- China Threat Grows As Beijing's 'Tech-Based' Plans Dominate Washington's 'Finances-First' Approach
China Threat Grows As Beijing’s ‘Tech-Based’ Plans Dominate Washington’s ‘Finances-First’ Approach
Authored by John Mac Ghlionn via The American Conservative (emphasis ours),
During the Reagan administration, Michael Sekora helped establish Project Socrates, a classified U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency program. The aim of the program was twofold: first, to identify the reasons why the U.S. was struggling to maintain its economic advantage; and second, to remedy the situation as quickly as possible.
(Romsvetnik/Shutterstock) In 1979, two years before Reagan became the 40th president of the United States, Sekora had been recruited by the CIA. He worked as an intelligence officer within the Office of Technical Services. He was a physicist by training, having entered the University of Michigan at the age of 15 and then attended Miami University for graduate studies. In 1983, Sekora transferred from the CIA to the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Project Socrates was born.
Although he and his colleagues at Project Socrates had identified the China threat for Reagan, Sekora told me, and were working on strategies to contain that threat, when President Bush came into office, his administration “abolished Socrates to appease certain allies.”
Sekora agreed to answer a few of my questions, and presented his view that the United States is mistakenly focused on finance-based rather than technology-based planning and strategy in addressing the challenge posed by China. Our conversation is presented in an edited form for the sake of length and clarity.
The China threat has only grown. Today, Sekora said, China is winning because it is putting strategic technologies first.
[It] is executing an offensive/defensive adroit game of worldwide technology exploitation chess. As a result, China will continue to out maneuver the U.S. R&D no matter how much money we spend. That is what has enabled China to become a superpower faster than any country in the history of the world. China’s rise to power is not based on cheap labor, currency manipulation and a little theft of U.S. technology as all the experts maintain. If that was all that China was doing, China would still be only producing hand assembled trinkets, as they did in the 1950s, instead of beating the U.S. in quantum, AI, biotech, et cetera.
While he has dealings with Congress, the Department of Defense, and the intelligence community, Sekora said he is deeply frustrated by what he sees and hears, because “none of what is being executed or proposed by these organizations has any chance of countering China.”
In some cases, he said, the responses proposed will “actually accelerate the decline of the U.S. and the rise of China.” I asked why.
Because they are based on some very faulty core assumptions. One is that the U.S. is in an R&D footrace with China. Both sides hunker down in their respective labs to address the “key” technologies and whoever gets to the R&D breakthrough finish line first has the competitive advantage and wins!
American leadership believes the way to beat China to the finish line is to spend more money than the opponent, Sekora said. “In actuality, increasing U.S. spending on R&D will increase not decrease or reverse the rate of U.S. decline,” he explained.
Of course, that seems rather counterintuitive; I pressed Sekora to clarify.
If the U.S. continues to execute its present approach to rebuilding U.S. economic health and military might to remain a superpower and counter China, the U.S. will be a poor debtor nation in a world where China is the sole world superpower, and this will occur in much less than 10 years. The underlying cause is that at the end of WWII, the U.S. began shifting from technology-based planning to finance-based planning.
Today, he went on to say, finance-based planning is still pervasive throughout the entire U.S. economy and military ecosystem, from private industry to the Department of Defense and the White House.
The difference between the two is that in finance-based planning, “the foundation of all decision making is the optimization of the funds,” or how to manipulate money to achieve a financial objective, such as staying within budget.
Meanwhile, in technology-based planning, “the foundation of all decision making is exploiting the technology more effectively than the competition/adversaries to generate a true competitive advantage in the marketplace or on the battlefield.”
Technology-based planning helped the U.S. became a superpower before WWII, Sekora said, and was also what Japan used after WWII to transform itself into an industrial giant in 20 short years. Our rivals use it, too.
“[It’s] what the Soviets used in the Cold War to match the U.S. militarily from a much smaller economic base,” he said. And China, not surprisingly, “has been using it for decades to become a superpower faster than any country in history.”
Today, Sekora said, the U.S. uses finance-based planning for economic strength and military might, which forms the basis of our political actions and strength. China, on the other hand, uses technology-based planning. Because of this, he argues, “China will continue on its rise, and the U.S. will continue in its rapid decline.”
As is already obvious, Sekora is not optimistic about the chances of success of America’s current strategy. What is the current administration doing wrong? I asked.
“A better question is, ‘What is the current administration doing right?’” Sekora said. “Everything that this administration and Congress are doing and proposing is based on finance-based planning.”
By focusing on the financial system, the current administration is further enabling China at the expense of the United States.
“China can literally neutralize a U.S. multi-billion-dollar R&D initiative for pennies on the dollar,” Sekora said, “while ensuring that they have the competitive advantage on the battlefield or in the marketplace.”
Sekora and his colleagues are currently working for the reestablishment of Project Socrates.
John Mac Ghlionn is a researcher and essayist. His work has been published by the likes of National Review, New York Post, South China Morning Post, and the Sydney Morning Herald. He can be found on Twitter at @ghlionn.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 04/16/2022 – 23:30 - Visualizing The Yuxi Circle: The World's Most Densely Populated Area
Visualizing The Yuxi Circle: The World’s Most Densely Populated Area
If you wanted to capture over 55% of the global population inside a circle with a 4,000km radius, which city would you place at its epicenter?
In 2013, a post appeared on Reddit marking a circular area of the globe with “more people living inside this circle than outside of it.” The circle had a radius of 4,000 km (just under 2,500 miles) and was named the Valeriepieris circle after author Ken Myers’ username.
As Visual Capitalist’s Trixie Pacis details below, acknowledging that the Valeriepieris circle is not actually a circle (it was drawn on a two-dimensional map rather than a globe) and is based on data that has become outdated, mapmaker Alasdair Rae went digging and discovered what he calls The Yuxi Circle, the world’s most densely populated area.
Introducing the Yuxi Circle
Rae traced circles around 1,500 cities worldwide to find out how many people lived within a 4,000 km radius, just like the original Valeriepieris circle. He based his calculations on WorldPop data from 2020, based on a global population of 7.8 billion people.
Of the 1,500 circles that Rae made calculations for, 148 contained populations of 4 billion or more. He found many examples in Asia including in China, Myanmar (Mandalay), Laos (Vientiane), Bangladesh (Chattogram), India (Agartala), Bhutan (Thimpu), and Vietnam (Hanoi) to name a few.
But of them all, Yuxi, a city in the Yunnan province of China, has the largest population living within a 4,000 km radius: 4.32 billion.
Put another way? The circle encompasses over 55% of the world’s population, despite including desolate areas like the Taklamakan Desert, the Tibetan Plateau, Mongolia, and Southern Siberia.
Densely Populated Areas Around the Globe
Rae’s search for densely populated clusters also turned up notable circles beyond Asia. They surrounded cities like Cairo, Paris, and Mexico City.
Note: Keep in mind that the white lines on the flat maps are equidistant circles but will only look like circles when plotted on a globe.
Circling Hanoi yields a population of 4.27 billion (54% of the global population). It was the runner up city circle in Rae’s original search.
Circling Cairo yields a population of 2.29 billion. This circle reaches most of Europe while still containing populated areas of India, Pakistan, and Africa.
Comparatively, circling Paris yields a population of 1.19 billion. This Euro-centric circle contains large tracts of water and scarcely populated islands such as Iceland and Greenland.
Across the Atlantic, circling Mexico City yields a population of 0.73 billion. It’s significantly smaller than the other circles, as the total population in the Americas is concentrated in just three countries, the U.S., Mexico, and Brazil (not included in this circle).
It’s worth noting that the Valeriepieris circle also inspired other people to look at population density in different ways. In 2015, Danny Quah of the London School of Economics looked more closely at the Valeriepieris circle and was inspired to find the smallest circle with more people living inside of it than outside. He determined that a circle with a radius of 3,300 km centered near Mong Khet, Myanmar was “the world’s tightest cluster of people.”
While the Yuxi Circle contains the largest population using Rae’s approach as of early 2022, global populations are constantly changing. Who knows where the next Yuxi Circle will be?
Tyler Durden
Sat, 04/16/2022 – 23:00 - Former Clinton Campaign Lawyer Made False Statements To Second Government Agency: Durham
Former Clinton Campaign Lawyer Made False Statements To Second Government Agency: Durham
Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman, who is accused of lying to the FBI when he claimed he was not handing over information about then-candidate Donald Trump in 2016, made false statements to CIA officers in a meeting after Trump was sworn into office, according to new filings by Special Counsel John Durham’s team.
Sussman told James Baker, at the time the FBI’s general counsel, that he had “time-sensitive (and sensitive)” information to share before the pair met, according to a text message recently disclosed by prosecutors. In the same message, Sussman claimed he was “coming on my own—not on behalf of a client or company,” even though he’d been directed to deliver the information by Rodney Joffe, a technology executive, and billed the Clinton campaign for the work, according to prosecutors.
Sussman provided Baker in a Sept. 19, 2016, meeting with white papers that alleged Trump’s business had a secret channel with a Russian bank, allegations the FBI later determined were untrue.
On Feb. 9, 2017, Sussman met with CIA officers—where he also made false statements, according to the new filings.
A memorandum introduced by the special counsel’s team and penned by a CIA official said that Sussman provided documents and thumb drives that he claimed contained data related to potential Russian activities linked with Trump.
Sussman “advised that he was not representing a particular client,” according to the notes. Instead, he said he was conveying information from “contacts” who he believed “were acting in good faith and out of a sense of loyalty to the USG,” or U.S. government.
That contradicts how Sussman told a former CIA employee, who was said to have helped set up the February meeting, that he “represents a client who does not want to be known,” according to notes of the meeting taken by the former employee.
It also contradicts testimony Sussman delivered to the House Intelligence Committee. Under oath, Sussman said (pdf) he received the information “from a client of mine.”
Sussman said he learned of the information by the summer of 2016 but only came forward months later because President Barack Obama ordered an intelligence review of possible Russian interference in elections.
