Today’s News 15th December 2021

• Jim Bovard: How I Robbed The World Bank
  Jim Bovard: How I Robbed The World Bank

  Authored by Jim Bovard via The Libertarian Institute,

  I have always had a bad attitude toward official secrets regardless of who is keeping them. That prejudice and John Kenneth Galbraith are to blame for an unauthorized withdrawal I made from the World Bank. When I lived in Boston in the late 1970s, I paid $25 to attend a series of lectures by Galbraith on foreign aid and other topics. The louder Galbraith praised foreign aid, the warier I became. His hokum spurred my reading and led me to recognize that foreign aid is one of the worst afflictions that poor nations suffer. As one critic quipped, foreign aid is money from governments, to governments, for governments.

  After I moved to Washington, foreign aid became one of my favorite targets as an investigative journalist. When I talked to the chief of the US Agency for International Development (AID), Peter McPherson, in 1985, my blunt questions had him literally screaming at me within four minutes of the start of the interview. McPherson probably screamed even louder when he saw the article I wrote thrashing AID.

  Foreign aid was revered by the Washington establishment, and the World Bank epitomized the arrogance of the financial masters of the universe (at least in their own minds and press releases). The World Bank, heavily subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, profited from every debacle it spawned. The more loans the bank made, the more prestige and influence it acquired. After a profusion of bad loans to Third World governments helped ignite a debt crisis, I warned in a 1985 Wall Street Journal piece that expanding the World Bank’s role “would be akin to appointing Mrs. O’Leary’s cow as chief of the Chicago Fire Department.”

  

  I was astounded at how many despots the World Bank was propping up. Bankrolling tyrants was the equivalent of a Fugitive Slave Act for an entire nation, preventing a mass escape of political victims. Yet almost all the details of World Bank loans were suppressed, allowing its perfidious officials to pirouette as saviors. In 1987, I rattled the bank’s roof with a Wall Street Journal article headlined “World Bank Confidentially Damns Itself.” That article was based on a stash of confidential bank documents that I had finagled.

  Perhaps the bank’s worst offense was propping up Communist regimes, perennially bailing out their command-and-control economies. In the late 1970s, the bank helped finance a brutal Vietnamese government program to forcibly resettle millions of farmers in conquered South Vietnam. The bank poured billions of dollars into Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Romania. A confidential bank analysis in 1986 admitted the failure of its Communist lending program: “Projects have been prepared to meet Five-Year Plan objectives which could not be questioned or analyzed by the Bank.” Why were US tax dollars underwriting hostile Communist regimes?

  In the 1980s, the World Bank headquarters in downtown Washington had far tighter security than most federal agencies. The media was only permitted unsupervised entry into that building during the annual meetings that occurred each September. During the 1987 meetings, I roamed far and wide inside the bank. Visiting the press office of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a World Bank branch that supposedly loaned only to private entities, I scooped up a handful of their current press releases and asked about older releases. A pert twenty-something Canadian secretary directed me to an adjacent filing room. I entered and noticed one filing cabinet had a drawer labeled “Pending Projects.” There were too many people milling about the press room to check that drawer, but my curiosity was piqued.

  The following year, the World Bank was rattling its tin cup for another $14 billion commitment from the US government. Considering the bank’s dismal record in the prior decade, boosting its coffers would be throwing good money after bad.

  So I returned to the scene of financial precrimes in June 1988. I needed a pretext to enter World Bank headquarters, so I scheduled a visit to its research library. After guards vigorously searching my bike courier-style shoulder bag, I was handed a large VISITOR identification badge. It was important not to lose that badge, so I stuffed it into my pants pocket. After a pit stop at the library, I dropped by the IFC press office. The secretary recognized me and we chatted about how life in Washington compared to Ottawa. World Bank employees received lavish tax-free salaries, so she wasn’t suffering too badly.

  “Would you mind if I check some of your old press releases?” I asked.

  “Sure—go ahead,” she said and pointed to the file room.

  

  I ambled into the room, walked over to that filing cabinet, and grinned ear to ear when the Pending Projects drawer slid smoothly open. I skimmed the file titles and was transfixed by one labeled Poland. Why would a private sector branch of the World Bank be lending to a bankrupt Communist country? Poland owed $38 billion to the West—with zilch chance of repayment, given its floundering economy. The bank had never made a loan to Poland before. Why were they adding a new Communist regime to their welfare rolls? And why was the World Bank rushing to add its seal of approval to a military dictatorship that was tottering due to waves of heroic nationwide strikes by Solidarity?

  I slipped the Polish file into my courier bag and strolled out to the main press room. I saw a secretary schlepping a stack of papers down the hall and followed her to a copy room.

  I got in line and was soon bantering with the secretaries ahead and behind me about the brutal Washington summer weather and the latest subway fare increase. World Bank officials tend to be even haughtier than US senators, and perhaps my friendly demeanor was almost a novelty.

  My turn arrived and I laid that file onto the intake slot for the copier. I pushed the Copy button but the machine wouldn’t budge without a code. I turned to one of the women I had been chatting with, smiled, and two minutes later, slipped the forty-page copy into my courier bag.

  I glided back into that file room and tucked the original document back in the drawer. If there were a bank internal investigation, that might throw them off the trail. I might have faced federal charges and prison time if I had been caught absconding with confidential financial documents from a quasi-government United Nations organization. However, if the bank suspected that one of their own employees or a US government official had leaked the document, they might hesitate to dig too deeply, since that could cause them more embarrassment than it was worth.

  Making a copy was one thing, but getting out of the building was another. Those photocopies were too bulky to stash under my clothes—my favorite hiding place when I roamed the East Bloc. I considered asking the guard his prediction for the upcoming Redskins season but instead relied on the dull-eyed, working stiff motif. The guard glanced at my shoulder bag and waved me on.

  After exiting bank headquarters, I paused on K Street, skimmed the first pages, and knew I had struck gold. Back in my home office, I called the gutsiest editor I knew—Tim Ferguson, the editorial features editor at the Wall Street Journal. Tim sighed audibly when I related how the copy migrated into my bag, but he was game for a story. (Some editors I later dealt with would have phoned the World Bank, apologized profusely, and offered a sworn affidavit that I should be indicted for undermining trust in a US government–backed institution.)

  I whittled up the article and over the next few days spent hours on the phone with a French lady in the IFC press office, getting her official responses to the less incendiary charges in the piece. At 4 p.m. on the day before publication, during the last call locking up the final details, I nonchalantly added: “Also, I want to confirm that the World Bank is still on track to make a loan to the Hortex cooperative in Poland.”

  “THAT’S SECRET INFORMATION!” she squealed, her accent flaring up like an Air France stewardess whose butt had just been grabbed.

  “I need to confirm that project is moving forward.”

  After a terse pause, she said: “Yes.”

  Even though this was the most important case in the article, I did not mention it to her until the last minute. I had prior experience with government agencies pulling out all the stops to kill a threatening article before it hit print.

  My piece in the next day’s Wall Street Journal disclosed: “The IFC is eager to begin lending to Poland, as a March 24 confidential project analysis shows.” A memo from a top bank official touted a proposed $18 million loan to a Polish agricultural cooperative and fretted that “there is a real danger that the Polish authorities may become frustrated with the international financial institutions…A fast, early investment by IFC would have enormous effect on IFC’s standing in Poland, would demonstrate IFC to be a flexible, responsible institution and would increase the number of investment possibilities in the pipeline. IFC would achieve a great deal of good will by an early investment.”

  The World Bank wanted to be loved by its bankrupt Communist borrowers—and also wanted to maximize the “investment possibilities” for subsequent World Bank handouts. A confidential analysis justified the loan based on the agricultural firm’s net worth, calculated by the official exchange rate of 175 Polish zlotys to the dollar. But the black-market exchange rate at that time was thirteen hundred zlotys to the dollar. Misstating the exchange rate by 600 percent plus was the World Bank’s version of “close enough for government work.” If the same switcheroo had been made by a US banker granting a federally guaranteed loan, the banker could have been “cuffed and stuffed.”

  The confidential document praised Poland for introducing a “radical version of market socialism.” It heartily approved the Polish government’s “introduction of a progressive tax aimed at containing wage increases”—a tax that crucified miserly paid workers on an altar of central planning follies (“Swedish taxes on Ethiopian wages,” according to dissidents). When the Communists held a referendum on economic reforms in late 1987, a top World Bank official urged Poles to vote for the government’s plans. The World Bank wanted to reform communism, but the Polish people wanted freedom instead. My WSJ article concluded that the World Bank was subverting real reform and “has betrayed the citizens of the Third World and East Europe.”

  A retired World Bank press officer later told me that my article hit the bank like a concussion bomb, spurring emergency early morning meetings to try to contain the political damage. The World Bank launched a counterattack to pressure the Wall Street Journal to retract the story, but to no avail. Bank officials were convinced an insider gave me the confidential Polish documents on a silver platter. But being a freelancer means making your own silver platters.

