- Putin Says Russia Will Soon Be Able To Counter "Invincible" Hypersonic Weapons
Putin Says Russia Will Soon Be Able To Counter “Invincible” Hypersonic Weapons
Tyler Durden
Mon, 06/15/2020 – 02:45The thing about hypersonic missiles is they are supposed to be impossible to defend against. Since Russia began touting its experimental arsenal two years ago, the prospect of devastating weapons capable of traveling at Mach 5, or at least a mile per second, has kept Pentagon generals up at night.
“The hypersonic threat is real, it is not imagination,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves told a D.C. defense conference in 2018. “Greaves comments come amid reports that assess Russia will be capable of fielding a hypersonic glide vehicle, a weapon that no country can defend against, by 2020,” a report at the time underscored alarmingly.
The “indefensible” super weapon… but Russian President Vladimir Putin now says the Kremlin will soon have the technology to defend against it — this as more and more information has been slowly revealed concerning the US Department of Defense’s own multi-billion dollar hypersonics program.
Putin made the new comments Sunday:
“It’s very likely that we will have means to combat hypersonic weapons by the time the world’s leading countries have such weapons,” he said according to the RIA news agency.
Russian state media further said Putin referenced an emerging hypersonins ‘arms race’.
The Russian president said that Russia’s rivals will soon be “surprised” when they learn the Russian armed forces will be able to “combat them”. Putin’s words, as conveyed by RT, were paraphrased as follows:
Other nations are hastily designing their own hypersonic weapons – but by the time they are acquired, the Russian military will have learned how to shield the country from them, President Vladimir Putin said.
The world’s leading military powers will eventually succeed in developing the ultra-fast weapons, President Vladimir Putin told Russia-1 TV. Russia, meanwhile, which seems to be leading the race for hypersonic dominance, won’t be caught off-guard once that happens, he pledged.
I think that we can pleasantly surprise our partners with the fact that when they get these weapons, we will have the means of combating them, with a high degree of probability.
Prior US intelligence reports predicted that Russia could possess battle-ready hypersonic weapons by mid-2020; however, at this point it seems unlikely given recent apparent major setbacks in Russia’s testing hypersonics.
Those prior reports also described “a Russian weapon the U.S. is currently unable to defend against…” which has previously undergone reported successful tests, namely the hypersonic glide missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, dubbed Avangard. Putin had previously called the Avangard “invincible”.
But assuming Putin’s newest remarks on hypersonics are anywhere near accurate — that Russia is close to being able to defend against hypersonic missiles — this would be a true game-changing advantage without parallel, whether it be China or America’s experimental programs.
- An Insight Into How Globalists Think, Courtesy Of The Trilateral Commission
An Insight Into How Globalists Think, Courtesy Of The Trilateral Commission
Tyler Durden
Mon, 06/15/2020 – 02:00When the term ‘globalist‘ is used by alternative analysts, it usually encourages the mainstream press to denounce it as an anti-semitic trope which is concentrated on the belief that a select group of the jewish presuasion – dubbed ‘the elite‘ – control the world from the shadows. Failing that, the media will pigeonhole it as an abstract expression that has no defined definition.
The truth is that the reason the media does not want to engage with the concept of globalism is precisely because it can be defined to both institutions and the individuals that inhabit them.
To illustrate this, let’s use the Trilateral Commission as a specific example.
I last wrote about the Trilateral Commission in February when I discussed how the organisation was in the process of reforming itself. Back in the summer of 2019, they published a brochure called ‘Democracies Under Stress: Recreating the Trilateral Commission to Revitalize Our Democracies to Uphold the Rules-Based International Order‘. Within the brochure they spoke about ‘rediscovering their roots‘, ‘sharpening‘ their mission, and the need for ‘rejuvenating‘ their membership. All of this was predicated on a goal of upholding the ‘rules based global order‘ and meeting the ‘challenges‘ of the 21st century.
It was around this time that the Trilateral Commission held its 2019 Plenary Meeting in Paris in the middle of June. During this event the North American Chairman of the Commission, Meghan O’Sullivan (who is also on the board of the Council on Foreign Relations), spent a few minutes talking about the institution and the role it intends to play from here on in.
Here is a direct quote from O’Sullivan’s monologue, which can be viewed on the Trilateral Commission’s Youtube channel:
We’re an organisation of people who have close ties to national governments, and often the ideas we debate in private inform our own perspectives and inform our discussions and deliberations and conversations with people in positions of power. That will still be true, but today we need to think about having an impact on the broader debate. We no longer live in a world where governments are the only ones that can influence the future. In fact, increasingly, we have to think about other entities as being the real engines of change, and be that corporations or universities or even individuals. We need to think about how to shape the conversation, how to bring those groups in, to have investment in and commitment to solutions.
O’Sullivan concluded by saying:
And we need to move ahead, whether or not we’re able to get our governments to agree with our prescriptions and recommendations.
This is in concurrence with what the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said at the World Economic Forum in January 2020. When talking about his belief that global problems must be met with global solutions, Guterres commented:
Sometimes we manage, sometimes we fail, but one thing you can be absolutely sure – we will not sit quietly expecting a consensus of the international community to solve the problems we have been discussing.
The implication of O’Sullivan’s and Guterres’s words primarily suggest one thing, and that is that the organisations they represent are not going to wait forever for national legislatures to implement solutions for global crises. What they appear to be saying is that if government’s cannot be galvanised into action by ratifying into law initiatives like the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (also known as ‘The Green New Deal‘), then the only other option is to set about doing it ourselves.
O’Sullivan muses that governments are no longer the only bodies that can ‘influence the future‘, and now is the moment where consideration must be given to ‘other entities as being the real engines of change‘. According to her this could be a mix of corporations, universities and individuals.
For starters, corporations and universities are not accountable to the electorate. But institutions like the Trilateral Commission are heavily populated by figureheads from multi nationals and the education sector.
Behind the scenes they are helping to formulate policies with the aim of them being carried through to national administrations for implementation. For an overview of how the Commission operates, I would recommend reading a copy of ‘Trilaterals Over Washington‘, a two volume book written in the late 1970s by researchers Antony Sutton and Patrick Wood. Here, the authors describe the composition of the commission and break down the power structure into three parts: The Operators, The Propagandists and Technicians, and the Power Holders. I briefly described each process in an article published back in 2018 (Order Out of Chaos: A Look at the Trilateral Commission).
O’Sullivan clearly states that the Trilateral Commission has ‘close ties‘ to national governments, and that private debate within the Commission is informing their own perspectives as well as informing ‘our discussions and deliberations and conversations with people in positions of power‘. This will continue, but it is no longer enough. Now they want to start having a bigger impact on the ‘broader debate‘.
By ‘broader debate‘, I would argue that O’Sullivan means you and I. The next logical step if you are the Trilateral Commission is to try and gain majority consent on the reforms they want to see enacted.
How can they begin to do that? Let’s be clear that membership of the Commission is not permitted for politicians who are in government. When co-founder of the institution Zbigniew Brzezinski entered Jimmy Carter’s administration in 1977, he renounced his direct affiliation with the Commission. But that did not mean Brzezinski was no longer in broad agreement with the objectives of the group. Indeed, after Brzezinski left official office, he returned to the folds of the Commission.
As I have pointed out before, the current leader of the opposition Labour Party in the UK, Keir Starmer, is an active member according to the June 2020 membership roster. This is a fact that is not mentioned on Starmer’s own website, his official parliamentary web page or in the national media.
When he was campaigning to be Labour leader in February 2020, Starmer’s connection to the Commission was kept suppressed. Evidence of this came in mid February when his campaign team was forced to deny that they had illegally accessed Labour party membership data. The matter was raised on a live BBC leadership debate show hosted by Victoria Derbyshire, where one member of the studio audience suggested that the reason Starmer was not facing an official investigation was because of his membership of the Trilateral Commission. Starmer very quickly brushed off the claim, and Derbyshire just as quickly moved on to another member of the audience.
This was an ideal opportunity to question Starmer on his involvement in the Commission – to ask what it is and how it may or may not influence his political beliefs and motivations. Instead, the BBC chose to ignore the issue.
Starmer may be in opposition, but his membership is relevant because the Commission is informing debate and is seeking to influence national administrations to adopt globally devised initiatives. Starmer is part of that process.
And it should be stressed again – out of 650 members of parliament, Starmer is the only one who was invited into the Commission (membership is by invitation only). Perhaps this is because of his legal prowess, as from 2008 to 2013 he was the Director of Public Prosecutions, the third most senior prosecutor for England and Wales.
Should Starmer ever make it as far as Prime Minister, he will vacate his position at the Trilateral Commission. What he likely won’t relinquish is his loyalty to the Trilateral cause.
At this point, a fair question to ask is what authority does the Trilateral Commission possess that allows them to believe that they could bypass national governments in pursuit of global objectives? After all, this is a commission that is not elected but has within its ranks men and women who are elected at the national level. It is a commission that is dominated by corporate interests and is privately funded. At a special event in 1998 to mark 25 years of the Trilateral Commission, a list of financial supporters from 1973 to 1998 was published to show names such as Exxon Corporation, AT&T Foundation, The Coca-Cola Company, The First National Bank of Chicago, Morgan Stanley & Co and Goldman Sachs. A list for the present day is not readily available.
From analysing the Commission’s communications, my concern is that the language has now shifted from an emphasis on national administrations to implement reforms to the global institutions seeking to do it themselves. This is global governance in all but name.
With the onset of Covid-19, the rhetoric has intensified substantially on the necessity for governments to rally behind initiatives like the Sustainable Development Goals and enforce them into national law. And if they don’t? Well, we will seek to do it without you is the message. As Meghan O’Sullivan admits, ‘we need to move ahead, whether or not we’re able to get our governments to agree with our prescriptions and recommendations.‘
- Parry: Beware The Hijacking Of US Protests Into A "Color Revolution"
Parry: Beware The Hijacking Of US Protests Into A “Color Revolution”
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/14/2020 – 23:30Authored by Max Parry via The Unz Review,
The May 25th killing of George Floyd, an unarmed African-American man, at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota shocked the world and set off mass protests against racism and police brutality in dozens of cities from the mid-western United States to the European Union, all in the midst of a global pandemic. In the Twin Cities, what began as spontaneous, peaceful demonstrations against the local police quickly transformed into vandalism, arson and looting after the use of rubber bullets and chemical irritants by law enforcement against the protesters, while the initial incitement for the riots was likely the work of apparent agent provocateursamong the marchers. Within days, the unrest had spread to cities across the country including the nation’s capital, with U.S. President Donald Trump threatening to invoke the slavery-era Insurrection Act of 1807 to deploy the military and National Guard on American soil, federal powers not used since the 1992 Los Angeles riots following the Rodney King case.
The debate over the catalyst for the uprising into its period of lawlessness has drawn a range of theories. The suspicious placement of pallets of bricks in the proximity of numerous protest sites have spurred rumors of sabotage by everything from white supremacist groups to “Antifa” to law enforcement itself. Predictably, liberal hawks such as Susan Rice, the former National Security Advisor in the Obama administration, made ludicrous assertions suggesting “Russian agents” were behind the unrest, a continuation of the narrative that the Kremlin has been behind inflaming racial tensions in the U.S. that began during the 2016 election. While Democrats like Rice and Senator Kamala Harris of California have revived an old trope dating back to the Civil Rights movement of Moscow exploiting racial divisions in the U.S., Trump and the GOP have similarly resurrected the ‘outside agitators’ myth attributed to segregationists of the same era. Hypocritically, many of those claiming to be in support of the protests have denounced the latter theory while endorsing the former, when both equally show contempt for the legitimate grievances of the demonstrators and deny their agency. However, both false notions overlook the more likely hidden factors at play attempting to hijack the movement for its own purposes.
Believe it or not, there could be a kernel of truth in accusations coming mostly from the political right as to the possible role of the notorious liberal billionaire investor and “philanthropist” George Soros and his Open Society Foundation (OSF). Ironically, if any of the right-wing figures of whom Soros is a favorite target were aware of his instrumental role in the fall of communism staging the various CIA-backed protest movements in Eastern Europe that toppled socialist governments, he would likely not be such a subject of their derision. The Hungarian business magnate’s institute, like other NGOs involved in U.S. regime change operations such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), is largely a front for the CIA to shield itself while destabilizing U.S. adversaries, the spy agency’s preferred modus operandi since the exposure of its illicit activities in previous decades by the Rockefeller Commission and Church Committee in the 1970s. In the post-Soviet world, nations across Central Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and beyond have become well acquainted with the political disruptions of the international financier and his network. In particular, governments that have leaned toward warm relations with Moscow during the incumbency of President Vladimir Putin have found themselves the victims of his machinations.
Under Putin’s predecessor Boris Yeltsin, Soros made a killing off the mass privatization of the former state-run assets in the Eastern Bloc, as journalist Naomi Klein explained in The Shock Doctrine:
“George Soros’s philanthropic work in Eastern Europe — including his funding of (Harvard economist and economic advisor Jeffrey) Sachs’s travels through the region — has not been immune to controversy. There is no doubt that Soros was committed to the cause of democratization in the Eastern Bloc, but he also had clear economic interests in the kind of economic reform accompanying that democratization. As the world’s most powerful currency trader, he stood to benefit greatly when countries implemented convertible currencies and lift capital controls, and when state companies were put on the auction block, he was one of the potential buyers.”
In contrast, the Putin administration over a period of two decades has since restored the Russian economy through the re-nationalization of its oil and gas industry. Its two energy giants, Gazprom and Rosneft, are state-controlled companies serving as the basis of the state machinery‘s reassertion of control over the Russian financial system, a move that has gotten Mr. Putin branded a “dictator” by the West. As a result, most of the notorious Russian oligarchs enriched overnight during the extreme free market policies of the 1990s have since left the country, now that such rapid accumulation of wealth to the rest of the nation’s detriment is no longer permitted. While economic inequality in Russia may persist, it is nowhere near that of the Yeltsin era where the average life expectancy was reduced by a full decade.
In the last decade, the United States has gotten its own taste of the incitement and agitations that have previously fallen upon governments across the global south. Instead, domestically the CIA cutouts in the non-profit industrial complex have played a pivotal counterrevolutionary role in co-opting and ultimately derailing such uprisings meant to bring systemic change to the U.S. political system. In late 2011, the Occupy Wall Street movement emerged at Zuccotti Park in New York City’s financial district against the deepening global economic inequality following the Great Recession and the protests quickly spread to other cities and continents. In just a few months, the sit-in was expelled from Lower Manhattan and the anti-capitalist movement itself largely was diverted towards reformism and away from its original radical intentions. It was also revealed the origins of OWS and its marketing campaign were traced to Adbusters, a media foundation that was the recipient of grants from the Democratic Party-connected Tides Foundation, a progressive policy center which receives significant endowments from none other than George Soros and the OSF.
