Jul 13

Today’s News 13th July 2022

  • London's Heathrow Airport Caps Daily Passengers At 100,000
    London’s Heathrow Airport Caps Daily Passengers At 100,000

    London’s Heathrow Airport asked airlines Tuesday to stop selling summer tickets as travel chaos worsens amid severe staffing shortages. 

    “Some airlines have taken significant action, but others have not, and we believe that further action is needed now to ensure passengers have a safe and reliable journey.

    “We have therefore made the difficult decision to introduce a capacity cap with effect from 12 July to 11 September. Similar measures to control passenger demand have been implemented at other airports both in the UK and around the world,” Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said in a statement.

    The new limit will be 100k daily passengers through the global aviation hub, and considering the departing seat average of around 104k — this means 4k passengers will be cut from flights daily. 

    “By making this intervention now, our objective is to protect flights for the vast majority of passengers at Heathrow this summer and to give confidence that everyone who does travel through the airport will have a safe and reliable journey and arrive at their destination with their bags.

    “We recognise that this will mean some summer journeys will either be moved to another day, another airport or be cancelled and we apologise to those whose travel plans are affected,” Holland-Kaye continued. 

    He also said airport staffing and airline pilot shortages are a twin-fold blow for the travel industry, primarily responsible for flight disruptions over the last several months. 

    British Airways recently slashed 28,000 flights due to staff shortages. A spokesperson for the airline told The Independent last week that trimming thousand of flights from its schedule will allow the airline to be more flexible and minimize delays and cancelations during the peak travel season. 

    Heathrow’s cap of 100k daily passengers and airlines reducing flights appears to be the move to restore confidence in European flying. 

    So what happens if this cunning planning doesn’t work and sparks even more travel disruptions?

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/13/2022 – 02:45

  • Leftist Party In Germany Wants To Give Free Crystal Meth To Drug Addicts
    Leftist Party In Germany Wants To Give Free Crystal Meth To Drug Addicts

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    A leftist party in Germany is pushing for a new policy that would see free crystal meth given to drug addicts in an effort to “reduce the pressure” on the prosecution of drug dealers.

    Yes, really.

    The Left Party has filed a motion in parliament that states drug users must be “consistently protected from criminal prosecution” and supplied at taxpayer expense.

    “As reported by the German news outlet Junge Freiheit, hard drugs such as methamphetamine would be distributed to addicts under close “therapeutic support” to bring down criminal prosecutions; other hard drugs such as morphine, ecstasy, cocaine, LSD, and even heroin would no longer be prosecuted if users were found purchasing or possessing small quantities,” reports Remix News.

    Decriminalizing hard drugs would follow in the footsteps of policies already implemented that have led to federal states not prosecuting people who are found in possession of small quantities of marijuana.

    Amphetamine abuse is already a massive problem in Germany, with crystal meth offenses rising in 2020 by 18.9 percent, a number that has likely significantly worsened since those figures were published as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns.

    Leftists in Germany previously began a national conversation about legalizing crystal meth back in 2015.

    The enlightened liberal policy of handing out free drugs and needles to drug addicts while refusing to prosecute those found in possession of hard drugs has led to an absolute nightmare in places like San Francisco and Los Angeles.

    In San Francisco, where millions of free needles are given to drug addicts every year, the streets are littered with them while semi-conscious meth heads and heroin junkies lie prostrate on the sidewalk.

    Good luck with that, Germany!

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/13/2022 – 02:00

  • Why All The Attacks On Dissent?
    Why All The Attacks On Dissent?

    Authored by Marie Hawthorne via The Organic Prepper blog,

    Attacks on dissent have ramped up. The Organic Prepper was just downgraded, as Daisy wrote about recently. We’re not alone.  

    It’s not just alternative media sites like ZeroHedge or Mercola. Mainstream media turns on their own people the second they ask the wrong questions. For example, in 2020 and 2021, British nursing educator and YouTuber Dr. John Campbell spouted the official Covid narrative, assuring everyone that the shots were safe and effective. He was considered a trusted purveyor of health information. However, in 2021, he discussed data surrounding ivermectin usage and thought it showed promise. His Wikipedia page was immediately changed to label him a purveyor of misinformation.

    Downgrading websites and professional humiliation have not been the only methods used to crush dissent. 

    Tucker Carlson just did a segment outlining the FBI’s attacks on Joe Biden’s political opponents.

    Watch for yourself. Someone filmed Trump advisor John Eastman getting his phone confiscated by the FBI. He repeatedly asks them for a warrant, which they don’t give him until after taking his phone. He’s never been charged with anything. This is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment. 

    But our current crop of politicians seems to find the Constitution outdated.

    Right now, First Amendment rights are being violated on a massive scale. It’s getting more and more difficult to communicate online unless you adhere to specific narratives. As far as this site is concerned, most of our facts come from blue-checked sources or personal experiences. We just ask people to think about what’s being presented and how it may affect their day-to-day lives.  

    There should be nothing wrong with asking people to do their own research and think for themselves, but unfortunately, that’s been labeled “malinformation.” The Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council says, “Malinformation is based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.” 

    Well, who decides the official context? The entire definition is predicated on the notion that one context exists. Anything outside of that lumps you in with malicious actors.

    So, what’s behind the current push to bury alternative news?  

    Maybe it’s because things are finally crashing. I think mainstream media wants us to stay mad at each other over abortion rights, gay rights, or whatever current thing will distract us. They don’t want us to pay attention to the real issues. Notice how NewsGuard tried to get Daisy to declare a side? 

    They want us to divide ourselves into camps. They do not want us sitting back, watching, thinking, and supporting each other in our various prepping endeavors.  

    Sure, there are plenty of people that still laugh at prepping. But time keeps proving the conspiracy theorists right. In November 2020, the OP published an article about so-called conspiracy theories that had come true that year. A lot of people are seeing that the narrative pressed by our government administration and major news outlets simply doesn’t match up with what they encounter in their day-to-day lives. The public is gradually becoming more open to alternative explanations, but the people currently holding power cling to it more and more tightly. They know they can’t win via reasoned debate, so they kick anyone they dislike off social media platforms or make it impossible for small, independent sites to make enough money to stay operational.   

    The public is becoming more open to alternative news because disaster signals are all around us. The OP has run multiple articles about food and energy crises, but honestly, they just get worse every minute. It’s not just American policies either. Politicians throughout the Western world, on the one hand, decry inflation and “price gouging,” but on the other, implement policies that throw fuel on the fire.  

    For example, on June 10, the Dutch government issued a plan to curb nitrogen emissions by between 12 and 70 percent. The government freely admitted that “There is not a future for all [Dutch] farmers within [this] approach.”

    This defies reason.

    The Netherlands is the world’s fifth-largest food exporter, and they’re forcing farmers out of business for the sake of “climate change” as people in Third World countries starve.

    Meanwhile, in the U.S., our own government continues to make life harder and harder for farmers to do business. The Securities and Exchange Commission wants companies to disclose their carbon emissions throughout their entire supply chain. 

    The kind of legal and technical expertise that this kind of reporting requires will push small, independent companies, including farms, out of business.

    The SEC is still finalizing plans regarding the implementation of its reporting requirements. Issues such as this greatly influence what food is available and how much we pay for it. But are we hearing about this from politicians? No, they’re too busy blaming Russia, and the above-referenced article is not front-page news.  

    The energy situation warrants our attention as well. President Biden has been blaming everyone from Russians to gas station owners for high prices, but what has he done this week?  

    On July 1, the Department of the Interior invited comments for its Proposed Five-Year Program for Offshore Oil and Gas Leasing.

    Without getting overly technical, when we were energy independent during the Trump administration, the Draft Proposed Program proposed 47 lease sales for future oil and gas projects. The current administration is asking people to weigh in on whether we should have eleven or zero. What this means is that we will definitely be producing less energy. The only question is, how much less.  

    Our administration does not try to hide its agenda. Secretary Deb Haaland said, “From Day One, President Biden and I have made clear our commitment to transition to a clean energy economy. Today, we put forward an opportunity for the American people to consider and provide input on the future of offshore oil and gas leasing. The time for the public to weigh in on our future is now.”

    Well, with Biden’s historically low approval ratings, I’m pretty sure the public is weighing in. 

    The administration is just not listening.