  Five months after my WSJ piece, and just after the US presidential election won by George H.W. Bush, the bank approved that first loan to Poland. The New York Times reported that the bank planned to give up to $250 million to Poland the following year. But the military dictatorship in Poland effectively collapsed in mid-1989, before the World Bank could open the floodgates with subsidized loans. The inflation rate in Poland rose to 5,000 percent, destroying any pretense of rational investment by the World Bank or any other entity.

  Later that year, World Bank president Barber Conable bashed my work in a New York Times piece. His article was paired with an “opposing view” piece from me that concluded: “The World Bank’s ‘have money, must lend’ syndrome will continue to be a curse to the world’s oppressed citizens…Mr. Conable should retire as soon as possible.” Conable is long gone, but, unfortunately, the World Bank lives on.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/15/2021 – 00:10

• Xi & Putin To Discuss "Very Aggressive" US & NATO Rhetoric In Virtual Summit
  Xi & Putin To Discuss “Very Aggressive” US & NATO Rhetoric In Virtual Summit

  At a moment Vladimir Putin is demanding an urgent meeting with NATO in order to discuss Russia’s security concerns over the Western military alliance’s expanding presence, and as rhetoric is still escalating over Ukraine, the Kremlin has announced that Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold a video conference on Wednesday to discuss “aggressive” language from the US and NATO.

  Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov described that “The situation in international affairs, especially on the European continent, is very, very tense right now and requires discussion between allies.”

  He underscored that “We see very, very aggressive rhetoric on the NATO and US side, and this requires discussion between us and the Chinese.” And Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin agreed in a separate statement, saying that Putin and Xi will discuss “views on major international and regional issues of common concern.”

  

  Notably the Xi-Putin meeting will come a mere week after the Russian president’s two-hour virtual summit with President Joe Biden. While both agreed on a need for open communications and diplomacy, and there’s since been contradictory reports that Biden may have agreed to hold low-level talks addressing Putin’s demand for “legal guarantees” preventing further NATO expansion eastward, the accusatory barbs and general war-footing atmosphere have only continued.

  More recently, both Russia and China were subject of critical discussion by the US and other G-7 leaders, with the Group of 7 issuing a statement on Sunday condemning “Russia’s military build-up and aggressive rhetoric towards Ukraine.” 

  On China, Reuters noted in its G-7 coverage that “While Russian President Vladimir Putin keeps the West guessing over Ukraine, it was the might of Chinese President Xi Jinping that garnered the long-term strategic focus when the diplomats from the Group of Seven richest democracies met this weekend.”

  For all the attempts at isolating both Russia and China – something which began under the Trump administration but has been ratcheted up during Biden – the end result has been to push the two large powers which share a long border into closer cooperation and dialogue, which has lately included semi-regular joint military exercises. 

  Cold War 2.0 update: Russia has warned it could be forced to deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles across Europe in response to what it sees as US/NATO plans to increase the presence of atomic weapons on the continent. https://t.co/zyN32FBXds

  — Bryan MacDonald (@27khv) December 14, 2021

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  Once rivals and enemies in the 20th century, then ‘frenemies’, and now increasingly cooperative and strategic allies – Russia and China seem to have forged an unlikely alliance on the mere basis being target of Washington sanctions and human rights rhetoric. 

  According to the Putin office press release on Tuesday announcing the meeting, the two leaders are expected to hold a long discussion, tackling a wide range of issues… “Tomorrow, the Russia-China summit will take place. This will be a video-conference of President Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, extremely important negotiations,” the Russian presidential spokesman said. “We also expect this contact to be quite lengthy in time and cover a very broad agenda.”

  “The contacts between the Russian and Chinese leaders are always characterized by their depth, the Kremlin spokesman pointed out,” according to TASS.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 12/14/2021 – 23:50

• Will America's New Nuke Deter War, Or Bring It On?
  Will America’s New Nuke Deter War, Or Bring It On?

  Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,

  In a bit of irony, a Twitter comment by Jill Hruby Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) pointed to a new nuclear bomb as proof America is committed to nuclear deterrence. This is where it is important to remember that deterrence means, the action of discouraging an action or event through instilling doubt or fear of the consequences. See her Twitter post below;

  Last week, #NNSA successfully completed the B61-12 First Production Unit @PantexPlant. This is a huge milestone for stockpile modernization and demonstrates our Nation’s commitment to #nuclear deterrence. pic.twitter.com/90ojHPw6cH

  — NNSA Administrator (@NNSAHruby) December 2, 2021

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  It could be argued that reworking a nuclear bomb to make it easier to justify using it and widening out the opportunities for its use is nothing to brag about. This all falls under the category of, “once it’s out of the bottle it will be hard to put back in.”

  

  The B61-12 Is Light And Accurate  

  An article in The National Interest on October 9th, 2018 by Zachary Keck indicates this bomb may be the most dangerous nuclear weapon in America’s arsenal. The combination of accuracy and low-yield make the B61-12 the most usable nuclear bomb in America’s arsenal. It also makes using nuclear weapons thinkable for the first time since the 1940s.

  To be clear, the reason it is such a monster is not because of its power. The bomb has a maximum yield of just 50-kilotons, the equivalent of 50,000 tons of TNT. By contrast, the B83 nuclear bomb has a maximum yield of 1.2 megatons which is 24 times greater. The B61-12 may only be able to carry low-yield nukes but is guided by an advanced Boeing tail kit.

  

  Can Anyone Win A Nuclear War?

  To put the issue of power into perspective; On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. The bomb was known as “Little Boy”, a uranium gun-type bomb that exploded with about thirteen kilotons of force. At the time of the bombing, Hiroshima was home to 280,000-290,000 civilians as well as 43,000 soldiers. It is estimated that around 140,000 people were killed in the bombing.

  In our extensive nuclear arsenal, the United States maintains 7,200 nuclear bombs. America also maintains a plethora of expensive delivery options for its nuclear bombs. Our so-called nuclear triad includes 94 nuclear-capable bombers (B-2s and B-52s), over 400 Minuteman III ICBMs, and 12 Ohio-class ballistic missile nuclear submarines. The submarines are equipped with modern Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

  The key to the effectiveness of any weapon is its accuracy.  It has been reported that in 1985, a single U.S. ICBM warhead had less than a 60 percent chance of destroying a typical silo. Today, a multiple-warhead attack on a single silo using a Trident II missile is said to have a roughly 99 percent chance of destroying it.”

  

  A Baby Nuke With Great Accuracy

  To be clear, the B61-12 is America’s first nuclear-guided bomb, it is a new weapon. According to Hans Kristensen, from the Federation of American Scientists, existing U.S. nuclear bombs have circular error probabilities (CEP) of between 110-170 meters. The B61-12’s CEP is just 30 meters. Also, with a maximum yield of 50 kilotons, the yield can be lowered as needed for any particular mission. An amazing fact is, the bomb’s explosive force can be reduced electronically through a dial-a-yield system.

  The problem with this “friendly” nuclear bomb is that those controlling its use will most likely be more inclined to use it. This muddies the boundary and red line that mankind has up until now feared to cross. As noted earlier in this article, “once the nuclear genie is out of the bottle it will be hard to put back in.”

  Remember the 1983 movie WarGames? In it, a young computer whiz kid accidentally connects to a top-secret super-computer. The computer which has complete control over the U.S. nuclear arsenal innocently starts the countdown to World War 3. We may be moving back into such a scenario. This bodes poorly for us poor saps living in harm’s way if shit hits the fan. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 12/14/2021 – 23:30

• China To "Strike Back" For Latest "Reckless" Uighur-Related US Sanctions
  China To “Strike Back” For Latest “Reckless” Uighur-Related US Sanctions

  China’s Foreign Ministry at the start of this week said it’s preparing to “strike back” against “reckless” US sanctions which were announced previously on Friday, and targeted Chinese individuals and entities said to be tied to rampant human rights abuses. 

  A spokesperson put Washington on notice, saying it’s not too late to reverse course. “We urge the US to immediately withdraw the relevant wrong decision and stop interfering in China’s internal affairs and harming China’s interests.” a foreign ministry statement by Wang Wenbin said, “If the US acts recklessly, China will take effective measures to strike back resolutely.”

  

  Friday’s US sanctions targeting China officials included “dozens of people and entities tied to China, Myanmar, North Korea and Bangladesh, and added Chinese artificial intelligence company SenseTime Group to an investment blacklist,” according to Reuters.

  Wang on Monday addressed the ongoing allegations of Chinese government genocide and forced labor internment of the minority Muslim Uighur population, which is focused in Xinjiang province. Wang said nothing will deter Beijing from legitimately combatting “violence, terrorism, separatism, and religious extremist forces.” The statement further praised the state’s “determination to defend national sovereignty, security, and development interests.”

  The foreign ministry additionally denounced “The perverse actions of the United States” which “cannot destroy the overall shape of Xinjiang’s development, stop China’s progress, or reverse the trend of historical development.”

