- One Man's Terrorist Is Another Man's Freedom Fighter
One Man’s Terrorist Is Another Man’s Freedom Fighter
Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,
In order for tyranny to be established, people who love freedom must first be demonized.
It seems like this would be an easy historic fact to accept, however, it’s very common for state propagandists and establishment shills in the media to cloud the argument. The conflict between the political left, globalists, conservatives and patriots is awash in misdirection. This article is my appeal to cut through that engineered fog, but before anything else is discussed, we need to recognize a fundamental truth:
If leftists and globalists were not trying to take away our individual and inherent liberties, then we conservatives and moderates would have no reason to fight.
The political left and the globalists are the ONLY people consistently using censorship, mob intimidation, violence, economic ransom, subversion and government oppression to get what they want. And, what they want is control; there is no denying it.
Again, let’s think about this for a moment: Who are the real villains in this story? The people who want to be left alone to live their lives in quiet freedom? Or, the people that want to forcefully impose their will on the world by any means necessary?
They can call it “progress”, they can call it futurism, they can call it the “great reset”, they can call it Utopia, but there is no getting around the reality that leftists and globalists have a vision of the world that is distinctly hostile to independent thought. What’s worse is, they think THEY are the good guys.
Conservatives and constitutionalists are “monsters” to them. Why? Because we exist and we refuse to comply. That is all there is to it. Otherwise, we have done NOTHING to them except defend ourselves in the most limited ways.
In recent months the words “terrorist” and “insurrectionist” have been used monotonously in the media to describe conservatives. The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, introduced in Congress this year, goes even further and specifically targets conservative activist groups as the primary threat to the stability of the US government. Leftists are still calling the protest at the Capitol Building an “attack on democracy” by “terrorists and white supremacists”.
If people walking unarmed into a building and then leaving quietly after an hour is terrorism and insurrection, then what would they call it if we actually physically defended ourselves against the usurpation of our civil rights?
These are labels some of us in the alternative media have been expecting for many years. We knew that the numerous pieces of national security and surveillance legislation passed under George W. Bush and Barack Obama, supposedly aimed at Islamic terrorists, would one day be used against all of us. It was only a matter of time. We were called “conspiracy theorists” 15 years ago for suggesting as much, now we are prophetic, but the mainstream will never admit it.
The argument on the other side of the aisle is that conservatives represent an “outdated” ideal; a philosophy which disrupts the betterment of human society. But is this really true? And, who gets to decide the definition of “betterment”, or the definition of “progress”?
In my article ‘The Real Reasons Why The Liberty Movement Is Preparing To Fight’, published way back in 2013, I stated that:
“Some principles, like the liberties embodied in natural law and outlined in the U.S. Constitution, NEVER become outdated. They exist in the heart of mankind, and will remain as long as humanity remains. They cannot be erased, and they cannot be undone. They are inherent and eternal.
The Liberty Movement is not some dying vestige of America’s past clinging to an antiquated philosophy. We are the new wave; the messengers of an ideal of freedom that in the grand scheme of history has been around for only a blink of an eye. Constitutional liberty IS the progress that humanity has been waiting for. We have only been led astray by those who would sell us on our own bondage.
The SPLC and others within the establishment accuse the Liberty Movement of arming for conflict against the government. I am here to tell them that is EXACTLY what we are doing. We are arming because the establishment is arming against us. Yes, we are a threat, but only to political and corporate criminals who use subversion and violence to wrest freedom from the hands of good people. I am not afraid to openly admit it. I and many others will fight against any measure or man that seeks to undermine the rights of the people or destroy the founding principles of this nation…”
Every facet of full blown tyranny is being implemented in the US and around the world in one stage or another. A fascist/communistic state is being established piece by piece right now. Mass surveillance of the public is the norm. Economic lockdowns are the norm. Medical passports are being instituted and the only reason they are not yet prominent in the US yet is because of conservative and moderate resistance. 24/7 contact tracing of every citizen is being suggested. Organization of large groups is being restricted or prohibited. Big Tech and the government are working hand-in-hand to censor dissent. And now, they are even trying to eliminate our gun rights under HR 127.
In 2011 in an article titled ‘The Essential Rules Of Tyranny’, I outlined a list of steps that an oligarchy would have to take before they could impose a centralized control grid in the US. Here is that list:
Rule #1: Keep Them Afraid
Rule #2: Keep Them Isolated
Rule #3: Keep Them Desperate
Rule #4: Send Out The Jackboots
Rule #5: Blame Everything On The Truth Seekers
Rule #6: Encourage Citizen Spies
Rule #7: Make Them Accept The Unacceptable
Most of these steps have been openly pursued in the past year and time is running out. This is how oppressive and murderous regimes begin, right under people’s noses, all in the name of the “greater good of the greater number”.
And that is the only argument left for skeptics to make: That it is government dominance, but dominance by necessity. In other words, the government “must do these things” for our own good. Of course, it’s not for our own good. There are only a select handful of people that benefit from aggressive government intrusion into our lives and they do not care about anyone but themselves.
So, here we are, on the edge of an event which the liberty movement has been predicting for well over a decade. We have been preparing for it. We have been organizing to stand against it. And, we know that we will be painted as the worst devils imaginable for opposing it. None of this is surprising to us.
Every time we defend ourselves, it will be called an act of terror and insurrection. Every terrible event will be immediately blamed on us, even if we had nothing to do with it. There may be false flag attacks carried out in our names and designed to defame us. This is how tyrants operate. This is nothing new.
I will say this, however: One man’s terrorists is often another man’s freedom fighter. All the hyperbolic labels used to demonize us aren’t going to stick with millions of Americans. They just aren’t buying it.
Are we white supremacists? How is that possible when millions of minorities are also conservatives and patriots? Are we dangerous extremists? If that’s the case, then why is there only ONE violent riot to our name the past year while there are hundreds of riots (and deaths) in the name of leftists and social justice cultists? Are we insurrectionists? How is that possible when we are trying to maintain the constitutional foundations of our country, not tear them down like the political left?
Do the globalists and leftists really think they can take 74 million-plus Americans and marginalize us all with a word like “terrorist”? Do they really think they can shut us down, lock us up or remove us from the evolution of this nation’s destiny? The only way they could achieve that is if we go quietly. I have a revelation for them: We will not be going quietly.
Perhaps that is what they expect. Maybe they think they WANT us to fight. Maybe all of these attacks on conservatives are an attempt to provoke us. It is a Catch-22 after all – Damned if we defend ourselves and damned if we do nothing, right? If this is their strategy, then they must assume they can control the outcome of such a conflagration. It is that type of arrogance that will be the end of them in the long run.
Deep down, slavery is NOT what people want (despite what the propagandists might tell you). No, most people want self determination, they just have problems letting their fear get in the way of their freedoms. Deep down, most people are on our side, not on the side of totalitarianism, and this is where despots consistently fail in their designs. The establishment thinks they can convince the world that freedom fighters are terrorists, while secretly, in their heart of hearts, the majority of people want us to win, and in the end, we will.
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Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/12/2021 – 23:40 - Israel Develops Drone That Navigates Without GPS
Israel Develops Drone That Navigates Without GPS
The inevitable is coming. Either cheap GPS signal jamming technology or hypersonic missiles destroying a mesh network of GPS satellites will threaten drones on the modern battlefield when the next conflict breaks out.
That’s why Israeli startup Sightec developed the first-ever artificial intelligence-powered drone that can navigate without GPS connectivity. The drone uses “its own judgment powered by computer vision and smart tech, to reach its destination and avoid crashes without human assistance,” said Mashable.
The drones are embedded with special software called NaviSight, which transforms cameras embedded on the device into sensors that in real-time uses artificial intelligence to navigate like a human pilot, without depending on GPS.
A recent test was conducted in Southern Israel using a drone with the startup’s NaviSight technology. The drone successfully operated five routes.
“Drones which can find their own way won’t have to depend on GPS which is vulnerable to cyber attacks, and the innovation also protects people from drones crashing into building when they lose connectivity to navigation systems. The autonomous ops are being pitched as a provision for emergency situations, and the drones also deploy 3D mapping to help the software sidestep obstacles,” Mashable added.
This technology will come in very handy during the next global conflict between the US and China or the US and Russia. Either side will attempt to paralyze their opponent’s GPS satellites in low Earth orbit, which would create widespread chaos on the modern battlefield.
There is another threat to GPS-dependent devices, that is, the strongest solar cycle on record is imminent.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/12/2021 – 23:20 - Court Docs Show FBI Can Intercept Encrypted Messages From ‘Signal’ App
Court Docs Show FBI Can Intercept Encrypted Messages From ‘Signal’ App
Authored by Shane Trejo via Big League Politics (emphasis ours),
Recent court documents have indicated that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) possesses a tool allowing them to access encrypted messages on the Signal app.
Signal has rapidly gained in popularity as Silicon Valley monopolists have grown more openly hostile to free speech, but the platform may be vulnerable to backdoors that undermine the privacy protections provided through the encrypted messaging service.
According to documents filed by the Department of Justice and first obtained by Forbes, Signal’s encrypted messages can be intercepted from iPhone devices when those Apple devices are in a mode called “partial AFU,” which means “after first unlock.”
When phones are in partial AFU mode, Signal messages can be seized by federal authorities and other potentially hostile interests. GrayKey and Cellebrite are the tools typically used by the FBI to gain this sensitive information, an expert has explained.
“It uses some very advanced approach using hardware vulnerabilities,” said Vladimir Katalov, who founded the Russian forensics company ElcomSoft, believing that GrayKey was used by federal authorities to crack Signal.
This vulnerability within the Signal app may not be a design flaw, but rather a deliberate backdoor to allow authorities to access private messages. The app was initially funded with backing from the deep state, after all.
