Today’s News 17th July 2022

• Escobar: In Eurasia, The War Of Economic Corridors Is In Full Swing
  Escobar: In Eurasia, The War Of Economic Corridors Is In Full Swing

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

  Mega Eurasian organizations and their respective projects are now converging at record speed, with one global pole way ahead of the other.

  

  The War of Economic Corridors is now proceeding full speed ahead, with the game-changing first cargo flow of goods from Russia to India via the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) already in effect.

  Very few, both in the east and west, are aware of how this actually has long been in the making: the Russia-Iran-India agreement for implementing a shorter and cheaper Eurasian trade route via the Caspian Sea (compared to the Suez Canal), was first signed in 2000, in the pre-9/11 era.

  The INSTC in full operational mode signals a powerful hallmark of Eurasian integration – alongside the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and last but not least, what I described as “Pipelineistan” two decades ago.

  Caspian is key

  Let’s have a first look on how these vectors are interacting.

  The genesis of the current acceleration lies in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent visit to Ashgabat, Turkmenistan’s capital, for the 6th Caspian Summit. This event not only brought the evolving Russia-Iran strategic partnership to a deeper level, but crucially, all five Caspian Sea littoral states agreed that no NATO warships or bases will be allowed on site.

  That essentially configures the Caspian as a virtual Russian lake, and in a minor sense, Iranian – without compromising the interests of the three “stans,” Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. For all practical purposes, Moscow has tightened its grip on Central Asia a notch.

  As the Caspian Sea is connected to the Black Sea by canals off the Volga built by the former USSR, Moscow can always count on a reserve navy of small vessels – invariably equipped with powerful missiles – that may be transferred to the Black Sea in no time if necessary.

  Stronger trade and financial links with Iran now proceed in tandem with binding the three “stans” to the Russian matrix. Gas-rich republic Turkmenistan for its part has been historically idiosyncratic – apart from committing most of its exports to China.

  Under an arguably more pragmatic young new leader, President Serdar Berdimuhamedow, Ashgabat may eventually opt to become a member of the SCO and/or the EAEU.

  Caspian littoral state Azerbaijan on the other hand presents a complex case: an oil and gas producer eyed by the European Union (EU) to become an alternative energy supplier to Russia – although this is not happening anytime soon.

  The West Asia connection

  Iran’s foreign policy under President Ebrahim Raisi is clearly on a Eurasian and Global South trajectory. Tehran will be formally incorporated into the SCO as a full member in the upcoming summit in Samarkand in September, while its formal application to join the BRICS has been filed.

  Purnima Anand, head of the BRICS International Forum, has stated that Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are also very much keen on joining BRICS. Should that happen, by 2024 we could be on our way to a powerful West Asia, North Africa hub firmly installed inside one of the key institutions of the multipolar world.

  As Putin heads to Tehran next week for trilateral Russia, Iran, Turkey talks, ostensibly about Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is bound to bring up the subject of BRICS.

  Tehran is operating on two parallel vectors. In the event the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is revived – a quite dim possibility as it stands, considering the latest shenanigans in Vienna and Doha – that would represent a tactical victory. Yet moving towards Eurasia is on a whole new strategic level.

  In the INSTC framework, Iran will make maximum good use of the geostrategically crucial port of Bandar Abbas – straddling the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, at the crossroads of Asia, Africa and the Indian subcontinent.

  Yet as much as it may be portrayed as a major diplomatic victory, it’s clear that Tehran will not be able to make full use of BRICS membership if western – especially US – sanctions are not totally lifted.

  Pipelines and the “stans”

  A compelling argument can be made that Russia and China might eventually fill the western technology void in the Iranian development process. But there’s a lot more that platforms such as the INSTC, the EAEU and even BRICS can accomplish.

  Across “Pipelineistan,” the War of Economic Corridors gets even more complex. Western propaganda simply cannot admit that Azerbaijan, Algeria, Libya, Russia’s allies at OPEC, and even Kazakhstan are not exactly keen on increasing their oil production to help Europe.

  Kazakhstan is a tricky case: it is the largest oil producer in Central Asia and set to be a major natural gas supplier, right after Russia and Turkmenistan. More than 250 oil and gas fields are operated in Kazakhstan by 104 companies, including western energy giants such as Chevron, Total, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell.

  While exports of oil, natural gas and petroleum products comprise 57 percent of Kazakhstan’s exports, natural gas is responsible for 85 percent of Turkmenistan’s budget (with 80 percent of exports committed to China). Interestingly, Galkynysh is the second largest gas field on the planet.

  Compared to the other “stans,” Azerbaijan is a relatively minor producer (despite oil accounting for 86 percent of its total exports) and basically a transit nation. Baku’s super-wealth aspirations center on the Southern Gas Corridor, which includes no less than three pipelines: Baku-Tblisi-Erzurum (BTE); the Turkish-driven Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP); and the Trans-Adriatic (TAP).

  The problem with this acronym festival – BTE, TANAP, TAP – is that they all need massive foreign investment to increase capacity, which the EU sorely lacks because every single euro is committed by unelected Brussels Eurocrats to “support” the black hole that is Ukraine. The same financial woes apply to a possible Trans-Caspian Pipeline which would further link to both TANAP and TAP.

  In the War of Economic Corridors – the “Pipelineistan” chapter – a crucial aspect is that most Kazakh oil exports to the EU go through Russia, via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC). As an alternative, the Europeans are mulling on a still fuzzy Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, also known as the Middle Corridor (Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey). They actively discussed it in Brussels last month.

  The bottom line is that Russia remains in full control of the Eurasia pipeline chessboard (and we’re not even talking about the Gazprom-operated pipelines Power of Siberia 1 and 2 leading to China).

  Gazprom executives know all too well that a fast increase of energy exports to the EU is out of the question. They also factor the Tehran Convention – that helps prevent and control pollution and maintain the environmental integrity of the Caspian Sea, signed by all five littoral members.

  Breaking BRI in Russia

  China, for its part, is confident that one of its prime strategic nightmares may eventually disappear. The notorious “escape from Malacca” is bound to materialize, in cooperation with Russia, via the Northern Sea Route, which will shorten the trade and connectivity corridor from East Asia to Northern Europe from 11,200 nautical miles to only 6,500 nautical miles. Call it the polar twin of the INSTC.

  This also explains why Russia has been busy building a vast array of state-of-the-art icebreakers.

  So here we have an interconnection of New Silk Roads (the INSTC proceeds in parallel with BRI and the EAEU), Pipelineistan, and the Northern Sea Route on the way to turn western trade domination completely upside down.

  Of course, the Chinese have had it planned for quite a while. The first White Paper on China’s Arctic policy, in January 2018, already showed how Beijing is aiming, “jointly with other states” (that means Russia), to implement sea trade routes in the Arctic within the framework of the Polar Silk Road.

  And like clockwork, Putin subsequently confirmed that the Northern Sea Route should interact and complement the Chinese Maritime Silk Road.

  Russia-China Economic cooperation is evolving on so many complex, convergent levels that just to keep track of it all is a dizzying experience.

  A more detailed analysis will reveal some of the finer points, for instance how BRI and SCO interact, and how BRI projects will have to adapt to the heady consequences of Moscow’s Operation Z in Ukraine, with more emphasis being placed on developing Central and West Asian corridors.

  It’s always crucial to consider that one of Washington’s key strategic objectives in the relentless hybrid war against Russia was always to break BRI corridors that crisscross Russian territory.

  As it stands, it’s important to realize that dozens of BRI projects in industry and investment and cross-border inter-regional cooperation will end up consolidating the Russian concept of the Greater Eurasia Partnership – which essentially revolves around establishing multilateral cooperation with a vast range of nations belonging to organizations such as the EAEU, the SCO, BRICS and ASEAN.

  Welcome to the new Eurasian mantra: Make Economic Corridors, Not War.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/16/2022 – 23:30

• Satellite Imagery Shows Global Crop Declines – Except For Russia And China
  Satellite Imagery Shows Global Crop Declines – Except For Russia And China

  Infrared satellite imagery designed to measure moisture levels and the health of farmlands suggests that staple crops such as wheat are in poor condition and in sharp decline among major exporters including the Ukraine, the US and India.  Two countries do have bumper crops so far though; namely Russia and China.  

  It is hard to say which governments and institutions monitor this data, but a few months ago a multitude of political leaders and global banks issued simultaneous warnings of a “global food shortage” and an impending crisis.  Such institutions included the IMF, World Bank, the BIS and even the White House.  So far, a perfect storm of stagflation, supply chain disruptions and poor weather conditions have combined to disrupt food production around the world. 

  Price inflation due to central bank stimulus measures has been enough to do incredible damage to the many national economies, but a single bad year for crops on top of this could spell disaster.  

  Russia and China, on the other hand, are enjoying a strategic advantage.  As we entered spring of this year, the mainstream media heralded the end of the Russian economy and the swift collapse of their war efforts in Ukraine.  Today, Russia is selling more oil and exporting more commodities than ever before, and both Russia and China now have the most healthy staple crops in the world.  It’s almost as if the public in the west has been deliberately misled about our economic strength.   

  Sadly, many people in the west have forgotten the importance of commodities, industry and energy in terms of geopolitical leverage.  Without dominance of these three arenas there is no chance for a nation or group of nations to dictate terms to a country that has such advantages.  Economic warfare is about independent production and adaptability; these are two things the US and Europe do not have right now.  

  

  With declines in crop exports, food prices will rise even further this year and there is also the possibility that Russia could cut off the EU and other nations from access to their agricultural market.  Though the Kremlin says this will not happen, given the right trigger event it remains a legitimate threat.  Already this month Europe is on the edge of an economic cliff as they wait to see if the Russian “maintenance shutdown” of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline is actually temporary, or the beginning of a full bore energy crisis that will last for years.          

  In other words, the temptation for the eastern nations to use food as a weapon against NATO countries will be just as high on their list as oil and gas.  With food and energy stability in doubt there is also a considerable danger of civil unrest.  Third world nations are likely to see the worst of the shortages, but price inflation in necessities is here to stay for first world countries as well.  And along with that comes all the associated economic problems, including rising crime, rising unemployment and rising poverty. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/16/2022 – 23:00

• Catholic Voters Sour On Biden, Split Over Midterms
  Catholic Voters Sour On Biden, Split Over Midterms

  Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClear Opinion Research,

  Neither Republicans nor Democrats have a clear edge with Catholic voters nearly four months before the pivotal midterm elections that will determine control of Congress and how much of President Biden’s agenda will get passed in the next two years, according to an in-depth new survey of American Catholics.

