- National Geographic Warns Billions "Face Shortages Of Food And Clean Water" Over Next 30 Years
National Geographic Warns Billions “Face Shortages Of Food And Clean Water” Over Next 30 Years
Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
A lot of people out there don’t like when I write these kinds of articles, because they directly contradict the false narrative that humanity has an extremely bright future ahead. Sadly, the truth is that our planet and everything that lives on it is rapidly deteriorating. And I am not talking about the false environmentalism being pushed by the mainstream media, Greta Thunberg and countless well-funded NGOs.
What I am talking about is the stuff that is happening right in our face. We are systematically poisoning our planet, thousands upon thousands of species are going extinct, and we are literally running out of all of our most important natural resources. There isn’t going to be enough of anything in the not too distant future. In fact, even National Geographic is admitting that up to five billion people could soon be facing “shortages of food and clean water”…
As many as five billion people, particularly in Africa and South Asia, are likely to face shortages of food and clean water in the coming decades as nature declines. Hundreds of millions more could be vulnerable to increased risks of severe coastal storms, according to the first-ever model examining how nature and humans can survive together.
“I hope no one is shocked that billions of people could be impacted by 2050,” says Rebecca Chaplin-Kramer a landscape ecologist at Stanford University. “We know we are dependent on nature for many things,” says Chaplin-Kramer, lead author of the paper “Global Modeling Of Nature’s Contributions To People” published in Science.
The clock is literally ticking for humanity, but meanwhile we spend immense amounts of energy on relatively meaningless political squabbles.
Look, the reality of the matter is that this is going to happen no matter which political party is in control of the White House. We are in very big trouble, and nobody really has any idea how we can possibly turn things around.
At this point, we are running out of topsoil at a staggering rate. In fact, we have already lost “nearly half of the most productive soil” within the last 150 years…
The world grows 95% of its food in the uppermost layer of soil, making topsoil one of the most important components of our food system. But thanks to conventional farming practices, nearly half of the most productive soil has disappeared in the world in the last 150 years, threatening crop yields and contributing to nutrient pollution, dead zones and erosion. In the US alone, soil on cropland is eroding 10 times faster than it can be replenished.
If we continue to degrade the soil at the rate we are now, the world could run out of topsoil in about 60 years, according to Maria-Helena Semedo of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
So do any of you have a viable plan for how we can stop losing our topsoil?
Because if nobody has a plan, mass starvation is an absolute certainty. Even if we found a way to save our topsoil, we aren’t going to have anyone to pollinate our crops because all of the insects are dying. I covered this phenomenon in a previous article entitled “Insect Species Are Rapidly Going Extinct Across The Globe – All Insects Could Be Gone ‘In 100 Years’”.
And without enough insects to eat, the bird population is rapidly declining as well. This is something that I wrote about in a previous article entitled “North America’s Bird Population Is Collapsing – Nearly 3 Billion Birds Have Been Wiped Out Since 1970”.
Despite all of our advanced technology, we can’t seem to do much of anything to stop the death and decay that we see all over the globe.
Even the human race is steadily deteriorating. Scientists tell us that humans are now smaller, shorter, weaker and dumber than our ancestors were thousands of years ago. Today, our genes contain tens of thousands of mistakes (mutations), and those mistakes are passed on to the next generation. And each new generation adds additional mistakes (mutations) to the gene pool, and so over time the number of mutations being passed on continues to grow. In virtually every case those mutations are harmful, and we have absolutely no way to stop this systematic decay of the human genome.
Literally, our planet and everything in it is falling apart.
Here in the western world, things may seem okay for the moment because our debt-fueled lifestyles and our advanced technology allow us to live fairly comfortable lives.
But things are already starting to change, and global events are accelerating at a pace that is very alarming. As the fabric of our society unravels, it is going to be imperative to have others that you can lean on for support.
Unfortunately, making friends is not something that most of us are very good at doing. In fact, one recent study discovered that the average American adult “hasn’t made a new friend in the last five years”…
Spending time in the company of good friends regularly has been shown to have a positive impact on health. But for many Americans, socializing in adulthood gets harder with age. A recent survey reveals that 45% of adults admit they find it hard to make new friends. In fact, the average adult hasn’t made a new friend in the last five years, according to the survey.
In this day and age, our screens have become our friends. We spend countless hours with our televisions, our phones and our computers. Meanwhile, many of us don’t have any idea how the people living right next door are doing.
One of the reasons why I write so many articles is because that is how I can reach the most people.
If the most effective way of waking people up was traveling the country and holding meetings, I would do it.
But these days it is exceedingly difficult to get people to leave their homes and go to a meeting. But once I publish this article on the Internet, it will be seen by enough people to easily fill a sports stadium.
The Internet is where the battle for hearts and minds is being won or lost, and we need to do all that we can to wake more people up.
