Jun 14

Today’s News 14th June 2019

  • Party Foul: The London Metals Exchange Has Banned Drinking During The Workday

    You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

    Daytime drinking, which we previously reported had become a point of contention at Lloyd’s of London, has now been banned for metals traders at the London Metal Exchange. What used to be a staple of the open outcry pit at the LME is no longer, according to Bloomberg.

    In a meeting on Thursday, the LME notified its open outcry dealers that it is now expecting a zero tolerance alcohol policy for floor traders, who are responsible for setting the global benchmark prices for metals like copper and aluminum. The exchange said that they could impose fines and trading bans on individuals for breaking the rules.

    The LME already bans what Bloomberg called “engaging in drunken behavior” (like buying equities?) on the floor, but this policy would go further to break the long-held correlation with open outcry traders and heavy drinking that stretches back to Victorian times.

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    For instance, Nigel Farage, who started his career on the trading floor before politics, has often recounted details of “his booze fueled exploits” during his career in London. It is just one account that has helped perpetuate the image of drinking being associated with being a metals trader.

    Many member firms of the LME have also sought to clean up the industry’s reputation. The exchange added rules in April that would prohibit members from holding “sleazy parties” at venues such as strip clubs and casinos – because the LME isn’t a casino in and of itself, right? The ban was part of a new code of conduct, which we’re sure will likely be ridiculed as it’s passed around the table over pints at lunch by long established metals traders.

    The ban also follows the zero-tolerance policy announced by Lloyd’s of London that we wrote about months ago, after Bloomberg Businessweek reported a “deep-steated culture of sexual misconduct” in the UK capital’s insurance market. The LME was previously located on the same road as Lloyd’s, and metals traders often frequented the same pubs as Lloyd’s dealers.

  • The Hitlerization Of Jeremy Corbyn (Among Others)

    Authored (satirically) by CJ Hopkins via The Unz Review,

    Every time you think the corporatocracy’s manufactured anti-Semitism hysteria cannot possibly get more absurd, they somehow manage to outdo themselves. OK, stay with me now, because this is a weird one.

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    Apparently, American Hitler and his cronies are conspiring with some secret group of “Jewish leaders” to stop British Hitler from becoming prime minister and wiping out all the Jews in Great Britain. Weird, right? But that’s not the weird part, because maybe American Hitler wants to wipe out all the Jews in Great Britain himself, rather than leaving it to British Hitler … Hitlers being notoriously jealous regarding their genocidal accomplishments.

    No, the weird part is that everyone knows that American Hitler does not make a move without the approval of Russian Hitler, who is also obsessed with wiping out the Jews, and with destroying the fabric of Western democracy. So why would Russian Hitler want to let American Hitler and his goons thwart the ascendancy of British Hitler, who, in addition to wanting to wipe out all the Jews, also wants to destroy democracy by fascistically refunding the NHS, renationalizing the rail system, and so on?

    It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, does it? In any event, here’s the official story.

    In “a recording leaked to The Washington Post,” and then flogged by the rest of the corporate media, Reichsminister des Auswärtigen, Mike Pompeo, told a group of unnamed “Jewish leaders” that American Hitler (i.e., Donald Trump) will “push back” (i.e., intervene) against British Hitler (i.e., Jeremy Corbyn) to protect the lives of Jews in Great Britain if British Hitler becomes prime minister (and is possibly already doing so now). The identities of these “Jewish leaders” have not been disclosed by the corporate media, presumably in order to protect them from being murdered by Corbyn’s Nazi hit squad. Whoever they were, they wanted to know whether American Hitler and his fascist cabinet were “willing to work with [them] to take on actions if life becomes very difficult for Jews” after Jeremy Corbyn seizes power, declares himself Führer of Communist Britannia, and orders the immediate invasion of France.

    To anyone who has been closely following the corporate media’s relentless coverage of Jeremy Corbyn’s Nazi Death Cult (i.e., the UK Labour Party) and the global Anti-Semitism Pandemic, it comes as no real surprise that this group of “Jewish leaders” (whoever they are) would want to stop him from becoming prime minister. I doubt that their motives have much to do with fighting anti-Semitism, or anything else specifically “Jewish,” but … well, I’m kind of old-fashioned that way. I still believe there’s a fundamental difference between “the Jews” and the global capitalist ruling classes.

    I realize that both the neoliberal establishment and the neo-fascist fringe disagree with me, and that both are determined (for different reasons) to conflate the two in the public’s mind, but that’s my take, and I’m sticking to it. I don’t think the world is controlled by “the Jews.” I think it’s controlled by global capitalism.

    Go ahead, call me a conspiracy theorist. Here’s how the anti-Semitism panic in the United Kingdom looks to me.

    After nearly 40 years of privatization and restructuring, British society is on the brink of being permanently transformed into the type of savage, neo-feudal, corporatist nightmare that the USA already is. The global capitalist ruling classes are extremely pleased about this state of affairs. They would now like to finish up privatizing Britain, so they can get on with privatizing the rest of Europe. The last thing they need at this critical juncture is Jeremy Corbyn to become prime minister and start attempting to remake their nascent neoliberal marketplace into a society … you know, where healthcare is guaranteed to all, you don’t need a mortgage to buy a train ticket, and people don’t have to eat out of trash bins.

    Unlike in the USA, where there is no functional political Left, and where the non-parliamentary “two-party system” is almost totally controlled by the corporatocracy, in the UK, there are still a few old-fashioned socialists, and they have taken back the Labour Party from the neoliberal Blairite stooges that had been managing the transformation of Britain into the aforementioned neo-feudal nightmare. Jeremy Corbyn is the leader of these socialists. So the corporatocracy needs to destroy him, take back control of the Labour Party, and turn it back into a fake left party, like the Democratic Party in the USA, so they can concentrate on crushing the right-wing populists. Thus, they need to Hitlerize Corbyn, so they can fold him into their official narrative, Democracy vs. The Putin-Nazis.

