Dec 13

Today’s News 13th December 2020

  • If You Thought 2020 Was Bad, Watch What Happens In 2021
    If You Thought 2020 Was Bad, Watch What Happens In 2021
    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/12/2020 – 23:30

    Authored by Brandon Smith and originally published at Birch Gold Group,

    In terms of the economy and the American social situation, 2020 is definitely one of the ugliest years on record, there’s really no way around it. That said, I get the impression that many in the public are operating under the assumption that we are about to cross over the peak of the mountain and it will be all downhill from here on. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

    All eyes have been focused on the pandemic event, and the thinking is that once the pandemic is “over”, the crisis will be over and everything will go back to normal.

    But, as the globalists have been telling us since the outbreak began, the world “will never go back to normal again”. It’s not because of the pandemic, mind you, it’s because THEY won’t allow things to go back to normal. The “great reset”, as the World Economic Forum calls it, is meant to go on for many years. And, the globalists intend that every aspect of our lives be changed into something almost unrecognizable.

    First I want to make it clear that I don’t expect the reset agenda to be successful. In fact, I think it’s going to fail miserably. The globalists have reached too far too fast and exposed themselves, and millions upon millions of people around the world and in America are not buying the pandemic narrative. But here is the problem; the pandemic is a distraction from a much greater threat, namely the economic collapse that is developing right now.

    The financial downturn has been created by international banks and central banks through massive debt creation and inflationary stimulus measures. The initial spark for the wildfire took place in 2008, the economic threat has been under the noses of the public for quite some time. Now, however, the establishment has some perfect scapegoats, including the Trump Administration as well as the coronavirus. The globalists are hoping that people will become so mesmerized by the pandemic crisis and the election fight that they will rest all blame for the collapse on those two ready-made targets.

    Make no mistake, the economy was put on life support long before Trump ever entered office and long before anyone ever heard of COVID-19. The globalists are simply pulling the plug right now and letting it die.

    Of course, stock markets remain high, but the stock market does NOT represent the economy. It does not reflect financial health or the stability on main street. The stock market is an artificially propped up Pavlovian bell designed to make the public salivate every time the tickers go green. A majority of people tend to associate stock prices with economic improvement (mainly people who know nothing about economics or stocks). The extent of their research is 15 minutes of mainstream news a day along with 30-second reports on the Dow rising or falling, that is all. A rising Dow is enough to keep a large percentage of the population believing that things are going to get better.

    Eventually stocks will crash along with almost everything else, just as they did in the hyperinflated markets of Weimar, Germany.

    But, what the public should be focused on is small business closures, including U-6 measurements, retail spending while stimulus is cut off, eviction notices, etc. This will tell you what the actual story is behind the economy.

    There are certain events that could also expedite the downturn, and we must be wary of black swans right now. The financial system has been made so fragile over the past decade that any single major shock could bring it down (remember 2008?). Let’s not mistake stimulus for resilience. Stimulus has its limits and I believe we are hitting those limits as we enter 2021.

    Here are some of the events I predict will happen next year, along with the effects they will have on the stability of America and many other parts of the world…

    Contested Election Continues into January

    State electors are supposed to finalize the presidential election results a week from now, but I suspect legal battles may prevent the electoral college from completing the tally. This could lead to electoral college results being ignored, and the fight for the White House continuing into next year (unless the Supreme Court can hear all arguments and come to a decision in record time).

    Growing evidence of election fraud specifically in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan has led many conservatives to question the outcome of the presidential election. I don’t think the majority of the doubters will accept a Biden presidency even if Trump decided to concede.

    What I think is more likely is that Trump will stay in office beyond the January inauguration day, and that the political left will suddenly realize that the election was not as absolute as they originally assumed.

    The contested election would not cause economic instability directly, but it would mean that the public will be knocked out of their stupor and that their faith in the future will be shaken. Overvalued, fragile financial systems rely on the “greater fool” to support prices and need the blind faith of the population in order to continue lurching forward. That faith is about to be tested.

    Mass Protests, Riots, Possibly Armed Conflict

    I have become rather suspicious of the behavior of the mainstream media these days, even more so than usual. Why? Well, every time a hard fact on election fraud is released, the media has chosen to lie outright about it. And I’m not talking about clever spin in an attempt to diminish the effect of the news, I’m talking about outright lying that could easily be checked and debunked by anyone.

    This kind of disinformation would never convince conservatives or even intelligent moderates because we double-check the sources. People on the political left, though, are more inclined to believe whatever the MSM says without doing their own research. I’m beginning to wonder if the media is pulling the same stunt they did in 2016: giving leftists false hope through misinformation, so that when things don’t go their way, they will become enraged as if something was stolen from them.

    Is the media setting up the left for an epic shock by refusing to report any of the legitimate election fraud evidence and making them think there is no case? Is the goal to hit leftists so hard with Trump staying in office that they riot viciously in response?

    Maybe I’m wrong and Biden goes into office without any obstructions as many expect. Let’s be honest, though, there are only two ways the election situation can go at this point:

    In light of election fraud evidence, Trump stays in office. Leftists riot en masse claiming the presidency has been stolen. Conservatives will be asked to support martial law measures to “stop the insanity.” By supporting martial law, conservatives would sacrifice the very constitutional protections and liberties they claim to defend.

    Biden enters the White House under heavy suspicion of fraud. He then tries to institute a Level 4 national lockdown in the name of stopping the pandemic. With the death rate for the virus well under 1% for anyone not living in a nursing home with preexisting conditions, and no evidence that mask mandates do anything to stop the virus spread, millions of American refuse to comply. The states and communities that do comply will suffer even more small-business closures and unemployment.

    Biden would then try to initiate martial law measures, erasing civil liberties and possibly triggering a civil war.

    Medical Passports and Vaccination Blackmail

    Government officials are constantly in the media these days claiming that vaccinations will not be made mandatory. What they don’t mention is that they are already trying to legislate that anyone without a vaccination or medical passport will be unable to participate in normal society or even be allowed to work in their job. This program is moving at an incredibly fast pace, which makes me think the globalists realize they are losing the battle for the minds of the citizenry and they need to rush their agenda before it’s too late.

    Here is what will happen in 2021 in terms of the pandemic:

    1. The media and elitist organizations will continue to pump up the infection numbers to frighten the public, even though the death rate is so low it makes the infection rate meaningless.

    2. If Biden is in office, mandates will be made into a federal issue and will be federally enforced.

    3. If Trump is in office, state governments will try to enforce mandates and major corporations will help them.

    4. There will then be a major push to require medical passports proving a person is not infected to enter into any public place. This means submission to 24/7 contact tracing or getting a new vaccine whenever ordered to. Basically, your life will be under the total control of state or federal governments if you want to have any semblance of returning to your normal life.

    5. If this process does not work and does not intimidate enough people into compliance, governments will seek to offer stimulus checks or a form of Universal Basic Income, but only for those people who agree to tracking through their cell phones and to vaccination.

    6. New mutations of COVID-19 will be conveniently found every year from now on, meaning the public will have to get new vaccinations constantly, and medical tyranny will never go away unless people take an aggressive stand.

    It Gets Worse From Here On…

    2021 will be far worse that 2020, but at least the lines will be drawn and the fight will be more clear to everyone. The economic crisis is what concerns me the most. The events listed above will complete the final downturn in the global system and America in particular. Such a financial crash would cause far more chaos and death than the coronavirus ever could.

    Ultimately, I believe the public will respond badly to pandemic mandates. Many conservative states and counties will simply refuse to enforce them. However, the question is, will people end up fighting each other and forget all about the globalists that created the problem in the first place? Will mass poverty succeed where the pandemic failed in convincing Americans to give up their liberties in exchange for some stability?

    Distractions abound, and the reset agenda looms, but I don’t see the globalists coming out of this unscathed. Too many people now know who they are and what they are up to.

    *  *  *

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  • Massive Riot Breaks Out At India iPhone Factory Over Unpaid Wages
    Massive Riot Breaks Out At India iPhone Factory Over Unpaid Wages
    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/12/2020 – 23:00

    On Saturday, disgruntled employees at an iPhone manufacturing plant in India ransacked the facility over unpaid wages.

    At least 2,000 employees at the Narsapura plant of Wistron Corporation, a Taiwan-based company that manufactures devices for Apple, “went on a rampage destroying the company’s furniture, assembly units and even attempted to set fire to vehicles,” according to The Times of India. 

