Today’s News 1st March 2023

• Escobar: The Stage Is Set For Hybrid World War III
  Escobar: The Stage Is Set For Hybrid World War III

  Authored by Pepe Escobar,

  A powerful feeling rhythms your skin and drums up your soul as you’re immersed in a long walk under persistent snow flurries, pinpointed by selected stops and enlightening conversations, crystallizing disparate vectors one year after the start of the accelerated phase of the proxy war between US/NATO and Russia.

  That’s how Moscow welcomes you: the undisputed capital of the 21st century multipolar world.

  A long, walking meditation impregnates on us how President Putin’s address – rather, a civilizational speech – last week was a game-changer when it comes to the demarcation of the civilizational red lines we are all now facing.

  

  It acted like a powerful drill perforating the less than short, actually zero term memory of the Collective West. No wonder it exercised a somewhat sobering effect contrasting the non-stop Russophobia binge of the NATOstan space.

  Alexey Dobrinin, Director of the Foreign Policy Planning Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Russia, has correctly described Putin’s address as “a methodological basis for understanding, describing and constructing multipolarity.”

  For years some of us have been showing how the emerging multipolar world is defined – but goes way beyond – high speed interconnectivity, physical and geoeconomic. Now, as we reach the next stage, it’s as if Putin and Xi Jinping, each in their own way, are conceptualizing the two key civilizational vectors of multipolarity. That’s the deeper meaning of the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership, invisible to the naked eye.

  Metaphorically, it also speaks volumes that Russia’s pivot to the East, towards the rising sun, now irreversible, was the only logical path to follow as, to quote Dylan, darkness dawns at the break of noon across the West.

  As it stands, with the wobblin’, ragin’ Hegemon lost in its own pre-fabricated daze, the real runners of the show feeding burning flesh to irredeemably mediocre political “elites”, China may have a little more latitude than Russia, as the Middle Kingdom is not – yet – under the same existential pressure Russia has been put under.

  Whatever happens next geopolitically, Russia is at heart a – giant – obstacle on the warmongering path of the Hegemon: the ultimate target is top “threat” China.

  Putin’s ability to size up our extremely delicate geopolitical moment – via a dose of highly concentrated, undiluted realism – is something to behold. And then Foreign Minister Lavrov provided the sweet cherry on top, calling the hapless US ambassador for a hardcore dress down: oh yeah, this is war, hybrid and otherwise, and your NATO mercenaries as well as your junk hardware are legitimate targets.

  Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council, now more than ever relishing his “unplugged” status, made it all very clear: “Russia risks being torn apart if it stops a special military operation (SMO) before victory is achieved.”

  And the message is even more acute because it represents the – public – cue to the Chinese leadership at the Zhongnahhai to understand: whatever happens next, this is the Kremlin’s unmovable official position.

  The Chinese restore the Mandate of Heaven

  All these vectors are evolving as ramifications of the bombing of the Nord Streams, the only military attack – cum industrial terrorism – ever perpetrated against the EU, leave the Collective West paralyzed, dazed and confused.

  Perfectly in tandem with Putin’s address, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs chose the geopolitical/existential moment to finally take the gloves off, with a flourish: enter the US Hegemony and its Perils essay cum report, which became an instant massive hit across Chinese media, examined with relish all across East Asia.

  This blistering enumeration of all the Hegemon’s lethal follies, for decades, constitutes a point of no return for trademark Chinese diplomacy, so far characterized by passivity, ambivalence, actual restraint and extreme politeness. So such turnaround is yet another proud “achievement” of the outright Sinophobia and mendacious hostility exhibited by American neocons and neoliberal-cons.

  Scholar Quan Le notes that this document may be regarded as the traditional form – but now filled with contemporary wording – the Chinese Sovereigns used in their millenary past before going to war.

  It is in fact an axio-epistemo-political proclamation justifying a serious war, which in the Chinese universe means a war ordained by a Higher Power capable of restoring Justice & Harmony in a troubled Universe.

  After the proclamation the warriors are equipped to strike mercilessly at the entity judged to be troubling the Harmony of the Universe: in our case, the psycho Straussian neo-cons and neoliberal-cons commanded as rabid dogs by the real American elites.

  Of course in the Chinese universe there’s no place for “God” – much less a Christian version; “God” for the Chinese means the Beauty-Goodness-Truth trinity, Timeless Heavenly Universal Principles. The closest concept for a non-Chinese to understand is Dao: the Way. So the Way to the Beauty-Goodness-Truth trinity represents symbolically Beauty-Goodness-Truth.

  So what Beijing did – and the Collective West is completely clueless about it – was to issue an axio-epistemo-political proclamation explaining the legitimacy of their quest to restore Timeless Heavenly Universal Principles. They will be fulfilling the Mandate of Heaven – nothing less. The West won’t know what it hit them until it’s too late.

  It was predictable that sooner or later the heirs of Chinese civilization would have had enough – and formally identify, mirroring Putin’s analysis, the upstart Hegemon as the premier source of chaos, inequality and war across the planet. Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder, in a nutshell.

  To put it bluntly, in streetwise language, the hell with this Americana crap of hegemony being justified by “manifest destiny”.

  So here we are. You want Hybrid War? We will return the favor.

  Back to the Wolfowitz Doctrine

  A former CIA advisor has issued a quite sobering report on a pebble along the rocky way: a possible endgame in Ukraine, now that even some elite-run parrots are contemplating a “way out” with minimal loss of face.

  It’s never idle to remember that way back in 2000, the year Vladimir Putin was first elected as President, in the pre-9/11 world, rabid neocon Paul Wolfowitz was side by side with Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski in a huge Ukraine-US symposium in Washington, where he unabashedly raved about provoking Russia to go to war with Ukraine, and committed to finance the destruction of Russia.

  Everyone remembers the Wolfowitz doctrine – which was essentially a tawdry, pedestrian rehash of Brzezinski: to keep permanent US hegemony it was primordial to pre-empt the emergence of any potential competitor.

  Now we have two nuclear-powered, tech savvy peer competitors united by a comprehensive strategic partnership.

  As I finished my long walk paying due respect by the Kremlin to the heroes of 1941-1945, the feeling was inescapable that as much as Russia is a master of riddles and China is a master of paradox, their strategists are now working full time on how to return all strands of Hybrid War against the Hegemon. One thing is certain: unlike boastful Americans, they won’t outline any breakthroughs until they are already in effect.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/01/2023 – 00:05

• China Scrambles To Save Plummeting Birth Rate With Pregnancy Perks
  China Scrambles To Save Plummeting Birth Rate With Pregnancy Perks

  Last month Chinese officials announced that 2022 marked the first drop in total population in six decades, after 9.56 million people were born vs. 10.41 million who died.

  

  Now, the country faces a population decline combined with a long-running rise in life expectancy, which could result in a wide-ranging demographic crisis for the world’s second-largest economy.

  In order to counter the plummeting fertility rate, Chinese officials have loosened the country’s one-child policy, and offered incentives for families to reproduce – but nothing has worked.

  

  Some provinces are trying to go further – including one which now encourages people to have as many babies as they want, even if they are unmarried. In most parts of the country, single mothers are denied government benefits often offered to married couples.

  In the tech hub city of Hangzhou, home to Alibaba, the government is now giving parents of a third child 20,000 yuan, or $2,900 as a one-off subsidy. A second child will net parents around $720.

  In South China, the city of Wenzhou is planning to offer new parents around $400 in subsidies per child, while the northeastern city of Shenyang is offering up to $72 per month until a child is three years old.

  In Shanghai and Shanxi, officials have increased the number of paid marriage leave days – time off granted to couples if they get married – from three days to up to 30 days, according to the People’s Daily Health.

  

  The problem, however, is that many young Chinese adults don’t want large families, and are pushing back on all sorts of incentives to reproduce in one of the most expensive countries in the world to raise a child, the NY Times reports, noting that “such incentives do little to address anxieties about supporting their aging parents and managing the rising costs of education, housing and health care.”

  “The fundamental problem is not that people cannot have children, but that they cannot afford it,” said 26-year-old Sichuan nurse, Lu Yi, adding that she would need to earn at least double her currently monthly salary of around $1,200 (8,000 yuan) to even consider children.

  Many countries around the world — from Japan to Russia to Sweden — have confronted the same demographic challenge, and their attempts to incentivize new babies with subsidies and other tactics have had a limited impact. But China has aged faster than other countries. The often harshly enforced one-child policy, which was aimed at slowing population growth, precipitated the steep decline in births and led to a generational shift in attitudes around family sizes.

  Efforts by the ruling Communist Party to raise fertility rates — by permitting all couples to have two children in 2016, then three in 2021 — have struggled to gain traction. The new policy in Sichuan drew widespread attention because it essentially disregards birth limits altogether, showing how the demographic crisis is nudging the party to slowly relinquish its iron grip over the reproductive rights of its citizens. –NY Times

  “The two-child policy failed. The three-child policy failed,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher, Yi Fuxian, who studies Chinese population trends. “This is the natural next step.”

  Beijing, we have a problem…

  In a 2022 survey of around 20,000 younger Chinese people between the ages of 18 to 25, two-thirds said they don’t want children – with demographers suggesting that the pressures and costs associated with the Chinese education system is a major factor. They have suggested things such as shortening schooling by two years, and getting rid of the competitive exam to enter high school.