Big League Politics has reported about the rise of Telegram, a pro-privacy app that is Signal’s most direct competitor:
The New York Times is prodding Telegram to censor right-wing voices and hamper the platform’s amazing growth as mainstream social media platforms enact Draconian censorship.
The notorious fake news rag published an article on Tuesday imploring Telegram to do more to stop so-called “far-right conspiracy theorists, racists and violent insurrectionists” from using the app to communicate.
“There’s a real push and pull between the people that are using Telegram — and messengers like it — for good, and the people who are using them to undermine democracy,” said Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation analyst at the globalist Wilson Center.
“We see the same openness and sense of connection that is used by democratic activists opportunistically exploited by extremists,” she added…
“Telegram has never yielded to pressure from officials who wanted us to perform political censorship,” Durov wrote several years ago.
Durov, a Russian-born libertarian, has run into trouble with the Kremlin over Telegram, but the Russian government has come around on the platform and now regularly use it. Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, even urged former President Donald Trump to get on the platform after he was banned by Big Tech.
“Seems like you don’t enjoy freedom of speech in your own country any more!” Mr. Polyanskiy wrote.
Although Trump is not currently on the platform, his son, Donald Trump Jr., has joined Telegram and already commands a massive following on the pro-free speech app.
Telegram may be a better option than Signal for individuals hoping to safeguard their rights, considering Signal’s vulnerabilities and deep state ties.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/12/2021 – 23:00 - America's Most-Hated Office Jargon
America’s Most-Hated Office Jargon
The pandemic might have brought office life to a shuddering halt across much of the world but, as Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, it hasn’t allowed workers to breathe a sigh of relief and escape arguably one of the most annoying aspects of office culture – business jargon.
Even while working remotely, many office workers are still exposed to buzz words when they “touch base” with the boss over email, Teams, Slack and Zoom. Some phrases tend to get under people’s skin more than others and a 2019 GetResponse survey polled 1,000 U.S. employees to determine the absolute worst of the worst.
This infographic focuses on the 15 worst offenders with the survey’s respondents hating the term “Synergy” the most.
You will find more infographics at Statista
It was followed by the seemingly innocuous “Teamwork” and the possibly more irritating “Touch base”. Further down, some well known and cringe-inducing terms make an appearance such as “The next time you feel the need to reach out…” and of course “Circle back”.
Despite the dislike for many of these phrases, bosses no doubt feel they are justified. The issue may be more down to senior figures in companies using all of these buzzwords a little bit too often for their employees’ liking.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/12/2021 – 22:40 - The Globalist Dilemma: How To Implement A 4th Industrial Revolution Without Losing Power
The Globalist Dilemma: How To Implement A 4th Industrial Revolution Without Losing Power
Authored by Joaquin Flores via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
The changes underway are a revolutionary change from one historic epoch to another…
Ephesians 6: 10 – 12 – 10Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. 11Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
The sci-fi horror film we are now living in, being presented as the 4th Industrial Revolution, is only one possible outcome, and not a necessary one. However, the one being put forward in Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum, is what we see being implemented across the Western world in the aftermath of the collapse of NATO and the winding down of the globalists’ Trans-Atlantic banking establishment.
As we have previously established, the declining rate of profit has created an impasse in the logic of the speculative based finance economy, one which is in fact undermined by the rise of robotics, AI, and automation. Therefore, the ruling class as moved to transform itself from a financialist plutocracy into a technocratic oligarchy.
There inherent problem for these globalist elites is the fact that in history, massive changes to the organization of society have also been accompanied by big changes in who holds power, known also as Pareto’s “circulation of elites”, (but we will term ‘rotation’ for clarity).
Their version of the 4IR is based on a fallacious understanding of humanity and consciousness; premised within a demiurgic conception of power. Moreover, their efforts will fail for any number of practical reasons.
The 4th Industrial Revolution of home garage production is around the corner, it is really only a matter of a few short years before it is practicable to be entirely realized. And this is why there has been such a tremendous effort to subvert this back into some attempt to reconstruct a single-mind centralized model dependent upon ID2020.
With ID2020 we see the beginning of a freedom-pass and a subscription to ‘anti-virus’ and ‘anti-malware’ shots for the human body, in order for citizens to stay alive, having already been infected with some ostensibly communicable illness created by the creators of the vaccines themselves.
The shots will not be ‘mandatory’, rather the enslaved people will clamor for them, and their qualification to receive these in a timely way will be based upon their social-credit score. A lower social-credit score will see longer periods of real illness and forced quarantine at-home, in “eco-friendly” 15 meter square apartments. Suburban populations will have their mortgages foreclosed, assets will be seized, and people will be forced to live in ‘smart cities’ and rely on UBI payments, in order to ‘save energy’ through eliminating trucking and supply-lines to rural parts.
A Paradigm in Collapse – Avoiding a Rotation of Elites
Are we transitioning to a new phase in a series of industrial revolutions within modernity, or are we on the precipice of a post-industrial phase in the development of human civilization? These are starkly differing conceptions of the changes underway, and provide two very different ways of approaching the problem and any possible solutions.
The very same failing paradigm which has brought about both the need and the possibility of a genuine 4th Industrial Revolution based in liberatory concepts of the 4th Great Awakening, is trying to get ahead of the curve to control and contain it. Towards that end, they have possessed the very name ‘4IR’.
The real problem with technology and the coming 4th Industrial Revolution appears to be two-fold. There has been a scientific attempt to manage the changes that technology brings, which are historically destabilizing to elites. This means that now, through the science of sociology and social-psychology as well as other social-engineering technologies (as seen through big tech and big pharma), the effort is one of intentionally directing the development of certain technologies towards the end of continued control by our present financial elites. All this, as we move towards a post-financial order.
In effect this has meant the holding back the development of other technologies which they rightly see as destabilizing for them, until new coercive control-technologies can be better produced and applied. This is why we see the focus on neuralink and cybernetics involved in a discussion of the 4IR, even though it is not very much related.
The process of a rotation of elites is, again, what the elites want to avoid. But there has never been a successful revolution in the productive forces without a rotation of elites.
That is why they are trying to ‘downscale’ the historical perspective, and speak in terms of industrial revolutions plural, instead of the fact that the 4th industrial revolution is a post-industrial revolution.
The dying-out elites want to frame things in terms of the phases of the industrial revolution on a small scale within the span of hundreds of years, instead of looking at broad socio-economic transformations over the span of thousands of years.
By framing it in this limited way, they can try to insert themselves as an ongoing elite. The problem, however, is in their theory. It is true that the banking dynasties from the 1700’s have remained in power throughout the series of ‘industrial revolutions’ – three of them before as we have it – but in fact this past three-hundred years as all been the singular ‘industrial revolution’, or the epoch of modernity.
Therefore, they are trying to promote a future vision where they simply carry-on in the ‘next’ of a series of industrial revolutions, when in fact this is not the case. The three prior paradigmatic revolutions in the productive forces have been much larger in scope (slavocratic, feudalist, capitalist) and were carried out over much longer periods of time. In short, we are on the brink of a paradigm shift, not simply an innovation resting atop the old order with the old elites. We are on the precipice, if we stand and make it ours, of a post-modern, post-industrial order.
That is our 4th Industrial Revolution. That is the 4th Great Awakening.
One the one hand is the fact that the present elites wish to avoid their displacement that comes with a rotations of elites, a rotation which historically arises from new modes of production. The rise of early medieval Europe saw the descendants of Roman slavocratic elites replaced by feudal elites. Some eight centuries later, after the Inclosure Acts in England and in the period of the Reformation, saw the early origins of industrial elites who first built small workshops that in the coming centuries became large factories. It is they who replaced the feudal elites.
With this revolutionary change in the entire organization of society, came an entire shift in consciousness, from medieval into modern thinking and being, and the entrance of a consciousness commensurate with modernity, onto the world-historical stage.
Therefore, less paradigmatic changes that then the rise of scientific management in the early 20th centuries saw the rise of technocratic and financial elites who replaced the industrial. But this did not include a shift in consciousness, as this change took place within the rubric of modernity.
Changes of epochs were signaled by a true rotation of elites, which came with tremendous social turmoil, and was accompanied by political chaos and often times great wars between classes and nations, which were also ruinous to many of the old elites. Each rotation of elites came with a revolution in the mode of production.
We can see that these broad historical developments take shape over the course of many centuries, and not merely decades. They are larger than what any secular conspiracy or intrigue could ever possibly account for. The rise and development of ever-more complex social relations has given society itself its own artificial intelligence of sorts, its own internal logic which drives society towards its own ends, entirely divorced from the real needs of humanity.
The scientific management revolution of the 1920’s and 30’s, fueled by sciences like sociology, a type of soulless Marxism – presented a new possibility, now being implemented. This was to manage the implementation of new technologies while minimizing any chaos associated with the rotation of elites, by avoiding any rotation of elites at all.
For the first time, society is conscious of itself as an entity towards its own end, as an Artificial Intelligence (AI), and is alienated from humanity which in Heidegger’s distant pre-Socratic past was an end in itself and for itself. A golem of sorts. A Frankenstein’s monster.
For the first time, the changes which historically overthrew societies and transformed them, could theoretically by managed by a self-conscious AI, as a technocratic leviathan, as ‘society’ in itself and for itself, and introduce revolutionary changes without overturning itself.
By minimizing the rotation of elites, it is believed that the turmoil experienced by elites can be minimized, and the costs can be externalized entirely onto the relatively disempowered social classes below. The elites have used the ‘magic’ of the machine-age – technology – to create a synthetic god of sorts, which they believe can preserve their place in a type of hierarchy, in perpetuity.
