Today’s News 14th December 2021

• Huxley's Ultimate Revolution: The Battle For Your Mind & The Relativity Of Madness
  Huxley’s Ultimate Revolution: The Battle For Your Mind & The Relativity Of Madness

  Authored by Cynthia Chung via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  The relevance of the Esalen Institute’s “revisioning of madness” needs to be acknowledged as having been entirely spear-headed by the Tavistock Institute, and clearly, not for our benefit.

  “America is the prophetic image of the rest of the urban-industrial world as it will be a few years from now – recent public opinion polls have revealed that an actual majority of young people in their teens, the voters of tomorrow, have no faith in democratic institutions, see no objection to the censorship of unpopular ideas, do not believe that government of the people by the people is possible and would be perfectly content, if they can continue to live in the style to which the boom has accustomed them, to be fueled, from above, by an oligarchy of assorted experts. That so many of the well-fed young television-watchers in the world’s most powerful democracy should be so completely indifferent to the idea of self-government, so blankly uninterested in freedom of thought and the right to dissent, is distressing but not too surprising.”

  – Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World Revisited” (1958)

  As discussed in Part 3 of this series, Aldous Huxley would be mentored in the ways of Monte Verità, Ascona through the mentorship of D.H. Lawrence. It was through Lawrence’s teachings that Aldous Huxley, Gerald Heard and Christopher Isherwood would form the core of the group, Sonnenkinder (The Children of the Sun). Lawrence’s teaching of Ascona to the Sonnenkinder (greatly influenced by Mikhail Bakunin and Otto Gross, a disciple of Freud) would go on to shape the Human Potential Movement and the Esalen Institute to which this paper will focus on. [Note: Carl Jung was also a significant member of the Monte Verità, Ascona.]

  

  Monte Verità became the international meeting place for all those who rebelled against science, technology, and the rise of the modern industrial nation-state.

  As already discussed in Part 3, the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) had established their headquarters in Basel, Switzerland as the “Anational Grand Lodge and Mystic Temple” (aka Verità Mystica) and at Monte Verità as the “Hermetic Brotherhood of Light.”

  In August 1917, Outer Head Theodor Reuss issued a manifesto for his Anational Grand Lodge (O.T.O), called “Verità Mystica.” He then held the “Anational Congress for Organizing the Reconstruction of Society on Practical and Cooperative Lines” at Monte Verità August 15–25, 1917. He wanted to create a new ethic, a new social order, and a new religion, to be achieved through the establishment of utopian-bohemian colonies and settlements throughout the world that was to run counter to the world of science and technology and the industrial nation-state.

  Recall from Part 3 that Light is a common theme (Children of the Sun, Brotherhood of Light). It is also mentioned by the Theosophical Society, a sister organization of Monte Verità, started by Madame Blavatsky, in her “The Secret Doctrine,” where she references the mystery of the “fall” to Earth of the rebellious angels – the solar angels or agnishvattas, to which Lucifer is the best-known representative.

  [Note: see “Descent and Sacrifice” by the Lucis Trust, originally titled Lucifer Publishing Company, a major public player within the United Nations, which was founded by prominent Theosophical Society member Alice Bailey.]

  In the words of Alice Bailey, from her book “Rays and the Initiations,” we must add “darkness unto light so that the stars appear, for in the light the stars shine not, but in the darkness light diffused is not, but only focussed points of radiance.”

  Thus we must bring forth the darkness…

  In this interpretation, Lucifer is good and represents the Light. In this context Children of the Sun (the Sonnekinder) could also be connoted as Children of the Solar-Angels; and thus the Children of Lucifer (see Part 3). This explains what influenced the gruesome Solar Lodge to choose such a name, a so-called renegade society of the Ordo Templi Orientis in California, which used the curriculum of the A∴A∴ established by Aleister Crowley (A∴A∴ is a so-called magical organization created by Crowley in 1907 and claims to use the essence of Theravada Buddhism with Vedantic yoga and ceremonial magic).

  [Note: the Ordo Templi Orientis also practised “Sex Magic” a corrupted Western version of Kundalini Yoga or Tantric Yoga.]

  In 1921, Aleister Crowley succeeded Theodor Reuss as Outer Head of the Order of the Ordo Templi Orientis.

  In 1935, Crowley founded the Agape Lodge No. 2 in Los Angeles.

  In 1937, Aldous would move with his family and his fellow Sonnenkinder Gerald Heard to Hollywood, where he would remain until his death. Christopher Isherwood would make the move to Hollywood in 1939.

  And just like that, the teachings of Ascona in Hollywood became a primary focus of Crowley and the Sonnenkinder, and together they would dominate the scene out of which the counterculture movement would be born.

  It is here that we will resume the story.

  Hollywood’s Fake Guru Industry

  “For the radical and permanent transformation of personality only one effective method has been discovered – that of the mystics.”

  – Aldous Huxley (1941)

  It did not take long upon the arrival of Aldous Huxley and Gerald Heard to California for them to become quick friends with Jiddu Krishnamurti, who had moved to Ojai, California in 1922.

  Krishnamurti had been selected by Annie Besant, a prominent leader of the Theosophical Society, as a young adolescent boy in India as the likely “vehicle for the Lord Maitreya” in 1909. Maitreya means “future Buddha” and the Theosophical Society promoted Krishnamurti as an advanced spiritual entity that periodically appears on Earth as a World Teacher to guide the evolution of humankind.

  The World Teacher, who supposedly had no religion nor followed any particular school of thought, was ironically tutored solely by Annie Besant for his entire education as a youth.

  Interestingly, Krishnamurti was regarded with great suspicion by the Vedanta Society, the latter to which Huxley, Heard, and Isherwood were also very close to and frequented the Southern California branch regularly. They were known as the three English “beacons” of Vedanta. The Vedanta Society promotes the study, practice and propagation of Vedanta, one of the six ancient schools of Hindu philosophy and is part of the Ramakrishna Order.

  Alan Watts, a renown Western Guru of Zen Buddhism, describes in his autobiography “In My Own Way” (1972) an encounter he had with Swami Prabhavananda, of the Southern California Vedanta Society:

  Swami – “…his [Krishnamurti’s] teaching is very misleading. I mean, he seems to be saying that one can attain realization without any kind of yoga or spiritual method, and of course that isn’t true.”

  Watts – “No, indeed, if in fact there is something to be attained.  Your Upanishads say very plainly, Tat tvam asi, You ARE That, so what is there to be attained?”

  Swami – “…But this is ridiculous. That amounts to saying that an ordinary ignorant and deluded person is just as good, or just as realized, as an advanced yogi.”

  Watts – “Exactly. And what advanced yogi would deny it?  Doesn’t he see the Brahman everywhere, and in all people, all beings?”

  Swami – “You are saying, that you yourself, or just any other person, can realize that you are the Brahman just as you are, without any spiritual effort or discipline at all!”

  Watts – “Just so.  After all, one’s very not realizing is, in its turn, also the Brahman. According to your own doctrine, what else is there, what else is real other than the Brahman?”

  Alan Watts, who would also become a part of the Sonnenkinder group, was a student of Christmas Humphreys, who founded the London Buddhist Lodge in 1924. The impetus for founding the lodge came chiefly from Annie Besant (President of the Theosophical Society from 1907-1933). Alice Bailey also frequented the lodge.

  Thus, Krishnamurti and Watts were from the same school of Annie Besant.

  Interestingly, Swami Prabhavananda of the Vedanta Society, had reported that Annie Besant had been banned from the Ramakrishna Order in India by the Head of the Chief Monastery Brahmananda, since Besant was trying to infiltrate the Order.

  In 1929, Krishnamurti had disavowed the title of “World Teacher” and gave the impression that he had also disavowed the entire Theosophical Society, which is not true.

  Not only did Krishnamurti continue a dialogue with many of the members of the society, but he co-founded the “Happy Valley School” in 1946 with among others, Aldous Huxley. The school today is recognised as a continuation of Besant’s vision for an educational community, which was renamed the “Besant Hill School” in 2007.

  Aldous and Krishnamurti were so close that when Aldous had moved in 1945 to the mountains in Wrightwood, San Gabriel with his family from their Llano ranch, Krishnamurti followed them moving into a place a few houses down.

  It appears much of Krishnamurti’s supposed distancing from the Theosophical Society was mainly for the public eye, and as clearly showcased here, many of the members of the Theosophical Society including Annie Besant had made a very shoddy impression on the Hindu religious leadership.

  Perhaps Krishnamurti was attempting a second infiltration, thinking his odds would be better if he claimed to disavow the Theosophical Society, despite his teachings remaining the same.

  Krishnamurti’s emphasis on skipping steps would be a very destructive influence that laid the groundwork for the counterculture movement as we will see, and regardless of what Huxley’s intention was with the Vedanta Society, one thing can be sure, he decided in the end to dedicate himself to the path of Krishnamurti.

  Music, Trance and Schizophrenia

  “The resolute facing of the world as it is, when the garment of make-believe, by which pious hands have hidden its uglier features, is stripped off.”

  – Aldous Huxley

  Another prominent base of contact Huxley had made upon his arrival to California was with Austrian-Polish actress and screen writer (for MGM and Greta Garbo roles) Salka Viertel’s Sunday salon in Los Angeles which was from the 1930s-50s a central place for networking, consisting of Hollywood intelligentsia and the émigré community of European intellectuals- many of whom formed the basis of the new Frankfurt School.

  Among its regular Sunday attendees were Arnold Schoenberg, Maria and Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, Theodor W. Adorno, Thomas Mann (who collaborated with Adorno on “Doctor Faustus”), Bertolt Brecht, Hanns Eisler, Greta Garbo, and George Cukor.

  Theodor Adorno, in his youth was a promising future concert pianist, who later studied in Vienna under the atonal composer Arnold Schoenberg. In 1946, while in the U.S. working on the Frankfurt School’s “Cultural Pessimism” agenda, he wrote the book “The Philosophy of Modern Music,” a diatribe against Classical culture, writing:

  “What radical music perceives is the untransfigured suffering of man…Modern music sees absolute oblivion as its goal. It is not that schizophrenia is directly expressed therein; but the music imprints upon itself an attitude similar to that of the mentally ill. The individual brings about his own disintegration…. He imagines the fulfillment of the promise through magic, but nonetheless within the realm of immediate actuality…. Its concern is to dominate schizophrenic traits through the aesthetic consciousness. In so doing, it would hope to vindicate insanity as true health.”

  This was to be one of the major undercurrents that shaped the philosophy of the COUNTER-Culture movement. The name said it all. And the so-called freedom from the “shackles” of classical culture was to take the form of invoking schizophrenic traits through the domain of the aesthetic consciousness (aesthetic means the set of principles that underlie how we define and appreciate a standard for “beauty”).