Because the clock is ticking for humanity, and the destiny of billions hangs in the balance.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/11/2019 – 23:40 - 40% Of Hongkongers Want To Flee City Amid Protests And Imminent Recession
40% Of Hongkongers Want To Flee City Amid Protests And Imminent Recession
A mind-boggling 40% of Hongkongers want to emigrate overseas because of the escalating social unrest that is expected to trigger an imminent recession in the coming quarters.
The new study, published by the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, asked 707 individuals by phone in late September if they would leave the city because of the turmoil. More than 42% answered yes, which is up from 34% last December.
Of those who were asked, 23% of respondents said they’ve already started emergency plans to leave. Some of those plans include getting out of housing leases, selling their homes and cars, and packing up their possessions, ahead of a move to a foreign city.
The study was published on Thursday, and university researchers said political chaos was the most significant factor in triggering an emergency move for respondents.
The largest two factors for respondents planning to move were “too much political dispute or social cleavage” (27.9%) and “no democracy in Hong Kong” (21.5%).
About 20% of the respondents had no confidence in China and Hong Kong to fix the overcrowded living conditions.
Hong Kong was already in an economic rout, which started in late 2017.
The increasingly violent anti-government protests from June have likely triggered the city’s first recession since the global financial crisis — this could also crash housing prices.
Protestors have brought luxury hotels, shopping districts, neighborhood stores, restaurants, and tourist-centric districts to a virtual standstill.
Hong Kong’s GDP contracted in 2Q19, and 3Q will likely contract as economic data is crashing.
The Government of Hong Kong has been unsuccessful in containing the protests, as well as troughing economic growth through various stimulus packages in 2019.
“I do not expect to see any strong measures that can instantaneously turn things around,” said Dong Chen, senior Asia economist with Pictet Wealth Management, one of a growing chorus of experts predicting Hong Kong had a second straight quarterly contraction in the three months through September. “The best scenario is after this political unrest they can come up with longer-term planning or measures to solve structural problems.”
Economists believe growth in the city will slip below 1% in 2019.
JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s bear case for the city is about .30%, the weakest full-year GDP reading in a decade.
The social and economic chaos has sparked a downturn in Hong Kong’s equities and real estate markets.
It seems that Hongkongers, as per the study, are overwhelmingly packing their bags as it appears an economic collapse in the city could be imminent.
And judging by the surge in local bitcoin trading volumes, capital is leaking out fast, with bodies to follow…
Is the implosion of Hong Kong what triggers the next global economic crisis?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/11/2019 – 23:20 - Sesame Street Introduces A Muppet Who Has A Mother Addicted To Opiates
Sesame Street Introduces A Muppet Who Has A Mother Addicted To Opiates
Authored by John Vibes via The Mind Unleashed,
“Sesame Street,” one of the longest-running children’s television shows in the United States, has introduced a new character that has a mother who is addicted to opiates. The new character is a bright green muppet with yellow hair who is friends with Elmo. Karli will reportedly talk about how addiction has affected her and her family in new editions of the show’s online community resource initiatives.
The show’s creators say that they wanted to cover this topic on the show because there are millions of children who are currently facing this reality, and there are no resources out there for these kids.
In an interview with Stat News, Dr. Jeanette Betancourt, senior vice president for U.S. social impact at Sesame Workshop, estimated that there were 5.7 million children under the age of 11 who live in a house with a parent who struggles with addiction.
Betancourt said the shows featuring Karli approach the issue of addiction with compassion, from a perspective that young people can understand. The episodes illustrate that addiction is an “adult illness,” and emphasizes that children are not in any way responsible for their parent’s actions.
Kama Einhorn, a senior content manager with Sesame Workshop, said that these shows can just as beneficial for parents as they are for children.
“There’s nothing else out there that addresses substance abuse for young, young kids from their perspective. It’s also a chance to model to adults a way to explain what they’re going through to kids and to offer simple strategies to cope. Even a parent at their most vulnerable — at the worst of their struggle — can take one thing away when they watch it with their kids, then that serves the purpose,” Einhorn told the Guardian.
In one of the scenes, the Muppet tells her friend that addiction is “A sickness that makes people feel like they have to take drugs or drink alcohol to feel OK. My mom was having a hard time with addiction and I felt like my family was the only one going through it. But now I’ve met so many other kids like us. It makes me feel like we’re not alone.”
The creation of the scenes and dialogue was assisted by Jerry Moe, the national director of the Hazelden Betty Ford Children’s Program. Moe said that children often don’t receive the emotional help and support that they need when a family member is dealing with addiction.
“These boys and girls are the first to get hurt and, unfortunately, the last to get help. For them to see Karli and learn that it’s not their fault and this stuff is hard to talk about and it’s OK to have these feelings, that’s important. And that there’s hope,” Moe said.
Children live in the same world and the same homes that the rest of us do, and they are smart enough to know what is happening right in front of them. Some people think that these types of issues should be swept under the rug and hidden from children, but for the millions of children who are facing these problems in their families, ignoring it isn’t an option.