In the past, because of demagogic mechanisms and the historic power of numbers, (increased many-fold with the invention of firearms and the relative decrease in the relative power of the warrior caste), a group of elites representative of the new technology and unfolding new means of production could work in tandem with relatively disempowered classes who had numerical superiority. Socio-political ends of the disempowered could piggy-back onto the program of new elites who overthrew the old. The American, French, Mexican, Russian, and Chinese revolutions are well-known examples of this process.
Today, elites wish to implement new technology based upon the self-awareness of their machine wherein new technologies – if not managed from alpha to omega – will result in a problematic and self-defeating rotation of elites. Part of their solution is not only to create a homogeneous and highly regimented anti-intellectual culture for the masses, but to also reify and reproduce this singular homogenous worldview in and between themselves. In short, if they are all on board with the same program and for the same reasons, they can avoid the inter-elite conflicts which hitherto characterize transformations that come with new means of production.
But this is pure folly. The changes underway cannot be managed by the science of sociology, and these changes are not merely one in a series of revolutionary changes within modernity, but rather a revolutionary change from one historic epoch to another.
Hence, what is being presented as the 4IR is an attempt to prevent that change into post-modernity, post-industrialism (going past the old the global supply chain, the age of the industrial wage-worker, etc. towards a liberatory rubric). In this critical sense, it is not a 4IR at all, but takes more from Orwell’s conception of 1984 of a system based on the freezing of technological development in terms of the productive forces. Instead, the science of social-psychology and other coercive mechanisms are further perfected in order to ‘freeze time’.
Looking at our next installment, we will take from this point and move to demonstrating that in addition to a rotation of elites, what was historically essential and missing from the elite plan, was a paradigm shift in consciousness not only among the people, but also among the elites. That shift in consciousness is today called the ‘Great Awakening’.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/12/2021 – 22:20 - Spot, The Robot Dog, Is Now "Battery Trained"
Spot, The Robot Dog, Is Now “Battery Trained”
On Tuesday, Boston Dynamics uploaded a video of Spot, the autonomous robot dog designed to inspect hazardous job sites, with a new trick. The robot dog has been programmed to self-charge, allowing it to replenish its batteries without humans’ help.
In recent months, an industrial version of Spot has been deployed to an oil rig, a Ford Motor Company factory, and even at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, conducting tasks that humans would normally complete. But during those deployments, human intervention was needed with the robot to replace batteries.
The upgraded version of industrial Spot with self-charging capabilities allows it to operate in dangerous areas for longer while mitigating health risks to humans.
The robot has a vast amount of inspection capabilities, including visual inspection, gauge reading, thermal sensing, leak detection, and laser scanning. Usually, these tasks would be completed by humans, but not anymore.
Spot’s autonomous self-charging capabilities are seen in Boston Dynamics’ video published on Tuesday.
According to Engadget, more than 400 Spots have been sold since June. Boston Dynamics is only selling the robot to corporations.
It appears Spot is getting better at doing human jobs. That’s great for productivity but will have profound implications down the line for the labor force.
By the end of the decade, automation and artificial intelligence could displace tens of millions of jobs – this trend has been thrown into hyperdrive since the virus pandemic. Lawmakers have to see the downside to the robot revolution, that is, one where income inequality will continue to expand.
The great displacement is underway – if you’re a reader and work in an industry that could be highly disruptive due to automation, such as working in a warehouse – maybe now is the time for job retraining.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/12/2021 – 22:00 - Johnstone: The Real World And The Narrative World
Johnstone: The Real World And The Narrative World
Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,
We each inhabit two very different worlds simultaneously: the real world, and the narrative world.
The real world is the physical world of matter, of atoms and molecules and stars and planets and animals wandering around trying to bite and copulate with each other. Science does not yet understand much of this world, but it can reasonably be said to have some degree of existence to it.
The narrative world is made of stories, of mental chatter about what’s going on. It is only related to the real world in the loosest of terms, and commonly has no relation to the real world whatsoever.
In the narrative world you exist as a person with a certain name and a certain life story with a mountain of adjectives attached to you, some believed consciously and some believed subconsciously. You are this, you are that. You are inadequate. You are inferior. You are clever. You are fat. You are unlovable. Whatever. Words, words, words, words, words.
In the real world what you think of as “you” exists as an organism, breathing and digesting and pulsing and moving in the appearance of time. No thoughts or words need to occur for this organism to exist; it just is whatever it is.
In the narrative world, your surroundings are experienced as friends and foes, good and bad, right and wrong, threatening and non-threatening. Churning, babbling stories about what’s happening pervade the experience of the narrative world: those people over there are bad people and should be punished. Those people over there are the good people and they should be rewarded. That man is blah blah blah. That woman is this and that.
In the real world, your surroundings are experienced as raw sensory data: sensory impressions arising in each point in spacetime. Breath going in, breath going out. The feeling of feet on the ground. Sound of a bird call. Sight of a passing car. It’s all just happening as it is, as whatever it is. Simple. Present.
In the narrative world, the United States changed dramatically on the 20th of January. If you live in one narrative echo chamber it changed dramatically for the better, if you live in the other narrative echo chamber it changed dramatically for the worse. But throughout the narrative world most agree that the 20th of January 2021 marked a very real and significant turn of events.
In the real world, things are moving in pretty much the same ways they were on January 19th. The money is moving in more or less the same directions at more or less the same rates. The weapons and troops are moving to more or less the same places in basically the same ways as before. The resources are behaving in essentially the same way. The people are moving in pretty much the same way. The actual, physical dynamics have remained predominantly unchanged.
The real world and the narrative world could not be more different. Skilled manipulators exploit these differences for their benefit like foreign exchange traders exploit the differences in world currency values. A religious manipulator can get you to hand over your real currency in exchange for narrative currency about eternal salvation or spiritual purification. A sexual predator can manipulate you into trading the real currency of sex for the narrative currency of “I think I’m in love with you”. A politician can manipulate you into trading the real currency of votes for the narrative currency of whatever they say on the campaign trail.
It’s very hard to control people in the real world by just using the means that are available in the real world. If you’re bigger and stronger than someone you can get them to hand over their sandwich by hitting them, or if you have a big stick or something. If you want to exert a large amount of control over a large number of people, though, you generally have to seize that control through the narrative world.
It’s easier to control people through the narrative world than the real world because the narrative world and its relationship with the real world is too complicated for most people to understand, whereas the real world is quite simple and straightforward. For this reason, a tremendous amount of energy goes into controlling the dominant narratives, the dominant stories that people tell about what’s going on in the world.
Convince people to accept the narrative that a government’s leader is an evil dictator in need of regime change, and you can trade that narrative for real world control over a crucial geostrategic region. Convince people to accept that the status quo is working fine and any attempts to change it are dangerous insanity, and you ensure that people will never rise up and take away your real world control. Convince people that anyone questioning your narratives is a conspiracy theorist or a Russian propagandist, and you ensure your continued hegemonic control over the narrative world.
The most powerful manipulators are the ones who have succeeded in exerting control over both the real world and the narrative world, and they pursue both agendas with equal emphasis. Populations in the real world who insist upon their own national, resource, financial, economic or military sovereignty are subject to real world attacks by bombs, starvation sanctions and special ops. Entities in the narrative world which threaten imperial narrative domination are attacked, smeared, marginalized and censored.
That’s all we are seeing with the increasingly shrill mainstream panic about disinformation, conspiracy theories, foreign propaganda and domestic extremism. Our rulers and their media lackeys are not compassionately protecting us from deception, they are ensuring that they remain the only ones authorized to administer deception. By golly the only ones allowed to deceive us should be our government, our news media, our teachers and our priests.
As China and its allies increasingly threaten the real world hegemony of the US and its allies, operations in the narrative world are getting increasingly heated and intense. Expect continued demonization of Russia, and expect anti-China propaganda to get more and more noisy. Expect people to be herded into partisan echo chambers with thicker and thicker walls in the narrative world, because dividing them up in this way makes it much easier to administer propaganda to them.
The narrative world is getting more and more frenzied while the real world is headed toward disaster due to the military and ecological pressures created by our status quo. There are only a few ways this can possibly break, with the most obvious being mass scale climate disaster or nuclear war.
There is also the possibility that the human species goes the other way and adapts. Organisms always wind up hitting a juncture where they either adapt to a new situation or go extinct, and we are approaching our juncture now.
Throughout recorded history, all around the globe, wise humans have been attesting that it is possible to transcend our delusion-rooted conditioning and come to a lucid perception of the narrative world and reality. There are many names for this lucid perception, but the one that caught on most widely is enlightenment.
We all have this potential within us. It has been gestating in us for many millennia. As we approach our adaptation-or-extinction juncture, we are very close indeed to learning if that potential will awaken in us or not.
If it does, a healthy and harmonious world will shift from being an unimaginable pipe dream to something very achievable. No longer confused about the relationship between the real world and the narrative world, we will be able to perceive our actual situation clearly, unfiltered by manipulation, and begin collaborating to build something beautiful and unprecedented. Once we move out of our narrative manipulation-driven model of competition and domination, and into a lucidity-driven model of collaboration with each other and with our ecosystem, a lasting peace will open up to us all.
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Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/12/2021 – 21:40 - Luxury Homes On Manhattan's Upper East Side Are Back In Vogue
Luxury Homes On Manhattan’s Upper East Side Are Back In Vogue
After spending the last 18 months writing about how real estate in New York was collapsing due to the pandemic, we have to admit is it nice to see some signs of life anywhere in the city.
Those signs of life appear to now be on the Upper East Side, where the borough’s priciest real estate deals have been every week since November, according to Bloomberg. In all but three of the last 14 weeks, the priciest or second-priciest deals in the city have been on the Upper East Side.