  Beijing also fiercely denounced US double standards and hypocrisy regarding its mass casualty strikes on civilians in Afghanistan, and the fact that no one is ever held accountable…

  NOW – China: “The era in which the US acted arbitrarily in the world under the pretext of democracy and human rights is over.”pic.twitter.com/erAC9wlEJM

  — Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) December 14, 2021

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  Meanwhile Chinese officials and diplomats have really been on the defensive over the past few days, particularly sensitive over the Xinjiang issue, and offering videos and stats seeking to deflate Washington’s human rights offensive…

  Do you know how many people died from #COVID19 in #Xinjiang, #China?

  THREE.

  Genocide.

  — 曹 毅 CAO Yi أبو وسيم (@CaoYi_MFA) December 14, 2021

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  One of the most vicious propaganda in the 21st century is “#China‘s crackdown on #Muslims“.

  SHARE this video with your #Muslim & non-Muslim friends, because they will NEVER EVER see it on #CNN or #BBC.

  STOP smearing China.pic.twitter.com/bQQ3bqeuCc

  — 曹 毅 CAO Yi أبو وسيم (@CaoYi_MFA) July 26, 2021

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  Last Friday’s fresh sanctions rollout coincided with Biden’s two-day virtual Summit for Democracy. It also came days after the House of Representatives voted overwhelming to approve legislation which bans all goods entering America that were the result of suspected forced labor by Muslim Uyghurs.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 12/14/2021 – 23:10

• San Francisco Suspends Cannabis Tax To Help Dispensaries Compete With Drug-Dealers
  San Francisco Suspends Cannabis Tax To Help Dispensaries Compete With Drug-Dealers

  Authored by Zachary Rogers via TheNationalDesk.com,

  An ordinance suspending San Francisco’s Cannabis Business Tax was unanimously approved by city supervisors last week.

  

  San Francisco Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, the ordinance’s author, said in a statement suspending the business tax on cannabis will help support legal cannabis retailers as they struggle to compete with illegal cannabis sellers.

  Cannabis businesses create good jobs for San Franciscans and provide safe, regulated products to their customers. Now is not the time to impose a new tax on small businesses that are just getting established and trying to compete with illicit operators. https://t.co/G1wgeoh79u

  — Rafael Mandelman (@RafaelMandelman) December 2, 2021

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  Cannabis businesses create good jobs for San Franciscans and provide safe, regulated products to their customers,” Mandelman said in a statement published by the San Francisco Examiner. 

  “Sadly, the illegal market is flourishing by undercutting the prices of legal businesses, which is bad for our economy as illegal businesses pay no taxes while subjecting workers to dangerous conditions and consumers to dangerous products. Now is not the time to impose a new tax on small businesses that are just getting established and trying to compete with illicit operators.

  Illegal sellers of cannabis skirt paying those taxes and are able to offer products at a lower cost, which entices consumers to purchase their product instead of legal sellers.

  KPIX News reports the tax itself was approved by voters in 2018 and imposed a 1%-5% tax on gross receipts from cannabis sales. The new ordinance suspends the business tax through December 31, 2022.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 12/14/2021 – 22:50

• FOMC Preview: Will The Fed Turbo-Taper, And Will It Hike 2 Or 3 Times In 2022?
  FOMC Preview: Will The Fed Turbo-Taper, And Will It Hike 2 Or 3 Times In 2022?

  As discussed earlier in our big-picture preview of tomorrow’s FOMC meeting (see “Is The Fed As Hawked Up As The Market?”), the FOMC is expected to leave the fed funds rate target unchanged at 0-0.25%, although all the focus will be on the pace of its asset purchase tapering.

  As Newsquawk summarizes, Fed officials have recently argued that there is a case to “turbo taper”, i.e., to accelerate the pace from the current $15bln/month ($10bln of Treasury’s, $5bln of MBS), which on the current trajectory, would see purchases conclude in June 2022. However, hot inflation prints, which has seen the Fed retire the ‘transitory’ description, as well as signs of a strong jobs market recovery, have bolstered the case for an acceleration.

  Some expect the Fed will double the pace of the taper to $30bln/month (or just below that, at $25BN), which would then see asset purchases conclude in March/April. Meanwhile, the statement will be eyed for any commentary on Omicron, which the central bank will likely acknowledge is a risk, but not something that would at this stage compel it to adjust its policy course.

  Meanwhile, the term “transitory” will presumably be removed given Powell said it is now time to retire the description.

  SGH Macro believes that there will be a noticeable change in the expressed reaction function and narrative, arguing that the Fed will shift from “supporting the labor market requires patient policy” to “supporting the labor market requires maintaining price stability.” SGH said this leaves balances of risks on the side of inflationary outcomes, with the Fed more likely to react to higher-than-expected pressures, as it has shown already leading into the confab.

  “This is what creates the risk of a March rate hike, assuming the data holds on the current trends of strong demand growth, rapidly falling unemployment, and unacceptably high inflation,” SGH concludes. The Fed will also publish update its Summary of Economic Projections, with much focus on the rate hike forecasts (which currently see one rate hike in 2022, with a 50/50 chance of another – lagging behind the market’s current view of two hikes with risks of a third); inflation forecasts are likely to be raised in the short term, but are still expected to show a decline into 2023 – the Fed chair recently told lawmakers that he expects price pressures to ease significantly next year.

  Labor market forecasts should be revised positively, especially after the encouraging drop in unemployment in November (4.2% from 4.6%), alongside more encouraging slack measures. Powell in November said it was possible the US could achieve maximum employment by the middle of 2022. With tapering now expected to be concluded sooner than previously though, officials have argued this will give the Committee more optionality on rate hikes. SGH said that “a natural interpretation of this would be rate hikes in June and December,” though its economists acknowledge risks of a hike as soon as March, although this is not likely to be reflected in the dot plot.

  “Accelerating the taper only increases the optionally to hike before June, it doesn’t guarantee such a hike.” A recent Reuters survey revealed economists expect the Fed to raise rates by 25bps in Q3 of 2022, but 30 of 36 surveyed felt there was a risk that the first-rate hike comes earlier than expected.

  In its latest FOMC preview, Goldman (like Morgan Stanley) expects the Fed to double the pace of tapering to $30BN per month, and believes that the dots will show 2 hikes in 2022, 3 in 2023, and 4 in 2024, for a total of 9 (vs. 0.5 / 3 / 3 and a total of 6.5 in September).

  

  For its part Goldman, expects the FOMC to deliver rate hikes next year in May, July, and November (vs. June, September, and December previously) and another 4 in 2023 and 2024 (spread evenly 2 and 2), for a total of 7 rate hikes through the end of 2024. This is, to put it mildly, laughable, as we will have a full-blown market crash long before any of this happens but we can go with it for now.

  

  Finally, this is what Goldman expects the Fed’s redline statement to look like tomorrow.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 12/14/2021 – 22:30

• As Violence Hits Rich Neighborhoods, Liberals And Ex-Radicals Buy Guns And Mobilize To Oust Progressive DAs
  As Violence Hits Rich Neighborhoods, Liberals And Ex-Radicals Buy Guns And Mobilize To Oust Progressive DAs

  Authored by Michael Shellenberger via Substack,

  “I’ve always been anti-gun,” said Debbie Mizrahie of Beverly Hills.

  “But I am right now in the process of getting myself shooting lessons because I now understand that there may be a need for me to know how to defend myself and my family. We’re living in fear.”

  During Black Lives Matter protests last year, Mizrahie told The Post, her neighbor’s home was firebombed with Molotov cocktails.

  “My kids were outside and they saw a huge explosion,” she said.

  “[The neighbor’s] backyard went up in smoke. Trees burned down … But it’s only gotten worse. Beverly Hills has been targeted.”

  Mizrahie, a 40-something mother of two teenagers, isn’t alone. Ever since the protests last year descended into riots and lootings, a growing number of Beverly Hills residents have been buying weapons.

  “It’s gotten to a point where residents feel insecure even going from their door to their car,” said resident Shirley Reitman.

  “A lot of residents are applying for a concealed carry weapon permit, even though that’s a great challenge in LA County.”

  According to LA County Sheriff Alejandro Villanueva, the department has received 8,105 concealed carry weapon applications and approved 2,102 of them since he took office in December 2018, compared to his predecessor having issued 194 permits in four years.

  “Even hardcore leftist Democrats who said to me in the past, ‘I’ll never own a gun’ are calling me asking about firearms,” said Joel Glucksman, a private security executive. “I’d say there has been an increase of 80 percent in the number of requests I’m getting this year.”

  That trend increased last week, Glucksman said, after a beloved black philanthropist, Jacqueline Avant, was killed in her home.

  “The killing of Avant shows that even having a security guard isn’t enough to deter someone,” said Mizrahie. The victim and her husband, legendary music executive Clarence Avant, had a private security guard on duty when she was killed around 2:30 a.m. on Dec. 1.