  

  Overall, likely voters identifying themselves as Catholic are split nearly evenly in their preference for Congress: 44% indicated support for the Republican candidate in their district, while 43% support the Democrat – with a significant bloc of 13% undecided.

  Despite this political divide, a key indicator of voter concern – whether the country is on the right or wrong track – should set off alarm bells for the Biden administration and Democrats, who control both chambers of Congress.

  Some 59% of all Catholics said the country is on the wrong track, including 68% of white Catholics and 45% of Latino Catholics, compared to 24% who thought it’s headed in the right direction.

  While those figures demonstrate widespread pessimism among Catholics, the rest of the country is even more discouraged about the country’s path forward. The RealClearPolitics average of most recent polls shows an overwhelming 75.1% of voters believe the country is off-course, compared to just 18% who say it’s on target.

  These are among the findings in the latest survey of Catholic voter mood by RealClear Opinion Research in partnership with Catholic-themed television network EWTN. The national survey of 1,757 Catholic likely voters is the first of It was conducted online in English and Spanish from June 15-23, immediately before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ruling that there is no longer a federal constitutional right to an abortion.

  The dramatic difference of opinion within the broader group of all voters identifying as Catholic demonstrates how nuanced and diverse this voting group has become in recent years. Modern Catholics comprise several subgroups representing generational, cultural, and ethnic differences that all vote differently but generally place a high value on their faith and religion when making political decisions.

  Some 68% of all Catholics said their faith is important when considering their vote for Congress this year, compared to 32% who said it isn’t important. And an overwhelming 82% said a candidate’s support for religious freedom would make them more likely to vote for them, compared to just 10% who said it would make them less likely to vote for those politicians.

  Overall, Catholic voters today are a far cry from the Democratic voting bloc that helped propel John F. Kennedy, the first and only Roman Catholic to serve as president, to the White House in 1960. In fact, the political ideology of the 1,757 surveyed skews more conservative or lean conservative than liberal or lean liberal by a margin of 40% to 34%. More voters identified as Democrat (42%) than Republican (38%), but 20% considered themselves independent or unaffiliated with either party.

  Despite Catholic voters’ split political affiliations, the group remains crucial because there are so many of them. More than one in five voters identifies as Catholic, although they are difficult to typecast, according to John Della Volpe, director of the RealClear survey.

  This may explain the lack of clear advantage for either party ahead of the midterms, but it doesn’t mean Catholics as a whole don’t have strong feelings about political issues right now.

  The RealClear Opinion/EWTN poll found that President Biden has lost significant ground with Catholics since his election. In 2020, Biden carried the Catholic vote by five percentage points, with 52% of all Catholic voters casting their ballots for Biden and 47% for Trump, according to Edison exit poll data.

  Now just 47% of Catholics approve of Biden’s job performance, while 53% disapprove, the survey found. Still, Biden’s approval rating among all Catholics remains nearly ten points higher than among all voters. The most recent RCP average of voter opinion polls pegs the president’s approval at a new low of 37.8%, with 56.6% disapproving.

  Trump’s favorability rating among all Catholic voters was equally split: 49% of voters surveyed held a favorable view of the 45^th president while 49% held an unfavorable one.

  The poll also shows a big difference in how white and non-white Catholic voters view Biden. Despite reports that Republicans are making inroads with Latino voters, Biden’s approval rating among Latino Catholics stands at an impressive 59%. Among white Catholics, it’s a dismal 36%.

  On the pressing issue of inflation, Catholic voters as a whole have little hope in Biden’s ability to relieve the economic pain. A whopping 89% said their finances had been significantly impacted or affected to some degree by the rising cost of gas and other goods, and 57% said they didn’t have much or any confidence that the Biden administration can significantly reduce inflation in the next year.

  Still, Catholic voters are generally split on what’s most to blame – 36% say Biden and his policies, and 33% say the war in Ukraine and the global slowdown, while 25% said both were equally at fault.

  On the fierce national policy debate on abortion, the survey produced some seemingly conflicting results. A plurality of all Catholics favored upholding Roe v. Wade by a 47%-42% margin, with little or no gender gap. Both men and women were narrowly opposed to overturning the landmark 1973 ruling.

  Unsurprisingly, party affiliation was the most influential factor in whether respondents favored or opposed overturning the landmark abortion case. Republicans strongly supported reversing the decision by a margin of 52%-36%, while Democrats strongly opposed doing so by a 58%-33% margin.

  But a high percentage of Catholics, 65%-23%, also acknowledged that abortion conflicts with Catholic teaching. By a 68%-23% margin, these voters also backed laws requiring parental consent for minors before undergoing an abortion.

  The survey also showed that the vast majority of Catholics oppose unfettered access to abortion. In the last two years, though, slightly more of these voters have shifted away from the church’s strict opposition to abortion.

  Just 18% of those surveyed said abortion should be available to a woman at any point during her pregnancy, up from 15% in 2020, while 32% said abortion should be allowed only in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the woman, and 9% said it should never be permitted under any circumstance, down from 11% in 2020.

  Because of the Catholic church’s strong teachings on the subject, Catholic voters appear educated on abortion issues. A solid majority (62%) are aware that a decision to overturn Roe v. Wade would result in federal and state legislators determining how to regulate abortion, as opposed to 24% who believe abortion immediately became illegal nationwide.

  By a nearly two-to-one margin, 59%-30%, Catholic voters support the Trump-era “conscience rule” that allows health care workers to opt out of procedures (such as abortion, sex-reassignment therapy, physician-assisted suicide) that conflict with their religious or moral beliefs.

  Regarding political clashes over gender identity, an overwhelming majority of Catholics (63%-25%) believe that gender was created by God rather than determined by individuals. On the divisive issue of allowing transgender people to participate in girls’ sports teams, 56% believe that allowing such competition conflicts with Catholic teaching.

  Most Catholic voters who are parents of school-aged children – 57% – said they had not considered alternate education for their children because of gender-identity-related school policies, but 33% have looked for other options, citing too much emphasis on gender identity in their children’s schools. 

  Susan Crabtree is RealClearPolitics’ White House/national political correspondent.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/16/2022 – 22:30

• US Conducts "Successful Test" Of Two Hypersonic Weapons
  US Conducts “Successful Test” Of Two Hypersonic Weapons

  The US successfully conducted tests of two different hypersonic weapons, the US Air Force (USAF) and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced, according to Reuters. Pentagon efforts to field hypersonic weapons on the modern battlefield have yet to occur, while China and Russia advance their hypersonic missiles in a new superpower arms race. 

  Hypersonic weapons are designed to travel more than Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound or about 3,850 mph) and outmaneuver the world’s most advanced missile defense shields. The US has yet to field any hypersonic weapons, while China and Russia have already. 

  

  In a sign US hypersonic weapons could soon be fielded, USAF reported a successful test of its Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) booster on Tuesday off the Southern California coast. The ARRW was air-launched from the wing of a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. In previous tests this year, the weapon failed to launch (read: here & here). 

  “This second successful test demonstrates ARRW’s ability to reach and withstand operational hypersonic speeds, collect crucial data for use in further flight tests, and validate safe separation from the aircraft,” Lockheed said.

  

  “We have now completed our booster test series and are ready to move forward to all-up-round testing later this year,” Air Force Brigadier General Heath Collins said. What he means by “all-up-round” is a complete weapon test with a warhead in the next launch. 

  DARPA also completed a successful hypersonic weapon test at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The Operational Fires hypersonic weapon performed as expected, though few details were provided about speed and range and if the warhead struck a target.  

  Unlike ARRW’s air launch from a bomber, Operational Fires is a ground-launched system that will “rapidly and precisely engage critical, time-sensitive targets while penetrating modern enemy air defenses.”

  

  Both successful tests come after a hypersonic weapon failed to ignite at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii in late June. 

  What’s evident is that the US is falling behind the hypersonic arms race as China and Russia have already fielded these weapons that travel at extraordinary speeds. Russia has even used hypersonic missiles in attacks against Ukraine. Meanwhile, China flew one around the world. 

  Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin testified in April before the House Armed Services Committee. He was involved in heated exchanges with lawmakers about the slow pace of the US hypersonic weapon program.

  “You recently called in the defense industrial community that were involved in the hypersonics development as to how we can speed that up,” Republican Representative Mike Turner of Ohio said. “We’re behind our adversaries.”

  Even though the US spends more on national defense than China, India, Russia, the UK, Saudi Arabia, Germany, France, Japan, and South Korea — combined, the Pentagon has yet to field hypersonic weapons on the modern battlefield, while US’ adversaries do.

  

  And that’s a significant problem for the Pentagon, which acts as the world’s police. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/16/2022 – 22:00

• FBI Launched Inquiry Into NIH Funding Of Wuhan Lab, Emails Show
  FBI Launched Inquiry Into NIH Funding Of Wuhan Lab, Emails Show

  Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launched an inquiry into the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding of bat research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, newly released emails show.

  The interest from the top U.S. intelligence agency adds to the international scrutiny on the Wuhan facility, which houses one of China’s highest-level biosecurity labs that has been considered a possible source of the COVID-19 pandemic.

  “In preparation for our call on Tuesday, Erik [Stemmy] (cc’d) has provided responses to your initial questions below (also attached),” wrote Ashley Sanders, an investigation officer at the NIH’s division of program integriy, in an email (pdf) dated May 22, 2020 with the subject “Grant Questions – FBI Inquiry,” and directed to FBI agent David Miller.

  The email was obtained by government transparency watchdog Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, which asked for records of communications, contracts, and agreements with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

  The scope of the inquiry is unclear because the rest of the email correspondence, five pages in total, are entirely redacted. But the name of the email attachment “SF 424 AI110964-06 (received date 11/05/2018),” corresponds to the NIH grant “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.”

  The project in question is headed by Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance, which then funnels money to the lab in Wuhan. From 2014 to 2019, the New York nonprofit received six yearly grants totaling $3,748,715 from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under the NIH to fund the project, which was expected to end in 2026.

  The FBI inquiry had focused on at least two of the grants, in 2014 and 2019 respectively, the email subject line suggests.

  The 2014 grant aimed to “understand what factors increase the risk of the next CoV emerging in people by studying CoV diversity in a critical zoonotic reservoir (bats), at sites of high risk for emergence (wildlife markets) in an emerging disease hotspot (China),” according to the project description. Specifically, the researchers would assess the coronavirus spillover potential, develop predictive models of bat coronavirus emergence risk, and use virus infection experiments as well as “reverse genetics” to test the virus’s transmission between species.

  

  In the project summary for the 2019 grant, EcoHealth stated that they had found that “bats in southern China harbor an extraordinary diversity of SARSr-CoVs,” and some of those viruses can “infect humanized mouse models causing SARS-like illness, and evade available therapies or vaccines.”