    And Europe keeps going from bad to worse. Protests over fuel prices have erupted. Spanish farmers are blocking highways, and Dutch fishermen are blocking ports. Dutch farmers have also been spraying their government buildings with manure to protest the climate regulations. The S is literally HTF in the Netherlands right now.

    Norwegian oil workers are striking because their pay has not increased at a rate commensurate with inflation. This will hit the rest of Europe particularly hard because, after Russia, Norway is Europe’s biggest energy provider.  

    My 25-year-old idealistic self might have thought people are being greedy and that we should all band together for the sake of Ukraine, climate change, or whatever. But lower- and middle-income people worldwide are being asked to make huge sacrifices at the same time that the wealth of billionaires has exploded like never before. By 2020, the wealth of the world’s ten richest men increased from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion. Meanwhile, the rest of us are supposed to eat less meat and take fewer showers. Oh, and hundreds of millions of people in the Global South are at risk of starvation.  

    (It’s probably a good time to check out our free QUICKSTART Guide to how to starve the beast.)

    The stable world in which most of us grew up is falling apart, and we have a right to know why. 

    We have a right to know what policies have led to such dramatic wealth transfers; why we were energy independent  only three years ago and now are begging the Saudis for more oil; why young parents can’t find formula; why much of the U.S. no longer feels like a First World nation.

    And we have the right to question the mainstream narrative. Whether you’re a trucker coping with $6/gal diesel or a medical technician short on laboratory supplies, problems surround us all. And yet we’re just being told to point fingers at Russia and corporate greed.

    The ability to discuss problems publicly facilitates understanding and, hopefully, solutions. 

    The lockdowns during Covid had some unexpected effects. Look at remote schooling. On the one hand, it was miserable, particularly for lower-income children. However, it gave parents a chance to see what children are actually being taught in schools, which has led to parental pushback against divisive education programs 

    Parents became more informed and took action.

    In my area, the already-stark divisions between urban and rural became more so. Driving downtown in the city for much of 2020, it was a ghost town; in the town where I get my animals processed, the only change was that I saw more children out and about. I saw kids riding shotgun as their parents hauled cattle trailers because the schools were closed and, well, you can’t process cattle remotely.  

    Many people holed up dutifully as we were all told to quarantine. For those of us that couldn’t, for one reason or another, we started talking a lot more.  

    (Want uninterrupted access to The Organic Prepper? Check out our paid-subscription newsletter.)

    Klaus Schwab saw Covid as an opportunity to “reimagine” society.

    You know what? I see it as a chance to reimagine things too. I see it as a chance for people in all parts of the economy to openly discuss what’s going on. If enough people from enough different walks of life can listen to each other, we may find some common solutions. The real division is not so much red vs. blue. It is people that just want to work, raise their kids, and leave everyone else alone vs. autocrats and those willing to game the system.  

    Authoritarian control and regulatory overreach are behind most of our current problems. We may get most emotional over Roe vs. Wade, or trans rights, or whatever, but the reasons why so many people cannot pay bills and are using their credit cards to buy gas are not “culture war”-type issues.  

    Our problems right now stem from decades of letting local control slip through our fingers. At this stage of the game, I’m not sure I see a way to fix our problems without a great deal of economic stress and uncertainty. 

    But, as preppers, we hope for the best and plan for the worst, and right now, increasing numbers of people want to plan for the worst. Sites like the OP are here for people that want to start planning.

    Americans have a long history of making do.

    Whether you want to become more self-sufficient by producing your own food, energy or even homeschooling your kids, we all have options to exercise a little more control over our own lives.  

    The Founding Fathers never envisioned the U.S. as a globe-spanning empire where everyone lives in a cushy suburb and has access to every possible convenience. The U.S. was simply supposed to be a country where, if you worked hard and were honest, you could keep the fruits of your labor. I would love it if, after the current upheavals, we could go back to that, but we have to make it through what our president has called this “incredible transition” first. 

    There are still a lot of resourceful, hardworking, independent people out there, people who can survive a lot. But we will all function better if we can communicate with each other, both for practical advice and emotional support. Collectively, we have a lot to share if we can avoid being divided and distracted.   

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/12/2022 – 23:45

  • "Extremely Unusual Event": F/A-18 Super Hornet 'Blown Off' Carrier In Violent Storm
    “Extremely Unusual Event”: F/A-18 Super Hornet ‘Blown Off’ Carrier In Violent Storm

    The U.S. Navy released an official statement about a F/A-18 Super Hornet assigned to the USS Harry S. Truman, an aircraft carrier stationed in the Mediterranean Sea, was lost at sea last week near Naples, Italy, after it was “blown overboard due to unexpected heavy weather.” 

    The incident occurred last Friday while the aircraft carrier was conducting an underway replenishment (UNREP) mission where support vessels were transferring fuel, munitions, and other supplies to the Truman. The Navy noted during UNREP that a major storm produced high winds and torrential rains. 

    “This is an extremely unusual event,” David Titley, a former commander of the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, told WaPo in an email. “U.S. Navy ships and aircraft are designed and built to withstand heavy weather, which they do on a routine basis.”

    The Navy did not release the location of the incident, but days before, the Defense Department tweeted that a Super Hornet “broke the sound barrier over the Ionian Sea,” an area of water near Southern Italy. 

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    Questions remain how a $65 million fighter jet, weighing more than 32,000 pounds, was dislodged from the flight deck and swept into the sea. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/12/2022 – 23:25

  • Historic Fails Of Transactions Show Japanese Bond Market Broken
    Historic Fails Of Transactions Show Japanese Bond Market Broken

    By Masaki Kondo, Bloomberg Markets Live commentator and reporter

    Historic failures of Japanese bond transactions will leave investors worried about the sustainability of the Bank of Japan’s easing and keep alive speculation of a future policy tweak.

    The impact of the BOJ’s shock intervention in the bond market in June is quite visible in the central bank’s latest report on transaction failures. Sellers in the JGB market failed to deliver securities worth 3.53t yen in face value last month, the second-largest amount on BOJ data going back to 2001.

    The central bank abruptly offered to buy unlimited quantity of cheapest-to-deliver securities last month to squeeze short bets in futures, causing a dash for the debt. The BOJ owned 76% of the CTD note as of Tuesday, leaving little in the secondary market.

    The difference between cash bond and futures prices has almost normalized to pre-June levels, while demand for bond borrowing from the central bank has been slowing this month. The surge in fails shows just how extreme the BOJ’s bond operations have become. Though Japan’s bond market is regaining its calm on the surface, dislocation will continue as long as the central bank maintains its large presence in the market.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/12/2022 – 23:05

  • US Bureau Says "Leaked" 10.2% CPI Report Was Fake, So Here's What To Expect
    US Bureau Says “Leaked” 10.2% CPI Report Was Fake, So Here’s What To Expect

    The US CPI report will be the main highlight tomorrow, and will also serve as what JPMorgan calls a “market clearing event.”  While the BBG median consensus expects +8.8% YoY vs. +8.6% in June, Goldman and JPM expect 8.88% and 8.7% respectively, with whisper numbers at, or above, 9.0%

    One bit of “good” news, according to Deutsche Bank, is that yesterday the NY Fed’s long-run consumer inflation expectations series showed a decent dip and helped encourage a big rally in bonds as the tug of war in the asset class continues.

    Of course, much of this early optimism was reversed by today’s fake CPI report “leak” which emerged around noon and signaled a 10.2% Y/Y CPI print, but was only noticed by traders and algos in the last hour of trading, sending stocks tumbling to session lows driven by a huge sell program in a very illiquid market…

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    … before people pointed out that the report was i) fake and ii) had been around for hours.

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    So paranoid is the market, and so gullible about “bad news” tomorrow, that none other than the US government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics had to ease traders’ nerves, saying that the “leaked” report was indeed a forgery.

    “We are aware of a fake version of the June 2022 Consumer Price Index news release that is being circulated online,” BLS spokesperson Cody Parkinson told Bloomberg said in an emailed statement.

    Which of course is not to say that tomorrow’s CPI print won’t be 10.2%, although that would be especially cruel. As a reminder, a on Monday we showed why a case for a sharply higher 9% headline CPI print tomorrow is possible, but that most likely will also be the peak as numbers grind lower afterwards, at least until gasoline prices soar again.