“This information seemed to fall roughly within that, and so I thought that might be—or my client thought that that might be something that was relevant for those that were gathering information regarding foreign-based actors,” Sussman said.
Michael Sussman in an undated interview. (CNN/Screenshot via NTD) Another apparently false statement relates to what Sussman said during the meeting with the CIA concerning his previous meeting with the FBI.
Sussman gave the same information regarding the alleged secret channel to the CIA that he had to Baker. Sussman told the officers he had previously contacted Baker but on a “similar, though unrelated, matter,” according to the memo.
In front of the congressional panel, Sussman said he had already passed on the information to the FBI before he met with the CIA.
“In context, the defendant’s statement that he had provided the FBI with ‘similar, though unrelated’ allegations is false, or at best, misleading,” Durham’s team said in one of the new filings.
Further, the CIA later concluded both the claim about the secret channel and a separate allegation, which was brought to the CIA and not the FBI, concerning Russian-made phones was “technically plausible,” did not “withstand technical scrutiny,” “contained gaps,” and “conflicted with [itself],” according to the special counsel’s office.
Sussman’s lawyers in a separate filing said their client’s statement to the CIA “cannot possibly be part of the charged offense (concerning a single, different statement), and it was not made contemporaneously with the charged crime,” adding, “In fact, it was made five months later, in different circumstances, to a different agency, in a way that conflicts with the Special Counsel’s theory that Mr. Sussmann lied to Mr. Baker to help Hillary Clinton win the election—because the election was long since over.”
The lawyers are not objecting to the admission of one of the statements Sussman made to the House panel concerning the CIA meeting but are objecting to the introduction of any evidence concerning the accuracy of the data he provided to the CIA.
They also reserved the right “to introduce evidence rebutting the Special Counsel’s claims, including evidence that will demonstrate that Mr. Sussmann disclosed to CIA personnel that he had a client and that he had worked with political clients.”
According to the CIA memo, Sussman did mention that his law firm was involved with Democrats, including Clinton, but also said that work was unrelated to his reasons for contacting the CIA.
Sussman’s trial is slated to start on May 16 at federal court in Washington.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 04/16/2022 – 22:30 - Viral Tesla Video Flying Through Los Angeles Air Inspires Others
Viral Tesla Video Flying Through Los Angeles Air Inspires Others
Being a social media influencer isn’t always a good thing, especially when the content is dangerous. This causes vulnerable young people who see online content to copy those destructive behaviors.
Such as the TokToker in March, who decided to launch his Tesla Model S off the steepest roadway in Los Angeles at a high rate of speed and soared through the air before crashing into other cars.
For readers who don’t remember this insane video. Here you go:
Now others are copying the idiot TikToker and making videos of their own, jumping vehicles through an Echo Park neighborhood.
According to automotive magazine Carscoops, the street has an insane 32% grade initially used to test cars. The copycats jumped a BMW X2 on the same roadway and set fire to the road this time around.
Seeing videos like these online normalizes dangerous behavior for younger folks and makes them prone to repeat such stupidity. This type of copycat behavior could give rise to even more stupid behavior in the area.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 04/16/2022 – 22:00 - COVID-19 Linked To Alzheimer's-Like Brain Changes, Study Suggests
COVID-19 Linked To Alzheimer’s-Like Brain Changes, Study Suggests
Authored by Jennifer Margulis via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
For some, it’s just a sniffle. But for others, COVID-19 can hit hard. Either way, some people who get COVID-19 will suffer from long-term effects. This is known as “long COVID,” and its sufferers are often referred to as “long haulers.” Chances are you already know about long COVID and you may even have been affected by it or have friends or family who are. What is less well known, however, is that neurological issues are common in long COVID.
New research may explain one way COVID-19 may contribute to neurological ailments.(Photo_imagery/Shutterstock) Broken Brains
Brain inflammation, stroke, chronic headache, disturbed consciousness, cognitive impairment, and “brain fog” (an all-encompassing phrase to describe a condition that usually manifests as slow thinking, memory lapses, and difficulty concentrating) can all result after infection with the virus known as SARS-CoV-2.
Even the illness’s unusual hallmarks, hyposmia, and hypogeusia—better known to us non-scientists as loss of smell and taste—are thought to be due to changes in nervous system function.
But while both clinicians and patients have noticed a myriad of brain issues post infection, scientists don’t know very much about how SARS-CoV-2 infections can lead to impaired brain function.
That may be changing.
A study published on Feb. 3 in Alzheimer’s & Dementia sheds light on a potential physiological mechanism behind the neurological problems COVID-19 survivors experience.
While the deeper insight into what is going on is good news, unfortunately, there’s bad news, too.
The new study, “Alzheimer’s-Like Signaling in Brains of COVID-19 Patients,” includes some disturbing findings.
Attacking ACE2 Receptors
The study, led by Andrew R. Marks, a cardiologist and chair of the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in Manhattan, consisted of analysis of brain tissue collected from 10 people who died from COVID-19.
Marks’s team looked posthumously at the brains of four women who ranged in age from 38 to 80, and six men, ages 57 to 84.
It’s already known that the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 binds to ACE2 receptors all over the body, including in the heart, lungs, kidneys, and epithelial cells that line the blood vessels.
Scientists also believe that the multi-system failure that can result in death from COVID-19 is likely due to this invasion of heart and lung cells via these ACE2 receptors.
Since the receptors have been invaded by the virus, the activity of the enzyme associated with the receptors (angiotensin-converting enzyme) is reduced, as scientists explained in a 2021 article published on The Conversation.
The damage to the lungs and heart is usually uppermost in doctors’ minds when patients are experiencing severe illness. But, it turns out, there are also ACE2 receptors in the brain.
Unless you’re a neuroscientist, this is pretty technical. Stay with me anyway. Decreased ACE2 activity is associated with increased activity in transforming growth factor-beta (“TGF-beta”). And high levels of TGF-beta in the brain are associated with irregularities in the “tau” proteins that stabilize nerve cells, specifically due to something called “hyperphosphorylation.”
Phosphorylation, a normal biological process, is the addition of phosphate to an organic molecule, in this case, the tau protein.
Hyperphosphorylation is the addition of too many phosphate groups at too many sites.
Hyperphosphorylation can result in proteins with excess filaments that get tangled up. And these tau filament “tangles” are associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
Leaky Brains
Marks and his five colleagues at Columbia University investigated whether people who died of COVID-19 exhibited evidence of tau protein irregularities that are associated with Alzheimer’s.
A significant body of recent research suggests that calcium ions “leaking” from certain ion channels in the brain, known as ryanodine receptors, may cause these tau irregularities.
Ion channels enable the flow of ions through cell membranes, including brain cells (neurons). In a nutshell, ions enable the flow of electrical charges throughout the body and this flow is critical to the function of all cells. It’s, in one sense, the communication system of the body and one of the primary mechanisms of brain function.
Healthy brain function relies on ion channels, such as the ryanodine receptors just mentioned, operating as they should. Just as there are dangers when an electrical wire is “leaking” electricity due to a short, there are risks when these ion channels leak ions. Oxidative stress may be responsible for depleting calbindin, a protein that helps keep these channels closed, preventing them from leaking. When the levels of calbindin are low, channels that should remain closed may start to leak calcium.
Too many calcium ions floating around in the brain or anywhere else in the body can cause a number of health problems.
Marks’s team examined the brain tissue of the 10 people who died from COVID to see if there was evidence of leaks.
More specifically, they analyzed the contents of the brain tissue for markers of TGF-beta activity. They found evidence of increased TGF-beta activity in both the cortex and the cerebellum. They also found evidence of increased oxidative stress.
Cerebellum Concerns
People who suffer from Alzheimer’s show evidence of tau filament “tangles” only in the cortexes of their brains, not in the cerebellum.
However, this Columbia University research indicated that, unlike with Alzheimer’s, COVID may cause disturbances in the cerebellum as well.
The cerebellum is involved in balance, coordination of movement, language, and posture, according to the University of Texas Health Science Center.
Other recent research has shown that 74 percent of hospitalized COVID patients have had coordination problems. If COVID is compromising the cerebellum as well as the cortex, this may help explain the coordination issues clinicians have observed.
Interestingly, though this was a small study, all the people who died had evidence of brain pathology. The TGF-beta marker was found in all the brains, even those of the younger patients who had exhibited no sign of dementia prior to coming down with COVID-19.
Most people have heard that the presence of beta-amyloid plaques in the brain is an indication of Alzheimer’s. Even though lowered ACE2 activity is also associated with an increase in beta-amyloid plaques, the Columbia team didn’t find any changes in the pathways that lead to the formation of amyloid beta in the brains of the patients who died from COVID (with the exception of one 84-year-old male who was previously suffering from dementia). This is one notable distinction between the pathology of COVID-19 and Alzheimer’s or dementia.
Treating Neurological Symptoms
Marks’s interest in the ryanodine ion channels is long-standing, and his recent COVID-related research may lead to financial benefits should other researchers affirm his findings. In 2011, a research team led by Marks demonstrated that a class of drugs, Rycals, may be effective in treating heart failure and muscle disorders by stabilizing the same ryanodine ion channels this new research indicates may be affected by COVID-19 infections.
One drug from this class, ARM210, has been in the clinical-trial stage but has been officially classified as an orphan drug because the illness it was intended to treat was so rare.
Marks told ScienceDaily that his study indicates a potential target for therapeutic interventions for the neurological symptoms of COVID.
“My greatest hope is that other laboratories will look into our findings, and if they are validated, generate interest in a clinical trial for long COVID,” he said.
Both Columbia University and Marks own stock in ARMGO Pharma, Inc., the company that has been developing drugs to target ryanodine channels. They also own patents on Rycals, according to a conflict of interest statement at the bottom of this study. Another of the study’s co-authors, Steven Reiken, has been consulting for ARMGO. While conflicts of interest like these are fairly typical for published scientific research, and they don’t invalidate the research, they are an important part of the overall picture that shouldn’t be ignored.
