- Pope Francis Sent 'Bullets In Envelope' Death Threat As Financial Scandal Trial Underway
Pope Francis Sent ‘Bullets In Envelope’ Death Threat As Financial Scandal Trial Underway
It’s being widely reported that Italian police are investigating a threat made on Pope Francis’ life after a mysterious envelope addressed to the pontiff was intercepted at a mail sorting facility near Milan.
“Law enforcement in Milan is investigating the source of an envelope containing three bullets addressed to the pope, Italian paramilitary police said Monday,” the AP reports. Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera described that they were 9-millimeter caliber bullets.
The Pope has had beefed up security over the years, including his own ‘secret service’ detail along with the traditional Swiss Guard. The suspicious envelope was reportedly sent from France but left few other details in terms of the identity of the sender. It was found during overnight sorting.
The AP notes further:
The envelope was addressed by hand in pen to: “The Pope, Vatican City, St. Peter’s Square, Rome,” and contained three bullets presumed to be for a pistol and a message referring to financial operations at the Vatican.
The financial scandal-related message is interesting given that an unprecedented Vatican trial is still underway, likely to result in the downfall of a very senior cardinal. It’s centered on shady London real estate purchases and mismanaged funds that were intended for charity.
To review, details of the trial include the following:
On July 27, a trial got under way in which 10 people, including a senior cardinal, have been indicted over allegations of mishandling of Vatican funds. The multi-million euro scandal revolves around the purchasing of a luxury property in London.
According to Reuters, an indictment revealed as part of the process showed Pope Francis gave his personal approval for the trial against senior figures to commence.
The trial is considered the biggest in recent Vatican history…
A financial scandal involving an opaque, loss-making Vatican property deal paid for with charity funds goes to trial after a two-year probe that has implicated a once-powerful cardinal https://t.co/o9adm3g76H pic.twitter.com/xECvUhk1nM
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) July 27, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Previously there was widespread speculation that the highly unusual February 2013 resignation of Pope Benedict – Francis’ still living predecessor (unusual given that typically a Pope remains in the highest Roman Catholic office for life) – was due to his inability to clean up increasingly grave and public financial mismanagement and scandal at the Vatican Bank.
It’s believed that among Pope Francis’ most central mandates is to urgently clean up and resolve lingering financial crisis, while also the clergy molestation scandal and fallout is still ongoing.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/10/2021 – 02:45 - Lebanon's Economy Quickly Collapsing Amid Hyperinflation, Power Outages
Lebanon’s Economy Quickly Collapsing Amid Hyperinflation, Power Outages
Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,
The economy of Lebanon is seeing a once-in-a-lifetime collapse amid hyperinflation and outages, according to a report from the World Bank.
The small Middle Eastern country has seen inconsistent power supply and outages after the massive explosion in its capital, Beirut, last year. The country, which is also dealing with hyperinflation, is seeing one of the worst three economic depressions globally since the mid-1800s, according to the World Bank.
“Lebanon’s GDP plummeted from close to US$55 billion in 2018 to an estimated US$33 billion in 2020, with US$GD/capita falling by around 40 percent,” said the organization in a recent news release accompanying its report (pdf).
“Such a brutal and rapid contraction is usually associated with conflicts or wars” although Lebanon has been considered a state prone to conflict and violence, said the report.
And increasingly “dire socio-economic conditions,” it added, “risk systemic national failings with regional and potentially global consequences.”
“This illustrates the magnitude of the economic depression that the country is enduring, with sadly no clear turning point on the horizon, given the disastrous deliberate policy inaction. The social impact of the crisis, which is already dire, could rapidly become catastrophic; more than half the population is likely below the national poverty line,” according to the report.
A view of the site of the blast in Beirut’s port area, Lebanon on Aug. 6, 2020. (Issam Abdallah/Reuters)
An analysis from the Wall Street Journal places at least some of the blame on the massive explosion that rocked Beirut about a year ago in August of last year. In the capital, power outages are commonplace and have forced restaurants, for example, to use portable generators to generate electricity.
The blast killed at least 200 people and triggered as much as $15 billion in damage, according to Beirut’s governor. The government of Lebanon also was forced to resign after widespread pressure from protesters.
“I set out to combat corruption, but I discovered that corruption is bigger than the state,” said Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab widespread resignations.
“I declare today the resignation of this government. God bless Lebanon.”
There have also been fights in supermarkets as people try to buy bread, sugar, oil, and other goods before they run out, with inflation 400 percent, the report said. Murder rates and other crimes are also rapidly rising.
The economic collapse could reduce the country into a failed state, experts have warned.
“Not only do we have an absence of government and a political vacuum, but we’re going to have a severe problem with the function of the state of Lebanon,” Lebanese American University political scientist Imad Salamey told The Wall Street Journal. “We are heading toward the unknown.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/10/2021 – 02:00 - Climate Change Is Not Driving Western Wildfires, Government Mismanagement Is To Blame
Climate Change Is Not Driving Western Wildfires, Government Mismanagement Is To Blame
Authored by H.Sterling Burnett, op-ed via The Epoch Times,
In late July, President Joe Biden held a virtual joint planning meeting and press conference with the governors of various Western states to discuss how to handle 2021’s wildfire season.
Every leader blamed catastrophic human climate change for the severity of recent wildfire seasons.
The New York Times allowed Oregon’s Democratic Gov. Kate Brown to follow up that event with an editorial titled “The West Is on Fire, It’s Past Time to Act on Climate Change.”
Biden and the governors are wrong.
Wildfires have been common throughout the West historically, often burning more acres than they’ve burned in recent years. To the extent that wildfires have increased in intensity recently, it isn’t due to modest warming, but rather to decades of federal and state mismanagement of publicly owned forests throughout the Western United States, leaving those forests in tinderbox conditions.
It has been more than a century since California experienced wildfires of the magnitude it has suffered recently. But research published in Forest Ecology and Management reported that prior to European colonization, more than 4.4 million acres of California forest and shrub-land burned annually. And those huge wildfires came when the Earth was cooler than it is today.
Had Brown studied history a bit, she would have found Oregon has suffered large fires throughout its history.
As detailed in an article sponsored by Oregon’s Department of Forestry:
“Prior to Euro-American settlement large, stand-replacing crown fires burned Pacific Northwest coastal forests every 200–500 years. Smaller surface fires revisited dry interior forests as often as every 4–20 years. West-side Cascade wildfire intervals and intensity fell somewhere in the range between.”
This changed with the arrival of Euro-American settlers in the West, who stopped the regular burning both to deny Native Americans of their traditional lifestyles and food production system and to prevent fires from burning newly settled towns and farms.
Forests grew thicker.
With the rise of widespread federal and state ownership of forests in the West, management with the ax, firehose, firebreaks, and roads replaced regular widespread forest fires. For nearly 80 years, the U.S. Forest Service, an agency within the Department of Agriculture, drove thousands of miles of roads deep into the forests to allow logging. The roads also created artificial fire breaks and allowed access for firefighters into the backwoods to fight fires when they started, typically far from settled areas.
In 1985, Oregon’s federal forests produced more than 4 billion board feet of timber annually. By 1995, concerns about the spotted owl and a change in forest management philosophy from one of productive use to natural ecosystem management resulted in thousands of miles of forest roads being closed and ripped out. Soon thereafter, timber harvests plunged to less than 1 billion board feet per year. The same decline in logging and destroyed forest roads were common throughout Western public forests.
This has resulted in overcrowded forests and the easier spread of insect infestations, such as bark beetles, which have killed an untold number of trees. Many federal forests now contain more dead and dying timber than living trees. And since loggers can no longer clear large areas of forests and firefighters can’t get to fires, except from the air if conditions are right, wildfires are on the rise again. Sadly, hundreds of towns, homes, and businesses are being burnt out.
With so much fuel, these fires are different. Rather than replenishing the soil, they burn so hotly that they often kill key microbes in the soil. This leaves millions of acres of land denuded for decades, looking like moonscapes. Under the current federal policy of letting nature take its course, loggers usually can’t even get into burnt-over areas to clear fallen burnt timber and replant new trees in areas where, with human help, they might possibly take root and flourish.
So, for political reasons, Biden and the governors want to blame modest recent warming for the scope and intensity of wildfires in Western states in 2020 and 2021. The true culprit is more than 30 years of forest mismanagement.
Contrary to Biden and the governors’ assertions, state and federal efforts to address racial disparities, increase electric vehicle usage, and stop using fossil fuels to generate electricity will do nothing to prevent wildfires.
Wildfires are natural. They can’t be stopped. They can be managed. The damage they cause to the forests and the people living near them can be dramatically reduced.