Emerging just two years later, the roots of Black Lives Matter were not just in community organizing but partially took inspiration from the Occupy movement. Unfortunately, the similarities between them were not limited to a shared lack of clarity in their demands but facing the same dilemma of being absorbed into the system. While OWS was quickly suppressed after hopeful beginnings, the BLM leadership became career-oriented apparatchiks of the Democratic Party and left grass-roots organizing behind. Through the non-profit industrial complex, the Democratic Party has mastered bringing various social movements under its management on behalf of Wall Street in order to funnel public funds into private control through various foundations. Along with the Ford Foundation which has given BLM enormous $100 million grants, Soros and the OSF have been one of the principal offenders. Still, many who correctly identify right-wing protests such as the Tea Party movement and the recent ‘anti-lockdown’ demonstrations as the work of astro-turfing by the Koch Brothers and Heritage Foundation seldom apply the same scrutiny to seemingly authentic progressive movements assimilated by corporate America.
One figure who mysteriously appeared on the scene in the early days of OWS connected to Soros was the Serbian political activist Srđa Popović, the founder of Otpor! (“resistance” in Serbian) and the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS) political organizations which led the protests in 2000 which ousted the democratically-elected President of Serbia, Slobodan Milošević, known as the “Bulldozer Revolution.” Not long after Popović’s consulting of activists in Zuccotti Park, Wikileaks documents revealed the Belgrade-born organizer’s significant ties to U.S. intelligence through the global intelligence platform Stratfor (known as the “shadow CIA”), exposing the real motives behind his involvement in U.S. politics of outwardly supporting OWS while trying to sabotage the popular movement. Since their role as instruments of U.S. regime change in Serbia, Otpor! and CANVAS have received financial support from CIA intermediaries such as the NED, OSF, Freedom House and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), as well as the Boston-based Albert Einstein Institute founded by the American political scientist, Gene Sharp.
Srđa Popović
Despite ostensibly professing to use the same civil disobedience methods of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., Gene Sharp‘s manual for “non-violent resistance” entitled From Dictatorship to Democracy has been the blueprint used by political organizations around the world that have only served the interests of Western imperialism. Beginning with the Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia, the successful formula which ousted Milošević spread to other Central Asian and Eastern European nations overthrowing governments which resisted NATO expansion and the European Union’s draconian austerity in favor of economic ties with Moscow. These were widely referred to in the media as ‘Color Revolutions’ and included the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia, the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine and its 2014 Maidan coup d’état follow-up, as well as the 2005 Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, among others.
Subsequently, Srđa Popović and CANVAS also lent their expertise in Egypt during the predecessor to its Arab Spring in the April 6 Youth Movement which appropriated Otpor!’s raised fist logo as its emblem. In preparation for the organization of anti-government demonstrations, the activists poured over Gene Sharp’s work in coordination with Otpor! whose fingerprints can be found all over the Arab Spring uprisings which began as protests to remove unpopular leaders in Egypt and Tunisia but were carefully reeled in to preserve the despotic Western-friendly systems that had put them to power initially. Where Sharp’s “non-violent” template failed, countries with U.S. adversaries in power such as Libya and Syria saw their protests rapidly morph into a resurgence of Al-Qaeda and a terrorist proxy war with catastrophic consequences. This recipe has also been exported to Latin America in attempts to remove the Bolivarian government in Venezuela, with self-declared ‘interim president’ and opposition leader Juan Guaido having received training from CANVAS.
While the right seems to have a bizarre misconception that the parasitic hedge fund tycoon is somehow a communist, there is an equal misunderstanding on the pseudo-left where it has become a recurring joke and subject of mockery to naively deny Soros’s undeniable influence on world affairs and domestic protest movements. Less certain, however, are the claims from conservatives that Soros is a supporter of “Antifa” which Trump wants to designate as a domestic terrorist organization, a dangerous premise given the movement consists of a very loose-knit and decentralized network of activists and hardly comprises a real organization. Various autonomous chapters and groups across the U.S. may self-identify as such, but there is no single official party or formal organization with any leadership hierarchy. While the original Antifa movement in the 1930s Weimar Republic was part of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), the current manifestation in the U.S. has a synonymous association with black bloc anarchism (even inverting the colors of the original red and black flag), though it is really made up of a variety of amateurish political tendencies.
Amidst the ongoing nationwide George Floyd protests, the demonstrations in Seattle, Washington culminated in the establishment of a self-declared “autonomous zone” by activists in the Northwestern city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood — known as the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ). In response, Trump doubled down on his threats to quash protests with the use of the military while blaming “anarchists” in “Antifa” for the unrecognized commune occupying six city blocks around an abandoned police precinct. Anyone who has paid close attention to the war in Syria for the last nine years will find this highly ironic, given the U.S. military support for another infamous “autonomous zone” of Kurdish nationalists in Northern Syria’s Rojava federation. The Kurdish sub-region and de facto self-governing territory purports to be a “libertarian socialist direct democracy” style of government and has been the subject of romanticized praise by the Western pseudo-left despite the fact that the autonomous administration’s paramilitary wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), were until recently a cat’s paw for American imperialism as part of the U.S.-founded coalition, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Not coincidentally, many of those who use the Antifa vexillum are enthusiastic supporters of and even volunteer mercenaries fighting with the YPG/SDF in an ‘International Freedom Battalion’ which claims to be the inheritors of the legacy of the International Brigades which volunteered to defend the Spanish Republic from fascism in the Spanish Civil War. Unfortunately, these cosplayers forgot that the original International Brigades were set up by the Communist International, not the Pentagon. Meanwhile, despite their purported “anti-fascism”, there are no such conscripts to be found defending the Donetsk or Luhansk People’s Republics of eastern Ukraine against literal Nazis in the War in Donbass where the real front line against fascism has been. Instead, they fight alongside a Zionist and imperial proxy to help establish an ethno-nation state while the U.S. loots Syria’s oil.
Prior to Trump’s decision last October to withdraw troops from northeastern Syria which preceded a Turkish invasion, Ankara and the U.S. repeatedly butted heads over Washington’s decision to incorporate the Kurds into the SDF, since the YPG is widely acknowledged an off-shoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the militant and cult-like political group regarded as a terrorist organization that has been at war with Turkey for over forty years. It is also no secret that jailed PKK founder Abdullah Öcalan’s theories of “democratic confederalism” are heavily influenced by the pro-Zionist Jewish-American anarchist theorist, Murray Bookchin. So when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told Trump that there were links between the U.S. protests and the PKK, there was a tiny but core accuracy in his exaggerated claim. As Malcolm X said, “chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad.”
The George Floyd protests, like previous uprisings in Ferguson and Baltimore, certainly began spontaneously, nor does any of this discount the legitimate issue of ending the militarization of U.S. law enforcement which disproportionately victimizes black Americans. Nevertheless, time and again we have seen how bona fide social movements become political footballs or quickly go to their graves. Like BLM, it is practically inevitable the protests will become a partisan tool for the Democratic Party in the coming 2020 election when it has no concrete political articulations of its own, even if it does bring substantive change to domestic policing. In January, Trump was impeached for temporarily withholding security aid to the Ukraine and Democrats advocated his removal because he is regarded as insufficiently hawkish toward Moscow. Since 2016, they have actively diverted all opposition to Trump into their own reactionary anti-Russia campaign and soft-coup attempt in the interests of the military- intelligence community, a shared agenda with Soros. When all of corporate America, the media, and even the NED have publicly declared their support for a movement, it is no longer just about its original cause of getting justice for Mr. Floyd, whose funeral became a virtual campaign rally for Trump’s opponent, Joe Biden. It is too early to say determinedly whether what is taking place in the U.S. is indeed a ‘Color Revolution’, but by the time we realize it may too late.
- How Much Do US Cities Spend On Policing?
How Much Do US Cities Spend On Policing?
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/14/2020 – 23:00The state of America’s policing has come under scrutiny after George Floyd’s shocking death in Minneapolis. That resulted in massive protests all over the country with people demanding reform and an end to police brutality and racism. It has created a debate about “defunding” the police and redirecting more money into community outreach programs.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recently said he would make cuts to the NYPD’s $6 billion budget and set funding aside for communities and his view is at odds with President Trump. On Monday, Trump said that “there won’t be defunding, there won’t be dismantling of our police, and there is not going to be any disbanding of our police.”
As Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, over the past 30 years, the U.S. has dramatically increased police spending while funding has fallen for mental health services, community outreach programs, housing subsidies and food benefits programs for disadvantaged low-income communities that have to deal with high levels of criminality. Data from The Center for Popular Democracy, Law for Black Lives and the Black Youth Project 100 estimates that the U.S. spends a collective $100 billion on policing per year and another $80 billion on incarceration. It also shows the amount spent on policing per person in a selection of major cities which ranges from $381 to $772.
Well before George Floyd lost his life, an earlier version of the report revealed serious issues about policing in Minneapolis, stating that “racial disparities there are especially stark” and that “black and indigenous people were more than eight and-a-half times more likely than whites to be arrested for low-level offenses”. It also said that “black people comprise 19 percent of the Minneapolis population but account for 59 percent of low-level arrests. Whites, by contrast, comprise 64 percent of the population but only 23 percent of low-level arrests”. In 2017, Minneapolis spent $408 per person on its police force. Unfortunately, that figure was not available for 2020, unlike the other cities listed on this infographic.
You will find more infographics at Statista
After Freddie Gray was killed by police officers in 2015, Baltimore also received national attention for its heavy-handed policing and levels of racial division. Back in 2017, the report noted that its police department was under scrutiny due to years of corruption, misconduct and brutality that eroded trust with communities of color. Out of the city’s operating budget more than a quarter of funding is allocated to policing, some $536 million. Spending on policing per person is the highest of any major city in U.S. at $904. By comparison the figure in New York was $672 while it was $436 in Los Angeles.
The report notes that police funding levels increased in all cities analyzed in the 2017 report (though 2020 data was not available for Minneapolis) and the figures for new cities included in the analysis show that some reform has occurred. Milwaukee is noted as an example where grassroots groups successfully demanded police divestment, which has happened, and the police department’s budget is now lower than in previous years.
You will find more infographics at Statista
The same old trends are evident as in previous years in most major cities, however with the NYPD’s $5.6 billion budget accounting for 7.7 percent of New York City’s general fund. A general fund is used by a city to support municipal services like law enforcement, the fire department and parks, as well as planning, community development and administrative support services.
The share of the general fund is far higher in other cities such as Los Angeles. The LAPD has a 2020 budget of $1.7 billion according to the report and that accounts for over a quarter of the general fund. The share is even higher in Chicago at 37 percent with the total police budget approximately $1.68 billion. In Minneapolis, the city where George Floyd lost his life, the 2017 data shows that the police budget accounted for 35.8 percent of the general fund, totalling $163 million.
- "You Can't Rally But We Can Protest!"
“You Can’t Rally But We Can Protest!”
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/14/2020 – 22:30Authored by Stephen Miller via The Spectator,
The staggering hypocrisy of the Democrats over COVID-19…
Are you ready for the second blame wave? As the country braces itself for an inevitable repeat surge in COVID-19 infections, we’re told red-state governors ‘opened too soon’. The next outbreak, we can be sure, will be something to do with the fact the President decided to resume his political rallies, approximately two weeks from now.
What nobody says is that individual or social behavior is the cause. It can’t possibly be the thousands of people closely together marching down city streets yelling and chanting, some with masks, some not. The guidelines fell completely by the wayside for the Democrats and much of network cable news.
In the middle of May, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser extended her lockdown order through to the June 8. Two days prior to her own lockdown order was to be reviewed, on June 6, she encouraged mass gatherings of protests, in a tweet saying ‘Let’s all meet here soon #BlackLivesMatter’, with a photo showing off her big block yellow letters painted down a DC street. In a press release about a possible spike in coronavirus cases in her city, after two weeks of protests she encouraged herself, Bowser announced that ‘DC Health has confirmed that a new peak was detected in the data, resetting the Districts Phase One count to nine days of sustained decrease.’
Florida congressswoman Val Demings, who features on the shortlist to be Joe Biden’s VP nominee, tweeted on June 8 that she had joined a ‘Healing and Hope Rally last night to speak with our community as America grieves.’ Two days later she scolded the President: planning to hold ‘mass rallies in Florida and elsewhere as we experience a resurgence in COVID cases is irresponsible and selfish’.
If there’s a gaping lack of curiosity about this blatantly hypocritical behavior from Democratic officials, it’s because members of the media are not only purposely ignoring it, but partaking in the same double-standard.
Showtime host Alex Wagner, in response to the Trump campaign’s rally announcement in Oklahoma tweeted, ‘Someone should tell him there’s a pandemic spreading across the United States.’ Several days earlier, she had praised Sen. Elizabeth Warren for joining protests in DC. ‘Can’t stop won’t stop,’ she trilled.
Politico’s Jake Sherman finger-wagged Vice President Pence for visiting a campaign office without social distancing, but he himself joined in protests at the Capitol.
Democratic strategist and former Hillary Clinton cheerleader Adam Parkhomenko helped organize supplies such as lunch and water stands for a DC protest where he encouraged ‘a million’ people to come join. That didn’t stop him from tweeting ‘A thousand Americans are dying a day from the pandemic, and the president of the United States is ignoring it.’
Either the funniest or most egregious behavior came from the Grim Reaper himself. Remember Daniel Uhlfelder? He is the Florida attorney who donned a Grim Reaper costume and harassed Florida beach goers with body bags, he secured through funds raised from Act Blue. Daniel was so serious about the deadly virus spreading through a state run by a Republican governor that he turned his novelty act into a traveling show. But those plans were apparently put on hold as he himself joined in and encouraged protests, as he tweeted on June 7, ‘We are here in the Florida panhandle in Deep South where hundreds have turned out for peaceful protest. No peace. No justice.’ Also, no virus, it seems.
These people want you to believe that this pandemic is caused by some magical woke virus, one which somehow skips those who have the right politics. What it actually does is raise the suspicion that Democrats and progressives have wanted to keep the economy shut down and people at home as long as possible to affect the outcome of the November election. Your job and your family or your church (also protected by the First Amendment) are not important. Our joining in large crowds to protest is.
There is almost assuredly going to be a spike in COVID cases and it will also almost assuredly be put on red-state governors and the President holding rallies. But Democratic activists and politicians themselves created this situation. They encouraged the world to disregard lockdown and people will now follow their lead, no matter how much they are scolded by the media. These people think we’re all stupid. We’re not.
