- No Coke For Cuba And North Korea
No Coke For Cuba And North Korea
Whether you call it Coke, Cola or refer to it by its actual brand name Coca-Cola: Everybody around the world knows the soft drink. Its red-and-white design is ubiquitous and even responsible for Santa Claus’ wardrobe choice. Still, as Statista’s Florian Zandt notes, the beverage isn’t legally available everywhere in the world.
There are two countries where you won’t find the carbonated drink in stores – at least officially.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Due to ongoing trade embargoes and sanctions, there are currently no legal avenues to buy Coca-Cola in Cuba and North Korea. That isn’t to say that you can’t get your hands on the drink in any other way, just that importing or bottling the beverage is not officially possible in these places.
Up until 2012, Myanmar was also a country where you couldn’t legally buy a Coke. After the ban was lifted, the soft drink manufacturer invested $200 million to kickstart distribution in the area. Over the last century, the people of Vietnam and China also had to make do without Cola for a couple of years, with the brand’s beverages becoming available again in 1994 and 1979, respectively.
On its website, Coca-Cola lists 202 markets across four regions where its drinks are sold and marketed. This number, however, has to be approached with caution, since the company doesn’t clarify what constitutes a market and there are currently only 195 UN members, with Taiwan being a potential 196th. The sales of its various beverages in these markets, however they may be defined, generated 75 percent of the company’s $33 billion operating revenue in 2020, with bottling investments and global ventures making up the remaining 25 percent.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/01/2021 – 02:45 - Is Climate Alarmism An Establishment Attempt To Restore Social Control?
Is Climate Alarmism An Establishment Attempt To Restore Social Control?
Authored by Eric Worrall via WattsUpWithThat.com,
Over the years, I’ve noticed pretty much every establishment attempt to push a climate agenda is accompanied by a call for people to unite.
What if fear of change, of loss of control, and a desire for social unity and predictability are the real driving force behind the climate push?
Does the UK need a referendum on climate change pledges?
Critics say net-zero target has been imposed by ‘elites’ without electoral mandate
27 OCT 2021
A large proportion of the British public are in favour of a referendum on the government’s net-zero proposals, according to a new poll by YouGov.
…
The Tony Blair Institute’s Tim Lord rejected the idea that “elites” are behind the drive for climate action. He said “there is irony in this – as it is the poorest who will be most severely affected by unconstrained climate change”.
Lord agreed that the net-zero target was introduced in the summer of 2019 with minimal debate in the Commons and no mention of the plan in the 2017 election – but it was included in the Conservative manifesto ahead of the December 2019 election.
While delivering net zero is a “complex task” that “cannot be achieved without public support for both the overall goal, and the policies required to get there”, this “cannot mean everyone supports every measure”, he said. Consent must be drawn from a broad base and “net zero has to be based around a politics of unity, not division”.
…
Read more: https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/uk-news/954591/does-the-uk-need-a-referendum-on-net-zero-pledges
Here’s another call for unity;
Pope Francis praises youth activists in fight to tackle climate change
“It is said that you are the future, but in these matters, you are the present. You are those who are making the future today, in the present,” the pontiff said.
…
The pope said solutions to climate change, including sustainable development and production, must be built on unity and a shared sense of responsibility.
“There must be harmony between people, men and women, and the environment,” he said. “We are not enemies. We are not indifferent. We are part of this cosmic harmony.”
…
China wants unity too;
China releases white paper on climate change response
Updated 18:47, 27-Oct-2021
China on Wednesday released a white paper on the country’s policies and measures for responding to climate change. China has set a goal of peaking carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060.
…
The white paper states that climate change is a cause shared by all of humanity. Faced with unprecedented challenges in global climate governance, the international community needs to respond with unprecedented ambition and action. We need to act with a sense of responsibility and unity, take proactive measures, and work together to pursue harmony between humanity and nature.
…
Unity, unity, UNITY. Plenty more examples where they came from.
When you think about it, a child could see through the nonsensical claims of climate alarmists. If slightly warmer temperatures are so terrible, why aren’t slightly warmer places already suffering all the problems alarmists say will happen? But climate alarmism, as a potential source of social unity, is far too valuable allow it to be defeated by mere logic.
What has caused this sudden upsurge in fear amongst global elites, that they are losing control?
I believe the trigger for this panic amongst the global elites was the fall of the Soviet Union. The Soviet State, right up until the very end, seemed all powerful, enormous, an unstoppable juggernaut with its terrifying state security apparatus and apparently complete control of communication.
But the Soviets failed to adapt to the information revolution.
…
“Truth is good,” goes an old Russian proverb that Shane quotes, “but happiness is better.”
The earliest stirrings of free thought were nurtured on the radio broadcasts of Voice of America and the crude, self-published books and tape recordings of the Samizdatand Magnitizdat movements. By the end, of course, it was CNN and cellular phones that finally defeated the Soviet Union.
“The exploding arsenal of electronics–cellular telephones, fax machines, VCRs, satellite dishes, computers with modems–demonstrated a trend for technology to become more compact, portable, versatile and inexpensive,” Shane explains. “As such, the new machines seemed to be weapons the citizen could wield against the state as readily as the state could use them on the citizen.”
As Shane points out, the phrase “information revolution” takes on an entirely new meaning in this context. And he helps us understand how stirring but also how bizarre it must have been for a Soviet citizen to turn on his television set and see the top brass of the KGB on a call-in show: “Tonight they will be answering the questions,” the host announced.
