the night of his appointment, “Absolutely, our kids are safe, and that’ll remain our priority.” He said his priorities would be ensuring that the school division “focused on teaching and learning of our kids.”

    Morse said the board would embark on a nationwide search for a permanent superintendent to have the recruit in place by July 1, 2023, to be ready for the 2023–2024 school year.

    The board has another meeting scheduled for Dec. 13. Agenda items include reviewing and discussing the recommendations outlined in the grand jury report.

    The board will “consider meaningful approaches to address those recommendations,” the agenda states.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/12/2022 – 21:40

  • Putin Unexpectedly Cancels Annual Year-End Marathon Press Conference
    Putin Unexpectedly Cancels Annual Year-End Marathon Press Conference

    Likely we are about to witness an avalanche of further Western media speculation as to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s alleged ‘deteriorating health’, given the Kremlin announced Monday he’s decided to cancel his annual end-of-year press conference, which is a first in ten years.

    “As for the big press conference, yes, it won’t happen before the New Year,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a regular press briefing. “But we hope that the president will still find an opportunity to talk with [journalists], as he regularly does, including during foreign [visits],” Peskov added.

    No reason was given by Peskov for the break from the long-standing tradition of the Russian leader. Putin has been rare among world leaders for on certain occasions giving very lengthy, sometime multiple hours-long, press conferences and Q&A back-and-forths, for example at annual events like the Valdai Discussion Club.

    His latest Valdai appearance in October included the longest speech yet, given before hundreds of reporters and officials, and clocking in at a record-breaking 3 hours and 40 minutes.

    A typical year-end press conference also goes on for hours, and is widely looked upon as one of the biggest Russian political events of the year, resulting in an array of headlines as Putin tends to address everything from foreign policy, to energy policy, to societal ills of the West such as gender ideology and the ‘woke’ invasion of culture.

    At last year’s 4-hour end of year event, high on the agenda was looming conflict with Ukraine. When asked at the time about the potential for military action, the Russian leader had asserted “This is not our choice, we do not want this.”

    Throughout the now 10-month long ‘special operation’ in Ukraine, there’s been widespread speculation and rumors about Putin’s health, ranging from reports that he has Parkinson’s disease or even cancer. Some reports have gone so far as to suggest the risky Ukraine invasion is related to worsening health in the Russian president impacting his personality and decision-making. However, the Kremlin has batted these theories down at every turn, and as yet there’s no firm evidence pointing to severe health decline.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/12/2022 – 21:20

  • 4 Minutes Of Undiluted Truth On Mainstream TV
    4 Minutes Of Undiluted Truth On Mainstream TV

    Authored by Mike Whitney,

    The last thing you’d ever expect to hear on a mainstream news channel, is the truth.

    But – strange as it might seem – that’s exactly what happened on Wednesday night on the Tucker Carlson Show. Carlson interviewed veteran journalist Glenn Greenwald in a 4-minute segment that provided the best ‘easy-to-understand’ summary of the Ukraine War you’ll hear anywhere.

    And what was so shocking about the interview, was how casually both men veered onto topics that are essential to grasping “How we got to where we are today” but which are entirely banned on all the other cable news channels. 

    You are not allowed to know, for example, that Russia was “lured into the conflict in Ukraine”. That does not fit the script that has been passed-along from the Biden State Department to their lapdogs at the cable news stations. You’re also not allowed to know that the US does not fight wars “to spread democracy” or that “the US has no vital interests in Ukraine” or that “Russia is not really our enemy”. All of those topics are verboten. You’re not even allowed to think about these things, which is why– for the most part– they have been completely scrubbed from any-and-all discussion of foreign policy in the corporate media.

    That’s what makes the segment with Greenwald such a stunner, because it’s 4 glorious minutes of pure, unvarnished truth delivered from a platform that typically only produces, lies, disinformation and propaganda. 

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

    That’s why I transcribed the entire interview. Any mistakes are mine. Here it is:

    Tucker Carlson– What bothers me is not so much what Zelensky is doing– there’s a lot of tyranny abound the world (and) I don’t brood on it. But the fact that (a) we are paying for it, and (b) our leaders are defending it. I think every American should be upset about that.

    Glenn Greenwald– “I think in general, Americans should be very skeptical when the government says ‘We’re going to fight wars on the other side of the world and spend tens of billions of dollars in military aid to spread democracy.’ The US government doesn’t actually care about spreading democracy. Many of its closest allies in the world have always been some of the world’s most despotic regimes like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. All the US government cares about is whether these regimes serve US interests. …If you want to believe the fairy tale that the US government goes to war to spread democracy, then Ukraine is not the place for you. You mentioned the argument that ‘Zelensky is in war, he has to curb liberty’, but go back to 2021, a year before Russia invaded and you’ll find articles where he shut down opposition television stations and shut down opposition political parties (which is) the hallmark of what every tyrant or despot does….and that was true even before Russia invaded.”

    Tucker Carlson– I wonder how Republicans can continue to defend this (because) I think you are right; I think our foreign policy is almost always about defending our interests…. But I don’t see our critical interests at stake here, so, what is this about?

    Glenn Greenwald– If the US government was honest… they would get rid of this script that we have to go and defend democracy. That is a fairy tale that tries to get Americans to feel better about the fact that we are involved in many, many countries all over the world. That is not the real reason. The only reason to do it is for ‘vital US interests’. The line in Washington for decades was the US has no vital interests in Ukraine. That was Obama’s view, that was the bipartisan view. Why did that change? The only reason is because we saw an opportunity to trap Russia inside Ukraine all based on the view that Russia is our enemy (which is) something only Democrats should believe because they think Russia is to blame for the 2016 election and Hillary’s defeat. But why would Republicans want confrontation with Russia? What American benefits from that except arms manufacturers? …

    Tucker Carlson– That’s a really good question, and I haven’t unraveled it. (But) It seems pretty clear that the Biden administration baited Russia into this invasion. You had the Vice President (Kamala Harris) in western Europe days before telling Zelensky to join NATO which, of course, they knew was a red line (for Russia) They wanted this invasion, I think that’s very obvious. Do you think this was all about ‘preparing for war with Russia’?

    Glenn Greenwald– If you think Russia is a grave enemy of the United States, then it makes sense to try to lure them into a war that they can’t win, like we got lured into Afghanistan for 20 years or like we lured the Soviet Union into Afghanistan back in the ’70s because it does deplete your enemy. The question is: Why should Russia be seen as our enemy? Both Obama and Trump said there’s no reason to see Russia that way. It has one-fifteenth the size of our military budget. It’s not threatening American borders. Why are we so obsessed with spending tens of billions of dollars to weaken Russia which we could be using here at home to benefit the lives of American citizens when Russia is not doing anything to the United States unless you are a crazy ‘resistance’ person who believes they’re the reason Donald Trump won. But if you don’t believe that, what is the rational for this? There is none.”

    Tucker Carlson– “I know, and as always, they have hijacked the best instincts of the American people, their compassion, and turned it against them. Glenn Greenwald, great to see you tonight”.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/12/2022 – 21:00

  • Biden Fires Kinky They/Them Luggage-Stealing Nuke Official
    Biden Fires Kinky They/Them Luggage-Stealing Nuke Official

    Who could have seen this coming?

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    Having been accused of stealing luggage from airports in two separate incidents, President Biden’s non-binary deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition has left the administration.

    A Department of Energy spokesperson said on Monday evening:

    “Sam Brinton is no longer a DOE employee. By law, the Department of Energy cannot comment further on personnel matters.”

    Brinton, 35, who was appointed in June, faces charges for the incidents at both the Las Vegas and Minneapolis airports and they are due in court in Minnesota on December 19.

    The White House has repeatedly refused to comment on the scandal, claiming it is a non-political issue.

    The Department of Energy has also tried to distance Biden from the issue.

    We are sure the groundswell of the Alphabet-Twitter will be up in arms decrying the Biden administrations decision to fire the klepto as some brazen act of prejudice and bias is some form transphobism?

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/12/2022 – 20:40

  • A Tale Of Two Narratives: Twitter Edition
    A Tale Of Two Narratives: Twitter Edition

    Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

    We’ve done quite a few episodes of commenter TAE Summary’s “Tales of Two Narratives” through time. Let’s add this one, why don’t we. Reading through -especially- Twitter, the past 24 hours or so, it struck me how fitting this is. We’re talking narratives that are so many light years apart, never the twain shall meet.

    Interested in time travel? This is for you.

    On the one hand, lots of people react to the following tweet by Elon Musk, by claiming Fauci saved millions of lives. On the other hand, just as many people (or so it seems) claim Fauci killed millions of people. It’s hard to get a bigger, and more consequential, chasm, than that.

    And apparently this Musk tweet got the most likes in Twitter history. What does that tell us? This chasm is not just on Twitter, this is the entire country plus anywhere else on the planet where people follow this.

    Despite the enormous 24/7 pressure to accept “The Science”, get a shot and a mask, and shut up.

    Of all people, John Brennan tried. The ex-CIA director who was caught lying to the Senate in 2014, and in 2017 to the House Intelligence Committee (Steele Dossier) about Russian interference during the 2016 election, still appears to think he has some form of moral high ground. Which is remarkable in and of itself. But at least Brennan has “class”.

    Elon Musk’s reaction has been loud and clear (note: this tweet is not a direct reaction to Brennan):

    Elon Musk has promised us a “full” record of the decision making process behind the censoring and banning by Twitter’s former staff, of renowned doctors like Peter McCullough, Robert Malone, Pierre Kory, Robert Marik, Richard Urso, and many more. Many of these distinguished scientists have seen their careers and livelihoods hampered, even destroyed by Fauci -and Twitter- over the past -almost- 3 years. And, of course, anyone else who dared question “The Science”.

    This was (is?!) a highly concerted effort. How many people died who could have been saved with ivermectin? Or just Vitamin D3, for that matter? HCQ? So many lives were lost to FDA, Fauci et al banning anything but Pfizer. Many more will perish because they now have mRNA in their bodies, and will never be able to get rid of it anymore.

    The “full record” will be a spectacle. Even if some things still remain hidden. Elon Musk may not be a saint, I very much hope he’s not, saints scare me, but I’d take him over Tony Fauci any day of the week.

    Here’s TAE Summary:

    The Mainstream Narrative

    • As a worldwide ‘public square,’ Twitter should be heavily regulated for misinformation and spamming by hostile interests. Twitter bears a responsibility to take action against disinformation and hate. Content moderation on platforms like Twitter is absolutely necessary to safeguard our democracy. As a private company Twitter is under no legal obligation to protect free speech and everything Twitter has done is within the law. Twitter and other social media platforms were instrumental in combating disinformation about Covid 19, climate change, election integrity and the war in Ukraine.

    • Elon Musk is an arrogant, toxic person. He doesn’t really care about free speech. His goals in purchasing Twitter are political. His takeover of Twitter is the most terrifying development in recent history. His purchase of Twitter will destroy it by driving away advertisers and providing a platform for Neo-Nazis and other hate-speechers. Under Musk, Twitter is a scammer’s paradise. Elon Musk decimated the staff of Twitter (breaking Federal labor laws) while restoring accounts that spread disinformation. Control of Twitter involves national security risks and Musk’s takeover should be investigated by the US Government.

    • The so-called “Twitter Files” are a feast for conspiracy theorists and have re-enlivened the influence of entities like QAnon. Journalists like Matt Taibbi writing about the Twitter Files are selling their souls to do PR work for the richest man in the world. The Twitter Files entries are sloppy, anecdotal and devoid of context. They are a nothing event about nothing event. The hysteria surrounding the Twitter Files is being used by Republicans for political gain.

    • The Hunter Biden laptop story was difficult and the truth was not known early and so caution was justified. There is no evidence in the Twitter Files that the government was involved in the suppression of the Hunter Biden Laptop story. There is nothing on Hunter Biden’s laptop that actually implicates Joe Biden. James Baker took the careful approach and urged Twitter to weigh both sides of the Hunter Biden Laptop story before proceeding.

    • Hate speech has dramatically increased since Must took over Twitter and these hateful tweets will lead to violence against the already marginalized. Right wing accounts such as those of Donald Trump, Project Veritas and the Babylon Bee should continue to be banned.

    The Counter Narrative

    • Twitter management was openly against free speech and used techniques such as “Visibility Filtering” to limit the reach of some posts. Twitter had secret blacklist files to limit the distribution of certain tweets specifically targeting right wing users. Twitter and other social media platforms have been instrumental in distributing disinformation and hiding the truth about Covid 19, climate change, election integrity and the war in Ukraine. Twitter censorship was used by the Democrats for political gain

    • Elon Musk is a hero. He bought Twitter to restore free speech. Twitter, pre-Musk, was a major accomplice and enabler in selling-out America’s future. Twitter was bloated with excess and left wing employees.

    • The Twitter Files show that the DNC and FBI were directly involved in suppressing free speech and prove that the 2020 elections were not free and fair. Twitter was clearly involved in election interference. The government interactions with Twitter were similar to Nazi propaganda methods. Twitter employees and their government contacts should be made to answer for their actions before congress. So-called journalists criticizing Matt Taibbi for his work on the Twitter Files are embarrassing in their uniformity and mindless support of a corrupt system.

    • The files on Hunter Biden’s laptop prove that Joe Biden used his office to make money and Twitter’s suppression of the laptop story was done to help get Joe Biden elected. It is a bigger scandal than Watergate. James Baker was involved in RussiaGate at the FBI and the Hunter Biden Laptop suppression at Twitter. Baker deleted some of the content that should have been in the Twitter Files.

    • The claims that hate speech has increased on Twitter since Musk’s takeover are utterly false. Hate speech is not tolerated on Twitter. Twitter largely ignored child trafficking issues until Musk took over. Lifting the ban on Donald Trump, Project Veritas and the Babylon Bee on Twitter are victories for free speech.

    Red pill or blue pill?

    *  *  *

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

    Support the Automatic Earth in virustime. Click at the top of the sidebars to donate with Paypal and Patreon.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/12/2022 – 20:20

  • 'Merchant Of Death's Victory Tour: Praises Putin, "Volunteers" For War, & Joins Ultra-Nationalist Party
    ‘Merchant Of Death’s Victory Tour: Praises Putin, “Volunteers” For War, & Joins Ultra-Nationalist Party

    Just two Monday headlines perfectly illustrating the extreme imbalance of the one for one Brittney Griner, Viktor Bout trade last week which Russia is now positively celebrating: 

    The convicted international arms trafficker who was only a week ago still serving out a 25-year sentence in a US federal penitentiary on terror-related charges is wasting no time. Not only has he done public appearances and state media TV interviews, wherein he praised President Vladimir Putin and pledged his full support for the Ukraine invasion, but he could already be on his way to a parliament seat. 

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    The “Merchant of Death” has joined Russia’s ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR), the organization announced Monday, and received his LDPR membership card at a ceremony from party leader Leonid Slutsky.

    Slutsky praised the newly freed arms dealer, saying, “We are the party of patriots! I am sure that Viktor Bout — a strong-willed and courageous person — will take a worthy place in it. Welcome to our ranks!” 

    This after on Saturday in Bout’s first interview since arriving in Moscow to a hero’s welcome he actually “volunteered” to go fight in Ukraine. He declared his willingness to go fight at the front lines if he had to opportunity and “necessary skills.”

    Via Reuters

    He further described that his only complaint is that Putin didn’t launch an attack on Ukraine sooner…

    “Hero of our time,” read a description of the RT interview posted on YouTube. In that interview, Bout was eager to play the role of national martyr. “Everything that happened to me is now happening to our country,” he said, alluding to the international condemnation Russia has experienced since launching the invasion of Ukraine earlier this year.

    “I am proud that I am Russian, and that Putin is our president. I honestly don’t understand why we didn’t do this earlier,” he said of the unprovoked attack on Ukraine.

    Without doubt, Russian media is eager to loudly gloat over the fact that the Kremlin obtained the release of a very high profile prisoner from the US, and all it had to do was hand over a celebrity WNBA player who brought cannabis vape cartridges into the country.

    Fully aware that American officials and the public would be keeping an eye out for his first statements since being released, parts of the RT interview were delivered in English, in order to send a ‘message’. 

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    Bout spoke about the internal “suicide” of Western civilization as it has lost its values, which is a similar theme Putin himself has emphasized over the last several years. 

    Meanwhile, American media ‘celebrated’ Griner’s first basketball workout after being freed from Russian prison and delivered in safety back home. The aforementioned Axios story unironically began: “WNBA star Brittney Griner did a light basketball workout on Sunday and pulled off a dunk in her first move back after nearly 10 months behind bars in Russia.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/12/2022 – 20:00

  • Supreme Court Agrees To Take up Another Challenge Against Biden's Student Debt Program
    Supreme Court Agrees To Take up Another Challenge Against Biden’s Student Debt Program

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear President Joe Biden’s appeal of a judge’s ruling that blocked his student debt relief program and found it unlawful, taking up the matter alongside another lawsuit against the policy.

    The Biden administration appealed a recent decision handed down by Texas-based U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman to block the program, siding with an advocacy group. An appeals court also ruled against the relief program and placed it on hold.

    The case the court announced Monday it would take up involves two holders of student loan debt – Alexander Taylor and Myra Brown – who said the federal government did not follow the right procedure in announcing and implementing the plan earlier this year. In an order, the Supreme Court wrote that it would determine whether Taylor or Brown had standing to file their lawsuit and will then hear the merits of it.

    On Dec. 1, the Supreme Court confirmed would hear arguments on the legality of the debt relief program in another case pursued by six mostly Republican-led states. At the same time, the court will keep Biden’s multi-billion-dollar program on hold as it hears arguments next year.

    The forgiveness program, which was announced by Biden in August, included up to $20,000 in loan relief for low- and middle-income debt holders. Some 26 million individuals already applied for relief, according to the Department of Education, which said that about 16 million of those have been approved.

    The Texas lawsuit was filed by two borrowers who were partially or fully ineligible for the loan forgiveness, backed by the Job Creators Network Foundation, a conservative advocacy group founded by Bernie Marcus, a co-founder of Home Depot Inc.

    Pittman, appointed as a judge by former President Donald Trump, ruled that the administration overstepped its authority to order debt cancellation under a 2003 law called the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act, which can “waive or modify” student financial assistance during war or national emergency.

    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit later ruled to allow the judge’s injunction to stay until a final ruling in the case is issued. That prompted the Biden administration to appeal to the Supreme Court.

    Attorneys general in Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, and South Carolina filed a lawsuit against the relief plan several weeks after it was unveiled to the public. Those states had claimed that they have the legal standing to challenge the plan, which they also argued exceeds the federal government’s authority.

    According to the Supreme Court order issued Monday, the Brown case will be “deferred pending oral argument,” which reports say is slated for February of next year, alongside Biden v. Nebraska, the suit that was filed by the six states. No specific date was given.

    Under a separate COVID-19-related order, those with student loan debt currently don’t have to make payments. Last week, the White House pushed back the payment pause until mid-2023 while the lawsuits are resolved.

    President Joe Biden announces student loan relief with Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Aug. 24, 2022. (Oliver Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

    Other Challenges

    “The act requires a real connection to a national emergency,” the states’ lawyers wrote in court papers in late November. “But the department’s reliance on the COVID-19 pandemic is a pretext to mask the president’s true goal of fulfilling his campaign promise to erase student-loan debt.”

    Lawyers for the administration, in asking the Supreme Court to reverse a lower court’s injunction against the program on Nov. 18,  wrote that the injunction should be lifted because it means that millions of people won’t be able to pay back their loans.

    Because the plan won’t be implemented in the immediate future, the injunction “leaves millions of economically vulnerable borrowers in limbo, uncertain about the size of their debt and unable to make financial decisions with an accurate understanding of their future repayment obligations,” argued U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar in favor of the White House.

    Prelogar asserted that the six states do not have the legal standing to file the lawsuit, she said, adding that the federal government acted within its authority to set up a debt-relief program.

    The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated (pdf) that the program could total $400 billion over about 10 years. Because of the hefty price tag, Republicans criticized the program, while they also claimed the Biden administration announced the relief plan to coincide with the Nov. 8 midterm elections.

    “These responsible Americans paid off their student debt, worked their way through college, or chose a career path that did not require student debt—but Biden is now forcing them to pay off other people’s loans,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who recently won her reelection, told The Epoch Times on Oct. 21.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/12/2022 – 19:40

  • Ukraine Attacked 'Wagner HQ' Using US-Supplied Rockets: Report
    Ukraine Attacked ‘Wagner HQ’ Using US-Supplied Rockets: Report

    Ukraine says it delivered a huge blow to Russian forces after targeting a hotel in Luhansk province said to have members of Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group based there.

    Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai on Sunday touted that Ukrainian forces conducted a strike on a hotel in the city of Kadiivka “just where Wagner headquarters was located.” However, Russia is denying that a ‘Wagner HQ’ was struck, and details or confirmable facts remain murky into Monday. Importantly, the Russian side says the attack was carried out with US-supplied missiles.

    A US Army M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS). Image source: US Air Force

    Russia’s state TASS reported that HIMARS rockets were used, and that “The hit was on a private hotel… in an area in a central market. It did not work.”

    The Ukrainian side has countered that “many” Wagner mercenaries were killed in the ‘successful’ strike, with some officials posting photos of a destroyed hotel building to Telegram.

    On Monday afternoon, The New York Times summarized what it knows of the incident as follows: 

    A Ukrainian rocket attack on a hotel in the east of the country killed members of the Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary force whose leader has closed ties to President Vladimir V. Putin, regional Ukrainian military authorities have said.

    …The Russian state news agency Tass reported in a Telegram post that a HIMARS rocket had destroyed a hotel close to the central market but did not mention the Wagner Group. Using the old Soviet name for the city, Stakhanov, in the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, the report cited the office of the mayor and said that rescuers were clearing the rubble. It did not give details of casualties or say who was staying in the hotel.

    But the Times report goes on to acknowledge that little can be verified of the strike, stressing that “There was no independent confirmation that Wagner forces were in the hotel, but such a strike would fit a pattern of attacks by Ukrainian forces on critical points of military infrastructure or concentrations of troops in territory occupied by Russian forces.”

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    The Wagner Group itself stayed quiet in the initial aftermath of the Sunday attack, with no official statements or social media posts verifying the Ukrainian version of events, or that its members suffered any casualties.

    If accurate, however, it would mark a huge escalation given the high visibility of Wagner Group as a leading private contractor firmed with links to President Vladimir Putin, and also given the allegations a devastating strike was carried out using the US HIMARS system – a weapon that allows Ukrainian forces to strike deep behind Russian lines. It also goes without saying that whole incident risks a greater Russian response.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/12/2022 – 19:20

  • The "Barbarous Relic" Helped Enable A World More Civilized than Today's
    The “Barbarous Relic” Helped Enable A World More Civilized than Today’s

    Authored by George Ford Smith via The Mises Institute,

    One of history’s greatest ironies is that gold detractors refer to the metal as the barbarous relic. In fact, the abandonment of gold has put civilization as we know it at risk of extinction.

    The gold coin standard that had served Western economies so brilliantly throughout most of the nineteenth century hit a brick wall in 1914 and was never able to recover, or so the story goes. As the Great War began, Europe turned from prosperity to destruction, or more precisely, toward prosperity for some and destruction for the rest. The gold coin standard had to be ditched for such a prodigious undertaking.

    If gold was money, and wars cost money, how was this even possible?

    First, people were already in the habit of using money substitutes instead of money itself—banknotes instead of the gold coins they represented. People found it more convenient to carry paper around in their pockets than gold coins. Over time the paper itself came to be regarded as money, while gold became a clunky inconvenience from the old days.

    Second, banks had been in the habit of issuing more bank-notes and deposits than the value of the gold in their vaults. On occasion, this practice would arouse public suspicion that the notes were promises the banks could not keep. The courts sided with the banks and allowed them to suspend note redemption while staying in business, thus strengthening the government-bank alliance. Since the courts ruled that deposits belonged to the banks, bankers could not be accused of embezzlement. The occasional bank runs that erupted were interpreted as a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people lined up to withdraw their money because they believed their bank was insolvent, the bank soon would be. People had no idea their banks were loaning out most of their deposits. They did not know fractional reserve banking, a form of counterfeiting, was the norm.

    Gold coin redemption requirements put limits on fractional reserve banking. Such limits were not welcomed by banks. Since banks could loan to the government, limitations also capped government spending, so the government did not like the limitations of gold coin redemption either.

    Which brings us to the wall gold allegedly hit.

    Preparing for War Means Preparing for Inflation

    In his 1949 book, Economics and the Public Welfare, economist Benjamin Anderson tells us, “the war [in 1914] came as a great shock, not only to the masses of the American people, but also to most well-informed Americans—and, for that matter, to most Europeans.” And yet, Germany, Russia, and France began accumulating gold prior to the war (with Germany starting first in 1912). Gold was taken “out of the hands of the people” and carried to the reserves of the Reichsbank, the German central bank. People were given paper notes “to take the place of gold in circulation.”

    When war broke out in August 1914, Gary North explains that the pre–World War I policy of gold coin redemption was

    independently but almost simultaneously revoked by European governments. . . . They all then resorted to monetary inflation. This was a way to conceal from the public the true costs of the war. They imposed an inflation tax, and could then blame any price hikes on unpatriotic price gouging. This rested on widespread ignorance regarding economic cause and effects regarding monetary inflation and price inflation. They could not have done this if citizens had possessed the pre-war right to demand payment in gold coins at a fixed rate. They would have made a run on the banks. Governments could not have inflated without reneging on their promises to redeem their currencies for gold coins. So, they reneged while they still had the gold. Better early contract-breaking than late, they concluded.

    If governments had not broken their promise to redeem paper notes for gold coins, they would have had to negotiate their differences rather than engage in one of the deadliest wars in history. Abandoning the gold coin standard, which had always been under government control, was the deciding factor in going to war.

    Though the US did not formally abandon gold during its late participation in the war, it discouraged redemption while roughly doubling the money supply. Blanchard Economic Research discusses the situation in “War and Inflation”:

    War also causes the type of inflation that results from a rapid expansion of money and credit. “In World War I, the American people were characteristically unwilling to finance the total war effort out of increased taxes. This had been true in the Civil War and would also be so in World War II and the Vietnam War. Much of the expenditures in World War I, were financed out of the inflationary increases in the money supply.”

    Governments had a choice to make: fight a long, bloody war for specious reasons, or retain the gold coin standard. They chose war. US leaders found their decision irresistible. It was not J.P. Morgan, Woodrow Wilson, Edward Mandell House, or Benjamin Strong who would be fighting in the trenches.

    When we hear that “going off gold” was the prerequisite for global peace and harmony, we should remember places such as the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in France, where grave markers seemingly extend to infinity. These are mostly the graves of young men who died for nothing but the lies of politicians and the profits of the politically connected. Gold wanted no part in the slaughter. But politicians and bankers knew a paper fiat standard was the monetary prerequisite to achieving their goals.

    Conclusion

    John Maynard Keynes, who coined the term “barbarous relic” in reference to the gold standard, wrote about the world that was lost when gold was abandoned:

    What an extraordinary episode in the economic progress of man that age was which came to an end in August, 1914! . . . The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep. . . . He could secure forthwith, if he wished it, cheap and comfortable means of transit to any country or climate without passport or other formality, could despatch his servant to the neighboring office of a bank for such supply of the precious metals as might seem convenient, and could then proceed abroad to foreign quarters, without knowledge of their religion, language, or customs, bearing coined wealth upon his person, and would consider himself greatly aggrieved and much surprised at the least interference. But, most important of all, he regarded this state of affairs as normal, certain, and permanent, except in the direction of further improvement, and any deviation from it as aberrant, scandalous, and avoidable.

    If Keynes had read what he wrote, he might have been a better economist. And we might be living in a better world today.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/12/2022 – 19:00

  • Sam Bankman-Fried Arrested In The Bahamas, Charged With Wire/Securities Fraud And Money Laundering
    Sam Bankman-Fried Arrested In The Bahamas, Charged With Wire/Securities Fraud And Money Laundering

    Update (8:35pm ET): According to the NYT, the charges against SBF which in an indictment which will be unsealed on Tuesday included wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy and money laundering. Of course, SBF should also be charged for talking too damn much and adding 15 years to his sentence by being a megalomaniac sociopath, but we’d take attempted bribery of the entire Democratic Party instead.

    A lawyer chimes in, pointing out that according to federal sentencing guidelines, SBF could be looking at approximately 612,000 years in prison.

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    While more than half a million years in prison may seem excessive, life in prison for the disgraced democrat donor sounds about right.

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    And since SBF was the only person charged in the indictment, it appears that we were right when we said that his co-worker (and former lover) Caroline Ellison would roll on him (see “Alameda’s Caroline Ellison Spotted In NY Amid Speculation She Is About To Roll On SBF After Hiring Iconic Clinton Lawyer”).

    * * *

    Just hours after refusing to attend a Senate hearing on his role in the collapse of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried has been arrested by The Royal Bahamian Police Force, according to a statement from the Attorney General of The Bahamas Sen. Ryan Pinder KC.

    The arrest came after the U.S. filed criminal charges against Bankman-Fried. US prosecutors say they’ll unseal an indictment on Tuesday…

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    It does make one wonder at the timing, as this happened just a week after Carline Ellison – the former CEO of Alameda Capital – was spotted in NY (not in custody) and had sought council, represented by DC law firm, WilmerHale.

    Did his girlfriend throw him under the bus pre-emptively as she saw the ‘Simple Jack’ defense gaining ground?

    Furthermore, the statement said that the nation expects the U.S. to request The Bahamas extradite Bankman-Fried in short order.

    “As a result of the notification received and the material provided therewith, it was deemed appropriate for the Attorney General to seek SBF’s arrest and hold him in custody pursuant to our nation’s Extradition Act.

    At such time as a formal request for extradition is made, The Bahamas intends to process it promptly, pursuant to Bahamian law and its treaty obligations with the United States.”

    This should not have come as a total surprise after John Ray, the current FTX CEO, wrote in prepared remarks that FTX had ‘commingled’ funds…

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    Responding to SBF’s arrest, Prime Minister Davis stated:

    “The Bahamas and the United States have a shared interest in holding accountable all individuals associated with FTX who may have betrayed the public trust and broken the law. While the United States is pursuing criminal charges against SBF individually, The Bahamas will continue its own regulatory and criminal investigations into the collapse of FTX, with the continued cooperation of its law enforcement and regulatory partners in the United States and elsewhere.”

    Presumably this means he will not be attending tomorrow’s Congressional hearing with Maxine Waters… which is a shame because we would have liked to hear some answers…

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    In his prepared remarks for that hearing, Bankman-Fried offered a blunt assessment of his plight. 

    “I would like to start by formally stating under oath: I f*cked up,” he said in the remarks obtained by Bloomberg News.

    Indeed you did young man…

    *  *  *

    Official Statement below:

    Source

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/12/2022 – 18:44

  • Why Supertanker Rates Are Suddenly Crashing
    Why Supertanker Rates Are Suddenly Crashing

    Authored by Alex Kimani via OilPrice.com,

    • Supertanker rates reached record levels earlier this year.

    • Very Large Crude Carrier rates have plunged to just $38,000 per day, falling some 62% from a few weeks ago. 

    • OPEC+ cuts and waning SPR releases are short-term volume headwinds in the oil transportation sector.

    Earlier in the year, supertanker freight rates hit record levels as traders scrambled to park crude in storage to take advantage of a record gap between spot and future prices shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine. Freight rates for very large crude-oil carriers (VLCC) along the Middle East Gulf to China route reached as high as $180,000 a day while VLCC time charter rates for floating storage jumped to as much as $120,000 per day.

    But the situation has now reversed with supertanker rates plunging sharply. According to Bloomberg, ships capable of hauling 2 million barrels of crude are now earning about $38,000 a day, down 62% from just weeks ago after OPEC+ cut production and reduced releases from US reserves lowered seaborne volumes, Bloomberg reports.

    “Clearly OPEC+ cuts and waning SPR releases would both be short-term volume headwinds. They cut production from the first of November and you would expect some lag, and we are seeing activity in the Middle East cooling off somewhat. That’s the simple explanation,” Lars Bastian Ostereng, an analyst at Arctic Securities has told Bloomberg.

    Lower freight rates are encouraging some crude to travel longer distances. For instance, Bloomberg has reported that a South Korean refiner bought 2 million barrels of U.S. crude for March arrival. Meanwhile, offers for long-haul U.S. cargoes for delivery to Asia have declined partly due to lower shipping costs.

    But things could not be more different in the natural gas arena.

    Energy Crisis Sparks Mad Dash For Floating LNG Terminals

    Demand for LNG floating storage and regasification units (LNG-FSRUs) has increased sharply this year, with Europe facing an energy supply squeeze as Russia has progressively cut pipeline gas flows. 

    Demand for LNG imports has intensified after the ruptures on the key Nord Stream pipeline system quashed any prospect of Russia turning its gas taps back on. This has forced dozens of countries in Europe to turn to FSRUs or floating LNG terminals, which are essentially mobile terminals that unload the super-chilled fuel and pipe it into onshore networks.

    Currently, there are 48 FSRUs in operation globally, with Rystad Energy revealing that all but six of them are locked into term charters. 

    According to energy think-tank Ember, the EU has lined up plans for as many as 19 new FSRU projects at an estimated cost of €9.5bn. 