    In any case, back to the forgery, none other than JPMorgan trader Andrew Tyler wrote in his EOD note (available to pro subs) that “several clients have pointed to a leaked CPI number that is circulating around social media. I have been told it is an ugly number with some suggesting that it will print above 10%. Other media sites now saying the early release is a fake.”

    With that in mind, Tyler says to keep an eye on the energy component as we have seen a material fall in gasoline prices that will not be fully incorporated into Headline CPI, something which the White House has repeatedly said in the past two days (if forgetting that the only reason energy prices have plunged is because of the coming Biden recession).

    In any case, below is a chart of gasoline with highlights for May and June price performance. Separately, Rates vol and Equity vol  have divergence recently “so beware that CPI could drive both higher.”

    Fake leaks aside, this is what JPM’s chief economist thinks will happen tomorrow

    • JPM chief economist Michael Feroli thinks CPI prints 1.1% MoM and 8.7% YoY but given the labor market data from last week, the Fed is locked in to 75bps for July. He sees Core CPI rising 0.45%, a softer number than recent prints.
    • Private Payrolls are now above February 2020 levels. JOLTS job openings fell MoM but there are approximately 1.9x job openings per each unemployed person, this compares to ~1.2x in Feb 2020.
    • The Nat’l Federation of Independent Business reports that ~50% of small businesses had job openings in June with 48% saying they hiked compensation (BBG).
    • Feroli updated his Fed forecast where he sees the Fed ending its hikes in December with a 3.25% – 3.50% range which means that the Fed would hike 75bps in July, 50bps in September, and then 25bps in both November and December with no further hikes in 2023.
    • Many conversations surround peak inflation following the publication of the below chart from our inflation Phoebe White (full note is here). Longer-term inflation expectations have essentially round-tripped the move following the beginning of the RU/UKR conflict.

    And while JPMorgan is slightly on the dovish side of the 8.8% consensus, Goldman is on the other side, with the bank today publishing a note (available to pro subs), in which it says that it expects a 1.15% increase in headline CPI in June, slightly above consensus expectations for a 1.1% increase and corresponding to a year-over-year rate of 8.88% (not 8.87% or 8.89%). On the other hand, Goldman sees slightly easier core prints with a 0.50% increase in June core CPI, below consensus expectations for a 0.6% increase and corresponding to a 0.3pp decline in the year-over-year rate to 5.71%.

    Goldman highlights four key component-level trends for the June report:

    1. Shelter. The most important category to watch in Wednesday’s report is the large and persistent shelter component (as we predicted it would be last summer when the macro-tourists, perma-idiots and other central bankers were still saying inflation would be transitory), which accelerated unexpectedly to its fastest monthly pace since 1991 in May. Goldman expects sequentially slower shelter inflation in the June report (rent +0.57% and OER 0.50%), reflecting slowing gains in the alternative rent measures that make up our shelter tracker and an OER drag from imputed utilities.

    2. Nondurable goods or the bullwhip effect. Following the product shortages of 2021, inventories have now substantially overshot their pre-pandemic levels at large retailers like Target and Walmart. Some companies have already said that they anticipate cutting prices in coming months in order to reduce inventory stocks to more normal levels, and Goldman expects to see a 1% drop in apparel prices in June.

    3. Auto and parts. On the other side, expect further increases in auto prices (new +1.4%, used +1.1%, parts +1.5%) due to continued global supply disruptions, most notably the Ukraine-Russia war and China lockdowns. US automakers have been more optimistic about raising production later this year, which should eventually lead to more moderate growth in new car prices.

    4. Health care. The CPI’s health insurance component closely tracks annual changes in insurer profitability. Goldman forecasted the sharp acceleration seen this year last fall based on the insurer data, and expects this small category to continue to make an outsized contribution until new insurer data are incorporated in October, at which point it is likely to turn quite negative for the next year. Goldman forecasts a +0.49% (mom sa) increase in medical services prices this month.

    Going forward, Goldman expects monthly core CPI inflation to remain strong in late summer, picking back up to 0.53% in September, before eventually falling to 0.30% by December 2022. Absent a major recession (or depression), the bank forecasts year-on-year core CPI inflation of 5.5% in December 2022, 2.4% in December 2023, and 2.6% in December 2024.  The forecast reflects a negative swing in health insurance prices and a larger slowdown in goods than in services inflation next year.

    More detailed previews of tomorrow’s CPI available to pro subs in the usual place.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/12/2022 – 22:45

  • We're "Losing The Fight Against Monkeypox" …Apparently
    We’re “Losing The Fight Against Monkeypox” …Apparently

    Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

    According to the New York Times the US is currently “losing the fight with Monkeypox”.

    That’s probably news to you.

    After all, given the fact the US has around 700 cases of Monkeypox (around 0.0002% of the population), that the entire world only 8000 “cases” (about 0.0001%), and that there have been just 3 reported deaths…well, you’d be forgiven for not realising there was a fight at all, let alone that we were losing.

    It’s really more of a kerfuffle. At worst. Perhaps a fracas.

    That is – of course – assuming there is any monkeypox “outbreak” at all, something we should never take on faith, especially in the post-Covid world.

    Nevertheless, the NYT is sure…

    There probably will be many more infections before the outbreak can be controlled, if at this point it can be controlled at all.

    The US isn’t the only place getting a fresh batch of monkeypox fear porn this week.

    Five days ago it was reported that Australia had recorded its first “case”, with the under-stated headline…

    KILLER VIRUS SUDDENLY SPREADS IN AUSTRALIA

    …clearly this went too far, even for the mainstream media, who quietly reworded the title a few hours later.

    Not to be outdone, two days later New Zealand announced their first monkeypox case was isolating at home.

    And just 15 minutes ago, at the time of writing, The Guardian published a news story headlined:

    Efforts to curb UK monkeypox outbreak inadequate, warn experts

    So, what is the cause of mankind’s imminent loss to the monkeypox peril? Well they really couldn’t be clearer about that – we’re not testing enough.

    The NYT goes on about this at length:

    the response in the United States has been sluggish and timid, reminiscent of the early days of the Covid pandemic, experts say, raising troubling questions about the nation’s preparedness for pandemic threats.

    […] The first cases of monkeypox were reported in May, but tests will not be readily available until sometime this month.

    […] The first missteps in the U.S. response to monkeypox were in testing. As in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, samples from monkeypox patients are being funneled to the CDC for final diagnosis, a process that can take days.

    Slate agrees, headlining “We Need to Keep Better Track of Monkeypox” and quoting on “expert”:

    Testing is the key piece in getting answers to these questions, and currently we simply are not doing enough of it.”

    We’ve seen this movie before, we know how it goes from here.

    Since, as the NYT points out, Monkeypox tests will be “readily available sometime this month”, we can expect a BIG spike in cases coming up.

    Far from being recognised for what it is – a huge number of false positives caused by PCR tests – this increase in cases will be sold as the “true size of the outbreak” after weeks of calling current “case” numbers “likely underestimates”.

    The solution, we know, will be “increasing vaccine coverage” or “helping immunize the most vulnerable” or some buzz phrase like that.

    But oh no! We don’t have enough vaccines!

    At least, according the New York Times, and LA Times, and CBS, and Science and New York Magazine and NPR and NBC and the New York Post and…

    …it’s the prevalent message, is what I’m trying to say.

    Don’t worry though, a VERY familiar hero is about to ride over the horizon on a white horse:

    Moderna is investigating potential monkeypox vaccines at a preclinical level, using its mRNA platform,”

    Yes, Moderna started working on a new mRNA monkeypox vaccine back in May…so by Covid rules they’re probably nearly done by now.

    Just inject in precisely one person, and if they don’t die instantly on the spot then it’s safe.

    …and if they DO then they were already sick and the trial data is compromised and monkeypox is such an emergency we should grant it approval anyway. You can read the trial data in 2097.

    We know how this works.

    Tests to create the “problem”, vaccines to “solve” the “problem”. Both of them result in vast amounts of public money disappearing into bottomless private pockets.

    There’s a lot of fog around monkeypox – we don’t know, in a lot of ways, where it’s going or what it’s even for. The narrative is only half-formed. First growing, then shrinking, then growing again.

    It had a name change that never really materialised, and the decision to focus it on sexual transmission – especially among “men who have sex with men” (I don’t know why they ALL use that phrase and not “gay men”) – is one I just can’t puzzle out yet.

    But while it’s yet to take definitively pick a size, direction or speed, it’s taking a very familiar shape: Tests and vaccines.