    Violence broke out during a change of shifts at the plant over the non-payment of promised wages, local officials said. Source: The Indian Express

    In the videos below, employees flipped vehicles at the plant, along with destroying everything in sight. 

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    Speaking to Indianexpress.com, Kolar Police Head Karthik Reddy said:

    “The employees demanded the payment pending for a few months and met the Human Resources Department officials on Saturday.” 

    Wage problems had been festering at the plant for some time. Police said the incident on Saturday resulted in at least 80 arrests. 

    It’s still too early to tell if the riot has created any supply chain disruptions – considering Apple has moved at least a fifth of iPhone production from China to the country. 

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  • "Hillary Hates Him & Biden Calls Him A Terrorist" – Aussie MP Urges Trump To Pardon Assange
    “Hillary Hates Him & Biden Calls Him A Terrorist” – Aussie MP Urges Trump To Pardon Assange
    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/12/2020 – 22:00

    Nationals MP George Christensen has joined the growing chorus of activists calling for President Trump to pardon WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange before he leaves the White House.

    Assange is currently being held in London’s Belmarsh prison, awaiting a decision on his extradition case to the US.

    On Saturday, in an interview with Sky News Australia, Christensen told Sky News host Brent O’Halloran that Assange “has been a target of the Democrats, adding that “Hillary Clinton hates his guts, obviously, for exposing who the real Hillary was, and you’ve had a war on Assange by the Democrats and the deep state.” 

    He told O’Halloran that president-elect Joe Biden has called Assange a criminal and a “hi-tech terrorist.”

    Christensen argues that a pardon for the WikiLeaks founder “is one way which he can stand up for free speech.” He said it would irritate the Democratic establishment and would “poke the deep state in the eye.”

    Christensen concluded by calling the US “one of the greatest nations in the democratic world” and that “great document of democracy that is the United States Constitution is free speech and freedom of the press.” 

    “So I’m hoping that he will pardon Julian Assange. It’s the right thing to do.”

    Watch the three-minute interview here: 

    In addition to Christensen, filmmaker Oliver Stone recently called for the president to pardon Assange and Edward Snowden without whom we wouldn’t know about intrusive government surveillance programs, the US’ aggressive drone strike program, or that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager.

    Even longtime Assange friend and previously rumored ex-girlfriend Pamela Anderson has become creative in her direct appeals to Trump, tagging the president in a Twitter post featuring a stripped-down bikini photoshoot of herself holding a sign that reads “Bring Julian Assange home.”

    “The deep state Trump is serving by persecuting Assange is the same deep state that continues to plot Trump’s own ouster. Free Assange!” Ron Paul said earlier this year. 

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  • No Need For Vaccine This Year: Australia's Chief Medical Officer
    No Need For Vaccine This Year: Australia’s Chief Medical Officer
    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/12/2020 – 21:30

    Authored by Andi Yu via The Epoch Times,

    Acting Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly says Australia’s success against coronavirus means, unlike other countries, we can wait for full vaccine approvals.

    Australia’s top doctor says news of the U.S. drug regulator granting emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine – like the UK and Canada have also recently done – is not necessary in Australia.

    “We don’t need any vaccine this year,” Kelly told reporters in Canberra on Saturday.

    “Other countries are in far different state than us and they should be prioritised.”

    Australia will wait for the Therapeutic Goods Administration—the national drug regulator—to run through its own approvals of the Pfizer vaccine with the expectation it will be distributed in early 2021.

    He highlighted the nation’s success at controlling virus transmission.

    “Today is eighth day in a row we’ve not had any community transmission,” Kelly said.

    “That’s the first time we’ve been able to say that since February.”

    This is compared with the fact that Friday was the most deadly day of the virus yet, with more than 13,000 deaths and skyrocketing infections, Kelly said.

    The emphasis right now is on having an impenetrable hotel quarantine system.

    “Whilst we’re concentrated on bringing Australians home… we have to make sure absolutely that our hotel quarantine system is the very best it can be,” Kelly said.

    He said he had “all confidence” in the Victorian contract system now it had been revamped and international flights had resumed since Monday.

    Victoria ended it’s 42-day virus-free streak on Saturday as five international arrivals in hotel quarantine tested positive.

    Other states are handling more active cases in quarantine, with eight fresh cases recorded across other states in the past 24 hours.

    Kelly said the Pfizer vaccine had reported excellent interim results in the New England Journal of Medicine, showing 95 per cent effectiveness in people of all ages, healthy or chronically ill.

    It had a strong safety profile but the TGA would still go through its own process, he said.

    Australia has pre-purchased 10 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine and has secured extra doses from other vaccine manufacturers.

    An extra 20 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and a further 11 million of Novavax have been ordered to boost supplies after the University of Queensland-CSL’s vaccine effort was abandoned.

    Asked whether five former prime ministers could be among the first to be vaccinated against the virus in Australia, Kelly indicated they wouldn’t necessarily be.

    The priority groups will be people at high risk of infection, those at high risk of exposure and front line health workers.

    Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said any vaccine rollout in Australia will only happen with full TGA approval.

    “Without the tick there’s no jab,” he said on Friday.

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  • 2020 Is Ending With 93% Of Global Economies Contracting… And With Markets At All Time Highs
    2020 Is Ending With 93% Of Global Economies Contracting… And With Markets At All Time Highs
    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/12/2020 – 21:00

    As BofA’s European credit strategist, Barnaby Martin, puts it in one of the final issues of his European Credit Strategist report for the year, “2020 is ending with one of the most predictable and potent themes of the last decade: central bank activism.”

    Case in point: on Thursday the ECB doubled down on more of the same as it delivered more PEPP, longer PEPP, further reinvestments and an extension of favourable TLTRO conditions. According to Martin, “while not as novel as some of the ECB meetings gone by, the aim of Thursday’s package was to maintain “favorable” funding conditions across all markets (to ensure the swift return of business and consumer confidence).” For those who missed it, this is what the ECB did, to quote Martin:

    Lagarde gave bond markets another dose of PEPP: a €500bn increase in the envelope and an extension of buying until March 2022. Thus, big QE will still be with markets for some time.

    But as this week’s PEPP disclosure shows, the programme is now almost exclusively about buying government debt (Chart 13). Instead, weekly APP has become more relevant for gauging the pulse of ECB corporate bond buying (Chart 14). Notice how the share of corporate bond buying has been rising here.

    Although the euro spiked and markets appeared initially disappointed by the ECB’s measures, by the end of the day “longer-end rates had rallied and IG credit spreads were broadly unchanged” Martin writes and adds that “what’s clear is that financial repression lives on for another year…a bullish backdrop, which will continue to elicit a thirst for yield across debt markets, in our view.”

    Just in case it’s not that “clear”, the BofA strategist explains that the message from the ECB is that “the key message underlying everything was that favourable financing conditions must be preserved across all markets: banks, sovereigns and corporates.”  And as he further notes, what the ECB did “should be thought of as akin to Yield Curve Control for credit.” Which also means that if corporate yields are under lock and key for 2021, “then credit vol likely will sink further next year, continuing to support the thirst for yield and compression trade in credit.”

    That said, while anyone who has dared step in front of hits liquidity firehose, which as we noted on Friday amounts to $1.3 billion in asset purchases every hour, has been absolutely crushed…

    … there is a distinct risk as we head in 2021.

    First some context: as Martin puts it, “it’s hard to escape how powerful the policy “supernova” has been this year, against a backdrop of historically horrendous growth.” And just to put it perspective, his next is absolutely staggering: “2020 is ending with 93% of economies across the world having contracted (Chart 1), with 53% shrinking this year by more than 6% (versus just 17% of economies in 2009).”

    At the same time, global stocks are trading at all time highs, and 2020 is ending with 70% of European IG bonds having tightened year-to-date now, almost entirely because of the monetary support heaped on markets by central banks in Q2. According to Martin, this dichotomy is nowhere greater than in the case of the UK, whose expected contraction (BofA estimates -11.3%) will go down as the worst economic decline since 1709, according to Bank of England data (back then, the “Great Frost” scuppered global trade, leading to significant food shortages and deaths). Nonetheless, Sterling credit has generated excess returns of +3.2% year-to-date.”