    The biggest beneficiaries are Korean shipbuilding, for whom FSRUs are a major revenue-generator. Korea is the definitive world leader in this field. According to local media, Korean shipbuilders managed to book 46% more orders so far, YoY. And the government’s goal is for the country to grab 75% of the market share by 2030. 

    The setup couldn’t be better. With the supply of these vessels so tight, the cost of charters into Germany has doubled year-on-year to $200,000 a day. 

    “Last year there was a surplus of FSRUs and this year there is a deficit. Up until now there have been sufficient vessels in the market, but as most have now been taken, it’s becoming more challenging,” Per Christian Fett, the global head of LNG at shipbrokers Fearnley LNG in Oslo, has told Bloomberg.

    Texas-based Excelerate Energy Inc. is sending three FSRUs to Europe with combined throughput capacity to import 15 billion cubic meters of gas, or about 10% of the pipeline and LNG imports from Russia in 2021. Demand for the terminals in Europe is so strong that it could make it less affordable for emerging nations to use FSRUs for their own needs.

    “The risk is real that underutilized facilities in other regions of the world could be relocated to Europe, existing charter terms permitting,”Kaushal Ramesh, a senior analyst at consultant Rystad Energy, has said.

    New Dutch terminal

    The Netherlands has taken its first delivery of LNG at a new terminal, boosting Europe’s efforts to wean itself off Russian gas. Previously, the Netherlands could only import LNG through Rotterdam; however, that has changed with the commissioning of two FSRUs, the Golar Igloo and Eemshaven LNG, moored in Eemshaven. The FSRU project was completed in record time Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. With the pair of floating ships now supplying gas to the landlocked Czech Republic and Germany.

    “The arrival of the new LNG terminal is an important step not only for the Netherlands, but for the whole of Europe to completely phase out the dependence on energy from Russia as quickly as possible,” Rob Jetten, Dutch minister for climate and energy, has declared. FRSUs offer the quickest and most efficient way for Europe to end its reliance on the pipelines that bring in large quantities of natural gas from Russia.

    Europe has been working hard to wean itself off Russian energy commodities ever since the latter invaded Ukraine. The European Union has banned Russian coal and plans to block most Russian oil imports by the end of 2022 in a bid to deprive Moscow of an important source of revenue to wage its war in Ukraine.

    But ditching Russian gas is proving to be more onerous than Europe would have hoped for. Whereas supplies of Russian pipeline gas–the bulk of Europe’s gas imports before the Ukraine war–are down to a trickle, Europe has been hungrily scooping up Russian LNG. The Wall Street Journal has reported that the bloc’s imports of Russian liquefied natural gas jumped by 41% Y/Y in the year through August.

    “Russian LNG has been the dark horse of the sanctions regime,” Maria Shagina, research fellow at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, has told WSJ. Importers of Russian LNG to Europe have argued that the shipments are not covered by current EU sanctions and that buying LNG from Russia and other suppliers has helped keep European energy prices in check. 

    Source: WSJ

    LNG Deluge

    Maybe Europe’s LNG imports from Russia can be justified on a purely economic basis.

    Natural gas prices in Europe have plunged over the past few weeks with CNBC reporting that a  “Wave of LNG tankers is overwhelming Europe in an energy crisis and hitting natural gas prices.” According to MarineTraffic via CNBC, 60 LNG tankers, or  ~10% of the LNG vessels in the world, are currently sailing or anchored around Northwest Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Iberian Peninsula. 

    It’s a fair bet that a good chunk of those vessels originated from the United States.

    Europe’s natural gas demand has skyrocketed as the EU tries to lower its reliance on Russian natural gas following its invasion of Ukraine. Europe has displaced Asia as the top destination for the U.S. LNG, and now receives 65% of total exports. The EU has pledged to reduce its consumption of Russian natural gas by nearly two-thirds before the year’s end while Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have vowed to eliminate Russian gas imports outright. Unlike pipeline gas, supercooled LNG is much more flexible and can be shipped from far-flung regions, including the U.S. and Qatar. 

    Europe is not alone here. Shipping data has revealed that China has imported nearly 30% more gas from Russia so far this year, typically at a steep discount.

    Thankfully, there’s a clear upside to imports of Russian LNG to Europe: the continent has managed to fill its gas stores well ahead of schedule, with Reuter’s gas meter revealing that 90% of the EU gas storage is currently filled.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/12/2022 – 18:20

  • Democratic Lawmakers Make Rare Visit To Cuba In Normalization Push
    Democratic Lawmakers Make Rare Visit To Cuba In Normalization Push

    Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute, 

    A delegation from the Congressional Progressive Caucus met with the Cuban president, in a rare high-level meeting among government officials. Washington maintains a Cold War-era embargo against Havana.

    The Associated Press reported Representatives James McGovern (D-MA), Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Troy Carter (D-LA) met with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel in Havana on Sunday. Miguel Díaz-Canel tweeted, “we address our differences and topics of common interest. The shared will to improve bilateral relations was ratified. I expressed the need to put an end to measures that harm the Cuban population.”

    Representatives James McGovern (D-MA), Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Troy Carter (D-LA) met with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel in Havana via Twitter.

    “In the past year, Cuban arrivals to the U.S.-Mexico border have skyrocketed, and a growing number of boats packed with migrants have been found off of Florida’s coast,” the AP has noted. “In October, Cubans replaced Venezuelans as the second most numerous nationality after Mexicans arriving at the border. U.S. authorities stopped Cubans 28,848 times, up 10% from the previous month, the latest data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows.”

    Havana was a client of Moscow throughout much of the Cold War. Washington first sanctioned weapon sales to Cuba in 1958. Two years later, Cuba nationalized American-owned businesses. The US responded by placing an embargo on Cuba. 

    In February 1962, Washington extended the blockade of Cuba to include nearly all exports. Eight months later, the US and USSR nearly engaged in a nuclear exchange over strategic missiles deployed in Cuba. 

    Near the end of his second term, Barack Obama took a number of steps to normalize relations with Cuba. President Donald Trump walked back nearly all of Obama’s détente policies. The Trump administration justified the U-turn claiming American diplomats in Cuba were targeted with a mysterious weapon that caused a wide variety of symptoms.

    The US government dubbed the so-called disease ‘Havana Syndrome.’ However, a recording of the alleged weapon was identified to be the sound of native crickets. Joe Biden was expected to adopt the policy of his former boss for Cuba, but the White House has been slow to return to diplomacy with Havana.

    Via Cuban presidency’s office

    In July 2021, the US imposed sanctions on Cuba over human rights abuses committed by government forces. While the Cuban government is repressive, the worst human rights abuses in Cuba occur at Guantanamo Bay. The US military occupies a portion of the island and has operated the infamous torture prison at the base for two decades. 

    In June, the White House eased some sanctions on Havana, signaling some loosening of the embargo. Last month at the UN, the US voted to keep the blockade against Cuba. Recent talks between Washington and Havana have focused on slowing Cuban immigration to the US.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/12/2022 – 17:40

  • SEC Chairman Gensler Scrubbed Evidence Of Clinton, Soros And Pelosi Meetings: FOIA Lawsuit
    SEC Chairman Gensler Scrubbed Evidence Of Clinton, Soros And Pelosi Meetings: FOIA Lawsuit

    Sunlight is the best disinfectant – unless you’re Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler – who scrubbed evidence of a meeting with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from his calendar, along with key details of a meeting with Billionaire leftist-operative George Soros.

    He also concealed September 21 meetings with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and former Bill Clinton White House official-turned-DC consultant, Minyon Moore.

    Gensler, a former Goldman Sachs executive, Obama administration official, Clinton’s 2016 campaign CFO, and FTX associate, essentially had two calendars. His public calendar showed that on Aug. 7, 2021, he only had a staff meeting, while his private calendar lists a meeting with Hillary Clinton, Fox News reports.

    Thirteen days later on Aug. 20, 2021, Gensler’s public calendar does list a meeting with Soros, but the agenda was hidden. His private calendar reveals that the meeting was held to discuss an upcoming WSJ op-ed Soros was planning to write in which he slammed BlackRock for launching investment products for Chinese customers, while also applauding the company’s ESG policies.

    Gensler’s private calendar revealing the discrepancies was obtained by the watchdog group Energy Policy Advocates and shared with Fox News Digital. The group was only able to obtain the internal records after filing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the SEC.

    In recent days, around the time Fox News Digital contacted the SEC, the agency updated Gensler’s public calendar to include his meeting with Clinton in August 2021. As recently as Wednesday the public calendar didn’t include the meeting, and archived copies of the webpage from April also list just a meeting with staff. -Fox News

    When contacted for comment, the SEC initially lied – saying that the Clinton meeting was visible on Gensler’s public calendar. When confronted with screenshots to the contrary, the spokesperson said that the agency updates calendars “from time to time” when inaccuracies are discovered (by watchdog groups?). 

    Gensler also concealed several September 2021 meetings with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Minyon Moore – both of which have been now updated on Gensler’s public calendar.

    “That even George Soros is calling out progressive darling BlackRock for craven blundering is striking — even if it did carry the requisite, tribal praise for BlackRock’s truly damaging ‘ESG’ (environmental, social and governance) campaigning to impose their shared ‘climate’ agenda on the U.S., an agenda also much to China’s delight,” said Chris Horner, a lawyer representing Energy Policy Advocates. “That it appears Soros received counsel from Gary Gensler on the mega-donor’s call for more SEC powers as a result is truly astonishing.”

    “This gives further credence to the widespread concern that Gensler is deeply politicizing a supposedly independent commission,” he continued. “He may have been Hillary Clinton’s ‘Progressive Beacon’ not long ago, but Gary Gensler is now the SEC chairman, and his calendar indicates he knew the purpose of the meeting. It seems important to know whose idea this was, why, what was said arranging it and through what channel.”

    According to the SEC spokesperson, Gensler has never asked anyone to ‘draft or submit’ an op-ed, but declined to comment on the meeting with Soros.

    Gensler has faced heavy criticism from business groups and Republican lawmakers for pushing progressive policies, including a climate disclosure rule that would require publicly traded companies to share carbon emissions data and other climate information.

    Reps. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., and Andy Barr, R-Ky., two top GOP members on the House Financial Services Committee, introduced legislation this month that would limit the SEC’s ability to require such climate disclosures. -Fox News

    “That this and Gensler’s consultation with Hillary were scrubbed from the public version of his calendar is frankly the least surprising aspect of this,” Horner continued. “The SEC first told Energy Policy Advocates that the publicly posted calendars were all they would get.”

    “Energy Policy Advocates challenged that, pointing out that these sanitized versions, typically posted months after the fact, were certainly not produced from memory and the group wanted the originals. Here you see the reason for the scrubbing these internal versions receive.“

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/12/2022 – 17:20

  • Will Central Banks Do What It Takes?
    Will Central Banks Do What It Takes?

    Authored by Carmen Reinhart via Project Syndicate,

    Few would doubt that, after 15 years of ultra-low interest rates, reining in inflation by restoring real positive rates will be difficult. And with 2023 expected to bring heightened global financial and economic risks, monetary tightening will almost certainly become even more complicated.

    The advanced economies are experiencing their highest inflation in 40 years, with a median rate of nearly 9% for the 12 months ending in September 2022. For central banks and financial markets, the expectation – or, more accurately, the hope – that the inflation spike would be transitory has been broadly replaced by the sobering realization that price growth is a persistent problem that demands significant and sustained monetary tightening. With the exception of the Bank of Japan, the major central banks are now raising interest rates and moving to stabilize or reverse balance-sheet growth

    Few would doubt that, after 15 years of exceptionally low interest rates, this policy shift will be difficult, especially with the global economy teetering on the edge of recession. But with 2023 expected to bring heightened global financial and economic risks – not to mention rising geopolitical tensions – it will almost certainly become even more complicated.

    A historical perspective illuminates some of the challenges that are likely to emerge as international financial conditions tighten. Real policy interest rates (nominal interest rates minus inflation) in the world’s financial center, the United States, have been consistently negative since the 2008-09 global financial crisis.

    Real interest rates have remained negative for multiyear periods in a global financial center only four times since the mid-1800s (at least). The first three episodes were during the two world wars and in the aftermath of the OPEC oil shock from 1974-1980. In these three cases, average inflation in the US ranged from 7% to 15%, and the restoration of positive real interest rates was part of an effort to tackle inflation.

    The current period of prolonged negative real interest rates is the longest of the four. Moreover, real rates in other advanced economies have been even more deeply negative. In much of Europe and Japan, nominal interest rates were also negative – a historical novelty.

    Yet another historically anomalous feature of the recent “low-for-long” interest-rate era is that, under the heading of quantitative easing (QE), advanced-economy central banks have purchased massive amounts of government (or government-guaranteed) debt, setting new peacetime records. While central-bank balance sheets shrank modestly after the global financial crisis ended, they remained far larger than they were before the crisis, and swelled to new highs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    This exceptional accommodation explains why, despite significant rate hikes, the US federal funds rate remains well below the 12-month inflation rate of about 8%. Likewise, the European Central Bank’s policy rate remains well below the US federal funds rate, while eurozone inflation nears double digits.

    Against this backdrop, restoring positive real interest rates – thereby stabilizing inflation – may require monetary policy to be kept tighter for longer than many policymakers and market participants seem to expect. Yet it is far from clear that central banks will maintain their commitment to tightening in the face of weakening economic activity. The persistence of inflation in the 1970s can be explained partly by the US Federal Reserve’s tendency to do too little too late or to waver in the tightening process.

    Experience also points to another underappreciated risk: the return of volatility in fixed-income (bond) markets. The recent turmoil in the United Kingdom, which forced the Bank of England to launch an emergency bond-buying program, is a case in point.

    Price volatility is standard in global commodity markets, regardless of the interest rate. But, in fixed-income markets, higher volatility is the handmaiden of higher and more unstable inflation rates. The variation in inflation rates across the major advanced economies was about seven times higher in 1974-89 than in 2008-21.

    This means that, in the era of sustained ultra-low interest rates, fixed-income-market volatility declined steadily. Low and stable inflation rates across the advanced economies also contributed significantly to a reduction in exchange-rate volatility after 2008, as Kenneth Rogoff, Ethan Ilzetski, and I have shown.

    Persistent ultra-low interest rates shaped balance sheets by encouraging private-sector and government borrowing and aggressive risk-taking in search of yield (increasing the likelihood of asset-price bubbles). While ultra-low rates technically strengthen government balance sheets, they may have created or aggravated off-balance-sheet losses, including by undermining pension-fund solvency (especially among local governments). “Low for long” has, in some cases, weakened fiscal discipline and delayed reforms.

    For countries with very high debts (such as Italy), negative interest rates – together with massive debt purchases by central banks – may have replaced debt restructuring, which at least in principle can deliver faster and greater progress on debt reduction. It remains to be seen how that gap will be filled in an era of tighter monetary policy.

    The message is clear: the risks posed by the exit from sustained negative real interest rates extend well beyond recession. The question is how central banks will respond when those risks manifest.

    Central-bank independence seems to have eroded – not necessarily de jure, but possibly de facto, as officials weigh the broader consequences of their actions. If leverage (public and private) and risk exposures raise doubts about financial stability, will central banks return to accommodation? What if fears of a market crash emerge, or sovereign insolvencies seem imminent (as might occur in the eurozone)? In the 1970s, economies endured years of high inflation before the exit from negative real interest rates was complete.

    And yet more risks loom in 2023. China – a key engine of global economic growth after the last global financial crisis – is grappling with financial and political fragilities. Tighter global financial conditions could severely damage emerging-market and developing economies in the short run. Those with large US-dollar-denominated debts will suffer even more. Already, more than 60% of low-income countries are either at high risk of distress or already there.

    But just as the exit from the “low-for-long” interest-rate era raises grave risks, so, too, does persistent high inflation, which, among other things, exacerbates inequality within and across countries. To say that this is a challenging time for governments and central banks would be a massive understatement.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/12/2022 – 17:00

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  • Xi Jinping's Saudi Trip & The Overthrow Of Atlanticism
    Xi Jinping’s Saudi Trip & The Overthrow Of Atlanticism

    Via The Cradle, 

    As Atlanticists continue their commitment to a future shaped by energy scarcity, food scarcity, and war with their nuclear-capable neighbors, most states in the Persian Gulf that have long been trusted allies of the west have quickly come to realize that their interests are best assured by cooperating with Eurasian states like China and Russia who don’t think in those zero-sum terms.

    With Chinese President Xi Jinping’s long-awaited three-day visit to Saudi Arabia this past week, a powerful shift by the Persian Gulf’s most strategic Arab state toward the multipolar alliance is being consolidated. Depending on which side of the ideological fence you sit on, this consolidation is being viewed closely with great hope or rage.

    Xi’s visit stands in stark contrast to US President Joe Biden’s underwhelming ‘fist bump’ meeting this summer, which saw the self-professed leader of the free world falling asleep at a conference table and demanding more Saudi oil production while offering nothing durable in return.

    Source: The Cradle

    In contrast, Xi’s arrival was greeted by a multi-cannon salute and Saudi jets painting the red and yellow colors of China’s flag in the skies over Riyadh. Beijing’s delegation of political and business elites will continue to meet with Saudi counterparts to strike long-term strategic deals in cultural, economic and scientific domains.

    The visit culminated in the first ever China-Arab Summit on Friday in which Xi met with 30 heads of state. The Chinese foreign ministry described this as “an epoch-making milestone in the history of the development of China-Arab relations.”

    While $30 billion in deals were signed between Beijing and Riyadh, something much bigger is at play which too few have come to properly appreciate.

    Riyadh’s steps toward the BRI since 2016

    Xi Jinping last visited the kingdom in 2016, to advance Riyadh’s participation in China’s newly unveiled Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). A January 2016 policy report by the Chinese government to all Arab states reads:

    “In the process of jointly pursuing the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiative, China is willing to coordinate development strategies with Arab states, put into play each other’s advantages and potentials, promote international production capacity cooperation and enhance cooperation in the fields of infrastructure construction, trade and investment facilitation, nuclear power, space satellite, new energy, agriculture and finance, so as to achieve common progress and development and benefit our two peoples.”

    It was only three months later that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) inaugurated Saudi Vision 2030 which firmly outlined a new foreign policy agenda much more compatible with China’s “peaceful development” spirit.

    After decades serving as an Atlanticist client state with no viable manufacturing prospects or autonomy beyond its role in supporting western-managed terror operations, Saudi Vision 2030 demonstrated the first signs of creative thinking in years, with an outlook toward a post-oil age.

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    On the energy front, China Energy Corp is building a sprawling 2.6 GW solar power station in Saudi Arabia, and Chinese nuclear developers are helping Riyadh develop its vast uranium resources while also mastering all branches of the nuclear fuel cycle.

    In 2016, both nations signed an MoU to build fourth generation gas-cooled nuclear reactors. This follows the UAE’s recent leap into the 21st century with 2.7 GW of energy now constructed. By early 2017, Riyadh had firmly bought its ticket on the New Silk Road with a $65 billion agreement integrating the Saudi Vision 2030 and BRI with a focus on petrochemical integration, engineering, refining, procurement, construction, carbon capture, and upstream/downstream development.

    In the new post-American epoch, signs of this spirit of cooperation and bridge building have increasingly come to be felt, even while its effects have been forcibly restrained – as millions of Yemenis suffering under seven years of war can testify.

    Unlike the Atlanticist fixation on Green New Deals which threaten to annihilate industry and farming, Riyadh’s post-oil outlook is much more synergistic with China’s idea of “sustained growth” that demands nuclear power, continued hydrocarbons, and robust agro-industrial development.

    China’s trade with Saudi Arabia rose to $87.3 billion in 2021, which saw a 39 percent increase over 2020, while US-Saudi trade has collapsed from $76 billion in 2012 to only $29 billion in 2021. Some of this Beijing-Riyadh trade may now be conducted in the Chinese Yuan, which will only undermine the US-Saudi relationship further.

    In the first 10 months of 2022, China’s imports from Saudi Arabia were $57 billion and exports to the kingdom rose to $30.3 billion. China is additionally building 5G systems and cultivating a vast technology hub with a focus on selling electronic goods, all while helping Saudi Arabia build up an indigenous manufacturing sector.

    A trend of Harmonization

    Despite the continued chaos in Yemen, and economic devastation in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, Beijing’s subtle trend has nonetheless been one of healing with Saudi Arabia – and regional power Turkiye. Saudi Arabia and Turkiye have often acted as rivals, and front two distinct foreign agendas with broad regional ambitions that overlap on many fronts. But despite this competitive past, higher necessities have induced both nations to harmonize their foreign policy outlooks with a new “look east” focus.

    This was expressed during the Saudi crown prince’s visit to Ankara in June 2022 where the two heads of state called for “a new era of cooperation” with a focus on political, economic, military and cultural cooperation outlined in a joint communique.

    Only days after MbS’s return from Turkiye, then-Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi visited Jeddah to promote regional stability stating in a press release “they changed points of view on a number of issues that would contribute to supporting and strengthening regional security and stability.”

    Iraq and Saudi Arabia had only re-established diplomatic ties in November 2020 due to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait 30 years earlier. Between 2021-2022, Iraq had worked hard to host bilateral talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran with five rounds of talks held and Kadhimi stating his belief that “reconciliation is near.” Tehran-Riyadh diplomatic ties were cut in the aftermath of the 2016 execution of outspoken Saudi Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, prompting the storming of the Saudi embassy in Tehran by angry protestors.

    In March 2022, MbS stated that Iran and Saudi Arabia “were neighbors forever” and stated that it is “better for both of us to working it out and to look for ways in which we can co-exist.”

    By August 23, 2022, the UAE and Kuwait created a new milestone by restarting diplomatic relations with Iran. And although nearly every Persian Gulf state (plus Turkiye) had devoted years to supporting regime change in Syria, a new reality has imposed itself with all Arab parties veering toward the Chinese BRI model of regional integration and economic development.

    The Key Role of Iran

    Not only is Iran a key player in the Greater Eurasian Partnership serving as a strategic hub for the southern route of China’s BRI, but it is also a keystone of the Russia-Iran-India-led International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) which has become a major force synergizing with the BRI.

    Iraq and Iran themselves are in the final stages of building the long-awaited Shalamcheh-Basra railway which will unite the two nations by rail for the first time in decades while also offering a potential extension to the already existent 1500 km railway through Iraq to Syria’s border.

    The climate for cooperation was undoubtedly made possible by the presence of Chinese economic diplomacy which established a 25 year, $400 billion energy and security deal with Iran – but also Russia, whose similar but smaller $25 billion, twenty-year deal with Tehran may easily expand to $40 billion in Russian investments in Iran’s vast oil and natural gas fields in the coming years.

    Saudi Arabia and Russia’s relationship with OPEC+ demonstrated its potency this summer when Riyadh won the ire of Washington by not only denying Biden’s requests for increased oil production, but cutting overall oil production and driving up global prices of oil. Saudi Arabia benefited by vastly increased imports of discounted Russian oil which were then sold to a desperate Europe.

    Furthermore, Saudi plans to join the global hub of multipolarity itself, BRICS+ (alongside Turkiye, Egypt, and Algeria), in addition to recently becoming a full-fledged Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) dialogue partner, have placed its destiny ever deeper into the growing Multipolar Alliance.

    With the increased potential for stability and harmonization of interests across various power blocs, an atmosphere more conducive to long-term economic investments is finally presenting itself to Chinese investors who had long looked upon conflict-ridden West Asia with justifiable trepidation.

    In August 2022, the Saudi state oil company Aramco and China’s Petroleum and Chemical Corporation Ltd signed an MOU expanding on the aforementioned $65 billion cooperation deal of 2017, which involves the construction of Fujian Refining and Petrochemical Company (FREP) and Sinopec Senmei Petroleum Company (SSPC) in Fujian, China, and Yanbu Aramco Sinopec Refining Company (YASREF) in Saudi Arabia.

    Rail and interconnectivity

    Perhaps most exciting are prospects for interconnectivity that play directly into the development corridors tied to the BRI. In Saudi Arabia, this train has moved steadily apace with the 450 km high speed Haramain Railway built by China Railway Construction Company connecting Mecca to Medina completed in 2018.

    Discussions are well underway to extend this line to the 2400 km North South Railway from Riyadh to Al Haditha completed in 2015. Meanwhile, 460 km of rail connecting all Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members is currently under construction, which is driving reforms in engineering, trade schools, and manufacturing hubs across the Arabian Peninsula.

    Source: The Cradle

    In 2021, all GCC states gave their full support to a $200 billion Persian Gulf-Red Sea high speed railway dubbed “The Saudi Landbridge,” which also dovetails another $500 billion megaproject with vast Chinese investments, dubbed the futuristic NEOM mega-city on the Red Sea.

    The Eurasianists stand to gain

    It can only be hoped that this new chemistry of harmonization and win-win cooperation may soon provide a key to ending the fires of conflict in Yemen and other regional states.

    Further, with Russia and China both helping to broker diplomatic backchannels, and with Iran playing an active role within this process, perhaps negotiations for reconstruction can begin in this war-torn zone of conflict. It is not an extreme stretch of the imagination to see the new Persian Gulf-Red Sea rail project extending north into Egypt and south into Yemen.

    Looking at a map of the region, one can imagine the reactivation of the “Bridge of the Horn of Africa” first unveiled in 2009, that would have extended rail across the 25 km Bab el Mandeb strait connecting pipelines and rail lines into Djibouti and East Africa, more broadly.

    While a western-manipulated Arab Spring derailed that concept in 2011, and the Saudi war against Yemen drove it further under ground since 2015, perhaps this new spirit of inter-civilizational cooperation under a new economic architecture liberated from the Atlanticist-dominated dollar system may provide just what it takes to revive the idea once again.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/11/2022 – 23:30

  • NBC Makes Big Correction In Report On US-Russia Prisoner Swap
    NBC Makes Big Correction In Report On US-Russia Prisoner Swap

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    NBC News has updated a story that initially claimed President Joe Biden’s administration had a choice between freeing basketball player Brittney Griner and Marine veteran Paul Whelan in the prisoner exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

    Citing a person described as a “senior U.S. official,” NBC initially reported that the U.S. government wanted both Griner and Whelan freed as part of the swap.

    “But the official said Russia has treated Whelan differently because he is an accused spy, and that the Kremlin gave the White House the choice of either Griner or Whelan—or none,” the story said.

    Griner was jailed because she brought, by her own admission, cannabis into Russia. Whelan is behind bars because he was convicted of espionage. Whelan has maintained his innocence.

    U.S. officials have described both as “wrongfully detained.”

    (Left) Paul Whelan, a former U.S. marine, in Moscow on June 15, 2020. (Right) Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) basketball player Brittney Griner at the Khimki Court, outside Moscow on Aug. 4, 2022. (Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images)

    After Biden spoke about the exchange, claiming there was “not a choice of which American to bring home,” NBC stealthily updated its piece without noting that it was altered, according to archived versions reviewed by The Epoch Times.

    The outlet’s updated version stated, “But the official said Russia has treated Whelan differently because he is an accused spy, and that the Kremlin ultimately gave the White House the choice of either Griner or no one after different options were proposed.”

    Hours later, after critics noted the stealth edit, NBC added a correction.

    “An earlier version of this article misstated the choice the Biden administration was given over hostages. It was to swap for Griner or no one, not a choice between Griner or Whelan,” the correction states.

    An NBC spokesperson did not respond to a list of emailed questions, including why the initial update did not include a correction and what it means when it says it “misstated the choice” the government faced.

    U.S. President Joe Biden (R) speaks on the release of Olympian and WNBA player Brittney Griner from Russian custody, at the White House in Washington on Dec. 8, 2022. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

    ‘Left Behind’

    Critics said the administration should have negotiated the release of Whelan.

    “Paul Whelan has been let down and left behind at least three times by 2 Presidents,” the Bring Our Families Home Campaign said in a statement.

    “He deserves better from his government, and our Campaign implores President Biden to urgently secure Paul’s immediate return using all tools available.”

    White House officials have backed Biden, saying the United States did not have a choice.

    “In recent weeks, it became clear that while Russians were willing to reach an agreement to secure Brittney’s release, they continue to treat Paul Whelan differently, given the nature of the totally illegitimate charges they have levied against Paul,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters in Washington this week. “Unfortunately, the choice became to either bring Brittney home or no one.”

    “This was not a choice for us on—of which American to bring home. That was not the choice. It was a choice between bringing home one American or bringing home none,” she added later.

    “Our choices was: Brittney or no one at all. Bring home one American or no American at all.”

    A senior administration official, speaking to reporters on background, offered a similar view.

    “So I want to be very clear: This was not a situation where we had a choice of which American to bring home. It was a choice between bringing home one particular American—Brittney Griner—or bringing home none,” the official said.

    U.S. Basketball player Brittney Griner looks through bars as she listens to the verdict standing in a cage in a courtroom in Khimki, outside Moscow on Aug. 4, 2022. (Evgenia Novozhenina/Pool via AP)

    Whelan

    Whelan said after the swap that he was “greatly disappointed that more has not been done to secure my release, especially as the four year anniversary of my arrest is coming up.”

    David Whelan, Whelan’s brother, said he was glad Griner was freed but relayed fresh disappointment, noting that Whelan was also not released in a swap that brought American Trevor Reed home earlier this year.

    “As I have often remarked, Brittney’s and Paul’s cases were never really intertwined. It has always been a strong possibility that one might be freed without the other. The sentiments I shared in April about Trevor are unchanged: this is the event we wish for so much for our own family. She will be reunited with her family. Brittney is free. And Paul is still a hostage,” David Whelan said.

    “But how many more times do I need to write that?”

    Other Americans still in Russian custody include Marc Fogel, a teacher who was arrested in Moscow in 2021 with marijuana, which he reportedly uses as medicine following a spinal injury.

    Bout was serving a 25-year sentence for conspiring to kill Americans. He was convicted in late 2011.

    Bout was described by then-Attorney General Eric Holder as “one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/11/2022 – 22:30

  • China's Top Medical Advisor Says Omicron No More Dangerous Than The Flu
    China’s Top Medical Advisor Says Omicron No More Dangerous Than The Flu

    About a year ago, the nation was on the verge of another lockdown when a tidal wave of Omicron infections prompted those who use masks alone… in their car… with their windows down, to hyperventilate that covid is about to kill several million more Americans, and anyone who suggested that this was nothing more than the flu was promptly suspended from twitter most likely by this guy, er gal: Melissa Ingle.

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

    … deplatformerd demonetized and canceled.

    So it was with great shock that we read today that once again, all those “conspiracy theorists” were dead on: according to Chinese officials, who have continued to downplay the risks of Covid-19 as the country’s idiotic covid zero restrictions are further eased after the economy ground to a halt following two years of lockdowns, with a top medical adviser saying the fatality rate from the omicron variant of the virus is in line with influenza.

    Echoing what so many mouth-breathing rednecks said for most of the past year – at least according to their far more intelligent (in their own opinion) big-city dwelling liberal peers all of whom have at least one and more mental disorders, the death rate from omicron is around 0.1%, similar to the common flu, and the infection rarely reaches the lungs, Zhong Nanshan was quoted in an interview with state news agency Xinhua. Most people recover from the variant within seven to 10 days, he said.

    Zhong’s comments follow the government’s latest line on the coronavirus, which – two weeks after sporadic violent protests nearly sunk the Xi regime – has been suddenly talking down the disease’s dangers as China moves toward exiting its Covid Zero policy. The nation reported 10,514 local infections for Saturday, more than 20% lower than Friday. Doubts have been raised about the accuracy of case numbers because fewer people are being tested, but one could say the same about the numbers on the way up.

    But one thing is certain: China’s covid slowdown is history.

    Still, China is not in the clear just yet: on Saturday, Zhong was quoted saying that there’s an “urgent need” to increase booster-shot rates as travel during upcoming holidays will raise the risk of a large-scale spread.

    “It’s unlikely people will stay put for the 2023 Lunar New Year holiday so I advise those who will travel home to get booster shots so that even if they are infected, symptoms will be mild,” he said.

    The Lunar New Year holiday runs from Jan. 21 to Jan. 27 but usually lasts about 40 days as people take off before and after the official break. Hundreds of millions of Chinese return to their home provinces for family reunifications during New Year.

    China issued a plan on Sunday to enhance capacity of county-level medical facilities to better protect people living in rural areas from Covid. It requested such hospitals to boost their intensive care unit capacity by the end of December. Medical staffers from pediatrics and other units need to receive training on how to look after patients in ICU, according to the plan.

    Separately, in a Sunday commentary, the Communist Party’s flagship People’s Daily said local governments have swiftly put into practice the 10 new Covid measures announced by the National Health Commission last week, including a reduction of mass testing and loosening of quarantine rules. Regions including Chongqing, and cities in Liaoning, Shandong and Guangdong have urged schools to resume offline teaching, the paper reported separately.

    These new measures will pave the way for China to further optimize Covid controls in the future and eventually claim victory over the outbreak, the commentary said.

    But back to the main topic, the end of covid in China, state-backed tabloid Global Times on Sunday cited Zeng Guang, a former chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, as saying that suggestions for China to downgrade its Covid control from the top Category A to Category B has gained momentum in the scientific world.

    Once Chinese scientists have reached a consensus that variations of the coronavirus continue to be less dangerous, China will downgrade its Covid control at the right time, Zeng said. China currently classifies Covid-19 as a Category-B disease, but is controlling it as a Category-A disease.

    China’s road to reopening could be “bumpy,” which coupled with the scenario of a mild recession in Europe and the US may lead to a tougher economic climate, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. President John Waldron said via video link at Shanghai’s Bund Summit on Saturday.

