- The War Pigs Are Finally Revealing Themselves – And This Is Just The Beginning…
The War Pigs Are Finally Revealing Themselves – And This Is Just The Beginning…
Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,
In 2016 during the election campaign of Donald Trump one of the primary factors of his popularity among conservatives was that he was one of the first candidates since Ron Paul to argue for bringing US troops home and ending American involvement in the various elitist fabricated wars in the Middle East. From Iraq, to Afghanistan, to Syria and Yemen and beyond, the Neo-Cons and Neo-Libs at the behest of their globalist masters had been waging war oversees unabated for over 15 years. The time was ripe for a change and people felt certain that if Hillary Clinton entered the White House, another 4-8 years of war were guaranteed.
There was nothing to be gained from these wars. They were only dragging the US down socially and economically, and even the idea of “getting the oil” had turned into a farce as the majority of Iraqi oil has been going to China, not the US. General estimates on the costs of the wars stand at $5 trillion US tax dollars and over 4500 American dead along with around 40,000 wounded. The only people that were benefiting from the situation were globalists and banking elites, who had been clamoring to destabilize the Middle East since the day they launched their “Project For A New American Century” (PNAC). Truly, all wars are banker wars.
The Obama Administration’s attempts to lure Americans into supporting open war with the Assad regime in Syria had failed. Consistent attempts by George W. Bush and Obama to increase tensions with Iran had fizzled. Americans were showing signs of fatigue, FINALLY fed up with the lies being constructed to trick them into being complicit in the banker wars. Trump was a breath of fresh air…but of course, like all other puppets of the globalists, his promises were empty.
In my article ‘Clinton vs. Trump And The Co-Option Of The Liberty Movement’, published before the 2016 election, I warned that Trump’s rhetoric might be a grand show, and that it could be scripted by the establishment to bring conservatives back into the Republican/Neo-Con fold. At the time, leftist media outlet Bloomberg openly reveled in the idea that Trump might absorb and destroy the “Tea Party” and liberty movement and turn them into something far more manageable. The question was whether or not the liberty movement would buy into Trump completely, or remain skeptical.
Initially, I do not think the movement held onto its objectivity at all. Far too many people bought into Trump blindly and immediately based on misguided hopes and a desire to “win” against the leftists. The insane cultism of the political left didn’t help matters much, either.
When Trump started saturating his cabinet with banking elites and globalists from the CFR the moment he entered office, I knew without any doubt that he was a fraud. Close associations with establishment swamp creatures was something he had consistently criticized Clinton and other politicians for during the campaign, but Trump was no better or different than Clinton; he was just an errand boy for the elites. The singular difference was that his rhetoric was designed to appeal directly to liberty minded conservatives.
This meant that it was only a matter of time before Trump broke most of his campaign promises, including his assertions that he would bring US troops home. Eventually, the mask had to come off if Trump was going to continue carrying out the agenda of his masters.
Today, the mask has indeed come off. For the past three years Trump has made announcements of an imminent pull back of troops in the Middle East, including the recent claim that troops would be leaving Syria. All of the announcements were followed by an INCREASE in US troop presence in the region. Consistent attempts have been made to foment renewed strife with Iran. The build-up to war has been obvious, but some people on the Trump train still didn’t get it.
The most common argument I heard when pointing out all the inconsistencies in Trump’s claims as well as his direct links to globalists was that “He hadn’t started any wars, so how could he be a globalist puppet…?” My response has always been “Give it a little time, and he will.”
One of my readers noted recently that “Trump Derangement Syndrome” (TDS) actually goes both ways. Leftists double down on their hatred of Trump at every opportunity, but Trump cultists double down on their support for Trump regardless of how many promises he breaks. This has always been my biggest concern – That conservatives in the liberty movement would ultimately abandon their principles of limited government, the end to banking elites in the White House and ending illegal wars because they had invested themselves so completely in the Trump farce that they would be too embarrassed to admit they had been conned.
Another concern is that the liberty movement would be infected by an influx of people who are neo-conservative statists at their core. These people pretend to be liberty minded conservatives, but when the veil is lifted they show their true colors as the War Pigs they really are. A distinction has to be made between Bush era Neo-Con control freaks and constitutional conservatives; there are few if any similarities between the two groups, but the establishment hopes that the former will devour the latter.
I’ve noticed that the War Pigs are out in force this past week, beating their chests a calling for more blood. The US government has assassinated Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani, retaliations against US targets have begun, and now the Iraqi government has demanded that US troops be removed from the region, to which Trump has said “no” and demanded payment instead. A new troop surge has been initiated and this WILL end in all out war. The tit-for-tat has just begun.
How do Trump cultists respond? “Kill those terrorists!”
Yes, many of the same people that applauded Trump’s supposed opposition to the wars three years ago are now fanatically cheering for the beginning of perhaps the most destructive war of all. The rationalizations for this abound. Soleimani was planning attacks on US targets in Iraq, they say. And, this might be true, though no hard proof has yet been presented.
I’m reminded of the Bush era claims of Iraqi “Weapons of Mass Destruction”, the weapons that were never found and no proof was found that they ever existed. The only weapons Iraq had were the weapons the US sold to them decades ago. Any government can fabricate an excuse for assassination or war for public consumption; the Trump Administration is no different.
That said, I think the most important factor in this debate has fallen by the wayside. The bottom line is, US troops and US bases should NOT be in Iraq in the first place. Trump himself stated this time and time again. Even if Soleimani was behind the attacks and riots in Iraq, US assets cannot be attacked in the region if they are REMOVED from the region as Trump said he would do.
There is only one reason to keep US assets in Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria at this time, and that is to create ongoing tensions in the area which can be used by the establishment to trigger a new war, specifically with Iran.
The War Pigs always have reasons and rationales, though.
They say the Muslim world is a threat to our way of life, and I agree that their ideology is completely incompatible with Western values. That said, the solution is not sending young Americans to die overseas in wars based on lies. Again, these wars only benefit the bankers and globalists; they do not make us safer as a people. The only moral solution is to make sure the fascist elements of Muslim extremism are not imported to our shores.
The War Pigs say that we deserve payment for our “services rendered” in the region before we leave, echoing the sentiments of Donald Trump. I ask, what services? Payment for what? The invasion the Iraqi’s didn’t want, based on fallacies that have been publicly exposed? The US bases that should not be there in the first place? The hundreds of thousands dead from a war that had no purpose except to deliberately destabilize the region?
We will never get “payment” from the Iraqis as compensation for these mad endeavors, and the War Pigs know this. They want war. They want it to go on forever. They want to attach their egos to the event. They want to claim glory for themselves vicariously when we win, and they want to claim victimhood for themselves vicariously when our soldiers or citizens get killed. They are losers that can only be winners through the sacrifices of others.
The War Pigs defend the notion that the president should be allowed to make war unilaterally without support from congress. They say that this type of action is legal, and technically they are right. It is “legal” because the checks and balances of war were removed under the Bush and Obama Administrations. The passage of the AUMF (Authorization For Use Of Military Force) in 2001 gave the Executive Branch dictatorial powers to initiate war on a whim without oversight. Just because it is “legal” does not mean it is constitutional, or right.
In the end, the Trump bandwagon is meant to accomplish many things for the globalists; the main goal though is that it is designed to change liberty conservatives into rabid statists. It is designed to make anti-war pro-constitution activists into war mongers and supporters of big government, as long as it is big government under “our control”. But it’s not under our control. Trump is NOT our guy. He is an agent of the establishment and always has been.
For now, the saber rattling is aggressive but the actions have been limited, but this will not be the case for long. Some may ask why the establishment has not simply launched all out war now? Why start out small? Firstly, they need conservatives psychologically invested in the idea. This may require a false flag event or attack on American civilians. Secondly, they need to execute an extensive troop build-up, which could take a few months. Declarations of a “need for peace” are always used to stall for time while the elites position for war.
War with Iran is pointless, and frankly, unwinnable, and the elites know this. It’s not just a war with Iran, it is a war with Iran, their allies, and every other nation that reacts negatively to our actions. And, these nations do not have to react militarily, they can react economically by dumping US treasuries and the dollar as world reserve.
The establishment wants the US embroiled in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, etc. until we are so hollowed out from conflict that we collapse.
They also need a considerable distraction to hide their responsibility for the implosion of the Everything Bubble and the economic pain that will come with it. The end game for the establishment is for America to self destruct, so that it can be rebuilt into something unrecognizable and eternally monstrous. They want every vestige of our original principles to be erased, and to do that, they need us to be complicit in our own destruction.
They need us to participate. Don’t participate, and refuse to support new banker wars. Don’t be a War Pig.
* * *
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, 01/10/2020 – 23:45 - Segway Creates Self-Balancing Stroller For 'Too-Fat-To-Walk' Americans
Segway Creates Self-Balancing Stroller For ‘Too-Fat-To-Walk’ Americans
Pixar’s animated film Wall-E has sent a profound message to anyone who has watched the flick that if we don’t change our lifestyles, we’re all going to be obese and wheeled around in self-driving chairs.
Segway-Ninebot’s new S-Pod personal transporter is making this a reality, as the company gears up to take advantage of a record number of fat Americans who are currently wheeled around in shitty Rascal scooters.
It appears Segway took the chassis of the I2, which is a two-wheeled, self-balancing personal transporter where the operator stands straight up, and strapped a chair to it. But it seems the company added a third wheel to the S-Pod for more stability.
The S-Pod, unlike the I2, has a navigation panel and a manually operated control knob where one can wheel themselves to the nearest fast-food restaurant.
The rider can sit back while the chair can reach a top speed of 25 mph. The range of the chair is about 44 miles, and this means one can visit multiple restaurants across town.
Segway’s new S-Pod pic.twitter.com/uHVIRuKX2X
— Alternative News (@NewsAlternative) January 4, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The chair will be on display at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week. There’s no word on pricing details at the moment. Segway said the development of the S-Pod will be finished in 3Q20 and has plans for commercial launch sometime in 2021.