    Far from a blessing however, Martin counters that for long-term IG credit investors, this unprecedented rally combination has created a negative yielding headache, as the new year dawns:

    • The average IG corporate bond yields are now just 19bp,
    • Average 1-5yr corporate bond yields stand at just 1bp,
    • and investors have to buy 10yr credit, or longer now, to avoid the problem of negative yields (Chart 6), implying credit duration will likely become very crowded next year.

    As Martin said previously, credit compression is the clear theme that has to emerge from this, as IG investors lose enthusiasm for negative yielding bonds and surf for opportunities elsewhere…such a junk. To be sure, high-yield has been a remarkable beneficiary of this liquidity gusher. But note the “squeeze” potential as this reallocation plays out. Chart 7 shows the total amount of IG negative yielding bonds, per sector, versus the total outstanding of HY debt, by sector.

    According to Martin, sectors to the left of the chart have a much bigger share of negative IG debt, than available HY bonds. Other things being equal, these high-yield sectors will be most prone to the squeeze effect next year.

    There is another, bigger issue: as Martin’s colleague, BofA CIO Michael Hartnett has argued for the better past ofd the past two months, the “Goldilocks” combo of recovering growth and steadfastly dovish central banks points to the growing risk of hubris in 2021 (and therefore market “wobbles”) as central banks may face a sudden reflation burst that puts in doubt their determination not to hike until 2023.

    Finally, and worst of all, even though it is only a matter of time before a big “wobble” hits, assets now have virtually no margin for error, so anyone buying here is virtually assured of losses:

    • Note that November ’20 was not only a record month for many global equity markets (ex-US stocks, for instance), but it was also a strong month for global fixed-income returns…a rare combination (Chart 4),
    • And periphery debt has rallied so strongly of late, that average peripheral government debt yields are now a smidgen away from turning negative (Chart 5).

    Of course, there is another glaringly obvious reason why the piper will have to paid for the euphoria of 2020, and that’s the ugliest four letter-word of them all: “Debt” – as Martin notes – has been synonymous with the 2020 COVID crisis, as economic shutdowns have battered sovereign revenues (leading to record budget deficits) and governments have unleashed a fiscal firehose to protect society from collapse. The latest BIS debt data now available for Q2, shows jumps in debt/GDP of “epic proportions” in this crisis:

    • The global debt-to-GDP ratio surged to an all-time high in 1H-20 of 267%, jumping 11pp in Q1 ’20 and then a further 15.7pp in Q2 ’20. This is the largest QoQ change on record (Chart 8).
    • While global debt/GDP surged everywhere, it was governments that sustained the biggest increase in leverage, with the global sovereign debt/GDP ratio jumping 21pp in 1H’20 to 99.3% (Chart 9).
    • In this crisis, governments have sought to shield the private non-financial sector, and households. Accordingly, global non-financial sector debt/GDP ticked-up by “only” 10pp in Q2 ’20, vs Q1 ’20. Households’ debt-to-GDP rose by only 3pp.
    • Advanced economies, which were at the centre of the Covid-19 outbreak in the spring and the autumn, have deployed greater policy measures than their Emerging Markets (EM) peers. Hence the sharp 25pp increase in debt/GDP this year for the former (Chart 10).
    • The global economy added $11tr of debt in 1H ’20, a record, while the Covid-related recession shaved near $4tr to the global output (Chart 12).
    • Non-financial corporates (NFCs) in the largest economies have increased debt to build up cash buffers in this crisis (Chart 11). This is a striking difference with the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in ’08/’09, when NFCs, especially in the Euro Area, focused on debt reduction.

    And some more terrifying charts:

    For now this unprecedented debt tsunami is not an issue, but the moment inflation does pick up in earnest and the selling of duration (and by implication the ultra-high duration “growth” stocks which have led the S&P for the past decade…

    … begins, we suggest you panic.

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  • California, NJ Report New COVID Records; Peru Halts Sinopharm Trial: Live Updates
    California, NJ Report New COVID Records; Peru Halts Sinopharm Trial: Live Updates
    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/12/2020 – 20:33

    Summary:

    • California, NY & NJ report new cases
    • Peru halts Siopharm vaccine trial
    • CDC approves COVID
    • Cases see new daily record
    • US tally nears 16MM
    • Pfizer vaccine approved for EUA by FDA
    • Hospitalizations remain elevated in west and midwest
    • Poland sees chance of reopening schools

    * * *

    Update (0820ET): More record COVID numbers were reported across the US on Saturday, with California counting more than 35K new cases for the second straight day, while New York’s infections quickened and New Jersey reported record cases on Saturday.

    In other news, Peru has temporarily suspended trials of Sinopharm’s vaccine after an unspecified “adverse event” was reported during clinical trials in the South American country. Phase 3 trials started there in September. Once one of the worst hit countries on the continent, Peru has seen more than 980K cases and 36.5K deaths. Brazil suspended trials of a Chinese vaccine last month after a reported death involving a trial participant, though enrollment was restarted less than 48 hours later.

    In the US, a panel of CDC advisors voted to recommend that people age 16 and older receive Pfizer-BioNTec vaccine, clearing one of the last hurdles for US vaccinations to begin, though director Dr. Robert Redfield must still give his blessing.

    * * *

    As we head into mid-December, the typical holiday lull is being punctuated this year by the worsening coronavirus pandemic in the US. As Europe’s cases and hospitalizations start to decline, the US, Brazil, and a handful of other smaller countries are emerging as the primary drivers of global case numbers, which remain at record levels.

    Nearly 700K new cases are being reported around the world each and every day, with the global total topping 71K, as US cases, meanwhile, neared 16MM following a record jump of nearly 300K (297.6K according to Reuters). The COVID Tracking Project had the daily number at a lower number 232K, though still a new daily record.

    Hospitalizations rates remain the most elevated in the midwest and west.

    While North Dakota, one of the worst hit states during the fall-winter resurgence, has seen its death rate rise into the top five in the country.

    Following reports of pressure from the Trump Administration (WaPo claimed Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows told FDA chief Dr. Stephen Hahn to either make sure the approval gets done Friday, or hand in his resignation, a story that elicited some laughs, but wasn’t widely reported outside of the MSNBC/CNN cable TV matrix). Trump heralded the approval as “a medical miracle”. The US is the fifth country to approve the vaccine, after the UK, Canada, the UAE and – of course – the Saudis.

    As New Yorkers visit restaurants for their last hurrah as hundreds of establishments from around the city prepare to close their doors (for good) as Gov Cuomo’s ban on indoor dining takes effect on Monday without offering any kind of additional support to the industry and the workers who power it. Across the country, the LA County Department of Public Health announced new cases and deaths each day, as do the independent agencies governing Long Beach and Pasadena. Not all of the agencies provide a tally of how many people have recovered from COVID-19.

    “We worked quickly because of the urgency of this pandemic, not because of any external pressure,” Hahn said Saturday on a call with reporters.

    Looking ahead, the FDA’s decision to approve the Pfizer vaccine will now kick off a complicated immunization drive, as the FDA sets standards and hands them down to the states, who will inevitably tweak them, for enforcement and execution that’s likely to be as haphazard and varied as the national response to the virus.

    Here’s some more COVID news from overnight and Saturday morning:

    For the first time in decades, Mexico’s Roman Catholics have been forced to abandon what many consider the world’s largest religious pilgrimage, in which millions visit Mexico City’s Basilica of Guadalupe on 12 December (Source: Bloomberg).

    UPS will take part in the distribution of Pfizer-BioNTech’s covid-19 vaccine as part of Operation Warp Speed in the U.S. The doses will originate from storage sites in Michigan and Wisconsin, transported to UPS facilities in Louisville, before being expedited “Next Day Air” to destinations including hospitals and clinics, the company said in a statement (Source: Bloomberg).

    Poland sees chances for partially reopening schools from Jan. 18, provided restrictions imposed for winter holidays prove effective, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in an interview with radio RMF FM. He also urged the European Union’s agencies to speed up the vaccine registration process (Source: Bloomberg).

    * * *

    Meanwhile, the US is offering resources to Pfizer to help expedite the process of procuring the “raw materials” the company needs to provide an additional 100MM doses to the US by mid-2021.

