Aug 13

Today’s News 13th August 2020

  • Assad Nearly Passes Out During Speech Amid Feared COVID-19 Explosion In Syria
    Assad Nearly Passes Out During Speech Amid Feared COVID-19 Explosion In Syria

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/13/2020 – 02:45

    On Wednesday Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad was delivering a televised speech before a newly inaugurated parliament when he appeared to nearly pass out.

    Shortly before the unusual incident which caused him to unsteadily and slowly walk away from the podium mid-speech, he was seen wiping his brow and briefly appeared in physical distress.

    State-run SANA, citing the office of the Syrian presidency, said it was due to a sudden drop in blood pressure.

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    He caught government ministers off-guard when be lurched back wearily, saying, “I need to sit down for just one minute… just a minute.”

    An official statement described: “The speech paused for a few minutes due to a slight pressure drop that afflicted the president before returning to resume the speech normally.” The pause reportedly lasted a few minutes.

    Indeed the 54-year-old ruler of Syria was later seen returning to the podium and the address resumed. But it comes amid what’s widely suspected to be an explosion of coronavirus cases inside Syria, especially the densely-packed capital of Damascus, given an influx of millions of internally displaced refugees after nine years of war.

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    International monitors have complained that it’s been hard if not impossible to gauge true case numbers in the war-torn country, with weeks ago NPR alleging coronavirus has “overwhelmed” government areas while the Assad government conceals the true extent of the outbreak.

    Officially reported numbers stand only at 1,255 cases, including 52 deaths – but some Syria watchers have posited that as many as 100,000 in Damascus alone may be infected. 

    Assad later returned to the podium amid supporting chants from parliamentarians:

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    This produced widespread speculation following Assad’s near fainting incident that he could have coronavirus, however, other well-known Syria analysts have pointed out the gaunt leader is known not to eat very much and has been under immense stress, given the smashed post-war economy and sweeping US-led sanctions.

    Before the speech ran on TV, regional media throughout the day said it might be postponed due to president having fallen “ill”. 

  • New Report Reveals US Special Forces Active In 22 African Countries
    New Report Reveals US Special Forces Active In 22 African Countries

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/13/2020 – 02:00

    Authored by Alan Macleod via Mint Press News,

    The US has roughly 6,000 military personnel scattered throughout the continent with military attachés outnumbering diplomats in many embassies across Africa.

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    A new report published in South African newspaper The Mail and Guardian has shed light on the opaque world of the American military presence in Africa. Last year, elite U.S. Special Operations forces were active in 22 African countries. This accounts for 14 percent of all American commandos deployed overseas, the largest number for any region besides the Middle East. American troops had also seen combat in 13 African nations.

    The U.S. is not formally at war with an African nation, and the continent is barely discussed in reference to American exploits around the globe. Therefore, when U.S. operatives die in Africa, as happened in Niger, Mali, and Somalia in 2018, the response from the public, and even from the media is often “why are American soldiers there in the first place?”

    The presence of the U.S. military, especially commandos, is rarely publicly acknowledged, either by Washington or by African governments. What they are doing remains even more opaque. U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) generally claims that special forces go no further than so-called “AAA” (advise, assist and accompany) missions. Yet in combat, the role between observer and participant can become distinctly blurry.

    The United States has roughly 6,000 military personnel scattered throughout the continent, with military attachés outnumbering diplomats in many embassies across Africa. Earlier this year, The Intercept reported that the military operates 29 bases on the continent. One of these is a huge drone hub in Niger, something The Hill called “the largest U.S. Air Force-led construction project of all time.” The construction cost alone was over $100 million, with total operating costs expected to top $280 billion by 2024. Equipped with Reaper drones, the U.S. can now conduct cross border bombing raids all over the North and West of Africa.

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    Washington claims that the military’s primary role in the region is to combat the rise of extremist forces. In recent years, a number of Jihadist groups have arisen, including Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, and other al-Qaeda affiliated groups. However, much of the reason for their rise can be traced back to previous American actions, including the destabilization of Yemen, Somalia, and the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya.

    It is also clear that the United States plays a key role in training many nations’ soldiers and security forces. For example, the U.S. pays Bancroft International, a private military contractor, to train elite Somali units who are at the forefront of the fighting in the country’s internal conflicts. According to The Mail and Guardian, these Somali fighters are likely also funded by the U.S. taxpayer.

    While training foreign armed forces in basic tactics might sound like a bland, unremarkable activity, the U.S. government also spent decades instructing tens of thousands of Latin American military and police in what they called “internal security” at the notorious School of the Americas at Fort Benning, GA (now rebranded as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security). Recruits in the twentieth century were instructed on internal repression and told that a communist menace lied around every corner, meting out brutal repression on their own populations once returning. Likewise, with counter-terrorism training, the line between “terrorist” “militant” and “protester” can often be debatable.

    The U.S. military also occupies the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, claimed by the African island nation of Mauritius. In the 1960s and 1970s, the British government expelled the entire local population, dumping them in slums in Mauritius, where most still live. The United States uses the island as a military base and a nuclear weapons station. The island was critical to American military activities during both Iraq Wars and continues to be a major threat, casting a nuclear shadow over the Middle East, East Africa, and South Asia.

    While there is much talk, (or more accurately, condemnation) in Western media of China’s imperialist motives in Africa, there is less discussion of the U.S.’ continuing role. While China operates one base in the Horn of Africa and has greatly increased its economic role on the continent, the thousands of American troops operating in dozens of countries are overlooked. The amazing thing about the American Empire is it is invisible to so many who serve it.

  • New Zealand Takes A Page Out Of China's Book, Blames Latest Outbreak On Imported Goods
    New Zealand Takes A Page Out Of China’s Book, Blames Latest Outbreak On Imported Goods

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/13/2020 – 01:00

    Remember when local CCP officials and top party health officials in Beijing tried to blame multiple COVID-19 outbreaks on imported shrimp (then later, salmon)? Well, looks like New Zealand – which arrogantly declared “victory” over COVID-19 in June before flinging its borders wide open, only to detect 4 new cases tied to the same Auckland family yesterday – is trying a similar approach.

    New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern responded to the new cases by ordering a 3-day lockdown, and now New Zealand officials – eager to find a scapegoat – are investigating the possibility that the virus was “imported” via freight.

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    However, as Reuters pointed out, this line of investigation is something of a last resort, as the outbreak has “baffled” health officials, which suggests the only explanation is probably that it has been spreading slowly, and asymptomatically, this whole time. After all, NZ’s outbreak was never very large, and there are only 26 active cases in the whole country. Most cases detected recently involved travelers screened while entering the country. Of course, there’s always the possibility that some of them slipped through.

    But somehow, despite all this, investigators have apparently traced the outbreak to a “questionable” refrigerated container owned by Americold Corp, a multinational that’s big in the shipping business. Apparently, one of the infected patients worked for the company.

    Here’s more from Reuters:

    The source of the outbreak has baffled health officials, who said they were confident there was no local transmission of the virus in New Zealand for 102 days.

    “We are working hard to put together pieces of the puzzle on how this family got infected,” said Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield.

    Investigations were zeroing in on the potential the virus was imported by freight. Bloomfield said surface testing was underway at an Auckland cool store where a man from the infected family worked.

    “We know the virus can survive within refrigerated environments for quite some time,” Bloomfield said during a televised media conference.

    The New Zealand unit of Atlanta, U.S.-based, Americold Realty Trust, a refrigerated storage specialist with operations in the United States, Canada, Argentina and Australia as well as New Zealand, identified itself as the owner of the cool store.

    Americold NZ Managing Director Richard Winnall told the NZ Herald newspaper the infected man had been on sick leave for several days and all employees had been sent home for tests.

    At noon on Wednesday, New Zealand began a three-day period of alert level 2, with Auckland at the higher Level 3. The country has been at Level 1 since June 9, which had mostly allowed life to return to normal.

    Under Level 3 restrictions, most businesses and schools in Auckland are closed, and bars and restaurants may only offer takeout.  Interestingly, despite the fact that COVID-19 is almost non-existent in New Zealand, Ardern on Wednesday delayed a critical step that should have kicked off New Zealand’s campaign season ahead of a Sept. 19 general election. She suspended the dissolution of Parliament, which usually marks the start of campaigning. A decision on whether she plans to actually delay the vote will arrive before Monday, she said.

    To sum up: New Zealand is potentially scape-goating an American company for “reintroducing” the virus in Auckland, while the PM orders extremely harsh lockdowns – almost certainly overkill while many kiwis are only just getting back on their feet financially – and plans to delay an upcoming election.

    Residents of Auckland, home to around 1.7 million people, were given just hours to prepare for the return to level 3 restrictions on Wednesday, requiring people to stay at home unless for essential trips.

    “Going hard, going early with lockdown is still the best response,” Ardern said. “Our response to the virus so far has worked … we know how to beat this.”

    The rest of the country was placed back into slightly looser level 2 restrictions. The restrictions will initially remain in place until Friday.

    Police set up roadblocks to discourage a mass exodus from Auckland, while supermarkets rationed the sale of some staple products amid a rush to the shelves. Long queues formed at COVID-19 testing centres in the city.

    Ardern said her cabinet will decide on Friday on the next steps with regards to restrictions.

    Now, imagine if Trump did all that.

  • This Is Amerika: Where Fascism, Totalitarianism And Militarism Go Hand-In-Hand
    This Is Amerika: Where Fascism, Totalitarianism And Militarism Go Hand-In-Hand

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/12/2020 – 23:45

    Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government IS the problem.”

    – Ronald Reagan

    There’s a pattern emerging if you pay close enough attention.

    Civil discontent leads to civil unrest, which leads to protests and counterprotests.

    Without fail, what should be an exercise in how to peacefully disagree turns ugly the moment looting, vandalism, violence, intimidation tactics and rioting are introduced into the equation. Instead of restoring order, local police stand down.

    Tensions rise, violence escalates, and federal armies move in.

    Coincidence? I think not.

    This was the blueprint used three years ago in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, when the city regularly cited as being one of the happiest places in America, became ground zero for a heated war of words—and actions—over racism, “sanitizing history,” extremism (both right and left), political correctness, hate speech, partisan politics, and a growing fear that violent words will end in violent actions.

    It was a setup: local police deliberately engineered a situation in which protesters would confront each other, tensions would bubble over, and things would turn just violent enough to call in the bigger guns.

    It is the blueprint being used right now.

    In Charlottesville, as in so many parts of the country right now, the conflict was over how to reconcile the nation’s checkered past, particularly as it relates to slavery, with the push to sanitize the environment of anything—words and images—that might cause offense, especially if it’s a Confederate flag or monument.

    That fear of offense prompted the Charlottesville City Council to get rid of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that had graced one of its public parks for 82 years.

    That’s when everything went haywire.

    In attempting to pacify one particularly vocal and righteously offended group while railroading over the concerns of those with alternate viewpoints, Charlottesville attracted the unwanted attention of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and the alt-Right, all of whom descended on the little college town with the intention of exercising their First Amendment right to be disagreeable, to assemble, and to protest.

    When put to the test, Charlottesville did not handle things well at all.

    On August 12, 2017, what should have been an exercise in free speech quickly became a brawl that left one dead and dozens more injured.

    As the New York Times reported, “Protesters began to mace one another, throwing water bottles and urine-filled balloons — some of which hit reporters — and beating each other with flagpoles, clubs and makeshift weapons. Before long, the downtown area was a melee. People were ducking and covering with a constant stream of projectiles whizzing by our faces, and the air was filled with the sounds of fists and sticks against flesh.”

    And then there was the police, who were supposed to uphold the law and prevent violence.

    They failed to do either.