  Recently disclosed documents show that, under one grant, the WIV had conducted an experiment that resulted in a more potent version of a bat coronavirus.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/16/2022 – 21:30

• These Are The Countries With The Highest Default Risk
  These Are The Countries With The Highest Default Risk

  In May 2022, the South Asian nation of Sri Lanka defaulted on its debt for the first time. The country’s government was given a 30-day grace period to cover $78 million in unpaid interest, but ultimately failed to pay.

  Not only does this impact Sri Lanka’s economic future, but as Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu notes, it also raises an important question: which other countries are at risk of default?

  To find out, we’ve used data from Bloomberg to rank the countries with the highest default risk.

  

  The Sovereign Debt Vulnerability Ranking

  Bloomberg’s Sovereign Debt Vulnerability Ranking is a composite measure of a country’s default risk. It’s based on four underlying metrics:

  • Government bond yields (the weighted-average yield of the country’s dollar bonds)

  • 5-year credit default swap (CDS) spread

  • Interest expense as a percentage of GDP

  • Government debt as a percentage of GDP

  To better understand this ranking, let’s focus on Ukraine and El Salvador as examples.

  

   

  1 basis point (bps) = 0.01%

   

  Why are Ukraine’s Bond Yields so High?

  Ukraine has high default risk due to its ongoing conflict with Russia. To understand why, consider a scenario where Russia was to assume control of the country. If this happened, it’s possible that Ukraine’s existing debt obligations will never be repaid.

  That scenario has prompted a sell-off of Ukrainian government bonds, pushing their value down to nearly 30 cents on the dollar. This means that a bond with face value of $100 could be purchased for $30.

  Because yields move in the opposite direction of price, the average yield on these bonds has climbed to a very high 60.4%. As a point of comparison, the yield on a U.S. 10-year government bond is currently 2.9%.

  What is a CDS Spread?

  Credit default swaps (CDS) are a type of derivative (financial contract) that provides a lender with insurance in the event of a default. The seller of the CDS represents a third party between the lender (investors) and borrower (in this case, governments).

  In exchange for receiving coverage, the buyer of a CDS pays a fee known as the spread, which is expressed in basis points (bps). If a CDS has a spread of 300 bps (3%), this means that to insure $100 in debt, the investor must pay $3 per year.

  Applying this to Ukraine’s 5-year CDS spread of 10,856 bps (108.56%), an investor would need to pay $108.56 each year to insure $100 in debt (though it is in practice an upfront payment and then constant stream of payments which implies default is likely in the very short-term). This suggests that the market has very little faith in Ukraine’s ability to avoid default.

  Why is El Salvador Ranked Higher?

  Despite having lower values in the two metrics discussed above, El Salvador ranks higher than Ukraine because of its larger interest expense and total government debt.

  According to the data above, El Salvador has annual interest payments equal to 4.9% of its GDP, which is relatively high. Comparing to the U.S. once more, America’s federal interest costs amounted to 1.6% of GDP in 2020.

  When totaled, El Salvador’s outstanding debts are equal to 82.6% of GDP. This is considered high by historical standards, but today it’s actually quite normal.

  The next date to watch will be January 2023, as this is when the country’s $800 million sovereign bond reaches maturity. Recent research suggests that if El Salvador were to default, it would experience significant, yet temporary, negative effects.

  Another Hot Topic for El Salvador: Bitcoin

  In September 2021, El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender. This means that Bitcoin is recognized by law as a means to settle debts and other obligations.

  The International Monetary Fund (IMF) criticized this decision in early 2022, urging the country to revoke legal tender status. In hindsight, these warnings were wise, as Bitcoin’s value has fallen by 56% year-to-date.

  While this isn’t directly related to El Salvador’s default risk, it does open potential avenues for relief. For instance, large players in the crypto space may be willing to assist the government to keep the concept of “nation-state bitcoin adoption” alive.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/16/2022 – 21:00

• The Feds Pile Up Vaccine 'Adverse Event' Reports As They Decry Scaremongering Elsewhere
  The Feds Pile Up Vaccine ‘Adverse Event’ Reports As They Decry Scaremongering Elsewhere

  Authored by Clayton Fox via RealClear Investigations,

  Since the Food and Drug Administration authorized the first vaccines for COVID-19 in late 2020, the government and much of the media have insisted that the medicines developed in record time are safe and effective. Those who raised questions about them have been routinely dismissed as conspiracy theorists.

  

  And yet an online database co-administered by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control has compiled more than 1.3 million reports of vaccine-implicated  “adverse events” running the gamut from mild to severe, including 29,000 deaths.

  Representative entries include:

  • A 44-year-old male from California with a blood clot in the brain (CVST) five days after receiving Pfizer vaccine, dose unknown.

  • A 31-year-old female from Pennsylvania with heart inflammation (myocarditis) two days after receiving Moderna’s booster.

  • A 58-year-old female from California with blood clots in legs (DVT) after receiving Johnson & Johnson booster. She reported:

  “Day after booster on 11/16/21 my right leg was aching. 7 days later on 11/23/21 my sole of my right foot was very painful upon walking. This resolved 2 days later by 11/25/21. On day 11 (11/26/21) my ankle was slightly swollen and painful to touch. These symptoms continued to migrate up my leg to my inner thigh. On 12/13/21 I was seen by my primary care Doctor and was sent for a d-dimer blood test which was 1.77. I was seen in vascular dept and ultrasound indicated multiple DVT from my groin to my ankle.”

  These reports are not anecdotes from “anti-vaxxers” on the dark web. They come from the federal government’s open-source log, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. It allows anyone to go online and report a bad reaction that could be linked to any vaccine, including those for COVID-19.  (RealClearInvestigations has linked above to VAERS reports posted at Openvaers.com, an independently run and easier to navigate database that copies reports verbatim from the CDC’s less user-friendly “WONDER” system.)

  While the reports are unfiltered and unexamined, the idea is that such public input will allow researchers to identify potential problems. But the sheer number of reports, and their specificity, have the attention of concerned scientists and even some politicians like Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who has invited people harmed by vaccines to testify before Congress and advocates compensation for them.

  Johnson’s office said he has been admonishing the health authorities over the VAERS reports for a year. “The senator believes the CDC and FDA need to take their own adverse event early warning system seriously and be transparent with the American people,” it said in a statement. “To date, they have not been.”

  

  VAERS was created in the late 1980s as an outgrowth of a congressional mandate to create a system for compensating vaccine victims and their families. In 2015, the CDC said the average number of annual reports was roughly 30,000. In 2021, there were nearly 1 million. Given the large increase during a politically charged pandemic, the usefulness of VAERS is the subject of great debate even among scientists

  Some health experts believe that the number of reports is primarily a function of increased publicity around the COVID vaccines, a high number indicating only that many more people are aware of the system and concerned about potential side effects from the shots. Others say the number and strong indications in certain symptom categories – such as the cardiovascular examples cited above – paint a bleaker picture of the vaccines’ safety.

  

  Dr. Peter McCullough, a renowned cardiologist and academic physician with over 600 papers published in medical literature, was one of the first professionals to publicly question the safety of the COVID-19 injections. On April 21, 2021, on his podcast The McCullough Report, he read out some of the early, alarming statistics from VAERS including reports of 502 heart attacks, 84 miscarriages, 321 cases of low blood platelet counts (thrombocytopenia) and 2,342 deaths. For Dr. McCullough, these numbers were a huge red flag. For comparison, he cites the last “mass vaccination program” undertaken in the United States, the 1976 swine flu vaccine. Dr. McCullough noted that there were approximately 55 million people vaccinated, with an accompanying 500 cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, and around 25 deaths. “And the government officials at that time said, ‘we’re going to pull it.’”

  Dr. McCullough said that by April 2021, VAERS reports were already so numerous  that he felt the COVID vaccines should be pulled off the market. That same month, Fox News host Tucker Carlson voiced doubts about the vaccines’ effectiveness, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s top medical adviser, blasted him for pushing “a typical crazy conspiracy theory.”  

  As of today, the system has more than 29,000 reports of deaths.

  

  VAERS reports, however, are not hard evidence. Its website explains: “A report to VAERS generally does not prove that the identified vaccine(s) caused the adverse event described. It only confirms that the reported event occurred sometime after vaccine was given. No proof that the event was caused by the vaccine is required in order for VAERS to accept the report. VAERS accepts all reports without judging whether the event was caused by the vaccine.” Some of the FDA and CDC’s most senior veterans advise caution in interpreting the data.

  Susan Ellenberg, PhD, the former Director of the Office of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the FDA’s Center for Biologics, told RCI that “anything that gets reported goes directly into the [VAERS] system … so mostly what you get is noise.” She said that it’s nearly impossible to prove causation with this dataset alone. Dr. Walter Orenstein, formerly the CDC’s director of immunization, concurs. He said, “That’s why it’s called adverse ‘events’ as opposed to reaction because reaction implies causation. Event is basically something that follows.” Elderly people, for example, die regularly; if they are dying days or weeks after being vaccinated, that does not necessarily mean the vaccine is killing them.

  There are many reasons why the VAERS data is usually insufficient to prove causality between vaccination and adverse events, including:

  • There is no reliable denominator to establish event rates – and no “control” group against which to measure adverse events.

  • Reports are often messy or incomplete.

  • Underreporting has been a consistent and documented issue. (One CDC study shows that the system may capture as few as 12% of adverse events, meaning the total for COVID-19 vaccines could be as high as 10.8 million.)

  • On the other hand, overreporting is also an issue, as noted in this 2003 CDC review: “Other potential reporting biases include increased reporting in the first few years after licensure, increased reporting of events occurring soon after vaccination, and increased reporting after publicity about a particular known or alleged type of adverse event.”

  • In the case of childhood vaccinations, vaccine sets are co-administered, making it nearly impossible to know which specific vaccine caused the adverse event.

  So why continue using an unreliable system – apart from the fact it was required by Congress? Experts agree that VAERS can be extremely useful in picking up signals of causation, which can be confirmed with further study, usually employing the government’s other major monitoring system: the CDC’s Vaccine Safety Datalink. The VSD uses the combined databases of nine major healthcare systems nationwide, providing detailed patient data, and the ability to look at control groups of unvaccinated patients. The downside to the VSD is that unless an issue comes through the healthcare system, it’s not going to be reported. So if someone dies at home after being vaccinated, it won’t make it into VSD, though it might make it into VAERS.