- China's "V-Shaped" Recovery Stalls As Big Three Macro Signals Disappoint
China’s “V-Shaped” Recovery Stalls As Big Three Macro Signals Disappoint
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/14/2020 – 22:07As a second wave of COVID-19 begins to spread in both Beijing and Guangzhou (with a warning from a Vice Premier of a high risk that the outbreak spreads and new figures show Beijing reported 36 new cases on June 14), China’s miraculous “V-shaped” recovery was expected to continue.
Early in the evening, China home prices beat expectations rising at a 0.42% MoM clip – the best since Oct 2019…because who wouldn’t want to be bidding up prices in China right now…
Source: Bloomberg
Earlier in the month, the manufacturing PMIs suggested some further stabilization, though not much of a strengthening last month. Exports dropped, though by less than anticipated, at -3.3% year-on-year, while imports tumbled hard, with a 16.7% slide.
And then the big China data dump hit:
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Industrial Production -2.8% YTD YoY (slightly better than the expected 3% drop and an improvement on last last month)
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Retail Sales -13.5% YTD YoY (matched expectations and improved from the 16.2% drop last month)
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Fixed Asset Investment -6.3% YTD YoY (worse than the expected 6.0% drop but an improvement over last month)
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Property Investment -0.3% YTD YoY (better than the 0.8% drop expected and a big improvement from the 3.3% drop last month)
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Surveyed Jobless Rate 5.9% (as expected and better than the 6.0% last month)
However, on a straight YoY basis – all three of the “big” ones missed:
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China Retail Sales -2.8% Y/Y, Exp. -2.3%
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Fixed Investment -6.3% Y/Y, Exp. -6.0%
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Industrial Output 4.4% Y/Y, Exp. 5.0%
The immediate takeaway perhaps is that China’s economy continues to improve (after the crushing Q1 blow due to COVID-19 containment-driven shutdowns) but that pace of recovery may not be living up to expectations.
And as Chris Anstey, Bloomberg’s Managing Editor, Asia Cross-Asset Markets, warned, it’s “hard to see how GDP comes in positive for the second quarter, now that we’ve got two of the three months worth of data.”
Of course, none of this should be a massive surprise as, once again, China has injected unprecedented amounts of credit into the economy to keep the mirage of growth alive and maintain a semblance of social cohesion…
Source: Bloomberg
The question is – what happens when the second wave (or third) hit and even more so-called “stimulus” is needed?
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- Futures Tumble Below 3,000 After China Warns Of "High Virus Resurgence Risk"
Futures Tumble Below 3,000 After China Warns Of “High Virus Resurgence Risk”
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/14/2020 – 21:30On a day when more than 20 US states are seeing a pick-up in cases, Tokyo reported a jump over the weekend and a fresh outbreak in Beijing prompted officials to close a market there, futures are tumbling, with Eminis down more than 40 points to 2,980 the lowest level since the start of June.
The drop follows renewed fears of a second coronavirus wave which massacred shares on Thursday before a modest rebound Friday.
But the trigger for tonight’s drop appears to have come out of China, which reported 49 new cases of COVID19 in China on June 14, including 10 imported cases and 39 local cases. 36 local cases were diagnosed in Beijing and 3 in Hebei province, according to the National Health Commission, with China’s Vice Premier Sun Chunlan spooking traders saying that the risks are high for Beijing’s coronavirus resurgence to spread as all cases are related to Xinfadi wholesale market where a large population has visited, according to Xinhua.
As reported yesterday, Beijing shut a major food market and imposed lockdown restrictions on residential areas nearby after dozens of people associated with the wholesale market were tested positive for coronavirus.
Additionally, the Global Times reported that 17 out of 19 new imported coronavirus cases registered on Saturday came from South Asia, Chinese health authorities said Sunday, a sharp spike which analysts said indicates that loosening restrictions and worsening contagion in the region poses a danger to the country’s domestic situation. The 17 patients were reported in South China’s Guangdong Province, with 14 flying from Bangladesh and three from India.
The 14 patients and the three asymptomatic carriers arrived in Guangzhou on China Southern Airlines flight CZ392 from Dhaka to Guangzhou on Thursday, which prompted the Chinese aviation regulator to suspend the route for four weeks from June 22 in accordance with the latest policy.
“The risk is that, globally, we get a second wave,” said Chris Iggo, the chief investment officer for core investments at AXA Investment Managers, quoted by Bloomberg. “Now is the time to have that long-duration bond exposure in the portfolio.”
In a few minutes, the market’s mood may shift again after China reports key economic data for May, expected to show a continued improvement after the world’s second-largest economy. Officials moved a press briefing online due to the latest virus outbreak in Beijing.
In FX, the yen edged up 0.1% to 107.29 per dollar; the offshore yuan slipped 0.2% to 7.0890 per dollar, and the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.1%.
The yield on 10-year Treasuries fell about three basis points to 0.67%, and is again approaching the April lows of 0.54% after printing shy of 1% two weeks ago amid a burst of reopening hopes that sent value stocks surging.
- A Shocking Eye-Witness Account Of What's Really Happening During The Seattle Riots
A Shocking Eye-Witness Account Of What’s Really Happening During The Seattle Riots
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/14/2020 – 21:30Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,
A social media post (which has been removed) by a member of the Washington National Guard has been shared more than 7000 times since it was written on June 12th. It’s a true education in mob mentality.
As Toby Cowern says, “Look how much ‘othering’ has been done already. Once that’s happening there’s a big problem.”
He’s right – and here’s the shocking truth about what’s really going on in Seattle from a person who had a front-row ticket to the mayhem.
An eye-witness account
I previously said I had a lot to say regarding my experiences while in downtown Seattle [Incoming VERY long post…]. When I came home, I was exhausted, angry, and saddened by what I had experienced. I said I needed to share what happened, but I also said I needed some time to rest and reflect. My unit was activated for 12 days. We worked long hours but we continued to stay dedicated to the state and the mission. I can’t stop that now. I’ve been up all night, trying my best to put into words what I experienced and observed. This is too important to wait. I rarely post on social media, but I’m making this post, hoping it reaches those that want to know the truth. I can imagine, given the current environment, this post may cause some controversy. That is not my intention what-so-ever. I agree the excessive use of force in Minnesota was inexcusable but reacting with hatred and violence is contradictory to the message of peace and change. Either way, people need to know what’s actually happening behind the guise of this “movement.” Whether localized or nationalized, what I witnessed NEEDS TO STOP!
Activation:
I was working nights and the day of my phone call, I had difficulties sleeping that morning. I had a lot on my mind, and I decided I was going to stay up and do some yard work. As I was preparing to go outside, I started receiving text messages and phone calls. “We’ve been activated! Hit time at the armory is 1700!” I looked at my watch and I had maybe an hour before hit time. “Well, I’m going to be late…” I thought. I immediately responded to the text messages and phone calls, telling them I would be there as soon as possible. Why was I going to be late?
My unit is in Western Washington and I live in Southeastern Washington… to drive, at a pace much faster than the speed limit, I’d be lucky to make it in three hours… Without hesitation, I grabbed all my staged military gear and threw it into the back of my vehicle. I figured, “Heck, if it’s an emergency, they’re not going to have time to put out a packing list… so, I mise well bring everything.” As I was throwing military gear into my vehicle, I received text messages telling me to pack for at least a week. “Wow, this is serious…” I thought. Being activated and expecting the mission to last a week or more, whatever the activation was for, it was going to be an uphill battle… I threw a few uniforms and a week’s worth of clothing in my rucksack and proceeded to drive to the armory.
Preparation:
I arrived at the armory in the evening and realized I had now been awake for over 24 hours. I contacted my chain of command and determined we’d leave at zero dark hundred for Seattle. I gathered my issued equipment, added it to my ruck sack, and tried to take a one-hour nap. I awoke to people on the move and bright fluorescent lights. It felt like I had just closed my eyes, but it was go-time. I grabbed my bags and met my unit in the parking lot of the armory. There was no time to waste! We loaded every cot we had, all our personal bags, and whatever we could quickly think of that we might need. We loaded our transportation and were off to Seattle in what seemed like minutes…
The Build Up:
On our way to Seattle, I had time to dwell and self-reflect. What’s so out of control that the Guard would be called up? Who and/or what am I going to be protecting? Am I going to be protecting rights, life, property, or all the above? I told myself that no matter what happens, I will do my utmost to remain impartial, to uphold the Constitution, to protect the rights of the citizens of the United States, and to protect life and property to the best of my ability. As a Soldier, we take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against ALL enemies, foreign and domestic. Regardless of the political climate, a Soldier has the responsibility to remain impartial, to ensure all citizens’ rights are protected and that the Constitution is adhered to. As we approached Seattle, I did so with an open mind and a sympathetic heart. I prayed that I may understand whoever needs our help, that I may do my job to the utmost of my ability, and that the rights of all those involved would be preserved.
The Gear:
Per order of the Governor of Washington State, Jay Inslee, the Washington Army National Guard went into Seattle COMPLETELY UNARMED. We had NO way to defend ourselves and HAD TO rely upon the SEATTLE POLICE DEPARTMENT to protect us… Not all of us had vests or plates that would stop rifle bullets. In the beginning, most of us didn’t even have shin guards… A few Soldiers didn’t have batons… Shields were hit or miss, but we ended up sharing where we could…
The Riots:
Oddly enough, my first day was one of the hardest days. We touched ground and were immediately dispatched to the Seattle Police Department (SPD) East Precinct near the intersection of 11th St and Pine St (Capitol Hill). This location would become very familiar for me, due to all of the “peaceful protesters” rioting here almost every night… Only one other unit arrived the day before we did, and they were sent to Westlake Center due to it being actively vandalized and destroyed.
Before I talk about the first day, I have to admit that my squad was later sent to Westlake. While I was there, I saw remnants of fire and broken glass everywhere I went. Almost all glass areas were boarded up and the area was devoid of business. What I, and most non-locals didn’t know, is that Westlake is a shopping center. It’s blocks upon blocks of popular businesses in downtown Seattle. It’s essentially an outdoor shopping mall… Due to the fact that not a single store was open, I was curious about the extent of damage to the area the night before. While I was looking through photos on Google while on break, one of the Seattle Police Department Police Officers pointed to an area down the street and said, “The bastards torched my patrol car right there.” As she said that, the newspaper headline photo lit my smartphone screen as I could see protesters celebrating around broken business windows and a couple vehicles that were aflame. I thought to myself, “Why would someone do this?” As I read through the headlines, I came to realize the businesses were broken into, looted, and then set ablaze… all in the name of “Black Lives Matter.” I tried my best to connect the dots… but how does social injustice relate to graffiti, theft, malicious mischief, and arson? If there was a specific political statement from these crimes, even the news media didn’t interpret or understand it… it was obviously a crime of opportunity…
Returning back to my first day at East Precinct, I was assigned as one of the squad leaders. My squad, consisting of primarily Soldiers from my unit, were fairly distinct. Like everyone else in my unit, we wore a black vest that distinguished us against every other Guardsman in Seattle. I could explain why, but it’s not relevant. If you want proof of where I was, find the Soldiers with black vests in Seattle… I was one of them.
Anyways…
On the first day, we were initially on the line behind the Seattle Police Officers at the East Precinct. The Officers weren’t carrying shields like us that day. During the protests, I observed Officers shaking hands with those yelling at them. I also saw one Officer approach a male crying in the crowd. The Officer asked the male if he wanted a hug and the protester replied, “Yes!” I watched as the Officer embraced and comforted the crying protester. Seeing these things, I thought to myself “Why am I here? Seattle PD obviously has a connection with the population, what am I supposed to accomplish or prevent here?” It didn’t take long for that to change.
I took up position on our right flank, recognizing a weakness in our line. A female quickly made eye contact with me, while recording me with her cell phone, and started yelling… “HEY! ARMY! Where are you from?!” I told her I was a Soldier with the Washington Army National Guard. She asked if I lived in Washington State. I told her, “Yes, I’m a citizen of Washington State, just like you.” She then abruptly said, “Why do you guys keep killing us?” I told her, “Excuse me?! I haven’t killed anyone…” She looked at me, befuddled, and said… “You guys keep killing us! You know, your training… don’t you have some sort of limitation where you can’t kill people?! You know, where you can only shoot us if we shoot at you?” At this point, I obviously knew she was referring to our Rules of Engagement (RoE) but it was obvious she was trying to provoke me. I tried to explain to her that what she was saying wasn’t true, but she kept interrupting me. Every time I’d try to speak, she’d raise her voice and interrupt me. As she continued to escalate, I recognized she was trying to provoke an exaggerated reaction out of me. I looked at her, shrugged, and proceeded to ignore her as I scanned the crowd. She grumbled and said, “You don’t even know your own regulations?!” I looked at her, shrugged again, and continued to ignore her… As I was scanning, I saw a male protester point out and move towards an African-American Police Officer.
The protester proceeded to yell, asking why the Officer was on the “white-man’s side.” He called the Officer an “Uncle Tom,” a “pretender,” a “race traitor,” and a N-word I’d prefer not to use. Every fiber of my being wanted to lash out. How can you use racist terms and protest racism while using it in a derogatory manner towards someone else? How can you even find fault in someone that is remaining peaceful, that is protecting your rights, and is obviously concerned for the community?! I was furious as the protester continued berating the Officer… We then got replaced by another squad for relief.
During their “protest” I observed multiple people tell others to “shut up” because of their “white privilege.” I also saw two protesters almost get into a fight because one wasn’t “letting the black man speak.” Another protester, when a male had a megaphone, yelled “Listen to him! He’s black!” I was raised, under the impression, that equality means treating everyone equally… Race won’t cease to be an issue until we stop talking about it. All my brothers and sisters are one color: green. It’s cool to honor your heritage, but no one gets special anything due to their skin tone… Everyone is treated the same and everything is equal. How is this (equality) a hard concept?
I talked to my Soldiers during our downtime. I had a few African-American Soldiers in my squad. I pointed out and talked to them about what I had just observed. I told them they may be focused upon, that the racists in the crowd might single them out because they’re African-American. It wasn’t long before we returned to the protest line.
I should start gambling because it didn’t take long for the African-American Soldiers to get singled out. I’m not going to repeat the hate, racism, and discontent directed at my Soldiers. If they feel the need to share what was directed at them by the hypocritical “protesters,” they’ll do so. Either way, every single Soldier in my unit was phenomenal. Not a single Soldier lost their military bearing or professionalism. Not a single protester got anyone in my squad to break their military bearing… Not a single Soldier lashed out at the complete and utter stupidity of the racism coming from the hypocrites… After each one of my Soldiers was focused upon, I pulled them aside and later commended them on their military bearing and discipline. I reiterated to each one of them that the rioters were trying to provoke them to react. I told my Soldiers to maintain their discipline and to not worry about the protesters overstepping. I told them I’d be right there, to address any protesters touching them or pushing the boundaries.