…
Read more: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-05-11-ls-56160-story.html
China has survived more successfully than the Soviets, because they had more money. Deng Xiaoping’s capitalist economic reforms in the 1980s gave the CCP the financial resources they needed to buy monitoring equipment and expertise, which made them more able to keep up with the information revolution. But even the Chinese are struggling to contain the free flow of information which is undermining state control of public narratives. Global freedom initiatives have provided systems like the TOR Project, which are used by Chinese citizens who want to sneak past the Great Chinese Firewall, so they can keep track of what is really going on in the world.
If global elites cannot control communication technology, the next best thing is to try to dominate the conversation, through a fear campaign and a call for global unity. The focus point for that push for global unity didn’t have to be climate change, but I believe they chose climate alarmism because it was convenient and available, and already had a significant following at the time the elites took an interest. Mikhail Gorbachev, after he lost his old job as the last dictator of the Soviet Union, spent a lot of time in the early 90s supporting United Nations climate initiatives.
The desire by elites to cling on to control, in my opinion, is why climate alarmism has survived repeated embarrassing predictive failures.
Normally when a scientific theory produces a disastrous series of wrong predictions, the theory withers and dies. But in my opinion global elites are keeping climate alarmism on life support, with vast infusions of taxpayer’s cash for compliant researchers, and en entire renewable energy industry which only exists because the governments of the world keep diverting taxpayer’s cash to pay the bills.
So long as a significant portion of the population believes in the climate crisis, this powerful source of social unity is too useful for spooked global elites to surrender.
The elite desire to hold back the information revolution at any price does nothing good for ordinary people.
Frightening kids with false climate doomsday narratives might buy the elites a little time, by helping the elites to retain their grip on power in the face of the technology driven growth of free speech and open communication, but the kids who accept the climate lies endure tremendous personal suffering.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/01/2021 – 02:00 - CJ Hopkins: (New Normal) Winter Is Coming
CJ Hopkins: (New Normal) Winter Is Coming
Authored by CJ Hopkins via The Consent Factory,
Winter is coming … and you know what that means…
That’s right, it’s nearly time once again for the global-capitalist ruling classes to whip the New Normal masses into a state of mindless mass hysteria over an imaginary apocalyptic virus. the same imaginary apocalyptic virus that they have whipped the New Normal masses into a state of mass hysteria over throughout the Winter for the last two years.
They’ve got their work cut out for them this time. Seriously, how much more mass hysterical could the New Normals possibly get at this point?
The vast majority of the Western world has been transformed into a pseudo-medical dystopia in which you have to show your “health-purity papers” to enter a café and get a cup of coffee. People who refuse to get experimentally “vaccinated” against a virus that causes mild-to-moderate symptoms (or, often, no symptoms whatsoever) in about 95% of the infected, and the overall infection fatality rate of which is approximately 0.1% to 0.5%, are being systematically segregated, stripped of their jobs, denied medical treatment, demonized as “a danger to society,” censored, fined, and otherwise persecuted.
If you think I’m overstating the case, look at the front page of this Australian newspaper …
Yes, the Great New Normal Purge is on. “The Unvaccinated” and other infidels and heretics are being hunted by fanatical, hate-drunk mobs, dragged before the New Normal Inquisition, and made examples of all over the world.
Here in New Normal Germany, popular footballer Joshua Kimmich is being publicly drawn and quartered for refusing to submit to being “vaccinated” and profess his faith in the New Normal World Order. In the USA, “the Unvaccinated” stand accused of murdering Colin Powell, an 84-year-old, cancer-ridden war criminal. Australia is planning to imprison people and fine them $90,000 for the “crime” of not wearing a medical-looking mask, or attempted worship at a synagogue, or whatever. In Florida (of all places), fanatical school staff tied a medical-looking mask to the face of a non-verbal Downs-syndrome girl with nylon cord, day after day, for over six weeks, until her father discovered what they were doing. I could go on, but I don’t think I have to. The Internet is brimming with examples of mass-hysterical and sadistic behavior.
And that’s not to mention the mass hysteria rampant among the New Normals themselves … for example, the parents who are lining up to get their children needlessly “vaccinated” and then rushed into the emergency room with “totally manageable myocarditis.”
Still, as mass hysterical as things are, count on GloboCap to go balls out on the mass hysteria for the next five months. The coming Winter is crunch time, folks. They need to cement the New Normal in place, so they can dial down the “apocalyptic pandemic.” If they’re forced to extend it another year … well, not even the most brainwashed New Normals would buy that.
Or … all right, sure, the most brainwashed would, but they represent a small minority. Most New Normals are not fanatical totalitarians. They’re just people looking out for themselves, people who will go along with almost anything to avoid being ostracized and punished. But, believe it or not, there is a limit to the level of absurdity they’re prepared to accept, and the level and duration of relentless stress and cognitive dissonance they are prepared to accept.
Most of them have reached that limit. They have done their part, followed orders, worn the masks, got the “vaccinations,” and are happy to present their “obedience papers” to anyone who demands to see them. Now, they want to go back to “normal.” But they can’t, because … well, because of us.
See, GloboCap can’t let them return to “normal” (i.e., the new totalitarian version of “normal”) until everyone (i.e., everyone who matters) has submitted to being “vaccinated” and is walking around with a scanable certificate of ideological conformity in their smartphones. They would probably even waive the “vaccination” requirement if we would just bend the knee and pledge our allegiance to the WEF, or BlackRock, or Vanguard, or whoever, and carry around a QR code confirming that we believe in “Science,” the “Covidian Creed,” and whatever other ecumenical corporatist dogma.
Seriously, the point of this entire exercise (or at least this phase of this entire exercise) is to radically, irrevocably, transform society into a monolithic corporate campus where everyone has to scan their IDs at every turn of an endless maze of perpetually monitored, eco-friendly, gender-fluid, ideologically uniform, non-smoking, totally meat-free “safe spaces” owned and operated by GloboCap, or one of its agents, subsidiaries, and assigns.