It also isn’t unusual for a drug created for one purpose to find new life treating other conditions. In some cases, these new uses prove more important than the original intended use of the drug.
In their paper, the Columbia team wrote that “ex vivo treatment of COVID-19 patient brain samples with the Rycal drug ARM210 … fixed the channel leak.”
While that may suggest a promising avenue for further investigation, applying a drug to brain tissue in the lab is a long way from giving it to living patients.
Vaccine-Linked Neurological Damage
While COVID is linked to neurological issues, the same also appears to be true with the vaccine itself. My colleague Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of the book “Toxic Legacy,” is concerned that COVID-19 vaccines also have the potential to cause brain damage.
“Vaccines produce the spike protein, which is the part of the virus that binds to the ACE2 receptors,” said Seneff, who wasn’t involved in the Columbia research. “I suspect this means that the vaccine could also disable the receptors and cause the same neurological damage.”
In fact, Seneff said, brain damage from the vaccine may be more common than brain damage from the naturally acquired infection. Vaccine-induced spike proteins “get into the brain more easily than the virus does,” she said. “The virus only gets into the brain when a person has a compromised immune system. But the vaccine is injected into the muscle, which means it bypasses natural barriers that would normally keep the virus out of the brain.”
In May 2021, Seneff and her colleague Dr. Greg Nigh, an oncologist based in Portland, Oregon, published a paper in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research explaining their hypothesis that the mRNA vaccines may be worse than the disease itself.
Since then, she said, she has been studying the reports of vaccine adverse events that are collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In this new research, Seneff has found that 96 percent of all of the reported adverse outcomes in the year 2021 that have been related to neurological issues are connected to COVID vaccines. These adverse neurological events include memory disorders, mobility issues, difficulty swallowing, and loss of sense of smell.
“All these things that are showing up in VAERS are striking,” Seneff said. “Overwhelmingly, the events that show neurological issues are following COVID-19 vaccines. I honestly don’t know why people aren’t absolutely shocked by these numbers. Compared to the other vaccines, these vaccines seem tremendously dangerous.”
* * *
Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D., is an award-winning journalist and author of “Your Baby, Your Way: Taking Charge of Your Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Parenting Decisions for a Happier, Healthier Family.” A Fulbright awardee and mother of four, she has worked on a child survival campaign in West Africa, advocated for an end to child slavery in Pakistan on prime-time TV in Paris, and taught post-colonial literature to non-traditional students in inner-city Atlanta. Learn more about her at JenniferMargulis.net.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 04/16/2022 – 21:30 - Canada Can't Find Enough Workers To Fulfill Trudeau's Promise To Build More Houses
Canada Can’t Find Enough Workers To Fulfill Trudeau’s Promise To Build More Houses
The Bank of Canada has committed to trying to cool off the country’s housing market (and stem inflation more broadly) with a 50 bp rate hike, but PM Justin Trudeau’s efforts to try and undercut housing prices no matter the cost as mortgage debt surges has run into another obstacle that policymakers should have perhaps anticipated: in the country of nearly 40 million people, there simply aren’t enough workers to deliver on the Liberal Government’s plans.
Interestingly, this remains true despite the Trudeau government’s best efforts to try and spur immigration. Maybe they shouldn’t have alienated all of those blue-collar workers during the “Freedom Truckers” episode.
As for the government’s promises, boosting housing supply (via generous federal subsidies: the largest housing measure in the new budget is a C$4 billion – $3.2 billion) has been the centerpiece of the government’s plan.
Boosting supply was the centerpiece of the housing plan laid out in the Trudeau government’s spring budget. It said Canada has averaged around 200,000 new housing units annually in recent years and pledged to “double our current rate of new construction over the next decade.”
Unsurprisingly, a handful of analysts quoted by BBG have poured cold water on the government’s promises. Given the current rate of housing construction, doubling it simply isn’t feasible due to two primary reasons: skilled blue-collar labor is “scarce”, and municipal governments are prepared to fight any efforts to combat increased housing density (text courtesy of Bloomberg).
- The plan quickly prompted skepticism from analysts. “Dollars to doughnuts this won’t happen, and not for lack of good intentions,” Robert Kavcic, senior economist with the Bank of Montreal, wrote this week in a note to investors.
- Avery Shenfield, chief economist at CIBC World Markets, also doubted the feasibility of the plan given labor constraints: “Without a targeted immigration plan, or a concerted effort to convince young residents to consider taking up a hammer rather than a laptop, we’re going to continue to struggle to ramp up supply enough to allow more Canadians to own their own castle,” he wrote Thursday.
Trudeau appointee Ahmed Hussen, who is the current Canadian housing minister, has offered a feeble defense of the government’s promises, while trying to slough off blame on municipal governments. Here are some highlights from an interview he did with Bloomberg.
- “The issue of housing supply is critical to our future success as a country,” Hussen said in an interview with Bloomberg. Hussen said he knows this skepticism is out there, but argued his government has already shown it can deliver on ambitious programs. Last year the Liberals pledged to get every province to sign on to a universal child care program, and they got the final piece in place last month when Ontario agreed.
- “Skepticism can be expressed, but the fact is we have shown a track record and an ability to build and collaborate with other orders of government,” he said.
- “You have to demonstrate the political will to tackle those barriers,” Hussen said of municipalities. As examples, he pointed to zoning changes to allow for more density near transit stations and requiring affordable housing in new developments.
- “If they’re not willing to do any of those, or even present a credible plan to tackle these barriers, then we simply will not engage,” Hussen said. “But I believe that all municipalities will welcome this,” he added. The program has support from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the big city mayors’ caucus, Hussen said.
Canadian housing prices were already high before the pandemic, but they rose more than 50% during the past two years due to similar factors that drove US housing prices higher as well.
Source: Bloomberg
The price surge has become a critical political issue for Trudeau, and his conservative opponents are already seizing on it to hammer him and his Liberal government. The big question now is whether he will be able to tackle it before the next federal election in October 2025.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 04/16/2022 – 21:00 - Debt Saturation: Off The Cliff We Go
Debt Saturation: Off The Cliff We Go
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
When the system can’t borrow more and distribute the insolvency, it implodes
I started writing about debt saturation back in 2011. The basic idea is we can continue to borrow and spend as long as one of two conditions hold: 1) real (inflation-adjusted) income is rising, so there’s more income to service additional debt, or 2) the cost of borrowing declines so the same income can support more debt.
After 13 long years of declining interest rates and stagnant incomes for the bottom 90%, we’ve finally reached debt saturation: after dropping to near-zero, interest rates are now rising, pushing the cost of debt service higher, while wages are losing purchasing power (a.k.a. inflation), so there’s less disposable income left to service debt.
The game plan for the past 13 years was to fund “growth” today by borrowing vast sums from future incomes: the $1.6 trillion in student loan debt, for example, was supposed to be paid by the soaring wages of all those student-loan-serfs, and all the sovereign debt was supposed to be paid by the soaring tax revenues from rapidly expanding economies.
These fantasies have now run aground on the unforgiving shoals of reality. There’s no way to expand debt if income is losing ground and the cost of borrowing is soaring.
As I observed in 2012, Spreading Insolvency Around Does Not Create Solvency (August 23, 2012). In 2011, I used a different analogy: The World Is Drowning in Debt, and Europe Laces On Concrete Boots (November 14, 2011).
Saturation is an interesting phenomenon. You keep adding more and more to a system that seems to absorb “more” with no ill effects, and then suddenly the whole mountainside gives way and rumbles off the cliff.
There’s a runaway feedback loop aspect to debt saturation. Think of a planetary atmosphere where you keep adding greenhouse gases. The atmosphere keeps absorbing more greenhouse gases with little effect until a saturation point is reached and then the atmosphere loses its negative feedback mechanisms that kept the system stable.
At that point, the feedback is all positive, i.e. every additional unit of greenhouse gases doesn’t just trap an additional unit of heat, it multiplies the effect. (The atmosphere of Venus is hot enough to melt lead–900 F or 475 C.)
We see this same dynamic in debt saturation: the breakdown is accelerating rapidly. Since households burned through their stimulus bonanza, the savings rate has fallen and credit card balances are soaring. But this is not low-cost debt, it’s high-cost debt, so those additional credit card balances will soon stripmine disposable income, leaving less for additional spending or debt service.
The “temporary debt forgiveness” ploy is staving off the day of reckoning in student loan serfdom. Rather than admit the student loan scam is unsustainable, the status quo plays an absurd game of pushing the date that student loan interest will have to be paid forward. This works until it doesn’t.
Meanwhile, with mortgage rates over 5% for the first time in a decade, the housing bubble is popping. The runaway feedback of higher mortgages and slowing sales will accelerate price declines and mortgage delinquencies far faster than the mainstream anticipates.
Rising bond yields will push the cost of government borrowing higher, too. Borrowing money to pay the interest on borrowing money is another feedback loop of doom: it’s downright inconvenient when most of the income tax revenues are devoted to servicing government debt, leaving little for the rest of the government’s vast spending.
There’s a lot of shuck and jive in income and wealth statistics to mask the doom-loop of debt saturation. Oh, the household is still doing just fine, we’re told: look at all the luscious wealth and income available to service more debt.
What punctures the pretty fantasy is the reality that only the top 5% have plenty of income and wealth. The top 1% collect around 20% of all income and own 50% of all financial wealth, and the top 10% collect over 50% of all income and own roughly 90% of financial assets.
The bottom 50% of households own less than 1% of financial wealth and the bottom 90% will discover how much of their “wealth” is phantom when the stock and housing bubbles pop.
The point is wealth and income are highly concentrated in the U.S., so claiming households have plenty of wealth and income is a gross distortion. Yes, the top 5% (7 million households) could borrow more, but they have enough wealth and income that they don’t need to borrow more.