  “What you’re seeing is the spillover into these communities of crime and violence,” explained LA police officer Steve Robinson.

  “Before, you would never hear of a robbery or a shooting [In Beverly Hills], or if you did, it was once or twice a year. In 2020, the Beverly Hills Police Department pulled 18 guns off Rodeo Drive. You go back any year before that, and it may have been zero to one or two.”

  Ironically, hours after Avant was killed, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón “distributed a fundraising letter seeking to overturn a law that would keep her [alleged] killer in prison,” according to the Washington Examiner.

  The bill he was pushing for would eliminate additional prison time for using a gun during a crime.

  

  Critics already blame Gascón for releasing many violent offenders with few restrictions. Last year, he eliminated cash bail for many offenses.

  “It’s like we’ve been taken over by gang members and criminals because they know that Gascón is going to make sure he doesn’t prosecute them,” said one woman, a writer in the entertainment industry, who did not want to be identified. “He’s saying, ‘Hey, go out and rob someone for $900 worth. Get arrested, go back out on the street.”

  A California ballot initiative, passed in 2014, allows the theft of items up to $950 before the crime counts as a felony, as well as the possession of three grams of hard drugs including meth. The combination, say law enforcement, has been toxic.

  “It’s a revolving door at the back end because the DA doesn’t want to prosecute and got rid of cash bail,” said Glucksman.

  “So now police are saying to [private security firms], ‘Hey, I understand they’re trespassing, but we don’t want to take that arrest, because there’s nothing that’s going to be done. It’s a waste of our time and it’s a waste of money for us to expend the energy and take care of things that aren’t going to be attended to by the courts and legal system.’ The DA is sitting there going, ‘Nope, pop this one out the window. It’s not like they stabbed somebody or they murdered somebody or raped somebody.’”

  More than 1,800 people have been shot in Los Angeles in 2021, up from 1,530 in 2020. Homicides in LA rose nearly 50 percent, from 161 to 236, between January to October of 2020 and 2021.

  There had been 361 homicides in LA in 2021 as of Dec. 9. That’s still a far cry from the peak: 1,984 homicides in 1991.

  But longtime residents of Los Angeles said they were less affected by violence in decades past.

  “I don’t ever remember crime being so high,” the entertainment writer said.

  “We used to leave our doors unlocked. I would leave my keys in the car with the door unlocked. Not anymore. We’re seeing not just burglaries but also robberies. We are seeing emboldened gang members and criminals holding guns to people’s heads.”

  Last week, two armed robbers invaded a holiday party at a house in Pacific Palisades and took a watch, jewelry and phones from startled guests.

  “Everyone I know is anxious about going out to dinner,” said the entertainment writer.

  “People are afraid to wear their wedding band. They’re afraid to wear a watch. They’re afraid to carry not just an expensive bag but any name-brand bag. I keep wondering, are people going to get used to this level of crime?”

  Beverly Hills and surrounding neighborhoods like Brentwood and Bel-Air are famously home to liberal celebrities. People interviewed on Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive wanted me to know that they are very concerned about racism and police brutality.

  But the killing of Avant was a wake-up call.

  “My industry is filled with progressives who have the luxury of being idealists and espousing philosophies they they thought would never come back and bite them,” said the entertainment writer, who is in her early 60s.

  “There’s a shift now that it’s become so much more dangerous.”

  She mentioned a robbery on Nov. 30 in Hancock Park, a tony neighborhood south of Hollywood, when two men robbed a woman with a baby at gunpoint.

  Glucksman said some criminals are sober and deliberate but many others are addicts and more reckless, breaking into cars randomly.

  “Some are carrying around bats with them,” he said.

  “Three or four years ago my guys would see something like that once every couple of months but now we are now dealing with it on a daily basis, multiple times a day.”

  After Glucksman’s guards arrest a suspected criminal, they turn them over to LA police and file a report.

  “We are finding vagrants totally plastered out of their minds in private residential areas where our clients are and we have to call the paramedics to take them to the hospital because they were non-responsive [on drugs],” said Glucksman. “This is happening multiple times a week.”

  Gascón has reduced the LA County jail population by nearly one-third, from around 17,000 to 12,000. The California prison population declined from 127,000 in
  January 2019 to 99,000 in July 2021.

  “Unfortunately, for the majority of people released from prison,” noted Glucksman, “it’s harder for them to find jobs than others. They’re without skills or an education. Nobody wants to hire them. So … they’re going to return back to their old ways.”

  On Wednesday, Gascón held a press conference defending his controversial rollbacks on bail and and additional time for using a gun during a crime, as well as charging juveniles as adults.

  “We have set a path for ourselves,” said Gascón, “and turned around the criminal legal system in the country in a way that will be more humane, more equitable and, above all, will create a safer environment for all of us.”

  Critics called his remarks “tone-deaf.”

  Few people interviewed by The Post, including police, said they favored mass incarceration.

  “You shouldn’t be in jail for the rest of your life,” said police officer Robinson.

  “But if the three offenses happened to be violent offenses, the probability is that you probably have committed at least 30 crimes of the same nature and they haven’t been caught.”

  Beverly Hills residents have organized themselves, block-by-block and in nine city zones, for self-defense. The emergency preparedness committees, Just in Case Beverly Hills, were started by Vera Markowitz, a former 1960s radical who was a member of the New Left Students for a Democratic Society before moving to Beverly Hills.

  Today, she views public safety and fighting discrimination as two sides of the same coin. “Two years ago I got rid of the Beverly Hills police chief because she had cost the city $25 million in lawsuits by former police officers alleging that she was racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic,” said Markowitz.

   (The police chief has stated that she retired.)

  The entertainment writer and her retired business exec husband, meanwhile, organized neighbors to hire private security. “We got all these homes to buy in way more than I anticipated,” she said. “But it turned out there wasn’t private security available. There is complete panic out there.”

  Security firms charge between $2,000 to $4,000 a month to patrol neighborhoods. “A lot of people are mad about it because people moved here in part because of the police and we’re paying a lot of money in taxes to be in Beverly Hills,” said the retired business executive.

  Beverly Hills Police Department is under-staffed and just hired five new officers to make up for the 17 it lacked to meet the minimum required for public safety. That’s still a blip compared to LA, which has 500 fewer police officers today than it did this time last year.

  Private security executive Bryce Eddy runs Covered Six. One of his clients is the city of Beverly Hills, which hired his firm in June of 2020 after looters smashed store windows on Rodeo Drive.

  “The police were overwhelmed,” said Eddy.

  “In October 2020 we were out there with 22 vehicles and 40 armed guys per shift for 80 armed guys a day. We reduced crime by almost 40 percent. They kept us on until January. After we left, crime spiked back up 90 percent.”

  In February, three alleged gang members stole a $500,000 Richard Mille RM 11-03 Flyback Chronograph watch off the arm of a man eating lunch at the Beverly Hills restaurant Il Pastaio. The same month, criminals robbed seven people of their Rolexes in neighborhoods bordering Beverly Hills.

  In response, the city hired Eddy’s firm again. “We’ve been back ever since,” he said.

  Los Angeles’ progressive city government reduced the LA Police Department’s budget by $150 million in July, lowering its staff to its lowest level in 12 years. Today, LA has 500 fewer police officers than it did at this time last year.

  The irony is that cutting police budgets, noted LAPD officer Steve Robinson, “means less training, which means we are going in the opposite direction. And criminals on the streets are more emboldened.”

  There is now a bipartisan recall campaign underway that could remove Gascón from office, and all of the fearful Beverly Hill residents interviewed by The Post said they supported it.

  “I think I’m still radical,” said Markowitz, “but I’m radical in the middle. I’m just not on the extreme of anything. I’ve always believed that when you believe in something, you fight for whatever it is.”

  *  *  *

  Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment,”Green Book Award winner, and the founder and president of Environmental Progress. He is author of just launched book San Fransicko (Harper Collins) and the best-selling book, Apocalypse Never (Harper Collins June 30, 2020). Subscribe To Michael’s substack here

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 12/14/2021 – 22:10

• California Schools Hire 'Superintendent Of Equity' Who Lives In Philadelphia
  California Schools Hire ‘Superintendent Of Equity’ Who Lives In Philadelphia

  Moreso than perhaps any other state, California has aggressively embraced the “woke” line of thinking. Before schools decided to phase out “D” and “F” grades, LA County hired a bona fide social justice warrior to be its top public health official during the COVID pandemic.

  And now, the California Department of Education is facing a modest backlash over the hiring of a deputy superintendent of equity by the state’s Department of Education. The employee is one of the department’s highest paid. And as it turns out, he also doesn’t live, or work, in the Golden State.

  California’s deputy superintendent for equity, Daniel Lee, is a psychologist, life coach and self-help author, who – according to Politico – owns a Pennsylvania-based psychology firm and is also the president of the New Jersey Psychological Association’s executive board.