    It’s always tests and vaccines.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/12/2022 – 22:25

  • Beijing Scraps China's First COVID Vaccine Mandate In Just 48 Hours After Furious Social Response
    Beijing Scraps China’s First COVID Vaccine Mandate In Just 48 Hours After Furious Social Response

    On paper, the US is the land of the free and home of the brave, while China is a tyrannical, authoritarian state where individuals have no rights and where the political oligarchy always gets its way. In reality, it’s usually the opposite, especially when the people remember they are not snowflakes.

    With much the US and Europe bitching and moaning but ultimately acquiescing to every incremental round of mandatory experimental mRNA-based covid vaccines (we are not even talking about those mentally unstable they/thems who demand the government strip them of their last freedom and who will be wearing a mask in their grave to signal not only their profound virtue but their willingness to lap up any amount of fecal matter shoveled by the government), a few million non-snowflake Chinese showed how it can be done.

    As Bloomberg reports, last week, Beijing’s city leadership rolled out China’s first Covid-19 vaccine mandate last week. The policy made boosters mandatory for some professions, while entry to busy public venues like movie theaters and gyms was restricted to the vaccinated. Unlike Europe and the US where such mandates are now a way of life as the population is too terrified to oppose the state, in Beijing the public reacted far less snowflakily, with many residents turning to social media to declare the mandate an illegal usurpation of their rights. Beijing’s response was just as quick: Less than 48 hours after announcing the policy, the city government rescinded it.

    Instead, people will be able to enter all public venues if they can simply provide a negative Covid test result that’s no older than 72 hours and have their temperature checked, an unidentified official said in an interview with state-backed Beijing Daily that was published late Thursday night. The city will continue to promote vaccination on a voluntary, informed and consent basis, the official said, something which just one year ago would have sounded like an alien world of utopian liberty to American citizens.

    The policy, announced Wednesday and intended to come into effect on July 11, would have limited entry to public venues such as cinemas, museums, and theaters to only vaccinated people, and required workers in certain professions to get booster shots.

    “The reversal shows the power of public opinions,” Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief at the Communist Party-backed Global Times and an influential commentator, said on his official Weibo account. “The Chinese society is dominated by government. They timely backed up in the face of a public pushback. That means they accept the public’s view of the vaccine mandate as illegal.”

    A health worker takes a swab sample at a swab collection site in Beijing on July 7. Photographer: Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images

    As Bloomberg’s Adam Minter writes, while China’s authoritarians rarely back down because of public opposition, by doing so in this case, Beijing’s authorities offered a reminder of how carefully they monitor public opinion and struggle to manage it. Indeed, it’s also a reminder that at the end of the day, it’s the people who hold the power, no matter how diligently the propaganda press will try to convince the people otherwise, and no matter how armed to the teeth the state’s enforcement powers may be.

    By folding to public pressure, Bloomberg notes that Beijing “inadvertently revealed that their ability to control and channel public anger isn’t absolute.” The media giant then adds that “like their counterparts in democratic countries, China’s leaders must account for populist anger. And at a time of surging Chinese nationalism, those populist currents can have damaging consequences for peace and stability in Asia and the world.”

    Which is hilarious because whereas “dictatorial” China reversed on vaccine mandates in just 2 days, “democratic counterparts” can impose any amount of health experiments on the population at will and largely without objections.

    And while “Democratic” nations, especially those run (for now) by so-called “Democrats” have become completely oblivious to public opinion – especially if it opposes their ruthless, authoritarian ambitions – it is the authoritarian states that actually do care: as Bloomberg notes, the internet — and especially social media — complicated both tasks, requiring huge investments in human and machine monitoring and content-generation. In 2014, the Communist Party-owned Beijing News reported that public and private Chinese entities employ more than 2 million public opinion “analysts.” Among other roles, they “collect the opinions and attitudes of netizens, organize them into reports, and submit them to decision makers.” These days, even relatively minor agencies — such as the Beijing International Horticultural Expo Coordination Bureau — purchase public opinion analysis.

    Finally, as Goldman’s Rich Provorotsky writes in his morning note today, “although unlikely to change abruptly, something to watch if population’s frustration leads to a change in zero covid policy?” That assumption may soon be tested, while Beijing scrapped mandatory vaccines, Shanghai may be facing another round of lockdowns: here’s Bloomberg.

    Tension is spreading through Shanghai as residents watch the Covid-19 caseload tick higher, fueling fears they’re headed back into lockdown little more than five weeks after exiting a bruising two-month ordeal.

    The city reported 59 new infections for Monday, the fourth day in a row case numbers have held above 50. The sharp rise from single digits about a week ago follows the detection of the more contagious BA.5 sub-strain of the omicron variant, which has triggered two additional rounds of mass testing between Tuesday and Thursday this week across nine of the financial hub’s 16 districts, as well as other areas where cases have been found.

    Bottom line: China’s strict Covid Zero approach is “once again being tested as outbreaks flare across the country amid the arrival of a sub-variant that has fueled rising caseloads elsewhere” only this time the public may be sensing that opposition to the highly unpopular government response to the Wu-flu is beyond the required tipping point and following in the footsteps of Beijing, tens of millions of Shanghai residents may soon take matters into their own hands/

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/12/2022 – 22:05

  • California Law Professor, Senator Clash Over Whether Men Can Get Pregnant
    California Law Professor, Senator Clash Over Whether Men Can Get Pregnant

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and a California law professor on July 12 clashed during a Senate hearing over whether only women can get pregnant.

    Khiara Bridges, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley who was called as a witness by Senate Democrats, used the phrase “people with the capacity for pregnancy” several times during the hearing, which focused on legal concerns following the Supreme Court striking down Roe v. Wade.

    Hawley asked if Bridges was referring to women, prompting the exchange.

    “Many women, cis women, have the capacity for pregnancy. Many cis women do not have the capacity for pregnancy. There are also trans men capable of pregnancy, and nonbinary people,” Bridges claimed.

    Cis is a word used by activists to describe people who identify as their natural sex from birth. Transgender refers to people who identify otherwise.

    “This isn’t really a women’s rights issue” then, Hawley said.

    “We can recognize that this impacts women while also recognizing that it impacts other groups. Those things are not mutually exclusive,” Bridges said.

    “I want to recognize that your line of questioning is transphobic and it opens up trans people to violence by not recognizing them,” she added.

    “You’re saying I’m opening up to violence by asking whether or not women are the folks who can have pregnancies?” Hawley asked.

    Bridges said that a number of transgender people commit suicide, which she pinned on people “denying trans people exist and pretending not to know they exist.

    “Do you believe that men can get pregnant?” she asked Hawley.

    “No,” he said.

    “So you’re denying that trans people exist. Thank you,” she responded.

    Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) looks on during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on voting rights on Capitol Hill in Washington on April 20, 2021. (Evelyn Kockstein/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

    “And that leads to violence? Is this how you run your classroom? Are students allowed to question you or are they also treated like this, they told that they’re opening up people to violence?” Hawley wondered.

    “They’re allowed to question me. We have a good time in my class. You should join,” Bridges said.

    “I bet,” Hawley said.

    “You might learn a lot,” Bridges said.

    “I would learn a lot. I’ve learned a lot through this exchange. Extraordinary,” he said.

    Following the hearing, Hawley took to Twitter.

    “The Democrats say what they really think: men can get pregnant and if you disagree, you are ‘transphobic’ and responsible for violence,” Hawley wrote on the social media website.

    “For today’s left, disagreement with them = violence. So you must not disagree.”

    Others said Bridges made sense, including Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.).

    “It’s the excellence, knowledge & the truthtelling by Prof. Khiara Bridges for me,” Pressley wrote, sharing a clip of the interaction. “Her testimony is a masterclass. This is a must watch.”

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/12/2022 – 21:45

  • NASA's Webb Telescope Reveals Deepest Look Into Cosmos
    NASA’s Webb Telescope Reveals Deepest Look Into Cosmos

    The first images from NASA’s $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) were revealed Tuesday at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The photos were the deepest views of the cosmos, a sight no one on Earth had ever seen before. 

    “These images, including the deepest view of our universe that has ever been taken, show us how Webb will help to uncover the answers to questions we don’t even yet know to ask; questions that will help us better understand our universe and humanity’s place within it,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a press release. 