    And, see, this is what makes the corporatocracy’s War on Populism so seemingly psychotic … at least to anyone paying attention.

    In the USA, the populist insurgency is primarily a right-wing phenomenon (because, again, there is no Left to speak of). Thus, the neoliberal ruling classes are focused on Hitlerizing Donald Trump, and stigmatizing the millions of Americans who voted for him as a bunch of Nazis. Hitlerizing Trump has been ridiculously easy (he almost Hitlerizes himself), but the ultimate goal is to delegitimize the populist sentiment that put him into office. That sentiment is primarily neo-nationalist. So it’s a one-front counter-insurgency op (i.e., neoliberalism versus neo-nationalism).

    In the UK, things are not that simple. There, the neoliberal ruling classes are waging a counter-insurgency op against populist forces on two major fronts: (1) the Brexiters (i.e., nationalism); and (2) the Corbynists (i.e., socialism). They’re getting hit from both the left and right, which is screwing up the official narrative (according to which the “enemies of democracy” are supposed to be right-wing neo-nationalists). So, as contradictory and absurd as it sounds, they needed to conflate both left and right populism into one big scary Hitlerian enemy. Thus, they needed to Hitlerize Corbyn. Presto … Labour Anti-Semitism crisis!

    Now, anyone who is isn’t a gibbering idiot knows that Jeremy Corbyn is not an anti-Semite and the Labour Party is not a hive of Nazis. It’s a testament to the power of the corporate media that such a statement even needs to be made … but, of course, that’s the point of the smear campaign the neoliberal corporate media have been waging for the last three years.

    Smear campaigns are simple and effective. The goal is to force your target and his allies into proclaiming things like, “I am not an anti-Semite,” or “I’ve never had sex with underage boys,” or whatever smear you want to force them to deny. You don’t have to prove your target guilty. You’re just trying to conjure up a “reality” in which every time someone thinks of your target they associate him with the content of your smears.

    The corporate media have done just that, to Jeremy Corbyn, to Donald Trump, to Putin, and to assorted lesser figures. They did it to Sanders in 2016. They are doing it now to Tulsi Gabbard. The goal is not only to smear these targets, but also, and more so, to conjure a “world” that reifies the narrative of their smears … a binary “good versus evil” world, a world in which whatever they want to accuse their targets of being linked to (e.g., terrorism, fascism, racism, or whatever) is the official enemy of all that is good.

    Since the Brexit referendum and the election of Trump, the ruling classes have conjured up a world where “democracy” is perpetually under attack by a global conspiracy of “Russians” and “Nazis” (just as they previously conjured up a world where it was perpetually under attack by “terrorists”). They have conjured up a post-Orwellian reality in which “democracy” (i.e., global capitalism) is the only alternative to “neo-fascism” (i.e., anything opposed to global capitalism).

    And this is why Corbyn had to be Hitlerized, and why Putin, Trump, Assad, Gabbard, Assange, the “Yellow Vest” protesters in France, and anyone else opposing global neoliberalism has to be Hitlerized. Socialism, nationalism … it makes no difference, not to the global capitalist ruling classes. There are always only two sides in these “worlds” that the ruling classes conjure up for us, and there can be only one official enemy. The official enemy of the moment is “fascism.” Therefore, all the “bad guys” are Hitler, or Nazis, or racists, or anti-Semites, or some other variation of Hitler.

    The fact that this “reality” they have conjured up for us is completely psychotic makes it no less real. And it is only going to get more insane until the corporatocracy restores “normality.” So, go ahead, if you consider yourself “normal,” and try to force your mind to believe that…

    Jews are no longer safe in Great Britain, or in Germany, or France, or the USA,

    and that Donald Trump is a Russian asset,

    and is also literally Adolf Hitler,

    and an anti-Semitic white supremacist who is conspiring with Israel and Saudi Arabia in their campaign to destroy Iran and Syria,

    which are allies of his Russian masters, as is Venezuela, which he is also menacing,

    and that Jeremy Corbyn’s secret plan is to turn the UK into Nazi Germany,

    with the support of Trump,

    who is trying to destroy him,

    and that the Yellow Vests are Russian-backed fascists,

    and that Julian Assange is a rapist spy who conspired with Russia to get Trump elected,

    which is why Trump wants to prosecute him,

    just as soon as he finishes wiping out the Jews,

    or protecting them from Jeremy Corbyn,

    or from Iran,

    or brainwashing Black Americans into reelecting him in 2020 with a handful of Russian Facebook ads.

    Go ahead, try to reconcile all that … or whatever, don’t.

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    Just take whatever medication you happen to be on, crank up CNN, MSNBC, or any other corporate media channel, and report me to the Internet Police for posting dangerous “extremist” content. You know, in your heart, I probably deserve it.

  • From Dollar Hegemony To Global Warming: Globalization, Glyphosate, And Doctrines Of Consent

    Authored by Colin Todhunter via Counterpunch.org,

    There has been an on-going tectonic shift in the West since the abandonment of the Bretton Woods agreement in 1971. This accelerated when the USSR ended and has resulted in the ‘neoliberal globalization’ we see today.

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    At the same time, there has been an unprecedented campaign to re-engineer social consensus in the West. Part of this strategy, involves getting populations in Western countries to fixate on ‘global warming’, ‘gender equity’ and ‘anti-racism’: by focusing on identity politics and climate change, the devastating effects and injustices brought about by globalized capitalism and associated militarism largely remain unchallenged by the masses and stay firmly in the background.

    This is the argument presented by Denis Rancourt, researcher at Ontario Civil Liberties Association, in a new report. Rancourt is a former full professor of physics at the University of Ottawa in Canada and author of ‘Geo-economics and geo-politics drive successive eras of predatory globalization and social engineering: Historical emergence of climate change, gender equity, and anti-racism as state doctrines’ (April 2019).