    Indeed, a 220-page post-mortem of the protests and the Charlottesville government’s response by former U.S. attorney Timothy J. Heaphy merely corroborates our worst fears about what drives the government at all levels: power, money, ego, politics and ambition.

    When presented with a situation in which the government and its agents were tasked with protecting free speech and safety, Heaphy concluded that “the City of Charlottesville protected neither free expression nor public safety.”

    Heaphy continues:

    “The City was unable to protect the right of free expression and facilitate the permit holder’s offensive speech. This represents a failure of one of government’s core functions—the protection of fundamental rights. Law enforcement also failed to maintain order and protect citizens from harm, injury, and death. Charlottesville preserved neither of those principles on August 12, which has led to deep distrust of government within this community.”

    In other words, the government failed to uphold its constitutional mandates. The police failed to carry out their duties as peace officers. And the citizens found themselves unable to trust either the police or the government to do its job in respecting their rights and ensuring their safety.

    Despite the fact that 1,000 first responders (including 300 state police troopers and members of the National Guard)—many of whom had been preparing for the downtown rally for months—had been called on to work the event, despite the fact that police in riot gear surrounded Emancipation Park on three sides, and despite the fact that Charlottesville had had what reporter David Graham referred to as “a dress rehearsal of sorts” a month earlier when 30 members of the Ku Klux Klan were confronted by 1000 counterprotesters, police failed to do their jobs.

    In fact, as the Washington Post reports, police “seemed to watch as groups beat each other with sticks and bludgeoned one another with shields… At one point, police appeared to retreat and then watch the beatings before eventually moving in to end the free-for-all, make arrests and tend to the injured.”

    “Police Stood By As Mayhem Mounted in Charlottesville,” reported ProPublica.

    Instead of establishing clear boundaries—buffer zones—between the warring groups and protecting the First Amendment rights of the protesters, police established two entrances into the permit areas of the park and created barriers “guiding rallygoers single-file into the park” past lines of white nationalists and antifa counterprotesters.

    Incredibly, when the first signs of open violence broke out, Heaphy reports that the police chief allegedly instructed his staff to “let them fight, it will make it easier to declare an unlawful assembly.”

    This is not much different from what is happening on the present-day national scene.

    Commissioned by the City of Charlottesville, this Heaphy report was intended to be an independent investigation of what went right and what went wrong in the government’s handling of the protests.

    Heaphy found very little to commend.

    What went right on Aug. 12 according to Heaphy:

    1) Despite the presence of firearms, including members of the militia, and angry confrontations between protesters and counterprotesters, no person was shot and no significant property damage occurred;

    2) Emergency personnel did their jobs effectively and treated a large number of people in a short period of time; and

    3) Police intelligence gathering was thorough (that’s the best he had to say about police).

    Now for what went wrong, according to the report:

    1. Police failed to get input from other law enforcement agencies experienced in handling large protests.

    2. Police failed to adequately train their officers in advance of the protest.

    3. City officials failed to request assistance from outside agencies.

    4. The City Council unduly interfered by ignoring legal advice, attempting to move the protesters elsewhere, and ignoring the concerns of law enforcement.

    5. The city government failed to inform the public about their plans.

    6. City officials were misguided in allowing weapons at the protest.

    7. The police implemented a flawed operational plan that failed to protect public safety.

    8. While police were provided with riot gear, they were never trained in how to use it, nor were they provided with any meaningful field training in how to deal with or de-escalate anticipated violence on the part of protesters.

    9. Despite the input and advice of outside counsel, including The Rutherford Institute, the police failed to employ de-escalation tactics or establish clear barriers between warring factions of protesters.

    10. Government officials and police leadership opted to advance their own agendas at the expense of constitutional rights and public safety.

    11. For all intents and purposes, police abided by a stand down order that endangered the community and paved the way for massive civil unrest.

    12. In failing to protect public safety, police and government officials undermined public faith in the government.

    The Heaphy report focused on the events that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, but it applies to almost every branch of government that fails to serve “we the people.”

    As the Pew Research Center revealed, public trust in the government remains near historic lows and with good reason, too.

    This isn’t America, land of the free, where the government is “of the people, by the people [and] for the people.”

    Rather, this is Amerika, where fascism, totalitarianism and militarism go hand in hand.

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    What you smell is the stench of a dying republic. Our dying republic.

    The American experiment in freedom is failing fast.

    Through every fault of our own—our apathy, our ignorance, our intolerance, our disinclination to do the hard work of holding government leaders accountable to the rule of law, our inclination to let politics trump longstanding constitutional principles—we have been reduced to this sorry state in which we are little more than shackled inmates in a prison operated for the profit of a corporate elite.

    We have been saddled with the wreckage of a government at all levels that no longer represents the citizenry, serves the citizenry, or is accountable to the citizenry.

    “We the people” are not the masters anymore.

    It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about the federal government, state governments, or local governing bodies: at all ends of the spectrum and every point in between, a shift has taken place.

    “We the people” are not being seen, heard or valued.

    We no longer count for much of anything beyond an occasional electoral vote and as a source of income for the government’s ever-burgeoning financial needs.

    Everything happening at the national level is playing out at the local level, as well: the violence, the militarization, the intolerance, the lopsided governance, and an uneasy awareness that the citizenry have no say in how their communities are being governed.

    As I have warned repeatedly, the architects of the police state have every intention of manipulating this outrage for their own purposes.

    Predictably, the police state is allowing these protests, riots and looting to devolve into a situation where enough of the voting populace is so desperate for a return to law and order that they will gladly relinquish some of their freedoms to achieve it. And that’s how the police state will win, no matter which candidate gets elected to the White House, and “we the people” will continue to lose.

    So what’s the answer?

    As always, it must start with “we the people.”

    I’ve always advised people to think nationally, but act locally.

    Yet as Charlottesville made clear, it’s hard to make a difference locally when the local government is as deaf, dumb and blind to the needs of its constituents as the national government.

    Charlottesville much like the rest of the nation has had its fair share of government leaders who are tone-deaf, focused on their own aggrandizement, and incapable of prioritizing the needs of their constituents over their own personal and political agendas; law enforcement officials for whom personal safety, heavy-handed militarized tactics, and power plays trump their duty to serve and protect; polarized citizens incapable of finding common ground, respecting each other’s rights, or agreeing to disagree; and a community held hostage by political correctness, divisive rhetoric and a growing intolerance for any views that may be unpopular or at odds with the mainstream.

    It was a perfect storm just waiting for the right conditions to wreak havoc, a precursor of the rage, frustration and fear that is erupting all over the country.

    No matter what forces are manipulating these present riots and violent uprisings, however—and there are definitely such forces at play here—none of this would be happening without the government having laid the groundwork.

    Clearly, it’s time to clean house at all levels of government.

    Stop tolerating corruption, graft, intolerance, greed, incompetence, ineptitude, militarism, lawlessness, ignorance, brutality, deceit, collusion, corpulence, bureaucracy, immorality, depravity, censorship, cruelty, violence, mediocrity, and tyranny. These are the hallmarks of an institution that is rotten through and through.

    Stop holding your nose in order to block out the stench of a rotting institution.

    Stop letting the government and its agents treat you like a servant or a slave.

    You’ve got rights. We’ve all got rights. This is our country. This is our government. No one can take it away from us unless we make it easy for them.

    You’ve got a better chance of making your displeasure seen and felt and heard within your own community. But it will take perseverance and unity and a commitment to finding common ground with your fellow citizens.

    Right now, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we’re making it way too easy for the police state to take over.

    Stop being an accessory to the murder of the American republic.

  • Australian Millennial Charged Over Supply Of 3D-Printed Firearms 
    Australian Millennial Charged Over Supply Of 3D-Printed Firearms 

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/12/2020 – 23:25

    A 29-year-old Australian man was charged with supplying 3D-printed pistols across Sydney after police raided his home. 

    The Government of New South Wales (NSW) released a statement on Tuesday (Aug. 11) of a man arrested at his St Marys home charged with supplying unregistered pistols and parts to unauthorized people across Sydney. 

    Criminal Groups Squad detectives seized five 3D-printed pistols and parts in an early Tuesday morning raid.

    “Following extensive inquiries, Strike Force Raptor detectives, with assistance from Strike Force Raptor Operations Support Group (OSG), executed a search warrant at home at St Mary’s from 6 am today (Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2020),” the statement read. 

    The man was charged with “two counts of supply unregistered firearm (pistol), four counts of unauthorized supply of firearm part, three counts of supply/give ammunition to a person not authorized and unlawfully sell firearm parts three times or more within one year,” the release said.

    NSW Police Force posted a picture of the raid on Twitter, of what appears to be the man in custody, along with three other photos of the 3D-printed pistols and parts. 

    Police Raid

    3D-Printed Gun

    3D-Printed Guns

    3D-Printed Gun Parts

    It’s not entirely clear how 3D-printed firearms will change government policies in Australia, nevertheless, across the world, but one thing is already certain that gun control is becoming a dead issue. The rise of Defense Distributed has terrified the US government. 

  • China To Expand Its Influence In The Middle East With Major Oil Deal
    China To Expand Its Influence In The Middle East With Major Oil Deal

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/12/2020 – 23:05

    Authored by Simon Watkins via OilPrice.com,

    China continues to expand its influence in the Middle East through oil and infrastructure deals, and the latest deal with ADNOC is a great example of how Beijing looks to grow its presence in the offshore oil business.

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    It is little surprise to see that China – again – figures in yet another concessions award in the Middle East, this time relating to the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). In the aftermath of Saudi Arabia’s second disastrous oil price war against the U.S. shale sector, virtually all major Middle Eastern state-owned oil firms are looking to plug varyingly significant operational deficits, as are their governments.

    In the absence of a sudden major spike in oil prices, economic survival in practical terms now comes down to one of two broad options.

    • The first is to sell off chunks of state assets in initial public offerings (IPOs) or stakes in ongoing oil and gas projects, which ADNOC recently did with the sale of a 49 per cent stake in its gas pipelines for just over US$10 billion to international investors.

    • The second is to sell-off the same assets to companies from countries for which the immediate economic shortfall inherent in such deals pales into insignificance compared to the longer-term geopolitical and financial advantages.

    In this latter regard, Russia has its own financial constraints to deal with but China does not.

    Specifically, ADNOC has announced the transfer of ownership rights in its Lower Zakum, and Umm Shaif and Nasr offshore concessions from the existing holding of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to China National Offshore Oil Corporation’s (CNOOC) subsidiary, CNOOC Limited. This will be done by CNOOC acquiring a 40 per cent interest in CNPC’s majority-owned subsidiary PetroChina Investment Overseas (Middle East) Ltd (PetroChina) through its holding company, CNOOC Hong Kong Holding Limited (CNOOC HK). After the proposal has been approved by Abu Dhabi’s Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC) – a rubber-stamping affair – CNOOC will join the principal operating consortium in the Lower Zakum concession, comprising India’s ONGC Videsh (10 per cent stake), Japan’s INPEX Corporation (10 per cent), China’s CNPC (6 per cent), Italy’s Eni (5 per cent), and France’s Total (5 per cent). CNOOC will also join the principal operating consortium in the Umm Shaif and Nasr concession, comprising Total (20 per cent), Eni (10 per cent), and CNPC (6 percent). ADNOC will retain a 60 per cent majority ownership interest in both concessions.

    Significantly, aside from the broader relentless expansion of China into the Middle East, in line with its multi-generational ‘One Belt, One Road’ programme, this deal marks the first time a dedicated Chinese offshore oil and gas company has joined in any ADNOC concession. These points did not go unnoticed by the chairman of CNOOC, Wang Dongjin, who said: “CNOOC will leverage our extensive expertise in the offshore sector and be dedicated to value creation in these concessions for our mutual benefit.”