I have to say… I’m a prior Active Duty Soldier and these Guard Soldiers were on point! They must have had some hard charging Drill Sergeants because all of them maintained their military bearing through this whole ordeal and I’m proud as hell to call them brothers and sisters!
Some highlights:
“All of you Soldiers should have died in Iraq!”
“You’re nothing but a bunch of Vietnam baby killers!”
“The only thing you know what to do is murder people!”
“All people should be afraid of you, you’re nothing but killers!”
“You guys must be ready to kill people with your kung-fu gloves.”
“I’m legitimately afraid of you guys because all you know what to do is kill.”
“Who exactly are you here to protect?”
“You’d rather protect property than people!”
“You should be pointing weapons at the police!”
“You’re on the wrong side, racists!”
“Stop following orders and join us!”
“You’re too dumb to form your own opinion.”
“What Matters? Black Lives Matter… Are you too stupid to get that?”
“You guys need to stop shooting people.”
“You guys need to stop gassing us.”(We NEVER had firearms, Oleoresin Capsicum [OC], CS “tear” gas, or any other “weapons”)
-Some of these comments were made towards us while we were just standing in an area, away from any “protest line” without a riot shield…On that first day, they continued to try to provoke a response from the Officers and the Guardsman. NO ONE PROVIDED A RESPONSE. I was on the line, near the center right. I remember a plastic water bottle being thrown across the line by the “protesters” on my right side towards a Police Officer. Soon after, a bottle landed on the left side, right behind our line. I yelled out “SHIELDS UP!” Without hesitation, our ENTIRE LINE of Guardsman moved forward, and placed ourselves between the rioters and the Police Officers.
The “protesters” began throwing rocks, glass bottles, and chunks of concrete. I was out there ALL day. There wasn’t any construction going on. There wasn’t a pile of concrete or bricks anywhere to be seen. All I saw were younger people with heavy backpacks. THEY WERE GRABBING CHUNKS OF CONCRETE FROM THEIR BACKPACKS TO THROW AT US. Why is that important? Why would you carry chunks of concrete to a protest? Because you PLAN on using/throwing the concrete… When the concrete began to rain down on us, it came from ALL directions. What does that mean? It was COORDINATED. THEY PLANNED TO ASSAULT US WITH CONCRETE. I didn’t realize until later, but I have to tell you… it really pissed me off when I thought about the situation I had just experienced. As they were throwing these items, the Officers tried to protect us by using less-lethal means (OC/CS/etc). NO LETHAL FORCE WAS USED. Could the Seattle Police Department use lethal force in that situation? Absolutely… a chunk of concrete to the head can KILL someone…
What NO ONE realizes, because the media is bias as hell, at least three police officers were injured that day before SPD used less-lethal means to de-escalate the situation. One Officer took a chunk of concrete to his right eye… last I heard, he’s expected to LOSE his eye. I retrieved a video from that confrontation with the “protesters.” You can see items flying towards us as SPD deploys OC (pepper spray). Notice the second use of OC, the long burst? That was over my right shoulder next to my head. I got some OC contamination from that, which was okay because I was trained for it… The crowd continued to throw concrete. At least two pieces of concrete hit my shield. I later took a picture of my shield, WHICH WAS BRAND NEW, to show the extent of crap being thrown at us.
SPD then deployed CS gas. We had planned for this possibility, telling the squad on deck to come relieve us after they put their mask on. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. As CS was deployed, the crowd began to throw the CS canisters back towards us along with more concrete. I couldn’t put my mask on since I would have had to drop my shield to do so. I was currently protecting SPD Officers and I wasn’t going to allow the Officers behind me to get hurt. So, as Guardsman were pulled off the line by other Guardsman and SPD, I HELD MY GROUND. I’ve been through the CS gas chamber with the U.S. Army, but this was so much worse. I stood there, trying to breathe for as long as I could.
At one point, I looked forward, and saw a female pointing a black pipe towards me. My thought in that moment: “You’ve got to be kidding me… they’re using potato guns too?!” As she turned to her right, I noticed it was a leaf blower. A “PROTESTER” brought a leaf blower to blow CS gas towards us… (It’s not like they were anticipating that, right?!) As the clouds of CS were parting due to her efforts, I saw a male… wearing a black hoodie, with the hoodie up, a bandanna, black pants, and a black backpack, in a throwing position. I watched as he threw a large piece of concrete (at least 5” x 5”), that was shaped in a triangle, directly at me. As it hit my shield (notice the white impact mark on the picture), I thought to myself… if I was armed, I would have shot him… The cloud of CS overtook me. As I struggled to breathe, I looked to my left and NO ONE was there. I looked to my right and saw only ONE OTHER SOLDIER. I began to fall back as a sea of navy blue rushed forward. SPD and the Washington State Patrol to the rescue! I returned to a rally point, dropped my shield, put on my gas mask, and began helping other soldiers that had been out on the line. As the smoke began to clear, I took a couple photos to remember this moment and the anger that flooded my emotions.
The week continued and we were sent where SPD needed us. We were told we had begun to get a reputation with SPD. Our actions, while at East Precinct, showed we could be depended upon and we were there to help. The Guard had arrived, and we’d be there, standing shoulder to shoulder with SPD, against these anarchist/communist rioters in Seattle. We saw through the protester’s “cause.” They were using the horrible situation that occurred in Minnesota as an opportunity to cause chaos, to loot and steal, and to destroy everything in their way to gain momentum for their “revolution.” The group was quickly identified as Antifa, a communist action group that was in the process of being labeled as a terrorist organization by the Commander-in-Chief.
I don’t like politics and I’m not going to talk about politics. When you’re in the military, you give up that luxury. It’s something I don’t mind giving up, since discussing politics is as pointless as convincing a stubborn person they’re wrong. It’s all opinion and people typically already have their mind made up. Getting into an argument over politics usually ends in an escalation and personal attacks, especially when discussed between two people that have already passionately made up their mind.
Needless to say, I was very angry. I’m a protector by nature. When someone tries to hurt another person, and they do so when that person can’t defend themselves, I become very upset. People that do that are criminals. They’re the scum of society. They prey on the weak and defenseless for their own personal gain. These are the so-called “peaceful protesters” of Seattle. I agree with everyone’s right to protest, but the moment they try to assault someone, that’s when EVERYONE should have a problem with their actions. Why the media has continued to defend them, it just shows how biased and out of touch the media is and it irritates me.
After only a few days, the majority of my unit was sent home. Why? The Guard wanted to re-staff COVID-19 food banks, testing centers, and send the full-time soldiers back to their normal jobs… So, a large portion of our unit was pulled, and we were left with a little more than a dozen soldiers. The platoon was condensed, and other units were added to our ranks to fill in for those pulled from our platoon. We worked very well together and continued to push forward, making the best of the situation, as we were constantly tasked out by SPD.
Additional units began to arrive, due to Governor Jay Inslee activating the entire Washington National Guard (Army and Air Force). We soon realized that the majority of our “reinforcements” weren’t trained, were undisciplined, and were useless for the current mission in Seattle. Additionally, they were an embarrassment… Those units were quickly sent home by the Commanding General and we realized our platoon would be stuck in Seattle, battling Antifa, until the situation was resolved one way or another.
I asked my chain of command a few times about arming us, but it was relayed over and over that Governor Inslee wouldn’t allow the Guard to defend ourselves or take the fight to the enemy (Antifa). The Governor made us rely on SPD to “protect us.” That limited the scope of our response, limiting our role as “shields” and “bodies” on the line for SPD… As SPD Officers and Guardsman continued to get injured at East Precinct, it became increasingly frustrating… Arming the National Guard is a risk, and some Antifa members probably would have been shot, but the situation would have been resolved quickly with a VERY different outcome.
So, the same escalating confrontations with Antifa continued for almost two weeks… The “protesters” would assault SPD Officers and Guardsman and SPD would use LESS-LETHAL means to disperse the riot. The rioters then used politics to their advantage. They began petitioning the Mayor of Seattle, Jenny Durkan. Durkan, in all her wisdom, caved to all demands… the curfew was lifted, and she BANNED the use of CS gas, the ONE thing that quickly de-escalated the violent confrontations… SPD had no choice but to view CS gas as a last resort, to only be deployed by SWAT.
Fast forward to the day before the most HUMILIATING and DEMORALIZING thing Durkan could have done…
SPD must have had some really good intelligence, or they were anticipating Antifa’s response from Durkan’s concessions. They installed permanent metal barriers at the intersection of 11th St and Pine St. A second line of barriers was also in place in between us and the initial barriers at the intersection. Everything kicked off per usual, with the “protesters” trying to provoke us with their words, umbrellas, and signs. This time, though, we didn’t give them an audience. We all stayed inside the East Precinct, as they did their normal agitation methods at the first barrier.
Suddenly, we were told the “protesters” began jumping the first barrier, heading towards us. We rushed out to the road and staged roughly 1/3 of the way up the block from the intersection of 11th St and Pine St, creating a large safety buffer between us and the “protesters” who had jumped the fencing. They were warned to return over the barrier, which they didn’t. They then began disassembling the barrier. They were warned not to disassemble the barrier, but they continued. They then walked towards us. They were warned to stop, but they didn’t. They continued walking towards us. They were warned again, but they continued. They reached the second barrier.
We later found out they brought a plasma cutter (blow torch) to cut through the barriers… (not that they are the provocateurs, or are planning to escalate, right?!)
They began cutting barriers so they could be used as weapons against us. They were warned about cutting the barriers, but they continued. They then picked up the second barriers and began walking towards us. They were warned again not to move the barriers, but they continued. They then jumped the last barrier. They were warned again to turn back, but they continued towards us. As they continued to approach, they were continuously warned. HOW MANY WARNINGS DOES IT TAKE?!
It started to get dark… The portable lights were turned on. The “protesters” then produced foil covered signs and were trying to blind the Officers and Guardsman. They were warned again, but they continued. They then threw a glass bottle at a Guardsman, the glass bottle shattering on a riot shield. They were warned again, but they just booed at us. They continued to walk slowly towards the Officers until they were within 2-3 feet. They then started using their umbrella’s and other objects, putting them in the face of the Officers. They were warned again to not do that.
As expected, objects were then thrown at us. They amplified things, this time. Instead of throwing glass bottles containing urine and other bodily fluids, they began throwing glass bottles full of gasoline. They then lit and threw fireworks at us, trying to light us on fire.
FINALLY the SPD Administration gave the green light and LESS LETHAL forms of riot control were deployed. As objects were continued to be thrown at us, SWAT finally deployed CS gas. The “protesters” proceeded to start vandalizing everything in the area. They smashed business windows, burned U.S. flags, lit dumpsters and other items on fire, and threw things on fire at us. We pushed them back in all directions about half a block but for some reason, we stopped pushing them back. They then regrouped and continued to vandalize the area with spray paint, breaking windows, and lighting things on fire. Around that time, the Guard was pulled back and we left East Precinct.
I returned the very next day at East Precinct, ready to continue the daily fight with these anarchists and communists. When I arrived, they were boarding up East Precinct. City employees were removing all the barriers and taking everything they could out of the precinct. We were ordered to about-face and leave. We went to a different precinct where it was announced that Durkan had decided to abandon East Precinct and to give it to the “protesters.” As we watched, Antifa took over the East Precinct and they erected walls at the adjacent intersections with the barricades we had used. They armed themselves, proceeded to vandalize the East Precinct with spray paint, and they declared Capitol Hill a Cop-Free, Autonomous Zone (CHAZ). It was hard enough for me to watch, but I saw Officers that were assigned to the East Precinct for decades, shield their faces, and walk out of the room in tears. The Capitol Hill area of the City of Seattle, to include East Precinct, was surrendered by its elected officials to the terrorists…
I spent the next couple days stewing in Seattle… just waiting for any elected official to grow some balls and tell us to move back in… to take over the ground they surrendered… but it never happened. We were then told the Guard was losing its support from SPD. CHAZ was the new norm of Seattle. The terrorists won and it was time to go home. We expressed our frustration among ourselves, lowered our heads, sympathized for the SPD Officers, packed our rucksacks, and went home angry. (source)
You may be completely on your own.
As you can see, you can’t depend on anyone to come and save you when unrest shows up in your neighborhood. The people who were there, willing, and able to defend Seattle were forced to stand down. You have to expect to be completely on your own. Learn more about how to stay safe during civil unrest scenarios here.
Can you imagine how the members of the National Guard and the police must have felt, facing this mob scene without the support of the state and local officials?
Of course, there are two sides to every story and it’s important to see both. Here’s an on-the-ground video of the CHAZ area. You do not have to be logged in to watch it.
One has to question how an elected governor could be so poor a leader as to let blocks of the largest city in his state be taken over by rioters. It honestly seems to be somewhat beyond “poor leadership.” What we’re wondering is whether Governor Inslee is truly this spineless, whether it’s a deliberate attempt to undermine law and order, or if he’s just another “useless idiot” progressing an agenda.
- Is Dave Portnoy The Market's Mad Genius: Here Are The Top 40 Stocks In The Top-Performing "Retail Favorites" Basket
Is Dave Portnoy The Market’s Mad Genius: Here Are The Top 40 Stocks In The Top-Performing “Retail Favorites” Basket
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/14/2020 – 21:00On Saturday, we reported that something remarkable was taking place in capital markets: a basket of “retail favorite” stocks had outperformed not only the broader market by a wide margin, at one point last week surging as much as 35% YTD, but also the basket of most popular, “hedge fund VIP” stock.
How is this possible? For the answer to this question, we urge readers to catch up on this fascinating topic, starting with How Retail Investors Took Over The Stock Market, and concluding with Goldman’s Clients Are Getting Angry That Teenage Daytraders Are Crushing Them, while also noting a tangent we touched on twitter yesterday discussing the bizarrely-symbiotic relationship between Robinhood traders and HFT firms (which among other things has allowed Hertz to be on the verge of selling up to $1 billion in bankrupt equity as soon as tomorrow).
This is how a few thousands retail daytraders on Robinhood move the market: RH sells their orderflow to HFT algos who frontrun the trades and massively accentuate the momentum https://t.co/hlFBs8dEaL pic.twitter.com/HtT8OHHYZ0
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 13, 2020
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Whatever the reason behind the sizzling outperformance of retail stocks, one question remains: is Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy the market’s crazy genius of the day, able to whip up his frenzied 1.5 million twitter followers into a daytrading army that jumps from one opportunity to another, sending stocks surging then tumbling as he shifts his focus from one pennystock to the next.