Many of these new sales have been in new towers “designed to mimic the style of century-old co-ops, but without the onerous restrictions of those buildings,” the report notes.
“I’m not saying the glass box is over. But it might be over. It may have had its day,” said broker President Donna Olshan.
Sales of luxury apartments have outperformed the rest of the Manhattan market, despite us perpetually noting that real estate in places like “Billionaire’s Row” continues to be sold at massive discounts. Upper East Side deals have also been helped along by discounts.
For example, 1010 Park Ave. had lowered asking prices on two units that turned out to be the second-biggest contracts for two weeks in January. Gary Barnett, chairman and founder of Extell, the developer of the property, commented: “Buyers are responding to getting something truly exceptional at a very favorable price in today’s market.”
One townhouse that sold in December had been reduced 48% but still wound up as the second most expensive contract in the city, at $9.75 million.
One popular tower has been The Benson, which is still under construction on Madison Avenue near 80th Street. The report notes that 8 of the 15 full-floor units have been sold already. One apartment on the 15th floor recently went under contract for $14.15 million, marking the second most expensive deal that week.
The next week, the Upper East Side saw the most expensive transaction in the city when two apartments at 1228 Madison Ave. sold for a combined $27.85 million. During the week of January 4, a penthouse listed for $32.5 million at 109 E. 79th St. was the top pending sale of the week.
New projects allow people who want to stay on the Upper East Side to find new property without having to deal with the renovation logistics of co-op approvals. John Usdan, chief executive officer of Midwood Investment & Development said: “Younger people who are in the market for the first time, to really buy a permanent home, just don’t have the time or expertise to navigate those kind of issues.”
He continued: “When you look historically about what’s happened in pandemics, wealthy people have been the first to leave the centers of diseases. Then they come back.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/12/2021 – 21:20 - Why Trust The 'Experts'?
Why Trust The ‘Experts’?
Authored by Lipton Matthews via The Mises Institute,
It has now become commonplace to accuse anyone who opposes covid lockdowns of being “antiscience.” This sort of treatment persists even when published scientific studies suggest the usual prolockdown narrative is wrong. support the antilockdown position.
There are sociological, economic, and cultural reasons why experts will take the politically popular position, even when the actual scientific evidence is weak or nonexistent.
Experts Are Biased and Are Self-Interested like Everyone Else
Though we are often encouraged to listen to experts because of their intelligence and expertise, there is a strong case for us to be skeptical of their pronouncements.
Beliefs serve a social function by indicating one’s position in society. Hence to preserve their status in elite circles, highly educated experts may subscribe to incorrect positions, since doing do so can confer benefits. Refusing to hold a politically popular viewpoint could damage one’s career. And since upper-class professionals are more invested in acquiring status than working people, we should not expect them to jettison incorrect beliefs in the name of pursuing truth.
Cancel culture has taught us that promoting the world view of the elite is more important than truth to decision makers.
So why should we listen to experts when they give greater primacy to appeasing elites than solving national problems? In contrast to what some would want you to believe—revolting against experts is not an attack on science, considering that little evidence suggests that they care about scientific truth. Let us not fool ourselves. People occupying powerful offices are uninterested in being toppled from positions of influence, and as such, they will seek to minimize views that threaten their professional or intellectual authority. As a result, expecting influential bureaucrats to value truth is unwise. Truth to a bureaucrat is merely the consensus of the intelligentsia at any given time.
Of note is also the lesser ability of intelligent people to identify their own bias. Stemming from their greater levels of cognitive development, it is easier for intelligent people to rationalize nonsense. Justifying extreme assumptions requires a lot of brainpower, so this could possibly explain why highly intelligent people—specifically, people “higher in verbal ability”—are inclined to express more extreme opinions. Our culture has immense faith in expert opinion, although the evidence indicates that such confidence must be tempered by skepticism. Intelligent people, whether they be experts or politicians, do not have a monopoly on rationality.
Admittedly, intelligence may act as a barrier to objective thinking. Brilliant people are adept at forming arguments, therefore even when confronted with compelling data, they are still able to offer equally riveting counterpoints. Smart people can engage opponents without resorting to a bevy of studies to buttress their conclusions. Thus, clearly, the proposals of experts ought to be held to a higher standard primarily because they are smarter than average.
The capacity of an intelligent person to provide coherent arguments in favor of his ideas can be impressive, and may only serve to solidify him or her in his or her conclusions. For instance, in the arena of climate change experts have recommended policies that are consistent with data on nothing but the claim that a consensus supports such proposals. Promoting the wide-scale use of renewables, for example, is usually touted as a sustainable climate strategy despite the fact that studies argue the reverse.
Counter to the rantings of the intelligentsia, we should implore more people to express skepticism of experts. Due to their high intelligence, experts tend to be more inflexible and partisan than other people. This is solid justification for ordinary people to be skeptical of the intellectuals in charge of national affairs. Unlike wealthy bureaucrats, who are insulated from the economic fallout of their bad ideas, the poor usually bear the burden.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/12/2021 – 21:00 - US Air Travel Hits New Turbulence Despite Vaccines & 'Recovery'
US Air Travel Hits New Turbulence Despite Vaccines & ‘Recovery’
Trading the recovery and sensitive stocks linked to the reopening following a month and a half of vaccine rollouts have benefited traders who have piled into these stocks, such as airlines. For example, U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS) has more than doubled since March 2020 low but remains well off its 2019 highs. There are new indications from travel-data firm Cirium that show the recovery in airlines could be reversing, this could be bad news for traders who have piled into JETS.
Bloomberg, citing a new Cirium report, said the number of single-aisle aircraft in service has plunged since the beginning of the year amid a flare-up in COVID-19 cases across the country and fresh restrictions.
Cirium’s data showed single-aisle aircraft in service fell below the 8.8k mark on Feb. 5, a drop of 15% compared with Jan. 3 figures.
“Wide-body usage slumped 14% from a Dec. 19 peak, though bigger aircraft remain comparatively far less popular, with just half the number in service compared with pre-pandemic levels as long-haul travel remains largely out of bounds,” Bloomberg said, quoting the report.
Following months of soaring air travel numbers into the 2020 holiday season, U.S. passenger volumes dove in late January to their lowest levels in six months.
The plunge in air travel comes as the Biden administration rolled out new virus travel restrictions through an executive order that requires negative COVID-19 tests of all travelers into the U.S., as well as a one week quarantine period.
What could send passenger volumes even lower is the White Houses’ proposed plan to test domestic travelers for the virus.
Emerson Barnes, executive vice president of public affairs and policy at the U.S. Travel Association, was not pleased this week with the Biden administration mulling over the idea of domestic testing.
“We really think that this is something that would really decimate the industry further,” Barnes said.
Heading into 2021, optimism was high for a rebound in global air travel, but that appears to be fading despite vaccine rollouts, with not just the U.S. air travel industry beginning to slump once more. Still, also Europe’s air travel industry “looks like a black hole,” according to a separate Bloomberg report.
“Tourism flows, on the whole, are not expected to recover to their pre-crisis levels in 2021 fully,” European Commission said.
More or less, reverting our attention to the JETS ETF, the question we ask readers: Is upside limited?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/12/2021 – 20:40 - Desperate Americans Who Can't Afford Housing Are Becoming "Modern-Day Nomads"… But Not By Choice
Desperate Americans Who Can’t Afford Housing Are Becoming “Modern-Day Nomads”… But Not By Choice
Authored by Robert Wheeler via The Organic Prepper blog,
A recent story floating around mainstream media regarding “modern-day nomads” reads like a contemporary article on Henry David Thoreau. It shares stories of people looking to downsize their life and live simply and stories of people who have fallen on hard times, unable to afford rent.
However, what is lacking is the exposure of the dark underbelly of the “modern-day nomad” culture. In other words, they neglect to mention the fact that the enormous growth of the “modern-day nomad” is rooted in the fact that the world economy has all but collapsed, now mired in a global economic depression of unemployment, low wages, and personal financial catastrophes.
While it sounds romantic, it’s often rooted in desperation.
Nevertheless, some of the stories begin in the following way:
If you look closely on city streets, campgrounds, and stretches of desert run by the Bureau of Land Management, you’ll see more Americans living in vehicles than ever before. It was never their plan.
“I wasn’t prepared when I had to move into my SUV. The transmission was going. I had no money saved. I was really scared,” said April Craren, 52, bundled in blankets atop a cot inside her new minivan, a 2003 Toyota Sienna.
She flipped the camera on her phone to show me the camp stove she uses to make coffee and her view of the sun rising over the Colorado River. She has no toilet, shower, or refrigeration.
After separating from her husband, April found herself homeless in June 2020, exacerbating the depressive disorder for which she receives $1,100 a month in disability benefits.
“I could have gotten an apartment but in a crappy unsafe place with no money to do anything at all,” she explained.
Last year, where April lived in Nixa, Missouri, the average rent for an apartment was $762, slightly less than the national average. Like nearly half of American renters, she would have been crippled by the cost.
It’s not surprising, then, that job loss, divorce, or, say, the sudden onset of global health or financial crisis can push so many over the edge.
Many Americans have found themselves trapped in a spiral of poverty from which they simply can’t recover.
It doesn’t sound so bad to those of us with minimalist persuasions
At 52, April Craren didn’t choose this life. It was thrust upon her by unfortunate life circumstances. Craren couldn’t afford the exorbitant rent that is now average across the country on a fixed income. (Partly due to inflation but mostly due to the housing crash in 2008.)
The coordination of lockdowns and COVID restrictions have plunged the world into a deep depression of which we are only beginning to see. Even Wall Street couldn’t have caused this much damage.