    In this context, this latest deal follows the signing on 22 July 2019 of a comprehensive framework agreement between ADNOC and CNOOC to ‘explore new opportunities for collaboration’ in the upstream, midstream, and downstream oil sectors as well as in liquefied natural gas (LNG). Described at the time by ADNOC chief executive officer, Ahmed Al Jaber as “far-reaching”, the deal is such a significant move by China into the core oil and gas interests of one of the U.S.’s few remaining vocal allies in the Middle East – the UAE – that the deal signing ceremony was attended in person by China’s President, Xi Jinping.

    Although couched in the usual platitudes expected in such deals, even the official guidance on its contents highlighted its vast scope and scale. For example, ADNOC and CNOOC, according to the official published notes on the agreement, will ‘share knowledge, best practices and technologies in ultra-sour gas development to improve operational efficiency in gas processing and treatment, deliver efficiency, performance and reliability for drilling operations and develop field and reservoir development plans’. As an adjunct to this, China’s Offshore Oil Engineering Company (COOEC) would be in prime position for associated engineering, procurement and construction opportunities, as would China Oilfield Services Ltd (COSL) for the supply of oilfield services and to explore collaboration opportunities in offshore oil and gas field assets in Abu Dhabi.

    Also according to the July 2019 agreement, ADNOC and CNOOC would jointly explore LNG sales and purchase opportunities, share knowledge and expertise in LNG markets, and evaluate partnerships and joint investment opportunities in the LNG value chain. Finally, in the downstream sector, the two companies would collaborate in new integrated refining and petrochemical assets in China, co-operate in CNOOC’s refining assets, and jointly partner and invest in the refining and petrochemical value chain.

    One of these early, albeit indirect, China investments may well be into an investment platform to fund local chemicals projects, as part of an overall push to invest US$45 billion in downstream activities in Abu Dhabi, according to a senior oil and gas industry source familiar with the project. The investment platform is to be run as a joint project between ADNOC and the Abu Dhabi state-owned holding company, ADQ (formerly known as the Abu Dhabi Developmental Holding Company) and will oversee the development of projects in the planned Ruwais Derivatives Park. Although ADNOC has not made public the breakdown of where all of the funding is to come from, ADNOC and ADQ together will hold a 60 stake in the project.

    That the ADQ has any money at all for such an investment, or indeed for anything at all, is surprising, given that less than two months ago it was in urgent talks to raise a loan of “at least US$3 billion”, according to various reports. “ADQ’s attempts to put together a syndicate of banks did not go well and yet here it is with investment funding, at a time when the broader deal with China is moving forward,” he said. “There are no public statements that China is involved in the funding, of course, but it is fair to say that if ADQ or ADNOC had asked China for funding for the investment platform then China would have given it,” he concluded.

  • Despite The Diplomatic Bluster, China's State-Run Banks Are Quietly Complying With Trump's Hong Kong Sanctions
    Despite The Diplomatic Bluster, China’s State-Run Banks Are Quietly Complying With Trump’s Hong Kong Sanctions

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/12/2020 – 22:45

    On the surface, there is a non-stop tide of daily diplomatic drama and escalating jawboning between the US and China which – quite theatrically – will be at each other’s throat at least until the conclusion of the Nov 3 election. However, behind the scenes, one can discern just who has the upper hand.

    According to Bloomberg, China’s largest state-run banks operating in Hong Kong have taken “tentative steps” to comply with US sanctions imposed on officials in the city, seeking to safeguard their access to crucial dollar funding and overseas networks, and putting their financial future above their patriotic duty to defend questionable Hong Kongers who have fallen in the crossfire. As a reminder, last week Trump sanctioned Chinese and Hong Kong officials including Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office of China’s State Council, and Chris Tang, commissioner of the city’s police for their role in implementing a security law in Hong Kong. The officials will have property and assets in the U.S. frozen; they also will be increasingly frozen by their own financial institutions.

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    Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam

    China’s bank giants, most of which have operations in the U.S. including Bank of China, China Construction Bank, and China Merchants Bank have turned cautious on opening new accounts for the 11 recently sanctioned HK officials, including Lam, and at least one bank has suspended such activity. To avoid Trump’s ire, at some banks transactions via the U.S. are banned, while compliance must now review and sign off on others that would previously have been immediately processed, Bloomberg sources said.

    At the same time, foreign banks operating in Hong Kong such as Citigroup have already taken aggressive steps to suspend accounts or are increasing scrutiny of Hong Kong clients.

    The quick capitulation by China’s biggest lenders once again underscores how Trump has weaponized the greenback and the ability of the U.S. to use the dollar’s dominance in international transactions as a critical pressure point in the standoff with China. And since China’s state-owned lenders need to preserve their access to global financial markets – with the Yuan years if not decades from even thinking about thinking about becoming a global reserve currency – they have quietly bent the knee to Trump to preserve dollar access at a time when Beijing has leaned on them to prop up the economy from the fallout of the coronavirus.

    The bottom line is that China’s “big four” banks had $1.1 trillion in dollar funding at the end of 2019; it is that $1.1 trillion that gives Trump virtually unlimited scope to extract any concessions he wishes, and despite Beijing’s angry and belligerent rhetoric, China has no choice but to fall in place.

    Not that any of this is a surprise to China: as we reported last week, Yu Yongding, a former adviser to the nation’s central bank, said at a forum this week that China faces a series of threat from a potential financial war with the US, including sanctions on banks, financial ransom, freezing of Chinese assets offshore and a push for a capital flight. Yu recalled when Washington  sanctioned Bank of Kunlun in 2012 for its oil financing dealing with Iran, cutting the small Chinese lender off from the greenback payment system and suffocating its cross-border business.

    To save face diplomatically, China on Monday retaliated by sanctioning 11 individuals including U.S. senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, but the retaliation was seen as a paper tiger as Beijing stopped short of putting any senior American government officials on its list. Its top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, on Friday said the door for talks with the U.S. remains open. It didn’t clarify the potential implications for any financial institutions that keep doing businesses with those named.

    “China’s position on the U.S. sanctions is clear and consistent,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday in response to a question about the banks’ move to comply. “The U.S. sanctions are irrational and groundless. They are unanimously opposed and condemned by all Chinese people, including our residents in Hong Kong.”

    Sure they are, but none of that matters because the US has the world’s reserve currency and China doesn’t. The rest is just political theater, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

    In an attempt to ease tensions, on Saturday the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, i.e., the city’s de facto central bank, said lenders in the city have no obligation to follow U.S. sanctions under local law, urging banks to treat customers fairly in assessing whether to continue to providing services. However, as the Bloomberg report suggest, none of the lenders decided it was prudent to test Trump’s resolve.

    Indeed, despite the HKMA’s announcement, “banks that have U.S. operations or conduct dollar businesses may still need to consider their U.S. compliance obligations,” JPMorgan wrote in a note. “Risks for listed China banks are relatively muted, in our view, as the four China officials on the list may obtain banking services with local unlisted Chinese banks that do not have dollar or U.S. businesses.”

  • Letters From Melbourne: A "Ghost Town Police State" Under Brutal COVID Lockdown
    Letters From Melbourne: A “Ghost Town Police State” Under Brutal COVID Lockdown

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/12/2020 – 22:25

    Authored by Robert Bridge via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    The citizens of Australia’s second most populous city are suffering under the harshest lockdown conditions of all Western democracies. Their voices need to be heard.

    In the last several weeks, Melbourne has introduced shockingly draconian anti-Covid measures, imposed on the metropolis of some 5 million souls. What tragedy was responsible for spurring officials to leap into action? To blame was a fractional uptick in the number of coronavirus deaths – seven to be exact, and all involving citizens above the age of 70 years old.

    The media jumped on the “new single-day record in Victoria,” which brought the state death toll to 56. I repeat, 56, and the overwhelming majority of those cases involved elderly people in nursing facilities, some of which are under investigation for their handling of patients. While it goes without saying that elderly lives matter, do seven elderly deaths really warrant the shutdown of one of Australia’s busiest cities?

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    Despite the extremely low death rate, Melbourne residents – or shall we call them what they really are, prisoners – must adhere to the following rules:

    • No traveling more than 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) from their homes;

    • No traveling to other states inside of the country;

    • Those under house arrest are permitted to leave home for just one hour each day for exercise;

    • Only one person is permitted to go shopping per family each day; shopping is to be done within 5 kilometers from home;

    • Unlike traditional prisons, visitations are not permitted to house arrestees;

    • All school activities are to be conducted online;

    • All businesses, services and construction cancelled;

    • Organized sport, forget it;

    • In the case of funerals, try and delay your demise if at all possible, otherwise, expect just 10 guests;

    • Ditto for weddings;

    • Curfew in effect between 8 pm and 5 am.

    These restrictions will be in place for (at least) six weeks.

    Meanwhile, as to be expected, the authorities have been enthusiastic about meting out their street justice on people who allegedly violate the regime’s rules. And not just on the street. The police have been authorized to enter private residences without a warrant.

    Shane Patton, Police Chief Commissioner of Victoria, told reporters that “there are consequences” for not going along with the lockdown.

    “In the last week, we’ve seen a trend, an emergence, if you like, of groups of people, small groups, but nonetheless concerning groups, who classify themselves as ‘sovereign citizens,’ whatever that might mean, people who don’t think the law applies to them,” Patton, wearing all black attire for the occasion, explained.

    “We’ve seen them at checkpoints…not providing a name and address. And at least on three or four occasions in the last week, we’ve had to smash the windows of people in cars and pull them out of there…”

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    Needless to say, there have been other examples of people losing their patience with the lockdown conditions. Local media reported that an unidentified 38-year-old Melbourne woman was arrested after “repeatedly bashing a 26-year-old female police officer’s head against a concrete sidewalk.” The police officer was reportedly attacked for asking the woman why she wasn’t wearing a mask.

    In the same week, a mother was fined $1,652 for breaking with regulations after she was tackled to the ground and handcuffed by three cops. Her daughter filmed the incident, while begging the police, “get off my mum, she’s in pain.”

    An American acquaintance, who requested to remain anonymous, sent me the following message from Melbourne where he lives with his family:

    “All three of my working kids are in enforced idleness – mandatory masks and, as you might expect in a place with its fair share of inadequate people, mask nazis are the new danger for sane citizens. I was in Argentina in the 70s during the Dirty War and this is the closest I have felt to that kind of experience since those days. Dark days indeed – and did I mention the press? They are specializing in singling out people who voice opposition and shaming them in really vile terms.”

    Anika Stojkovski, a corporate compliance and governance consultant based in Melbourne, also offered her personal impressions on the situation.

    “I sensed there was something very wrong with all this and predicted what is happening now,” Stojkovski told me via email. “I could tell they were lying.”

    “I really think there is more to it and it is all about total control and heading towards the agenda for us all to be vaccinated… [Victorian Premier Dan] Andrews says he wants every man, woman and child vaccinated. There is no vaccine!! So will we be kept in isolation till when?”

    Speaking on the medical situation in the city, Stojkovski was struck by the fact that “all consulting rooms in hospitals are closed, and all appointments are conducted by specialists by phone.”

    “This still doesn’t add up … they are not admitting to hospital for Covid unless severely ill with life threatening symptoms, while most people cannot be tested for the virus without traveling beyond the 5-kilometer point.”

    When I inquired if there was anything happening out of the ordinary in Australia aside from the pandemic, Stojkovski mentioned that the Australian federal government [Canberra] was “not happy with the contracts our Victorian State Premier was making with China. Our prime minster [Scott Morrison] said they were not in the national interest.”