Wise management of forests is required, either through regular, widespread, low-intensity burning, as the Native Americans did, or through active forest management, including intensive logging and brush clearing and firefighting efforts, as governments did prior to 1990. These tools, not massive, misdirected spending on climate change, are the best hope of preventing Westerners’ lives and livelihoods from being consumed by flames.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/09/2021 – 23:40 - Olympic Medal Count: How Did Each Country Fare At Tokyo 2020
Olympic Medal Count: How Did Each Country Fare At Tokyo 2020
Every four years, the Summer Olympics brings together thousands of athletes from around the world to compete in a global arena of sportsmanship and athletic excellence.
Tokyo hosted the 2020 Summer Olympics from July 24 to August 9, 2021, marking the second time Japan has hosted the Summer Olympics. The country was first given the honor back in 1964 becoming the first Asian nation to host the Olympic Games.
As Visual Capitalist’s Anshool Deshmukh details below, even in this most challenging of climates where the games had to be pushed by a year, nothing stopped the athletes from exceeding their limits and breaking long-held records.
The Final 2020 Olympic Medal Count
In a complete show of dominance, the U.S. won the most medals at the Olympics, raking in 113 total with 39 gold medals. The U.S. beat out China to claim the top spot by a single gold medal. China finished the games with an impressive 88 medals in total. The host country Japan comes in at third with 27 gold medals and a total of 58 medals.
Here is the final Olympic medal count for each country that participated in the Tokyo Olympic Games:
Of course, countries with larger populations have an inherent advantage, so it’s also interesting to look at the top countries by medals per capita. By this measure, the European microstate of San Marino comes out on top. This was San Marino’s first ever medal showing at an Olympic Games. Turkmenistan and Burkina Faso also won medals for the first time at Tokyo 2020.
Here’s a look at the top 15 countries by Olympic medals per capita:
Among countries with a slightly larger population, the Netherlands and Australia had strong showings.
Other Facts and Figures About the 2020 Tokyo Olympics
Despite a year-long delay and a slew of challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, this unprecedented Olympic Games went ahead. Here are 12 interesting things to note about the 2020 Tokyo Olympics:
1. The Olympic Torch
The Olympic Torch Relay travelled through all 47 of Japan’s prefectures over 121 days. It involved 10,500 torchbearers, who ultimately arrived at Japan’s Olympic Stadium in Tokyo.
2. The Stadiums
40 venues in and around the city of Tokyo hosted 33 Olympic Sports and 22 Paralympic Sports events. The two main areas were the Heritage Zone and the Tokyo Bay Zone.
3. Cost of the Games
The Tokyo Olympics were the most expensive Olympics on record. According to officials, the budget for the Games was $15.4 billion. On the other hand, Japanese government auditors have claimed the total spending topped $20 billion.
This is almost three times the original forecast of around $7.4 billion when Tokyo put together its bid for the Olympics. The postponement of the Games cost the country close to $2 billion, after initial speculation that the cost could be as high as $6 billion.
4. IOC Refugee Olympic Team
29 athletes qualified as part of the IOC Refugee Olympic Team for the Tokyo Olympic Games. Rio 2016 was the first time that an IOC refugee team had made an appearance at the Olympic games.
5. Age is Just a Number
Syrian table tennis player Hend Zaza and Japanese skateboarder Kokona Hiraki were the youngest athletes in Tokyo at 12 years old, while Australian equestrian Mary Hanna was the oldest at 66 years old.
6. Self Service Medalling
Athletes at the Tokyo Olympics put their medals around their own necks to protect against spreading COVID-19. After being presented medals on a tray, the athletes picked it up and medalled themselves. There would also be no handshakes or hugs at the podiums.
7. A Focus on Sustainability
To promote sustainability, this year’s Olympics repurposed a number of the venues used in the 1964 Games. Moreover, the podiums, uniforms, medals, and even the beds at the Olympic Village were all made from recycled materials.
While Japan is not the first to make Olympic medals from recycled materials, it is the first time that citizens of a host country proactively donated their electronic devices as materials for the medals.
8. Inclusion and Diversity
This year, the Games nearly reached gender parity. According to the IOC, of the almost 11,000 Olympic athletes in Tokyo, nearly 49% were women, marking the first “gender-balanced” games in its history. Nearly 85 years after the canoe sprint made its Olympic debut, the women’s sprint event was added to the Olympic games this year.
Weightlifter Laurel Hubbard from New Zealand was the first openly transgender woman competing in any event at the Olympics. She joined other elite athletes like footballer Quinn from Canada and U.S. cyclist Chelsea Wolfe to participate in this year’s games.
9. Mental Health Took Center Stage
Starting with four-time grand slam champion Naomi Osaka withdrawing from the French Open over mental health concerns, the conversation about an athlete’s mental preparedness was as important as their physical one at the games.
After Simone Biles stepped away from the U.S. women’s gymnastics team in the all-around contest earlier last week, numerous athletes worldwide have continued to elevate conversations surrounding mental health, especially in competitive sports.
10. Splitting a Medal?
Olympic high jumpers Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar and Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy mutually decided to share the top spot in their event. The last time the gold medal was shared among two athletes at the Olympics was 113 years ago.
11. Hot New Events
Four sports made their Olympic debuts at the Tokyo Games: karate, skateboarding, sport climbing, and surfing. Other sports added new disciplines, including men’s and women’s three-on-three basketball and the BMX freestyle event.
12. Tokyo’s Slick Olympic Technology
Humanoid Robots helped on the field for the first time, fetching hammers and javelins flung during field events and interacting with spectators. This was also the first time a host used facial recognition systems to provide athletes and officials venue access, helping to increase and speed up security
Next Stop, Paris
The Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games will take place from 26 July to 11 August 2024. During those weeks, Paris will be at the centre of the sporting world. The IOC is keen to set a new standard for inclusive, gender-balanced and youth-centred games.
The next Olympics are expected to see even more athlete and spectator participation—hopefully, one where they likely won’t have to work around COVID-19 restrictions. With numerous new sports added in Tokyo’s Olympic Games, we might even see breakdancing in the Paris version of events. Here’s to the next four years.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/09/2021 – 23:20 - Could The Delta Variant End The Chinese Communist Party?
Could The Delta Variant End The Chinese Communist Party?
Authored by Gordon Chang via 19fortyfive.com,
COVID-19 is ravaging China.
The Delta variant is spreading across the country fast, and Beijing has no answer to the new strain other than draconian, totalitarian brute-force measures—and blaming foreigners.
Millions of Chinese residents are now in various forms of lockdown. The recent infections constitute the most widespread coronavirus outbreak since the disease first hit China, sometime in late 2019.
The new flare-up, which quickly slipped beyond the control of the authorities, is undermining core Communist Party propaganda narratives.
Chinese authorities trace the latest series of infections to a flight landing at the Nanjing Lukou International Airport from Russia on July 20. Nine Chinese airport workers tested positive after cleaning the plane.
Since then, the disease has ripped through China, infecting people in almost half of the country’s 33 provinces and provincial-level cities and regions. “Delta has broken through the country’s virus defenses, which are some of the strictest in the world,” notes Bloomberg News.
Delta is now appearing in places with no reported cases for months. Of particular concern for the regime is the cluster in Wuhan, the original epicenter of the disease. The city’s infection-free status has been, as Bloomberg reports, “a source of pride in China.”
Covid has also reached Beijing, the heart of Chinese power. There, travel restrictions are strict. Tourists are now not admitted to the city. Only “essential travelers” are allowed in, but only if they produce negative Covid tests. Government and state enterprise employees may not leave the city. Beijing residents have been told not to travel elsewhere “unless necessary.”
There have been more than 30 outbreaks around China after the initial cases in Wuhan of last year, including a particularly devastating flare-up hitting Guangdong province ports beginning in late May. Draconian measures were seemingly successful in isolating China’s COVID-19 cases, however. The Party, beginning early last year, used its handling of the virus as proof of the superiority of its system over, among others, “Western democracy.”
Totalitarian-style tactics, unfortunately for China’s rulers, have not worked with the hardy Delta variant.
The coronavirus, unlike other pathogens, has become more transmissible and more virulent over time. Delta, as a result, is now killing off the triumphalism of the Communist Party.
Therefore, a nationwide spread of the disease is a potentially existential threat to the Party. At the moment, Delta is running through many societies around the world, but China appears to be the only one where the variant could end the ruling group’s tenure.
Therefore, it should be no surprise that Party propagandists went berserk for a few days last month when Bloomberg named the U.S. No. 1 in the world in its “Covid Resilience Ranking.” “What a joke,” People’s Daily, the most authoritative publication in China, remarked.
Denigration of the U.S. cannot solve the Party’s main problem, however. None of China’s five coronavirus vaccines are particularly effective.
Beijing, claiming to have administered more than 1.5 billion doses of its vaccines in China, reports 40% of Chinese citizens are fully vaccinated. China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention says Chinese vaccines “can still have good preventative and protective effects” against the Delta strain, but that seems unlikely as countries turn their backs on the Chinese jabs if they have an alternative. Most of the new cases in Nanjing were vaccinated.