    “The Webb team’s incredible success is a reflection of what NASA does best. We take dreams and turn them into reality for the benefit of humanity. I can’t wait to see the discoveries that we uncover – the team is just getting started!” Nelson continued. 

    The four images revealed on Tuesday were (list provided by JWST’s website): 

    Carina Nebula: Webb’s look at the ‘Cosmic Cliffs’ in the Carina Nebula unveils the earliest, rapid phases of star formation that were previously hidden. Looking at this star-forming region in the southern constellation Carina, as well as others like it, Webb can see newly forming stars and study the gas and dust that made them.

    Southern Ring Nebula: This planetary nebula, an expanding cloud of gas that surrounds a dying star, is approximately 2,000 light years away. Here, Webb’s powerful infrared eyes bring a second dying star into full view for the first time. From birth to death as a planetary nebula, Webb can explore the expelling shells of dust and gas of aging stars that may one day become a new star or planet.

    Stephan’s Quintet: Webb’s view of this compact group of galaxies, located in the constellation Pegasus, pierced through the shroud of dust surrounding the center of one galaxy, to reveal the velocity and composition of the gas near its supermassive black hole. Now, scientists can get a rare look, in unprecedented detail, at how interacting galaxies are triggering star formation in each other and how the gas in these galaxies is being disturbed.

    SMACS 0723: Webb has delivered the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe so far – and in only 12.5 hours. This new image, a color composite of multiple exposures each about two hours long, is approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length. This deep field uses a lensing galaxy cluster to find some of the most distant galaxies ever detected. This image only scratches the surface of Webb’s capabilities in studying deep fields and tracing galaxies back to the beginning of cosmic time.

    JWST also examined an exoplanet named “WASP-96b,” indicating water vapor was present in the plant’s atmosphere. 

    On Monday evening, President Biden tweeted the first JWST image. 

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    NASA also provided an update on one of the telescope’s mirrors, which was recently hit by a micrometeoroid. 

    And so the hunt for life begins, costing only $10 billion. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/12/2022 – 21:25

  • California Truckers Plan LA/Long Beach Work Stoppage Wednesday To Protest AB5
    California Truckers Plan LA/Long Beach Work Stoppage Wednesday To Protest AB5

    By Clarissa Hawes of FreightWaves

    Some California truckers who move containers in and out of the marine terminals at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach say they plan to participate in a work stoppage Wednesday to protest a controversial state law, AB5, that seeks to limit the use of independent contractors and largely classify them as employee drivers.

    On June 28, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the California Trucking Association’s challenge to AB5, returning the case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. 

    One owner-operator who plans to participate in the port protest says he doesn’t want to become an employee driver, preferring to remain an independent contractor.

    “During the pandemic, we were too busy being essential to realize we were about to be screwed by AB5,” the California trucker, who didn’t want to be named for fear of retaliation, told FreightWaves.

    Gordon Reimer, manager of Southern California-based FHE Express, says many of the 75 owner-operators his company uses to move freight to and from the ports in Southern California plan to participate in Wednesday’s protest.

    He has notified the trucking company’s customers to expect potential freight delays because of the protest, although it’s unclear how many independent owner-operators plan to participate. 

    “This will be an inconvenience to us and our customers, but I understand the frustration among independent owner-operators who feel this is the only way to bring attention to their plight as being a former owner-operator myself,” Reimer told FreightWaves. “How can I blame these drivers who now find out that their dream is being snatched away from them all because they’re based here in the state of California?”

    Phillip Sanfield, director of media relations for the Port of Los Angeles, told FreightWaves late Tuesday that port representatives have heard some social media reports about the planned protest, but “have no other info.” He said the port is monitoring the situation.

    As of publication time, representatives of the Port of Long Beach had not responded to FreightWaves’ request for comment.

    Ongoing legal challenges prevented AB5 from going into effect in January 2020. The law stems from the California Supreme Court’s decision against Dynamex Operations West Inc., a package and document delivery company. The court found that Dynamex had misclassified its delivery drivers as independent contractors rather than employees and that all California-based companies that use independent contractors must follow the “ABC test,” a three-pronged test to determine whether a worker is an employee.

    The B prong defines an independent contractor as a worker who is engaged in “work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business.” That is problematic for motor carriers utilizing independent owner-operators to move freight.

    It’s unclear how many independent contractors or owner-operators plan to participate in the work stoppage on Wednesday.

    “Owner-operators are the most difficult segment of the trucking industry to try and organize — it’s like herding cats — because everyone has their own personal gripes in the industry,” Reimer said. “However, everyone seems to be pretty unified about how AB5 could effectively put 70,000-plus independent owner-operators out of business.”

    Oakland truckers plan Monday protest 

    To the north, multiple trucking companies hauling containers in and out of the Port of Oakland have been notified by owner-operators that they are planning a work stoppage on Monday. 

    Bill Aboudi, president of AB Trucking, says he switched to an employee business model a few years ago, but with the fallout from AB5 looming, many trucking companies that serve the port are choosing to close, sell or move their operations out of California. 

    “Some of the older owner-operators, who just love to drive and want to remain independent, don’t want to jump through all of these extra government hoops to set up their own corporations and pay themselves a set salary and everything else to comply with AB5, so they are leaving the industry,” Aboudi told FreightWaves.

    Some of the younger independents are choosing to do something else, either find a job in another industry or leave California entirely to truck elsewhere, Aboudi said. 

    “I had one guy tell me he was going back to his old job as a cook and is leaving port trucking,” Aboudi said. “We think inflation is high right now; just wait until the cost of operating a trucking business skyrockets if we don’t get AB5 off the books.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/12/2022 – 21:05

  • Google To Slow Hiring "For The Rest Of Year" As "Sunnier Days" Come To An End
    Google To Slow Hiring “For The Rest Of Year” As “Sunnier Days” Come To An End

    Back at the end of May, we reported that contrary to the artificially rosy picture created by the BLS’s seasonally-adjusted Establishment Survey (which we now know is substantially weaker than the Household Survey which has flatlined since March), company after company was warning that it will either freeze hiring amid a historic profit margin crunch – or had announced outright layoff plans, which Piper Sandler compiled in one startling table.

    Since then the list has grown extensively, and late on Tuesday we finally hit the motherlode: none other than the third largest company in the world, Google parent Alphabet, revealed its plans to slow hiring for the remainder of the year in the face of a potential economic recession, CEO Sundar Pichai told staffers on Tuesday in a company-wide email.

    Pichai said the company will focus on hiring “engineering, technical and other critical roles,” in 2022 and 2023, according to a copy of the email viewed by Bloomberg News (the email is below)..

    “Moving forward, we need to be more entrepreneurial, working with greater urgency, sharper focus, and more hunger than we’ve shown on sunnier days,” Pichai wrote. “In some cases, that means consolidating where investments overlap and streamlining processes.”

    Why is today’s announcement notable? Because as Bloomberg notes, historically Google has been largely immune to the business cycle and the economic dips of the tech sector. While the internet giant paused hiring after the financial crisis more than a decade ago, it has since regularly added waves of new employees for its main advertising business as well as areas such as smartphones, self-driving cars and wearable devices that aren’t yet profitable. Google parent Alphabet, which employed almost 164,000 people as of March 31, has hired primarily in recent years for Google’s cloud division and new fields like hardware.

    Ominously, Google’s move mirrors that of other, far smaller and much more challenged tech companies: in May, Snap and Lyft said they would slow hiring. Several weeks later, Instacart also said it would dial back job growth and Tesla followed with an announcement of a 10% reduction for its salaried workforce (see table above). Then earlier this week, Microsoft announced it was cutting a small number of jobs. Facebook, or Meta Platforms as it is now known until it reverts back to its original name, also reduced its hiring plans because of concerns over economic conditions.

    In the email, Pichai said Google added 10,000 staffers during the second quarter and had “strong commitments” in the next few months to hire college recruits. 

    Here is the full email from Bloomberg

    Hi Googlers,

    Hard to believe we’re already through the first half of 2022. It’s the right opportunity to thank everyone for the great work so far this year, and to share how my Leads and I are thinking about H2.

    The uncertain global economic outlook has been top of mind. Like all companies, we’re not immune to economic headwinds. Something I cherish about our culture is that we’ve never viewed these types of challenges as obstacles. Instead, we’ve seen them as opportunities to deepen our focus and invest for the long term.