  Meanwhile, with women pressured to step into careers instead of marriage, getting Chinese millennials to overcome issues such as costs might only be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the current challenge.

  “You need to go back to the things that have made marriage rates so low,” Professor Stuart Gietel-Basten, who specializes in population policy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, told Insider last year.

  “If women are feeling: ‘This is such a bad move for my career or my life that I’m going to push it back as long as possible,’ then maybe that’s a symptom of other challenges, blockages, or malfunctions in society

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/28/2023 – 23:45

• JFK's Remarkable Peace Speech That Sealed His Fate
  JFK’s Remarkable Peace Speech That Sealed His Fate

  Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

  The deep animosity against Russia and China that the U.S. national-security establishment has inculcated in the American people brings to mind the remarkable speech that President Kennedy delivered on June 10, 1963, at American University that sealed his fate.

  

  Just imagine what would happen to any American who today dares to say good things about Russia and China. The Russia haters and the China haters will heap condemnation and calumny on them. The haters will accuse them of being “Putin lovers” who support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the case of China, they will accuse them of being communist sympathizers who support China’s military expansionism. 

  No, there is no room in America for positive sentiments toward Russia and China. Through the power of indoctrination, the Pentagon and the CIA have succeeded in inculcating a mindset of deep hostility all across America toward both Russia and China.

  Of course, they did the same thing back in the Cold War era, perhaps even more so given that, during that time, both Russia and China were communist regimes. Throughout the Cold War decades, Americans were indoctrinated in the same way that Americans today are indoctrinated. They were taught to hate and fear the Russian Reds and the Chinese Reds and, for that matter, the North Korean Reds, the Cuban Reds, the Vietnamese Reds, the Chilean Reds, the Guatemalan Reds, and, well, all the Reds in the world, including those who were inside the United States. 

  Among the people Americans were expected to hate was Martin Luther King, not only because he was believed to be a Red but also because he had the audacity to point out that the U.S. government had become the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. They hated him for that, just as they hated Mohammad Ali, who dared to question their war against the Reds in Vietnam. That’s why they targeted both men for destruction. 

  In the midst of all this anti-Russia and anti-China hostility stepped President John F. Kennedy. He had had enough of all this hostility.

  He recognized it as a destructive and highly dangerous mindset that the Pentagon and the CIA had inculcated in the American people. 

  Kennedy realized that it was that mindset that had brought the world to the brink of all-out, life-destroying nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He also came to the realization that if the Pentagon and the CIA had not been hell-bent on illegally invading Cuba, there would never have been a Cuban Missile Crisis. 

  Keep some important things in mind.

  At the time that Kennedy was delivering his Peace Speech, the Soviet Union (of which Russia was the principal member) was still occupying and controlling Eastern Europe. It was also still occupying and controlling West Germany. It was still maintaining and enforcing the Berlin Wall. China, North Korea, North Vietnam, and Cuba were still communist regimes. 

  

  Kennedy delivering his Peace Speech. Licensed under Creative Commons.

  Kennedy shows up at American University and initiates a surprise attack on the Pentagon and the CIA.

  He declared an end to the deep anti-Soviet hostility that the Pentagon and the CIA had inculcated in the American people.

  He called for peaceful and friendly coexistence with the Soviet Union and the rest of the communist world. With a slap across the faces of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he declared, “What kind of a peace do I mean? What kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war.”

  Kennedy’s entire speech is worth reading, but here are some more excerpts:

  First, examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it is unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable, that mankind is doomed, that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade. Therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable and we believe they can do it again.

  ***

  No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue. As Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage.

  ***

  And no nation in the history of battle ever suffered more than the Soviet Union in the Second World War. At least 20 million lost their lives. Countless millions of homes and families were burned or sacked. A third of the nation’s territory, including nearly two-thirds of its industrial base, was turned into a wasteland, a loss equivalent to the destruction of this country east of Chicago.

  ***

  So, let us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

  The very next evening — June 11, 1963 — Kennedy went on national television to express support for the supposed communist Martin Luther King and the American civil-rights movement, which the national-security establishment, especially the FBI, was convinced was a  communist front for a Red takeover of the United States.

  The president had just thrown down a doubly dangerous gauntlet before the U.S. national-security establishment.

  As I point out in my book An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story, Kennedy’s Peace Speech, combined with his resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which enraged the Pentagon and the CIA, combined with his support of what was believed to be a domestic communist front, sealed his fate.

  Several months later, they took him out, on the grounds of protecting “national security,” just as they targeted foreign leaders on the same basis. 

  No one in America — and especially not a U.S. president — is permitted to embrace what are considered to be heretical thoughts and policies regarding Russia and China.

  The deep anti-Russia and anti-China hostility that the Pentagon and the CIA inculcate in the American people has become a permanent part of American life.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/28/2023 – 23:25

• Who Wants To Be A Centi-Millionaire? Attend These 8 College To Improve Chances
  Who Wants To Be A Centi-Millionaire? Attend These 8 College To Improve Chances

  A new wealth report by consultancy firm “Henley & Partners” found more than a third of US centi-millionaires graduated from eight universities. 

  The report found 9,630 centi-millionaires living in the US as of December. Of that, 35% of them graduated from just eight schools:

  • Harvard

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • Stanford

  • University of Pennsylvania

  • Columbia,

  • Yale,

  • Cornell, and

  • Princeton.

  

  “Nonetheless, a premium education undeniably improves the chances of achieving success, influence, and wealth,” Henley & Partners said. 

  The report noted an exception: 

  “Education is not the only route to phenomenal financial success though, with two notable examples being Bill Gates, who left Harvard to start Microsoft, and Mark Zuckerberg, a fellow Harvard drop-out and the poster boy of Facebook, now Meta, both of whom went on to become billionaires.” 

  And for those aspiring to become a centi-millionaire one day, choosing the right industry is important. The report found the top industries in which centi-millionaires have acquired their wealth:  

  • Financial and professional services

  • Technology 

  • Real Estate

  • Media and entertainment 

  • Energy and basic materials 

  • Retail

  • Healthcare 

  • Hotel and leisure 

  • Manufacturing

  • Transport 

  

  Unsurprisingly, a handful of Ivy League universities have a monopoly on churning out centi-millionaires. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/28/2023 – 23:05

• A Nanny State Idiocracy: When The Government Thinks It Knows Best
  A Nanny State Idiocracy: When The Government Thinks It Knows Best

  Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military.”

  – Simone Weil, French philosopher

  It’s hard to say whether we’re dealing with a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves), a kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of American citizens), or if we’ve gone straight to an idiocracy. 

  For instance, an animal welfare bill introduced in the Florida state legislature would ban the sale of rabbits in March and April, prohibit cat owners from declawing their pets, make it illegal for dogs to stick their heads out of car windows, force owners to place dogs in a harness or in a pet seatbelt when traveling in a car, and require police to create a public list of convicted animal abusers.

  A Massachusetts law prohibits drivers from letting their cars idle for more than five minutes on penalty of a $100 fine ($500 for repeat offenders), even in the winter. You can also be fined $20 or a month in jail for scaring pigeons.

  This overbearing Nanny State despotism is what happens when government representatives (those elected and appointed to work for us) adopt the authoritarian notion that the government knows best and therefore must control, regulate and dictate almost everything about the citizenry’s public, private and professional lives.

  

  The government’s bureaucratic attempts at muscle-flexing by way of overregulation and overcriminalization have reached such outrageous limits that federal and state governments now require on penalty of a fine that individuals apply for permission before they can grow exotic orchids, host elaborate dinner parties, gather friends in one’s home for Bible studies, give coffee to the homeless, let their kids manage a lemonade stand, keep chickens as pets, or braid someone’s hair, as ludicrous as that may seem.

  Consider, for example, that businesses in California were ordered to designate an area of the children’s toy aisle “gender-neutral” or face a fine, whether or not the toys sold are traditionally marketed to girls or boys such as Barbies and Hot Wheels. California schools are prohibited from allowing students to access websites, novels or religious works that reflect negatively on gays. And while Californians are free to have sex with whomever they choose (because that’s none of the government’s business), removing a condom during sex without consent could make you liable for general, special and punitive damages.

  It’s getting worse.

  Almost every aspect of American life today—especially if it is work-related—is subject to this kind of heightened scrutiny and ham-fisted control, whether you’re talking about aspiring “bakers, braiders, casket makers, florists, veterinary masseuses, tour guides, taxi drivers, eyebrow threaders, teeth whiteners, and more.”

  For instance, whereas 70 years ago, one out of every 20 U.S. jobs required a state license, today, almost 1 in 3 American occupations requires a license.

  The problem of overregulation has become so bad that, as one analyst notes, “getting a license to style hair in Washington takes more instructional time than becoming an emergency medical technician or a firefighter.”

  This is what happens when bureaucrats run the show, and the rule of law becomes little more than a cattle prod for forcing the citizenry to march in lockstep with the government.

  Overregulation is just the other side of the coin to overcriminalization, that phenomenon in which everything is rendered illegal and everyone becomes a lawbreaker.

  As policy analyst Michael Van Beek warns, the problem with overcriminalization is that there are so many laws at the federal, state and local levels—that we can’t possibly know them all.