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  • Newt Gingrich On Georgia Runoff: "We Need To Win By A Bigger Margin Than The Left Can Steal"
    Newt Gingrich On Georgia Runoff: “We Need To Win By A Bigger Margin Than The Left Can Steal”
    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/12/2020 – 20:30

    Authored by Tom Ozimek and Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times,

    Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said in an interview that conservative voters need to head to the polls in the Georgia Senate runoffs in spite of their concerns about election integrity, to deliver a large margin of victory for GOP candidates that would erase any potential machinations on the left.

    “If you’re a conservative, you have to vote,” Gingrich told The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” on Dec. 11.

    “We need to win by a bigger margin than the left can steal. So we need to get every single conservative out.”

    The Senate runoff, which pits Sens. David Perdue (R-Ga.) and Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) against Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, is key for both parties, with control of the upper chamber hanging in the balance.

    Republicans currently hold a 50-seat majority in the Senate, but if Democrats win both runoffs and also prevail in the contested presidential election, they’ll have control of the White House as well as both chambers of Congress.

    “These two runoffs are probably the most important runoffs in American history,” Gingrich said.

    “They have the potential to change the whole direction of the country.”

    If Democrat Joe Biden is sworn in as president and if Ossoff and Warnock win in Georgia, Gingrich said, “Biden will have a signal, he will be very radical.”

    “I think this is a huge decision point for the country,” he added.

    Sens. David Perdue (R-Ga.) and Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) in file photographs. (Getty Images)

    Gingrich referred to the ongoing controversy over presidential election-related irregularities and claims of fraud in Georgia, saying, “I personally have no doubt that Trump won more votes than Biden did, and that the difference, basically, was theft.”

    He said “there’s good reason for people to be concerned” and that he would like to see an election integrity and reform movement take shape in the future “to dramatically reform the election process to get back to honest elections.”

    Before such an initiative is launched, however, he said election integrity-related steps would likely be taken around the Georgia runoffs, including the Republican National Committee monitoring all of the ballot drop-boxes and GOP poll watchers observing county clerks as they send out ballots.

    “I think you’ll just see a much tighter process of one, turning out our vote with a much bigger turnout, the vote effort, and two, making it much, much harder to steal.”

    Gingrich said one of the reforms should be to change the absentee ballot law so that each ballot could be connected back to a voter during a recount.

    “Right now, you have 1.2 million absentee ballots, and they’re basically just a big lump. I mean, once they took the ballot out of the envelope, they got rid of the envelope, and so you have no way of going back and having an honest recount, because you don’t know where the ballots came from.”

    Asked whether the added security measures in place for the runoffs would address this issue, Gingrich said, “We think that we’re making it harder, that’s the way I would put it.”

    “I think that there will still be some cheating, but I think that the amount of time and effort being put into policing it is dramatically bigger than it was in November,” he said.

    Gingrich’s remarks about the importance of conservative voters turning out for the runoffs was echoed by Perdue in a recent interview on Fox News, when he argued that a GOP majority in the upper chamber is the “last line of defense” against a radical leftist agenda.

    “This is illogical for any Republican to think that, ‘Oh, I’m just going to sit down and not vote,’” Perdue said in the interview.

    “We know what’s at stake. This is the last line of defense against their radical liberal agenda that once they do this, we won’t get it back.”

    *  *  *

    Follow Tom on Twitter: @OZImekTOM

    Follow Jan on Twitter: @JanJekielek

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  • People Were Pouring Out Of US Cities Like LA And New York Even Before COVID Started
    People Were Pouring Out Of US Cities Like LA And New York Even Before COVID Started
    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/12/2020 – 20:00

    The pandemic hasn’t just brought with it economic turmoil; it has also highlighted a trend of people fleeing U.S. cities in favor of the suburbs. The exodus has been helped along by liberal politicians embracing a “defund the police” message in the cities where policing is needed the most – like Chicago, which we have documented – making the decision to leave cities much easier for many people. 

    But surprisingly, the wheels were already in motion for this trend prior to the pandemic, a new report from Bloomberg notes. 

    The report points out that New York was losing 376 residents per today to domestic migration already in 2019. This marked an increase in more than 100 people per day, the report notes. 

    Justin Hollander, a professor of urban and environmental policy and planning at Tufts University, said: “New York’s population decline has been building up before Covid. It will certainly accelerate as preferences for lower-density environments drives populations.”

    And it’ll also accelerate as international arrivals slow down. Last year almost 60,000 people moved to New York while 200,000 people left. Arrivals will continue to be muted as travel and air traffic are both still mired in red tape relating the pandemic.

    LA and Chicago saw similar trends last year. In fact, both cities “have been losing population since 2017”, Bloomberg noted. The appeal of states like Florida and Texas has grown and “shows no sign of ebbing”, according to Hollander. The six cities that saw inflows of more than 100 people per day “were all in the south”, the report notes – including cities like Phoenix and Dallas. 

    In addition to more people leaving cities, the number of births across the country looks as though it is going to trail prior years. 

    This won’t just affect population numbers, but tax revenue for states. New York lost $9.6 billion in resident earnings in 2016 and 2017 due to the outflows. For every $1 of income brought into the state, $1.80 was lost, the report notes.

    “Residents who earn $100,000 or more make up 80%” of the income tax base in New York, it says. 

    Perhaps having never studied the Laffer Curve in Econ 101, this apparently seems like a great reason for Mayor De Blasio and Governor Cuomo to lob countless regulations and new taxes onto their citizens while embracing the chaos and lawlessness that has developed in their streets throughout the year. 

    Like politicians in California, New York’s political leaders don’t seem to notice the effect that their policies are having. But maybe when the cities become barren and the state is on the verge of economic collapse it’ll become clearer. We’re not holding our breath, though. 

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  • The "Expert Consensus" Also Favored Alcohol Prohibition
    The “Expert Consensus” Also Favored Alcohol Prohibition
    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/12/2020 – 19:30

    Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    Most people today regard America’s experiment with alcohol prohibition as a national embarrassment, rightly repealed in 1933. So it will be with the closures and lockdowns of 2020, someday. 

    In 1920, however, to be for the repeal of the prohibition that was passed took courage. You were arguing against prevailing opinion backed by celebratory scientists and exalted social thinkers. What you were saying flew in the face of “expert consensus.”

    There is an obvious analogy to Lockdowns 2020. 

    My first inkling of this prohibition history came in reading transcripts of the then-famous Radio Priest James Gillis from the 1920s. He was against prohibiting alcohol production and sale on grounds that the social costs far outweighed the supposed benefits. What surprised me was the defensiveness of his comments. He had to assure his listeners that he was personally for temperance, that alcohol was indeed demon rum, that it’s true that this nasty stuff had caused terrible things to happen to the country. Still, he said, outright bans are too costly. 

    Why was he so cautious in his rhetoric? It turns out that during the 1920s, he was one of the few famous American public figures (H.L. Mencken was also among them) who dared to speak out against what was obviously a disastrous policy. Reading this sent me down a rabbit hole of literature at the time in which it was argued by many leading intellectuals that Prohibition made perfect sense as a necessary step to clean up the social order. 

    To sum up the “science” behind Prohibition, society had tremendous numbers of pathologies on the loose and they all traced to one dominant variable: liquor. There was poverty, crime, fatherless households, illiteracy, political alienation, social immobility, city squalor, and so on. You can look carefully at the data to find that in all these cases, there is a common element of alcohol. It only stands to reason that eliminating this factor would be the single greatest contribution to eliminating the pathologies. The evidence was incontrovertible. Do this, then that, and you are done. 

    To be sure, the argument wasn’t always this clean. Simon Patten (1852-1922) was chair of the Wharton School of Business. His late 19th-century argument for alcohol prohibition featured a complicated argument concerning the weather in America. It gets cold then hot then cold and alcohol consumption seems to track these changes, driving people to drink ever more until their lives fall apart. 

    As summarized by Mark Thornton, who is the leading scholar on the economics of Prohibition and its history, “For Patten, alcohol is a product with no equilibrium in consumption. One is either good and abstains from alcohol, or one becomes a drunkard and self-destructs.”

    The most influential pro-Prohibition economist of the next generation was the rock star academic and social progressive Irving Fisher, whose contributions to making economics more about data than theory are legendary. So was his push for eugenics. No surprise if you know this period and such people, but he was also a passionate opponent of all alcohol. It was he who made a decisive difference in convincing Congress and the public that a complete ban was the right way. His oddly titled book Prohibition at Its Worst (1927) lays it all out. 