    In terms of geopolitical significance, this is huge. Victoria is the only Australian state to formally sign on to the People Republic of China’s major foreign-policy initiative, the Belt and Road Initiative. This contradicts the position of the federal government to not join the BRI as it raised serious geostrategic concerns. According to a report by the Australian Institute of International Affairs, the BRI Framework Agreement “places Victoria in an awkward position as Australia has formally signed onto the ‘Blue Dot Network’ with the US to assist in developing infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific region to counter the BRI.”

    At the very least, the timing of an agreement between Victoria and communist China, happening just months before the economic shutdown of Melbourne over a minuscule increase in Covid deaths, which will halt, possibly indefinitely, China’s spread into a major Western economy, is astonishing. Although it would be hard to prove cause and effect, future historians would certainly find the connection – involving as it does the momentous geopolitical battle between Beijing and Washington – worth examining in greater detail. To that end, the media is already busy portraying anyone who questions the logic of the lockdowns with its favorite conversation stopping term, “conspiracy theorist.”

    Whatever the case may be, the alleged ‘super spread’ of Covid in Melbourne is already causing political fractures between Canberra and Victoria, in much the same way it is in the United States between the Democrats and the Republicans. Meanwhile, the residents of Melbourne continue to suffer under a lockdown that appears more tenuous with each passing day.

  • CEO Behind 'Sputnik V' Says US Waging "Major Information Warfare" Against Russian Vaccine
    CEO Behind ‘Sputnik V’ Says US Waging “Major Information Warfare” Against Russian Vaccine

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/12/2020 – 22:05

    The global race among multiple nations to be the first to produce a coronavirus vaccine – especially the US, China, and Russia – has sparked not just competition to see who’ll be first, but an information war in the wake of Moscow’s announced breakthrough COVID-19 vaccine this week.

    The announcement of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya research institute with help from the Russian defense ministry and expected to be available to the Russian public by October almost immediately drew widespread scorn and mockery in the West based on allegations Russia is skipping large-scale clinical trials.

    One Russian official told CNBC this week the US is waging “major information warfare” against the possibility of a successful Russia-produced vaccine.

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    Image: EFI/CNN/Shutterstock 

    Kirill Dmitriev, the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund – which is backing the Sputnik V vaccine – said in comments Wednesday, “It really divided the world into those countries that think it’s great news … and some of the U.S. media and some U.S. people who actually wage major information warfare on the Russian vaccine.”

    “We were not expecting anything else, we are not trying to convince the U.S. Our point to the world is that we have this technology, it can be available in your country in November/December if that works with your regulator … [while] people who are very skeptical will not have this vaccine and we wish them good luck in developing theirs,” he added.

    Dmitriev claimed further that Russia does plan on sharing its data from the vaccine with the rest of the world, also at a moment World Health Organization officals said they wil move to review the COVID-19 vaccine candidate approved by Russian regulators on Tuesday. The WHO said it will require “a rigorous safety data review” before being available for use among citizens.

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    Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, speaking with President Putin. Image source: Sputnik/Reuters

    “We agree that nothing in detail has been published yet, we are just sending some information to some of our partners today on the results of the first phases of the clinical trials and it will all be published in August,” Dmitriev said.

    Currently, a total of 165 candidate vaccines are being tested around the world, according to a WHO tally. 139 of these are still in pre-clinical evaluation, while 26 have progressed to various phases of human testing. The 6 market leaders have already reached Phase 3.

  • Portland Prosecutor Likely To Drop Charges Against Rioters Who Injure Cops, Citing "Instinctive Reaction" To Police
    Portland Prosecutor Likely To Drop Charges Against Rioters Who Injure Cops, Citing “Instinctive Reaction” To Police

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/12/2020 – 21:45

    Authored by Victoria Taft via PJMedia.ocm,

    Well, we’ve heard it all now. Rioters have been given what is tantamount to carte blanche in Portland. It’s open season on Portlanders, open season on cops, and open season on the rule of law.

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    Scores of the 500 people who were arrested during the nearly 75 days of violent Portland riots will have their charges dropped by the new Black Lives Matter-approved district attorney.

    Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt announced that his default position is not to prosecute and that most crimes by rioters will be forgiven and forgotten.

    That list of crimes includes interfering with a police officer, disorderly conduct, and rioting.

    • interfering with a police officer

    • disorderly conduct

    • criminal trespass

    • harassment

    • escape in the 3rd degree

    • riot (sometimes in some circumstances)

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    Attacks on police officers and resisting arrest will be scrutinized based on whether – and we’re not making this up – police caused rioters to react because they used tear gas or other crowd-control measures causing rioters to “instinctively lash out.”

    …the instinctive reaction of people who have been gassed repeatedly, who have been struck with kinetic projectile weapons, and who have seen other protestors arrested in ways they deeply disapprove of.

    He told Oregon Public Broadcasting that “his attorneys will scrutinize every case to determine if the person’s intent was to resist arrest or injure a police officer.”

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    That’s right. Schmidt basically said that if an assault on a police officer or resisting arrest occurred when police were clearing an area with tear gas, for example, that he would consider dropping those charges.

    [We’ll take] a particularly hard look at resisting arrest and assault of a public safety officer if those cases occurred when an individual was being tear gassed or otherwise exposed to a use of force at the time of the resistance.

    His staff plans to determine the intent with which the rioter used violence to determine whether he or she is worthy of prosecution or “restorative justice.”

    He told the local taxpayer-funded radio station that “the presumption on a lot of these cases that are listed out there is that we won’t prosecute… But if there are egregious circumstances or something about the case that stands out, we can always choose to prosecute.”

    Schmidt told reporters at a news conference today that being caught up by police while simply protesting will not be prosecuted.

    … [I]f you are a person who is out there demonstrating and you get caught up in the melee and you get arrested … those are the kind of cases we’re talking.

    Violating curfew during civil unrest will no longer be prosecuted.

    Good luck, Portland. The city is at 75 days of riots and now most of the rioters won’t see the inside of a courtroom much less the inside of a jail cell. That means there will be almost no disincentive to rioting. It’s open season on Portland.

  • China's Central Bank Has Quietly Launched Its Own QE
    China’s Central Bank Has Quietly Launched Its Own QE

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/12/2020 – 21:25

    Earlier this week we discussed the striking difference between virtually every western central bank balance sheet – of which the Fed’s is a prime example – all of which have grown at a staggering pace over the past decades and especially since the covid crisis as central banks acquired various securities most notably Treasurys and MBS to ease monetary conditions…

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    … and that of the PBOC which has been surprisingly steady because – as we explained before – China has been gradually transitioning from a quantity-based monetary policy framework to a price-based one, whereby monetary policy is primarily adjusted via quantity-based instruments such as RRR cuts.

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    The difference in how policies are conducted – QE purchases for the Fed and RRR cuts for the PBOC – is fundamentally the reason why we haven’t seen PBOC balance sheet behave in the same way as Fed balance sheet during the recent easing cycle.

    However, the PBOC’s reluctance to engage in open and explicit QE may now be over, because according to a new report, the People’s Bank of China may have quietly bought government bonds from domestic banks in July, which as Bloomberg puts it, is a rare move that has analysts puzzling over the monetary authority’s policy intentions amid a record amount of government debt issuance.

    While there has been no overt change to the PBOC’s policy, tracking sovereign bonds held by “other” investors – a category that includes central banks and clearing houses – showed an increase of 196.5 billion yuan to 1.78 trillion yuan ($256 billion) last month, based on data by China Central Depository & Clearing Co.

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    The increase, the biggest since Bloomberg data started in late 2018, prompted analysts from Citic Securities to Nomura Holdings and GF Securities to speculate the central bank might have bought some government debt in the month.

    If confirmed that the PBOC has finally joined western banks in purchasing bonds in the open market, this would be dramatic reversal to years of convention: in the past, Chinese policy makers have frequently said in the past they do not intend to enact the kind of bond-market purchases seen in developed markets and have restricted stimulus measures throughout the coronavirus crisis to moderate trimming of market interest rates and a more generous liquidity policy. But they have flagged a willingness to support the government’s fiscal policy.

    Ironically, just this past May, Ma Jun, a member of the PBOC’s monetary policy committee, wrote in a newspaper article that any proposals that the PBOC should buy government debt directly would, in essence, be asking the central bank to “print money” to finance fiscal deficit.

    Monetary financing “will have long-term impact on the macro economy, fiscal sustainability and financial stability,” Ma wrote in the central bank’s Financial News newspaper. Doing so would mean “giving up the last line of defense on government fiscal behavior.”

    Monetary financing could cause hyperinflation, asset bubbles, currency weakening, over-borrowing and lower productivity, Ma said.

    And while Ma was absolutely correct, in the end China appears to have succumbed for the temptation of CTRL-P, the same as most other central banks.

    “There’s a possibility that the central bank has bought sovereign bonds,” Ming Ming, head of fixed-income research at Citic Securities in Beijing, wrote in a note, though he cited the possibility of other factors being behind the rise. The move is more likely to be an effort to “directly finance the real economy” rather than quantitative easing, with the PBOC buying anti-virus bonds that invest in projects with a steady return, he said.

    Call it whatever you want Ming, at the end of the day it’s all about words and the narrative, because just like the Fed, the PBOC is forbidden by the nation’s central bank law from purchasing government debt in the primary market. That however hasn’t stopped the US central bank from monetizing $7 trillion worth of US deficits.

    Researchers affiliated with China’s Ministry of Finance had previously suggested the central bank should buy some government debt this year, a step which could help reduce the impact on markets as the government plans a record amount of sales to mitigate growth risks.

    None of this should come as a surprise: as Rabobank’s Michael Every sarcastically notes, “it’s not as if the Chinese state does not play a vast role in the economy and markets, is it? The consolidated fiscal deficit was already in double digits even before the virus struck according to the IMF: take a guess as to where it is now – and don’t think the PBOC isn’t ultimately backstopping this, because it is.”

  • $15 Billion In Federal Funding Flows Into Just Five Major U.S. Cities Where Civil Unrest Looms & Police Stand Down
    $15 Billion In Federal Funding Flows Into Just Five Major U.S. Cities Where Civil Unrest Looms & Police Stand Down

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/12/2020 – 21:05

    Submitted by Adam Andrzejewski,

    After the George Floyd protests broke out across major U.S. cities, some mayors and police chiefs were accused of issuing stand-down orders to their police officers. Nightly news streamed video footage of the looting, rioting, and general mayhem that ensued in the absence of a civil order.

    “Autonomous zones” sprung up in progressive cities and were described as part of a “summer of love.” Mayors pushed to defund local police departments. Center-right politicians called these cities “lawless” for refusing to protect the life, liberty, and property of its residents.

    In Seattle, the highly compensated city council voted to defund their police department. In Congress, an effort led by U.S. Sens Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) pushed to defund these cities of their federal aid.

    President Donald Trump indicated a willingness to review the situation. However, nobody knew exactly how much federal funding was “at stake.”

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    Auditors at OpenTheBooks.com quantified $14.8 billion in federal contracts and grants flowing into five major cities where civil unrest looms and policing is restrained: Seattle, Portland, New York, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco.

    We mapped the flow of federal funds during fiscal year 2019 to all units of government based within the city location. Here’s how it breaks down:

    Portland, Oregon (Federal awards: $252.5 million | pop. 653,115) A family of four, on average, received $1,548 in federal subsidies ($387 per person). The City of Portland (Mayor Ted Wheeler) received $34 million with the police department only getting $37,000. The public schools received $4.9 million and the housing authority another $26.4 million.

    Other governments receiving aid included the Port of Portland ($33.5 million) and $143.9 million into higher education: the local community college ($53 million), and Portland State University ($90.9 million).  Since FY2016, federal funding into Portland-based governments increased from $173.7 million to $252.5 million (FY2019), up 45.4-percent.

    Wheeler, who also doubles as the police commissioner, has always denied giving stand-down orders to the police. However, since 2016, prominent critics have alleged a hands-off police presence in the face of violent protests and riots.