  “It’s also impossible to enforce all these laws. Instead, law enforcement officials must choose which ones are important and which are not. The result is that they pick the laws Americans really must follow, because they’re the ones deciding which laws really matter,” concludes Van Beek. “Federal, state and local regulations — rules created by unelected government bureaucrats — carry the same force of law and can turn you into a criminal if you violate any one of them… if we violate these rules, we could be prosecuted as criminals. No matter how antiquated or ridiculous, they still carry the full force of the law. By letting so many of these sit around, just waiting to be used against us, we increase the power of law enforcement, which has lots of options to charge people with legal and regulatory violations.”

  This is the police state’s superpower: it has been vested with the authority to make our lives a bureaucratic hell.

  That explains how a fisherman can be saddled with 20 years’ jail time for throwing fish that were too small back into the water. Or why police arrested a 90-year-old man for violating an ordinance that prohibits feeding the homeless in public unless portable toilets are also made available.

  The laws can get downright silly. For instance, you could also find yourself passing time in a Florida slammer for such inane activities as singing in a public place while wearing a swimsuit, breaking more than three dishes per day, farting in a public place after 6 pm on a Thursday, and skateboarding without a license.

  However, the consequences are all too serious for those whose lives become grist for the police state’s mill. A few years back, police raided barber shops in minority communities, resulting in barbers being handcuffed in front of customers, and their shops searched without warrants. All of this was purportedly done in an effort to make sure that the barbers’ licensing paperwork was up to snuff.

  In this way, America has gone from being a beacon of freedom to a locked down nation. And “we the people,” sold on the idea that safety, security and material comforts are preferable to freedom, have allowed the government to pave over the Constitution in order to erect a concentration camp.

  We labor today under the weight of countless tyrannies, large and small, carried out in the so-called name of the national good by an elite class of governmental and corporate officials who are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions.

  We increasingly find ourselves badgered, bullied and browbeaten into bearing the brunt of their arrogance, paying the price for their greed, suffering the backlash for their militarism, agonizing as a result of their inaction, feigning ignorance about their backroom dealings, overlooking their incompetence, turning a blind eye to their misdeeds, cowering from their heavy-handed tactics, and blindly hoping for change that never comes. 

  The overt signs of the despotism exercised by the increasingly authoritarian regime that passes itself off as the United States government (and its corporate partners in crime) are all around us: censorship, criminalizing, shadow banning and de-platforming of individuals who express ideas that are politically incorrect or unpopular; warrantless surveillance of Americans’ movements and communications; SWAT team raids of Americans’ homes; shootings of unarmed citizens by police; harsh punishments meted out to schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance; community-wide lockdowns and health mandates that strip Americans of their freedom of movement and bodily integrity; armed drones taking to the skies domestically; endless wars; out-of-control spending; militarized police; roadside strip searches; privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing Americans; fusion centers that spy on, collect and disseminate data on Americans’ private transactions; and militarized agencies with stockpiles of ammunition, to name some of the most appalling.

  Yet as egregious as these incursions on our rights may be, it’s the endless, petty tyrannies—the heavy-handed, punitive-laden dictates inflicted by a self-righteous, Big-Brother-Knows-Best bureaucracy on an overtaxed, overregulated, and underrepresented populace—that illustrate so clearly the degree to which “we the people” are viewed as incapable of common sense, moral judgment, fairness, and intelligence, not to mention lacking a basic understanding of how to stay alive, raise a family, or be part of a functioning community.

  In exchange for the promise of an end to global pandemics, lower taxes, lower crime rates, safe streets, safe schools, blight-free neighborhoods, and readily accessible technology, health care, water, food and power, we’ve opened the door to lockdowns, militarized police, government surveillance, asset forfeiture, school zero tolerance policies, license plate readers, red light cameras, SWAT team raids, health care mandates, overcriminalization, overregulation and government corruption.

  In the end, such bargains always turn sour.

  We relied on the government to help us safely navigate national emergencies (terrorism, natural disasters, global pandemics, etc.) only to find ourselves forced to relinquish our freedoms on the altar of national security, yet we’re no safer (or healthier) than before.

  We asked our lawmakers to be tough on crime, and we’ve been saddled with an abundance of laws that criminalize almost every aspect of our lives. So far, we’re up to 4500 criminal laws and 300,000 criminal regulations that result in average Americans unknowingly engaging in criminal acts at least three times a day. For instance, the family of an 11-year-old girl was issued a $535 fine for violating the Federal Migratory Bird Act after the young girl rescued a baby woodpecker from predatory cats.

  We wanted criminals taken off the streets, and we didn’t want to have to pay for their incarceration. What we’ve gotten is a nation that boasts the highest incarceration rate in the world, with more than 2.3 million people locked up, many of them doing time for relatively minor, nonviolent crimes, and a private prison industry fueling the drive for more inmates, who are forced to provide corporations with cheap labor.

  A special report by CNBC breaks down the national numbers:

  One out of 100 American adults is behind bars — while a stunning one out of 32 is on probation, parole or in prison. This reliance on mass incarceration has created a thriving prison economy. The states and the federal government spend about $74 billion a year on corrections, and nearly 800,000 people work in the industry.

  We wanted law enforcement agencies to have the necessary resources to fight the nation’s wars on terror, crime and drugs. What we got instead were militarized police decked out with M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, silencers, battle tanks and hollow point bullets—gear designed for the battlefield, more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year (many for routine police tasks, resulting in losses of life and property), and profit-driven schemes that add to the government’s largesse such as asset forfeiture, where police seize property from “suspected criminals.”

  According to the Washington Post, these funds have been used to buy guns, armored cars, electronic surveillance gear, “luxury vehicles, travel and a clown named Sparkles.” Police seminars advise officers to use their “department wish list when deciding which assets to seize” and, in particular, go after flat screen TVs, cash and nice cars.

  In Florida, where police are no strangers to asset forfeiture, Florida police have been carrying out “reverse” sting operations, where they pose as drug dealers to lure buyers with promises of cheap cocaine, then bust them, and seize their cash and cars. Over the course of a year, police in one small Florida town seized close to $6 million using these entrapment schemes.

  We fell for the government’s promise of safer roads, only to find ourselves caught in a tangle of profit-driven red light cameras, which ticket unsuspecting drivers in the so-called name of road safety while ostensibly fattening the coffers of local and state governments. Despite widespread public opposition, corruption and systemic malfunctions, these cameras—used in 24 states and Washington, DC—are particularly popular with municipalities, which look to them as an easy means of extra cash.

  One small Florida town, population 8,000, generates a million dollars a year in fines from these cameras. Building on the profit-incentive schemes, the cameras’ manufacturers are also pushing speed cameras and school bus cameras, both of which result in heft fines for violators who speed or try to go around school buses.

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this is what happens when the American people get duped, deceived, double-crossed, cheated, lied to, swindled and conned into believing that the government and its army of bureaucrats—the people we appointed to safeguard our freedoms—actually have our best interests at heart.

  The problem with these devil’s bargains is that there is always a catch, always a price to pay for whatever it is we valued so highly as to barter away our most precious possessions.

  We’ve bartered away our right to self-governance, self-defense, privacy, autonomy and that most important right of all: the right to tell the government to “leave me the hell alone.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/28/2023 – 22:45

• Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Loses Re-Election, Comes In Third-Place
  Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Loses Re-Election, Comes In Third-Place

  Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot – who claimed last year to have the biggest dick in the city, lost her bid for re-election Tuesday after failing to advance to a runoff in the Chicago mayoral race, according to AP.

  The loss makes her the first Chicago mayor to lose re-election since 1983.

  

  Lightfoot finished third with 16.4% of the vote, while former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas finished at 35.02%, and Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson at 20.25%. The two will now advance to the April 4 runoff as the two candidates who got the most votes.

  “Obviously, we didn’t win the election. But, I stand here with my head held high and my heart full of thanks,” Lightfoot told supporters right before 9 p.m., the Chicago Sun Times reports.

  “You will not be defined by how you fall. You will be defined by how hard you work and how much you do for other people.”

  Or, in Lightfoot’s case, she will be defined by the following:

  • “F**k Clarence Thomas!” Shouts Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot During Pride Parade
  • Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Granting Interviews “Only To Black Or Brown Journalists”
  • Did Chicago Punish Car Dealership Rocked By $1 Million Theft After Lightfoot Called Owner An “Idiot”?
  • Chicago’s Ex-City Attorney Brands Mayor Lori Lightfoot A ‘Disaster’ After $2.9 Million Settlement Over Botched Police Raid
  • Chicago Homicide Crisis Worsens As Mayor Lightfoot Fails To Quell Violence
  • Illinois Sheriffs Reject Mayor Lightfoot’s Urgent Plea To Cover Police Shortage In Crime-Hit Chicago

  “I haven’t been this happy since my son returned from Afghanistan,” said Vallas, adding “We will have a safe Chicago. We will make Chicago the safest city in America.”

  

  Johnson, meanwhile, “appears to have claimed a large share of undecided African-American voters who were “searching” for an alternative to Lightfoot,” according to the Sun Times.

  

  What’s next for Lightfoot?

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/28/2023 – 22:30

• Parking Lot Of Container Ships Idle Off China On Recovery Bet
  Parking Lot Of Container Ships Idle Off China On Recovery Bet

  The global economy is proving resilient in the first two months of 2023. Supply chain snarls are easing, while demand conditions are neither hot nor cold. The post–Covid-19 recovery is on shaky ground as the world awaits a China recovery. 

