Jul 17

Today’s News 17th July 2018

  • Putin Likes To Keep Other World Leaders Waiting

    President Trump became the latest leader to experience the “Putin wait” today, with the Russian president 45 minutes overdue for their summit in Helsinki.

    But, as Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, Vladimir Putin has earned a reputation for keeping other world leaders waiting.

    Since 2003, the Russian leader has arrived late for numerous high profile meetings with heads of state, dignitaries and prominent officials.

    Infographic: Putin Likes To Keep Other World Leaders Waiting | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    The Pope isn’t even immune from Putin’s poor timekeeping skills and he was forced to wait just under an hour for a meeting in 2015.

    According to RFE/RL, Angela Merkel was kept waiting an agonising 4 hours and 15 minutes for a meeting with Putin in 2014 while former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych once waited 4 hours before sitting down with the Russian leader. It’s likely Merkel will consider her meeting with Putin in Sochi in 2007 more irritating than the tardy one in 2014.

    In an incident that subsequently became infamous in Germany, Putin introduced Merkel to his pet labrador, despite the German chancellor’s fear of dogs. He recently claimed he was unaware of Merkel’s fear of dogs, adding that he apologised to the her soon after the meeting.

  • How The UK Can Escape Angela Merkel And The EU

    Authored by Brendan Brown via The Mises Institute,

    The British are finding out in their Brexit voyage that escaping from the “might” of an EU dominated by Germany is perilous. At this point there are many grounds for despairing about the ability of their political leaders to achieve a meaningful exit. There would have been much stronger grounds for hope if the May government had nurtured an alliance with the US whilst simultaneously moving to provide its fellow citizens with superior money to the euro which incidentally would bolster the competitiveness of the UK financial sector once outside the EU.

    Of course, British J.S.Mill-type conservatives, just as their US counterparts, have qualms about Trumpism, but that is a sideshow in the world of realpolitik. In taking on Berlin, London surely had much to gain from forging an alliance with a new US President ostensibly inimical to Chancellor Merkel and the EU and with a fondness for Scotland and the Queen. When British negotiators found out very soon after the referendum (June 2016) that Berlin was insisting on large contributions to the Brussels budget and continuing immigration from the EU as condition of not shutting UK service exports (especially financial) out of the EU, it was surely already time to strengthen their hand by reaching across the Atlantic.

    Specifically, if the UK were offering the US enough advantage in terms of a strengthened alliance, surely President Trump would make a condition of any US grand deal with the EU, after the present period of intensifying trade war, that Brussels also makes a peace of equals with London.

    Of what would a UK-US deal consist?

    Britain would open its market to US farmers (and so incidentally providing much cheaper food) and both countries would have broadened financial integration (removing barriers to each other’s service-sector exports). On the world stage the UK would staunchly supported President Trump’s policies on Iran and Israel whilst taking the European lead against Chinese unfair trade practices. London would also lead the charge against currency manipulation, setting an example of free markets in currencies and interest rates starkly different from the Berlin-Frankfurt model.

    In reality there has been absolutely none of this. The landed interests in the Conservative party have blocked any talk of a deal which would have brought down agricultural prices in the UK. Indeed the May government is now proposing that the UK join a EU-UK customs area for goods including farm products – meaning that cheap food imports would be shut out permanently.

    The arch-appeaser in the May government, when it comes to negotiating with the EU, is Finance Minister Hammond. Mr. Hammond is also a monetary appeaser – apparently getting on tremendously with Bank of England Governor Carney, an arch dove in so far as that means anything in the global central bankers club. Mr. Carney has kept money market rates at an emergency near-zero level despite inflation running at over 3% earlier this year and with Sterling ostensibly cheap.

    Brexiters dislike the Governor’s closeness to the “Remainers” and his doom-laden views about the economic costs of any real escape from the EU. Unless the Brexiters get their act together pretty quick, Mr. Hammond will soon be appointing the successor to Mr. Carney, whose departure back to Canada he “successfully” delayed by one year. Under the Carney-Hammond leadership not only has the UK applied every new EU financial regulation in full but there has been a continuing crackdown on offshore market activities from which the City once flourished in competition with highly regulated and highly taxed market-places on the EU mainland.

    Many Conservatives it seems are now deeply concerned that their party could pay the electoral price for a generation of failing to deliver the Brexit their party promised. Instead they are delivering the British people into a “vassal state” even more under the influence of German might than previously. The anti-EU (and anti-immigration) working class voters so essential in their consummation of power could desert in droves.