  

  And since July of last year, he has also been serving as a deputy superintendent for the California Department of Education, a role dedicated to the success of children of color. The role was originally supported by a foundation grant, but it’s now funded by state taxpayers.

  Per Politico, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond was instrumental in hiring Lee. Thurmond has known Lee for more than two decades, since they were social workers in Philadelphia, and he included Lee in his wedding party.

  The Education Department’s nonprofit affiliate initially hired Lee without publicly posting the job that now pays up to $179,832, and Lee’s 18-page resume shows no prior experience in California or relationships with school districts in the state. Since then, Lee has become head of the state agency’s equity branch, which Thurmond created in August shortly after Lee’s hiring.

  According to local records, Lee, 51, voted in Philadelphia – where he owns a home – as recently as November.

  California’s education and taxpayer advocates have recently questioned why the state hired someone living across the country, who clearly has other duties to address, to be responsible for confronting persistent racial and gender-based inequities in the nation’s largest school population.

  What’s more, the hiring appears to flout California policy, which allows few exceptions for a state employee to live elsewhere.

  One (presumably well-meaning) critic even asked Politico why the state couldn’t find any well-suited candidates for the position who lived in-state (or maybe even in the same time zone?).

  “There are a number of people in California very well qualified in our universities and educational institutions who could do this work,” said Carl Pinkston, director of the Black Parallel School Board in Sacramento, which is suing the state over disciplinary practices for students of color.

  “Irrespective of who it is, to have someone from out of state who is not familiar with California’s dynamics and politics and challenges come in and attempt to do this work only furthers the fundamental problem, which is that the California Department of Education fails to adequately monitor schools for inequities and push for enforcement.”

  Confronted with the criticism, Thurmond defended Lee’s hiring and, amusingly, insisted that “…I wanted to hire [Lee] for a long time but he lived out of state. The pandemic opened the door for me to hire someone who is top of his class.”

  The state schools chief said he knew of “no specific residency requirements” for state workers. When asked if others were interviewed for the equity job besides Lee, Thurmond said, “I can’t recall.” Thurmond attended Temple University in Philadelphia at the same time as Lee in the 1990s but said they did not know each other until they became social workers.

  “The fact that we have known each other for 30 years…if he’s doing great quality work, what difference does it make how long we’ve known each other?” Thurmond said in an interview Friday.

  Lee answered the door last month at his Philadelphia business address in a house along a residential street but declined to speak to POLITICO and did not return phone calls. A Nexis search shows no past or current addresses in California.

  Republicans have seized on the question of Lee’s residence to ask many of these questions.

  California is illegally paying six figures to a “Superintendent of Equity” who lives and works as a life coach in Philadelphia. He was in the wedding of our state schools chief who hired him. pic.twitter.com/euhRBmJMRk

  — Kevin Kiley (@KevinKileyCA) December 14, 2021

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  According to California’s Department of Education, Lee’s role is the first of its kind, and is expected to “bring cohesion in all of the California Department of Education,  equity work,” focused on counseling, social emotional learning “and other whole child programs,” according to the Department of Education’s website.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 12/14/2021 – 21:50

• Tesla Employee Arrested After Shooting Coworker Dead At Fremont Factory
  Tesla Employee Arrested After Shooting Coworker Dead At Fremont Factory

  An employee at the Tesla factory in Fremont, California, was arrested in the shooting death of a co-worker in the factory parking lot Monday during a dispute, according to NBC Bay Area News.

  Suspicious Death at Tesla Factory https://t.co/tdtQFkMhqg

  — Fremont Police Department (@FremontPD) December 14, 2021

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  The suspect is identified as Anthony Solima,29, was arrested at 2315 local time Monday without incident, Fremont police said in a statement.

  

  Police alleged Solima suddenly walked off the job earlier that day, approached his co-worker late afternoon with a non-serialized .223 caliber short-barrel rifle, and shot him to death.

  Homicide detectives said the person was pronounced dead at the scene, and .223 rifle casings were recovered nearby — matching rounds used in Solima’s short-barrel rifle. 

  

  Multiple news outlets, including Bloomberg, have said Solima walked off the job over a dispute with the now-deceased co-worker but have yet to explain the details about the argument.

  The investigation is still ongoing, according to the Fremont Police, adding that Solima is being held without bail. He will be arraigned on Thursday. Police believe there was no one else involved in the shooting. 

  While questions swirl about what the argument was about and who exactly is the deceased co-worker in relation to Solima, there has been a series of incidents at the Fremont factory of racism, “nightmarish” conditions, and rampant sexual harassment. 

  Bloomberg noted that more than 31 complaints were filed with California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing alleging discrimination at Tesla since 2020. 

  More details should follow about why Solima killed his co-worker and what that argument was about. So much chaos at Musk’s factory while he was nominated “Person of the Year” by Time Magazine this week.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 12/14/2021 – 21:30

• Chinese Economic Data A Disastrous Miss Across The Board
  Chinese Economic Data A Disastrous Miss Across The Board

  After a bruising couple of strong yuan months, that saw some efforts at devaluation in early December, expectations are for China’s avalanche of macro data to continue to show the Chinese economy sliding tonight.

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  China’ macro data has most recently surprised to the upside, notably decoupling from the collapse in China’s credit impulse…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Analysts were very mixed about tonight’s data but everything missed expectations:

  • China Industrial Production YTD +10.1% YoY MISS vs +10.4% exp, WORSE than +10.9% prior

  • China Retail Sales YTD  +13.7% YoY MISS vs +13.8% exp, WORSE than +14.9% prior

  • China Fixed Asset Investment YTD +5.2% MISS vs +5.4% exp, WORSE than +6.1% prior

  • China Property Investment YTD +6.0% YoY MISS vs +6.1%, WORSE than +7.2% prior

  • China Surveyed Jobless Rate 5.0% MISS vs 4.9%, WORSE than 4.9% prior

  Ugly – and not like Beijing to allow this level of disappointment…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  So, its a miss across the board with retail sales coming in below the lowest of analyst expectations.

  Consumption weakened despite support from still strong sales around the “Singles Day” shopping festival, which didn’t help offset the impact of the outbreaks of Covid-19 on consumption of services, restaurant and catering sales, and purchases at physical shops.

  The data highlights the downward pressure on the economy from the real-estate sector and the scale of the challenge facing the Chinese government in stabilizing the world’s second-largest economy.

  As a reminder, Beijing was uncharacteristically honest about its rapidly slowing economy this week:

  Beijing has pledged to “front-load” policies to shore up the economy next year, as leaders remained on high alert against strong headwinds at the tone-setting annual central economic work conference that concluded on Friday.

  “We are facing threefold pressure, including contraction of demand, supply shocks and weaker expectations,” the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing an official statement from the conference. “Our policy support should be front-loaded appropriately.”

  The emphasis on “stability” – the word appeared 25 times in the 4,700-word statement – comes as leaders are trying to project a positive image to the world ahead of February’s Beijing Winter Olympics, and with their sights set on the 20th National Party Congress – a key political gala that will usher in twice-a-decade leadership reshuffle for the Communist Party in the second half of next year.

  “We need to concentrate on stabilising the macroeconomy, keeping the economic operation within a reasonable range and maintaining social stability,” the statement said.

  “[The meeting] emphasised the downward pressure – the notion of ‘threefold pressure’ was very rare in the past,” said Zhou Hao, a senior emerging markets economist with Commerzbank.

  He added that it was also uncommon for such official statements to mention the need to strengthen countercyclical regulations, and said it also warrants mentioning that the phrase “houses are for living in, not for speculation” showed up again, in reference to Beijing’s strong regulation of the sector.

  As Mike Shedlock noted earlier, China faces a number of headwinds:

  • Financial risks amplified by the Evergrande debt crisis

  • A regulatory crackdown

  • Biden continues Trump tariff policies

  • US monetary tightening

  • Climate change pressures from the US and EU

  Most of which will inevitably cross the Pacific…

  The US cannot possibly be immune to a huge slowdown in China.

  And what will the US and the EU do in response to China putting clime on the back burner?

  — Mike “Mish” Shedlock (@MishGEA) December 14, 2021

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  In other words – brace!

  China has responded to the slowdown in advance by stimulating exports. This will not go over well with Biden, Congress, or the EU. But the reality is that the global economy is far weaker than Biden, the Fed, and ECB think.

  The big question now is – will tonight’s data disastrophe be enough to prompt Beijing top unleash the beast of credit support (and implicitly drive inflation even higher across the globe).

  One final thing, this was all before Omicron hit!

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 12/14/2021 – 21:09

• Bank Strategist: "There Is Something Seriously Wrong With The Economy's Potential"
  Bank Strategist: “There Is Something Seriously Wrong With The Economy’s Potential”

  Deutsche Bank’s chief FX strategist George Saravelos attended a global investor “virtual lunch” today, and the below 4 points are a summary of the key discussion points.