    “That will obviously have some negative implications for growth,” Waldron said, in remarks that underscore how lenders are gauging the impact of China’s pivot from a Covid Zero policy.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/11/2022 – 22:00

  • Ex-CIA Officer: The Lies Spies Tell About Assange
    Ex-CIA Officer: The Lies Spies Tell About Assange

    Authored by John Kiriakou via Consortium News,

    I attended a panel discussion at the National Press Club last week (Monday) about the fate of WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange. The event happened to be at the National Press Club, but it was actually sponsored by the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security at George Mason University. Hayden, the notorious former director of both the C.I.A. and the N.S.A., who oversaw the C.I.A.’s torture program during part of the George W. Bush administration, was front and center at the event. 

    The panel, moderated by Sasha Ingber, a national security correspondent in Newsy’s Washington, D.C., bureau, included Assange’s U.S. lawyer Barry Pollack, one of the finest criminal defense attorneys in America; Gabe Rottman, a senior attorney at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press; the notorious Mark Zaid, who bills himself as a “whistleblower attorney,” but who has probably done more damage to legitimate whistleblowers than any other person in Washington; and Holden Triplett, a former F.B.I. agent and former director for counterintelligence at President Donald Trump’s National Security Council.

    Former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden (left) at Julian Assange event Monday. (Joe Lauria)

    While acknowledging my own biases (Pollack is a genius and Zaid is a scoundrel), the one thing that surprised me was how utterly clueless Holden Triplett was. This is a guy who promotes himself as a counterintelligence expert. He runs a consulting company hilariously named “Trenchcoat Advisors.” 

    Triplett claims to have been a top F.B.I. counterintelligence official in the U.S. embassies in Moscow and Beijing. And he served Donald Trump loyally for two years in a GS-14 position at the White House.  Triplett made no mention of why he left the F.B.I. before qualifying for the pension. What struck me most about Triplett was his willingness during the event to throw a rhetorical turd into the middle of the room and then to expect the audience to nod politely and agree with him. 

    On more than one occasion, he made completely unfounded statements about Julian Assange, only to then have the neoliberal Washington swells nod in agreement, despite having literally no evidence to back up his assertions. He said, choosing his language carefully, for example, that “When I look at anything Julian Assange has done over the years, whatever it is has the hallmarks of a Russian intelligence operation.” 

    ‘Hallmarks’ & ‘Earmarks’

    Notice the language there. He didn’t say that Julian was a Russian agent. He didn’t say that WikiLeaks was working for or on behalf of the Russians. He said that it all had the hallmarks of something that Russian intelligence would do. 

    April 5, 2010: Julian Assange addressing National Press Club about WikiLeaks Collateral Damage video from Baghdad showing U.S. air attacks that killed civilians. (Jennifer 8. Lee, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

    The language is meant, of course, to bring the DNC/MSNBC crowd over to his point of view. And judging by the reception he got, he was mostly successful.

    Triplett’s disingenuous and damaging statements reminded me very much of an open letter published in October 2019 and signed by more than 50 retired senior C.I.A. and other Intelligence Community officials, saying that the Hunter Biden laptop “had all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” 

    They ignored the fact that Hunter Biden said that it was his laptop. These esteemed intelligence professionals offered no proof of an intelligence operation, of course, even though most, if not all, currently maintain their security clearances. They threw that same rhetorical turd into the middle of the room and expected all the rest of us to nod in agreement.

    It wasn’t flunkies who signed this letter. It was otherwise serious people, including National Press Club conference host Hayden; former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper; former Secretary of Defense and C.I.A. Director Leon Panetta (himself a well-documented leaker); torture-supporter and former C.I.A. Director John Brennan; torture apologist and former Acting C.I.A. Director Mike Morrell; among others. 

    They offered no proof of any ties between the Hunter Biden laptop and Russia, between Trump’s election as president in 2016 (which they went on about at length) and Russia, or between WikiLeaks and Russia. 

    We’re just supposed to take their word for it because they’re important, smart and well-placed. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the likes of these signatories say, when somebody disagrees with them, “Well, if you could only see the information that I see…,” or “If you had access to the information that I have access to … .”

    It’s time to call a spade a spade. They’re lying. And they want us to believe their lies. I was at the C.I.A. too. I underwent the same training that they underwent. And if there was one thing the C.I.A. taught me, it was that if I was going to make a judgment or draw a conclusion, I had to offer proof. I wasn’t allowed to hide behind language like, “all the hallmarks of” or “leads me to believe…”. If you don’t have any proof, keep your mouth shut.

    In the meantime, I was greatly heartened by the confidence that Pollack exuded at the National Press Club event. Julian Assange is in good hands. Barry will provide him with the best defense possible. 

    As for these other characters, it’s up to the rest of us to counter them and their propaganda. It’s up to us to demand the truth.

    John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act—a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration’s torture program.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/11/2022 – 21:30

  • Oregon Eyes 2023 Crackdown On Illegal Marijuana Growers
    Oregon Eyes 2023 Crackdown On Illegal Marijuana Growers

    Oregon lawmakers are looking to crack down on illegal marijuana growers who aren’t abiding by the state’s 2014 laws governing recreational use and cultivation.

    Kristian Foden-Vencil / OPB

    Year-to-date, approximately 95 metric tons of illegally grown marijuana have been seized across the state, according to the Oregon-Idaho High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force. In 2019, they seized just 8 metric tons.

    The 2014 legislation was supposed to eliminate problems caused by “uncontrolled manufacture” of the drug, however growers haven’t all magically agreed to the taxes and red tape that accompanied the legalization. Now, officials who have heard complaints from everyone from legal growers to the police are looking to crack down, AP reports.

    Now, a draft bill set for introduction in the 2023 legislative session would double the maximum fine and prison sentence for illegal grows to 10 years and $250,000 for those growing more than 100 plants, or possession in excess of 32 times the legal limits.

    FILE: Oregon State police troopers seized an estimated 500,000 pounds of processed marijuana in 2021 after serving a search warrant on a property in White City, north of Medford. (via Oregon Live)

    The bill would also limit personal possession to 2 ounces of marijuana in a public place, and 8 ounces at home.

    The measure also holds people accountable for environmental damage and prohibits use of water at locations not licensed for growing marijuana. Addressing immigrant labor, the draft bill makes it a crime for managers of an illegal grow site to confiscate a passport or immigration document, to threaten to report a person to a government agency for arrest or deportation, or withhold wages without lawful justification.

    Some parts of Oregon have seen record seizures as police raid plantation after plantation. Police say foreign criminal gangs have become involved, from Mexico, Russia, China and other countries. -AP

    In October, a single raid in Yamhill County yielded 76,930 pounds of marijuana –  roughly $76 million worth, the largest pot bust on record. According to the report, the haul would be worth $269 million on the East Coast.

    “Investigators found the entire property had been converted to facilitate the growth, storage, processing, and packaging of marijuana to be shipped or transported out of the area,” said the sheriff’s office.

    And in another October raid, Oregon State Police, with the assistance of SWAT officers, raided a property in southern Oregon – destroying around 1,000 pounds of illegal, processed marijuana. Firearms, stolen vehicles and the carcass of a black bear were found in the raid.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/11/2022 – 21:00

  • Dupe Or Designated Defendant? The Criminal Case Against Jack Dorsey
    Dupe Or Designated Defendant? The Criminal Case Against Jack Dorsey

    Authored by Jonathan Turley via jonathanturley.org,

    The latest Twitter disclosures have raised potential legal liability for Twitter and its executives. No one appears more at risk than Twitter’s former CEO Jack Dorsey

    It is an ironic turn of events since Dorsey supported the takeover by Elon Musk and has called for all files to be released without filtering. Dorsey has the feel of a “designated defendant,” someone who was pushed forward by others to take any legal hit.

    On its face, Dorsey has vulnerability after the latest release. He was repeatedly asked by members of Congress about censoring and shadow-banning, which has now been confirmed in these files.

    In September 2018, Dorsey testified under oath and denied what these files appear to now confirm. Rep. Mike Doyle, D., Pa., asked, “Social media is being rigged to censor conservatives. Is that true of Twitter?”

    Dorsey responded, “No.”

    Doyle then asked “Are you censoring people?”

    “No,” Dorsey said.

    “Twitter’s shadow-banning prominent Republicans… is that true?” Doyle asked.

    Dorsey again said no.

    Dorsey was also asked about my prior testimony on private censorship in circumventing the First Amendment as a type of censorship by surrogate. Dorsey and the other CEOs were asked about my warning of a “‘little brother’ problem, a problem which private entities do for the government that which it cannot legally do for itself.” In response, Dorsey insisted that “we don’t have a censoring department.”

    It now appears that the entire company was operating as a censoring department. However, there were in fact super-censors. Dorsey did not mention the Strategic Response Team-Global Escalation Team (SRT-GET), which operated above what journalist Bari Weiss described as “a level beyond official ticketing, beyond the rank-and-file moderators following the company’s policy on paper.”

    That group reportedly included Vijaya Gadde, head of Legal, Policy and Trust; Yoel Roth, the global head of Trust and Safety; CEOs Jack Dorsey and Parag Agrawal, and others.

    Notably, others at the company made similar denials as Dorsey but may not have done so under oath. In 2018, Gadde and head of product Kayvon Beykpour expressly declared, “We do not shadow-ban. And we certainly don’t shadow-ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.”

    Even if untrue, lying in public is generally not a crime. However, when you repeat a lie to federal investigators or Congress or the courts, it becomes a federal offense.

    The question is whether Dorsey was left in the dark on these decisions. He was reportedly a member of SRT-GET. However, some of the files indicate that these decisions may have been made without his knowledge. That includes the decision on the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, which Dorsey called a “total mistake.”

    Dorsey could quibble over the term “shadow-banning” but the question was obviously meant as a follow-up to the inquiry over “rigging” discourse on the platform. He could also stress other answers, where he tied “shadow-banning” to a more subjective notion of political bias. For example, Dorsey also repeated these statements in public, including an appearance with Sean Hannity on Fox, when he was asked if “Twitter has ever been involved in shadow-banning, Dorsey again categorically denied such practices: “We do not shadow-ban according to political ideology or viewpoint.”

    For most people, Dorsey’s comments clearly suggested that there was no shadow-banning. However, he could claim that he knew that they were shadow-banning but that they were not doing so “according to political ideology or viewpoint.” That is clearly refuted by the new files showing a hair-triggered censorship system directed against conservative and Republican posters.

    The other defense is lack of knowledge but, even if accepted, that will raise the question of whether this was a case of a designated defendant or willful blindness. 

    In some cases, there is a suspicion that corporations will assign some executive to sign off on compliance or certifications as the fall guy or designated defendant if things go wrong. The chump is often a junior lawyer or executive who takes personal responsibility for certifying a false fact.

    Dorsey is clearly no chump or junior executive. The question is then whether this was a case of willful blindness or an attempt by other executives like Gadde or Roth to give him plausible deniability by keeping him in the dark.  He then became the public face in unequivocally and confidently denying practices like shadow-banning.

    The greatest defense for Dorsey may be found in the Justice Department itself. Any prosecution of Twitter executives could prove a hard sell for Attorney General Merrick Garland, whose department has been repeatedly accused of pronounced political bias. 

    While Garland has aggressively pursued contempt sanctions against Trump associates, it is not clear if he would prove as aggressive with Democratic allies like Dorsey or other Twitter executives. He could face that question if the House under the GOP pursues perjury or contempt sanctions.

    Dorsey once said about Twitter that “It’s really complex to make something simple.” He may now be hoping that his answers before Congress were simple enough to make any prosecution complex.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/11/2022 – 20:30

  • Destructive Ambiguity In Crypto Regulation
    Destructive Ambiguity In Crypto Regulation

    By Marcel Kasumovich, Deputy CIO of One River Asset Management

    Market Notes: Destructive Ambiguity In Regulation

    “Had we over-regulated the Internet early on, we would have missed out on many innovations that we can’t imagine living without today. The same is true for blockchain. Disruptive technologies rarely fit neatly into existing regulatory considerations, and rigid regulatory frameworks have repeatedly stifled innovation. It’s likely that innovations in the Blockchain will outpace policy, let’s not slow it down.”

    Brookings Institution made this declaration in 2015. It is time to heed those wise words.

    But it’s money. The stakes are higher. That digital assets have lived to see their fifth bear market is already an achievement. Liberty Reserve is a reminder of how hard it is to survive. Regulatory clarity is THE issue. It’s not easy. It’s especially hard for technology built to shred powerful middlemen. Be attentive to the resilient components of the ecosystem. They matter most in disruptive downturns. Those are the building blocks. Today, it is Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Stablecoins – more than two-thirds of the market cap (Figure 1). Tomorrow, it will be the things built on those foundations.

    Discussions on regulation are met with a natural first response: I’m not a lawyer. You don’t have to be. Follow the money. That trail will tell you a lot about regulatory policy and compliance. Where are my assets? Most investors want to spend time focused on price risk and portfolio construction, not operational ones. Yet, the digital financial crisis has investors reasonably going back to the basics: Custody, the foundation for institutional scale.

    “Self-custody.” Aren’t digital assets about bringing users control? Yes, to a point. The concept of unhosted wallets, or “self-custody,” removes counterparty risk entirely. It pushes all the risk to the investor. The user controls the keys, and thus, the assets. For individuals, this can be a powerful tool. The keys are used to identify your place on the blockchain. However, lose the keys, and you lose your assets. It also introduces various regulatory issues, such as the Travel Rule for money under the Bank Secrecy Act. Unhosted wallets need to adhere to these rules to avoid illicit activity.

    But unhosted wallets are not institution friendly. “The investor” in this case is an institutional machine. Private keys can be broken into pieces. To unlock assets requires an entire key, and diversity of the pieces can ensure security. Phrases can be stored in multiple places. Unhosted wallets could be widespread. But this isn’t where institutions start. Reasonably. State Street. BNY Mellon. These are familiar custodial arrangements and native digital players need to come as close as possible to replicating them. And they have.

    Demand for hosted, third-party custody solutions has mirrored that of institutional interest in digital assets. Figure 2 illustrates industry players in custodial solutions over time. There’s a surge in 2018, just after the super-spike in digital assets in 2017. In the most recent cycle, traditional banks were drawn to provide custodial support, just in time for the peak in 2021 asset prices. The solutions are there, but not all are created equal. And investors would like tools familiar to traditional markets.

    “Qualified custodian” is one of those familiar elements. Digital custodians were attracted to this standard. But there’s an issue – it is defined by the Custody Rule, regulated by the SEC, and there appears no urgency to provide clarity for digital assets. Entities seeking regulatory clarity found creative solutions through State Chartered Trust Companies. Independently capitalized. Segregated assets. 100% reserved. Deep cold storage solutions. In 2018, digital “qualified custodians” were led by the New York State Department of Financial Services. It is an institutional standard.

    Yet, there are roadblocks imposed by regulators. The Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 121 took banks out of the custody business. “The staff believes that Entity A should present a liability on its balance sheet to reflect its obligation to safeguard the crypto-assets held for its platform users.” Traditional custody is off balance sheet. Custodial services are uneconomic as banks are capitalized to gross balance sheets. A win for digital custodians? Not quite. The Bulletin required disclosure that custodial assets may not be protected in bankruptcy, adding uncertainty rather than clarity.

    Pulling on the disclosure thread takes us down another regulatory path – the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) that governs all US commercial transactions. Digital assets do not fit neatly into UCC. We learned the same with our Digital Income strategy. And there has been little effort to provide clarity to date. Service providers are now spelling it out for users. Agreements are being updated to state the applicability of UCC Article 8. That article implies custodial assets are bankruptcy remote from general creditors. This is the same legal protection offered in traditional asset markets.

    Clarity is being realized by enforcement. The wave of bankruptcy is bringing clarity to custody issues – Celsius’s segregated customer assets are being returned to the customer. And precedent is being set on the value of regulatory clarity. LedgerX, a derivative intermediary, was part of the FTX family and excluded from the bankruptcy filing. It has been subject to CFTC regulatory oversight since 2017. Simple things followed. Communication lines between LedgerX and the CFTC. Capital requirements to meet operating costs. Segregation of client assets. Regulation worked.

    Don’t let any crisis go to waste. The transformative potential of digital assets is driven by their resiliency – the foundations can’t be easily killed. Big thinkers on money, like Hayek, contemplated the issues holistically. When in doubt go back to those. Hayek’s thinking was simple – competition is good. Why should money and its regulations be different? Hayek evaluated innovation in the monetary sector through digital currencies long before their existence. His last revision on the topic was in 1990, at the age of 91. Life is long. Live it.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/11/2022 – 20:00

  • North Carolina Treasurer Wants BlackRock CEO Larry Fink To 'Resign Or Be Removed'
    North Carolina Treasurer Wants BlackRock CEO Larry Fink To ‘Resign Or Be Removed’

    Authored by Nathan Worcester via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    You might call it the “battle of BlackRock.”

    BlackRock CEO Larry Fink attends a session at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos on Jan. 23, 2020. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)

    The conflict, which pits Republican officials in states across the country against the world’s largest asset manager, has only intensified in recent months.

    Just days ago, Florida became the latest state to pull money from BlackRock—in its case, $2 billion in state-controlled assets.

    The state’s chief financial officer, Jimmy Patronis, explained that “using Florida’s cash to fund BlackRock’s social-engineering project isn’t something we signed up for.”

    Now, North Carolina Treasurer Dale Folwell has taken the rhetoric up another notch.

    In a Dec. 9 letter to BlackRock’s board of directors, he called for the firm’s CEO, Larry Fink, to “resign or be removed” from his position.

    BlackRock CEO Larry Fink during the 79th Annual Convention of Bankers in Acapulco, Mexico, on March 11, 2016. (Pedro Pardo/AFP/Getty Images)

    Folwell argued that BlackRock’s focus on “environmental, social and corporate governance” (ESG) under Fink’s leadership runs contrary to its fiduciary duty—in other words, its legal obligation to serve its clients’ best interests.

    Those many clients include the North Carolina Retirement System, for which Folwell serves as sole fiduciary. Of the $111.4 billion fund, $14 billion is presently managed by BlackRock, according to the letter.

    ESG is an investment philosophy that aims to embed particular values—for example, concern about climate change—into the financial system. Its conservative critics argue that it distorts the economy by privileging politically correct sentiment over the hard realities of the market.

    Folwell warned that Fink’s “pursuit of a political agenda has gotten in the way of BlackRock’s same fiduciary duty.”

    “A focus on ESG is not a focus on returns and potentially could force us to violate our own fiduciary duty,” he added—a broad hint, perhaps, at a potential future willingness to divest from the asset manager.

    Florida’s divestment from BlackRock isn’t the only such move in the last several months.

    Under Missouri’s Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt, now the Show Me State’s senator-elect, millions in Missourians’ retirement dollars were taken out of BlackRock’s hands.

    State Attorney General Eric Schmitt and family members attend an election-night gathering after winning the Republican primary for U.S. Senate at the Sheraton in Westport Plaza in St Louis, Mo., on Aug. 2, 2022. (Kyle Rivas/Getty Images)

    Louisiana, Utah, and Arkansas have followed similar courses of action.

    The biggest concern from many of those states has been BlackRock’s efforts to steer investors away from fossil fuels, out of a stated concern with climate change driven by human activity.

    In his 2020 Letter to Shareholders, Fink wrote that “in the near future—and sooner than most anticipate—there will be a significant reallocation of capital.

    Fink went on to tout BlackRock’s “initiatives to place sustainability at the center of our investment approach.”

    A subsequent list of those initiatives included “exiting investments that present a high sustainability-related risk, such as thermal coal producers” and “launching new investment products that screen fossil fuels.”

    Treasurers, attorneys general, and other officials from fossil fuel-producing states have argued that BlackRock’s ESG-related commitments undermine the prosperity and stability of their own communities.

    BlackRock, for its part, has responded to the ongoing pressure campaign from state-level officials with a website, “Energy investing: Setting the record straight.”

    There it argues that it identifies climate change as a long-term risk it needs to protect its clients’ interests from.

    “Our consideration of the risks and opportunities of a transition to a low-carbon economy is in the interest of realizing the best long-term financial results for our clients and entirely consistent with our fiduciary duty,” that website states.

    Many environmental groups argue that the big banks and asset managers targeted by Republican officials are not doing enough to promote fossil fuel divestment. They’re among the biggest supporters of ESG-like policies to transform the private sector under President Joe Biden, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) proposal to mandate climate-related disclosures from publicly traded companies.

    A drilling crew member raises drill pipe onto the drilling rig floor on an oil rig in the Permian Basin near Wink, Texas, on Aug. 22, 2018. (Nick Oxford/Reuters)

    A Dec. 8 article from the Sierra Club, for example, praised BlackRock for “starting to push back” against Republican officials’ campaign against ESG.

    Yet they noted that BlackRock continues to manage fossil fuel investments on behalf of its clients.

    The Epoch Times has reached out to BlackRock for further comment.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/11/2022 – 19:30

  • Identical Twins Awarded $1.5 Million Over Med School Cheating Accusations
    Identical Twins Awarded $1.5 Million Over Med School Cheating Accusations

    Identical twin sisters who were accused of cheating on their year-end medical school exams have been awarded $1.5 million in a defamation case against the Medical University of South Carolina.

    Kayla (left) and Kellie Bingham now work for the same South Carolina law firm.

    Kayla and Kellie Bingham were accused of “academic dishonesty” in May 2016 after test proctors deemed their exam performance to be too close to be a coincidence – with identical answers to 296 out of 307 questions, including 54 wrong answers. University officials launched an investigation, and a school “honor council” alleged the sisters were “signaling one another and passing notes,” according to court documents. The school ultimately ruled they had cheated on the exam.

    “It was an eight-hour exam during which we exhibited normal test-taking behavior,” Kayla Bingham told CBS MoneyWatch.

    The Binghams successfully appealed the decision and filed a lawsuit against the university, arguing that for years they had behaved and performed similarly academically and in athletics. After a four-day trial in November, a South Carolina jury decided the school had defamed the sisters and awarded them a total of $1.5 million in damages. 

    The Binghams’ legal case hinged on the theory that it is common for identical twins to perform similarly on tests given their genetic profiles. Nancy Segal, who runs California State University, Fullerton’s Twin Studies Center and who testified in the case, said numerous studies show that identical twins often perform similarly on a range of cognitive tests. -CBS News

    “There is a wealth of psychological research that shows that identical twins do perform very similarly on tests of intelligence, information processing and speed of response, and I was not at all surprised they turned in very similar exams,” said Segal. “When identical twins perform very differently it catches our attention.”

    “When they perform alike, it’s very consistent with the literature. I would have been surprised if they hadn’t scored alike.”

    The Binghams claimed that the allegations of cheating caused them psychological distress, which included panic attacks and post-traumatic stress disorder.

    “It was a very hostile environment. People we had known, sat next to and studied with for two years would not speak to us,” Kellie Bingham told CBS. “They knew our work ethic and study habits but refused to hear our side of the story. People we trusted completely turned their backs on us.”

    The university’s accusation and the events that ensued also interfered with the Binghams’ plans to become doctors. The two now work as government affairs advisers at the same South Carolina law firm.

    And according to Kayla, “We came to understand that once word gets out, even if it’s not accurate, it damages your reputation as a person. So we completely switched tracks,” adding that she “wanted to fight back because I had been wronged.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/11/2022 – 19:00

  • Ban TikTok Everywhere?
    Ban TikTok Everywhere?

    Authored by Anders Corr via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    It’s time to ban TikTok. The social media app is wildly popular with young adults and children but controlled by an authoritarian regime in China. Apple rates the platform for users ages 12-plus. Yet the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses the app’s secret algorithm to influence and track their opinions, messaging, keystrokes, and locations.

    The TikTok logo is displayed outside a TikTok office in Culver City, Calif., on Aug. 27, 2020. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

    One billion users globally are vulnerable to the theft of their passwords and future blackmail. Based on data already collected, TikTok could leverage American leaders over the entire 21st century.

    TikTok is expanding into online purchases, music, search engines, warehouses, and fulfillment centers. It would like to become an everything app that replaces Google, Apple, Twitter, Amazon, and Facebook.

    Unfortunately, the Biden administration is doing next to nothing against the threat that TikTok poses to the American public and economy. The silence of most Democrats on the issue is a form of complicity.

    Republican States Against TikTok

    But Republicans in Congress and state capitals across the United States are increasingly voicing their concerns and stepping up to the plate.

    Nebraska’s Governor Pete Ricketts was the trendsetter, having banned TikTok on state-owned and leased devices two years ago. In the past few weeks, other Republican leaders—including in Texas, South Dakota, South Carolina, Maryland, and Arkansas—have taken similar actions.

    The State of Indiana filed two lawsuits against Tiktok, alleging the app deceives consumers about content and security. Indiana claims the algorithm purposefully addicts young people. One lawsuit claims it promotes inappropriate content and is linked to mental and eating disorders.

    A young girl looks at social media apps, including TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and WhatsApp, on a smartphone on Nov. 12, 2019. (Peter Byrne/PA)

    Indiana’s Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita said, “TikTok is actively exposing our children to drug use, alcohol abuse, profanity and sexually explicit material at a young age.”

    In South Carolina, the Republican governor not only removed the app from government devices, but asked state offices to block TikTok’s website.

    Republican Governor of Maryland Larry Hogan issued an emergency cybersecurity directive prohibiting technologies from both Russia and China, including TikTok, from the executive branch.

    South Dakota’s tourism bureau deleted its TikTok account of 60,000 followers.

    These states are stepping up to pay the price for U.S. national security.

    South Dakota’s Governor Kristi Noem, who signed the state’s executive order against TikTok, wrote that the CCP collects personal information on users, including internet browsing data and keystrokes. That would mean it could harvest passwords.

    In an opinion article, Noem criticized the Biden administration for insufficiently protecting the United States from foreign adversaries.

    “Mr. Biden hasn’t demanded that Beijing or TikTok cease gathering the data of American citizens, and he hasn’t pushed Congress to ban the app nationally,” she wrote. “By refusing to respond to this threat, the president is allowing China’s communist leaders to continue their attack on American security.”

    Noem also plans to work with South Dakota’s legislature to address China’s buying of American farmland. Companies from China often purchase land near U.S. military bases, threatening surveillance of strategic assets, including nuclear weapons.

    “South Dakota is showing the nation how to create a state-led response to threats from communist China,” the governor wrote. “We are taking the lead on preventing Beijing from accessing the private data of our citizens and throttling our food supply.”

    Noem, a Republican, will get support from most of South Dakota’s voters as 53 percent are Republicans, compared to only 37 percent Democrats. China can be a bipartisan issue—perhaps many Democrats will support her measures. But TikTok users and farmland owners could turn against her.

    Taking a strong position against the CCP, even on a bipartisan issue in the United States, carries political risk.

    Biden’s Big Choice

    The Biden administration faces increasing risk from its limited options on the TikTok issue as well. Whether it bans the app or not, someone will be unhappy.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/11/2022 – 18:30

  • White House Says Still "Negotiating" For Whelan's Release, Lashes Out At Critics
    White House Says Still “Negotiating” For Whelan’s Release, Lashes Out At Critics

    The Biden administration says it is still engaging with Moscow in an ongoing attempt to secure detained Marine veteran Paul Whelan’s release from the Russian prison where he’s serving a 16-year sentence, which reportedly involves hard labor.

    On Sunday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told ABC’s “This Week” the US is still “negotiating” for his release – confirming that recently a “very serious, specific proposal” was made to the Russians.

    He further gave some background on the Brittney Griner release while seeking to deflect widespread criticisms that Whelan was left behind for the less serious case of WNBA star Griner. Biden has been accused of simply choosing her for her fame and the bigger PR campaign rallying behind her.

    Kirby described that for months the White House pushed hard to gain Whelan and Griner’s release together, but “it just didn’t land anywhere… with the Russians,” he explained in the Sunday comments.

    “As we progressed through this summer and into the fall… it was clear that they were treating Paul very separately, very distinctly because of these sham espionage charges they levied against him.” Kirby said that just before Griner’s release it became clear that Whelan’s release would remain unlikely. 

    “It really occurred to us that there was just no chance of doing it last week… we had been trying all the way up until the moment we actually secured the deal that got Brittney home, we were still trying to get Paul out,” he said.

    Days ago CNN cited US officials who listed some of the Russian names that could potentially be included in a future Whelan swap: 

    US officials made quiet inquiries to the Germans about whether they might be willing to include [Vadim] Krasikov in the trade, a senior German government source told CNN earlier this year. But ultimately, the US was not able to secure Krasikov’s release. The German government was not willing to seriously consider including Krasikov –who assassinated a Georgian citizen in broad daylight in Berlin in 2019 – in a potential trade, the German source said.

    The US made several other offers to the Russians, sources said, to try to get them to agree to include Whelan in the swap. Among the names floated by the US was Alexander Vinnik, a Russian national extradited to the US in August on allegations of money laundering, hacking and extortion. The US also offered to trade Roman Seleznev, a convicted Russian cyber-criminal currently serving a 14-year sentence in the US, sources said.

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    The biggest name on that list is Vadim Krasikov, a former colonel from Russia’s domestic spy organization. He’s serving out a life sentence in Germany for murder after being convicted in the assassination of a former Chechen fighter, Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, which was carried out in a Berlin park.

    Kirby used the Sunday morning media interviews to lash out at the White House’s critics who point to the Russians getting the deal of the century in Viktor Bout’s release.

    “They weren’t on the phone. They weren’t watching the incredible effort and determination by [Roger Carstens] and his team to try to get both Paul and Brittney out together,” Kirby said. “In a negotiation, you do what you can. You do as much as you can. You push and you push and you push. And we did. And this deal we got last week, that was the deal that was possible. It was the deal we could get now. Now was the moment we could get it, and we executed it.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/11/2022 – 18:00

  • 14 Border Agents Committed Suicide In 2022
    14 Border Agents Committed Suicide In 2022

    Authored by Madalina Vasiliu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Fourteen Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents who worked at the southern border committed suicide this year, according to members of Congress.

    A Border Patrol agent organizes a large group of illegal immigrants near Eagle Pass, Texas, on May 20, 2022. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

    The Republican and Democrat lawmakers released the grim, and growing, tally during a press conference on Dec. 7 at the House Triangle.

    Between 2007 and Nov. 2022, a total of 149 CBP agents located at the U.S. southern border took their lives.

    CBP agents are exposed to traumatic experiences that affect their lives, said the lawmakers, noting that it’s common for law enforcement officers to keep their mental health needs to themselves.

    CBP agents feel abandoned by the current administration, Rep. Mayra Flores (R-Texas) said, referring to President Joe Biden’s recent remarks.

    When asked on Dec. 6 why he wasn’t going to the border while visiting a border state, Biden told reporters at the White House it was “because there are more important things going on.”

    Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) said, “While in Washington, there’s a lot that divides us in policy and often drives us in a lot of different directions, but there are a lot of things that should unite us.”

    Congressman Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) spoke at the bipartisan meeting about border patrol suicide rates at the House Triangle in Washington on Dec. 7, 2022. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    During the 2022 fiscal year, $23 million has been allocated to the mental health of CBP agents, Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) said, adding that the same budget for the 2023 fiscal year will be the same.

    The Taking Action to Prevent Suicide (TAPS) Act would allow CBP agents to freely speak with health care professionals without fear of losing their jobs as well as increase the number of local behavioral health specialists with the expertise to provide psychological assistance to CBP officers.

    If there are no health care experts in the agency, Cuellar said, the government should work with local organizations to provide what the CBP agents need for their mental health.

    Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) spoke at the bipartisan conference about border patrol suicide rates at the House Triangle in Washington on Dec. 7, 2022. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    “Until we take out the fear of law enforcement coming forward and talking about their mental health issues, they’re never going to do it,” said Brandon Judd, president of the Border Patrol Union.

    There needs to be more than a friendly social worker, said Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.). CBP agents should have health care personnel trained to guide them through traumatic experiences when necessary, she added.

    “We all know that our immigration system is fully broken. It is working for no one. Therefore, the folks who are manning the southern border are bearing the brunt of our failed policies,” Slotkin said.

    The Epoch Times previously obtained data indicating that CBP captured 209,664 illegal aliens along the southern border in October.

    Rep. Darren Soto (D-Fla.), said that CBP’s southern agents need more advanced technology, such as sensor towers and refugee processing facilities. Soto supports Biden’s proposed homeland security budget “to keep our homeland safe and respect international refugee laws.”

    “While many of us may have disagreements on border solutions, both here and across Congress, we still have to come together, find common ground, find solutions like the TAPS Act because our Border Protection officers deserve nothing less for protecting our homeland,” Soto told the press.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/11/2022 – 17:30

  • "Egregious": McCarthy To Subpoena 51 Intel Agents Who Called Hunter Laptop Bombshell 'Disinformation'
    “Egregious”: McCarthy To Subpoena 51 Intel Agents Who Called Hunter Laptop Bombshell ‘Disinformation’

    Amid calls that he sucks and should be replaced, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) says he’ll subpoena the 51 former intelligence officials who said the New York Post‘s bombshell report on the Hunter Biden laptop had ‘all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

    The California Republican — who is expected to become speaker when the GOP takes control of the House of Representatives in January — said what Twitter did with The Post’s bombshell October 2020 report was “egregious.”  -NY Post

    “Those 51 intel agents that signed a letter that said the Hunter Biden information was all wrong, was Russia collusion, many of them have a security clearance,” McCarthy told Fox News on Saturday. “We’re going to bring them before a committee. I’m going to have them have a hearing​,​ bring them and subpoena them before a committee. Why did they sign it? Why did they lie to the American public?”