  One prime example of VAERS picking up a signal leading to an important safety discovery occurred in the late 1990s with the RotaShield vaccine for rotavirus – an ailment that causes diarrhea and vomiting in the very young. While clinical trials revealed a small number of cases of intussusception – the sometimes-deadly folding of the intestine in small children – the  finding was not seen as prohibitive. Nonetheless, public health researchers flagged it as something to look for in VAERS as the vaccine was distributed widely. When reports started piling up in VAERS, it led to a review process, which ultimately led to the manufacturer pulling the vaccine off the market and the FDA pulling its license. A clear success for the system.

  In the case of the COVID-19 vaccine products, Dr. Orenstein said VAERS has been a success, and that the large number of reports has been helpful in identifying certain issues. “The increased volume may be a good thing. Because of the increased reporting we’ve been able to detect causally related problems, with mRNA problems with myocarditis and pericarditis, and with J&J coagulation problems and Guillain-Barré, so in essence, VAERS is important.”

  Jessica Rose, an independent researcher in Israel, agrees, and has devoted the past year and a half to putting VAERS under a microscope. Dr. Rose has a PhD in computational biology from Bar-Ilan University, a post-doc in molecular biology from Hebrew University, and another in biochemistry from the Technion, widely considered Israel’s MIT. She has become a fierce critic of the COVID-19 vaccines and spent countless hours poring over VAERS reports to craft her articles on the emergent issues.

  

  For Rose, who has been collaborating with Dr. McCullough, the information available in the VAERS system on its own is sufficient to prove causality when it comes to vaccine-induced myocarditis from all three vaccines, especially the mRNA-based shots from Pfizer and Moderna. They specifically raise concerns around the high rate of myocarditis reported among boys ages 12-15. Their paper stating this was received, peer-reviewed, and accepted by Elsevier, the publisher of Current Problems in Cardiology, where the piece was to be released. It was then withdrawn from the site at the discretion of the editor. No basis was given for the removal. Dr. McCullough described the situation in detail to Bret Weinstein on his Dark Horse podcast in December. When asked for comment, Dr. McCullough told RealClearInvestigations:

  Elsevier, the world’s largest medical publisher, has for the first time in its history started violating publication contracts with unilateral retractions in the pandemic era. These papers were fully peer-reviewed, contracted, and published without any threats to scientific validity. The one thing in common for these retractions – they provided data on COVID-19 vaccine injuries, disabilities, and deaths. Thus Elsevier has broken the trust of the consuming public, doctors, and patients. In addition to legal exposure, Elsevier is losing ground to MDPI and other publishers that do not engage in corrupt censorship.

  Asked to respond to the cardiologist’s comment, Elsevier issued this statement to RCI: “We do not agree with these assertions; this article in press was withdrawn following our standard policies which are all publicly available on our website.”

  The Lyme Disease Precedent

  Dr. Orenstein and the federal health apparatus now acknowledge that adverse outcomes like myocarditis, coagulopathies/thrombosis, and Guillain-Barré have been established as causally related to the COVID-19 shots in certain cohorts – and that VAERS played a role in making those connections – but see them as rare.

  Former FDA epidemiologist Ellenberg says the sheer number of events in VAERS may reflect the revival of an old phenomenon: high adverse publicity around vaccines, similar to what happened with the Lyme disease vaccine and arthritis.

  Lyme disease can cause arthritis. So can aging. When many reports of arthritis started appearing in VAERS after that vaccine was rolled out in 1998, bad publicity followed. Ellenberg started receiving phone calls from lawyers asking her when FDA was going to pull the vaccine. Ultimately, FDA convened a panel to look into the correlation, and no causal connection was found. “But because of the publicity, use of the vaccine waned and eventually the producer took it off the market.”

  Regarding the COVID-19 vaccines, Jessica Rose said VAERS shows a grim picture that has nothing to do with publicity. The reporting system “is functioning as a pharmacovigilance tool right now,” she said. “There are an enormous number and range of safety signals being thrown out.”

  In March 2022, after the COVID-19 vaccine had been available for 15 months (462 days), she compared the number of VAERS reports related to these shots versus those for flu vaccines. Given the greater number of COVID shots administered during that period, she predicted that “the rate of reporting in VAERS…should be about twice for COVID than for flu.” What she found instead was “117.6 times as many reports of adverse events in the context of the COVID shots.”

  Rose is adamant. “This is not about the number of doses, this is about these products doing more damage [than the flu vaccines],” she said, “systemic, comprehensive damage that we’ve never seen before. There’s no doubting that these products are different.” When RCI queried Rose as to which three adverse events might be most readily proven as being caused by the vaccine with data posted in VAERS, she replied, “Myocarditis, Bell’s palsy, and anything related to clotting.

  Quietly, large numbers of peer-reviewed studies have been accumulating in legitimate journals, lending credence to those who believe many adverse events are occurring, and that they are causally related to vaccination. Just recently, a study of vaccines in three Nordic countries revealed a strong correlation between getting the Astra-Zeneca shot and a higher incidence of cardiovascular injury, and a lesser but still significant correlation for recipients of the Pfizer and Moderna products.

  Finally, a “preprint” study (not yet peer reviewed) uploaded June 23 and co-authored by Peter Doshi, a senior editor at the British Medical Journal, as well as physicians from UCLA and Stanford, concludes that a careful analysis of all available data now suggests that the benefits of vaccination do not outweigh the potential harms. To make their calculations, the researchers used data from VAERS as well as its European equivalent, EudraVigilance, and the WHO’s VigiBase.

  But the story remains complicated. For instance, Rose agreed drawing conclusions is complicated by the lack of data in VAERS about whether reporting patients have also recovered from COVID. Studies have now shown that having had COVID also increases the risk of cardiovascular events in the year after recovery. On the other hand, an Israeli analysis shows a correlation to vaccine rollout, but not to COVID-19 infection rates.

  With such variables, the task of monitoring vaccine safety can seem almost futile. But Dr. Robert Chen, the creator of VAERS, disagrees. He believes the system, in concert with the Vaccine Safety Datalink and other resources, has worked well in alerting the public health community to issues due to vaccination. He told RCI that “in terms of its main function of telling you that something is going on, it’s amazingly effective.”

  Dr. Orenstein said the VSD should be expanded if possible as a complement to VAERS but said that without a single national database, the current system of monitoring vaccine safety is “as good as it gets.” For Ellenberg, a statistician by training, “these are horrible, messy databases. You’re looking for a needle in a haystack.” When talking to other epidemiologists and encouraging them to create better systems for analyzing VAERS, Ellenberg said she uses this analogy: “If you can reduce the whole haystack to a handful of hay, then that makes your job just a little bit easier.”

  Rose acknowledges the messiness of VAERS, but believes it provides enough information to tell a story of danger. She said that in her analysis, 60% of VAERS reports describe events within 48 hours of vaccine administration – one more criteria for causality. Rose said: “It isn’t on me to prove that these products aren’t safe, this is on them [CDC, FDA], legally, to prove that these products are safe. And they’re not doing their jobs.” On that point, a recent public records request by Josh Guetzkow, Ph.D., and the legal team at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense found that CDC has not been analyzing the VAERS data on COVID-19 shots using its own stated methods.

  In an email to RCI, the CDC stated, “COVID-19 vaccines are undergoing the most intense safety monitoring in U.S. history.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/16/2022 – 20:30

• Comparing The Cost Of Living Around The World
  Comparing The Cost Of Living Around The World

  The amount of money that’s needed to pay for day-to-day expenses like housing and food varies greatly from city to city. And some cities, like New York City, are known as especially expensive places to live.

  So how do everyday expenses in New York City truly compare in costs to places like Beirut, Lebanon, or Bangalore, India?

  This graphic by Victor Dépré (hypntic.data) uses 2022 data from Numbeo to compare the cost of living and purchasing power in 578 different cities around the world, using New York City as a benchmark for comparison.

  

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  The Cost of Living Index

  Though New York City is widely recognized as one of the most expensive cities in the world, as Visual Capitalist’s Carmen Ang details below, according to Numbeo – the world’s largest database of user-contributed data on cities and countries – there are a number of cities that are actually more expensive than the Big Apple.

  Here’s a look at the comparative cost of living in 578 cities. For context, if a city has a cost of living index of 121, that means day-to-day expenses in it are 21% higher than New York’s, on average:

  

  Bermuda’s capital city Hamilton ranks first on the list, with a cost of living that’s nearly 50% higher than New York’s.

  Why is Hamilton so expensive? One reason is that nearly everything needs to be imported onto the tiny British archipelago—things like gas, groceries, and clothes—so it’s likely that prices in the territory are steep as a result.

  Second on the list is Zurich, Switzerland, where expenses are roughly 30% higher than New York City. Food and beverages are particularly expensive in the region—according to the dataset, groceries are 58% more expensive than groceries in NYC, and restaurant prices are 55% higher.

  However, it’s worth noting that while Zurich ranks high on the cost of living index, the city’s purchasing power is also strong, which we will dive into in the next section.

  The Local Purchasing Power Index

  Purchasing power is a metric that’s used to gauge the number of goods and services someone on an average salary can buy in that specific city.

  Taking a look again at Zurich, consumers in the city have about 30% more purchasing power than New York City residents on average, despite having higher costs.

  

  In contrast, the average consumer in Hamilton, Bermuda has a relatively low purchasing power. Based on the average net salary in the city, consumers can afford about 30% less than people in New York City.

  Inflation Continues to Drive Prices Up

  Amidst rising inflation and increased prices for consumer goods, cost of living has become top of mind for many people around the world.

  Since late 2021, the world has been experiencing a cost of living crisis, largely because of pent-up demand following the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with supply chain issues and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

  But according to UBS Chief Economist Paul Donovan, we’ve likely seen the worst of it, and inflation is likely to decrease across the globe in the second half of the year.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/16/2022 – 20:00

• The 2022 House Midterm By The Numbers
  The 2022 House Midterm By The Numbers

  Authored by James E. Campbell via RealClearPolitics.com,

  Midterm elections involve high stakes, a great deal of groundless guessing, and lots of numbers – oddly similar to lotteries. Unlike lotteries, though, the many numbers associated with midterm elections are meaningful. The six meaningful midterm “lotto” numbers below should help historically ground your anticipation of what is likely or unlikely to happen in this year’s House elections, as well as set the eventual outcome in its historical perspective. You will have to use your imagination about the numbered ping-pong balls and the machine mixing them up.

  On to the all-important numbers.

  

  Our first number is 7.

  Since 1912 when the size of the House was fixed at 435 seats, there have been 27 midterm elections. As most everyone knows, the president’s party gained seats in only three of these (1934, 1998, and 2002). But in four additional midterms, in-party’s losses were minimal (fewer than ten seats). 7 glimmers of hope for Democrats.