“Sesame Street,” is known for covering sensitive topics that children are often sheltered from, and in the past, the show has tackled issues like HIV, homelessness, or having parents in jail.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/11/2019 – 23:00 - These Are The Richest People In China
These Are The Richest People In China
The latest rich list published by The Hurun Research Institute has revealed the richest people in China in 2019.
At the top of the ranking is co-founder of the Alibaba Group, Jack Ma and his family. In total, he is estimated to have a net worth of $39 billion. Close behind is Pony Ma Huateng, CEO of Tencent.
You will find more infographics at Statista
How does this vast wealth compare to the richest people in the world?
According to the latest Forbes ranking, the richest person in the world is Jeff Bezos, with a staggering net worth of $131 billion.
For now, no one from China makes it on to the top ten global list – with the benchmark currently at $51 billion – but it is surely just a matter of time.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/11/2019 – 22:40 - Shepard Smith Out At Fox News
Shepard Smith Out At Fox News
Despite a palpable shift to the left at Fox News, the very liberal Shepard Smith is stepping down from his role as Chief News Anchor and Managing Editor at the network after a public spat with host Tucker Carlson. According to Smith, he’s leaving to begin “a new chapter” in his career, and his last day at the anchor desk will be today.
“Recently I asked the company to allow me to leave Fox News and begin a new chapter,” Smith said, adding “After requesting that I stay, they graciously obliged. The opportunities afforded this guy from small town Mississippi have been many. It’s been an honor and a privilege to report the news each day to our loyal audience in context and with perspective, without fear or favor. I’ve worked with the most talented, dedicated and focused professionals I know and I’m proud to have anchored their work each day — I will deeply miss them.”
Until Smith’s replacement is found, the network will deploy a series of rotating anchors to host the 3 p.m. time slot.
Word of Smith’s departure comes two weeks after a “war of words” broke out between Smith and fox anchor Tucker Carlson, after Smith called Carlson and legal analyst Joe diGenova “repugnant” in a daytime analysis of their reporting on the Democratically manufactured Ukrainegate scandal.
As we noted at the time, Smith was flanked by Fox News legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano, who drew a starkly different conclusion on Trump’s actions than pro-Trump lawyer diGenova, who appeared the night before on Carlson’s show.
Napolitano concluded that Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine constituted “a crime” during the day on Tuesday.
diGenova had called Napolitano a “fool” for his analysis on that night, to which Smith returned fire the following evening, stating that diGenova was a “partisan guest” who was “repugnant” for attacking Napolitano.
“Apparently our daytime host, who hosted Judge Napolitano, was watching last night and was outraged by what you said and quite ironically called you partisan,” Carlson replied.
Later, Carlson took yet another shot at Smith to conclude the segment:
“It doesn’t seem honest to me when a host, any host on any channel, including this one, pretends that the answer is obvious. That’s not news, is it? That’s opinion. Why do we find ourselves in a situation where people aren’t willing to admit that their passions are guiding their news coverage?
Wouldn’t it be better if we just said out loud you know this is what I think? For example you will never hear me criticize Rachel Maddow. I never agree with anything she says. But she is straightforward, it’s her opinion. Why wouldn’t it be better if we were all that transparent about what’s driving our shows?
It makes people cynical when you dress up news coverage, when you dress up partisanship as news coverage and pretend that your angry political opinions are news, you know, people tune out.”
And now Smith is out.
***
Fox said in a statement (via Forbes):
NEW YORK – October 11, 2019 — FOX NEWS Channel’s (FNC) Shepard Smith will step down from his role as Chief News Anchor and Managing Editor of the network’s breaking news unit and Anchor of Shepard Smith Reporting, announced Jay Wallace, President & Executive Editor of FOX News Media. This afternoon’s edition of Shepard Smith Reporting was Mr. Smith’s final show, during which he addressed his decision. A series of rotating anchors will host the 3PM/ET time slot until a new dayside news program is announced.
In making the announcement, Mr. Wallace said, “Shep is one of the premier newscasters of his generation and his extraordinary body of work is among the finest journalism in the industry. His integrity and outstanding reporting from the field helped put FOX News on the map and there is simply no better breaking news anchor who has the ability to transport a viewer to a place of conflict, tragedy, despair or elation through his masterful delivery. We are proud of the signature reporting and anchoring style he honed at FOX News, along with everything he accomplished here during his monumental 23-year tenure. While this day is especially difficult as his former producer, we respect his decision and are deeply grateful for his immense contributions to the entire network.”
Mr. Smith added, “Recently I asked the company to allow me to leave FOX News and begin a new chapter. After requesting that I stay, they graciously obliged. The opportunities afforded this guy from small town Mississippi have been many. It’s been an honor and a privilege to report the news each day to our loyal audience in context and with perspective, without fear or favor. I’ve worked with the most talented, dedicated and focused professionals I know and I’m proud to have anchored their work each day — I will deeply miss them.”
One of FNC’s original hires in 1996, Mr. Smith has covered virtually every major news story over the course of his career as both a correspondent and an anchor, playing a fundamental role in the network’s innovation of the way news is presented.