  It was the application of the Frankfurt School’s “Critical Theory” where everything that came before us within any field of established learning now had to be thrown into the garbage and we had to face the task of reprogramming how we viewed our world, our reality. This could only occur by invoking extreme states of fragmentation, schizophrenia, in order to build back the pieces in a so-called more truthful way without the cultural blinders from the past.

  Part of this freeing oneself from classical culture, was to free ourselves from the classical understanding of aesthetics, and thus a central tenet of the counterculture movement was to now regard the ugly as beautiful, the beautiful as ugly, and insanity as the new sanity.

  In Huxley’s “Brave New World Revisited” (1958), he quotes Dr. Erich Fromm, “philosopher-psychiatrist” from the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory:

  “Our ‘increasing mental sickness’ may find expression in neurotic symptoms. These symptoms are conspicuous and extremely distressing. But ‘let us beware,’ says Dr. Fromm, ‘of defining mental hygiene as the prevention of symptoms. Symptoms as such are not our enemy, but our friend’…”

  Interestingly, Tavistock-linked psychiatrist William Sargant, with whom Huxley had also come into close correspondence, had discussed in “Battle for the Mind” (1957) his intrigue in the “dancing mania” phenomenon that arose during the Black Death which caused a heightened suggestibility capable of causing a person to “embrace with equal force, reason and folly, good and evil, diminish the praise of virtue as well as the criminality of vice.”

  Sargant goes on to write:

  “The Voodoo cult of Haiti shows with what ease suggestibility can be increased by subjecting the brain to severe physiological stresses. Voodoo has numerous deities, or loa…The loa are believed to descend and take possession of a person, usually while he or she is dancing to the drums…The ease of men and women who have ben worked up into a state of suggestibility by Voodoo drumming shows the power of such methods…[they] found it more and more easy to respond to the drums and the dancing, and…the sense of ‘being overwhelmed by a transcendent force…[this] softening-up process…made them suggestible to the most varied types of dogma.”

  Sargant quotes Aldous Huxley from a special appendix to his “The Devils of Loudun” (considered Huxley’s best work by many modern critics today):

  “No man, however, civilized, can listen for very long to African drumming, or Indian chanting…and retain intact his critical and self-conscious personality. It would be interesting to take a group of the most eminent philosophers from the best universities, shut them up in a hot room…and measure…the strength of their psychological resistance to the effects of rhythmic sound…Meanwhile, all we can safely predict is that, if exposed long enough to tom-toms and the singing, every one of our philosophers would end by capering and howling with the savages.”

  Sargant concludes:

  “But we do also know that there are philosophers who are more easily converted to new behaviour patterns and new beliefs by means of solitary prayer, and fasting, or even by the use of drugs such as mescalin.”

  Aldous had a very clear interest in how one could bring about a schizophrenic state chemically, also allowing for heightened suggestibility. Six years before writing “Brave New World Revisited,” in 1952, Huxley would arrange to meet a Dr. Humphrey Osmond who had just published a psychiatric study titled “A New Approach to Schizophrenia.”

  Osmond, the man who would coin the term “psychedelic” meaning “mind-revealing,” had been working with mescaline and had asserted in his study that psychedelics produced a psychological state identical to schizophrenia. Osmond was studying mescaline for its chemical similarity to adenochrome, a substance produced in the body through the oxidation of adrenaline and linked to inducing schizophrenic traits.

  In 1940, a doctor had noted that “the characteristic effect of mescaline is a molecular fragmentation of the entire personality.”

  It was Huxley’s experience taking mescaline in the presence of Dr. Humphrey Osmond in 1953 that would inspire his writing “The Doors of Perception,” considered the instruction manual for what started the counterculture movement.

  Although many were appalled by Huxley’s detailed disclosure of his taking mescaline and linking it as a short-cut to passing through the door that would reveal to one the secret mysteries, yes even Aldous believed this himself, it is nothing surprising.

  As already discussed in detail in Part 2, T.H. Huxley (Darwin’s bulldog) was considered an almost god-like figure in the Huxley household, with Aldous’ father focusing much of his work writing on the work of T.H. and Darwin. Aldous and Julian would be raised in this larger than human personality with the pressure that it was their calling to continue this legacy. Anything short would be considered a terrible failure.

  In fact, the Victorian period of Aldous’ birth was a time of enormous interest in parapsychology. One of T.H. Huxley’s close associates on Darwinism, Alfred Russell Wallace, was among the new breed “scientifically” testing psychic powers, along with William Crookes, F. W. H. Myers and renown psychologist William James. Their efforts to develop rigorous tests of mediums, telepathy, and materializations led to the founding of the Society of Psychical Research, the Theosophical Society and their American branches.

  Small world isn’t it?

  One of the “forbidden books” that were kept in Mustapha Mond’s library was “The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature” by William James, which is a study of private religious experiences and mysticism.

  With T.H. Huxley having coined the term agnosticism (from Greek agnōstos, “unknowable”) meaning one can only claim to know anything through their direct sensory experience, Aldous owed it to his god-head grandfather to keep an ever “open mind.”

  As Aldous was experiencing his first trip on mescaline in 1953, which was recorded for further study, Dr. Humphry Osmond asked him:

  “So you think you know where madness lies?”

  My [Aldous] answer was a convinced and heartfelt, “yes.”

  “And you couldn’t control it?”

  “No, I couldn’t control it.”

  The Esalen Institute: The Human Potential Movement Meets the Tavistock Institute

  “Welcome, this is the first manifestation of the Brave New World”

  – spoken at the Human Be-In “A Gathering of Tribes” Jan. 1967 which is credited for launching the “Summer of Love”

  At this historical “Gathering of the Tribes,” Lenore Kandel, American poet with the Beat Generation  exclaimed “The Buddha will reach us all through love, not through doctrines not through teaching…And as I am looking at all of you, I feel more and more that Matreiya is not this time going to be born out of one physical body, but born out of all of us. It’s happening perhaps today. This is an invocation for Matreiya, may he come.” (video min 12:03)

  The reader should take note, the very clear sharing of philosophy with that of Krishnamurti. That there should be no work for reaching the stage of “enlightenment,” rather it is simply to open oneself as an empty vessel and let the “universe,” or whatever is around, pour in.

  This perversion of Indian philosophy was similar to the sleight of hand that had then been occurring in the Christian world guided by Jesuit theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (a close friend to Aldous’ brother Julian Huxley)- whose concept of a trans-human noetic evolution guided by an oncoming “Christ consciousness” shared many parallels to this eastern variant.

  Aldous was very much interested in the study of Christian mysticism which led to his writing “The Devils of Loudun” among other works.

  “Christianity without tears – that’s what soma is.”

  This is also interesting in the context of Gerald Heard’s intellect having been “hewn by the Jesuits and by Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge” according to the author of “Huxley in Hollywood,” David King Dunaway.

  The Human Be-In was organised as an LSD-25 event. It had a turnout of anywhere between 25,000 to 50,000 people. Free sandwiches were distributed laced with LSD and the “Summer of Love,” otherwise known as the first manifestation of the Brave New World, was born.

  The reader should be aware, though it gets much much stranger, that The Grateful Dead were among the bands to play at this “Gathering of Tribes.” The Grateful Dead was and is regarded as the epitome band of the counterculture movement. Interestingly, Alan Trist, the son of Eric Trist (who is the founder of the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations, the psychological warfare division of British Intelligence) is the one that put together the band.

  In 1962, Robert Hunter, the Grateful Dead lyricist, was among the volunteers for the renown anthropologist Gregory Bateson’s Palo Alto experiments using LSD, psilocybin and mescaline, for Stanford University. The research was covertly sponsored by the CIA in its MKULTRA program: other participants included Ken Kesey and Allen Ginsberg. Ken Kesey would become famous writing the book “One Flew of the Cuckoo’s Nest” on the relativity of madness in 1962, and would later form the Merry Pranksters in 1964, spreading bountiful, no questions asked, LSD to campuses across America.

  Bateson, husband of renown cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead, also played a prominent role in the curriculum of the Esalen Institute which had direct ties to the Tavistock Institute which we will see shortly.

  There never was an organic impetus to organise a “Gathering of the Tribes”. Rather, it was micromanaged from the very start by Tavistock and the CIA, using the very techniques that the Frankfurt School, William Sargant and Aldous Huxley et al. very publicly discussed several years before.

  Both Aldous and Gerald Heard played central roles in developing the Human Potential Movement (HPM) to which the Esalen Institute is recognised as officially launching.

  The founders of the Esalen Institute, Richard Price and Michael Murphy, got the idea for Esalen’s core raisons d’être largely from Aldous’ lecture on “Human Potentialities” in 1960, at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center. In this lecture, Huxley had challenged the budding students to figure out ways to tap into the full potential of humankind that had become latent over the centuries. In his lecture, Aldous discusses how it would be a good idea if an institution could launch a program to research methods for actualizing “human potentialities”, along the lines of his Brave New World, to be studied, evaluated, and put to use by society. Murphy and Price were enthralled.

  In 1961, Murphy and Price would visit Gerald Heard who would continue where Aldous left off on the discussion of human potentialities.

  The Esalen Institute, founded in 1962, held their first series of seminars, which they called “The Human Potentialities”. It included a seminar entitled “Drug Induced Mysticism”. The institute was staffed with LSD 25 researchers, and drugs circulated through-out the seminars. It launched what became known as “The Human Potential Movement”.

  The idea was how to take hold of one’s self-evolution.

  In 1956, psychiatrist R.D. Laing would train on a grant at the Tavistock Clinic in London, where he remained until 1964.

  In a 1967 pamphlet published by the Esalen Institute titled “Where It’s At,” it is written on pg 38:

  “Richard Price, co-founder of Esalen, is working with R.D. Laing of London’s Tavistock Clinic on a proposal to establish a Blowout Center at Big Sur, where a small, selected group of psychotics will be treated as persons on voyages of discovery and allowed to go through their psychoses. It appears that the nonparanoid, acute schizophrenic break is relatively short and is followed by a re-integrative process, so that the individual returns from his ‘trip’ with a higher IQ than at the beginning. We hope to find new ways to make such breaks valuable, function-heightening experiences.”

  Thus, the inducing of schizophrenic breaks was considered a “function-heightening experience,” or so the poor sops were told. The key to reaching maximum human potential was through the induction of madness, the fragmentation of the mind through schizophrenic breaks, with the promise that one would have a higher IQ at the end of the whole affair.