    The same year of its publication, Fisher called for a roundtable at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association. His own account is revealing. 

    I got a list of the economists who are supposed to be opposed to Prohibition, and wrote to them; they all replied either that I was mistaken in thinking that they were opposed to Prohibition or that, if we were going to confine the discussion to the economics of Prohibition, they would not care to respond. When I found that I was to have no speaker representing the opposite point of view, I wrote to all American economists listed in “Minerva” and all American teachers of statistics. I have not received from any one an acceptance. 

    Clearly his colleagues were either bamboozled by the prevailing “science” or afraid to disagree with the reigning orthodoxy. Even as political establishments were being corrupted, crime and liquor lords were rising up all over the country, and tens of thousands of speakeasies were thriving. Claiming that Prohibition had created $6 billion in wealth for the U.S. – a figure that was frequently cited as authoritative, Fisher wrote the following:

    Prohibition is here to stay. If not enforced, its blessings will speedily turn into a curse. There is no time to lose. Although things are much better than before Prohibition, with the possible exception of disrespect for law, they may not stay so. Enforcement will cure disrespect for law and other evils complained of, as well as greatly augment the good. American Prohibition will then go down in history as ushering in a new era in the world, in which accomplishment this nation will take pride forever. 

    To see how the $6 billion figure was calculated and to observe the rest of the astonishing mathematical gymnastics behind the “science” backing Prohibition, have a look at Thornton’s detailed presentation. It’s a perfect picture of pseudoscience in action. 

    But it was hardly unusual for the time. The Journal of the American Medical Association said of alcohol prohibition in 1920:

     “Most of us are convinced that it is one of the most beneficent acts ever passed by a legislature.” 

    Reading through all this literature, I’m reminded of the CDC scientific conclusion that closing restaurants during a pandemic will save lives – a conclusion based on a study so weak that anyone with a passing familiarity with statistics and causality can immediately observe its failings (the same study, if it demonstrates that, would also demonstrate that masks make no difference in virus spread). Another obvious case was the brutal and unscientific closures of schools. 

    Also true is that the opponents of Prohibition were routinely and publicly denounced as secret drunks, shilling for bootleggers, or just not following the science. They were the outliers and stayed that way for a decade. What finally broke Prohibition was not the replacement of one scientific orthodoxy for another but the noncompliance on the part of most of the population. When enforcement became unviable, and FDR saw opposition to Prohibition as politically advantageous, the law finally changed. 

    When we look back on American history, Prohibition stands out as one of the craziest social and economic experiments of modern times. The very idea that the government, on its own authority and power, was going to purge from a Western society the production and distribution of alcohol, strikes us today as a millennarian pipedream, one that turned into disaster for the whole country. 

    We could say the same about lockdowns in 2020. Indeed, measuring the absurdities on a scale of extremism, the idea of lockdowns, with forceful human separation, mandatory masking, and the practical abolition of all large gatherings, fun, art, and travel, seems even more sadistically preposterous than alcohol prohibition. 

    The madness of crowds, often backed by the “best science,” never goes away. It just finds new forms of legal expression in new times. Only once the crowds come to their senses do the real scientists make a comeback and prevail, while the fake science that backed despotism pretends like it never happened. 

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  • Marine Corps Want Swarming Kamikaze Drones   
    Marine Corps Want Swarming Kamikaze Drones   
    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/12/2020 – 19:00

    The US Marine Corps is in the process of acquiring portable ground-launched kamikaze drones capable of swarming over the modern battlefield to precisely takeout enemy troops, according to a new government notice. 

    The request was published on the government contract site Sam.Gov last month. The Marines detailed the need for an “individually operated, man-portable, anti-materiel, anti-personnel ground-launched loitering munition system” for fielding with infantry units. 

    Sam.Gov Request 

    The so-called “Organic Precision Fires – Infantry Light” program seeks a ground-launched drone that can be deployed with less than two troops. The request states other requirements, including it must have a range up to 12.4 miles, “capable of swarming,” and must operate for at least 90 minutes. 

    According to Defense News, the Marines are attempting to “reshape itself as a primarily maritime force that can distribute forces over a massive battlefield such as the South China Sea, operating inside the Chinese weapon engagement zone that may be too dangerous for many military assets to operate inside until certain key objectives can be seized or neutralized.”

    AeroVironment Switchblade Drone

    Bryan Clark, a retired submarine officer and senior fellow at The Hudson Institute, pointed out special operation forces have already used small munition drones in combat. 

    “The swarming idea would be, ‘How do I overwhelm the enemy’s defenses and cut off lines of escape,'” Clark explained. “If I’m a Marine unit, I’m generally going after a group of people, not just one or two guys the way SOF might be. But the idea here is to cause an area effect. You want to overwhelm defenses or cause explosions over a wider area to try and herd your adversary or cut off lines of retreat.

    “You might create a blast pattern or detonate in some kind of order that herds your adversary into an area that you want to be a kill box. So, swarming for the Marine Corps would be about driving your enemy’s behavior in ways advantageous to yourself.”

    Dakota Wood, a retired Marine and analyst with The Heritage Foundation, said in some ways small munition drones could be more effective than .50 caliber machine weapons.

    AI-powered swarming munition drones could become the most effective weapon to takeout the enemy on the modern battlefield. 

    “You are looking for weapon systems that can maximize the effectiveness of finding and eliminating a target while minimizing the logistical burden on the unit,” he said. “And you want to maximize the range and any intelligence that system can deliver to you.

    “If I have a .50 cal: Hugely heavy, massive logistics burden to carry around the ammo, its very effective on target but I got to get it on target first, and it’s certainly revealing my position. If I have a man-portable unmanned system that I can launch with a camera, it’s small in size so its detectability is reduced, it can send that information back to the unit and it can also hit a target with great precision: That’s an awesome capability to have.”

    In 2019, Russia’s Kalashnikov Group, a Rostec subsidiary, unveiled a new high-precision suicide drone, called the KYB UAV. 

    KYB UAV Drone

    KYB UAV Drone Approaches Target 

    We’ve also noted how an Israeli defense contractor a couple of years back faced allegations that it live tested a high tech suicide drone against Armenian troops in an active battle zone.

    What’s becoming evident is that the modern battlefield is rapidly transforming into a high-tech arena where small drones dominate. 

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  • "This Is Insane": NYC Small Businesses Furious At Indoor Dining Ban After Data Shows Restaurants Account For Only 1.4% Of Covid Cases
    “This Is Insane”: NYC Small Businesses Furious At Indoor Dining Ban After Data Shows Restaurants Account For Only 1.4% Of Covid Cases
    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/12/2020 – 18:30

    By Tanay Warerkar Of Eater New York,

    Yesterday, we reported that with in parallel with Andrew Cuomo’s decision to once again shut down indoor dining in New York starting Monday, more than half of the city’s restaurants are in danger of closing. Yet as Eater New York reports, many in the New York hospitality industry were dismayed by Cuomo’s decision as it followed close on the heels of new state data which showed that restaurants and bars in the state accounted for just 1.4% of cases over the last three months. While most were prepared for the ban to be announced this week, many felt the decision seemed to contradict the data.

    By comparison, private and social gatherings accounted for nearly 74% of COVID- 19 cases tracked by the state between September and the end of November, and the restaurant industry placed fifth overall among the various industries and activities contributing to the spread of the virus.

    “This is insane,” said Yann de Rochefort, founder of the tapas chain Boqueria.

    “They are basically shutting down an industry and throwing thousands of people out of work because restaurants were linked to 1.4 percent of cases? It is criminal.”

    Some in the industry say that restaurants have undertaken tremendous expense — while facing a revenue downturn due to the pandemic — to fit their indoor spaces with new air filters and other safety equipment, and that an indoor dining ban could encourage people to congregate in other areas including the several illicit, underground parties that have been busted in the last few months.

    “Today’s news will do nothing more than incentivize more unregulated indoor household gatherings, which have accounted for a whopping 73.84 percent of exposures,” said Melissa Fleischut, the CEO of the New York State Restaurant Association (NYSRA), in a statement.

    Some others say they are again being forced lay off or reduce hours for a large number of their staff members just before the holidays, with no guarantee that another round of federal coronavirus-related aid will come through.

