- Heathrow Passenger Numbers Remain Grounded
Heathrow Passenger Numbers Remain Grounded
When Heathrow reported its 2020 traffic volume figures In January, the airport’s CEO, John Holland-Kaye, reflected on an “incredibly challenging” year for aviation.
Holland-Kaye added:
“The aviation industry is the cornerstone of the UK economy but is fighting for survival.”
As lockdowns continue to be enforced around the globe, the latest figures show no let up in this crisis. Compared to the same period last year, February 2021 saw a fall of 91 percent in passengers passing through its terminals.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Reacting to this further development, Holland-Kaye struck a defiantly positive tone:
“Aviation has always led the UK economy out of recession, and we will do so again. The PM’s Global Travel Taskforce can lead the way on reopening international travel and trade safely – but ministers must get a grip of Border Force’s performance so that visitors get a warm welcome to Britain, not a 6 hour queue.”
We wish him luck…”normal” seems a long way off and vaccine passports may not help people feel ‘free’ enough to travel.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 03/15/2021 – 02:45 - What's The Plan In Europe – Blame UK & AstraZeneca?
What’s The Plan In Europe – Blame UK & AstraZeneca?
Authored by Bill Blain via MorningPorridge.com,
What is going on in Europe? The political and economic options are limited, the outcomes predictable, and none of them are good. But don’t worry – Europe can always blame the UK and AstraZeneca.
On the back of news of collapsing trade between Europe and the UK due to Brexit, I wish I could work out what’s going through the collective mindset of the European Commission and the European Central Bank regarding how they now intend to turn Europe into a major growth economy of economies, create jobs and wealth, foster social cohesion, and become a third force for moderation in geopolitics. What’s the plan I wonder… do they care to share it?
To give Europe some credit, it’s done remarkably well holding together these last 12 years, creating an increasingly connected European state without the tedious need of anyone actually voting for it. Political and Economic compromises have been made, but the whole thing has muddled through rather well – give or take suboptimal growth being hamstrung by the construct of the Euro.
Since 2012, when Europe’s central bank finally cottoned on to the crisis then enveloping European bond markets, the ECB has have had but one policy: keep Interest Rates at zero and below, and wait, hope, and pray for recovery and inflation to discount down the debt. They are still waiting. As far as I can work out…. that’s about the sum of the economic side of the plan. Hope is never a strategy, and monetary mismanagement without some fiscal common sense to back it up looks an unlikely route to success.
On the political side of the equation, for years the EC bumbled along as a rest home for “shunky retreads”. (I just love that description by the Australian Ambassador of the qualities required to become one of Europe’s unelected leaders.) Its’ main purpose was to ensure everyone got a fair chance to milk the teats of Brussels tax-free salaries and ensure the Germans didn’t cotton on the fact they were paying for much of it.
Meanwhile, the big dogs of European politics: Merkel and various Frenchmen and occasional Italian got on with the real business of Europe, which was broadly the Germans making quite clear they weren’t going to pay for it – while everyone else tried to ensure they did. The poor Brits really didn’t get it – their role was to pay and keep paying.
But things are gradually changing. Brexit has got the EC retreads all excited. They are very keen to show they have powers and are not afraid to use them…. They intend to keep punishing the Brits to dissuade any other nations in the Euro gulag from any thoughts of a similar exit. And, they are doing a damn fine job of it too…. Europe must be terribly pleased as Brussels announces its latest quotas of not letting in British fish, meat, or anything else… and sets new levels of Beastliness to Brits – B2B as its known in the Kommission.
Everyone thinks it was the sainted Mario Draghi saying he would magically “do whatever it takes” that was the trick that saved Europe and the Euro. In reality it was a far more complex game of financial card sharping and a masterclass in political distraction as he persuaded the Germans to support it.
Back in the early 2010s Yoorp was in deep crisis. The markets confidently expected the Euro to implode. Greece was a basket case. Italian bond yields were heading stratospheric and utterly unsustainable. Ireland was going to default. Portugal was on the verge of bankruptcy. Spain, and even France looked wobbly. We talked about the impossibility of the Germans ever agreeing to a bailout of Club Med.
Then came the first genius moment: the ECB announced it was making unlimited repo facilities available to banks.
I was on a Bloomberg, (or maybe it was CNBC?), show as it happened. I immediately opined it was a buy signal for European government bonds. The German bank analyst sitting next to me demurred and told the audience that was rubbish, “this is a carefully considered ECB plan to stabilise and assist banks” he sagely pronounced. After all, that’s exactly what the German politician being interviewed had just said.
I shook my head and smiled in that way that clearly conveyed he was a simpleton. I explained: “Bollchocks…. Here’s how it plays from here: banks will use the repo to use their government bonds as collateral to buy more government bonds, which they will use as collateral to borrow even more more money to buy more government bonds to use as more more collateral. Simples. This is the moment to buy European govt bonds.”
The analysts flustered and fluffed and came out with some line about the direct funding of European sovereign debt was not something the ECB would do. I shrugged and said.. sure… but watch bond yields and Bund spreads vs France, Spain and Italy. We did, and we’ve been watching them ever since and making lots of money off the ECB’s magic money tree.
Well done Draghi. It largely worked, but the one thing the magic money tree has most definitely not done is drive any European recovery, jobs, yoof employment or social stability.. But hey-ho, the ECB says it will happen… if we just unlock some inflation.. and don’t tell the Germans.
We are now into an era of ECB never-ending QE Infinity. Yesterday Christine Lagarde, ECB head girl, continued in the same vein as her predecessor and now Italian prime minister Draghi, pulling the wool over the Germans eyes. She is accelerating purchases under the €1.85 bazillion Pandemic/Permanent emergency purchase programme – buying back bonds at a “significantly higher pace” in coming months/years/centuries to limit any rise in European bond yields.
Yep. It’s really, really important the ECB keeps European bond yields low. Because low bond yields have done so much to generate zero growth, create zero jobs, and done nothing to solve Club Med yoof unemployment. As Europe’s collective growth rate has limped along for the past 10-years, zero interest rates, ECB limits on spending and ECB policies have achieved the grand sum of a word that sounds like duck all. But it has held the Euro together and keep the ECB biggies in tax-free jobs.
Almost as an apparent after-thought the EBC has effectively seized financial sovereignty from European states. Keeping interest rates unfeasibly low has kept the Euro nice and cheap for German exporters, while crushing the hopes of other European nations to adjust their economies to catch up Germany. The ECB also controls the disbursement (through the European Commission, so un-ably led by VDL) of the €750 bln recovery funds.
450 million happy smiling flag-waving Yooropeans are eternally grateful to the ECB for its dedication to keep doing the same thing in the vain hope it might finally work. Just like they are delighted with the success of the EC in managing Yoorp’s vaccine rollout.
Facts is facts… but Europe is not about to knock the socks off with the kind of Economic recovery we are now seeing in the US. Even in Brexit Britain recovery took a 3% dunt from the Christmas lockdown, but we’re on course for effective economy-wide vaccination and reopening this half of 2021.
Of course, we won’t be going on holiday in Europe, because they will be into a fourth wave and banning us from their beaches, even calling it the British variant, to make quite clear it is not the EC’s fault for its vaccine rollout or the ECB’s ongoing monetary hopes.
Meanwhile… Back in Covid land…
I was surprised when a headline flashed across the screens: “Denmark Suspends AstraZeneca Vaccine Over Blood Clot Concerns”. Wow. That must be serious. Something must be well awry for the Danes to be concerned. Europe’s most laid-back nation doesn’t get het up about nothing – or so I thought.
The Danes are sensible people. I doubted they would be given to slavishly following the dictates of the EU Brusselocracy to talk down the UK’s successful vaccination programme. I immediately called one of my sailing chums, who in addition to being a top vascular surgeon, recently manged to get together the 26 separate pieces of paper required to evidence his qualifications to stick needles in people’s arms as a Covid Vaccinator.
He was equally surprised, commenting how unlikely it would be if Denmark’s tiny population revealed a serious blood issue which hadn’t been evidenced in the over 15 million dozes of the vaccine administered in the UK. Then he called back to say there had been 2 cases and death of an Austrian with multiple thrombosis 10 days after getting the AstraZeneca jab.
The fact is a 60-year old Dane has died after getting the shot from a blood clot. 5 million Europeans have been vaccinated with the AstraZeneca drug. There have been a shocking, staggering 30 cases of obstructive blood clots among these 5 million. Which is a statistically incoherent connection – it’s absolutely in line with what you would expect to see in the general population said the European Medicines Agency, adding the benefits outweigh any risk.
But with all the fake news surrounding the efficacy of AstraZeneca, the drug company’s difficulties in delivering doses, and Europe’s bumbling vaccine rollout… Give a good dog a bad name and it sticks – would seem to be the European policy. The Danes have banned it for at least 14 days – to be on the safe side.
For the record, I recently got the AstraZeneca jab and had no side effects. This weekend, in protest at the Danish decision, I shall be cooking vitamin Pig from this Island for breakfast, and not doing anything with lego… and to show just how concerned I am I won’t watch anything with Sandi Toksvig in it. (The delightful and very funny Danish TV presenter is a national treasure here in the UK.. but she’s on the wrong side now…)
Meanwhile, there are over 10 million doses of the AstraZenaca vaccine sitting in the US because the US has not approved it. The American’s have declined to let the drug maker deliver them to Europe. European Commission Kommissars say that is clear evidence of the UK deliberately stopping the export of the vaccine to Yoorp… apparently.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 03/15/2021 – 02:00 - The US Keeps Losing In Every Simulated War-Game Against China
The US Keeps Losing In Every Simulated War-Game Against China
In the autumn of 2020, the US Air Force held a simulated war game against China, set approximately 10 years in the future.
It began with a biological weapon that quickly dealt with America’s military bases and warships in the Indo-Pacific region.
Then, China staged a massive military exercise to veil a gigantic deployment of an invasion force.
The simulation culminated with Chinese missile strikes raining down on U.S. bases and warships in the region, and a lightning air and amphibious assault on the island of Taiwan.
China won, within a very short timeframe.
This was reportedly part of the classified war game and details are being revealed now.
Around the same time, in real life, in September 2020, actual Chinese combat aircraft intentionally flew over the rarely crossed median line in the Taiwan Strait in the direction of Taipei an “unprecedented 40 times and conducted simulated attacks on the island” that Taiwan’s premier called “disturbing.”
China’s air force released a video showing a bomber capable of carrying nuclear weapons carrying out a simulated attack on Andersen Air Force Base on the U.S. Pacific island of Guam.
The title of the Hollywood-like propaganda video was “The god of war H-6K [bomber] goes on the attack!”
The trend of China getting ahead and the US falling back was accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This month the Council on Foreign Relations released a special report, “The United States, China, and Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War.”
It concluded that Taiwan “is becoming the most dangerous flash point in the world for a possible war” between the United States and China.
In Senate testimony, the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Adm. Phil Davidson, warned that he believes China might try and annex Taiwan “in this decade, in fact within the next six years.”
Separately, a Chinese think tank recently described tensions in U.S.-China relations as the worst since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, and it advised Communist Party leaders to prepare for war with the United States.
Apparently, many Americans don’t realize is that years of classified Pentagon war games strongly suggest that the U.S. military would lose that war.
“More than a decade ago, our war games indicated that the Chinese were doing a good job of investing in military capabilities that would make our preferred model of expeditionary warfare, where we push forces forward and operate out of relatively safe bases and sanctuaries, increasingly difficult,” Air Force Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration and requirements, told Yahoo News in an exclusive interview.
“At that point the trend in our war games was not just that we were losing, but we were losing faster,” Hinote said. “After the 2018 war game I distinctly remember one of our gurus of war gaming standing in front of the Air Force secretary and chief of staff, and telling them that we should never play this war game scenario [of a Chinese attack on Taiwan] again, because we know what is going to happen. The definitive answer if the U.S. military doesn’t change course is that we’re going to lose fast. In that case, an American president would likely be presented with almost a fait accompli.”
The Biden administration recently announced a new Pentagon task force to review U.S. defense policy toward China, to be headed by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
The deteriorating security of Taiwan will be a major focus of the new task force.
“By the way, three of China’s standing war plans are built around a Taiwan scenario,” Hinote said.
“They’re planning for this. Taiwan is what they think about all the time.”
No matter what, every war game scenario featuring Taiwan ends in the US losing.
“Whenever we war-gamed a Taiwan scenario over the years, our Blue Team routinely got its ass handed to it, because in that scenario time is a precious commodity and it plays to China’s strength in terms of proximity and capabilities,” said David Ochmanek, a senior RAND Corporation analyst and former deputy assistant secretary of defense for force development. “That kind of lopsided defeat is a visceral experience for U.S. officers on the Blue Team, and as such the war games have been a great consciousness-raising device. But the U.S. military is still not keeping pace with Chinese advances. For that reason, I don’t think we’re much better off than a decade ago when we started taking this challenge more seriously.”