As the anchor of Shepard Smith Reporting (weekdays 3-4PM/ET), Mr. Smith utilized state-of-the-art news gathering techniques enhanced with advanced technologies, as well as digital and social media, to bring viewers the latest hard news from the signature studio known as The FOX News Deck.
Throughout the most recent portion of his tenure, Mr. Smith anchored numerous breaking news stories, including: the El Paso shooting; the Parkland school shooting; Hurricanes Dorian & Irma; the Las Vegas massacre; the 2016 terrorist attacks in Nice, France and Belgium; the coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015; the 2014 riots following the shooting of civilian Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, MO; and the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, among many others.
Before taking the helm of the breaking news division with the advent of Shepard Smith Reporting, Mr. Smith anchored The FOX Report and Studio B, both of which ranked number one in their respective timeslots. In this role, among the stories he notably anchored were: the Boston Marathon bombing of 2013 along with the subsequent manhunt and ultimate capture of the Tsarnaev brothers; the financial crisis of 2008; the War in Iraq (2003); the War in Afghanistan (2001), as well as the murderous terrorist attacks and devastating aftermath of 9/11.
Additionally, Mr. Smith has traveled to Ukraine to report on the unrest in Kiev and Crimea, and reported live from Rome during the election of Pope Francis, as well as on the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI. In 2011, he was on location from Japan following the destructive earthquake and tsunami amid nuclear threats. During that same year, he provided significant news coverage of the anti-government protests and civil unrest in Egypt and Libya. Mr. Smith also reported extensively on the Middle East conflict between Israel and Hezbollah forces from Beirut, Lebanon in 2006.
Prior to joining FNC, Mr. Smith was a Los Angeles-based FOX News Edge correspondent, reporting on a wide range of stories for the FOX affiliate news service, including the crash of TWA Flight 800, the Montana Freeman standoff, and the Oklahoma City bombing. Before this, he gained extensive local news experience throughout the state of Florida serving as a reporter for WSVN-TV (FOX) in Miami, the former WCPX-TV (CBS) in Orlando, WBBH-TV (NBC) in Fort Myers, FL and WJHG-TV (NBC) in Panama City, FL where he began his television career.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/11/2019 – 22:22 - Luongo: Pompeo Can't Blame Iran For Attacking Itself
Luongo: Pompeo Can’t Blame Iran For Attacking Itself
Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,
“You’re gonna need a bigger boat”
–JAWS
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water someone poked a couple of holes in an oil tanker belonging to Iran.
This sent oil prices up briefly in the vain hope of stabilizing them.
But, strangely, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was silent.
This was a warning to Iran from someone on the Saudi/Israeli/U.S. side, “You won’t win without costs.”
Well, of course, that’s true. The big question everyone is asking is, of course, “Who did this?”
Details are sketchy with a lot of back and forth. Iran initially reported missile strikes.
Report: Explosion in #Iranian tanker has set vessel on fire near #Saudi port city of #Jeddah. pic.twitter.com/4t4hST2bTJ
— Press TV (@PressTV) October 11, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
But Iran’s national tanker company, the owner of the boat, is now ruling out missiles.
But who did this is honestly not even relevant at this point. It could be Israel, the Saudis, rogue U.S. or British agents, etc.
Once we started down this path of sanctions, attacks on oil assets, and the like, it opened up the possibility of anyone with an axe to grind creating an incident for their purposes and blaming someone else for it.
There are so many conflicting priorities on all sides of this issue that all it takes is the right suitcase of money to start a war, or spike oil prices for a few hours, or whatever.
I can spin a dozen motivations out of my head right now whereby everyone involved has motive to attack an Iranian tanker. And they would all sound plausible, including the one that you know Mike Pompeo is just itching to waddle away from the buffet table to announce, that Iran attacked itself.
And the less that evangelical crazy-man says about this, the better everyone will be. In fact, it is Pompeo’s silence is deafening, since he never misses an opportunity to bash Iran. It makes you wonder just how much he may or may not know about this.
But honestly, that’s just me pushing boundaries.
The reality is that Occam’s Razor is the most useful tool in this situation.
The people squawking the loudest about the President’s recent policy decisions in the Middle East are the ones most likely behind this. They are the ones with the most to lose if Saudi Arabia falls and the U.S. pulls much of its force out of the Middle East.
The most likely candidate is the one actor who has consistently overstepped its bounds in attacking neighbors it considers hostile for any reason. Israel.
The headlines this week have been wall-to-wall gnashing of teeth and pearl clutching over the fate of the Kurds in Northern Syria, left to the tender mercies of the Turks.
And that has been coming most forcefully from the gaggle of AIPAC drones that inhabit the D.C. Swamp.
But the reality is that the partitioning of Syria has been a U.S. neoconservative project from the beginning of the civil war. Israel has given aid and comfort to ISIS fighters along the Golan Heights. This is not news, folks.