  Bloomberg pointed out that “a large number” of container ships are “positioned near China, waiting for a renewed flow of exports as the world’s second-largest economy recovers from Covid Zero restrictions.” 

  “It makes sense to be close to the main export centers, to be in a ready-to-go position,” Simon Heaney, senior manager of container research at maritime consultant Drewry, said. 

  Drewry data shows unused vessel capacity began inching up in the second half of 2022 and has since hit the highest level since late 2020. 

  

  A slowdown in shipping comes as major central banks sent interest rates sky-high to tackle out-of-control inflation. This has led to falling global demand for goods and services. 

  Spot container freight rates have crashed in the last year. 

  

  Many investors have bet on a Chinese recovery since Beijing disbanded Covid restrictions late last year. But on Tuesday, the Chinese Communist Party warned the foundation of economic recovery is not yet solid, according to Reuters. 

  After a three-day meeting, a communique released by the Communist Party’s Central Committee said the economy still faces triple pressures, including demand contraction, supply shock, and sliding expectations. 

  FreightWaves pointed out last week, “an unprecedented flood of new container ships is about to enter service.” This would further increase unused vessel capacity as a welcoming sign of lower container rates. 

  One thing is clear: The world has entered a period of immense economic uncertainty with no definitive timeline for a robust China recovery. Plus, ultra-hawkish central banks worldwide are dampening demand. 

  Frank Andersen, head of Asia at maritime data provider Shipfix, believes a rebound in vessel use is coming, though “these will slowly get activated, although we could see that taking a few more months.” 

  Perhaps the China recovery everyone has been expecting won’t be as strong as initially thought. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/28/2023 – 22:25

• Hypocrisy Unlimited: Hollywood’s Secret Counterfeit Vaccine Network
  Hypocrisy Unlimited: Hollywood’s Secret Counterfeit Vaccine Network

  Authored by Roger L. Simon via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Last week, I had a remarkable phone call with a man or a woman—I am equivocating to protect the identity, though I assure you he or she was one or the other, not in the least transgendered—from my former home in the Los Angeles area, regarding Hollywood and COVID-19 or, as it is known hereabouts, the CCP virus.

  

  Ironically, this was exactly one week before the deadline for Oscar voting. Although no longer working in the industry, I have been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since the mid-’80s, but never have I received so many emails, texts, and phone calls reminding me to vote.

  This tells me that other members may be as bored with the process as I am. Who wants to vote in the event, let alone watch it?

  Besides being reactionary in its obsession with race and sexual identity, “Woke” Hollywood just isn’t fun (or entertaining) anymore.

  Even less fun for all of us was COVID-19, but for Hollywood, it was especially inconvenient because of the stringent California laws that the studios took to with alacrity. You had no career without mRNA certification. You were supposed to be vaccinated just to get on the studio lot.

  The phone call I mentioned above was with a person who works in the entertainment industry and said he or she obtained—through connections—vaccination record cards for use by major Hollywood celebrities and others.

  These aren’t counterfeits, but actual cards purloined from a hospital pharmacy where the vaccines were sold and included batch numbers but without names attached. In essence, they were contraband.

  The person claims to have been inspired to do something for people in the face of forced vaccination after news emerged the virus might have been the result of a lab leak in Wuhan, China, and that the government had been lying about the pandemic in general.

  My interlocutor says he or she began selling the cards in early April 2021. Between then and early October of that year, calls were apparently coming in every day for contraband cards.

  The individual estimates that he or she sold at least 250 of the cards during that period. When asked whether he or she was afraid of the Justice Department and IRS because of this, the answer was affirmative.

  The celebrities for whom this person made these counterfeits were almost uniformly liberals or progressives, at least publicly. In other words, if you asked them, they supported mandates, masks, and so forth, sometimes adamantly. Behind the scenes was another matter.

  The stories this person told me were amusing, nauseating, and, in some sense, edifying all at once. We have long known that Hollywood types are some of the most hypocritical people on the planet—living large while endlessly lecturing the little folk on climate and the rest—but this may take the proverbial cake.

  Many of the clients of this person, I was told, were well aware of details of the growing concerns about potential side effects of the vaccines—particularly in the reproductive area. Not surprisingly then, the person estimated 90 percent of the clients were female.

  The general state of these people was described as fear and paranoia, reminiscent of the 1980 Lichtenstein-like cartoon in the LA Weekly that showed an anguished female studio executive intoning, “NUCLEAR WAR? There goes my career!”

  It didn’t always go well.

  One of my informant’s clients—a well-known entertainer whose name I was assured I would know—was allegedly upset that a favorite local sports team was demanding proof of vaccination for entry, even at the VIP entrance.

  So this person apparently panicked when offered a card by my interlocutor. It was said there would be ushers at all entrances with iPads, checking the cards against the California state database.

  My informant replied the database was hodgepodge—apparently, 30 percent of vaccinations were never recorded—and that the celeb should just insist the card was valid, loudly, if necessary, and all would be well. The entertainer apparently replied that was fine for the man and woman on the street, but if the celeb made a fuss, it would be on TMZ before morning, a career-ender like the 1980s cartoon.

  The celeb ended up giving the VIP tickets, sans card, to the entertainer’s manager, only to find out later that no one was at the door checking anything.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/28/2023 – 22:05

• 7.2 Percent Of US Adults Identify As LGBT
  7.2 Percent Of US Adults Identify As LGBT

  A total of 7.2 percent of U.S. adults identified as LGBT in 2022, a new record high.

  As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes, Gen Z, newly added in the Gallup survey‘s 2020 edition, is the gayest generation in terms of self-identification.

  Almost 20 percent of those born between 1997 and 2004 identified as LGBT, compared with around 11 percent of Millennials.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  While scientists believe that the share of LGBT individuals has not actually changed over time, younger people in the U.S. are more likely to be openly gay, lesbian, bisexual or transsexual.

  Even within the generation of Millennials, defined as those born between 1981 and 1996, self-identification quotas rose in the past years. In 2014, only 6.3 percent of Millennials had said they identified as LGBT.

  For older generations, levels of self-identification did not change majorly in the past decade.

  The Gallup survey question did not ask respondents to identify as other sexes, sexual identities or sexual orientations like intersex, asexual or queer.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/28/2023 – 21:45

• Who Do We Target Now In The Inflation Blame Game?
  Who Do We Target Now In The Inflation Blame Game?

  Authored by Graham Young via The Epoch Times,

  Inflation is rising everywhere, which does not mean it’s not a problem for politicians in Australia, just that they are a subset of politicians everywhere.

  So we are seeing a global hunt for alibis and scapegoats.

  In Australia,  the federal government and the union movement have chosen business—in particular mining and food—as their fall guy.

  

  There are a bunch of reasons why inflation is up.

  One is that demand is stronger than normal, but the supply of goods hasn’t kept up due to logistical problems left-over from COVID and normal resource scarcity.

  The reason demand has exploded is that money that couldn’t be spent for two years is being spent quickly and immediately. This is being funded by savings that accrued while most of us had our “gap year” for COVID and couldn’t travel or go out.

  No blame accrues there, apart from the fact they collectively shut us down when the pandemic handbook said that was the last thing you should do.

  Blame does accrue to governments who have also fuelled demand by loose monetary policy in the first place, and debt-fuelled expenditures in the second. They are adding record public spending to private spending.

  In the U.S. the spending is in packages such as the so-called “Build Back Better” and “Inflation Reduction” Acts.

  In Australia, we have various programs initiated by the government for energy transition, aged care, and childcare.

  Another reason is that the price of energy has skyrocketed. This is partly a result of the war in Ukraine, but the stats show prices rising well before then.

  This inflation is due to the energy transition, and it will intensify the further we transit into it. While politicians tout wind and solar as “clean, green, and cheap,” they are certainly not cheap, as evident by the rising cost of carbon credits.

  This is an outcome of government choice.

  Bigger Government, Designating Villain Status to Capitalism

  Another driver in Australia that will become more apparent as time goes by is government-driven labour market changes which will make wages artificially higher while decreasing the flexibility of the economy.

  Changes like the recent re-introduction of pattern-bargaining, centralised wage fixing, national industry awards, clamping down on the “gig economy,” increasing unionisation, and freeing the CFMEU (the union involved in all infrastructure work) from the oversight of the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

  Inflation has been bubbling away under the surface as variants of Modern Monetary Theory—the idea that governments could borrow and spend what they pleased without risking inflation—leading to insanely low-interest rates and over-extended national “credit cards.”

  These inflationary pressures manifested first in rising stock market valuations and then in elevated house prices. Now, they are hitting the hip pocket.

  None of this is to the credit of any government, so who to blame if you are intent on re-election?

  If your constituency is notionally labour, this is a very easy choice, it must be the capitalists.

  And so the intellectual establishments of the Australian left, like The Australia Institute and the ABC, are hard at work fabricating a case for inflation being caused by “profiteering” and “price gouging” by corporate Australia, particularly the energy and mining sector and food.

  They also point to an increase in capital profits versus labour as a share of the economy.

  Except the facts don’t bear them out.