Part of the problem is that China advanced its A2/AD strategy while the Pentagon was largely distracted fighting counterterrorism and counterinsurgency wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for two decades.
Beijing is also laser-focused on Taiwan and regional hegemony, while the U.S. military must project power and prepare for potential conflict scenarios all around the globe, giving the Pentagon what Ochmanek calls an “attention deficit disorder.”
Finally, there is the complacency of the perennial winner that makes it hard for senior U.S. military officers to believe that another nation would dare to take them on.
“My response is that China’s growing military confidence is manifesting itself in an increasingly belligerent approach to its neighbors, the growing frequency of the PLA’s violation of the airspace of Taiwan and Japan, and the bullying of other neighbors in the South China Sea,” said Ochmanek. “Under Xi Jinping there has been a dramatic increase in such provocations compared to a decade ago, and I think it’s grounded in his belief that militarily, China is strong enough now to credibly challenge us.”
In the most recent war game, the Pentagon tested the impact of potential capabilities and military concepts that are still on the drawing board in many cases.
The Blue Team, which represented U.S. forces, adopted a more defensive and dispersed posture less reliant on large, vulnerable bases, ports and aircraft carriers in a conflict with the Red Team, which represented China.
The strategy strongly favored large numbers of long-range, mobile strike systems, to include anti-ship cruise missile batteries, mobile rocket artillery systems, unmanned mini-submarines, mines and robust surface-to-air missile batteries for air defense. A premium was put on surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities for both early warning and accurate intelligence to enable quicker decisions by U.S. policymakers, and a more capable command-and-control system to coordinate the actions of more dispersed forces.
“We created a force that had resiliency at its core, and the Red Team looked at that force and knew that it would take a tremendous amount of firepower to knock it out,” said Hinote. The biggest insight of the war game, he said, was revealed when he talked afterward with the Red Team leader, who played the role of the PLA’s top general.
“The Red Team leader is the most experienced and aggressive officer in these war games across the Defense Department, and when he initially looked at the resiliency of our defensive posture both in Taiwan and the region, he said, ‘No, I’m not going to attack,’” recalled Hinote. “If we can design a force that creates that level of uncertainty and causes Chinese leaders to question whether they can accomplish their goals militarily, I think that’s what deterrence looks like in the future.”
On a sober note, Hinote pointed out that the Blue Team force posture tested in the recent war game is still not the one reflected in current Defense Department spending plans.
“We’re beginning to understand what kind of U.S. military force it’s going to take to achieve the National Defense Strategy’s goals,” he said. “But that’s not the force we’re planning and building today.”
Maybe one day the US will win in a simulation against China.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 03/14/2021 – 23:30 - Welcome To The 'Upside-Down'
Welcome To The ‘Upside-Down’
Presented without comment… “welcome to the upside-down”
Good evening, and welcome to the upside-down.
Where what you see, can never be,
and what you know, just isn’t so.
Where bad is good and wrong is right.
Where truth went down without a fight.Where you might just say, every day is opposite day.
Can I offer you a mask or an anal swab?
Rape is the law, if its for a good cause.
Oh no, it isn’t mandatory, that would be cruel,
but you have no choice, that’s our only rule.Before you enter I must tell you about the world’s deadliest disease.
It can take you out with a single sneeze.
It’s a clever bugger too, it can’t take out a violent mob
it only thrives in those with jobs.But luckily, we have the only cure,
it won’t stop it from spreading but that’s all we know for sure.
So “What does it do?”, you may ask.
No one knows, so please be sure to double mask.“It’s super safe” the doctor said.
Even if you end up dead,
because the antidote can’t kill you since
it’s the leading cause of coincidence.Now roll up your sleeve and let’s go,
I’ll take you through the backwards show.
Where doctors kill and science shills
for our lord and saviour, a man named Bill.To your left you will find our grand display
of courageous men with nothing to say.
They don’t provide, or lead, or slay.
They smile, nod, and let you have your way.To your right you’ll see our exhibition of empathy.
Where the rich stay home,
and through their phone,
demand that old folks die alone.Follow along the yellow dotted line,
to our memorial of dissent, our evil shrine.
The thought criminals and sense seekers and those who disrupt,
the ones who tried to turn us right side up.They did not shrink to double think,
so all of them died from “suicide”.Thank you very much for visiting THE UPSIDE DOWN!
Now please return to the circus with the rest of the clowns.Tyler Durden
Sun, 03/14/2021 – 23:00 - Towards "One" World Currency
Towards “One” World Currency
Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,
Expect Government Crackdowns In A “Global Depression”
For those professing a preference for one type of government over another, an ugly reality is they all cut from the same cloth. Whether we are talking about Democracy, Communism, Socialism, or Fascism the strong link they share is one of dominance and a desire to control. While seen as vastly different systems with distinct goals, each is rooted in the promise people should sacrifice as needed for “the greater good.” The main flaw in a democracy is that it allows a simple majority to force their desires upon others. This is why our forefathers set checks and balances in the Constitution, however, even these do not guarantee freedom will remain.
Today, the burden of risk and the amount of “skin in the game” is not equally shared by all of society. Over time our financial system and institutions have been corrupted by crony capitalism and a political system that panders to the masses by exchanging favors for baubles. It could be argued that those in power don’t have to take away our freedom by force if we are willing to surrender it or trade it for a few paid weeks off work. Nor do they have to be fair in how they go about this if they simply get a majority of the populace to go along with their plan.
The suspicion governments are self-serving creatures is apparent in the old school British imperial definition of “commerce” which used free trade as a cover for the military dominance of weak nations. Those put in a position of being exploited often saw this as simply a ruse promoted by those wishing to abuse them. In short, opening borders and turning off protectionism simply makes it easier to rob countries of their wealth. America, a wayward child of England, has been accused of following this same path.
Economic Hardship Takes Many Forms
In my last article titled, “The first Global Inflationary Depression Is Possible” a case was made that the world was headed towards an economic crisis due to several factors. The problem is that such a scenario encompasses all aspects of life, from food and energy, to supply chains, geopolitics, and possibly even war. This article is an effort to offer up some ideas on how governments might respond to such an event based on current trends and some of the events that have occurred during the covid-19 pandemic. If we accept the idea that governments are self-serving and that a huge majority of the people suffer during an economic depression, we should expect frictions to develop as the populace seeks solutions to ease their pain.
Sadly, governments across the world have overreached and crushed the rights of individuals during the pandemic. People have been denied the ability to travel, locked in their homes, followed by drones, and even been jailed. This may have been just a taste of what we might expect if governments are put under pressure to perform. Many people have pointed to the fact that in the past “war has been the go-to answer” often used to take our eyes off of problems. Hopefully, that will not be the case, however, many of the other options possible in the age of almost total surveillance do not seem much better.
It is wise to remember that when all is said and done, those in power will not be kind to us but they will rapidly throw us under the bus without a thought. Silencing dissidents or those that protest or disagree by limiting free speech is only a start. Lock-downs and curfews take on a whole new meaning when harshly enforced. They can include things like house arrest, cutting power, links to the internet and communication, and even water to areas where unrest gets out of hand. You can expect governments to remove anything that gives us the power to control our fate.
Robots Could Be Used For Crowd Control
The topic of our future and culture always circles back to and is directly linked to the issue of jobs vanishing as automation and an army of robots march into our workplace. This can result in a future that takes on a very grim dystopian appearance. The fear of being replaced by a robot or seeing your job being outsourced or eliminated is on the rise. Do not be surprised if in the end those displaced from the job market are only given enough to ensure they remain docile and behave. If and when this becomes an issue conflict and violence will arise.
While some people credit Rahm Emanuel with the saying, Winston Churchill was the first to say, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” He said it in the mid-1940s as we were approaching the end of World War II, and history indicates those in government have taken heed. The one thing we can count on is that when things crumble, the old, “we should have done more” or the “it would have been far worse” lines always flow forth from those in charge. Under this logic, we should be prepared to be subjected to massive abuse by those with strong agendas.
Possibly, one of the most dire threats we face flows from the combination of big tech and those in pursuit of the highly touted one-world agenda. This brings together a slew of organizations, governments, companies, wealthy, individuals, and bankers with the goal of expanding their power. The gathering in Davos of the World Economic Forum is not for our benefit but more for plutocrats like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos that desire to “break the world” with their ruthless agendas to bring more political power into their hands. Recently a great deal of attention has been given to some of the ideas and vision the WEF has floated. One of the most powerful became visible when WEF public relations released a video entitled: “8 Predictions for the World in 2030. Its 2030 agenda offers a telling glimpse into what the technocratic elite has in store for the rest of us. It promotes the idea that by 2030 “You will own nothing. And you’ll be happy.
How do you begin to fight or turn back a force that has even incorporated and leveraged the ever-present smartphone as an ultra-powerful surveillance device? By developing programs to organize phone data so that it provides real-time intelligence on every citizen, and using it to guide and influence our actions the power of the state has been deeply enhanced. The digital age has made it far easier for government to seize our computers and records to shape a case against anyone by massaging the data as they see fit. The reason we hear so little criticism of these actions from our government may be that we are next in line to have our freedom culled. Governments are not the friend of the average man. Orwell wrote about how governments could take on a life of their own and criticized totalitarianism throughout his writings.
Totalitarianism, the most extreme and complete form of authoritarianism is a political concept that defines a mode of government, which prohibits opposition parties, restricts individual opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high degree of control over public and private life. Political power in totalitarian states is generally pushed by those on the far left or right with strong agendas and an all-encompassing propaganda campaign, which is disseminated through mass media. Signs of its growth are often marked by political repression, growing control over the economy, restriction of speech, and mass surveillance.
Of course, a huge step in individuals losing control over their lives would be the adoption of a single world currency. Those in charge of our financial machinery have indicated to the public their desire for more power. This means creating a truly global centralized economic system and a highly controlled world currency framework dominated by a select cult of banking oligarchs. This would, in effect makes the rest of the human race their slaves. The banking elites are positioning themselves to avoid blame for a disaster in which all fiat currencies fall in value by selling us on an elaborate recovery con-game which includes converting to a new worldwide currency. Remember, this is conceived and perpetuated by those with the most to gain.
Magazine Cover From 1988
For years the IMF has been discussing replacing the dollar with the SDR as the world reserve currency. It would require governments to borrow from the world central banking authority, rather than printing currency to finance their infrastructure programs. With governments floating the idea of going cashless and to digital currencies, this would give them even greater control over our lives. To be clear, the elites are positioned and merely waiting for a geopolitical disaster or catastrophe so overwhelming that when the time arrives they can portray themselves as our saviors by carrying out this plan.
This is all part of the New World Order and globalization idea pushed by many of the rich elite and world leaders. It contends that larger, more cooperative governments under one financial unit will benefit us all. The fact is Americans have a great deal to lose if the dollar is dethroned and declines in value. Those who will be crucified are the middle-class Americans whose wealth is locked into or are holding long-term USD bonds thinking they are a safe investment. To Americans, the fate of dollar-dominated assets and their value when the dust finally settles should be a huge concern but most Americans fail to grasp the implications.
The transition to a world currency would take a far greater toll on paper assets than tangible goods. While recognizing the flaws of the dollar and our current system I have come to believe the other fiat currencies such as the euro and yen hold even less merit. This includes cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. Regardless, in the end, we should expect to be told and not given an option as to what is coming. If events unfold in the way those promoting a one-world currency hope, they will be able to portray cleaning up a financial mess as a blessing. The truth is, they will benefit greatly from putting a dagger in the heart of freedom. This is not written to frighten or as a prediction of doom but to dampen any illusions those at the top value those below them.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 03/14/2021 – 22:30 - Anti-2nd Amendment Groups Swarm Senate Amid Push To Restrict Gun Rights
Anti-2nd Amendment Groups Swarm Senate Amid Push To Restrict Gun Rights
As Congressional Democrats turn their attention from stimulus to gun control, anti-2nd Amendment groups are focusing their lobbying efforts on the Senate after two major bills cleared the House last week.
The bills – one of which could indefinitely delay background checks (H.R. 1446), and the other which would require a federal background check for private gun sales (H.R. 8) – made it through the House last week and are on to the Senate, where Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has promised to take quick action as Democrats hope to garner enough GOP support for them to pass, according to The Hill.
Eight House Republicans voted for the background check legislation which would affect private transfers, however it would take at least 60 votes for the bills to make it through the Senate.
“No more hopes and prayers, thoughts and prayers—a vote is what we need,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says as Democrats introduce gun reform legislation. https://t.co/IqC5YhwUE1 pic.twitter.com/MwwpRjDVDj
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) March 11, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
“We have a slim gun violence prevention majority, but we have the majority, which we know includes eight Republicans,” said Brian Lemek, executive director at the Brady PAC.