    “I have to call my staff and break the news that they don’t have a job come Monday,” says Stratis Morfogen, the managing director of FiDi steakhouse Brooklyn Chop House. “I’m talking to busboys, dishwashers, wait staff and more to tell them the devastating news that they can’t feed their families.”

    Cuomo, though, says the state is being proactive, as it has recently been able to identify that indoor dining is the fastest growing source of the spread of COVID-19. “Restaurants are one of the few areas we think we can actually make a difference,” said Cuomo at a press conference Friday, adding that his government felt they had less control over the spread through other sources like air travel.

    Cuomo also pointed to the Centers for Disease Control’s latest guidance from last week that identified indoor dining as a high-risk activity during this second wave of the virus nationwide. Melissa DeRosa, the secretary to the governor, called out this guidance Friday saying it was impossible to eat indoors without taking off a mask, thereby creating a risky environment for the spread of the virus in an enclosed space.

    Cuomo also noted that the state was going to indefinitely extend the eviction moratorium for commercial tenants, potentially protecting restaurants and bars from losing their leases while the indoor dining ban remains in place.

    Since October, dozens of restaurants across the city have decided to preemptively close for the winter months — many never having reopened their dining rooms even after indoor dining was permitted at the end of the September — citing the safety of their workers, the downturn in business, and the weather. Though almost all said they had been able to negotiate agreements with their landlords in order to hit the pause button.

    Owners of restaurants that are staying open — and the ones hibernating — say that without rent forgiveness and federal aid, the industry could be headed toward a raft of permanent closures during the winter months, when outdoor dining will become largely untenable as structures outside need to have at least two open sides to allow for airflow.

    “Outdoor dining has declined dramatically, and losing indoor dining is going to be a nail in the coffin for a lot of business,” says Carlos Suarez, the founder of the hospitality group Casa Nela, which operates restaurants like Rosemary’s, Claudette, and Bobo.

    Since the start of the pandemic, more than a thousand restaurants have already closed due to the business downturn. As we noted on Friday, a recent survey by NYSRA estimates that a little more than half of the state’s restaurants are in danger of closing in the coming months without aid similar to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), funds for which have now largely run out.

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  • Are You Ready For A Cookie Shortage This Holiday Season? 
    Are You Ready For A Cookie Shortage This Holiday Season? 
    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/12/2020 – 18:00

    Campbell Soup Co., the maker of Pepperidge Farm cookies, warned in an earnings call Wednesday that a cookie shortage could arrive this holiday season. 

    Campbell’s CEO Mark Clouse said cookies under the Pepperidge Farms brand, such as Milano and Chessman, face “supply constraints” due to the virus pandemic forcing people to stay home, which in return has driven up demand. 

    “This portfolio is unique with proprietary recipes, and therefore we do not outsource production,” Campbell told Bloomberg. “We’ve prioritized increasing supply and are already leveraging capacity opportunities across the network to meet increases in demand and maximize availability.”

    Supply constraints are hitting during the holiday season where cookie demand tends to surge. 

    Pepperidge Farm cookie demand rose 8.7% in the 13 weeks ending on Nov. 1, Campbell said. The company called cookie consumption this year, “sustained and very strong.”

    Data compiled by Top Data shows cookie consumption by Americans soared 25% since the start of the virus pandemic, with one in five Americans eating at least three or more cookies per day. 

    Source: Bloomberg

    As we’ve previously noted, food shortages have been happening all year as the food supply chain remains stressed. 

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  • 'Unhinged' Dem Rep. Urges Pelosi To Block 126 Republicans From Congress For Supporting "Insurrection Or Rebellion"
    ‘Unhinged’ Dem Rep. Urges Pelosi To Block 126 Republicans From Congress For Supporting “Insurrection Or Rebellion”
    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/12/2020 – 17:30

    On Friday, just before the Supreme Court rejected Attorney General Ken Paxton’s (R-Texas) explosive lawsuit challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election in four key swing states, Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.) asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to refuse to seat members of the next Congress who support President Donald Trump’s effort to challenge the election results.

    Pascrell accused the 126 Republicans who supported the Texas lawsuit of “insurrection or rebellion” – or at least, of supporting “insurrection or rebellion” – against the Constitution.

    As Jonathan Turley details below, it appears that Rep. Bill Pascrell (D., NJ) has a serious problem with Republicans going to court.

      We recently discussed Pascrell’s absurd effort to disbar roughly two dozen Republican lawyers for challenging the results of the 2020 election. Now Pascrell is declaring that 120 House Republicans signing a “Friend of the Court brief” (or amicus brief) is tantamount to supporting a rebellion against the United States and that they should be blocked from taking their seats in Congress. I previously denounced Pascrell for his “dangerous form of demagoguery.” This latest call shows the demagoguery has reached a level of utter delusion.   

    From the outset of the Texas lawsuit, I stated that it was virtually guaranteed to fail on standing.  It did fail last night. However, courts are where we take cases alleging such injuries. Tens of millions of American believe that the election was not fair, including many Democratic voters.  Roughly 70 percent of Republican voters believe the election was stolen. Such challenges and concerns are brought to the courts where we can have disputes resolved without violence in a constitutional system.

    Pascrell has long denounced political critics of destroying the Constitution based on his disagreement with their views.  In the case of President Trump, he called for impeachment in 2019 on such undefined grounds as “disgrac[ing] his office and our nation beyond measure.”

    Rather than welcome such review, Democrats have launched a scorched earth campaign, including an abusive campaign of harassment and abuse by the Lincoln Project. These efforts notably began shortly after Biden was declared the presumptive winner of the election and before any challenges were actually ruled upon by the courts.

    Speaker Nancy Pelosi has also fueled such reckless rhetoric, declaring that the Republicans are “subverting the Constitution by their reckless and fruitless assault on our democracy which threatens to seriously erode public trust in our most sacred democratic institutions, and to set back our progress on the urgent challenges ahead.”

    Pascrell’s move against his colleagues mirrors language in the response of Pennsylvania’s Attorney General Josh Shapiro calling the Texas lawsuit “seditious.”  Seeking judicial review is the antithesis of sedition or rebellion. It is working within our constitutional system for a legal opinion on the merits of a challenge. These litigants have complied with court orders, as has President Trump.

    On Twitter, Pascrell declared

    “Stated simply, the men and women who would act to tear the United States Government apart cannot serve as Members of the Congress. These lawsuits seeking to obliterate public confidence in our democratic system by invalidating the clear results of the 2020 presidential election undoubtedly attack the text and the spirit of the Constitution, which each Member swears to support and defend.” 

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

    Pascrell cites the 14th Amendment to argue that filing with a federal court is an act of rebellion and “trying to overturn a democratic election and install a dictator seems like a pretty clear example of that.”

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

    Pascrell’s call is utterly unhinged from any logical or constitutional foundation. Rebels do not storm the courts with legal filings. They overthrow courts with the rest of the constitutional system.

    Those who lack faith or fealty in our constitutional system are those who label litigants “rebels” and legal filings as forms of “rebellion” and “sedition.”

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  • Manhattan Apartment Rents Dive To Decade Low As Inventory Swells 
    Manhattan Apartment Rents Dive To Decade Low As Inventory Swells 
    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/12/2020 – 17:00

    As expected, given the dynamics of the pandemic driven exodus from New York City, Manhattan’s rental market has witnessed another massive plunge in rents, falling to a ten-year low.

    According to Bloomberg, citing a new report from appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate, the borough’s median rental price plunged 22% in November from a year earlier to $2,743 a month. 

    In a previous Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel report, it was noted that more than 15,000 empty rental apartments were in Manhattan in August as the inventory of empty units hit 14-year highs. In October, the inventory was still above 15,000, with a vacancy rate around 6.14%, a record high. 

    Downward pressure on rents is expected to continue well into the first quarter of 2021 as restaurant restrictions and nightlife have been muted by strict social distancing restrictions. Employers have yet to call back workers into offices as remote working pushes city dwellers out to the suburbs. 

    “It’s still going to take a good part of 2021 to see prices stabilize,”said Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel. “It’s really contingent on how quickly people begin to return to the office.”

    The surge in empty apartments was widespread across the borough. Landlords are becoming desperate, offering move-in incentives on 57% of all new Manhattan deals last month. 