Those who need to borrow more to survive can’t borrow more: households, zombie corporations, and local znd national governments.
Top 1% of U.S. Earners Now Hold More Wealth Than All of the Middle Class
The U.S. Income Distribution: Trends and Issues
There’s no tricks left to keep expanding debt: rates are rising, not falling, and wages are losing ground to the soaring costs of rent, adjustable mortgages, healthcare, childcare, food, energy, junk fees, property taxes, etc. As for the phantom wealth of bubbles: as rates rise and the Federal Reserve trims its stimulus, all the bubbles will pop.
When the system can’t borrow more and distribute the insolvency, it implodes. And so off the cliff we go.
* * *
Tip of the hat to Adam Taggart of wealthion.com for suggesting it was an appropriate moment to revisit this topic–thank you, Adam.
My new book is now available at a 10% discount this month: Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $8.95, print $20). If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 04/16/2022 – 20:30 - Central Bank Digital Currencies Are Doomed To Fail – And Here's Why
Central Bank Digital Currencies Are Doomed To Fail – And Here’s Why
As central banks including the Fed, the ECB and (of course) the PBOC (along with some 85 others) scramble to roll out their own digital currencies, some naive crypto bros might assume that the financial establishment and the government have completely embraced cryptocurrencies. But as we have pointed out before, this isn’t exactly true. The reality is that while they have spoken of ‘the financial revolution,’ they have only embraced some aspects of cryptocurrency.
For example, they have embraced the fact that all transactions on a digital blockchain can be carefully tracked and monitored, assuming they are the ones in control of said blockchain. This deep level of vision and insight would allow centralized financial authorities (like the Fed) to exert unprecedented levels of control over Americans’ spending habits.
But what impact will the advent of digital currencies have on the dollar’s hegemonic status in the global monetary order? Fed expert Jim Bianco offered some very interesting thoughts on this topic during his latest interview with MacroVoices’ Erik Townsend, where he offered an interesting prediction.
First, Bianco pointed out that many of the central banks that are most advanced in their CBDC projects are members of the emerging and frontier market classifications. As we have noted before, three CBDCs have already gone fully live in the past two years: the so-called DCash in the Eastern Caribbean, the Sand Dollar in the Bahamas and the eNaira in Nigeria (and, of course, the PBOC is making swift progress with its “e-RMB”).
One reason why central banks in emerging markets are so eager to accelerate the transition to digital currencies is because many are growing frustrated with the realities of American hegemony. Even the IMF (or at least some of its senior officials) has acknowledged that western sanctions are undermining international faith in the dollar-based monetary system.
Here’s Bianco, responding to a question from Townsend about a theoretical global monetary system managed by a consortium of central banks and based on a kind if supranational digital currency.
So you’re seeing the adoption rate, really what’s pushing this is Asia, Africa, the Middle East, knowing that they’ve been at the short end of the stick having not to have access to world capital markets, or to banking services at a reasonable rate. And wanting to have that. That’s why you’re seeing the adoption of places like in El Salvador, and potentially in Argentina, as well, too. Because they have been shut out of the capital markets, they need the permission of entities like the World Bank, or the IMF to do certain things. They are punished if they do things that displeasures, the first world or the United States, or the IMF, or the World Bank. And so that’s why they want some kind of system like that.
This shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody (at least, not those with at least a base level of understanding of economics). As both Bianco and Townsend point out, the concept of “exorbitant privilege” is nothing new.
What you wind up doing is making it fair for the rest of the world because one of the problems the current global financial system has, is it’s more of a tiered system that if you’re further up the list in the United States is at the top of the list, you get more privileges, better, cheaper financing, better access to markets. As you move further down the list, you get less access, things become more expensive.
With this in mind, remember: despite the Fed’s best efforts to develop a CBDC of its own, the US would likely do everything in its power to make sure the type of system described by Townsend above – that is, one where control is distributed among various central banks, and not concentrated in the hands of the Fed (and its supplicants) – never comes to be, since that would eliminate the ‘exorbitant privilege’ of the American economy (and create serious problems as the Treasury would likely be forced to pay higher interest rates on its massive debt).
But there’s another obstacle to CBDCs: the fact that people remember how the Canadian government treated people who donated to the Canadian Truckers (they were essentially frozen out of the financial system for something that was completely legal and normal). Because of this, they remember how easily the government can exercise control over their lives via their money. So, presumably, millions of people wouldn’t be comfortable with central banks exercising even more direct control of the financial system (having wiped out the intermediaries of the banking system due to CBDCs).
A central bank, digital currency makes that a lot more efficient. And so you’ve heard calls in the wake of that incident, that this is going to hurt the adoption of a central bank digital currency. Yes, they may create one. And yes, they might even take on potentially disrupting their banking system. But will people willingly say I want to keep my money with the Federal Reserve. And then one day, they might donate to a group, and remember, this happened with the truckers back in February. That people donated to the truckers, and it was perfectly legal, and it was fine. And then the Canadian government invented a word called retroactive law, that when you donate it in the beginning of February, to these truckers that was perfectly legal and fine. But by the end of February, when we decided that they we didn’t like that group, we’re gonna go retroactively back and punish you by freezing your account for doing that activity. I don’t want to make it easy for them. I don’t want to keep my money with a central bank directly in a digital currency. So they’ve got issues that they have to resolve the issues are not technological issues. The issues are more about control, privacy rights in policy that they have to work through. And so therefore, I think we’re still a ways away from seeing a central bank digital currency, because those issues haven’t been resolved
For this reason, Townsend says, he believes the launch of a Fed CBDC would be “a big flop”.
And my prediction is CBDCs, issued by central banks will be designed, first of all, to make it much easier for governments to do all sorts of crazy things like freeze people’s bank accounts, and, you know, automatically if they say something against the government narrative, as happened in Canada, as you described. And I don’t think that they’re going to be open to a supranational system. So for that reason, I think what’s much more likely is the CBDCs get developed, and they get launched with a big flop, and nobody really cares.
And both Townsend and Bianco agree: the biggest obstacles to CBDC is skepticism and reluctance among the end users, since CBDCs will never be designed with the needs and desires of the users in mind (on the contrary, they’re being designed in accordance to the rules of the end government).
Bianco offered the launch of China’s e-RMB as an example: the PBOC literally offered people free money to use it, but the currency came with “all these rules” about how people were required to spend it. As a result, the program wasn’t very successful.
I absolutely would agree with that. And it’s not only the permissioning too, it’s the rules too. Just give you one example, in China, they’d have issued a central bank digital currency, a digital yuan. And one of the things that they did with it was, they put on its a bunch of rules that if you actually bought into this currency, you were in to use the crypto version, you are airdropped money, they put extra money in your account. But they put rules on what you could do with the money, you had to spend it in a certain period of time, I think they gave you 30 days. And you had to spend it on certain things, and you couldn’t spend it on other things. And even in China, even though they were giving you free money, with all those rules, didn’t go over very well. People don’t like you know, to have all of those restrictions.
This is why there’s so much excitement in the decentralized space: because users are inherently excited by the idea of a ‘parameter-less’ currency, that’s beyond the reach of governments and sanctions.
The creators want to do it, because they say, good, we could do all these rules and permissions. And we could we can affect behavior by changing the parameters. And the people that would use it say, well, I’d only use it if you left me alone, completely parameterless with it, let me do with it what I want when I want it. And that’s why you’re seeing people more and more gravitate towards the crypto space that is permissionless, that is decentralized, so no one controls it as well, too. And you’re seeing the excitement in the decentralized finance space really starts around what is referred to as stable coins. And a stable coin is just a digital token that is supposed to have its value pegged to something else.
Readers can listen to the full interview below:
Tyler Durden
Sat, 04/16/2022 – 20:00 - Lack Of Attention Allowed Special Interests To Take Over Schools: Journalist Luke Rosiak
Lack Of Attention Allowed Special Interests To Take Over Schools: Journalist Luke Rosiak
Authored by Masooma Haq and Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times,
Investigative journalist and author of the book Race To the Bottom: Uncovering the Secret Forces Destroying American Public Education, said he started to notice a disturbing trend of special interest groups taking over the public schools to implement their radical agenda prior to the pandemic, which they only advanced further during the lockdowns.
“I basically saw that something was coming, that schools mattered, and that no one was paying attention to them. And because of that, special interests had really started colonizing these schools,” Rosiak told host of American Thought Leaders Jan Jekielek in a recent interview. “It was almost everywhere.”
Investigative reporter Luke Rosiak author of Race-to-the-Bottom: Uncovering the Secret Forces Destroying American Public Education in Washington on April 5, 2022. (Matthew-Pearson/Conservative Partnership Institute) Funders, teachers’ unions, and associations are working together to inculcate an extreme ideology in public schools in the name of “equity” or critical race theory (CRT), which was partially exposed when children were home during the pandemic.
“So, I mean, one of the most important concepts to understand is equity,” said Rosiak, they don’t call it CRT.
“But almost every school district in the country is on record supporting equity, and equity is a very bad thing. It means equal outcomes by race.”
He likened the equity agenda to communism, saying, “that means forcing equal outcomes by either bringing the top performers down or by just rigging the stats.”
The stated goal of communism is to eliminate any economic disparities, having everyone be equal, no matter the effort.
In the name of equity, during Barack Obama’s second presidential term, the Department of Justice sent a letter to every school district telling them they will “be investigated unless your discipline rates were the same for all races,” said Rosiak. As a consequence, discipline was severely limited, and learning in classrooms was impacted.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, right, and President Barack Obama during an announcement in the State Dining Room of the White House to announce Holder was resigning, on Sept. 25, 2014. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo) The 2014 DOJ letter states: “Regardless of the program adopted, federal law prohibits public school districts from discriminating in the administration of student discipline based on certain personal characteristics.”
“The Departments initiate investigations of student discipline policies and practices at particular schools based on complaints the Departments receive from students, parents, community members, and others about possible racial discrimination in student discipline,” the letter reads.