No society will fully recover from this disease until it has an effective and safe vaccine, and Beijing is a long way off from developing one of them, even though its researchers had months of head start in coming up with a good jab.
Until China can administer an effective vaccine across the country, its regime will have no choice but to fall back on propaganda. Narrative control has been key from the very beginning of the epidemic. This became clear when the Communist Party on January 26 of last year announced the formation of its Central Leading Small Group for Work to Counter the New Coronavirus Infection Pneumonia Epidemic, China’s task force. There was only one public health official on the nine-person roster, which was heavy with political hacks and propaganda officials. The Party’s propaganda czar, Wang Huning, was vice-chair. Maintaining control of the narrative and Xi Jinping’s dictatorial rule were—and remain—the Leading Group’s primary goals.
A Chinese soldier guarding the southern entrance of the Forbidden City in Beijing, dominated by a giant portrait of Mao Zedong.
The Party’s propagandists evidently believe blaming foreigners for the Delta outbreak is good politics. They were quick to say the origin of the most recent contagion was passengers on the plane from Russia to Nanjing, for instance, implying Russia was the source. Media also attributes a cluster of cases in Zhengzhou to two hospital cleaners in contact with patients from abroad.
In the most irresponsible move of all, China’s foreign ministry in March of last year publicly maintained that the global coronavirus pandemic started in the United States. Since then, Chinese propagandists have continually pushed the notion that the coronavirus was hatched in Frederick, Maryland, in the U.S. Army’s Fort Detrick.
China’s rulers have run out of options when it comes to the uncontrolled—and perhaps uncontrollable—spread of the newest variant of COVID-19.
Is their fate now in the hands of a virus named “Delta”?
* * *
Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China and The Great U.S.-China Tech War. Follow him on Twitter @GordonGChang.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/09/2021 – 23:00 - Archegos Founder Bill Hwang Plots Comeback From Sleepy New Jersey Suburb After Losing $20 Billion
Archegos Founder Bill Hwang Plots Comeback From Sleepy New Jersey Suburb After Losing $20 Billion
In the months since the implosion of Archegos, the family office that saddled a coterie of banks with billions of dollars in losses after its heavily leveraged swap positions went sour, founder Bill Hwang has been living a low-key life in the New Jersey suburb of Tenafly, a decidedly modest home for a man who some suspect may still be a billionaire, even after the bulk of his fortune evaporated with Archegos.
David Pauker, the same liquidation specialist who presided over Lehman’s bankruptcy during the financial crisis, has been tapped to preside over the wind-down of any of Archegos’s remaining assets. Still, Bloomberg reports that Archegos’s bankers are scrambling to discern whether Hwang has any outside wealth that they can claw back to offset their losses related to Archegos.
While his former employees put their (multiple) homes on the market while griping about bonus money they foolishly left in Hwang’s hands (to be invested alongside the rest of his firm’s money), Bloomberg reports that Hwang has been laying low in New Jersey. For the first time since the blowup, he appears to have spoken to reporters – a team from Bloomberg – confirming that he is already planning his comeback, while still working to contain the fallout from Archegos.
In the easeful heat of this summer morning, he’s awaiting a call with a retired U.S. general who, he hopes, might provide some counsel. He’s dressed like your average American soccer dad: teal shirt, blue cargo pants, Adidas slides. He has a pad of paper and a pen handy. An 8-ounce plastic bottle of Poland Spring water stands on the white plastic table which, like the chair, could have come from Costco.
At hand, too, is a Christian pamphlet — a testament to the faith that’s guided Hwang as he made dangerous bets in the markets and was even charged with insider trading in the past. The title is Armor of God, a reference to Ephesians 6:11 — “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.”
Hwang is relaxed, self-deprecating and reflective in a brief conversation, but declines to discuss the Archegos fiasco or his next steps. He’s been lying low here in New Jersey, in this tidy borough of 15,000, beyond The Palisades cliffs that rise above the Hudson River. He is not exactly a Wall Street Napoleon exiled to Elba: Hwang has lived here for years, in the same house, with cobwebs in the eaves and hedges out front. A Mercedes sits in the driveway. “Black Lives Matter” signs dot neighbors’ manicured lawns. Homes on this tree-softened street tend to sell for a few million dollars — a modest price, for a billionaire.
When a neighbor was informed about Hwang’s recent losses, they responded incredulously: “Billion with a B?”
Unfortunately for Hwang, there’s still a chance that prosecutors could bring criminal charges against him. Credit Suisse claimed in its recently released report that Hwang and Archegos likely “deceived” CS about the true extent of its positions with rivals, and even withdrew billions of dollars in collateral days before the blowup.
US prosecutors are asking questions, too, including the big one: Was all of this another spectacle of Wall Street greed and hubris, or was it something worse?
The DoJ is reportedly investigating whether Hwang or one of his lieutenants misled lenders during the days leading up to the crash.
The Department of Justice has been moving ahead with a probe into the blowup. At least one line of questioning has revolved around the communication between Hwang’s top associate Andy Mills and the lenders, and whether he may have misled them in the week of the crash, according to a person interviewed by prosecutors.
“The assertion that Andy Mills or anyone at Archegos misled the banks during the week of March 22 is untrue in every respect,” a spokesman for Archegos said.
Although Hwang declined to discuss Archegos with the Bloomberg reporters, he confirmed that he has been laying low in Tenefly, roughly 15 miles from Manhattan. His preference for a low profile is understandable: across the Hudson River, Archegos’s landlord is suing for nearly $160K in unpaid rent.
Meanwhile, Hwang is trying to move forward, reading the Bible (and Christian-themed literature like CS Lewis’s “The Screwtape Letters”. He occasionally travels into the Big Apple for a business dinner.
Despite everything, Hwang is trying to push forward. He’s investing his remaining money, and occasionally crossing the Hudson to catch dinner at a New York restaurant. He spends spare hours as he has for much of his adult life: praying, reading Christian-themed literature, and listening to recordings of the Bible. He’s recently been reading “The Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis, looking for guidance to navigating the current troubles. A satirical epistolary novel, the book features the demon Screwtape writing letters of advice to his nephew, Wormwood, who is trying to win the soul of a young man.
He’s already reportedly promised to throw his support behind three funds being launched by former Archegos personnel. The names of the funds all hint at the theme of resurrection (in keeping with Hwang’s Christian views): One fund has reportedly taken the name Red Ember Capital, and the other is calling itself AriseN Partners.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/09/2021 – 22:40 - The First Hotel In Space Will Open In 2027
The First Hotel In Space Will Open In 2027
Its structure will be composed of two concentric rings fixed to each other with a set of spokes that support a residential ring made up of large modules.
When reality surpasses or reaches science fiction. In the era of space tourism, The Gateway Foundation was created with the purpose of building the first hotel in space and everything seems to indicate that it will be inaugurated in 2027.
The resort will have artificial gravity and will have the capacity to accommodate 500 people, and it will also offer a gym, restaurant, bar, and all the amenities that a hotel on Earth has.
“Voyager Station will harness the technologies of space and the comforts of Earth to create a unique experience unprecedented in history. The simulated gravity will offer comforts such as toilets, showers and beds that work in a similar way to what is used on Earth ”, they explain on the website.
Image: voyagerstation.com
Its structure will be composed of two concentric rings fixed to each other with a set of spokes that support a residential ring made up of large modules.
The outer ring will be the backbone of the station and will have a kind of inner tube, which will provide the assembly for the housing modules, solar panels, radiators and a rail transport system.
Habitation Rin / Image: voyagerstation.com
On the other hand there will be the ring of rooms made up of a series of pressurized, connected and large modules. It will be made up of all the previously mentioned amenities, gym module, kitchen, restaurant and bar; Crew Quarters module, which will be configurable for room by gravity and microgravity; modules for scientific activities.
How much will it cost?
Image: voyagerstation.com
According to National Geographic in Spanish , the cost for a three-day stay to sleep in the stars is around 5,000 dollars (approximately 99,898 Mexican pesos).
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/09/2021 – 22:20 - Apple Call Center Workers Face AI-Powered Surveillance Cameras At Home
Apple Call Center Workers Face AI-Powered Surveillance Cameras At Home
A call center company used by Apple, Amazon, and Uber, among others, has forced employees to sign a new contract that allows them to install AI-powered cameras at home to monitor work performance, according to NBC News.
Teleperformance, one of the world’s largest call center companies, has allegedly required employees at one Colombian facility to sign a new contract, first issued in March, that “allows monitoring by AI-powered cameras in workers’ homes, voice analytics and storage of data collected from the worker’s family members, including minors,” NBC said.