The global-capitalist ruling classes are determined to transform the planet into this fascistic Woke Utopia and enforce unwavering conformity to its valueless values, no matter the cost, and we, “the Unvaccinated,” are standing in their way.
They can’t just round us up and shoot us — this is global capitalism, not Nazism or Stalinism. They need to break us, to break our spirits, to coerce, gaslight, harass, and persecute us until we surrender our autonomy willingly. And they need to do this during the next five months.
Preparations therefore are now in progress.
In the UK, despite a drop in “cases,” and the fact (which the “authorities” have been forced to acknowledge) that the “Vaccinated” can spread the virus just like “the Unvaccinated,” the government is preparing to go to “Plan B” and roll out the social-segregation system that most of Europe has already adopted. In Germany, the “Epidemic Emergency of National Importance” (i.e., the legal pretense for enforcement of the “Corona restrictions”) is due to expire in mid-November (unless they can seriously jack up the “cases,” which seems unlikely at this point), so the authorities are working to revise the “Infektionsschutzgesetz” (the “Infection Protection Act”) to justify maintaining the restrictions indefinitely, despite the absence of an “epidemic,” or an “emergency.”
And so on. I think you get the picture. This Winter is probably going to get a little nutty … or, OK, more than a little nutty. In terms of manufactured mass hysteria, it is probably going to make Russiagate, the War on Populism, the Global War on Terror, the Red Scare, and every other manufactured mass-hysteria campaign you can possibly think of look like an amateur production of Wagner’s Götterdammerung.
In other words, kiss reality (or whatever is left of reality at this point) goodbye. The clock is ticking, and GloboCap knows it. If they expect to pull this Great Reset off, they are going to need to terrorize the New-Normal masses into a state of protracted pants-shitting panic and uncontrollable mindless hatred of “the Unvaccinated,” and anyone challenging their rule. A repeat of the Winters of 2020 and 2021 is not going to cut it. It is going to take more than the now standard repertoire of fake and manipulated statistics, dire projections, photos of “death trucks,” non-overflowing overflowing hospitals, and all the other familiar features of the neo-Goebbelsian propaganda juggernaut we have been subjected to for over 18 months.
They are facing a growing working-class revolt. Millions of people in countries all over the world are protesting in the streets, organizing strikes, walk-outs, “sick-outs,” and mounting other forms of opposition. Despite the corporate media’s Orwellian attempts to blackout any coverage of it, or demonize us all as “far-right extremists,” the New Normals are very aware that this is happening. And the official narrative is finally falling apart. The actual facts are undeniable by anyone with an ounce of integrity, so much so that even major GloboCap propaganda outlets like The Guardian are being forced to grudgingly admit the truth.
No, GloboCap has no choice at this point but to let loose with every weapon in its arsenal — short of full-blown despotism, which it cannot deploy without destroying itself — and hope that we will finally break down, bend the knee, and beg for mercy.
I don’t know exactly what they’ve got in mind, but I am definitely not looking forward to it. I’m already pretty worn out as it is. From what I gather, so are a lot of you. If it helps at all, maybe look at it this way. We don’t have to take the battle to them. All we have to do is not surrender, withstand the coming siege, and make it to April.
Or, if the strikes, sick-outs, and “bad weather” continue, it might not even take that long.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 10/31/2021 – 23:30 - US-Trained Afghan Spies & Special Forces Are Joining ISIS For 'Protection' Against Taliban
US-Trained Afghan Spies & Special Forces Are Joining ISIS For ‘Protection’ Against Taliban
Many former national Afghan forces who are now being hunted by the Taliban after their US military backers withdrew from the country in August are turning to the Islamic State for protection, a new investigative Wall Street Journal report finds.
Also among those joining the ranks of ISIS in Afghanistan, or ISIS-K, are members of Afghanistan’s US-trained intelligence service. “The number of defectors joining the terrorist group is relatively small, but growing, according to people who know these men, to former Afghan security officials and to the Taliban,” The Wall Street Journal writes.
Though this is said to be happening in small numbers, and is described as a move out of desperation, it could be a huge boon to ISIS-K’s capabilities, given US-trained intelligence members bring their expertise and capabilities with them to the terrorist group. Critics of the Biden’s administration’s Afghan exit fiasco have long warned that “left behind” US assets would be swooped up by terror groups.
Image: the former Afghanistan National Army Special Forces (ANASF) According to WSJ, “Importantly, these new recruits bring to Islamic State critical expertise in intelligence-gathering and warfare techniques, potentially strengthening the extremist organization’s ability to contest Taliban supremacy.”
As evidence the report cites “An Afghan national army officer who commanded the military’s weapons and ammunition depot in Gardez, the capital of southeastern Paktia province, joined the extremist group’s regional affiliate, Islamic State-Khorasan Province, and was killed a week ago in a clash with Taliban fighters, according to a former Afghan official who knew him.”
“The former official said several other men he knew, all members of the former Afghan republic’s intelligence and military, also joined Islamic State after the Taliban searched their homes and demanded that they present themselves to the country’s new authorities,” continues the report.
Alarmingly among those defecting to ISIS ranks amid fears they’ll be killed by the Taliban are elite special forces members. In some cases these Afghan special forces would have received training considered as elite as anyone can get, given their instructors at one point would have been US Navy SEALS or Green Berets. WSJ cites instances of this as follows: “A resident of Qarabagh district just north of Kabul said his cousin, a former senior member of Afghanistan’s special forces, disappeared in September and was now part of an Islamic State cell.”
The report explains how literally hundreds of thousands of Afghan national troops, intelligence officers, and police haven’t been paid for months since the collapse of the US-backed Kabul government – and at the same time they’re too afraid to show up to work, or identify themselves as part of the former government. At a moment the Taliban is trying to stamp out its ISIS-K rival, these disaffected and unemployed US-trained personnel are fodder for Islamic State recruitment.