    In the report, Rancourt references Michael Hudson’s 1972 book ‘Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire’ to help explain the key role of maintaining dollar hegemony and the importance of the petrodollar to US global dominance. Aside from the significance of oil, Rancourt argues that the US has an existential interest to ensure that opioid drugs are traded in US dollars, another major global commodity. This explains the US occupation of Afghanistan. He also pinpoints the importance of US agribusiness and the arms industry in helping to secure US geostrategic goals.

    Since the fall of the USSR in 1991, Rancourt says that US war campaigns have, among other things, protected the US dollar from abandonment, destroyed nations seeking sovereignty from US dominance, secured the opium trade, increased control over oil and have frustrated Eurasian integration. In addition, we have seen certain countries face a bombardment of sanctions and hostility in an attempt to destroy energy-producing centres that the US does not control, not least Russia.

    He also outlines the impacts within Western countries too, including: the systematic relative loss of middle-class economic status, the rise of urban homelessness, the decimation of the industrial working class, corporate megamergers, rising inequality, the dismantling of welfare, financial speculation, stagnant wages, debt, deregulation and privatisation. In addition, the increased leniency in food and drug regulation has led to the dramatic increase in the use of the herbicide glyphosate, which has been concurrent with upsurges of many diseases and chronic ailments.

    In the face of this devastation, Western nations have had to secure ongoing consent among their own populations. To help explain how this has been achieved, Rancourt focuses on gender equity, anti-racism and global warming as state doctrines that have been used to divert attention from the machinations of US empire (and also to prevent class consciousness taking hold). I recently asked Denis Rancourt about this aspect of his report.

    CT: Can you say a bit about yourself and how you came to produce this report? What is it meant to achieve?

    DR:  I’m a former physics professor, environmental scientist and a civil rights advocate. I currently work as a researcher for the Ontario Civil Liberties Association (ocla.ca). During a conversation about civil rights issues I had with the executive director of OCLA, we identified several important societal and economic phenomena that seemed to be related to the early 1990s. So, I eventually settled in to do some ‘heavy lifting’, research wise.

    While there is no lack of hired intellectuals and experts to wrongly guide our perception, my research demonstrates a link between surges in large-scale suppression and exploitation of national populations with the acceleration of an aggressive, exploitative globalization.

    CT: In your report, you’ve described the consequences of the abandonment of Bretton Woods and the dissolution of the USSR in terms of dollar hegemony, US militarism and the devastating impacts of ‘neoliberal globalisation’ both for nation states and for ordinary people.

    There is little doubt that Russian and Chinese analysts have a solid understanding of what I have outlined in my report. For instance, foreshadowing Trump’s trade war, the People’s Liberation Army Major-General Qiao Liang’s April 2015 speech to the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee and government office, included the following:

    “Since that day [dissolution of Bretton Woods], a true financial empire has emerged, the US dollar’s hegemony has been established, and we have entered a true paper currency era. There is no precious metal behind the US dollar. The government’s credit is the sole support for the US dollar. The US makes a profit from the whole world. This means that the Americans can obtain material wealth from the world by printing a piece of green paper. […] If we [now] acknowledge that there is a US dollar index cycle [punctuated by engineered crises, including war] and the Americans use this cycle to harvest from other countries, then we can conclude that it was time for the Americans to harvest China…”

    CT: You discuss the need for states to ensure consent: the need to pacify, hypnotize and align populations for continued globalization; more precisely, the need to divert attention from the structural violence of economic policies and the actual violence of militarism. Can you say something about how the issue of global warming relates to this?

    DR:  Irrespective of whether the so-called ‘climate crisis’ is real, exaggerated or fabricated, it is clear, from the data in my report, that the ethos of global warming was engineered on a global scale and benefits the exploiters of the carbon-economy and, more indirectly, the state.

    For example, one of the studies that I review shows that a many-fold increase in mainstream media reporting about global warming suddenly occurred in the mid-2000s, in all the leading news media, at the same time that the financiers and their acolytes such as Al Gore decided to make and manage a global carbon economy. This media campaign has been sustained ever since and the global warming ethos has been institutionalized.

    Carbon sequestration schemes have devastated local communities on every occupied continent. If anything, carbon schemes − from wind farms to biofuel harvesting to industrial battery production to solar-cell array installations to mining uranium to mega hydro-dam construction and so on – have accelerated habitat destruction.

    Meanwhile, economic and military warfare rages, glyphosate is dumped into the ecosphere at unprecedented rates (poured on GM herbicide-resistant cash crops), active genocides are in progress (Yemen), the US is unilaterally withdrawing from nuclear treaties and forcing an arms race with next generation death machines and US-held extortionary loans are serviced by land-use transformation on the scale of nations; while our educated children have nervous breakdowns trying to get governments to “act” on “climate”.

    In the early-1990s, a world conference on climate environmentalism was an express response to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This was part of a global propaganda project intended to mask the new wave of accelerated predatory globalism that was unleashed now that the USSR was definitively out of the way.

    CT: What are your thoughts on Greta Thunberg and the movement surrounding her?

    DR:  It is sad and pathetic. The movement is a testament to the success of the global propaganda project that I describe in my report. The movement is also an indicator of the degree to which totalitarianism has taken hold in Western societies; wherein individuals, associations and institutions lose their ability for independent thought to steer society away from the designs of an occupying elite. Individuals (and their parents) become morality police in the service of this ‘environmentalism’.

    CT: You also talk about the emergence of gender-equity (third wave feminism) and anti-racism as state doctrines. Can you say something about this? 

    DR: In my report, I use historical institutional records and societal data to demonstrate that a triad of ‘state religions’ was globally engendered and emerged on cue following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This triad consists of climate alarmism, exaggerated tunnel-vision focus on gender equity and a campaign of anti-racism focussed on engineering thoughts, language and attitudes.

    These state ideologies were conceived and propelled by UN efforts and the resulting signed protocols. Western academia enthusiastically took up and institutionalized the program. Mainstream media religiously promoted the newly minted ethos. Political parties largely applied increased quotas of gender and race elected representatives.