And the use of the Kurds to destabilize not only Syria but Iraq, Iran and Turkey by outside actors, like the U.S., Saudi Arabia and YES, Israel, is well established.
Pompeo has helped preside over sending the Kurds more than 30,000 truckloads of weapons. Who paid for those weapons, by the way?
We did.
How many of these SDF fighters are nothing more than foreign mercenaries paid by us to hold strategic areas of Syria– the oil fields and the border crossings –to starve Assad out of power?
It’s been long established that the U.S. presence in Syria is unsustainable. But who keeps the pressure on Trump politically to maintain the situation?
Israel.
There comes a point where the evidence of influence is overwhelming and the state of the game board so degraded that it’s time for someone to make a bold call and change tactics.
If the neocons and Israeli Firsters in Congress (and formerly in his cabinet) have turned on Trump to the point of starting impeachment proceedings against him for not going to war with Iran, then Trump is free to finally just blow it all wide open.
Which is exactly what he is doing. The Kurds were simply mercenaries to help us defeat ISIS. Job’s done, your beef with Turkey is your problem.
Remember that Russia’s intervention in Syria outed who was really behind the coalition to overthrow President Assad and when Turkey’s Erdogan was framed into a fight with Russia, shooting down an SU-24 in November 2015, Erdogan realized he would be the scapegoat for the entire operation and swiftly began changing his tune.
Don’t you think Trump can see the same setup happening here now with the Kurds?
They jumped the gun on impeachment. They didn’t neuter Trump, they unleashed him. Because he simply has nothing left to lose.
Today that shift by Erdogan has culminated in his securing Northeastern Syria from Kurdish forces whose sole intention was to sow dissent and try and form an independent state, the dreams of which died with Barzani’s Peshmerga Forces getting routed at Erbil in 2017.
Everything since then has been a delaying action. Trump was willing to go along if he could get Iran to the table on nuclear weapons. Putin and Erdogan prevailed on Trump to do a double deal. Turkey would give up support of Al-Qaeda in Idlib and the U.S. would begin pulling support for the Kurds in eastern Syria.
Syria can begin normalizing and the Saudis and Israelis will have to face up to the need to sue for peace.
But that means the end of the dream to partition Syria and striking Iran. Trump beginning to pull U.S. forces out of harm’s way is the surest way to ensure there isn’t another accident which sets us on the path to war.
So, to me, it makes perfect sense to see rogue elements around the region acting independently to try and revive the war footing while cynically supporting a collapsing oil price.
It’s clear that no one in the U.S. or Saudi Arabian power circles wants oil collapsing below $50 per barrel. The Russians and the Iranians don’t care, they trade oil now mostly outside the dollar and their currencies immunize them to the fluctuations.
Trump watches the stock market like a hawk and the Saudis watch the price of Brent like their lives depend on it, because they do.
So, some noises that talks are good and an attack on Iran’s tankers are good for oil prices. An end to the trade war (very unlikely) and Iran bowing to U.S. demands to stop exporting oi (even less likely) is doing nothing more than creating yet another opportunity to short oil.
That’s the legacy of the chaos created by making terrible decisions intervening in other people’s affairs. That’s why it really doesn’t matter who attacked the Iranian tanker. It was a bad move. All it does it convince Trump further that it’s time to get out of the way and cut bait.
The Saudis and the Israelis are harboring huge and ancient grudges against Iran that can no longer be tolerated in U.S. political circles. This is crippling U.S. politics.
Regardless of who actually attacked this tanker their collective grudge and control over the corridors of power in the U.S. is the fuel that keeps these conflicts ongoing.
Trump, to his credit, is now finally voicing and acting on his long-held beliefs that the Iraq War was a mistake, that Syria is an Obama/Clinton quagmire and that Russia has a strong role to play in cleaning up their messes.
And the less we listen to the cries of anguish from “the usual suspects” the quicker we can back away from war.
* * *
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Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/11/2019 – 22:20 - Soaring Used-Car Prices "Push Americans Over The Edge" As Subprime Delinquencies Surge
Soaring Used-Car Prices “Push Americans Over The Edge” As Subprime Delinquencies Surge
Millions of Americans are finding it virtually impossible to keep up with their car payments, despite supposed “economic growth” and low unemployment, according to Reuters. In fact, more than 7 million Americans are already late by 90 days or more on their car loans, according to data from the New York Federal Reserve, as delinquency rates among borrowers with low credit scores have seen the fastest acceleration.
Part of the issue stems from the economic downturn a decade ago where automakers slashed production. This has made a rarity of 10-year-old used vehicles, which are typically the cars sought out by low-wage earners.
This lack of supply and rising demand has caused prices to spike, with the average price of a 10-year-old used vehicle coming in at $8,657, nearly 75% higher than 2010, which is “pushing poor Americans over the edge” according to Reuters. Over the same time, the average increase in new car prices is only 25%.
Ivan Drury, Edmunds’ senior manager of industry analysis, said that “this is pinching people at the worst point possible. If you need basic A to B transportation, you have to get an older car that needs more repairs and has more wear-and-tear issues.”