Hunted by the Taliban and lacking income, members of Afghanistan’s disbanded security forces are enlisting in ISIS, the only resistance movement fighting the new rulers – not unlike Iraq’s disbanded security forces when the US put their enemies in charge. https://t.co/Hb9KZUmlmx
— Joshua Landis (@joshua_landis) October 31, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
And then there’s this interesting widespread believe mentioned in the WSJ report:
The Taliban have long alleged that Islamic State-Khorasan Province was a creation of Afghanistan’s intelligence service and the U.S. that aimed to sow division within the Islamist insurgency, a claim denied by Washington and by Kabul’s former government.
Notably there’s the recent historical example of how the resistance was formed in Iraq after the 2003 US invasion. With Saddam Hussein toppled, hundreds of thousands of newly unemployed former Iraqi soldiers and police joined radical groups to wage a deadly insurgency.
Already a number of major suicide and car bomb attacks have killed dozens in a few major cities, including Kabul – most of which have been blamed on ISIS-K. Washington officials have at various times suggested the possibility that the Pentagon might in some instances assist in anti-ISIS operations (for example with air support) – but so far the Biden administration has resisted putting such an obviously controversial plan in motion, given it would mean working directly with the Taliban.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 10/31/2021 – 23:05 - Halloweenomics
Halloweenomics
Authored by Gary Galles via The American Institute for Economic Research,
Having gotten the okay from federal authorities that “Halloweening” can resume this year, various fearsome characters may soon be chanting “trick or treat” again at doors all over America. As a consequence, we will be restarting some excellent illustrations of basic economics
Such an apparent extortion threat seems far from the allegedly dismal science, but in fact, Halloween reflects economics’ central precept that people choose by comparing the benefits and costs they expect to bear as a result of their choices.
For example, modern jack-o-lanterns are carved out of pumpkins for economic reasons. They originated in Ireland as hollowed-out turnips used as lanterns, but pumpkins were more plentiful in America and made better lanterns, so the tradition migrated to pumpkins.
Dark houses and scary costumes originate from benefit-cost comparisons. In the fifth century B.C., Celts celebrated their New Year–Samhain–on October 31. According to legend, on that day the spirits of those who had died during the year searched for living bodies to possess as their only hope of an afterlife. Therefore, people made themselves unattractive “candidates,” to avoid such a fate. Houses were left dark, cold and undesirable, and people dressed ghoulishly to scare away the “shopping” spirits.
Trick-or-treating also has economic roots.
It originated with “souling” in ninth century Europe. On All Souls Day, poor Christians would go door-to-door asking for “soul cakes”–bread studded with currants. The more cakes they received, the more prayers they would say for the donor’s dead relatives. This theological exchange of bread for prayers was viable due to the belief that prayers by the faithful could hasten the passage of the departed into heaven.
Current Halloween practices also reflect economics. Second only to Christmas as a shopping holiday, Halloween generates about $6 billion in sales, reflecting the vast majority of Americans who mark the occasion in some way. It is the biggest payday for candy makers, reportedly accounting for one-quarter of annual candy sales.
Halloween also turned when daylight savings time “falls back” into a major issue, in search of added sales from an extra hour of trick-or-treating. Lobbying led George W. Bush to sign the Energy Policy Act, which took effect in 2007, extending daylight savings time by a week to enable it (Now it ends the first Sunday in November).
Because Halloween is also the biggest night for costume rentals and purchases and behind only New Year’s and the Super Bowl for alcohol sales, sellers in these industries pray for a weekend Halloween so more adult parties will take place. The Halloween Association trade group has even proposed permanently making Halloween the last Saturday in October, to get more economic bang out of the holiday.
Halloween is also one of many children’s first experiences with economic decision-making.
How long should you continue to trick or treat? You stop when the costs in terms of tiredness and sore feet outweigh the benefits of the additional candy. Is it really worth walking to the dentist’s house to get a toothbrush? Which streets should you hit? Such decisions reflect costs (how far do I have to walk?) versus the value of likely treat benefits to them. The number of lights on, the income level and number of kids in the neighborhood all enter this calculation. Children also learn to ask others about the likely loot payoff before choosing their path. Some parents even drive their children to other neighborhoods to increase their trick-or-treat haul.
When are you too old to trick or treat? When the cost of the hassles you get about it outweigh the benefits of the candy and fun you expect.
Children staying with friends Halloween night also learn how markets work, via candy exchange negotiations. I can still remember my amazement at the large number of hard candies one could get in exchange for, say, a Snickers or Reese’s, in trade, at one post-rampage party when I was young.
The economics of Halloween affects others as well. Homeowners learn why the trick-or-treater’s dream–a bowl of candy with a sign saying “take all you want”—doesn’t work very well, except at running you out of candy quickly. Primary school teachers are much more likely to call in sick after Halloween because the children are either still going to be on their sugar high or suffering from the low that follows, and what meager learning will take place doesn’t justify the cost of containing the pandemonium.