With a staggering 75% of Americans overweight or obese – the costs in the form of deteriorating health associated with obesity will become a burden on the economy. The S-Pod could be the perfect transportation solution to wheel fat Americans to and from their homes to restaurants – without relying on others.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/10/2020 – 23:25 - New Earth-Like Planet Found In Habitable Zone Of Nearby Star
New Earth-Like Planet Found In Habitable Zone Of Nearby Star
Authored by Ravi Kumar Kopparapu via TheConversation.com,
A few months ago a group of NASA exoplanet astronomers, who are in the business of discovering planets around other stars, called me into a secret meeting to tell me about a planet that had captured their interest. Because my expertise lies in modeling the climate of exoplanets, they asked me to figure out whether this new planet was habitable – a place where liquid water might exist.
These NASA colleagues, Josh Schlieder and his students Emily Gilbert, Tom Barclay and Elisa Quintana, had been studying data from TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) when they discovered what may be TESS’ first known Earth-sized planet in a zone where liquid water could exist on the surface of a terrestrial planet. This is very exciting news because this new planet is relatively close to Earth, and it may be possible to observe its atmosphere with either the James Webb Space Telescope or ground-based large telescopes.
Habitable zone planets
The host star of the planet that Gilbert’s team discovered is called TESS of Interest number 700, or TOI-700. Compared to the Sun, it is a small, dim star. It is 40% the size, only about 1/50 of the Sun’s brightness and is located about 100 light-years from Earth in the constellation Dorado, which is visible from our Southern Hemisphere. For comparison, the nearest star to us, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light-years away from Earth. To get a sense of these distances, if you were to travel on the fastest spacecraft (Parker Solar Probe) to reach Proxima Centauri, it would take nearly 20,000 years.
There are three planets around TOI-700: b, c and d. Planet d is Earth-size, within the star’s habitable zone and orbits TOI-700 every 37 days. My colleagues wanted me to create a climate model for Planet d using the known properties of the star and planet. Planets b and c are Earth-size and mini-Neptune-size, respectively. However, they orbit much closer to their host star, receiving 5 times and 2.6 times the starlight that our own Earth receives from the Sun. For comparison, Venus, a dry and hellishly hot world with surface temperature of approximately 860 degrees Fahrenheit, receives twice the sunlight of Earth.
Until about a decade ago, only two habitable zone planets of any size were known to astronomers: Earth and Mars. Within the last decade, however, thanks to discoveries made through both ground-based telescopes and the Kepler mission (which also looked for exoplanets from 2009 to 2019, but is now retired), astronomers have discovered about a dozen terrestrial-sized exoplanets. These are between half and two times larger than the Earth within the habitable zones of their host stars.
Despite the relatively large number of small exoplanet discoveries to date, the majority of stars are between 600 to 3,000 light-years away from Earth – too far and dim for detailed follow-up observation.
TESS has discovered its first Earth-size planet in its star’s habitable zone, the range of distances where conditions may be just right to allow the presence of liquid water on the surface.
Why is liquid water important for habitability?
Unlike Kepler, TESS’ mission is to search for planets around the Sun’s nearest neighbors: those bright enough for follow-up observations.
Between April 2018 and now, TESS discovered more than 1,500 planet candidates. Most are more than twice the size of Earth with orbits of less than 10 days. Earth, of course, takes 365 days to orbit around our Sun. As a result, the planets receive significantly more heat than Earth receives from the Sun and are too hot for liquid water to exist on the surface.
Liquid water is essential for habitability. It provides a medium for chemicals to interact with each other. While it is possible for exotic life to exist at higher pressures, or hotter temperatures – like the extremophiles found near hydro-thermal vents or the microbes found half a mile beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet – those discoveries were possible because humans were able to directly probe those extreme environments. They would not have been detectable from space.
When it comes to finding life, or even habitable conditions, beyond our solar system, humans depend entirely upon remote observations. Surface liquid water may create habitable conditions that can potentially promote life. These life forms can then interact with the atmosphere above, creating remotely detectable bio-signatures that Earth-based telescopes can detect. These bio-signatures could be current Earth-like gas compositions (oxygen, ozone, methane, carbon dioxide and water vapor), or the composition of ancient Earth 2.7 billion years ago (mostly methane and carbon dioxide, and no oxygen).
We know one such planet where this has already happened: Earth. Therefore, astronomers’ goal is to find those planets that are about Earth-size, orbiting at those distances from the star where water could exist in liquid form on the surface. These planets will be our primary targets to hunt for habitable worlds and signatures of life outside our solar system.
The three planets of the TOI 700 system orbit a small, cool M dwarf star. TOI 700 d is the first Earth-size habitable-zone world discovered by TESS. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Possible climates for planet TOI-700 d
To prove that TOI-700 d is real, Gilbert’s team needed to confirm using data from a different type of telescope. TESS detects planets when they cross in front of the star, causing a dip in the starlight. However, such dips could also be created by other sources, such as spurious instrumental noise or binary stars in the background eclipsing each other, creating false positive signals. Independent observations came from Joey Rodriguez at Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University. Rodriguez and his team confirmed the TESS detection of TOI-700 d with the Spitzer telescope, and removed any remaining doubt that it is a genuine planet.
My student Gabrielle Engelmann-Suissa and I used our modeling software to figure out what type of climate might exist on planet TOI-700 d. Because we do not yet know what kind of gases this planet may actually have in its atmosphere, we use our climate models to explore possible gas combinations that would support liquid oceans on its surface. Engelmann-Suissa, with the help of my longtime collaborator Eric Wolf, tested various scenarios including the current Earth atmosphere (77% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, remaining methane and carbon dioxide), the composition of Earth’s atmosphere 2.7 billion years ago (mostly methane and carbon dioxide) and even a Martian atmosphere (a lot of carbon dioxide) as it possibly existed 3.5 billion years ago.
Based on our models, we found that if the atmosphere of planet TOI-700 d contains a combination of methane or carbon dioxide or water vapor, the planet could be habitable. Now our team needs to confirm these hypotheses with the James Webb Space Telescope.
Bacteria living in harsh conditions like this geothermal basin in Yellowstone National Park provide clues about habitable zones on other planets. 1tomm/Shutterstock.com
Strange new worlds and their climates
The climate simulations our NASA team has completed suggest that an Earth-like atmosphere and gas pressure isn’t adequate to support liquid water on its surface. If we put the same quantity of greenhouse gases as we have on Earth on TOI-700 d, the surface temperature on this planet would still be below freezing.
Our own atmosphere supports a liquid ocean on Earth now because our star is quite big and brighter than TOI-700. One thing is for sure: All of our teams’ modeling indicates that the climates of planets around small and dim stars like TOI-700 are very unlike what we see on our Earth.
The field of exoplanets is now in a transitional era from discovering them to characterizing their atmospheres. In the history of astronomy, new techniques enable new observations of the universe including surprises like the discovery of hot-Jupiters and mini-Neptunes, which have no equivalent in our solar system. The stage is now set to observe the atmospheres of these planets to see which ones have conditions that support life.
* * *
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/10/2020 – 23:05 - Korean CEOs Have Least Positive Economic Outlook Among Asian Execs
Korean CEOs Have Least Positive Economic Outlook Among Asian Execs
It turns out it’s not just the youth of South Korea that is increasingly disillusioned with the tech-topia. As Statista’s Katherina Buchholz notes, in a survey of 314 CEOs from South Korea, China and Japan, Korean business leaders had the most negative opinion of where the economy was headed – both domestically and globally.
This is according to the cross-border CEO survey by Maeil Business Newspaper, Nikkei Asian Review and the Global Times, which found that 26 percent of Korean CEOs were assuming that their local and the global economy would deteriorate sharply or steadily in the future.
You will find more infographics at Statista
CEOs were most optimistic in China, where only 12 percent thought that the global economy would go downhill and only 7 percent assumed the same about their local economy.
South Korea has been experiencing the current global economic downturn more severely than many other countries. Its exports have been down and GDP growth stayed behind expectations recently. In October, price levels in the country even slipped into deflation territory for the first time.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/10/2020 – 22:45 - Coping With Global (& Local) Chaos: What You Can Control And What You Can't
Coping With Global (& Local) Chaos: What You Can Control And What You Can’t
Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,
Have you been glued to the news lately, nervously watching what’s going on in the Middle East? Are you concerned that World War III is about to kick off at any moment? Is the state of the economy frequently on your mind? Maybe it’s Ebola that keeps you up at night or the risk of a cyberattack or an EMP or that the political party not of your choosing will take over the government.
I’ve seen a lot of people expressing worry and fear. They’re afraid we’re about to get involved in a war. They’re worried about terror attacks and conflicts on American soil. They’re terrified that their sons and daughters will be sent off to risk their lives and limbs in another Afghanistan.
Maybe the media is manipulating you to be in a constant state of fear. When we’re scared, we don’t think clearly or act effectively. I see a lot of fear and I don’t like it. It’s not a useful emotion. It’s not practical. Raging against the machine will not help you to survive anything from a car accident to a mass shooting to a nuclear attack. And I’m all about practicality. So let’s talk this through. You need to shake this off and get control of your thoughts.
Whatever your main concern is, I have bad news and good news.
First, the bad news. There’s not a darn thing you personally can do to prevent the things above from occurring. We are little fish in a big sea full of wealthy predators who are the ones that can actually cause change on those levels.
Now the good news. What we can change are our immediate environments. If you are expending a great deal of energy and emotion, focus it on the things that you can change. These (combined with luck) are the things that will have the biggest effect on whether you live or die.
Selco’s theory of circles
One of the things Selco spoke about last year in the Women’s Urban Survival Course in Croatia was circles. No, it wasn’t a geometry lesson. It was a way of looking at the world that he has learned the hard way.
Imagine different parts of the world as giant circles. You’ve got North America, Europe, the Middle East, etc., etc.
Within those giant circles are smaller circles. To name a few, here in the US, you’ve got different states, you’ve got different movements like pro-gun and anti-gun, you’ve got different political belief systems, you’ve got different religions.
Then you’ve got smaller circles still. You have individual towns, churches, schools, and community organizations.
Then there are the circles that really count the most: your close friends, your family members, your immediate neighborhoods.
The summary of Selco’s lesson was this: When you think about where you personally can make the most changes that will have the greatest effect on your survival, where does your power lie?
That’s right. Within the smallest circles. Those are the things we can actually do something about so completely freaking out over the news is not productive at all.
(By the way, ladies, we still have a couple of spaces open in this year’s Urban Survival Course in Croatia. Go here for more information. I’ll be there and would love to meet you.)