    The anti-EU vote was an anti-establishment vote. But monetary inflation continues to shower riches on the establishment whilst the small saver approaching retirement has much to fear. His or her children struggle to find affordable living accommodation in a real estate market totally distorted by unsound money and crippling forms of taxation (up to an 8% tax penalty – euphemistically called turnover tax or stamp duty — if you buy a house today and decide to sell it a few months later because of a change in mind about it or the neighbourhood).

    Benjamin Disraeli understood how to win working class loyalty to Conservative-led nationalism of the day (Queen and Empire) and sustain this by delivery of the economic goods (respecting free trade and the gold standard). Today’s Conservatives are failing on all scores – a phoney nationalism which is revealed as Chamberlain-style appeasement to Merkel might; soft money, currency depreciation, and inflation which ensnares the least able to defend themselves; and an embracing of high food prices to suit the landed class.

    Some Brexiters say they will vote against PM May’s EU deal this autumn. Even if they do and her government collapses, it is a very long and hard road back in a shifting and dangerous global environment to a safe ground where the UK can launch a 21st century version of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations agenda. That philosopher founder of modern economics told a friend who lamented that Britain faced disaster after having lost its American colonies “there is much ruin in a nation”. The embracing of his economic principles by the Younger Pitt had much to do with Britain avoiding that ruin and instead leading the first industrial revolution.

    Could a similarly rosy outcome follow the disasters of the May government’s flawed attempt to escape German-dominated EU might? Time will tell, though we should report that there is no Adam Smith and no Younger Pitt and perhaps crucially no Prince Talleyrand, in view.

  • Visualizing The Short History Of America's Trade Wars

    History is full of trade wars.

    In the majority of cases, the consequences are mostly economic – trade barriers are enacted, and then retaliatory measures are used to counter. Relations can continue to escalate until an understanding can be reached by both parties.

    In the minority of cases, trade wars can lead to world-changing consequences.

    You may remember that the Boston Tea Party of 1773 was a bold response to an unfair trade measure imposed by a ruling power, and it proved to be a key catalyst that led to the American Revolution.

    Meanwhile, the Opium Wars occurred after the Qing Dynasty (China) tried to prevent British merchants from selling opium to the Chinese in the 1830s. These trade barriers led to armed conflicts, and effectively put the nail in the coffin of the Qing Dyasty – the start of China’s infamous “century of humiliation”.

    U.S. TRADE WARS

    Today’s chart pulls together details on some of the biggest trade conflicts in modern U.S. history.

    Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

    Here are some of the more interesting U.S. trade wars, and how they compare to the current spat that is evolving with major trade partners:

    1. Smoot-Hawley, 1930

    Imposed during The Great Depression, the Smoot-Hawley Act is almost universally recognized by economists and economic historians as triggering a trade war that exacerbated the recovery.

    2. Chicken Friction, 1963

    Factory farming of chicken in the U.S. ended up catching European farmers off guard. French and German authorities responded by imposing tariffs, and the U.S. then taxed imports such as trucks and brandy.

    3. Jabs at Japan, 1981

    Japan’s mid-century rise led to the country becoming an export powerhouse. As Japanese cars flooded the U.S. market, intense pressure eventually led to the signing of a Voluntary Export Restraint (VER) agreement that limited sales in the United States. During this same timeframe, the two countries also squabbled about other goods like electronics, motorcycles, and semiconductors.

    4. War of the Woods, 1982

    The Canada-U.S. Softwood Lumber dispute kicked off in 1982, but it inevitably resurfaces in the news every few years.

    5. Pasta Spat, 1985

    The U.S. was displeased with the level of access for citrus products in Europe, and put a tariff on pasta products. Europe retaliated by taxing walnuts and lemons from the States.

    6. Battle of the Bananas, 1993

    Another agricultural trade war, the Battle of the Bananas occurred after Europe slapped tariffs on the import of Latin American bananas. Many of these companies, owned by Americans, were not impressed. In response, there were eight separate complaints filed to the World Trade Organization (WTO). They weren’t resolved until 2012.

    7. Steel Salvoes, 2002

    These were the last major U.S. steel tariffs introduced before the more recent ones. The goal was similar: to revive the steel industry in the country. However, after a period of brief stability, jobs continued to decline. The European Union responded by taxing oranges exported from Florida.