In other words, economics is far from dismal; it can shed real insight on every activity in a world of scarcity, including Halloween. In fact, when we extort treats with threats the same month that the federal fiscal year begins, and just before major elections in every even-numbered year, it reminds us of how commonly trick-or-treating describes politics as we are forced to bear it.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 10/31/2021 – 22:40 - Goldman Capitulates, Pulls Forward Date Of First Rate Hike By One Full Year To July 2022
Goldman Capitulates, Pulls Forward Date Of First Rate Hike By One Full Year To July 2022
Following last week’s bond market turmoil, which led to shock and awe curve-flattening moves forcing various macro funds like Rokos and Alphadyne to capitulate and suffer massive losses, and sent Euribor Dec 22 futures crashing as even the ECB lost control of the front-end, virtually everyone has been forced to admit that the Fed’s “transitory” narrative was dead wrong and the central bank will hike rates far sooner than expected. How much sooner? Well, according to Goldman, which until Friday expected the first rate hike would not take place until July 2023 hast just pulled forward its forecast for liftoff (i.e., the first Fed rate hike) to July 2022, one full year faster than its previous forecast. After that, Goldman expects a second hike in November 2022 and two hikes per year after that.
Goldman also believes that the FOMC will announce the start of tapering next week, presumably at the $15bn per month pace noted in the September minutes.
If implementation begins in mid-November, the last taper would come in June 2022. While large surprises on the virus, inflation, wage growth, or inflation expectations could prompt a revision, “the hurdle for a change in either direction is high.”
That said, since the Fed is powerless to do anything to impact supply-chains – the primary source of bottlenecked supply and therefore surging prices – all the central bank will achieve is push the US into a recession faster while sparking a market crash, which in turn will mean an accelerated easing (rate-cuts, NIRP, more QE) cycle some time around early/mid-2023 at which point the Fed will likely start buying stocks, especially if some new veriosion of Covid mysteriously emerges out of
Chinathe blue.But that’s out view, not Goldman’s. As for the vampire squid, the reason for the dramatic change in the bank’s liftoff call is that Goldman now expect core PCE inflation to remain above 3% – and core CPI inflation above 4% – when the taper concludes as shelter inflation will be running hot.
The next chart shows Goldman’s forecasts for key indicators at the time of the July 2022 meeting. In addition to the strong inflation numbers, the bank also expects GDP growth to have re-accelerated to a 4% pace, with the eventual slowdown coming mostly in the second half of next year, and the unemployment rate to stand at 3.7%. Taken together, we think this will make a seamless move from tapering to rate hikes the path of least resistance.
Taken together, Goldman thinks “this will make a seamless move from tapering to rate hikes the path of least resistance.”
Goldman’s unexpected rate hike capitulation aside, the bank maintains its view that growth will slow to a trend-like pace and inflation will drop to the low 2s by late 2022 or early 2023, without an aggressive monetary policy response (here, too, Goldman is once again wrong because at this rate the best case outcome for the US is simply stagflation, while a currency crushing hyperinflation remains the worst). The key reasons cited by Goldman are that the level of fiscal support will continue to decline sharply and supply chain problems should be resolved, turning the inflationary surge in the goods sector into a temporary deflationary drag.
As a result, Goldman sees the possible paths ahead as bimodal: if something delays liftoff long enough for growth and inflation to fall sharply by end-2022, the Fed could stay on hold for a while. This was the scenario Goldman previously envisioned…. and it was dead wrong just as we said it would be.
Finally, beyond 2022, the bank forecasts one hike every six months: Goldman sees this twice-a-year pace as plausible “either as a dovish response to an environment where inflation remains modestly above 2%, or as an average outcome in an environment where inflation fluctuates above and below 2%.” In support of the first possibility, the bank suspects that both Chair Powell and Governor Brainard wrote down two hikes per year at the end of the forecast horizon in their September dots, conditional on an inflation forecast of just over 2%. This means that they have in mind a somewhat slower pace of tightening and less emphasis on normalization for normalization’s sake than under the Fed’s more preemptive approach last cycle.
One outstanding question Goldman often gets is whether inflation needs to be above 2% for the FOMC to deliver subsequent rate hikes after liftoff. Here, the hawks would likely say no on the grounds that inflation has already averaged well above 2% this cycle, while doves would say yes because otherwise the FOMC would have returned to the old preemptive approach. Goldman’s forecast of two hikes per year is based on an assumption that the dovish interpretation will win out, but this remains unclear.
The left side of the chart below, presents a stylized scenario analysis of possible paths for the Fed: Goldman considers a high inflation scenario in which the Fed hikes three times next year and then quarterly after that to a rate 100bp above its estimate of neutral (red line), a later liftoff scenario in which the Fed does not start until 2023Q3 but then proceeds at our baseline pace (green line), and variations on its baseline (dark blue line) in which inflation is usually below 2% from 2023 on (light blue line) or the economy falls into recession at some point (grey line). The combined probability of the baseline scenarios, which are the same in 2022, is 50%.
Here there are two takeaways: first, the risks around the bank’s baseline are symmetric, meaning that our baseline and weighted average views are similar (Exhibit 10, right), which is not always the case. Second, the weighted average view is somewhat below market pricing through 2023 and somewhat above market pricing in 2024 and 2025, suggesting that the market is pricing a bit too much tightening up front and a bit too little later on, even relative to Goldman’s baseline expectation of a fairly slow pace and our view that there is some chance of inflation falling below 2%, resulting in very little further hiking.
One final observation: Goldman’s decision to shockingly pull forward its first rate hike – and thus once again puke all over its reputation as a rational Fed watcher – has nothing to do with any of the abovementioned fundamental points, and everything to do with the violent market repricing in the short end and in terms of fed tightening. All of that can be summarized in the chart below courtesy of Bloomberg; it shows that as of Friday, the matket priced in odds as high as 87% — 22 basis points of a 25 basis-point increase — of a June 2022 rate increase. A week ago they priced in 16 basis points, a 62% likelihood. All Goldman is doing is following the crowd.
What Goldman does not get, is that as the market prices in more rate hikes, the market-implied slope of the Fed’s path continues to flatten as traders are also pricing in a policy error, i.e., tightening into a recession. As such, the curve’s peak now suggests at most five to six hikes by the end of 2025 to a level more than 100 basis points short of Fed policy makers’ projection.