  Our second number is 58.

  The 7 in-party success story midterms are ordered in Table 1 by the net number of seats gained or lost by the president’s party. Gallup’s presidential approval ratings immediately prior to the election are included, with two exceptions. These are Coolidge’s 1926 and FDR’s 1934 midterms that pre-date Gallup’s collection of approval ratings.

  

  In each of these 7 midterm success stories, presidents were very popular. Approval ratings were in the mid-60s for three and likely a fourth – that being Kennedy in 1962. His mid-October rating was a strong 61%, but it missed the boost he received from the resolution of the Cuban missile crisis. The crisis occurred after the October poll, but before the election. In his first post-midterm poll in late November, Kennedy’s rating had soared to 74%. His approval on election day was probably in the mid to high 60s.

  The two presidents on the list with unmeasured approval marks, Coolidge and FDR, were certainly very popular in their midterms. Both midterms were bracketed by presidential landslides. The list’s lowest approval rating of a president is President George H.W. Bush in 1990 at 58%. To get on the midterm success story list, it takes a presidential approval rating of at least 58%.

  Our third number is 41. 

  In contrast to success stories of popular presidents, parties of unpopular presidents routinely take a beating. The midterms of the eight least popular presidents in the 19 midterms since 1946 are listed in Table 2. The table starts with 1946, the first midterm in which Gallup’s presidential approval ratings were collected. Presidential unpopularity ranged from the mildly unpopular Obama (45% approval) in 2010 to the extremely unpopular Truman (33% approval) in 1946. In seven of these eight midterms with unpopular presidents, the in-party lost more than 25 seats. In two, losses exceeded 55 seats.

  

  2022 easily makes the list of midterms with unpopular presidents. Biden’s approval rating took a dive in late summer of 2021 and has slowly sunk even lower. The multiple reasons for his unpopularity are too numerous to catalog here, but they span the three crucial dimensions of dissatisfaction with his record (including the economy), his policy ineffectiveness and extremism across a wide range of issues, and a lack of confidence in his leadership.

  For whatever mix of reasons, Biden’s presidential approval ratings are dismal. In the RCP daily average of polls, Biden’s approval has been less than 43% since January 2, 2022 (as of July 4th, for 183 consecutive days) and less than 41% since May 25, 2022. His approval ratings in Gallup have been 43% or lower for ten straight months (since September 2021). Gallup observed that no first-term president from Eisenhower in 1954 to Trump in 2018 has had a lower approval rating than Biden’s in June of the second year of his term. None lower. Biden’s rating for June was 41%.

  Our fourth number is 0.

  Though most attention in 2020 was focused on the controversial presidential contest and then on the 50-50 tie in Senate after the pair of controversial Senate runoffs in Georgia, attention in more normal times would have been drawn to the razor-thin party division for control of the House. Democrats won 222 seats and Republicans 213, providing Democrats with a 5 seat majority.

  A major question for the 2022 midterm is whether Democrats can hold the House. Can they avoid a net seat loss of five seats or more to the Republicans? In the 27 midterms since 1914, as Table 1 showed, the president’s party has only avoided losing fewer than five seats on four occasions. In three (1934, 1998, and 2002) they gained seats, and in a fourth (1986) they lost four seats. As we noted in Table 1, the presidents in these midterms were very popular (63% approval or better). Biden does not reside in that hemisphere. At 41%, he is 22 points short. With the consistency of his low ratings, the fact that many who disapprove of his performance do so strongly (i.e., not just chants of “Let’s Go Brandon”), and the multifaceted grounds for disapproval, the probability of Democrats maintaining their House majority is 0 (zero).

  Our fifth number is 34.

  With Biden’s poor approval ratings, placing him in the middle or lower in Table 2’s list of unpopular presidents, the real question is how many seats Republicans will gain. To this point, we have focused on one important determinant of midterm outcomes, the popularity or unpopularity of the president. But a second important factor is the number of seats each party currently holds and the limits of the party’s competitiveness.

  Both parties have competitive limits imposed by the partisan stability of American politics. Some districts are realistically “off the table” for a party. Even under the best of circumstances, the party stands no real chance of winning them. In the aggregate, this creates upper and lower limits for how many seats a party can realistically win or lose. The limits can change with time, especially after realignments alter party competitiveness, but are otherwise are quite resilient.

  Table 3 lists the top ten strongest Republican Party outcomes over the 45 House elections (on-year and midterm) held in the 90 years since FDR’s election of 1932. As several others have also noted (see Josh Kraushaar, “How Big a Wave can House Republicans expect?” National Journal, 6/23/22), the upper limit for Republicans has been 247 seats. The GOP has reached into the 240s in four elections, but topped out at 247 seats in 2014. In 2022, Republicans can reach their historical competitiveness limit of 247 with a gain of 34 seats over their 2020 showing. Any gains beyond 34 would be a historic breakthrough.

  

  Our sixth and final number is 13. 

  In reviewing the list of midterm seat losses for the president’s party, Democrats might take heart in the results of Obama’s 2014 midterm. Obama’s approval rating of only 42% that year is comparable to Biden’s low ratings this year, and the Republicans in 2014 gained only 13 seats. Among midterms with unpopular presidents, this was an unusually light loss.

  Why did Democrats lose so few seats that year with Obama’s ratings so low, and could this happen again in 2022? Could the Democrats with their highly unpopular president escape 2022 with only minor bruises? At this point, many Democrats might celebrate Republicans picking up only a dozen or so seats.

  This is not going to happen, and Table 4 explains why. The table lists the twelve midterm elections since 1934 in which a Democrat was in the White House. The midterms are ordered by the number of seats Republicans held after the midterm. It also indicates how many seats Republicans held coming into the midterm and the seat change produced by the midterm. As in Table 3, the 247 Republican limit is clear. It is also clear that Republican seat gains in 2014 were as small as they were because Republicans at 234 seats went into the election already very close to their 247 historical limit. The gain of only 13 seats reflects the constraints of the competitiveness limit.

  

  In 2022, Republicans enter the midterm with much more room from their competitiveness limit than they had in 2014 and with many reasons to think that their 247 limit may no longer be their limit. There is significant movement of working class voters across racial and ethnic groups toward the Republicans. There is movement in party affiliations. In the end, history regularly constrains us; but, on occasion, history can also be made.

  So to recap, your House-Midterm Lotto Numbers for 2022 are: 0, 7, 13, 34, 41 and 58.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/16/2022 – 19:30

• Skittles Allegedly "Unfit For Human Consumption," Lawsuit Claims
  Skittles Allegedly “Unfit For Human Consumption,” Lawsuit Claims

  Bloomberg Law reports a new lawsuit filed in California claims that Skittles contain a dangerous toxin called “titanium dioxide,” rendering the candy “unfit for human consumption.” 

  On Thursday, plaintiff Jenile Thames filed a lawsuit in the Northern District of California against Skittles-maker Mars Inc., alleging consumers who “taste the rainbow” of sugar “are at heightened risk of a host of health effects for which they were unaware stemming from genotoxicity – the ability of a chemical substance to change DNA.”

  

  Mars uses titanium dioxide as food coloring to make the candy more visually appealing. The toxin is also used in industrial applications such as plastics, adhesives, printer inks, and roofing materials. 

  The civil suit argues Mars understood the risks of using titanium dioxide in candy-making and, in 2016, even publicly announced that it would eliminate the toxin from food. In Europe, France banned the toxin from food in 2019, and in 2021, the European Food Safety Authority determined it couldn’t be considered safe for consumption.

  “Incredibly, Defendant even claimed that ‘[a]rtificial colors pose no known risks to human health or safety,'” Thames’s lawsuit alleges. “In doing so, Defendant concealed from consumers material information it knew.”

  Thames said Skittles sold in the US still contain titanium dioxide and Mars is “failing to inform consumers of the implications of consuming the toxin.”

  “Instead, Defendant relies on the ingredient list which is provided in minuscule print on the back of the Products, the reading of which is made even more challenging by the lack of contrast in color between the font and packaging, as set out below in a manner in which consumers would normally view the product in the store,” court papers said. 

  Thames seeks class-action status for all US consumers and unspecified damages from Mars. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/16/2022 – 19:00

• California Spent $500 Million On Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Training, Report Reveals
  California Spent $500 Million On Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Training, Report Reveals

  Authored by Matt McGregor via The Epoch Times,

  California has spent up to $500 million on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in its local government, K-12 school districts, and higher education in the years between 2020 and 2022, according to a report from a nonprofit watchdog group.

  

  The Center for Organizational Research and Education (CORE) researches activist groups to report on their “funding, agendas, and tactics.”

  “In recent years, the concept of critical race theory and its variants – often camouflaged as more generic ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI) activities, has entered the national spotlight, and infiltrated publicly-funded entities,” CORE said.

  The analysis summarizes the results of 400 public record requests sent to state and local governments, and higher education and K-12 institutions in California, CORE said.

  “The results are unmistakable: spending related to DEI and critical race theory-framed activities is a vast and growing component of taxpayer-funded spending at all levels of California government,” CORE stated.

  DEI has become its own $1 billion industry funded by taxpayer dollars, CORE said.

  “Based on the responsive documents our team received, we calculated at least $188 million directly linked DEI spending, and $308 million more in adjacent spending, totaling nearly $500 million in possible DEI spending in California,” CORE said in its report.

  The total DEI represents 46 percent of requests for public records of DEI spending sent out, CORE said, with less than 11 percent of institutions responding that they had no records related to the request.

  “Considering roughly 40 percent of our requests are still unfulfilled, we expect the true amount is much higher,” CORE said.

  “Our findings are proof that critical race theory and DEI are a vast and growing part of the California government.”

  …

  CORE points to the Department of Conservation, which, “despite experiencing some of its worst-recorded forest fires and water shortages,” the department spent $180,000 of its environmental budget on including critical race theory in its training.

  …

  The argument for critical race theory is often that it’s teaching real history, while those who would have critical race theory removed are trying to “whitewash” history; however, there’s been no evidence of any public school attempting to erase entire sections of its curriculum on slavery.

  “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is becoming California’s newest billion-dollar industry—on the taxpayer’s dime,” CORE lead researcher Will Coggin told Fox News Digital.

  “It’s everywhere from kindergarten in the classrooms to the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Instead of effectively addressing issues like housing, crime, or homelessness, California officials have chosen to line the pockets of well-connected diversity consultants,” Coggin said.

  …

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/16/2022 – 18:30

• Far Fewer Military Families Recommend Uniformed Service: Survey
  Far Fewer Military Families Recommend Uniformed Service: Survey

  Substantially fewer military families would recommend uniformed service to others, a new survey by Military Family Advisory Network (MFAN) finds.  