    These processes and ideas served to sooth, massage and occupy the Western mind, especially among the upper-middle, professional and managerial classes and the elite classes of economically occupied territories but did nothing to alleviate the most violent and globally widespread forms of actual racism and misogyny as a result of predatory globalization and militarism.

    Ironically, the global attacks on human dignity, human health and the environment were in proportion to the systematic and sometimes shrill calls for gender equity, anti-racism and climate ‘action’. The entire edifice of these ‘state religions’ leaves no room for required conflicts of class and expressly undermines any questioning of the mechanisms and consequences of globalization.

    CT: Can you say something about the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests), Brexit and the Trump electoral phenomenon.

    DR: Combine aggressive globalization, constant financial predation, gutting of the Western working and middle classes and a glib discourse of climate change, anti-racism and gender equity and something has to give. French geographer Christophe Guilluy predicted the reactions in some detail, and it is not difficult to understand. It is no accident that the revolting working- and middle-classes are critical of the narratives of climate crisis, anti-racism and gender equity; and that their voices are cast by the mainstream media as racist, misogynist and ignorant of science.

    It seems that any class which opposes its own destruction is accused of being populated by racist and ignorant folks that can’t see that salvation lies in a carbon-managed and globalized world. It becomes imperative, therefore, to shut down all the venues where such an ‘ignorant lot’ could communicate their views, attempt to organize and thereby threaten the prevailing social order.

  • A Timeline Of U-Turns From The Chinese Market

    China’s economic surge is one of the biggest stories of the 21st century.

    Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty, and China’s swelling middle class has attracted the interest of Western companies.

    But, as Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley details below, many American companies have discovered, doing business in China is far from straightforward. Recent history is littered with examples of companies that entered the Chinese market to great fanfare, only to retreat a few years later.

    Calling Off The Offensive

    Today’s infographic highlights 11 companies that ended up tapping the brakes on their ambitious forays on the other side of the Pacific.

    Then, we take a look at the factors that influenced these strategic withdrawals.

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    Here are some high profile examples of corporate u-turns by American companies operating in the Chinese market:

    Google

    When Google China’s search engine was launched in 2006, the company had made the controversial decision to censor search results within the country. Google publicly displayed a disclaimer indicating that some results were removed, which created tensions with the Chinese government.

    For a while, things seemed to be going well. Even though a domestic company, Baidu, had captured the majority of the Chinese search market, Google did have a respectable market share of about 30%.

    Google China’s fortune took a turn for the worse in 2010 after a major hack – Operation Aurora – exposed user data as well as intellectual property. The hack, which originated from within China, was the last straw for Google’s executive team. After one last ditch effort to provide unfiltered search results within China, the company retreated beyond the firewall.

    Amazon

    Amazon was an early entrant into the Chinese market. In 2004, the company acquired Joyo – an online shopping site – which was eventually rebranded to Amazon China in 2011.

    Amazon China achieved some early success hitting a market share of around 15%, but today, that market share has eroded to less than 1%. Facing nearly insurmountable competition from domestic e-commerce platforms like JD and Taobao, the company recently announced it would be exiting the Chinese market.

    Uber

    After arriving fashionably late for the ride-hailing party in 2014, it quickly became clear that Uber was facing an uphill battle against well-funded domestic rivals. After only two years, Uber elected to u-turn out of the Chinese market.

    Though Uber’s tactical exit from China is often viewed as a failure, the company has earned upwards of $8B through its sale to competitor Didi Chuxing.

    A Two-Way Street

    Now that red-hot growth at home is beginning to taper off, a number of Chinese companies have begun their push into other markets around the world. Much like their American counterparts, brands pushing beyond China’s borders are seeing varied success in their expansion efforts.

    One high-profile example is Huawei. The telecommunications giant has been making inroads in countries around the world – particularly in emerging markets – but has seen pushback and scrutiny in a number of developed economies. Huawei has become a lightning rod for growing concerns over government surveillance and China’s growing influence over the global communications network.

    Already, Australia has blocked the company from participating in its 5G network, and in the United States, government agencies are banned from buying Huawei gear.

    If negative sentiment continues to build, it remains to be seen whether Huawei and other Chinese companies will follow the playbook of American brands in China, and turn the car around.

  • Just When You Thought Surveillance Tech Couldn't Get Any More Orwellian…

    Authored by ‘Graywolf’ via The Organic Prepper blog,

    One of my favorite TV shows was Person of Interest. In that show, a genius programmer was hired by the government to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) computer to tap into and analyze communication feeds and predict activities that may pose a threat. Unfortunately, as you can imagine, things spun out of control; the system that was designed to benefit society was not always beneficial to citizens.

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    As amusing as it is to watch escapist fiction such as this, it’s not so enjoyable when you realize it’s no longer fiction. China has already developed the infrastructure to envelop their citizens in this protective surveillance net and has begun that slippery slope of using AI to not only catch activities deemed undesired by the government – it’s starting to take action against those observed.

    In the city of Shenzhen (and most likely others), when an offender is observed jaywalking via video surveillance, they will publicly humiliate you by showing your face on screens located around the city. Now that’s bad enough but they’re going a step further. Those identified will have their cell phone ‘pinged’ and be sent an immediate fine.

    By the way, Intellifusion, the company behind the AI system involved is in talks with WeChat and Seina Weibo (China’s equivalents of Facebook and Twitter).

    The surveillance state is expanding, and even children are not exempt.

    You may think there must be some kind of check-and-balance system built in to ensure that children would be protected so that they wouldn’t suffer the same consequences as an adult. You’d be wrong.

    As you can imagine, this outing of a child in such a public manner has sparked outrage. Instead of backing down on their stance, the police have doubled down and stated that no one is above the law and its draconian reaction. Of course they have. I know if I wanted to start weeding out hidden miscreants, I’d set up exactly this scenario. Guess what’s going to happen to those expressing their discontent.