  • US "Super Spy" Program May Explain Mysterious Diplomat Brain Injuries

    Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Over the past two years there have been increasing reports of supposed “sonic injuries” among US diplomats. First in Cuba and more recently in China. Controversial implications are that the US officials may have been maliciously targeted by a “sonic weapon” in host countries. However, a more likely explanation is that the alleged victims are the result of US attempts to create “super spies”.

    The number of American diplomats reportedly suffering from suspected “sonic injuries” is increasing, with 11 officials evacuated earlier this month from China. Initially, the mysterious incident was reported at just one US consular location in the city of Guangzhou. Now the suspicion of brain injuries has spread to American diplomats stationed in Beijing and Shanghai.

    Some 250 US diplomats in China are reportedly undergoing neurological medical tests to ascertain if they have succumbed to the same kind of brain trauma diagnosed in other colleagues. A study of 21 diplomats evacuated from Cuba found last year that they had incurred brain injuries, but, it was diagnosed, not from physical impact to their heads.

    Typically, the symptoms reported include cognitive impairment, visual impairment, hearing of strange sounds, dizziness and sleeplessness.

    US doctors have so far been confounded by what may have caused the apparent injuries. Last week, the State Department said that ongoing investigations had not established a causal link to the cited medical problems among diplomats.

    However, previously President Donald Trump had explicitly blamed Cuba for being responsible for the reported injuries to diplomatic staff. Trump’s accusation has no evidential foundation. The Cuban government denied having any involvement in presumed sonic attacks on American envoys. It has offered to assist any US investigation. Nevertheless, the evacuation of US staff from Cuba and Trump’s accusations have set back the recent detente in relations between the two Cold War foes which former President Obama had embarked on.

    With regard to China, the US has been more circumspect in dealing with the reported cases of apparent sonic injuries, refraining from accusing Beijing of malicious activity. China has previously dismissed any suspicion of sonic attacks as “inconceivable”. Beijing has also hit out the US State Department issuing “health warnings” to its staff in China because such notifications convey an implication of wrongdoing by the host country.

    In the context of Trump’s escalating trade war with China, there is the danger that reported cases of injury among diplomats could be politicized by Washington, thus adding to the already acrimonious relations.

    Some factors so far missing from the subject need to be addressed.

    First, it seems strange that the mysterious brain injuries are only reported by US diplomats. No other country has reported similar incidents among their diplomatic staff.

    Secondly, the American brain-injury cases have happened in two countries which could be deemed as politically sensitive. Why have similar cases not been reported among staff based in territories belonging to allied nations?

    Thirdly, when US staff are described as “diplomats”, as they invariably are in Western media reporting, we should perhaps be more precise than this innocuous-sounding terminology. If we think of the personnel as “spies” then a more skeptical inference comes into play. Especially, given the sensitive nature of the two countries involved. If the concerned US staff were indeed serving as spies that raises the question about what sort of training and preparation programs they were subjected to ahead of their assignments.

    The speculation that Cuban and Chinese state agents could have used some kind of sonic weapon to attack US diplomats is more in the realm of science-fiction fantasy. Both countries deny any such activity. There is no such weapon known to exist. Also, the US doctors who examined the diplomats evacuated from Cuba could not find any casual explanation. The absence of an external source for the injuries appears to be the official US position too, according to the State Department last week.

    Significantly, the US doctors studying the Cuban cases said that all the individuals may have undergone a common experience related to their brain injuries.

    Rather than speculating about a foreign agency being responsible for the injuries among American diplomats, or rather spies, perhaps the focus should be put on their own side. Were these individuals subjected to some form of hi-tech training run by the Pentagon or the CIA?

    It is known that the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) is investigating brain stimulation devices to greatly enhance learning ability in subjects.

    DARPA, as recently as last year, reported the successful use of trans-cranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) devices to boost the cognitive skills among experimental monkeys. It was claimed that subjects given treatment from such devices strapped to the head would later display a significant increase in learning and intelligence compared with control individuals receiving no treatment. DARPA reported a 40 per cent increase in learning ability among macaque monkeys subjected to the brain stimulation device.

    One of the lead doctors in the program is quoted as saying: “In this experiment, we targeted the prefrontal cortex [of the brain] with individualized non-invasive stimulation montages.”

    The researcher goes on to explain: “That is the region [of the brain] that controls many executive functions, including decision-making, cognitive control, and contextual memory retrieval. It is connected to almost all the other cortical areas of the brain, and stimulating it has widespread effects.”

    Please note the parting caveat from the Pentagon-contracted scientist, viz., “stimulating has widespread effects”.