    In these moments, I turn to our mission: to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. It’s what inspired me to join the company 18 years ago, and what makes me so optimistic about the impact we are able to have on the world. Knowledge and computing are how we drive our mission forward. That’s the lens we use to decide where to invest — whether it’s in areas like Search, Cloud, YouTube, Platforms and Hardware, the teams that support them, or in the AI that enables more helpful products and services.

    We help people and society when we focus on what we do best, and do it really well. The investments we’ve made in the first half of the year reflect this vision. In Q2 alone, we added approximately 10,000 Googlers, and have a strong number of commitments for Q3 start dates which reflects, in part, the seasonal college recruiting calendar. These are extraordinary numbers, and they show our excitement about long-term opportunities, even in uncertain times.

    Because of the hiring progress achieved so far this year, we’ll be slowing the pace of hiring for the rest of the year, while still supporting our most important opportunities. For the balance of 2022 and 2023, we’ll focus our hiring on engineering, technical and other critical roles, and make sure the great talent we do hire is aligned with our long-term priorities.

    Moving forward, we need to be more entrepreneurial, working with greater urgency, sharper focus, and more hunger than we’ve shown on sunnier days. In some cases, that means consolidating where investments overlap and streamlining processes. In other cases, that means pausing development and re-deploying resources to higher priority areas. Making the company more efficient is up to all of us — we’ll be creating more ways for you all to engage and share ideas to help, so stay tuned.

    Scarcity breeds clarity — this is something we have been saying since the earliest days of Google. It’s what drives focus and creativity that ultimately leads to better products that help people all over the world. That’s the opportunity in front of us today, and I’m excited for us to rise to the moment again.

    –Sundar

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/12/2022 – 20:44

  • Starbucks Closing 16 Stores In Major Cities Due To 'Increasing Threats' From Bathroom Drug Dens
    Starbucks Closing 16 Stores In Major Cities Due To ‘Increasing Threats’ From Bathroom Drug Dens

    Four weeks ago, Starbucks CEO Howard Schutz told the NY Times that the company was assessing increasing threats to public safety over it’s “all inclusive” 2018 bathroom policy that encouraged homeless people and drug addicts to make copious use.

    Now, the company is now shuttering 16 locations in major cities over incidents related to drug use and ‘other disruptions’ in its cafes, according to the Wall Street Journal.

    The company on Monday announced that it would be permanently closing six stores each in Seattle and Los Angeles, as well as two in Portland, OR, and single locations in Philadelphia and Washington DC by the end of the month.

    The move comes after workers reported incidents involving drug use by customers and members of the public – which, logically, comes after the company’s 2018 virtue signaling campaign which eventually included the installation of needle deposit boxes at various locations after employees signed a petition demanding the company do more to protect them.

    “We read every incident report you file—it’s a lot,” wrote operations leads Debbie Stroud and Denise Nelson in a message to U.S. employees Monday. “We cannot serve as partners if we don’t first feel safe at work.” (Starbucks refers to its employees as ‘partners’)

    Starbucks also said that it would give store managers leeway to close restrooms, limit seating or reduce operations in response to safety concerns. The moves are part of policies aimed at addressing workers’ concerns, including about their safety on the job, the company said.

    Managers can continue to change store layouts if needed, including limiting seating to customers, the spokeswoman said. The company said it would provide additional guidance to baristas in how to deal with active shooter scenarios and conflict de-escalation at work. -WSJ

    Last month, Schultz told the NYTimes that increasing threats to public safety and an expanding mental health crisis have made it challenging for employees to manage stores under open bathroom policies. He said the decision was an “issue of just safety.” 

    “We have to harden our stores and provide safety for our people,” the CEO of America’s largest coffee chain said. “I don’t know if we can keep our bathrooms open.”

    Remember when Howard Schultz thought he was fit to be president of the United States?

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/12/2022 – 20:44

  • Container Rates Slump As "Bullwhip Effect" Enters Terminal Phase
    Container Rates Slump As “Bullwhip Effect” Enters Terminal Phase

    The infamous “bullwhip” effect strikes as inventory gluts force U.S. importers to dial back shipments from overseas, driving down rates for ocean freight, which could end up causing a so-called “freight recession.” 

    WSJ reports U.S. companies are renegotiating shipping agreements they made during the virus pandemic highs. Some are hedging in the spot market to reduce costs associated with long-term contracts. 

    San Francisco-based freight forwarder Flexport said softening demand lowers freight rates but remains well above pre-pandemic levels. 

    Last week, the spot rate to ship a container from China to the U.S. West Coast was still four times higher than the same period in July 2019, online freight marketplace Freightos’ data shows. 

    A recent shipment by Carbochem Inc., an importer of activated carbon used in water treatment, cost around $16k from China to Chicago, down from $21k a year ago.  

    “We need to be looking at probably less than $10,000 to get anywhere close to the levels we were before and be competitive,” the firm’s president, Gavin Kahn, said. 

    Shipping data from Bloomberg shows international freight rates have slumped over the last six months, mainly because of China shutdowns. However, U.S. importers reducing demand for cargo ships has accelerated the downward move. 

    The $1.5bln slide in U.S. consumer goods in May might have been a clear indication that demand for overseas products was waning and comes as Americans reduced spending on durable goods, something Target and Walmart pointed out last month.

    We have detailed for readers in the last two months the terminal phase of the bullwhip effect was upon us:

    The side effect of soaring inventory to sales ratios is that retailers must liquidate inventories as consumer spending habits change. This causes retailers to reduce demand from overseas suppliers (read: Samsung Asks Component Makers To Delay Shipments Amid Build-Up In Inventories), which diminishes the need for ocean freight shipping. 

    In late March, FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller warned that retailers would need to unload inventory amid signs of demand destruction. He correctly said this would cause a freight recession now could be coming true as container rates decline. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/12/2022 – 20:25

  • Victor Davis Hanson: Left-Wing Elites Are Our New Antoinettes
    Victor Davis Hanson: Left-Wing Elites Are Our New Antoinettes

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via AmGreatness,

    These humanitarian rich feel just terrible about the sins of America, but not terrible enough to sacrifice any element of their privileged lifestyles… the just deserts they feel for being so righteous.

    Marie Antoinette, the beheaded wife of the beheaded French Bourbon King Charles Louis XVI, did not really say “Let them cake.” 

    But in the short time that the French Revolution became utterly unhinged, toxic, and nihilistic, she became nonetheless iconic as an out-of-touch elite who had lived in a make-believe world at Versailles, without a clue (or care?) about the ordeal of the masses. 

    Rather than worry about the drudgery of the French peasant, Marie dressed up as one. And she roamed about in her idyllic faux peasant “farm” at the Hameau de la Reine, near the palace at Versailles. 

    Apparently, during these brief rustic interludes, Marie felt that the more she might act out a sort of aristocratic peasant life, the more she could find simplicity and escape the drama of court life, but without the real-life, crushing poverty of the poor. 

    The modern left-wing elite are becoming our version of Antoinettes. Thirty-eight-year-old Mark Zuckerberg is worth over $60 billion. But he enjoys T-shirts, jeans, and apparent simplicity in his many landed estates. He is so worried about the wrong voting tendencies of the clueless middle classes that he poured nearly $420 million of dark money from his vast fortune into the 2020 election—de facto absorbing the work of key precinct registrars—to ensure the “right” result for the unthinking multitudes. 

    Americans, almost uniquely among modern nations, mostly do not envy, much less despise the rich. But there is a certain sort of privilege that they do not like: the sanctimonious and hypercritical rich whose rhetoric is at odds with their own lifestyles and the methods by which they inherited or made vast sums. And they especially are turned off by those who exude open disdain for the clinger/deplorable/dregs class—to paraphrase the Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden nomenclature. 

    An especially grating habit of the left-wing wealthy is to lecture the middle class on their supposed illiberality. Often, those struggling are told they need to pay more for what White House economic advisor Brian Deese recently called the “liberal world order.” 

    Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, or George Soros, to take a few examples, are multibillionaires who live lives unlike any in the history of civilization. They also fund various agendas through multibillion-dollar foundations and their own personal riches. 

    Their causes are all deemed critical to the nation and planet, but unfortunately not fully appreciated as so vital by the peasant classes—whether they be global governance, massive restructuring of the economy to stop carbon releases, radical abortion on demand, or the sponsoring of critical legal theory prosecutors who feel crime is but a rich man’s construct. 