Monthly auto payments for Americans that make under $40,000 per year have remained flat since 2017. Those in higher wage brackets have seen payments rise. But rather than this being good news, it indicates that poor Americans are stretched so much that they literally can’t afford to pay more. As Cox chief economist Jonathan Smoke pointed out, “they just don’t have any flexibility to increase their payment.”
And the rising delinquency rates are being blamed on weaker lending standards in recent years.
Warren Kornfeld, a senior vice president on Moody’s financial institutions team, said: “Auto lenders are belatedly tightening lending standards, but it may already be too late. The economy is masking the true performance of auto loans. If we hit a downturn today, the performance of auto loans would not look very good.”
New York Fed data shows that delinquencies among subprime borrowers have been rising and have been the catalyst pushing up the overall delinquency rate. About 8% of loans originated by buyers with a credit score under 620 are categorized as seriously late. Fed researchers called this data “a development that is surprising during a strong economy and labor market.”
Gordy Tormohlen of Good People Automotive says that business is up 10% this year as auto finance companies have been tightening lending standards. Ominously, he said “the market feels like it did before the financial crisis hit in 2008, when consumers were over-extended with debt.”
Customers of his include people like Hollis Heyward, who recently had to rework his loan and is now only paying $120 per month to pay off his principal owed, down from about $350 a month. And it doesn’t look like there will be good news anytime soon: analysts are predicting that it could take years for older used cars to return to more affordable levels.
Ken Shilson, president of the National Alliance of Buy Here, Pay Here Dealers (NABD), said:
American consumers have become too comfortable with debt and subprime customers have been “poisoned” by easy access to capital for much of the long economic expansion. But he added those customers will be forced by tighter underwriting to seek even older vehicles.
“The American way is to always live beyond your means and Americans aren’t good at making life adjustments,’ Shilson said. “But there’s a reality check coming and many subprime buyers will be forced to find more affordable transportation.”
Just days ago, Bloomberg reported that “sticker shock” was the cause for growing stress in the automotive industry.
Auto dealer Robert Loehr said of new car prices: “Prices are crazy on cars nowadays — all of them. They’re crazy to me, and I do it every single day, all day long,”
Brian Irwin, who leads the automotive and industrial practice for consulting firm Accenture, says the auto industry has reached the end of its run, stating: “It’s a step down from where we thought we would be a few months ago. I expect to see stronger incentives coming out.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/11/2019 – 22:00 - Is Trump's Syria Withdrawal Gambit An Anti-Impeachment Card?
Is Trump’s Syria Withdrawal Gambit An Anti-Impeachment Card?
Authored by Joaquin Flores via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
The 19th century Baptist Particular preacher from England, Charles Spurgeon, is best known for the one-line wisdom: “A lie spreads half way around the world while the truth is putting on his shoes.”
But what of half-truths, do they spread a quarter-way, or a third? Are these more like lies, or more like the truth?
By now the half-truth that President Trump announced the pull-out of US forces from its activities aiding the Kurdish separatists in Syria, on Monday, for the sole purpose of distracting the whole discourse from the impeachment proceedings against the sitting president, has spread at least some portion around the world by now.
A half-truth? It is indeed true that Trump had said the time had come for the US to extricate itself from its series of “ridiculous endless wars”, something which, before Trump, no Republican president in living memory has said.
The impeachment itself has the look and feel of yet another Democratic Party impeachment stunt, one which in all reality will have a difficult time getting through the House of Representatives and perhaps an impossible time getting through Senate, given Trump’s overall popularity among the energized base which numerous critical Senators will rely on. If the process would go through to the Senate, it is Chief Justice Roberts that would preside on the trial part, and being bound by his conservative record, it is nigh impossible that Roberts would be friendly to efforts to remove Trump on the extremely squishy grounds they would be presented on. After all, creating such future precedents would ultimately have a destabilizing effect on the executive branch, thereby threatening the constitutional framework of checks and balances between the two branches in question.
But the controversy surrounding the impeachment itself would be enough to raise serious questions in the minds of at least 1% of voters, to at minimum refrain from voting. That’s all Biden would need if he then, in turn, focusses his campaign on a few critical swing states. That’s what the strategy for Biden might hinge on – or is it? If the impeachment process goes through to the end, but ultimately fails, there is probably no other figure in American politics that could use the failure alone to energize his base to such a degree that the failure alone is part of what delivers victory to Trump towards a second term.
Whatever the case, for certain there is more here than meets the eye to this, and in politics nothing is random, nothing is coincidental. There is no doubt that there is a connection between the impeachment proceedings and Trump’s sudden announcement on Syria and the Kurdish YPG.
The honest question right now is simple enough: Is Donald Trump’s announcement a mere distraction from moves to impeach him?
No, it goes deeper than this – and here’s why.