    You may think that all this isn’t so bad because it’s just surveillance out in the street, where people can see you anyway, so what’s the big deal? Well, this is just the beginning. In order to crack down on children playing on gambling sites on their computers, corporations are now starting to institute facial recognition utilizing the user’s webcam. Of course children shouldn’t be gambling but now long until this in-home video requirement expands to include normal, everyday websites such as social media? How long until they convince you it’s much more convenient for you to just use cameras that you can have installed in your home to protect children, assist in gaining you access to what you need, and help you increase your social credit by watching your good deeds at home at the same time?

    Surveillance systems are insidious and are finding their way into our homes.

    In case you’re one of those ‘careful’ types who wouldn’t allow that kind of nonsense in your home, Huawei and other very large manufacturers of electronics in China and around the world have become big suppliers to China’s security services. All they need to do is develop surveillance systems that help improve our lives at the same time so we actually pay for the privilege. Systems such as Ulo not only watch your home for you, it becomes part of your family. Can you think of other surveillance systems that we’ve now graciously invited into our homes?

    What has begun is the dismantling of due process and the systematic expansion of systems that can be mined for data. Not only is every action observed, anything that the program decides is aberrant or not beneficial can now be punished without any intervention or legal protection – and no one is safe.

    Now, most likely, you are reading this from a country outside of China, so why do you care? The AI in the fictional TV show based in the U.S., Person of Interest couldn’t ever become a reality, could it? Systems in the U.S. have been able to automatically scan license plates for a while now and alert police to stolen vehicles. Cameras are now on pretty much every intersection in any city in the country and along the highways. The infrastructure to start this kind of surveillance state is already in place. All it would take is to somehow tap into this system with an AI to observe human behavior and perhaps even judge and jury like what’s happening in China. Unfortunately, this is also becoming a reality.

    Some surveillance systems can detect concealed weapons and alert authorities.

    A company called ZeroEyes has developed a system that can detect and alert the presence of even concealed weapons, resulting in a visual pat-down that only requires a camera in the room. Of course, if this is used to protect a facility that lets you know that entry is tacit approval, that’s one thing. ZeroEyes is already working with school systems and is moving toward a deal with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.

    Another company that is in the weapon-identification game is called Athena, but it has taken this one step further. Not only does their AI detect hidden weapons, it detects and alerts to human behavior itself. It learns how people move and their facial expressions and then decides when someone is acting strangely and alerts the authorities.

    How long until they plug these AI systems into cameras all throughout town and even in our homes? How long until these systems start being used in ways that we were assured would not happen? How long until those with criminal or political intentions start using AI and surveillance to coerce behavior and punish those who don’t toe the party line?

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    Graywolf is a former Counterintelligence Agent and US Army combat veteran. His experience as an agent, soldier and government contractor on assignments around the world gives him a unique perspective on the world and how to deal with it. His website is Graywolf Survival.

  • Automating Vegas: How Robots Will Take Thousands Of Sin City's Jobs

    The automation wave is expected to reshape the US economy in the 2020s. This disruption will impact the labor force and cause tremendous job losses. By 2030, automation could eliminate 20% to 25% of current jobs — equivalent to 40 million displaced workers, hitting bottom 90% of Americans the hardest.

    Last month, we reported how the Port of Los Angeles is preparing for full automation. Last week, showed how warehouse automation is starting to increase traction in Atlanta — now in a new report, robots are coming to Las Vegas.

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    The adoption of automation at Southern Nevada casinos could displace thousands of workers in the next five years.

    The Reno Gazette-Journal asks several crucial questions: What does a future with robots look like in Las Vegas? What will happen to a service industry hopeful that union powers will provide protection? Should workers be afraid?

    “Show me a car that (is) built on an assembly line that isn’t populated with robots and humans together,” said Robert Rippee, director of the Hospitality Lab at UNLV’s International Gaming Institute.

    Automation technologies are rippling through the hospitality industry, forcing some casinos to recalibrate their labor force.

    “I’m surprised, in some cases, it’s taken this long,” Rippee said. “On the other hand, it’s certainly understandable that people are saying: ‘That’s my livelihood, that’s my job. You’re going to bring a machine in? What am I going to do?’ “

    MGM has been quietly rolling out automation technologies. Last August, the gaming giant installed automated beverage systems – known as “Back of House Automated Service Bars.”

    The automation, according to MGM, eliminates redundant human labor, allowing front of house employees to self-serve guests and reduce wait times.

    In a separate report, Miracle Mile Shops, next to Planet Hollywood Resort, installed the first robotic bar on the strip.

    World’s 1st land-based bar to deploy robot bartenders opens in Las Vegas. Enjoy yourself! pic.twitter.com/Zy3gslBkp2

    — China Xinhua News (@XHNews) July 10, 2017

    The Mandarin Oriental employs Pepper, a humanoid robot from SoftBank Robotics. Located in the Lobby, the robot supports staff by handling tasks like welcoming visitors, providing directions and answering questions about the facility.

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    Culinary Workers Union Local 226, Nevada’s largest labor union, held several meetings last year about how robots could impact their jobs.

    The Culinary union negotiated a deal with casinos that includes some protections from job displacement due to automation.

    Under this agreement, MGM and other casinos must give employees six months notice if their job is taken by a robot.

    Despite the automation threat, Culinary Union spokeswoman Bethany Khan said union workers will always have jobs.

    “Jobs are never going to be eliminated,” Khan said. “There are endless opportunities for retraining. We see technology as assistive and supportive.”

    Experts say the collision of automation won’t lead to a robot apocalypse but will instead transform the labor force, eliminating thousands of low skill jobs in Vegas in the years ahead. 

    If automation adoption debuts in Vegas at a slow rate, it’ll allow workers who lose their jobs time to retool their skills. But rapid automation of Vegas, for example, could eliminate tens of thousands of jobs in the next ten years.