    Indeed, when various pollsters recently asked the public what their chief worries were, they found the culprits were the prohibitive price of gasoline, the ruinous effects of hyperinflation, supply chain shortages, the nonexistent southern border, or the escalating violent crime wave—all of which concerns are of apparent little interest to left-wing billionaires. 

    In other words, the worries of the Antoinette liberal elite—climate change, abortion on demand, transgenderism, strict gun-control—are not those that terrify the middle and lower classes. The latter, for some reason, first want to survive one more day with enough affordable food and energy and to be safe from criminals. 

    Why Democrats are currently unpopular transcends even Joe Biden’s daily, dangerous, and tragic loss of cognition. Their low ratings arise more from the implementation of an array of disastrous policies dreamed up at left-wing university departments and think tanks. 

    As a result, voters have concluded that the Left “just doesn’t care.” 

    By that, they conclude that the drivers of modern hard progressivism—the billionaire donor class, the highly compensated professional bicoastal elites, the ideologues who have captured and transformed the old Democratic Party—ignore criticism of their policies. Or they claim that their disasters are unappreciated benefits, or mere PR problems, or shift blame to the Russians, the Emmanuel-Goldstein Trump, the toadish media, or the victims of their disastrous policies. 

    The border is overrun by illegal aliens. Lethal drugs, cartels, gangs, and child traffickers enter at will without consequences. American towns and cities are being swamped by hundreds of thousands of unlawful border crossers. In response to public outcries, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas either ignores the anguished or falsely claims that the border is “secure.” Translated that means Americans either are racists or should get over the fossilized idea of a border itself.  

    Gasoline is at all-time highs. Joe Biden tells the public “Putin did it”—although prices soared well before the Ukraine War. Translated, that means the spiral to nearly $5 a gallon in California by February 2022—before Putin invaded Ukraine—was “cheap” compared to the current $6.70 a gallon. 

    Alex Wong/Getty Images

    When Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was asked whether she might take measures to ease the fuel burden on American commuters, she laughed and thought it “hilarious” that she either could or would consider such action. U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) scoffed that clueless gas-guzzling motorists should buy a Tesla (base price for a low-end Model 3: $46,990) like she drives and so skip the greedy service stations. 

    Biden will not reconsider pipelines, new federal leases, or his green demonization of fracking. But he will drain the strategic petroleum reserve on four apparent Orwellian principles:

    • Oil pumped into an underground vault and then pumped back out does not exude the stigma of pristine oil pumped first out of the ground.

    • Motorists would be encouraged by cheaper prices to drive more and thus consume more of the dirty fuel that Biden wishes to restrict.

    • The oil pumped out of the reserve to cushion Americans in times of national emergencies can be sent into the global market and thus end up in the hands of our de facto enemies, the communist Chinese.

    • Biden looks to the reserve, the Russians, the Saudis, the Venezuelans, and the Iranians to pump more of the awful fuel that America has in abundance, needs desperately—and should not dare extract.

    Commercial air travel is in near shambles. Shortages of everything from baby formula to tampons are making America seem akin to the old Soviet Union. For Biden’s cabinet, this disaster is called “transitioning” to a better green future.

    Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg presumably oversees our nearly ruined commercial air travel system, ports where cargo ships are backed up to the horizon, and gas and diesel prices that are impoverishing the middle classes. In response, when he is not on paternity leave, Buttigieg brags that he rides a bike, and lectures Americans on the racist origins of their once modern but now ossified freeway system.

    Why does the party of caring and good ole Joe Biden from Scranton seem so indifferent? Why is the Left so callous to the consequences of Biden’s self-created high inflationary, unaffordable gas-and-food presidency and what it has done to the middle class? 

    The answer is not just that the Democratic leadership or the progressive elite are smugly “rich.” Rather, the problem is that they are “Antoinette rich.” 

    That is, they have lost any empathy for those who endure firsthand the consequences of the elites’ ideological rigidity. So, this is not the Democratic Party of Harry Truman or even of Bill Clinton. 

    Hunter Biden, without any apparent income, is renting a $20,000 a month Malibu mansion, necessitating that the Secret Service rent a nearby $30,000 a month mansion to watch over this 50-something trainwreck of an adult. The elite know that Hunter’s prior income came from quid pro quo shakedowns of foreign governments, that he failed to pay taxes in a manner that would earn any other American a jail sentence, and that he is exempt from investigation. 

    Americans are not supposed to even mention the truth: the president’s son was enriched, deeply leveraged by the Chinese, and so, too, by association was the president himself. And such “collusion” may explain the Biden Administration’s inexplicable tolerance for Chinese aggression. 

    Multimillionaire Governor Gavin Newsom lectured Californians on why they must wear masks and avoid social gatherings even as he declined to do so while enjoying a birthday party at the pricey French Laundry restaurant in Napa. He was captured on camera, maskless again, and in the company of the celebrity Magic Johnson while the state mask mandate remained in place. 

    Now Newsom preens that California won’t pay for its state employees to travel to supposedly backward, homophobic Montana for business trips. But Newsom has no problem dragging his costly state security detail to his in-laws’ tony Montana ranch. 

    From time to time, Michelle and Barack Obama pontificate to Americans about their racist, sexist, and homophobic pathologies—but always from their Washington, D.C. Kalorama digs or their Martha’s Vineyard chateau, or now from their new, third mansion on Oahu. 

    How strange that the more millions of dollars the Obamas earn, the more castles they acquire, so all the louder they hector the struggling middle classes. Most apparently illiberal Americans can hardly afford to fill their 250-gallon propane tank; the Obama’s Martha’s Vineyard estate tanks require 2,500-gallons of dreadful carbon polluting fuel. 

    Speaker Nancy Pelosi castigates the illiberality of the deplorable classes. During the lockdowns that she championed, however, she got caught maskless violating quarantines—to get her hair done. 

    Pelosi also released a clueless Antoinette video of herself boasting about her just delivered $13 a pint ice-cream, stocked up in her twin $23,000 sub-zero refrigerators in her Napa estate. Her multimillionaire husband, Paul, recently wrecked his new Porsche (a carbon guzzler) while driving under the influence. 

    Americans are reaching the point where they either cannot afford vacations at all or are terrified of flying only to be left stranded in the now inert airport archipelago. No matter. The woke Pelosis this week are guests of superstar Andrea Bocelli at his Tuscan beach estate. 

    No one begrudges the elite Left their riches or their frolics. But they do resent the talk-down and accusatory sermons that come with them and the hypocrisy that fuels them. 

    This list of Democratic “men and women of the people” who are detached from the people could be endlessly expanded but the size of it explains why they seem tone deaf to the struggles of others they never wish to see or hear. Their exalted status reflects the new globalized wealth of the United States that is found most often in high-tech, media, entertainment, professional sports, finance, investment, law, universities, and insurance—and is mostly left-wing. 

    The new zillions are quite unlike the old, fossilized money in timber, mining, agriculture, oil, construction, and manufacturing that was grounded in grubbier realities and without the high-altitude sermonizing. Whether one calculates elite blue money by ZIP code, congressional district, or counties, the result is the same: the Democratic Party is run by billionaires and is the sanctimonious party of highly compensated bicoastal professionals. 

    Both have agendas that transcend the middle class and reflect the reality that they care little for those who cannot match their wealth and tastes. The “crazies” and “clingers” lack the elite’s supposed empathy, superior talent, and wisdom. More bothersome, our left-wing elite has the means to ensure that it is never subject to the disasters that naturally follow from its own ideological bankruptcy. 

    In other words, the left-wing has a problem. These humanitarian rich feel just terrible about the sins of America, but not terrible enough to sacrifice any element of their privileged lifestyles—the just deserts they feel for being so righteous. To square that circle, of indulgence for their rich selves, and sacrifice for poorer others, they hector and preach—and thereby find medieval penance and indulgence that excuses their own spectacular levels of illiberal consumption. 

    To the bread-poor masses, the irredeemables, the chumps, and the “right-wing Latinas” they don’t quite say: “Let them eat cake.”