  Just 63% of surveyed service members and family members would recommend service to someone considering it. That’s a big drop from just two years earlier, when 75% said they’d encourage others to join. The results released on July 14 are from a far-ranging survey of more than 8,600 people conducted in late 2021. 

  The finding is an ill omen for military recruiters who are already struggling to meet their goals. The U.S. Army Recruiting Command (USAREC) says a whopping 71% of youth do not qualify for military service because of obesity, drugs, physical and mental health problems, misconduct and aptitude. 

  Meanwhile, USAREC likes to call the Army a “family business,” noting that 79% of recruits have a relative who served. Substantially lower enthusiasm among those who’ve served is certain to throw a wet blanket on recruiting efforts.     

  

  When researchers delved into the thinking of service members, veterans and family members who won’t recommend military service, five top rationales surfaced: 

  • Military service is hard on marriages, family relationships and relationships with children
  • Military pay is too low, especially given the job’s difficulty and stress
  • Some military leaders are bad, corrupt, abusive and controlling
  • Benefits such as health care aren’t worth the challenges associated with service
  • Frequent moves between duty stations and frequent overseas deployments

  The report includes some representative quotes from respondents…

  “It is not easy. It will wreak havoc in your relationship. I would recommend it if you plan on staying single and/or not having children” — Spouse of an active duty Marine.

  “My husband is gone all the time requiring me to leave my job and raise the children alone. It has put a lot of strain on our marriage.” — Navy spouse

  “PTSD created insecurities and other issues that held to the end of the marriage.” — Army veteran

  “It is a difficult job and life, and the ‘benefits’ simply are not worth it. Especially since said benefits just keep dwindling and decreasing in quality the longer we are in. Military life not only affects the mental health of the service member but also that of their family. Additionally, I would not want anyone I care about, or even people I don’t care about, to be subjected to toxic work environments.” — Navy spouse

  “With constantly PCSing, it is difficult to establish a long lasting relationship. Especially the kids. Moving, changing schools in the middle of the semester, leaving friends, etc. It’s super hard for them.” — Army spouse

  The survey also found 54% of military and veteran family respondents have experienced loneliness and 23% of enlisted families reported difficulty affording food.  

  “When we’re going through this report and seeing some of the findings and the reality that a lot of families are having a hard time making ends meet, it’s not all that startling to see that there will be a decline [in service members, veterans and family members recommending service],” MFAN president Shannon Razsadin tells Defense One. “But what I was really surprised by was that it was as big of a decline as it is.”

  There are surely more declines to come—as more service members and veterans reluctantly realize their participation in America’s unjust and disastrous military interventions has done nothing good for their fellow citizens or the world. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/16/2022 – 18:00

• The Strangest Recession Of Our Lifetimes
  The Strangest Recession Of Our Lifetimes

  Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

  The evidence of economic weakness and decline fill the headlines day by day, with major banks reporting lower earnings, big box stores with excess inventories, home sales skidding, and consumer sentiment crashing.

  Meanwhile, inflation in all sectors is raging so high and hot that it has overtaken every other issue that polls say matter in the lives of average Americans.

  

  This inflationary recession—also called stagflation—is an odd beast in any case. The combination of both purchasing power declines and falling productivity violates not only every modeling presumption made since the Keynesian revolution of the 1930s but also just plain intuition. Higher prices are supposed to signal higher demand and/or tighter supply, not lower demand and higher supply.

  So yes, this is strange. We are going to have to get used to it. It’s what happens when the money itself loses its integrity. The whole point of money in the first place—the essence of its economic utility—is to provide a common tool of measurement to facilitate trade and enable accounting. Its emergence permits investors, producers, and capital owners to assess the economic rationality of their actions.

  When money blows up and no longer serves as a reliable guide to economic realities, various degrees of chaos ensue. You can feel like you are getting richer when you are really getting poorer. What can seem like profits are really losses. What seems like a hopeful environment can quickly switch to the other direction and become despair.

  This is why inflation induces such fear in every sector of life.

  We learned this in the 1970s as stagflation gradually took over in successive waves until it was stopped in 1981 by two major shifts: tighter money and a policy emphasis on strong economic growth. Today we are getting the former but not the latter, virtually guaranteeing a serious quagmire that will last at least two more years. The economic damage of this period will be too enormous to contemplate.

  But let’s take a careful look at the strangest anomaly of all: the unemployment rate. It is historically low right now, at 3.6 percent. That is far lower than it has ever been during any impending recession. In fact, it is as low as any period since the end of World War II.

  

  (Data: Federal Reserve Economic Data [FRED], St. Louis Fed; Chart: Jeffrey A. Tucker)

  And yet, everyone knows that this is not a reason for hope: the labor participation rate is about where it was forty years ago, as if the whole experience of a more inclusive workforce never happened. It is also currently falling. There are reasons both demographic and cultural for this but it is impossible to understand without reference to the egregious and devastating effects of lockdowns.

  

  (Data: Federal Reserve Economic Data [FRED], St. Louis Fed; Chart: Jeffrey A. Tucker)

  In other words, the official unemployment rate measures only those who are looking for work right now. It does not count those who are not looking for work (or who have figured out how to pay the bills by working unofficially).

  That makes sense in a way. Why count people who are not even looking for work as part of the unemployed masses?

  On the other hand, it is a case of how a statistically accurate number can create a seriously misleading picture.

  By any standard, this measure of economic health is broken. Every recession on record in the 20th century has been marked by high unemployment. This pattern has been so strong that it has confused even smart economists, many of whom came to believe that the labor problem was itself a cause—rather than an effect—of the recession. They often sought to solve this issue through benefits and job creation programs, policy tricks that have never worked.

  Today, this no longer works. But this points to a larger problem: most of these data sets are overly aggregated. The big number treats all “workers” as a whole without regard to demographics. The Department of Labor tries to break it down by categories but not in ways that are particularly helpful. We can find out all kinds of things about race and gender but not much about the issue that really terrifies people: which income groups are most vulnerable to job insecurity today.

  Only about 20 percent of U.S. workers are able to earn more than $100,000 per year but these are the target jobs that every single college graduate wants. Ironically, this is because everyone knows that these are the jobs that require the least work and offer the most benefits. They are the Zoom jobs that everyone wanted to have during the lockdowns because it meant getting up late, wearing PJs all day, and starting cocktail hour mid-afternoon.

  Life was good! Better than good!

  My friends, beware. Everything we are seeing among current economic trends suggests that these jobs, more than any other, are vulnerable to being slaughtered in tight economic times.

  This would be the opposite of the 2008 recession. Back then, unemployment peaked at 10 percent. But a more careful look at the numbers showed something incredible. This affected the high incomes not at all: their rate of unemployment never went above 3.2 percent.

  A breakdown of the data revealed that the unemployment of that period hit mostly the working classes earning wages, while leaving the upper incomes untouched. The disparity of economic suffering was the single most salient feature of that period.

  This time, we face something completely different. There is a huge shortage of workers willing to earn relatively lower incomes, show up to the office, earn wages, and actually work with their hands, drive the trucks, move the boxes, and make the food. There is, on the other hand, a huge surplus of workers demanding huge salaries to stare at screens, stay home, gossip on Slack, and otherwise deploy their generous benefits packages to their maximum extent.

  This recession will very likely be felt in the labor markets severely but the impact will not be among those who are willing to do actual work versus earn high incomes by virtue of their college credentials. The people who are in for a rude awakening are those who have heretofore imagined that their CVs alone would guarantee a good life.

  In other words, this will be a “welcome-to-reality” moment for the entire class of people who rode out the pandemic response by “staying home and staying safe” while expecting the working classes to serve their every need. They gladly took their stimulus checks even though they saw no interruption in their income streams, while figuring out clever ways to trick their bosses into believing they were productive while doing almost nothing at all.

  Perhaps the best term for our times is: reckoning. Thanks to massive government spending and the magic printing press, the administrative state created a fake world in which the overclass thrived for at least two years. Some might say that this fakery actually began in 2008 and continued through the whole decade.

  In the end, economic reality can be slow to dawn but the dawn can burn very bright once it happens. This inflationary recession will be one for the ages. It could be a rare instance in which the overclass itself feels the most pain while workers with actual skills and the desire to produce will find a way to make it through despite every obstacle.

  The “essential workers” are about to find out just how essential they really are.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/16/2022 – 17:30

• Major Study Confirms COVID Vaccines Alter Women's Periods
  Major Study Confirms COVID Vaccines Alter Women’s Periods

  Since Covid vaccines first became available more than a year and a half ago, women have been sounding alarms about the shots’ adverse effect on their menstruation.

  For example, in an August 2021 article at The Grayzone that criticized the U.S. medical establishment’s failure to study the effects of the vaccines on women’s reproductive systems, Marcie Smith Parenti recounted disturbing experiences from her own circle of friends: 

  Their symptoms have included hemorrhagic bleeding lasting more than a month; heavy intermittent bleeding for four months; passing golf-ball size clots of blood; and extreme cramping, serious enough to land one friend in the ER.

  On social media, the The Grayzone was accused of “fearmongering,” being “anti-vax,” and peddling “dangerous disinformation.” Meanwhile, the response of the FDA and CDC to women’s pleas might be best characterized as a bureaucratic shrug.

  In August, NPR said the FDA and all three U.S. vaccine manufacturers claimed “they have not seen evidence that any of the vaccines cause menstrual irregularities.” The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said it was “aware” of the complaints, but urged women to plunge forward with vaccinations anyway without regard to the timing of their cycles.   

  Now, however, a large-scale study adds substantial new confirmation of what thousands of women have been proclaiming since the jabs started. As NBC News reports: 

  “An analysis published Friday in the journal Science Advances found that 42% of people with regular menstrual cycles said they bled more heavily than usual after vaccination…14% reported a lighter period.“

  The study also found many women who don’t typically menstruate—such as those beyond menopause and those on certain long-term contraceptives—experienced “breakthrough” or unexpected bleeding after receiving Covid vaccines.

  The left wing of the Covidian cult could not stand that we trusted actual women more than Pfizer’s PR department https://t.co/ifGDUqvYZt

  — Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) July 16, 2022

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  The authors of the study note that the percentages reporting unusual menstruation may overstate the actual frequency to some degree, as those who’d had bad experiences may have been more inclined to participate in the study.  

  One of the authors is University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign biological anthropologist Kathryn Clancy, who’d experienced the phenomenon herself. In her case, it was an extraordinarily heavy and lengthy period, which is called “menstrual flooding.”