    McCarthy – former roommate of liberal pollster (and Hunter Biden pal) Frank Luntz – has faced strong opposition to his bid to become the next Speaker of the House, particularly from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), so you’ll understand our skepticism over his ‘vow’ to get to the bottom of the 51 former senior intelligence officials.

    Former CIA Director John Brennan and ex-National Security Council Director James Clapper were among a group of former intelligence officials who signed a statement days after the expose, claiming it “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”  

    ​McCarthy questioned the move. “Why did you use the reputation that America was able to give to you … but use it for a political purpose and lie to the American public?” he said on Fox. 

    Republicans are preparing to launch a number of investigations into the Biden family as a result of The Post’s reporting about Hunter Biden’s overseas business relationships while his father was vice president in the Obama administration. -NY Post

    Journalist Glenn Greenwald puts the whole thing in perspective in a great Twitter thread:

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/11/2022 – 17:00

  • Morgan Stanley On What Will Drive The Next Phase Of ESG Research
    Morgan Stanley On What Will Drive The Next Phase Of ESG Research

    By Stephen Byrd, Head of North American Equity Research, Power/Utilities and Clean Tech at Morgan Stanley

    Debate among investors is growing about whether to focus on stocks which are ESG ‘enablers’ with best-in-class ESG metrics, or on ‘ESG improvers’. We see merit in both approaches but believe the benefits of owning ‘ESG rate of change’ stocks and engaging with companies in transition are underappreciated. In a recent report, Morgan Stanley’s Sustainability Research team, in collaboration with industry analysts, our Quantitative Investment Strategies (QIS) team, and AlphaWise, show that focusing on names with improving ESG metrics can deliver both alpha and positive ESG impacts.

    Our work is distinctive on multiple fronts. First, in collaboration with our analysts, we developed a forward-looking framework to analyze ESG rate of change at the stock level. We think it provides a better gauge of the likely future rate of change than typical data services, which are often backward looking and/or not informed by in-depth, sector-specific analyses. In addition, our analysts focused on companies with an opportunity to improve their financial performance thanks to ESG rate of change, a key difference from typical ESG analyses.

    From a quant perspective, our QIS team assessed the impact on stock returns of ESG criteria such as carbon efficiency, exclusions driven by environmental harm, percentages of revenues linked to fossil fuels, and non-climate ESG concerns. The team found little evidence of a significant positive or negative effect on performance from screening on such broad ESG criteria. This underscores the need to marry ESG capabilities with strong sector expertise in order to generate alpha, tailoring ESG criteria and strategies to industry dynamics. We developed a robust set of sector-specific ESG rate of change criteria.

    We were surprised how often deflationary technologies are driving simultaneous improvement in both ESG and financial metrics. An usually broad range of innovations are dropping in cost so much that they offer significant net benefits on both fronts. These include solar/wind/clean hydrogen, green ammonia, precision agriculture, improved molecular plastics recycling technology, more efficient electric motors, energy storage cost reductions, ‘green steel’, more durable vehicle tires, recycling technologies, electrification of many products/industrial processes, carbon capture tech, and waste-to-energy/waste-to-plastics technologies.

    We reject a dichotomy between investing in ESG ‘enablers’ versus ‘improvers’. We would highlight a recent Morgan Stanley report on Earthshots led by Ed Stanley that identified a number of important emerging ‘enabling’ technologies – radical decarbonization accelerants or global warming mitigants. With the help of our global analysts, the team reviewed 40 promising technologies but zeroed in on six of the most game-changing. Given a growing mismatch between the pace of climate technology adoption and the planet’s need for these solutions, we believe these Earthshots are likely to be a key secular trade of the 2020s.

    In evaluating ‘improvers’, we reiterate the need to marry ESG investing principles and deep sector expertise. Applying ESG metrics without such knowledge can lead to suboptimal results. For example, in the US utilities sector, management teams are shutting down expensive coal-fired power plants and building renewables, energy storage, and transmission, which drives superior EPS growth. Our quantitative research team showed the superior stock returns for companies leading the way on this ‘carbon rate of change’ strategy, but many of these stocks would screen negatively on classic ESG metrics such as carbon intensity.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/11/2022 – 16:30

  • Lithium-Ion Battery Prices Rise For First Time
    Lithium-Ion Battery Prices Rise For First Time

    Lithium, a mineral used in batteries to power electric vehicles, smartphones, laptops, and all sorts of gadgets, has surged to a record high this year as the world pushes forward with a ‘green’ future. But in the process of decarbonizing the global economy, battery prices, for the first time since BloombergNEF began tracking the market in 2010, have risen on an annual basis. 

    After a decade of deflation, the volume-weighted average price of lithium-ion battery packs across all industries increased to $151 per kilowatt-hour in 2022, a 7% increase from last year. BloombergNEF forecasts prices could continue rising next year. 

    “Never before in the 12 years BNEF has surveyed battery prices have they recorded an annual increase, instead dropping sharply as production grew,” Bloomberg said. 

    The rising costs of lithium, nickel, cobalt, aluminum, and manganese — crucial metals used in battery making have increased lithium-ion battery pack prices. 

    Just look at the Lithium Price Index — prices are out of control … 

    “Not until 2024, when more lithium production is expected to come online, are prices forecast to drop again,” Bloomberg explained. 

    The rise in lithium-ion battery packs could be the first red flags in the energy transition that prices to decarbonize economies will be costly. 

    “With the advent of electromobility and all this excitement about lithium, the world needs new sources,” Daniel Jimenez from consultancy iLiMarkets recently told the FT. “Whoever is producing lithium in the coming three years is going to make abnormally high margins.”

    Yet until new supply comes online, lithium-ion battery packs will rise, which has already caused EV affordability concerns. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/11/2022 – 16:00

  • The Rise And Fall Of Inflation Risk Factors
    The Rise And Fall Of Inflation Risk Factors

    By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

    This week we will all focus on CPI on Tuesday and the Fed on Wednesday. What Chair Powell says and does on Wednesday will reverberate through the markets. For the record, I expect 50 bps and he will keep a rate hike on the table for the February 1 st announcement.

    Rather than attempting to estimate this week’s CPI data (which will be important), today’s report will focus on what will drive inflation (and the economy/markets) after the Fed decision.

    We have seven weeks between this FOMC decision and the next one. Seven weeks feels like  a lifetime in a market that is prone to large daily and weekly swings. Even the views on the economy are shifting rapidly as more economists seem to be heading in our direction, which is that the recession will start sooner (Q1) and be deeper than most people previously thought.

    If anything, the market is pricing in a Squishy Landing. That report tried to define a “squishy” landing and also tried to figure out why markets may misinterpret data as indicating a “soft” landing when the worst is yet to come. Finally, we re-iterated our more pessimistic outlook in that report.

    Inflation Factors versus Inflation

    Rather than just trying to “estimate” inflation, we examine the factors that “drive” inflation. While we could just estimate various inflation components such as rent, in this report, we will try something different. We will lay out the factors that drive inflation. We believe that these factors do a good job of predicting where inflation and the economy are headed

    In theory this is what many do, but we hope that today’s analysis makes it clear how these factors have been behaving (and how they will behave). That will go a long way in explaining why our current outlook is more pessimistic and is strongly in the camp that “the Fed has gone too far already.”

    We will address the individual components that go into this model. This model shows the highest inflationary pressures were from Q2 2021 to Q4 2021. It remained elevated for that extended period of time due to a variety of factors (the importance of which changed within that period). The factors have been pointing to steadily declining inflation and growth pressures ever since.

    If anything, the factors point to deflationary pressures in Q1 and Q2 next year – which is another way of reaching our conclusion that the economy and markets are in jeopardy of a large “risk-off” trade that will break 2022’s lows on stocks (while yields plummet).

    The Inflation Factors

    We will use 5 factors. The factors are somewhat broad and the influence that they have on inflation is just an estimate. Yes, inflation and the economy are closely linked. No, our model is not tested and is both arbitrary and subjective. Nonetheless, it seems logical and almost elegant. The explanation fits the narrative of what has been going on, and some version of this “model” has been influencing my thoughts on inflation, the economy, and markets. It is a good starting point for this overall discussion and what to expect in terms of economic data and corporate reporting over the next seven weeks.

    The factors that we use are:

    • The Fed. This is primarily focused on rates and the balance sheet. Lower rates are stimulative and higher rates act as a headwind. Balance sheet expansion (QE) is stimulative while balance sheet reduction (QT) is contractionary. Other “extraordinary” measures are included as well.
    • Stimulus. This includes a range of items such as checks sent to individuals, moratoriums on rent/student loans, PPP, and government spending programs like the “Inflation Reduction” Act.
    • Supply Chains. This attempts to broadly incorporate supply chain issues from the actual inability to produce goods to the costs of shipping and transporting. It is difficult to get an exact definition, but we all know it when we see it.
    • War. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions are also factors.
    • Disruptive. Another broad topic and not only is it extremely important, but it has been overlooked by many. It does not just include the wealth gained and lost by investors or the impact on the economy. The spending generated by “disruptive” companies (and even units of larger/more “traditional” organizations) was quite simply massive. This segment can easily include crypto as well as disruptive companies (some of which were already public or recently went public, and others largely benefitted from PE/VC investments). This may be the most contentious factor, which likely makes it the most important in terms of explaining why our outlook remains so pessimistic.

    We did not treat wage inflation as an inflation factor. This is a tricky and almost circular issue. Is wage inflation a factor? Certainly, the Fed focuses on wage inflation because it could potentially create “sticky” (or rather “non-transitory”) inflation. From that perspective, it is a factor rather than an output. However, we will treat wage inflation as another output (wage inflation will respond to the other factors, making it okay to ignore in the factor model). It is somewhat circular, which is why we highlight it.

    The Fed

    The Fed did everything it could in the immediate aftermath of COVID and the COVID lockdowns. They bought corporate bonds/ETFs, backstopped money markets and corporate new issuance, expanded their balance sheet, and cut rates to zero.

    Over time they pulled back on that support. By Q3 of 2022 we saw them acting as a moderate headwind. We should not just expect higher rates for now because the Fed is telegraphing higher rates into the future (while ramping up QT) as well.

    By early 2023 the Fed will be a deflationary pressure.

    That will start to reverse course as the Fed backpedals (likely smaller QT before rate cuts). In any case, on a standalone basis this might be the right policy, but given how the other factors are behaving, it may be a mistake.

    Stimulus

    Stimulus started slowly, ramped up, tailed off, ramped back up again, and is now in the process of declining. We’ve left it as a small positive factor for much of this year and next year.

    The bump in Q2 2021 may have been the most awkward of the inflation drivers as yet another stimulus package was passed long after there was an obvious need for it (the very nature of inflationary).

    We didn’t get a “bounce” in the factor when the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” was passed, because it wasn’t heavily front loaded, but it is why we leave stimulus as a positive factor going forward.

    Supply Chain

    The supply chain issues didn’t manifest themselves right away. In Q2 2020 oil (WTI) futures briefly traded negative. Yes, there were all sorts of weird shortages and mismatches during that time. You could get rolls and rolls of industrial grade toilet paper if you could figure out where to go, but it was virtually impossible to get high quality toilet paper (I’m sure there were other initial issues, but that one sticks out).

    It was only over time as we re-opened and inventories got whittled down that supply chain issues started to mount. Add to that the fact that there weren’t enough workers at the docks to unload (let alone ship) things. Supply chain constraints were off the charts (as was the cost of shipping). However, those costs have since come down.

    There are still some supply chain issues. Shipping isn’t great, but other issues are much smaller now. Offsetting that pressure further are the inventory builds that we’ve seen across so many industries. It is still a moderately inflationary factor, but should go away by Q2

    War

    Russia invaded Ukraine in Q1 2022, but as troops were building up before that, we started to see some pressure on commodity prices that could be attributed to the war risk. That escalated post invasion as sanctions took hold. It abated a little in the summer on the energy front (seasonal) and as some deals were attempted on the commodity front. It has ramped back up and that will continue into Q1 of next year and then it should subside into the summer again.

    Disruptive

    This doesn’t exactly follow the chart of bitcoin, ARKK, or SPAC issuance, but it is probably somewhat linked. Were those just a factor of the other factors, or a factor in their own right?

    The wealth created and spent in this subset of the universe (which was unique to this period) is its own driver. It ties into my argument that jobs lost will NOT be the metric of this recession, rather it will be jobs lost multiplied by average pay that will define this recession.

    I’m hearing this from programmers, software and hardware sellers, and event planners. The wealth created and spent was enormous, concentrated, and inflationary.

    The Whole Picture

    This chart might be a little bit messy, but it is a useful illustration of how these various factors have worked to drive inflation.

    Thinking about these factors and when they started to turn down (and how inflation/the economy have followed) sends a somewhat chilling message if they are correct.

    We are seeing little to no inflationary (growth) pressures in the economy in Q1, yet we are behaving as though fighting inflation is still job number 1.

    Bottom Line

    Look for growth and inflation to slow, regardless of what the Fed does going forward. Inflation was driven by many factors, most of which are receding on their own.

    We have seven weeks of data after this Fed meeting and will be entering into Q4 earnings. I have little reason to be optimistic unless something about these risk factors change. It would be great to have discussions on the appropriateness of these factors and their relative importance.

    This model may have many errors, but I welcome the opportunity to discuss/refine it and hopefully it gives you some food for thought on why our inflation and growth projections are on the pessimistic side of consensus.

    Good luck on Wednesday and get ready for the next 7 weeks!

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/11/2022 – 15:30

  • The Twitter Files: The Corporate Media Ignores The Biggest Story Of The Decade
    The Twitter Files: The Corporate Media Ignores The Biggest Story Of The Decade

    The biggest story of the past decade is not the covid pandemic, the January 6th protests, the war in Ukraine, the BLM riots, or even the stagflationary crisis in the US.  Behind these major events is another story, one that connects them all together in a disturbing way.  Even more important than the effects of geopolitical and economic chaos is the effect of mass censorship; without the free exchange of information and debate the public remains ignorant.  And if the public remains ignorant, crisis events have an increasing potential to explode.

    Public perception of national and international affairs is a key determinant of the outcome of disasters and conflicts.  This is why governments and elitists from around the world often seek to manipulate the ways in which people digest information.  The idea is rather simple – They believe that ‘we the people’ cannot be allowed to come to our own conclusions.  They think we cannot be trusted to develop the “proper” viewpoints and we are not smart enough to understand the implications of governmental decisions.  

    In other words, they believe the exact opposite of what is outlined in the US Constitution.  The establishment will give numerous reasons why they need to censor, suppress, spin and misrepresent the facts of any given situation, but in the end the real rationale is that they have a vision for society that is contrary to our foundations.  They have appointed themselves the arbiters of reality to see that vision done.  As Edward Bernays, the “father of public relations” once stated in his book ‘Propaganda’:

    “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”

    This is pure authoritarianism.  It’s the stuff of nightmares and revolutions.  But for many years now a large subsection of the world has denied such a dynamic exists.  It’s “conspiracy theory” and “tinfoil hattery” to claim that a small number of elites work together in secret to control public perception and govern our society from the shadows.  After all, where is the proof?

    Of course, this kind of argument is a coping mechanism for the mentally deficient.  Proof of such secretive governance and control is everywhere these days, but some people prefer willful denial.  Take for example the ongoing data drops for what is now being called “The Twitter Files.”

    The mainstream media is barely responding to the information dump initiated by Elon Musk.  They seem to be far more interested in Donald Trump’s tax records.  When they are forced to acknowledge the story, they are hostile, calling the information “boring” or unimpressive.  It’s a classic psychological  tactic of typical narcissists and criminals – When they get caught, they act indifferent, as if neither the evidence nor their crimes really matter.  If getting caught doesn’t matter to them, then their crimes must not be all that bad, right?

    The content of these files is astonishing, but at the same time it is true that the conclusions are not surprising.    

    The files simply confirm almost everything conservative and libertarian commentators have been saying for years; all those “conspiracy theories” about Big Tech censorship of conservatives turned out to be true.  Not only that, but the theory that government agencies and officials from the DNC worked with Big Tech to silence and undermine their political opponents was also true.  

    Twitter has long denied that they “shadow ban” users, but this was a lie.  The data shows that small groups within Twitter called “strategic response teams” suppressed up to 200 accounts per day.  Usually these were accounts of larger and more influential conservative politicians and celebrities.  And, these teams operated in coordination with Democrat officials and agencies like the FBI.  In some cases the goal was to mute a particular individual. In other cases the goal was to steer national elections.   

    Internal Twitter communications show that SRT groups spent most of their time fabricating reasons why certain information was subject to TOS.  In other words, if Twitter’s rules were not being violated, they made up new rules.  

    The exposure of Twitter is the biggest story of the decade because it provides proof of a hidden cabal.  It shows the ugly mechanics behind the scenes and exposes a network of elites and their errand boys who were involved in direct operations to destroy the 1st Amendment for the sake of ideological supremacy.  

    It’s the classic definition of fascism, a definition that Benito Mussolini reiterated when he argued:  “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”

    And, if this brand of Fascism was happening within the halls of Twitter, then there is little doubt it is also happening at companies like Google/YouTube, Apple, Facebook, etc.  Before we had evidence, now we have confirmation.  

    The corporate media argues over relevance instead of morality because they benefited from the censorship.  It’s important to remember that one of the first measures Big Tech companies applied after suppressing the alternative media during the pandemic was to then amplify the corporate media.  These companies are floundering with dismal audience numbers and dwindling profits.  No one listens to them anymore.  Yet, as long as they promote the establishment narrative their opinions and disinformation are given priority on nearly every search engine and social media platform.  

    Of course they aren’t interested in the Twitter Files, liars are often “bored” by honest commentary and factual information.  Also, their continued existence relies on the censorship of their competition in the alternative media.

    The bottom line is this:  According to the Bill of Rights, it is illegal for agents of the US government to obstruct the free speech of law abiding American citizens.  It does not matter if the action is done by using “private businesses” as middlemen.  And, if a private business is colluding with government to implement political policy then it is no longer a private business.  Twitter was participating in a form of treason, along with the agencies that they cooperated with.  It’s a huge story, and one that should lead to punishment for those involved.      

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/11/2022 – 15:00

  • Army Captain Separated From Service For Refusing Vaccine As House Passes Bill That Rescinds Military’s Vaccine Mandate
    Army Captain Separated From Service For Refusing Vaccine As House Passes Bill That Rescinds Military’s Vaccine Mandate

    Authored by J.M. Phelps via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    An Army captain was separated from the service for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine as the GOP attempts to roll back Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s military vaccine mandate.

    A soldier watches another soldier receive his COVID-19 vaccination from Army Preventive Medical Services in Fort Knox, Ky., on Sept. 9, 2021. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images)

    Capt. Stephen Rogerson (a pseudonym) has served in the Army for 17 years, and on Dec. 6, a three-person administrative board voted to separate him from service. On the same day, the House passed an $858 billion defense funding bill, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year 2023, that included a provision to rescind the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

    But soldiers like Rogerson are “falling through the cracks of a failed policy at precisely the wrong time,” according to R. Davis Younts, an Air Force Reserve Judge Advocate General (JAG) and civilian attorney.

    In October 2021, Rogerson received a temporary medical exemption through his primary care manager. Within two hours of submitting his request for exemption to the vaccine to his command, it was denied.

    “Rather than accepting my exemption, they gave it to the command surgeon who overturned it and took measures to deny it—without the authority or policy in place to do so,” he told The Epoch Times, using a pseudonym for fear of reprisals.

    “In addition to opposing the vaccine for medical concerns, I was opposed to it because it came out so quickly and there was no way possible to know its long-term side effects.” Thus, he took all necessary steps to oppose the vaccine.

    For this, Rogerson received a General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand in February, which was permanently filed into his record.

    “Those things are going to be in my record, unless there’s some sort of language requiring the military to take out the adverse actions given to soldiers who refused to take the experimental vaccine,” he said.

    “While Congress taking action is a great thing, the language isn’t clear,” Rogerson said.

    According to Younts, “The latest language in the NDAA is compromised language,” explaining that the agreement will only end the Department of Defense’s (DoD) vaccine mandate, and does not address the issue of the thousands of service members who have already been separated or who have had adverse action taken against them due to their refusal to take the vaccine.

    If the NDAA is approved by the Senate and signed into law by President Joe Biden, Austin would have 30 days to rescind the mandate.

    “I know, firsthand, the military is continuing to push the vaccine and boosters,” he said. “The Navy and Coast Guard, in particular, are putting tremendous pressure on its members.”

    Younts believes the “coercion” to get the vaccine will continue, even if the mandate is rescinded.

    He questioned whether “the DOD’s intent will be to continue to punish and kick out those individuals who violated the supposed ‘lawful order’ to get the vaccine while it was a mandate.”

    The White House said including the provision in NDAA was “a mistake.”

    “Making sure our troops are ready to defend this country and prepared to do so, that remains the President’s priority, and the vaccine requirement for COVID does just that,” John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, said during a press briefing on Dec. 7.

    A Whole New Fight

    Service members in the Air Force, Marines, and Navy are currently protected by a preliminary injunction that prohibits the respective services from taking adverse actions against the unvaccinated. Meanwhile, the Army and Coast Guard are subject to such restrictions.

    “Without a change in the policy, soldiers could still be punished with travel restrictions, other measures to prevent training and education, and more,” Rogerson said. He expects “restrictive measures to remain in place, depending on how the DoD treats the guidance that comes down from Congress.”

    To that end, Younts said, “There are still a lot of people in the Army and Coast Guard that have a letter of reprimand in their file for refusing the vaccine.” Many have not been promoted, have been restricted from travel, and have had other actions taken against them, he said.

    “Because of this, the military’s position could be that [service members] violated the initial order when it was a mandate, and they’re still going to move to kick them out.”

    Rescinding the vaccine mandate via the NDAA is “a small step,” Younts said. “What’s going to force the DoD and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to change their policy and not punish or retaliate against those who are in a refuser status, but their cases still haven’t been processed to completion yet?”

    Furthermore, the language of the NDAA does not reinstate thousands of military members who have already been separated from the service. “Congress has not required the DoD to address any of these issues,” Younts pointed out.

    “All it says is that as the NDAA goes into effect, the mandate doesn’t exist anymore,” Younts explained. “Unless there’s more court action or another intervention,” he said, “the DoD is still going to consider the previous vaccine mandate a valid order, and those who refused that order, they’re going to continue to be punished.”

    Younts is also concerned about the current injunctions in place for the Air Force, Marines, and Navy.

    “For example, if the Air Force case goes to trial next year and we lose, a whole bunch of these people already have a letter of reprimand in their record or have had other adverse action taken against them,” he said. And because of this, “The Air Force could still punch them and kick them out for disobeying a so-called lawful order,” the attorney added.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/11/2022 – 14:30

  • Bond Investors Switch From Mutual Funds To ETFs At Record Clip
    Bond Investors Switch From Mutual Funds To ETFs At Record Clip

    The worst year for bonds since at least 1975 has prompted plenty of investors to abandon the asset class. However, of those who are sticking around, a great number are swapping from mutual funds to exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in execution of loss-harvesting tax strategies. 

    Amid this mass wave of so-called “wrapper-swapping” — reallocating from a mutual fund to an ETF in the same broad asset class — ETFs now comprise a record-high 21% of bond fund assets, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. That’s around double the share ETFs had six years ago.  

    Through Oct. 31, 2022. Wall Street Journal chart sourced from Strategas and Investment Company Institute 

    The bond market beatdown has “set off the acceleration of wrapper-swapping that we have seen in equities for a while,” ETF strategist Todd Sohn of Strategas tells the Journal . “Now we’re finally getting it in bonds.”

    Many investors have been stunned by bond funds’ failure to buffer portfolio returns in a rough year for equities. While the S&P 500 is down 17%, Bloomberg’s aggregate U.S. bond index is off 11%. 

    Bond mutual funds have seen net redemptions of a whopping $454 billion this year, but bond ETFs have drawn a net $157 billion — by far a record swap. 

    Through Oct. 31, 2022. Wall Street Journal chart sourced from Strategas and Investment Company Institute 

    As investors wrapper-swap, many are shifting their bond allocation to emphasize U.S. Treasury debt, jettisoning stakes in riskier bond asset classes as worries over the country’s economic health mount. Almost 60% of bond inflows at iShares have gone into Treasury funds. 

    Taxes are a big driver of the trend. By redeeming losing bond positions held outside of 401(k)s, IRA and other tax-sheltered accounts, investors can realize capital losses and improve the bottom line on their upcoming 2022 tax filings. 

    Before you swap wrappers, beware of IRS “wash sale” rules, which disallow the recognition of capital losses if the investor replaces it with a “substantially identical” investment during a window that extends from 30 days before the sale through 30 days after.

    Caution is required even when swapping from a mutual fund to an ETF — as there are no clear IRS rules on what constitutes “substantially identical.” 

    The more your choice of ETF differs from the mutual fund you sold, the better your chance of passing IRS muster. For example, selling Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund and swapping into the Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF within 30 days is almost certainly asking for trouble — as Biden recruits his legions of 87,000 new IRS employees.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 12/11/2022 – 14:00

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Dec 11

Today’s News 11th December 2022

  • Why The Left Must Destroy Free Speech… Or Be Destroyed
    Why The Left Must Destroy Free Speech… Or Be Destroyed

    Authored by Thomas DiLorenzo via LewRockwell.com,

    In Hayek’s famous 1944 book, The Road to Serfdom, he warned that the intellectual and political classes of the democracies of that time were embracing some of the same ideas that inspired Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, and Stalin’s Russia:  comprehensive government planning, hyper regulation of industry,  nationalization, welfare statism, and collectivism in general.  He did not predict that these societies would end up “in serfdom,” however, as some have mistakenly claimed.  Quite the contrary.  In his first chapter he clearly stated that he hoped the ideas in the book would help these countries to avoid that disastrous fate.  He hoped the ideas of the book would be a roadblock on the road to serfdom.

    The eleventh chapter of The Road to Serfdom is entitled “The End of Truth,” about the historical imperative in all totalitarian states throughout history to destroy freedom of speech so that the only true belief is “the social plan” imposed by the state, whatever that may be.  This is achieved by relentless institutionalized lying and propaganda, coupled with harsh censorship of all contrary ideas or even questions about the propriety of forcefully imposing one single “social plan.” This is American society today, in other words, in case you haven’t noticed.  (Socialism, Hayek said, has always been about substituting the plans of politicians for the plans that all of the citizens make for themselves.  It’s not a matter of planning versus no planning, but who is to do the planning).

    The significance of propaganda in totalitarian countries, Hayek wrote, is that “If all the sources of current information are effectively under one single control, it is no longer a question of merely persuading people of this or that.  The skillful propagandist then has power to mold . . . minds in any direction he chooses . . .”  Jeff Deist, among others, has commented that America today has become a “post-persuasion society” and he is right, almost eighty years after Hayek issued this warning.  The Left is no longer willing to seriously debate anything – at least for the time being while they control the universities, all three branches of government, the media, (laughingly-named) “entertainment” industries, and more.  Even dopey Prince Harry publicly denounced the First Amendment in a pathetic attempt to ingratiate himself with Hollywood Leftists like his wife shortly after divorcing himself from his family and moving to Hollywood.  If you disagree with their latest version of socialist totalitarianism (“woke-ism” coupled with green hysteria and calls for worldwide central planning), then you can be canceled, smeared as a racist, a white supremacist, or even fired from your job and prevented from getting a new one.

    The moral consequences of totalitarian propaganda are even more profound.  It is “destructive of all morals” because it “undermines one of the foundations of all morals:  the sense and respect for the truth.”  An avalanche of Official Lies has always been the tool of “various theoreticians of the totalitarian system,” wrote Hayek, citing Plato’s “noble lies” and “social myths” championed by the French philosopher Georges Sorel.  The ends justify the lying means to totalitarians everywhere.  When was the last time a “White House spokesperson” did not lie in public?  (See my 1992 book, Official Lies: How Washington Misleads Us, with James T. Bennett).

    Of course minority opinions “must also be silenced” and “every act of the government must become sacrosanct and exempt from criticism.”  This was never more on display than in government responses to the “pandemic” of 2020, followed by the Biden campaign and its collusion with “Big Tech” to censor even the president of the United States along with massive evidence of the colossal criminality and corruption of the Biden family crime syndicate.  This was arguably the biggest governmental assault on the First Amendment, apparently organized by the FBI and CIA, since it was essentially done away with by the John Adams administration’s “Sedition Act.”

    Academe must also be thoroughly corrupted, said Hayek, for “the disinterested search for truth cannot be allowed in a totalitarian system.”  American universities have gone almost all the way down to the end of the road to serfdom in this regard.  Many have fallen off the cliff completely.  This is especially true, said Hayek, of the disciplines of history, law, and economics.  They must be compromised in a way that supports the state rather than criticizes it, however mildly.  The American history profession is almost completely dominated by Marxists, for example, and economics has been plagued by Keynesian central planners and “market failure theorists” for decades.  As Doug Casey once remarked, most economists today “are political apologists masquerading as economists.”  They “prescribe the way they would like the world to work and tailor theories to help politicians demonstrate the virtue and necessity of their quest for more power.”  The field of economics, said Casey, “has been turned into the handmaiden of government in order to give a scientific justification for things the government . . . wants to do.”

    In totalitarian societies, wrote Hayek, truth is not something that is discovered by learning, education, self-study, research, and debate and discussion.  Instead, it is “something to be laid down by authority . . .”  In today’s world, for example, global warming hysteria is “settled science,” the most un-scientific phrase ever uttered.  A true scientist always questions the status quo, not necessarily rejecting it but keeping an open mind that new research can alter his thinking.  Nothing is ever “settled.”  How a slippery politician like Al Gore is considered to be an expert on the philosophy of science – and atmospheric science to boot — is one of the wonders of the world.   (Don’t forget that the notion that the earth was flat was once declared to be “settled science” by the Al Gores of that day).

    Medical science is not science, we have been told; Anthony Fauci is medical science. 

    Or rather, the “authority” of Anthony Fauci, a grotesquely overpaid government bureaucrat is science.  Again, nothing is more un-scientific than these ridiculous, arrogant, and tyrannical pronouncements by Anthony Fauci and his political sidekicks.

    “[I]ntolerance, too, is openly extolled,” in totalitarian societies said Hayek, anticipating by decades the 1960s-era “New Left” hero, the totalitarian intellectual Herbert Marcuse, who authored a widely-celebrated paper on “repressive tolerance,” the idea that only “the oppressed classes” deserve free speech.  In the world of the 60s “New Left,” whose students and political descendants now control almost all of academe, television, the media in general, much of government, “woke” corporations, and other institutions, the “oppressor class” is comprised essentially of all white heterosexual males, especially ones of European descent.  Everyone else is oppressed by them, the theory goes.  The poorest, lowliest, white redneck is said to “oppress” black millionaires and billionaires.  Question this theory in our post-persuasion society and you will be labeled a racist, a white supremacist, and probably even a Nazi.

    Hayek based these ideas on his years of study of world history and of the totalitarian regimes of the early twentieth century.  “Wokeness” did not just suddenly appear and proceed to take over almost the entire Western world.  It is just the latest manifestation of totalitarianism that has been marching through the institutions for several generations.  There are always totalitarians in our midst, the title of Chapter 13 of The Road to Serfdom, and today’s totalitarians consider themselves to be standing on the shoulders of all those who preceded them, however unsavory they might have been.  That is why many on the Left celebrated after the worldwide collapse of socialism in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  “We no longer have to be associated with monsters like Stalin, Mao, Nicolae Ceaucescu, and other mass-murdering communists of the twentieth century,” they said.  And like all other totalitarians who came before them, they fully understand that freedom of speech is to them what sunlight or a Christian cross is to Dracula.  That is why they are all now hellbent on destroying Elon Musk, a man who is attempting to add a tiny smidgen of free speech to the stifling, statist political correctness of American society.  Their treatment of Musk will eventually make their treatment of Donald Trump seem like a love fest in comparison.

    Their hatred for Trump, by the way, is derived from the same source as their hatred for Elon Musk:  Like Musk, Trump called out and publicized many of the official lies and official liars of the Washington establishment, especially those in the “fake news” business.  The Left considers the fight over free speech to be a political death struggle, and they are right about that.  If anything deserves to be strangled in its crib it is the Left’s current assault on the First Amendment.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/10/2022 – 23:30

  • Visualizing The Military Imbalance In The Taiwan Strait
    Visualizing The Military Imbalance In The Taiwan Strait

    Taiwan has reported a sharp increase in the number of Chinese military aircraft entering its Air Defense Identification Zone of late with a record 56 warplanes detected on October 4, 2021, followed by numerous spikes since.

    China has never ruled out the possibility of invading Taiwan and it has continued acquiring the military capability to do so. In recent years, it has modernized its military, introducing the J-20, an indigenous 5th generation stealth fighter. It has also commissioned two aircraft carriers along with several modern amphibious transport dock/landing vessels. Even though the likelihood of China taking Taiwan by force remains unclear, the military balance in the Taiwan Strait is firmly in China’s favor. The following infographic, via Statista’s Martin Armstrong, provides an overview of that imbalance and is based on an annual U.S. government report.