    Seattle, Washington (Federal awards: $365.1 million | pop. 744,955) A family of four, on average, received $1,960 in federal subsidies ($490 per person). The City of Seattle (Mayor Jenny Durkan) received $97.5 million. The public schools received $42.5 million. The housing authority received $203 million in federal aid.

    Other governments receiving aid included City Light – a city-owned utility ($3.8 million), and the Port of Seattle ($17 million). Seattle colleges received $1.1 million in grant funding. Since FY2016, federal funding into Seattle-based governments increased from $283.6 million to $365.1 million (FY2019), up 28.7-percent.

    In June, Durkan called the “police-free” Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) within Seattle’s East Precinct a “block party” and police boarded up their precinct and let the protesters have free reign.

    San Francisco, California (Federal awards: $516 million | pop. 883,305) A family of four, on average, received $2,337 in federal subsidies ($584 per person). San Francisco city hall (Mayor London Breed) received $279.2 million – dwarfed by the $309 million into the housing authority. The fire department received $1.4 million.

    The city also received nearly $1 million of surplus military equipment under Program 1033. Since 2013, the city procured 320 items including 136 infrared illuminators, 100 night vision scopes, 49 reflex and thermal sights, 2 night vision sniper scopes, and a remote ordinance neutralization robot ($185,493). Transportation districts received nearly $140 million including the the city transportation authority ($7.1 million), Golden Gate Bridge district ($64 million), and Metropolitan Transportation Commission ($68 million).

    Other government receiving aid included the Coastal Commission ($2.9 million) and Judicial Commission of California ($4 million).

    Since FY2016, federal funding into San Francisco-based governments increased from $509 million to $584 million (FY2019), up 14.7-percent. In June, Breed announced that the police would no longer respond to a host of de-criminalized activities; and in July, the mayor announced a defunding of the police with the dollars re-directed toward the black community.

    San Fran was already the national leader in pretty crimes that critics say was the result of lack of police law enforcement.

    Washington, D.C. (Federal awards: $3.3 billion | pop. 705,000) A family of four, on average, received the equivalent of $18,723 in federal subsidies ($4,680 per person).

    In Washington, D.C. (Mayor Muriel Bowser), we found 33 separate city agencies receiving federal funds: the district government ($2 billion), the Metropolitan Police Department ($3.8 million), the fire department ($5.7 million), emergency management ($18.5 million), the DC university ($76.4 million), housing authority ($125.6 million), and public schools ($996.4 million).

    Other DC units of government receiving federal money included human services ($54.3 million), employment services ($35.9 million), health department ($24.3 million), energy and environment ($7.3 million), consumer & regulatory affairs ($3 million), and the commission on the arts ($1.8 million).

    Since FY2016, federal funding into Washington, D.C. increased from $2.2 billion to $3.3 billion (FY2019), up 50-percent. (This comparison between the years does not account for a $4.5 billion in funding from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to an entity listed in the federal data as “Dist. of Col.” in FY2019.)

    In June, President Trump criticized Bowser of “not locking down the city” as protests turned violent. The mayor defended the actions of the unified command of local and federal law enforcement. However, she called for the removal of all “extraordinary federal law enforcement and military” from the city.

    New York, New York (Federal awards: $5.6 billion | pop. 8.4 million) A family of four, on average, received the equivalent of $2,667 in federal subsidies ($667 per person). We found 52 units of government based in New York City (Mayor Bill de Blasio) receiving federal funds: the city government ($2.4 billion), housing authority ($2.3 billion), and the social services department ($875.3 million). The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey received $61 million and the city university received $616 million. Other city agencies receiving federal funds included homeless services ($2.4 million), the medical examiner ($1.5 million), and library ($322,966).

    In 2016 and 2017, the city police used Program 1033 to procure two mine-resistant vehicles. These military MRAPs, with a value of $1.5 million, were loaned at no charge by the Department of Defense. Because of inconsistent federal disclosures, a comparison between FY2016 and FY2019 can not be calculated. In June, the police union accused de Blasio of a stand down order. CNN reported $1 billion in budget cuts to the police department.

    As the above analysis shows, cutting the flow of federal funding into cities is a difficult proposition. However, the federal government could begin moving facilities out of unsafe cities. Officials and department secretaries could move federal buildings, agencies, and bureaucracies into safe environments. Doing so would have a substantial negative economic impact on cities.

    It just may cause mayors and police chiefs to re-prioritize the civil order.

    Note: we requested comment from the five city mayors and the Office of the President, Office of Management & Budget and will update the piece with responses, if any.

  • Attention Broke Millennials: Roundtrip Airfare Has Never Been Lower
    Attention Broke Millennials: Roundtrip Airfare Has Never Been Lower

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/12/2020 – 20:45

    Airline shares have erupted in August after federal data showed a bump in air travel volumes is now at five-month highs. 

    The latest data via Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoints at U.S. airports has surged in the last ten days, now at the highest levels since mid-March. However, TSA’s total traveler throughput data for the same weekday one year ago (Monday, August 10) is still down nearly 70%. 

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    U.S. Global Jets ETF has risen more than 20% in August as air travel volumes increase.

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    For the broke millennials, whom many are unemployed, and set to receive another stimulus check, here are some unbelievable roundtrip deals later this month (should be around the time when the next checks arrive):

    • New York City to Miami for $27 
    • New York City to Atlanta for $27
    • New York City to New Orleans for $58
    • New York City to Dallas for $27
    • New York City to Los Angeles $51

    Travel map for roundtrip flights in the US (Friday, Agust 28 – Monday, August 31): 

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    There’s just one problem: you might catch the virus while on an airplane… 

  • Indian Government To Launch Mandatory Digital Health Card On Bill Gates Concept
    Indian Government To Launch Mandatory Digital Health Card On Bill Gates Concept

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/12/2020 – 20:25

    Submitted by GreatGameIndia

    The Indian government is planning to launch a mandatory digital health card modeled on Bill Gates’ concept. Under the ‘One Nation One Health Card’ scheme, a person’s medical history records, including all the treatments and tests that the person has undergone, will be digitally saved in this card. Hospitals, clinics, and doctors will all be linked to a central server. The move is aimed at mapping the health records of every citizen of the country in a digital format.

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    Indian Govt To Launch Mandatory Digital Health Card On Bill Gates Concept

    One Nation One Health Card

    After the ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ scheme, the Government is now preparing to bring ‘One Nation One Health Card’ scheme. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to make the announcement on August 15, during the Independence Day celebrations, reported DNA.

    Under the ‘One Nation One Health Card’ scheme, a person’s medical history records, including all the treatments and tests that the person has undergone, will be digitally saved in this card.

    Hospitals, clinics, and doctors will all be linked to a central server. The move is aimed at mapping the health records of every citizen of the country in a digital format. Although it is being claimed that “it is completely up to hospitals and citizens, whether they want to opt for the ‘One Nation One Health Card’ scheme or not”.

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    A unique ID will be issued to every citizen who opts for this card, through which he/she will be able to log in to the system. Health Card will be made on the lines of Aaadhar Card, reported DNA.

    The scheme will be implemented in a phase-wise manner. A budget of Rs 500 crore has been allotted for the first phase of the plan. According to DNA, “the scope of the ‘One Nation One Health Card’ scheme will be gradually extended so that not only clinics and hospitals, but medical stores and medical insurance companies can remain connected on the server through this scheme”.

    National Digital Health Blueprint

    Although the DNA report did not disclose more details about the project, the ‘blueprint’ of the plan to set up a health data empire in India was released by the central govt last year. Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Dr Harsh Vardhan, unveiled the ‘National Digital Health Blueprint’, saying that he was ‘taking an oath to achieve a new dream’ – of a digitised healthcare ecosystem.

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    The main foundation of the blueprint is a unique health ID for citizens, with Aadhaar as a key identifier. A 2018 proposal of the NITI Aayog, the NHS has been developed in consultation with iSPIRT – an organisation of private sector ‘volunteers’, some of whom have also been involved in building the Aadhaar infrastructure and running operations that leverage it.

    While the government has moved ahead with sale of vehicle registration data of millions, released a tender for a nationwide facial recognition system and also passed Aadhaar amendment, the DNA Technology Bill and now the Digital Health Card, it is yet to table the data protection bill.

    Lobby Group iSPIRT

    Data researchers and activists, however, have expressed concerns about the development of this policy, which proposes a health data set-up on a foundation of India Stack – a bouquet of privately-owned proprietary software applications.

    “The health stack was proposed by the lobby group iSPIRT,” told Srinivas Kodali, an independent researcher to The Quint.

    IndiaStack is a set of APIs that allows governments, businesses, startups and developers to utilise the Aadhaar infrastructure for businesses like eKYC and UPI digital payments.

    “In fact it was found that NITI Aayog was emailing all consultation documents to iSPIRT while they did not place them in public domain. The Blueprint appears to give more legitimacy to stacks, which have been under criticism,” added Kodali.

    Simultaneously, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has initiated a COVID-19 Surveillance Project in India in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The data gathered through full-scale surveillance will be used to make future Indian strategies for containment in India.

    Although, what “future strategies for containment” will be implemented by WHO’s pointman in India were not revealed, similar projects by the agency and related organisations implemented elsewhere give us a clear idea of where India is heading.

    Vaccination based Digital Identity

    A vaccination based digital identity program Trust Stamp funded by Bill Gates and implemented by Mastercard and GAVI, will soon link your biometric digital identity to your vaccination records. The program said to “evolve as you evolve” is part of the Global War on Cash and has the potential dual use for the purposes of surveillance and “predictive policing” based on your vaccination history. Those who may not wish to be vaccinated may be locked out of the system based on their trust score.

    This Wellness Program involving GAVI, Mastercard, and Trust Stamp is soon going to be tested in West Africa. Similar program was also launched in the UK. The UK government is rolling out COVI PASS – Biometric RFID enabled Coronavirus Digital Health Passports to monitor nearly every aspect of citizens’ lives in the name of strengthening public health management through a military grade tech.

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    There is tremendous pressure on sovereign governments to implement such policies dictated by global agencies. Recently Belarus exposed the conditions laid by these agencies for loans being provided for COVID-19. The President of Belarus revealed that the World Bank coronavirus aid comes with conditions for imposing extreme lockdown measures, to model their coronavirus response on that of Italy and even changes in the economic policies which he refused as being “unacceptable”.

  • Real Estate Collapse: In Q2, A Record 44 NYC Neighborhoods Closed Fewer Than Five Deals
    Real Estate Collapse: In Q2, A Record 44 NYC Neighborhoods Closed Fewer Than Five Deals

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/12/2020 – 20:11

    By Eliza Theiss of Property Shark

    Marked by strict lockdowns, the halt of economic activity and the loss and suffering brought on by COVID-19, New York City’s real estate market was bound to present a decidedly different picture in the second quarter both year-over-year (Y-o-Y) and quarter-over-quarter (Q-o-Q).

    First, it’s important to note that, during the last quarter, a record 44 NYC neighborhoods closed fewer than five deals — a metric we consider to be the lowest minimum threshold for calculating a neighborhood’s median sale price. As a result, these neighborhoods are not represented in our findings. In total, we analyzed the second quarter’s median sale price and sales activity changes in 157 NYC neighborhoods.

    Next, the most notable change was brought on by Brooklyn, which — for the first time ever — had more neighborhoods among the city’s most expensive than Manhattan. Specifically, of the 52 neighborhoods that were ranked as the city’s 50 most expensive (due to two ties), Brooklyn claimed 23 entries versus Manhattan’s 21 neighborhoods, while Queens was represented by eight areas.