  Energy and mining companies are price takers, with the price of their commodities swinging wildly in tune with small fluctuations in demand and supply.

  It was only in 2020 that the price of oil went negative for a brief period, hitting -$37 per barrel (negative US$23) in late April.

  For a period of a year or two, their financial statements were swimming in red ink.

  Now there is a shortage of supply, partly caused by the war in Ukraine, but mostly by the energy transition, with governments deliberately restricting new oil and gas developments. Purchasers know there is not enough to go around, so they are bidding the price up.

  This is how shortages are supposed to be handled—high prices encourage new developments and new supply, which eventually increases supply and lowers cost.

  Greedy for Profits or Just Better Business Practice?

  You can’t blame the energy companies for taking the prices their customers want to give them.

  The argument for food is similarly flawed. Take Woolworths, with 37 percent of the Australian grocery market, who reported their first half results this week. Profit is up 18 percent, but not because food prices are up. Their turnover in food is up only 2.5 percent, less than the rate of inflation.

  Increased profit appears to be the result of better management, increased sales in Big W, and rotation from expensive products into cheaper but more profitable home brands.

  The Australia Institute’s chief economist Richard Dennis points to an increase in the share of the economy of Capital Profits.

  However, as the graph below shows, labour has remained quite stable as a share of the economy, with the greatest retreat being “Gross Mixed Income.”

  Analysis by the Reserve Bank of Australia fingers the rise in the housing market and the financialisation of the economy (as it becomes more white-collar) as the reason for these moves.

  

  Labour and Capital Income. (Reserve Bank of Australia)

  There is nothing unusual about politicians seeking to implicate someone else in their failures, but there is a real inflationary danger here.

  If the public is convinced that it is corporate profit gouging that is causing the problem that can lead to price caps and super-taxes, that actually makes the problems worse.

  It can also trigger unsustainable wage rises, meant to rectify the situation but which, in fact, perpetuate the vicious cycle of spiralling price increases and inflation.

  By world standards, inflation is relatively low in Australia at the moment. Bad analysis followed by bad policy could change that and entrench high inflation for a lot longer.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/28/2023 – 21:25

• Living At The Mall? Only In California…
  Living At The Mall? Only In California…

  Real estate developers in Orange County, California are about to make some dreams come true, after the City Council adopted a plan to build thousands of apartments, lawns, walking trails and other amenities at the Westminster Mall.

  

  The new mall would contain at least 600,000 square feet of retail space, up to 3,000 residential units, and up to 425 hotel rooms – all surrounded by a 17-acre park.

  “It was the hip place to be, and it’s really faded out, but it’s just sad to see it go,” said KL DeHart, who grew up in Orange County in the late 1970s, and often wandered the mall with her mother, the LA Times reports.

  Hart, a 55-year-old massage therapist who lives near the mall in the house she grew up in is one of the locals who are worried that the new apartments will increase traffic while doing nothing to solve the area’s housing affordability issues.

  In Orange County, the San Fernando Valley and suburbs throughout America, the mall was a gathering spot where there were few other places to hang out. It was where kids stocked up on the latest fashions and roamed in packs after school, spawning the term “mall rat.”

  The 1980s cult classic “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” began and ended at the mall where the teens worked. In the 1995 film “Clueless,” a Beverly Hills teen retreated to the mall, which she described as a “sanctuary,” after failing to persuade a teacher to boost her grade.

  Now, teenagers text with their friends and make TikTok videos. Their parents are more likely to shop online than at a brick-and-mortar store. -LA Times

  Orange County, meanwhile, is desperate for new housing as rents and prices skyrocket in an area where there is little to no underdeveloped land.

  According to City Manager Christine Cordon, the Westminster Mall is “probably one of the largest areas of developable space that still exists in our time in this area.”

  “This is really our opportunity to create something that we can be absolutely proud of for the next generation to create those same fond memories that I have and that others have in a fashion that is consistent with what the times are now,” said Cordon.

  According to Shopoff Realty Investments CEO, Bill Shopoff, upscale malls thrive because “they have entertainment, food, there’s a reason to go there,” adding “I think we need to do that in Westminster to create a sense of something.”

  And who might be interested in living at the mall? Shopoff – who purchased the Macy’s store and the former Sears store in the Westminster Mall last year – is counting on ‘a modern type of suburban dweller,’ who would rather walk to restaurants and other things than live in a single-family home suburban house with a yard.

  Experts say that new laws, along with increased pressure from the state to build more homes, have convinced some local officials who might have been resistant to rezoning commercial properties in the past.

  Roughly every eight years, California cities are assigned a certain number of new housing units they’re required to zone for. As part of the 2020 assessment, Orange County needs to make space for about 183,000 new units, shared among all its cities.

  Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two pieces of legislation aimed at spurring housing development in corridors otherwise zoned for large retail and office buildings. -LA Times

  “Whether you want to call Orange County urban suburbia or suburban urbanism, it’s definitely shifting,” said Elizabeth Hansburg, People for Housing Orange County co-founder and executive director. “We have an interesting mix of historic districts and tract housing of the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and even the ’70s, but I don’t see us building like that again. It’s going to be interesting to see how families evolve in denser spaces.”

  Meanwhile, Simon Property Group is reportedly opening additional residential zoning in its Mission Viejo mall, and has proposed redeveloping 15.5 acres of the Brea mall to include apartments, a resort-style fitness center, shops and a large green space.

  That said, some of the locals, such as DeHart are furious, and insist they aren’t just NIMBYs.

  “That’s not what this is,” she said. “We’re asking legitimate questions, and we’re not getting answers.”

  Residents have also voiced concerns about ‘tall residential buildings looming above single-family homes.’

  Despite their concerns, city officials such as Laguna Hills Mayor Janine Heft say change is needed.

  “There’s a lot of nostalgia for what the mall used to be,” she said. “What we didn’t want was a blight, and that’s really what we had. We had this mall that hadn’t been kept up in years.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/28/2023 – 21:05

• "Yankee Tax" Proposed By South Carolina Lawmaker
  “Yankee Tax” Proposed By South Carolina Lawmaker

  A South Carolina state Senator wants to hit new residents with a $500 “Yankee Tax” for moving to the Palmetto state.

  

  The bill, proposed by Sen. Stephen Goldfinch (R), would require those moving to South Carolina from out-of-state to pay two one-time fees; $250 for vehicle registrations and $250 for a new driver’s license. Half of the new fee would go toward the state’s infrastructure – including roads, bridges and common community areas, according to Fox Business.

  “I’m not trying to build a wall and this is not a fee against new residents, it’s a fee for people to catch up with the rest of us,” Goldfinch told Fox News Digital. “I think there’s a rational basis for requiring newcomers to catch up with the rest of us and contribute to the roads, bridges, schools and green spaces that we’ve [residents] always contributed to.”

  His proposal comes after droves of people from the Northeast have moved to South Carolina in recent years. According to the U.S. Census, nearly half a million people moved to the Palmetto State in the past decade.

  People flocked to the Southeast during the pandemic and stayed due to a host of reasons, including work flexibility, lower taxes and warmer weather.

  Goldfinch points to South Carolina residents as inspiration for the bill. -Fox Business

  “Our quality of life has been diminished by the almost 4 million people that have moved here in the last decade,” said Goldfinch. “And we anticipate another million people moving here in the next decade. Everybody is concerned about their quality of life.”

  The new fees will be available for debate next week on the South Carolina Senate floor.

  As Fox Business points out, South Carolina isn’t the only state trying to slap people with moving taxes – as California and New York have both proposed legislation to tax people leaving their state.

  “If you can charge people to leave, I don’t see any reason why you can’t charge somebody to come in the door,” said Goldfinch.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/28/2023 – 20:55

• Biden Supports 'Safe And Secure' Gain-of-Function Research, White House Says
  Biden Supports ‘Safe And Secure’ Gain-of-Function Research, White House Says

  Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClear Wire,

  While the White House reported Monday that the U.S. intelligence community has not yet reached a “consensus” on the origins of the COVID-19 virus, the Biden administration voiced support for the practice of gain-of-function research, so long as it was done safely, securely, and with transparency.

  

  As complicated as it is complex, such research generally refers to the intentional manipulation of viruses to make them more transmissible, and therefore more dangerous, in order to study them. Critics argue the risks outweigh any potential reward if this kind of research goes wrong.

  Congressional Republicans, led by Sens. Marco Rubio, Tom Cotton, and Rand Paul, say that the coronavirus likely leaked from a Chinese research facility in Wuhan that was engaging in that kind of research and have called for a moratorium on federal funding to any university or organizations conducting gain-of-function studies.

  When RealClearPolitics asked Monday if President Biden thought gain of function was “prudent,” John Kirby, the president’s National Security Council spokesman replied that he did.

  “He believes that it’s important to help prevent future pandemics, which means he understands that there has to be legitimate scientific research into the sources or potential sources of pandemics so that we understand it so that we can prevent them and we prevent them from happening obviously,” Kirby said before adding that the president believed any such research “must be done in a safe and secure manner and as transparent as possible to the rest of the world.”

  To sum up, Kirby then told RCP, “I think that’s a fancy way of saying ‘yes.’”

  The Obama administration reached a different conclusion in 2014 and halted taxpayer funding for such research. Three years later, during the Trump administration, the National Institute of Health lifted that moratorium.