Also supporting the legislation are Everytown for Gun Safety and the Giffords Law Center.
Some Senate Democrats say they’re already holding conversations with Republicans.
“I’m talking to senators across the aisle, but the real difference-makers in this debate are the survivors, students, and family members who have made this issue a movement,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told The Hill about his plan for getting Republican support.
“The most powerful advocates for change are the people who have personal stories to share about how a background check could have saved someone they love — that’s who my Republican colleagues have to answer to,” he added.
Gun rights advocates say the bills are a stupid idea.
“The idea that this is going to make us safer is laughable,” said Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL). “Criminals looking to get their hands on firearms to use in crimes are not going to submit to background checks. Only law-abiding citizens will follow the law. This is a back door means of setting up a national registry of firearms – something I completely oppose.”
Meanwhile North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson (R) ripped Democrats for ‘capitalizing on half-truths to rob Americans of their Second Amendment rights,” according to The Truth About Guns.
“Unfortunately, the Democrats in Congress are not serious about ending gun violence,” said Hudson. “And it’s obvious by the bills – they’re bringing up four this week – which would do nothing to have stopped a single mass shooting in this country, yet, they threaten the rights of law-abiding citizens.”
“The Democrats have rushed two bills to the floor, no regular order, no hearing time,” Hudson continued. “They have allowed no meaningful input from Republicans and – and these bills, again, would have not stopped a single mass shooting, not Newtown, not Charleston, not Parkland, not Las Vegas, not Sutherland Springs, would not have stopped the shooting of our former colleague, Gabrielle Giffords because her shooter passed a background check.”
“H.R. 8 fails to recognize the fact that every commercial gun sale in America requires a background check today,” Rep. Hudson explained. “And H.R. 1446 creates delays for law-abiding citizens, could be indefinite to acquire a weapon and would have not closed the Charleston loophole.”
Rep. Hudson explained that the failure that led to the murders in Charleston, South Carolina’s Emmanuel AME Church was a matter of law enforcement not sharing disqualifying criminal information with the FBI. He said that a fix would be Rep. Tom Rice’s H.R. 1518, a bill which codifies current NICS practices. The Truth About Guns
These surely law abiding citizens are going to be super bummed about the private sale background check thing:
Tyler Durden
Sun, 03/14/2021 – 22:00 - The New New Deal Has Already Arrived. Thank The COVID Panic
The New New Deal Has Already Arrived. Thank The COVID Panic
Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,
We’ve entered a new era of politics and government in America, and the Left is pretty happy about it. This week, for example, The Guardian announced “Biden’s $1.9tn Covid relief bill marks an end to four decades of Reaganism.”
From this point of view, “Reaganism” is code for extreme free-market libertarian public policy. Or as some call it: “neoliberalism.”
The idea that this sort of Reaganism took over the country contradicts reality, of course. By virtually every metric—from tax revenues and federal spending per capita, and in to the size of the regulatory state—the size of the American state has expanded relentlessly for more than 40 years.
But in many respects the headline is correct. The new Covid relief bill signals that whatever restraint on public spending existed before 2020 is now all but gone. And the bill represents the beginning of a new era: an era that can be likened to the New Deal. This has long been part of the plan according to social democrats and progressives. After all, there’s been a lot of talk from the Left for years about the need for a “new new deal.” Whether it centered on environmentalism or on health care, everyone in these circles agrees on one thing: we needed a new surge in the size and scope of the government sector.
And now it’s happened. We’re in a new era when an ongoing crisis justifies any number of drastic new measures enacted by governments. To question this, the media and the pundits insist, constitutes “denying science” or “wanting grandma to die.” The only question now is how long this new era of enbridled government expansion will last.
Moreover, just as the New Deal turned an ordinary downturn into a decade-long depression—and did nothing to “end” the Depression—this new new deal will only ensure that any real recovery is years away.
A Great Leap Forward in Government Spending
The most visible aspect of this all are the immense increases in government spending that have occurred over the past year.
While it’s true the Biden administration is signing off on an immense $1.9 trillion “relief” package, the fact is the Trump administration already approved $4 trillion in new spending for covid-19 stimulus and relief bills. The Biden addition will be on top of that. To put this into perspective, keep in mind that during most of the Obama years, total federal outlays ranged from $3.5 to $3.9 trillion. Trump pushed those numbers up even further, topping $4.4 trillion in the 2019 fiscal year. In the 2020 fiscal year (which ended in September) outlays skyrocketed to 6.5 trillion. This doesn’t even capture all of Trump’s stimulus spending. Some of it will count under the 2021 fiscal year, and we still have a long way to go.
Now Biden has added nearly $2 trillion to that total, and there’s likely to be more “relief” and “stimulus” going forward.
Meanwhile, the one-year deficit exploded to $3.3 trillion in 2020, more than doubling the $1.4 trillion deficit that piled up in 2009.
To make this all possible, of course, the central bank has furiously created newly “printed” money, showering Washington and Wall Street with dollars as the Fed bought up US debt on the secondary market and even began buying corporate debt. Naturally, the Fed’s balance sheet is now well above seven trillion.
The overall money supply has increased by nearly one-third since last March.
Both of the US major parties have signed off on this. Political dissent in Congress is absent beyond a tiny handful of Republicans like Thomas Massie. The victory for the New New Dealers has been nearly total.
A New Surge in the Executive State and the Regulatory State
A second major change that has taken place has been the surge in executive and regulatory power across the nation. This also reflects what happened during the original New Deal. As noted by Garet Garret at the time, the transformation of the US into an executive-dominated regime is one of the primary characteristics of the New Deal. What had once been three separate branches, with a dominant legislative branch, the new regime was something else. Now, he pointed out, laws are routinely created within the executive branch itself, and interpreted by administrative law judged within the same branch. The old checks and balances had disappeared.
It’s a little different this time, though, as this has perhaps been most noticeable at the state level. In nearly every US state, state governors granted themselves vast new regulatory powers, and ruled by decree.
Every few weeks—or even every few days in some case—governors announced new regulations on a level of micromanagement that would have been considered unthinkable prior to 2020. Governors continually issued new regulations about how many people were allowed to enter a grocery store or a restaurant. They issued edicts on what sorts of masks employees and customers must wear. They dictated operating hours for all sorts of firms. During March and April, these governors even placed millions of their citizens under house arrest, threatening arrest of peaceful residents who stepped outside for “nonessential” reasons.
At the federal level, President Trump issued new edicts on federal spending, health care, and international travel. In September, the White House unilaterally declared that landlords were no longer permitted to evict tenants who missed rent. Millions of rental contracts were rendered null and void by a stroke of the president’s pen.
This was all done in most cases without the passage of any laws through the “traditional” methods of public debate, and legislative processes. Chief executives across the nation simply did as they pleased.
Corporatism Ascendant
Like the original New Deal, much of our New New Deal is built around cushy partnerships between the central government and immense corporate interests.
Wall Street, for example, has already become accustomed to being bailed out repeatedly by outright cash transfers to big banks and other corporate players—as happened in 2008. But Wall Street also benefits perennially from the so-called Greenspan Put which is a wink-and-nod arrangement between the central bank and the upper echelons of Wall Street.
Thanks to the Greenspan Put, Wall Street knows that if the stock markets and the financial sector face any substantial losses due to market “instability,” the Fed will intervene with injections of easy money, and asset purchase programs.
The Fed is still sitting on trillions in junk assets it bought up during the Great Recession to prop up Wall Street’s portfolios.
With the Covid Panic came a new round of bailouts. Sure, these bailouts weren’t like the 2008 bailouts. Things were more hidden this time around. The asset purchases from the central bank continued and were expanded. Moreover, this time the free money and the cheap loans were ostensibly geared toward medium-sized and small businesses. But, Big Business reaped the greatest rewards.
For example, the Paycheck Protection Programs (PPP) was supposed to prop up the “little guy.” But as Alana Abramson at Time notes, the reality was something different:
The implementation of the program, says John Arensmeyer, the CEO of the Small Business Majority, an advocacy group that represents more than 65,000 independent companies, was structurally flawed. Because PPP required banks to act as intermediaries, it created a dynamic wherein larger, more established companies—often with existing relationships and lines of credit with banks—received funds before smaller operations, who feared their collapse was imminent.
The law’s definitions were also problematic. While PPP defined “small businesses” as entities with up to 500 employees, the law included a provision pertaining to the food and hospitality sectors wherein companies with individual locations of fewer than 500 people were still eligible. That meant that large, multi-million dollar chains, like Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and Shake Shack were able to apply, often edging out the smaller mom-and-pop enterprises that the law was touted as propping up.
This should surprise no one. Since 2008, and with a wave of new regulations imposed on the financial sector, Wall Street and the banks have become all the more geared toward working with large, established firms while smaller businesses, farmers, and other small enterprises find it increasingly difficult to secure loans, and take advantage of the ultra-low interest rates that favor large established firms.
Don’t expect this to end with Covid. The first New Deal paved the way for the economic regimentation and rationing of the Second World War. It also set the stage for the war on free speech and the prosecution of “sedition” during the war. Dissent cannot be tolerated during the “crisis,” and once the regime has control of the levers of the economy, it doesn’t let go easily.
On there other hand, there are signs of hope. Americans of the 1930s meekly did as they were told. When FDR told American to hand over all their gold via executive order, for instance, the overwhelming majority did so without complaint. The naive Americans of that age generally believed what their politicians told them. Much of America today appears less primed for compliance. Public trust in government institutions, the media, and public health officials has gone into steep decline.
This is why Biden complained last week that confidence in the regime “has been plummeting since the late 60s to what it is now.” So, he’s now, “on a mission to restore faith in government.” The good news is he’s likely to fail.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 03/14/2021 – 21:30 - "How I Got Rich On Tesla Stock"
“How I Got Rich On Tesla Stock”
Satire? Maybe. Truth, definitely.
“Tesla stock is the new bitcoin… decentralized from ever going down.”
“…according to my calculations, it’s pretty safe to assume Tesla stock is going to keep ’10x-ing’ every year…”
“dude, the only thing that can stop Tesla stock from ’10x-ing’ every year, is if it starts ’20x-ing’ every year.”
“It’s easy to start a profitable car company, you just buy a bunch of bitcoin, which increases in value, which helps you cover all your losses from making cars.”
“There’s no problem that Elon can’t fix.”
“…how the f**k is Tesla stock down 35% in the last month?!”
“…do you think I should sell?”
Enjoy…
Tyler Durden
Sun, 03/14/2021 – 21:05 - Freelancers Punished In New IRS Rule Under COVID Stimulus
Freelancers Punished In New IRS Rule Under COVID Stimulus
By Sovereign Man Blueprint
A few hundred pages into the latest $1.9 trillion Covid relief law, the “American Rescue Plan Act of 2021,” you’ll find Section 9674. It says that a “third party settlement organization” does not have to report to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) any payments to contract workers under $600.
These third parties include Uber, Airbnb, Etsy, eBay, Freelancer, and other platforms which facilitate payments to gig workers. The problem is that this little amendment lowers the reporting threshold from $20,000 to $600. Previously, a gig worker could earn up to $20,000 on these platforms without the IRS being informed of their income.
What this means:
From this rule change the IRS expects to collect an additional $1 billion annually, presumably from the poorest gig workers who previously earned under $20,000 per year. These low earners previously flew under the radar.
But now they could be met with surprise bills from the tax man when it comes time to file. And as many of these contractors are living paycheck to paycheck, they may incur additional IRS penalties if they are unable to pay what the IRS says they owe.
Of course, the same politicians who snuck this into the bill are the ones who declared over and over that their tax policies would only affect millionaires and the ultra wealthy. But now, one of the first things they do is shake down the lowest tax bracket.
We hope these gig workers enjoy their stimulus checks. They are soon going to learn that nothing is free when it comes to the government. There are always strings attached.
What you can do about it:
The good news is that freelancers, gig workers, self-employed individuals, and contractors have a number of tools at their disposal to legally minimize their tax bill.
Solo 401(k)
Solo 401(k)s are retirement accounts for business owners and contractors with no full-time employees – only you, part-time and contract labor (those filing an IRS 1099, which signals that they are NOT employees). For the self-employed and those with side hustles, the structure, flexibility, investment options, and annual contribution limits make a Solo 401(k) a potential go-to retirement option.
In 2021, Solo 401(k) owners can put away $58,000 tax free each year. If you’re 50 or older, that amount goes up to $64,500. The taxes on this income will be paid when you are retired and collect the money, presumably in a lower tax bracket. A Solo 401(k) allows you to take out a loan against your balance, and invest in more asset categories like precious metals, international real estate, and cryptocurrency.