  1. If you don’t understand supply, you can’t understand this market.

  Most commentators have insisted on adopting an excess demand framework throughout the year: “too much” stimulus leads to overheating demand, inflation and eventually a bond market implosion. While the post-COVID rebound has undoubtedly been strong, we have been arguing for months that this framework is incomplete. First, it ignores the large ongoing negative supply shock in the new COVID “normal”: consider that the US still has a negative output gap and yet inflation has already accelerated to a forty-year high. Consider that the US working age population is shrinking for the first time since WWII. Consider that US productivity last quarter shrunk at its fastest pace in more than half a century. Consider that looking under the hood, capex is disappointing. Bottom line, the supply side is anything but “gangbusters”, more reminiscent of a “secular stagnation” paradigm instead. This in turn prevents the market from aggressively repricing terminal rates: either supply recovers, pushing inflation back down – or, if it doesn’t, it means there is something seriously wrong with the economy’s potential.

  2. We need to talk about excess saving too.

  The second “post COVID normal” is structurally higher saving rates. Individuals may be spending a lot on goods but a) they aren’t doing so on services and b) they are saving even more. Yes, everyone loves bitcoin but also consider that the year has seen one of the biggest retail inflows into bond funds on record and huge bank buying of bonds recycling customer deposits. Consider that European capital outflows are at a record being sucked back into the US bond market while the US current account deficit has failed to widen materially. If this were simply liquidity hoarding, people wouldn’t be buying bonds – and global capital wouldn’t be attracted to the US bond market. Note that low labor supply and high excess saving may well be part of the same story: individuals are showing a growing preference for leisure over work, requiring higher equilibrium savings. The consumer signal is also aligned with a highly inverted yield curve. All of the above fits in with a market pricing of a low r*: massive excess saving keeps term premia depressed; weak supply keeps terminal rates low – both in line with the historical post-pandemic experience of the last thousand years.

  3. The dollar will be a key barometer.

  A flattening yield curve as a result of the forces above is historically dollar supportive and we’ve been more positive on the greenback over the last six months. How far the dollar can go, however, critically depends on the driver of the flatness: high precautionary saving and weak supply versus too much post-COVID liquidity that ultimately has to be withdrawn. If it is weak supply, the dollar move will not run for that much longer; the economy and financial conditions will tighten quicker than expected or supply will come back into line, giving the Fed some time. If it is excess liquidity keeping the S&P “too” high and bond yields “too” low, the Fed will have to keep going and tighten financial conditions more than expected: either equities will have to go down – or, if they don’t, the dollar should rally more as it becomes a high-yielder. The dollar-equity correlation would flip positive and this would not be helpful for EM FX.

  Between the two competing narratives, regular readers will be aware of our emphasis on the more pessimistic side of the story for more than six months now. Both scenarios are dollar positive but the pessimistic one ultimately constrains dollar strength. Our EUR/USD forecasts next year assume an additional 50bps of re-pricing in the US front-end equivalent to a 1.08-1.10 EUR/USD equilibrium but not much more. We worry this would be enough to invert the US yield curve and have a bigger impact on commodities than assumed; we are bearish oil in 2022.

  4. Beware omicron and China.

  Many in recent weeks have asked whether omicron is a “game changer” for the outlook. Our view is that market pricing is here because of the persistence of COVID this year not despite it, and therefore omicron is likely to aggravate all preexisting trends: too much consumption of goods over services, low neutral, inflation for bad reasons, strong dollar, flattening US yield curve. We are especially worried about what omicron means for China. The zero-COVID policy has not been tested under a far more transmissible strain and the level of disruption that may be needed to maintain containment may entail even greater supply disruption than what has been seen so far this year. As far as FX goes, while recent policy actions out of China (the RRR FX increase, higher fixings and greater emphasis on growth) all signal greater official dissatisfaction with CNY strength, it can only be a policy shift towards greater capital outflows (QDII, “wealth connect”) that would be the true game changer.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 12/14/2021 – 21:00

• YouTube Dislikes Reappear With This Google Chrome Extension
  YouTube Dislikes Reappear With This Google Chrome Extension

  Have you missed out on the days when there were huge amounts of downvotes on videos posted by the Biden administration? The ratio of upvotes to downvotes was so embarrassing for the administration that, for whatever reason, YouTube announced on Nov. 11 that it would hide “dislikes” to curb “creator harassment.” 

  Anyone using Google Chrome can now install a plugin to return YouTube dislikes. The plugin is called “Return YouTube Dislike” and is downloadable in the chrome web store. The overview of the plugin reads:

  “Uses data gathered before google closed dislike counts. Very accurate for videos published before Dec. 13 2021. It might be less accurate for unpopular videos published after Dec. 13. Counts votes made by extension users and extrapolates the number to the total number of viewers of a video. This extension is in a very active development phase – so if you experience any issues – don’t hesitate to report them on our GitHub page or in discord. Wait a few days and everything will be fixed.”

  

  According to the chrome web store, the plugin is used by over 900k users and has a five-star rating. We put the plugin to the test, and it works. 

  

  If readers remember, the whole controversy before YouTube made the dislike button invisible was the huge dislike ratios of President Biden’s speeches. 

  Is this the reason? pic.twitter.com/BSaM92k9Vl

  — 🙂FRANK SINATRA (@FRANK_SINATRA7) November 10, 2021

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  Or this lol pic.twitter.com/WOO1QmvzC7

  — 𝐏𝐄𝐘𝐓𝐎𝐍 💎🙌 (@Paytawn) November 10, 2021

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

  Gee, I wonder why they’re about to hide dislikes.

  It’s a total mystery. pic.twitter.com/tCEwDDVdBY

  — Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) November 10, 2021

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

  “Make The YouTube’s Dislike Button Great Again” involves one simple download. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 12/14/2021 – 20:40

• Buchanan: Are Autocrats Always Adversaries?
  Buchanan: Are Autocrats Always Adversaries?

  Authored by Pat Buchanan,

  When did the political systems of 193 nations become the business of the government of the United States? And who elected us Americans to write the moral code for the regimes that rule other lands?

  

  Consider: On taking office, President Joe Biden pledged to center his foreign policy “on the defense of democracy and the protection of human rights.”

  At his Summit for Democracy, he said it was America’s intent to undertake the bolstering of democracy and human rights worldwide.

  Yet no nation bristles more than we Americans do when we discover foreign regimes meddling in our politics or presidential elections.

  Why?

  Historically, Americans have collaborated not only with democracies but also with autocrats, dictators, monarchs and tyrants.

  George Washington danced a jig when he learned an alliance had been forged with the France of King Louis XVI to fight beside us in our war of independence against the England of King George III, in whose army Washington had himself fought in the French and Indian War.

  In the War of 1812, the United States fought the same British enemy as Napoleon was fighting, which may explain why the British enthusiastically burned our Capitol and White House in August 1814.

  In World War I, we “make-the-world-safe-for-democracy” Americans were wartime allies of the British, French, Russian and Japanese empires.

  At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, President Woodrow Wilson signed the documents that parceled out Germanic lands and peoples against their will and in violation of Wilson’s own professed doctrine of self-determination.

  Against Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1945, our principal allies, whose armies did most of the fighting and dying, were Joseph Stalin and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. Neither was a democrat.

  During the Cold War, we were at times allied with South Korean dictators, Argentine generals, Greek colonels, the shah of Iran, Gen. Augusto Pinochet of Chile, Latin American despots, African kleptocrats and assorted royals across the Middle East.

  The world’s largest democracy during the Cold War was India, which sided with Moscow, while autocratic and Muslim Pakistan lined up with us.

  President Richard Nixon’s great diplomatic achievement, the 1972 opening to China, established a detente between the world’s greatest democracy and its most monstrous and murderous tyranny. U.S. elites were elated.

  The point of the recitation? In times of crisis for our republic, we have often found allies in autocrats and dictators while democracies such as India and Sweden remained basically neutral.

  Nations judge friends not by the ideology that they profess but by how they behave when a crisis comes.

  When the Yom Kippur War broke out in 1973, autocratic Portugal allowed the use of the Azores for U.S. planes carrying tanks and guns to Israel. Some of our other allies remained neutral.

  Lately, we have been preaching the superiority of our democracy as a political system for all peoples, as it manifests “universal values.”

  But if tomorrow the kings of Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and the emirs of Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, fell to popular uprisings in the name of democracy, how beneficial would this be to the U.S.?

  A decade ago, when the Arab Spring produced free elections in Egypt and the Palestinian territories, the big winners were the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

  Again, when did the political systems of foreign nations that do not threaten or attack us become an American concern?

  When did they become any of our business?

  During the Cold War, Stalin imposed communism on that half of Europe he had conquered in World War II. Nikita Khrushchev brayed, “We will bury you!” and, “Your grandchildren will live under communism.”

  But Russian President Vladimir Putin does not say, “Your grandchildren will live under communism” or under autocracy. Or under Russian rule.

  Nor does the China of Xi Jinping, who preaches the supremacy of his system, attempt to impose communist ideology on his neighbors who have not embraced it.