Out of all the lessons we were taught in that week, I think the lesson about focusing our energy on the things we can control just might be the most important one of all.
You should still pay attention to what is going on in the world.
I’m not telling you that you shouldn’t be interested in or follow current events.
On the contrary.
It’s incredibly important to stay informed. But you can’t wallow in it and rail at it to the exclusion of taking common-sense steps.
We need to know what the potential threats are so that we can be prepared for them. We must be aware of what’s going on in the world instead of blithely keeping up with the Kardashians or some other nonsense.
I get my news from a wide variety of websites and generally find the truth lies somewhere in the middle if there’s any truth at all.
So watch the news. Read the articles. But understand two things.
#1) Your power ends at the knowledge of these events.
When the wheels of the government are already in motion, there isn’t a whole lot we as individuals can do to stop them. We are screaming into the void when we rant on social media or website comments sections about being pro-war or anti-war or vent our fury about the mismanagement of the national budget.
Sure, it’s important to be heard and to let the figures pulling the strings know our thoughts about what’s going on.
But if we could really change things, do you think our food supply would be chemically tainted and that our national healthcare would be an unaffordable disgrace to which only the wealthy or the extremely poor have access? Do you think our government would be funding $22,000,000 efforts to bring Serbian cheese up to US standards or spending half a million to study the mating calls of Panamanian frogs?
We can be outraged all we want – and trust me – I am outraged. But I personally only have the power to point out these things. I cannot fix them no matter how much I want to do so. I’m not wealthy. I’m not a powerful politician. My ability to respond is limited to sharing information.
I don’t love it, but that’s reality. And you’ve got to live in reality.
#2) We’re probably being lied to anyway.
Let’s look at a couple of events. The death of Soleimeni and the Las Vegas massacre. Do you really, honestly, deep down in your soul think we got the whole story on either of these events?
Was Soleimeni beloved or hated? It really depends on which news outlet you watch. I saw a lot of people who looked heartbroken when they turned up for his funeral on one news outlet but on others, there were people cheering in the streets. What’s the truth? We’re probably never going to know. The “reality” we’re given depends on the agenda of the news network that shows the footage.
And allegedly, nobody knows what caused Stephen Paddock to open fire on a country music concert in Las Vegas a couple of years back. Heck, many people aren’t even convinced that Paddock was the shooter. I don’t believe for one single second that no motive was ever found for such a horrific crime on such a massive scale, but we won’t get the answers anytime soon, if ever.
We simply cannot rely on the news to accurately inform us. The mainstream media is the modern-day Ministry of Propaganda. You can get a general idea of what’s going on, but don’t expect to learn the true motives behind these events from Fox or CNN or any of the other networks. Everyone’s got a bias. Everyone’s got an agenda.
When Selco talked about the Balkan war, he explained how people were bombarded with propaganda to make them hate and fear their neighbors. Why? Because a war was good for a handful of powerful people. And the little guys lie us got dragged along for a brutal ride on a tidal wave of manufactured rage.
So watch and read, but know that you’re only getting a biased fraction of the real story.
Your power lies in smaller circles.
So far, this article probably seems like a bummer. You are probably wondering why on earth a person who covers current events is writing such an article.
I’m writing it because I see so many people utterly panicking over things beyond their control. We, the ordinary, everyday people, cannot prevent whoever is president, whether it’s Obama or Trump or Bush, from droning the daylights out of a country with nuclear capabilities. We can make our opinions known because sometimes a public outcry works. But we can neither prevent nor insist upon these events.
There’s good news, though.
The thing is, you do have power. You have the power to cause a change in your smaller circles. You can help your community to become better prepared because on smaller levels, in smaller circles, our voices do count for a whole lot more.
And if you aren’t interested in even going that big, you can dial it down to the smallest of circles. Your family, your friends, and your immediate neighbors. People always think that their prepping community has to be a group of self-proclaimed preppers with supplies stacked up to the rooftops.
But that isn’t the case.
There are all sorts of ways to build small circles.
You can build communities in all sorts of ways. From your mail carrier to your neighbor who has laying hens to your other neighbor with the enviable 6-foot tall tomato plants, all of these folks could be valuable friends to have. You can meet with a group of ladies and knit or help a neighbor erect a shed in his backyard with an old-fashioned “barn-raising.”
You build your community by being a decent human being, by helping when you can, and by looking out for one another.
Obviously not all of us have neighbors we’d trust when battening down the hatches and in those situations, we could be better off to be with family members.
But however we do it, by building our inner circles, those small intimate circles, we become stronger. We create communities that will work together to help out another member if he breaks his leg and can’t feed his livestock. Then that member shares the harvest. We build a community that has our backs because they know we will have theirs.
I belonged to the coolest community ever when I lived in California. It was an informal group of homesteaders who got together to teach one another and have potluck dinners and share skills. We became so close-knit that when wildfires drew near, we’d open up pastures for our friends’ livestock if they needed to evacuate and we’d give the humans our spare bedrooms.
Were they all preppers? No, definitely not. Some of them weren’t at all on board with stashing beans and rice and bullets and bandaids. But would I want to hunker down with them if the end of the world was happening? Darned right I would. These were people who gave generously of their time to teach others homesteading skills and answer questions and even pop over to help out at butchering time.
Remember that your small circle doesn’t have to be solely made up of preppers, per se. Sure it would be nice, but in most situations, especially if you’re hunkering down, your community is made up of your closest neighbors. So build relationships with them. You don’t have to tell them you have enough pasta to feed a village in Italy for a year in your basement to build this relationship. But never underestimate the power of a neighbor who has your back.
Be nice to people. Help when you can. Tip decently at your local cafe. Treat others with respect. Seek out those with the same values who are also helpful and respectful. Those are the folks you want around you.
Is this foolproof? Or course not. There are selfish people in the world. There are cowardly people in the world. There are the folks who talk a good talk and are totally on board…until they’re not because a better opportunity came along.
As many of you know, I am traveling full-time right now but I still build some community everywhere I go. I hit up the same bakery or juice bar for breakfast every day and strike up a conversation. I speak to the neighbors. I smile and I make friends. I socialize. I pick up things if someone drops them. I smile and make an effort to communicate even when my grasp of the local language is poor. Basically, I am a decent person and I make real human connections. Because of this, I’ve found that locals give me all kinds of tips, from where to buy the best produce to who produces the best rakija or which doctor I might want to visit for a medical issue.
If I can do that in countries where I don’t even speak the language, you can do this in the town where you live.
Try to focus on what you can control, not on what you can’t control.
In these days when it seems like war is only a heartbeat away, or an EMP could strike at any moment, or a cyber attack could change the world as we know it, or any other epic disaster could occur, sometimes you have to take a step back.
Sometimes, current events are incredibly overwhelming.
When you find yourself getting overwhelmed, take a look at your circles. Are you getting overwhelmed by the big circles you can do nothing about?
If so then it’s time to focus on the small circles. The things you can do are:
-
Become more physically fit.
-
Put back some additional fuel.
-
Buy that Big Berkey you’ve had your eye on.
-
Improve your medical kit.
-
Enhance your skills. Go shooting, learn to can, learn about hunting and foraging. There are many skills that would be useful in a bad situation that you can learn and practice right now.
-
Seek practical information about dealing with a wide variety of potential disasters.
-
Work on your relationships with those around you.
-
Be aware – your situational awareness is your early warning system. Get your face out of your phone and pay attention to what’s happening around you. Here’s a great cautionary tale on situational awareness.
If you’re letting the news cycles drive you into a panic, then it’s time to take a step back. Turn off the television or computer or wherever you get your news. Focus on what you can do – and there’s a lot you can do.
Is World War III about to happen?
We’ve been on this cusp multiple times over the past ten or twenty years. At some point, we’ll probably go over the edge. Will it be this time? I’ve written about the possibility of world war at least a dozen times over the past 7 years because tensions were incredibly high each time.
So far, we’ve been fortunate and all-out world war has not erupted. But for how long will our luck hold out? There’s absolutely no way to know.
All we can know for sure is that we can build strong communities. Perhaps we’re creating local civil defense teams. Maybe we’re getting ready to hunker down with our families. We can network and make friends where we are right now.
For your own sanity and peace of mind, focus on controlling your small circles. Stop expending so much energy and emotion on the things you cannot control. Prepping should give you peace of mind, not a constant anxiety attack. Don’t let the barrage of terrifying headlines send you spiraling into fear. We don’t make good decisions when we’re fearful. Awareness and fear are two entirely different things.
Workable survival plans aren’t big. They aren’t grandiose, national-level movements
They’re small. They are community-oriented at the largest and family-oriented at the smallest. Definitely pay attention to the world around you because you need to be aware of important signs and signals.
But focus your energy on your small circles. Change and enhance the things that are within your power.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/10/2020 – 22:25 - Toyota To Develop 175-Acre A.I. "City Of The Future'"
Toyota To Develop 175-Acre A.I. “City Of The Future'”
Toyota announced that it will break ground next year on a 175-acre, hydrogen powered “prototype city of the future” at the base of Mt. Fuji, where 2,000 employees, retirees and others will live alongside the latest in smart home technology, hyper-efficient street design, AI-guided robotics, and new mobility products.
Announced by CEO Akio Toyoda during a Monday presentation at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the ambitious project built on the site of a former car factory has been referred to by Toyota as the “Woven City,” due to its integration of three types of transportation.
The community was designed by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, whose firm designed the 2 World Trade Center building in New York, as well as Google’s Silicon Valley and London offices, according to Reuters.
Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda shakes hands with Danish architect Bjarke Ingels One street would be for faster vehicles, while a second street will be for lower-speed personal mobility vehicles such as scooters and bikes, along with pedestrians. A third would be a “park-like promenade for pedestrians only,” according to The Verge.
“These three street types weave together to form an organic grid pattern to help accelerate the testing of autonomy,” says Toyota.
Employee residences would be equipped with AI-guided smart home technology and robotics.
The residencies would be equipped with smart home technology, such as in-home robotics to assist with daily living. “The homes will use sensor-based AI to check occupants’ health, take care of basic needs and enhance daily life, creating an opportunity to deploy connected technology with integrity and trust, securely and positively,” the company said. –The Verge
“This is my personal ‘Field of Dream’,” said Toyoda, adding “If you build it, they will come.”