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    Pandemic-Depressed Market Slashes Manhattan Sales in Half, Brooklyn Sales Only by a Third

    Overall, the median sale price for the four boroughs contracted 2% Y-o-Y in Q2 and gained 4% Q-o-Q, stabilizing at $675,178. But, while the overall median of the four boroughs remained largely unchanged, sales activity plummeted — down 36% Q-o-Q and down 43% Y-o-Y. In particular, Manhattan was hit the hardest of the four boroughs. Its sales activity was halved, and the median sale price dropped 22% Y-o-Y from $1.27 million to $990,000.

    That significant drop was brought on by two major factors: a change in the ratio of property types sold and sale prices sliding under the influence of the new economic and public health crisis. And, while condo units represented half of all sales in Q2 2019, that share dropped to 44% in Q2 2020. Moreover, the median sale price of condo units traded in Q2 contracted 7% Y-o-Y from $1.745 million in 2019 to $1.625 million in 2020.

    At the same time, the number of co-ops traded dropped at a less dramatic rate and, as a result, co-ops made up a larger share of Manhattan residential sales: 55% this year compared to 49% last year. However, the median sale price of co-ops contracted at a sharper rate than condos, dropping 10% Y-o-Y — from $830,000 in Q2 2019 to $750,000 in Q2 2020.

    Brooklyn led in terms of sales activity, with the number of transactions recorded here in Q2 dropping only 32%, while its median sale price slid 2% to $702,000. Although sales activity decreased across all asset types — down 29% Y-o-Y for co-ops, 30% for condos and 41% for single-family homes — the median sale price presented conflicting trends across different property types. As a result, Brooklyn’s Q2 2020 residential market presented a fractured image.

    Condo and co-op sales took up a larger share of Brooklyn’s residential sales in Q2 2020 compared to Q2 2019 — to the detriment of single-family home sales. In particular, houses represented 22% of all second-quarter sales in 2020, as opposed to 25% in 2019. Meanwhile, co-op units represented 28% compared to 27% a year ago, and condo unit sales increased from 48% to 50% of all sales.

    Notably, the median sale price of single-family homes increased 7% Y-o-Y to $773,000 and the co-op median gained 9% Y-o-Y to reach $462,000. However, the drop in the median sale price of Brooklyn condos paired with their increased share of total sales deflated the entire borough’s Q2 median this year. Specifically, Brooklyn condos registered a 4% Y-o-Y drop, going from last year’s $863,000 to $825,000 in Q2 2020.

    Bronx Single-Family Sales Surge, While Queens Condos Heat Up Borough Pricing

    The Bronx and Queens showed similar trends, both in terms of pricing and sales activity evolution across all residential property types. Queens fared well in terms of price growth, with its median rising 12.3% Y-o-Y from $463,000 to $520,000, although transactional activity shrank 42% Y-o-Y. Meanwhile, Bronx prices actually rose at a slightly sharper rate of 12.5% Y-o-Y, but sales activity plunged 46% here.

    In particular, price growth in the Bronx was fueled by the significant increase in the share of sales of single-family homes. While condos made up 23% of all second-quarter sales in 2019 and single-family homes 34%, in 2020, the share of condo sales dropped to 18% of the borough’s total residential sales, while single-family homes made up 40%.

    And, because the median sale price of single-family homes ($525,000 in Q2 2020) is significantly higher than that of condos ($225,000 in Q2 2020), the Bronx’s overall median sale price grew, as well, going from $289,000 a year ago to $325,000 in Q2 of this year.

    Queens, a borough dominated by single-family homes, saw its sales activity drop at the sharpest rate for this property type. At the same time, condos outperformed every other residential property type, both in terms of pricing and number of sales.

    More precisely, Queens condo sales declined a mere 4% Y-o-Y, while their median sale price rose 13% Y-o-Y to reach $644,000 in Q2 2020. Likewise, condos also constituted a larger share of all sales in 2020, representing 22% of all Q2 transactions this year, as opposed to 13% in 2019.

    However, as condos still madk up a relatively small percentage of all Queens sales, the borough’s second-quarter sales activity dropped 42% Y-o-Y, fueled by the 47% decline in co-op sales and 48% decrease in single-family home sales. As a result, co-ops represented 37% of all Q2 sales in Queens and single-family homes made up 41%, down from last year’s 40% and 47%, respectively.

    Although sales activity decreased across the board, the borough’s 13% price increase was sustained by a 7% Y-o-Y increase in the median sale price of both co-ops ($320,000 in Q2 2020) and single-family homes ($644,000), and boosted by the 13% Y-o-Y hike for condos.

    Kingsbridge Median Surges 147% Y-o-Y, Gowanus Sales Activity Heats Up 230%

    At the neighborhood level, the Bronx’s Kingsbridge led in terms of pricing gains with its 147% Y-o-Y surge. Specifically, it went from $230,000 in Q2 2019 to $568,000 in Q2 2020 due to the change in types of properties sold. For instance, while the seven sales recorded in Q2 2019 were all co-ops, Q2 2020 saw six sales — three of which were single-family homes.

    Kingsbridge’s pricing surge was followed by Williamsbridge’s 100% Y-o-Y boom, which brought the Bronx neighborhood’s median sale price up to $478,000. That jump was also the result of an increase in the number of single-family homes sold. While single-family homes made up half of Williamsbridge sales in Q2 2019 and had a median sale price of $462,000, in Q2 2020, single-family homes represented 67% of the neighborhood’s sales at a noticeably higher median sale price of $512,000.

    At the other end of the spectrum stood Prospect Park South, which experienced the sharpest decline — down 54% Y-o-Y. It went from a median sale price of $1.23 million a year ago to $568,000 in Q2 2020. Once again, that change was brought on by a change in the mix of property types sold and their lower price points.

    Specifically, in Q2 2019, Prospect Park South’s residential sales were comprised of 57% co-op units and 43% single-family homes. However, this year, single-family homes represented just 17% of sales, while co-ops took 33% and condos made up 50%. That was a significant change, as Q2’s condo sales had a median sale price of $560,000.

    Nearby, the median sale price of Hunter’s Point co-ops decreased 23% Y-o-Y from $778,000 to $592,000. Additionally, while the three single-family homes sold in Q2 2019 had a median of $2.215 million, only two homes were sold in Q2 2020, and those averaged $959,000.

    In terms of sales activity, Brooklyn’s Gowanus witnessed the sharpest growth rate at a whopping 230% Y-o-Y. However, it must be noted that, in terms of actual transactions, that figure represents an increase from 10 deals registered in Q2 2019 to 33 transactions registered in Q2 2020. That surge was fueled by sales in new developments in the neighborhood, such as Luna at 229 9th Street., which originated 12 condo sales in Q2 2020 and none in Q2 2019.

    Meanwhile, Brooklyn neighborhood Greenwood Heights and Queens’ Hunters Point experienced the next-sharpest gains in transactional activity, both recording 123% more sales than in Q2 2019. All in all, only 15 of the 157 NYC neighborhoods included in this report registered year-over-year increases in transactional activity.

    On the opposite end of the spectrum was Brooklyn’s Greenpoint. Its 83% Y-o-Y drop was the sharpest rate of decrease in sales activity among all neighborhoods that had at least five sales. In particular, only 14 deals closed in Greenpoint in Q2 2020, as opposed to the 80 that were registered here in the same timeframe last year, fueled by the sale of 48 luxury condos at the then-new mixed-use development The Greenpoint. As a result, the neighborhood’s median sale price also contracted, dropping 22% Y-o-Y from $1.36 million in Q2 2019 to $1.06 million in Q2 2020.

    Brooklyn Overtakes Manhattan for First Time, Lands More Neighborhoods in Top 50 Priciest

    Among the neighborhoods omitted from our analysis due to insufficient sales activity were high-profile names like Hudson Yards, Malba and the Columbia Street Waterfront District, which ranked as the #1, #7 and #9 most expensive NYC neighborhoods in Q1 2020. Consequently, TriBeCa reclaimed the title of #1 most expensive neighborhood in NYC, despite a 14% Y-o-Y price drop that brought its median sale price down to $3.73 million. At the same time, sales activity plummeted 52% Y-o-Y.

    The city’s #2 most expensive neighborhood was Little Italy at $2.75 million. Its median sale price registered a mild 3% Y-o-Y uptick, paired with a 4% gain Q-o-Q. But, its sales activity dropped 22% Y-o-Y, closing only seven deals in Q2 2020.

    Similarly, SoHo’s $2.425 million median sale price earned it the title of NYC’s #3 most expensive neighborhood, despite its 8% median sale price contraction. However, its drop in transactional activity was more dramatic — down 67% — closing only 15 sales compared to 46 registered in Q2 2019.

    Overall, Manhattan supplied six of the city’s 10 most expensive neighborhoods and Brooklyn four. However, when looking at the 50 most expensive neighborhoods, Brooklyn had a heavier presence than Manhattan — a historic first. Specifically, of the 52 neighborhoods that had the 50 highest median sale prices of Q2, 23 were in Brooklyn versus Manhattan’s 21 neighborhoods. Queens was represented by eight.

    Manhattan Snapshot: TriBeCa Retakes Top Spot, Inwood Has Lowest Median at $405K

    As is most often the case, Manhattan’s three most expensive neighborhoods were also NYC’s three priciest: TriBeCa, Little Italy and SoHo. But, its competitively priced neighborhoods are often what incite the most interest here in what is, historically, the city’s priciest borough.

    With a median sale price of $405,000, Inwood was Manhattan’s #1 most affordable neighborhood, following a 5% Y-o-Y drop. However, Inwood’s sales activity was halved, as was Tudor City’s, Manhattan’s #2 most affordable area. The latter posted a median sale price of $455,000 following a 10% Y-o-Y hike, which was the only year-over-year pricing gain among Manhattan’s five lowest-priced neighborhoods.

    At the same time, Washington Heights underwent an 18% Y-o-Y price crunch that cemented its $468,000 median as the borough’s #3 lowest.

    Brooklyn Snapshot: Sales Activity Drops Only 32% Y-o-Y, DUMBO Becomes #4 Priciest NYC Neighborhood

    Three of Brooklyn’s priciest neighborhoods were among the city’s top 10 most expensive. Brooklyn’s median sale price leader, DUMBO, landed at #4 with a $2.075 million median. That came as a result of a noticeable 38% Y-o-Y increase spurred by the sale of three units at 100 Jay Street with a median of $2.45 million. At the same time, DUMBO’s sales activity was halved.

    Carroll Gardens was right on DUMBO’s heels as Brooklyn’s #2 most expensive neighborhood and the city’s #5 priciest. Its median was on the rise, as well, gaining 42% Y-o-Y. However, sales activity in Carroll Gardens dropped at an even sharper rate than in DUMBO, coming in at 65% below Q2 2019.

    Hitting a median sale price of $1.46 million following a 38% Y-o-Y drop, Cobble Hill was Brooklyn’s #3 priciest neighborhood in Q2 20201 and #8 city-wide. This was after a somewhat artificially inflated median in Q2 2019, elevated by the 17 sales registered at The Cobble Hill House, where the median sale price was $2.32 million.

    On the other end of the borough’s pricing spectrum stood Gerritsen Beach, Coney Island and Midwood, which logged the lowest median sale prices. In particular, Gerritsen Beach was Brooklyn’s #1 most affordable neighborhood at $402,000, following a 7% Y-o-Y slide. Sales activity here dropped a mere 5% Y-o-Y, while Coney Island dropped 39% Y-o-Y.

    However, Coney Island’s median gained 6% to become Brooklyn’s #2 lowest median. Meanwhile, Midwood’s 32% Y-o-Y drop pulled its median sale price down from last year’s $650,000 to $441,000 in Q2 2020, and transactional activity was slashed by 43% Y-o-Y.