Six workers based in Colombia for Teleperformance, one of the world’s largest call center companies, which counts Apple, Amazon and Uber among its clients, said that they are concerned about the new contract, first issued in March. The contract allows monitoring by AI-powered cameras in workers’ homes, voice analytics and storage of data collected from the worker’s family members, including minors […]
“The contract allows constant monitoring of what we are doing, but also our family,” said a Bogota-based worker on the Apple account who was not authorized to speak to the news media. “I think it’s really bad. We don’t work in an office. I work in my bedroom. I don’t want to have a camera in my bedroom.”
The worker said that she signed the contract, a copy of which NBC News has reviewed, because she feared losing her job. She said that she was told by her supervisor that she would be moved off the Apple account if she refused to sign the document. -NBC
Teleperformance spokesperson Mark Pfeiffer said that the company is “constantly looking for ways to enhance the Teleperformance Colombia experience for both our employees and our customers, with privacy and respect as key factors in everything we do.”
There was no explanation of how Teleperformance could advance such an invasive monitoring program on some of its employees, considering Apple forbids its contractors from doing this.
Apple spokesperson Nick Leahy said that the company “prohibits the use of video or photographic monitoring by our suppliers and have confirmed Teleperformance does not use video monitoring for any of their teams working with Apple.” Leahy said that Apple had audited Teleperformance in Colombia this year and did not find any “core violations of our strict standards.”
“We investigate all claims and will continue to ensure everyone across our supply chain is treated with dignity and respect,” he added. -NBC
A similar incident occurred at an Albanian call center operated by Teleperformance. Workers complained that the company wanted to introduce video monitoring in their homes in late 2020.
Teleperformance asserted that the use of at-home surveillance was to mitigate data breaches while employees worked remotely.
This should not be shocking since companies began using digital surveillance technology to increase control and maintain productivity while their employees worked remotely during the virus pandemic. Now some of this technology appears not as much temporary as first believed, but somewhat permanent.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/09/2021 – 22:00 - Now Is The Time To Strike At The Root Of Confidence
Now Is The Time To Strike At The Root Of Confidence
Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,
Government is the ultimate confidence game. It’s power rests on the idea that enforcing issued edicts through public pressure and policing is unchallengeable…
That power, however, is anything but that. Policing is a bluff, and a dangerous one at that. That bluff is maintained through rational risk assessment we all do when deciding whether to challenge the policeman’s demands.
This tension lies at the heart of all government systems, no matter how repressive or constructive. Those in power, ultimately remain there only with the consent of the governed. And once confidence in the constructive aspects of government (whatever they may be) fails, that’s when chaos ascends.
Charles Lipson, writing in Real Clear Politics, finally categorized the extent to which we as Americans have lost confidence in our institutions. Frankly, he’s a little late, but hey, I never turn my nose up to anyone willing to join this party.
The problem we face, beyond the specifics about crime, COVID, duplicity, and social division, is a palpable breakdown in public order at the same time the public has lost confidence in our government officials and the institutions they lead. The two meta-problems—the breakdown of order and erosion of public confidence—are deeply intertwined because we count on our leaders and institutions to give us reliable information, provide a stable environment (so each of us can go about our lives), and abide by the same rules we all do. Those are foundational elements of a peaceful, liberal, democratic society. Their attrition imperils that society and its governance.
Lipson’s right. And that he’s being published in a regime-friendly site like RCP is a tell that there is real worry at the top of the dominance hierarchy. Long-time readers know that chronicling this decline of confidence is kinda this blog’s raison d’etre so it’s good to see these ideas filtering out into ‘the real world.’
The 4 Stages of Griefing
But it’s also a tell that because we can now talk about this with our outside voices it justifies steps being taken right now to close the loop, lock the doors and push their control over us to its crisis point.
That justification however, is a flimsy one, only made by those so suffused with self-righteousness that they refuse to entertain anyone’s non-compliance. I came across a tweet that succinctly expressed the current state of affairs as it pertains to COVID-19 and the Delta bogeyman.
5. Still say No. https://t.co/vRKSlOWKHt
— Tom Luongo (@TFL1728) August 7, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Last week I told you that we’d entered the eye of Davos’ Storm. We are accelerating towards a future that when viewed from the outside looks like Terry Gilliam’s Brazil but feels from the insides like Steven Spielberg’s interpretation of Philip K. Dick’s Minority Report.
Davos and their agents have reached Stage 4.
And Stage 4 can last longer than a lot of people are uncomfortable with.
Things would have never gotten to Stage 4 if our leaders had been honest brokers.
Things would have never gotten to Stage 4 is they weren’t engaged in the biggest psy-op in human history.
Things wouldn’t have gotten to Stage 4 if they were actually doing the jobs we gave them and respected the relationship between government and governed.
Today going to Stage 4 is inviting chaos when they should be restoring order. The problem for The Davos Crowd is they have always benefitted from inviting a little chaos in the past.
Because, in the past, the consensual hallucination of government was still there. We still believed, wrongly, that they had our best interests at heart. So, any chaos inserted in the Matrix could be used as an opportunity to advance their schemes, because the critical mass of skepticism wasn’t there.
But, that’s not the case now. Inviting chaos when they’ve taken everything from us and exposed their rapaciousness is inviting something they’ve never seen before.
While the U.S. hasn’t hit rock bottom yet, we’re not seeing the real uprising. In France, Italy and now Poland, those that have nothing left to lose have lost it (H/T to Gerald Celente). Does anyone want to see what happens when another 6 million Americans are thrown out of their homes by Blackrock?
No wonder Biden was desperate to get the eviction moratorium extended no matter how unconstitutional.
But when you mix this level of social and financial repression with the complete lack of confidence in (and by) the institutions, as Lipson pointed out, you get something very volatile indeed. This is why Italians were burning their vaccination cards this weekend.
This is why French firefighters and public health officials are striking against President Macron’s mandates. And it’s why no matter how much our media, the government and the COVID Karens in the ‘burbs threaten us the more likely when someone stands up and just says, “No,” the whole thing comes crashing down.
Welcome to Stage 5
Because of this instability, this fragility, it is incumbent on us right now to say “No,” everywhere. Threats of job loss over vaccination? No, force them to fire you. The lawyers will be standing 20 deep to take your case to court.
In Moscow the restaurants lost 80% of their business overnight after the city instituted a vaccine passport to eat out. The response? Russians just said, “No,” and cooked. This is your model.
All during the ‘pandemic’ in my home town I avoided places that mandated a mask and ignored the warnings on those places that tried to browbeat me into wearing one.
I walked in, was polite, did my business and left.
I wore masks out of politeness to locals outside of my hometown. But, that’s it.
Today, we are being coerced to accept second-class citizenship for not getting vaccinated where the vaccines do nothing to stop the spread of the virus. This is being framed as irresponsibility when, if anything, the vaccinated carry higher viral loads making them potential super-spreaders endangering everyone else.
I don’t need to get an experimental gene therapy to validate your life choices.
I need you to see that there is more to life than following the mandates of psychopaths and pathological liars to err on the side of caution.
No wonder there’s an increasing cohort of people moving into Stage 5, just saying ‘No.’ The time for virtue-signaling is over. The time for lying about masks, death statistics and the basics of virology is over. This is a political operation and we need to treat it as such.
If you got the jab, fine. If you didn’t have a side-effect, great!
If you got COVID afterwards, had mild symptoms and recovered, even better. I’m glad you survived.
But, it stops there. Don’t worry about me. Now it’s your responsibility to understand what the true stakes are and find a future that doesn’t end in derangement, a permanent underclass and mass death.
So, let’s stop pretending that any of this now is about public health, and hasn’t been for more than a year. If anything it has always been about your personal health and therefore getting a vaccine should be a personal choice.
Anything beyond that is pure politics serving the interests of those who have been caught red-handed lying about every bit of this and profiting from our shared misery egregiously.
It is about the failure of the state to make good on its basic promises for decades and coming to terms with that honestly. Now the State’s lies about COVID and the vaccines are distractions from their failures, dividing us to not only maintain that power but expand it exponentially.
Our confidence in them is gone. That much is crystal clear. What isn’t obvious to many is that their confidence in our willingness to go along with them is also gone. That’s why they are so swiftly moving into Stage 4.
Because that is the far scarier state of play for them.
The more we simply go to Stage 5 and say, “No,” the quicker this entire operation collapses and we can get on with Stage 6, fixing what was broken.
* * *
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Mon, 08/09/2021 – 21:40 - The Beer Industry & The Illusion Of Choice
The Beer Industry & The Illusion Of Choice
First celebrated in 2008, International Beer Day is commemorated annually on the first Friday of August. According to its organizers, it is “a global celebration of beer, taking place in pubs, breweries, and backyards all over the world. It’s a day for beer lovers everywhere to raise a toast to our brewers and bartenders and rejoice in the greatness of beer!”