  Thus, whether you like it or not, the relevance of the Esalen Institute’s “revisioning of madness,” and Laing as the Crusader for the promotion of the clinically insane, needs to be acknowledged as having been entirely spear-headed by the Tavistock Institute, and clearly, not for our benefit.

  The reality is that the revolutionary alternative to the practice of mainstream psychology, that was sold to the masses by cult figures like R.D. Laing, was entirely controlled and shaped by the Tavistock Institute, to which MKULTRA is a branch.

  Thus, the Esalen Institute was also a continuation of the sort of horrifying psychiatric theories and practices that people were trying to escape from. It was like your psychiatric ward had just had a make-over and everything was expected to be different now since there were painted flowers on the wall.

  This becomes very clear when one looks at the type of research that was being published and promoted by the Esalen Center for Theory and Research (CTR), such as the disturbing work of Lauretta Bender (who has links to MKULTRA) using LSD and electroshock therapy on hospitalized “disturbed children”, Dr. Ewen Cameron who worked with MKULTRA also using LSD and electroshock therapy on his patients, and whose victims later sued the CIA, B.F. Skinner known for his “modern operant conditioning chambers” aka “Skinner Box” which there is reason to believe has also been used on children which can be found promoted by the Esalen CTR here and here. Esalen did not even shy away from the infamous Dr. Evil Louis Joylon West who largely headed the MKULTRA torture project.

  Notable past guest teachers and shapers of ideology and curriculum at the Esalen Institute, include: Gregory Bateson, Albert Hofmann (the creator of LSD at Sandoz Laboratories), Aldous Huxley, R.D. Laing, Abraham Maslow, Humphry Osmond, Fritz Perls (pioneer of NLP), Virginia Satir (pioneer of NLP), B.F. Skinner, Ken Kesey, Gary Snyder (one of the organisers of “A Gathering of Tribes), Arnold J. Toynbee and Alan Watts.

  Virginia Satir would become the Director of Training for the Esalen Institute.

  Aldous’ hypnopaedia concept is directly linked to neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) which became a core research subject at the Esalen Institute. NLP focuses on how to increase suggestibility within an individual and a crowd, such that they can receive a desired message or belief. It had a lot of overlap with Skinner’s Box experiment, as well as William Sargant’s work.

  Richard Bandler and John Grinder created neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) in the 1970s. In 1975 they published a book titled “The Structure of Magic,” of which there are two volumes, intended to be a codification of the therapeutic techniques of Perls and Satir.

  In the book, Bandler and Grinder claim that NLP has magic-like qualities which allow for an individual to change their model or map of “reality.” Since no objective reality exists, they assert, one can simply choose the form of reality one wishes to experience, the reality one wishes to embody. NLP techniques are used to change how an individual’s neuronal pathway responds or behaves in accordance to a specific stimulus. If enough change occurs, it is claimed that it can transform the entire personality, or create co-existing alternative personalities.

  In “The Structure of Magic,” the NLP techniques are compared to “magical incantations,” and allows for a reframing of that individual’s world. The book includes chapters such as “Becoming a Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “The Final Incantation.” (Recall Alice Bailey’s book “Rays and the Initiations,” discussed earlier.)

  In 2008, Bandler wrote “A Guide to TRANCE-formation.”

  Steve Andreas, a student of Bandler and Grinder wrote “Virginia Satir: The Patterns of Her Magic.”

  Needless to say, we can see how such techniques if effective, could be misused, not just on the masses but on the so-called “elite,” which Esalen clearly caters to.

  Recall, even Aldous’ “Alpha Pluses” of the Brave New World needed a controller…there were only about twelve members of the Mustapha Mond status and then there was whatever was to be found past that veil. All the rest; the Deltas, Epsilons, Betas, Alphas and Alpha Pluses were all tightly controlled, micro-managed really, and were not free to escape from the existential parameters chosen for them. No one, not even an Alpha Plus, as seen with the case of Bernard Marx, were free to choose a different course than what had already been chosen for them.

  Although there are positive applications of NLP which have helped many people, within the context of this Tavistock-driven process, NLP was/is literally an attempt to reprogram the mind as if it were a circuit board. [Note: Gregory Bateson was the Cybernetics guru at the Esalen Institute.]

  Timothy Leary, at the time a young professor of psychology at Harvard who headed the Harvard Psilocybin Project (with Aldous Huxley on its founding board) from 1960-62 until he was fired, was recruited by Aldous to help shape the “Ultimate Revolution” and lead the charge of the counterculture insurgency, to which Leary described in his book “Flashbacks: A Personal and Cultural History of an Era,”:

  “We had run up against the Judeo-Christian commitment to one God, one religion, one reality, that has cursed Europe for centuries and America since our founding days. Drugs that open the mind to multiple realities inevitably lead to a polytheistic view of the universe. We sensed that the time for a new humanist religion based on intelligence, good natured pluralism and scientific paganism had arrived.”

  Leary would give the CIA full credit for starting and initiating “the entire consciousness movement, counterculture events of the 1960s” by flooding LSD into college campuses across the country and investing millions in LSD research programs. In the video, Leary looks like he is doing an ad campaign for the CIA, “buy their product, it worked for me”. (Leary would fittingly attempt to become a stand up comic in his washed up years, demoted from his prominent courtier status to that of a mere jester, if only people could have seen him for the fool he was much earlier.)

  On PBS’s Late Night America, Timothy Leary commented:

  “I’ve been an admirer of Aleister Crowley. I think that I’m carrying on much of the work that he started over a hundred years ago … He was in favor of finding yourself, and ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law’ under love. It was a very powerful statement. I’m sorry he isn’t around now to appreciate the glories he started.”

  “Then you think there is no God?” [asked the Savage] “No, I think there quite probably is one.” [answered Mustapha Mond] “Then why [are you doing all of this]?…How does [God] manifest himself now?” [asked the Savage] “Well, he manifests himself as an absence; as though he weren’t there at all.” [answered Mustapha Mond] “That’s your fault.” [retorted the Savage] “Call it the fault of civilization.” [responded Mustapha Mond]

  – Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 12/13/2021 – 23:40

• New Zealand Approves Orgies Of Up To 25 People As Part Of New COVID Rules
  New Zealand Approves Orgies Of Up To 25 People As Part Of New COVID Rules

  New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the easing of COVID-19 restrictions on national television, based on a ‘traffic light system.’ She said orgies for up to 25 people are permitted.  

  Ardern spoke with Seven Sharp hosts Hilary Barry and Jeremy Wells about New Zealand’s reopening timeline, known as the traffic light system. For some context, the traffic light system categorizes freedoms available to vaccinated Kiwis based on location and whether they live in a red, orange, or green zone. 

  The traffic light system aims to end lockdowns in New Zealand and enforce vaccine passports. 

  For instance, in Auckland, a major port city in the north of the country’s North Island, lined with superyachts, the metro area is currently classified as a “red” district — meaning Kiwis can engage in everyday essential activities.

  Ardern explained on national television, “I can confirm that Tinder liaisons have reopened,” adding, “it’s not strictly embedded in the traffic light system but um, it is a given, up to 25 actually, in a red area.”

  yeah, but did your PM go on national television to officially announce that *checks notes* orgies can resume? pic.twitter.com/cG4YyIvEZT

  — Calliope Ryder (@callioperyder) December 10, 2021

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

  So, to clarify, even in a red zone where COVID measures are very restricting (as outlined below), orgies of up to 25 people appear to be legal. 

  

  New Zealand is currently between red and orange. On Wednesday, Auckland will allow citizens to travel for non-essential reasons. The country has some of the strictest measures (read: here) on personal freedoms during the pandemic. 

  At least there is some good news before Christmas as the government has approved orgies. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 12/13/2021 – 23:20

• Is Beijing Weaponizing Your DNA?
  Is Beijing Weaponizing Your DNA?

  Authored by James Gorrie via The Epoch Times,

  Why is a US DNA-processing firm sharing Americans’ DNA with China? The answer is staggering…

  

  If you’ve had a COVID-19 test, there’s a good possibility that the folks in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have your DNA.

  If so, they probably know more about your health and DNA vulnerabilities than you do. The implications of that are disturbing, to say the least.

  The company contracted to conduct the COVID-19 tests is Fulgent Genetics, a nationwide DNA sequencing and disease testing firm. According to the firm’s website, its stated mission is, “developing flexible and affordable genetic testing that improves the everyday lives of those around us.”

  Apparently, we are to believe that Fulgent Genetics is here to improve all of our lives.

  Deep Ties to China

  On Nov. 29, the Office of the Sheriff of Los Angeles County posted a letter to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. That letter stated that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department would not be participating in the COVID-19 testing with Fulgent Genetics.

  The letter explained that the Federal Bureau of Investigations’ (FBI) Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate had warned Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s office of the risk that DNA samples, from the COVID-19 tests that Fulgent Genetics was to provide, would “likely be shared with the Republic of China.”

  Villanueva also said at a press briefing that “Fulgent had strong ties with BGI, WuXP, and Huawei Technology, all of which are linked to the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, the People’s Republic of China State Council and are under the control of the PRC.”

  Questions Abound

  Several questions come to mind. Who or what is the Fulgent Genetics corporation?

  Why would an American company wish to provide American DNA samples?

  Why on Earth would China even want DNA samples from Americans?

  For what purpose?

  How many American DNA samples do they have already?

  And most importantly, what does our DNA have to do with the FBI’s concern with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from China?

  The answers to these and other questions on the stuff of dystopian worst-case scenarios are discussed below. But first, some background on Fulgent Genetics.

  Who Is Fulgent Genetics?

  The firm was founded in 2011 by Ming Hsieh, chairman of the board of directors, president, and chief executive officer, and James Xie, chief operating officer. Hsieh has served as a trustee at Fudan University in China since 2011. Xie received his Bachelor’s degree in engineering from Chongqing University in China in 1987. Perhaps not surprisingly, both men have deep ties to China.

  And apparently, Fulgent has been sharing Americans’ DNA from coast to coast with China. As noted in Villanueva’s statement, it’s not the only PLA proxy company engaged in harvesting Americans’ genetic material. There are others as well, and millions upon millions of people’s DNA from America and many other places in the world have been sent to China.

  This is where things get very dark in the weapons of mass destruction department. China wants to create a biowarfare WMD that targets your DNA.

  A New, Dark Era of Biowarfare Is Here

  Biowarfare isn’t a new thing; it has been used throughout history. In the 4th century B.C., Scythian archers infected their arrows by dipping them in decomposed bodies. In the 14th century, the Tartars catapulted plague-infected dead bodies into the lines of their enemies at the siege of Kaffa. And in World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army bombed Chinese cities with plague-laden fleas.