Much has been written about Dave Portnoy over the past few days, perhaps too much, starting with Bloomberg’s “Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy Is Leading an Army of Day Traders” (a profile he didn’t take kindly to), to the FT’s “the ‘retail bros’ betting on a quick recovery from the pandemic” and so on, the main thrust of which is the question whether the Fed has made markets too easy for people like Portnoy to massively outperform the “smart money”…
Rule one is that “stocks only go up”, as he frequently reminds his 1.5m Twitter followers.
Rule two: “When in doubt whether to buy or sell see Rule One.”
… and when will his moment of market dominance come to an ends.
While traditionally it would have been easy to dismiss Portnoy’s market prowess, the reality is that in a world where the Fed Chair has explicitly blessed his trading “strategy” of buying everything, and just doubling down when everything drops as the Fed will be there to bail him out, it has become virtually impossible to ignore what Portnoy’s strategy is: after all, in a way Portnoy has become the Fed’s investing “vessel” – showing everyone how it’s done in a world where the Fed has blessed the stock bubble. We will therefore pass judgment.
We will, however, point out, that Penn National Gaming (PENN), which Portnoy owns a lot of as he reminds his followers with the following blurb in his twitter bio “I own a ton of Penn Stock” as a result of PENN buying his company Barstool Sports for $450 million in January, just happens to be the top performing stock inside the top performing “retail favorites” basket as of this moment.
Did Dave Portnoy have something to do with the remarkable outperformance of not just PENN, but also Royal Caribbean, Spirit Airlines, Norwegian Cruise Lines and so on, since the March 23 lows? You bet he did.
Is it 9:30 yet? pic.twitter.com/qyGA546tR1
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) June 14, 2020
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* * *
So in a world where rabid retail buying has dominated financial commentary for the past month, and where Hertz is about to make history by doing a targeted equity offering of bankrupt stock to the Robinhooders of the world, and raise up to $1 billion for the benefit of the company’s creditors, financial advisors and lawyers, it is rather prudent to know what are the top 40 market-moving stocks that make up the Goldman “Retail Trading Favorites” basket, as these stocks – for better or worse – will define the market landscape for the foreseeable future.
That said, with a median return of 43% since March 23, and a 25.6x 2021 fwd PE ratio, compared to the S&P’s 17.7x median, gamblers are faced with a daunting choice: either buy the basket in expectations that the biggest asset bubble of all time will only get bigger thanks to even more Fed stimulus in coming months, or the time has come to let some air out of this bubble, especially now that fears of a second wave are starting to spook stocks, and sending Eminis below 3,000 for the first time this month.
- The Back-Channel Backlash Against Toxic Virtue-Mongers
The Back-Channel Backlash Against Toxic Virtue-Mongers
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/14/2020 – 20:30Authored by Mark Jeftovic via Guerilla-Capitalism.com,
“Few trials have been more ludicrous both as regarded the charges and the kind of evidence admitted. Convictions and impressions were solemnly listened to, real arguments accorded no weight whatsoever.
Brissot interrupted a witness by declaring that he had never uttered any such calumnies against Paris as were imputed to him.
‘But did your ever deny those calumnies?’ asked the president of the tribunal, as if that settled the question.”
– Ernest F. Henderson, Symbol and Satire in the French Revolution, 1922
There’s never been a more dangerous time to take issue with the mob, I thought we’d hit peak outrage sometime in 2019 and that it would taper off from there. I actually thought that by the time I’d put out my book, Unassailable, in January that I had missed the crescendo. But then coronavirus hit, and deplatformings were back with a vengeance and by April I thought it had gotten so bad I decided to make my book available for free in order to help heterodox voices get their messages out.
Despite the nobility of the cause, eras of mass statue-tipping sometimes portend excessive mob justice.
But I was remiss in not anticipating how much cancel-culture would ramp back up ahead of the 2020 election, fuelled by widespread angst over the lockdowns and then detonated by the murder of George Floyd. All hell is breaking loose and while there are much needed reforms occurring rapidly, at least amongst policing (mandatory body cam recordings banning of choke holds, a Senate bill to end no-knock warrants, pressure to end Qualified Immunity, and if we’re lucky, a final abolition of civil asset forfeiture), there is also a vast ideological overshoot which somehow reminds me of an intellectual analog of The Terrors phase of the French Revolution.
Emotions are running high, “people are pissed”, and the system itself appears to be in danger of breaking down. Unfortunately, the acceptable frames of discourse are now held to be obvious, and only moral reprobates would dare deviate from them.
Virtue-mongering is what I define as an abrogation of the first principals of virtue, and a regression into a dumbed-down caricature of itself.
Virtue, is of course an ideal, to be cultivated by the enlightened leader and thoughtful citizen alike. Virtue is the beneficent cultivation of optimal character traits in oneself. In “The Conduct of Life”, Confucius stated
“To be able to practise five things everywhere under heaven constitutes perfect virtue: Gravity, magnanimity, sincerity, earnestness and kindness”.
Virtue-mongering or “weaponized virtue”, is devoid of these traits. It is the assertion that merely staking claim to the higher moral ground makes one virtuous, and that one’s own belief system is universal. From that vantage point, all non-conforming viewpoints are by definition illegitimate and immoral.
Objectively speaking, all disagreements are at their core a difference in priorities. How could anybody else possibly tell you what your priorities should be?
Any parent of a teenager knows, you can try to explain to them how they may get farther in life if they reordered their priorities, but trying to do so for them, or to them is an exercise in futility. How on earth would it work at scale with strangers from on high telling everybody else how to reorder their own priorities?
Accepting this reality, one then comes to grips that solving disagreements in a civil society is a matter of coming to an understanding of what each party’s priorities are, and why they are that way. The next step is then coming to an arrangement that serves all parties priorities.
To arrive at a place where these orthogonal priorities can co-exist requires dialogue and discourse. People have to be able to say what they have to say, and if they don’t, then it’s going to come out one way or another.
Virtue-mongers don’t allow this because in their mind there is only one set of priorities and one set of ideals: theirs. Yours sucks and it’s not even a thing.
In the past couple weeks careers have been destroyed for trying to articulate inconsistencies in certain narratives or attempting to report on events in a non-conforming way.
Via https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/chicago-fed-economist-fired-criticizing-defund-police
Which is why, I am noticing lately, that more people are beginning to circulate articles and videos that echo a sentiment that resonates with them, privately instead of posting them in the public squares like Facebook or on Twitter.
After all, if all it takes is one tweet to ruin your career, but you still feel like you have something you want to say, then the remedy is to say it behind closed doors to people who, even if they don’t agree with you, aren’t going to try to wreck your life for saying it.
One such reader sent me this article, on Robespierre, which is what got me thinking of the historical parallels to The Terrors of the French Revolution. After he posted it to Hackernews, it made the front page until it was flagged as inappropriate (the same thing has happened to the last few articles I’ve posted there). It’s long but I read the entire thing this morning because as I said, I find the historical parallel between the ideological certainty of the Committee for Public Safety and the same surety of today’s “woke” movement.
“The source of Robespierre’s deepest convictions and of his certainty about them was his unquestioning commitment to an ideology he had largely derived from Rousseau, whom he regarded as “the tutor of the human race.” This ideology led him to believe that politics was an application of morality and that a good government was based on moral principles that ineluctably cause the interests of individuals to become indistinguishable from the general interest. Put another way, uncorrupted human beings intuitively recognize and act in the general interest. Any divergence between individual and general interest indicates the individual’s immorality and irrationality. If any individual fails to see that his true interests are the same as the general interest, he must be forced to act as if he did see it, for his own good.“
Another friend sent me a video this morning, and you know, I had it embedded in this post but then, and to my point, I thought better of it. Even more to my point, while the immigrant, person-of-colour didn’t express any allegiance to the “alt-right”, he called out never-Trumpers for being hypocrites inconsistent in their positions. Once I had it embedded here, it turned out the instagram account that shared it was some Maga/Qanon thing (which I couldn’t see in my Facebook messenger) and realized I was flirting with disaster.
And finally, for our purposes there is this open letter purported to be from a professor at UC Berkeley who sent it anonymously, fearing reprisals should they attach their name to it.
His or her fears are not unfounded…
An anonymous letter has been circulating, purportedly written by a @UCBHistory professor. We have no evidence that this letter was written by a History faculty member. We condemn this letter: it goes against our values as a department and our commitment to equity and inclusion.
— UC Berkeley History (@UCBHistory) June 13, 2020
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If the author of that letter is unmasked or outed, their career is over. Whoever they are, it took enormous courage to write it.
These are just a partial example of the whole: people are uneasy and generally disenfranchised, but they aren’t comfortable voicing their objections about it lest it impact their career and their livelihood.
We’re all so viscerally aware of the never-ending cancel-culture shit-list that most of us are afraid to speak our minds about what is going on or offer any kind of nuance or criticism or suggest alternatives. We may have something useful to add, but many of us won’t, because we know that doing so could very well mean the end of a career or a business that we put our heart and soul into over years, decades, or even a lifetime.
We are all just one miscue away from being a trending hashtag. Frankly, I don’t even know if I’m going to post this and I’ve been working most of the weekend.
Vocal Minority vs Silent Majority
But there is a palpable uptick in people who used to post publicly in open forums like Facebook and Twitter, are now sending me links via private message, DM’s, email and closed, private groups. The trend now is to keep one’s opinions to themselves in the public sphere and to not share heterodox material on the public sections of the tech platforms any more.
They’re sharing them privately, and when I get the same piece from multiple people, I suspect that a lot of these are going viral, behind the scenes. This emergent phenomenon is the new incarnation of samizdat from the Soviet era. It’s digital samizdat, if you will.
I think this has been happening for awhile now and why the pollsters were so shocked when unthinkable outcomes such as Trump’s election victory or Brexit occurred.
People were shame-fatigued, so sick of being called racist, immoral, deplorable, misogynistic, privileged, intolerant or were accused of dog whistling every time they disputed the prevailing narrative. Fearing reprisals for not fully embracing toxic virtue-ism they simply toed the line of virtue-mongers in public, then turned around and walked into the voting booth and pulled the other lever.
The voting booth and the private communications channels are the last vestiges of individual autonomy and free expression and it is to here that the rational, moderate centrists, both left and right, have to beat a strategic retreat until The Virtue Terrors of the early 21st century burn themselves out.
Why this matters
I think I understand why there is so much rage in the world. I suspect it’s because the governing, one-party system is every bit as corrupt, and their enforcement arms in the police and military are every bit as brutal as the people who are protesting and revolting here and abroad assert it is. Qualified Immunity and Civil Asset Forfeiture here, War on Terror every place else, and Patriot Act, Five-Eyes Surveillance on everybody, and now Robespierre like enforcement of ideological purity, it all becomes overwhelming.
However, as I alluded in the last #AxisOfEasy podcast I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding around the underpinnings of that corruption that defines the establishment. It is understandable why that confusion exists. There is pervasive injustice, and there is an imbalance in power and there is unimaginable wealth inequality. But redistributing wealth or power isn’t the primary issue.
Max Keiser totally nailed it when he said “Forget wealth redistribution, what we need to redistribute is risk”.
Risk asymmetry means a two-tier system. Rule makers, and rule followers.
Risk asymmetry is differentiated into those who can borrow billions of dollars in freshly printed currency at no cost, and those who pay 22% on their credit cards.
Risk asymmetry is when the bank fails, or some public corp that levered up to buy back its own shares fails, they get bailed out in the latter, and maybe even bailed-in, with your money, if the former. But when your small business fails, or your job gets eliminated, well tough titties, that’s capitalism.
Important point from Powell. What’s true at the micro (that business failure is an important part of capitalism) doesn’t apply to the macro (that mass business failure is good for capitalism)
— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) June 10, 2020
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That is the class distinction of our age. That is the nature of privilege. And until that is widely understood, nothing will improve. Until that is understood, then all social justice efforts are doomed to be co-opted by those who directly benefit from that risk asymmetry and class distinction, or hijacked by new Robespierres, who will springboard this angst to their own, ideologically extreme ends.
Of course, this will never be widely understood unless discourse is permitted. When people do step up to sound heterodox views on current events it is important that they not be demonized and destroyed. Otherwise, to the back channels and the back alleys these impulses will go, and when they are pushed underground like that, they tend to mutate and then emerge in widely unanticipated ways. This is where things like 4chan come from.
When the Girondists were led up the scaffolds to the guillotine, one of them yelled at Robespierre “you will follow us up these steps!”.
He was eventually correct, and Robespierre did indeed lose his head.
We’ll know when this phase is over today when a few of the shrillest, most radical, uncompromising gasbags of virtue-mongering are found to be offside on some byzantine moral criterion or in possession of some inexcusable form of privilege and devoured by their own minions in a crescendo of sanctimony.
In the meantime, the virtue-mongers should take heed:
If it’s unsafe, or career threatening to participate in public discourse, then the counter narratives will diffuse behind the scenes. Nobody is going to be aware of them until they boil over into real world consequences, at which point the guardians of the narratives will lament how unprecedented and surprising it was. They may then construct some intelligence insulting mythology to explain what has happened, typically involving racism and alt-right tropes, then attack and demonize anybody who dares call out their folly.
Rinse.
Lather.
Repeat.
- Police Misconduct Claims Fall To 10 Year Low In New York City
Police Misconduct Claims Fall To 10 Year Low In New York City
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/14/2020 – 20:05While riots and looting continue nationwide in protest of the death of George Floyd, there is nary a fact to be found about police brutality or police misconduct. Perhaps that’s because the facts don’t fall in favor of the ongoing assault of the police in the United States that is taking place.
For example, New York Police last year saw their misconduct claims fall to a 10 year low. Allegations of false arrest, false imprisonment and excessive force are the lowest they have been at any point in the previous decade, according to new data from the New York Comptroller’s Office.
3,612 police related claims were filed in 2019, down from a high of 5,643 in 2014. New York City paid a total of $95.2 million last year to settle the claims, which is down from a high of $163.7 million in 2017.
Among other facts being ignored are the facts that police are more likely to shoot unarmed white suspects than unarmed black suspects, according to several studies. For example, Prager U notes that “A recent study by Lois James of Washington State University found that police officers are three times less likely to shoot unarmed black suspects than unarmed white suspects.”
In another study, “Harvard economist Roland Fryer analyzed more than 1,000 shootings and concluded that police shootings show no racial bias. His study of police-involved shootings in Houston found that blacks are 24% less likely than whites to be shot by police in situations when they are armed or acting in a threatening manner.”