In other words, some time in 2023 at the very latest, we will likely see Fed Chairwoman Brainard announce the an accelerated rate cut cycle has arrived, one which may culminate with NIRP even as the Fed buys stocks to keep the wealth effect from collapsing.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 10/31/2021 – 22:10 - Australia's Top Securities Regulator Says It Will Approve Bitcoin ETFs
Australia’s Top Securities Regulator Says It Will Approve Bitcoin ETFs
Authored by Alex McShane via Bitcoin Magazine,
The Australian Securities And Investments Commission (ASIC) has given early approval to fund managers seeking to launch Bitcoin spot exchange traded funds (ETFs), according to Business Insider.
Many Australian funds have already begun the application process after ASIC green lit the spot ETFs. After months of consulting with experts in the Bitcoin and crypto industry, the corporate regulators issued new guidance for the space, and detailed a draft of regulatory requirements for funds eager to offer Bitcoin spot ETFs.
In a statement on Friday, ASIC wrote, “We recognise the interest in, and demand for, ETPs and other investment products that hold crypto-assets in Australia.” One requirement for fund managers is they will need to appoint a Bitcoin custodial expert who is “required to ensure crypto-assets are held in safe and secure custody”.
Safe and secure custody includes storing Bitcoin private keys in air-gapped cold storage, through wallets which are subject to “robust physical security practices.” Redundant backups of seed phrases stored in geographically separate locations are also required, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Funds must also front a minimum of $10 million in net tangible assets to launch a Bitcoin ETF, along with adhering to other pricing and risk management obligations.
ASIC commented on why Bitcoin is one of just two newly approved assets, “We proposed this because we recognize that crypto-assets vary greatly in their features, characteristics, risks and how they operate, and we consider that only some may be appropriate to be held by a registered managed investment scheme.”
This comes just one week after Valkyrie and ProShares launched the first Bitcoin futures ETFs in the United States. Many in the U.S. are eagerly awaiting the approval of a Bitcoin spot-based ETF, which is considered to be a safer investment vehicle that can more closely track the price of Bitcoin. In any case, Australia’s coming spot ETFs are a step in the right direction in terms of educating traditional investors about Bitcoin and spreading adoption.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 10/31/2021 – 21:50 - OPEC+ Balks At Biden's Demands For More Oil Production
OPEC+ Balks At Biden’s Demands For More Oil Production
With oil prices rising to levels last seen during the OPEC Thanksgiving massacre of 2014, developed nations – having realized they made an epic blunder by pushing the Net Zero lunacy far too hard, leaving the oil and gas industry with not nearly enough growth spending to keep the price of oil from surging (as we discussed in “One Bank Crunches The Numbers On Oil Supply/Demand Dynamics, Reaches A Shocking Conclusion“)…
… are now stuck begging OPEC+ to produce more, as the alternative is even higher oil prices and attendant social unrest as even ESG posterchild Larry Fink admits.
Speaking to reporters in Rome, a senior US official said that the U.S. is talking to other energy-consuming nations about how to press OPEC+ to boost output to address the current supply crunch. That such pleas aimed at OPEC+ come from the same admin which ended the Keystone XL pipeline on its first day, and has done everything to crush shale capex in the US, is hardly a surprise.
And since even the Biden admin is not dumb enough to grasp that its “demands” will be laughed out of the room, Bloomberg reports that the leaders will also discuss how they might respond if the 23-nation cartel that includes Russia doesn’t take action, the official said, although he wouldn’t speculate on what those options might be.
The statements from the “senior US official” come just in time to confirm recent media reports that a broad campaign has been waged to persuade OPEC+ to speed up its output increases as Bloomberg reported earlier in the week, citing multiple diplomats and industry insiders involved in the contacts.
According to a Bloomberg report last week, an intense campaign was being waged behind closed doors to persuade OPEC+ to speed up its output increases. The cartel, which meets virtually on Nov. 4 to review policy, is currently boosting output at a rate of 400,000 barrels a day each month and will continue doing so for the foreseeable future due to uncertainties associated with covid.
The private efforts come on top of recent public appeals. The Biden administration is increasingly alarmed by rising gasoline prices that have reached a 7-year high, and has been calling on OPEC+ for weeks to pump more oil. Japan, the world’s fourth-largest oil consumer, took the rare step of adding its voice to those calls in late October — a first for Tokyo since 2008. India, the third-largest consumer, has also asked for more crude. China has been silent in public, but is equally vocal in private, diplomats said.
“We found ourselves in an energy crisis,” Amos Hochstein, the top U.S. energy diplomat, said this week, reflecting a view broadly held view by big oil consuming nations. “Producers should ensure that oil markets and gas markets are balanced.”
On Friday, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz addressed the Group of 20 summit in Rome saying his government seeks “balance” in energy markets. Which, of course, is politically correct wording for the Saudis, and OPEC+, will ignore pleas to hike output especially since shale is hardly rushing to boost production and the price of oil will soon hit $90 if not $100, with the benefits flowing through to the bottom line of ever oil exporter.
“The Kingdom will continue its leading role in economic and health upturn and recovery from the global crises, and in finding a balance to achieve security and stability in energy markets,” he said, according to Saudi press agency.
The OPEC+ cartel meets next on Nov. 4 to conduct a virtual discussion of its policies. However, thanks to Angola we already know the outcome: the African nation rejected consumers’ calls for OPEC+ to increase oil production, saying the group’s plan to gradually add supply is working.
“Many countries and suppliers are calling for more oil and asking the OPEC+ to increase the oil production,” Diamantino Pedro Azevedo, oil minister for the OPEC member, said in a statement. “But in my humble opinion the current plan of increasing production by 400,000 barrels a day agreed in July by OPEC+ is working well and there is no need to deviate from it.”