    Infographic: The Military Imbalance In The Taiwan Strait | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    One aspect which appears to be in Taiwan’s favor however, is Joe Biden as United States president. Despite the White House scrambling to clarify his comments, Biden said twice in the space of three months in 2021 that the U.S. would defend Taiwan in the event of an attack by China.

    The president has continued to reiterate this position since, with a 60 Minutes interview broadcast in October one recent such example.

    While the United States is required by law to “support Taiwan’s self-defence”, as described by a White House spokesperson after the 2021 Biden statements, the country has traditionally employed a policy of “strategic ambiguity” when it comes to adherence to the Taiwan Relations Act. Biden’s explicit statements in favor of taking defensive action in the region are a clear step away from this position.

    Speaking in October last year, Biden said: “I don’t want a cold war with China. I just want China to understand that we’re not going to step back, that we’re not going to change any of our views.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/10/2022 – 23:00

  • Institutions Matter…But So Does Culture
    Institutions Matter…But So Does Culture

    Authored by David C. Rose via RealClear Wire,

    In 1993 Douglass North won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work in economic history. He stressed the importance of institutions—regularized patterns of behavior—for improving our understanding of how societies evolve and function. His main point was that high transaction costs choke off the economic activity that makes societies rich. Institutions are therefore vitally important because they help keep transaction costs low.

    North’s insight helped revive institutional economics. Unfortunately many New Institutionalist economists viewed institutional theory as leaving little role for culture. Moreover, any role culture might play was subsumed in their paradigm as informal institutions. It is true that many cultural practices are informal institutions. But what if cultural beliefs can achieve outcomes that institutions can’t?

    Suppose an individual from a poor country moves to a rich one and quickly starts to prosper. Most economists would argue that this happens because the rich country has better institutions.

    But what if sudden uplift is just what happens when honest hardworking people from poor countries are dropped into high trust societies? In this case it’s trust, not institutions, that makes the difference.

    This doesn’t mean that institutions are not important. Quite the opposite. Trust is so important because institutions are important, and many of them are highly trust-dependent. It’s not in every country that you would use an expensive coat to lay claim to a seat in a public place when you go to the rest room, for example.

    David Landes, Deirdre McCloskey and Joel Mokyr have revived interest in the connection between culture and economic development. They argued that the beliefs and values of pre-industrial Europe set the stage for the rise of modern free market economies. In my latest book I explained why they would not have worked so well if they weren’t also culturally transmitted.

    We don’t ponder whether to blink when dust blows into our eyes. We also don’t ponder whether to express sympathy to a friend upon hearing his mother died. Both involve behavior that is rather automatic, almost like it was encoded as an “if-then” statement in a computer program.

    The first is baked in our genetic cake and is therefore a product of hardwired neural architecture, while the second is learned early in life and is therefore better described as a product of constructed neural architecture. At its core, culture is a mechanism for constructing a consistent neural architecture across individuals in a society to solve problems that are not well solved either by genetic encoding or consciously rational decision making.

    If all behavior is consciously rational in the sense of Daniel Kahneman’s System 2 mode of thinking, then all individuals would always behave in a manner that was best for them and not the group. Game theorists would say they would “play defect” against rules created to support large group cooperation. This is a problem, because while we trust and therefore cooperate well in small groups, small group trust doesn’t scale up to work in the kind of large group contexts Adam Smith showed are necessary for the good life.

    Smith didn’t think most behavior was consciously rational in the way modern economists think about behavior. He argued that our sensitivity to approval and disapproval provided a mechanism for forming consistent responses to circumstances. Smith’s perspective comports well with Kahneman’s conception of System 1 thinking, which is fast and intuitive, like holding a door for a stranger or leaving a coat to hold a seat. It’s pre-rational automaticity effectively circumvents rational analysis.

    On the other end of the spectrum is genetic encoding. But if high trust societies were solely products of our genes, like honeycombs are for bees, then all human societies would be high trust societies. They aren’t because nearly all of our evolution took place in very small groups so there has been too little time to reinforce genes that support large group trust. Large group trust cannot be based on genetically encoded behavior. I submit that it can, however, be based culturally encoded behavior.

    Some cultures convey moral beliefs that culturally encode the automatic rejection of untrustworthy actions. The earlier such beliefs are taught, the stronger they are reinforced, and the more they take precedence over other beliefs, the more likely behaving in an untrustworthy way isn’t even considered in adulthood.

    When a critical mass of individuals abides by such beliefs, it becomes rational to presume most others can be trusted in most circumstances, producing a high trust society. Just as North would have predicted, by reducing transaction costs this makes cooperation through economic activity possible on a grand scale, unleashing human flourishing as never before. 

    David C. Rose is a Professor Economics at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and a Senior Fellow at Common Sense Society. He is author of The Moral Foundation of Economic Behavior and Why Culture Matters Most, both from Oxford University Press.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/10/2022 – 22:30

  • Study Finds Prejudice Against COVID-19 Unvaccinated Around The World
    Study Finds Prejudice Against COVID-19 Unvaccinated Around The World

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

    People who have received COVID-19 vaccines express discriminatory attitudes toward unvaccinated people, a new study of over 15,000 citizens of 21 countries across the world suggests.

    “Individuals who comply with the advice of health authorities morally condemn the unvaccinated for violating a social contract in the midst of a crisis,” two Denmark-based scientists wrote in their paper, published Thursday in Nature.

    “Those who refuse vaccines report that they feel discriminated and pressured against their will.”

    A sign stating proof of a Covid-19 vaccination is required is displayed outside of Langer’s Deli in Los Angeles, California on Aug. 7, 2021. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

    To measure COVID-19 vaccination status-based prejudice, researchers asked some 15,233 people how they feel if a close relatives of theirs are going to marry a vaccinated or unvaccinated person—a question that has long been used in surveys on discrimination along racial, ethnic, or partisan lines.

    Specifically, participants were presented with brief descriptions of a series of fictitious individuals and asked to imagine that these are people whom one of their close relatives intends to marry. They were shown two profiles at a time, side by side, and asked to rate each profile by saying whether they agree or disagree with statements such as, “I would be unhappy if this person married one of my close relatives,” and “I think this person is untrustworthy.”

    One of the six attributes describing these targeted individuals has been their COVID-19 vaccination status, randomly varying between “fully vaccinated” and “unvaccinated.” The other attributes were age, occupation, hobbies, personality, and “family background,” which distinguished between people “born and raised in [the respondent’s country]” and people who “immigrated from the Middle East.”

    The Findings

    Across six countries—Germany, India, Indonesia, Morocco, South Africa, and the United Kingdom—selected to represent both affluent Western and developing non-Western nations, the unvaccinated were found to be disliked among vaccinated people (14 percentage points) as much as people with drug addiction (15 percentage points), and significantly more so than people who had been in prison (10 percentage points), atheists (7 percentage points), or people with mental illness (6 percentage points).

    In addition, the overall dislike of the unvaccinated among vaccinated people (13 percentage points) was found to be two and a half times greater than that of Middle Eastern immigrants (5 percentage points). In fact, according to the paper, unvaccinated people face significantly more hostility than immigrants even in 10 countries that are deemed unfriendly to immigrants. Interestingly, discriminatory attitudes against unvaccinated Middle Eastern immigrants were found to be just as strong as those toward unvaccinated natives.

    By contrast, researchers found that the unvaccinated respondents on average showed almost no discriminatory attitudes toward the vaccinated.

    “The results demonstrate that prejudice is mostly one-sided,” the authors wrote. “Only in [the] United States and Germany do we find that the unvaccinated feel some antipathy towards the vaccinated. But even here we do not find statistical evidence in favor of negative stereotyping or exclusionary attitudes.”

    “The observation that vaccinated individuals discriminate against those who are unvaccinated, but that there is no evidence for the reverse, is consistent with work on the psychology of cooperation,” said leading author Alexander Bor, a political psychologist at the George Soros-funded Central European University (CEU).

    A Psychological Explanation

    Such prejudice can be explained by a psychological mechanism against “free-riding,” according to the study. In other words, a highly polarized and moralized sentiment surrounding COVID-19 vaccination activated this mechanism in vaccinated people, causing them to see those who refuse to get the jabs as morally-failed “free riders” of a collective effort.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/10/2022 – 22:00

  • Supreme Court Hears Case That Could Empower State Legislatures, Not Judges, To Regulate Elections
    Supreme Court Hears Case That Could Empower State Legislatures, Not Judges, To Regulate Elections

    Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    North Carolina Republicans told the Supreme Court on Dec. 7 that the U.S. Constitution gives state legislatures preeminent authority to make the rules for presidential and congressional elections without interference from the courts.

    Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan stands for a group photograph of the Justices at the Supreme Court in Washington on April 23, 2021. (Erin Schaff/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

    The case is important because, if the high court finds for North Carolina, the rules governing how states regulate federal elections could change dramatically. The hearing comes at a time when tensions between Republicans and Democrats over voting procedures are growing in light of former President Donald Trump’s continuing claims that the 2020 presidential election was marred by massive electoral fraud.

    At issue is the once-obscure independent state legislature doctrine, under which Republicans argue that the Constitution has always directly authorized state legislatures alone to make rules for the conduct of federal elections in their respective states.

    Democrats say this doctrine is a fringe conservative legal theory that could endanger voting rights, enable extreme partisan gerrymandering in the redistricting process, and cause upheaval in election administration.

    Liberal law professor Richard Hasen has called the doctrine the “800-pound gorilla” of election law because of its potentially disruptive effect on election administration norms.

    Conservatives, on the other hand, say the doctrine is derived from the plain text of the Constitution and would restore reasonable rules on the electoral playing field and allow elected state officials, instead of judges, to make election rules.

    The Supreme Court hasn’t ruled on the doctrine directly, but some justices have said that it could have been argued in the Bush v. Gore case, which resolved the disputed 2000 presidential election.

    The doctrine, if endorsed by the high court, could in theory allow state legislatures to select presidential electors in disputed elections, something critics decry as a threat to democracy.

    When he launched the appeal in March, Tim Moore, a Republican who’s the speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, said the Constitution is “crystal clear: State legislatures are responsible for drawing congressional maps, not state court judges and certainly not with the aid of partisan political operatives.”

    Moore is appealing the Supreme Court of North Carolina’s order redrawing the state’s electoral map against the wishes of the state’s Republican-majority legislature.

    Two key clauses in the U.S. Constitution lay out the rules governing federal elections in the states.

    The elections clause in Article 1 states, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.”

    The presidential electors clause in Article 2 gives each state the power to appoint presidential electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.”

    The case is Moore v. Harper, court file 21-1271.

    During nearly three hours of oral arguments on Dec. 7, liberal justices pushed back against the doctrine, while conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch seemed receptive to it to varying degrees.

    Moore’s attorney, David H. Thompson, told the justices that the two constitutional provisions have been misinterpreted for years.

    “The elections clause requires state legislatures specifically to perform the federal function of prescribing regulations for federal elections,” Thompson said.

    “States lack the authority to restrict the legislatures’ substantive discretion when performing this federal function … and it is federal law alone that places substantive restrictions on states legislatures’ performing the task assigned them by the federal Constitution.

    “For the first 140 years of the republic, there was not a single state court that invalidated on substantive grounds any congressional redistricting plan.”

    Precedent holds that “the Founders tasked state legislatures with federal functions that transcend any substantive limitation sought to be imposed by the people of the state.”

    Thomas wondered aloud if the court had the authority to consider this case.

    Thomas asked Thompson what “the basis of our jurisdiction” was, given that “we don’t normally review state supreme courts’ interpretation of state constitutions.”

    Thompson said the Supreme Court of North Carolina’s decision reflects the state’s law but is still “a violation of the elections clause and that’s why we’re here.”

    Justice Sonia Sotomayor told Thompson that his argument wasn’t resonating with her.

    “If judicial review is in the nature of ensuring that someone’s acting within their constitutional limits, I don’t see anything in the words of the Constitution that takes that power away from the state.”

    Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked Thompson if it was his argument “that the state constitution has no role to play—period—in terms of imposing substantive limits on the exercise of that federal function.”

    Thompson confirmed that was his position, saying that a state constitution may require that an election measure be presented to a governor for approval or veto.

    Justice Elena Kagan seemed alarmed at the ramifications of Thompson’s argument.

    The doctrine under discussion, she said, “gets rid of the normal checks and balances on the way big governmental decisions are made in this country, and then you might think that it gets rid of all those checks and balances at exactly the time when they are needed most.”

    “Think about consequences because this is a theory with big consequences,” she said.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/10/2022 – 21:30

  • Oregon's New Gun Law Temporary Blocked As Firearm Background Checks Erupt
    Oregon’s New Gun Law Temporary Blocked As Firearm Background Checks Erupt

    Gun Owners of America (GOA) and Gun Owners Foundation (GOF) secured a temporary restraining order (TRO) in Oregon state court earlier this week, preventing a new law that requires a permit to purchase firearms and bans high-capacity magazines from being enforced. In recent weeks, the threat of more gun control has led to a state-wide scramble for gun enthusiasts to panic buy firearms and magazines. 

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    Ballot Measure 114, which Oregon voters passed on Nov. 8, was scheduled to take effect on Thursday. It would: 

    • Ban magazines over ten rounds
    • Require a permit to purchase any firearm
    • Require a training course, application fee, fingerprinting, and a duplicative background check to obtain the permit-to-purchase

    The TRO was a win for GOA and GOF, which filed the suit against Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, Gov. Kate Brown, and Police Superintendent Terri. 

    “Oregon’s measure 114 is a joke. Since when do criminals wait in line to get permits or to register their guns? They don’t. This unconstitutional law will only keep decent Oregonians from exercising their Second Amendment rights. And for this reason, we’re very glad that Judge Robert Raschio responded to our arguments by imposing a temporary restraining order that prevents the law from being enforced,” Erich Pratt, senior vice president of GOA, told us. 

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

    So the fear of not owning a gun because of the possibility of more gun control measures led to a surge in background checks in recent weeks, Karl Durkheimer, owner of Oregon’s Northwest Armory gun store, told Fox News. He said more than 36,000 Oregon residents are backlogged in the background check system. 

    “Two things are happening. There’s fear they won’t be able to get a gun, but there’s the actual logistics that they won’t be able to do the background check,” Durkheimer said. “It’s going to take a year before an Oregonian has a permit.”

    GOA and GOF have a hearing next Tuesday to see if the TRO can be permanent. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/10/2022 – 21:00

  • Americans Might Be In For A Tax 'Refund Shock' Next Year: Analyst
    Americans Might Be In For A Tax ‘Refund Shock’ Next Year: Analyst

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Millions of Americans could face a “refund shock” when they file their taxes next year because a number of pandemic-related programs are set to expire or have expired, said an analyst.

    Blank Social Security checks are run through a printer at the U.S. Treasury printing facility in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Feb. 11, 2005. (William Thomas Cain/Getty Images)

    Data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) shows that the average refund taxpayers got back for their 2021 taxes was about $3,200, or some around 14 percent higher than the previous year. The next refunds will average about $2,700, said Mark Steber, chief tax information officer at Jackson Hewitt.

    The 2021 tax year “was quite a remarkable year with the insertion of all those new tax breaks,” Steber told CBS News this week. “But jump ahead to this year, and a lot of the increases expired, hence the term ‘refund shock’ or ‘refund surprise.’”

    Due to the expiration of some programs, “You’re probably going to have not as pleasant an experience as you had last year,” he noted. “There were larger, enhanced tax credits available last year that aren’t available this year,” Steber also remarked.

    For example, the child tax credit is one benefit that will shrink when parents file their 2022 taxes. Normally, parents get about $2,000 for each of their children, but in 2021, the benefit increased to $3,600 for every child under 6 and $3,000 for minor children aged 6 and older.

    Also, the Child and Dependent Care Credit that parents can use to pay for child care was boosted under the Biden administration-backed American Rescue Plan. That raised the credit up to $8,000 per family in 2021, or more than in previous years.

    The IRS has already issued notices about potentially smaller tax refunds, noting in November that “taxpayers will not receive an additional stimulus payment with a 2023 tax refund because there were no economic impact payments for 2022.”

    Additionally, the agency said, it will be more difficult to claim a deduction for charitable on a 2022 tax return.

    “The IRS cautions taxpayers not to rely on receiving a 2022 federal tax refund by a certain date, especially when making major purchases or paying bills,” the agency said last month. “Some returns may require additional review and may take longer.”

    Online Services

    The agency this week again wrote that Americans who made more than $600 online selling goods and services will have that income reported to the IRS

    People who made money via eBay, Etsy, Poshmark, Uber, and other digital services will face the new scrutiny and rules. It applies to anyone who made more than $600 via those platforms or via Venmo, Cash App, Zelle, PayPal, or similar platforms in return for goods and services.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/10/2022 – 20:30

  • SBF Tried To Destabilize Crypto Market To Save FTX: Report
    SBF Tried To Destabilize Crypto Market To Save FTX: Report

    Authored by Ana Paula Pereira via CoinTelegraph.com,

    Trades made by Alameda Research were reportedly focusing on depeg Tether’s stablecoin…

    Trades made by Alameda Research were reportedly focusing on depeg Tether’s stablecoin. Image: Cointelegraph.

    Tether executives and Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao worried that Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), former FTX CEO, was attempting to destabilize the crypto market aiming to save the now-bankrupt exchange, according to reports on Dec. 9.

    Messages seen by The Wall Street Journal of a Signal group chat named “Exchange coordination” reveals an argument between CZ and SBF on Nov. 10 about Tether’s stablecoin USDT. Members in the Signal group include Kraken co-founder Jesse Powell, Paolo Ardoino, chief technology officer of Tether, among others.

    According to the report, CZ and others in the group worried that trades made by Alameda Research were focusing on depeg the stablecoin, which would have a ripple effect in crypto prices. Binance CEO reportedly confronted SBF:

    “Stop trying to depeg stablecoins. And stop doing anything. Stop now, don’t cause more damage.”

    SBF denied the claims in a statement to the WSJ.

    The alleged argument on the Signal group happened a day after Binance announced that it wouldn’t bail out its troubled competitor FTX, citing “reports regarding mishandled customer funds and alleged US agency investigations.” On Nov. 10, Tether’s Ardoino also said the company have no “plans to invest or lend money to FTX/Alameda.”

    As reported by Cointelegraph, new details about the failed agreement between Binance and FTX were revealed on Dec. 9. In a twitter thread, CZ referred to Bankman-Fried as a “fraudster,” saying Binance exited its position in FTX in July 2021 after becoming “increasingly uncomfortable with Alameda/SBF.” SBF was “unhinged” at the exchange pulling out, according to Binance’s CEO.

    In response, SBF claimed that Binance “threatened to walk at the last minute”, accusing CZ of lying about his role in the deal.

    On Nov 11, FTX Group and nearly 130 companies – including FTX Trading, FTX US, under West Realm Shires Services, and Alameda Research – filed for bankruptcy in the United States citing a “liquidity crunch”.

    Since FTX’s bankruptcy, SBF has been named in seven class action lawsuits and numerous probes and investigations, including a market manipulation probe by federal prosecutors.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/10/2022 – 20:00

  • THE TWITTER FILES: The Removal Of Donald Trump, Part 2
    THE TWITTER FILES: The Removal Of Donald Trump, Part 2

    The third installment of Elon Musk’s release of internal Twitter communications is devoted to the days surrounding the social media company’s decision to permanently ban President Trump.

    Yesterday, we detailed part 1 – via veteran journalist Matt Taibbi, which focused on the period leading up to January 6th, including details about Twitter executives regular meetings with the FBI and DHS.

    Today, in part 2, Michael Shellenberger reveals the chaos that ran wild inside Twitter on January 7th, as the same executives took decisions into their own hands to reassure ‘a few engineers’ that “someone is doing something about this.”

    The Removal of Donald Trump: January 7

    As the pressure builds, Twitter executives build the case for a permanent ban.

    On Jan 7, senior Twitter execs:

    • create justifications to ban Trump

    • seek a change of policy for Trump alone, distinct from other political leaders

    • express no concern for the free speech or democracy implications of a ban

    This #TwitterFiles is reported with @lwoodhouse 

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

    But after the events of Jan 6, the internal and external pressure on Twitter CEO @jack grows.

    Former First Lady @michelleobama…

    … tech journalist @karaswisher…

    …@ADL…

    …high-tech VC @ChrisSacca, and many others, publicly call on Twitter to permanently ban Trump.

    Dorsey was on vacation in French Polynesia the week of January 4-8, 2021. He phoned into meetings but also delegated much of the handling of the situation to senior execs @yoyoel , Twitter’s Global Head of Trust and Safety, and @vijaya Head of Legal, Policy, & Trust.

    As context, it’s important to understand that Twitter’s staff & senior execs were overwhelmingly progressive.

    In 2018, 2020, and 2022, 96%, 98%, & 99% of Twitter staff’s political donations went to Democrats.

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

    In 2017, Roth tweeted that there were “ACTUAL NAZIS IN THE WHITE HOUSE.”

    In April 2022, Roth told a colleague that his goal “is to drive change in the world,” which is why he decided not to become an academic.

    On January 7, @jack emails employees saying Twitter needs to remain consistent in its policies, including the right of users to return to Twitter after a temporary suspension

    After, Roth reassures an employee that “people who care about this… aren’t happy with where we are”

    Around 11:30 am PT, Roth DMs his colleagues with news that he is excited to share.

    “GUESS WHAT,” he writes.

    “Jack just approved repeat offender for civic integrity.”

    The new approach would create a system where five violations (“strikes”) would result in permanent suspension.

    “Progress!” exclaims a member of Roth’s Trust and Safety Team.

    The exchange between Roth and his colleagues makes clear that they had been pushing @jack for greater restrictions on the speech Twitter allows around elections.

    he colleague wants to know if the decision means Trump can finally be banned. The person asks, “does the incitement to violence aspect change that calculus?”

    Roth says it doesn’t. “Trump continues to just have his one strike” (remaining).

    Roth’s colleague’s query about “incitement to violence” heavily foreshadows what will happen the following day.

    On January 8, Twitter announces a permanent ban on Trump due to the “risk of further incitement of violence.”

    On J8, Twitter says its ban is based on “specifically how [Trump’s tweets] are being received & interpreted.”

    But in 2019, Twitter said it did “not attempt to determine all potential interpretations of the content or its intent.”

    The *only* serious concern we found expressed within Twitter over the implications for free speech and democracy of banning Trump came from a junior person in the organization.

    It was tucked away in a lower-level Slack channel known as “site-integrity-auto.”

    “This might be an unpopular opinion but one off ad hoc decisions like this that don’t appear rooted in policy are imho a slippery slope… This now appears to be a fiat by an online platform CEO with a global presence that can gatekeep speech for the entire world…”

    Twitter employees use the term “one off” frequently in their Slack discussions. Its frequent use reveals significant employee discretion over when and whether to apply warning labels on tweets and “strikes” on users.

    Here are typical examples.

    Recall from #TwitterFiles2 by @bariweiss that, according to Twitter staff, “We control visibility quite a bit. And we control the amplification of your content quite a bit. And normal people do not know how much we do.”

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

    Twitter employees recognize the difference between their own politics & Twitter’s Terms of Service (TOS), but they also engage in complex interpretations of content in order to stamp out prohibited tweets, as a series of exchanges over the “#stopthesteal” hashtag reveal.

    Roth immediately DMs a colleague to ask that they add “stopthesteal” & [QAnon conspiracy term] “kraken” to a blacklist of terms to be deamplified.

    Roth’s colleague objects that blacklisting “stopthesteal” risks “deamplifying counterspeech” that validates the election.

    Indeed, notes Roth’s colleague, “a quick search of top stop the steal tweets and they’re counterspeech”

    But they quickly come up with a solution: “deamplify accounts with stopthesteal in the name/profile” since “those are not affiliated with counterspeech”

    But it turns out that even blacklisting “kraken” is less straightforward than they thought. That’s because kraken, in addition to being a QAnon conspiracy theory based on the mythical Norwegian sea monster, is also the name of a cryptocurrency exchange, and was thus “allowlisted”

    Employees struggle with whether to punish users who share screenshots of Trump’s deleted J6 tweets

    “we should bounce these tweets with a strike given the screen shot violates the policy”

    “they are criticising Trump, so I am bit hesitant with applying strike to this user”

    What if a user dislikes Trump *and* objects to Twitter’s censorship? The tweet still gets deleted. But since the *intention* is not to deny the election result, no punishing strike is applied.

    “if there are instances where the intent is unclear please feel free to raise”

    Around noon, a confused senior executive in advertising sales sends a DM to Roth.

    Sales exec: “jack says: ‘we will permanently suspend [Trump] if our policies are violated after a 12 hour account lock’… what policies is jack talking about?”

    Roth: “*ANY* policy violation”

    What happens next is essential to understanding how Twitter justified banning Trump…

    Sales exec: “are we dropping the public interest [policy] now…”

    Roth, six hours later: “In this specific case, we’re changing our public interest approach for his account…”

    The ad exec is referring to Twitter’s policy of “Public-interest exceptions,” which allows the content of elected officials, even if it violates Twitter rules, “if it directly contributes to understanding or discussion of a matter of public concern”

    Roth pushes for a permanent suspension of Rep. Matt Gaetz even though it “doesn’t quite fit anywhere (duh)”

    It’s a kind of test case for the rationale for banning Trump.

    “I’m trying to talk [Twitter’s] safety [team] into… removal as a conspiracy that incites violence.”

    The evening of January 7, the same junior employee who expressed an “unpopular opinion” about “ad hoc decisions… that don’t appear rooted in policy,” speaks up one last time before the end of the day.

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

    Earlier that day, the employee wrote, “My concern is specifically surrounding the unarticulated logic of the decision by FB. That space fills with the idea (conspiracy theory?) that all… internet moguls… sit around like kings casually deciding what people can and cannot see.”

    The employee notes, later in the day, “And Will Oremus noticed the inconsistency too…,” linking to an article for OneZero at Medium called, “Facebook Chucked Its Own Rulebook to Ban Trump.”

    “The underlying problem,” writes @WillOremus , is that “the dominant platforms have always been loath to own up to their subjectivity, because it highlights the extraordinary, unfettered power they wield over the global public square…

    “… and places the responsibility for that power on their own shoulders… So they hide behind an ever-changing rulebook, alternately pointing to it when it’s convenient and shoving it under the nearest rug when it isn’t.”

    “Facebook’s suspension of Trump now puts Twitter in an awkward position. If Trump does indeed return to Twitter, the pressure on Twitter will ramp up to find a pretext on which to ban him as well.”

    Indeed. And as @bariweiss will show tomorrow, that’s exactly what happened.

    credittrader
    Sat, 12/10/2022 – 19:33

  • NASA's Orion Spacecraft Will Return To Earth At 25,000 MPH, Splashing Down Off Baja California
    NASA’s Orion Spacecraft Will Return To Earth At 25,000 MPH, Splashing Down Off Baja California

    NASA’s historic uncrewed Artemis 1 mission to the moon and back will conclude on Sunday with the Orion spacecraft returning to Earth. 

    On Sunday afternoon, the Orion spacecraft will slam through Earth’s atmosphere at 25,000 mph, or about 32 times the speed of sound. It will heat up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit before splashing into the Pacific Ocean off the western coast of Baja California at 12:40 pm EST. 

    Orion’s descent operations begin around 12 pm EST. Forty minutes later, the spacecraft should be in the ocean if everything runs on schedule. Here’s the splashdown schedule for tomorrow (courtesy of Space.com): 

    “At present, we are on track to have a fully successful mission with some bonus objectives that we’ve achieved along the way,” Mike Sarafin, Artemis I mission manager, told reporters Thursday evening.

    One of the most crucial parts of the mission will be testing the heat shield as Orion enters Earth’s atmosphere. If all goes well, this could indicate NASA is ready to fly astronauts around the moon in 2024 and then put them on the lunar surface by 2025. 

    A live broadcast of the re-entry process will begin around 11 am EST. Watch Live here:

    Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s SpaceX just announced a privately-funded moon mission with DJ Steve Aoki and a Japanese billionaire that could occur soon. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/10/2022 – 19:00

  • Perfect Storm Fuels Massive Natural Gas Price Spikes On West Coast
    Perfect Storm Fuels Massive Natural Gas Price Spikes On West Coast

    Authored by Leticia Gonzales via NaturalGasIntel.com,

    Against a backdrop of mostly mild weather across the Lower 48, winter unleashed its fury on the West Coast a bit early this season. The frigid temperatures and unusually heavy precipitation have fueled natural gas demand at a time when storage inventories are low, a drought has reduced hydro-electric power supplies and regional utilities are having trouble receiving coal deliveries.

    The result: historically high natural gas prices that have surged to levels not seen since the summer of 2018. The surge in prices has spread across the Pacific Northwest, farther south throughout California and inland across the Rockies.

    On Thursday, Northern California’s PG&E Citygate recorded spot natural gas prices as high as $36.00/MMBtu. SoCal Citygate cash reached a $33.00 high, while Malin hit $32.00. And that only proved to be batting practice.

    On Friday, the highest price on the West Coast hit $55.00, with offers up to $60.00.

    “I’ve seen prices spike before, but over a short period of time,” said Michael Wiliamson. His consulting firm Williamson Energy purchases wholesale natural gas for end-use customers in California.

    “This sustained period of high prices has never happened before. There’s a lot of different things going on, and they’re all falling at the same time.”

    Is It Really That Cold In California?

    Bitter winter weather has slammed the West Coast this month, driving up heating consumption in a region that normally sees its highest energy needs in the summer.

    The National Weather Service (NWS) said widespread heavy precipitation would begin to blanket the Pacific Northwest and Northern California on Friday and further over the weekend into the Northern Rockies, Great Basin and the rest of California. Anomalously high moisture associated with an atmospheric river was expected to usher in heavy mountain snow, as well as strong rains for lower elevations along the West Coast.

    Snow totals should generally range between six inches and a foot for the higher elevations, according to NWS forecasters. Lighter accumulations of up to three inches were forecast for the interior valleys.

    In the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California, several feet of snow were expected, while excessive rainfall was possible along the coast of southern Oregon and Northern California. Rainfall totals could reach up to four inches, NWS said.

    Even still, with temperatures forecast to climb into the 60s in Los Angeles and into the mid-50s in San Francisco, “it’s not really that cold,” said Fuel and Purchased Power’s Marlon Santa Cruz, manager for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). The executive said a key issue facing the region was that storage inventories are lagging behind.

    Supplies Reclassified, Not Refilled

    Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. (PG&E) in the summer of 2021 reclassified 51 Bcf of storage inventories to cushion gas, rather than working gas. It marked the largest reclassification in any one region, with some market observers calling the scale of the change “preposterous.”

    Williamson said the problem wasn’t with the reclassification. It was that PG&E hasn’t rebuilt working gas inventories.

    As of Dec. 2, Pacific stocks stood at only 217 Bcf, which is more than 18% below year-earlier levels and nearly 24% below the five-year average, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

    The Pacific is the only region that continues to fall significantly short of historical levels. After a string of above-average injections in the late fall, Mountain stocks sit about 6% below the five-year average. East inventories sit around 2% below that level. The South Central region, meanwhile, is now at a modest surplus.

    “That’s the head of the nail,” Williamson said.

    “If we had plenty of gas in storage, this wouldn’t be happening. Now, everyone is a hostage.”

    With a client base that include commercial greenhouses and other small customers, the exorbitant prices are concerning, according to Williamson. He worries that if prices were to remain elevated – or climb even higher as the winter progresses – customers may be unable to pay their bills.

    What’s more, the higher prices are not limited to California. In the Desert Southwest, spot gas prices at El Paso S. Mainline/N. Baja surged to $35.75 on Thursday, while the KRGT Del Pool rose to $32.85. By Friday, cash prices in the region also had rocketed to $55.00.

    “At what point in time does a number get so high that people go bankrupt and stop paying their bills? I think we’re getting close to that point,” Williamson said.

    He likened the situation to the fallout of Winter Storm Uri, where utilities filed for bankruptcy and spawned lawsuits and investigations into market manipulation. “People are going to grab lawyers instead of their pocketbooks.”

    Other Issues

    LADWP’s Santa Cruz agreed the storage situation in the West is a concern.

    However, while stockpiles in Northern California remain short of what the market sees as comfortable through the winter, Aliso Canyon storage in Southern California has been “a savior” for the region as it copes with the heightened demand, he said. The storage facility, operating at a reduced capacity following a major leak in 2015, has often had to serve as a buffer during periods of strong demand.

    In November 2021, the California Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously to increase the amount of gas stored at Aliso Canyon ito boost winter supplies for gas and electric customers. The decision was seen as an effort to ensure reliability for the region.

    California may not be the friendliest state to the natural gas industry. Several municipalities have banned the use of new natural gas hook ups, including Los Angeles. Santa Cruz, though, said the municipal utility is relying on natural gas more because coal deliveries also are falling short.

    President Biden earlier this month averted a strike among railroad workers that could have put a stop to coal deliveries. Still, the strike was only one issue plaguing the railroad industry.

    Santa Cruz said following the Covid-19 pandemic, Union Pacific and other railroad companies were forced to lay off workers. Many of the laid off employees never returned as the economy recovered. Now there aren’t enough engineers to drive the trains, he said.

    “There is an endemic supply chain issue impacting the coal industry,” Santa Cruz said.

    “Despite the mines producing, it’s the railroad that can’t deliver the contractual volumes. We find ourselves unable to ramp those coal-fired units up as we normally would. So we make up that generation with natural gas.”

    Meanwhile, West Coast customers find themselves battling for limited supplies.