    Automating Las Vegas has started, a new wave of investment in robots is set to disrupt the city’s entire gaming and hospitality industry and lead to substantial job losses through the 2020s.

  • US Releases "Smoking Gun" Video Of Iran's Navy Handling Mine On Tanker Hull

    In a perhaps positive sign that could slow the attempts of hawks within the administration to push for war over Thursday’s mysterious attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, US Central Command issued a statement just hours after Pompeo officially blamed Tehran, saying in a CENTCOM press release that “a war with Iran is not in our strategic interest, nor in the best interest of the international community.”

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    Screenshot of newly released CENTCOM footage which US officials say shows Iran caught in the act of removing an unexploded mine from one of the tankers attacked on Thursday. 

    The statement further called for a formal UN investigation into the incident, something for which there’s already international momentum. Iran has “categorically” denied having anything to do with the attack, saying through FM Zarif “Suspicious doesn’t begin to describe what likely transpired”.

    The entire bizarre event had immediately evoked unusual levels of public skepticism from media pundits to social media users to even CNN.

    Iran’s permanent mission to the UN said on Thursday evening that it “categorically rejects the U.S. unfounded claim with regard to 13 June oil tanker incidents and condemns it in the strongest possible terms,” according to Bloomberg.

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    The Front Altair oil tanker on fire in the Gulf of Oman on June 13, 2019. AP Photo/ISNA

    US Central Command spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Earl Brown said in the CENTCOM statement: “The U.S. and our regional partners are assisting in the response to attacks in the Gulf of Oman. The U.S. and the international community stand ready to defend our interests, including freedom of navigation.”

    Crucially, the statement continued: “We have no interest in engaging in a new conflict in the Middle East,” and added, “We will defend our interests, but a war with Iran is not in our strategic interest, nor in the best interest of the international community.”

    And further interesting is that the administration is claiming possession of photographic and video evidence that the massive fires aboard the tankers, which resulted in the USS Bainbridge initiating an emergency rescue of at least 21 mariners from one of the tankers, were the result of mines placed on the vessels. According to Bloomberg:

    Senior administration officials said that at least one of the ships was attacked by mines. In a briefing with reporters, they showed a photo of a tanker, the Courageous, with a hole in its side caused by a mine that exploded, they said, and an undetonated mine lodged inside.

    The officials said they didn’t know for sure whether the mines were Iranian. The U.S. concluded that Iran was responsible for the attacks based on intelligence sources and the absence of any better explanation, the officials said. They declined to elaborate on the intelligence sources.

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    Ironically, though it was the US side that pulled out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), US officials further said Iran’s motive was “to escalate the conflict” with Washington because “it’s not interested in discussions with the U.S.,” according to the Bloomberg report. 

    CBS has the following detail concerning video evidence pointing to an attack operation involving mines: 

    A U.S. defense official told CBS News that the U.S. has video of a small boat coming alongside one of the tankers that was attacked and removing an unexploded “limpet” mine — a type of explosive that can be stuck manually to the side of a vessel. It is the same type of weapon U.S. officials say Iran used to attack four oil tankers off the nearby Emirati port of Fujairah last month.

    But is this what the grainy footage actually shows? It’s anything but clear just what is going on in the newly released CENTCOM footage:

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    US officials also told CNN that the video of the mine involved Japanese-owned chemical tanker Kokura Courageous, and that the “small boat” belonged to the Iranian navy. 

    The CNN report claims Iran’s navy was observed removing an unexploded mine, suggesting early statements that Iran was actually involved in rescue efforts could be true, though the exact nature of just what the purported video proves remains unclear:

    The United States has video and photos that show an Iranian navy boat removing an unexploded mine attached to the hull of the Japanese-owned chemical tanker Kokura Courageous, four US officials tell CNN.

    The anonymous US sources which spoke to CNN suggested the Iranians were actually “removing evidence” and not engaged in a rescue attempt, as the Iranians previously stated:  

    The official said the imagery shows a person on board that small boat grabbing the unexploded mine.

      The boat made the move even after the USS Bainbridge, as well as a US drone and P-8 aircraft, had been on the scene for four hours. US defense officials believe that the Iranians were seeking to recover evidence of their involvement in the attack.

      Meanwhile, the question of custody over evidence so near Iran’s territorial waters in the Strait of Hormuz will likely quickly prove contentious. 

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      The latest reports suggest the tanker Front Altair is in danger of sinking, while the Japanese owned Panama-flagged Kokuka Courageous is said to be drifting into Iranian territorial waters, which could create a conflict over the vessel’s recovery with the US, which will no doubt want to have control over all available evidence. 

    • Watch: Scientists Create "Deepfake" Software Allowing Anyone To Edit Anything Anyone Says On Video

      Scientists at Stanford are doing their part to create what will be an inevitable dystopian nightmare.

      The staff at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics, Princeton University and Adobe Research have developed software that allows you to now edit and change what people are saying in videos, allowing anyone to edit anybody into saying anything, according to Observer. 

      The software uses machine learning and 3-D models of the target’s face to generate new footage which allows the user to change, edit and remove words that are coming out of a person’s mouth on video, simply by typing in new text. Not only that, the changes appear to have a seamless audio/visual flow without cuts.

      Here’s a video of the frightening software at work.

      We’re sure there will be absolutely no blowback at all to this. After all, just last week, there was public outrage with somebody jokingly edited a video of Nancy Pelosi to make her seem drunk. What would happen if somebody edited a video of her speaking to have her swear wildly, or say racist things?

      This deepfake software is already being described as “the equivalent of Christmas coming early for a Russian troll farm”, now that the 2020 election is underway. We’re sure it’ll eventually also be a topic du jour on MSNBC and CNN if Trump wins again in 2020. 

      And we have to ask: how long before the software is incorporated into Adobe‘s retail video editing software? After all, the software company already forces users to read a massive disclaimer that states:

      We also believe that it is essential to obtain permission from the performers for any alteration before sharing a resulting video with a broad audience.