Plus there are no reporting requirements until the account reaches $250,000. Click here to read a September 2018 Monthly Letter on Solo 401(k)’s (although certain numbers may be out of date, the general information is still accurate).
Foreign Earned Income Exclusion
The US is one of only two countries in the world that taxes its citizens no matter where they live. (The other country is Eritrea in east Africa, but they don’t have the resources to enforce their tax policy. So that leaves the US as the sole global enforcer of citizenship-based taxation.)
But, by moving overseas, US citizens can take advantage of the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE), a special provision in the US tax code that allows US citizens living abroad who file Form 2555 along with their tax return to earn up to $108,700 per year (and growing) tax-free.
“Earned income” means that investment income and dividends do not apply for the exclusion. But self-employed, freelancers, and digital nomads can absolutely take advantage of the rule.
You can even use the Housing Deduction or Exclusion to save even more.
Puerto Rico Act 60, Chapter 3 (previously Act 20) Tax Incentive
Contract workers, freelancers, consultants, and the self-employed can also reduce their tax burden significantly by moving to Puerto Rico and establishing a corporation. This used to be called the Act 20 Export Services Act, now reorganized under Chapter 3 of Act 60. If your company provides services to clients outside of Puerto Rico, the corporate tax rate is just 4% and dividends to the owner are tax free. You will still have to pay yourself a reasonable salary, subject to federal payroll taxes and Puerto Rico’s income tax. However what is considered “reasonable” in Puerto Rico is often much lower than the mainland.
Since Puerto Rico is a US territory and can set its own tax policies, it’s one of the only options for US citizens to legally escape most federal taxation.
Of course this probably won’t help many Uber drivers and Airbnb hosts. But a broad swath of services do work, for example:
- Research and development
- Advertising and public relations
- Any kind of consulting (economic, scientific, environmental, technological, managerial, marketing, human resources, computer, auditing…)
- Creative industries (design, art, architecture, creative education, etc.)
- Commercial art and graphics services
- Professional services (legal, tax, accounting…)
- Data processing centers
- Computer programming
- Blockchain-related businesses
- Remote medical services (telemedicine)
- Educational and training services
Just keep in mind that the clock is ticking on the Puerto Rico incentives. They have already come under attack by certain lawmakers and could be eliminated or altered.
However, when you are granted these tax incentives, you sign a contract with the Puerto Rican government. Based on past court cases, new rule changes do not alter the agreement you signed. In other words, you are grandfathered in under the rules in effect when you sign the tax decree.
There is another risk to consider, however— these tax benefits to US citizens would be eliminated if Puerto Rico became a state.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 03/14/2021 – 20:40 - Next All Time High: "1 Day Or 25 Years?"
Next All Time High: “1 Day Or 25 Years?”
As DB’s Jim Reid wrote in his latest Friday Thematic Research recap from the last day of the week, Thursday saw the first all-time high in the S&P 500 for a whole month.
It was nevertheless the 11th ATH in 2021 to date, and if anyone (spuriously) decides to annualize this, it would mean 57 in total for the year which would be the fourth largest behind 1995 (77), 1964 (62) and 2017 (62).
As Reid observes, such clusters of all-time highs are unsurprisingly focused around secular market valuation highs with the late 1920s, mid 1960s, late 1990s and the current period the obvious points. However, there have also been long periods where we’ve been devoid of ATHs, usually after one of these market peaks. The longest was the 6490 business days between September 1929 and September 1955.
Between March 2000 and May 2007 we went 1803 business days and between October 2007 and March 2013 we went 1376 business days.
After the 1960s peak, inflation meant we did see all a few ATHs in the 1970s but in real terms it took well into the late 1980s to hit fresh ATHs. Indeed on a nominal basis we didn’t pass the peak reached in 1968 for the last time until 1982 even as inflation climbed around 280% over the period.
More recently we seen a much more brisk ascent, if only in nominal terms, thanks to the Fed’s relentless injections of liquidity. AS a result, since 2013 the longest we’ve gone without an ATH was the 286 business days between May 2015 and July 2016.
And while Friday’s action saw a continuation of the upward momentum in stocks as well as the 12th ATH of the year, Reid is concerned that history suggests that “there might be a point where we have to wait a decade or two for a new one”… however with a new round of stimulus checks now arriving and with US GDP set to grow at near double digits rates – and faster than China – Reid concludes that “perhaps that period will wait for a while yet.”
Tyler Durden
Sun, 03/14/2021 – 20:15 - Small Business Guarantees Are A Bucket Of Moral Fraud
Small Business Guarantees Are A Bucket Of Moral Fraud
Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,
The coronavirus Small Business Relief program is a bucket of first come first serve moral fraud.
The New York Times says Small-Business Relief Effort ‘a Mess’
The Hill says Small businesses still struggling for loans even as $100B is approved
The Trump administration has approved roughly $100 billion of the $350 billion allocated for emergency loans to small businesses devastated by the coronavirus outbreak, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told lawmakers on Wednesday.
But the figure has done little to ease the rising fears of smaller businesses still struggling to access the funds — and growing ever-more concerned that the program is tilted in favor of larger enterprises with existing relationships with banks.
The concern from small businesses is simple: they fear the money will run out before they can access it.
“A lot of money [is] first-come, first-serve, and many unbanked people who are underbanked or unserved … don’t have banking relationships, sophisticated in a way that others do,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Wednesday in an interview with NPR.
Money Might Run Out
Let’s tap into that idea that money might run out with an investigation of the Small Business Loan Rules.
The program offers loans of up to $10 million to cover eight weeks of payroll plus some additional expenses, like rent and utilities.
The loan can effectively turn into a grant. Most, and in some cases all, of the loan will be forgiven if a company uses the money to retain workers or hire back positions it had to cut. The S.B.A. has waived many of its usual requirements for these loans and will not require collateral for them.
Businesses can have their loans forgiven in full if they maintain their full-time equivalent head count (based on a 40-hour workweek) and wages for eight weeks after the loan is disbursed, the Treasury Department said. The agency said that “not more than 25 percent” of the forgiven amount may be used for nonpayroll costs, like rent.
Companies can borrow up to two months of their average monthly payroll costs for the past year, plus an additional 25 percent, up to $10 million. “Payroll costs” include salary, wages, tips, commissions, paid leave benefits, employer-paid health insurance premiums, and state and local payroll taxes.
The CARES Act text says that you can claim your “wage, commission, income, net earnings from self-employment or similar compensation,” up to $100,000 a year.
You’ll have two years to pay off the balance, at a 1 percent interest rate. No payments are due for the first six months after you get the loan.
Hooray I am Qualified!
Check this out.
-
Self-employed people are eligible for benefits.
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Benefits will be based on previous income, using a formula from the disaster unemployment assistance program.
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Self-employed workers are also eligible for the additional $600 weekly benefit provided by the federal government as part of the CARES Act.
Moreover, one does not even have to request an amount.
The S.B.A. will determine how much someone like me can borrow using a formula intended to approximate six months of my operating expenses.
This is despite the fact that I have not lost a penny in earnings.
Let that sink in.
I cannot find any requirement anywhere that prevents someone like me from making an outright bundle.
Hooray! Six Months Double Income
Nowhere does the application (that I am aware of) ask me if I have lost any income.
Even if it did, all I would have to do is stop paying myself salary, let the profits accumulate, and use the loan to cover my previous income.
Since the loan is used to pay salary, (my own), it would be forgiven. Heck, I could even hire my wife and kids except for the fact I have no kids.
On top of that, and despite the fact I have not lost a dime, I will receive an automatic check because the government is sending out blanket $1,000 checks to everyone.
Moral Hazard?
You bet. I will not take advantage but under the rules I easily could.
Some will.
From the Bank Perspective
Assume the banks are getting flooded with loan requests.
Who do they want to lend to?
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Someone who does not need the money at all and is no credit risk OR
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Someone who might go out of business
Any reasonable credit scoring algorithm would direct these loans to the safest place, category number one.
Lesson of the Day
When government fires money out of cannons, it generally does not get into the hands that government intended.
The more cynical will believe it actually does get to the intended people, just not the alleged beneficiaries.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 03/14/2021 – 19:50 -
- The "Most Important Question" For Investors: Where Will Biden's Trillions In Stimmys End Up?
The “Most Important Question” For Investors: Where Will Biden’s Trillions In Stimmys End Up?
Now that the $1.85 trillion Biden stimulus is officially being deployed with tens of millions of stimmy checks being sent out this weekend to household across the nation, BofA’s Jared Woodard writes that the “most important question” in for investors in 2021 is “what will US households do with their extra money as the economy fully reopens?” or in other words, where will all those stimmy checks go. And while the consensus is that the record “savings glut” will be spent, will the consensus be wrong again? Here, BofA sees two possible outcomes:
- Big Spending: a sustained real-economy consumption boom, higher wages & services inflation; bullish for GDP, but bearish for stocks because of 1. Fear of Fed tightening and 2. “Mere Rotation”…recent market action shows it’s a zero-sum environment where pro-inflation trades are financed by selling down deflation assets (growth stocks, bonds, EM) as institutional cash levels are low;
- Big Saving: after an initial surge of leisure & services spending, consumption reverts to trend as structural forces of stagnation reassert themselves; households keep cash directed to saving (cash, debt payments, financial assets), Fed fears subside; net bearish GDP given supreme expectations, but more bullish for markets.
For what it’s worth, Woodward notes that he previously already expressed some hesitation about the “Big Spending” view last month. To explore this further he looked at the distribution of cash among US households.
As of Q3 2020 (latest distributional data), the top 20% of households had $10.2tn in liquid assets. The next 20% had $2.3tn, and the bottom 0-60% combined had just $2.7tn. That includes checking accounts, CDs, and money market funds; it doesn’t include equities or bonds.
What about all o f the post-COVID stimulus, where did that go? From the end of 2019 through September 2020, liquid household assets rose $2.2tn. This number is what monetarists and inflation hedgers are so excited about. Clearly, spending $2tn rapidly into a $21tn economy would be a recipe for a big boom.
But again, and as we have shown every quarter when we discuss the household balance sheet (which just last week was reported to hit a record $130 trillion as of Dec 31, 2020) the data shows a very skewed situation. The top 20% saw their cash increase by $1.5tn since Covid hit vs. just $0.7tn for everyone else. The top 1% alone saw cash assets rise by nearly as much as the bottom 80% of the country combined. Updated through today, these numbers would reflect even more inequality, as many low-income households had to use their cash during the difficult winter to cover urgent spending needs.
As Woodard then politely puts in, “In a consumption-based economy like the US (70% of GDP), inequality isn’t just a topic for political debate, it’s a mathematical problem.”
Whether a given dollar gets spent or saved depends on who’s holding it. One Boston Fed study found that in normal circumstances the bottom 20% of households were likely to spend $0.97 of every dollar earned, while the top 20% spent just $0.48 of every extra dollar. In other words, if the goal is to boost economic activity, sending money to people who will just sit on it may not be very effective.
That’s why BofA believes that a glut of cash on the balance sheets of already-wealthy households is unlikely to boost inflation in a sustained way.
How they’ll spend it
So much for the theory, what about reality? Here, too, there is a problem as recent data confirms that households are still saving much more than usual, even as vaccine distribution accelerates:
- Consumer credit use in January was a sharp disappointment, falling $1.6bn vs. expectations of a +$12bn rise. Census Bureau data showed that, of households that received a stimulus check in the 1st half of February, 73% saved or paid down debt.
- BofA aggregated credit and debit card data shows that, among people ages 73-92 (many of whom presumably are already vaccinated), spending on air travel jumped, but not on lodging (visiting family?), with only a small uptick in restaurant spending and no increase in brick-and-mortar retail.
To get a clearer picture, at the end of February Bank of America surveyed more than 3000 people about how they would use another stimulus check.
- 30% said they would mostly pay off debts, 25% said they would save it, and 9% said they would invest it. The bank groups all three of these as “saving” in a broad sense, since the payments stay within the financial system and don’t create demand for goods & services in the real economy. Only 36% of respondents said they would spend the money.
- “Saving” plans were much higher than what history would suggest, in every category. Even among people making less than $30,000/year, 53% of people said they wouldn’t be spending the next round of stimulus.
When the BofA team then compared consumer plans for 2021 stimulus money with 2020 uses they reported, the financial category saw the largest increase (+1.7% to investing, +0.8% to debt payoffs, and just -0.2% to cash saving).
Needless to say, a rebound in spending (even dramatic in its scope) among high-income households won’t suffice. Why? Because leisure, restaurant, and related travel spending only accounted for 4% of GDP pre-COVID. And work-from-home lockdowns could mark a peak in higher-end consumer spending, as workers returning to offices have less time to shop online.