    On the positive side, the Pentagon is evidently searching for a way to boost intelligence and learning in humans. This is by no means a new pursuit. For decades, American military intelligence agencies, as well as Hollywood science fiction, have been in thrall to the idea of harnessing the human brain and exploiting ever-higher levels of intelligence. The CIA is known to have run various drug programs and hypnosis – the notorious MK-ULTRA – as early as the 1950s and 60s. The holy grail was to find “super spies” and “super assassins”.

    So, the history of the Pentagon and the CIA conducting systematic experiments in order to produce high-performance in humans is well documented.

    We also know from recent Pentagon research that it is indeed using electronic brain stimulation devices to greatly enhance the cognitive performance among monkeys. It is therefore conceivable that the Pentagon has conducted unpublished research experiments on human subjects as well.

    On the negative side, the sought-after higher intelligence may very well come with unforeseen injurious side-effects. Note again the Pentagon researcher above saying that stimulating the prefrontal cortex of the brain could have “wide-ranging effects”. These effects, in addition to increased intelligence and learning skills, could include deleterious consequences. Especially because the target area of the brain is crucial for the control of “executive functions”.

    It is not disclosed by the Pentagon if its brain devices had any injurious impact on the experimental monkeys.

    We also do not know the precise work assignments of the affected “diplomats” in Cuba and China. Were there any routine secretarial staff among the reported casualties, or were they all “field staff”, that is, most likely involved in sensitive spying tasks?

    It seems unlikely that the Pentagon or affected staff would ever go public in declaring that they were subjected to some form of brain-stimulation device. In any case, the staff could be easily silenced through warnings over career prospects and future earnings or health insurance cover. It may be more convenient for the Pentagon to foment the suspicion of “sonic attack” by foreign agents. That scapegoating could have serious impact on international tensions, especially between the US and China over its trade war and territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

    Nevertheless, despite the unknowns, from what we do know already, it seems a plausible posit that the recent upsurge in brain injuries among US diplomatic staff may have been caused not by “sonic attacks” in their host countries, but by their own superiors at the Pentagon or CIA conducting some form of clandestine program to create “super spies”.

  • Army Starts Testing "Ironman-Like" Exoskeleton For Future Hybrid Wars

    As discussed previously, the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, or TRADOC, drafted a new strategy for how soldiers will operate, fight, and campaign successfully across multiple domains—space, cyberspace, air, land, maritime—against all enemies (Russia and China) in the 2025-2040 timeframe.

    Warrior Maven has confirmed that the Army is literally “gearing up” for decades of hybrid conflict, and in doing so, testing and prototyping self-generating “Ironman-like” soldier exoskeletons. These “breakthrough” suits are designed to transform the combat mission by supporting soldier movements, generating electricity, powering weapons systems and substantially lowering the weight burden of what soldiers carry on the modern battlefield.

    The emerging technology, described by Army developers as a “technical breakthrough” is an energy-harvesting exoskeleton suit that can extend mission life for small units or dismounted soldiers on patrol.

    “The design is for an energy-harvesting exoskeleton to address the needs of dismounted soldiers. The system can derive energy from the motion of the soldier as they are moving around,” Dr. Nathan Sharps, mechanical engineer, Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) recently told Warrior Maven in an interview.

    The implications of this technology would be decisive on tomorrow’s battlefield, and could mean the difference between life and death. Last month, elite soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division, a light infantry division at Fort Drum, New York, started testing exoskeleton technologies from Lockheed Martin that reduces the metabolic cost of transport to improve endurance and reduce fatigue on the modern battlefield.

    While the exoskeleton suits have been in development for many years, the technology consistently faces the challenge of finding ways to power the devices to maintain its functionality. While current battery technology has evolved, batteries present significant combat challenges due to recharging and weight. The Army is pursuing various efforts to “lighten the load” for soldiers, including the use of exoskeleton suits, robotic pack mules, and cased telescoped ammo.

    “The technologies [exoskeleton suits] we are developing can produce electricity, which can be stored and used to power batteries. This increases the longevity of a mission, decreases the need for resupply and reduces the logistics trail,” Sharps explained.

    Sharps told Warrior Maven that in hot zones, casualties frequently occur during logistics resupply missions.

    While the exoskeleton suit harvests energy from the motion of soldiers, it also simultaneously provides injury prevention and higher output to complete the mission.

    “This decreases the chance of muscular-skeletal injury. We look at the soldier as an individual ecosystem. We’re not just looking at what they cannot do right now, but also at what challenges they are going to face 20 years from now,” Sharps said.