“If the Great Recession was a crack in the system, Covid and climate change will be the chasm,” says Bob Wells, the nomad who plays himself in the film Nomadland. Thankfully, Wells was able to help Craren adopt her lifestyle so she can now survive as a “nomad” through his Home On Wheels Alliance.
Wells’s lifestyle was a choice. But the newfound interest in the nomadic lifestyle is not a choice for many.
From Yahoo:
Realizing he had something valuable to share, he bought the domain name Cheap RV Living in 2005. He posted tips and tricks about better vehicle-dwelling, but what he was really offering was a road map to a better life.
Four years later, when close to 10 million Americans were displaced after the Great Recession, traffic to his site exploded. Finding himself at the center of a growing online community, he decided to create a meet-up in Quartzsite, Arizona. He dubbed it the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous (RTR), and in January 2011, 45 vehicles showed up. Eight years later, an estimated 10,000 vehicles convened for what was said to be the largest nomad gathering in the world.
The event’s explosive growth is undoubtedly a reflection of America’s increasing interest in van life as an answer to the affordable housing crisis, an idea made accessible by Bob on his YouTube channel, also named Cheap RV Living, created in 2015.
The “increasing interest in van life” that Yahoo News refers to is not some petit-bourgeois fantasy being realized by privileged middle-class white kids, able to go home at any time. It is the necessity of formerly middle class, working-class, and poor people all across America who are out of work or are working but cannot afford housing.
Minimalism is a legitimate lifestyle for some; others have no choice
For many, this culture of minimalism is genuinely how they wish to live. Nomads have a genuine desire to see empty overconsumption come to an end. However, we can not ignore that minimalism is being promoted to prepare the Western population who are used to high living standards to accept those that are much lower.
Why do you think we continually see articles promoting insects as a legitimate dining option? Why are The Great Reset promoters at the World Economic Forum telling the public that they will soon own nothing and learn to love it?
Being a nomad doesn’t mean you can’t be prepared.
For those who are already nomads, whether by choice or forced by economic circumstance, it might be helpful to know that there are many prepping options available to you. There is no need to be left to the mercy of wherever you are right now.
I highly encourage you to access Daisy Luther’s article, “There’s Another Option Besides Hunkering Down and Bugging Out: Nomadic Living.” It will give you the perspective of someone who has voluntarily experienced and lived the nomadic lifestyle while also the mindset of remaining prepared for anything and everything.
At the rate the Great Reset is taking shape, many of us may find ourselves embracing the nomadic lifestyle, willingly or not.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/12/2021 – 20:20 - 'High Steaks' As Israeli Startup Prints World's First Ribeye
‘High Steaks’ As Israeli Startup Prints World’s First Ribeye
Israeli-based Aleph Farms Ltd. has created the world’s first slaughter-free steak using three-dimensional “bio-printing” and real cells from a cow.
Aleph teamed up with biomedical researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to print lab-grown ribeyes intended for human consumption without slaughtering an animal.
“It incorporates muscle and fat similar to its slaughtered counterpart,” the company said in a press release, adding that its steaks taste just like a “juicy ribeye steak you’d buy from the butcher.”
Aleph’s technology is unique. It prints “actual living cells that are then incubated to grow, differentiate, and interact, in order to acquire the texture and qualities of a real steak,” the release said.
“A proprietary system, similar to the vascularization that occurs naturally in tissues, enables the perfusion of nutrients across the thicker tissue and grants the steak with the similar shape and structure of its native form as found in livestock before and during cooking,” the release continued.
Didier Toubia, Co-Founder and CEO of Aleph Farms, called the 3D printed meat a “breakthrough.” He added, “this milestone for me marks a major leap in fulfilling our vision of leading a global food system transition toward a more sustainable, equitable, and secure world.”
While lab-grown meat is in its infancy, it will take the company a couple of years to advance the technology to scale production up to be commercially available.
If you thought 3D printed steaks are weird – readers may recall not too long we reported California food company Eat Just Inc. received the all-clear by Singapore to sell lab-grown chicken meat.
So the question we ask readers: Will lab-grown meat cut down on Co2 emissions as livestock herds would be decreased, or will the fake meat produce more Co2 emissions as it would take more energy in labs to grow it?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/12/2021 – 20:00 - Trump Legal Team Plays Scorching Montage Of Democrats 'Inciting' And Challenging Past Elections
Trump Legal Team Plays Scorching Montage Of Democrats ‘Inciting’ And Challenging Past Elections
Update (1540ET): Trump’s legal team wrapped up their case in just over three of the allotted 16 hours.
The next phase will consist of up to four hours of questions from senators to both the House managers and Trump’s legal team – though several senators have said they don’t think it will take that long.
“Our country needs to get back to work. I know that you know that. But instead we are here. The majority party promised to unify and deliver more Covid relief. But instead, they did this,” said Trump attorney Bruce Castor in closing remarks.
Castor called Trump “the most pro-police, anti-mob president’ in US history – suggesting that Democratic lawmakers turned a blind eye to BLM protests. He also said that the attack on the Capitol was in no way an “insurrection.”
“Insurrection is a term of art. It’s defined in the law,” argued Castor. “It involves taking over a country, a shadow government, taking the TV stations over and having some plan on what you’re going to do when you finally take power. Clearly this is not that.”
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Update (1410ET): After spending much of the morning laying out their case for why the impeachment is a sham, former President Trump’s legal team proceeded to play several montages of Democrats doing the exact same thing they’ve impeached Trump over – namely, calling for violence against Republicans. Interspersed throughout are clips of leftists committing violence against conservatives following the ‘incitement.
Watch:
They also played clips of Democrats objecting to election results:
As well as clips of Democrats gunning for a Trump impeachment at all costs:
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Watch Live:
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After Democratic impeachment managers spent the last two days dissecting videos and tweets – and in one case fabricating evidence to try and convince the world that former President Trump incited the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, it’s now time for the defense to counter.
In what is expected to last just one day, Trump’s impeachment lawyers will reportedly present a montage of prominent Democrats similarly ‘inciting’ their base, as BLM and Antifa extremists spent much of last year committing violent and destructive crimes throughout the country.
If anything, it might serve as some Friday entertainment as Trump’s second impeachment draws to a close. The proceedings begin at Noon, ET.
As we’ve noted several times, this is nothing more than political theater, as Democrats simply don’t have the votes to convict the former president – which would require at least 17 Republicans to cross the aisle for a conviction. So far, they’ve got six.
“Many of them are loyal to Donald Trump even to this day, despite what he may have said about them or their families in the past,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) told Bloomberg Television on Thursday, adding “And more of them are afraid of Donald Trump’s political power.”
According to Trump attorney David Schoen, the defense might only need three or four hours on Friday for an opening argument, while a person familiar with their strategy told Bloomberg that they decided to “slim down” their presentation based on what the Democrats presented earlier in the week.
According to Schoen, the trial “could be over Saturday.”
“We’re just putting on the evidence, the evidence speaks for itself,” said Schoen, referring to the Democrats’ impeachment effort “a politically partisan process.”
After the House managers concluded their arguments, Schoen met for about an hour Thursday night with several Republican senators. He defended having a discussion with lawmakers who are also jurors in the case, saying, “That’s the practice here. There’s nothing about this thing that has any semblance to due process whatsoever.”
The trial is all but certain to end with Trump’s acquittal. A conviction would require 17 Senate Republicans to join with Democrats and independents in finding Trump guilty to reach the two-thirds majority necessary. Even the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat said he saw little indication that many Republicans would back conviction. –Bloomberg
Check back for more updates and a live feed when the trial starts…
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/12/2021 – 19:55 - New Video Shows Massive California Container Ship Traffic Jam
New Video Shows Massive California Container Ship Traffic Jam
By Greg Miller of American Shipper
Newly released U.S. Coast Guard video offers visceral proof of just how extreme the congestion has become at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The new view from above reveals a vast armada of container ships scattered at anchor across California’s San Pedro Bay.
As the Coast Guard footage paints the picture, the latest data from the Port of Los Angeles and from the Marine Exchange of Southern California tells the story behind those images.
The data confirms that there has been no real let-up in the historic container-ship traffic jam off California’s coast.
As of Thursday, there were 25 container ships at berth in Los Angeles and Long Beach. Thirty-two container ships were at anchorage. That’s roughly the same level that has been at anchor since the beginning of this year. (The record of 40 container ships at anchor was hit on Feb. 1).
The Port of Los Angeles, via its platform, The Signal, recently began disclosing the number of days at anchor for specific container ships. The numbers confirm that some vessels are spending almost as much time at anchor as it takes to traverse the Pacific Ocean.
As of Thursday, the Ever Envoy, with a capacity of 6,332 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), had been at anchor for 11 days. Other ships that had just gone to berth had been waiting just as long: As of Tuesday , the 9,400-TEU MSC Romane had been at anchor for 12 days. The 11,356-TEU CMA CGM Andromeda, 8,452-TEU Ever Liven and 4,888-TEU NYK Nebula for 11 days.
The Signal indicated that the average time at anchor for ships calling in Los Angeles was 8 days as of Thursday, up from 6.9 days on Tuesday. The Signal has provided information on ship waiting times since Jan. 27. Waiting time has remained at an average of around one week since then.
What’s Causing the Traffic Jam
Extended anchorage times have forced some ocean carriers to cancel multiple sailings this month. Not due to lack of cargo demand, but rather, due to lack of available ships to handle those services.
Delays on the landside are causing the logjam at sea. Extremely high inbound volumes combined with logistical complications both inside and outside the ports are causing the landside delays. One of the challenges inside the ports involves COVID infections among dockworkers. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) reported 694 of its members had tested positive as of Jan. 17. By Jan. 25, the number had jumped to 803.
Charting the course of congestion
As previously reported by American Shipper, the number of container ships at anchor already exceeds the number during the labor dispute between the ILWU and their employers in 2014-15.