There’s nothing new about automakers using big plots of land to build proving grounds with fake city backdrops to test out new vehicles. But what Toyota is proposing is a dramatic escalation of that concept: a real city with real people who would live within the automaker’s amped-up vision of the future.
That vision includes a lot of autonomous vehicles. Last year, Toyota first introduced its “e-Palette” concept, which was described as a “fully-automated, next generation battery electric vehicle designed to be scalable and customizable for a range of Mobility as a Service businesses.” They looked similar to transparent cargo or shipping containers on wheels that grow and shrink in size depending on their specific task. –The Verge
According to Toyota, their automated mobility vehicles will allow for ride-sharing and carpooling, and will serve as ‘roach coaches’ for hungry employees.
“You may be thinking, ‘Has this guy lost his mind?’,” asked Toyoda. “‘Is he like a Japanese version of Willy Wonka?’ Perhaps.“
Privacy concerns
As The Verge rightly notes, “Left unsaid, of course, was anything related to access to data, privacy, or nondisclosure agreements that residents would presumably need to sign before agreeing to live in Toyota’s up-jumped company town. Toyota already owns the land where it’s proposing to build, but selecting a population while complying with local residential rules will undoubtedly be complicated and not necessarily something the company would be well-suited to do.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/10/2020 – 22:05 - US Destroyer Issues 'Warning Blasts' After Russian Warship's "Aggressive Approach" In Arabian Sea
US Destroyer Issues ‘Warning Blasts’ After Russian Warship’s “Aggressive Approach” In Arabian Sea
A major and dangerous close call between US and Russia has unfolded in the north Arabian sea near the Persian Gulf. A Russian warship “aggressively approached” a US Navy destroyer, nearly hitting it, a US Navy statement said Friday.
The US Navy further released video of the incident, which reportedly involved repeat warnings issued from the US vessel over a risk of collision. This included five warning blast signals issued from the deck of the US destroyer, the USS Farragut.
CLOSE CALL: Navy releases video of a Russian ship approaching the USS Farragut in the North Arabian Sea yesterday. pic.twitter.com/jRxu2p0LjV
— Dave Brown (@dave_brown24) January 10, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
“On Thursday, Jan. 9, while conducting routine operations in the North Arabian Sea, USS Farragut was aggressively approached by a Russian Navy ship,” the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which operates in the Persian Gulf and Middle East said in a statement.
“Farragut sounded five short blasts, the international maritime signal for danger of a collision, and requested the Russian ship alter course in accordance with international rules of the road.”
The US Navy underscored that the Russian vessel made an “aggressive approach” which very nearly resulted in collision in the open seas. Indeed video confirms the two ships came very close to one another.
On Thursday, Jan. 9, while conducting routine operations in the North Arabian Sea, USS Farragut (DDG 99) was aggressively approached by a Russian Navy ship. pic.twitter.com/SCVyTINNqe
— U.S. 5th Fleet (@US5thFleet) January 10, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
“The Russian ship initially refused but ultimately altered course,” the statement added, and noted further: “While the Russian ship took action, the initial delay in complying with international rules while it was making an aggressive approach increased the risk of collision.”
According to a CNN report of the incident, the Russian vessel came as close as 180 feet from the US ship, close enough for each side to directly and physically communicate from the decks.
The Russian destroyer nearly struck the US ship, video released by the US 5th Fleet shows (screengrab). In one video a US Navy crew member can be seen running in the direction of the Russian destroyer in order to establish voice contact and wave the vessel off.
Importanly, the USS Farragut is part of the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier group deployed to the region last year to ensure open and safe passageway for vessels traversing the vital Strait of Hormuz amid soaring tensions with Iran.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/10/2020 – 21:50 - Corporate Media Welcome Back Iraq War Hawks To Make Case for Iran
Corporate Media Welcome Back Iraq War Hawks To Make Case for Iran
Authored by Eion Higgins via CommonDreams.org,
As President Donald Trump spent the early days of 2020 instigating and then backing down from a potentially catastrophic confrontation with Iran, corporate media in the U.S. turned to the very same people who promoted the country’s worst foreign policy disaster in a generation to advocate for repeating the mistakes of two decades ago.
The decision of networks and cable news outlets like CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News to bring on a stream of past advocates for and architects of the 2003 invasion of Iraq was panned by progressives who watched in horror and frustration as the same arguments were deployed in service of all-out war with Iran. “It’s War Inc. all over again,” tweeted The Nation‘s Dave Zirin.
Former President George W. Bush’s former press secretary Ari Fleischer appeared on Fox News January 2 to claim the assassination of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani would be welcomed by Iranians. It was not. (Image: Fox News/screenshot) Trump’s ordered assassination of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani on January 3 proved the catalyst for escalated tensions between the U.S. and Iran. It also opened the door for news outlets to welcome back some of the key Bush-era war cheerleaders.
The more things change, the more they stay the same, wrote Rolling Stone‘s Tim Dickinson.
“The Trump administration’s sudden, violent confrontation with Iran stands in contrast to the methodical march to war with Iraq under George W. Bush and his neoconservative cabinet in 2003,” Dickinson wrote. “But the rhetoric around the two conflicts has been strikingly similar — as has the reliance on ‘razor thin’ evidence of an imminent threat to establish a cause for war.”
Soleimani’s death by drone strike was celebrated in real time by former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer, who spent the run-up to the Iraq War selling the public on the necessity of the conflict.
Ari Fleischer: “I think it is entirely possible that this is going to be a catalyst inside Iran where the people celebrate this killing of Soleimani” pic.twitter.com/UfcTOkvqAw
— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) January 3, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
“I think it is entirely possible that this is going to be a catalyst inside Iran where the people celebrate this killing of Soleimani,” Fleischer told Fox in the hours after Soleimani’s killing, flanked by Bush administration advisor Karl Rove.
In contrast to Fleischer’s prediction, Soleimani’s funeral and remembrance ceremonies over the weekend turned out mourners enraged at the assassination across Iran in the millions. Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s similar claim in 2002 that U.S. troops in Iraq would be “welcomed as liberators” was equally true.
Fleischer was nonetheless welcomed back to Fox on Tuesday and Wednesday to give his thoughts on the conflict and attack Democrats for questioning the rush to war.
“It’s concerning, to say the least, to see some of the biggest backers of the Iraq War—an abject failure that, coupled with the ongoing war in Afghanistan, has cost the United States trillions of dollars and thousands of lives—are publicly (and in some instances, gleefully) opining about the potential impact of war with Iran, in some cases even using the same rhetorical stylings to do so,” said Vox‘s Jane Coaston of the similarity in rhetoric.
On MSNBC, which bills itself as a liberal alternative to right-wing behemoth Fox, host Ari Melber on January 7 in the wake of Iranian retaliation for the assassination spoke to former General Barry McCaffrey, who called for a devastating response against Iran.
“Our only good response at this point is an overwhelming dominance of air and naval power that can be employed against the Iranian homeland,” said McCaffrey.
Unmentioned in the segment was McCaffrey’s position on the board of Raytheon, a major U.S. weapons supplier.
“Liberal” MSNBC guest Gen. McCaffery: “Our only good response at this point is an overwhelming dominance of air and naval power that can be employed against the Iranian homeland” pic.twitter.com/SMDZ9SRm2n
— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) January 8, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The next day, Melber hosted former Sen. Joe Lieberman, a one-time Democrat whose embrace of the Bush administration’s push for war across the Middle East led to an unofficial expulsion from the Democratic Party in 2006, though Lieberman was re-elected as an independent.
Not disclosed by Melber to his audience? The fact that Lieberman works for Israel Aerospace Industries, a defense company with $1 billion in sales in the U.S.
Melber did not respond to a request for comment at press time.
As Popular Information‘s Judd Legum reported Thursday morning, Lieberman and McCaffrey are hardly alone in advocating for war in the media without revealing their financial interests in the conflict. Legum lists nine former government officials with ties to the defense industry who are being presented to the American people as experts without noting their connections to the military industrial complex.
One of the people profiled by Legum is Michael Chertoff, the former Bush-era secretary of Homeland Security. On CNN, Chertoff claimed Trump has unilateral power to attack Iran and start a war.
But, Legum pointed out, there was some context for those remarks conveniently left out of the coverage:
Neither Chertoff nor CNN disclosed that Chertoff is chairman of the board of the American subsidiary of BAE Systems, the fourth largest weapons manufacturer in the world.
Print media was not immune to the lack of accountability shown by tv. On January 5, the Washington Post ran a piece by former Bush administration national security advisor Stephen Hadley saluting the assassination of Soleimani and calling for war if necessary.
That Hadley is on the board of Raytheon alongside MSNBC‘s McCaffrey did not receive a mention.
The onus for disclosure, wrote Eyes on the Ties reporter Rob Galbraith, is on the Post‘s editor Fred Hiatt:
Running another hawkish column by Hadley without noting his enormous financial incentive to stoke the engines of war shows that the Post in general, and Hiatt in particular, has failed to learn anything from Syria, Iraq, or any of the other times that war profiteers have used their pages to clamor for missile strikes and invasions. This is made all the more egregious since, however dismissively, Hiatt acknowledged Hadley’s conflict of interest in 2013, and yet still went ahead and printed his op-ed today without disclosing this conflict—again.
“It’s not 2003, but it sure feels like it,” wrote HuffPost‘s Jessica Schulberg in a piece detailing a number of the Bush administration officials and varied Iraq War boosters brought on by the corporate media to discuss the push for war.
“In a sane and just society, the architects of the nearly 17-year-old war in Iraq—which is still ongoing and has left an estimated half-million people dead—would face war crimes charges and those who cheered them on would be thoroughly discredited,” Schulberg continued. “Instead, they are the ‘experts’ praising President Donald Trump’s decision to assassinate top Iranian military commander Gen. Qasem Soleimani and offering the public insight on the way forward with Iran.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/10/2020 – 21:45 - How's This Impeachment Farce Working For You, Nancy?
How’s This Impeachment Farce Working For You, Nancy?
Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been clinging to her bill of impeachment for one reason: hoping that a judge will rule to release all the evidence and depositions collected by Robert Mueller’s investigation. What’s wrong with that? Mr. Mueller failed to find any prosecutable crimes. That was the sum and substance of his two-year-long exercise in bad faith. In which case, all that material is officially and legally evidence of nothing. Impeachment is a political act and sealed evidence of nothing can’t be released to one set of political actors in a political quarrel for use as a political weapon. More to the point – and to Mrs. Pelosi’s real motive here – the material is not for impeachment but rather to use the Mueller dossier as political opposition “research” for the coming election.