  Republicans have accused the NIH of funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology through an intermediary, the American biomedical company EcoHealth Alliance. Dr. Anthony Fauci, formerly the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Congress in May of 2021 that NIH “has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

  Critics have returned to that controversy in light of new reporting by the Wall Street Journal that the Energy Department has concluded the COVID-19 most likely arose from a laboratory leak. That theory was first posited during the Trump administration and widely dismissed at the time as a conspiracy theory. It increasingly seems plausible after a separate earlier analysis by the FBI concluded that the lab in Wuhan was the “likely” origin of the virus.

  “If we have learned anything from this pandemic, it’s that risky virus-enhancing research – like the type conducted in Wuhan that was funded by the U.S. government – needs more oversight and regulation,” Rand Paul told RCP.

  A physician and a vocal critic of Fauci, Paul added that “worldwide approximately 15 million people died – the memory of their deaths demands that we have more scrutiny of this dangerous research.”

  Congressional Republicans already promised more oversight and investigations into the issue, especially after the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General wrote in a report last month that “NIH did not effectively monitor or take timely action to address” whether EcoHealth Alliance complied with reporting requirements. 

  The White House did not confirm the WSJ report but reiterated that Biden had “doubled down” and ordered that considerable resources are put behind “getting to the bottom of the origins of COVID-19.” Republicans, meanwhile, continue to argue that Biden is going soft on Beijing.

  “The Biden White House won’t have credibility on safe scientific research so long as it continues to dismiss the growing evidence that COVID came from a gain-of-function lab accident in China,” Marco Rubio, the ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told RCP.

  Biden drew the ire of Republicans last summer when his administration declined to say whether the president personally urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to cooperate with international investigations of the pandemic’s origin. So far, Beijing has not done so, blocking the World Health Organization, for instance, from conducting additional on-the-ground probe.

  Asked if the president has broached the issue, Kirby noted how the administration has regularly called on Beijing to be more transparent and told RCP that Biden called for additional cooperation “when he met with President Xi in Bali just a couple of months ago.” A White House readout of that meeting, as the New York Post reported at the time, did not include any mention of the origins of COVID.

  Controversy continues on the gain-of-function front. The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NASB) recommended sweeping new changes to how the government regulates gain-of-function experiments last month. As the New York Times reported, the decision now rests with the Biden administration as it seeks to balance the apparent need for research to prevent a pandemic with the possibility of that kind of research inadvertently jumpstarting a plague.

  “If the government implements the spirit of what they’ve written,” Gregory Koblentz, a biodefense specialist at George Mason University, told the Times, “this would be a major overhaul of dual-use research oversight in the United States.”

  That kind of research remains “vital for ensuring the United States is prepared to rapidly detect, respond to, and recover from future infectious disease threats,” Acting NIH Director Lawrence Tabak said last year. What is needed is balance, he explained in a February 2021 statement announcing the review by the NASB board. “Such research can be inherently high risk given the possibility of biosafety lapses or deliberate misuse,” Tabak said. “However, not doing this type of research could impair our ability to prepare for and/or respond to future consequential biological threats.”

  As the New York Times noted, the White House will soon decide whether to adopt the new recommendations for how gain of function should be handled. Biden, as Kirby told RCP, believes that kind of research can be done prudently.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/28/2023 – 20:45

• How Politically Divided Are Social Media Networks?
  How Politically Divided Are Social Media Networks?

  Social media has the reputation of being a battlefield of political ideology, with the political left and right in constant conflict on networks like Twitter or Facebook.

  But do people further on the left or on the right really prefer social media more than centrists?

  And does political affiliation have an influence on someone’s preferred social media network?

  As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, some answers to these questions can be gleaned from the Statista Consumer Insights survey when cross-referencing preference for the use of social media with participants’ self-reported political orientation.

  According to the results, there are no major gaps in preference for most social media platforms among Americans, but there are some interesting differences.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Facebook is the platform where centrists feel most at home. The group tends to stay away more from other social media than those who see themselves as more distinctly on the right or on the left politically. While Facebook is somewhat underused by those on the left, if only by a small margin, TikTok and Instagram are the networks with the most equal left-right distribution.

  On Twitter, partisanism is the most pronounced, with somewhat more use by those on the right.

  Linkedin also shows slightly more use from this group, while the opposite is true on another less used network, Reddit. The results of this survey suggest that political stance has only very limited influence on social media use. There are differences, but they are only by a few percentage points and should therefore not be interpreted too strongly.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/28/2023 – 20:25

• Watchdog To Probe Buttigieg’s Use Of Government Aircraft
  Watchdog To Probe Buttigieg’s Use Of Government Aircraft

  Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is facing an audit by its internal watchdog following reports about Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s use of government aircraft.

  

  The Office of Inspector General (OIG) said in a memo on Monday that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), citing news reports, requested the audit to determine whether Buttigieg’s use of government aircraft “complied with all applicable federal regulations” and DOT policies and procedures.

  According to the memo, the OIG will conduct its audit at DOT headquarters and other sites as needed, focusing on official trips taken since Jan. 31, 2017.

  The watchdog said the audit also aims to minimize cost and improve the management and use of government aviation resources and that it will begin “shortly.”

  Buttigieg, who has pushed for policies to end using the same fossil fuels used to power government jets, has faced criticism over his use of such aircraft, which, according to a 2021 report from the group Transport and Environment, are “10 times more carbon intensive than airliners on average, and 50 times more polluting than trains.”

  The transportation secretary responded on Twitter, welcoming the review and emphasizing that his use of government aircraft was mostly for official purposes and to save taxpayer money.

  “Glad this will be reviewed independently so misleading narratives can be put to rest. Bottom line: I mostly fly on commercial flights, in economy class. And when I do use our agency’s aircraft, it’s usually a situation where doing so saves taxpayer money,” Buttigieg wrote.

  According to the memo, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) operates and maintains a fleet of aircraft on behalf of the DOT, which are used for various purposes, including transporting senior executives from both DOT and FAA.

  The Office of Management and Budget’s guidance allows executive department heads to travel on government aircraft, but there are restrictions.

  The guidance states that government aircraft can only be used for official travel or on a space-available basis, subject to certain policies and authorizations. According to the memo, this applies to all government-owned, leased, chartered, and rental aircraft and related services operated by executive agencies.

  Rubio, Grassley Letters

  On Dec. 16, 2022, Rubio called for the watchdog review after Fox News reported on Buttigieg’s use of taxpayer-funded private jets in the United States and internationally “at least 18 different times since taking office.”

  The total cost of Buttigieg’s flights is unknown, but according to The Washington Post, the FAA charged federal agencies $5,000 per hour to use its aircraft.

  “If these reports are confirmed, it would represent yet another troubling example of this administration’s continued willingness to skirt basic ethics rules,” Rubio wrote (pdf)

  The Fox News report cited flight tracking data obtained by independent watchdog group Americans for Public Trust.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/28/2023 – 20:05

• Pennsylvania Chick-fil-A Bans Diners 16 And Under Without Adult Supervision
  Pennsylvania Chick-fil-A Bans Diners 16 And Under Without Adult Supervision

  As an increasingly disturbing trend of outright chaos spreads through U.S. cities, with leftist politicians unable to grasp the elementary concept that crime should not be encouraged, one Chick-fil-A in Pennsylvania is starting to enforce their own rules to maintain order.

  In a trend we are sure will likely spread, a Montgomery County, PA Chick-fil-A is now banning people under the age of 16 from dining on its premises without adult supervision. The decision came after a sequence of “unacceptable behaviors”, according to CBS News.

  The company announced its decision on Facebook last week, stating: “We contemplated long and hard before posting this, but decided it was time. Often on Saturdays and days when schools are off, we have school-age children visiting the restaurant without their parents. Usually, these children and teens are dropped off for several hours at a local bounce park and groups of them then walk over to our restaurant.”

  

  It continued: “While we love being a community restaurant and serving guests of all ages, some issues need to be addressed.” The restaurant said of the children and teens that they are “loud, and their conversation often contains a lot of explicit language. We are a family friendly restaurant where this is not tolerated.”

  They also said that “Food and trash are often thrown around and left on the tables, chairs, and on the floor. Tables and restrooms are vandalized. Decorations are stolen.”

  The restaurant also stood up to protect its employees, stating that they are “laughed at, made fun of and treated rudely. Employees are cursed at and ignored when they ask the children and teens to either change their behavior or leave.”

  The restaurant concluded:

  As you can imagine, this is not a pleasant experience. We want to provide a comfortable and safe environment for our guests and our staff, and also to protect our building. Therefore, we cannot allow this to continue. As a result, to dine in our restaurant, anyone under the age of 16 is required to be accompanied by an adult. If not accompanied by an adult, they may come in to purchase food, but must take it to go.

  To those unaccompanied children and teens that have visited us and acted appropriately, we thank you. But we also apologize. Due to the numerous extreme behaviors of many of your peers, we must make a blanket rule covering anyone under the age of 16.

  One father said: “It makes sense. When kids get together, it’s the herd mentality and I’ve seen it. I like the way they’ve handled it, saying it’s not parents’ fault, just kids getting together. I think they’re just loud. Common sense is not common, so they don’t know to keep down the tone of their language and the volume. I’m sure my kids are the same way.”