And as beer lovers around the world toast to the seemingly endless variety of their favorite drink, Statista’s Felix Richter zooms out to show how much of the world’s beer production is actually controlled by just a few brewing conglomerates.
Over the past two decades, companies such as Anheuser Busch InBev, Heineken or Carlsberg have consolidated hundreds of beer brands under their roofs, creating an illusion of choice for consumers around the world.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Take the five most valuable beer brands according to Brand Finance for example, four of which belong to AB InBev, which owns world-famous brands such as Budweiser, Beck’s, Stella Artois, Leffe, Modelo and Corona. And while the company was foreced to sell the U.S. business of the latter two to Constellation Brands due to antitrust concerns in relation to its acquisition of Grupo Modelo, it still goes to show what a wide variety of international brands the world’s largest brewing group owns.
You could easily go to a bar, try five different beers from five different countries, nay continents, without realizing that AB InBev was your exclusive beer provider for the evening. And while we have seen a boom in independent craft breweries over the past few years, their output is still dwarfed by the aforementioned global players. According to the Brewers Association, America’s 8,764 operating craft breweries produced 23 million barrels (around 27 million hectoliters) of beer in 2020. AB InBev alone produced nearly seventeen times that according to official company figures tracked by hops specialist BarthHaas.
Collectively, the six largest brewing groups displayed in our chart accounted for roughly 60 percent of global beer production last year.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/09/2021 – 21:20 - China's Delta Outbreak Worsens As Goldman, Bank Of America Cut Growth Forecasts
China’s Delta Outbreak Worsens As Goldman, Bank Of America Cut Growth Forecasts
China’s latest COVID outbreak, the fourth wave to hit the country, has officially become the country’s worst outbreak since the virus first emerged, as the delta variant continues to spread despite Beijing’s heavy-handed response, which has involved testing of millions of people, travel restrictions, and, in a few cases, residential or local lockdowns.
Worries that Beijing’s response might impact GDP growth led economists at Goldman Sachs to cut their China 2021 growth forecasts due to the fast spread of the variant. Goldman slashed its Q3 real GDP forecast to 2.3% from 5.8% , but raised its Q4 growth forecast to 8.5% from 5.8%, leaving the full-year 2021 projection at 8.3% down from 8.6%.
In addition to the new restrictions, Beijing has punished dozens of local officials, scapegoats for the government’s inability to maintain “COVID zero”, as promised.
The outbreak continued to expand over the past 24 hours on Monday. Sunday saw 125 new confirmed infections, including 94 locally transmitted cases, were up from the previous day’s figure of 96, with 81 locally transmitted, while the rest were imported from abroad, according to China’s NHC and Reuters.
China also reported 39 new “asymptomatic” cases, up from 30 a day earlier. China doesn’t group them in with the rest of its cases.
The largest number of Sunday’s local patients were in the central city of Zhengzhou and Yangzhou. The city has started a fifth round of mass tests, city authorities said on Monday, the day Zhengzhou is expected to wrap up sample collection for its third round of citywide tests. Over in Wuhan, the city completed citwide testing in just 6 days, finding 37 cases & 41 asymptomatic carriers among the city’s 12MM residents.
The eastern city of Nanjing, seen as the epicenter of the outbreak, has started a third round of targeted testing in some neighborhoods after three rounds citywide, despite fewer than five local cases reported over the last week.
The city of Nantong, close to Yangzhou and Nanjing, has yet to report any new local case since late July, but has still started mass testing – just to be careful.
Goldman isn’t the only investment bank that has tried to project the economic fallout from China’s latest outbreak. A report from Bank of America determined that while still small in absolute terms, the outbreak has still spread to nearly 2 dozen provinces. The bank used a smaller outbreak in May as a benchmark to project the near term impact of the current outbreak. BofA determined that the outbreak could lower Q3 growth by 0.7pp, mainly due to weaker service sector activity.
One chart showed how social distancing is already having an impact in Nanjing, which as we said above is the epicenter of the outbreak. Subway ridership has plunged by 68% over the past week.
China’s latest COVID outbreak, the fourth wave to hit the country, has officially become the country’s worst outbreak since the virus first emerged, as the delta variant continues to spread despite Beijing’s heavy-handed response, which has involved testing of millions of people, travel restrictions, and, in a few cases, residential or local lockdowns.
Worries that Beijing’s response might impact GDP growth led economists at Goldman Sachs to cut their China 2021 growth forecasts due to the fast spread of the variant. Goldman slashed its Q3 real GDP forecast to 2.3% from 5.8% , but raised its Q4 growth forecast to 8.5% from 5.8%, leaving the full-year 2021 projection at 8.3% down from 8.6%.
In addition to the new restrictions, Beijing has punished dozens of local officials, scapegoats for the government’s inability to maintain “COVID zero”, as promised.
The outbreak continued to expand over the past 24 hours on Monday. Sunday saw 125 new confirmed infections, including 94 locally transmitted cases, were up from the previous day’s figure of 96, with 81 locally transmitted, while the rest were imported from abroad, according to China’s NHC.
China also reported 39 new “asymptomatic” cases, up from 30 a day earlier. China doesn’t group them in with the rest of its cases.
The largest number of Sunday’s local patients were in the central city of Zhengzhou and Yangzhou. The city has started a fifth round of mass tests, city authorities said on Monday, the day Zhengzhou is expected to wrap up sample collection for its third round of citywide tests. Over in Wuhan, the city completed citwide testing in just 6 days, finding 37 cases & 41 asymptomatic carriers among the city’s 12MM residents.
The eastern city of Nanjing, seen as the epicenter of the outbreak, has started a third round of targeted testing in some neighborhoods after three rounds citywide, despite fewer than five local cases reported over the last week.
The city of Nantong, close to Yangzhou and Nanjing, has yet to report any new local case since late July, but has still started mass testing – just to be careful.
Goldman isn’t the only investment bank that has tried to project the economic fallout from China’s latest outbreak. A report from Bank of America determined that while still small in absolute terms, the outbreak has still spread to nearly 2 dozen provinces. The bank used a smaller outbreak in May as a benchmark to project the near term impact of the current outbreak. BofA determined that the outbreak could lower Q3 growth by 0.7pp, mainly due to weaker service sector activity.
One chart showed how social distancing is already having an impact in Nanjing, which as we said above is the epicenter of the outbreak. Subway ridership has plunged by 68% over the past week.
The analysts conclude: “Considering the long distance still to herd immunity, we continue to expect a slow recovery in consumption activities.” Those like Ray Dalio who are insisting that it’s “still safe” to invest in China should probably consider that there’s a new valuation risk on the horizon, beyond the politically-motivated CCP crackdown, and a newly revived, officially sanctioned, Chinese #MeToo wave aimed at Big Tech’s corporate culture.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/09/2021 – 21:00 - "If Masa Says 'Yes', Who Am I To Object?" – Insiders Worried About SoftBank's Dictatorial Dealmaking Culture
“If Masa Says ‘Yes’, Who Am I To Object?” – Insiders Worried About SoftBank’s Dictatorial Dealmaking Culture
SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son is perhaps Japanese most famous investor (he’s sometimes referred to as “the Japanese Warren Buffett” In the press), but his reputation has been threatened in recent years due to debacles involving WeWork and Greensill (among other less notable setbacks).
And now, some of the firm’s employees are anonymously speaking out to the press that they’re afraid Masa might already be blundering his way into the next WeWork or Greensill.
This isn’t the first time we’re hearing about Masa’s dictatorial management style. But in the latest insider report, the FT spoke to several current and former high-ranking SoftBank executives, who dished that Masa’s “highly competitive, instinct-driven culture us often in conflict with the firm’s compliance procedures.
Some questioned SoftBank’s decision to combine the chief compliance and general legal officer roles into a single role, following the sudden resignation last Sept. of the company’s former compliance chief Chad Fentress.
Others griped that SoftBank has apparently not learned the hard lessons from several setbacks that nearly derailed its first Vision Fund, even as the firm has tried to market VFII as more disciplined than its predecessor.
Internal conflicts have erupted over the firm’s decision to revive its buyback program while finalizing the deal for its sale of its T-Mobile stake.
Here’s a snippet from the FT report:
Legal opinion was divided, with some within the company arguing that the conclusion of the T-Mobile deal was uncertain and therefore did not require disclosure. The group also engaged outside counsel to consult whether the T-Mobile transaction would constitute market-sensitive, material non-public information, which may require the share buyback to be halted, but no definitive conclusion was reached.
SoftBank told the FT that the decision to go ahead with the buybacks and the T-Mobile sale was “carefully considered” by multiple departments within the firm.
SoftBank told the FT that each of its relevant departments co-ordinated closely to examine the legal and regulatory implications of business decisions under consideration. “The legal department regularly seeks outside legal advice from Japanese and non-Japanese counsel about the company’s legal and regulatory obligations and shares such information with the other functional departments in order that appropriate decisions are made,” it added.