    Wood Mackenzie notified clients of maintenance on Gas Transmission Northwest’s system between Dec. 6 and 8 that had the potential to impact up to around 300,000 MMBtu/d of volumes flowing through Kingsgate.

    In the Permian Basin, pipeline work on El Paso Natural Gas and the Permian Highway Pipeline also cut into gas deliveries. Ironically, these curtailments have sent prices in that region plunging below zero.

    “All these constraints, and the market is fighting for stagnant supply,” Santa Cruz said. “This is unprecedented.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/10/2022 – 18:30

  • Pentagon Chief Warns Putin Is "Modernizing & Expanding" Nuclear Arsenal
    Pentagon Chief Warns Putin Is “Modernizing & Expanding” Nuclear Arsenal

    Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Friday comments weighed in on the state of Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal, saying that President Vladimir Putin is in the midst of undertaking the modernization and expansion of his nuclear capabilities. 

    He further repeated the charge which has been coming from Western officials of late that Putin is making nuclear threats, despite the Kremlin’s insistence that critics are misinterpreting the Russian leader’s remarks, including the latest which came days ago.

    Via Reuters

    Austin said at an event inaugurating the new head of US Strategic Command (STRATCOM), Anthony Cotton, that even as it struggles in enact its military objectives in Ukraine, Russia is “modernizing and expanding its nuclear arsenal.”

    “And as the Kremlin continues its cruel and unprovoked war of choice against Ukraine, the whole world has seen Putin engage in deeply irresponsible nuclear saber-rattling,” he said. 

    “So make no mistake. Nuclear powers have a profound responsibility to avoid provocative behavior, and to lower the risk of proliferation, and to prevent escalation and nuclear war,” he stressed.

    The Pentagon chief hailed STRATCOM (US Strategic Command) as providing the “ultimate backstop” against attacks against the US and its allies, given its chief mission is strategic nuclear deterrence and overseeing global strikes.

    Below: Number of nuclear warheads stockpiled by NATO and Russia as of 2022, by type

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Austin appeared to be responding to the latest remarks by Putin to the press days ago, wherein he once again addressed the threat of nuclear war, a risk which he said is “rising” in relation to the Ukraine situation.

    Putin further took the opportunity to restate Russia’s ‘defensive’ nuclear doctrine, stressing that nuclear weapons would be considered as a response to an attack on Russian territory, while also stating that he stands ready to defend Russian territory “using all available means”. 

    According to a translation of Putin’s remarks in Sky News:

    “We didn’t speak about usage of nuclear weapons.” Then, he said: “Russia has not gone mad.”

    “We have the most advanced weapons, but we do not want to wave it around.”

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

    Despite the thrust of Putin’s comments actually going in the direction of firmly asserting that Russia does not want to use nuclear weapons, he was widely accused in Western press and among officials of making nuclear “threats” – and it wasn’t the first time his words were misconstrued, and likely won’t be the last.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/10/2022 – 18:00

  • Gaetz: McCarthy Is Not The Right Leader For The Moment
    Gaetz: McCarthy Is Not The Right Leader For The Moment

    Authored by Rep. Matt Gaetz via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The administration is aiding and abetting an invasion of the Southern border. Our rights are being stripped away. We are at war and the enemy is within.

    In response to this existential threat, we’re told that we need to entrust a congressman previously recognized as the “tech industry’s best friend” as our leader.

    That’s boneheaded. Kevin McCarthy is not the right leader for the moment. Fortunately, enough Republicans recognize that to stop him from being the next Speaker of the House. Five House Republicans, including myself, have announced that we will not vote for McCarthy during the January 3rd speaker election. Many have privately also informed McCarthy of their plans to vote for someone else.

    McCarthy’s allies are fretting and are pushing out a false narrative that opposition to the Paul Ryan endorsed McCarthy will embolden Democrats to elect a squish Republican as Speaker. It turns out that spin is right, just not the way the McCarthy camp sold it.

    Semafor is reporting that “Leader-designate Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. waved off the suggestion Democrats would help elect an alternative for speaker, while Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C. all but volunteered Democrats’ support to help get McCarthy over the threshold of votes needed for speaker.”

    This is the uniparty in action and should let you know that McCarthy is not a threat to the system destroying America. How could he be? His closest adviser has represented Pfizer, Amazon, and a firm dedicated to giving out a path to American citizenship to wealthy Chinese. His roommate counts Google among his clients.

    This is the moment for a fight and McCarthy’s instinct is flight. In the days after January 6, McCarthy asked in a call with Liz Cheney whether Twitter can take away Conservative Congressman Barry Moore’s Twitter account because Rep. Moore pointed out that the shooting of Ashli Babbit doesn’t fit the left’s narrative of January 6.

    McCarthy, likewise, said I was endangering the safety of Rep. Cheney by criticizing her.

    The defense of McCarthy is that he isn’t an ideologue. He just wants to get along, they say, and moves with the times.

    Rep. Matt Rosendale, one of the five Republicans standing athwart McCarthy, put it well when he said, “We don’t need a weatherman, we need a leader.” A leader would stand up to the Biden administration’s demands to send tens of billions of dollars to protect Ukraine’s border instead of ours.

    A leader wouldn’t wait until thousands of military service members have been kicked out due to a mandate to end it. That’s the problem with living with Frank Luntz and making all of your decisions based on polling data. You will always be late.

    But enough about Rep. McCarthy, now is the time for conservatives to come to terms with the fact that the Speakership is up for grabs. Five Republicans are enough to stop Kevin McCarthy from becoming Speaker.

    In order to avoid chaos on January 3rd, Republicans need to embrace reality.

    Rep. Andy Biggs has thrown his hat into the ring. He is a true conservative and would be a much better choice than McCarthy. I recognize, though, that five House Republicans might step up and say that they won’t vote for Biggs under any circumstances.

    There are likely dozens or even hundreds of House Republicans that I would love to support as Speaker. It’s time for them to prove their case. McCarthy has lost his.

    Congressman Matt Gaetz (R) represents the 1st Congressional District of Florida. He is a member of the 117th Congress currently serving his third term in the U.S. House of Representatives. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/10/2022 – 17:30

  • Snap And Other Tech Firms Want Employees Back In The Office
    Snap And Other Tech Firms Want Employees Back In The Office

    Silicon Valley employees who have turned ‘work from home’ into ‘drink wine and watch Netflix with your cat in between emails – from home’ have been put on notice.

    Management at several tech companies have told employees they’ll be required to come into the office at least three days a week if they want to keep their jobs, MarketWatch reports.

    The latest salvo came from Snap Inc. SNAP last month, which expects employees to spend at least 80% of their time in the office, according to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg. Snap Chief Executive Evan Spiegel says the policy, which starts in February, will help the company achieve “full potential” and allow workers to reach “our collective success.”

    According to market research firm IDC, large companies that “deploy reactive and tactical hybrid work models” will suffer an estimated 20% revenue loss in 2024 due to job attrition and underperforming teams.

    Perhaps the most notable case is Twitter, whose employees Elon Musk put on notice in early November that the company’s ‘work-from-anywhere’ arrangement wasn’t going to cut it, and employees would be required to spend at least 40 hours per week in the office.

    Company C3.ai wasn’t having the ‘work from home’ at all – and now has employees filling three floors of a Redwood City, California office building.

    “Everyone is here. Have been for a year,” said CEO Tom Siebel. “Look at that packed parking lot. People need to interact in person to effectively collaborate.“

    Box Inc. CEO Aaron Levie told MarketWatch “It is super important to have people work side by side and in person,” adding “You will see more momentum.“

    And Adds Paul Friesen, chief marketing officer of Rapid – which has advocated for workers to spend at least three days per week in the office, said: “We value having employees come together, collaborate and drive productive outcomes in person while also understanding the new world work environment and the need to balance in-office with work from home and remote experiences.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/10/2022 – 17:00

  • Cross-Dressing Book For Pre-K Students Crossed The Line
    Cross-Dressing Book For Pre-K Students Crossed The Line

    Authored by Michael Ryan via RealClear Wire,

    A school district that gave preschoolers a book on cross-dressing has changed its procedures for giving out books after news of the incident surfaced last week.

    As first reported exclusively by The Lion and The Heartlander news sites, a 4-year-old preschooler in the Turner School District in Kansas City, Kansas, took home the book Jacob’s New Dress. It’s a picture book in which a little boy wears girls’ clothes and even competes with his friend Emily to be a princess.

    “I don’t think this should be, obviously, any kind of a subject for a school to be speaking about,” Jim Clay, the 4-year-old’s grandfather, told The Lion. “The sexualization of our children in society today is just disgusting. The grooming that’s taking place is disgusting.”

    At the end of the week, Clay reported the Turner district had explained what happened and what changes will be made to prevent such a sexually provocative book being tendered to young children there again.

    The district’s statement to Clay, and apparently others, says its early-childhood program began accepting once-weekly donated books last year from local nonprofit LiteracyKC. Such partnerships, the district said, help it expand resources and community outreach.

    “Please be assured that these books were not a part of district curriculum, were not required reading, and were sent home to be read at the discretion of parents,” the district wrote without naming the book in question or explaining how it escaped the district’s notice.

    “Moving forward, our district staff will be pre-approving all books and activities provided by Literacy KC to ensure they are age-appropriate and align with our district curriculum and educational mission,” the statement concluded – notably, without apology to offended parents and guardians.

    Case closed? Maybe, maybe not.

    “This past spring we learned State Farm was distributing transgender books in Florida,” says Mary Miller, an Oregon-based parents’ rights advocate who spoke about the cultural divide between parents and schools in Kansas City at a community forum in June.

    “Now Literacy KC is doing the same thing in Kansas City preschool classrooms, after having received a multimillion-dollar grant from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. There is a coordinated effort by trans rights activist groups such as GLSEN (formerly the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network) and the Human Rights Campaign to push transgender ideology on schoolchildren nationwide.

    “Literacy KC will need to clean up its act to regain the trust of parents and grandparents in the Kansas City community.”

    Moreover, as Turner has just done, other school districts may need to reconsider the wisdom of outsourcing the approval of classroom materials to even well-intentioned outside organizations.

    The incident also raises questions about Literacy KC’s vetting process, and how many other school districts in the Kansas City region have handed out books such as Jacob’s New Dress to the youngest of students – and whether parents have been made aware of it.

    The Lion on Monday sent questions to both the Turner district and Literacy KC. Among other things, we asked Literacy KC if this book is being given out to other districts in the area, and if so, which ones; if Literacy KC continues to consider a cross-dressing book to be appropriate for such young children – or, if not, whether it will suspend the book’s distribution; and whether it is fair for such sexually and gender-identity suggestive books to be given to such young children without pre-approval by parents?

    The Lion also has requested copies of any correspondence between the Turner district and Literacy KC about the incident.

    The Turner district is not the only one that has been roiled by controversy over this and other gender-fluidity books in early grades. The book was noted as objectionable to parents in a news report last month about outrage over transgender policies in Lawrence Township Public Schools in New Jersey.

    “Can we just get back to teaching?” one New Jersey parent was quoted.

    Jacob’s New Dress also was pulled from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools system in North Carolina in 2017.

    The media portray such actions as right-wing book banning rather than a matter of discretion, and Jacob’s New Dress as “part of a first-grade lesson on what to do when someone is bullied.” Critics counter that anti-bullying messages can be transmitted outside of a cross-dressing context.

    Moreover, in making the issue one of “book banning,” the media overlook the role and rights of parents in bringing up children. The media don’t, for instance, call it “banning” when the Motion Picture Association warns parents about age-inappropriate materials in films, with its PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17 (adults only) ratings.

    Yet, with books, it’s anything goes?

    Not for Clay, nor many other parents and grandparents like him.

    “My kids used to dress up like Power Rangers when they were kids, and we’d pretend that they were a Power Ranger with them,” Clay said. “I’m not interested in pretending that guys are girls and girls are guys. 

    “All three of my kids grew up in the Turner district. If there was any questionable material, they always allowed us to opt-out or keep our kid home that day, and they would keep us informed. But apparently not with this.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/10/2022 – 16:30

  • "Insidious": Madonna, Jimmy Fallon, Gwyneth Paltrow And Other Celebs Sued Over NFT Endorsements
    “Insidious”: Madonna, Jimmy Fallon, Gwyneth Paltrow And Other Celebs Sued Over NFT Endorsements

    Celebrities who thought doing crypto promotions would be a quick way to make some easy money have another thing coming.

    Weeks ago, Tom Brady, Giselle Bündchen, Larry David & Steph Curry were sued over a now-infamous Super Bowl ad promoting failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

    Now, a class action lawsuit filed in federal court is targeting clebrities who were secretly compensated for shipping ‘Bored Ape Yacht Club’ NFTs, Deadline reports. The lawsuit includes Kevin Hart, Madonna, Jimmy Fallon, Justin Bieber, Paris Hilton, Serena Williams, DJ Khaled, Gwyneth Paltrow and a host of other celebrities.

    Photos: Getty via Deadline

    Universal TV is also named as a defendant, while high-profile music manager Guy Oseary has been fingered as the ‘brains’ behind the operation.

    “Defendants’ promotional campaign was wildly successful, generating billions of dollars in sales and re-sales,” reads the lawsuit, filed by Adonis Real and Adam Titcher filed on December 8 in U.S. District Court in California. “The manufactured celebrity endorsements and misleading promotions regarding the launch of an entire BAYC ecosystem (the so-called Otherside metaverse) were able to artificially increase the interest in and price of the BAYC NFTs during the Relevant Period, causing investors to purchase these losing investments at drastically inflated prices,” the filing continues.

    As Deadline notes;

    Essentially, on their various platforms, through public statements and in Fallon’s case on The Tonight Show in late November 2021, the celebs praised the Yuga Labs backed BAYC NFTs to the public by claiming to be customers themselves. Now, the allure of non-fungible tokens may have dimmed considerably ( a.k.a. nosedived) in recent months, but to BAYC buyers jumping on board last year, they quickly proved “losing investments at drastically inflated prices.”

    With the Oseary-backed crypto company Moonpay working with Yuga to covertly slip payments to the promoting A-listed talent, the whole scheme saw Hart, Fallon, Paltrow give BAYC NFTs the seal of approval without the celebs revealing the often hefty compensation they were receiving.

    “The truth is that the Company’s entire business model relies on using insidious marketing and promotional activities from A-list celebrities that are highly compensated (without disclosing such), to increase demand of the Yuga securities by convincing potential retail investors that the price of these digital assets would appreciate,” reads the 95-page fraud complaint, which contains 10 claims.

    “During the Class Period, Defendants engaged in a plan, scheme, conspiracy, and course of conduct pursuant to which they knowingly or recklessly engaged in acts, transactions, practices, and courses of business that operated as a fraud and deceit upon Plaintiffs and the other members of the Class,” the filing continues. “In truth, the Executive Defendants and Oseary used their connections to MoonPay and its service as a covert way to compensate the Promoter Defendants for their promotions of the BAYC NFTs without disclosing it to unsuspecting investors.“

    A spokesperson for Yuga Labs said in a statement that “We strongly believe that they are without merit, and look forward to proving as much.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/10/2022 – 16:00

  • A Half-Serious Prediction Of What The Next Two Years Will Look Like
    A Half-Serious Prediction Of What The Next Two Years Will Look Like

    Authored by Eric Utter via AmericanThinker.com,

    *December 9: Last mail-in ballots counted for 2022 midterm elections, more than a month after “Election Day.”

    *December 14: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) visits Wayne Corporation manufacturing site, sings “The Wheels on the Bus” song to executives.

    *December 25: President Joe Biden wishes Americans a “very merry…um, you know, the thing” and adds, “Don’t let your kids eat all the chocolate bunnies at once!”

    *January 3, 2023: Republicans accidentally install Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski as speaker of the House.

    *February 2: New York mayor Eric Adams drops “Staten Island Chuck” during Groundhog Day ceremony, killing him instantly.  Adams blames” systemic racism” for the incident.  Al Gore says climate change to blame.  Other Democrats claim it was Trump’s fault.

    *February 6–10: Democrats in the Senate debate a new proposal to counteract global warming and “save our planet” while record-breaking cold temperatures paralyze much of the nation, causing hundreds of deaths.

    *March 17: President Biden urges all Americans to celebrate “Cinco de Mayo” responsibly.

    *May 9: Project Veritas video released proving “alphabet agencies” headed by Satan-worshipers.

    *May 23: Conservative media release correspondence and video proving that Joe Biden paid for Hunter’s hookers and drugs with money “The Big Guy” obtained from Chinese communists.

    *May 24: The New York Times, Washington Post, and MSNBC denounce the reports, calling them “Russian disinformation.”

    *July 4: President Biden encourages “all, um, uh, immigrants” to enjoy “the, uh, Armistice Day.”

    *October 18: The Federal Reserve announces that the adjusted annual rate of Inflation for September was 20.2%.

    *November 16: Reports indicate that murders were up 49% over last year, burglaries up 742% for same time period.

    *December 1: Democratic Senate passes bill that, if enacted, will ban all forms of Christian worship as “apostasy.”

    *January 1, 2024: President Biden wishes “everyone in the world, except, you know, the Russkies, a Happy Labor Day.”

    *February 22: President Biden, after conferring with the CDC and assorted medical “experts,” announces that a new coronavirus has emerged from a “wet market out east” and orders a two-month lockdown to “fatten…I mean flatten…the curve.”  No one will be allowed to travel, and all non-essential businesses will be shut down.  Some wags have started calling the illness the “Boston Flu.”  Authorities threaten to shoot them.

    *October 10: President Biden issues executive order making it a felony to be caught outside without a full, properly worn hazmat suit as the Boston Flu latest iteration of the coronavirus rages on.

    *October 11: President Biden issues an executive order making ice cream the “official food” of the United States.

    *October 12: President Biden issues executive order permanently banning on-site voting “everywhere and for all time.”  Henceforth, only mail-in balloting will be allowed.

    *November 5: Mainstream media outlets excitedly announce that Democrats are winning in a landslide, and that a “Big Blue Wave” is sweeping the nation on this “Election Day” 2024.  All project John Fetterman (D-Pa.) to be the next president of the United States.

    *November 11: Final totals are announced for the 2024 election, giving Democrats a 61-39 hold on the Senate and a 292-143 edge in the House.  The Big Blue Wave has done its job.

    *January 29, 2025: Democratic Congress ratifies bill to “eliminate” all political opposition.  President Fetterman signs the legislation into law.  After achieving one-party rule, top Democrats boast, “We have — finally — saved our democracy!”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/10/2022 – 15:30

  • NYC Health Officials Urge Residents To Mask Up Amid 'Tridemic'
    NYC Health Officials Urge Residents To Mask Up Amid ‘Tridemic’

    A ‘tridemic‘ of flu, RSV, and Covid-19 cases have led New York City health officials to ‘strongly’ recommend that people wear “a high-quality mask, such as a KN95 or KF94, or an N95 respirator” indoors and in crowded outdoor settings.

    On Friday, the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Ashwin Vasan, recommended that New Yorkers get vaccinated and boosted, and wear a mask whenever ‘inside stores, lobbies, hallways, elevators, public transportation, schools, child care facilities and other shared spaces.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsMasks will remain voluntary except in health care facilities such as nursing homes, where mask mandates are still enforced.

    Of course, there’s plenty of evidence masks provide minimal, if zero benefit.

    According to the NY Times, hospitalization rates have increased around 20% over the past two weeks, with the city’s seven-day average going from 2,425 to 3,761 over that period. The number of Covid cases has increased around 55% over the period, while flu cases rose 64% during the week ending Dec. 3, and RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus has also been on the rise.

    Have people’s immune systems been weakened by two years of avoiding largely non-lethal diseases and other factors?

     

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/10/2022 – 15:00

  • Digital Currency: The Fed Moves Toward Monetary Totalitarianism
    Digital Currency: The Fed Moves Toward Monetary Totalitarianism

    Authored by André Marques via The Mises Institute,

    The Federal Reserve is sowing the seeds for its central bank digital currency (CBDC). It may seem that the purpose of a CBDC is to facilitate transactions and enhance economic activity, but CBDCs are mainly about more government control over individuals. If a CBDC were implemented, the central bank would have access to all transactions in addition to being capable of freezing accounts.

    It may seem dystopian—something that only totalitarian governments would do—but there have been recent cases of asset freezing in Canada and Brazil. Moreover, a CBDC would give the government the power to determine how much a person can spend, establish expiration dates for deposits, and even penalize people who saved money.

    The war on cash is also a reason why governments want to implement CBDCs. The end of cash would mean less privacy for individuals and would allow central banks to maintain a monetary policy of negative interest rates with greater ease (since individuals would be unable to withdraw money commercial banks to avoid losses).

    Once the CBDC arrives, instead of a deposit being a commercial bank’s liability, a deposit would be the central bank’s liability.

    In 2020, China launched a digital yuan pilot program. As mentioned by Seeking Alpha, China wants to implement a CBDC because “this would give [the government] a remarkable amount of information about what consumers are spending their money on.”

    The government could easily track digital payments with a CBDC. Bloomberg noted in an article published when the digital yuan pilot program was launched that the digital currency “offers China’s authorities a degree of control never possible with cash.” A CBDC could allow the Chinese government to monitor mobile app purchases (which accounted for about 16 percent of the country’s gross domestic product in 2020) more closely. Bloomberg describes how much control a CBDC could give Chinese authorities:

    The PBOC [People’s Bank of China] has also indicated that it could put limits on the sizes of some transactions, or even require an appointment to make large ones. Some observers wonder whether payments could be linked to the emerging social-credit system, wherein citizens with exemplary behavior are “whitelisted” for privileges, while those with criminal and other infractions find themselves left out.

    (Details on China’s social credit system can be found here.)

    The Chinese government is waging war on cash. And they are not alone. In 2017, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) published a document offering suggestions to governments—even in the face of strong public opposition—on how to move toward a cashless society. Governments and central bankers claim that the shift to a cashless society will help prevent crime and increase convenience for ordinary people. But the real motivation behind the war on cash is more government control over the individual.

    And the US is getting ready to establish its own CBDC (or something similar). The first step was taken in August, when the Fed announced FedNow. FedNow will be an instant payment system and is scheduled to be launched between May and July 2023.

    FedNow is practically identical to Brazil’s PIX. PIX was implemented by the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB) in November 2020. It is a convenient instant payment system (using mobile devices) without user fees, and a reputation as being safe to use.

    A year after its launch, PIX already had 112 million people registered, or just over half of the Brazilian population. Of course, frauds and scams do occur over PIX, but most are social engineering scams (see here, here, and here) and are not system flaws; that is, they are scams that exploit the public’s lack of knowledge of PIX technology.

    Bear in mind that PIX is not the Brazilian CBDC. It is just a payment system. However, the BCB has access to transactions made through PIX; therefore, PIX can be considered the seed of the Brazilian CBDC. It is already an invasion of the privacy of Brazilians. And FedNow is set to follow suit.

    Additionally, the New York Fed has recently launched a twelve-week pilot program with several commercial banks to test the feasibility of a CBDC in the US. The program will use digital tokens to represent bank deposits. Institutions involved in the program will make simulated transactions to test the system. According to Reuters, “the pilot [program] will test how banks using digital dollar tokens in a common database can help speed up payments.”

    Banks involved in the pilot program include BNY Mellon, Citi, HSBC, Mastercard, PNC Bank, TD Bank, Truist, US Bank, and Wells Fargo. The global financial messaging service provider SWIFT is also participating to “support interoperability across the international financial ecosystem.” (This video details the pilot program and how the US CBDC would work.)

    The IMF is also thinking of a way to connect different CBDCs under a single system. In other words, the IMF plans to create a PIX/FedNow for CBDCs around the globe:

    Things could change as money becomes tokenized; that is, accessible to anyone with the right private key and transferable to anyone with access to the same network. Examples of tokenized money include so-called stablecoins, such as USD Coin, and central bank digital currency.

    The reception of Brazil’s PIX shows that FedNow will likely be widely adopted due to its convenience; however, this positive economic and technological element should not overshadow the increased control instant payment systems will give to central banks. The BCB has access to all transactions made by Brazilians through PIX, and this would only get worse should a CBDC be implemented.

    With a CBDC, it would be easier for the government to carry out expansionary monetary policies (which cause misallocations of resources and business cycles) and exert greater control over citizens’ finances.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/10/2022 – 14:30

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Dec 10

Today’s News 10th December 2022

  • Former Assistant City Attorney And Police Officer In Atlanta Charged In $7 Million PPP Fraud Scheme
    Former Assistant City Attorney And Police Officer In Atlanta Charged In $7 Million PPP Fraud Scheme

    Authored by Matt McGregor via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A former assistant city attorney and police officer in Atlanta has been charged with defrauding the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) out of $7 million.

    DOJ Media PPP Fraud Chart. (Courtesy of the DOJ)

    The indictment alleges that Shelitha Robertson, 60, and other co-conspirators submitted fraudulent PPP loan applications for several companies they owned, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

    Robertson allegedly siphoned over $7 million in PPP loan funds and used them to purchase luxury items such as a Rolls-Royce, a motorcycle, and jewelry, as well as to transfer funds to her co-conspirators and family members.

    On Dec. 6, Robertson was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering.

    If convicted, she will face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for each wire fraud charge and a maximum of 10 years for the charge of money laundering.

    “Robertson allegedly stole millions of dollars in taxpayer money intended to help small businesses stay afloat during the pandemic,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan Buchanan. “CARES Act loans were designed to help sustain small businesses during the pandemic, not to serve as a source of personal enrichment. We will continue to vigorously investigate and prosecute anyone who fraudulently obtains these critical funds.”

    In 2020, Congress passed the largest financial support package in U.S. history: the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, which authorized $349 billion in PPP loans.

    The program provided small businesses with funds to cover up to eight weeks of payroll costs so the businesses could fill in the financial gaps created by the lockdowns.

    It was implemented by the Small Business Administration (SBA) through the Treasury Department, and it provided forgivable loans to small businesses for job retention and other expenses.

    Since its implementation, the program has been open season for multiple fraud schemes.

    The DOJ’s Fraud Section leads its Criminal Division’s prosecution of schemes that target the PPP.

    The Fraud Section has prosecuted more than 192 defendants in over 121 criminal cases and has seized more than $78 million in cash proceeds derived from fraudulently obtained PPP funds, as well as several real estate properties and luxury items purchased with those proceeds.

    In December, the DOJ indicted defendants in more than 10 cases.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/09/2022 – 21:40

  • 9 Million Millennials Moved Back In With Their Parents This Year
    9 Million Millennials Moved Back In With Their Parents This Year

    The good news is that they still have jobs (if one believes the goalseeked propaganda spewed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics). The bad news is taht soaring rents have forced millions of young Americans to move back in with their parents this year, according to a new survey.

    As Bloomberg’s Alex Tanzi writes, about one in four millennials are living with their parents, according to the survey of 1,200 people by Pollfish for the website PropertyManagement.com. That’s equivalent to about 18 million people between the ages of 26 and 41. More than half said they moved back in with family in the past year.

    Among those who slunk back to their parents’ basement, the surge in rental costs was the main reason given for the move. About 15% of millennial renters say that they’re spending more than half their after-tax income on rent.

    The disruptions of the pandemic, which triggered massive job losses as well as a spike in housing costs, have driven an unprecedented shakeup in living arrangements. In September of 2020, a survey by Pew found that for the first time since the Great Depression, a majority of Americans aged between 18 and 29 were living with their parents.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/09/2022 – 21:20

  • The Debate Between Gold & Bitcoin In 2023
    The Debate Between Gold & Bitcoin In 2023

    Authored by Alasdair Macleod via GoldMoney.com,

    The FTX scandal has thrown the future of cryptocurrencies into doubt. Supporters of bitcoin, which has proved to be remarkably robust at a time when the whole cryptocurrency ecosystem is threatened by scandal and a systemic collapse, are still asserting that it is the future money.

    This article addresses a number of issues that next year will make or break bitcoin’s claim over gold. Besides the interest of governments to prevent it having any monetary role, hodlers ignore the legal status of gold as money, and the different treatment likely to be accorded to bitcoin in criminal law. Furthermore, bulls of bitcoin are mainly only that: speculators hoping for a profit measured in their fiat currencies.

    This is not to deny bitcoin’s virtues: only to question its monetary future relative to gold at a time when the period of declining interest rates, which played a large part in fuelling the cryptocurrency phenomenon, appears to have ended. Furthermore, the financial considerations in the geopolitical context centre on the dollar’s relationship with gold, leaving cryptocurrencies as wallflowers in the financial conflict between east and west.

    Introduction

    If there is one uncontroversial fact in the science of economics, it is that the central issue is the inflation of currency and credit and has been increasingly so since the First World War. The debasement of the circulating medium has always been western governments’ principal monetary policy. The last British attempt to stand in the way of the inflation steamroller ended in 1931, when economists, such as Keynes, pointed out that a gradual and automatic lowering of real wages that results from a reduction of the currency’s purchasing power would be less strongly resisted “than attempts to revise monetary wages downwards”.

    This statement was economical with the reality. The error was found in the difference between pre-war and post-war gold standards. It should be remembered that the UK’s 1925—1931 gold standard was a bullion standard, as opposed to the sovereign coin standard which existed prior to 1914.  From 1925 when the new standard was introduced, the issue of sovereign coin was no longer at the option of banknote holders, but at the Bank of England’s. The Bank was not interested in redeeming its own notes for coin. Therefore, only the very wealthy would be able to redeem currency and credit sufficient to obtain 400-ounce bars, which valued in today’s sterling is about £586,000 ($714,000). The ordinary person was disenfranchised by this arrangement, compared with the pre-war coin standard when a single sovereign could be obtained for a single paper pound. The result was that abandoning the bullion standard in 1931 was the political option of least resistance.

    Instead of a bullion standard, if the British government had resurrected the pre-war coin standard, public opposition to inflationism would have most probably ruled against monetary debasement; and crucially, the government’s room for economic intervention would be severely restricted. But so entrenched is the ideology of interventionism that no British economist today would agree with this analysis.

    Not only can inflationism not be easily refuted today, it is lionised as being an essential policy. Nearly a century of inflationism has conditioned establishment economists to reject the restrictions of gold as money and as the sheet anchor for the valuation of credit. But the few of us conscious of the true cost of monetary debasement are increasingly aware that the commitment to inflation of fiat currencies and credit is rushing us all towards a final crisis. It is this awareness that has also fuelled speculation in cryptocurrency alternatives to gold. But as interest rates began to rise thereby expected to stabilise fiat currencies, the cryptocurrency bubble has deflated. 

    An interesting debate is whether cryptocurrencies, particularly bitcoin, can secure advantage over government currencies if their purchasing power continues to diminish at an accelerated rate. Bitcoin and those of its stablemates claiming a currency role will have to overcome the consequences of a reversal of falling interest rate trends towards higher levels in future. The debate will almost certainly intensify between parties for and against, none of which have a life experience of sound money, of its role as a stabiliser of credit values, and how this might be achieved under a cryptocurrency regime.

    Assuming the reader of this article is aware that after a near four-decade decline to the lower bound, interest rates may have entered a new phase of rising rates, we should address the gold versus cryptocurrencies debate first, before looking at the consequences of rising interest rates for currencies, and therefore gold and bitcoin in 2023.

    The problem with bitcoin as money

    The supreme cryptocurrency standard is widely acknowledged to be bitcoin. It is bitcoin which is currently promoted as the private sector replacement for government currencies. But even to talk of bitcoin as a currency is to mislabel it. A currency is a form of credit, where there is a counterparty risk. This risk is absent when a bitcoin is both owned and possessed by a person or business. It is therefore a competing form of money, which legally is physical gold and silver coin, the international legal position for which is laid out in the Appendix to this article. If it is anything, then bitcoin is not currency but a competing form of money.

    Theoretically, as opposed to the legal position, it is not up to an economist to choose what is money. Ultimately, it is the public that decides. Undoubtedly, for some enthusiasts, bitcoin might be money to be hoarded, and spent as a last resort. This is precisely the established role which gold coin fulfils. But there is good reason to believe that the majority of devotees are in it for speculative profits. In other words, they do not intend to ever spend bitcoin, but to sell it for national currency. Now that interest rates have risen from the zero bound, the test will be whether bitcoin turns out to be no more than a speculative counter, aping the performance of high-flying technology stocks, and correlating more with the Nasdaq index instead of discounting the inflation of state currencies and associated bank credit.

    To its credit, through all the cryptocurrency scams and collapses, bitcoin has retained its integrity. There is no doubt that in its construction bitcoin is remarkably robust. And for the international traveller it retains the advantage of not yet being subject to extensive regulations and restrictions on capital transfers. But the belief that it is a realistic form of money must be based on either the ability of bitcoin to work alongside the fiat currency system or in the event of a total breakdown of the monetary system that it will be replaced by bitcoin. And supporters seem to think that the established international legal definitions of money can be ignored.

    Where this is a particular problem is in the different property rights accorded to money and currency from other forms of property. In criminal law, if, say, a painting is stollen from you and you manage to trace it to a new owner, you can reclaim it as your property, even if the current possessor acquired it in good faith. This is what allows Jewish families to recover artwork stolen from them in the Second World War.

    If, however, someone steals money, currency, or access to your bank account and transfers your property in them to another party, so long as that party was not acting in concert with the criminals, you cannot reclaim this form of property. But when we consider the case of bitcoin, it does not appear to fall into the categories of money and credit for the purpose of the law. Through the blockchain, the trail of previous owners is recorded pseudonymously, so property rights can be established.