  But these “old school” forms of biowarfare are child’s play compared to the latest DNA-based bioweapons technology that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and genomics. We are entering a new and very risky era.

  Biowarfare and DNA Manipulation

  Just as AI and genomics enable DNA manipulation to help the human body fight all kinds of diseases, this same technology can also be used to create unique pathogens that only impact specific people. DNA-specific weapons can target a race, a gender, or even a family or individual with a specific DNA structure.

  This isn’t just a possibility—it’s a probability, if not already a reality. What’s more, at least in theory, there’s no blowback to DNA-specific bioweapons because they harm only people with specified DNA characteristics. China’s access to Americans’ DNA is unquestionably a national security concern.

  US Versus China in ‘Death Race 2035’

  Some estimates say that the winner(s) of the bioweapon arms race will be determined by the year 2035. It may well be much sooner. In the race to create highly effective, targetable, and lethal biological weapons, the United States and China are neck and neck. Both nations have invested big money in AI and genomics. Each wants to take the lead in creating these super DNA-based bioweapons.

  Like all arms races, whichever nation develops the ability to launch a biological attack without fear of blowback will be in the power position. Not a happy picture, but it’s reality.

  But just being able to launch a deadly, highly targeted or even WMD bio attack isn’t enough. The survival of a nation also depends on its ability to defend against one. Like nuclear retaliation strategy (second strike capability) is meant to deter a first strike, a nation’s biowarfare retaliation ability may be a critical factor in deterring such attacks.

  Unfortunately, AI and genomics make creating potentially thousands of genetically-modified lethal pathogens easy. On the flip side, immunizing whole populations, or even a small number of people, against thousands of newly-created pathogens is impossible; at least at this moment.

  Biowarfare Technology Goes Viral

  Predictably, the rapid spread of information itself is a problem. The internet has made it impossible to contain most secrets. If a technology exists, for the right price, it will be made available to the bad guys. Or, in the case of the PLA and Chinese scientific community, it will be developed and—if current experience with the CCP virus is an indicator—deployed in full.

  This reality does not bode well for limiting the access and use of a new and dangerous bioweapons by China, or any other adversaries of the United States. If Fulgent and others are helping China develop DNA-targeted pathogens against Americans, there are no easy answers to such a threat, nor are there any good ones. But seizing all materials, data, and assets, and prosecuting such firms would be a start.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 12/13/2021 – 23:00

• Yet Another News Crew Just Got Robbed At Gunpoint In Oakland
  Yet Another News Crew Just Got Robbed At Gunpoint In Oakland

  An NBC Sports crew working on assignment in Oakland, Calif., was robbed at gunpoint Saturday morning, according to a report from The Mercury News.

  The crew was on assignment in the Jack London Square area when three armed individuals took a camera from inside the crew’s vehicle, according to Oakland Police Department spokesperson Kim Armstead.

  None of the crew members were holding the camera at the time and there were no injuries.

  

  The robbery marks the third incident involving news organizations in Oakland in the last two-and-a-half weeks.

  On Dec. 3, a San Francisco Chronicle photographer was robbed at gunpoint in West Oakland.

  And on Nov. 24, Kevin Nishita – a security guard and former police officer – was fatally shot during an attempted robbery downtown while he was with a KRON-TV Channel 4 news crew.

  

  As The Hill reports, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf (D) said two weeks ago that her office was drafting a proposal to place before the City Council to increase active police presence and require a larger police force. Schaaf also wants to establish a new police academy class. 

  “We in Oakland believe in a comprehensive and effective approach to ending gun violence,” Schaaf said late last month. 

  The spike in crimes is taking place at a time when the police department’s force has fallen to 677 officers, which is reportedly the city’s lowest police staffing level in more than a decade.

  So, “Refund The Police” Libby?

  Of course, we are sure the armed thieves were just looking for bread… and were otherwise ‘mostly peaceful’ that day.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 12/13/2021 – 22:40

• Peter Schiff: The Mainstream Is Sugar-Coating Inflation
  Peter Schiff: The Mainstream Is Sugar-Coating Inflation

  Via SchiffGold.com,

  The CPI data for November came in pretty close to expectations. Of course, expectations were sky-high as the transitory inflation narrative has faded into myth.

  

  The CPI surged another 0.8% month-on-month in November. The consensus expectation was for a 0.7% rise. The headline year-on-year increase was 6.8%. That was right in line with expectations. It was also the highest CPI print since 1982. And as Peter Schiff talked about on his podcast, the CPI number understates the inflation problem.

  The November rise came on the heels of a sizzling hot 0.9% CPI in October. This was the biggest back-to-back CPI rise of the year.

  Clearly, the gains we are seeing were not transitory if we’re at the end of the year and we’re seeing even bigger back-to-back increases in monthly consumer prices than at any point during the year.”

  The total CPI gain for 2021 now stands at 7.1% with one month left to go.

  • January – 0.3%

  • February. – 0.4%

  • March – 0.6%

  • April – 0.8%

  • May – 0.6%

  • June – 0.9%

  • July. – 0.5%

  • August 0.3%

  • September – 0.4%

  • October – 0.9%

  • November – 0.8%

  Core inflation, excluding food and energy (as if consumers don’t have to eat or put gas in their car) rose 0.5%. The year-over-year core CPI was up 4.9%.

  Peter said we need to remember that the Fed is still talking about inflation “slightly” above 2%.

  We are miles above 2%. And there’s no way we’re going anywhere near 2% again.”

  Peter brought up another important point. The inflation comparison between, 1982 and today is apples to oranges, and it is irrelevant.

  The mainstream media and government officials like to compare today’s CPI numbers to the double-digit inflation of the 1970s.

  They want to point to the higher numbers of the 1970s to remind us that it’s really not that bad, because after all, it’s nothing like the 1970s. Except it’s exactly like the 1970s — only worse.”

  According to the government numbers, the CPI in 1970 rose 5.8%. In 1971, CPI was up 4.3%. The 1972 CPI increased by 3.3%. The 1973 CPI increase was 6.2%.

  So, we’re already worse than the first four years of the 1970s. So, how is this not like the 1970s when we’re starting off this decade worse than we were starting off the 1970s?”

  Inflation hit double digits in 1974 with an 11.1% CPI.

  But you know what? That’s actually where we are. In fact, we’re higher than that right now. And that is because the CPI that we use today — and I’ve said this many times on the podcast — is not the same CPI that we were using in the 1970s. And that makes comparisons completely irrelevant.”

  Back in 1998, the government significantly revised the CPI metrics. Even the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) admitted the changes were “sweeping.”

  According to the BLS, periodic changes to the CPI calculation are necessary because “consumers change their preferences or new products and services emerge. During these occasions, the Bureau reexamines the CPI item structure, which is the classification scheme of the CPI market basket. The item structure is a central feature of the CPI program and many CPI processes depend on it.”

  In 1998, the BLS followed the recommendations of the Boskin Commission. It was appointed by the Senate in 1995. Initially called the “Advisory Commission to Study the Consumer Price Index,” its job was to study possible bias in the computation of the CPI. Unsurprisingly, it determined that the index overstated inflation — by about 1.1% per year in 1996 and about 1.3% prior to 1996. The 1998 changes to CPI were meant to address this “issue.”

  It serves the government’s agenda to make these false comparisons so they can claim that the inflation we have now isn’t as bad as it was in the 1970s, even though it’s already worse. If you measured inflation now the way it was measured in the 1970s, I think 2021 would be worse than any single year of the 1970s.”

  The peak of 1970s inflation came between 1979 and 1981 with annual CPI increases of 11.3% (1979), 13.5% (1980) and 10.3% (1981). That’s when Paul Volker “went medieval and raised interest rates to 20% in order to kill the inflation dragon.

  The reality is we are already at an inflation rate as bad as it was at the high point of the 1980s, and the Fed is doing nothing but pouring gasoline on the fire.”

  Peter said he thinks if the government measured CPI under the old formula, CPI would clock in around 15%. ShadowStats comes up with a similar CPI estimate using 1980-based numbers.

  In a nutshell, inflation as bad as the CPI numbers are, inflation is being sugar-coated.

  As bad as it is, it’s actually so much worse if the numbers were honest.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 12/13/2021 – 22:20

• Former Lehman Trader's $4BN Hedge Fund Books First Loss In A Decade On China Carnage
  Former Lehman Trader’s $4BN Hedge Fund Books First Loss In A Decade On China Carnage

  For the first time in its nearly decade-long history, BFAM Partners, a hedge fund firm with more than $4 billion under management, is on track to report its first annual loss largely thanks to the implosion of Evergrande.

  According to Bloomberg, the BFAM Asian Opportunities Fund has lost more than 10% in the first 11 months of the year, dropping about 7.5% in October and another 3.3% in November.

  Katarina Royds, who leads investor relations at BFAM, declined to comment. However, Bloomberg’s inside sources revealed that the Asian Opportunities Fund suffered from selling pressure in Chinese real estate bonds. The firm was founded by former Lehman Brothers trader Benjamin Fuchs, but its credit strategies, including high-grade, high-yield, credit default swaps and special situations, are led by Eugene Fung.

  Of course, one might expect a former Lehmanite to be somewhat more sensitive to ructions in overleveraged property markets.

  

  The Hong Kong-based hedge fund firm had $4.9 billion AUM as of August, according to a fund document obtained by BBG.

  The exact details of BFAM’s Chinese credit holdings aren’t known, but a gauge of junk bonds issued by Chinese property developers plunged 21% in October and another 4.9% in November. BFAM has faced similar setbacks in the past. The firm’s Asian high yield-focused credit investments helped the firm chalk up a 17% loss during the month of March 2020 at the onset of the pandemic. However, the firm largely held on to its assets, and a price rebound later in the year helped it to an 8.5% annual gain.

  Of course, it’s not just Chinese credit that has blown up in investors’ faces this year. As US stocks trade near all-time highs, Chinese ADRs continue to struggle. Firms like Didi (the Chinese answer to Uber that was rug-pulled by the CCP just days after its US IPO) and Alibaba (which has seen its shares continue to struggle) are well off their highs, and MSCI’s Golden Dragon Index has been off by double-digits since the fall. 

  Meanwhile, as we have reported, Evergrande and Kaisa Group, two of the most prolific Chinese real estate dollar debt issuers, roiled markets for months before defaulting on debt obligations late last week, as Fitch declared Evergrande to be in “restricted” default. Fears of financial contagion sent the yield investors demand for holding Chinese junk bonds to a record high on Nov. 9, 3x its five-year average, according to a Bloomberg index.