Translation: not only will OPEC+ not boost production despite the fervent request of virtue-signaling western nations which can’t seem to grasp that pushing “green” policies will result in energy hyperinflation (as we explained here), but that the person in charge of the White House has become such a global laughing stock that OPEC+ seems to enjoy rubbing how powerless he is, in his face.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 10/31/2021 – 21:25 - US Coal Miners "All Sold Out" For 2022
US Coal Miners “All Sold Out” For 2022
Top U.S. coal miners are experiencing a massive surge in demand as power companies restart coal-fired power plants due to high natural gas prices to prevent electricity shortages ahead of the winter season.
According to Bloomberg, Arch Resources, the second-largest U.S. coal miner, has sold every lump of coal it will extract out of the ground for 2022. The company has sold next year’s coal for 20% over the current spot. Peabody Energy Corp., the top U.S. coal miner, has sold 90% of all its coal from the Powder River Basin area for 2022.
Arch’s CEO Paul Lang said the company’s thermal coal output for 2022 is “fully committed.” According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, Arch sold the coal for $16 per ton, well over last week’s $13.25 spot price.
“It’s pretty much sold out,” Peabody CEO Jim Grech said Thursday during a conference call. “We only have a small portion left to be sold for 2022 and for 2023.”
Alliance Resource Partners LP, a coal miner that will ship 32 million tons this year, has already locked in 2022 contracts to deliver 30 tons and 16 tons in 2023.
“Our challenge in America is most producers are all sold out,” Alliance CEO Joe Craft said last week.
Surging demand for coal ahead of the Northern Hemisphere winter comes as the global energy crunch has forced natural gas prices to record highs worldwide. Power plants are transitioning away from natgas generation because it’s uneconomical at current prices, hence the increasing demand for the dirtiest fossil fuel.
Over the next month, average temperatures for the US-Lower 48 will begin to dive.
This means electricity demand to heat building structures will increase.
One of the biggest ironies this year is the transition to coal despite a push by politicians for green energy. One of the culprits behind the global energy crunch is alternative power, such as wind and solar, are unreliable.
The latest Bloomberg data shows U.S. coal supplies are at two-decade lows ahead of the winter.
U.S. power generation derived from coal is increasing.
Power plants are expected to burn 19% more coal this year.
Arch’s Lang recently warned that coal producers might not have the capacity to respond to demand.
Weeks ago, Ernie Thrasher, CEO of Xcoal Energy & Resources, the largest U.S. exporter of fuel, said demand for coal will remain robust well into 2022. He warned about domestic supply constraints and power companies already “discussing possible grid blackouts this winter.”
All of this new founded coal demand has been a boon for Peabody Energy shares as earnings have tripled.
The rebound of coal under a Biden administration must be puzzling for many, but it has shown the green transition will take decades, not years. In the meantime, the world returns to coal.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 10/31/2021 – 21:25 - 'I Had To Stand Up And Try To Do Something:' Professor Of Medicine On Suing School Over Vaccine Mandate
‘I Had To Stand Up And Try To Do Something:’ Professor Of Medicine On Suing School Over Vaccine Mandate
Authored by Jan Jekielek and Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Dr. Aaron Kheriaty reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic like many other medical experts. He worked long hours as the United States tried to grapple with the new disease. He had too many conversations with family members whose loved ones were dying from it.
Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, a professor of psychiatry at UC Irvine’s School of Medicine, is seen in Irvine, Calif., on Oct. 27, 2021. (Zhen Wang/The Epoch Times) But as time wore on, he started noticing a pattern in public health decisions that seemed to diverge from traditional medical ethics, including an insistence that people at little risk from COVID-19 get a vaccine.
Kheriaty is now on suspension from the University of California, Irvine, (UCI) and challenging the school’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate in court.
“I had to stand up and try to do something about it,” the professor of psychiatry and director of the UCI Health’s Medical Ethics Program said on The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders.”
UCI spokespeople declined to comment for this story.
‘Liberating’
Kheriaty contracted COVID-19, the disease caused by Covid-19 in mid-2020. His infection was confirmed by two different tests from two independent labs. His five children and wife also contracted the disease. They all recovered, with none requiring hospital care.
“It was, for me, actually a very liberating experience afterward, because I didn’t have to worry about the illness anymore. I knew the science on natural immunity,” Kheriaty said.
Natural immunity refers to when people contract COVID-19 and recover. Dozens of studies have documented that these individuals enjoy strong immunity against CCP virus re-infection. Some of the studies suggest the immunity is superior to that provided by COVID-19 vaccines, particularly the Johnson & Johnson one.
“I knew that at that point, I was among the safest people to be around, I didn’t have to worry about transmitting the infection to my patients,” Kheriaty said.
He continued taking precautions, wearing personal protective equipment like masks as required at the hospital. But he was confident he didn’t pose a risk to others, which served as a relief.
That relief turned into disbelief when, around a year later, the University of California system, which includes UCI, imposed a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
Opt-Out is Temporary
The mandate (pdf) included a natural immunity opt-out, but only temporarily. People who recovered from COVID-19 were told they would only be exempt from the mandate for up to 90 days after their diagnosis.
University officials cited the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which alleges that the antibody tests it has authorized “are not validated to evaluate specific immunity or protection from SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
SARS-CoV-2 is another name for the CCP virus.
“For this reason, individuals who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or had an antibody test are not permanently exempt from vaccination,” officials said.
The mandate violated rights outlined in the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment, including equal protection and substantive due process, Kheriaty’s lawsuit asserts.