    So far, the incentives have worked. Newly signed leases soared 30% last month to 4,015 – the biggest November total in more than a decade, Miller said. But again, there’s so much inventory that it hardly made a dent in supply. 

    Other boroughs across the metro area in November saw rent declines as well, with landlords offering huge incentives. Brooklyn rents dropped 8.3% to a median of $2,619, while inventory rose to 4,134. In northwest Queens, including the waterfront neighborhood of Long Island City, rents plunged 21% to a median of $2,275.

    The virus’ effect on New York City has crushed the rental market if that is residential and or commercial – and it’s not just in the US. 

    Apartment prices in some of the world’s wealthiest cities are starting to show the effects of an exodus out of crowded city areas to move to more spacious suburbs. 

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  • Hunter Biden Subpoenaed Over Burisma, Two Dozen Other Entities As Part Of Four Investigations
    Hunter Biden Subpoenaed Over Burisma, Two Dozen Other Entities As Part Of Four Investigations
    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/12/2020 – 16:37

    Hunter Biden has been subpoenaed by federal investigators over his involvement with at least two dozen entities – including Ukrainian gas company Burisma, according to the Associated Press, citing a ‘person familiar with a Justice Department tax investigation.”

    News of the subpoena follows a joint announcement from Hunter and his father Joe Biden’s campaign last week which acknowledged that he was under investigation for tax fraud, with the Washington Post noting that Hunter had yet to be interviewed by the FBI or served with subpoenas.

    The subpoena, issued Tuesday, covers a wide swath of Hunter’s taxes and international business dealings – in what could be a serious case against the Biden family (or a serious attempt to put a DOJ ‘bow’ on the ‘matter’). AP notes that it’s unclear if Burisma is a central part of the investigation – despite Joe Biden admitting on tape that he had Ukraine’s chief prosecutor fired during the same period as said investigator, Viktor Shokin, was investigating Burisma’s founder for corruption.

    The subpoena also covers Hunter’s Chinese business dealings and other financial transactions. AP also notes that Hunter fell under investigation in 2018 – knowledge which somehow didn’t leak from the DOJ until after the 2020 election. During the election, of course, Hunter was completely off limits – with a virtual press blackout on the subject, and President Trump receiving a sharp rebuke from debate moderator Chris Wallace for bringing it up.

    The probe was launched in 2018, the year before his father announced his candidacy for president. At one point in the investigation, federal prosecutors were also examining potential money laundering offenses, two people familiar with the matter told the AP.

    Hunter Biden said he only learned of the investigation on Tuesday.

    The younger Biden joined the board of Burisma in 2014, around the time his father, then vice president, was helping conduct the Obama administration’s foreign policy with Ukraine. President Donald Trump and his allies have long argued, without evidence, that Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine influenced the Obama administration’s policies toward the Eastern European nation. –Associated Press

    Meanwhile, Fox News reports that there are currently four investigations into Hunter.

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

    We’re sure Kamala Harris is genuinely concerned over the outcome of this investigation and hopes it doesn’t result in Joe Biden’s unceremonious exit from the teleprompter scene.

     

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  • It Is Striking How Similar Wall Street's Forecasts For 2021 Are
    It Is Striking How Similar Wall Street’s Forecasts For 2021 Are
    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/12/2020 – 16:30

    By Variant Perception

    Reflation narratives are becoming consensus, but there is little reason to be contrarian for contrarian’s sake

    Strategists are flooding client inboxes with year-ahead forecasts and themes, and it’s striking how similar the arguments are. The common conclusion from these reports is that portfolios should be positioned for an economic recovery.

    We are data-led, and there is nothing in our indicators to contradict the recovery view. There is little reason to be contrarian for contrarian’s sake at present, and we will stick to this view as long as the data justifies it.

    BAML’s global Fund Manager Survey shows that real money balances are shifting towards equities with cyclical overweights.  At the same time, equity analysts are revising their forecasts upwards for cyclical companies.

    Source: Bloomberg, Macrobond and Variant Perception

    However, we still think there’s a lot more room until reflation trades become crowded. Money-market assets are very elevated and we see from 2009’s experience that it takes a while for money to be deployed into riskier assets.

    Source: Bloomberg, Macrobond and Variant Perception

    While today’s recovery may not feel like one, the data is supportive. Our leading indicators are at historic highs.

    Source: Bloomberg, Macrobond and Variant Perception

    Weekly economic data also remains positive.

    Source: Bloomberg, Macrobond and Variant Perception

    We have maintained that there is a lot of stimulative potential waiting in the wings, but economic gains can only be realised as virus-related restrictions are eased.  The prospect of an effective vaccine is a massive boost to the recovery path.  As we discussed in a recent report, voluntary restrictions on mobility are a persistent drag on the recovery. So even as government-mandated restrictions remain, a timeline for a vaccine will allow fear to subside and help further lift economic activity.

    This is good news for European countries that are going through their second lockdown and have had their recoveries deferred.

    Europe will also see support from China’s strong recovery. China often leads eurozone economies, and so China’s recovery ultimately underpins the European recovery.

    Source: Bloomberg, Macrobond and Variant Perception

    Moreover, as Western demand has fallen, China has filled the vacuum in industrial markets.

    Source: Bloomberg, Macrobond and Variant Perception

    As Western demand recovers, this will strengthen the reflation dynamics that we usually see at the end of recessions. Copper vs gold is a useful barometer of global reflation that is continuing to recover. The continued rise in term premium is also consistent with the reflationary dynamics in play.

    Source: Bloomberg, Macrobond and Variant Perception

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  • Geologists Reveal Supervolcano May Lurk Beneath Alaska's Aleutian Islands
    Geologists Reveal Supervolcano May Lurk Beneath Alaska’s Aleutian Islands
    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/12/2020 – 16:00

    A group of geologists presented their recent findings at the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) Fall Meeting 2020 conference this week and warned that an archipelago of volcanic islands off Alaska may contain an undiscovered supervolcano similar to Yellowstone and could cause “severe global consequences” if it would ever erupt.

    The new report, titled “Multi-Disciplinary Evidence for a Large, Previously Unrecognized Caldera in the Islands of Four Mountains, Central Aleutian Arc, Alaska,” was written by Diana Roman of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC. 

    Roman said the area in question are islands of the Four Mountain in the central Aleutians are packed with a group of six stratovolcanoes named Carlisle, Cleveland, Herbert, Kagamil, Tana, and Uliaga.

    “Stratovolcanoes are what most people envision when they think of a volcano: a steep conical mountain with a banner of clouds and ash waving at the summit. They can have powerful eruptions, like that of Mount St. Helens in 1980, but these are dwarfed by far less frequent caldera-forming eruptions.”

    The geologist said the arrangement of the mountains suggest a caldera may exist. 

    “Unlike stratovolcanoes, which tend to tap small- to modestly-sized reservoirs of magma, a caldera is created by tapping a huge reservoir in the Earth’s crust. When the reservoir’s pressure exceeds the strength of the crust, gigantic amounts of lava and ash are released in a catastrophic episode of eruption.” 

    Roman said, “we’ve been scraping under the couch cushions for data,” referring to the challenge of studying such a remote place. “But everything we look at lines up with a caldera in this region.”

    If she is right, this would mean that Alaska has a ticking volcanic time bomb, on par with size of Wyoming’s Yellowstone supervolcano. 

    The team noted that more explorations of the Aleutians had to be completed to prove their hypothesis. If they’re correct, it would mean the hidden caldera would be the first in the area. 

    “Our hope is to return to the Islands of Four Mountains and look more closely at the seafloor, study the volcanic rocks in greater detail, collect more seismic and gravity data, and sample many more of the geothermal areas,” Roman said.

    Furthermore, NASA’s 1989 study titled “Volcanic eruptions and solar activity” indicates that solar flares smashing into the Earth’s atmosphere have the potential to increase volcanic activity. 

    “Solar flares are believed to cause changes in atmospheric circulation patterns that abruptly alter the Earth’s spin. The resulting jolt probably triggers small earthquakes which may temporarily relieve some of the stress in volcanic magma chambers, thereby weakening, postponing, or even aborting imminent large eruptions,” NASA said.  

    And if readers recall, we noted this week that Sunspot Cycle 25 is already underway and could be the strongest on record. 