    Warrior Maven indicates the suit, currently in the early phase of development, is a collaborative effort between the Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) and the Army Natick Soldier Systems Center (NSSC). The engineers said the exoskeleton suit reduces the metabolic cost of transport on the modern battlefield.

    “When you move, you bounce up and down, and the gait motion is an inverted pendulum. If you lift every step thousands of times, it is a whole lot of energy you are expending,” said Juliane Douglas, mechanical engineer, CERDEC, told Warrior Maven.

    Army engineers are experimenting with various configurations for the exoskeleton, including a suspended backpack, which can slide up and down on a spring, enabling little or no weight impact on the soldier.

    “In mechanical engineering terms, if you have masses moving together, there is a kinetic energy difference between the two. We have mechanisms which can convert that linear motion into electricity,” explained Douglas.

    * * *

    Warrior Maven said emerging systems are now being integrated into exoskeletons, for example, helmets with high-resolution thermal sensors, wearable computers, various kinds of conformal body armor and even many weapons systems are now being built into a range of Ironman-like exoskeletons.

    Not surprisingly, many of the listed technologies above, heavily rely upon the mobile power to operate and limit the combat mission.  Energy-harvesting exoskeleton suits would be a gamechanger for soldiers on the modern battlefield to increase combat output while simultaneously decreasing the metabolic cost of transport to complete the mission.

    With the Army increasingly expecting hybrid wars in the 2025-2040 timeframe as the Thucydides Trap inflection point nears,  “Ironman-like” exoskeletons are emerging as the dominant strategy to defeat potential enemies (especially ascendant China) in the coming conflicts.

    Unless of course China steals the technology, reverse engineers it and comes out with the first working product.

  • Did Xi's Overly-Ambitious Goals Trigger US-China Trade War?

    Authored by Katsuji Nakazawa via Nikkei Asian Review,

    Talk of becoming world No.1 backfired, hurting even dinner tables…

    Soon, all 1.4 billion Chinese will be feeling the pinch of Donald Trump’s presidency an ocean away.

    They will look at their dining table and notice their favorite dishes — Chinese-style deep fried chicken, firecracker chicken and twice-cooked pork — are all cooked with lots of oil, much of which is pressed from the seeds of American or Brazilian soybeans.

    Similarly, many of China’s pigs and chickens are raised on imported soybean meal, the residue left after oil extraction.

    Doubanjiang, the chili-bean paste that determines the splendor of Chinese cuisine, also cannot be made without soybeans. Of the above mentioned dishes, cabbage is about the only ingredient the country can fully provide for itself.

    President Trump last week imposed 25% punitive import tariffs on Chinese products, citing violations of intellectual property rights. Chinese President Xi Jinping responded immediately, slapping 25% retaliatory import tariffs on American products, including soybeans.

    As a result of the soybean levy, the cost of food in China will jump, dealing a serious blow to Chinese farmers and eaters.

    The dish on the right is called laziji and is popular among ordinary Chinese. But it and other Chinese staples will cost more due to China’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products. (Photo by Katsuji Nakazawa)

    To be sure, discontent might also grow in U.S. agricultural states, where farmers are already having difficulty selling soybeans and other produce to China. Trump could end up losing support from those in the agriculture sector.

    The big question is why the game of chicken actually broke out. Xi may have nobody but himself to blame.

    Since the days of Deng Xiaoping, China had maintained a less-assertive foreign policy, portraying itself as a “developing country.” Deng’s guidance was to keep a cool head, hide one’s claws, bide time and never try to take the lead.

    After coming to power as the Chinese Communist Party’s general secretary in the autumn of 2012, Xi ditched that policy and started to talk of the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” He labeled it as the Chinese dream.

    At the Chinese Communist Party’s once-every-five-years national congress in October, Xi went further, floating for the first time the target year of 2035 as the time China would catch up with the U.S. economically.

    In November, He Yiting, the vice president of the Central Party School, gave a speech in Tokyo explaining the meaning of Xi’s words. The goal of achieving China’s modernization had long been set at the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China’s, which falls in 2049. “That goal has now been brought forward by about 15 years,” He told Japanese lawmakers at the parliament building in Tokyo’s Nagatacho district.

    He Yiting was unaware of the consequences of President Xi Jinping’s stated goals when he explained them to Japanese lawmakers in Tokyo on Nov. 24, 2017. 

    Around the same time, senior party officials were giving similar explanations about Xi’s new policy around the world.

    By bringing forward the goal, Xi was telling the world that China will become the world’s number one during his lifetime.