  

  Customer Gary Walens told CBS: “If the kids are getting unruly and going into places like this, the owners have to do something. These are businesses that are trying to make a profit and if the kids are coming in and causing havoc in this restaurant and not allowing normal business, I don’t think that’s a good thing.”

  While law abiding patrons and the owners/franchisees of the restaurant likely see this as a common sense solution to a growing problem across the nation, we’re sure it’s only a matter of time before some ACLU lawyer files a discrimination suit on behalf of unaccompanied children under the age of 16 as a class. Heck, maybe the carrot on a string of a possible settlement will actually get the parents involved in their childrens’ lives for a while and bring them closer.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/28/2023 – 19:45

• A Partisan Judge's Parting Rampage
  A Partisan Judge’s Parting Rampage

  Authored by Julie Kelly via American Greatness,

  Defense lawyers call it “January 6 jurisprudence”—a unique set of rules and laws that only apply to those ensnared in the Justice Department’s unstoppable push to punish individuals who do not believe Joe Biden is the legitimately elected president of the United States. So far, nearly 1,000 Americans have been arrested and charged, mostly on low-level misdemeanors, for their involvement in the Capitol protest as the regime circles its ultimate prize: Donald Trump.

  

  The fundamental “crime” that acts as the basis of January 6 jurisprudence is not necessarily the four-hour disturbance that temporarily delayed the certification process that day. No, the real crime—to hear regime apparatchiks, the media (but I repeat myself), and Democratic Party politicians (including Biden himself) tell it—is promoting the “Big Lie,” the notion that the 2020 presidential election was rigged or stolen.

  Efforts to uncover election irregularities or lawfully object to the outcome are under criminal investigation resulting in the unprecedented weaponization of legal and judicial authority conducted by unaccountable prosecutors and judges.

  Enabling this farce in the nation’s capital is Beryl Howell, the chief judge of the D.C. District Court. A former Democratic staffer on Capitol Hill, Howell was appointed to the bench by Barack Obama in 2010 and elevated to chief judge in 2016. Since then, Howell has steered the government’s yearslong effort to put Trump in handcuffs. She managed the grand jury proceedings for Special Counsel Robert Mueller and is currently overseeing the Justice Department’s latest iteration of its “Get Trump” campaign—a sweeping investigation into alleged attempts to “overturn” the 2020 election.

  Her latest broadside is aimed at Representative Scott Perry (R-Pa.). FBI agents, acting at the direction of the rogue Washington Field Office, stole Perry’s cell phone on August 9, 2022, the day after the same office executed an armed raid at Mar-a-Lago. Perry was traveling with his family in New Jersey at the time when agents seized his phone, copied its contents, and returned the device. 

  Perry’s lawyers immediately attempted to keep the contents of the phone out of the hands of a leak-happy Justice Department, citing privacy and privilege factors, including the Constitution’s speech and debate clause, which basically protects the legislative branch from retaliatory actions by the executive branch. When Perry initially refused to waive that protection at the request of the Justice Department, the government successfully sought a second warrant a few days later to review what investigators collected from the phone.

  And that’s when Judge Howell stepped in.

  “After a determination that there was probable cause to believe that evidence of criminal activity would be found on the targeted cell phone, the government’s search warrant was approved,” Howell wrote in one motion filed in the mostly sealed case.

  The second search warrant was reportedly approved by Howell on August 18.

  Since then, Howell has wielded her power to prove herself right. A grand jury under her purview is “investigating potential federal criminal law violations stemming from efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election,” Howell wrote. According to the government, Howell noted, Perry used his phone “to communicate with individuals allegedly engaged in those efforts over critical time periods at issue in the investigation.”

  That’s just a sliver of the crazy talk in Howell’s 51-page motion rejecting most of Perry’s arguments about why roughly 2,200 emails and texts qualify for protection under the speech and debate clause. Perry’s motions remain under seal, but his privilege claims appear to be centered around Congress’ obligations to administer the Electoral Count Act.

  Following a private review in October of the records that Perry sought to protect, Howell determined only a handful met the clause’s standards. The remaining 2,055 records, including correspondence and materials exchanged between other House members and Executive Branch officials, were fair game, Howell concluded.

  “In the broadest possible terms, Rep. Perry believes the Clause shields all these responsive records from investigative review because they are part of his informal fact-finding efforts to understand election security issues in the 2020 election since the ECA process obligated Rep. Perry to vote on whether to confirm the electors and certify the 2020 election,” Howell wrote in December. “What is plain is that the Clause does not shield Rep. Perry’s random musings with private individuals touting an expertise in cybersecurity or political discussions with attorneys from a presidential campaign, or with state legislators concerning hearings before them about possible local election fraud.”

  On that point, Howell unintentionally tipped the government’s hand. Why would the Justice Department need those communications for a criminal investigation? It’s not illegal to have any of those discussions, even for the imaginary crime of attempting to overturn an election. Clearly, prosecutors want Perry’s texts and emails to leak to regime media cut-outs in an effort to embarrass him, its modus operandi since January 6.

  In one particularly sneering line, Howell mocked Perry’s “wide-ranging interest in bolstering his belief that the results of the 2020 election were somehow incorrect—even in the face of his own reelection.” (Howell routinely condemns January 6 defendants in her courtroom for believing the “Big Lie.” Last April, Howell asked a man pleading guilty to trespassing whether he still believed that Biden did not legitimately win the presidency. He answered no.)

  In a follow-up order filed on January 4, Howell raised “the public’s interest in an expedient investigation” as to why she would not halt her demand for Perry to turn over the records in question to the Justice Department. She gave Perry two days to file an appeal with the D.C. Circuit Court.

  And the very next day, the appellate court issued an emergency order to put Howell’s ruling on hold.

  A three-judge appellate court panel heard arguments in the case last week. According to Politico, at least two judges were skeptical of Howell’s—and the Justice Department’s —thinking. “‘Why wouldn’t an individual member’s fact-finding be covered?’ Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee, asked a Justice Department lawyer.

  It could be a few months before the appellate court issues a ruling. In the meantime, investigators don’t have access to Perry’s cell phone records. (Or at least that is how it’s supposed to be.)

  By then, the D.C. District court will have a new chief judge; Howell’s stint ends soon. Which is one reason the Justice Department is accelerating the pace of its investigation, including subpoenaing former Vice President Mike Pence a few weeks ago. 

  “The frenzy of subpoenas comes as Judge Beryl Howell’s seven-year term as chief judge of the D.C. district court enters its last month,” the Wall Street Journal recently observed. “In that post, she has presided over all grand-jury matters in Washington and repeatedly ruled for the Justice Department in closed-door disputes with Mr. Trump over executive privilege.”

  Prosecutors undoubtedly will miss Howell’s machinations on behalf of the government. As her rulings in Perry’s case once again show, Howell is a shameless partisan willing to twist the law, and the U.S. Constitution, to advance her own political agenda. She is the queen of January 6 jurisprudence.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/28/2023 – 19:25

• Studio And One Bedroom Apartment Sizes Are Shrinking Across The U.S.
  Studio And One Bedroom Apartment Sizes Are Shrinking Across The U.S.

  While it may not always be obvious that quality of life is plunging in the U.S., as inflation eats away at our savings and shrinkflation makes its way through all consumer products, one new report shows exactly how it is effecting the apartment market.

  A new study from RentCafe shows that the national apartment size for studios and 1 bedroom apartments is shrinking – meaning that not only are prices on the rise across the country – but your dollar is getting you less square footage than ever. 

  

  Among the findings by Adina Dragos, who penned the results of the study, were:

  • The average size of new apartments in 2022 was 887 square feet — a 54 square-foot drop since 10 years ago. It was also the largest year-over-year decrease, down 30 square feet.  
  • Among other factors, the drop in size can be attributed to more studios and one-bedroom apartments entering the market in 2022, reaching a historic share of 57%.
  • Tallahassee, FL, led the nation with the largest apartments, while Seattle offered the smallest apartments.
  • Apartments in Tucson, AZ, saw the largest increase in apartment size.
  • Silver Spring, MD, apartments saw the largest decrease in the last 10 years. 

  The study pointed out the very noticeable drop in the most significant changes in apartment size in the 100 largest U.S. cities:

  One can note from the chart that the decreasing trend continued once again after some slight respite during the pandemic, when apartment sizes briefly got larger in size. This data “confirmed the developers’ quick response to the need for more space during the pandemic”, according to RentCafe. 

  “Yet, 2022 presented a different story: With one of the highest levels of construction in half a century, the year was marked by the need for more housing all across the country. As such, more studios and one-bedroom apartments were finished in 2022 than ever before. In fact, the share of smaller units reached a historic high of 57% in 2022 — a significant change compared to 10 years ago, when they represented exactly half of apartments built,” the report says. 

  By region, the study noted that “renters in the South enjoyed an extra 106 square feet compared to the national average”. 

  

  The report also noted a shift in sizing trends on the West Coast, stating “The Pacific Northwest has overtaken California as the region with the least amount of apartment space”. 

  We’re sure this has nothing to do with the exodus in the midst of taking place from cities like San Francisco. 

  

  Coming in at the top of the list with the most space were cities like Tallahassee and Gainesville, Florida. After that came Mobile, Alabama and Knoxville, TN. 