    All in all, the borough’s median sale price dipped 2% Y-o-Y, closing Q2 at $702,000. Notably, Brooklyn’s sales activity dropped only 32%, representing the lowest decline in transactional activity among the four boroughs.

    Queens Snapshot: 34% Y-o-Y Drop Makes Briarwood Borough’s Lowest-Priced Neighborhood

    In Queens, eight neighborhoods were among the city’s 50 most expensive. Nonetheless, the borough navigated a tumultuous second quarter with sales activity dropping 42% Y-o-Y. It registered only 1,365 sales, as opposed to 2,340 in Q2 2019. Queens’ median sale price, however, rose 12.3% Y-o-Y, reaching $520,000 in Q2 2020.

    Fresh Meadows was its #1 most expensive neighborhood at a median sale price of $930,000, following a 9% Y-o-Y uptick. While that growth rate was lower than the borough’s 12.3% Y-o-Y gain, Fresh Meadows’s median was upheld by the type of properties that changed hands. In fact, in Q2 2020, only single-family homes were sold here, all of which sold for more than $800,000. As a result, Fresh Meadows’ $930,000 median also made it the #27 most expensive neighborhood in NYC.

    Queensboro Hill was Queens’ #2 priciest neighborhood with an $893,000 median sale price. That number tied it with Manhattan’s Gramercy Park to secure the city’s #32 priciest neighborhood. While Queensboro Hill’s sales activity plummeted 60% Y-o-Y, Hunters Point saw sales surge 123%. The borough’s #3 priciest neighborhood at $890,000, Hunters Point tied Brooklyn’s Greenwood Heights for the NYC neighborhood with the second-highest gain in transactional activity.  

    Queens’ #1 lowest-priced neighborhood was Briarwood at $213,000, following a 34% Y-o-Y reduction in its median sale price. Both here and in the borough’s #2 most affordable neighborhood of Corona, sales activity was halved.

    Likewise, Corona’s median was also on the downswing, dropping 32% Y-o-Y to $260,000. In the meantime, Lindenwood — Queens’ #3 best-priced neighborhood — bucked the trend with a 7% Y-o-Y increase to reach $270,000 in Q2.

    Bronx Snapshot: Up 13% Y-o-Y, Spencer Estates Becomes Most Expensive Neighborhood in the Bronx

    As usual, the Bronx didn’t manage to make its way among the city’s 50 priciest neighborhoods.  However, it did register the sharpest pricing gain among the four boroughs, climbing 12.5% to a median sale price of $325,000, although sales activity fell 46% Y-o-Y. Its #1 most expensive neighborhood was Spencer Estates, which logged a $619,000 median after a 26% Y-o-Y price expansion. As such, it ranked as the #67 priciest NYC neighborhood.

    NYC’s #74 priciest neighborhood and the Bronx’s #2 highest, Morris Park just made the cut with five sales at a $585,000 median sale price. And, with an 8% Y-o-Y pricing gain, Pelham Gardens was the #3 priciest Bronx neighborhood at $572,500, while its sales activity dipped 8%.

    Tied at a median sale price of $162,500, High Bridge and Fordham became the lowest-priced neighborhoods in the Bronx. Specifically, High Bridge’s median ticked up 3% Y-o-Y with transactional activity unchanged, while Fordham’s sales were halved, and its median dropped 34% Y-o-Y.

    Meanwhile, following a 16% Y-o-Y appreciation, Kingsbridge Heights became the #2 most affordable Bronx neighborhood at $185,000, while Parkchester’s 8% Y-o-Y bump gave it the #3 lowest median sale price in the Bronx at $188,750.

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  • "Disastrous Economic Situation" – Small Firm Bust Goes Unnoticed As Economy Flounders  
    “Disastrous Economic Situation” – Small Firm Bust Goes Unnoticed As Economy Flounders  

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/12/2020 – 20:05

    The virus-induced recession has resulted in deep economic scarring that will be seen for years. Tens of millions of Americans remain unemployed, broke, and hungry. US bankruptcies of large companies are on pace to hit a 10-year high, with even more devastation seen among smaller firms.

    The collapse of small business is absolutely shocking, considering firms with under 500 employees account for about 44% of US economic activity. 

    Bloomberg notes a “wave of silent failures goes uncounted in part because real-time data on small business is notoriously scarce, and because owners of small firms often have no debt, and thus no need for bankruptcy court.” 

    “Probably all you need to do is call the utilities and tell them to turn them off and close your door,” said William Dunkelberg, chief economist for the National Federation of Independent Business. 

    Dunkelberg warned: Small business closures “are going to be well above normal because we’re in a disastrous economic situation.”

    Yelp’s latest data on business activity shows more than 80,000 companies permanently shuttered operations from March 1 to July 25. What’s concerning is that 60,000 of these closings were small firms. 

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    We recently pointed out small restaurants across the country have listed their eateries for sale on Facebook Marketplace. The number of listings is stunning, a clear indication the bust cycle is far from over. Another round of closures could be seen later this year, or into next, as the recovery reverses and fears of a double-dip recession materialize. 

    A July report from the US Chamber of Commerce survey showed 58% of small business owners are worried about permanently closing. The problem today is that the economic recovery stalled in June and has started to reverse, a fiscal cliff has been festering underneath the surface in August, which could result in lower consumption among tens of millions of Americans that would pressure businesses sales. 

    A combination of firms going bust and depressionary unemployment levels have tremendous spillover effects in the mostly dominated consumer-driven economy.

    President Trump’s orders to provide more direct transfer payments to broke Americans have tremendous consequences; first, a quarter of all US income is derived from the government, and second, this transfer of wealth creates unsustainable artificial growth. 

    We outlined, in late July, how a decline or ending helicopter drops via President Trump’s stimulus checks will have more significant fiscal cliff impacts on small towns with a lower standard of living than large metro areas.

    With small businesses going bust at breakneck speeds and a quarter of all US income derived from the government, it just makes you wonder if this was all planned…

  • Grim College COVID-19 Rules
    Grim College COVID-19 Rules

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/12/2020 – 19:45

    Authored by Adam Dick via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

    College ain’t what it used to be…

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    Supposedly because of a virus that for most college students is less of a threat to their lives than riding in a car, students at college campuses this fall will be subjected to dystopian controls from required mask wearing and “social distancing” to surveillance via contact tracing and health monitoring.

    Many prospective and set to return students will see this as an undesirable situation. College enrollment in America has been dropping over the last ten or so years. Make college dreary enough and there can be a big additional drop as this year’s fall semester begins.

    For an example of the kind of restrictions and surveillance being imposed on students at many university campuses, consider these requirements in the Duke Compact that Duke University is imposing and even wants all students to sign:

    To comply with requirements from Duke University, and state and local authorities, I will:

    • Wear a mask or face covering in all public spaces.

    • Maintain appropriate physical distance.

    • Wash my hands often.

    • Monitor and report my symptoms through the SymMon app, or approved alternatives, before coming to campus.

    • Avoid large gatherings.

    • Stay home when I feel ill.

    • Know and follow safety plans and additional guidance that are specific to my group, workplace or activity.

    • Keep confidential all health information I know or learn about others.

    To protect myself and the people around me, I will:

    • Participate in required COVID-19 testing, contact tracing and health monitoring.

    • If instructed, self-isolate for the required duration.

    • Get the flu shot and other required vaccinations by designated deadlines.

    Adhere to all travel conditions and restrictions.

    • Consent to the use of institutional data to identify others who have been in proximity or close contact.

    • Accept the benefits and consequences for the conditions of this compact.

    • Speak up to share suggestions or concerns by calling 800.826.8109 or completing an online form.

    Yikes.

    Making it clear that these requirements are not just advisory or aspirational statements, the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section following the Duke Compact includes these entries:

    What are the consequences for violating terms of the Duke Compact?

    While some minor violations will result in reminders and educational engagement, other flagrant and repeated violations may result in restricting your access to Duke facilities, employment actions or removal from campus. Consult your student, faculty or staff handbooks for further information…

    …Can I still be enrolled as a student, even if I don’t sign the Duke Compact?

    We expect all members of the Duke community to be united in protecting ourselves, each other and the community that depends upon us. A signature is required to have access to the campus, and, based on the expectations and requirements of your academic field, refusal to sign and comply with the provisions may impact your student status.

    Further, while one may see ambiguity in portions of the Duke Compact that leaves room for some freedom and privacy, the FAQ shuts much of this down. Here are some examples.

    The “public spaces” where a mask must be worn is an expansive area including everywhere on campus except where a person is “alone in a confined room such as an office or dorm room,” “alone in a vehicle, if the vehicle is not regularly shared with others,” eating or drinking “while following safety guidance,” or in “open outdoor areas where social distancing is easily maintained and areas where individuals are not likely to pass in close proximity.”

    The requirement to report symptoms is a requirement to do so daily; fail to do so and “your access to buildings may be temporarily suspended, or revoked.”

    The “large gatherings” that must be avoided can include gatherings of as few as 11 people. The requirement to participate in “required COVID-19 testing” includes being tested “upon arrival” at the Duke campus as well as potentially anytime “based on symptom reporting, contact tracing information or as part of periodic sample testing of our residential population.”

    Adhering to “all travel conditions and restrictions” means students “living in Duke-provided residences” are not to travel beyond the city of Durham “for the duration of the semester” unless doing so is “necessary” and the student receives permission from Duke University, takes “reasonable precautions,” and follows “Student Health instructions upon return.”

    “Institutional data” that may be used in contact tracing include “symptom monitoring survey responses, door control access points, wi-fi access points, geofence technologies, housing assignments and class schedules.”

    In addition to all the restrictions and surveillance imposed directly on students by Duke University, the FAQ indicates Duke may also go after students for failure to comply, even when the students are not on campus, with whatever coronavirus mandates may be imposed by the state and local governments. From the FAQ: “Duke expects all members of our community to adhere to state/local public health orders both on- and off- campus.”

    Other universities are similarly using “compacts” and other sorts of edicts to weigh students down with many new rules in the name of countering coronavirus.

    It used to be that going to college was an opportunity to escape from strict rules imposed by parents, gain more privacy, take new risks, and learn the self-responsibility helpful for adulthood. Now, many more students reading college requirements like those in the Duke Compact will see college as more restrictive and stifling than mom and dad.

    Since the second half of the last century, attending college after high school has been for a large portion of the American population the default course. The imposing of over-the-top dictates like those in the Duke Compact challenges that situation. Confronted with such dictates, a significant number of potential freshmen, as well as of set to return students, will have a “Why bother?” epiphany.

    There are options besides college. Make college grim enough in the name of countering coronavirus and many more people will choose to engage in those other options instead.

    Duke University itself may not suffer much in reduced enrollment, though it could see a big change in the makeup of its student body. Duke is one of the selective universities that rejects many applicants. It can, to maintain enrollment numbers, start admitting students it previously would have rejected.

    Less select universities will really face trouble due to fewer people choosing to pursue higher education. Some of these universities can be expected to disappear as they become economically unviable.

  • "Copper Is Way Ahead Of The Fundamentals," Warns Commerzbank
    “Copper Is Way Ahead Of The Fundamentals,” Warns Commerzbank

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/12/2020 – 19:25

    “Copper is way ahead of the fundamentals,” Eugen Weinberg, head of commodities research at Commerzbank, told Reuters, adding that waning demand and oversupply conditions should pressure prices well into a correction (10-15%) from current levels. 

    After a 17 week meteoric rise in COMEX copper futures, resistance has formed around the $3-handle in the last 22 trading sessions. Noted below are Fibonacci retracement levels.

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    Weinberg’s view is that the +50% bounce in copper prices from mid-March to present is unsustainable. Some of the price gains have been built on central banks unleashing trillions of dollars of monetary policy to stabilize the crashed global economy.  On top of that, China was pulling forward copper demand. Now the global recovery is stalled, copper prices could be setting up for a pullback. 