    Xi, who would be 82 in 2035, assured his stature in March, when he had a clause allowing a president to serve up to two five-year terms removed from the nation’s constitution.

    Little did he or his team imagine that his words would help to trigger a Sino-U. S. trade war. Instead of hiding his claws, Xi had flashed them. And it had come too early.

    By expediting the modernization plan, Beijing would also be accelerating the “Made in China 2025” initiative, a blueprint for turning the country into a high-tech manufacturing powerhouse. The plan has been singled out by the Trump administration as a symbol of China’s ambition to gain an advantage in next-generation technology, even if it meant stealing intellectual property.

    “Made in China 2025” was compiled three years ago, with Premier Li Keqiang playing a central role. Back then, it was not clear that Xi wanted to bring forward the goal of gaining No. 1 status. It was only after the plan was published, that the new aspiration of catching up and overtaking the U.S. economically by 2035 was added. The step after that would be to outstrip the U.S. both militarily and culturally by 2049.

    China has good reason to trumpet its long-term targets at home: It needs to justify the socialist system that it continues to uphold. Although its economy is no longer a purely planned one, China does adopt five-year outlines, and the “Made in China 2025” strategy is closely linked to the current five-year plan.

    One notorious plan was the Great Leap Forward of 1958, a high-growth campaign, launched by Mao Zedong but failed miserably. China declared its ambition to catch up with the U.K., then the world’s second-largest economy.

    Chinese Premier Li Keqiang played a central role in compiling the “Made in China 2025” plan.   © Reuters

    With Mao leading the country, China significantly boosted steel production. But rural areas were devastated, and more than 20 million people starved to death. Mao eventually resigned as head of state.

    Today’s China is nothing like the shell it was during Mao’s time. The country’s economy now plays an integral global role.

    China ranges over the global economy like a bull elephant roams the savanna. Other grassland wildlife is sensitive to this mammoth’s slightest moves. The ferocious lion, the U.S., is no exception.

    China has yet to become fully aware that it is the elephant in the global economy’s boardroom.

    But in Washington, Trump was cognizant that he could not stand idly by after China vowed to knock the U.S. off its economic pedestal in just 17 years from now. He campaigned for the presidency by promising voters he would put “America first.”

    News of China’s decision to bring forward its modernization target date emerged at a bad time. It came shortly after Xi had promised Trump business deals worth $250 billion. That pledge came in November, when Trump was visiting Beijing, and was portrayed as a salve that would help to heal the U.S.’s massive trade deficit with China.

    As expected, it was little more than talk. The trade gap continues to quickly widen.

    Alarmed by China’s ambitions and frustrated by the lack of progress in narrowing the U.S. trade deficit, Trump went on the offensive in the spring.

    There are good reasons for China coming under U.S. trade fire. It has been the biggest beneficiary of the global trade system since it became a member of the World Trade Organization at the end of 2001.

    All the while, it has imposed strict foreign ownership limits in each industrial sector, forced foreign companies that enter China to transfer technologies and has set up various other barriers to its markets.

    Backed by huge amounts of government funds, Chinese companies have made splashy acquisitions of U.S. and European companies that own key technologies, especially in the auto and information technology sectors.

    Chinese companies can quickly obtain technologies by acquiring or taking equity investments in U.S. and European companies. In the U.S. and Europe, any company can acquire any other company as long as it can obtain the necessary funds.

    But it is difficult for U.S. and European companies to acquire Chinese companies. Chinese authorities have numerous regulations at their disposal to block any such attempt.

    Chinese President Xi Jinping unwittingly laid the groundwork for the trade war that is now taking place between China and the U.S.   © Reuters

    When Xi bared China’s sharp claws, declaring China would overtake the U.S. economically by 2035, he did so for the benefit of a domestic audience and to aid his fierce power struggle with the political factions that had run China for decades.

    China is now beginning to realize the high price it is having to pay for Xi’s declaration.

    If prices for ingredients in Chinese dishes climb, so too will discontent among Chinese consumers. This could lead to a barrage of attacks against U.S. companies operating in China.

    Worried about social instability, the Chinese leadership has been careful not to overplay the trade war in domestic media. In terms of diplomacy, Beijing could go back to hiding its claws again.

    But that would only be superficial. At the core, Xi cannot retract a grand target adopted at the Communist Party congress, just as he cannot discard the “Made in China 2025” goal.

    In an interconnected world, China’s misty domestic politics will continue to influence the global economy for many years to come.