There is no question that from the start of his investigation, Special Counsel Robert Mueller knew that the case was opened under false pretenses, since his very close friend, the erstwhile FBI director James Comey, also knew by early 2017 that all the predicating material was substantially false, and that it was procured by Mrs. Clinton. To carry it beyond that was a scheme by acting FBI director Rod Rosenstein to issue a series of “scoping” letters that increasingly widened Mr. Mueller’s purview to go fishing for crimes in every area and every chronological phase of the president’s life. That smacks of what’s known in Anglo-American law as attainder by process: first declaring someone an outlaw, and only afterward seeking a crime to justify it. Under our system, first crimes are established, then persons liable for them are brought to court to answer charges.
Of course, there’s good reason to suspect that Mr. Mueller himself was a false front for the operation conducted in his name, which was really an intrigue carried out by a claque of Democratic Party Lawfare attorneys led by Andrew Weissmann, Mr. Mueller’s chief deputy. Mr. Mueller’s testimony before two House committees last July revealed a pathetic figure who was unacquainted with the most basic pieces of his own inquiry.
The case for House members to get access to all that backstage Mueller material could go up to the Supreme Court. In the meantime, Impeachment’s second act is about to get underway whether Mrs. Pelosi likes the terms or not. It’s the Senate’s prerogative to decide. These terms appear to be exactly the same as the ones used by the Senate for Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial — which means that each side chooses a team of “managers” to present its case, and then the managers are subject to grilling by senators. The House Democrats are insisting on calling witnesses solely to maintain their court claim for testimony from the White House counsel, with which the aforesaid Mueller material is associated in the case. If the rules eschew witnesses, that case is moot, and the Democrats lose access to a trove of political oppo research obtained for them under false pretenses by their own operatives in the Department of Justice.
Secondarily, the impeachment was designed to get senators in swing states on the record voting to acquit the president in the hopes that it will somehow taint their re-election prospects and possibly flip control of the Senate to the Democrats. That outcome would above all insure that Mr. Trump could not get another Supreme Court nominee confirmed in his second term, nor continue the wholesale appointment of lesser federal district judges. Plus, of course, it would obstruct any other legislative initiative his party brought for four years.
Personally, I would miss the chance to hear from the so-called “whistleblower” who instigated the impeachment phase of the long-running coup against Mr. Trump. Contrary to the disinformation put out by The New York Times and other coup co-conspirators, the “whistleblower” enjoys no right to anonymity. It would also be satisfying to hear how his enabler, Intel Community IG Michael Atkinson, might account for the process that steered the “whistleblower” to Rep. Adam Schiff and his staff — for instance, back-dating the official documents that green-lighted the “whistleblower’s” case. Mr. Atkinson is deeply implicated himself as a player in the earlier 2017 RussiaGate FISA court mischief, since his previous job was agency counsel to DOJ National Security chief John Carlin, who signed off on fraudulent FISA warrants. Mr. Atkinson must have counseled Mr. Carlin to do that. Testimony from Mr. Schiff about the “whistleblower” process would also be edifying. Senators would surely get to see Mr. Atkinson’s so-far-withheld deposition transcript from the House Intel Committee hearings of November. It might establish grounds for Mr. Schiff’s expulsion from the House of Representatives as a serial liar, a salutary measure to restore a sense of legitimacy in American affairs.
If witnesses were allowed in the Senate trial phase of impeachment, the president’s team could haul in scores of former and current government officials implicated in the seditious activities against him to testify. The nation would be well-served and enlightened. The only question is whether their testimony might queer the actual criminal cases pending against them outside the impeachment circus.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/10/2020 – 21:35 - Insurance For Oil Tankers Jumps Amid War Threat In Middle East
Insurance For Oil Tankers Jumps Amid War Threat In Middle East
Escalating tensions in the Middle East and threats of war between the US and Iran have sent insurance rates for petroleum tankers higher, especially for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, reported Reuters, citing industry insiders.
War risk premiums that oil tanker owners pay each time as they transit the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, and the Gulf of Oman are surging in the last ten days following Iran militia attacking the US embassy in Baghdad and Iran launching missiles at US military bases.
One Singapore-based LNG shipbroker told Reuters that war premiums are “adding about $150,000 to $200,000 (to overall costs) per trip.”
About a quarter of all the world’s crude and LNG transits on chemical tankers through the Strait of Hormuz and could be susceptible to attack as Iran has vowed to retaliate against the US for the airstrike that killed top Iranian Commander Qasem Soleimani last Friday. So far, the Iranians have launched more than a dozen missiles at two military bases in Iraq.
The latest indications from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force Commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh on Thursday said that more missile attacks on US bases could continue across the region.
This was the case on Wednesday when Iran-backed militia fired three rockets at the US embassy in Baghdad.
Increasing tension between Iran and the US and the threats of war across the region have led to the rise in war-risk insurance for oil tankers.
“We are obviously concerned with regard to the tension around the wider (Gulf) area,” said Svein A Ringbakken, managing director of Norwegian ship insurer Den Norske Krigsforsikring for Skib (DNK) told Reuters. “Ships’ transits in these areas have already for some time been subject to additional war risks insurance premiums, which may increase in light of the recent developments.”
A London-based shipbroker told Reuters that ship insurers had quoted the breach rate for seven days at around 0.35% of insurance costs, up from about 0.15% in December.
Saul Kavonic, an analyst with Credit Suisse, said escalating tensions in the Middle East could lead to a closure of the Strait of Hormuz: “A prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz could see LNG spot prices skyrocket, and see a demand destruction scenario emerge turning the current soft LNG market on its head,” he warned.
We reported on Wednesday that Petrobras, Bahri – Saudi Arabia’s state-run tanker operator – and other tanker companies had suspended sailing through the Straits of Hormuz.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/10/2020 – 21:25 - "I'd Like To See Them Call Me": How Trump Used An Encrypted Swiss Fax Machine To Defuse The Iran Crisis
“I’d Like To See Them Call Me”: How Trump Used An Encrypted Swiss Fax Machine To Defuse The Iran Crisis
Even as Trump was rage-tweeting on Jan 4, two days after the killing of Iran’s top military leader Qassem Soleimani, that he would hit 52 targets including Iranian heritage sites for potential retaliation if America suffered losses following an Iranian attack, warning that “those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD”, the US president was busy, secretly using an encrypted back-channel to bring the world back from the brink of war.
As the WSJ reports, just hours after the U.S. strike which killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the Trump administration sent an urgent back channel message to Tehran: “Don’t escalate.” The encrypted fax message was sent via the Swiss Embassy in Iran, one of the few means of direct, confidential communication between the two sides, U.S. officials told the WSJ. Then, in frantic attempts to de-escalate even as top US and Iranian leaders were stirring patriotic sentiment and nationalistic fervor, the White House and Iranian leaders exchanged further messages in the days that followed, which officials in both countries described as far more measured than the fiery rhetoric traded publicly by politicians.
The Swiss ambassador to Iran, Markus Leitner, here with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in 2017, helped shuttle messages between the U.S. and Iran. Photo: Swiss embassy. It worked: a week later, and after a retaliatory, if highly theatrical, Iranian missile attack on two military bases hosting American troops that purposefully inflicted no casualties, Washington and Tehran have stepped back from the brink of open hostilities (for now).
“We don’t communicate with the Iranians that much, but when we do the Swiss have played a critical role to convey messages and avoid miscalculation,” a senior U.S. official said.
While a spokesman at Iran’s mission to the United Nations declined to comment on the exchanges, he said “we appreciate [the Swiss] for any efforts they make to provide an efficient channel to exchange letters when and if necessary.” Another Iranian official said the back channel provided a welcome bridge, when all others had been burned: “In the desert, even a drop of water matters.”
In retrospect, it should hardly be a surprise that the perpetually neutral Swiss were the last recourse to prevent potential war.
As the WSJ notes, from the Swiss Embassy, a Shah-era mansion overlooking Tehran, the country’s role as a diplomatic intermediary has stretched through four turbulent decades and seven presidencies, from the hostage crisis under Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama’s nuclear deal. But it was seldom tested like this.
Here’s how it happened.
The first American fax was sent immediately after Washington confirmed the death of Soleimani, the most important figure in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the U.S. officials said. It arrived on a special encrypted fax machine in a sealed room of the Swiss mission – the most enduring, and secret, method since the 1979 Islamic Revolution – for the White House to exchange messages with Iran’s top leadership, especially when the two nations are concurrently parading in public media in their bellicose propaganda to earn political brownie points.
The equipment operates on a secure Swiss government network linking its Tehran embassy to the Foreign Ministry in Bern and its embassy in Washington, say Swiss diplomats. Only the most senior officials have the key cards needed to use the equipment.
Early on Friday morning, just hours after Soleimani’s death, Swiss Ambassador Markus Leitner, a 53-year-old career diplomat, delivered the American message by hand to Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. Predictably, Zarif responded to the U.S. missive with anger, according to a WSJ source: “[U.S. Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo is a bully,” he said, according to one U.S. official briefed on Zarif’s response. “The U.S. is the cause of all the problems.”
The US may indeed be the cause of all the problems, but it also has all the weapons, and despite the pompous rhetoric, Iran knew full well it could not hope to escalte in tit-for-tat fashion without risking virtually everything. Which is why, Iran was quick to take advantage of Leitner’s mediation.
The Swiss ambassador – who regularly visits Washington for closed-door sessions with Pentagon, State Department and intelligence officials eager to tap his knowledge about Iran’s opaque and fluid politics – spent the next several days after Soleimani’s killing shuttling back and forth in a low-key but high-wire diplomatic mission designed to let each side speak candidly. It was a vivid contrast to the jabs of President Trump and Mr. Zarif on Twitter.
Shortly after Trump tweeted on Jan 4 that the US had picked 52 Iranian targets for eventual escalation, Zarif responded just as belligerently on the next day: “A reminder to those hallucinating about emulating ISIS war crimes by targeting our cultural heritage,” he wrote. “Through MILLENNIA of history, barbarians have come and ravaged our cities, razed our monuments and burnt our libraries. Where are they now? We’re still here, & standing tall.”