    This means that the authorities can also trace the ownership of bitcoin. If you have left them on an exchange wallet, they can be identified as having come into your possession. Even if you have moved them into your own wallet (pseudonymous ownership) the know-your-client and anti-money laundering regulations which would have been completed by you before you opened an account on an exchange would trace possession to you.
    If the authorities know or suspect that at an earlier stage of its ownership, your bitcoin were the proceeds of crime, then they can be confiscated. This means that unlike the possession of money, cash, or bank credit you cannot be certain that you do indeed own your bitcoin acquired in all innocence.

    It might not be beyond the bounds of possibility for the state to use this criminal law to attack bitcoin as a rival to its own currency. So far, this form of attack has not been deployed, but the threat remains.

    In addition to ignoring its legal status, bitcoin enthusiasts do not appear understand the implications of entire economies operating on credit, being central bank credit in the form of banknotes and bank deposits in the commercial banking system. If bitcoin is to act as money, it must support the existence of related credit, and in doing so it will have to provide price stability to goods and services over the long term. But bitcoin’s hard limit of issue makes it more likely that its purchasing power would increase significantly if commonly adopted as money. Furthermore, so far it has proved to be extremely volatile valued in fiat currencies. Both the hard limit to its quantity and its volatility makes it unsuited as a reference point for credit, which is the lifeblood of every economy. It would be impossible for businesses to calculate financial returns for commercial investment, a problem made more acute by today’s borrowers used to their miscalculations being rescued by continual credit debasement and suppressed interest rates.

    Even if they were permitted to do so — which is difficult to envisage ¬– banks will almost certainly not wish to extend credit based on bitcoin. A bitcoin anarchist might respond that the entire banking system should fail with the end of fiat currencies. But this assumes that in this extreme event, the state will not come up with a solution which allows it to maintain control over credit. The best we can hope for in these extreme circumstances is that central banks and the political class learn the painful lessons of inflationism and vow to return to a credit system based on sound money — which is legally, and always has been gold.

    Gold and rising interest rates 

    It has been pointed out above that bitcoin’s value has declined along with rising interest rates. In derivative markets, rising interest rates are also seen as being disadvantageous to gold and favourable to fiat. Indeed, for most of 2022 rising dollar interest rates have seen gold decline, at least until recently, when expectations for higher interest rates softened. It has been that way for gold because the dominant players in derivative markets believe it to be so, and they account for their financing costs in fiat currencies. But while admitting to the accounting issue, the belief in the relationship between interest rates, gold, and currencies is based on a common misconception.

    Both Keynesians and monetarists claim that interest rates are the price of credit, so if interest rates are raised, they say that demand for credit will be reduced. It is on this understanding that central bank interest rate policies are based. But empirical evidence shows that this relationship is incorrect. The explanation is simple. As a reflection of time preference, interest rates compensate creditors for loss of possession of currency or credit in the form of bank deposits. To the loss of use value and a risk that the borrower might default must be added the expectation of any changes in the currency’s purchasing power.

    Unless this last factor is recognised by rate-setters who lean towards suppressing rates, a currency will suffer on the foreign exchanges accordingly. And if policy makers for other fiat currencies are similarly supressing interest rates below their time preference values, then it will be reflected in higher gold prices rather than exchange rate adjustments. With respect to gold, it is not the fact that gold yields a low interest rate on loan: that is a function of gold’s stability relative to that of a fiat currency. Therefore, what matters in the relationship between gold and a fiat currency is the degree to which the interest rate demanded in the market for the currency reflects the prospects for its purchasing power.

    However, traders account in fiat currencies. So understandably, they are more interested in maximising nominal interest rates and view the lower rate on gold as a cost. But as we can see from the chart below, in the 1970s official rates (in this case the Fed funds rate) rose and at the same time the gold price rose as well.

    The day the Bretton Woods gold peg was finally abandoned in 1971, the dollar price of gold was $43. Between 1971—1972, the Fed funds rate had varied between 3.3% and 5.5%. By the end of the decade, on 21 January 1980 at the PM fix gold was priced at $850, an increase of nearly nineteen times. At that time, the Fed funds rate was at 14%, clearly forced higher by the markets in accordance with time preference theory. Chairman Volcker subsequently increased the funds rate to 17.5% by April, and then to 19% in January 1981 to slay the inflation dragon. At that rate, the Fed’s dollar was yielding more than warranted by time preference, which in effect was Volcker’s policy objective.

    For derivative speculators, the condition which breaks the accounting relationship between gold and dollar interest rates is when markets begin to take the inflation threat seriously. Today, that does not yet appear to be the case. We can say this because derivative markets impose a relationship between fiat currency interest rates and that of gold which denies the existence of time preference. It is an important conclusion which begs the question: will 2023 see a return to time preference considerations for the relationship between gold and fiat currency values, and how will bitcoin’s price behave in these circumstances?

    To affirm its status as money, bitcoin will have to obey the laws of time preference. In other words, its current relationship with interest rates must change, so that rising interest rates reflecting fiat currencies’ loss of their purchasing power should become reflected in rising values for bitcoin. We will not try to guess this future. But we can say confidently that if the debasement of currencies accelerates, gold’s relative value will increase accordingly while that of bitcoin might not.

    The geopolitical wildcard

    To the extent that there is a financial war between the American-led western alliance and the Russian Chinese nexus, gold plays a far greater role than any cryptocurrency. Since the early 1980s, China has embarked on a policy of secretly acquiring unknown quantities of bullion none of which has been permitted to leave the nation’s territory. It has financed gold mining, so that for over a decade it has become the largest national producer in the world. And when it was decided that the State in various accounts had accumulated sufficient bullion, it set up the Shanghai Gold Exchange and encouraged its own citizens, previously banned from gold ownership, to accumulate large quantities —so far, totalling over 20,000 tonnes.

    And Russia, implementing gold accumulation policies more recently, has declared that between reserves and holdings in other state accounts it has about 12,000 tonnes. Legislation has been passed in the Dumas which will allow some or all of this gold to be transferred into official reserves, when they could easily exceed the reserves declared at the US Treasury. Moscow is setting up a new bullion exchange. Other Asian central banks have been accumulating gold as well. And tellingly, European central banks refuse to admit to any reduction in their reserve positions.

    The battlefield in this financial tussle is over the US dollar. Russia and China, with the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Eurasian Economic Union, and BRICS (shortly to be joined by Saudi Arabia) either want to dispose of the dollar for the purpose of trade settlement entirely or want to become less dependent upon it. How is that to be achieved? The actions of Asian powers and their central banks are signalling to us that they will do so with gold.

    This could become increasingly relevant in the months ahead. With Europe entering a continental winter, fuel and food shortages risk splitting the western alliance. The ascendency of gold-backed Eurasia over a divided western alliance can be expected to lead to further dollar weakness, reflected in the value of true money, which legally is only gold.

    Appendix — The legal position of gold

    As a medium of exchange, the function of money is to adjust the ratios of goods and services, one to another. Thus, the price expressed is always for the goods, money being entirely neutral in transactions. It is therefore an error to think of money as having a price, but it has a value relative to exchangeable items. This should be borne in mind when considering the relationship between legal money, which is habitually given a price nowadays in fiat currencies, and the fiat currencies themselves which, given the status of legal tender, are erroneously assumed to have the status of money. The magnitude of this error becomes clear with understanding what legally is money, and what is currency. And this understanding starts with Roman law.

    Roman law became the basis for legal systems throughout Europe, and by extension those of European settled regions, from North America, Latin America through Spanish and Portuguese influence, and the entire British Empire. In common with the Athenians, Rome held that laws were the means whereby individuals would protect themselves from each other and the state. But it was Rome which codified law into a practical and accessible body of reference.

    The first records of Roman statutes and case law were the Twelve Tables of 450BC. These became the basis upon which individual jurors expounded, developed, and evolved their rulings over the next thousand years. The whole legal system was then consolidated into the Emperor Justinian’s Corpus Juris Civilis, otherwise known as the Pandects. When the empire relocated to Constantinople, the Corpus was translated into Greek and eventually reissued in the Basilica, at the time of the Basilian dynasty in the tenth century. It was that version which became the foundation for European law in the Middle Ages, except for England. As an eminent nineteenth century lawyer specialising in banking put it, the reason common law differed in England was that:

    “The Romans abandoned Britain at the end of the fifth century and the common law of England on the subject of credit was exactly as it stood in Gaius which was the textbook of Roman law throughout the empire at the time when the Romans gave up Britain.  But on the 1st of November 1875, the common law of England relating to credit was superseded by equity which is simply the law of the Pandects of Justinian.”[i]

    In all, two thousand years of legal development had elapsed between the Twelve Tables and the reaffirmation of Justinian’s Pandects in Dionysius Gottfried’s version in Geneva of the Corpus Juris Civilis, translated back into Latin in 1583AD from the Greek Basilica.

    It is the Digest section of the Corpus which is relevant to our topic. The Digest is an encyclopaedia of over nine thousand references of eminent jurors collected over time. Prominent in these references are those of Ulpian, who died in 228AD and was the juror who did most to cement the legal position of money and credit. The Digest defined property, contracts, and crimes. Our interest in money and credit is covered by rulings on property and contracts.

    The regular deposit contract is defined by Ulpian in a section entitled Deposita vel contra (on depositing and withdrawing). He defined a regular deposit as follows:

    “A deposit is something given another for safekeeping. It is so called because a good is posited (or placed). The preposition de intensifies the meaning, which reflects that all obligations corresponding to the custody of the good belongs to that person.”[ii]

    Another jurist commonly cited in the Digest, Paul of Alfenus Varus, differentiated between the regular deposit contract defined by Ulpian above and an irregular deposit or mutuum. In this latter case, Paul held that:

    “If a person deposits a certain amount of loose money, which he counts and does not hand over sealed or enclosed in something, then the only duty of the person receiving it is to return the same amount.”[iii]

    So, a mutuum is taken into the possession of the receiver and in return for a right of action in favour of the depositor to be exercised by him at any time with the receiver having a matching duty to return the same amount, it becomes the receiver’s property to do with as he wishes. This is the legal foundation of modern banking.

    Clearly, the precedent in the Digest is that money is always metallic. While anything can be deposited into another’s custody, it is the treatment of fungible goods, particularly money, which is the subject of these legal rulings. It is only through an irregular deposit that the depositor becomes a creditor. By laying down the difference between a regular and irregular deposit, the distinction is made between what has always been regarded as money from ancient times and a promise to repay the same amount, which we know today as credit and debt.

    There is one issue to clarify, and that is to do with credit rather than money. As noted above, Justinian’s Pandects were compiled a century after the Romans had abandoned Britain. From what was subsequently unified as England and Wales out of diverse kingdoms, common law differed in that debts were not freely transferable as property. The transferee of a debt could only sue as attorney for the transferor. This placed debt as property in a different position from other forms of transferable property. Justinian took away this anomaly as a relic of old Roman law (the laws of Gaius, referred to above), allowing the transferee to sue the debtor in his own name.

    The anomaly in English law was only regularised when the Court of Chancery merged with common law by Act of Parliament in November 1875. Since then, the status of money and credit in English law has conformed in every respect with Justinian’s Pandects.

    While the legal position of money is clear, the economic position is technically different. Jean-Baptiste Say pointed out that money facilitates the division of labour. Technically, money is unspent labour, and is therefore a credit yet to be used. Various other classical economists made the same point. Adam Smith wrote that a guinea might be considered as a bill for a certain quantity of necessaries and conveniences upon all the tradesmen in the neighbourhood. Henry Thornton said that money of every kind [including credit] is an order for goods. Bastiat and Mill opined similarly.[iv]

    But it is the legal difference which is of overriding importance because it was founded on the principal that there is a clear distinction between metallic money and a duty to pay. Money is permanent while credit is not. Money has no counterparty risk, whereas credit does. By way of contrast with money, we can define credit: credit is anything which is of no direct use but is taken in exchange for something else in the belief or confidence in the right to exchange it away again.[v]

    So far, in this article we have established that gold has a legal status as money, which bitcoin lacks. We can also rule out legislation to raise bitcoin to a legal monetary status, even if law makers are prepared to consider doing so — which is unlikely. From the rulings in the Roman Pandects, we can see that a regular deposit differs from an irregular deposit because it is identified as the depositor’s property. Identity is the key to property’s recovery, and in bitcoin’s case the blockchain provides this identity. Attempts to classify a blockchain based cryptocurrency as money fall foul of the established legal position.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/09/2022 – 21:00

  • SpaceX's First Moon Mission Will Include Japanese Billionaire And DJ Steve Aoki
    SpaceX’s First Moon Mission Will Include Japanese Billionaire And DJ Steve Aoki

    SpaceX revealed that Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa had selected an unorthodox crew of artists, athletes, and entertainers for an upcoming privately funded lunar mission called “dearMoon.” Starship, SpaceX’s most powerful next-generation launch vehicle, will propel the crew around the moon, orbit for several days, and return to Earth. 

    The lunar mission has been in the works since 2018. Maezawa bought every seat and will now be joined by DJ Steve Aoki, K-pop star Choi Seung-hyun (known as TOP), choreographer Yemi AD, photographer Rhiannon Adam, YouTube creator Tim Dodd, photographer Karim Iliya, documentary filmmaker Brendan Hall, actor Dev Joshi, and snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington.

    The lunar mission is expected to launch sometime in 2023, though Starship has yet to conduct its first orbital test flight. If early Starship tests are successful, then dearMoon could beat NASA’s Artemis II mission to fly astronauts around the moon by 2024.

    Maezawa has already been to space. In 2021, he flew to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz rocket and spent two weeks living in zero gravity. 

    The six-day mission will spend three days orbiting the moon before returning to Earth. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/09/2022 – 20:40

  • Americans Dumbed Down On Russia
    Americans Dumbed Down On Russia

    Authored by Ray McGovern via Anti-War.com,

    Five years ago today, Congress learned from sworn, horse’s-mouth testimony that there is no technical evidence that Russia (or anyone else) hacked the DNC emails showing how the DNC had stacked the deck against Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton’s rival for the Democratic nomination.

    I can almost hear readers new to this website cry out in disbelief: “That cannot be. Official Washington and the media assured us that the Russians hacked those emails in order to help Trump win. And didn’t Obama throw out 35 Russian diplomats in reaction? And what about those 12 Russian intelligence agents indicted for hacking?” Were U.S. officials and media mistaken?

    No, not mistaken. They were lying.

    “But … but, does this mean Special Counsel Robert Mueller knew there was no concrete evidence of Russian hacking just six months into his 22-month investigation into Trump-Russia collusion?”

    Get Him Under Oath

    On December 5, 2017, Shawn Henry, head of the cyber security firm CrowdStrike, testified to the House Intelligence Committee that there was no technical evidence that Russia hacked the DNC emails that WikiLeaks published in July 2016. CrowdStrike had been hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign (with the FBI’s blessing) to investigate “Russian hacking”.

    Shawn Henry is a protégé of former FBI Director Robert Mueller (from 2001 to 2012), for whom Henry served as head of the Bureau’s cyber-crime investigations unit before he went to CrowdStrike. What are the chances that Shawn Henry did not keep his former mentor, the Special Counsel, informed of this critical factoid?

    Why are some of you readers just now learning about this – five years after that testimony? Short answer: Adam Schiff (D, CA), chair of the House Intelligence Committee was able to keep Henry’s unclassified testimony secret from Dec. 5, 2017 until May 7, 2020, when he was forced to release it. Schiff gave the silencer-baton to friends in the corporate media, who have now suppressed Shawn Henry’s testimony for longer than even Schiff could.

    In sum, five years (and counting) after Henry’s testimony, the corporate media are still keeping viewers/listeners in the dark. Were we Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) not banned from corporate media, those interested in the “hacking” hoax could have learned what was going on by reading our Memorandum “Allegations of Hacking are Baseless”, of December 12, 2016 – a year before Shawn Henry, under oath, came clean. Henry’s confession came as no surprise to us. (Updates are available here and here.)

    Yet, the New York Times, for example, keeps up the drumbeat. Charlie Savage was careful last week to insert the following, in an article about Julian Assange (don’t miss what the New York Times itself embedded):

    His [Assange’s] public image shifted significantly after WikiLeaks published Democratic emails that had been hacked by the Russian government as part of its covert operation to help Donald J. Trump win the 2016 presidential election.

    Thus the words of Charlie Savage and the Gray Lady. There is always some clown who does not get the word – but Charlie is no clown. He knows what the narrative still has to be, and adheres to it (and, thus, to his job).

    The reasoning behind suppressing Shawn Henry’s testimony appears to have gone something like this: The truth about “Russian hacking” cracks the centerpiece of Russia-gate; it pulls the rug from under what we corporate media have been saying about the evil Putin and what we label Trump’s “bromance” with him. Worse, the truth could deny the MICIMATT the image of the threatening “enemy” it needs to “justify” building and selling weapons. Besides, Americans probably can’t handle the truth. And what they don’t know won’t hurt them.

    What Americans Don’t Know

    Humorist Will Rogers had it right:

    “The problem ain’t what people know. It’s what people know that ain’t so; that’s the problem.”

    What Americans “know” is that President Vladimir Putin is evil and that Russia must be stopped in Ukraine. This comes of six straight years of indoctrination/brainwashing. Putin and his colleagues, of course, are aware of this. It must seem to them that people in the US an Europe are being steeled with the propaganda basis for wider war. This gets extremely dangerous. What people don’t know can really hurt them and lead them into another misbegotten war – this one far worse than other recent misadventures.

    If the sophomores advising President Joe Biden refuse to acknowledge that Russia has escalation dominance in Ukraine, the likelihood of wider war in the coming months looms large. And despite recent optimistic projections by top intelligence officials, Ukraine and NATO are far more likely to run out of ammunition before Russia does.

    *  *  *

    Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst includes serving as Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and preparer/briefer of the President’s Daily Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/09/2022 – 20:20

  • Rapper 'Nuke Bizzle' Who Bragged About Scamming Covid Relief Sentenced To Prison
    Rapper ‘Nuke Bizzle’ Who Bragged About Scamming Covid Relief Sentenced To Prison

    A 33-year-old Tennessee rap artist who bragged in a YouTube video about scamming a Covid unemployment insurance program was sentenced to more than six years in federal prison and ordered to return over $700,000 in ill-gotten gainz.

    Fontrell Antonio Baines, aka “Nuke Bizzle,” was sentenced on Wednesday by a California federal judge after pleading guilty to mail fraud and two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition by a felon. He also pleaded guilty to possession of oxycodone with intent to distribute, WaPo reports.

    Mr. Bizzle filed 92 falsified Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) claims with the California Employment Development Department (EDD) between July and September of 2020, in a scheme which sought to extract around $1.2 million in federal funds for personal benefit. He was successful in obtaining $704,760 of that, according to court filings.

    Baines used information from victims of identity theft and other third parties to fill out relief applications with false statements about applicants’ work histories and residencies.

    In the video, which is believed by agents to have premiered on Sept. 11, 2020, Baines held up a stack of envelopes from California’s Employment Development Department, including one addressed to an individual identified by federal agents in court filings as a victim of Baines’s identity theft, saying he was getting rich by “go[ing] to the bank with a stack of these.”

    The video also featured rapper Fat Wizza and opened with a recording that states: “Your card has now been activated and is ready for use,” according to court filings, before an image closely resembling the logo of California’s Employment Development Department appears in the shot. The lyrics include: “I got rich off E.D.D.,” “10 cards swiping 10k a day,” and “You got to sell cocaine, I can just file a claim.” -WaPo

    Shortly after the video was published to YouTube, a special agent at the US Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General forwarded it to a branch of the office’s data science team, who identified the rapper. 

    In October 2020, the video’s description was edited to include the disclaimer: “***THIS VIDEO WAS CREATED WITH PROPS AND WAS MADE FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES***.”

    In a filing submitted to the court, Baines admitted to defrauding the EDD and apologized for what he had done – blaming friends for orchestrating the scheme.

    “They said they will give me money for letting mail come to the house. They would send the envelopes, and all I had to do was give them the mail when it arrived. When I found out how much money they were getting I felt played, and I started just taking the cards myself and telling them they never made it,” he told the judge.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/09/2022 – 20:00

  • THE TWITTER FILES: The Removal Of Donald Trump, Part 1
    THE TWITTER FILES: The Removal Of Donald Trump, Part 1

    The third installment of Elon Musk’s release of internal Twitter communications has been released, once again via veteran journalist Matt Taibbi.

    In this episode, which is a 3-parter, we learn what happened behind the scenes which led to the banishment of former President Donald Trump from the platform.

    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601352565836640257″ dir=”auto” id=”tweet_2″>2. The world knows much of the story of what happened between riots at the Capitol on January 6th, and the removal of President Donald Trump from Twitter on January 8th…
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601352565836640257″ dir=”auto”> 
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601352946163544065″ dir=”auto” id=”tweet_3″>3. We’ll show you what hasn’t been revealed: the erosion of standards within the company in months before J6, decisions by high-ranking executives to violate their own policies, and more, against the backdrop of ongoing, documented interaction with federal agencies.
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601352946163544065″ dir=”auto”> 
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601353543390486528″ dir=”auto” id=”tweet_4″>4. This first installment covers the period before the election through January 6th. Tomorrow, @ShellenbergerMD will detail the chaos inside Twitter on January 7th. On Sunday, @bariweiss will reveal the secret internal communications from the key date of January 8th.
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601353543390486528″ dir=”auto”> 
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto” id=”tweet_5″>5. Whatever your opinion on the decision to remove Trump that day, the internal communications at Twitter between January 6th-January 8th have clear historical import. Even Twitter’s employees understood in the moment it was a landmark moment in the annals of speech.
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”> 
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”>
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”> 
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”>6. As soon as they finished banning Trump, Twitter execs started processing new power. They prepared to ban future presidents and White Houses – perhaps even Joe Biden. The “new administration,” says one exec, “will not be suspended by Twitter unless absolutely necessary.”
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”> 
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”>
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”> 
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”>7. Twitter executives removed Trump in part over what one executive called the “context surrounding”: actions by Trump and supporters “over the course of the election and frankly last 4+ years.” In the end, they looked at a broad picture. But that approach can cut both ways.
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”> 
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”>
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”> 
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”>8. The bulk of the internal debate leading to Trump’s ban took place in those three January days. However, the intellectual framework was laid in the months preceding the Capitol riots.
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”> 
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”>9. Before J6, Twitter was a unique mix of automated, rules-based enforcement, and more subjective moderation by senior executives. As reported, the firm had a vast array of tools for manipulating visibility, most all of which were thrown at Trump (and others) pre-J6.
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”> 
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”>10. As the election approached, senior executives – perhaps under pressure from federal agencies, with whom they met more as time progressed – increasingly struggled with rules, and began to speak of “vios” as pretexts to do what they’d likely have done anyway.
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”> 
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”>11. After J6, internal Slacks show Twitter executives getting a kick out of intensified relationships with federal agencies. Here’s Trust and Safety head Yoel Roth, lamenting a lack of “generic enough” calendar descriptions to concealing his “very interesting” meeting partners.
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”> 
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”>
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”> 
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”>12. These initial reports are based on searches for docs linked to prominent executives, whose names are already public. They include Roth, former trust and policy chief Vijaya Gadde, and recently plank-walked Deputy General Counsel (and former top FBI lawyer) Jim Baker.
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”> 
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”>13. One particular slack channel offers an unique window into the evolving thinking of top officials in late 2020 and early 2021.
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”> 
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”>14. On October 8th, 2020, executives opened a channel called “us2020_xfn_enforcement.” Through J6, this would be home for discussions about election-related removals, especially ones that involved “high-profile” accounts (often called “VITs” or “Very Important Tweeters”).
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”> 
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”>
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”> 
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”>

    15. There was at least some tension between Safety Operations – a larger department whose staffers used a more rules-based process for addressing issues like porn, scams, and threats – and a smaller, more powerful cadre of senior policy execs like Roth and Gadde.
     
    16. The latter group were a high-speed Supreme Court of moderation, issuing content rulings on the fly, often in minutes and based on guesses, gut calls, even Google searches, even in cases involving the President.
     
     
    17. During this time, executives were also clearly liaising with federal enforcement and intelligence agencies about moderation of election-related content. While we’re still at the start of reviewing the #TwitterFiles, we’re finding out more about these interactions every day.
     
    18. Policy Director Nick Pickles is asked if they should say Twitter detects “misinfo” through “ML, human review, and **partnerships with outside experts?*” The employee asks, “I know that’s been a slippery process… not sure if you want our public explanation to hang on that.”
     
     
    19. Pickles quickly asks if they could “just say “partnerships.” After a pause, he says, “e.g. not sure we’d describe the FBI/DHS as experts.”
     
     
    20. This post about the Hunter Biden laptop situation shows that Roth not only met weekly with the FBI and DHS, but with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI):
     
     
    21. Roth’s report to FBI/DHS/DNI is almost farcical in its self-flagellating tone: “We blocked the NYP story, then unblocked it (but said the opposite)… comms is angry, reporters think we’re idiots… in short, FML” (fuck my life).
     
     
    23. Some of Roth’s later Slacks indicate his weekly confabs with federal law enforcement involved separate meetings. Here, he ghosts the FBI and DHS, respectively, to go first to an “Aspen Institute thing,” then take a call with Apple.
     
     

    24. Here, the FBI sends reports about a pair of tweets, the second of which involves a former Tippecanoe County, Indiana Councilor and Republican named

    @JohnBasham claiming “Between 2% and 25% of Ballots by Mail are Being Rejected for Errors.”

    The FBI’s second report concerned this tweet by @JohnBasham:

    25. The FBI-flagged tweet then got circulated in the enforcement Slack. Twitter cited Politifact to say the first story was “proven to be false,” then noted the second was already deemed “no vio on numerous occasions.”

    26. The group then decides to apply a “Learn how voting is safe and secure” label because one commenter says, “it’s totally normal to have a 2% error rate.” Roth then gives the final go-ahead to the process initiated by the FBI:

    27. Examining the entire election enforcement Slack, we didn’t see one reference to moderation requests from the Trump campaign, the Trump White House, or Republicans generally. We looked. They may exist: we were told they do. However, they were absent here.

    31. In one case, former Arizona governor Mike Huckabee joke-tweets about mailing in ballots for his “deceased parents and grandparents.”

    32. This inspires a long Slack that reads like an @TitaniaMcGrath parody. “I agree it’s a joke,” concedes a Twitter employee, “but he’s also literally admitting in a tweet a crime.”

    The group declares Huck’s an “edge case,” and though one notes, “we don’t make exceptions for jokes or satire,” they ultimately decide to leave him be, because “we’ve poked enough bears.”

    33. “Could still mislead people… could still mislead people,” the humor-averse group declares, before moving on from Huckabee

    33. Roth suggests moderation even in this absurd case could depend on whether or not the joke results in “confusion.” This seemingly silly case actually foreshadows serious later issues:

    34. In the docs, execs often expand criteria to subjective issues like intent (yes, a video is authentic, but why was it shown?), orientation (was a banned tweet shown to condemn, or support?), or reception (did a joke cause “confusion”?). This reflex will become key in J6.

    35. In another example, Twitter employees prepare to slap a “mail-in voting is safe” warning label on a Trump tweet about a postal screwup in Ohio, before realizing “the events took place,” which meant the tweet was “factually accurate”:

    36. “VERY WELL DONE ON SPEED” Trump was being “visibility filtered” as late as a week before the election. Here, senior execs didn’t appear to have a particular violation, but still worked fast to make sure a fairly anodyne Trump tweet couldn’t be “replied to, shared, or liked”:

    “VERY WELL DONE ON SPEED”: the group is pleased the Trump tweet is dealt with quickly

    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”>

    37. A seemingly innocuous follow-up involved a tweet from actor @realJamesWoods, whose ubiquitous presence in argued-over Twitter data sets is already a #TwitterFiles in-joke.
     
     
    38. After Woods angrily quote-tweeted about Trump’s warning label, Twitter staff – in a preview of what ended up happening after J6 – despaired of a reason for action, but resolved to “hit him hard on future vio.”
     
     
    39. Here a label is applied to Georgia Republican congresswoman Jody Hice for saying, “Say NO to big tech censorship!” and, “Mailed ballots are more prone to fraud than in-person balloting… It’s just common sense.”
     
     
    40. Twitter teams went easy on Hice, only applying “soft intervention,” with Roth worrying about a “wah wah censorship” optics backlash:
     
     
    41. Meanwhile, there are multiple instances of involving pro-Biden tweets warning Trump “may try to steal the election” that got surfaced, only to be approved by senior executives. This one, they decide, just “expresses concern that mailed ballots might not make it on time.”
     
     

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

    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”>To read the rest, click on the tweet above.
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”> 
    thread#showTweet” data-controller=”thread” data-screenname=”mtaibbi” data-tweet=”1601354663265472513″ dir=”auto”>Stay tuned for part II tomorrow…

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

     

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/09/2022 – 19:40

  • "It's Time": Miami Mayor Asks Musk To Move Twitter HQ To Miami
    “It’s Time”: Miami Mayor Asks Musk To Move Twitter HQ To Miami

    Miami mayor Francis Suarez tweeted at Elon Musk Tuesday night about moving Twitter’s headquarters from San Francisco to South Florida. 

    “Elon Musk, it’s time to move Twitter headquarters to Miami. It’s not about politics, it’s about the soul of our country,” Suarez quote tweeted Musk’s complaint about San Francisco building inspectors launching an investigation into reports that conference-room sleeping quarters were built. 

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

    Suarez then replied to his quote tweet:

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

    Suarez’s comments garnered positive remarks from some residents who said there was enough space for a new Twitter headquarters. 

    One Twitter user said: “We have all the office space you need, Elon Musk.” 

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

    Musk seemed a bit frustrated with San Francisco officials while following through with his “extremely hardcore” vision for Twitter 2.0. If the world’s richest man were pressured enough, it wouldn’t shock us if he moved Twitter out of the progressive city to Austin or Miami. 

    After all, a big part of Suarez’s vision for Miami is drawing tech and crypto money. Crypto is in a winter phase, and the FTX collapse has worsened. Still, the business environment is so friendly that large financial institutions, such as billionaire Ken Griffin’s Citadel Securities, are moving to South Florida. 

    Remember last year when Musk moved the headquarters of Tesla from Silicon Valley to Austin? That could quickly happen to Twitter. And really, it should. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/09/2022 – 19:20

  • Senators Press HHS As Whistleblower Alleges Unaccompanied Children Being Transferred To Criminals
    Senators Press HHS As Whistleblower Alleges Unaccompanied Children Being Transferred To Criminals

    Authored by Rita Li via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A group of Republicans is seeking information from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) over allegations that the department “knowingly” places some unaccompanied illegal immigrant minors in the hands of criminals, according to a letter released on Tuesday.

    “We write concerning an alarming report by a federal employee whistleblower that the [HHS] is knowingly transferring unaccompanied migrant children in the custody of criminals, including sex traffickers,” five GOP lawmakers wrote in a Dec. 5 joint letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. The group cited testimony that the government failed to settle minors, who were caught while crossing the U.S. borders, into homes of “safe, non-criminal sponsors.”

    “If these claims are true, this is pure evil being committed by your agency,” they wrote.

    HHS officially acknowledges that unaccompanied border crossers under the age of 18 are “especially vulnerable” to human trafficking, exploitation, and abuse, but states that the “majority” are looked after by state-licensed providers operating under cooperative agreements and contract to deliver high-quality care.

    Unaccompanied minors hold hands as they await transport after crossing the Rio Grande river into the United States from Mexico on a raft in Penitas, Texas, on March 12, 2021. (Adrees Latif/Reuters)

    Whistleblower Testimony

    The letter comes after non-profit investigative journalism watchdog Project Veritas spoke with Tara Lee Rodas, who formerly assisted the HHS with the processing of unaccompanied immigrant children at an Emergency Intake Site in Pomona, California, as an employee of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE). She told the outlet that she believes the current child sponsorship program funded by the department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement is precarious for these minors.

    “The tax dollars of people who are listening are paying to put children in the hands of criminals,” Rodas said of what she has witnessed. “[Most people] have no idea that children are going to unrelated people. That children are definitely—we have proof, evidence—that they are being recruited and transported. They are then in debt bondage.”

    A Veritas journalist found one illegal immigrant female minor who corroborated Rodas’s concerns at an address Rodas provided. The minor told the journalist that her sponsor, who claims to be her aunt, had forced her into situations of sexual abuse: “She was pimping me and I didn’t like that. She would pimp me to men.”

    The Epoch Times has been unable to independently verify the claims.

    Rodas said she has expressed her concerns to department officials. However, this usually led to dismissals of her concerns and sometimes retaliation at work.

    During a previous talk to the command center executives, the whistleblower alleged she was told, “Tara, I think you need to understand that we only get sued if we keep kids in care too long. We don’t get sued by traffickers. Are you clear? We don’t get sued by traffickers.”

    “[The Biden administration] relaxed a lot of the stringent vetting by creating these additional field guidances, and there’s a focus on ‘move the children’ as opposed to ‘place children in safe homes.’ Right now, it is speed over safety,” she added.

    Investigation

    Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, speaks during a hearing in Washington on Dec. 3, 2020. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

    Now, leading four of his fellow GOP lawmakers, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC), is demanding that Becerra release information regarding Rodas’s complaint on how the HHS vets sponsors of unaccompanied children who cross borders alone.