  Her suspicions were magnified when one of her graduate students had told her she’d “had the worst cramps of her life” after receiving a Covid shot. Clancy promptly took to Twitter in February 2021 and asked if other women had endured anything similar. Many confirmed they had, which led to the launch of a formal study. 

  She and the grad student, Katharine Lee, initially set out to survey 500 women. That many signed up in a single hour. The authors reset their sights and ended up with more than 165,000 participants from all over the world. This week’s findings represent an analysis of a subset of more than 39,000 participants between 18 and 80 years old.

  It remains to be seen if the menstrual changes are a sign of something more sinister. Regardless, many women who’ve experienced them without having received an FDA warning about the side-effect have surely been alarmed. Post-menopausal bleeding, for example, is a symptom of uterine cancer. 

  Why was there no warning from the FDA? Because those who participated in Covid vaccine trials weren’t even asked about menstrual changes. 

  For its part, The New York Times cheerfully assures us that “experts” say there’s no cause for alarm. Sure, the “experts” have already unleashed a multifaceted public health catastrophe in the name of battling Covid, but trust them this time, ladies!

  A new study — the largest to date — shows how the Covid vaccine may affect menstruation. Experts say, based on the findings, there is no cause for alarm. https://t.co/V5MvxkHwYU

  — The New York Times (@nytimes) July 15, 2022

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  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/16/2022 – 17:00

• 'Strong Consumer'? Money, Not COVID, Is The Biggest Travel Hurdle This Summer
  ‘Strong Consumer’? Money, Not COVID, Is The Biggest Travel Hurdle This Summer

  After two years of COVID-related restrictions and inhibitions, travelers are ready to hit the beaches in masses this summer – that is if they can still afford it…

  

  Source: FreightWaves.com

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/16/2022 – 16:00

• This Proxy War Has No Exit Strategy
  This Proxy War Has No Exit Strategy

  Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

  The International Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America has released a statement opposing the US government’s ongoing proxy war in Ukraine, saying the billions being funneled into the military-industrial complex “at a time when ordinary Americans are struggling to pay for housing, groceries, and fuel” is “a slap in the face for working people.” The statement advocates a negotiated settlement for peace, saying continuing to pour weapons into the country will “needlessly prolong the war, resulting in more civilian deaths” and that it “risks escalating and widening the war — up to and including nuclear war.”

  

  In response to this entirely reasonable and moderate position, the DSA is currently being raked over the coals with accusations of Kremlin loyalty and facilitation of murder and bloodshed by blue-checkmarked narrative managers on Twitter. This is because the only acceptable positions for anyone of significant influence to have about this war range from supporting continuing current proxy warfare operations to initiating a direct hot war between NATO and Russia.

  That’s how narrow the permissible spectrum of debate has been shrunk regarding this conflict: status quo hawkish to omnicidal hawkish. Anything outside that spectrum gets framed as radical extremism. As Noam Chomsky said: “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”

  The DSA is once again getting viciously attacked for making the extremely controversial recommendation that the US pursue a diplomatic settlement instead of endless weapons shipments. Never ceases to be amazing that this is now considered a crazed, radical, radioactive position: https://t.co/d2YKS9C7Xx

  — Michael Tracey (@mtracey) July 13, 2022

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  This spectrum of debate has been shrunk on the one hand by imperial spinmeisters continually hammering home the message that any support for de-escalation and diplomatic solutions is “appeasement” and indicative of Russian sympathies, and on the other by hawkish pundits and politicians pushing for the most freakishly aggressive responses to this war possible. By forbidding the spectrum of acceptable debate to move toward peace while shoving it as hard as possible in the direction of warmongering extremism, imperial narrative managers have successfully created an Overton window wherein the only debate permitted is over how directly and forcefully Russia should be confronted, with calls for peace now falling far outside that window.

  Which is a problem, because both direct NATO hot war with Russia and continuing along the empire’s current course of action in Ukraine are stupid. Direct conflict between nuclear powers likely means a very fast and very radioactive third world war, and the status quo proxy warfare approach isn’t stopping Russia as more and more territory is taken in the east in cool defiance of western claims that Ukraine is bravely vanquishing its evil invaders. Biden administration officials have told the press that they doubt Ukraine will even be able to reclaim the territory it has lost already. Unless and until something significant changes, Ukraine has no apparent path to victory in this war anytime soon.

  In short, there is no exit strategy to this proxy war. There are no plans in place to deliver Putin a swift defeat, and the Biden administration remains steadfastly dismissive of even the slightest gestures toward diplomacy with Moscow. Boris Johnson has reportedly been buzzing around admonishing Ukraine’s President Zelensky, France’s President Macron and who knows who else not to work toward peace in Ukraine. The doors to ending this war quickly by either winning it or negotiating a peace settlement are both bolted shut, all but guaranteeing a long and bloody slog.

  Which as it turns out suits Washington just fine. Biden administration officials have stated that the goal is to use the Ukraine war to “weaken” Russia, and the US already has an established pattern of working to draw Moscow into costly military quagmires as we saw in both Afghanistan and Syria. Continuing to pour weapons and military intelligence into Ukraine while working to cut Russia off from the world stands no chance of ending the war in a timely manner, but it does stand a pretty good chance of bleeding and weakening Moscow.

  And since this is the course of action that has been taken by the empire, we can only assume that this is its desired outcome: not victory, not peace, but a long and gruelling war.

  Confirms that Ukrainian Pravda story from a couple of months ago. Angloid political elites don’t want this war to end until they’re satisfied enough Russians are killed to kneecap Russia as a rival—no matter how many dead Ukrainians it takes to do so.https://t.co/alKLzwy7DF

  — Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) June 27, 2022

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  One of the major recurring criticisms of the Iraq invasion was that Bush rushed into it without an exit strategy, without a plan for ending the war once it had been started. This proxy war with Russia not only lacks a strategy for ending the war, it apparently only has strategies for not ending the war. No exit strategy is the strategy.

  Whenever you point out the insanity of this approach you’ll get useful idiots of the empire objecting that by criticizing US proxy warfare and supporting a negotiated settlement you are guilty of “appeasement” and exactly the same as Neville Chamberlain, because the only argument empire apologists ever have is to compare every US-targeted government to Nazi Germany.

  According to these propaganda-addled empire automatons, having the story of not compromising with Putin-Hitler and not committing the sin of “appeasement” is worth sacrificing everyone in the entire nation of Ukraine for. They will happily throw every Ukrainian life into the gears of this war while they sit safe at home eating Funyuns and tweeting, just so they can have that “we didn’t compromise with Putin” story hanging on their mental mantlepiece.

  How many more lives are such people prepared to feed into an unwinnable war which the west knowingly provoked? How many more of other people’s children are they prepared to sacrifice? How long does the bloodshed need to drag on before their “no appeasement” story loses value to them? How long until people wake up from their propaganda-induced comas and realize we’ve been manipulated into supporting a proxy war which benefits ordinary people in no real way, and in fact impoverishes us and threatens our very lives?

  There is no morally consistent argument for continuing this proxy war in the way it has been going. If you actually value life and peace, the only way out is through negotiation and compromise. I point this out not because I believe it will happen, but to hopefully help a few more people open their eyes to the fact that we are being deceived.

  *  *  *

  My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my American husband Tim Foley.

  Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/16/2022 – 15:30

• Carson Block Says The Stress Of Being A Short-Seller Forced Him To Give A Presentation In Adult Diapers Once
  Carson Block Says The Stress Of Being A Short-Seller Forced Him To Give A Presentation In Adult Diapers Once

  It’s bad enough short sellers have had to fight the Fed. Now, with the Department of Justice prying into their affairs, the stress level of the job has risen dramatically – and there’s no better example of literally how much of a pain in the ass the job is than a story well known short seller Carson Block shared with Bloomberg last week.

  Block opened up to Bloomberg, questioning whether or not it is worth continuing professionally as a short seller, in a new interview. The fund manager also shared a graphic story to try and make a point of just how stressful life as a short seller can sometimes be. 

  The story dates back to 2018, when Block was short shares of TAL Education group and was planning on giving a presentation on the name. While flying to his destination, details about his presentation may have leaked, because another player in the market other than Muddy Waters appeared to be taking a short position in the name.

  Fearing he would get carried out in an ensuing mega-squeeze, Block called off the presentation and told his firm to unwind the trade. But the damage was already done: Block said the stress of the incident literally tore him apart…

  “The stock’s rocketing, I’m just physically ill, I want to vomit, and I’ve got a million things racing through my mind,” he told Bloomberg. To make matters worse, when his flight touched down, he says “he felt a hemorrhoid burst”.

  

  After getting off the plane, Block “bought a sweatshirt from an airport gift shop to cover the stain” on his pants, and “bought a box of Depends”. He then switched the topic of his speech to Chinese accounting, which he gave while wearing adult diapers. 

  For his trouble as a short seller, DOJ prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission are “examining whether short sellers are improperly teaming up to attack public companies” in a wide ranging probe that has been ongoing since last year. 

  “There’s a gun pointed at us, and it’s really uncomfortable,” Block said. “Anytime somebody points a gun at you, there’s a non-zero chance something goes wrong even if that’s not their original
  intention.”

  Block told Bloomberg he’s confident that his firm hasn’t done anything illegal, and also said that whoever tried to front-run him on the day of the incident also had done anything illegal. But the trouble seems to be enough to make him rethink the industry he’s in. 

  Short selling was once a world where market outsiders could say what they wanted to, he commented: “Most of us were in some way outsiders for a long f—ing time. It’s really hard for us to hold our tongues and not make people feel uncomfortable.” 

  But he “questioned whether it’s worth the trouble anymore,” during his interview, Bloomberg wrote – even though short sellers often help make fraud cases for regulators: “The guys who’ve been making cases for years based on our s—, if they think we’re a f—-ing problem, there’s no end.”

   

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/16/2022 – 15:00

• Celsius Bites The Dust: The Biggest Crypto News For The Second Week Of July
  Celsius Bites The Dust: The Biggest Crypto News For The Second Week Of July

  By Donovan Choy of Bankless

  Welcome to the weekly recap of the biggest crypto news for the second week of July.

  Celsius files bankruptcy

  I’ve used a centralized crypto lender (AKA crypto bank). The argument for these financial services is pretty straightforward and it goes a little something like this:

  “DeFi UX is bad. People don’t want to store 24-word-long seed phrases on paper. Want your Mom to use DeFi? Then be pragmatic about it. Crypto banks will onboard millions of new users into the world of crypto. That’s how crypto goes mainstream!” – Really pragmatic crypto expert in his first crypto bull market

  The problem of course, is that crypto banks don’t actually exist in the world of crypto, but in a nicely furnished entry lounge, or when markets are down – in the exit parking lot. Centralized crypto lenders are in the business of peddling DeFi products, but its foundational building blocks aren’t on blockchain infrastructure. 