The biggest issue is that Japanese law strictly governors disclosure of material non-public information, and its application regarding stock buybacks is “open to interpretation”, potentially leaving the firm with some legal risk.
One of Japan’s top M&A lawyers at a Big Four law firm said the question of how material non-public information might affect share buyback programmes was raised frequently by Japanese clients, particularly as the number of such programmes has soared in recent years.
The openness of the regulation to interpretation and the potential for being accused of insider dealing, said the lawyer, meant firms always tended to offer conservative advice to companies. Any unwillingness of a firm to provide a written opinion, he added, might suggest the client had opted to proceed with some risk.
And the disclosures surrounding the Sprint sale weren’t the only instances where SoftBank had cause for concern. Apparently, the same executive responsible for SoftBank’s now-infamous “Nasdaq Whale” trades caused internal controversy when the firm pushed through a deal for the Norwegian warehouse automation company AutoStore.
The deal, which people familiar with its background said was pushed through at high speed, was in keeping with what has now become “a culture at SoftBank where everyone is so desperate to impress Son” that compliance concerns might be viewed as secondary to the pressure to make impressive acquisitions.
The fact that there isn’t any outside money in the Vision Fund has led executives to fret that SoftBank might be getting too reckless. One particularly bad decision occurred in November of 2020, when SoftBank provided Greensill with an emergency loan of $440MM funding via VFII. 4 months later, the supply-chain finance company filed for bankruptcy.
While one executive who spoke on the record said the firm tries to foster a culture of openness – “Masa shares the view that employees should speak up” – many still feel afraid to challenge the great Masa. As one anonymous employee confessed to the FT: “If Masa had already said yes, who am I to object?” said one of the people.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/09/2021 – 20:40 - Cuomo Scrambled To Cut 11th Hour Deal To Avoid Impeachment
Cuomo Scrambled To Cut 11th Hour Deal To Avoid Impeachment
Embattled New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo tried to cut a deal with the state legislature in exchange for not getting impeached, according to the New York Post.
In an 11th hour plea to keep his job before a bombshell report on sexual misconduct was set to be released by state Attorney General Letitia James, Cuomo offered to drop his bid for a fourth-term.
“It was something that was floated to me by the folks in the Cuomo camp as a possible option before the attorney general’s report came out,” said NY State Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs in a statement to the Post, adding “I never saw it as a viable option.“
Still, it looks like Cuomo and his winnowed-down inner circle haven’t given up on the last-ditch effort to avoid impeachment.
A source told The City on Monday that the gov’s team has been busy making calls to try to save his skin in the wake of the official report, which concluded Cuomo sexually harassed at least 11 women in violation of state and federal law. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Before she resigned Sunday night, top aide and confidante Melissa DeRosa had been asking executive staffers for strategies to quiet the impeachment talks, the source told The City. –New York Post
According to Jacobs, he told the governor’s staff that the plan wouldn’t work.
“I shot it down pretty quick,” he said. “Either you can survive the AG’s report and run again or you don’t survive the AG’s report. There’s no compromise.”
Cuomo reportedly reached out to the state legislature through a longtime pal, Charlie King – who told the Post “No. He’s not running for a fourth term, period.”
Per the Post, several other longtime Cuomo advisers – including former federal prosecutor Steve Cohen and top adviser Larry Schwartz – have urged him to step down.
“You don’t need this,” said Cuomo pal and 2018 campaign chairman Bill Mulrow, who has apparently complained to others over the governor’s refusal to step down before his current term ends on December 31, 2022.
We doubt the NY legislature will allow that to happen.
The state Assembly Judiciary Committee met in Albany Monday for updates on its investigation into Cuomo.
The committee had told him that it was “nearing completion” of the probe and would “consider potential articles of impeachment.”
He was given until Friday to submit any information he wanted the panel to consider in its findings. -NY Post
How long until articles of impeachment are filed?
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/09/2021 – 20:20 - #FakePoos Trends In Australia After Premier Cites "Non-Existent" Covid-Tainted Sewage As A Reason To Lock Down
#FakePoos Trends In Australia After Premier Cites “Non-Existent” Covid-Tainted Sewage As A Reason To Lock Down
Australians just found out the reasoning for their archaic-style lockdowns is worse than they thought.
The ugly truth came to light this week when Victoria Premier Dan Andrews admitted that he cited “non-existent coronavirus-tainted sewage” in his reasoning to lock down the state, RT reported.
In other words, Andrews faked that Covid was being carried in poop to justify a lockdown.
Andrews used the sewage excuse to help justify a 7 day statewide shutdown that went into effect on August 5. The shutdown was supposedly due to “wastewater detection” of Covid 19 in a city about 147 miles away from Melbourne.
Andrews first said the detection created the “potential that regional Victorians have been exposed to Covid-19”, citing it as an excuse for locking down Victoria and prohibiting public gatherings.
Wangaratta mayor Dean Rees challenged Andrews’ explanation less than 24 hours later, after Andrews said the sewage initially “pinged” positive before testing negative. Then, regional health officially confirmed there had been “several successive tests returning negative results” after one positive detection on July 30.
And it was with that, that #FakePoos started trending and angry Australians started to take to social media.
I shit you not 💩#FakePoos pic.twitter.com/M91Kdq2cZS
— TormentedMeatSack (@SoulinaMeatSack) August 6, 2021
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You’re in trouble now, #DictatorDan
Your justification of #lockdown6 for regional Victoria is built on a foundation of #FakePooshttps://t.co/5PW5OaEPi9
— PoliBard (@PoliBard) August 6, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
This prompted an admission of guilt by Andrews, who said: “We apologize. We try to get the best information out as quickly as we can. Nothing is perfect and no one has ever pretended that it is.”
Even better, the lockdowns are set to be extended. Meanwhile, Australians remain vigilant in arguing that the current data doesn’t justify lockdowns.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/09/2021 – 20:00 - Don't Be Fooled By The Bipartisan, 'Paid For' Infrastructure Bill
Don’t Be Fooled By The Bipartisan, ‘Paid For’ Infrastructure Bill
Authored by Andrew Wilford via RealClear Markets (emphasis ours),
Over the course of the pandemic, federal overspending has exploded even by Congress’s lofty standards. While trillion-dollar deficits were a cause for concern before 2020, spending over just the last two years is set to increase the national debt by over $6 trillion. It’s bizarre, then, that the only thing that members of opposing parties in Congress can seem to work together on is fooling the budgetary scorekeepers with phantom offsets for even more spending.
Photo: Bill Clark, Roll Call In total, the bipartisan infrastructure deal includes around $550 billion in new federal spending on infrastructure to take place over five years. Advocates of the legislation claim that it is paid for, but they are relying on gimmicks and quirks of the budget scoring process to make that claim.
Take the single biggest offset claimed — repurposing unused COVID relief funds, which the bill’s authors say would “raise” $210 billion (particularly considering that at least $160 billion have already been accounted for in the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline). Only in the minds of Washington legislators does this represent funds ready to be used when the national debt stands at over $28 trillion.
Imagine you take out a $20,000 loan to pay for your upcoming wedding. At the last moment, your spouse-to-be backs out. Do you then decide that you just got a free $20,000 to buy a new car with? Of course not, you still have to pay back that $20,000 loan. And did I mention that you’re already $28 trillion in debt?
Congress intends to use this trick a second time as well, this time with $53 billion from states that elected to end the federal unemployment insurance subsidy early. In total, $263 billion, or nearly half of the alleged “offsets,” come from pretending that unspent funds that weren’t paid for in the first place can be used to pay for something else.
Another major “pay-for” that is essentially budget voodoo is $51 billion from delaying the Medicare Part D rule. President Trump proposed a regulation intended to reform how insurers and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) handle prescription drug rebates that budget experts said would result in about $177 billion in additional federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid premiums. President Biden has delayed implementation of the rule until 2023, and now lawmakers are proposing to “pay for” their infrastructure package by delaying the rule even longer. The rule has yet to even go into effect, but still Congress gets to count its delayed implementation as “savings.”
Congress also is counting $56 billion in projected additional revenue from economic growth resulting from the infrastructure package. Those old enough to remember will recall how bitterly Democrats in Congress fought the use of dynamic scoring as an offset for the 2017 tax reform law, though they seem happy enough to embrace it here. That’s backwards, considering how the evidence is far stronger that tax cuts boost economic growth than spending. What’s more, the CBO has stated that private investment has twice the rate of return as public investment.
The rest of the so-called pay-fors in this package are generally more of the same on a smaller scale. The National Taxpayers Union and National Taxpayers Union Foundation have each gone line by line and explained how proposed pay-fors, from mortgage guarantee fees to Strategic Petroleum Reserve sales to extending the mandatory sequester, are unlikely to offset the cost to taxpayers much at all.