However, at the same time as Zarif was seeking to emulate Trump’s twitter bluster, the Iranian foreign minister called the Swiss ambassador to take a message to the U.S. It was more restrained, and subsequent statements from both sides helped prevent miscalculations, the officials said.
“When tensions with Iran were high, the Swiss played a useful and reliable role that both sides appreciated,” said a senior Trump administration official. “Their system is like a light that never turns off.” Unlike Twitter, that is, which has emerged a medium for spreading premeditated, fake, outrage to mass consumption and whose sole purpose is to distract from what is truly happening behind the scenes.
It’s not the first time the Swiss have helped pull back the middle east from the brink of mushroom clouds: they have served as messengers between Washington and Tehran since 1980, in the wake of the seizure of the American Embassy—and 52 hostages —in Tehran by Iranian revolutionaries. Swiss diplomats call the role the “brieftrager” or “the postman.”
In the years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Swiss shepherded messages to help avoid direct clashes. When President Obama assumed office, Switzerland hosted the talks that led to a nuclear deal. When Washington lifted sanctions, Swiss businesses had an early jump on rivals. When Trump reimposed sanctions, he gave the Swiss a phone number to pass the Iranians, saying: “I’d like to see them call me.”
So far, Tehran has continued to speak through the Swiss.
* * *
Why has this archaic method of communication proven so effective at pulling the world back from the edge of crisis?
Former Swiss ambassadors say the diplomatic channel is effective because the U.S. and Iran can trust a message will remain confidential, be delivered quickly, and will reach only its intended recipients. Statements passed on the back channel are always precisely phrased, diplomatic, and free of emotion, something which is clearly impossible on Trump’s favorite social media platform, twitter, which he uses for precisely the opposite purpose: to spark outrage and to appeal to base emotions of his core supporter group.
Switzerland, a landlocked country of nine million with no standing army where everyone owns a gun, parlays its role as the world’s neutral “postman” (and until recently, secret banker) to lever access to the great powers.
And speaking of Swiss bank, the WSJ notes that currently Swiss diplomats are working to get Washington’s green light for Swiss banks to finance exports to Iran that aren’t subject to sanctions—like food and medicine. “We do things for the world community, and it’s good,” said a former ambassador. “But it is also good for our interests.” Of course it is: for the privilege of funding the most basic human needs, those same Swiss banks can charge exorbitant rates of interest in a country that for years has had a negative official interest rate.
Iran isn’t the only geopolitical hot spot where the Swiss Embassy represents U.S. or other countries’ interests after the breakdown of diplomatic relations: the Swiss now holds six mandates including representing Iran in Saudi Arabia, Georgia in Russia and Turkey in Libya and the U.S. in Cuba according to the WSJ. In April 2019, the Trump administration asked Bern to represent it in Venezuela but President Nicolás Maduro’s government has yet to approve.
And so, if the world has any hope of avoiding an all out war between US and Iran, it will have to go through Bern, at least figuratively. As tensions between Washington and Tehran have escalated, the Swiss backchannel has remained active. In December the two countries released prisoners at the same time at a special hangar in the Zurich airport – U.S. special envoy on Iran Brian Hook and Iran’s Zarif sat in separate rooms as the Swiss directed the carefully choreographed exchange.
“The Swiss channel has become enormously important because of what they can do in the short term to lessen tensions,” said former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who worked with the Swiss on the prisoner exchange. “It’s the only viable channel right now.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/10/2020 – 21:11 - Sanctuary Cities: A Battle Over The Second Amendment Is Unfolding Across America
Sanctuary Cities: A Battle Over The Second Amendment Is Unfolding Across America
Authored by Derrick Broze via TheMindUnleashed.com,
As Virginia’s new Democratic legislature promises gun control measures, the wives of National Guardsman are warning that impending gun legislation threatens to turn neighbor against neighbor.
As the 2020 Virginia legislative session began, Democratic Governor Ralph Northam and fellow Democrats continued their push for new gun control bills. In the months since a May 2019 shooting left 12 people dead and four others injured at a Virginia Beach municipal building, Democratic politicians have repeatedly expressed their desire to implement new restrictions such as universal background checks, a ban on certain weapons, and controversial red flag laws.
However, the calls for gun restrictions have not been welcomed by all Virginians. Instead, the push for more gun control has sparked a movement that has expanded across Virginia and continues to grow in other states including California, Illinois, Colorado, New Mexico, and Florida.
The so-called Second Amendment “sanctuary city” movement takes it’s name from previous resolutions introduced by opponents of hard line immigration policies. These sanctuary cities are defined as a city (or a county, or a state) that limits its cooperation with federal immigration enforcement agents in order to protect low-priority immigrants from deportation, while still turning over those who have committed serious crimes.
In a similar fashion, supporters of Second Amendment sanctuary cities are now asking local law enforcement to refuse to comply with orders from the state regarding gun control.
In Virginia, home to the National Rifle Association headquarters, the sanctuary city movement came as a response to Democrats promising new gun laws after they took control of both chambers of the Virginia Legislature in the 2019 election. For example, Delegate Dan Helmer recently introduced House Bill 567, which would prohibit indoor shooting ranges in any building not owned or leased by the Commonwealth of Virginia or the federal government. To be exempt from the bill a range would need to have fewer than 50 employees working in the building or 90% of users must be law enforcement employees. The bill would also require users to present a government photo identification card, and ranges must maintain a log of each user’s name, phone number, address, and the law-enforcement agency where users are employed.
If passed, the bill could lead to the closing of a number of indoor shooting ranges across the state, with government and law enforcement employees being the only legal users of indoor ranges.
The Virginia Citizens Defense League has been leading the fight to introduce resolutions that declare local officials will oppose any “unconstitutional restrictions” on the Second Amendment right to bear arms. So far 86 of Virginia’s 95 counties have passed sanctuary city measures. In late December, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring issued an opinion statement, alleging that the resolutions are “part of an effort by the gun lobby to stoke fear” and will “have no legal effect.”
Democratic Virginia Rep. Donald McEachin told the Washington Examiner that Governor Northam could cut off state funds to local bodies that refuse to comply to new gun control laws and could call in the National Guard to enforce the laws, if necessary. Although Northam has said he has no plans to call in the National Guard, the statement by McEachin has already caused backlash.
On December 30, Virginia Delegate Dave LaRock sent a letter to Governor Northam asking him to deescalate the situation after LaRock received a letter from Michaela Claywell, a Virginian and wife of an active-duty Virginia Guardsman. Claywell told LaRock that she has witnessed threats of violence being made against Guardsman on social media.
“I have written a letter to Governor Northam asking him to meet with the wives of the Virginia Guard officers to explain how he specifically plans to take immediate action to deescalate this situation,” LaRock stated. “I have been told by Michaela that this situation is harming careers and undermining the safety and peace-of-mind of families across Virginia.”
The social media threats come as a direct response to the notion that Guardsman would be called upon to enforce gun control laws being proposed in the 2020 session. Mrs. Claywell and a number of wives of high-level officers in the Virginia National Guard are calling on Governor Northam and other state and federal officials to calm the situation.
“Please use your collective influence to protect our soldiers and our families,” Claywell wrote.
While the state of Virginia grapples with how to move forward during these challenging times, the Second Amendment sanctuary city movement is only growing. The movement started to pick up pace in April 2018 after one of the first resolutions was passed in Effingham County, Illinois. David Campbell, a member of the Effingham County Board, told the Epoch Times that his county’s state attorney and sheriff have said they will not prosecute law-abiding citizens.
“It all started right there, and then it just blossomed. I think we are into 15 states now,” Campbell stated. “I get calls constantly from other states and from other counties wanting a copy of our resolution and a map of how we did it.”
So far 70 of Illinois’s 102 counties have passed some form of Second Amendment sanctuary resolution. The movement is showing no signs of slowing down as it spreads across the states of Kansas, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Illinois, and Virginia.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/10/2020 – 21:05 - Truck Manufacturing Orders Plunge To Decade Low In 2019
Truck Manufacturing Orders Plunge To Decade Low In 2019
The painful decline in Class 8 orders that we have been documenting on a month-by-month basis has resulted in truck manufacturing orders hitting a decade low in 2019, according to Americas Commercial Transportation (ACT) Research Co., a leading publisher of commercial vehicle industry data, market analysis, and forecasting services for the North American market.
Full year volume for Class 8 orders was 181,000 for the year, compared to 490,100 units in 2018.
Sales in December followed the year’s trend, ticking lower on a year over year basis despite showing a 14% sequential rise.
Federal tax rate cuts in 2018 encouraged carriers to expand their fleets, resulting in major backlogs and tough comparable numbers for 2019, according to the Triad Business Journal.
In addition to the tough comps, ACT President and Senior Analyst Kenny Vieth also blamed the issues on “lower freight demand” in 2019.
Vieth said: “Overbuying through 2019 and insufficient freight to absorb the ensuing capacity overhang continued to weigh on the front end of the Class 8 demand cycle in December. Recalling July and August, orders were down 80% from the corresponding months in 2018.”
As we have documented throughout the year, some truck manufacturers, like Mack Trucks and Volvo Trucks, announced layoffs. Volvo announced last year that it would lay off 700 people at its Dublin, Virginia plant. Daimler laid off 900 workers in October 2019 and Navistar will lay off 1,300 workers this month.
Some trucking companies that we have profiled, like Terrill Transportation, have closed down entirely.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/10/2020 – 20:45 - "This Plane Was Designed By Clowns, Who Are Supervised By Monkeys" – Shocking Boeing Emails Reveal Contempt For Management, FAA
“This Plane Was Designed By Clowns, Who Are Supervised By Monkeys” – Shocking Boeing Emails Reveal Contempt For Management, FAA
We have never heard a more damning description of the relationship between a corporation and its regulators than a line that has been plucked from a batch of company emails that Boeing has just handed over to the FAA (and which the FAA has, apparently, leaked to the press).
Per the New York Times:
“This airplane is designed by clowns, who are in turn supervised by monkeys…”
In recent weeks, a series of reports claiming Boeing neglected to turn over critical information to the FAA regarding the development of the 737 MAX 8, Boeing’s new “workhorse” model that has been grounded around the world for the last 10 months, after a pair of suspicious crashes raised suspicions of possible flaws in the plane’s anti-stall software.