Rosiak has found that special interest groups running schools have installed equity departments, which have authority over all school policies, to ensure their equity agenda is advanced.
“But what they do is they implant the equity stuff above it all,” Rosiak said. Every decision from every department has to then be cleared by the equity department because of its impact on race, he said.
Two of those equity groups are called Policy Link and The Government Alliance on Race and Equity (“a national network of government working to achieve racial equity and advance opportunities for all”), which are two nonprofits many school districts use.
Rosiak said that instead of implementing rigorous academic programs, district and teacher union heads are pushing for equity initiatives that lower the bar for students. Some of these actions include lower testing requirements or getting rid of certain types of tests altogether.
“So essentially, yeah, in pursuit of equity, they have stopped measuring things, they started cooking the books, they started orienting everything around the lowest common denominator,” said Rosiak.
“We’re not even trying to get them to be smart, because it’s better for the teachers to look like they’re succeeding, and that they’re not failing these kids, and they’re not creating these disparities.”
Students leave Stuyvesant High School, one of the nine specialized public high schools in New York City, on March 25, 2014. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) He said New York City’s Stuyvesant High School is a school where standardized testing was required for merit-based entry and kids had to be skilled but because of pressure from racial equity activists, they stopped using the standardized test.
“And it (merit-based entry) was really a way to keep the elites from capturing the school. And the merit, was the great equalizer, and it brought this very rigorous school to the middle class and the working class,” said Rosiak.
“Don’t use the exam to get into the math school, because asking kids to answer math questions is not a good way to determine whether they know math.”
Rosiak said all this effort is to make the schools look like they are not failing to teach, the one million students in New York, especially minority students. This is even more outrageous when you know that each student cost the NYC taxpayers, $29,000 per year.
“So why did they care so much? What happens to these 20,000 kids at the specialized schools? And the answer is because it’s the optics, when you look at Stuyvesant, what you see is sort of a big picture of how kids are doing in New York City as a whole.”
The equity framework being pushed by schools puts subjective truth above objective truth, said Rosiak.
“A society can’t function on some philosophical framework that rejects objectivity, but that’s what CRT does. It positions ‘lived experience’, which is just whatever you say it is, and how you feel. So that’s what ‘counter storytelling’ is.”
According to Columbia University Storytelling (page 142) Project Curriculum, “Counter stories are new stories that we deliberately construct to challenge the stock stories, build on and amplify resistance stories to interrupt the status quo and work for change.”
In counter story-telling, “subjectivity, preempts objectivity, but only if it furthers critical race theory. So, in other words, both of our feelings matter, but our feelings only matter if they serve the ends of CRT. And if your lived experience is something that doesn’t help advance the CRT takeover, then your lived experience doesn’t matter,” Rosiak added.
During the pandemic, school officials pushed through more of this agenda including, converting letter grades to standards-based assessments.
“And so, they have all these different schemes that they had always been wanting to do for like 10 years, and during coronavirus you see them, ramming them through all at once,” he said.
“We can’t do the tests, and therefore, we can’t have gifted and talented and magnet schools because there are no tests. We’re not going to do letter grades because a lot of kids are just being totally failed by remote learning.”
Wealthy Foundations Funding School Associations
“So, there are radical ideologues that have taken over all of the associations, and the groups that are doing that are basically the philanthropic foundations like the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation,” said Rosiak.
The foundations, work with the teacher’s associations to further the funders’ racist agenda and hide the fact that the teachers/schools are failing students, which Rosiak calls the “alliance of convenience”.
“When there is a jurisdiction that does these radical policies, the associations can then replicate it all over the country,” said Rosiak. “What they do is they say it’s best practices because another district has done it. But it doesn’t actually have to be effective.”
Rosiak said the evidence he has found, points to the fact that the wealthy elite class wants to preserve their status.
“So, it was basically social Darwinism…,” said Rosiak. “One of the things they may want to do is preserve the status quo of the elites at the top, and then this permanent black underclass, the best way to preserve a permanent black underclass is to completely refuse to educate them properly.”
An example Rosiak gives, of this ideology is schools labeling habits that help high achievers, as being a part of white supremacy.
“And so, when they say things like blacks can’t show up on time, or can’t be expected to get the right answer or worship of the written word, that’s a function of whiteness, like these are insane, racist ideas that are just saying blacks aren’t good enough. It’s horrible.”
These foundations have always given out money and propagated their ideas but more recently they have consolidated their efforts, Rosiak said.
Celeste Fiehler protests outside the Desert Sands Unified School District board meeting in La Quinta, Calif., on Oct. 5, 2021. (Courtesy Celeste Fiehler) “I think of it as like a multi-headed monster, it brings together all the foundations and it actually serves as a vehicle through which they can all coordinate.”
He said one of these ventures is called the HUB project.
“And so, they do things like they run fake news, websites that purport to be like a local news source covering maybe your local school board election, but it’s really a completely contrived thing for the purposes of pushing these political ideas.”
Rosiak urges parents and any taxpayer who cares, to start going to school board meetings and questioning schools and hold these groups accountable for the poor and skewed education children are receiving.
“Because paying an average of $17,000 per student per year, which is what we pay, and getting an average of 36 percent literacy among 12th graders 24 percent proficiency in math, that’s a completely untenable reality. And once we realize it, something’s going to have to change.”
Tyler Durden
Sat, 04/16/2022 – 19:30 - Mapped: US Wind Electricity Generation By State
Mapped: US Wind Electricity Generation By State
Wind power is the most productive renewable energy source in the U.S., generating nearly half of America’s renewable energy.
But, as Visual Capitalist’s Niccolo Conte details below, wind doesn’t blow fairly across the nation, so which states are contributing the most to U.S. wind energy generation?
This map uses data from the EIA to show how much wind electricity different U.S. states generate, and breaks down wind’s share of total electricity generation in top wind power producing states.
Wind Electricity Generation by State Compared
America’s wind energy generating states are all primarily located in the Central and Midwest regions of the nation, where wind speeds are highest and most consistent.
Texas is the runaway leader in wind, generating over 92 Terawatt-hours of electricity during a year, more than the next three top states (Iowa, Oklahoma, and Kansas) combined. While Texas is the top generator in terms of wind-powered electricity, wind only makes up 20% of the state’s total electricity generation.
Data from Feb 2020-Feb 2021
Source: EIAMeanwhile, wind makes up a much larger share of net electricity generation in states like Iowa (58%), Oklahoma (35%), and Kansas (43%). For both Iowa and Kansas, wind is the primary energy source of in-state electricity generation after overtaking coal in 2019.
The U.S. also has 10 states with no wind power generating facilities, all primarily located in the Southeast region.
How Does Wind Energy Work?
Humans have been harnessing wind power for millennia, with windmills originally relying on wind to pump water or mill flour.
Today’s wind turbines work similarly, with their large blades generating electricity as wind causes them to rotate. As these blades are pushed by the wind, a connected internal shaft that is attached to an electric generator also turns and generates electricity.
Wind power is one of the safest sources of energy and relies on one key factor: wind speeds. When analyzing minimum wind speeds for economic viability in a given location, the following annual average wind speeds are needed:
- Small wind turbines: Minimum of 4 meters per second (9 miles per hour)
- Utility-scale wind turbines: Minimum of 5.8 meters per second (13 miles per hour)
Source: EIA
Unsurprisingly, the majority of America’s onshore wind turbine infrastructure is located in the middle of the nation, where wind speeds are highest.
Growing America’s Wind Turbine Capacity
While wind energy only made up 0.2% of U.S. electricity generating capacity in 1990, it is now essential for the clean energy transition. Today, wind power makes up more than 10% of U.S. electricity generating capacity, and this share is set to continue growing.
Record-breaking wind turbine installations in 2020 and 2021, primarily in the Central and Midwest regions, have increased U.S. wind energy generation by 30% to 135.1 GW.
In 2020, the U.S. increased wind turbine capacity by 14.2 gigawatts, followed by another 17.1 gigawatts in 2021. This year is set to see another 7.6 GW come online, with around half of 2022’s added capacity located in Texas.
After two years of record-breaking wind turbine installations, 2021’s expiration of the U.S. production tax credit is likely to dampen the rate of future installations.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 04/16/2022 – 19:00 - Blinken: Ukraine War Will Last Through 2022
Blinken: Ukraine War Will Last Through 2022
Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Washington’s European allies that the US believes the war in Ukraine could last through the end of 2022, CNN reported Friday, citing two European officials.
The report said that many Western officials have assessed there’s no short-term end in sight for the war, and public comments from US officials have reflected this. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has warned of a “protracted conflict” that he said could go on “for months or even longer.”
Last week, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley has said he believes the war will continue for years. “I do think this is a very protracted conflict, and I think it’s measured in years. I don’t know about decade, but at least years for sure,” he told the House Armed Services Committee.
A senior State Department official told CNN that Blinken has “has discussed with his counterparts our concern that the conflict could be protracted, but all of his engagements have revolved around how best to bring it to a halt as quickly as possible.”
But Blinken hasn’t explored diplomacy with Russia as a potential avenue to bring about an end to the war. Blinken hasn’t spoken with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, since February 15, and President Biden doesn’t appear to have plans to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Instead of diplomacy with Moscow, the US is significantly increasing its military aid to Ukraine. On Wednesday, Biden authorized a new $800 million weapons package for Ukraine, bringing the total military aid pledged since Russia invaded on February 24 to about $2.6 billion.
A second senior State Department official told CNN that the US has “done a lot and so we do have faith and we always had faith in our Ukrainian partners. But as the fight doubles down, so does our commitment to give them weapons and equipment that they can use.”
Supply crates containing munitions and other explosive material bound for Ukraine are loaded at Dover Air Force Base in March 2022. pic.twitter.com/stoaiHyvHn
— Department of Defense 🇺🇸 (@DeptofDefense) April 15, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Russia formally warned the US this week to stop arming Ukraine in a diplomatic note sent to the State Department by the Russian Embassy in Washington. The Russians said that the Western campaign to arm Ukraine was “adding fuel” to the conflict and could lead to “unpredictable consequences.”
Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in negotiations, but the US and its allies have signaled they don’t want Kyiv to grant any concessions to Moscow. The Washington Post reported last week that for some NATO members “it’s better for the Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying, than to achieve a peace that comes too early or at too high a cost to Kyiv and the rest of Europe.”
Tyler Durden
Sat, 04/16/2022 – 18:30 - Ford's F-150 Lightning Electric Pickup Truck Has Finally Arrived
Ford’s F-150 Lightning Electric Pickup Truck Has Finally Arrived
The Ford F-150 Lightning pickup is officially coming to compete with Tesla.
We have been tracking interest in Ford’s flagship electric pickup projects and have watched reservations and consumer interest pick up over the last year.
Now, it looks the pickup is finally ready to hit the road – and Elon Musk’s Cybertruck, its most obvious competition, is still nowhere to be found.
Ford executives have said the new pickup is going to be worth the wait. Linda Zhang, chief engineer on the project, told Bloomberg: “We were dealing with a ton of skepticism internally. It couldn’t just be a battery on wheels. We wanted it to be a real American truck that does work.”
This meant Ford had to create features that “hand’t been invented yet,” Zhang said. The truck’s “frunk”, for example, can hold 400 pounds of cargo and is comprised of 14 cubic feet of space.
In selling an electric pickup, Ford is beginning to convert its extremely popular F-Series, which sells about 900,000 trucks a year, to electric.
“Does it keep us up at night? You betcha,” CEO Jim Farley told Bloomberg. “It’s America’s most popular vehicle, and there is no more trusted brand in our industry. It feels a lot like the Model A launch in 1928.”
While conducting research on electric vehicles with truck owners in Texas, Ford got mixed responses to the idea of an electric pickup.
Darren Palmer, vice president for Ford’s global EV programs, said during market research they asked Texans if EVs were a dog, which breed would they be?
Palmer recalls: “This huge, burly Texan scoffs and says, ‘It would be one of those little Chihuahuas.’ Then we said, ‘OK, what kind of drink would it be?’ And he scoffs again and says, ‘Pink Champagne.’ ”
But Ford thinks it has gotten the Lightning right. The Lightning goes on sale in late April with a price that starts around $40,000.
Ford currently has nearly 200,000 reservations and has been “overwhelmed” by the demand for the truck. The automaker has had to quadruple capacity at the factory where they are making the truck.
In addition to the non-existent Cybertruck, the Lightning will be competing against Rivian’s R1T truck and GMC’s electric Hummer. They cost $80,000 and $112,595, respectively.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 04/16/2022 – 18:00 - Basic Solutions To Our Economic Problems That Establishment Elites Won't Allow
Basic Solutions To Our Economic Problems That Establishment Elites Won’t Allow
Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,
I think one of the great misconceptions about economic crisis is that solutions are always dependent on centralized government action. In truth, most financial disasters are actually caused by too much government action and involvement. Central banks like the Federal Reserve are also primary culprits; as I outlined in last week’s article their machinations, which are independent of government oversight, fall into the category of deliberate sabotage. The Fed bankrolls corruption through fiat money creation while government officials and corporations utilize that money to wreak havoc on our living standards.
Ending the Fed would solve the fiat money problem, but there’s still a host of agenda driven politicians and bureaucrats to deal with before our nation can right the ship.
One clear way to fix our system would be to first force government to interfere less. As a point of reference, consider the common media narratives surrounding the covid pandemic. Along with the White House the media has been the premier driver of irrational fear over the spread of covid, which ended up being a minor threat compared to the hype as the average Infection Fatality Rate was no more that 0.27%. Yet, in response to a virus that was a mortal danger to less than one-thrid of 1% of the population, bureaucrats declared a national emergency requiring insane and unconstitutional lockdowns.
The lockdowns damaged the economy in ways people are only now beginning to comprehend, with hundred of thousands of small businesses lost across the country. Not only that, but the establishment responded to the economic implosion they created by printing over $6 trillion in new money through the Fed in 2020 alone. This helicopter money or beta test for UBI (Universal Basic Income) has expedited a stagflationary disaster and helped to push prices on necessities to 40 year highs (the official number).
The media claims it is “covid that is causing the crash,” but this is a lie. It was the RESPONSE to covid that is causing the crash. The virus was incidental to the economic sabotage initiated by governments and central banks. As we saw in conservative red states that defied the lockdowns and the vax mandates, economic activity thrived while leftists blue states suffered. And what did these blue states get in return for their economic sacrifices? Nothing. Covid infections continued to rage in blue states and deaths often outpaced red states with similar sized populations.
In other words, the lockdowns, the mask mandates and the attempts force vaccinations through medical tyranny saved ZERO lives and possibly made things worse. This is the legacy of government micro-management (And yes, let’s not forget that Trump went along with these lockdowns in the beginning of the pandemic also. Biden is just the dirt-bag that continued the measures despite the massive amount of evidence that they don’t work).
While the covid event illustrates my point in a big way, there are a lot of deeply rooted problems that government intervention has caused that add up to one big fiscal calamity. Many of these threats require a basic but sweeping return to fundamentals that government elites will rarely address and will try to stop at all costs. Here are just a few examples…
Inflation And Stagflation? Back The Dollar With Hard Commodities
The federal reserve and their minions have spent the better part of a century trying to convince the public that a gold standard for our currency is what caused the Great Depression and what could cause future depressions. They claim that limitations on money printing strangle liquidity and disrupt velocity. This is a lie.
Former fed chairman Ben Bernanke openly admitted in 2002 in a speech in honor of Milton Friedman that it was the CENTRAL BANK that actually caused the deflationary collapse of the 1930s, not the existence of the gold standard. This rare moment of truth from a fed official was perhaps due to the sheer amount of evidence that Friedman often cited that contradicted the original anti-gold propaganda. Or maybe it happened because the banking elites did not see Friedman as a particular threat, and figured no one among the public would read Bernanke’s speech anyway.
In fact, a commodities foundation held the American economy together for centuries until the Fed came along and the government slowly began removing gold from the picture. All subsequent economic crisis events have been exponentially worse ever since. When a commodities standard is employed, stability always follows. Just look at what has happened in Russia recently; their currency was on a downward spiral due to international sanctions, yet, when they reopened markets this past week the Ruble skyrocketed back to normal. Why? Because Putin had the currency coupled to gold. It’s really that simple.
The US and parts of Europe are facing their own inflationary disasters and this is largely due to the unchecked avarice of central bank stimulus and government spending. The ONLY way to secure the dollar’s existence as a stable store of wealth would be to back it with hard commodities like precious metals (among others). This might kill the dollar’s world reserve status because fiat printing would be impossible from that point on, but I got a news flash for those that hate the idea of grounding the dollar in commodities: We’re going to lose world reserve status anyway, and it’s going to happen soon.
One third of the world’s population including Russia, China and India are already breaking from the dollar in bilateral trade. The US might as well accept this is the reality and prepare to mitigate the coming currency collapse by supporting the dollar with commodities.
Oil Shortages And Energy Inflation? Stop Interfering With Oil Exploration
In early February of this year the Biden Administration made legal filings which halted new oil and gas leases including exploration due to conflicts over “climate costs.” This interference with America’s oil independence is only one of many instances starting with Biden’s sabotage of the Keystone Pipeline in 2021. Interestingly, with gas prices doubling ever since Biden entered office, the White House now claims that they have nothing to do with energy inflation and are not preventing drilling in the US.
During the same period Russia was establishing a decades long oil and gas contract with China and laying the groundwork for a major pipeline to be finished by 2025. And yes, China DOES in fact have the capacity along with India to absorb most of the oil and gas that might be shunned by Europe should they follow through with energy sanctions. Russia was planning ahead while the US was shifting from energy independence and net exporter status to once again becoming dependent on authoritarian regimes in the Arab world. Why?
Biden’s excuse is usually climate alarmism. The Earth’s temperature has only risen by ONE DEGREE CELSIUS in the past 100 years according to the NOAA, so the main argument against oil production in the US is based on the fallacy that man-made carbon has any bearing whatsoever on climate changes. But maybe the carbon fraud is just a distraction from something else?
To fix any supply and demand issues in the US, we only need to start producing once again at levels which were easily obtainable in 2020. But what if the issue of supply contraction is not the main cause of oil inflation? I would note that the dollar is not only the world reserve currency but also the global petro-currency. Until recently, almost all oil was traded internationally using dollars. The decline or collapse of the dollar’s buying power due to money printing and runaway inflation is more likely the direct cause of rising oil prices, and supply issues are secondary.
If the dollar was about to collapse due to inflation, oil would be one of the first early warning indicators. With the establishment blocking new oil production and hindering the most cost effective method for oil transport (pipelines), an engineered decline in supply becomes a very effective smokescreen for the death of the dollar. The crisis caused by the government and the Federal Reserve’s currency destruction could then be blamed on supply chain issues and climate “peril.” This is the reason why the establishment will not allow any future growth in US oil production. They cannot allow the public to realize the precarious position our currency is in.
Supply Chain Interdependency Leading To Shortages? Bring Back Manufacturing
There are a lot of reasons why manufacturing has left the US, from greedy and corrupt labor unions driving up wages to higher taxes and land costs to extremely cheap shipping from overseas exporters. There is also the theory that US factories were outsourced to places like China in order to deliberately force the public into a global interdependency scheme. In other words were are stuck with the supply chain we have, not because it’s the best system, but because the globalists want it that way.
It’s unlikely that the federal government and the elitist establishment would ever allow real manufacturing to come back to the US in a way that would make us more self sufficient. As long as our country relies on outsourced goods and raw materials from other nations we remain beholden to the global chain for our survival. Being completely independent might be impossible, but we could be producing far more domestically than we are today.