  China is communist to the core, but outside the territories it claims as its own — such as Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Inner Mongolia — it does not impose its ideology. It does not impose Communist Party rule.

  It was the U.S. under President George W. Bush that preached a global crusade for democracy. It is the United States that today backs color-coded revolutions to overturn regimes in the Balkans, Caucasus and Near East.

  It is the United States whose National Endowment for Democracy and its subsidiaries, and government-backed NGOs, interfere incessantly in the internal affairs of other nations to extend our democratist ideology.

  Most autocrats are nationalists, not transnational crusaders.

  It is not Putin who is dividing the world based on ideology.

  It is Biden who sees the world as divided between saints and sinners, democrats and autocrats and, by coercion and conversion, seeks to grow the camp of the saints. Pakistan is invited to the democracy summit, while NATO ally Hungary is blackballed.

  In the great power struggle of the present, among America, Russia and China, it is the Americans who are waging relentless ideological wars. And ideological wars often end in shooting wars.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 12/14/2021 – 20:20

• Eighteen 'Offensive' Words You Can't Say In Canada
  Eighteen ‘Offensive’ Words You Can’t Say In Canada

  Authored by Walter E. Block via The Libertarian Institute,

  Think that the US is the wokiest nation on the planet? Think again. Canada is coming up fast, and with its latest initiative, appears to be on the inside track. What has the Great White (pardon me for using this word) North done to warrant this characterization? They have come up with eighteen words that are offensive; you say them only at your peril, at least in the frozen country to the north of the U.S.

  What are these words? They are as follows:

  Ghetto; sell someone down the river; blackmail; brainstorm; savage; gypped; pow wow; tribe; spooky; black sheep; blind spot; blindsided; first world problem; spirit animal; tone deaf; lame; grandfathered in; crippled.

  

  Say what?

  Some of these are easy to understand, from the social justice point of view. It is clear that savage, pow wow, tribe and spirit animal are cultural appropriations from native Indians. But why not, then, also, prohibit teepee, buffalo, wild horses, tent, beads, wampum and other words associated with this group of people? Similarly, any fair minded person can readily see why the differently abled snowflakes would take offense at tone deaf; lame; crippled, blind spot; blindsided.

  But should we not then add to the list words such as color blind, near sighted, far sighted; deaf; hard of hearing, etc. And, yes, we can easily discern why hyper sensitive black people (people of color is now ok, but perish even the thought about colored people, despite the fact that the National Association of Colored People has not yet seen fit to change their name), would take it amiss if people used someone down the river; blackmail; brainstorm, black sheep, spooky. But there are many other such words we could at once add to this list; black hole (in astronomy); blacksmith; blackout; blacktop; blacking; nonblack; blackfly; blackbird; blackberry; blackguard; blacklist; blackjack; blackboard, blackgammon. These, too, should be condemned as irretrievably racist, a product of systemic racism. (It turns out that there are no fewer than 279 words with the letters “black” in them in the English language; space limitations do not allow me to list them all; grr!). And then there is cotton, sugar cane, tobacco, all crops picked by slaves; should they be unmentionable too? The feminists see red (if this color is still allowed; see pow wow, tribe, above) with the use of grandfathered in.

  But what about man? Even woman and person should be shelved. Hint: look at the last sexist syllables of those words. Maybe we could use wodaughter and perdaughter in their places? Who knows?

  Similarly, gypped is understood, but there are numerous other words of this ilk, which cannot appear in this family oriented periodical; should the mere mention of them, even to warn against them, be verboten? Even the way Lenny Bruce use the N word? Indubitably. Yes, of course “first world problem” is insulting. The poor, the impoverished, those from developing nations (many are retrogressing) can readily take umbrage at this phrase. Maybe, while we are at it, we should also ban poor, poverty, impoverished, etc.?

  

  We have here a linguistic land mine. We have been told to mind our p’s and q’s, but that is now just the tip of the iceberg. We will now have to walk as if on egg shells regarding this new lexicon too. (Waitasec. Iceberg sounds as a disparagement to my sensitive ears. Won’t it affront tall people, cold people?)

  Is opposition to these words and phrases based on the blathering of some Canadian drunk on maple syrup? No, these orders from on high come to us from no less than the venerable and venerated Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. For those not in the know, the CBC is sort of like if The New York Times and CNN and their ilk were combined into an arm of the government. It is similar to other state-controlled news and opinion outlets such as exist in countries such as China, North Korea, and Cuba.

  The government not only makes the news, it reports on it too. So, when the CBC sets down these new linguistic rules and conventions, all Canadians must take note.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 12/14/2021 – 19:40

• Heavily-Vaccinated Northeastern States Struggle With Surging Hospitalizations
  Heavily-Vaccinated Northeastern States Struggle With Surging Hospitalizations

  Fortunately, Pfizer is just about ready to roll out its new COVID pill, because case numbers are rising rapidly in the northeastern US, a part of the country that was previously overlooked because of high vaccination rates and relatively low COVID numbers. But now, emergency rooms across the region, which includes much of the Empire State, as well as the six states that comprise New England, are overflowing, while infection rates soar.

  CDC data clearly shows the spike in hospitalizations.

  

  Source: CDC, Bloomberg

  Admissions involving patients with COVID climbed 14.4% across the US in the week ended Dec. 9, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. In New England, the rate was more than double – 33.5%.

  

  This latest surge is happening in what is perhaps the most vaccinated area of the US. In Massachusetts, where 88% of the population has had at least one dose of the vaccine, the state is planning to send out more than 2MM rapid antigen tests to the poorest communities, according to Gov. Charlie Munger.

  Just a few days ago, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered masks to be worn inside all businesses in the state, largely because cases and hospitalizations have been climbing upstate and in Western New York.

  Since Thanksgiving, New York State’s seven-day average case rate has increased 43% and hospitalizations have increased 29%. The percentage of vaccinated Americans has increased about 2 percentage points in the same period – clearly not fast enough to curb the spread of the virus.

  Meanwhile, NYC is going a step further than most cities and municipalities by imposing a vaccine mandate on private-sector workers starting Dec. 27.

  As far as hospitalizations go, Maine, New Hampshire and New York have all activated the National Guard to help hospitals treat COVID patients. New Hampshire, which has the highest 7-day case rate of any state in the US, also is sending residents free at-home rapid COVID tests. Within a day of the Nov. 29 offer to send tests to any resident, all 800K tests were taken. Another round was pledged, but none have been delivered.

  Moving south toward the mid-Atlantic region, we have the Garden State, which is seeing a similar trend of rising hospitalizations. In New Jersey, where hospitalizations are at the highest since the end of April, most of the new cases are among the unvaccinated, but the state is seeing more infections among those who have had two doses of the vaccine and are experiencing waning immunity, according to Gov. Phil Murphy, who urged residents to get their boosters.

  In New Jersey and the other states, hospitals are cutting back on elective procedures and other less-urgent health-care procedures to allocate more resources to fighting COVID.

  And this is all before the omicron variant – which is supposedly better at evading the protections afforded by vaccines – has even arrived.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 12/14/2021 – 19:20

• Why Not A $118 Minimum Wage?
  Why Not A $118 Minimum Wage?

  Authored by John Seiler via The Epoch Times,

  Here we go again. The latest scheduled round of minimum-wage increases, to $15 per hour ($14 for small companies), starts Jan. 1. It hasn’t even gone into effect, yet calls are going out for a $18 wage. Why not $28? Or $58? Or $118?

  

  Joe Sanberg, identified by the Sacramento Bee as a “Los Angeles anti-poverty activist and entrepreneur,” is working to put on the November 2022 ballot an initiative that would boost the minimum wage to $18 by 2025. Actually, a real, “anti-poverty activist” is anyone who favors America’s free-market system that has produced all the wealth in this country, including that used to help the poor.

  Sanberg also seems not to have noticed all the Help Wanted signs throughout the state. Business owners tell me the current $14 an hour ($13 for small companies) minimum is just a “starting wage,” raised as soon as the employee gets to know the job and is adding value to the company.

  Despite the current labor shortage, California’s unemployment rate remains, as it has been for two decades, at least 2 percentage points above the national average. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in October California’s unemployment rate was 7.1 percent, tied for worst with Nevada. The national rate was 4.6 percent. That is, California’s rate was 2.5 points above the U.S. rate.

  Let’s look at some rival states, all also enjoying zero state income tax, compared to California’s 13.3 percent top rate:

  • Texas has a minimum wage of $7.25, also the national rate. Unemployment is 5.4 percent.

  • Florida’s minimum wage is $10. Unemployment is 4.6 percent.

  • Tennessee’s minimum wage is $7.25. Unemployment is 4.2 percent.

  It seems a low minimum wage combined with no state income tax is a lot better for getting people, especially the poor, jobs than is California’s formula of high taxes and a high minimum wage.

  “Cost of living is rising faster and faster,” Sanberg explained as a major need for raising the wage rate, “but wages haven’t increased commensurately.”