  In other words, a crypto bank’s promise of yields is fundamentally an off-chain, unverified claim that users have to take on faith. You’re missing the point of Web3.

  And these off-chain delights have off-chain ends.

  After Voyager and 3AC, Celsius is the third to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week. A court filing this week shows Celsius’ liabilities of $5.5B, of which 85% ($4.7B) is owed to users.

  But not before closing the entirety of its ~$800M debt across Compound, Aave, Maker and other dapps to release its collateralized loans. We don’t know if users will get back their money from Celsius, and if so how much, but lawyers and courts (not smart contracts) will decide. You can argue in a court of law, but not in the smart contract world of DeFi.

  Su Zhu helps StarkWare launch its token

  This one here’s a bit of a merry-go-round. It begins with longstanding rumors of a StarkWare token for its Layer-2 platform StarkNet.

  As seen from the past month’s chaos, we know that 3AC had a slice of everything crypto-related, and that includes a share of the StarkWare token allocation set aside for investors.

  But 3AC is now in the gutter, and allyourassetsarebelongtoliquidators, including that share.

  Apparently, the liquidators failed to “exercise StarkWare’s token purchase offer” before a 5th July deadline and “has caused the Company to lose substantial value”. You know, similar to how 3AC lost substantial value of its clients holdings. In any case, that’s what it took to break Zhu’s five week Twitter silence, and he isn’t happy.

  Sadly, our good faith to cooperate with the Liquidators was met with baiting. Hope that they did exercise good faith wrt the StarkWare token warrants. pic.twitter.com/CF73xI8r6n

  — Zhu Su 🔺 (@zhusu) July 12, 2022

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  StarkWare’s surprise is ruined but the candles are still lit. What are they to do? I guess, sing the song and blow it out, but in a way which very blatantly does not acknowledge the elephant in the room.

  #StarkNet Alpha was launched on Ethereum Mainnet in November 2021.
  ✨
  Now it’s time to advance its decentralization as demanded of an L2 on Ethereum.
  ✨
  Here’s our decentralization proposal, introducing the StarkNet Token, and the StarkNet Foundationhttps://t.co/zk33gANsin pic.twitter.com/YTd0Uj5NbW

  — StarkWare (@StarkWareLtd) July 13, 2022

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  The StarkNet token will be used for governance, staking and the network’s transaction fees (in contrast to other L2s like Optimism where ETH is still used for gas). 10 billion tokens have been minted off-chain and will go live in September. Here’s what the split looks like:

  

  Some observations:

  • A 49.9% allocation to insiders is pretty hefty (Optimism’s was 36%).
  • The tokens are minted off-chain, which makes it hard for potential tokenholders to discern the value of the token and how much whales control.
  • In terms of a potential airdrop, only 9% (900M) under Community Provisions might go towards it (Community Rebates don’t count). The StarkWare community isn’t happy (see here, here and here) with what seems to be perceived as a largely centralized token distribution for insiders and a paltry airdrop for the community.

  Is ETH a security?

  Michael Saylor thinks so:

  “I think Ethereum is a security, I think it’s pretty obvious, […] it was issued by an ICO, theres a management team, there was a pre-mine, there’s a hard fork, there’s continual hard forks, there’s a difficulty bomb that keeps getting pushed back.”

  If Saylor’s right, that has dramatic regulatory implications for ETH. Traditionally, U.S. law determines a security through the Howey Test, which qualifies something as a security if there’s an “investment of money in a common enterprise with a reasonable expectation of profits to be derived from the efforts of others”.

  The Ethereum foundation has gone to great lengths to distinguish ETH not as a securities offering and a profit-oriented stock, but as a kind of commodity good, a resource fuel (gas) to run applications on its blockchain, and that has set the de-facto standard for how ICOs are perceived by investors and regulators. As Camila Russo chronicles in The Infinite Machine:

  The framing… that ether was a product with a specific functionality, opened the door for a whole new way of raising money. Now startups would be able to get funding from anyone who wanted to contribute, all over the world, under what seemed like a safe haven. They weren’t selling securities. These weren’t shares in any company. They didn’t give out dividends that depended on the company’s revenue and investors didn’t have any rights. They were selling digital tokens, made to be used inside these platforms. They were selling utility tokens.

  Bitcoiners’ attempt to frame proof-of-stake networks as securities fixate on the more active “managerial” aspect of the network, so it lends easily to a “profit motive” then a “securities” conclusion. But of course, Bitcoin itself undergoes substantial network development, most notably the SegWit upgrade in 2017 and more recently Taproot last year.

  So is ETH a capital asset (security), a consumable commodity (gas), or a store-value-value like gold/Bitcoin? Bankless has argued that it’s all three. But it’s frankly an endless debate of semantics.

  

  Web3 News Roundup

  Polygon week

  Big week for Polygon.

  First, Polygon has been selected as one of six companies to participate in a Disney Accelerator program that represents the media conglomerate’s efforts to break into the Web3 world of NFTs. In the official press release:

  “The Disney Accelerator kicks off this week, connecting the 2022 class with the creativity, imagination, and expertise of Disney. Over the course of the program, each participant company will receive guidance from Disney’s senior leadership team, as well as a dedicated executive mentor.”

  Polygon is the only Layer-2 platform selected, and MATIC has jumped ~27% since the announcement.

  🚨Interrupting the #GreenBlockchainSummit for some breaking news!

  We’re excited to be the only blockchain chosen to be a part of the Disney Accelerator program. 🎉👇 https://t.co/LaGU4bhidi

  — Polygon – MATIC 💚 (@0xPolygon) July 13, 2022

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  Second, support for MATIC deposits and withdrawals are now live on Robinhood.

  $MATIC ERC-20 deposit/withdrawal support is now available on Robinhood.

  All eligible @RobinhoodApp users who signed up for the WebWallets waitlist are now able to send and receive any of the cryptocurrencies currently available on the app.

  🌐: https://t.co/r8QFWrn9fP pic.twitter.com/xlVCTWOnMk

  — Polygon – MATIC 💚 (@0xPolygon) July 7, 2022

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  Third, Aave’s decentralized social media Lenstube is launching, on top of – you guessed it – the Polygon mainnet. Check it out.

  gm frens 📢

  Lenstube, an open-source web3 video-sharing 🎥 social media platform built on top of @LensProtocol 🌿 is now live on @0xPolygon mainnet 🎉

  Try now https://t.co/mwYvoda2CX

  Zero gas fees ⛽️ thanks to lens relayers.

  — Lenstube (🎥 , 🌿) (@lenstubexyz) July 11, 2022

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  Launch of NFT marketplaces

  More hot launches this week. sudoAMM by sudoswap is a new on-chain NFT marketplace that lets users automate their NFT transactions along a price curve in a liquidity pool.

  Announcing the public release of sudoAMM!

  sudoAMM is a new marketplace protocol that changes the way we think about NFT liquidity and trading.

  It is highly flexible, gas-efficient, and fully on-chain. pic.twitter.com/NBK4UI6fQI

  — sudoswap (@sudoswap) July 8, 2022

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  GameStop NFT is another non-custodial NFT marketplace built on the Ethereum L2 Loopring.

  gm Ξveryone!

  GameStop NFT is live in beta! A non-custodial, Ethereum-L2 marketplace where the community can truly own the digital assets they love 👾https://t.co/oqv5eOdXTC

  Incredibly grateful for the GameStop team & community for making this a reality 😍 #PowerToThePlayers https://t.co/5McGtTGFD9

  — Matt FinΞstonΞ | 3body.eth (@finestonematt) July 12, 2022

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  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/16/2022 – 14:30

• "We Are Not Slaves": Farmers In Italy, Spain, & Poland Join Dutch Protests
  “We Are Not Slaves”: Farmers In Italy, Spain, & Poland Join Dutch Protests

  Farmers in Italy, Spain and Poland have joined Dutch farmers in protest of ‘green’ government regulations that will decimate the industry by forcing them to reduce their use of nitrogen fertilizer compounds.

  “We are not slaves, we are farmers,” said Italian farmers, who drove tractors through the streets of Milan and blocked city traffic.

  Italian farmers hit Milan with the message: “We are not slaves, we are farmers!”

  Still the media turn a blind eye. pic.twitter.com/Yt3C9qeY6A

  — Tony (@mrtdogg_) July 15, 2022

   According to the Morning Star, “Italian farmers face an imminent crisis due to a severe drought that has seen a third of agricultural produce placed at risk.”

  The country’s agricultural minister Steafano Patuanelli told parliament earlier this week that Italy faces a further 40 per cent loss of water resources in the coming decades.

  Farmers say they have lost around €3 billion as a result of the emergency and are being hit hard by rising fuel prices with costs rocketing as a result of the conflict in Ukraine.

  Italian farmers rise up in Milan and block city traffic: “We are not slaves, we are farmers!” pic.twitter.com/g89CmXYV4A

  — RadioGenova (@RadioGenova) July 15, 2022

  In Spain, farmers in Badajoz, Granada and Albacete paraded their tractors down the street in solidarity with the foreign farmers, as well as national protests at home over a lack of food and gasoline, according to EuroWeekly News.

  📢Agricultores Españoles en Badajoz, Granada, Albacete… Manifestándose para proteger su modo de vida y la independencia alimentaria de España (también te afecta a tí)
  🤔Esperando los especiales de TV…
  #DefundEU#TheGreatResetpic.twitter.com/aHf6yOUzWB

  — Free ☣ (@FredTheReez) July 15, 2022

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

  And in Poland, farmers came to Warsaw last weekend to protest against inflation and other government actions.

  #BREAKING #POLAND

  🔴POLAND :#VIDEO MASSIVE PROTESTS OF POLISH FARMERS IN WARSAW!

  They protested against the government’s politics destabilizing production by raising interest rates, which does not stop inflation#Flash #Warsaw #Varsovia #Protests #Protesta #Farmers #Inflation pic.twitter.com/sNLGF5c6Ml

  — loveworld (@LoveWorld_Peopl) July 8, 2022

  The protests have led to empty supermarket shelves in the Netherlands, as tractors and other agricultural machinery have blocked warehouses, preventing their shipment – a move which Prime Minister Mark Rutte has mobilized state police against in an attempted crackdown.

  In short:

  My thoughts while bailing silage ,Farmers of World unite .#FarmingMatters pic.twitter.com/MUKm0tEGt6

  — Gareth Wyn Jones (@1GarethWynJones) July 7, 2022

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

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 07/16/2022 – 14:00

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