While this wasn’t the first time either he as president, nor as candidate, had said as much, along with this announcement came a specific and determined public order of sorts: American troops would be pulled back from northern Syria as the Turkish military prepares to clean up Kurdish forces active in the region. Under the Obama administration, and – if we are to believe the sitting president – reluctantly under the present one too, Kurds have enjoyed a degree of support towards the US plan to partition Syria.
The rise of anti-war Republicans is a relatively new phenomenon, something which came to be broadly known to the public and outside of its own previously insular sphere, through the campaign of former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul in 2012 – a strong libertarian figure whose anti-war position was prescient and based in integrity, and whose campaign was frustrated by the neo-conservative establishment running the Republican Party.
This is far from a mere distraction, and has a far deeper meaning, motivation, and possible outcome. At least two times during Trump’s presidency, he has announced some curtailment of the US efforts in Syria, declaring that the US had succeeded in defeating the real threat of ISIS.
This threat of ISIS, incidentally, was the stated aim of the US involvement in Syria under the Obama administration. It was only after a few years by way of the slippery-slope of mission creep that this involvement began to openly declare the overthrow of the decidedly anti-terrorist administration of Bashar al-Assad as its ‘real’ primary aim. Trump’s move to ‘declare victory and go home’, a declaration that was in reality made possible by the Russian aerial campaign, was nevertheless met with some significant push-back.
And this push-back, both times, came in the form of moves from House Democrats to start impeachment proceedings. These calls for impeachment, for various and apparently random ‘whatevers’, all long before the final findings of Mueller which seem to have exonerated Trump, had their intended effect.
Yes, both times Trump was forced to continue the US misadventure in Syria, and after he reversed his de facto position on the matter, both times indeed, impeachment proceedings magically disappeared.
To wit, after the 2017 Shayrat missile strike which Trump ordered to ward of impeachment threats, the infamously anti-Trump CNN declared that Trump was finally acting like a real US president [Insert wise comment here that in America, being presidential has to involve bombing people or things in the eyes of liberal establishment media].
Trump doesn’t forget those times he had his nose rubbed in it, as Democrats threatened to work with never-Trump Republicans in the pockets of AIPAC and the Military Industrial Complex, and the so-called intelligence community [something something deep state ], to frustrate his proposed policy changes. Along with appeasing these directly through his de-facto reversal on Syria withdrawal, he ramped up sanctions on Iran to appease AIPAC and even moved to out-do his predecessor on military funding – all within a geopolitical environment that sees Trump calling on European partners to ‘finally’ do their part to finance NATO.
Now, we suppose we’re just going to have to wait for the ‘allegations’ that Trump worked hand in hand with a foreign government – not Russia, not Ukraine – but rather this time Turkey, to coordinate their attack on the YPG to time nicely with Trump’s strategy to frustrate calls to impeach him.
Maybe Trump’s opponents will go so far as to claim that his push to expand NATO’s presence in Greece was timed precisely to get Erdogan’s attention to make the Turkish move against the YPG here and now. That means we should be on the look-out for transcripts of ‘Trump-Erdogan conversations’, and more ‘insider leaks’ from ‘whistleblowing’ darlings of the deep-state. As Matt Taibi wrote in Rolling Stone, the real whistleblowers like Manning and Assange, wind up persecuted, tortured, imprisoned. The Ukraine ‘whistleblower’, he astutely observes “isn’t a real whistleblower”. Others less known wind up black-listed, permanently unemployed, doxed, and so it goes.
But if Trump is anything, he’s a man with a larger-than-life ego, but more than that he is underestimated as an intelligent and strategic thinker, and moreover, doubly excels at symbolic messaging. If his opponents really imbibe the propaganda they put out against him, they’ll always be in for one surprise after another.
So if in the past, impeachment was used as a reaction to his calls to end the Syrian campaign, and forced him to essentially re-think that apparently unrealized campaign promise – then now impeachment is being used against Trump to punish him for his moves to drain the swamp in Ukraine. Yes, a swamp filled by Victoria Nuland with over $5 bln dollars, Biden’s son Hunter’s unexplainable and magical seat upon the Ukrainian natural gas concern, Burisma, and the blood of the thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians killed by the Obama installed Kiev Junta in its ethnic cleansing operation in the former eastern regions of Ukraine.
With impeachment being used as a Democratic Party campaign/immunity ploy to perhaps elect or, why not, just install Biden, then what’s Trump’s interest on holding back on his peace plan for Syria? Surely this makes sense for Democrats as neither Pence nor any other Republican has either any appeal against just about any Democrat including Biden.
But Democrats didn’t plan that Trump would use something perceived as a weakness, a point of capitulation, as a bargaining chip, a card, a strength.
Just think of how Trump could map his options and possible outcomes out on a semiotic flow chart, and create multiple contingency plans. This has the look and feel of a well-planned maneuver, one that Trump will emerge the stronger from. In many ways it all begs the question, why do his opponents continually fall into his traps? Maybe this is what happens when Democratic Party strategic decisions are made by committee, by lobbyists, by pollsters interpreting the pseudo-data from their own convoluted push-polls. Maybe this is what happens when people really start to believe the hype they created about their opponent.