    BMO commodity analyst Colin Hamilton pointed out in late July that copper prices are bound for a correction given the recent melt-up. 

    “I’ll be expecting copper higher at the end of the year. We are playing the stimulus recovery,” Hamilton said. 

    He Tianyu, an analyst with CRU, said China’s surging copper imports this summer “was mainly due to the spread between London and Shanghai copper prices, which made it cheaper to buy metal from overseas, and purchases pushed back at the height of the coronavirus inside the country.” 

    Now with the arbitrage window shut, Tianyu warned third-quarter Chinese copper demand could slump. 

    Are copper prices a little too optimistic about world trade recovery? 

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    A decline in copper prices is bad news for world stocks. 

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    Keep an eye on declining copper prices, it could be a lead on what comes next for world stocks.

  • Andrew Kimbrell On The Origins of COVID-19
    Andrew Kimbrell On The Origins of COVID-19

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/12/2020 – 19:05

    Via Corporate Crime Reporter (emphasis ours),

    What are the origins of the COVID-19 virus?

    Did it come from nature?

    Or did it leak from a lab in Wuhan, China?

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    The International Center for Technology Assessment is placing its bets on a leak from a lab in Wuhan.

    “After considerable research, including a thorough review of the selected research materials and discussions with experts in the field, we have come to agree with the view that the virus causing COVID-19 did not evolve naturally but rather is the product of one of the high-security bio-medical laboratories in Wuhan, China,” the group said in a statement issued last month.  “We believe that there is a preponderance of circumstantial and scientific evidence demonstrating that the ‘laboratory virus’ hypothesis is not only possible but probable. By contrast, recent refutation of the hypothesis that the virus originated at a Wuhan wet market and new findings that the virus has not been found in nature despite significant effort to do so, makes the view that the virus evolved naturally unlikely.” 

    “No dispositive finding on the virus’ origin can be made without a full review of the records and logs of the Wuhan high security laboratories involved, which the current stance of the government of China makes improbable. Nevertheless, in coming to a conclusion as to the probability of its laboratory origin, ICTA understands that it is critical that any analysis of the origin of this catastrophic contagion be apolitical and constructive. ICTA’s work in this area is not intended to blame individual scientists or any country,  but rather to help provide the insight, and encourage the action needed to spare humanity from a series of future man-made pandemics that could surpass the current one in transmissibility and lethality.”

    Andrew Kimbrell is executive director of the International Center for Technology Assessment. 

    “Let’s start with the probability – more likely than not – that the COVID-19 virus is a lab created virus – from one of the two labs in Wuhan China,” Kimbrell told Corporate Crime Reporter in an interview last month. 

    “Let’s take a look at the virus itself.” 

    “Is there anything about the virus that would indicate one way or another? The other four categories are more circumstantial. Circumstantial evidence is fine in a court of law.” 

    “One is – location. Where did it happen?”

    “Two – precedent. Has anything like this ever happened before?”

    “Three – warnings. Did anybody warn that this might happen?”

    “And four – cover-up. Did the labs and the Chinese government try to cover it up?”

    “Those are the five categories that I would ask your friends and skeptics to go through carefully before they use words like conspiracy or baloney. And later on I will go through why some of them are using those terms. We will get into the corporate support for these people and why you are getting this misinformation.”

    “Let’s go through it. It is undisputed that this is a chimeric virus that has never been seen before. It’s a hybrid virus.“

    “The bat coronaviruses that are closest to COVID-19 are lacking two incredibly important things that COVID-19 has that make it so dangerous. One is the proteins that spike the cell – the spike proteins. The spike proteins that are on COVID-19 are completely different than those on the bat coronaviruses that are closest to it otherwise. Then there is the furin cleavage site. This is something that allows the virus to get inside the cell and have the cell mechanism reproduce it. That does not exist in this group of bat coronaviruses.” 

    “You have a basic bat coronavirus and you have two things that have been added to it. The spike protein is closest to an animal called the pangolin. We do know that somehow this bat virus was infected by at least two other animals and then went into a human host. And for that virus to be the way it is, it had to happen simultaneously.”

    “We have a hybrid virus never seen before in nature, it had to have been infected simultaneously with these other elements that make it more dangerous – make it more infective and more transmissible.”

    “There is no theory about how they got in there. They used to think it was the wet market. That has been completely debunked, including by the Chinese government. No one believes that anymore. That explanation was a smoke screen put up by the Chinese and Americans who want to support that idea.”

    What are the chances it happened naturally?

    “Someone will have to come up with a scenario. It sounds almost like a joke. A horseshoe bat, a pangolin and some other creature met in a bar in Wuhan and somehow simultaneously infected them.”  

    “I haven’t seen any scenario of how that happened or where that happened. But we know that had to happen. It happened somewhere. It either happened in nature or it happened in the Wuhan Institute of Virology or it happened at the CDC lab in Wuhan.” 

    “That is undisputed. Then at the end of May, Nickolai Petrovsky and his team in Australia said – let’s see if we can find a creature that might have an affinity for this. That way we might find the animals that might have come together to create this virus. Their conclusion was that they could not find it anywhere else in nature. These are objective researchers. They are not Trump supporters. That study made it even more difficult to accept the natural theory.”

    “Meanwhile, we know that this was exactly the kind of work that was going on at one or both of the Wuhan labs. They call it gain of function research. I call it gain of threat research. They were taking NIH money, through the EcoHealth Alliance to do exactly this. And they did exactly this. They added different kinds of protein spikes. They mixed and matched various viruses. They genetically engineered them. They infected a number of animals. They put them into human cell cultures to increase the threat.”

    Why were they doing this research?

    “The point of the research was to collect all of these bat viruses from 1,000 miles away from Wuhan and bring them back into their labs. The bat coronavirus was also the basis for the first SARS outbreak. They collected the bat viruses and brought them back to the labs. And then we are going to see what it would take for them to become really dangerous. What would it take? The idea was – if we can show what it takes in a laboratory for them to become incredibly dangerous then maybe we can predict that happening in nature. And then maybe we could have vaccines or interventions and be ready for the next pandemic.”

    It was a way to develop vaccines?

    “No. It was a way to develop a potential pandemic virus that might have occurred in nature at some point in the future. By having it, they would be able to think about what intervention strategies might work against this virus, which is now only in the lab, not in nature.”

    “They would say – we’re trying to not have the next pandemic. And there are a couple of problems with that argument. I sent you an article by Marc Lipsitch at Harvard and Tom Inglesby at Johns Hopkins. They pretty much demolished this argument. They say – there are hundreds of combinations of coronaviruses that could happen in nature. The idea that you can pick one or two and that is going to be the one that nature comes up with is like winning the lottery. And then to create a vaccine for a non existent virus – except in your laboratory – no one is going to do that. They are going to wait to see what happens in nature.” 

    “This whole gain of threat research, there are many reputable scientists now saying – it gives you no information, it’s not useful for vaccines, it’s not useful for anything except for the curiosity and interest of this small group of scientists who do this research.”

    “Meanwhile they are creating novel pandemic viruses.”

    “Let’s get back to the list.”

    “Location. Why did this happen in Wuhan? Of all the cities in China. Of all the areas where bats are – and they are nowhere near Wuhan, they are 1,000 miles away. Of all of the cities it could have happened in, of all the small towns it could have happened in, why did it happen in Wuhan? What are the odds of this happening in Wuhan naturally versus happening in Wuhan because researchers there were doing exactly the kind of research that would create it? What are the odds of that? If I was in court, I would say that’s a very strong indicator that it happened in the labs. And in the interview with Shi Zhengli, she was so surprised. Why would this happen in Wuhan? And that’s why she got so nervous. Check that in favor of the lab theory.”

    “Two is precedent. Was there any precedent? Yes. In 2003 and 2004, the original SARS virus was leaked four times from Chinese laboratories. It was reported in Science magazine. So, we’ve already had a leak of SARS 1. And a couple of people who worked in that laboratory died in 2004. We have a precedent with the SARS virus.” 

    “What about warnings? There were numerous warnings. UPMC Center for Health Security looked at ten nations including China. In 2016, they found inadequate training and inadequate safety personnel in China to secure biosecurity.”

    “In 2017, there is an article in Nature where scientists say they are very concerned about a biosafety level 4 laboratory in China doing all of this controversial research. We don’t feel they have the experience or the expertise to do that.”

    “In 2018, we have the cables from the U.S. State Department saying – we are in this lab in China and we are very concerned that they are not taking appropriate precautions. And we are hoping that the United States government is coming to help them because this could be a very bad result. That was reported on by Josh Rogin in the Washington Post. You can read these cables.”

    “In 2019, the Global Health Security Index for the very first time looks at biosecurity for 195 nations. No one has ever done anything that comprehensive. They found that China was not even in the top fifty of the most biosecure countries.” 

    “NBC reported that in October 2019 there was cell phone silence at the Wuhan lab. They were concerned that might have had something to do with an accident.”

    “You had all of these warnings. You had precedent. Then you have a massive cover-up. Milton Leitenberg in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists goes over that cover-up in great detail in an article in June titled “Did the SARS-CoV-2 virus arise from a bat coronavirus research program in a Chinese laboratory? Very possibly.” 

    “Leitenberg goes over the cover-up in detail. China orders the virus destroyed. They punish those who were publishing stories about it. They refused to make any records from the labs available. They put out disinformation that it came from a U.S. military lab.” 

    What about the so called batwoman?

    “The Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli. She works at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. She says she didn’t sleep a wink for days, fearful that the virus came from her lab. But now she assures us that it didn’t come from her lab. She may be right or she may be wrong. I don’t know. It may have come from the other lab or from someone else working there. But she herself was so frightened about the possibility that her research had created this pandemic that she didn’t sleep a wink for days. That’s enough to say to me – that research should never happen.”

    What you call gain of threat research was banned for a while, correct?

    “That’s correct. Gain of function research is used for different kinds of research. If you were to be working with a plant and were trying to get the plant to fixate nitrogen better, that would be gain of function for that plant. There is nothing wrong with gain of function research. But to use the term as they do is dishonest. The term gain of function sounds innocuous. Gain of function – that doesn’t sound bad.”

    You don’t want to ban gain of function research.

    “I don’t want to ban gain of function research. I’m going to take away the double speak and call it what it is – gain of threat research on potential pandemic viruses. That’s what I want to ban. No one in the world should be doing gain of threat research on potentially pandemic viruses. It’s the definition of insanity.”

    “In 2014, the Obama administration declared a moratorium on any federal funding of gain of threat research. The reason they did this was because two researchers – Ron Fouchier in the Netherlands and Yoshihiro Kawaoka in Wisconsin – were working on the H5N1 bird flu, which had a 60 percent mortality rate, but was not transmissible through the air. It killed a few hundred people, but because it was not transmissible, it didn’t go very far. But they decided they were going to try and turn it into a transmissible virus and publish their results.”

    “With a 60 percent mortality rate, if that virus escaped, you have a potential 1.6 billion casualties.” 

    Did they actually turn it into a transmissible virus?

    “According to them, they did yes.”

    What are the ethics of turning that into a transmissible virus?

    “Marc Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology and director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at the Harvard School of Public Health said this ‘We have accepted principles, embodied in the Nuremberg Code, that say that biomedical experiments posing a risk to human subjects should only be undertaken if they provide benefits that sufficiently offset the risks – and if there are no other means of obtaining those benefits. Although these experiments don’t involve people directly, they do put human life and well-being at risk.’” 

    [For the complete q/a format Interview with Andrew Kimbrell, see 34 Corporate Crime Reporter 30(10), Monday June 27, 2020, print edition only.]

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