Though Congress is keeping up the pretense of paying for new spending, taxpayers shouldn’t be fooled — very few of the offsets laid out in the bipartisan infrastructure will ameliorate the budget impact of this legislation. If new spending is truly necessary, it shouldn’t be too hard for Congress to trim the fat elsewhere.
* * *
Andrew Wilford is a policy analyst with the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to tax policy research and education at all levels of government.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/09/2021 – 19:40 - Jefferies Joins The Fray: Investment Bank Becomes Latest To Bump First Year Analyst Pay To $110,000
Jefferies Joins The Fray: Investment Bank Becomes Latest To Bump First Year Analyst Pay To $110,000
It turns out Goldman Sachs wasn’t the very last investment bank to bump pay for its junior bankers. Jefferies announced this week that it was going to be raising pay for its first year analysts in the U.S. to $110,000.
The bump in pay is a raise of $25,000 from their previous starting salary of $85,000 per year.
Second year analysts will make $125,000, up from $95,000 and third year analysts, called associates, will move up to $150,000 per year from $125,000, according to Bloomberg.
Bonuses for the firm, which are typically handed out in August are “expected to be high” this year as well, according to the report.
Jefferies’ pay bumps match that of Goldman Sachs, who raised pay by 30% just weeks ago.
First year analysts at Goldman will now also make $110,000 per year in their first year and $125,000 their second year, FT reported days ago. Senior associate ranks will see their pay bumped to $150,000, similar to Jefferies.
The move puts both Jefferies and Goldman Sachs at the top of the heap in terms of starting pay package terms.
As we reported weeks ago, there had been significant discussion at Goldman about whether or not boosting junior banker salaries could be counterintuitive. But the rising tide of all banks lifting their pay finally caused Goldman to give in. Jefferies followed shortly thereafter.
There had been pushback from Senior Executives at Goldman, who argued that bumping up salaries mid-year could set a “dangerous precedent” and break from the company’s long-held “pay for performance” compensation structure.
Goldman and Jefferies follow steps taken by banks like Citigroup, which offered an increase of up to $25,000 last month to move its fixed salaries to $100,000 per year. JP Morgan and Barclay’s also lifted salaries to $100,000, from $85,000 at the end of June, FT noted. Bank of America and Wells Fargo increased salaries by $10,000 each, as well.
Finally, as of this week, Credit Suisse is also reported to be bumping their first year analyst pay to $100,000, according to Bloomberg.
Recall, just weeks ago, we noted that Cantor Fitzgerald’s CEO, Howard Lutnick, was pushing back on junior bankers that think they have life too tough. Lutnick said that junior bankers complaining about long hours and stressful demands should “rethink their career choice”.
Lutnick’s comments followed 13 junior bankers at Goldman complaining about their workload earlier this year in a slide deck that was released to the public. They claimed to be working 100 hour weeks and experiencing declining physical and mental health. The public scrutiny caused other banks to offer bonuses and rewards to retain their younger talent..
But when interviewed last week, Lutnick broke from the crowd, stating: “Young bankers who decide they’re working too hard — choose another living is my view. These are hard jobs.”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/09/2021 – 19:20 - California Republican Party Decides Not To Endorse Any Recall Election Candidate
California Republican Party Decides Not To Endorse Any Recall Election Candidate
Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,
California Republicans on Saturday opted not to endorse a candidate in the recall election.
Voters are poised this week to decide whether to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat. In the same special election, voters will choose who they would want to replace Newsom if he is recalled by a simple majority.
Some of the candidates vying in the election are Republicans, but the California GOP voted against endorsing any of them.
Harmeet Dhillon, a Republican National Committee national committeewoman, and Shawn Steel, a Republican National Committee national committeeman, put forth a motion during a virtual meeting over the weekend.
The motion was to table the agenda item to vote on an endorsement.
California GOP delegates passed the motion with nearly 90 percent support.
That triggered the end of the meeting, and means the state Republican Party is not endorsing a candidate.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom makes a gesture as he speaks during a news conference in San Bernardino, Calif., on Aug. 6, 2021. (Watchara Phomicinda/The Orange County Register via AP)
The decision “speaks to the strength of our field of candidates and the outstanding position our party is in going into the recall election,” Jessica Millan Patterson, chairwoman of the California Republican Party, said in a statement.
“We are squarely focused on putting California back on track by recalling the worst governor in California history. Gavin Newsom is arrogant, incompetent, and a desperate politician who has failed Californians in every way possible. The state is burning, crime is spiking, homelessness is rampant, students have fallen behind, and taxes are suffocating working people. On September 14th, voters will end the Newsom nightmare once and for all and finally restore good governing to California,” she added.
(L-R) Republican candidates for California governor John Cox, Kevin Faulconer, Kevin Kiley, and Doug Ose participate in a debate at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, Calif., on Aug. 4, 2021. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Photo)
If a vote had taken place during the meeting, delegates were set to choose between political commentator Larry Elder, former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, California Assemblyman Kevin Kiley, and former Rep. Doug Ose (R-Calif.).
Ose said he supported the move not to endorse him or one of his competitors.
“My compliments to Chairwoman Patterson for figuring out how to allow Republican delegates the option of No Endorsement. The Party needs to focus on Question 1. Let’s get this done!” he wrote on Twitter.
Question 1 will ask voters whether Newsom should be recalled.
The other candidates did not weigh in on the decision.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/09/2021 – 19:00 - Watch: Dramatic Video Shows People Trapped In Neck High Water During Omaha Flash Floods
Watch: Dramatic Video Shows People Trapped In Neck High Water During Omaha Flash Floods
A horrifying video has surfaced online of a Nebraska man and his friends nearly drowned Saturday in neck-high floodwaters during an elevator ride at their apartment complex in downtown Omaha, Nebraska.
The footage was shared with local news KETV. Tony Luu and two other friends went down their apartment complex elevator to check on the storm damage in downtown Omaha. Once the elevator arrived on the ground floor, floodwater began to pour inside the elevator.
Video recorded by Luu’s friend shows neck-high water, and the three nearly drowned. They managed to pry the elevator door open before first responders arrived on the scene.
Luu’s friend Daylon Guy told the Omaha World-Herald that others were stuck on an adjacent elevator. He said no one in either elevator suffered any injuries.
“It was pretty traumatizing,” Guy told the paper.
Luu told local news ABC13 that “it was like something out of a movie:”
“Once it got to my stomach, we kind of figured, ‘Ok, this is real,'” he said. Luu called 911 and also his roommate who works maintenance for the building. “We might die if you don’t come help us,” he told his friend.
Flash floods occurred in downtown Omaha Saturday night following five inches of rain in a short period. The storm left other areas in the surrounding metro with flood damage.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/09/2021 – 18:40 - The Death Of Truth & The Rise Of Centralized Government Control
The Death Of Truth & The Rise Of Centralized Government Control
Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com,
As I write this from a France making ever more bold moves toward forced vaccination, one can’t help but ponder the broader issues of centralized government control, regardless of one’s take on vaccine or no vaccine.
Focusing on financial rather than viral data, the evidence of centralized state control over natural market forces in the stock and bond markets is becoming increasingly incontrovertible.
We’ve written elsewhere about the death of logic and the madness of crowds. It should therefore come as little surprise that the death of truth is yet another casualty of the increased central control we are experiencing in global markets.
Debt Crisis Disguised as a Health Black Swan
Long before COVID reared its highly controversial head (from viral source debates, baby-with-bathwater policy reactions, censored science as to vaccine efficacy and safety, distorted math on infection rates vs death rates, and centralized government control by officials acting “for your own safety” vs. Constitutional and legal issues of individual choice), the global financial system was already in an undeniable as well as unsustainable debt crisis.
As any one who can fog a mirror and read history in the same breath also knows, whenever a debt crisis is obvious, what follows is equally obvious: an economic crisis, then a political crisis, and from there a social crisis.
In short, and from ancient Rome to 1917 Russia, or 1789 France to 1933 Germany, debt matters.
Debt is a very dangerous thing to economies and societies, and always climaxes with more centralized control in its wake.
The problem for the 21st century, however, is that almost no global policymaker (left, right or center, European, Asian or American) wanted to touch this $280T debt elephant in the room.
Instead, they buried their heads for years in the sand and sought re-election with promises paid for with, alas, more debt.
In this openly embarrassing backdrop (long before COVID), economic orthodoxy had been tossed into a corner as governments around the world took on fatal debt levels like this:
…paid for (i.e., “monetized”) with mouse-click fiat money like this…
But rather than face or confess the sins of a system already on its debt-broken knees, the financial and political actors responsible for the pre-COVID debt disaster had a convenient tale to tell.
A Convenient Lie
That is, and almost as if on demand, along came the tale of all tales, the patsy of all patsies, the blame of all blames, and the excuse of all excuses: COVID.