  

  The study was undertaken using RentCafe.com, a nationwide apartment search website that enables renters to easily find apartments and houses for rent throughout the United States. Apartment size and rent data were provided by Yardi Matrix, a RentCafe sister company specializing in apartment market intelligence and providing up-to-date information on large-scale, multifamily properties of 50 units or more in more than 130 U.S. markets.

  You can read the results of the full study here.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/28/2023 – 19:05

• Is The Recession Already Here?
  Is The Recession Already Here?

  Authored by Jeffrey Snider via RealClearMarkets.com,

  It was a sudden and epic flood of oil the likes of which the country hadn’t seen before. According to the government’s numbers, the Energy Information Administration, over a seven-week period domestic stocks of crude gushed by a then-record 34.4 million barrels. The last time America had experienced close to that number was March and April 1990, just prior to the start of what should have been called the S&L recession.

  

  This was again March and April, though in the year 2001. Up to the prior November, policymakers and Economists had refused to consider anything other than inflation as their top priority, much of it – as always – driven by oil prices.

  WTI, the major US benchmark, had been under $20 per barrel in the summer of 1999. From then, prices started to rise and by the time the NASDAQ would reach its epic top in early 2000 crude was trading just more than $34. Consumer price indices reflected that jump.

  It would slack off over the following months before a late summer rebound rekindled Alan Greenspan’s (faulty) inflation instincts. Back at $37 a barrel in September 2000, even as clear signs of economic weakness spread throughout the macro catalog, the “maestro” was far more concerned about the tight labor market he and his colleagues perceived.

  That’s the funny thing about CPIs and PCE Deflators, or one of the weirdest aspects of how they’re used. Variation in those is most directly attributable to WTI and its influence on gasoline. There is, and remains today, a steady and dependable correlation.

  Yet, for all the fuss and bother over perceived inflation risks, at the FOMC, anyway, it never has much to do with oil, how oil gets used and by how much. Rather, policymakers place all their focus on the bastardization of the relationship British economist AW Phillips once upon a time had modestly suggested.  

  The Phillips Curve proposes a link between tight labor markets, as denoted by a very low unemployment rate, and competition for workers. Scarcity among them in a robust economy would lead firms to increase wage and pay scales as fewer become readily available, raising input costs which those businesses might rationally pass along to their consumer customers in what’s (incorrectly) called inflation.

  Should the labor market be so good, consumers as workers would be able to afford higher prices, absorbing them but not before demanding even higher pay back on the job; the dreaded and totally theoretical wage-price spiral.

  As late as November 2000, the FOMC would not budge from the unemployment rate.

  “CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN. All in all, I think that we have, as all of you have said, a combination of the potential persistence of significant inflationary pressures and an unquestioned increase in overall signs of weakness. In other words, my judgment, and I guess I agree with almost everybody else, is that it would be premature to move to a balanced risk statement.”

  Up to that time, policymakers at least had oil prices on their side, so to speak. WTI would bounce around in the $30s from September forward, and by the time the Committee met in November it was still up around $35. As a result, consumer price indices would likewise remain uncomfortable considering the Fed’s implicit inflation targeting somewhere around 2%.

  Sure enough, from the moment Chairman Greenspan uttered those words, oil would tumble. By the end of 2000, it would reach the $25s just as the FOMC completely reversed course and began cutting its federal funds target once 2001 began.

  They did so not yet convinced the US was experiencing any worse than a minor slowdown. The purpose of the initial rate cut as well as the few more which quickly followed was to ensure exactly that, the economy would decelerate but not fall into a recession; to engineer what some would call a soft landing.

  The idea, even expectation of one persisted despite more troubling developments, including the sudden surge of oil inventories which from the outside had been a clear sign – like Spring 1990 – that something was badly amiss in terms of general economic demand.

  Another such warning came on April 18, 2001. On that date, the FOMC was hastily gathered telephonically to rubber stamp the third consecutive 50-bps rate cut, this one unscheduled. While the group was talking, the Census Bureau reported US trade figures for the month of March.

  The country’s merchandise deficit fell sharply because, in the words of Greenspan that day, “In short, they show a significant decline in imports. In fact, I think it is the sharpest decline we’ve had in many years.” While a few policymakers thought this some kind of positive, notably Vice Chairman Bill McDonough (who actually said, out loud, the following: “The drop in merchandise imports is good news for our economy”), any rational thinkers among the bunch knew it indicated nothing of the sort.

  Along with the sharp rise in oil inventories, the equally sharp fall in imports signaled the start of what only later would be dated and called the dot-com recession.

  Before the NBER would finally make their call much later on November 26, only then noting how March 2001 must have been when it began, for some time further forecasts still called for the same soft landing. In the middle of May, for example, Economist Dave Stockton presented the staff’s projections which even then showed, “First, we believe that the economy, at present, is very weak–not in recession, but not far from it either.”

  The primary reason for that weakness was, back to Mr. Stockton, “the most intense weakness remains centered in the factory sector.” Inventories of all goods and not just oil had jumped as consumer and business demand had declined if only modestly, thus accounting for imports, that oil glut, the entirety of what became the dot-com contraction.

  Over the two decades-plus since then, hardly anything has changed how the economy works or how the Fed thinks about it. Inflation bias remains as strong as ever (2021 aside), and the vast majority of it continues to be drawn from the Phillips Curve perspective. Yet, like before, the CPI will be most affected by what does happen from oil.

  According to the EIA’s latest estimates right up to last week, oil inventories in the US have absolutely exploded, rising an incredible 58.4 million barrels in just seven weeks (the same period of comparison as stated earlier for 2001). This is, obviously, nearly double the glut from twenty-two winters ago.

  

  While not a new record, this fact provides very little comfort. The only seven-week period when crude stocks rose more was that time when COVID fears had shut down large swaths of economic, civil, and just daily life in the country – from the week of March 13 to and including the week of May 1, 2020, domestic inventories added 78.5 million barrels.

  To be even in the same general vicinity as then is a huge warning.

  The only other instance when oil inventories have gained as much in such a short period was February and March 2015. Back then, the massive rise was immediately blamed on shale oil production as if output which had taken years of investment to pull off had been surprisingly robust all of a sudden.

  While supplies did indeed grow, that growth has hardly unanticipated. What had been, as always, was a sharp drop in global and domestic demand, the former in the form of a major depression in economies worldwide, devastating particularly emerging markets beginning with China and in a way none of them have yet recovered.

  That in mind, it was China especially upon which many had pinned their hopes for 2023 revival. Rationalizing Xi Jinping’s highly irrational (from a certain view) Zero-COVID as the reason for the Chinese stumbling in 2022, its removal at the end of last year was spun into the greatest relief effort just in the nick of time.

  Despite so much radical hype, it isn’t showing up in these places where it really should. As the world’s largest user and importer of oil, an unfettered and legitimately rebounding China economy would have scavenged every last drop of spare oil from the world’s hamstrung crude producers.

  Rather than surge, domestic stocks would be drained even more than they had been last year as the thirsty crude dragon reawakened to its high energy needs.

  But this isn’t just about the (inevitable?) thorough disappointment about to flood the world from that side of the Pacific. It is, like 2001 and 1990, quite a lot about US demand, too. Furthermore, it should be pointed out the US imports of goods were down huge last November (before very modestly rebounding in December; January figures have yet to be released).

  The oil market has been pricing therefore predicting this scenario from way back when US inbound trade was crashing to finish up 2022. Domestic crude futures had shifted into small but noticeable and more importantly persisting contango since the middle part of November.

  This particular shape induces more crude oil toward storage than to be used immediately, a financial incentive where future months’ prices are higher than the current contract rewarding anyone to buy oil on the spot market today to store until those future months having already sold it forward at the higher futures price.

  In a situation where supply is as low and perpetually limited as the entire global system has been experiencing since 2020, any modest contango should not be happening. Rewarding the taking of current supply off the market for storage when oil supply has been the single biggest factor behind the world’s “inflation” problem, this just goes to show how much demand must’ve changed.

  For those currently occupying those cushy seats at the FOMC, like 2001 this solves their “inflation dilemma” since the oil prices which actually do drive consumer price indices aren’t likely at all to do much more menacing. But what that really means is how this unfortunately opens up the very serious possibility recession has already happened.  

  What’s mainly in question today is how long before anyone captured by Greenspan lore realizes it. From the last FOMC meeting minutes released this week, as always officials continue to be wholly concentrated on the “tight” labor market as many see it and what the Phillips theory tells them to expect for subsequent consumer price pressures that are already being set instead by this abrupt glut of oil.

  Once they do realize, as inverted curves have been long predicting, what follows will be the usual conference calls and emergency rate cuts.

  Then many months further down the road the NBER will come along to confirm what by then will have been obvious to everyone unattached to the mainstream Economics discipline.

  There are always those who say this time is different when it comes to curve inversions, for a variety of often disingenuous and occasionally comical “reasons.” This time has been no different in that regard. It’s also near exactly the same in a whole bunch of other ways, too, starting with the Fed’s fixation on misleading labor data, then its unnatural need to disregard the oil market for at least making useful forecasts about the CPI.

  Consumer prices aren’t the problem, not anymore. Right when optimism and even talk of “transitory disinflation” have been heating up, suddenly all the oil in the world has shown up to spoil those and a whole lot more. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/28/2023 – 18:45

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