      And…

      We acknowledge that bad actors might use such technologies to falsify personal statements and slander prominent individuals. We are concerned about such deception and misuse.

      Are they covering themselves legally for this “technology” to go mainstream?

      Meanwhile, joke deepfakes continue to pop up, like this fake video of Mark Zuckerberg sitting at a desk giving a nefarious sounding speech about Facebook‘s power.

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      Joe Rogan was also victim to a deepfake by the AI company Dessa recently, who released audio making it sound like he is discussing chimpanzee hockey.

      Don’t worry though, we’re sure this won’t fall into the wrong hands.

    • US Blames Iran For Tanker Attacks, Says Tehran "Trying To Interrupt Flow Of Oil"

      Update 7: Ahead of comments to the UN Security Council (which will presumably block any action, with China and Russia backing Iran), unnamed officials are sharing with reporters some of what the US intends to say:

      • U.S. OFFICIALS ALLEGE IRANIAN ATTACK MEANT TO ESCALATE CONFLICT
      • OFFICIALS: ATTACK SHOWS IRAN UNINTERESTED IN DIALOGUE WITH U.S.
      • OFFICIALS: OPTIONS UNDER CONSIDERATION INCLUDE TANKER ESCORTS

      Earlier, the Saudis presented a letter to the council claiming that the Iran-backed Houthis had obtained special weapons training and were responsible for Wednesday’s attack on Abha airport.

      Pompeo said earlier that the US was in possession of “intelligence” suggesting Iran is behind the attack…but he neglected to offer any poof.

      * * *

      Update 6: And there it is…

      The Trump Administration has officially concluded that Iran is responsible for Thursday’s attacks, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday during a press briefing.

      The secretary of state and longtime Iran hawk said Iran’s “unprovoked” attacks are part of a campaign to escalate tension in the region and disrupt the flow of the international oil trade (if we can’t sell our oil, nobody can, would appear to be the logic). He also said that Tehran rejected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s outreach for diplomacy.

      Here’s an abridged version of Pompeo’s statement, courtesy of CNN:

      “It is the assessment by the United States government that the Islamic Republic of Iran is responsible for the attacks that occurred in the Gulf of Oman today,” Pompeo told reporters at the US State Department.

      “This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, and the fact that no proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication.”

      Pompeo followed up his remarks with a tweet:

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      The US is planning to raise concerns about Iran at the UN Security Council, Pompeo said, which is planning to meet to discuss the attacks at 4 pm ET. The US has already presented evidence to the security council that Iran was behind the last round of tanker attacks. The UN has been somewhat more measured in its approach to the attacks. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres denounced Thursday’s incidents at a Security Council meeting, saying: “I strongly condemn any attack against civilian incidents,” before adding that “facts must be established and responsibilities clarified.”

      He warned that the world can’t afford “a major confrontation” in the Gulf, Al Jazeera.

      Oil spiked on the headline…

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      …but stocks are sliding.

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      The International Association of Independent Tanker Owners (better known as Intertanko) has released a statement on Thursday’s attack: The two tankers were hit “at or below the waterline, in close proximity to the engine room while underway.” “These appear to be well planned and coordinated attacks,” Intertanko added. Which would support the thesis that a state actor is responsible.

      Earlier, CNN reported that the crew of the USS Bainbridge reported that they saw an unexploded limpet mine on the side of one of the ships attacked in the Gulf of Oman.

      A limpet mine is type of a mine that is attached to a ship’s hull using magnets. They were also believed to have been deployed in May during the attacks on four ships off the coast of the UAE. 

      * * *

      Update 5: A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition supporting Yemen’s government in the country’s civil war has come out and blamed Iran for Thursday’s attack, saying they believe they can connect it to a similar tanker bombing last year in the Red Sea committed by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The spokesman called the attack a “major escalation”, and reiterated in what sounded to us like a thinly veiled threat that Saudi Arabia has the capacity to protect its vital institutions.

      You may remember that the Houthis have over the last year repeatedly fired missiles (with mixed success) at Saudi oil fields and even came close to successfully bombing a royal palace.

      Earlier, over in the UK, a spokesperson for the government called the attack on civilian oil tankers “completely unacceptable” and said the UK was ready to assist in the rescue effort and investigation.

      Meanwhile, senior officials from the US and UAE have attributed the attack to a “state actor,” though they neglected to explicitly name Iran.

      All this is happening before the investigation into the attacks has even begun. And BBG’s Javier Blas pointed out that should Iran be found responsible, it would be a strange turn of events since the Front Altair is owned by John Frederiksen, the owner of the Frontline Tanker company, who moved oil for Iran during the “tanker war” with Iraq.

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      And with the John Bolton probably already in Trump’s ear, trying to convince him that “the nuclear option” (that is, actually nuking Iran) finally needs to be put back on the table, western investors hoping to cash in on the escalation have few options to turn to (that is, other than going long oil, but even that trade appears to have its limits, as today’s move would suggest).

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      * * *

      Update 4: Nobody has stepped forward to take responsibility for Thursday’s suspected torpedoing of two oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, and Iran’s Foreign Minister has argued that Iran has nothing to gain and everything to lose by provoking the Europeans and Japanese, but that hasn’t stopped Washington from beating the ol’ war drum.

      According to CBS News, a senior American defense official told the channel’s top national correspondent that “it’s highly likely Iran caused these attacks.” He also dismissed Iran’s claim that it helped rescue the crews of both ships as “patently false,” adding that the USS Bainbridge picked up 21 crew members. Iran said it dispatched a rescue team that picked up all 44 crew members from the two damaged vessels.

      Members of the crew of one ship told CBS’s correspondent that they believed the ship had been hit by a torpedo or a mine, but that the exact nature of the attack couldn’t be confirmed.