    Instead, as they jet about on private planes, free of their own bothersome quarantines, edicts, and masks, while acquiring additional, carbon-gulping, seashore estates, they let their guard down with cries of, “Let them drive Teslas,” “Wear a mask!” and “Transition to a greener future!”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/12/2022 – 20:05

  • "Whereabouts Unknown": 3 Arrows Capital Founders Go MIA Amidst Crypto Firm's Bankruptcy
    “Whereabouts Unknown”: 3 Arrows Capital Founders Go MIA Amidst Crypto Firm’s Bankruptcy

    The founders of 3 Arrows Capital have apparently made a good ole-fashioned run-for-it…

    The bankrupt crypto hedge fund founders have not been cooperating in the liquidation process of the firm, according to a Bloomberg report this week. And to do one better, their whereabouts have simply been “unknown” since last Friday. 

    Those founders, Kyle Davies and Zhu Su, have not contacted representatives setup to help liquidate the firm by a BVI judge last week, the report says. However, lawyers for the two men have reportedly said they intend on cooperating. 

    A photo posted by Bloomberg this week shows the company’s headquarters seemingly abandoned….

    A court hearing is set for Tuesday this week, as liquidators seek to stop the “dissipation” of the firm’s assets. 

    Lawyers for the liquidators said: “Here, that risk is heightened because a substantial portion of the Debtor’s assets are comprised of cash and digital assets, such as cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens, that are readily transferable.”

    3AC has been just one of the major firms – joining names like Celsius and Voyager – that has collapsed as a result of the plunge in bitcoin. Insolvency proceedings in the BVI have started, as has a Chapter 15 bankruptcy filing in the US. 

    Liquidators went to Three Arrows’ office address in Singapore, which “appeared dormant”. Bloomberg reported:

    “…the door was locked, computers were inactive and mail was stuffed under the door. People working in the surrounding offices said they hadn’t seen anyone enter or exit the office recently.”

    Lawyers for the two men were on a Zoom call with the liquidators last week, but it was unclear if Zhu and Kyle were even on the call:

    “While persons identifying themselves as “Su Zhu” and “Kyle” were present on the Zoom call, their video was turned off and they were on mute at all times with neither of them speaking despite questions being posed to them directly.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/12/2022 – 19:45

  • Video Hidden By US Navy For 6 Months Shows 34 Hours Of Spewing Jet Fuel In Hawaii
    Video Hidden By US Navy For 6 Months Shows 34 Hours Of Spewing Jet Fuel In Hawaii

    Authored by Ann Wright via Common Dreams,

    A dramatic video hidden for 6 months by the US Navy of the 34 hours showing 20,000 gallons of jet fuel spraying into a Red Hill tunnel and disappearing into a floor drain that sent thousands of gallons into the water supply of 93,000 residents surfaced on July 5 after an undisclosed Navy employee made public a video that the Navy continued to maintain did not exist.

    What little goodwill for the Navy that was left in the civilian and military community of Honolulu has disappeared as the Navy continues to lie about the Red Hill jet fuel contamination of the community’s drinking water. With the video taken by the employee whose cart ran into a pipe that broke allowing the jet fuel to spray, available to the public, the Navy is investigating the media leak of the video which it told did not exist for seven months to the State of Hawaii, its Congressional delegation and the public. Watch:

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    Earthjustice attorney David Henkin said that it’s “pretty offensive that they would go after someone that is providing information that the public has a right to see… That they are not apologetic for not releasing this information to the public and instead are trying to stomp it out is really offensive.”

    The video surfaced only days after the Navy attempted a midnight June 30, 2022, out-of-sight release of a stunning January 2022 investigative report of the March and November 2022 massive leaks of jet fuel. The Honolulu Board of Water Supply and community groups including Sierra Club-Hawaii, Earthjustice, and Oahu Water Protectors had strongly called in town hall meetings and in writing for the release of the investigation throughout the delay of six months between the writing of the report and its release.

    On transparency and trust of the Navy, Ernie Lau, the chief engineer of Honolulu’s Board of Water Supply, says, “This whole issue of transparency has always been a challenge. They (the Navy) can provide the rhetoric to say that they will be transparent and build trust. But it’s really the actions that are not consistent with that rhetoric that demonstrates that they’re not being actually transparent, and that there may be more information that’s available that could be very valuable in looking at what was the scope and magnitude of the problem, and what we need to do to recover the aquifer from contamination.”

    The January 2022 report finally released on June 30, 2022 stated in remarkable candor for an internal Navy investigation that “laid bare the human errors and systemic negligence that allowed two catastrophic leaks to occur within months of each other.”

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    Rear Admiral Christopher Cavanaugh’s investigative report revealed “there was a culture of disregarding procedures, poor training and supervision, ineffective command, a lack of ownership over operational safety, a lack of timely, accurate and thorough reporting, and a flawed investigation into the May spill.”

    In the November 2021 leak, the Navy initially said that 14,000 gallons of fuel and water were released, but in fact, the Cavanaugh report says the pipeline was holding 16,999 gallons of jet fuel, which was released on “full blast.”

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    The investigative findings mirror the community’s decade-long concerns that Red Hill is fundamentally unsafe, a contention that the Navy denied for years—until the June 30 release of the January investigation. “They were right,” Adm. Sam Paparo, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, told Civil Beat after a press conference to discuss the findings. “The Navy was wrong to say that it was safe. That is clearly evident in the outcome.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/12/2022 – 19:25

  • Ex-Gov Bill Richardson Is Headed To Russia To Negotiate Griner & Whelan's Release
    Ex-Gov Bill Richardson Is Headed To Russia To Negotiate Griner & Whelan’s Release

    Secret negotiations between the United States and Russia over the detention of both WNBA star Brittney Griner and Marine veteran Paul Whelan now appear in full swing, as former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is expected to travel to Russia in the coming weeks to seek their release.

    Richardson has had a long track record representing families of US hostages and detainees abroad through his nonprofit Richardson Center, and in coordination with the US government. “(National Security Council) leadership are in touch with Bill Richardson. We appreciate his commitment to getting Americans home and are pursuing the release of Brittney and Paul through government channels,” NSC spokesperson Adrienne Watson confirmed at the start of this week.

    Mickey Bergman, executive director at the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, first revealed to ABC, “What I can say (and is publicly known) is both the Whelan and Griner families have asked us to help with the release of their loved ones.”

    About two months into Griner’s detention, which began just before the Feb.24 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the US State Department changed her status to “wrongfully detained” – which allows the US government to open hostage negotiations.

    A statement from Richardson, who recently played a key role in securing Trevor Reed’s release from Russian prison in April, included the following:

    Richardson told CNN on Thursday following Griner’s plea, “We believe that any prisoner in a situation like this needs to do what they believe can help them survive the ordeal.”

    “She is fighting for her life,” Richardson said, adding he “is working hard on trying to secure the safe return” of Griner and Whelan from Russia, but declined to give further details due to “ongoing efforts.”

    Whelan, a former Marine, was arrested in December 2018 on espionage charges he vehemently denies. He was sentenced in June 2020 to 16 years in prison in a trial US officials denounced as unfair.

    Richardson was also the ambassador to the United Nations in the Clinton administration, and has already long had extensive dealings with Russian officials and a large degree of success.

    Griner’s case has received a lot of media attention, even as Paul Whelan’s family has struggled to get the Biden administration involved in his predicament as he serves out a lengthy prison sentence for what Whelan said was a “sham trial”.

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    As for Griner, her criminal trial began at the start of this month. She’s accused of drug smuggling, after less than a gram of cannabis oil was found in her baggage while arriving to a Moscow airport in February. The White House has accused Moscow of seeking to use her as a political pawn connected to the war in Ukraine. Richardson is expected to travel to Russia within the next two weeks, according to a source cited in ABC News.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/12/2022 – 19:05

  • 'The Most Important Chart In Macro': Cyclical Components Of GDP
    ‘The Most Important Chart In Macro’: Cyclical Components Of GDP

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    To understand where the economy is headed, watch the cyclical components of GDP.

    Cyclical components of GDP, image from Tweet below

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    Video Explanation of Cyclicals Importance

    Cyclicals including housing and durable goods only constitute ten to fifteen percent of GDP, but the swings account for variations between growth and recession according to Eric Basmajian at EPB Macro.

    Housing Bust Underway

    Basmajian’s theme ties in with the housing bust now underway.

    For discussion please see Expect Huge Negative Revisions to New Home Sales as Sales Crash and Orders Cancelled

    Also note Existing Home Sales Skid Another 3.4 Percent in May, Down Fourth Mont

    *  *  *

    Please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/12/2022 – 18:45

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