  That hedge funds would want to invest in Chinese real-estate developers is hardly a surprise: as we have reported, the Chinese property market is probably one of the largest asset classes in the world.

  

  Meanwhile, Chinese junk bonds are now yielding 22% as the country’s debt crisis escalates.

  

  According to Bloomberg, the declines in the last couple of months underscore how even the region’s savviest traders have faced challenges navigating the unceasing torrent of regulatory headlines out of China. While the firm has seen some monthly losses, the BFAM fund’s previous winning streak, in calender years, since June 2012 was rare in a region where individual hedge fund performances could be choppy.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 12/13/2021 – 22:00

• California Schools Phase-Out 'D' & 'F' Grades For High School Students
  California Schools Phase-Out ‘D’ & ‘F’ Grades For High School Students

  Authored by Tommy Hung via The Epoch Times,

  As high school students transition out of distance learning imposed by pandemic restrictions, several California districts are dropping the use of “D” and “F” grades in an attempt to reengage students in school and boost entry into the state’s public colleges.

  

  Los Angeles Unified, Oakland Unified, Sacramento City Unified, and San Diego Unified are among the districts phasing out “D” and “F” grades for high school students.

  If students fail a test or don’t finish their homework, they will be given another chance to retake the test or receive an extension on submitting assignments.

  “Our hope is that students begin to see school as a place of learning, where they can take risks and learn from mistakes, instead of a place of compliance,” stated Nidya Baez, assistant principal at Fremont High in Oakland Unified, according to statements obtained by Bay City News.

  “Right now, we have a system where we give a million points for a million pieces of paper that students turn in, without much attention to what they’re actually learning,” Baez said.

  According to Bay City News, if students do not pass the final exam or finish homework by the end of the semester, they would earn an “incomplete.” The news outlet reported that the aim is to encourage the learning of course material without compromising students’ ability to enter the University of California and California State University should students receive a poor grade.

  Advocates of such “competency-based learning” suggest that assessment should be based on what students have learned instead of how they perform in tests.

  The announcement of grading changes come after some public schools in California gave students the option of changing their letter-based grades to pass/fail grades.

  Sam Davis, board director of Oakland Unified School District, told ABC News that the “D” grade should be dropped but students should still be given the appropriate grade if they fail.

  “D grades are not valid for college eligibility at UC and Cal State but obviously if students don’t master the material, they shouldn’t be getting credit for the class, then they would be getting an F,” Davis told ABC in a Dec. 9 interview.

  According to reports obtained from educators, ABC pointed out that many students sitting at a “D” only work enough to avoid getting an “F” grade.

  In an interview with ABC, Alix Gallagher, director of strategic partnerships and policy analysis for California Education, emphasized the importance of “rapid specific feedback” to help students improve.

  Gallagher told Bay City News that grades vary “from teacher to teacher,” and that instruction, rather than grading, is “what leads to learning.”

  In the same report from Bay City News, math and science teacher Debora Rinehart said that “not reporting Ds and Fs is the equivalent of lying about a student’s progress.”

  “I will work with any student before or after school or even on the weekend to help them learn. However, I will never lie about their knowledge level,” Rinehart stated.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 12/13/2021 – 21:40

• Vox Buys Thrillist Publisher Group Nine As Wave Of Media Consolidation Continues
  Vox Buys Thrillist Publisher Group Nine As Wave Of Media Consolidation Continues

  It has already been a pretty busy year for media deals.

  And as digital advertising rates quietly creep higher, Vox Media is responding to rival Buzzfeed’s recent public offering via SPAC by acquiring rival Group Nine, the publisher of Thrillist, NowThis, The Dodo, PopSugar and Seeker.

  

  Vox’s Jim Bankoff

  If the all-stock deal goes through, Vox will own 75% of Group Nine, according to internal memos seen by CNBC and WSJ.

  The deal would leave the combined company a private firm. However, Vox would be free to use a SPAC set up by Group Nine to go public and raise more public and private funds, if need be.

  Vox CEO Jim Bankoff and Group Nine CEO Ben Lerer sent emails to employees after WSJ broke the news on Monday.

  A deal would mark the end of an excruciatingly long series of on-and-off talks with various digital media rivals.

  Group Nine has held on-and-off merger talks with Vox, BuzzFeed and other digital media companies for years, as CNBC reported last week. The name of the game is scale; the more properties and clicks, the better equipped they will be to compete for advertising dollars with Facebook and Google.

  Vox’s Bankoff reportedly told his staffers that the deal isn’t signed but is expected to take place shortly and will close in early 2022. Lerer will take a board seat at Vox. Vox’s publications, which include New York Magazine, the Verge, Eater, Curbed, Vox and SB Nation, will remain intact after the acquisition, according o the memo.

  He added that management has no plans to go public. Still, the SPAC we mentioned above isn’t simply going away. If Vox changes its mind (or finds it needs more runway to burn), the SPAC option remains open and easily accessible.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 12/13/2021 – 21:20

• South Korea To Use Facial Recognition Cameras To Track COVID Cases, Ensure Mask Compliance
  South Korea To Use Facial Recognition Cameras To Track COVID Cases, Ensure Mask Compliance

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  Authorities in South Korea are set to use the country’s facial recognition camera network to track people with COVID in real time and ensure they are wearing face masks.

  

  The system will first be tested in Bucheon, on the outskirts of Seoul, in January before being extended to other areas of the country.

  The scheme uses artificial intelligence and facial recognition software linked to the city’s 10,820 security cameras “to track the movements of active cases and their close contacts, and to determine whether they wore a mask,” reports RT.

  One official said the system was needed to reduce the workload on the team tasked with tracking COVID cases in the city by relying on information such as records of card purchases and cellphone location data.

  “Using facial recognition technology will enable that analysis in an instant,” said Bucheon Mayor Jang Deog-cheon, adding that it reduces the burden on workers having to spend “hours analyzing a single [segment of] CCTV footage.”

  South Korea will soon roll out a pilot project to use artificial intelligence, facial recognition and thousands of CCTV cameras to track the movement of people infected with the coronavirus, despite concerns about the invasion of privacy https://t.co/Q5YoDnyoF4

  — Reuters (@Reuters) December 13, 2021

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

  The system also eliminates the problem of citizens who get infected with COVID but “who aren’t always truthful about their activities and whereabouts,” reported Reuters.

  Park Dae-chul, a lawmaker from the main opposition People Power Party. called the plan a “neo-totalitarian idea.”

  “It is absolutely wrong to monitor and control the public via CCTV using taxpayers’ money and without the consent from the public,” said Park.

  China, India, Japan, Poland, Russia, and multiple US states are also exploring similar ways to keep track of the movements of people infected with COVID.

  Such technology is of course wide open to abuse, erases any kind of expectation of privacy and is something that George Orwell would have laughed off as inconceivable.

  And yet here we are.

  *  *  *

  Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

  In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. I need you to sign up for my free newsletter here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Get early access, exclusive content and behinds the scenes stuff by following me on Locals.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 12/13/2021 – 21:00

• Morgan Stanley Warns The Fed's Turbo Taper Will Trigger Market Chaos Over "The Next 3-4 Months"
  Morgan Stanley Warns The Fed’s Turbo Taper Will Trigger Market Chaos Over “The Next 3-4 Months”

  Until last week, the economic and market views of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley couldn’t be more opposite: the former, delightfully optimistic, expects the US economy to grow on all cylinders in 2022 and despite the Fed’s tightening – two months ago Goldman flipped its Fed views by pulling forward its first rate hike forecast by one year to July, and followed it up over the weekend by predicting that liftoff will begin in May with two more rate hikes to follow in 2022…

  

  … said in its year-ahead market forecast last month that it expects the S&P to hit 5,100 by the end of 2022 even as the economy slows down modestly from its current feverish pace.

  Meanwhile, far less optimistic than their Goldman peers, Morgan Stanley’s economists expected – until late last week – the Fed to stand pat without hiking even once in 2022. That changed over the weekend, however, when the bank admitted “defeat” and now expects two rate hikes in 2022, even as the bank’s chief market economist Michael Wilson sees the S&P closing 2022 at 4,400, some 5% below current levels.

  So while there has been some convergence on the economy and Fed front, a gaping divergence remains when it comes to what the two most influential US banks think the market will do, a schism which only became more acute in the past 24 hours, when on one hand Goldman predicted that a massive year-end Santa Rally is imminent (as we discussed last night), while Morgan Stanley doubled down on its bearish view this morning when in Michael Wilson’s latest strategy outlook piece (available to professional subscribers), he warns that “the Fed’s pivot to a more aggressive tapering schedule poses a larger risk for asset prices than most investors believe.“

  Confirming what we have been saying since 2010 when we first explained that it is not the stock but the flow that matters, and that tapering is tightening, Wilson echoes our decade-old conclusion and writes that “tapering is tightening for markets, if not the economy.” And due to the much greater than expected rise in inflation – now that even Powell has killed and buried “team transitory” – the Fed is pivoting to a more aggressive removal of monetary accommodation.

  Wilson believes this is warranted and supported by an administration that appears less focused on the stock market as a barometer of
  its success (actually since this administration has zero success to “barometer” besides flooding money into the economy and watching inflation skyrocket of course, it simply hasn’t even considered the level of the S&P; it will soon… after the crash).

  Furthermore, the Morgan Stanley strategist believes that tapering is different than in 2014 for 3 reasons:

  1. the Fed is exiting QE twice as fast this time,
  2. asset prices are much richer today and
  3. growth is decelerating rather than accelerating.

  And as we joked earlier (but not really) with the Fed tapering and soon hiking, the outcome will be a recession and a market crash…

  Dear @federalreserve – we all know that your taper/rate hikes will trigger a recession and market crash. Can we just fast forward to NIRP and even more QE that always follow?

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 13, 2021

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

  … Wilson again agrees and says that such an adverse market reaction “could be important for the economy, too, given how levered consumers are to stock prices today.”