Sure, there are some caveats to this survey: maybe people don’t know their own spending patterns that well, or maybe plans will change as springtime hopes yield a mask-ripping summer. Even then, however, BofA’s Woodard notes that after a one-time surge of enthusiasm, if most savings are stuck with wealthy households unlikely to spend, and the bottom 80% devote their excess cash to debts, savings, and stocks anyway, it’s not clear who will be doing all the sustained, voracious consumption markets now are pricing in.
Why is all of this important?
Because as BofA explains, having priced in a dramatic rebound in inflation in coming months on the back of anticipated surges in spending, the market may be disappointed as the “fiscal liquidity trap” proves to have a far stronger gravity than most pundits and politicians expect. It would also mean that inflation – after an initial burst higher in mid-2021 – will collapse, and is why BofA expects that year-end core CPI will be just 1.7% as the upcoming June CPI spike fades. Here are some other reasons why Woodard believes that the market is in for a major disinflationary shock in the second half of 2021.
1. Supply disruptions are temporary. Supply-chain bottlenecks, semiconductor shortages, and manufacturing delays today are likely to be relieved as the labor force returns to work. High prints in manufacturing price indexes (e.g. ISM) largely reflect high commodity prices and therefore headline, not core inflation;
2. Structural job losses. Post-pandemic work-from-home could mean smaller rebounds in restaurants, in-person retail, and business travel. Progress on AI & automation could mean fewer industrial jobs to return to, especially at the low end. Before the pandemic, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projected the number of low-wage jobs to grow >5% over the next decade; now, there may be a net decline of 0.5%, bad news for 13% of low-wage workers still unemployed;
3. Union membership is near record lows, just 11% of the workforce today vs. 26% in 1953. Unions are politically almost homeless, with modern Democrats relying less on union votes and more on big tech donors; within the GOP, even “populist” senators haven’t endorsed the unionization vote at Amazon in Alabama.
4. Capex is coming. In the unlikely event wage growth does accelerate sharply at the low end, companies can accelerate R&D to prevent labor from gaining bargaining power. BofA expects corporate capex to rise 13% in 2021. Note that deflationary tech capex now accounts for nearly 30% of the S&P 500 total, a record high (Exhibit 13);
5. The baby bust. Already-plunging global birth rates accelerated lower: e.g. the Brookings Institution estimates 300,000 fewer babies born in the US this year because of the pandemic. Global central banks have called this one of the single greatest causes of lower GDP growth and falling interest rates.
* * *
Let’s assume BofA is right and spending on goods and services disappoints overwhelmingly. One potential implication is that there would be far more in stimmy checks going into the stock market. But how much?
Recall that one week ago DB’s Jim Reid asked just this, i.e., “How Much Money Will Biden’s New Stimulus Inject Into The Market“, and wrote that while rising yields are a threat to all risk assets, “it’s worth highlighting that a large amount of the upcoming US stimulus checks will probably find their way into equities.”
Then, like BofA, he referred to a survey conducted by DB’s chief equity strategist Binky Chadha polling online brokerage account users which suggested they would invest around 37% of future stimulus checks in the stock market (this is well above the 9% response from the similar BofA poll). This is a material force because as Reid notes, “behind the recent surge in retail investing is a younger, often new-to-investing and aggressive cohort not afraid to employ leverage.”
What does this mean quantitatively? Here is Reid’s math:
“Given stimulus checks are currently penciled in at c.$405bn in Biden’s plan, that gives us a maximum of around $150bn that could go into US equities based on our survey. Obviously only a proportion of recipients have trading accounts, though. If we estimate this at around 20% (based on some historical assumptions), that would still provide around c.$30bn of firepower – and that’s before we talk about any possible boosts to 401k plans outside of trading accounts.”
Reid’s conclusion: “stimulus checks could accelerate the large inflows into US equities seen in recent months after many years of weak flow data. Will this be enough to offset any impact of higher yields? Expect this push/pull to continue for some time.”
Now add to this assessment, BofA’s skepticism which, if correct, would likely mean even more money being allocated toward risk assets, whether blue chips, meme stocks, cryptos or – the latest get rich quick rage – NFTs. This take is bolstered by a recent report from Bloomberg which similarly notes that while many cash-strapped families will use funds from the $1.9 trillion pandemic-relief bill to cover rent or past-due accounts, “another cohort may use the $1,400 payments to ignite the stock market’s next retail frenzy.”
“I probably will take about half of it to invest into stocks,” said Iyana Halley, a 28-year-old actor who recently appeared in NBC’s television drama “This Is Us.” The Los Angeles resident remains on the fence about which equities to buy, but has been keeping a close watch on social media and seeking guidance from a friend she trusts.
Actress Iyana Halley “I want to see what will make the most sense, where I can get the most out of my money,” Halley said in an interview. “I’m still new to the stock-market world, so trying to figure stuff out.”
Traders are also hoping to figure it out as soon as possible, because the retail buying may come as soon as Monday once the stimulus checks received over the weekend are invested, giving the Nasdaq 100 Index new wind after it fell into a correction earlier this month amid a crash for some of the market’s most speculative names.
The checks “could offer a short-term ‘shot in the arm’ to a market that was otherwise looking run-down and vulnerable to a sell-off,” said Sam Stovall, the chief investment strategist at CFRA Research.
“Stimulus checks will almost certainly drive more retail buying,” said Eric Liu, co-founder of Vanda Research, a firm that tracks retail flows in the U.S. “The social media attention has remained strong.”
Tyler Hopkins, a 26-year-old computer technician for a school district an hour east of Los Angeles, spent about half of his two previous pandemic stimulus payments on stocks including GameStop Corp. and non-fungible tokens. He plans to buy more shares of retail favorites when the latest payment hits his bank account.
“I’ve been buying crypto and stocks for a while now, but the stimmys helped pay some bills and I put the rest of them into investing,” Hopkins said.
So while one can debate about the precision, one thing is clear: tens if not hundreds of billions from the latest Biden Bonanza will end up in the market. Yet for all the excitement that the stimulus payments are stirring up among younger traders looking to make a killing, some investment professionals have been wringing their hands. They worry that unsophisticated newbies buying stocks they heard about from memes or online forums like WallStreetBets could take already stretched valuations even higher.
“You could say it’s like gasoline on a fire,” said Kimberly Woody, a senior portfolio manager at GLOBALT Investments. It’s “participation from a lot of folks that really just don’t know what they’re doing.”
To be sure, the latest investing spree will merely cap off a retail mania that has been raging for almost a year now. The gamification of investing and consumers seeking entertainment during pandemic lockdowns led to massive surges in stocks generally shunned by the long-term investor community, from companies like Gamestop, AMC Entertainment Holdings and headphone maker Koss Corp. Those bets helped spark massive rallies that featured dizzying bouts of volatility.
* * *
Not everyone will spend their stimmy chasing momentum in the latest meme stock however: Halley, the Los Angeles actor, is aware of how dicey it is taking a flyer on the fringes of the stock market, so she’s hedging her bets. She plans to spend the other half of her stimulus on acting classes.
“I think with stocks or any kind of investment, it’s always going to be a risk,” she said, much to the amazement of financial professionals many of whom realize something Halley does not: the stock market is the final bubble, the one that is now “too big to fail”, and whatever happens the Fed can never let it burst…
Tyler Durden
Sun, 03/14/2021 – 19:25 - Greenwald: The Leading Activists For Online Censorship Are Corporate Journalists
Greenwald: The Leading Activists For Online Censorship Are Corporate Journalists
Authored by Glenn Greenwald via Substack,
There are not many Congressional committees regularly engaged in substantive and serious work — most are performative — but the House Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law is an exception. Led by its chairman Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) and ranking member Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), it is, with a few exceptions, composed of lawmakers whose knowledge of tech monopolies and anti-trust law is impressive.
In October, the Committee, after a sixteen-month investigation, produced one of those most comprehensive and informative reports by any government body anywhere in the world about the multi-pronged threats to democracy posed by four Silicon Valley monopolies: Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple. The 450-page report also proposed sweeping solutions, including ways to break up these companies and/or constrain them from controlling our political discourse and political life. That report merits much greater attention and consideration than it has thus far received.
The Subcommittee held a hearing on Friday and I was invited to testify along with Microsoft President Brad Smith; President of the News Guild-Communications Workers of America Jonathan Schleuss, the Outkick’s Clay Travis, CEO of the Graham Media Group Emily Barr, and CEO of the News Media Alliance David Chavern. The ostensible purpose the hearing was a narrow one: to consider a bill that would vest media outlets with an exemption from anti-trust laws to collectively bargain with tech companies such as Facebook and Google so that they can obtain a greater share of the ad revenue. The representatives of the news industry and Microsoft who testified were naturally in favor of this bill (they have been heavily lobbying for it) because it would benefit them commercially in numerous way (the Microsoft President maintained the conceit that the Bill-Gates-founded company was engaging in self-sacrifice for the good of Democracy by supporting the bill but the reality is the Bing search engine owners are in favor of anything that weakens Google).
While I share the ostensible motive behind the bill — to stem the serious crisis of bankruptcies and closings of local news outlets — I do not believe that this bill will end up doing that, particularly because it empowers the largest media outlets such as The New York Times and MSNBC to dominate the process and because it does not even acknowledge, let alone address, the broader problems plaguing the news industry, including collapsing trust by the public (a bill that limited this anti-trust exemption to small local news outlets so as to allow them to bargain collectively with tech companies in their own interest would seem to me to serve the claimed purpose much better than one which empowers media giants to form a negotiating cartel).
But the broader context for the bill is the one most interesting and the one on which I focused in my opening statement and testimony: namely, the relationship between social media and tech giants on the one hand, and the news media industry on the other. Contrary to the popular narrative propagated by news outlets — in which they are cast as the victims of the supremely powerful Silicon Valley giants — that narrative is sometimes (not always, but sometimes) the opposite of reality: much if not most Silicon Valley censorship of political speech emanates from pressure campaigns led by corporate media outlets and their journalists, demanding that more and more of their competitors and ideological adversaries be silenced. Big media, in other words, is coopting the power of Big Tech for their own purposes.
My written opening testimony, which is on the Committee’s site, is also printed below. The video of the full hearing can be seen here. Here is the video of my opening five-minute statement:
My full written statement, which focused on the key role played by corporate news outlets in agitating for online censorship against their competitors and ideological adversaries and the threat that poses to democracy, is printed below:
Opening Statement of Glenn Greenwald
March 12, 2021
Before the House Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee:
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
I am a constitutional lawyer, a journalist, and the author of six books on civil liberties, media and politics. After graduating New York University School of Law in 1994, I worked as a constitutional and media law litigator for more than a decade, first at the firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and then at a firm I co-founded in 1997. During my work as a lawyer, I represented numerous clients in First Amendment free speech and press freedom cases, including individuals with highly controversial views who were targeted for punishment by state and non-state actors alike, as well as media outlets subjected to repressive state limitations on their rights of expression and reporting.
Since 2005, I have worked primarily as a journalist and author, reporting extensively on civil liberties debates, assaults on free speech and a free press, the value of a free and open internet, the implications of growing Silicon Valley monopolistic power, and the complex relationship between corporate media outlets and social media companies. That reporting has received the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and the George Polk Award for National Security Reporting. In 2013, I co-founded the online news outlet The Intercept, and in 2016 co-founded its Brazilian branch, The Intercept Brazil.
Over the last several years, my journalistic interest in and concern about the dangers of Silicon Valley’s monopoly power has greatly intensified — particularly as wielded by Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple. The dangers posed by their growing power manifest in multiple ways. But I am principally alarmed by the repressive effect on free discourse, a free press, and a free internet, all culminating in increasingly intrusive effects on the flow of information and ideas and an increasingly intolerable strain on a healthy democracy.
Three specific incidents over the last four months represent a serious escalation in the willingness of tech monopolies to intrude into and exert control over our domestic politics through censorship and other forms of information manipulation:
1. In the weeks leading up to the 2020 presidential election, The New York Post, the nation’s oldest newspaper, broke a major story based on documents and emails obtained from the laptop of Hunter Biden, son of the front-running presidential candidate Joe Biden. Those documents shed substantial light not only on the efforts of Hunter and other family members of President Biden to trade on his name and their influence on him for lucrative business deals around the world, but also raised serious questions about the extent to which President Biden himself was aware of and involved in those efforts.
But Americans were barred from discussing that reporting on Twitter, and were actively impeded from reading about it by Facebook.
That is because Twitter imposed a full ban on its users’ ability to link to the story: not just on their public Twitter pages but even in private Twitter chats. Twitter even locked the account of The New York Post, preventing the newspaper from using that platform for almost two weeks unless they agreed to voluntarily delete any references to their reporting about the Hunter Biden materials (the paper, rightfully, refused).