That is, if we thought economic orthodoxy (i.e., living within one’s national means, valuing valuations or honoring free market price discovery) had been tossed into a corner pre-COVID, well, the post-COVID backdrop essentially murdered economic orthodoxy completely.
Today, we have global debt rising exponentially…
…as well global central banks printing more fiat currencies parabolically:
New Rules Hiding Old Failures and “Fuzzy Economics”
COVID paved a sad new road to what Antoine van Agtmael described as “fuzzy economics”—namely a financial panopticon in which governments worldwide have literally gorged themselves on ever more debt in a secular paradigm shift toward greater centralized control over our economic, personal, social, political and foreign policies.
From vaccines to banking regulations, lockdowns to melt-ups, individuals and markets are now adapting to a new set of desperate rules in the wake of the equally desperate failures of prior financial policies.
a. Governmental Guarantees of Commercial Bank Loans
To this end, I have spoken with Russell Napier at length (and written at length)on these new rules, which involve new sets of governmental/centralized control euphemistically described as “support,” including governmental (and highly inflationary) guarantees of commercial bank loans.
This massive game-changer (and open signal of increasing centralized control) effectively went unnoticed by the Main Stream Media, whatever stream that is…
b. Warnings from a Fed Governor: Governments Doubling Down
Yet even before blunt geniuses like Napier clarified this narrative, some of the less blunt and far less genius policy makers themselves could no longer hide or deny their own mistakes, all of which pointed toward new rules, “new order” and hence new mistakes to come.
In May of 2015, for example, former Fed governor Larry Lindsay was already confessing that “the financial arrangements of the state are no longer sustainable,” and that a new paradigm awaited us.
He went on to say that, “it is not a pretty change if we get there, and it is a matter of political liberty because a government will NOT voluntarily let itself go out of business…it will use all its powers available… to fund itself.”
Imagine that.
The sad fact is that just because governments have immense power, this by no means implies immense wisdom, character, accountability or even math skills.
The new rules now involve a financial system already heading toward an open confession of Wall Street socialism and a Federal Reserve which is now effectively, if not entirely, financing the U.S. government.
Centralized Government Controls = Deliberate Inflation
As Russell Napier, a one-time staunch deflationist, now argues, these new rules all point to more inflation ahead, which is the ultimate gut-punch to an already over-controlled and dying middle-class—i.e., the real world.
But for nations drowning in debt, deliberate inflation is one way to print away that burden.
Bond Markets Decoupled from Reality
Meanwhile, in this new abnormal of increased centralized control over our lives, markets and economies, the Fed can create money like this in the span of months…
…in order to purchase the vast bulk of otherwise unwanted IOUs from Uncle Sam—i.e., Treasury bonds.
Such “policy,” of course, artificially suppresses Treasury yields (which go down as central bank supported bond prices go up).
This explains why yields have sunk to levels which in no way reflect where yields would otherwise be in a free market confronting undeniable as well as rising inflation (which the Fed still refuses to acknowledge).
But as for inflation, Napier once again reminds: “Have we ever seen a country in history persistently running a broad money growth rate at 10% that didn’t have inflation at 4% or above? The answer is no.”
Of course, the U.S. is hardly alone in drinking its own debt Kool-Aide, and if you still need more evidence of who is buying the world’s major governments bonds, it’s simply their own central(ized) banks:
Truth Dies as Centralized Government Controls Rise
In short, control has not only distorted markets, it has distorted truth, and in the same breath, distorted any sense of trust in centralized “leadership” and/or credibility, which like real bond yields, grows more negative by the day.
As Napier has said elsewhere, “bond yields are decoupled from inflation,” which is a polite way of saying that bond yields in particular, like the bond market in general, is an open lie.
Stocks Decoupled from Reality
Speaking of “decoupling” from reality in the wake of the “new rules” emerging from increasing centralized controls (economic, social and political), the stock market is no less of an open lie than the overtly subsidized bond market.
After all, stocks love a generous central bank, one becoming more central to our financial lives with each passing day, mouse-click and newly “printed” dollar.
Hard to believe?
Then ask Warren Buffett’s infamous stock market valuation metric which measures total equity market cap as a percentage of GDP.
As the graph below confirms, about the only thing growing under centralized control and its “new rules” is the mother of all stock bubbles.
The “centralizers” in bed with the debt-drunk politicos call this “promising market growth” resulting from “accommodation,” but anyone who tracks markets already knows that debt-driven, money-printed “growth” is not growth at all—it’s merely a centralized aberration, as well as an open insult to natural market forces.
More to the point, such top-heavy (and artificial) market predominance within U.S. GDP screams of an open charade, and graphs like the Buffett Indicator above are just one more reason to distrust a centralized system which has now fully devolved from free market to free prevarication.
Pretty Words to Hide Scary Math
Centralizers may be dishonest and openly distortive, but like all politically self-interested profiles, they are masters at putting lipstick on a pig through euphemistic word choice, of which “quantitative easing,” “stimulus,” “accommodation,” “MMT,” and “recovery’ are all classic examples.
But there’s more…
“Climate Change” Policies—Wise Altruism or Just More Centralized Control?
As for further examples of the creative use of language to hide truth, it may come as a surprise to any of us who care about the planet that the sudden politicized interest in “climate change” may not be as altruistic or progressive as the politico’s would like you to believe.
In a global backdrop of debt-driven desperation and increased centralization, leaders thirsty for any way to build credibility would have us admire their green initiative; but the real driver behind their plans may be less green than oil-colored.
With all the inflationary forces colliding (extreme money supply expansion, fiscal deficits, governmental guarantees etc.), the last thing our not-so-trusted leaders want to confess is that oil prices, and oil supply, may be signaling an end to cheap oil.
Rather than confess the myriad economic and political shock waves of a “peak oil” event, the powers that be would rather use “climate change” to justify their suddenly important war against fossil fuels to mask a pivot toward ever more centralized government control of your thinking and your energy consumption.
Earlier in July, for example, the Financial Times announced that “in order for sustainable finance to work, we will need Central Planning.”
Really? Wonderful, more central planning.
This blunt declaration was made in regard to the EU’s new sustainable finance strategy and Green Bond Standard aimed at creating the first climate-neutral continent by 2050.
Sounds noble? Who wouldn’t love “climate neutral”?
But why does sustainable finance and climate neutrality require central planning?
What’s likely being deliberately censored from this initiative is that troublesome little notion so in danger today, namely allowing free markets to decide which energy sources provide the highest “Energy Return on Invested Energy” (EROIE).
Needless to say, when it comes to “bang for your buck” the best energy “rate of return” still comes from those pesky fossil fuels not windmills or nuclear reactors.
Needless to say, if free market forces were in actual play, participants would use of the cheapest, most cost-efficient source for energy, again: Fossil fuels.
Making headlines today, however, are global policymakers (from Yellen to the IEA) endeavoring (nobly?) to gut-punch interest in fossil fuels.
The IEA has openly stated they want energy groups to stop producing oil and gas by 2050.
But again: Is the motive truly noble? Is this about the environment? The planet’s safety? Or something else?
Cynically (and I am a cynic), there may be a darker problem beneath the surface of this political shine, including the fact that the oil production beneath the surface of that same planet has not moved much at all in the last decade.
In other words, has the world reached peak oil?
Are policy makers deliberately attacking the free market use of energy sources to save the planet, or do they secretly believe peak oil (namely peak “cheap” oil) is a stark reality against which policy makers must now take extreme action?
In sum, is “climate change” a politically correct ruse used to mask the much darker reality that “peak oil” is upon us, which would have a drastic impact on debt markets, geopolitics (think Saudi Arabia), and inflation (skyrocketing)?
Certainly, “climate change” offers far better political optics than “peak oil” headlines and all that it would portend should affordable oil become a distant memory.
More Centralization + More Spending + More Inflation = More Need to Prepare
As I wrote in a book published just weeks before the COVID outbreak, the financial system was already and openly Rigged to Fail well before a pandemic became the new pretext for once unthinkable governmental influence (i.e., centralized control) over our markets and private lives.
The evidence of increasing centralization is all around us, yet in an increasingly politicized media which effectively parrots (rather than questions) governmental policy, what is entirely absent is increasingly open and public debate (as well as math) on everything from COVID policy to monetary policy.
Regardless of whether you feel governments are centralizing to benefit or control your future, the means to that centralized end will demand further spending, further debt-onboarding and hence further distortion of credit, equity, real estate and currency markets.
As for currencies, be they paper, digitalized CBDC or some hybrid, informed investors recognized long ago that they will not be real stores of value, and hence the road ahead will certainly favor precious metals, as just about everything else “precious” about free markets and national currencies is behind us.
Needless to say, this explains why some of the largest and most recent buyers of gold are the global central banks (Russia, Hungary, Brazil…) themselves.
Just saying…
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/09/2021 – 18:20
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