Finally, a WSJ op-ed from 2016 called “The Myth of Black Lives Matter” inconveniently pointed out that “Whites and Hispanics are three times more likely to be fatally shot by police than African Americans, despite statistics showing blacks committing a disproportionate number of violent crimes.”
- South Carolina Reports 4th Straight Record Jump As COVID-19 Cases Surge Across The South: Live Updates
South Carolina Reports 4th Straight Record Jump As COVID-19 Cases Surge Across The South: Live Updates
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/14/2020 – 19:44Summary:
- Cuomo threatens to shut down areas if social distancing violations continue
- SC reports 3rd straight spike
- Florida reports another alarming jump in new cases as Miami beach reopens
- Texas reports another record jump in hospitalizations
- NY reports just 23 deaths – a record low
- Kudlow says numbers across US still trending lower
- Authorities cover another 8 cases tied to Xinfadi market Sunday morning
- China confirms 57 cases from June 13
- Tokyo sees another spike
- 23 US states see cases climb
- US reports 25k+ cases, largest daily increase in 2 weeks
- Several states reporting record jumps
- Iran sees deaths rebound
- Brazil, Russia, India, Mexico see troubling climb continue
- UK officials review lockdown conditions
* * *
Update (1840ET): NY Gov Andrew Cuomo threatened earlier to shut down Manhattan and the Hamptons if his office continued to receive a flood of complaints about people holding parties or otherwise flouting social distancing rules.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said he would reverse the reopening process for individual parts of the state if they do not abide by social distancing practices, citing thousands of complaints in Manhattan and the Hamptons.
“I am warning today in a nice way: consequences of your actions,” Cuomo said at a press conference Sunday. “We have 25,000 complaints statewide. I’m not going to turn a blind eye to them. They are rampant and there’s not enough enforcement.”
“I am not going to allow situations to exist that we know have a high likelihood of causing an increase in the spread of the virus,” the governor added.
Maybe he should send a reminder to his own brother.
* * *
Update (1420ET): South Carolina reported its highest number of new cases for a fourth consecutive day on Saturday, joining a spate of startling increases across the south, including in Alabama and Florida, which both reported record numbers of new cases for third straight day.
South Carolina counted 785 new cases on Saturday, the highest one-day jump since the virus landed in SC. Friday’s report had 729 new cases, Thursday’s saw 682 and Wednesday’s counted 531.
The state has recorded a total of 17,955 cases and 599 deaths. SC was one of the last states to issue a stay-at-home order and among the first to reopen on May 4.
South Carolina’s hospital bed occupancy has reached between 69.4% in the upstate area to 77% in the Pee Dee area, per state health department officials. In both Pee Dee and the Midlands, hospital occupancy is at records.
* * *
Update (1300ET): Florida reported another alarmingly high daily total of new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, the Orlando Tribune reported, citing data from state public health officials.
Florida reported 2,016 new coronavirus cases and six new deaths Sunday, continuing the surge of reported infections in the state over the past week and a half.
The statewide case load is now 75,568, and the death toll stands at 2,931.
Saturday’s update from the state health department marked the highest number of cases reported in a day with 2,581 cases. It was also the first time since the outbreak began that more than 2,000 cases were reported in one day.
Sunday makes the eleventh time in the past twelve days that the state saw more than 1,000 daily cases.
Though it wasn’t as high as yesterday’s total, the 2k+ number is still more than twice the daily average from a couple of weeks ago.
With its more than 75k cases, Florida still has the 8th-largest caseload in the country.
Source: NYT
Of course, even these record high numbers didn’t deter patrons from the newly reopened Miami Beach.
* * *
Update (1200ET): Texas, Florida, California and Arizona are perhaps the four most closely watched states now that New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have seen the number of new cases wanes. And of these, Texas – with its urban clusters like Houston that have brought the state to the “precipice” of disaster, as one local official put it.
And once again on Sunday, health officials in the state reported that hospitalizations have climbed to a new record. The Texas Department of State Health Services confirmed 2,242 people were hospitalized with the respiratory illness on Saturday afternoon, an increase from 2,166 people hospitalized on Friday.
Friday’s virus hospitalization figure was Texas’ highest to date when DSHS reported it, surpassing previous admission records reported consecutively on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Hospitalization numbers reported last Sunday, June 7, only fell below Texas’ initial peak of 1,888 admissions.
Hospitals around the state, but particularly in Houston, San Antonio and several more rural hot spots, have seen confirmed cases and patient admissions regularly climb. Statewide, hospitalizations have increased by close to 50% since then.
Texas health officials also reported a sizable jump in new cases on Saturday, with 2,331 confirmed diagnoses. That number approached the current record, 2,504 positive tests, from Wednesday. Texas’ case positivity ratio, as DSHS notes on the state’s COVID-19 dashboard, is about 7.2%.
The spike in new cases in more rural states hasn’t totally offset the drop in NY and the surrounding area.
Texas has identified 12,458 new virus cases over the last week. That trend has continued in June. According to JHU, the state has confirmed 86,915 diagnoses since the start of the pandemic, along with 1,971 deaths and 56,535 recoveries.
During an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union”, Larry Kudlow appeared on Sunday to reiterated the same litany of factors minimizing the data showing an increase in cases and hospitalizations.
WH economic adviser Larry Kudlow: “We have had an increase in [COVID] cases in some states.” pic.twitter.com/7OSpc9Erj3
— The Hill (@thehill) June 14, 2020
Italy’s numbers were modest once again as the country, once the worst-hit in Europe, has returned to some semblance of normality, even in hard-hit Milan and the surrounding area.
JUST IN: Italy reports 338 new cases of coronavirus and 44 new deaths.
Total of 236,989 cases and 34,345 deaths
— Norbert Elekes (@NorbertElekes) June 14, 2020
In New York, Gov Cuomo lashed out at businesses that haven’t been following the reopening guidelines.
We have received 25,000 complaints of reopening violations.
Bars or restaurants that violate the law can lose their liquor license.
People with open containers in the street can be fined.
Police & protesters not wearing masks can be fined.
Local gov’t must enforce the law.
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) June 14, 2020
The state reported just 23 deaths on Sunday – a new record low.
Giving my daily press briefing now. Watch Live: https://t.co/9zAz8vg3gv
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) June 14, 2020
We lost 23 New Yorkers to COVID yesterday — a new record low.
Total COVID hospitalizations fell to 1,657, the lowest since March 20.
The data show we’re continuing to make great progress.
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) June 14, 2020
Cuomo has also authorized a study of the virus’s impact on minority communities.
I signed into law two more bills today.
The first bill affirms the right to record police activity.
The second launches a Dept of Health study on health impacts of COVID-19 on minorities in NYS.
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) June 14, 2020
* * *
Update (0900ET): The SCMP has a more detailed breakdown of the latest batch of cases reported in China Sunday, the largest one-day total in 2 months.
Beijing reported 36 new local coronavirus cases on Sunday, all of them linked to the city’s biggest wholesale food market.
The patients included 27 people who worked at the Xinfadi food market, which has been closed down, and nine who had been exposed to it, the municipal government said.
Another person had also tested positive for the coronavirus but showed no symptoms, it said. Under Chinese rules, asymptomatic cases are not added to the tally.
Beijing has confirmed 43 local cases since Thursday, before which it had not had any for 55 days.
The outbreak has also spread beyond the capital to neighbouring regions, with the Liaoning provincial government announcing two new cases on Sunday, both of whom had been in close contact with Beijing residents confirmed as having the virus this week.
For the country as whole, there were 57 new confirmed coronavirus cases in the 24 hours to midnight Saturday, the National Health Commission reported, the biggest one-day total in two months. Some 38 of the new cases were locally transmitted, including the 36 in Beijing, with the other 19 were travellers arriving from abroad.
A spokesman for the Beijing Health Bureau urged all residents who visited the Xinfadi market to get tested immediately (that’s an order, not a request).
With the market in Beijing accounting for the vast majority of new cases, it’s clear that the officials are reckoning with the reality that the asymptomatic spread across China’s biggest cities is likely much larger than authorities will admit.
What’s more, officials have reported another 8 positive cases from Sunday morning (June 14), all of which were tied to Xinfadi (according to authorities).
Reuters: CHINESE CAPITAL SAYS 8 NEW CONFIRMED COVID-19 CASES ON JUNE 14
— Vincent Lee (@Rover829) June 14, 2020
(All new cases are linked to Xinfadi market. The 8 cases are as of 7 am Sunday)
— Vincent Lee (@Rover829) June 14, 2020
* * *
The steady drumbeat of discouraging COVID-19-linked headlines continued yesterday as Florida, along with several other southern states, reported record-breaking spikes in new infections. That marked the state’s third daily record in a row, as Gov Ron DeSantis has blamed farm workers and sought to play down the rising numbers as an inevitable consequence of reopening, as beachgoers returned to Miami Beach for the first time.
According to the New York Times, there are 23 states where the daily number of new cases continues to climb.
Here’s what the Times heatmap of the US looked like Sunday morning:
Source: NYT
With a large swath of southwestern Beijing back under lockdown, Chinese health officials said they confirmed another 57 new cases yesterday as they aimed to test more than 10k people connected by contact tracers to a local seafood wholesaler/market that has been shut down for a deep cleaning, as officials said it was the epicenter of the latest outbreak. Furthermore, officials have moved a widely anticipated economic briefing online. The NBS presser will take place at 10amET.
#BREAKING:Mainland #China reported 57 new cases of #coronavirus and 9 asymptomatic cases for Saturday, said the National Health Commission.Nineteen of them were imported cases.#Beijing reported 36 locally transmitted cases. The other 2 local cases were in Liaoning.
— Jeremy (@mehabecapital) June 14, 2020
Meanwhile in Japan, officials in Tokyo confirmed the capital city’s largest daily total (47) of new COVID-19 cases since May 5.
In the Middle East, Iran suffered its biggest daily death toll from the coronavirus since April 13, around the time Iran started relaxing its lockdown. So far, a total of 187,427 people have been infected with the disease and 8,837 have died in Iran, according to Health Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari.
He added that Iran reported 107 deaths over the last 24 hours, a 9-week high.
In the UK, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak backed calls to ease the UK’s 2-meter social distancing benchmark as HMG carries out its “comprehensive review” of the restrictive lockdown measures imposed by PM Boris Johnson during the early days of the pandemic. Since then, the methodology of the projections that inspired the government’s approach have come under question.
As the number of new cases continues to soar in Brazil, Mexico, India and Russia, the Russians reported 8,835 new confirmed coronavirus infections, a 1.7% increase over the past day. An additional 119 people died in same period, bringing the overall death toll to 6,948, leaving it in third place.
Meanwhile, the global tally of coronavirus cases has surpassed 7.8 million cases, while the US is nearing 2.1 million cases (2,074,526).
US virus cases rose by more than 25k cases reported yesterday (remember, these numbers are reported with a 24-hour lag), the fastest pace in two weeks, while Brazil’s infections increased 2.6% as deaths climbed 2.1%, with Brazil seeing the number of cases draw closer to the 850,000 mark. Deaths in the country are nearing 50k.
Finally, Beijing is pushing a conspiracy theory about US ‘conspiracy theories’ about the latest outbreak in Beijing.
A Beijing market detected coronavirus on chopping board of imported salmon, triggering a wave of conspiracy theory regarding virus origin. But Chinese experts gave multiple explanations. The US government, trying hard to spin conspiracy theory against China, is really shameless.
— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) June 14, 2020
And the gaslighting continues…
- The Three Best And Worst Ideas Of The Crisis
The Three Best And Worst Ideas Of The Crisis
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/14/2020 – 19:40Authored by Veronique de Rugy via The American Institute for Economic Research,
In typical fashion, politicians in Washington already are talking about passing, before the August recess, another COVID-19 bill. Never mind that between the Federal Reserve and the spending, the sum injected into the economy now exceeds $10 trillion. Overlook also the fact that we don’t know what the economy will look like when businesses are allowed fully to reopen. And forget that only half of it has been spent so far, so there is still a lot of money to go around. Yet, they still want to spend more.
But in the spirit of being constructive, let’s actually look at what are likely the three best policies Congress should consider going forward. And then let’s compare these policies to the worst ones that have already been implemented. That’s the challenge that I was given at a recent Webinar for the Mercatus Center. Here are my answers.
I picked as my three best policies ones that target America’s most significant looming issues. (Some of these issues, unsurprisingly, were created by government interventions in the first place.) Good policies, of course, should allow for flexibility and innovation without bankrupting future generations, which I think these do. And the ones I picked also capitalize on the many deregulations that were implemented in the last few months.
The first policy comes from an idea proposed originally by Arnold Kling. It was put forward as an alternative to the Payroll Protection Program (“PPP”). Rather than inject more money, as does the PPP, into businesses through agencies like the Small Business Administration, a better policy would be to extend a line of credit to every checking account in the country, individual and business alike (You can find the details here).
The individual part matters because 81 percent of small businesses are sole proprietors that do not exist as businesses in the eyes of the federal government and, thus, have a hard time getting loans through programs such as PPP. The money could be used for whatever individuals and businesses need, because if most people stay on top of their rents and car payments, it will help businesses but also reduce large distortions to the economy.
The key part of this plan is that these loans are repayable. This requirement creates all the correct incentives needed to inject liquidity into the market and firms without having to worry about the debt and about abuses. This is not a silver bullet for an economy that would continue to be frozen for many more months—nothing can save us from that—but it could help as the economy recovers and people return to work and consumers return to their post-COVID lives at different speeds. It doesn’t require an entire bureaucracy and shouldn’t cost as much as alternatives aimed at achieving the same goal.
The second worthy idea for policy is to continue to free civil society from all the rules, regulations, and bad incentives that get in the way of us as individuals helping one another not only through the market process but also through charitable giving, churches, and other nonprofits. The most moving of the many different responses to this pandemic are the ways that people and companies went the extra mile – or two! – to help one another.
For instance, companies changed their business model to supply food for low-income families, as well as the likes of hand sanitizers, face masks and other needed goods to their communities. And let’s not forget the ways that companies, because of the globalization of science, have organized and collaborated to study the virus and to search vigilantly for a vaccine or a cure.
Unsurprisingly, regulations got in the way of much of this private initiative. And while some of these regulatory obstructions were removed, many remain that will get in the way next time around. We must get rid of all of these barriers so that businesses and everyone can more freely and better adapt and innovate whenever the next crisis comes around–whatever that crisis is.