The Marine Exchange provided American Shipper with historical data starting in January 2019 to put the current backlog of container ships into perspective.
The data shows that the number of container ships at berth started to ramp up in July. A steady rise in the number of ships at anchor began in November. By year end, the number of container ships at anchor had risen to 30. It has remained between the high 20s and up to 40 ships ever since. Meanwhile, the number of ships at the berths in Los Angeles and Long Beach has remained in the high 20s and low 30s.
Kip Louttit, executive director of the Marine Exchange of Southern California, told American Shipper: “We seem to have settled into a new, new normal of roughly 30 container ships at anchor. Whether that will continue or not, I don’t know.”
Consumers to see emptier shelves
That new, new normal will be increasingly felt by consumers. Lauren Brand, president of the National Association of Waterfront Employers, testified at a House subcommittee hearing on Tuesday that ships currently offshore hold around 190,000 truckloads of goods.
“Right now, there are containers holding parts for manufacturing and assembly sites in the United States. We’re going to see some of those start to falter in their schedules the longer this goes on.
“I asked one of my local retailers, Chico’s, if they had certain spring colors. They said ‘no,’ because they were stuck at the port,” said Brand.
“We’re seeing a decline in the fashion market. Maybe some Valentine’s Day goods are stuck. We’ll see Easter goods getting stuck. And we’ll see things that are actually arriving too late to go to market. So, there will be an economic impact, from consumer goods to manufacturing.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/12/2021 – 19:40 - Cuomo Guilty Of Obstruction? GOP Rep Calls For Investigation Into Nursing Home Cover-Up
Cuomo Guilty Of Obstruction? GOP Rep Calls For Investigation Into Nursing Home Cover-Up
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration should be investigated over possible obstruction of justice after a Thursday revelation in the New York Post that officials purposefully concealed the death toll in New York nursing homes during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY).
In a Friday appearance on Fox News’ “America Reports,” Zeldin, an attorney and Iraq war veteran, opined on the bombshell report that Cuomo’s secretary, Melissa DeRosa, admitted to state lawmakers on a videoconference that the data was withheld out of fear the Trump DOJ would use it against them.
Via Fox News (emphasis ours):
REP. LEE ZELDIN: “I just want to say that [Fox News senior meteorologist] Janice Dean has done a fantastic job for many months, going back to last spring and summer, to bring this issue to light … AP reported that over 9,000 infected patients were placed with healthy nursing home residents, so as a result of the deaths that came in the weeks and the months following this late March policy, this mandate, there were a lot of requests for information, for data, for numbers on nursing home deaths and more, and then a cover-up started.
There were requests from the feds to the state for information on it, and the state wasn’t providing … I believe, and my colleagues in the New York congressional delegation believe and many others as well, that there should be a an investigation into this … There is an admission of what could be obstruction of justice …
The investigation is what you need to do to determine who specifically should be held accountable from the criminal justice standpoint. Obstruction of justice seems to be admitted in what the New York Post was reporting late yesterday … There are thousands of New York seniors who passed away as a result of this policy, and you can’t look at this as data or numbers. It’s families like Janice’s and so many others where they lost a father or a mother or grandmother or grandfather and aunt and uncle and they’re demanding accountability …
There are a lot of Democratic state legislators who are outraged over what happened, because regardless of any type of relationship they might have with the governor and his office of their same party, it’s their duty to represent their constituents … They don’t want to be part of a cover-up …
Watch:
https://video.foxnews.com/v/embed.js?id=6231770737001&w=466&h=263Watch the latest video at foxnews.com
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/12/2021 – 19:20 - Lincoln Project Co-Founder Resigns Amid Accusations Of Criminality
Lincoln Project Co-Founder Resigns Amid Accusations Of Criminality
Update (1900ET): Shortly after completing this post, news broke, via Axios, that Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt is resigning from the group’s board amid a series of scandals.
As a reminder, here is what he said earlier:
“The Lincoln Project will be delighted to open its books for audit immediately after the Trump campaign and all affiliated super PACs do so,” Steve Schmidt said in response to inquiries about how much of the donations went into their personal bank accounts rather than ads designed to defeat Trump.
Maybe he didn’t like what he saw when ‘he’ opened the books?
In his statement he claims he was molested as a 13 year old. Because when all else fails, just fall back to #MeToo.
Steve Schmidt’s full statement, given to me:
1/3 pic.twitter.com/wWPNMIApYg— Miranda Green (@mirandacgreen) February 12, 2021
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3/3 pic.twitter.com/lohMfFmLyF
— Miranda Green (@mirandacgreen) February 12, 2021
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The group of life-long Republican Party consultants who, under the name “The Lincoln Project,” got very rich in 2020 with anti-Trump online messaging has spent weeks responding to numerous scandals on multiple fronts. Despite the gravity of those scandals, its conduct on Thursday night was in a whole new category of sleaze. It not only infuriated their long-time allies, but also constituted the abuse of Twitter’s platform to commit likely illegal acts.
Lincoln Project founders from l to r: Mike Madrid, Rick Wilson, Steve Schmidt, Reed Galen (credit: 60 Minutes screen capture)
That the primary effect of the Lincoln Project was to personally enrich its key operatives by cynically exploiting the fears of U.S. liberals has long been obvious. Reporting throughout 2020 conclusively demonstrated that the vast majority of the tens of millions of dollars raised by the group was going to firms controlled by its founders. One of its most prominent founders — GOP consultant Rick Wilson — personally collected $65,000 from liberals through GoFundMe for an anti-Trump film he kept promising but which never came; to this date, he refuses to explain what he did with that money.
A study conducted after the 2020 election found that the group’s effect on the election’s outcome was trivial to non-existent — not surprising given its penchant for spending money on ads that aired in electorally irrelevant places such as Washington, D.C. or which circulated almost exclusively in liberal cable news and social media venues, and thus had no purpose other than to enable its consultants to take large commissions from the ad spending. They were producing ads solely for liberals, with the overriding intent not of defeating Trump but inflating their net worth. And it worked: until they were no longer needed.
Heading into the 2020 election, most of the U.S. media was uninterested in, if not outright hostile to, any reporting that might have helped President Trump’s re-election bid. As a result, the Lincoln Project continued to enjoy media veneration even as the magnitude of its scam became increasingly obvious. But with Trump now safely vanquished, the Lincoln Project is dispensable, and the protective shield it enjoyed against any real journalistic scrutiny is — like its reputation and prospects for future profiteering — rapidly crumbling.
On Monday, the Associated Press published a comprehensive exposé with new facts about two of the group’s growing scandals. It reported that “in June 2020, members of the organization’s leadership were informed in writing and in subsequent phone calls of at least 10 specific allegations of harassment against co-founder John Weaver, including two involving Lincoln Project employees” — directly contradicting the group’s emphatic denial that it knew nothing about Weaver’s misconduct until the New York Times reported on them at the end of January. As AP delicately put it, these new materials “raise questions about the Lincoln Project’s statement last month that it was ‘shocked’ when accusations surfaced publicly this year.” The gay news outlet The Washington Blade on Tuesday published emails and other correspondence similarly demonstrating the high likelihood that the group’s denials regarding its past knowledge of Weaver’s misconduct were false, as did New York Magazine.
The Washington Blade, Feb. 9, 2021
AP’s exposé also included highly incriminating reporting about what the group did — and did not — do with the close to $100 million it received in the name of fighting Trump and converting Republican voters into Biden supporters:
For the collection of GOP consultants and former officials, being anti-Trump was becoming very good for business. Of the $90 million Lincoln Project has raised, more than $50 million has gone to firms controlled by the group’s leaders….
Since its creation, the Lincoln Project has raised $90 million. But only about a third of the money, roughly $27 million, directly paid for advertisements that aired on broadcast and cable, or appeared online, during the 2020 campaign, according to an analysis of campaign finance disclosures and data from the ad tracking firm Kantar/CMAG.
That leaves tens of millions of dollars that went toward expenses like production costs, overhead — and exorbitant consulting fees collected by members of the group.
“It raises questions about where the rest of the money ultimately went,” said Brendan Fischer, an attorney with the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center in Washington. “Generally speaking, you’d expect to see a major super PAC spend a majority or more of their money on advertisements and that’s not what happened here.”
The vast majority of the cash was split among consulting firms controlled by its founders, including about $27 million paid to a small firm controlled by Galen and another $21 million paid to a boutique firm run by former Lincoln Project member Ron Steslow, campaign finance disclosures show.
But in many cases it’s difficult to tell how much members of the group were paid. That’s because the Lincoln Project adopted a strategy, much like the Trump campaign they criticized, to mask how much money they earned.
These scandals multiplied even further in the last week. In the wake of the New York Times report about the serial sexual misconduct by Weaver — he has “been accused of sending unsolicited and sexually provocative messages to 21 men, one as young as 14 when the messages began” — one of the group’s co-founders, Jennifer Horn, announced: “I have terminated my relationship with the Lincoln Project, effective immediately,” citing the group’s mishandling of the Weaver scandal.
The Lincoln Project then published a statement attacking Horn by claiming her resignation was motivated not by noble objections to what appeared to be their protection of a sexual predator but instead — in an unsurpassed case of projection — accused her of being driven solely by money: namely, that she had demanded, and they rejected, “an immediate ‘signing bonus’ payment of $250,000 and a $40,000-per-month consulting contract.” Revealingly, the group refused to say how Horn’s supposedly outrageous pecuniary demands compare to the payments actually received by her male co-founders and other Lincoln Project operatives.
When AP inquired about this, they bizarrely proclaimed that they would provide transparency of their finances only after Trump does. “The Lincoln Project will be delighted to open its books for audit immediately after the Trump campaign and all affiliated super PACs do so,” Steve Schmidt said in response to inquiries about how much of the donations went into their personal bank accounts rather than ads designed to defeat Trump.