  • Company Hikes Price Of "Cadillac" Ambien Nasal Spray By 800% As Drug Companies Defy Trump

    While Pfizer and several drugmakers have loudly touted their decision to roll back some price hikes on popular drugs following pressure from President Trump and the rollout of a new California law designed to discourage drug companies from raising prices, others have continued hiking prices of thousands of drugs. According to Raymond James & Associates drug companies have raised prices 3,653 times on 1,045 different drugs so far this year (drug companies often do one round of price hikes in January and another in the early summer). And according to the Wall Street Journal, the biggest price increases have been reserved for so-called “Cadillac” drugs like a new spray form of the sleeping medication Ambien.

    Aytu

    Some of the price hikes impacted life-saving drugs like Ampyra, which is used to treat multiple sclerosis. Its owner, Acorda, hiked its price by 20% this year.

    Drugs

    As for the sleep medication mentioned above, a small Colorado-based company called Aytu Bioscience recently raised the price of the spray formulation sold under the brand name Zolpimist by more than 800%, according to WSJ. 

    The median price increase is 8%, but some specific increases have been far greater. Aytu BioScience Inc. raised the list price of a 7.7 milliliter bottle of its sleep aid Zolpimist to $659 from $69.88, while increasing the price of a 4.5 milliliter bottle by 747% to $329.50, according to RELX PLC’s Elsevier Gold Standard Drug Database. The drug is a spray version of zolpidem, the key ingredient in Ambien, which is widely available as cheap generic pills.

    In a tactic reminiscent of Valeant Pharmaceuticals and Martin Shkreli’s Turing Pharmaceuticals, Aytu bought the rights to sell Zolpimist in the US from a Canadian firm called Magna Pharmaceuticals, then jacked up the price.

    Aytu, of Englewood, Colo., raised the price of Zolpimist on Tuesday, about a month after buying the rights to sell the drug in the U.S. and Canada from Magna Pharmaceuticals Inc. The practice of buying rights and then raising the price, by companies including Valeant Pharmaceuticals under then-CEO Michael Pearson and Martin Shkreli’s Turing Pharmaceuticals AG, has drawn criticism from public officials and others because the companies didn’t invest in developing the drugs.

    Asked by the paper for his company’s reason for hiking the price of the drug, Aytu CEO Josh Disbrow said the company was just bringing the price of Zolpimist in line with other comparable drugs. He added that people who can’t afford the spray version can buy the generic pill form instead. The drug, he said, was designed for the small number of wealthy patients who prefer the oral spray over lower priced pills.

    Chief Executive Josh Disbrow said Aytu raised Zolpimist’s list price to bring it in line with the cost of other brand-name sleep drugs. He said Zolpimist was for the small number of patients willing to pay more, often out of their own pockets, for the oral spray than for lower-priced pills.

    “For those people who want a Cadillac, they can pay for it,” Mr. Disbrow said in an interview.

    Aytu’s increase in the list price of Zolpimist was among the biggest increases taken in the middle of this year, according to Elsevier’s data on the wholesale-acquisition cost of prescription drugs. Bloomberg earlier reported the Zolpimist increases.

    […]

    Mr. Disbrow said Aytu’s increases for Zolpimist were different than other examples because the drug is for a lifestyle condition rather than a life-threatening disease, and generic options are available.

    “It’s a luxury item. Patients can choose to be on the generic. We want to have it out there for patients who value their rapid sleep,” Mr. Disbrow said. He added that Aytu, which sells a drug for low testosterone, doesn’t depend on the Zolpimist price increases to raise sales. Aytu reported $2.7 million in revenue for the nine months ending March 31.

    Mr. Disbrow said he expected most sleep-aid patients would buy the generics, and health plans would require people to try the generics before looking at other options. Doctors write more than 30 million zolpidem prescriptions a year, though fewer than 2,000 of them for Zolpimist, he said.

    Still, the thousands of price hikes on Zolpimist and other drugs show that presidential pressure isn’t enough to stop drug companies from raising prices and for engaging in tactics like buying selling rights and then hiking prices.

    “These types of increases indicate that public criticism, even from President Trump, are not enough to change the trajectory of drug costs,” said Michael Rea, chief executive of Rx Savings Solutions, which sells software to help employers and health insurers lower their drug spending.

    Then again, when drug companies can sell one drug in the US for nearly $40,000 – and the same drug in Europe for $8 – there’s quite a bit of incentive for the gangster capitalists who run the world’s pharmaceutical firms to simply submit without a fight.