    “This cannot be swept under the rug,” the senators said in the letter.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/09/2022 – 19:00

  • Defense Aid To Ukraine Tops $20 Billion As New $275M Package Announced
    Defense Aid To Ukraine Tops $20 Billion As New $275M Package Announced

    The Biden administration on Friday unveiled another $275 million in weapons and defense equipment for Ukraine, which crucially will come via the presidential drawdown authority.

    This means the Pentagon will pull arms from its own stockpiles to send to Ukraine to fulfill this package, despite defense officials having long been on record expressing deep concern over dwindling supplies necessary to protect and defend America.

    Via PA Wire: painting of Volodymyr Zelensky which was auctioned in Ireland.

    A Defense Department press release indicated the package is to include “more ammunition for high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS), 80,000 155 mm artillery rounds, counter-unmanned aerial systems equipment, counter air defenses, additional High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles, ambulances and medical equipment, 150 generators and other field equipment.”

    The Ukrainian government and armed forces have been especially interested in procurement of more and longer-range anti-air defense systems. A recent report in The Wall Street Journal indicated the Pentagon had altered missile systems transferred to Ukraine to limit their range at 50 miles, in order to prevent the Ukrainians from targeting Russian territory.

    The Friday DoD press release stated further, “This security assistance package will provide Ukraine with new capabilities to boost its air defenses in addition to providing critical equipment that Ukraine is using so effectively to defend itself on the battlefield.”

    This brings US defense aid commitment since the war’s start to $19.3 billion, while the total tab at the American taxpayer’s expense for Ukraine has reached $20 billion since the start of the Biden administration (accounting additionally for aid sent just prior to the Russian invasion). 

    One “lesson” on display this week (and an obvious longtime trend) is that the deep state and military-industrial complex will always opt for more spending and less accountability – even at the expense of national defense readiness. On Thursday the House passed the massive, record-setting annual defense authorization bill, which will now see the $847 billion measure go to the Senate. Its mammoth size includes plans for much more Ukraine aid to come for the next fiscal year.

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

    Just two days prior to the House approving the massive, record-setting NDAA, the Democrat-led House Foreign Affairs Committee voted down a bill to audit the tens of billions of dollars that Congress has approved to spend on the war in Ukraine. This despite high-level admissions that much of the weaponry sent to Ukraine has little to no oversight once it enters the country, thus it could end up in the hands of terrorists or criminal gangs outside the borders.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/09/2022 – 18:40

  • Maxine Waters Confirms Bankman-Fried Will Testify Virtually Next Week… Alongside Current FTX CEO
    Maxine Waters Confirms Bankman-Fried Will Testify Virtually Next Week… Alongside Current FTX CEO

    Update (1830ET): The House Financial Services Committee confirmed that former FTX Chief Executive Officer Sam Bankman-Fried will testify at a hearing next week on the disintegration of his crypto exchange and hedge fund.

    Bloomberg reports that Bankman-Fried will testify virtually.

    He is now listed as a witness alongside current FTX CEO John J. Ray III, according to a media advisory the committee sent out late Friday. This should be fun since Ray described FTX’s collapse in recent court filings as an “unprecedented debacle” brought on by a culture of lax corporate governance.

    “Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here,” Mr. Ray said in the filing.

    The hearing will be split into two parts, each one featuring one of the men.

    *  *  *

    Update (0720ET): Having missed yesterday’s deadline to respond to a request to testify at an upcoming Senate Committee hearing, Sam Bankman-Fried

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

    He continued…

    2) I will try to be helpful during the hearing, and to shed what light I can on:

    • FTX US’s solvency and American customers

    • Pathways that could return value to users internationally

    • What I think led to the crash

    • My own failings

    3) I had thought of myself as a model CEO, who wouldn’t become lazy or disconnected.

    Which made it that much more destructive when I did.

    I’m sorry.  Hopefully people can learn from the difference between who I was and who I could have been.

    Presumably there is zero chance he will testify in person.

    Does anyone believe this is anything but stalling for time?

    Meanwhile, Binance founder ‘CZ’ went off on Twitter overnight, lambasting Kevin O’Leary’s ‘woe is me’ tale of wrongdoing by SBF, and detailing the attacks he himself suffered at the hands of the inclusive left’s (second) favorite donor:

    As an early investor in FTX, we became increasingly uncomfortable with Alameda/SBF and initiated the exit process more than 1.5 years ago.

    Sam was so unhinged when we decided to pull out as an investor that he launched a series of offensive tirades at multiple Binance team members, including threatening to go to “extraordinary lengths to make us pay” – we still have those text messages.

    Shortly after that Sam began “investing” in friends in high places – from media, to policymakers, to celebrities (like Kevin). And he used that network to manipulate public opinion, including attacking me and others in the industry.

    My ethnicity was a focus of those attacks and @kevinolearytv signaled his intention to continue those attacks in the media and will likely repeat them at next week’s Senate hearing. I’m Canadian and Binance is not a Chinese company.

    You don’t have to be a genius to know something don’t smell right at FTX. They were 1/10th our size, yet outspent us 100/1 on marketing & “partnerships”, fancy parties in the Bahamas, trips across the globe, and mansions for all of their senior staff (and his parents).

    Which appears to have pissed SBF off…

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    But hey, he did say he was sorry, right?

    As CoinTelegraph’s Martin Young detailed earlier, Crypto’s public enemy number one, Sam Bankman-Fried has missed a crucial deadline to confirm his appearance at an upcoming Senate Committee hearing.

    The former FTX CEO missed a Thursday 5:00 pm ET on Dec. 8 deadline for responding to a Senate Banking Committee request that he testify at the Committee meeting on Dec. 14. This has set up the possibility of a congressional subpoena.

    On Dec. 8, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Sherrod Brown, and ranking member of the Committee, Senator Pat Toomey, released a statement on the request.

    “FTX’s collapse has caused real financial harm to consumers, and effects have spilled over into other parts of the crypto industry. The American people need answers about Sam Bankman-Fried’s misconduct at FTX,” they stated before adding:

    “The Committee has requested that he testify at our upcoming hearing on FTX’s collapse, and will consider further action if he does not comply.”

    According to the official Committee website, the hearing titled “Crypto Crash: Why the FTX Bubble Burst and the Harm to Consumers” will be webcast on Dec. 14.

    So far, two witnesses have been confirmed to attend the hearing — including American University Washington College of Law professor Hilary J. Allen and actor and author Ben McKenzie Schenkkan.

    Allen is an academic whose research focuses on the impact of new financial technologies on the stability of the financial system.

    Schenkkan is an anti-crypto actor-turned-commentator who played a troubled teenager on a U.S. television series called “The O.C.”

    Messari founder Ryan Selkis commented on the futility of the witness selection:

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

    Meanwhile, Cointelegraph has reached out to Schenkkan for comment but did not receive a response at the time of publication.

    Other than the Dec. 14 Senate Banking Committee hearing, Bankman-Fried has also been requested to attend a separate hearing called “Investigating the Collapse of FTX” on Dec. 13 with the U.S. House Financial Services Committee.

    Bankman-Fried was first requested to attend the hearing via a tweet from Congresswoman Maxine Waters but seemingly declined the invitation on Dec. 5, stating that he wasn’t sure what would happen by the hearing date, “but when it does, I will testify.”

    Waters responded on Dec. 8 stating “a subpoena is definitely on the table” should Bankman-Fried fail to voluntarily testify at the hearing.

    The collapse of SBF’s FTX empire has initiated a tsunami of backlash from U.S. lawmakers and regulators threatening to drown the fledgling crypto asset industry.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/09/2022 – 18:25

  • Does Trump Really Want To Be President Again?
    Does Trump Really Want To Be President Again?

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

    Team Trump has sometimes compared former President Donald Trump’s current quest for a non-sequential second term to two-term President Grover Cleveland’s similar three election bids.

    Cleveland remains our only elected president (1884) to have lost a reelection bid (1888) — in a disputed vote — only to be reelected four years later in 1892.

    Yet Trump seems determined instead to follow a different, and bullheaded, Teddy Roosevelt model.

    Roosevelt left the presidency in 1908, sat out four years, and then lost a reelection bid in 1912, split and alienated the Republican Party, and ensured the election of the progressive Woodrow Wilson.

    President Joe Biden’s first “corrective” two years have been an utter disaster.

    Biden birthed hyperinflation. He destroyed a secure border and Trump’s energy self-sufficiency. Crime is now out of control. The United States was humiliated abroad in Afghanistan. Rising interest rates will soon spark a recession.

    After promising to unite the country, Biden smeared half the voting population as “un-American” and “semi-fascist.”

    In addition, almost all of Trump’s prior complaints, predictions, and assertions that the media dismissed as conspiratorial, or crackpot have proven eerily prescient.

    Hunter Biden’s laptop was all too authentic.

    The FBI was compromised and acted as an agent of the Democratic Party. Anthony Fauci proved a partisan.

    Russian collusion was an utter hoax. It was engineered by Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, and the FBI.

    The Wuhan lab did likely birth the engineered COVID virus. That possibility was covered up by the media and public health establishments.

    Trump did not take “nuclear codes” to Mar-a-Lago. He did not plan on hawking his presidential papers for profit.

    Germany did weaken NATO. Berlin was foolish to mortgage its future with energy dependency on a hostile Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    The Biden family was utterly corrupt. It was deeply involved in lucrative quid pro quo machinations abroad with China and a crooked Ukrainian government-related company.

    John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Anthony Fauci, and Robert Mueller all either did mislead, feign amnesia, or lie either to Congress or while under oath.

    Twitter was corrupt in asymmetrically banning the free expression of conservatives. Silicon Valley elites did conspire to sandbag Trump.

    The media was a fake news corrupt enterprise, as we see from the new Twitter trove, and the mass firings at CNN.

    So given events since Trump’s departure, he should be in the driver’s seat. But he is not.

    Why?

    Rather than offering detailed correctives for Biden’s disastrous record, Trump is again dabbling in social media madness. He needlessly floated the absurd idea that constitutional norms might need to be changed to allow the disputed 2020 election result to be overturned.

    He seems oblivious that the Left, not conservatives, talk of altering the Constitution. They call for the destruction of the Electoral College, and wish to dilute the Second Amendment and redefine the First.

    Why did Trump need to descend into personal invective when prior to the midterms, many primary polls were confirming his front-runner status?

    Why did he not remain magnanimous, unite the party, and focus on giving millions to his endorsed but endangered candidates like Dr. Mehmet Oz, Blake Masters, and Herschel Walker?

    Why did Trump bizarrely claim that possible presidential rival candidate Glenn Youngkin’s name sounded “Chinese”? What was the logic of attacking Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s, R-Ky., wife in racialist terms?

    Every elected public official or candidate — with the exception of former President Barack Obama who once was photographed smiling with a grinning, Jewish-hating Louis Farrakhan — knows there is only one rule concerning antisemites: Go nowhere near them.

    Yet Trump dined with two, the now unhinged Kanye West (“Ye”) and the 20-something crackpot Nick Fuentes.

    Why would Trump all but announce before the midterms that after the election he would be a candidate?

    Or why right before November 8, did Trump attack Ron DeSantis (whom he calls “DeSanctimonious”), the miracle-worker Republican governor of Trump’s own Florida?

    Did Trump wish to rile up left-wing Trump-haters to rush to the midterm polls, or to persuade miffed conservative DeSantis voters to stay home?

    In the impending Trump-DeSantis collision, voters will be looking for resolution of two respective unknowns.

    One, will Trump run on his stellar record, avoid controversy, and stick to the issues? And will he thereby win back independent, swing voters on assurances that they could get more MAGA successes, but this time around without the insults and spats?

    And two, could DeSantis assure Republicans of a fire-in-the belly, Trumpian zeal to take on the Left, while soberly promoting a MAGA agenda — and thus win over the hard-core Trump base?

    So far, De Santis is reassuring donors and primary voters he can be as tough as his record is impressive.

    But Trump is not encouraging the donor class and independent voters that he has learned that melodramas and social media riffs are not his friends.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/09/2022 – 18:20

  • Marijuana Industry's Buzz Wears Off As Pandemic Party Over
    Marijuana Industry’s Buzz Wears Off As Pandemic Party Over

    The party is over, and the buzz is wearing off. Mature legal cannabis markets are experiencing a slowdown in sales since the pandemic boom. 

    A new report from cannabis data firm Headset said the industry in established marijuana markets, such as Oregon and Washington, has slowed down from a year ago. For example, Colorado’s market recorded sales that dropped 11.4% in June from a year ago. 

    “What we saw in 2020 was a massive spike in sales tied to the pandemic as people stayed home, had government stimulus money, and not a lot to do,” Chris Wash, CEO of Marijuana Business Daily, told CNBC. 

    Headset noted marijuana sales spiked between March 2020-21, with monthly average year-over-year sales of around 25.8% in Colorado. But sales began sliding last year as people returned to work and stimulus checks ran out. The report found the number of purchases and amount of money people spent declined. 

    In July, customers spent an average of $55.21 per visit at Colorado stores — four dollars less than the average of $59.73 in July 2021, according to the data. 

    “Right now, the Colorado marijuana industry is going through the largest downturn that we’ve ever seen,” Truman Bradley, executive director of the Wheat Ridge-based Marijuana Industry Group, told the local media outlet 9News Denver. 

    Even though marijuana sales are normalizing in mature markets after a pandemic-fueled party, the industry nationwide is expected to grow as new markets come online. Marijuana Business Daily expects US medical and recreational cannabis sales could exceed $33 billion this year, up from $27 billion last year. Forecasts for 2026 are around $52.6 billion. 

    So why are sales slowing in mature markets? Well, these states were the only ones open for business during the pandemic, and when tens of millions of Americans were out of work or forced to stay home because of the government shutdown, there was nothing better to do than sit on the couch, consume marijuana, and watch Netflix. Now that people aren’t stuck at home, they aren’t purchasing as much cannabis, and producers have to readjust production levels lower due to declining demand. 

    One exchange-traded fund tied to the cannabis sector, called ETFMG Alternative Harvest ETF (MJ), has plunged more than 84% since the February 2021 peak of $33. 

    The buzz is over. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/09/2022 – 18:00

  • Roughly 60% Of Students Fear Expressing Their Views In Higher Education; New Poll Finds
    Roughly 60% Of Students Fear Expressing Their Views In Higher Education; New Poll Finds

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    There is a new poll out and it is strikingly similar to the polls previously featured on this blog on free speech and intellectual diversity in higher education.  The Buckley annual survey found that almost 60 percent of college students fear sharing an opinion in classrooms or on campuses. That tracks other polls by different groups.  Yet, colleges and universities continue to exclude Republican and conservative faculty members and maintain environments of speech intolerance.The poll shows a sharp increase from just last year with 63% reporting feeling intimidated in sharing opinions different than their peers. That is almost identical to the 65 percent found in other polls.

    The poll of over 800 students included many liberal students, as reflected in the 67 percent who would require all professors and administrators to make statements in favor of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Half of students believe “America is inextricably linked to white supremacy” and another 33 percent would prefer to live in a socialist system.

    The poll tracks earlier polls showing a rising view of viewpoint intolerance that now characterizes higher education in America. That intolerance is reflected in the overwhelmingly Democratic and liberal makeup of faculties.

    A new survey of 65 departments in various states found that 33 do not have a single registered Republican. For these departments, the systemic elimination of Republican faculty has finally reached zero, but there is still little recognition of the crushing bias reflected in these numbers. Others, as discussed below, have defended the elimination of conservative or Republican faculty as entirely justified and commendable. Overall, registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republicans by a margin of over 10-1.

    The survey found 61 Republican professors across 65 departments at seven universities while it also found 667 professors identified as Democrats based on their political party registration or voting history.

    While there may be a couple professors missed on either side of this ideological divide, most faculty will privately admit that it is rare to find self-identified Republicans or conservatives on many faculties. Most faculties are overwhelmingly Democratic and liberal. Diversity generally runs from the left to the far left.

    Another survey found that only nine percent of law professors identified as conservative. The virtual absence of Republican or conservative members on many faculties are just shrugged off by many academics.   It is the subject of my recent publication in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. The article entitled “Harm and Hegemony: The Decline of Free Speech in the United States.”

    Notably, a 2017 study found 15 percent of faculties were conservative. This is the result of years of faculty replicating their own ideological preferences and eradicating the diversity that once existed on faculties. When I began teaching in the 1980s, faculties were undeniably liberal but contained a significant number of conservative and libertarian professors. It made for a healthy and balanced intellectual environment. Today such voices are relatively rare and faculties have become political echo chambers, leaving conservatives and Republican students increasingly afraid to speak openly in class.

    The trend is the result of hiring systems where conservative or libertarian scholars are often rejected as simply “insufficiently intellectually rigorous” or “not interesting” in their scholarship. This can clearly be true with individual candidates but the wholesale reduction of such scholars shows a more systemic problem. Faculty insist that there is no bias against conservatives, but the obviously falling number of conservative faculty speaks for itself.

    As discussed earlier, the editors of the legal site Above the Law have repeatedly swatted down objections to the loss of free speech and viewpoint diversity in the media and academia. In a recent column, they mocked those of us who objected to the virtual absence of conservative or libertarian faculty members at law schools.

    Senior editor Joe Patrice defended “predominantly liberal faculties” based on the fact that liberal views reflect real law as opposed to junk law.  (Patrice regularly calls those with opposing views “racists,” including Chief Justice John Roberts because of his objection to race-based criteria in admissions as racial discrimination). He explained that hiring a conservative academic was akin to allowing a believer in geocentrism (or that the sun orbits the earth) to teach at a university.

    It is that easy. You simply declare that conservative views shared by a majority of the Supreme Court and roughly half of the population are not acceptable to be taught.

    We have previously discussed the worrisome signs of a rising generation of censors in the country as leaders and writers embrace censorship and blacklisting. The latest chilling poll was released by 2021 College Free Speech Rankings after questioning a huge body of 37,000 students at 159 top-ranked U.S. colleges and universities. It found that sixty-six percent of college students think shouting down a speaker to stop them from speaking is a legitimate form of free speech.  Another 23 percent believe violence can be used to cancel a speech. That is roughly one out of four supporting violence.

    This has been an issue of contention with some academics who believe that free speech includes the right to silence others.  Berkeley has been the focus of much concern over the use of a heckler’s veto on our campuses as violent protesters have succeeded in silencing speakers, including a speaker from the ACLU discussing free speech.  Both students and some faculty have maintained the position that they have a right to silence those with whom they disagree and even student newspapers have declared opposing speech to be outside of the protections of free speech.  At another University of California campus, professors actually rallied around a professor who physically assaulted pro-life advocates and tore down their display.

    In the meantime, academics and deans have said that there is no free speech protection for offensive or “disingenuous” speech.  CUNY Law Dean Mary Lu Bilek showed how far this trend has gone. When conservative law professor Josh Blackman was stopped from speaking about “the importance of free speech,”  Bilek insisted that disrupting the speech on free speech was free speech. (Bilek later cancelled herself and resigned after she made a single analogy to acting like a “slaveholder” as a self-criticism for failing to achieve equity and reparations for black faculty and students).

    There are now a wide array of polls and surveys showing a rising sense of viewpoint intolerance and a lack of ideological diversity on faculties. When confronted, faculty often shrug and say that the students are simply wrong about speech intolerance. They also dismiss the importance of labels (even self-reported party affiliations). Few, however, seriously deny that faculties are now overwhelmingly, if not exclusive, Democratic or liberal. Intellectual diversity today on faculties often runs from the left to the far left.

    I frankly do not understand why professors want to maintain this one-sided environment in hiring. I was drawn to academia by the diversity of viewpoints and intellectual challenges on campuses.  However, the lack of diversity works to the advantage of those on the “correct” side of this new orthodoxy. Conversely, those with dissenting views are often targeted or isolated on faculties. They risk the loss of everything that gives an intellectual life meaning from publishing to speaking opportunities. For faculty, the viewpoint intolerance seen by students is magnified a hundred times over for those seeking to enter or to advance in teaching.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/09/2022 – 17:40

  • Top EU Parliament Officials Arrested In Huge Qatar-Linked Corruption Probe
    Top EU Parliament Officials Arrested In Huge Qatar-Linked Corruption Probe

    A European Parliament vice president along with a handful of other EU officials and aides has been arrested and brought in for questioning by police in Brussels on Friday, with the AFP identifying that “Belgian police arrested Greek socialist MEP Eva Kaili, a European Parliament vice-president, in connection with an investigation into corruption implicating World Cup host Qatar.”

    Police have further sealed off the European Parliament offices of three MEPs, including Kaili, as well as Belgian S&D group members Maria Arena and Marc Tarabella. “Today’s searches have enabled investigators to recover about 600,000 euros in cash,” the prosecutors said in a statement, after their homes were also raided.

    Greek MEP Eva Kaili

    The evidence is pointing to a large influence-peddling operation which involved an exchange of cash and favors from Qatari officials. The explosive story is grabbing international headlines at the sensitive moment the Qatar-hosted World Cup is headed into the semi-finals on Saturday, down to the final four. 

    Earlier in the day police said that 16 raids in total were launched across Belgium’s capital, and only later on Friday was Qatar named at center of the probe. 

    “Computer equipment and mobile phones were also seized. These elements will be analysed as part of the investigations,” the Belgium-based EU prosecutor’s office stated after it was “suspected a Gulf country (of influencing) the economic and political decisions of the European parliament.”

    It was done “by paying large sums of money or offering large gifts to” prominent figures in the European parliament, according to the official allegation.

    European Parliament Vice-President Eva Kaili has been arrested on suspicion of corruption with Qatar, via ISOPIX/SIPA

    44-year old Kaili has been a European MEP since 2014, and initially rose to visibility as a popular Greek television presenter. According to more via the AP:

    The raids targeted in particular assistants working for EU lawmakers, the statement said. The EU assembly has 705 elected members from the bloc’s 27 member nations. Each lawmaker has a number of assistants.

    Her party PASOK, or the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, moved swiftly to formally expel her, effective Friday evening, following revelation of the corruption investigation.

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

    She is alleged to have been one among a group of European Parliament officials with a “a significant political and/or strategic position” who was bribed by Qatari officials.

    Despite the World Cup having thus far gone relatively smoothly, and Doha celebrating its current ‘success’ – this is sure to put a black eye on its image headed into the World Cup final, also as the story is sure to drive weekend headlines. Qatar has also long been known to engage in significant lobbying efforts in Washington as well, and has an extensive international media reach – funded by its ample oil and gas revenue – which it uses to sow influence abroad.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/09/2022 – 17:23

  • Putin Says He's Open To More Prisoner Swaps With US
    Putin Says He’s Open To More Prisoner Swaps With US

    Russian President Vladimir Putin has signaled that more prisoner swaps with Washington might be on the horizon, at a moment the profiles of detained Americans Paul Whelan and Marc Fogel are rising in the wake of Brittney Griner’s Thursday release. There’s greater pressure on the Biden administration to obtain ex-Marine Whelan’s release especially.

    Putin in Friday comments before the press said that “everything is possible” in terms of possible future prisoner exchanges. He recounted that “compromises have been found” that led to the Griner for Bout deal.

    “We aren’t refusing to continue this work in the future,” Putin said. “We didn’t set the task to move from those talks to something else, but they do create a certain atmosphere.”

    Kremlin via Reuters

    The Russian leader acknowledged that the success of the prisoner swap talks was due in part to not taking into consideration other issues, such as the ongoing Ukraine conflict. 

    The White House responded Friday to these remarks of Putin, with National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby saying that indeed more prisoner swaps remain “possible” – stressing there are active channels of communication for this but that the US wants further “actions” and not just words out of Moscow.

    Additionally, the US State Dept. said the following responding to Putin’s remarks about future prisoner swaps: “It’s not often we can say that we actually agree with something President Putin said, but today I can say that,” Net Price told CNN.

    “President Putin himself has said that these discussions will continue. These discussions absolutely will continue,” Price added.

    Meanwhile, Russian media continues to celebrate the swap as a huge victory in the Kremlin’s favor, as convicted arms trafficker Viktor Bout receives a hero’s welcome…

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

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/09/2022 – 16:40

  • Musk Confirms Political Candidates Were Shadow Banned By Twitter’s Censors
    Musk Confirms Political Candidates Were Shadow Banned By Twitter’s Censors

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Elon Musk has confirmed that political candidates were shadow banned by Twitter while running for office, in the latest revelation on the social media giant’s meddling in conversations of public interest, including by putting disfavored users on blacklists and suppressing distribution of their tweets.

    Tesla head Elon Musk talks to the press as he arrives to have a look at the construction site of the new Tesla Gigafactory near Berlin, on Sept. 3, 2020. (Maja Hitij/Getty Images)

    Following the release of the second part of the “Twitter Files,” which revealed the social media giant put users on secret blacklists and used other shadow banning tools, Musk was asked by political commentator Ian Miles Cheong if political candidates were also subject to such censorship.

    “So here’s a question for @elonmusk and @bariweiss: were any political candidates — either in the US or elsewhere — subject to shadowbanning while they were running for office or seeking re-election?’” Cheong asked in a tweet, tagging both Musk and journalist Bari Weiss.

    “Yes,” Musk replied, confirming that Twitter has, as many have alleged, put its finger on the scale of conversations that were of importance to public interest, including in the context of elections.

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    The Epoch Times has reached out to Twitter for comment.

    Twitter ‘Has Interfered in Elections’

    Musk did not go into further detail but he has previously said that Twitter had “failed” to be impartial in content moderation and “interfered in elections.”

    “The obvious reality, as long-time users know, is that Twitter has failed in trust & safety for a very long time and has interfered in elections,” Musk said in a Nov. 30 post on Twitter.

    In that message, Musk was responding to criticism from Twitter’s former head of site integrity Yoel Roth, who said during a recent interview at the Knight Foundation conference that he didn’t believe safety had improved on Twitter after Musk’s takeover.

    Roth also said that he thinks Twitter blocking the explosive Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of the 2020 presidential election was a mistake.

    In the run-up to the 2020 election, the New York Post published a story about a laptop abandoned at a computer repair shop that purportedly belonged to Hunter Biden and contained emails suggesting that then-candidate Joe Biden had knowledge of, and was allegedly involved in, his son’s foreign business dealings.

    President Joe Biden has repeatedly insisted he had no knowledge of or involvement in his son’s business operations.

    U.S. President Joe Biden (L) waves alongside his son Hunter Biden after attending mass at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Johns Island, South Carolina on Aug. 13, 2022. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)

    ‘Secret Blacklists’

    Weiss, founder and editor of The Free Press, released the second volume of the so-called “Twitter Files” on Dec. 8, revealing the social media platform’s “secret blacklists.”

    Weiss has been working with Musk and independent journalist Matt Taibbi to disclose internal Twitter information regarding censorship.

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    Twitter’s censorship methods, according to Weiss, included placing specific users on a “Trends Blacklist” or a “Search Blacklist.”

    The popular Libs of TikTok account, as well as Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, are among the users who were secretly added to the “Trends Blacklist” by the company.

    Bhattacharya was put on the list because he stated that children would be harmed by COVID-19 lockdowns. This action stopped his tweets from trending, Weiss said.

    Conservative talk show presenter Dan Bongino was also put on a so-called “Search Blacklist,” Weiss disclosed.

    Weiss also noted that conservative activist Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, was put on a “Do Not Amplify” list.

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

    The second installment comes just a week after Taibbi published, with Musk’s endorsement, details about the social media platform’s decision to suppress the New York Post’s report on the contents of a laptop tied to Hunter Biden.

    Republicans had long accused Twitter—and some media outlets—of suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story, which included reporting that bolstered claims that the president lied when he said he had no involvement in his son’s overseas business dealings.

    In order to suppress the Hunter Biden report, Twitter executives marked it as “unsafe,” limiting its spread, and even blocking it from being directly shared via the platform’s direct message function, Taibbi said in comments on the first installment of the disclosures. He also noted that such extreme restrictions were normally reserved for content such as child pornography.

    ‘Shadow Banning’

    Weiss, in comments on the latest Twitter Files release, detailed various ways that Twitter employees acted to suppress speech on the platform.

    “A new #TwitterFiles investigation reveals that teams of Twitter employees build blacklists, prevent disfavored tweets from trending, and actively limit the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics—all in secret, without informing users,” Weiss said on Twitter. 

    “Twitter once had a mission ‘to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.’ Along the way, barriers nevertheless were erected,” she added.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/09/2022 – 16:20

  • BlackRock: Prepare For Recession "Unlike Any Other"… And What Worked Before "Won't Work Now"
    BlackRock: Prepare For Recession “Unlike Any Other”… And What Worked Before “Won’t Work Now”

    The world’s largest investment manager has gone all in – and says a global recession is right around the corner. What’s more, the financial tricks deployed by Central Banks in the past ‘won’t work this time.’

    According to BlackRock, the global economy has entered a phase of elevated volatility, and that a recession is imminent due to central banks aggressively boosting borrowing costs to tame inflation. Their actions, according to a team of BlackRock strategists, will ignite more market turbulence than ever before.

    “Recession is foretold as central banks race to try to tame inflation. It’s the opposite of past recessions,” the team wrote In their 2023 Global Outlook (embedded below), which says that the global economy has already exited a four-decade period of stable growth and inflation, and has now entered a period of heightened instability.

    And when things get bad, “Central bankers won’t ride to the rescue when growth slows in this new regime, contrary to what investors have come to expect. Equity valuations don’t yet reflect the damage ahead.”

    “What worked in the past won’t work now,” said the strategists. “The old playbook of simply ‘buying the dip’ doesn’t apply in this regime of sharper trade-offs and greater macro volatility. We don’t see a return to conditions that will sustain a joint bull market in stocks and bonds of the kind we experienced in the prior decade.”

    So what can actually tame inflation? A deep recession, according to the report.

    To navigate the coming storm, BlackRock recommends more frequent portfolio changes and taking a more “granular view on sectors, regions and sub-asset classes.”

    Compounding the issue is aging workforces around the world – which is one key reason that the supply of US labor is struggling to keep up with demand.

    The initial sharp drop was driven by Covid shutdowns: Many who lost their job didn’t look for another one right away given healthcare worries or care-giving responsibilities.

    Some of that drop in the workforce has now unwound. But the yellow line shows that the part not made up is almost entirely down to aging – the increasing share of the population that is of retirement age – rather than pandemic-specific effects. That’s why we don’t expect an improvement in the participation rate from here, and so no material easing of the worker shortage that is contributing to inflation.

    A New World Order – (of course)

    According to BlackRock, “we’ve entered into a new world order,” in which “We see geopolitical cooperation and globalization evolving into a fragmented world with competing blocs.” The team further writes that geopolitical fragmentation is likely to foster “a permanent risk premium across asset classes, rather than have only a fleeting effect on markets as in the past.”

    The warning from BlackRock echoes those from Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Deutsche Bank – which have produced dire predictions ranging from a 20% stock plunges in 2023, to Goldman’s David Solomon seeing a 65% chance of recession.

    “We don’t think equities are fully priced for recession,” said the BlackRock team. “Corporate earnings expectations have yet to fully reflect even a modest recession. This keeps us tactically underweight developed market equities.“

    In short…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/09/2022 – 16:01

  • Stocks, Bonds, & Black Gold Battered In Ugly Week Ahead Of Fed
    Stocks, Bonds, & Black Gold Battered In Ugly Week Ahead Of Fed

    A relatively quiet (but weak) macro week (Jobs weak, inflation hot, surveys slump) and the pre-Fed blackout meant the combination of pre-holiday low liquidity and headline risk chopped market around intraday with stocks hurting (Small Caps and Big-Tech worst), bond yields higher (in the belly of the curve), and a bloodbath in black gold (as WTI fell to one-year lows).

    US Macro Surprise data has drifted sideways for almost three months now – Goldilocks-like perhaps…

    Source: Bloomberg

    But amid the sparse macro data (claims, PPI etc), the market’s expectations for The Fed’s terminal rate was unchanged and the market’s expectations for rate-cuts in H2 2023 also ended unchanged…

    Source: Bloomberg

    All the majors puked lower on the hotter than expected PPI this morning then the machines levitated things for a few hours until Europe was closed. Then the last 15 mins saw stocks puked to the lows of the day…

    Small Caps were the week’s worst performers (down 5%), followed by Nasdaq and S&P and The Dow was the prettiest horse in the glue factory…

    The S&P 500 held above its 100DMA…

    All sectors ended the week in the red with Energy by far the worst. Utes outperformed with a very small loss on the week…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Tech has been outperforming energy stocks since the start of November…

    Source: Bloomberg

    US Treasuries were sold hard today, erasing all of the week’s gains for the long-bond, and leaving the rest of the curve notably higher in yield (belly underperforming)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The yield curve (2s30s) ended flatter (more inverted) on the week, but barely after a big steepening day today post-PPI…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The dollar ended the week higher, but back in the range from Friday’s payrolls pump and dump)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Cryptos were broadly unchanged on the week, despite some intraday volatility (BTC up marginally, ETH down marginally)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Bitcoin ended the week back above $17,000…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Oil prices are down 6 straight days, with WTI ending the week down over 12% with a $70 handle – its worst week since the first week of April – and back at one-year lows (-2% YoY, first decline since Jan 2021)…

    As fund managers abandon black gold…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Gold ended the week unchanged, above $1800, while silver outperformed modestly…

    Finally, will we get a sense of deja vu all over again next week when The Fed hikes?

    Source: Bloomberg

    Would that kind of downsing be enough to tighten financial conditions and allow Powell to lift his boot from the market’s neck?

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/09/2022 – 16:00

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