According to more than 100 pages of internal company communications (which were apparently withheld from the FAA during the certification process for the jet) Boeing employees could be heard mocking federal rules, openly discussing their deception of regulators, and joking about the MAX’s potential flaws.
The most shocking messages were sent by Boeing pilots and other employees who can be seen discussing software issues and problems with the flight simulator software for hte MAX, which is particularly disturbing since it was issues with the plane’s MCAS software that were found to have contributed to two avoidable crashes and the brutal deaths of 346 people.
In one message, one Boeing employee openly admits to deceiving the FAA on behalf of the company.
“I still haven’t been forgiven by God for the covering up I did last year,” one of the employees said in messages from 2018, apparently in reference to interactions with the Federal Aviation Administration.
In another, a group of Boeing test pilots agreed that they wouldn’t want their families flying with pilots trained on the new Boeing 737 MAX 8 flight simulator.
“Would you put your family on a Max simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn’t,” one employee said to a colleague in another exchange from 2018, before the first crash. “No,” the colleague responded.
As the New York Times explains, the release of these communications, both emails and instant messages, is “the latest embarrassing episode for Boeing in a crisis that has cost the company billions of dollars and wreaked havoc on the aviation industry across the globe.”
When allegations that Boeing withheld “damning” information from the FAA first surfaced late last year, Peter DeFazio, the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, blasted the company in a letter to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.
“These messages indicate that Boeing withheld damning information from the FAA, which is highly disturbing,” Peter DeFazio, Chair of the U.S. House of Representatives transportation committee, wrote in a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao on Friday.
It should go without saying that these messages “threaten to complicate Boeing’s relationship with the FAA” at a time when it’s still unclear when the MAX might be cleared to fly again.
Yet, as we mentioned above, this is only the latest and perhaps most jarring of a string of revelations citing internal documents and communications. Forget “regulatory capture” – a term that’s often used to criticize the revolving-door nature of Wall Street compliance officials and the regulatory agencies supposed to keep their firms in line – this is regulatory irrelevance.
And any Boeing shareholders who experienced an escalating dread as they read this post – it’s okay, you can relax.
Because once again, the market just doesn’t care. Plane crashes have been normalized in 2020, and so, apparently, has gross incompetence and contempt for both government regulators and the broader public.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/10/2020 – 20:44 - Believing In Illusions – Our Five Favorite Financial Myths
Believing In Illusions – Our Five Favorite Financial Myths
Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,
It is far easier to believe the five favorite financial myths of our time when you are rolling in dough and flush with cash. Due to a slug of freshly printed liquidity being pumped into the global financial system stock markets are making new highs and asset bubbles continue to expand. An increase in liquidity results in people feeling comfortable to take on more risk and this tends to swell leverage. During such a time true price discovery has a way of being diminished.
Whether it is a question of people generally just being too lazy to question what they see or lacking the imagination to pull back the curtain to reveal the truth they often choose to accept what is presented to them as reality rather than go to the effort to seek the truth. A myth is often defined as any invented story, idea, or concept, an imaginary or fictitious thing, or an unproved or false collective belief that is used to justify a social institution. The entertainment industry has flourished as society seeks any diversion to pull our attention away from the sharp edges of reality and into the soft comfort of escape. This may be the result of past experiences where we have learned reality can be hard to face and we can’t handle the truth! In some ways, it could be said that our culture has become obsessed with avoiding what is real.
Central Banks Failed To Stop (click to enlarge)
To say the system has been stoked by the actions of central banks is an understatement. In just the last few months nearly a trillion dollars of new stimulus has been poured into the markets. It comes in the form of repo injections, new infrastructure programs, and things like slashing bank reserve requirements. A desperate attempt by central banks to keep the wheels from coming off the bus has been interpreted by many as confirmation the current trend of never-ending growth will continue. Rather than considering it is time for a reality check it is both easier and more comforting to adopt an “all is well” attitude and ignore the signs of danger lurking around the corner.
The crux of this article is about some of our society’s favorite myths that feed directly into the economy and how we feel about our financial security. While it could be argued the myths below have more to do with how we feel about life than about money, it cannot be denied that most people make many of their financial decisions based on the assumption the below statements are true. As a society, we rapidly choose to embrace and often choose not to question them because of the discomfort it would undoubtedly create. Sure many other myths exist or you can slice and dice them in other ways but the five below are very common and should be enough to remind you and even shed a bit of light upon the fact we are vulnerable at any time to having reality raise its’ ugly head.
Believing Myths Is A Head In Sand Approach
1. Government is for the people and by the people – Seriously? After the last few years and dog and pony show, we experienced during the last presidential primary all illusions of that should have been erased. After often being forced to choose between the least of two evils it is difficult to praise our political system. After all the talk about “we the people” the fact is the average “person” is far removed from the power to decide important issues.
2. Financial planning means you only have to start saving a little money each year to guarantee an easy retirement. – The fact is life is a casino where our future is tenuous at best. Much of our circumstances and lives revolve around money and the number of options it gives us when we possess it. I intentionally used the term “casino” to conjure up the image of financial fortune. Which you can lose in a blink of an eye if things go against you. This myth includes things such as the promises made by the government and others such as pension plans and financial institutions will indeed be honored.
3. You have rights and that we are not slaves – I defer to a few lines from a blog by Gerry Spence who has spent his lifetime representing and protecting victims of the legal system from what he calls The New Slave Master: big corporations and big government. In his blog, Spence wrote; The Moneyed Master has closed its doors against the people and sits on its money like an old hen on rotten eggs. The people will not prevail. With its endless propaganda the Moneyed Master has caused its slaves to believe they are free.
4. Your life will progress and move along pretty much as you have planned – When you think back over the years of your life if you are like most people things have not unfolded as you had planned. You may not be in the occupation you trained for or with your true love. Throughout our life watershed events occur that we have little control over, this holds true when it comes to your finances as well. Things such as having an investment or pension plan go south can be very unsettling. The thought that things could be worse does not mean they will become so, this is a reason to count your blessings.
5. Those in charge or above you care about you and will protect you – Well of this we can hope but more than one person has been sliced and diced by the people he or she trusted most. History shows when push comes to shove it is not uncommon for a person to look out for the person they treasure the most and that is often him or her self. Politicians and those in power tend to throw people under the bus rather than rise up and take responsibility for the problems they create.
My apologies if this post has been a downer or seems overly negative, however, it is what it is and it was written for a reason. Best stated by a comment I read on another site, these myths add up to where “This is not a can of worms but a warehouse stacked with pallets of cans of worms.” Because of how believing the above myths can impact our lives it is important we recognize their existence. This is not to say that we cannot by making good and reasonable choices eliminate much of the risk we encounter by just getting out of bed each morning. Developing the habit of pressing on and forward to complete solid and reasonable goals is the best medicine to combat a deck that is often stacked against us. Be careful out there!
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/10/2020 – 20:25 - Trump Now Says Soleimani Plotted Bomb Attacks On 4 US Embassies; Intel Senators Balk
Trump Now Says Soleimani Plotted Bomb Attacks On 4 US Embassies; Intel Senators Balk
Like many US interventions in the Middle East before, this story seems to continue changing by the day. The rationale for taking out the “imminent” threat of Qasem Soleimani has now centered on President Trump’s claim, first presented before reporters Thursday, that the IRGC Quds force chief was “looking to blow up our embassy”.
And now the president has given further details on those prior statements, saying in a new interview with Fox News there was a plot to bomb four embassies across the region.
“I can reveal that I believe it would’ve been four embassies,” Trump told Fox’s Ingraham in an exclusive interview set to air in full Friday night. When pressed on specific targets, the president revealed: “We will tell you that probably it was going to be the embassy in Baghdad.”
US Marines stand guard at the American Embassy Compound in Baghdad, DoD via AFP. This followed statements earlier in the day by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo over the president’s Thursday assertion Soleimani sought to “blow up” embassies. Pompeo was pressed by reporters over the nature of the “imminent threat” claims.
“We had specific information on an imminent threat and that threat stream included attacks on U.S. embassies. Period. Full stop,” he said. Asked about what made it imminent, Pompeo simply said: “It was going to happen.”
See President Trump’s newest statement asserting four embassies were being targeted in the Fox interview:
Trump: Actually, Soleimani was about to attack four separate US embassies. pic.twitter.com/FbiJklbbmc
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) January 10, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
At first it was unclear whether President Trump saw specific intelligence outlining such a threat, or perhaps was speaking generally and hyperbolic (“blow up” the embassy) of the pro-Iranian mob’s actions besieging the US embassy in Baghdad days prior to the Soleimani assassination. The demonstrators had been filmed setting the outer walls of the compound on fire during the chaotic events of early last week which resulted in a contingent of Marines rapidly deploying from Kuwait to bolster embassy security.
Given Trump and Pompeo’s newest statements, it appears clear they’re referencing a previously unknown plot which they are presenting as tied to specific US intelligence data.
CNN also reveals as much in the following:
A senior defense official told reporters Thursday the US had intelligence about multiple plots and threats involving Soleimani, including one that involved a plan to attack the embassy using explosives.
The plot was separate and more sophisticated than the attempts to storm the US embassy in Baghdad by Molotov-cocktail wielding Khatib Hezbollah members and its supporters, an effort US officials have said was also orchestrated by Soleimani.
During Trump’s prior Thursday remarks, he tied the newly revealed alleged embassy bombing plot to the specific decision-making to go after Soleimani via drone strike, alongside other reasons including the Dec.27 death of a US contractor during a rocket attack by Khatib Hezbollah on a base in Kirkuk.
“We caught a total monster. We took them out. And that should have happened a long time ago. We did it because they were looking to blow up our embassy,” Trump said during those initial remarks.
“We also did it for other reasons that were very obvious. Somebody died… people were badly wounded just a week before. And we did it. We had a shot at it … that was the end of a monster,” Trump added, referring to the death of the American contractor by Khatib Hezbollah.
Trump’s new claims have already resulted in push back from Congressional leaders briefed on the matter Wednesday. Sen. Chris Murphy was the first to slam the new statements late Friday, saying no such intelligence on planned embassy bombings was presented:
Let’s be clear – if there was evidence of imminent attacks on four embassies, the Administration would have said so at our Wednesday briefing. They didn’t.