  • Cops Attempt Gun Confiscation Without Warrant; This New Jersey Man Said "No"

    Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

    Police in New Jersey have officially crossed the [thin blue] line and literally attempted to confiscate guns from an army veteran without a warrant.  But it didn’t go as planned, because  Leonard Cottrell Jr. refused to comply with the orders of the cops.

    Eventually, all gun confiscation will be carried out by the police; who “don’t make the laws, they just enforce them,” and Cottrell found this out the hard way.  After serving two tours in Operation Iraqi Freedom overseas, Cottrell found himself at end of the state’s tyrannical oppression and gun elimination scheme.

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    According to The Daily Wire, two police officers were given orders to go to Cottrell’s home to confiscate his guns.  The order followers complied, and “because [Cottrell’s] 13-year-old son had made a comment at school about the Millstone Middle School’s security, and the officers wanted to confiscate Cottrell’s firearms as part of an investigation,” NJ.com reported. But Cottrell disobeyed and defied the orders of the police.

    Cottrell legally owns a shotgun and a handgun (not quite a cache of weapons by any stretch of the imagination) but based solely on comments made by his 13-year-old son, police demanded all his guns.  According to the report by The Daily Wire, Cottrell says that his wife let the officers into their home and let them search their sons’ room where they did not find any weapons. But the search didn’t end there. The officers then made attempts to try to take his firearms, which “he has all the correct permits to own.”

    “No one from the state was going to take my firearms without due process,” Cottrell said, according to NJ.com.  According to New Jersey law, signed into law Cottrell’s disobedience is “illegal.”  Democrat Governor Phil Murphy a bill that makes it incredibly easy for law enforcement to confiscate firearms without due process and for seemingly any reason the state deems.

    Cottrell said that his son is also very upset by the situation.

    The teenager did not do anything wrong and the entire situation is being misconstrued and blown up.

    “He didn’t do anything wrong, and he doesn’t understand why it happened — he was just having a conversation with nothing as far as threats,” Cottrell said. “It shouldn’t have blown up the way it did. But he understands it happened, there are consequences and there’s fallout from his actions.”

  • Comey Calls For A Coup? "Patriots Needs To Reject The Behavior Of This President"

    President Trump’s language and demeanor at Monday’s summit in Helsinki with Vladimir Putin sent his detractors on both sides of the aisle into fits, just 72 hours after the Department of Justice indicted 12 Russian officials for hacking the DNC. 

    Trump’s position has more or less been that peace with Russia is more important than election meddling, which didn’t influence the election – and that the United States has been meddling in elections for a long time, so perhaps let’s mend fences and move forward as two nuclear superpowers. Also Hillary sold Russia 20% of American uranium after a bunch of people connected to the transaction heavily contributed to her foundation, which was approved by a rubber-stamp committee, four months after Bill Clinton collected $500k in a speech to a Russian investment bank during a trip where he hung out with Putin at his house. All pre-Crimea of course, so no biggie. 

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    After former CIA Director John Brennan called Trump’s performance “nothing short of treasonous” earlier in the day, former FBI Director James Comey issued what may be construed as a call to action against a sitting US President. 

    “This was the day an American president stood on foreign soil next to a murderous lying thug and refused to back his own country,” adding “Patriots need to stand up and reject the behavior of this president.” 

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    While this appears to be the first time Comey has suggested citizens rise up against a duly elected sitting President – the extreme end of which becomes a coup, Brennan suggested last July that White House officials refuse to follow direct orders in the event that President Trump fires Special Counsel Robert Mueller. 

    “I think it’s the obligation of some executive branch officials to refuse to carry that out. I would just hope that this is not going to be a partisan issue. That Republicans, Democrats are going to see that the future of this government is at stake and something needs to be done for the good of the future,” Brennan told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer at the Aspen Security Forum, effectively calling for a coup against the president should Trump give the order to fire Mueller.

    Meanwhile, Congressman Steve Cohen, who said he would award the Purple Heart to disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok – only to later regret his words, called for the military to step in and stage a coup:

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    So the DOJ indicts 12 Russians one business day before Trump meets with Putin, and MSM outlets far and wide crank out pieces like veteran NYT employee Charles Blow’s Sunday op-ed “Trump, Treasonous Traiter” hours before the event. 

    Combined with Trump’s dismissive attitude towards Russian hacking and a nation whipped up by surely coincidental Russian indictments and MSM hit pieces, things could not have gone better for team Hillary and crew. 

    That said, some have come to Trump’s defense…

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