And then, on Thursday night, The New York Times reported that “leaders of the Lincoln Project, the anti-Trump media venture, came under fire on Thursday night from six former workers demanding to be released from nondisclosure agreements in order to talk about John Weaver, a co-founder who harassed young men online.” Those six former employees accused the Lincoln Project of having “protected” a “predator.” The article also cited Horn’s claims that when she raised objections about the group’s treatment of the Weaver allegations, she was “yelled at, demeaned and lied to.”
So that has been the trajectory of the Lincoln Project over the past couple of months. They are drowning in allegations of financial scamming, lying to the public and to their own employees about what they knew about a predator at the top level of their organization, and engaging in open warfare among themselves playing out in public in the pettiest yet most vindictive ways.
But even by their lowly standards, the Lincoln Project’s behavior last night was so appalling and likely illegal that it provoked widespread denunciations even from many of the group’s most prominent supporters, who have thus far been willing to tolerate every deceitful, grifting, unethical and profiteering transgression. Accusations that their behavior was a “violation of federal law” were notably led by long-time lawyer George Conway, who shot to cable news and social media stardom in the Trump years by vehemently denouncing Trump despite being married to the former President’s close adviser, Kellyanne Conway. But what made Conway’s accusations so stinging is that he is one of the co-founders of the Lincoln Project, one of the most prominent representatives of the group since its inception.
Conway’s public accusation of criminality against his own group came after they tried to intimidate a journalist, Amanda Becker, who was working to report on the group’s various scandals. Shortly before 11:00 pm ET on Thursday night, the Lincoln Project Twitter account, which has close to three million followers, announced that it was posting the private communications between Becker and Jennifer Horn, the group’s co-founder who recently resigned, in order to reveal how the two were, in their words, conspiring to produce “a smear job on the Lincoln Project.”
The unknown person operating the Lincoln Project’s Twitter page then posted excerpts of the inbox of Jennifer Horn’s personal Twitter account as well as the private messages she was exchanging with Becker about the story. Whoever saw those tweets could therefore read not only Horn’s private messages with Becker but also the identity of the last six or seven people with whom Horn had privately communicated, as well as parts of their conversations. In a subsequent tweet, the group posted even more extensive conversations between their now dissident co-founder and this journalist.
Now-deleted tweet posted to the Lincoln Project’s Twitter account on the evening of Feb. 11, 2021
How did the Lincoln Project get access to Horn’s private Twitter account? Horn herself quickly proclaimed that she did not consent to the publication of those messages. While Becker, as a party to this exchange, would have the legal authority to grant consent to the publication of this particular conversation, only Horn has the right to provide the legally required consent to access her private Twitter account and publish its contents. But that is academic, since Becker made clear in a series of tweets that she was outraged by what the Lincoln Project did, negating any possibility that she provided her consent to their publication of her conversations with Horn.
After Conway, the group’s own co-founder, strongly suggested that they had violated federal law with these tweets, the Lincoln Project deleted them without comment. Neither the group nor its typically vocal operatives have addressed any of the fallout despite numerous media inquiries and extensive commentary. They have, for once, fallen silent.
Due to their hiding, it remains unknown which specific Lincoln Project functionary accessed and posted Horn’s private messages. But one of them, Rick Wilson, shortly after publication, boasted of it as though it were some great accomplishment of which he was proud:
A now-deleted tweet from Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson, posted on the evening of Feb. 11, 2021
Conway’s accusation that the Lincoln Project’s behavior here “looks on its face to be a violation of federal law” is clearly accurate (for disclosure: my first job after law school back in 1994 was with the law firm where Conway was and is a partner, though I remained there only 18 months and had little to no interaction with him then or since).
The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) makes it a federal crime for anyone who has “knowingly accessed a computer without authorization or exceeding authorized access, and thereby obtains” information from that computer. A separate section makes it a crime to cause harm or damage to the person through that unauthorized access by, for instance, making the contents public. The law provides for punishments ranging from fines to years in prison depending on the motive of the unauthorized access.
The Lincoln Project may claim that it possessed authorized access to Horn’s computer because she had previously worked there. But that authorization would almost certainly be deemed to terminate upon Horn’s termination of her relationship with the group, which preceded her private conversations with Becker. Beyond that, Yashar Ali reported that Horn “did not have a laptop or phone issued by the Lincoln Project,” rendering it even more implausible that they were somehow authorized to access her computer.
But even if one brushes all that to the side and still insists that the Lincoln Project somehow had authorization to access Horn’s computer, their behavior would still likely be illegal since the CFAA criminalizes not only unauthorized access to a computer but also any access “exceeding authorized access.” In other words, if you are authorized to access someone’s computer for specific purposes, but instead abuse that access for unauthorized purposes, then you are still guilty of crimes under this statute.
Clearly, accessing Horn’s computer in order to publish her private communications without her consent, after she left, wildly “exceeds” whatever “authorized access” the group can plausibly claim it possessed. Indeed, it is very difficult to imagine a scenario under which the Lincoln Project and its employees who participated in this breach did not violate federal law, which is presumably why Conway, a very careful and accomplished litigator, barely caveated his serious accusation against this notoriously litigious group:
Not only have the Lincoln Project’s boisterous leaders fallen completely silent, but they also are refusing to answer basic questions about what happened here. Earlier this morning, I submitted a list of questions to them (published below) and they have failed to respond in any way, including even with their characteristic fake bravado, insults and threats.
They have transformed into meek, mute little mice, hiding somewhere out of sight. Anyone who has their best interests at heart should hope they are huddled in their criminal lawyers’ offices. All of this silence and hiding and evasion is particularly ironic given the Abraham Lincoln quote they chose to define themselves, that still sits atop their now-dormant Twitter profile, which admonishes: “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” Indeed.
Email sent to The Lincoln Project seeking comment, Feb. 12, 2021 at 8:58 a.m. ET
From the start, it was obvious that this disgraceful collapse was the inevitable end for this group. The very idea that this freakish hodgepodge of life-long D.C. Republican consultants were men of profound conscience defending the Republic was a complete and total joke. They are life-long grifters, responsible for some of the most grotesque and amoral attack ads in the modern era, with a very long and recent history of advocating the exact opposite values of what they claimed to represent once they opportunistically identified the optimal Trump-era profit model: namely, relentlessly fleece scared and gullible #Resistance liberals of their cash by posturing as brave and principled warriors against Trumpism.
But their lucrative scheme could never have succeeded without the knowingly fraudulent cooperation of liberal networks such as MSNBC and CNN. Over and over, those Democratic Party spokespeople masquerading as TV journalists — knowing exactly who these bottom-feeding GOP operatives have always been — encouraged their misguided and trusting viewers to regard the Lincoln Project as a selfless and noble bulwark against Trumpism rather than the scamming, grifting, lowlife con it so obviously was from the start.
What this sorry episode reveals above all else is that much of American liberalism, including its all-but-official arm in corporate media, replicated, in the name of combatting Trump, every unethical tactic, every deceitful method, and every toxic assault on basic decency that they insisted Trump singularly represented. They allied with the most amoral societal actors, venerated the most corrupt factions, and vouched for the sleaziest operatives in the name of uprooting amorality, corruption and sleaze. The claimed Trump acted without limits or respect for normalcy and truth while proudly relinquishing all boundaries, principles and constraints of truth in order to fight him.
In doing so, they became everything they claimed they were fighting. And unlike Trump, who is now gone, these unholy alliances and ethic-free habits that define them will remain and fester forever. That is why when American liberals, including in the media, look in the mirror, what they see staring back is Rick Wilson and Steve Schmidt and John Weaver. That is the perfect reflection of what they have become, of who they now are.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/12/2021 – 19:00 - Alabama Is The Weakest Link In The U.S. Vaccination Chain
Alabama Is The Weakest Link In The U.S. Vaccination Chain
In terms of Covid vaccinations, Alabama seems to be the odd state out.
The state was able to administer only 10,013 doses per 100,000 people as of Tuesday this week, according to the Wall Street Journal. Those numbers mark the lowest rate of all states, according to the CDC.
The state’s vaccination data contrasts with its infection data, where Alabama had among the “highest rates in the U.S. for positive coronavirus tests over the past month at 29.1%, based on data compiled by Johns Hopkins University,” the WSJ notes.
The blame for the lag falls on Alabama’s broke public health system, which has left some counties without health departments at all. The state’s hotline for vaccine appointments didn’t have enough lines to meet demand and, last month the state suffered a “reservation glitch” which found people showing up to a vaccination site where no one ever showed up with the vaccine.
Seven hospitals in rural areas have shut down in the state since 2009. It’s part of a larger picture of closures in Alabama’s rural – and often poverty stricken – areas. Alabama’s population is 41% rural, among the highest rates in the U.S. In counties like Macon County, conservatives and black people are hesitant to get the vaccine. The county’s population is 83% black and the Journal notes that “memories linger of the notorious Tuskegee Syphilis Study of Black men that ended in 1972 and was deemed unethical by a federal panel.”
Mark Holmes, director of the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services at the University of North Carolina said that the state’s challenges are “indicative of the general erosion of the rural health-care infrastructure across the country.”
State health officer Scott Harris said that the state has actually administered more doses than published by the CDC and that the mistake is due to technical problems. He also noted that unpredictable supplies of the vaccine from the government has been a challenge. He told WSJ: “We need people to understand there’s not enough to go around. We’re going to do our best to get it out as quickly as we can.”