So either Fox News gets higher level briefings than Congress…
or…wait for it…
there was no such imminent threat.
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) January 10, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
And yet, confusion persists within the administration itself, as CNN reported that “Earlier Thursday, administration officials had explained Trump’s comments about the plot to blow up the US embassy by saying he was referring to the public demonstrations by Khatib Hezbollah.”
But in a separate Thursday rally in Toledo, Ohio, the president made it clear it was more than mere violent embassy protests: “Soleimani was actively planning new attacks, and he was looking very seriously at our embassies, and not just the embassy in Baghdad.” Trump added: “But we stopped him, and we stopped him quickly, and we stopped him cold.”
The latest interview with the president will air Friday night at 10 p.m. ET on Fox’s “The Ingraham Angle.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/10/2020 – 20:05 - Just A Friendly Heads-Up, Bulls: The Fed Just Slashed Its Balance Sheet
Just A Friendly Heads-Up, Bulls: The Fed Just Slashed Its Balance Sheet
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
Perhaps even PhD economists notice that manic-mania bubbles always burst–always.
Just a friendly heads-up to all the Bulls bowing and murmuring prayers to the Golden Idol of the Federal Reserve: the Fed just slashed its balance sheet–yes, reduced its assets. After panic-printing $410 billion in a few months, a $24 billion decline isn’t much, but it does suggest the Fed might finally be worrying about the reckless, insane bubble it inflated:
Just to review the numbers, which you can ponder on this chart from the St. Louis Federal Reserve (FRED).
-
August 28, 2019: $3.760 trillion
-
December 25, 2019: $4.165 trillion
-
January 1, 2020: $4.173 trillion
-
January 9, 2020: $4.149 trillion
There are two noteworthy items here. One is of course the panic-printing of $410 billion between September 1, 2019 and January 1, 2020 as the Fed’s assets zoomed from $3.760 trillion to $4.173 trillion in a mere 17 weeks.
But also note that the Fed only added a paltry $8 billion in the final week of 2019. Given the hundreds of billions of expansion being promised, this works out to a monthly run-rate of around $30 billion–not quite the $60 billion promised as a baseline, or the $100 billion per month panic-printed in Q4 2019.
Bu-bu-but wait–the Fed promised us $100 billion a month forever! Buying the SPX at 3,280 and Apple at $312 only makes sense if the Fed promised us SPX 3,500, 4,000 and 5,000, and AAPL $350, $400 and $500.
While all the faithful were busy bowing to the Fed’s mesmerizing Golden Idol, maybe the mortals in the Fed awakened from their dreams of omnipotence and realized that their “insurance against a recession” panic-printing had inflated the mother of all manic-mania bubbles.
Perhaps even PhD economists notice that manic-mania bubbles always burst–always. And just before they burst, devastating all those worshiping the Fed’s Golden Idol, pundits always declare “this time it’s different,” “the Fed has our back,” “stocks have reached a permanently high plateau,” “stocks have plenty of room to run higher,” and other platitudes mumbled by the Fed faithful.
Blinded by their own hubris, the Fed’s economists refuse to accept the impossibility of gently deflating the bubble they so recklessly inflated, and so their plan is to real quiet-like reduce the balance sheet, hoping nobody notices.
Perhaps they imagine they can lock the S&P 500 in at a permanently high plateau around 3,250, and that will be enough to banish the demons of a business/credit-cycle recession.
Maybe, maybe not. Can a Golden Idol control not just the stock market but the karmic consequences of hubris and false idolatry? The curtain just opened and the second act of the tragedy is just beginning.
* * *
My recent books:
Will You Be Richer or Poorer? Profit, Power and A.I. in a Traumatized World (Kindle $6.95, print $11.95) Read the first section for free (PDF).
Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($6.95 (Kindle), $12 (print), $13.08 ( audiobook): Read the first section for free (PDF).
The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake $1.29 (Kindle), $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)
Money and Work Unchained $6.95 (Kindle), $15 (print) Read the first section for free (PDF).
* * *
If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/10/2020 – 19:45 -
- Skynet Does Housework: Roomba-Maker Says Household Robots With Arms And Legs Are Coming
Skynet Does Housework: Roomba-Maker Says Household Robots With Arms And Legs Are Coming
Today in “Skynet pivots toward becoming a 1950’s housewife” news…
The maker of the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, iRobot, is now working on a household robot that will have arms, legs and could possibly help you do the dishes or load the washing machine.
The company, which is based out of Bedford, Mass., says it won’t start selling this type of product for another 5 years, according to Bloomberg. But prototypes of these robots already exist, according to the company’s CEO, Colin Angle.
Angle said during an interview at CES in Las Vegas that the company’s new hardware launch for 2020 will instead be its Terra robotic lawnmower.
iRobot had previously developed robotic-arm technology for its military unit, but the company sold that business in 2016. It kept the “arm assets” however, despite at the time not understanding how to adapt the technology for mainstream use. Angle said that new advancements in computer vision and the ability for robots to map out homes have made these devices possible again.
Other companies like Amazon and Samsung are following suit in developing home robots. So far, however, they are focused on devices with video conferencing and voice assistants, and not home robots with arm devices that actually conduct physical tasks.
Not unlike the role they will be playing in many dysfunctional households, we’re sure, iRobot’s CEO is already using the new robots as scapegoats for his problems. The robots, along with the trade war, have apparently created financial headwinds for the company.
“We are having to scale back R&D and profitability targets,” Angle concluded.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/10/2020 – 19:25 - The End Of The "Chinese Miracle"
The End Of The “Chinese Miracle”
Authored by Tuomas Malinen via GnSEconomics.com,
We have been following China closely for nearly four years. We first warned about the unsustainability of China’s growth in March 2017 and have continued to issue warnings ever since (see, e.g., this, this and this).
Now, China is reaching the end of its debt-driven economic model, and thus well-along in the end-game of the ‘Chinese Miracle’. This will bring drastic changes to the world economy, which will fuel the global economic collapse of 2020-2023.
Let’s examine why.
The stimulus of 2019
China stimulated its economy aggressively in Q1 and Q3 2019, but we have not observed a similar emphasis on infrastructure investments as we saw in 2015/2016. In its record-breaking stimulus program in Q3, for example, China concentrated on providing loose credit to enterprises through both conventional and “shadow” banks.
What is notable is that even with this record stimulus, China has kept its economy growing barely above the “official rate”. This tells us that the Chinese economy has reached or is very close to reaching the point of debt saturation, where households and corporations simply cannot absorb any more debt, and any new debt-issuance fails to stimulate the economy. We’ve been warning about the proximity of this point since September 2017.
Evidence also suggests that during the fall China has been desperately forcing debt into the economy, probably to appear “strong” in trade negotiations. The November data on aggregate financing, for its part, confirms this (see Figure 1). It rose at the second-fastest pace in November surpassed only by the year 2016, when China was engaged in “maximum stimulus”.
Figure 1. Yearly cumulative aggregate financing to the real economy (flow) in China. Source: GnS Economics, People’s Bank of China
However, it’s clear that China cannot keep such an extreme pace of debt-growth going. The debt load is just too high while productivity growth has stagnated. Though a massive infrastructure-spending program, for example, could revive growth, the ability of China to issue fiscal stimulus is starting to be seriously limited.
The end of the runway
At the end of 2018, the budget deficit of the Chinese government was close to five percent. However, if the off-balance sheet (“shadow”) financing of local governments is taken into consideration, the budget deficit rises to over 11 percent. At the end of 2014, the official government deficit was less than one percent, but an accounting which includes local “shadow” funding was around five percent.
This effectively means that China is fiscally unable to underwrite massive infrastructure projects and so any new world-economy-saving stimulus from China, as in 2015/2016, will be practically impossible. A new infrastructure initiative could only be realized if its costs are monetized by the PBoC, and so should be regarded as a last-ditch option reserved for an existential crisis. We also suspect that Chinese authorities would like to have some ‘ammunition’ left over for an actual recession.
We have also heard reports that smaller local lenders have become wary of expanding their loan portfolio as requested by Beijing. This is most likely due to the fact that the policy line has changed from “bailouts” to “defaults”, and the banks fear that they will be forced to bear the brunt of non-performing loans in full. It’s also clear that there are massive amounts of non-performing loans burdening the balance sheets of Chinese banks.
This is why China, ultimately, will be unable to rescue the world economy this time around.
The endgame
The big question is: what will Chinese leaders do? Will they try to force debt into the economy in a desperate effort to postpone the impending recession? If so, this would probably extend the global business cycle for few quarters.
But, as China has already surpassed all historical examples of ‘credit bonanzas’ (see Figure 2), this would also guarantee that by 2021 the Chinese economy would be in for a ‘hard landing’ (crash) taking the global economy with it.
Figure 2. The GDP per capita, share of non-financial private sector debt to GDP and the onset of financial crises. *The Q2 GDP per capita for China is based on our calculations. Source: GnS Economics, BIS, World Bank
The second option for Chinese leaders is to enact short-term “surgical” stimulus measures to keep the economy from collapsing. This would mean that the global economy would continue to sink and enter into a recession in 2020. While this could shelter Chinese economy from utter collapse, it could still lead to serious political instability (see Q-Review 3/2019 for more info).
As we have insisted in our work since September 2017, the “Chinese Miracle” has been more of a “Potemkin Village” for more than a decade. Because China has been kept growing by an incomprehensibly large increase in debt, its economy is actually a massive and vulnerable Ponzi-scheme waiting to collapse.
Alas, the end of the ‘Chinese Miracle’ approaches, and it’s going to painful for everyone.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/10/2020 – 19:05
Digest powered by RSS Digest
Saving...![<!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>](https://i0.wp.com/zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com/s3fs-public/inline-images/woiven%202.JPG?ssl=1){kind=link}
![<!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>](https://i0.wp.com/www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/russiausclosecall.png?ssl=1){kind=link}
![<!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>](https://i0.wp.com/www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/Fleischer.png?ssl=1){kind=link}
![<!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>](https://i0.wp.com/www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/zarif%20swiss.jpg?ssl=1){kind=link}
![<!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>](https://i0.wp.com/www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/usmarinesiraqembass.jpg?ssl=1){kind=link}