The final worthwhile idea is the brainchild of my colleagues Patrick McLaughlin, Matt Mitchell, and Adam Thierer. They propose creating a commission similar to the Base Realignment And Closure. This new commission would identify and study all the rules revised or suspended during the current crisis and then make recommendations for each rule to be terminated or reformed, thereby crafting “a plan and timetable for automatically sunsetting or comprehensively reforming those policies or programs as part of a single reform package.”
They call it the Fresh Start Initiative.
The next question that I and the other panelist were asked is, “What are the three worst policy suggestions that have come across your desk?”
That’s a hard question to answer since there are so many terrible policies to choose from.
That said, I believe that possibly the worst one, hands down, is the matter that I wrote about in this space last week: that’s the way Congress designed the unemployment-insurance expansion. My issue here is less that government expanded the benefit – under the current UI system the federal government always does so during recessions – but by how much these benefits have been expanded.
In response to the COVID crisis, benefits were expanded by $600 a week to most people unemployed or furloughed, including those who weren’t eligible for such benefits before and who decided to quit their jobs (as opposed to being laid off). The disincentives to work are and will continue to be huge since 68 percent of those getting benefits now make more by not working than they did when they were working. It’s clear to me that these benefits in their current form should not be further extended past July. Better yet, the UI system should be reformed entirely.
The second bad policy put in place is the bailout of airlines. Bailouts are never the right way to address a company or industry’s financial troubles. Such handouts create serious moral hazard and other perverse incentives going forward.
You see these terrible incentives with the airline bailouts. Gary Leff and I laid out the case here. But as with all bailouts, one of the worst things about these in addition to the cronyism of it all, is the bad precedent that it sets. Bailouts beget more bailouts without financial accountability. It is not surprising that airlines, many of which were bailed out in the past, were the first ones to beg for federal help out of the gate when the crisis started.
This fact is even more infuriating given that these companies have a perfectly good and safe alternative available to bailouts – namely, bankruptcy. Airlines have gone through bankruptcy in the past. Moreover, bankruptcy does not prevent them from flying safely during the process.
The last bad policy that I highlight is actually a mix of all the many policies implemented. (I was tempted to pick the design of the PPP, including or maybe mostly because someone thought it was a great idea to have the aid flow through the Small Business Administration, an agency that has an impressive track record of messing up emergency relief.) Instead, I focus on the incoherent and conflicting approaches bundled together in the CARES Act.
Rather than figuring out whether we should rescue companies or individuals, Congress tried to rescue both. And when it gave money to individuals, Congress didn’t just send individual checks; it also implemented paid leave, as well as massively expanded unemployment benefits and more.
Adding insult to injury, unemployment benefits, as explained above, created incentives to drop out of the workforce, while PPP’s requirement for loans to be forgiven was that companies needed to keep their employees. This COVID-19 response was, to say the least, irresponsible and poorly thought through, and more about pushing through policies Congress already wanted before the pandemic but couldn’t get through.
There are many other bad policies that Congress has adopted, and there are many more terrible ones, I am sure, that our ‘leaders’ are tempted to adopt, such as state and municipal government bailouts, extending reemployment bonuses or making federal paid leave permanent.
The problem is that politicians will always be politicians, oversight never works, and the size of government grows.
- "Take Your Benzos, Watch Your Porn": Sunday Night Advice For Self-Righteous Failures
“Take Your Benzos, Watch Your Porn”: Sunday Night Advice For Self-Righteous Failures
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/14/2020 – 19:15Many Americans suffer from a spiritual sickness, a singular brand of ennui only found in the most industrialized nations, where prosperity is spread among a vast middle class. White middle class Americans have no culture to center them and tether them to a community. Most of the ethnic whites lost these critical ties to “their heritage” when their parents and grandparents fled the cities in the aftermath of WWII. Adrift in the suburbs, jumbled together with thousands of other well-to-do strangers, they became despondent.
Growing up, they lived lives that were planned by doting parents, who sheperded them from high school on to college, where the young adults of America go to “find themselves” in yet another layer of social conditioning masked as “education”.
Like the Gen Xers who came before them, Millennials suffer from the same plight, only their sense of collective sense of entitlement and selfishness is more all-encompassing. Their parents appeased and coddled them to such an extreme degree that every minor setback in life is interpreted as some grand injustice, since they were never challenged, or pushed outside their comfort zone.
Once they hit 25, they slowly start to realize that the dream career they had in mind – a sprawling Manhattan apartment, a good-paying job, perhaps as a gossip columnist at a widely read alternative newspaper – is simply beyond their grasp. They didn’t work hard enough, they didn’t have the smarts, the drive or the wisdom. But the notion that their failures are consequences of their own mistakes simply doesn’t compute; it’s not them – it’s the system. It’s capitalism, or racism or white supremacy.
Yes, that must be it.
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Anger and resentment can metastasize into hatred and fury at an alarming pace. Often, logic has nothing to do it. But for everyone thinking about joining the mob, we believe there’s a better method of dealing with these uncomfortable feelings, and it starts, unfortunately, with something that’s kind of uncomfortable: Taking responsibility for yourself. To that end, Twitter user @luinalaska, has some strikingly articulate thoughts (emphasis ours):
Some of you have done NOTHING with your life and you’re mad. You have a college degree & a smart phone with access to virtually *anything* and you can barely get out of bed in the morning while you spit on people who built a whole world with nothing but a horse, map, & axe.
You’ve made nothing with access to everything. You’ve conquered nothing. Hell you can’t even conquer yourself. So go tear it all down. Scream into the void how unfair it all is. It’s not that you’ve wasted your short time here. Surely not.
Don’t bother with your own legacy you’re busy shitting on the long dead who aren’t here to care. Go burn down every Starbucks. That’ll show them. Torch the Target. Tear down every monument. Deface every memorial. But what have you built? What do you leave behind?
So take your benzos. Watch your porn. Get Uber to drop off your dinner. Buy an adult coloring book. Have sex with strangers to ease your crippling anxiety. It’s not you. It’s the system really. It isn’t fair. Go cancel someone. Dox someone. They deserve it. You’re the good guy.
Don’t write an epic novel worth building a statue to remember you. Go troll seven year old problematic tweets ever on the hunt for the boogeymen. See now you’ve accomplished something. Cancel everyone. You’re a warrior now. A real hero.
And lastly whatever you do never ever take even a moment to self reflect on your own failures. Never own them. Never take a hint of responsibility. Remember you’re just a helpless victim of circumstances beyond your control. This all means nothing. Its like you weren’t even here.
We wonder whether the reason leftists find authoritarianism – their brand of authoritarianism – so appealing is simply because it would allow them a free-floating get out of jail free card, an excuse for all occasions. Because the one drawback of being free, is that people then expect you to take that freedom, and accomplish something with it.
- "Powell Is Now Helpless": Even A Modest Market Wobble Threatens To Devastate The Real Economy
“Powell Is Now Helpless”: Even A Modest Market Wobble Threatens To Devastate The Real Economy
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/14/2020 – 18:50Authored by Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management
“We’re not even thinking about thinking of raising rates,” declared America’s Fed Chairman, all but eliminating uncertainty about the Fed policy path through 2022. The S&P 500 had completed a historic recovery from the pandemic lows to trade higher on the year, its price utterly disconnected from today’s economic devastation.
But markets never discount today, they discount tomorrow. And no sooner had they taken a little peek at what prices looked like back on January 1st then they began to plunge.
Some blamed signs of a viral resurgence, though that had swirled for days. Others blamed Millennials whose day-trading resembles the dot.com mania. And a few blamed General Milley, America’s top-ranking general, who apologized for joining the President on his ill-fated march to St. John’s Church. You see, the generals have turned their backs on Trump over his response to demonstrators. The NFL has too; its commissioner apologized for having opposed taking a knee. Even NASCAR banned the Confederate Flag. And as Trump’s re-election prospects tanked, expectations for a dramatic restructuring of America’s economy soared.
Efforts to rebalance the division of profits between capital and labor is demanded by a riotous Main Street. But this terrifies Wall Street, which has worked for years with Republicans, Democrats, CEOs and the Fed to extract an ever-increasing share of national prosperity for those who control capital.
This imbalance is central to today’s tumult. “If we held back because we think asset prices are too high – what would happen to those people who we are legally supposed to be serving?” asked Powell rhetorically, unsuccessfully defending himself from a rising chorus of critics who see the Federal Reserve as amplifying inequality.
For decades, the central bank accommodated the financialization of the world’s largest economy.
Now that the process is largely complete, even a modest market wobble threatens to devastate the real economy. And Powell is now helpless, caught in a trap of the Fed’s making.
- The Fed Has Monetized All Treasury Issuance In 2020
The Fed Has Monetized All Treasury Issuance In 2020
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/14/2020 – 18:25“We are ruined if we do not overrule the principles that the more we owe, the more prosperous we shall be” – Thomas Jefferson
There is no more subversive entity in the US, more destructive, more inflammatory yet out of the spotlight of public outrage, than the Federal Reserve: it is the Fed’s actions over the past 108 years – and especially over the past decade – that have spawned much of the anger, resentment and hatred that has permeated US society to its very core as a result of the Fed’s monetary policies.
Yet because much of the public fails to grasp the insidious implications of endless money-printing which makes owners of assets exorbitantly rich at the expense of regular workers, popular anger at the Fed remains virtually non-existent, despite clear warnings from Thomas Jefferson, and countless others over the decades, about the dangers posed by central banking.
And so, taking advantage of the general public’s general gullibility, the Fed continues to lie and dissemble at every opportunity, of which the most recent example was last week when Powell said that “inequality has been with us for increasingly for four decades” and arguing that monetary policy is not a cause for that. What he forgot to mention is that four decades ago is when the Nixon closed the gold window….
… severing the last link of the US dollar to tangible value, and allowing the Fed to print with impunity, creating the current wealth divide which has now spilled over into the streets of America.
One other thing the Fed has been consistently lying about is that it does not monetize the debt. The chart below is evidence that this, too, is a lie, with US Treasury debt increasing by $2.86 trillion in 2020 (most of it in the past three months) which is less than the $3.0 trillion increase in the Fed’s balance sheet over the same period. In other words, the Fed has monetized 105% of all Treasury issuance this year.
So although Powell may never admit it, Helicopter Money, also known as “MMT”, is now here, and will never go away as Deutsche Bank hinted earlier.
And speaking of MMT, below we republish the latest article from Adventures in Capitalism discussing how MMT is Going Mainstream – yes, even rap musicians endorse MMT now – and how this wanton printing of money to address every social ill will have profound ramifications that will last generations.
So without further ado, here is…
“MMT Going Mainstream…” by Kuppy of ‘Adventures in Capitalism’
My good friend Kevin Muir from Macro Tourist (I highly recommend that you subscribe) has been banging on about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) for ages. I’ll admit, some of his pieces have been difficult to read as I’m firmly planted in the Austrian school—I believe gold is money and everything else is fiat. I believe governments create inefficiency and corruption while politicizing common sense ideas. I am against MMT in all of its insidious forms as it only legitimatizes all that I disagree with. With that out of the way, I’ve matured enough to know that what I think doesn’t matter. My job isn’t to stake the moral high ground; it is to make money for my hedge fund clients by noticing trends before others do. While I disagree strongly with MMT, Kevin has been right to repeatedly educate himself and his readers on MMT because it’s coming (whether or not you want it).
With Kevin’s permission, I have re-posted his most recent MMT note in full. I think this will be one of the most important macro pieces I’ll post on this site. There’s been a fundamental change in how governments tax and spend, yet most do not yet realize it. MMT is going mainstream. Are you ready…???
Yesterday, MMT-advocate, Stephanie Kelton released her much-awaited book, The Deficit Myth.
You might think MMT to be a crock. It might make every bone in your body shudder. You might feel sick to your stomach as you read the theory. These are just a few of the responses I have heard from traditionally trained hard-money types who learn about MMT.
I suspect most of you know that I am open-minded to many aspects of MMT, but expect it will be taken too far – just like monetarism has been taken too far.
When I see the extreme monetary policy of Europe and other countries with negative rates, all I can ask is how can anyone claim with a straight face that monetarism is working for us? So yeah, I would rather try something new than continue down the current road of easier and easier monetary policy.
Yet, what you or I think about a particular economic policy doesn’t mean squat. I am not here to debate what should be done, but what will be done.
So let’s put aside the economic merits of the different schools of thought, and focus on discounting their probable implementation.
The Deficit Myth
I haven’t yet fully read Prof Kelton’s book, but glancing at the introduction, she does an admirable job sketching out her viewpoint in easy-to-understand layman’s terms. I have taken the liberty of pulling the important bits:
There is nothing new in Kelton’s introduction. MMT’ers have understood these concepts for more than a decade.
But we always must remind ourselves, as traders and investors, what’s important is to discount how the public perceives those ideas. Remember the whole Keynesian beauty contest concept (probably not the most politically correct analogy, but let’s remember that Keynes lived in a different era. In fact, I suspect if Keynes were alive today, he would be more politically correct than some of his most vocal opponents –Niall Ferguson apologizes for remarks).
Keynes rightfully understood that investors discount what the crowd will perceive as the most likely outcome as opposed to the best choice.
Which brings me to my main point. And I know some of you might think this is nuts. But I don’t care.
I have been watching for signs that the concept of “governments are not financially restrained” taking hold within the non-financial community.
I have even postulated that the corona virus crisis might prove to be the tipping point for this theory gaining traction. With all the extreme fiscal measures being put in place (without undue immediate negative effects), the public might realize that the government’s large fiscal response works miracles at staving off short-term economic pain. They might suddenly understand there is nothing holding society back from doing that again for other priorities.
Well, I think I got my signal. Earlier in the week, I noticed a popular rapper tweeting out the following:
Yup. The whole theory behind MMT is being endorsed by rap musicians now!
When disputing the need for a balanced fiscal budget, MMT’ers have often resorted to the argument, “if there is always money for war, then why isn’t there always money for other social programs?”
I don’t want to dispute the validity of their argument. However, the narrative that “we need to balance budgets” has been torn down by the corona crisis better than the war argument ever did.
Over the last month, a growing portion of society has concluded that there was never any financial constraint to spending money.
I know the hard-money and traditionally-trained-economic thinkers will scream bloody murder at that thought. I get it. It doesn’t seem to make any sense. How can there be a free lunch? There is no such thing.
I will repeat again – I don’t want to discuss the merits of MMT. We will save that for another post.
What’s important – and it’s probably the most important thing that has ever happened in my investing career – is that the narrative surrounding deficit spending has changed.
Deficits are no longer “bad”. The budget hawks have all been silenced.
This will have ramifications that will last generations.