  But if wages are raised due to government decree, businesses will have to pay for that either with yet higher prices—or going out of business.

  He also doesn’t take into account how inland California remains much cheaper than Coastal California. Yet a statewide minimum wage would force inland businesses to pay the same high wage already common on the coast.

  A check of Zillow.com shows many homes available for $250,000 in Bakersfield—less than a quarter of asking prices in Orange County. In San Francisco and Silicon Valley, it’s even higher.

  The late economist Walter Williams also pioneered research on how a high minimum wage hurts minorities the most. He said it’s like cutting off the first rung on a ladder, making it harder to get started upward. Young people especially are hit hard because they’re just starting out and don’t have much to offer, but are willing to learn; after which their wages will rise—or they will move to another job where they are paid more.

  His study for Policy Review magazine was called “Government Sanctioned Restraints that Reduce Economic Opportunity for Minorities.”

  Williams wrote, “The minimum wage law gives firms effective economic incentive to hire only the most productive employees which means that firms are less willing to hire and/or train the least productive, which includes teenagers and particularly minority teenagers. But holding all else constant, such as worker productivity, such a wage law gives firms the incentive to indulge in whatever preferences that they may hold.”

  He noted how black youth unemployment in the 1940s and early 1950s actually was less than for white youth. In 1948, it was 9.4 percent for black kids, but 10.2 percent for white kids.

  But then in the late 1950s, the minimum wage was increased by 33 percent, to $1 an hour. That pushed black youth unemployment above that for white youth, and it never has gone the other way since.

  In November 2021, according to the St. Louis Fed, black youth unemployment (16 to 19 years old) nationally was 21.9 percent, almost double the 11.2 percent rate for all youth that age.

  If Sanberg’s initiative makes it to the ballot, we can expect heavy support from the Democratic Party and unions, and opposition from the restaurant and hospitality industries. And if it passes, California will in yet another way become less hospitable to businesses and jobs creation.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 12/14/2021 – 19:00

• Omicron On Track To 'Massively Disrupt' Pro Sports
  Omicron On Track To ‘Massively Disrupt’ Pro Sports

  With the emerging spread of the hyper-transmissible yet mildly symptomatic Omicron strain of Covid-19, policymakers have gone back to their ‘plague’ playbook of masks, vaccination campaigns, lockdowns and other measures despite an absolute dropoff in case fatality rates in regions hit early by the latest variant.

  

  And as Axios notes, Omicron now threatens to ‘massively disrupt’ the sports world. On Tuesday, 37 players in just the NFL tested positive for Covid-19, the league’s worst day since the pandemic began. As a result, Rams cornerback Jalen Ramsey, Giants wide receiver Kedarius Toney and Chiefs wide receiver Josh Gordon were among those who landed on Covid reserve as a result.

  More via Axios:

  • NBA: The Bulls on Monday became the first NBA team to have games postponed this season (today against the Pistons, Thursday against the Raptors) as they deal with an outbreak that’s already landed 10 players in COVID protocols (of note, the NBA changed its definition of “fully vaccinated” to include a booster as of Dec. 17).

  • NHL: The league on Monday postponed Calgary’s next three games after six players and a staffer landed in protocols. The Flames join the Senators and Islanders as the third team this season with a postponement.

  • NFL: A record 37 players tested positive on Monday after a weekend that saw at least a dozen other players miss games due to COVID protocols. In mid-November, the NFL announced in a statement that more than 94 percent of players and nearly 100 percent of personnel are double jabbed.

  • European soccer: At least five Premier League teams are dealing with outbreaks a week after Tottenham’s outbreak led the league to reinstate emergency COVID measures. Germany’s Bundesliga, meanwhile, is limiting crowd capacity amid rising cases.

  • College sports: Tulane’s men’s basketball team is temporarily shutting down amid an outbreak, with all three games this week postponed.

  • Tennis: Emma Raducanu, the reigning U.S. Open champ who last week was named WTA’s Newcomer of the Year, tested positive and is out of this week’s event in Abu Dhabi.

  Again, this is what we’re dealing with in terms of the new threat to the general public by all early indications:

  

  Axios notes that while the Delta variant hit over the summer, when “most vaccinated arms had been freshly jabbed,” Omicron is set to hit in the spring, as vaccine effectiveness wanes.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 12/14/2021 – 18:40

• Crypto-Chaos: CoinMarketCap "Price Issues" Creates Instant-Trillionaires
  Crypto-Chaos: CoinMarketCap “Price Issues” Creates Instant-Trillionaires

  Is this what hyperinflation feels like?

  For a brief moment this afternoon, the world was full of trillionaires as one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency price providers appeared to have been hacked, showing massively inaccurate prices across all tokens.

  

  CoinMarketCap began showing the massive numbers for assets like Bitcoin, which was priced at $789,432,690,634.70, while Ethereum showed up as being worth over $523 billion each.

  The website quickly issued a statement to explain it was “undergoing price issues”:

  Our website is currently undergoing Price Issues

  The Engineering team is aware of incorrect price information appearing on https://t.co/3AD93ocjMp.

  We are currently investigating and will update this status when we have more information. 👍 🙏

  — CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) December 14, 2021

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

  The “issues” sent cryptocurrency holders’ portfolios soaring explosively higher – with many becoming instant trillionaires…

  

  

  

  Or just $400 billionaires…

  

  Many exchanges were affected including Coinbase:

  We’re aware some customers are seeing inflated values for non-tradable crypto assets on https://t.co/ohqDivCZYw and Coinbase Wallet. This is a display issue only and does not impact trading.

  — Coinbase Support (@CoinbaseSupport) December 14, 2021

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

  Apologies for any confusion – we’re still investigating asset price and trade difficulties on @CoinbaseWallet. Our teams are digging in to investigate and fix.

  — Coinbase Support (@CoinbaseSupport) December 14, 2021

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

  CoinMarketCap appeared to find some humor in it – once their systems were back online:

  How did it feel to be a trillionaire for a couple hours?😂

  — CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) December 14, 2021

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

  But we suspect more than a few traders are very upset at what just happened.

  How many crypto shorts covered when they saw they are down a few trillion dollars.

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 14, 2021

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

  When the boomers see the @CoinMarketCap glitch and panic sell #CoinMarketCap pic.twitter.com/4i65xcgTUl

  — Brandon (@RevivalBran) December 14, 2021

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

  One thing to consider for some is how this ‘hack’ could be a perfect dry-run example of what central bank digital currencies could do one day:  people wake up and their CBDC wallets are up by 1,000,000,000%… but they have to spend the money in the next 30 days… and bread costs $1,000,000 per loaf.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 12/14/2021 – 18:20

• Dems Boosts Debt Ceiling By $2.5 Trillion
  Dems Boosts Debt Ceiling By $2.5 Trillion

  Update (1745ET): The US Senate has voted to increase the country’s debt ceiling by $2.5 trillion, enough to fund operations through early 2023.

  Passed by a 50-49 party line vote, the plan is to send it to President Biden’s desk for his signature.

  “Responsible governing has won on this exceedingly important issue,” said Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of the increase in borrowing. “The American people can breathe easy and rest assured there will not be a default,” he added.

  The current federal debt is $28.9 trillion, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellenhas warned that the government could have difficulty meeting its obligations after Dec. 15, though outside analysts have said the government has a bit more time.

  The Senate acted as a result of legislation Congress approved last week establishing a one-time process to fast-track the measure by shielding it from the threat of a GOP filibuster in the 50-50 Senate and allowing it to pass with a simple majority. -Bloomberg

  Congress last raised the debt ceiling in October with a $480 billion band-aid which followed weeks of partisan jousting.

  *  *  *

  Senate Democrats are seeking to increase the debt limit by $2.5 trillion, which would fund the government through early 2023, according to a Joint Resolution released on Tuesday.

  

  The new figure comes as Congressional Democrats plan on a Tuesday vote to raise the debt ceiling, just one day before Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s prediction that US could default as soon as Dec. 15.

  The effort will begin in the Senate, where Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is expected to advance a debt-limit resolution early Tuesday afternoon. That procedural green light will mark the start of 10 hours of Senate debate allowed for under the resolution, split between the two parties.

  Schumer said Tuesday morning that Democrats will likely yield some portion of their debate time to speed up the process. While a vote could slip to the evening hours if Republicans use all their allotted time, the chamber’s Democrats are expected to pass a debt-ceiling increase before the end of the day. –CNBC

  Once through the Senate, the bill will then go to the House, where Democrats are expected to approve it and send it to President Biden’s desk later in the day, or early Wednesday.

  According to Schumer, the Democrats will raise the debt limit “to a level commensurate with funding necessary to get into 2023.

  Democrats own the increase after 14 Republicans joined every Democrat in the Senate to allow a one-time simple majority vote to lift the debt ceiling without the 60 votes typically required to break a filibuster.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 12/14/2021 – 17:45

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