Facebook’s censorship of this reporting was more subtle and therefore more insidious: a life-long Democratic Party operative who is now a Facebook official, Andy Stone, announced (on Twitter) that Facebook would be “reducing [the article’s] distribution on our platform” pending a review “by Facebook’s third-party fact checking partners.” In other words, Facebook tinkered with its algorithms to prevent the dissemination of this reporting about a long-time politician who was leading the political party for which this Facebook official spent years working (See The Intercept, “Facebook and Twitter Cross a Far More Dangerous Line Than What They Censor,” Oct. 15, 2020).
This “fact-check” promised by Facebook never came. That is likely because it was not the New York Post’s reporting which turned out to be false but rather the claims made by these two social media giants to justify its suppression. The censorship justification was that the documents on which the reporting was based constituted either “hacked materials” and/or “Russian disinformation.”
Neither of those claims is true. Even the FBI has acknowledged that there is no evidence whatsoever of any involvement by the Russian government in the procurement of that laptop, and not even the Biden family, to this very day, has claimed that a single word contained in the published documents is fabricated or otherwise inauthentic. Ample evidence — including the testimony of others involved in the original creation and circulation of those documents — demonstrates that they were fully genuine.
This means that two of the largest and most powerful Silicon Valley giants suppressed crucial information about a leading presidential candidate — the one which employees at their companies overwhelmingly supported — shortly before voting commenced. While Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey apologized for this banning and acknowledged that it may have been wrong, Facebook has never done so.
While we will never know whether this censorship altered the outcome of the election, it is clear that this was one of the most direct acts of information repression about an American presidential election in decades. That was possible only because of the vast power wielded by these platforms over our political discourse and our political lives.
2. In the wake of the January 6 riot at the Capitol, Facebook, Google, Twitter and numerous other Silicon Valley giants united to remove the democratically elected sitting President of the United States from their platforms.
While many defenders of this corporate censorship tried to minimize it by claiming the President could still be heard by giving speeches and holding press conferences, several leading news outlets followed suit by announcing that they would not carry his speeches live and would only allow to be heard the excerpts they deemed to be safe and responsible.
In response, numerous world leaders — including several who had clashed in the past with President Trump — expressed grave concerns about the dangers posed to democracy by the ability of tech monopolies to effectively remove even democratically elected leaders from the internet.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel argued through her spokesperson that “it is problematic that the president’s accounts have been permanently suspended,” adding that “the right to freedom of opinion is of fundamental importance.” Attempts to regulate speech, the Chancellor said, “can be interfered with, but by law and within the framework defined by the legislature — not according to a corporate decision.”
The European Union’s Commissioner for Internal Markets Thierry Breton warned: “The fact that a CEO can pull the plug on POTUS’s loudspeaker without any checks and balances is perplexing.” Commissioner Breton noted that this collective Silicon Valley ban “is not only confirmation of the power of these platforms, but it also displays deep weaknesses in the way our society is organized in the digital space.” (CNBC, “Germany’s Merkel hits out at Twitter over ‘problematic’ Trump ban,” Jan. 21, 2021).
The Health Secretary for the United Kingdom, Matt Hanckock, sounded similar alarms. Speaking to the BBC, he said “‘tech giants are ‘taking editorial decisions’ that raise a ‘very big question’ about how social media is regulated,” adding: “That’s clear because they’re choosing who should and shouldn’t have a voice on their platform” (CNBC, “Trump’s social media bans are raising new questions on tech regulation,” Jan. 11, 2021).
Objections to Silicon Valley’s removal of President Trump from their platforms were even more severe from officials with the government of French President Emmanuel Macron. The French Minister for European Union Affairs Clement Beaune pronounced himself “shocked” by the news of President Trump’s banning, arguing: “This should be decided by citizens, not by a CEO.” And France’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said: “There needs to be public regulation of big online platforms,” calling big tech “one of the threats” to democracy (Bloomberg News, “Germany and France Oppose Trump’s Twitter Exile,” Jan. 11, 2021).
Perhaps the most fervent and eloquent warnings about the dangers posed by this episode came from Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. In a press conference held the day after the announcement, he said:
It’s a bad omen that private companies decide to silence, to censor. That is an attack on freedom. Let’s not be creating a world government with the power to control social networks, a world media power. And also a censorship court, like the Holy Inquisition, but in order to shape public opinion. This is really serious.
The Associated Press further quoted President López Obrador as asking: “How can a company act as if it was all powerful, omnipotent, as a sort of Spanish Inquisition on what is expressed?.” And AP confirmed that “ Mexico’s president vowed to lead an international effort to combat what he considers censorship by social media companies that have blocked or suspended the accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump,” and is “reaching out to other governments to form a common front on the issue” (Associated Press, “Mexican President Mounts Campaign Against Social Media Bans,” Jan. 14, 2021).
Please listen to the Mexican President’s warnings about Silicon Valley censorship when asked about the Trump ban. Following the center-right Chancellor Merkel, the leftist AMLO said they were becoming “a world media power” anointing themselves “judges of the Holy Inquisition”: pic.twitter.com/5cL5vqq3Ug
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 11, 2021
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These world leaders are expressing the same grave concern: that Silicon Valley giants wield power that is, in many instances, greater than that of any sovereign nation-state. But unlike the governments which govern those countries, tech monopolies apply these powers arbitrarily, without checks and without transparency. When doing so, they threaten not only American democracy but democracies around the world.
3. Critics of Silicon Valley power over political discourse for years have heard the same refrain: if you don’t like how they are moderating content and policing discourse, you can go start your own social media platform that is more permissive. Leaving aside the centuries-old recognition that it is impossible, by definition, to effectively compete with monopolies, we now have an incident vividly proving how inadequate that alternative is.
Several individuals who primarily identify as libertarians heard this argument from Silicon Valley’s defenders and took it seriously. They set out to create a social media competitor to Twitter and Facebook — one which would provide far broader free expression rights for users and, more importantly, would offer greater privacy protections than other Silicon Valley giants by refusing to track those users and commoditize them for advertisers. They called it Parler, and in early January, 2021, it was the single most-downloaded app in the Apple Play Store. This success story seemed to be a vindication for the claim that it was possible to create competitors to existing social media monopolies.
But now, a mere two months after it ascended to the top of the charts, Parler barely exists. That is because several members of Congress with the largest and most influential social media platforms demanded that Apple and Google remove Parler from their stores and ban any further downloading of the app, and further demanded that Amazon, the dominant provider of web hosting services, cease hosting the site. Within forty-eight hours, those three Silicon Valley monopolies complied with those demands, rendering Parler inoperable and effectively removing it from the internet (See “How Silicon Valley, in a Show of Monopolistic Force, Destroyed Parler,” Glenn Greenwald, Jan. 12, 2021).
The justification of this collective banning was that Parler had hosted numerous advocates of and participants in the January 6 Capitol riot. But even if that were a justification for removing an entire platform from the internet, subsequent reporting demonstrated that far more planning and advocacy of that riot was done on other platforms, including Facebook, Google-owned YouTube, Instagram and Twitter (See The Washington Post, “Facebook’s Sandberg deflected blame for Capitol riot, but new evidence shows how platform played role,“ Jan. 13, 2021; Forbes, “Sheryl Sandberg Downplayed Facebook’s Role In The Capitol Hill Siege—Justice Department Files Tell A Very Different Story,” Feb. 7, 2021).
Whatever else one might want to say about the destruction of Parler, it was a stark illustration of how these Silicon Valley giants could obliterate even a highly successful competitor overnight, with little effort, by uniting to do so. And it laid bare how inadequate is the claim that Silicon Valley’s monopolies can be challenged through competition.
How Congress sets out to address Silicon Valley’s immense and undemocratic power is a complicated question, posing complex challenges. The proposal to vest media companies with an antitrust exemption in order to allow them to negotiate as a consortium or cartel seeks to rectify a real and serious problem — the vacuuming up of advertising revenue by Google and Facebook at the expense of the journalistic outlets which create the news content being monetized — but empowering large media companies could easily end up creating more problems than it solves.
That is particularly so given that it is often media companies that are the cause of Silicon Valley censorship of and interference in political speech of the kind outlined above. When these social media companies were first created and in the years after, they wanted to avoid being in the business of content moderation and political censorship. This was an obligation foisted upon them, often by the most powerful media outlets using their large platforms to shame these companies and their executives for failing to censor robustly enough.
Sometimes this pressure was politically motivated — demanding the banning of people whose ideologies sharply differs from those who own and control these media outlets — but more often it was motivated by competitive objectives: a desire to prevent others from creating independent platforms and thus diluting the monopolistic stranglehold that corporate media outlets exert over our political discourse. Further empowering this already-powerful media industry — which has demonstrated it will use its force to silence competitors under the guise of “quality control” — runs the real risk of transferring the abusive monopoly power from Silicon Valley to corporate media companies or, even worse, encouraging some sort of de facto merger in which these two industries pool their power to the mutual benefit of each.
This Subcommittee produced one of the most impressive and comprehensive reports last October detailing the dangers of the classic monopoly power wielded by Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple. That report set forth numerous legislative and regulatory solutions to comply with the law and a consensus of economic and political science experts about the need to break up monopolies wherever they arise.
Until that is done, none of these problems can be addressed in ways other than the most superficial, piecemeal and marginal. Virtually every concern that Americans across the political spectrum express about the dangers of Silicon Valley power emanates from the fact that they have been permitted to flout antitrust laws and acquire monopoly power. None of those problems — including their ability to police and control our political discourse and the flow of information — can be addressed until that core problem is resolved.
What is most striking is that while Silicon Valley censorship of online speech and interference in political discourse is recognized as a grave menace to a healthy democracy around the democratic world, it is often dismissed in the U.S. — especially by journalists — as some sort of trivial “culture war” question when they are not actively cheering and even demanding more of it. Even more bizarre is that opposition to oligarchical censorship and monopoly power is often depicted by the liberal-left as a right-wing cause, largely because they perceive (inaccurately) that such oligarchical discourse policing will operate in their favor.
Whatever labels one wants to apply to it, it should not require much work to recognize that vesting this magnitude of power in the hands of unaccountable billionaires, who operate outside the democratic process yet are highly influenced by public media-led pressure campaigns, is unsustainable.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 03/14/2021 – 19:00 - Marines Admit 'Messing Up' For Attacking Tucker Carlson Over 'Pregnant Soldiers' Commentary
Marines Admit ‘Messing Up’ For Attacking Tucker Carlson Over ‘Pregnant Soldiers’ Commentary
The US Marines admitted to ‘messing up’ after ganging up on Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who mocked the military’s shift from defense to social justice issues – after remarks by President Biden on International Women’s Day on how he’d nominated two women for four-star command positions in the armed forces.
“So we’ve got new hairstyles, maternity flight suits. Pregnant women are going to fight our wars,” Carlson said on Wednesday night, adding “It’s a mockery of the US military” before he compared the US military to China’s – which is “becoming more masculine.”
Tucker Carlson is being called a sexist for
*checks notes*
saying that pregnant women shouldn’t fight wars… pic.twitter.com/2nfyRecTp3
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 11, 2021
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Following Carlson’s segment, the official Twitter account for the II Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group joined a pile-on by several woke military officials – tweeting a picture of a female soldier carrying a male soldier, tagging Carlson with the caption “what it looks like in today’s armed forces,” adding “Get right before you get left, boomer.”
What it looks like in today’s armed forces @TuckerCarlson
Get right before you get left, boomer
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀#Women #WeAreMarines #TuckerCarlson #FoxNews #marines #currentlyserving #USMCWomen https://t.co/eAi3pMCKyc pic.twitter.com/3ISzaZxLJa— II MEF Information Group (@iimigofficial) March 12, 2021
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After the Marines were called out for using their official platform to further a SJW agenda, they admitted “We are human and we messed up.”
We are human and we messed up. What was intended as a tweet in support of our female Marines and sisters serving in uniform was clearly not aligned with our standard practices or an appropriate representation of the Marine Corps. We will do better and serve the people.
— II MEF Information Group (@iimigofficial) March 13, 2021
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We’ve strayed away from our brand and realize that. Our standard practices will be in effect and you can count on us to correct our mistake going forward.
— II MEF Information Group (@iimigofficial) March 13, 2021
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Also slamming Carlson was Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, who said “What we absolutely don’t do is take personnel advice from a talk show host.”
Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby dismisses Tucker Carlson, who on Wednesday demeaned pregnant women serving in the military: “What we absolutely won’t do is take personnel advice from a talk show host.” pic.twitter.com/I4hraRSU6z
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 11, 2021
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Tucker responded to the Defense Department’s criticism, saying “If the Pentagon can show that pregnant pilots are the best, we will be the first to demand an entire air force of them,” adding “The US military is not a vehicle for achieving equity.”