  Taking a more nuanced look at Morgan Stanley’s forecast, Wilson explains that when he was writing his (decidedly bearish) year ahead outlook, he was faced with “a wider than normal range of potential economic and policy outcomes.” This higher ” uncertainty” was one of the key inputs to the bank’s conclusion that valuations for US equity markets were likely to come down over the next 3-6 months, and as further notes explains “in our discussions with hundreds of clients since publishing our outlook, the conversations have centered around how to handicap these various outcomes.” Wilson lists the three scenarios as follows:

  • Goldilocks: When we published on November 15, this was the prevailing view by most clients. In this outcome, supply picks up in 1Q to meet the excess demand companies are having a hard time fulfilling. Inflation falls back toward 2-3%, allowing the Fed to move gradually with its taper and hike maybe 1-2 times in 2022, a modest amount of tightening that most believe the economy and markets can handle. Under this scenario, earnings growth is solid (10-15%), interest rates stay well behaved and valuations remain elevated (20-21x Forward EPS). This yields 5-10% upside to the S&P 500 over the next year or roughly 5000. For us, this was the Bull case outcome in our outlook with a 20% probability.
  • Inflation remains hot and the Fed responds more aggressively: Under this outcome, inflation proves to be stickier as supply chains and labor shortages remain difficult to fix in the short term. The Fed is forced to taper faster and even raise rates on a more aggressive path than investors expect. This was our base case as it essentially lined up with our hotter but shorter cycle view we first wrote about back in March. Under this outcome, interest rates continue to rise next year to 2-2.25% by year end. At the same time, operating leverage starts to fade as costs increase more in line with revenues, leaving limited margin upside. This leaves breadth narrow in the near term as valuations come down and P/Es finally normalize in line with the traditional mid cycle transition. While there is some debate around how much P/Es need to fall, we believe 18x is the right number to use for year end 2022 and when combined with 10% revenue growth that gives us slight downside to the index from current prices, or 4400. We put a 60% probability on this outcome.
  • Supply picks up just as demand fades: Under this outcome, supply does improve but it’s too late to meet what has been an unsustainable level of demand and consumption for many goods. It’s also too expensive for customers who have become more wary of high prices, which leads to discounting and a whiff of deflation for many areas of the goods economy. While services should fare better and keep the economy growing, goods producing companies suffer and make up a much larger part of the consumer discretionary part of the stock market. Under this scenario, the Fed may decide to back off on their more aggressive tightening path. Rates fall but not enough to offset the negative impact on margins and earnings which end up disappointing. This is essentially the “Ice” part of our narrative turning out be colder than expected. Equity risk premiums soar and multiples fall even more than under our base case. This was our bear case with a 20% probability.

  Before we drill down into these, a quick detour to Wilson who says that since publishing his year-ahead forecast one month ago, he feels “more confident about our base case being the most likely outcome. Inflation data continues to come in hotter and based on commentary from our analysts, companies seem to be having no problem passing it along to customers, keeping inflation sticky on the upside. While this will likely lead to another good quarter of earnings overall, we suspect there will be more casualties, too, as execution risk is increasing leaving dispersion high and leadership inconsistent — two more conclusions in our outlook.” This means that stock picking, while difficult, will be a necessary condition to generate meaningful returns in 2022 as the market separates the winners and losers and index basically goes nowhere over the next 12 months.

  Meanwhile, and far more ominously, Wilson also warns that “the likelihood of our bear case is growing relative to our bull case. As it stands, we would say Bear case is now 30%, Base case is still 60% while goldilocks looks like a distance 3rd at just 10%.“

  In other words, the odds that the Fed will short circuit its tightening plans are rising.

  * * *

  With that in mind, let’s focus some more on Wilson’s core assumptions, at the top of which is that…

  The change in the Fed’s reaction function is a big deal because Tapering is Tightening

  While Morgan Stanley’s base case has always assumed the Fed would respond appropriately to the higher inflation, “the pivot by Chair Powell at his recent Congressional testimony was more aggressive than what we expected, especially in light of the new Covid variant, which at the time was a known unknown.” We discussed this over the weekend in depth. Here, Wilson concedes that with Omicron now looking like a lower risk to growth than 2 weeks ago, this only raises the probability that the Fed will indeed taper its asset purchases much faster than the last tapering episode in 2014, and Morgan Stanley “economists point out that the Fed is now suggesting stable prices is important to achieving its primary goal of full employment which means inflation has taken center stage, until it’s under control.” In terms of speed, the bank’s forecast is now for the Fed to end its asset purchase program by the end of March, the same as Goldman. However, if the Fed executes on that path, “it will leave a mark on asset prices in our view.“

  Wilson also thinks Jay Powell and the Fed will be under much less pressure from the White House versus the last time they tried to take the punch bowl away in late 2018. Part of this is due to the fact that inflation is a much bigger problem today than it was in 2018 and part of it is due to the observation that this White House is not as preoccupied with the stock market. Wilson’s bottom line: “the Fed put still exists but the strike price is much lower now, in our view. If we had to guess, it’s down 20% rather than down 10% unless credit markets or economic data really start to wobble.”

  Here Wilson encounters the same challenge we have observed over the years, namely that most disagree with the conclusion that tapering is tightening (for markets, if not the economy). As evidence, those who still don’t understand that only the Flow (and not the Stock) matters, point to the tapering in 2014 as an example of how markets traded well as the Fed let the air out of the balloon back then. On that score, Wilson has makes several points to argue “it could be different this time.”

  First, in 2014, it took the Fed 10 months to taper its QE program. This time they will do it in just 4 ½ months, or twice as fast. While M2 has been decelerating this year on a global basis, it’s still running almost 8% y/y (Exhibit 1). In the US, M2 growth is running 13% and explains a lot of why nominal GDP growth is also running about 13% in the fourth quarter. After all, MV=PQ. If the Fed takes QE down to zero, its global M2 growth will slow severely and likely fall below 5% by the end of 1Q. This looks a lot like 2014 and 2018, but at a faster pace. Wilson’s guess is that growth will take a hit at a time when it’s already decelerating and increase the odds of our bear case playing out.

  

  Second, US Equity markets are much richer today and therefore more vulnerable to a swift reduction of liquidity. Specifically, the equity risk premium is 350bps today and was close to 500bps when they started the taper talk in 2013. P/Es were 14.5x versus 20x today. To be sure, rates were higher then but that is why multiples had room to rise from there as rates reflected the more hawkish Fed and inflation that was much lower then. As a result, valuations were able to hold in and even increase during that tapering episode.

  Third, growth is decelerating now while in 2013-14 it was accelerating. In addition to the PMI shown in the exhibit, earnings and economic growth were accelerating whereas both are likely to decelerate in 2021 and even outright decline for many companies, particularly in the first half of the year when the comparisons are most difficult. This, Wilson says, is what will really separate the winners from the losers  and why he is so focused on earnings stability/achievability and valuation “because small beats will likely not be enough to drive stocks higher if they have a premium P/E.”

  

  Morgan Stanley’s bottom line: given that much of the market is expensive relative to history, rather than just a few sectors or names, it suggests to this tapering episode will be different than the last one and is likely to leave the overall market lower than where we are trading today by the end of the first quarter if the Fed goes through with an expedited tapering schedule.

  In short, Powell – who was wrong about inflation being transitory for the past year and only two weeks ago admitted he was dead wrong – is about to trigger a nightmare scenario for market, and will scramble to snuff inflation just as it has already peaked, and just as the global economy is sliding into a fast slowdown.

  * * *

  But wait, there’s more because as Wilson also correctly observes, asset markets have never been more important to consumer health. That’s right: a market crash here and we spiral right into a deep recession, perhaps even worse than the Global Financial Crisis.

  While Morgan Stanley’s base case is that the economy should be able to handle the ending of QE and even some rate hikes next year, the big risk has always been that if asset markets correct more significantly it could have a greater than normal effect on the economy too given how levered the consumer is to the stock market and other asset prices like housing and crypto currencies. When just considering the stock market, it’s easy to see that consumer net worth has increased dramatically as many key assets have risen inexorably over the past 18 months. And while this is a good thing for consumer demand if prices remain elevated, it also dramatically increases the odds that the inverse will be just as painful, and tapering will quickly become tightening for the economy, too, if it leads to a significant asset price deflation.

  Here, Morgan Stanley thinks that “the risk of that is greatest over the next 3-4 months as the Fed exits QE on this faster time table.”

  

  The market has, naturally, been ignoring these risks and one place where this is especially obvious is the collapse in market breadth. Since September, breadth has rarely been this weak relative to the Index level price

  

  As Wilson concludes, “the rolling correction that began last spring continues under the surface, making the index a very bad gauge of the overall health of the stock market, or the economy, in our view.” The good news here is that the average stock has already discounted a good chunk of the risks Morgan Stanley is forecasting “even if the index has not.”

  In this regard, the bank continues to stress that watching the S&P 500 is a bad idea for measuring what the market is really telling us about the fundamentals. It also explains why it’s been so difficult for many active managers to keep up with the benchmark. And while the average stock may begin to outperform as the index catches down, Wilson warns that the absolute direction for most stocks will remain lower until the index has taken its turn on the de-rating process that began over 6 months ago. It’s also why Wilson remains overweight large cap defensive quality for now.

  One final point from the MS strategist: if there is one chart that depicts the risk off nature of the markets under the surface, it’s the MSCI large/mid cap quality index versus the Russell 2000 small cap index.

  

  As Wilson concludes, “making this very simple pivot in March as the rate of change on growth and policy peaked was the more important thing to do this year for performance… We continue to recommend this pair but with a more defensive bias on the quality side rather than growth due to valuation constraints as the Fed accelerates its taper this week.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 12/13/2021 – 20:40

• California Orders Statewide Indoor Mask Mandate
  California Orders Statewide Indoor Mask Mandate

  Authored by Jack Bradley via The Epoch Times,

  California implemented a statewide mask mandate in all indoor public settings regardless of vaccination status beginning Dec. 15.

  

  The mask mandate will remain in place until Jan. 15.

  California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said the mandate comes after a surge in CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus case rates across the state since Thanksgiving.

  “As we look at the evidence that masks do make a difference, even a 10 percent increase in indoor masking can reduce case transmission significantly,” he said.

  [ZH: We would like to see this ‘evidence’, since as far as we know there is none at all anywhere in the world that masks make any difference in transmission.]

  We are now approaching a whole year of California & Texas having nearly identical Covid death rate numbers despite California’s lockdowns & mask mandates and Texas’s re-opening back early March 2021. This chart clearly showcases an inconvenient truth for certain people. pic.twitter.com/OyBpMeoE2a

  — James Melville (@JamesMelville) July 20, 2021

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

  The state will also toughen the restriction for unvaccinated people who attend indoor “mega-events” of 1,000 people or more, requiring them to receive a negative COVID-19 test within one day of the event if it’s a rapid antigen test or within two days for a PCR test. The current rules require a test within 72 hours of the event.

  [ZH: A quick reminder, …almost 90% of at-risk Californians are vaccinated!”

  

  State officials will also recommend, but not require, that people who travel to California or return to the state after traveling be tested for COVID-19 within three to five days.