State governments could create incentives to manufacture within their borders by removing property taxes, reducing state taxes and protecting businesses from certain federal obstructions such as carbon restrictions. As long as those companies do not support anti-freedom initiatives with the money they make, they should be aided so that real jobs and real production make a comeback in the US.
I would also note that if states want to survive the coming financial crisis that is about to strike, they are going to have to start ignoring federal restrictions on land use and the production of raw materials (like oil or coal). Some environmental rules are good, but some are pointless and are only designed to control rather than protect. States will have to stand in defiance of these rules if anything is going to change for the better.
Debt And Liquidity Crisis? Let States Establish Their Own Banks And Currencies
The state of North Dakota has an interesting model for economic independence, which utilizes a state sponsored bank designed specifically to help businesses in ND. I would say it’s bizarre that this idea has not become popular across the nation, but I understand that if it did the federal government and the central bankers would be very unhappy.
Here’s the thing, while it is true that the constitution explicitly states that the US Treasury be the only issuer of US currency, this was done at a time when our currency was backed by gold and silver and there was no corrupt middleman in the form of a central bank. In truth, the Treasury is now second fiddle to the Federal Reserve, and the constitutional regulations on money have already been broken. It’s time for a new currency model and new banking model.
An official bank in each state could decentralize power away from the Federal Reserve in terms of how debt and interest rates are handled, creating something closer to free market discovery of interest rates rather than a rate dictatorship control by the Fed. By extension, each state could also issue currency scrip legal for use only within the borders of those states. This would create a secondary safety net against inflation in the dollar.
In other words, we decentralize the banking system and we offer state alternatives which function not so much as competing currencies but as parallel or complementary currencies backed by and exchangeable in certain commodities. I believe very strongly that this model (along with a couple dozen other measures I don’t have space to cover here) could save our country from decades of economic mismanagement and bring us back from the brink of inflation and debt catastrophe.
States could do this without the permission of the federal government or the Federal Reserve, but I have little doubt that the elites would be in an uproar. Make no mistake, states will have to move to decouple from the national financial system and build alternatives as soon as they realize that the dollar is tanking and stagflation is here to stay. And when they do, the establishment will declare such actions on par with “insurrection.”
In the meantime, there are numerous preparations each individual can make in their local communities to insulate themselves from economic dangers. There are those that will say that local measures are only a stop gap and more national action needs to be taken. They are partially correct; in the long run there needs to be wider organization towards free markets once again, along with redundancies in state economies. In the short term we must do what we can.
Ultimately, the most clear solutions to our fiscal fate are not pursued because the elites do NOT WANT to save the economy, at least not in a way that ends up with them having less power. They want even more power and centralization that extends beyond national boundaries into the realm of global management. Fixing the system can’t happen because they won’t let it happen.
This means that the fix that will save us in the long run will be the one that allows all others to progress; and that fix is to remove these people from positions of influence and authority. You can’t really repair the body in the wake of an illness until the offending disease is eliminated. For now, all we can do is keep the country on life support until a cure is applied.
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Tyler Durden
Sat, 04/16/2022 – 17:30 - "Not What We Are Seeing" – US Intel Officials Reject Biden's "Genocide" Claims
“Not What We Are Seeing” – US Intel Officials Reject Biden’s “Genocide” Claims
Earlier this week, President Biden appeared to veer off script in the middle of his ‘blame Putin, not our idiotic policies, for your collapsing cost of living’ speech, when he dropped the ‘g’ word…
“Your family budget, your ability to fill up your tank, none of it should hinge on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide half a world away.”
President Biden calls the war in Ukraine “genocide.”
“Your ability to fill up your tank, none of it, should hinge on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide a half a world away.” pic.twitter.com/lYW7B0xKMB
— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 12, 2022
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As the world waited for another rapid walk-back by White House staffers of another Biden gaffe, the 79-year-old doubled-down…
“Yes, I called it genocide. Because it has become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of being able to be Ukrainian.”
The comments sparked reactions from around the diplomatic world.
French President Emmanuel Macron was the most outspoken, refusing to back Biden’s claim that Russia is committing “genocide” in Ukraine. The French leader instead warned that an escalation of rhetoric wouldn’t bring peace.
On the same day Biden accused Russia of genocide, Newsweek published an article quoting a senior official from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency who said the civilian casualties in Ukraine are typical of modern warfare and “hardly” amount to genocide.
The DIA official: said “I am not for a second excusing Russia’s war crimes, nor forgetting that Russia invaded the country.”
“But the number of actual deaths is hardly genocide. If Russia had that objective or was intentionally killing civilians, we’d see a lot more than less than .01 percent in places like Bucha,” the official emphasized.
As expected, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded, according to Reuters, emphasizing the hypocrisy of a US military machine which has committed “well-known crimes” in the recent past.
“This is hardly acceptable from a president of the United States, a country that has committed well-known crimes in recent times,” Peskov described.
All of which leads to the weekend and a rather shocking report from no lessor mainstream media outlet than NBC News.
NBC News reported on Friday, citing senior government officials, that President Biden’s accusation made earlier this week that Moscow was committing “genocide” in Ukraine has raised concerns among officials in the White House and has not been confirmed by US intelligence agencies.
The claim of genocide “has so far not been corroborated by information collected by US intelligence agencies,” the report said.
Worse still, NBC quoted two State Department officials as saying that Biden’s remarks “made it harder for the agency to credibly do its job.”
“Genocide includes a goal of destroying an ethnic group or nation and, so far, that is not what we are seeing,” a U.S. intelligence official said.
NBC did provide some cover however in a later paragraph, claiming that there is concern within the intelligence community that Russia’s actions in the next phase of the war could amount to genocide, and one official said that assessment could be part of what prompted Biden to take a public position that’s ahead of his own government.
What is perhaps more shocking about this is the fact that it is NBC News that is reporting this – not a good look for a president who relies significantly on the mainstream media to clean up his messes with gaslighting and memory holes.
In case you wondered, the official word from The White House is comical in its brevity:
“These aren’t gaffes,” said one person close to the White House. “He’s doing this very purposefully.”
As the world tip-toes towards WWIII, should we be reassured by that?
Tyler Durden
Sat, 04/16/2022 – 17:00 - Russia Says It Shot Down Ukrainian Transport Plane Carrying Western Arms
Russia Says It Shot Down Ukrainian Transport Plane Carrying Western Arms
Update(1632ET): In what appears Moscow’s “answer” to the US and NATO countries continuing to supply major weapons systems to Ukrainian forces, state agency TASS is claiming that Russian forces have brought down a Ukrainian military transport plane that was transporting Western arms. It would mark a massive battlefield development if confirmed, potentially escalating conflict more directly with the West, now that Russia is actively targeting Western arms shipments.
The alleged shoot down occurred outside Odessa via anti-air systems, says TASS, while citing Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov. Though remaining unconfirmed, China state media has also picked up the report, citing the defense ministry statement, which reads:
“Near Odesa Russian anti-aircraft defense forces have shot down a Ukrainian military transport plane, which was delivering a large shipment of arms supplied to Ukraine by Western counties,” Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said Saturday.
However, there’s nothing in the way of independent or outside sources confirming it, and Ukraine’s military has not issued any statements, nor are they likely to admit that their military aircraft were transporting Western weapons shipments, even if accurate.
“Near Odesa Russian anti-aircraft defense forces have shot down a Ukrainian military transport plane, which was delivering a large shipment of arms supplied to Ukraine by Western counties,” Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said Saturday.
— CGTN America (@cgtnamerica) April 16, 2022
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Days ago, the Kremlin repeated its threat to attack any inbound shipments of weaponry or supplies coming from Ukraine’s Western backers. The military also said it would hit “decision-making centers” – and on Saturday long-range missiles reportedly struck weapons depots in Kiev.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon and US State Department have continued positively boasting that more weapons are en route, in a continuing escalation…
Supply crates containing munitions and other explosive material bound for Ukraine are loaded at Dover Air Force Base in March 2022. pic.twitter.com/stoaiHyvHn
— Department of Defense 🇺🇸 (@DeptofDefense) April 15, 2022
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earlier
Now more than 50 days into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the war appears to have escalated following Russia’s loss of its Black Sea flagship which sunk after the Ukrainians say they struck it with Neptune anti-ship missiles. The warship’s sinking likely marks a significant shift for the Kremlin. After suffering such major losses, Russia has more incentive to practice less restraint – which is perhaps why long-rage bombers are also apparently now in use. The Pentagon has since said it assesses the Ukrainians scored a direct hit on the warship, causing it to sink off Odessa.
It now appears Russia’s retaliation for the devastating loss of its celebrated missile cruiser Moskva has begun, with the defense ministry announcing: “The number and scale of missile strikes against targets in Kyiv will increase in response to any terrorist attacks or sabotage committed by the Kyiv nationalist regime on Russian territory.”
On Saturday it’s being reported that after a lull in fighting near Kiev following weeks ago Russian forces having pulled back their positions to focus on Donbas in the east, there have been fresh scattered attacks on the Ukrainian capital.
“The number and scale of missile strikes against targets in #Kyiv will increase in response to any terrorist attacks or sabotage committed by the Kyiv nationalist regime on #Russian territory,” the defence ministry in #Moscow says.
Read more here:https://t.co/cpYkj3dxUX pic.twitter.com/cbtBA9t9RM— KyivPost (@KyivPost) April 16, 2022
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“Russian forces resumed scattered attacks on Kyiv, western Ukraine and beyond Saturday in an explosive reminder to Ukrainians and their Western supporters that the whole country remains under threat despite Russia’s pivot toward mounting a new offensive in the east,” The Associated Press reports.
Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed in a statement that the military launched “air-launched high-precision long-range weapons” in order to take out an armored vehicle plant in Kiev, however without specifying the exact location.
The AP reported further of the attack: “Smoke rose early Saturday from eastern Kyiv as Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported a strike on the the city’s Darnytski district. He said rescuers and paramedics were at the scene, and information about possible deaths would be provided later.”