Resident Virginia Brasher said she dialed the state’s hotline 200 times in a day before she got through. Then, she was referred to her county’s office. After spending another day calling pharmacies and medical offices, he found there were no doses. “It’s just kind of a mess,” she said. After securing an appointment, she said: “I’ve got my fingers crossed.”
The state has 66 county health departments. of them, 36 either have just one nurse or none. Staffing at these departments in 2019 was at 65% of 2010 levels. Jim Carnes, policy director at Alabama Arise, a nonprofit focused on poverty issues, said: “We have really tied our own hands in Alabama by undercutting the public-health infrastructure in our budgets.”
Hospitals in the state have been picking up slack. Huntsville Hospital has 70 to 75 people working on vaccinations and is administering about 1,000 doses per day. Chief Executive David Spillers said: “We’re a hospital, not a health department, but we have taken the role of a health department.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/12/2021 – 18:40 - Lockdowns Have Devastated The Global Poor
Lockdowns Have Devastated The Global Poor
Authored by Ethan Yang via The American Institute for Economic Research,
In North America and Europe, it has become abundantly clear that Covid-19 and the lockdowns that followed have devastated society. In the United States, unemployment is through the roof and 2020 saw the largest economic contraction in modern history. Social and cultural depression continue to weigh down society as restaurants close, the arts are stunted, and everything that it means to be human is taken from us.
We have plenty of data to paint a picture of the devastation in countries like the United States but there has been little analysis done in developing countries, more than likely due to lack of infrastructure. We know that many developing countries closed their economies in response to Covid-19 but we are unsure of how they fared.
In particular, developing countries likely do not have the same support structures be it private or public as countries like the United States do. They cannot simply print trillions of dollars to finance quantitative easing policies to prop up the stock market or send stimulus checks to ailing citizens. They also likely lack the private safety nets created by nonprofits and the general flexibility of an advanced business sector. One can only imagine the damage economic depression would bring upon such communities.
That was until a team of researchers published a study with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The study provides a glimpse into the extent of the damage caused by the economic contraction in Africa, Asia, and South America. It details how living standards have fallen due to decreased access to basic needs such as food, unemployment, and the likely long-term consequences that will arise. Much like how in the United States there has been a noted correlation between economic shocks and decreases in life expectancies, we can expect similar if not worse consequences in developing countries.
It is worth noting, to be fair to the intent of the authors, that they are not making a judgment that the economic damage they note is in part or fully due to lockdown policies. Either way, it should be abundantly clear to everyone that the economic damage that has been wrought on societies across the world is not simply a minor inconvenience. It is a serious problem that has led to long-term as well as short-term adverse consequences in affluent countries like the United States and likely worse consequences for those who live in developing countries.
The Study
The methodology for the study made use of a series of household surveys conducted via phone calls in different developing countries. The authors explain,
“We assemble evidence from over 30,000 respondents in 16 original household surveys from nine countries in Africa (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Sierra Leone), Asia (Bangladesh, Nepal, Philippines), and Latin America (Colombia).”
They noted that,
“The data paint a consistent picture: The economic shock and attendant disruptions to livelihoods during the early stages of pandemic appear to be large across a range of populations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The scale of the disruption may even exceed the effects that economists have documented in other recent global crises, including the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, the 2008 Great Recession, and the Ebola outbreak of 2014.”
AIER has frequently noted that large-scale lockdown policies have no precedent in the history of public health policy, which may explain why the economic contraction was so large compared to previous years. I would contend that consciously working to shut down businesses rather than attempting to support them, as would be the case in a normal recession, leads to highly unusual economic damage.
After analyzing the household data the authors report,
“A full 50 to 80% of sample populations in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone report income losses during the COVID-19 period. If these effects persist, then they risk pushing tens of millions of already vulnerable households into poverty.”
Such income reductions have then led to subsequent food insecurity and even the reduction of net wealth as families are forced to sell off their belongings. On this the authors note,
“By April, many households were already unable to meet basic nutritional needs. For example, 48% of rural Kenyan households, 69% of landless agricultural households in Bangladesh, and 87% of rural households in Sierra Leone were forced to miss meals or reduce portion sizes to cope with the crisis. Comparing to preexisting baseline data verifies that these levels greatly exceed the food insecurity normally experienced at this time of year.”
It was clear before the pandemic that developing countries such as the ones in this study were already dealing with these issues. Now they have only been exacerbated, likely reversing years of hard work to combat poverty and hunger.
Provided below are graphs from the study detailing the recorded increases in food insecurity in Kenya and Sierra Leone. It is important to note that like all studies there are limits to this data and its accuracy as household surveys can only provide so much information.
For reference, provided below are the stringency indexes (Our World in Data) for both countries with the United Kingdom as a comparison. The UK is known to have one of the strictest lockdowns and also one of the hardest hit for Covid-19. It seems reported food insecurity in both countries seems to mirror the timeline of the implementation of lockdowns. Of course, there could be a variety of factors at play such as the possible correlation of lockdown severity and the spread of Covid-19 and the individual circumstances unique to each country.
The study also charts the levels of food insecurity in relation to historical harvest cycles in Nepal and Bangladesh. It notes that there is a clear and unprecedented increase in food insecurity even though the pandemic occurred after the rice harvest periods. It notes that historically food insecurity has always increased in the “lean season” which is the period preceding the rice harvest. However, the pandemic occurred after the harvest so the sharp increase in food insecurity cannot be attributed to the historic patterns of food scarcity. It is clearly a result of Covid-19 and the lockdowns that followed. Provided below are the graphs included in the study. The blue lines represent the most recent cycle which clearly follows historic trends until the March-April period of 2020 which is when most of the world entered strict lockdowns.
Provided above are the stringency indexes for both countries with the United Kingdom for context, again being a country that implemented highly strict lockdowns. The food insecurity spikes were reported during the March-April period in both Nepal and Bangladesh which directly follows the implementation of lockdowns.
Across all the countries in the study, substantial decreases in standards of living arising from food insecurity, unemployment, income reduction, and a lack of access to markets have had devastating results. The authors warn that,
“The economic crisis precipitated by COVID-19 may become as much a public health and societal disaster as the pandemic itself. The link from severe economic crisis during childhood to subsequent deterioration in adult health, nutrition, education, and earnings capacity has been demonstrated in many contexts.”
As explained earlier and often repeated by AIER, there are serious consequences that come from economic shocks that affect everything from mental health to life expectancies here in America. One can only imagine how much more devastating such economic disruption has been in developing countries that lack the infrastructure and resources to support those in need.
Key Takeaways
The global poor, especially those living in developing countries, have always suffered from a long list of disadvantages, whether it be lack of social capital, technology, infrastructure, or food insecurity. These problems are only exacerbated when their societies, which are already in poor shape, are abruptly shut down.
Although the authors of the study do not make a definitive judgment on whether these economic shocks have become as severe as they are because of lockdowns, it is clear that shutting down economies, be it voluntary or involuntary, is a dangerous policy. It affects the global poor as well as the global elite and it seems that the poorer countries have seen a dangerous decline in living standards which will have lasting consequences that are a public crisis in and of themselves.
Regardless of where one stands on lockdowns, it should now be abundantly clear that economic hardship is not a minor inconvenience and action must be taken to alleviate existing damage and to prevent the further exacerbation of existing calamity.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/12/2021 – 18:20 - Living In Florida Becomes More Expensive As Insurers Jack Up Rates By Double-Digits
Living In Florida Becomes More Expensive As Insurers Jack Up Rates By Double-Digits
Florida has no income tax. Tens of thousands of middle-class and wealthy families living in tax burden blue states are packing up their bags and moving to the tax-friendly Sunshine State. While tropical weather and lower taxes are a relief for many Northerners who have moved, many are now finding out that property insurance rates are out of control.
Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation had approved a wave of insurance rate increases due to soaring litigation costs, higher catastrophe claim losses following multiple natural disasters over the past few years, and rising reinsurance costs.
Insurance Business Magazine reports some property insurance companies registered with the state to increase their rates by double-digit rates.
“Florida’s insurance market is one of the most complexes in the world,” Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation spokesperson Karen Roach told News 6 WKMG.
“The property market is facing significant challenges, as the frequency of claims increases and those claims become more expensive,” Roach said.
Roach explained the insurance industry was facing multiple challenges in the state due to increased litigation, higher catastrophe claim losses, and rising reinsurance costs.
Federal Association of Insurance Reform president Paul Handerhan said that after years of natural disasters, such as hurricanes, “the vast majority of the insurers who are writing homeowners’ insurance in the state of Florida have been posting underwriting losses for the last five years.”
Handerhan warned the state’s insurers are “definitely in a tenuous financial position right now.”
Rate increases among property insurers are bad news for the working-poor as it could make owning a home in the state unaffordable.
“I was flabbergasted,” Karlos Horn,35, told Reuters, who owns a single-family home in Hendry County, Florida. He said his premium doubled to $200 per month last August.
Horn said his monthly insurance payment is about half of his $400 mortgage payment. For many low-income folks, like Horn, owning a home in the state as insurance premiums surge will take away consumption to much-needed services industries, such as restaurants and department stores.
Lee Gorodetsky, an insurance agent in Fort Lauderdal, said he could not remember such steep rate hikes during his three-decade career. “The last two years have been the worst we’ve seen,” he said.
Florida’s insurer of last resort, Citizens Property Insurance Corp, have said many folks are turning to them. The firm handles high-risk customers who cannot obtain other insurance or must pay too high rates.
As of Feb. 5, Citizens reported a 23% increase in policies from a year ago. “The growth signals an unhealthy broader market by showing that industry experts said that typical coverage is not as widely available,” Reuters said.
Insurers pass along costs to consumers in the form of premium increases making affordable living in some parts of the state unaffordable. These are some of the hidden landmines that one should consider when moving to the state.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/12/2021 – 18:00
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