If this MMT school of thought continues to gain traction, then many of the investment playbooks from the last few decades need to be thrown out the window. It will be as a dramatic shift as the 1981-Paul-Volcker-stamping-out-of-inflation. It will be an end of an era.
Over the course of the coming months I will discuss the long-term investment consequences. But I wanted to highlight that MMT is about to go mainstream. And as it becomes more popular, it will turn investing as we know it on its head.
Decades from now we will look back at the corona crisis and say it changed more than just our attitudes about viruses, it marked the beginning of a change in the way we think about money.
- Growth Inequality Is "A Pox On The House" Of Society
Growth Inequality Is “A Pox On The House” Of Society
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/14/2020 – 18:00Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,
Inequality has soared over the last several months with billionaires seeing huge gains in their wealth while many people are getting slammed. Much of the adverse effect on the average American has so far been masked by trillions of dollars flowing from the government in the way of temporary stimulus checks. The covid-19 crisis and how it has been handled by the governments and the central banks have resulted in creating a twilight-zone economy. The moment the current $600 a week federal unemployment benefits run out at the end of July, many people will find they are caught in a financial vise with few options. Getting that unemployment money is the biggest reason many people who’ve lost jobs are able to keep a roof over their heads. Knowing many of these people are not going back to work is a big problem. You are not alone if you are having difficulty reconciling the growing divide between Wall Street markets that seem totally ignoring economic reality.
“Most Shorted” Stocks Soar As Bears Cover
Many market watchers and pundits are troubled and confounded by the recent market action. Several explanations exist with each one having some validity but great uncertainty remains. In a manipulated environment such as we have today where markets are propped up and manipulated with no true price discovery, all investments have become risky. The markets are reflecting a V-shaped recovery that Citigroup warns may be far too optimistic.
A slew of new investors, mostly inexperienced, have stepped into the breach and bought the dip under the impression it will lead to prosperity. This is evident in the area of the most shorted stocks which are on such a rant as those most negative on the economy are forced to capitulate to a soaring market. This is occurring while Citi writes its model still shows that a greater than 70% probability of a down market in the next 12 months remains.
Another area where this can be witnessed is in how a newly IPO’d company has exploded to become the most valuable truck-maker in the world, despite having no sales ever. Stock in Arizona-based Electric trucking startup Nikola soared last week, more than doubling in one day. This gave the company a market value of over $30 billion. This occurred after Nikola founder, Trevor Milton, tweeted about taking in reservations for the company’s light-duty truck called ‘Badger’ starting in late June. Its medium-duty truck is due in 2021, and a heavy-duty truck in 2023.
Proposed Badger Truck Not Yet Produced
To put this in context, during 2019, Ford with a lesser market cap of $28.7 billion sold 5.5 million cars while Nikola sold none. This type of major disconnect from reality strengthens the argument that much wealth is an illusion financially manufactured and related to positioning. The idea you can become a billionaire in a matter of hours is hard to comprehend at a time many Americans are worried about losing their job.
Many questions remain unanswered when it comes to the economy and many potential risks could affect the markets in the coming months. Biden could defeat Trump and the Democrats sweep Congress. Covid-19 could unleash a second blow setting back the reopening of businesses. Another big issue is the protest and civil unrest could grow much worse when the real impact of unemployment shows its ugly face. The fact that many older experienced traders are appalled at the stupidity and euphoria of this market does not matter. None of these issues seem relevant to those arguing that substantial Fed-induced liquidity has rendered traditional fundamental analysis moot.
Circling back to growing inequality, it is important to remember some stock indexes are making new highs at the same time NPR reports Americans are skipping payments on mortgages, auto loans, and other bills. Wealth inequality has soared in recent years and now stands at the worst it has been during the entire U.S. post-war period. Simply put, statistics show many Americans lack the money to pay for a $500 repair. Driving a decent car doesn’t make a person middle-class or economically equal, especially if they are up to their eyeballs in debt to do so. While companies have temporarily put collection activities on hold due to the covid-19 pandemic, this will likely lead to a huge number of foreclosures, evictions, auto repossessions, and credit downgrades.
The explosion in the national debt only bolsters the masses for a moment before finding its way into the pockets of the .01% that pulls the strings in Washington and controls our fate. Inequality has been growing and it is far worse for society and the world than first thought we are witnessing the further collapse of the middle class. The number of people living on government transfers of wealth has grown over the years, the National Debt Clock provides some rather shocking data concerning the number of people that are currently “receiving benefits” from the government or are unemployed. Many of the American’s that are now experiencing the slip into this economic quagmire and rough times will tell you, “I never thought it would happen to me.” In the end, it is likely a great number of these people will become a burden to society.
A More Recent Chart Hard To Find! click to enlarge
In a piece titled; “The Morass That Swallowed the Middle Class” Matthew Shaw delves into how much of the inequality debate focuses on the gains of the “1%,” and less attention has been paid to the economic well-being of others. What is broadly termed the middle class is all too often just lumped into a diverse group labeled the 99%. In truth, many of these people are dirt poor. Much of this centers around just how out of touch our “professional elite” are with the general population and the economy. By our professional elite, I refer to those who make the rules and their minions, their aids, the academics, the financial institutions, economists, and the media, all of which have tied their wagon to the status quo. Conflict and corruption also enter into this because we often find those setting the rules also tend to want a bigger piece of the pie.
This growth in inequality is a “pox on the house” of society. For decades the rich and powerful have been increasingly grabbing a larger slice of the economic pie. A great deal of growing corporate profits come from cutting back on the greatest expense businesses have to pay and that is labor. This is and will substantially increase in coming years as robots displace humans in the workforce. Robots are here and more are being deployed each day, soon this will prove to be a big deal. The topic of our future and culture always circles back and is directly linked to the issue of jobs vanishing as automation and an army of robots march into our workplace. Rest assured when push comes to shove those displaced from the job market will find they are only given enough to scrape by and ensure they remain docile and behave. If and when this becomes an issue conflict and violence will arise it is possible that someday they will be brought to heel by an army of robots designed to keep them under control.
The reality that a vast majority of people face diminishing prospects is a concerning trend was highlighted by the IMF in a report focused on data showing how middle-income households have continued moving down, rather than up, as income distribution in the United States has shifted over the last several decades. The U.S. middle class has never recovered after being “hollowed out” when manufacturing jobs fled America and incomes fell. Current trends indicate the “equality gap” is not expected to narrow in the future. Growing income inequality is not just an American problem but it is an issue across the globe and no magic or silver bullet exists to address the conundrum brought about by this concentration of power and wealth. The images of cities burning and widespread looting as a result of a police brutality reminds us that society has become broken and just how corrupt the U.S. economy has become. These are the sorts of cultural events that happen when states begin to fail. One thing is certain and that is, those that have taken to the streets in protest will tell you, whatever actions society takes, those on the receiving end will complain that “It ain’t enough.”
- CEOs Who Gave Up Salaries "In Solidarity" With Workers Gorged On Stock Grants Instead
CEOs Who Gave Up Salaries “In Solidarity” With Workers Gorged On Stock Grants Instead
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/14/2020 – 17:35A few days ago, we shared criticism of the latest depressing boardroom trend among energy companies headed to bankruptcy court: the seemingly shameless granting of lucrative bonus packages to top executives, while most of the other ‘stakeholders’ expect to be wiped out. Business writers often reflexively defend these types of bonuses as simply part of the game: companies hitting the financial rocks often throw away tens of millions of dollars on bonuses for key people and expensive advisors and consultants, seemingly hastening their demise.
In theory, these decisions, while optically poor, will benefit the business when it comes out on the other side of restructuring (unless it’s headed the other way, straight to liquidation). On Wednesday, the FT published a report that raises some interesting questions about the recent market rally, while also evoking one of the central ironies of this rebound: As RobinHood traders dump their stimulus checks in the stock market casino, buying up stocks priced under a $1 because, well, they’re cheaper than a dollar and 100 shares only costs, at most $100 (since most of this trading is no-fee now), some of the biggest beneficiaries are the CEOs of major public companies who made a big show about giving up their compensation in solidarity with workers during the coming hard times.
In reality, the liquidity driven market rebound has drawn attention to the fact that CEOs smartly swapped their salaries for ‘performance incentives’ like restricted stock and options. As the market has rallied, are cashing in big time.
As they reap the rewards, shareholders will be the ones asked to tolerate the additional dilution.
During its reporting, the FT examined 554 companies that announced executive pay cuts during the early days of the outbreak, according to data provided by Equilar as of May 29. Of the 122 companies that granted option or stock awards in March, the FT only included the 51 companies in that group which had not changed CEO since February 2019, and/or had extended their current equity awards program.
Equity awards for some companies have, within two months, increased in value by nearly 50%, in some cases.
Michael Marino, managing director and head of the New York office for executive comp consultants FW Cook, told the FT that the companies are doing this for one of two reasons: either the companies insisted on compensating the CEOs with shares and options with a similar dollar value, or executives chose this, fully aware of the optics.
Given that corporate executives have a much more expansive view of the global economy than the average day trader, we imagine they saw which way the wind was blowing, felt the hysteria and panic in the streets, and figured stocks would probably blast back above the ATHs sooner rather than later.
One of the worst offenders, according to the FT report, was Dick’s Sporting Goods. Here’s an illustration showing just how much more they dished out in options in stock this year…
…in comparison with prior years.
When the chief executive of Dick’s Sporting Goods said in March that he would temporarily relinquish his $1.1m salary, Edward Stack became one of hundreds of US executives to signal they would share the pain the coronavirus shutdown was inflicting on employees. But the announcement, which came shortly before the sporting goods chain announced that it would put most of its 40,000 employees on temporary unpaid leave, told only part of the story. Just a day earlier, when market turmoil had sent shares in Dick’s Sporting Goods to their lowest level since the 2008-09 financial crisis, its board granted options to a host of executives. Mr Stack received more than 950,000 stock options, which he can exercise in stages over the next four years. The initial value of the award on paper was calculated based on the depressed share price in March, but by June 9 it had rebounded by 133 per cent, or $21.5m in potential gains — far outstripping the sum he had sacrificed in salary. Not only was the timing of the grant slightly earlier than in previous years, but the number of options was far larger. The number Mr Stack received this year was greater than the total he was granted in the past six years combined. If the price of Dick’s Sporting Goods shares return to their January high and remain there through to 2024, those options would be worth about $31m.
Like Dick’s, which was swept up in the broader hit to retail, companies operating in industries that were badly impacted by the virus often loaded up on the paper money as the possibility of a bankruptcy protection filing loomed heavily on shareholders’ minds.
Large hotel operators including MGM Resorts, Marriott International, Hilton, Wyndham and Hyatt all granted their senior executives restricted stock or options in late February and March. Among the seven hotel group CEOs, the biggest gains would be enjoyed by Mark Hoplamazian from Hyatt. His whose stock appreciation rights and restricted stock would be worth a potential $17m if Hyatt’s stock returns to its February high. Hyatt announced in March that Mr Hoplamazian was forgoing his April and May salary, which was worth about $205,500, based on public filings for 2019. The company further extended the sacrifice scheme from June, coinciding with a large round of layoffs, costing Mr Hoplamazian a total of almost $925,000 in foregone salary.
Here’s an FT illustration of the various companies included in the data, which, again, were provided by Equilar.
So, how have all these shares performed? Well, it varies.
Some essential context: growing stock awards are the biggest drivers of inequality between CEO pay and average employee pay. This is nothing new.
To be sure, not every executive gorged on options packages and restricted stock. Some companies, like Macy’s, also suspended these awards, along with their executives’ standard compensation, refusing to cave to the panic.
Fortunately for these executives, as long as the market stays bid, they’ll continue to look like geniuses.
- Robert 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' Kiyosaki: What The Elites Don't Want You To Know
Robert ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’ Kiyosaki: What The Elites Don’t Want You To Know
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/14/2020 – 17:10Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,
Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad, Poor dad says there’s something the elitists don’t want you to know. There’s a simple way to take back your power, and it involves removing yourself from any centralized banking system.
These centralized systems were all set up for the elite by the elite, and they don’t want you to know you can remove yourself from the system, or the Matrix, so to speak. All you have to do is invest and spend outside of their system. Decentralized systems are already in place, and the key to breaking free involves understanding that the central banks were not set up to help you.
The Federal Reserve, the United States central bank, has “printed” [created out of thin air] more than $2 trillion since the global economic crisis began, and when the Fed prints money it makes the price of assets like gold, silver, and Bitcoin go up. As Robert Kiyosaki says, central banks are run by the “controlling elite.” These elites do not like gold or because central banks cannot print gold. Equally, central banks do not like Bitcoin and the blockchain because what Robert calls people’s money, does not need central banks either.
Today, billions of people are trapped in a central banking system owned by the mega-rich and are losing big time because they are saving money.
Kiyosaki says he knew the “leaders” of the world were screwed up, but even he didn’t think they were as diabolical as they have revealed themselves to be.
“People are missing out on one of the biggest, catastrophic cash heists, of the whole world,” says Kiyosaki.
“Our governments have really screwed up,” he adds. So it’s time to leave the system or be dragged into slavery by staying in it. After all, they shut down the world to cover up something “very very big.”
Kiyosaki says to get crypto. The reason he likes it is because it’s outside the system. The elitists and politicians cannot control Bitcoin, and they are terrified of people realizing this. This is panicking all of the control systems of the globe (the governments.) They do not want you to figure this out.
This was put in a fine way by a man named Jake Ducey, who understands, like Kiyosaki, that we are embedded in this Matrix of mind control. But we can remove ourselves, and it’s remarkably easy.
But first, it’s important for you to understand why they need you to think you can’t be free of the rigged system. Once you figure it out, you’ll break out immediately, and it renders them useless. As Duecy says,
“what good is a lifetime politician, that’s been a politician for 40 years, that’s made all this money off of taxpayer money (theft) and insider investing…what good are they if we realize we can create a better world without them? It renders them useless. Now, what good are the people that are behind the scenes, pulling the strings on those types of puppets, and we don’t even know who they are, ad they hide in the shadows, what good are they? NONE! And that’s why there’s a vested interest in censorship and control of any information that uplifts and changes the thought patterns of too many people.”
In short, to break free from the system means to stop using their money and paying them (taxes) to keep you enslaved. Instead, use alternative currencies that cannot be manipulated, and realize that you don’t need a master or a ruler ordering you around because, without them, we can still work together and create a future worth living.
This is all part of the Great Awakening, says Ducey. You can remain enslaved to the system, or you can wake up, let go of it, and start really living now. I think it’s happening anyway, so you might as well make the decision live freely anyway. The longer you hold out and insist you need a master dictating your life, the harder this transition to a better way of life will be for you.
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