Russian MoD video showing T-72B, T-72B1, and possibly T-72A tanks from the 90th Tank Division’s 239th Tank Regiment in Kharkiv Oblast with an escort from Mi-8AMTSh helicopters. Also Tigrs and Ural gun trucks with ZU-23-2.https://t.co/sK1J0Sq6iE pic.twitter.com/BKmyGzAETI
— Rob Lee (@RALee85) April 16, 2022
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The mayor of the suburban area warned residents it’s still unsafe to return amid the Russian assault.
“It was not immediately clear from the ground what was hit in the attack. Darnytskyi is a sprawling district on the southeastern edge of the capital, containing a mixture of Soviet-style apartment blocks, newer shipping centers and big-box retail outlets, industrial areas and railyards,” the AP details further of the fresh attack.
There are unconfirmed reports that Russia has attacked weapons manufacturing centers and depots…
Military factory “Artyom” in #Kiev that produced anti-tank guided missiles and anti-tank missile systems of various types,air-to-air missiles,missiles for MLRS ‘Vilkha’,anti-ship missiles ‘Neptun’ and air-defence guided missiles was destroyed yesterday by Russian missile strike. pic.twitter.com/FsbzxktHRl
— Zrada2022 (@zrada2022) April 16, 2022
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On Thursday the Kremlin warned that it would attack “decision-making centers” in Ukraine if cross-border attacks continue. Russia has said that in at least two recent instances, Ukrainian forces have conducted strikes on Russian soil. “The village of Spodaryushino, near the border with Ukraine, had been shelled by Ukraine, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, said in a statement on Telegram,” CNN cited the Russian official was cited as saying.
Saturday’s strikes in Kiev could be the start of more long-rage missile launches against various cities across Ukraine to come, as Russia turns from slow-grinding infantry and tank tactics to greater reliance on air power and long-range missiles.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 04/16/2022 – 16:32 - Feds Weigh Emergency Actions As Lake Powell Hits Historic Low
Feds Weigh Emergency Actions As Lake Powell Hits Historic Low
The megadrought in the US West continues to wreak havoc as Federal officials weigh reducing water deliveries downstream on the Colorado River to prevent shuttering of a massive dam that provides power to millions of people, according to AP News.
Last month, Lake Powell dropped to 3,525 feet (1,075 meters), the lowest level since the federal government dammed the Colorado River at Glen Canyon (located in northern Arizona) more than five decades ago. This has caused officials at the Interior Department to propose holding back water at the dam to maintain the dam’s ability to generate power.
Tanya Trujillo, the Interior’s assistant secretary, warned if Lake Powell drops below 3,490 feet (1,063 meters), it will produce electrical grid uncertainty for the western part of the US, potentially affecting up to five million customers across Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.
“We’re in crisis management, and health and human safety issues, including production of hydropower, are taking precedence,” said Jack Schmidt, director of the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University.
The record low water level also comes as researchers have found the US West has been experiencing some of the driest conditions in more than 1,200 years.
Over the decade, drought conditions have worsened. Several major Californian reservoirs have dried up, forcing people to evacuate their boats and causing hydroelectric plants to shutter due to insufficient water supplies to spin turbines.
Reservoirs across California are well below their historical averages (as of Apr. 14).
According to the US Drought Monitor data, the US West is experiencing severe to extreme drought conditions.
New forecasts by federal government meteorologists may suggest drought conditions could deteriorate even more as there’s a 59% chance of La Niña for the Northern Hemisphere through summer. What this would mean is drier conditions.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 04/16/2022 – 16:00 - Two Female Prisoners At New Jersey Corrections Facility Pregnant After Having Sex With Transgender Inmates
Two Female Prisoners At New Jersey Corrections Facility Pregnant After Having Sex With Transgender Inmates
By Katabella Roberts of The Epoch Times
Two female inmates at New Jersey’s only all-women prison have fallen pregnant after having consensual sex with transgender inmates, officials have said.
The unidentified pregnant women are incarcerated at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility in Clinton, which houses 27 prisoners who identify as transgender and more than 800 women in total.
They fell pregnant after engaging in “consensual sexual relationships with another incarcerated person,” Dan Sperrazza, the state Department of Corrections’ external affairs executive director told NJ.com.
Sperrazza said officials are investigating the matter.
“While DOC cannot comment on any specific disciplinary or housing decisions that may be considered in light of these events, the Department always reserves all options to ensure the health and safety of the individuals in its custody,” Sperrazza said.
Edna Mahan began to house prisoners who identify as transgender women in 2021 under a New Jersey policy enacted which allows prisoners to be housed in accordance with their preferred gender identity as opposed to their sex assigned at birth.
The policy change was part of a settlement by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and attorney Robyn Gigl of GluckWalrath LLP who sued the N.J. Department of Corrections and its officers in August 2019 on behalf of a trans woman.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit, who went by pseudonyms, alleged that they had faced harassment and abuse and were denied gender-appropriate clothing among other things when they had been incarcerated in male prisons over the years despite identifying as female.
The policy also applies to trans women inmates who have yet to undergo gender-reassignment surgery.
At the time, Chris Carden, a public information officer for the department of corrections, told NBC News that while the department “did have existing processes in place, the policy outlined in this settlement is an update to those processes.”
Carden said that anyone incarcerated under NJDOC would be able, at any time, to provide officers with information regarding their identity and that the Department would then take “careful measures to ensure they are properly housed in line with their gender identity and their housing preferences while ensuring both their safety and the security of the institution.”
However, the gender identity policy has been criticized by prisoners, including two inmates incarcerated at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility who in 2021 filed a lawsuit seeking for the policy to be revoked, alleging they have been harassed by transgender prisoners, the Daily Mail reports.
They also claimed to have witnessed the transgender inmates engaging in sexual activity with female prisoners.
The union representing correctional officers at Edna Mahan has criticized the policy.
“We opposed this policy change believing it would be detrimental to the general population of female inmates being housed at Edna Mahan and also bring added stress to our correctional police officers assigned to this institution,” the union’s president told NJ.com.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 04/16/2022 – 15:30 - Bolsonaro Faces Stiff Criticism Over Brazilian Military's "Viagra Binge"
Bolsonaro Faces Stiff Criticism Over Brazilian Military’s “Viagra Binge”
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is facing stiff scrutiny from opponents to explain why the country’s armed forces purchased tens of thousands of Viagra pills.
“We need to understand why the Bolsonaro government is spending public money to buy Viagra and in such a high amount.
“Health facilities across the country are often short of drugs to treat patients with chronic illnesses, such as insulin, and the Armed Forces receive thousands of Viagra pills. Society deserves an explanation,” Federal deputy Elias Vaz told Brazilian media.
Brazilian weekly news magazine Veja reported that 35,000 erectile dysfunction pills were bought by the government, allocating 28,000 pills to the Navy, 5,000 pills to the Army, and 2,000 to the Air Force.
The Navy told Universo Online that the acquisition of Viagra was to treat pulmonary hypertension. The Army responded that Viagra is being used to treat high blood pressure.
However, many of Bolsonaro’s opponents and critics were skeptical.
Brazil’s Workers Party (PT) leader Gleisi Hoffmann criticized the Viagra purchase, calling it a “criminal spending spree,” and accused the president of destroying the military’s credibility.
“Unless they’re able to prove they’re developing some kind of secret weapon – capable of revolutionizing the international arms industry – it’ll be tough to justify the purchase of 35,000 units of an erectile dysfunction drug,” Ciro Gomes, a leftist politician who may challenge Bolsonaro in October’s presidential election, said.
Political commentators called the military’s “Viagra binge” an embarrassment.
Bolsonaro fired back at the swelling criticism and anyone else in between who made jokes about the large purchase.
“Obviously, that’s mostly for retirees and inactive service members,” the president added, reiterating the military’s explanation that the drug is treating the high blood pressure of its military personnel.
“We take abuse every day from a press that acts in very bad faith and is ignorant on the matter,” he said.
And maybe Bolsonaro and the military are right. Last year, researchers in Sweden published a study explaining Viagra can be used to treat high blood pressure and expand the lifespan of men.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 04/16/2022 – 15:00 - Why Has Retail "YOLO" Activity Collapsed: $346BN In Capital Gains Tax Due On Monday
Why Has Retail “YOLO” Activity Collapsed: $346BN In Capital Gains Tax Due On Monday
One of the biggest differences in the market between now and a year ago – aside from the elephant in the room of course which is that in 2021 the Fed was all-in on easing because “inflation was transitory” and now the Fed is trying to pull off a Volcker, having realized it was dead wrong about inflation – is that in 2021 retail investors dominated marginal price setting, whether it was through forced short squeezes of illiquid stocks, or simply redirecting stimmy checks into high-beta names, while in 2022 they appear to have taken a back seat.
To be sure, retail investors have remain far more bullish – and active – than hedge funds, who have liquidated much of their long exposure in recent months…
… but overall retail activity has been far more muted than in 2021, and as we noted last week, even retail flows finally turned negative as “the last market bull capitulated.”
What may have caused this recent reversal in retail sentiment? According to Goldman flow trader Scott Rubner, the answer is simple: taxes.
As Rubner writes in the latest edition of Goldman’s “Two Minute Views”, US Households own 39% of the US equity market and 20x more exposure than hedge funds, and yet this largest owner of equities has slowed their trading activity ahead of April 18th tax deadline.
Why? According to Goldman, there is a record $2.14 Trillion worth of realized capital gains in 2021, which means a record capital gains tax bill of $346 Billion due on Monday. Putting it in context, this tax bill exceeds last year’s prior record of $270 Billion by 28%.
According to Goldman, this resembles trading activity from 2021, and because of that the bank is optimistic that we are about to see a resurgence in bullishness: “retail traders saw a resurgence on call option activity during the second half of April after taxes were paid.”
Will this time be different.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 04/16/2022 – 14:30
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