      Even more ominously: The official told CBS News that “any retaliation” from the US would depend on whether it can recover hard evidence linking the attacks to Iran, something the official expects they will find after a search of the debris.

      After four tankers were attacked last month in the Strait of Hormuz – a sea-mining attack that the US and Saudi Arabia blamed on Iran – Saudi Arabia reportedly had no appetite for retaliation.  However, that has now changed.

      Iran’s foreign minister isn’t the only one trying to communicate how little Iran has to gain from attacks like these: Bloomberg’s Julian Lee argued in a column that whoever is behind these attacks is ‘no friend of Iran’.

      This would seem very clumsy timing from a country seeing the first tangible signs of any easing of the crippling sanctions imposed by the Americans. But it is absolutely understandable if you’re someone whose ultimate goal is to derail any easing of tensions between the two nations, and to effect regime change in Tehran.

      And as we pointed out earlier, there’s a much, much more sensible culprit somewhere else in the region:

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      * * *

      Update 3: Managers at the companies that own the tankers have weighed in on Thursday’s attacks. The manager of the Kokuka Courageous described the incident as a “hostile attack,” and DHT Holdings and Heidmar, the owners of the two tankers, have suspended new bookings to the Gulf.

      * * *

      Update 2: It appears earlier reports that the Front Altair had sunk were, in fact, incorrect. The ship’s captain has said that it is still afloat. VHF radio traffic confirmed that it is damaged but still afloat.

      Hours have passed since the suspected attacks, and still nobody has claimed responsibility. Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has noted how suspicious it is that a Japanese owned vessel would be attacked while Iranian leaders were meeting with the Japanese prime minister in Tehran.

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      And as one BBG analyst pointed out: “Fingers will certainly be pointed at Iran as the mastermind behind these events. But the potential benefits to the Persian Gulf nation are outweighed by the risks. And even if Tehran isn’t responsible, it will still suffer the consequences.”

      Several American warships were nearby when the attack unfolded, per radio traffic, which also showed some signs of tensions with Iranian vessels: “American warship identifying itself as ‘Coalition Warship’ stating they have multiple vessels and aircraft in the vicinity. Iranian Navy calling vessels asking their intention in the area.”

      Meanwhile, the first reported photos of the deck of the Front Altair have surfaced online…and it certainly looks like the ship was hit by a torpedo-like projectile.

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      * * *

      Update: The Front Altair, the Marshall Islands flag tanker damaged in Thursday’s attacks, has now sunk, according to Iranian television. Later, others denied these reports.

      If accurate, the sinking could have a serious impact on oil prices and the environment, as the ship contained twice the amount of oil as Exxon-Valdez.

      While some sources cited torpedoes as the weapons used in the attacks, another said officials suspected the use of a magnetic mine, similar to the devices used during last month’s attacks.

      * * *

      And just like that…war with Iran is now almost assured.

      Roughly one month after the US accused Iran of attacking Saudi- and UAE-docked oil tankers with naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz, two oil tankers were attacked in the Sea of Oman (not far from where the prior attacks occurred), leaving both ships seriously damaged, Bloomberg reports.

      So far, no casualties have been reported. The attack left one of the ships “ablaze and adrift,” according to the Associated Press.

      Sailors from both vessels were being evacuated as the US Navy rushed to assist.

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      The Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet said it received distress signals from the two ships roughly 50 minutes apart. As BBG reports, the incident will almost certainly “inflame” tensions between the US and its Arab allies on one hand, and Iran on the other.

      The development will inflame already-rising political tensions in the region weeks after four vessels, including two Saudi oil tankers, were sabotaged in what the U.S. said was an Iranian attack using naval mines. Tehran denied the charge.

      The Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet said it received two separate distress signals at 6:12 a.m. and about 7:00 a.m. local time. “U.S. Navy ships are in the area and are rendering assistance,” Commander Josh Frey, a spokesman, said. Iran said it has rescued 44 sailors.

      Though a suspected aggressor has not yet been officially named, and an investigation into the cause of the incident has only just begun, the notion that Iran will be implicated looks extremely likely, even as South Korean and Iranian ships helped rescue all 44 sailors who were aboard the two ships. Iran has already denied responsibility for the attack.

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      The manager of one of the tankers, the Panama-flagged, Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous, which had been carrying a cargo of methanol from Saudi Arabia to Singapore, said the vessel had been damaged as the result of “a suspected attack” by a “shell” though the manager added that the ship’s cargo was secure.

      “The hull has been breached above the water line on the starboard side,” Bernhard Schulte GmbH & Co KG said in a statement on its website.

      Another tanker, Norwegian-owned and Marshall Islands-flagged Front Altair, sent a distress signal to the UAE port of Fujairah. It had loaded an oil shipment in Abu Dhabi not long before the incident. The ship was reportedly hit with three explosions.

      Officials said it appeared the ships had been attacked with torpedoes. Another report cited officials saying three detonations had been heard.

      The Front Altair was delivering a cargo of naphtha to Taiwan refiner CPC Corp, one company official said. The cargo was supplied by Abu Dhabi’s Adnoc.

      Considering the involvement of the Japan-flagged vessel, the timing of the incident would be ironic. The suspected attacks unfolded as Japanese PM Shinzo Abe met with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday, the second and final day of his visit, which was intended to de-escalate tensions in the region. There were no immediate details about what they discussed.

      Oil prices are popping higher on the news, as the latest replay of one of history’s most famous false-flag naval attacks, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which helped precipitate the Vietnam war, ratchets up tensions in the region. At one point, Brent crude was up as much as 4% to over $62 a barrel.

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      At the very least, the US military will use the attack as an excuse to continue its escalation of personnel in one of the most sensitive waterways for the global oil trade. According to the EIA, 19% of all oil traded by sea passes through the Strait of Hormuz.

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      Worst case, it looks like NSA John Bolton may have just gotten the excuse he needs to justify a full-scale invasion of Iran, which we imagine will soon be confirmed as being behind the attacks.

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