Full Tucker Carlson segment responding to the DOD’s criticisms of his show:
“If the Pentagon can show that pregnant pilots are the best, we will be the first to demand an entire air force of them.”
“The U.S. military is not a vehicle for achieving equity.” pic.twitter.com/kK2mZBWrOr
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 12, 2021
Responses have not been kind to the woke Marines.
This is what an official military account said to an American who asked them to “Please focus on China instead of Tucker Carlson”. This is the start of Democrats openly politicizing the military as a wing of their party. This is disgraceful. https://t.co/LcPk2JGoVS
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) March 14, 2021
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It’s a replay of SUPERPATRIOT anti-Trump national security hacks, wrapping themselves in the flag and screaming about RUSSIA. They gamed out exactly how it would work to stage a battle on what they believe is our ground.
— David Reaboi (@davereaboi) March 13, 2021
BREAKING: US Army official threatens violence on a US member of the press for exercising his First Amendment rights https://t.co/GXGPxgjcLY
— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) March 14, 2021
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Our adversaries are watching every move you’re (@iimigofficial) making right now, and they’re laughing their asses off at the clowns behind this official US Military account, targeting and harassing a private citizen. What’s next? Drones? Get your shit together—it’s embarrassing! https://t.co/2VfnCjvwbM
— Dan Scavino🇺🇸🦅 (@DanScavino) March 14, 2021
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Thank you, Senator. The military has no authority over political decisions and any official who violates this sovereign right must be reprimanded swiftly.
— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) March 14, 2021
Tyler Durden
Sun, 03/14/2021 – 18:35 - Hedge Fund CIO: "Ethereum Now Races Toward Becoming The Foundation Of A New Global Financial System"
Hedge Fund CIO: “Ethereum Now Races Toward Becoming The Foundation Of A New Global Financial System”
From Eric Peter, CIO Of One River Asset Management, who in November executed a $600 million purchase of bitcoin, then the largest public transaction to date, with the blessing of Brevan Howard’s Alan Howard. He has called bitcoin the most interesting macro trade he’s seen in thirty years in the business.
“Okay, so now please explain how these things are going to change the world,” asked the CIO.
He was not referring to the global transition to monetary/fiscal policy coordination which will interact with political, social and geopolitical forces to create a future quite unlike our recent past. We had already discussed that. He was asking about digital assets, blockchain, tokenization.
Virtualization. It is no longer possible to understand what is happening in markets, let alone what is to come, without developing a deep understanding of these things.
“It is not that they are going to change the world,” I said. “It is that they are already quietly changing the world, markets, and beneath the surface the process is accelerating faster than you can imagine.”
* * *
“I feel super lucky,” said an artist who calls himself Beeple, in an online forum, upon learning that bidders lifted his digital collage to $20mm in Christie’s virtual auction. “Everydays – The First 5000 Days” ultimately sold for $69.3mm to an investor who calls himself Metakovan, the founder of Metapurse, a fund that collects non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Metakovan paid in ether, which for the 7.70bln of earth’s 7.75bln people who do not yet know, is the digital currency of the Ethereum network. That network resides in the cloud, which virtually no one can quite comprehend even as it becomes integral to nearly all our activities.
And Ethereum, despite almost no one understanding what it is, now races toward becoming the foundation of a rearchitected global financial system.
“I didn’t see this coming,” remarked Beeple, now the world’s 3rd most expensive living artist. Such is the pace of change, that not even our artists can see beyond the horizon. We now live in a world where a Beeple can produce a virtual image, tokenized into an NFT, and purchased in a virtual auction by a Metakovan for 38,382 ether, settled on the Ethereum network, instantly, securely, all in the cloud, without the need for a legacy bank, or a single dollar.
Every aspect of the transaction, from Beeple’s creation of something from nothing to Metakovan’s acquisition of something in exchange for nothing, is high performance art. Sublime. A testament to human imagination, ingenuity, evolution. A glimpse of a wild, unrecognizable future.
“I feel like I got a steal,” said Metakovan, transmitting his ether to Christie’s. Naturally, unimaginative skeptics remain stuck in the past, seeking reckless safety in yesteryear’s risk-free assets, or else hedging fears of monetary debasement with investments that will work if the virtual future resembles the industrialized 1970s.
The hostile pundits, of course, see manias in all things digital. But throughout human history, not a single bubble ever burst when virtually no one understood what was going on. Rather, that was when the fun had only just begun.
* * *
Wait What? Everything you will ever own or have ever traded will be tokenized someday in some way. Take art. A token will be generated by a smart contract and permanently linked to the work. Both ownership and authenticity of the art is verifiable. That token can be traded. Ownership can be split, allowing fractional tokenized ownership. When the piece is sold in the future, the artist can earn a portion of the proceeds if that was built into the contract. Anything can be built into these new contracts, embedded into the code, instantly processed, in perpetuity.
Since NFTs are potentially the biggest securitization scheme in history (every asset is eligible, that’s $500 trillion), how long until Goldman launches Collateralized NFT Obligations
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 6, 2021
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One Hand: At the 2000 peak, how many friends owned loads of internet stocks? How many explained why those companies would change the world? How many traded dotcom stocks actively? In 2007, how many were highly levered to housing? How many believed real estate never goes down? Or believed they were experts? How many flipped a house? And how many do you now know who are highly leveraged to digital assets? Or understand how they work? Or could explain the $69.3mm Beeple NFT transaction? Could you count them on just one hand?
Tyler Durden
Sun, 03/14/2021 – 18:10 - Merkel's Party Suffers Stunning Defeats In 2 German States Amid Bungled Pandemic Response
Merkel’s Party Suffers Stunning Defeats In 2 German States Amid Bungled Pandemic Response
Projections show that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union party just got rocked by clear defeats in two German state elections Sunday. Significantly it’s being widely interpreted as a severe setback and sign of things to come just six months ahead national voting to determine who will lead the country. Though Merkel – who has been in power since 2005 – is not running, the CDU hoped to capitalize off her past four consecutive national election victories.
It appears Sunday’s resounding message is the bloc’s dominance is coming to a swift end. Two governors seen as further to the left are the projected winners in the southwestern states of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, riding a wave of popular discontent over Merkel’s perceived bungling of the pandemic crisis and the government response.
SPD-led traffic light coalition (SPD-Green-FDP) just about feasible in Rheinland-Pfalz on current seats projection. In Baden-Württemberg, Green-Red coalition two seats short now, but both continuation of Green-Black or traffic light coalitions would have comfortable majorities. pic.twitter.com/EHLuWKnjXT
— Leonardo Carella (@leonardocarella) March 14, 2021
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As The Associated Press comments, “Amid discontent over a sluggish start to Germany’s vaccination drive, with coronavirus restrictions easing only gradually and infections rising again…”
And additionally Merkel’s bloc was “hit over the past two weeks by allegations that two lawmakers profited from deals to procure masks early in the coronavirus pandemic.”
Based on current polling data it stands to be the CDU’s worst post-World War II defeat in both states. Here’s a breakdown of the projections based on exit polls:
Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) already faced a challenging task against two popular state governors from rival parties. Exit polls for ARD and ZDF television indicated that those governors’ parties – the environmentalist Greens in Baden-Wuerttemberg and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) in Rhineland-Palatinate – were set to finish first, some 8 percentage points ahead of the CDU.
The Greens won 31.5 percent of the vote in Baden-Wuerttemberg and the CDU 23 percent, down from the 27 percent it polled at the last state election in 2016, according to the ZDF polls.
In neighboring Rhineland-Palatinate, the SPD came first again with 33.5 percent of the vote ahead of the CDU, which led there in opinion polls until last month but was projected to have secured only 25.5 percent support in Sunday’s election.
Via AFP Christian Democratic Union general secretary, Paul Ziemiak, said as the results were being tallied, “To say it very clearly, this isn’t a good election evening for the CDU.” He added, “We would have liked different, better results.”
“The CDU has seen its national popularity wane from 40% last June, when Germany was widely praised for its response to the coronavirus pandemic, to around 33% this month,” Reuters noted in its prior analysis.
Angela Merkel‘s CDU gets dressing down at the ballot box in two regional elections.
The previously unthinkable no longer sounds crazy:
Could the post Merkel period start without her CDU party in government?
Thread https://t.co/IgvyjIZuzZ— Michaela Kuefner (@MKuefner) March 14, 2021
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Various German and other European media are predicting this marks the beginning of a glimpse of life after Angela Merkel.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 03/14/2021 – 17:45 - Stockman: Free Lunches For All?
Stockman: Free Lunches For All?
Authored by David Stockman via InternationalMan.com,
In light of Sleepy Joe’s new $1.9 trillion package of free stuff, it’s time to get out our magnifying glasses. The purpose is to compute the size of the hole in America’s collective paycheck that purportedly requires such continued, beneficence from our not-so-rich Uncle Sam.
There is no reason in the world why the February (pre-Covid) level of wage and salary disbursements is not an appropriate benchmark for measuring the pocketbook hit from the Covid-lockdowns that have wreaked havoc on the US economy since March. This happened after Dr. Fauci convinced President Donald to pull the plug on MAGA and his own tenure in office, too. (Of course, 80-year-old Dr. Fauci is still there, preparing to bamboozle yet another “elected” president.)
Last February, The Donald was boasting that he had delivered the greatest economy the world had ever seen, and Wall Street agreed, pushing stocks high into the nosebleed section of history.
As it happened, the February run rate (annualized) of wage and salary disbursements was $9.659 trillion, which comes to about $805 billion per month. So we would suggest that if $805 billion in monthly wages was enough to justify celebration of the Greatest Economy Ever, then the shortfall from that benchmark is a solid measure of the hit to US worker earnings that has occurred since February.
The Covid wage and salary loss is as follows:
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March: −$25b;
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April: –$76b;
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May: –$61b;
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June: –$43b;
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July: –$31b;
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August: –$19b;
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September: –$12b;
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October: –$6b;
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November: –$3b;
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December est: $0b;
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10-month total: –$276b
The total of $276 billion in lost paychecks compares to $8.05 trillion in wages and salaries that would have been earned during that period at the February rate ($805 billion). Therefore, the cumulative shortfall through year-end amounted to just 3.4%.
More importantly, the $0-$6 billion monthly shortfall since September has been so small as to constitute a rounding error in the scheme of things, as suggested by the fact that American households spend far more—about $8 billion per month—on pet food and pet care alone.
Yet Sleepy Joe has teed up another $850 billion of direct aid to households, which, in the aggregate, are no longer suffering any material paycheck shortfall. And what is especially egregious about filling a nonexistent income hole in this manner is that 53% of this amount goes to “stimmy” checks and child tax credits, which are not means-tested except at the top of the income scale ($200,000 for a married couple):
Sleepy Joe’s $850 Billion of Direct Handouts to Households:
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Stimmy checks and child tax credits: $450b;
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Unemployment benefits: $200b;
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Health insurance aid: $100b;
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Rental assistance: $35b;
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Child care aid: $40b
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Safety net: $20b
Still, to paraphrase Walter Mondale’s famous campaign slogan from 1984: Another $850 billion for income replacement but “Where’s the Hole?”
Of course, there are other ways to measure the hit to the national economy from the Covid lockdown, which we will amplify below. But first, it would be well to summarize the “solution” that Washington’s fiscally incontinent politicians have thrown at the “problem” during the last 12 months—a “problem” that they have never bothered to quantify.
With the new Biden package, new spending authorized by the five major Covid relief measures can be summarized as follows (IN billions):
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Families First act: $192b;
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CARES act: $2,200b;
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Paycheck Protection program: $733b;
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Response and Relief Act: $935b;
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Biden Jan. 14th plan: $1,900b;
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Five-package total: $5,960b.
The Washington politicians are preparing to throw nigh onto $6 trillion at a $274 billion hole in the nation’s wage bucket. That’s a solution 22X bigger than the putative problem!
The overwhelming share of the economic harm occurring since March is due to the misguided (and unconstitutional) lockdown policies of the government and the public hysteria fanned by Dr. Fauci, and not the disease itself. But if the state gets into the business of fully compensating the public for the endless harm wrought by its policies, insolvency will be guaranteed.
Why does Washington have the right to burden future taxpayers with permanent debt service payments in order to make whole a $276 billion loss of income and 3.4% inconvenience among taxpayers today?
The simple fact is that the overwhelming share of this $276 billion of wage losses has fallen on low-wage and part-time workers in the social–congregation sectors of the economy (bars, restaurants, gyms, hotels, cinemas, ballparks, etc.) that the Virus Patrol has shut down. The right solution is to send the Virus Patrol packing and let these unfairly penalized employees go back to work.
Even if you think that the total wage and salary loss above understates the economic damage caused by the lockdowns, the massive fiscal overkill by way of bailouts cannot be denied.