  The announcement came on the same day New York implemented a statewide mask requirement indoors.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 12/13/2021 – 20:24

• Foreigners Panic-Bought Beaten-Down China Stocks Last Week Amid Easing Bets
  Foreigners Panic-Bought Beaten-Down China Stocks Last Week Amid Easing Bets

  While some are still obsessing over Beijing’s crackdown on Chinese companies and would rather wait for the smoke to settle (i.e., Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood), others are piling into mainland China’s equities at breakneck speeds.

  Bloomberg data shows overseas investors purchased 48.8 billion yuan ($7.7 billion) via trading links with Hong Kong between Dec. 6-10. The record inflows helped boost the country’s main equity benchmark CSI 300 by 3% on the week, the best weekly gain in three months. 

  

  As we noted last week, the buying comes as strategists from Citigroup Inc. and UBS Global Wealth told clients Chinese companies’ American depositary receipts (ADR) corrections were “overdone,” and maybe now is the time to start buying beaten-down names. 

  

  We’ve pointed out in recent weeks that China has begun to ease. On Dec. 6, the PBOC cut the RRR by 50bps, effective on Dec. 15. “The aim of the RRR cut is to strengthen cross-cyclical adjustment, enhance the capital structure of financial institutions, raise financial services capabilities to better support the real economy,” the PBOC said.

  Ahead of the RRR cut, we told readers it was a telegraphed move by Premier Li Keqiang. He said that authorities would cut the RRR at an appropriate time to help smaller companies. The decision comes as Beijing is counteracting growth pressures and stabilizing the economy amid a years-long crackdown across technology companies and the property market. 

  Besides easing on the monetary front, Communist Party’s top leaders said last Friday after a three-day annual Central Economic Work Conference that a priority early next year is “ensuring stability.” This means that fiscal policy will be ramped up to support growth, presumably ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics in February. 

  “Fiscal policy is expected to play a main role in supporting growth next year,” said Ding Shuang, chief economist for Greater China at Standard Chartered Plc, while housing policies will see “fine-tuning” rather than a significant shift, he added.

  Goldman Sachs told clients last week that another RRR cut is slated in the next few months. 

  

  China is in the midst of a policy shift to counteract the downward economic pressure. Foreign investors are already front-running the PBOC and buying Chinese stocks despite a liquidity crisis at developer China Evergrande Group and other real estate firms. It’s a risky gamble to catch a falling knife. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 12/13/2021 – 20:00

• Game-Changer: The FDA Approved Eye Drops That Replace Reading Glasses
  Game-Changer: The FDA Approved Eye Drops That Replace Reading Glasses

  Authored by Joseph Brown via TheMindUnleashed.com,

  The Food and Drug Administration authorized eye drops that may possibly replace reading glasses for millions of people in October, and they entered the market this week.

  “It’s definitely a life changer,” trial participant Toni Wright told CBS. 

  “I would not need my readers as much, especially on the computer, where I would always need to have them on.”

  The drops, known as pilocarpine, and sold by pharma outlet Allergan under the name “Vuity,” might help the 128 million people in the United States who are nearsighted.

  One drop in each eye, according to the business, may enhance closeup eyesight for six to ten hours, according to CBS News.

  

  The drops function by utilizing the eye’s natural capacity to shrink its pupil.

  “Reducing the pupil size expands the depth of field or the depth of focus, and that allows you to focus at different ranges naturally,” George Waring, lead investigator of a clinical trial, told CBS.

  At $80 for a 30-day supply, the drops aren’t cheap, but they’re also not excessively pricey, considering the benefit..

  However, it is not a cure-all, and headaches and burning eyes are two of the most common adverse effects reported. The manufacturer also advises against using the drops at night while driving or when operating machinery.

  Middle-aged adults are the ones who benefit the most from the drops. According to CBS, those over the age of 65 will be less affected by them.

  Millions of people find wearing reading glasses inconvenient, therefore getting rid of them is surely appealing.

  Along with revolutionary technologies like Lasik, humans are continually moving towards a future where problems with eyesight are a thing of the past. Nice.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 12/13/2021 – 19:40

• Watch: Bizarre Moment White House Cut Taiwanese Official's Video Feed Over Map
  Watch: Bizarre Moment White House Cut Taiwanese Official’s Video Feed Over Map

  It’s been revealed that at last week’s Summit for Democracy the Biden administration was so afraid of offending China that it temporarily shut off the video feed of a Taiwanese minister at the moment a map was featured on the screen depicting Taiwan as independent of China.

  Reuters first reported that in this “curious” case – which the White House is now disputing that it had awareness of – the video of Taiwanese Digital Minister Audrey Tang was abruptly pulled after the official showed the controversial map for about a minute on Friday. 

  

  In place of the cut video, there appeared words on the screen that said: “Any opinions expressed by individuals on this panel are those of the individual, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States government.”

  The intervention came despite that China wasn’t even invited to the democracy summit in the first place, and was not represented at the virtual forum. Beijing was further angered that Taiwan was invited, despite not being a globally recognized country, as China claims it as its own.

  The Hill summarized specifics of the map as follows:

  The video was replaced with an audio-only feed at the White House’s request, the news wire reported. The presentation showed a color-coded map that ranked global openness to civil rights. Taiwan was labeled as green, or “open,” while other countries in Asia were marked as “closed,” “repressed,” “obstructed” or “narrowed.

  The Reuters report, based on its sources, indicated the video feed was cut was on deliberate orders from the White House given Tang’s presentation and map were in direct contradiction of the US official “one China” policy, further coming at a sensitive moment for US-China relations, which remain at a historic low point.

  Watch what every nation’s officials logged into the summit saw, as the moderator quickly clamped down on Tang’s presentation, trying to explain it away as part of the summit’s “diversity” of opinions:

  Irony @ The Summit for Democracy 12/10

  1. Taiwan minister’s map shows Taiwan separate from China
  2. Video feed is cut when it comes back to her
  3. “Any opinions expressed by individuals on this panel are those of the individual, and do not necessarily reflect the views US gov’t” pic.twitter.com/WYwSGhzFQ4

  — Peznt Journalist (@PezntJournalist) December 13, 2021

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

  The State Department, however, is claiming it was an “honest mistake” due to “confusion” and that the video feed was not supposed to have been cut off for any length of time.

  However, emails also seen by Reuters directly contradict the administration’s rebuttal, as NY Post summarizes:

  According to Reuters, Tang’s map sparked a flurry of emails between US officials, and the National Security Council reached out to the State Department to complain that the slide had not been included in “dry-run” versions of the presentation before the summit.

  “They choked,” one source told Reuters of the White House reaction.

  “It was clearly policy concerns,” a second source told Reuters, adding: “This was completely an internal overreaction.”

  Ironically this act of “internal overreaction” which literally led to aggressive on-the-spot censorship of the Taiwan official’s speech, was done at Biden’s democracy summit which has been billed as an attempt to “tackle the greatest threats faced by democracies today through collective action.” Though clearly Taiwan’s delegation experienced something very different.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 12/13/2021 – 19:20

• Border Patrol Agents Forced To Undergo Woke Re-Education Training Amid Massive Immigration Crisis; Report
  Border Patrol Agents Forced To Undergo Woke Re-Education Training Amid Massive Immigration Crisis; Report

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  While the United States faces the greatest immigration crisis in its history, the department of Customs and Border Protection is forcing Border Patrol agents and other staff to undergo “unconscious bias” training, according to reports.

  

  The Washington Free Beacon reports that agents are today being educated on “the impact of stereotypes and unconscious biases” in a seminar hosted by Susan Fleming, who is described as an “expert in gender bias”.

  The report further notes that the seminar “will draw on academic research, business experience, and unique perspectives to explore the complex web of beliefs and biases that influence our interactions with colleagues, as well as discussing strategies for individuals and organizations to start overcoming unconscious biases.”

  In other words, its some woke bullshit re-education camp.

  Speaking to the Beacon, an anonymous Department of Homeland Security official commented “CBP doesn’t have the people to properly patrol our nation’s borders but we do have the time to step away from work hours to have a conversation on ‘unconscious bias.’”

  Earlier this year, the conduct of border patrol agents came into focus when the media and the Biden administration hyped up hysteria over photos appearing to show Haitian migrants being whipped by agents with horse reigns.

  Cursory inspection of the incident proved that was total bunk, but the White House Press Secretary later stated that it didn’t matter, and there still needs to be investigation and reform.

  In October, the former chief of the Border Patrol Rodney Scott warned that an unprecedented number of illegal immigrants are being allowed to pour over the border, with over 90% remaining undocumented.

  Scott also outlined that the Biden administration is still paying contractors who were supposed to build the border wall up to $5 million per day even though all construction has been halted.

  On the surge of illegals at the border, Scott said the Biden administration is purposefully “choosing not to take simple, common-sense steps to secure the border.”

  “I personally participated in some of the transition meetings; my staff participated in all of the transition meetings; we made it very clear that if we dropped all the initiatives that had been put in place over the last several years that we would get an influx of mass migration that we would not be able to control,” he further proclaimed.

  “The result of that is the message goes out, and then instead of having a couple hundred encounters a day, we quickly went up to about 6,000 encounters a day,” Scott urged.

  WATCH:

  Border patrol agents are also facing re-education training regarding vaccine mandates, with CBP’s own internal documents showing that up to half of its force face being fired for refusing the shots.

  Former chief operating officer of CBP Mark Morgan, who obtained the internal report, told Fox News that Biden’s vaccine mandate is “going to take an agency that’s already gone through an unbelievable catastrophic crisis on the southwest border and deplete its resources further.”

  *  *  *

  Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

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  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 12/13/2021 – 19:00

• Hospitals Dropping Vax Mandate Due To Labor Shortages, Court Order
  Hospitals Dropping Vax Mandate Due To Labor Shortages, Court Order

  On Sunday we noted that hospitals in four states have called in the National Guard to help alleviate a severe healthcare worker shortage caused by mass firings of those who refuse to comply with vaccine mandates.

  

  Now, the Wall Street Journal reports that some of the largest US hospital systems have dropped vaccine mandates for workers amid soaring labor costs and struggles retaining enough nurses, technicians, ‘and even janitors’ to handle higher hospitalization rates due to the Delta variant.

  According to hospital execs, public health authorities and nursing groups, pre-pandemic shortages of workers, including nurses, have been compounded by burnout, as well as the lucrative lure of nurses who work on short-term contracts in Covid hot spots.

  More recently, thousands of nurses have left the industry or lost their jobs rather than get vaccinated. As of September, 30% of workers at more than 2,000 hospitals across the country surveyed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were unvaccinated.