    Meanwhile, NASA warned in 2019 that a catastrophic supervolcano’s eruption poses a bigger threat to humanity than does an asteroid.

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  • The Viral Assault On Small Businesses
    The Viral Assault On Small Businesses
    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/12/2020 – 15:35

    Authored by MN Gordon via EconomicPrism.com,

    This year, fear of a deadly pandemic triggered the ruling class to spread authoritarian lockdown orders.  The god of science, like a burning bush, told them to remove their sandals and deliver policies of regression.  A paranoid public was quick to comply.

    Humans have been battling viruses since well before the wheel was invented.  According to archaeologists, a fast moving epidemic roughly 5,000 years ago wiped out a prehistoric village in what is today northeastern China.  Dead bodies were stuffed inside a dwelling – the Hamin Mangha – that was later burned down.

    Another mass burial, the Miaozigou site, took place about the same time and in the same general area.  Together these discoveries suggest there was a rapid outbreak of an acute infectious disease.  An epidemic ravaged the entire region.

    The viral spread of submicroscopic pathogens has the potential to alter the flow of history.  Soldiers returning to the Roman Empire after war against Parthia in 165 AD brought back more than the spoils of conquest.  The Antonine Plague, which is suspected to have been smallpox or measles, claimed an estimated 5 million lives.  The epidemic had devastating consequences throughout the Roman Empire; perhaps bringing forward the demise of Pax Romana.

    About 1,350 years later Spanish forces, led by Hernán Cortés, delivered the gift of smallpox as they conquered the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán.  About a decade after, Spanish conquerors spread the plague to the Incas.  An estimated 90 percent of the native population was killed off by the pestilence.  Aztec and Inca civilizations were swiftly wiped off the map and replaced by New Spain.

    Court of Sinister

    Plague of Athens.  Plague of Cyprian.  Plague of Justinian.  Black death.  Cocoliztli epidemic.  Great plague of London.  Great plague of Marseille.  Russian plague.  Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic.  American polio epidemic.  Spanish flu.  Asian flu.  Swine flu.  West African Ebola epidemic.  Zika virus epidemic.  And many others.

    Indeed, plagues come and go.  Yet they can dispense lasting consequences.  Sometimes, as is the case with coronavirus, pandemics have much less to do with the virus than the societal change the virus activates.  Marcus Aurelius, the last of the Five Good Emperors, in the time of the Antonine Plague, penned the following in his Meditations:

    “To bear in mind constantly that all of this has happened before.  And will happen again—the same plot from beginning to end, the identical staging.  Produce them in your mind, as you know them from experience or from history: the court of Hadrian, of Antoninus.  The courts of Philip, Alexander, Croesus.  All just the same.  Only the people different.”

    Maybe so.  But the plot in 2020 is staged in the court of sinister.  Fear of a deadly pandemic has opened the door for madmen to walk through.  Upon entering the court, they put into practice sinister plans for controlling populations and swelling dependency.

    According to state and local governments, constitutional rights are not rights at all; they’re privileges.  And they’ve been suspended in your best interest.  To keep you safe.

    Moreover, if you want to work, have extended family over for dinner, worship with a congregation, or walk down the street without a mask, you’re selfish.  You’re not doing your part to stop the spread.

    Klaus Schwab, a madman, and founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF) is a man of social science based totalitarian rule.  Individuals that think for themselves and pay their own way in life are not part of his master plan.  He prefers a docile public, subsisting one notch above poverty, that’s fully dependent on a global state.

    In his new book, “COVID-19: The Great Reset,” Schwab and his co-author admit that COVID-19 is “one of the least deadly pandemics in the last 2000 years.”  Yet the ruling class has acted like this is the new smallpox.  What gives?

    The Viral Assault On Small Businesses

    COVID-19 has provided the perfect cover Schwab’s disciples to assault one of America’s remaining expressions of freedom and independence: small businesses.  With lockdowns, politicians get to pick and choose what businesses survive and what businesses don’t.  They get to decide who’s essential and who isn’t.

    By and large, corporations, having interests aligned with politicians, are considered essential.  Small businesses aren’t.  Walmart lives.  Dick’s barbershop dies.  McDonald’s survives.  Tito’s Tacos doesn’t.

    What’s more, legislation with the supposed intent to stop the spread of coronavirus has devastated small businesses.  Roughly 100,000 small businesses have permanently closed.  At the same time, big corporations are reaping record profits.

    One of the more tyrannical laws, which is acting as a viral assault on small businesses, is something warmly named the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA).  Attorney Ash Staub explains:

    “The FFCRA, passed in March of this year, requires businesses to provide two weeks of paid sick leave for quarantined employees and/or employees experiencing COVID-19 related symptoms.  It also requires two weeks of paid sick leave at two-thirds the regular rate of pay for employees who need to care for quarantined individuals, such as elderly relatives or spouses.  Furthermore, employers must also provide ten weeks of extended leave, also at two-thirds the regular rate of pay, for employees caring for their children due to school closures.

    “The FFCRA only applies to employers with fewer than 500 employees.

    “Thus, the FFCRA has imposed financial obligations on small businesses while exempting big businesses.  Small businesses are forced to pay the cost of complying with the FFCRA, while big businesses are not.  Small businesses are at risk of FFCRA-related lawsuits; big businesses are not.  The FFCRA clearly disadvantages small businesses, and expecting small businesses to incur the cost of the FFCRA while their revenue plummets, and their corporate competition profits, is a recipe for widespread small business bankruptcy.”

    And for every small business that’s crushed by autocratic rule there’s the corresponding loss of the owner’s dreams and their employee’s livelihoods.  But that’s not all.  It also denotes another step from freedom and liberty towards control and dependency… and into a darker more medieval world.

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  • "Please Have Keys Made": Joe Biden Was Chinese Financier's "Office Mate" According To Hunter Biden Email
    “Please Have Keys Made”: Joe Biden Was Chinese Financier’s “Office Mate” According To Hunter Biden Email
    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 12/12/2020 – 15:10

    Joe Biden – who swore throughout the 2020 election that he had ‘no knowledge’ of son Hunter’s business dealings – was described in a 2017 email as “office mates” with a Chinese financier and “emissary” to a PLA-linked (and now bankrupt) Chinese energy conglomerate that the Biden family tried to cash in on according to text, email, and sworn evidence from Hunter Biden’s laptop and multiple whistleblowers.

    Before reading further, keep in mind that the FBI and AG Bill Barr knew all of this and sat on it during the 2020 election (and Trump’s impeachment), while Fox News debate moderator Chris Wallace made Biden corruption ‘off limits’ during the first presidential debate.

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

    In a September, 2017 email found on Hunter’s laptop obtained by the Daily Caller, Hunter wrote to the general manager of his former Washington DC office building, asking to have “keys made available” to “office mates” Joe Biden,Jill Biden, Jim Biden and Gongwen Dong – a Chinese financier.

    Hunter identified Dong as an “emissary” for the CEFC, the now-defunct Chinese energy conglomerate whose Executive Chairman and affiliates have ties to China’s People’s Liberation Army, according to a report by the Project 2049 Institute – a US-based organization which researches security issues concerning Asia.

    Hunter Biden’s request to Cecilia Browning to create office keys for his “office mates” Joe Biden, Jill Biden, Jim Biden and Gongwen Dong. (screenshot via the Daily Caller)

    In response, Cecilia E. Browning, general manager of the office building (the House of Sweden) replied that they were “very excited and honored to welcome your new colleagues!” and confirmed that they requested “Four more keys” as well as a “Change of name on the door.”

    More via the Caller:

    Hunter Biden revealed this week that he has been notified that federal prosecutors in Delaware are investigating his “tax affairs.” Multiple news outlets have reported that the probe is also focused on Biden’s foreign business activities, including with CEFC, which was China’s fourth-largest energy conglomerate before going out of business. –Daily Caller

    “We have tenants who rent office space, and it is correct that Rosemont Seneca LLC rented an office at House of Sweden between February 2017 — February 2018,” Browning told the Caller in an email, adding “However, please note that we do not share information about current and previous tenants.”

    Yet – Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in October that the former Vice President “has never even considered being involved in business with his family, nor in any overseas business whatsoever. He has never held stock in any such business arrangements nor has any family member or any other person ever held stock for him.”

    Cecilia’s email proves that was a lie.

    Read the rest of the report here.

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