For instance, GDP is the most comprehensive measure of economic activity that we have (despite its flaws), but the loss of GDP after February has also been only about 3.6%. In fact, based on the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow forecast, we project that nominal GDP during Q4 will post at about $21.650 trillion, a figure only 0.46% below the Greatest Economy Ever level of Q4 2019.
If we assume that Q4 2019 is a reasonable pre-Covid benchmark for the level of total economic activity in the USA, we get the following shortfall, including an estimate for Q4 based on the Atlanta Fed’s latest outlook.
Quarterly GDP Change From Q42019 Benchmark:
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Q1 2020: -$47b;
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Q2 2020: -$557b;
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Q3 2020: -$144b;
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Q4 2020E: -$25b;
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4-quarter total: -$775b
Even if you want to count everything, including losses from the $2.5 trillion of imputed activity in the GDP, the pending $6 trillion of Everything Bailouts is 7.7X the size of the problem!
By contrast, it is well worth looking at the other side of the coin: namely, the surge in transfer payments since last February stemming from a combination of the built-in safety net (principally unemployment insurance, food stamps and Medicaid) and disbursements of stimmy checks, enhanced Federal UI benefits as authorized by the Everything Bailouts.
At the pre-covid level in February, total government transfer payments (including state and local) were running at a $3.165 trillion annual rate or about $265 billion per month. As shown in the chart below, however, that monthly figure skyrocketed by 107% to $546 billion in the month of April alone.
And, no, that latter figure is not the annualized rate: In their infinite generosity, government programs pumped more than one-half trillion dollars into the household sector during April alone. That’s $18.2 billion per day!
Thereafter, the tsunami of transfer payments began to abate but was still running at a level of $400 billion monthly in July and $306 billion in November. Overall, the 10-month total of incremental transfer payments above the February level totaled $1.05 trillion.
You can’t make this up… Transfer payments to households during the past 10 months have exceeded the loss of household wages and salaries ($276 billion) by nearly four times.
So the question recurs: Why does Sleepy Joe think we need another $850 billion of transfer payments to households on top of the immense generosity already dispensed per the chart below?
Total Government Transfer Payments, Annualized
He’s doing it because he can—because the nation-wreckers in the Eccles Building have determined to purchase $120 billion of government debt and GSE securities per month for the indefinite future. As Fed Chair Powell rattled on recently, they are not even thinking about tapering this tsunami of fake money created from thin air by the Fed’s digital printing presses.
When it comes to the rampant fiscal incontinence in Washington DC enabled by the Fed, did the election outcome make any difference?
It did not. Sleepy Joe is about to give the once and former King of Debt a run for his money when it comes to the annals of fiscal infamy in America.
As we said, free lunches for one and all… except the debt is never going away, and future generations will surely rue the day.
* * *
The truth is, we’re on the cusp of a economic crisis that could eclipse anything we’ve seen before. And most people won’t be prepared for what’s coming. That’s exactly why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released a free report with all the details on how to survive an economic collapse. Click here to download the PDF now.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 03/14/2021 – 17:20 -
- "Out Of Control" Brush Fire Sweeps Through New Jersey Town
“Out Of Control” Brush Fire Sweeps Through New Jersey Town
Several Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states are under “Red Flag Warning” on Sunday afternoon, which means critical fire weather conditions are underway. With that being said, reports are pouring in on social media of a dangerous brush fire sweeping through Lakewood, New Jersey.
The Lakewood Police Department said the brush fire was initially reported on Airport Road around 1300 ET. Video posted to Twitter by The Lakewood Scoop showed the inferno.
BREAKING: Requesting backup from State FFS. https://t.co/f4iREClCsf pic.twitter.com/AqWzVoRP0O
— The Lakewood Scoop (@LakewoodScoop) March 14, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The fire has engulfed multiple building structures.
BREAKING: Structures now on fire. Additional backup requested. Upgraded to 2nd Alarm. https://t.co/7XjxeWfzk8 pic.twitter.com/0ugiQ1CjQL
— The Lakewood Scoop (@LakewoodScoop) March 14, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Dozens of firefighters from surrounding towns have arrived on the scene.
UPDATE: Dozens of firefighters from all surrounding towns assisting. https://t.co/dT4EBej4bc pic.twitter.com/dJgB8bLlhT
— The Lakewood Scoop (@LakewoodScoop) March 14, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The brush fire appears to be expanding.
BREAKING: Getting reports of a 3rd structure now on fire. pic.twitter.com/mDEP2JfDGB
— The Lakewood Scoop (@LakewoodScoop) March 14, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Firefighters are battling the blaze as it rips through a residential community.
BREAKING: Firefighters still battling blaze ripping through structures.
MORE ON STATUS -> https://t.co/lJ3ClHEEnm pic.twitter.com/62jFLZPVld
— The Lakewood Scoop (@LakewoodScoop) March 14, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Highways and roads around the incident area are closed as the fire continues to spread. Reports now show one firefighter has been injured.
BREAKING: Reports of a firefight injured. pic.twitter.com/6JbhOFX52i
— The Lakewood Scoop (@LakewoodScoop) March 14, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
More views of the large brush fire in Jersey.
MORE FOOTAGE ON STATUS -> https://t.co/lJ3ClHEEnm pic.twitter.com/pTWnVj1GEU
— The Lakewood Scoop (@LakewoodScoop) March 14, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Route 70 has been shut down.
BREAKING: Parts of GSP, Cedarbridge and Route 70 shut in Lakewood. pic.twitter.com/zlzIKypPCy
— The Lakewood Scoop (@LakewoodScoop) March 14, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
A helicopter with a specialized bucket suspended on a cable is now combating the fire.
UPDATE: Chopper dropping water. pic.twitter.com/JSGqlwZ5oF
— The Lakewood Scoop (@LakewoodScoop) March 14, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Firefighters are at a Lowe’s on Route 70.
UPDATE: At Lowe’s on Route 70. pic.twitter.com/PhHtGSc1EH
— The Lakewood Scoop (@LakewoodScoop) March 14, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Possible commercial zone ablaze.
BREAKING: Fire near Lowe’s.
Firefighters are battling this blaze on multiple fronts. pic.twitter.com/DdupotpUr3
— The Lakewood Scoop (@LakewoodScoop) March 14, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
“Blaze is currently out of control,” The Lakewood Scoop tweeted.
BREAKING: Fire near Costco on Route 70.
Blaze is currently out of control.
Getting reports of burn victims as well. pic.twitter.com/sstzc4RdZb
— The Lakewood Scoop (@LakewoodScoop) March 14, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
This situation appears to be deteriorating: “Business-owners attempting to extinguish fires near their shops,” the local paper said.
BREAKING: Business-owners attempting to extinguish fires near their shops. pic.twitter.com/xDXFhgr2KN
— The Lakewood Scoop (@LakewoodScoop) March 14, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
A brush fire has developed near Costco on Route 70.
#BREAKING: Aircrafts attempting to contain blaze near Costco. pic.twitter.com/Wp9tIzbdrQ
— The Lakewood Scoop (@LakewoodScoop) March 14, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The smoke plume from Lakewood is showing up on the radar.
The smoke plume from the fire near #Lakewood showing up on radar. https://t.co/k0O0Epal3R pic.twitter.com/VVxIWsi7l1
— Maria LaRosa (@TheMariaLaRosa) March 14, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
More businesses are in the path of the fire.
BREAKING: Another Lakewood business in the track of the wildfire. pic.twitter.com/LNS5zUc6GD
— The Lakewood Scoop (@LakewoodScoop) March 14, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Hilton hotel in Lakewood was evacuated as the wildfire dangerously approaches the structure.
Air quality has rapidly deteriorated in the area.
“This story is developing…
Tyler Durden
Sun, 03/14/2021 – 16:55 - Backlash As Rich Countries Vaccinate A Person Per Second With Poor Nations Alleging "Vaccine Apartheid"
Backlash As Rich Countries Vaccinate A Person Per Second With Poor Nations Alleging “Vaccine Apartheid”
Authored by Jake Johnson via CommonDreams.org,
The governments of the world’s wealthiest countries—including the US, Canada, and the United Kingdom—are facing growing backlash for continuing to block an India and South Africa-led proposal to temporarily waive a restrictive global intellectual property rights agreement, an effort aimed at spurring broad-based production of coronavirus vaccines and getting the shots to poor nations struggling to administer a single dose.
According to Oxfam International, a member of the People’s Vaccine Alliance, “rich countries are vaccinating at a rate of one person per second yet are siding with a handful of pharmaceutical corporations in protecting their monopolies against the needs of the majority of developing countries.”
Image: Hindustan Times via Getty Images On Thursday—the one-year anniversary of the WHO’s official global pandemic declaration—representatives from the U.S. and other wealthy nations teamed up to thwart, once again, the push by more than 100 member nations of the World Trade Organization to suspend certain provisions of the so-called TRIPS Agreement, an intellectual property rights arrangement.
“The proposal was co-sponsored by 57 countries in the trade group and on Thursday support split largely along the lines of the WTO’s self-identified developed and developing countries,” Law360 reported. “The only developing country to oppose the waiver was Brazil.”
Supporters of the waiver argue the prohibitive patent rights that governments have granted to private pharmaceutical companies are standing in the way of the kind of global vaccination campaign needed to stop the spread of a virus that does not respect borders. Fearing the emergence and normalization of “vaccine apartheid,” the head of the WHO and others have raised alarm over the fact that more than 100 poor nations have not yet been able to start inoculating their populations.
“It is unforgivable that while people are literally fighting for breath, rich country governments continue to block what could be a vital breakthrough in ending this pandemic for everyone in rich and poor countries alike,” Anna Marriott, Oxfam’s health policy manager, said in a statement.
“During a pandemic that is devastating lives across the planet,” added Marriott, “governments should be using their powers now, not tomorrow, to remove intellectual property rules and ensure pharmaceutical companies work together to share technology and fix raw material shortages, all of which are standing in the way of a massive scale-up in production.”
SHOCKING: Rich countries are vaccinating 1 person every second while the majority of the poorest nations are yet to give a single #COVID19 dose.
Suspend patents to stop Big Pharma monopolies.
Support #TRIPSwaiver
We need a #PeoplesVaccine https://t.co/bq48Xs42yb pic.twitter.com/fvnW033Wfe
— The People’s Vaccine (@peoplesvaccine) March 10, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Despite a fierce lobbying campaign by the pharmaceutical industry in the US and elsewhere, support for the India-South Africa proposal has grown since the effort was first tabled in October, with dozens of U.S. members of Congress and more than 100 members of the European Parliament joining a supermajority of WTO member nations in backing the idea. Voicing support for the proposal, one commentator recently called it “an existential threat to the continuing practice of treating medicines as a commodity.”
“There is no reason we have to prioritize the profits of pharmaceutical companies over the dignity of people in other countries,” U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) told the New York Times last week.
In a video released on Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) urged President Joe Biden to support the TRIPS waiver, arguing that “ending this pandemic requires collaboration, solidarity, and empathy.”
“It is unconscionable,” said Sanders, “that amid a global health crisis, huge multibillion dollar pharmaceutical companies continue to prioritize profits by protecting their monopolies and driving up prices rather than prioritizing the lives of people everywhere, including in the Global South.”
As the Corporate Europe Observatory reported, “If know-how and vaccine recipes are shared, generic manufacturers could start supplying the countries in the back of the queue, for instance the 85 nations set to receive vaccines only in two years time.”
“Had it not been for the stiff resistance by the US, Switzerland, Norway, and not least the E.U., that vision could have become a reality,” the organization noted. “But the European Commission has shown no sign of budging at the WTO negotiations. At a meeting in Geneva on 11 March the EU’s rejection was reiterated.”
With the U.S. facing accusations of vaccine hoarding as it buys up enough supply to inoculate the eligible population twice over—and refuses to donate excess doses to countries pleading for them—Biden on Friday announced an agreement with Japan, India, and Australia to bolster global vaccine production with the stated goal of remedying shortages in Southeast Asia.
As the Times reported, “the Biden administration committed to providing financial support to help Biological E, a major vaccine manufacturer in India, produce at least one billion doses of coronavirus vaccines by the end of 2022.”
While viewed as a welcome addition to lagging global vaccination efforts, the deal falls well short of the sweeping recipe-sharing that experts and activists say is required to ensure that no one is denied access to a life-saving shot.
Calling the new agreement a “step in the right direction,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said Saturday that Biden must now “take the next step and endorse the TRIPS waiver.”
“The waiver is supported by over 100 countries and being opposed by only a handful of rich countries,” Schakowsky noted. “The world needs as much vaccine manufacturing capacity as it can get. Time is of the essence.”
Tyler Durden
Sun, 03/14/2021 – 16:30
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