  “It’s been a mass exodus, and a lot of people in the healthcare industry are willing to go and shop around,” according to employment attorney Wade Symons, head of Mercer’s US regulatory practice. “If you get certain healthcare facilities that don’t require it, those could be a magnet for those people who don’t want the vaccine. They’ll probably have an easier time attracting labor.”

  In November, a federal judge in Louisiana ruled that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services didn’t have the authority to force healthcare workers to take the jab – blocking a Biden admin rule which would have applied to some 10 million workers and would have required all employees at facilities participating in Medicare / Medicaid take the jab by Jan. 4.

  “I don’t think the mandates were helpful and I think the court in Louisiana did everyone a service,” said Ballad Health CEO Alan Levine, who oversees the administration of 21 hospitals in Tennessee and Virginia.

  Mr. Levine said his company has about 14,000 employees, some 2,000 of whom are unvaccinated or didn’t request an exemption to the requirement. “That many people having to be terminated would have been devastating to our system,” Mr. Levine said. -WSJ

  Meanwhile, one of the country’s largest healthcare providers, HCA, suspended their previous deadline of Jan. 4 for all workers following the court halt.

  “We continue to strongly encourage our colleagues to be vaccinated as a critical step to protect individuals from the virus,” said spokesman Harlow Sumerford, who added that a majority of their roughly 275,000 workers were fully vaccinated.

  Tenet and AdventHealth also announced that they were waiving the requirement following the court decision, while the Cleveland Clinic – which runs 19 hospitals in Ohio and Florida and employees roughly 65,000 people, along with Utah hospital giant Intermountain Healthcare, said they would similarly suspend the vax requirement.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 12/13/2021 – 18:40

• Female UPenn Swimmers Demoralized: "No Matter How Much Work They Put In, They're Going To Lose"
  Female UPenn Swimmers Demoralized: “No Matter How Much Work They Put In, They’re Going To Lose”

  Authored by Jennifer Kabbany via TheCollegeFix.com,

  Two female University of Pennsylvania swimmers have recently voiced their frustrations to OutKick regarding their teammate, transgender Penn swimmer Lia Thomas, who is smashing collegiate records previously set by biological females in the sport.

  

  Thomas has brought teammates to tears and created a sense of hopelessness among the female athletes, reports Outkick, which interviewed the students anonymously as campus brass has urged them not to talk to media:

  The second Penn swimmer to come forward was at the University of Akron Zippy Invitational where she watched Lia Thomas beat fellow teammate Anna Kalandadze by 38 seconds in the 1650 freestyle. OutKick’s source described Penn swimmers on the Akron pool deck as upset and crying, knowing they were going to be demolished by Thomas.

  “They feel so discouraged because no matter how much work they put in it, they’re going to lose. Usually, they can get behind the blocks and know they out-trained all their competitors and they’re going to win and give it all they’ve got,” the source said.

  “Now they’re having to go behind the blocks knowing no matter what, they do not have the chance to win. I think that it’s really getting to everyone.”

  According to Outkick, Thomas bragged on the sidelines at Akron about being number one in the nation.

  “That was so easy, I was cruising,” Thomas allegedly said after one race. After another race, Thomas was allegedly unhappy with his time but said “At least I’m still No. 1 in the country.”

  

  Another female swim teammate told Outkick that “Pretty much everyone individually has spoken to our coaches about not liking this. Our coach [Mike Schnur] just really likes winning. He’s like most coaches. I think secretly everyone just knows it’s the wrong thing to do.”

  According to NCAA’s policy, biological males who identify as female can compete on women’s sports teams after one year of testosterone suppression treatment.

  Thomas previously swam on the Ivy League university’s men’s team for three years and transitioned during the COVID year off.

  “For Thomas’ first two seasons at Penn, she competed on the men’s team, most recently in November 2019, where she also achieved great success. She qualified for the Ivy League Championships in the 500 free, 1000 free, and 1650 free in her 2018 and 2019 seasons, finishing second overall in each event in 2019,” the Daily Pennsylvanian campus newspaper reports.

  Thomas is now smashing women’s swim time records. In one race at Akron, Thomas beat biological female competitors by 38 seconds.

  An editorial by John Lohn, Swimming World Magazine’s editor-in-Chief, urges the NCAA to not allow Thomas to compete at its March 2022 championships, calling it an “unfair setting.”

  “Athletes transitioning from male to female possess the inherent advantage of years of testosterone production and muscle-building. There is also the advantage (in many cases) of larger body frames, hands and feet,” Lohn wrote.

  “All of these traits are beneficial in the sport of swimming. In the case of Thomas, she had nearly 20 years of this testosterone-building advantage, something cisgender women could not attain. Although she took part in the testosterone-suppression process, a look at her performances clearly reflects that she is benefitting from the genetics of her birth sex.”

  “Well, obviously she’s No. 1 in the country because she’s at a clear physical advantage after having gone through male puberty and getting to train with testosterone for years,” OutKick’s source said.

  “Of course you’re No. 1 in the country when you’re beating a bunch of females. That’s not something to brag about.”

  A team source who was at Wednesday’s meeting says the administration drew a line in the sand and announced that Thomas wasn’t going anywhere and it was non-negotiable. That leaves disgusted teammates no choice but to either stay quiet or speak up against the wishes of the school and risk repercussions.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 12/13/2021 – 18:20

• Hillary Warns 'End Of Democracy' If Trump Wins In 2024; MSNBC Gets Even More Dramatic With Biden Overthrow
  Hillary Warns ‘End Of Democracy’ If Trump Wins In 2024; MSNBC Gets Even More Dramatic With Biden Overthrow

  In today’s episode of ‘divide and be afraid,’ dramatic Democrats are sounding the alarm over ‘the end of Democracy as we know it’ if Trump wins again in 2024, and ’30 million Republicans’ who are apparently ready to launch a coup to remove Joe Biden.

  

  Both claims are, of course, evidence-free.

  During an appearance on The Today Show, twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton warned that Trump winning the 2024 election would signal the end of America’s 244-year experiment in democracy.

  “If I were a betting person right now, I’d say Trump is going to run again. He seems to be setting himself up to do that, and if he’s not held accountable, then he gets to do it again. I think that could be the end of our democracy. Not to be too pointed about it, but I want people to understand that this is a make-or-break point. If he or someone of his ilk were once again to be elected president, and if especially if he had a Congress that would do his bidding, you will not recognize our country,” she said, adding “I tried to warn people. I tried to make the case that this was really dangerous — the people he was allied with, what they were saying, what he might do. I do think, but for Jim Comey and the stunt he pulled 10 days before the election against me, I would have won. I feel terrible about not stopping him and the people around him, but I feel like now everybody can see for themselves what kind of leader he is.”

  “Clearly, there were people who liked what they saw, despite what I see as the real dangers to our country. They turned out and voted for him. And he’s trying to get it set up so that will happen again for him.”

  (h/t citizenfreepress)

  Meanwhile, MSNBC national affairs analyst John Heilemann thinks that “20 to 30 million people” are ready to “take up arms” to remove President Biden from office – telling “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd: “There is this research that shows something like 8% and maybe up to 12% who say that Joe Biden was illegitimate and that violence is a suitable tool to remove him and restore Donald Trump. This represents between 20 and 30 million people,” Heilemann said, claiming these supposed “20 to 30 million people” are ready to “take up arms.”

  The insurrectiony Trump supporters are a “mass movement in favor of political violence,” apparently.

  WATCH: The Donald Trump coup in 2024? @jheil lays out the extraordinary realities of the mass movement in America.

  “This is 30 million people right now who are ready to take up arms” to restoring Donald Trump in office. “That’s not hyperbolic at all. Those are all facts.” pic.twitter.com/Qc4kZRXnVs

  — Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) December 12, 2021

  The panel was discussing a recent article in The Atlantic by Barton Gellman which argued that Trump’s “coup” will “rely on subversion more than violence.” 

  It suggests that the January 6th Capitol riot was “practice” – which Gelman suggested could lead to a 2024 election that isn’t decided by votes, but force.

  Dun dun dun….

  @bartongellman Funny coming from a crew that spent 4-5 years destroying trust in the 2016 election process and excusing away lefty street violence by ANTIFA/BLM-related people.

  cc @pnjaban @chucktodd

  — Yossi Gestetner (@YossiGestetner) December 12, 2021

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

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 12/13/2021 – 18:00

• San Francisco Drug Overdose Deaths Nearly Triple COVID
  San Francisco Drug Overdose Deaths Nearly Triple COVID

  Authored by Ilene Eng via The Epoch Times,

  San Francisco continues to face a drug overdose epidemic. The number of overdose deaths nearly tripled that of COVID deaths in 2020.

  

  The city’s data reveals there were a total of 713 overdose deaths, compared to 261 COVID-19 deaths in 2020.

  “Bad is an understatement. I would say it’s horrific, it is negligent, it is an epidemic in and of itself, and it was not always this way,” Jenny Shao, a freelance multimedia video journalist and San Francisco native, told NTD Television.

  She says drug overdoses have been an ongoing crisis for the city but have gotten much worse over the last five years.

  “Before, you were able to walk through the streets … and you did not have to try and tiptoe over bodies not knowing whether they were dead or alive.” Shao said.

  Shao continued, “And, also, you did not have to hopscotch through anything like drug paraphernalia … and you were not literally walking through a scene, of say, ‘The Night of the Living Dead,’” Shao said.

  One drug addict’s mother has described it as a “Zombie Apocalypse.” Her 32-year-old son is addicted to fentanyl, which has left him homeless and physically “bent over” so that he “walks like an old man.”

  People have also described the city as a Third-World country with human waste and needles on the street. City officials have made efforts to tackle the problem.

  According to one report from the Department of Public Health, San Francisco distributes 4.45 million needles every year to drug users.

  In July, San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced the city will invest $13.2 million to prevent drug overdoses. It includes opening centers to provide beds and treatment for the intoxicated and expanding access to buprenorphine, an opioid used to treat opioid-use disorder.

  Recently, city officials are pushing for safe injection sites as part of their overdose prevention program, which could start as soon as next spring.

  But according to Shao, not a single center offered alternatives to drugs. She said that’s like putting a Band-Aid on the problem and “fast-tracking a way to self-destruction.”

  “The idea is sobriety, and that’s the golden key,” Shao said.

  “You do not want to be dependent on these drugs. And from what I understand of these harm-reduction sites—as the city likes to call them—is that you are putting yourself at less risk, of say, overdose or harm. But, nevertheless, you are still locked in that state of constantly abusing yourself. And, so to speak, teetering on the border of death.”

  Shao says the city needs to invest in more mental health programs.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 12/13/2021 – 17:40

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