Trump’s team has counted the votes against him in the House and Senate – and guess what? These probably include the same never-Trump Republicans that lined up against him previously over his failed attempts in the past to wind down Syria. So what motive would Trump have now to keep these same war-hawks happy about Syria? He can only use Syria to his advantage here and now.
And keeping it real, Trump is interested primarily now in his re-election, and being able to implement whatever he can manage in his second term – but he has to get there first.
All in all, this means that rather than Syria being used against him under threat of impeachment, Trump can use Syria withdrawal threats to get those never-Trump Republicans to get back in line – yes, a little party discipline and solidarity.
Trump has had to let go on Syria a few times, and for all we know it was always set up as one of those cards he could play to survive. Maintaining a presence in Syria lines up generally with his policy against Iran, but claiming that he’s against such a presence allows him to play that card when it’s needed.
Conclusion
And on Trump’s end? He has a win-win.
If Democrats buckle on impeachment, he wins big. If they do not buckle and take impeachment a far as it can go, and prolong the process through the election, they await Chief Justice Roberts jurisprudence and Senate Republicans, taken together, doesn’t look good. If Trump can, as he likely will, use that to his advantage, he wins some and loses some, it will mean some recalibrating on swing states.
If Democrats don’t buckle and Trump can continue to make big news on ending US presence in Syria, he might make more moves against US presence in Syria, like at Al-Tanf, and all together win even more points with anti-war Republicans, and even Democrats who voted Trump on issues including employment and the economy as well as foreign wars.
In swing states, Democrats so anti-war and suspicious of China’s relationship to the bleak US employment reality, may vote Trump. And anti-war Republicans themselves aren’t some small grouping.
Overall, as the American Conservative put it together based on polling done by Politico, “Trump’s December announcement that he would withdraw US troops from Syria, polling data from Morning Consult/Politico shows that 49 percent of Americans support the decision while 33 percent oppose it.” The same article goes on to quote the [in other cases very unreliable] Glenn Greenwald of the [limited hangout] Intercept – “Trump voters overwhelmingly support withdraw by 76 percent to 14 percent.”
And, by the way, this also helps make it clearer why the DNC made a full reversal on Tulsi Gabbard’s ejection from the race for the nomination – they need to keep that segment of the ‘audience’ engaged until future notice, especially if Trump can angle to keep ahold of Democrats and Republicans who value foreign policy and war above most anything else. Now Tulsi’s magical reappearance in next week’s 4th debate, after missing the 3rd, makes a lot more sense. She previously showed she had a game-mind when she strategically attacked Harris’ attack on Biden’s alleged racism – showing that she could win support from [white] Americans fed up with being accused of such, and that she understood that Biden was the DNC darling, making her defense of him a clear indicator what they could use her in the debates later on, a brilliant insurance policy on the part of Tulsi.
If Dems don’t drop impeachment then he scores high in those above broken-down demographics, and likely score big enough to reverse the damage done by any impeachment proceedings that threaten his re-election, as they ultimately fail anyhow at the process level.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/11/2019 – 21:40 - "Rip The Mask Off Anonymous LLCs:" NYC Billionaires Set To Be Exposed In New Housing Law
“Rip The Mask Off Anonymous LLCs:” NYC Billionaires Set To Be Exposed In New Housing Law
The ultra-rich are panicking after New York lawmakers passed a new law that is expected to expose the names of people who purchased Manhattan condos anonymously over the years with shell companies.
The Wall Street Journal said the new law was passed last month, is having “unintended consequences for the legions of billionaires, celebrities and other privacy-seeking condo owners: Every buyer’s name will be publicly available under the state’s Freedom of Information Law.”
Financial elites purchase homes through shell companies, and it’s meant to keep their purchases protected from lawsuits, but also shields the public from knowing what assets they own.
The Journal said, in one example, a condo tower in Manhattan, known as 220 Central Park South, had nearly 85% of the condos in the building owned by LLCs.
Billionaire investor Ken Griffin famously bought a $240 million condo under the LLC called “NYCP LLC,” according to property records.
More than 61,000 homes in NYC are owned by shell companies, an analysis of city tax records obtained via The Journal. This means that shell companies own roughly 12% of all condos and 5% of all homes in the city. All condos built since the 2008 financial crisis are owned by LLCs.
The federal government alleges that some of these shell companies are laundering money through the properties.
The ultra-rich, lawyers, brokers, and title companies were shocked when they heard about the new law, which took effect Sept. 13 when Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo approved it.
“This new law will rip the mask off of these anonymous LLCs that continue to purchase massive amounts of real estate in the Hudson Valley,” said Democratic state Sen. James Skoufis. “Neighbors have a fundamental right to know who owns the home next-door to them.”
While The Journal didn’t give any details on when the state’s new freedom of information law would dump the treasure trove of names tied to shady LLCs, we assume it could be released by year-end or at least some time in 1H20.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/11/2019 – 21:20
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