“Plaintiff is naturally immune to SARS-CoV-2. Therefore, plaintiff is at least as equally situated as those who are fully vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine, yet defendants deny plaintiff equal treatment and seek to burden Plaintiff with an unnecessary violation of bodily integrity to which plaintiff does not consent in order to be allowed to continue to work at UCI,” it states.
The situation creates two classes, vaccinated and unvaccinated, when a more reasonable division would be those who are immune and those who are not, Kheriaty believes.
“What kind of discriminatory policies do we have in place that are excluding someone like me from the workplace when I’m 99.8 percent protected against reinfection whereas someone who got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, by the company’s own data that they submitted to the FDA, is 67 percent protective against COVID infection?” he said.
Whose Burden?
Kheriaty initially planned to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Now he’s working to change the narrative around mandates.
Some say proposed natural immunity opt-outs for the mandates would be make it much more difficult to ascertain who meets the threshold, versus a vaccine mandate with no lasting provision for post-infection.
Most mandates across the country don’t have alternatives for people who had COVID-19 and recovered.
Kheriaty proposes putting the burden of proof on people who want to opt out.
“Just have them go get the testing on their own time. You don’t have to administer the T-cell test or the antibody test. You don’t have to go dig up their old medical record establishing that they’ve already had COVID,” he said.
“Just ask them to bring that in and sign off on that as a kind of immunity passport.”
Side Effects
The population of those who recovered and still got a vaccine is known as having “hybrid immunity.”
A large part of the medical health establishment, including all federal public health agencies, downplay natural immunity. They say it exists but that hybrid immunity is better.
“I’m not denying at all that people who get infected and recover have a considerable degree of immunity,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said last month. “We also know—and I think we should not let this pass without saying it—that when you get infected and recover, a) you get a good degree of immunity, but b) when you get vaccinated, you dramatically increase that protection, which is something that’s really quite good.”
A spokesman for Fauci’s agency told The Epoch Times in an email that he sourced from several studies, including one from researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. They found that a COVID-19 vaccine based on messenger RNA given following COVID-19 infection boosted neutralizing antibodies.
Many studies, however, show the immunity post-infection is already sky-high for many, leading to questions about why the recovered would then go get a vaccine that, like every jab, has side effects.
Kheriaty worries about other research that seems to show vaccine recipients with natural immunity experience side effects at a higher frequency than those who are not immune who get a shot.
“There are now about five independent studies that strongly suggest that individuals that already have natural immunity, when you vaccinate them, the risk of vaccine adverse events or vaccine side effects is higher for that group,” the professor said. “They have higher risk of side effects from the vaccine. It’s not going to help the people around them because natural immunity already is sterilizing, [yet] we don’t yet have any COVID vaccines that offer sterilizing immunity.”
Tyler Durden
Sun, 10/31/2021 – 21:00 - Europe On Edge After Russia Unexpectedly Halts Gas Shipments Via Key Pipeline
Europe On Edge After Russia Unexpectedly Halts Gas Shipments Via Key Pipeline
In the middle of last week, an increasingly cold Europe exhaled a collective breath of relief when Russian president Vladimir Putin told Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller to “start gradual and planned work to raise gas volumes in your inventories in Europe: in Austria and Germany.” While markets were focused on the (latest) promise by the Kremlin to boost output to Europe, we said that this was just another chapter in Russia’s “cat and mouse” game with a soon to be freezing Europe, that the key word here was “gradual”, and that anyone expecting a sudden surge in Russian nat gas shipments to Europe should not hold their breath as “Putin has been very clear in laying out Russia’s ask to save Europe: activate the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. As long as Europe’s bureaucrats refuse to comply, any hope that electricity costs will slide in the coming weeks will be at best – pardon the pun – a pipe dream.“
We didn’t have long to wait to be once again proven right: on Saturday, Russian gas supplies through the Yamal – Europe pipeline via Poland to Germany had come to a sudden, unexpected, and screeching halt.
While this was merely the latest political move in the escalating game over Europe’s energy future, with Putin making it very clear who has all the leverage, Gazprom was quick to deny what is patently obvious, and said that European customers’ natural gas requirements were being met as Russia sends gas to western Europe by several different routes, besides the the Yamal – Europe pipeline, which has an annual capacity of up to 33 billion cubic metres.
“There is no demand for gas transit towards Germany currently,” a Gaz-System spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement.
Needless to say, that’s not how Europe, or European gas traders will see it after Germany’s Gascade operator said that flows at the Mallnow metering point in Germany, which lies at the Polish border, stopped early on Saturday.
And so the political game over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline ratchets up, with Europe likely to see even less gas despite Gazprom saying that the requests of customers in Europe were being met and that fluctuations in demand for Russian gas were dependent on the actual needs of buyer (spoiler alert: European buyers need much more than 0).
While no gas reached Germany on Saturday, a spokesman for Poland’s state-controlled PGNiG said flows from the east were much lower than usual, but Poland was still receiving amounts consistent with its contract. Poland’s gas grid operator Gaz-System said on Saturday the Yamal pipeline was delivering gas to Poland via the Kondratki compressor station on the east and Mallnow on the west through “reverse mode” – meaning it was shipping gas from west to east.
One Russian news media report suggested the flow reversal was a short-term problem caused by balmy weather in Germany over the weekend.
Russian gas export flows have been closely watched as gas prices in Europe have soared amid economic recovery and low inventories. This website was one of the first to anticipate the endgame, writing on August 3 “From Russia With 50% Less Supply: European Nat Gas Prices Explode To Record Highs As Putin Turns The Screws.“
Gazprom has been accused by the International Energy Agency and some European lawmakers of not doing enough to increase its natural gas supplies to Europe, but the Russian company has said it has been meeting its contractual obligations. A gas transit deal between Russia and Poland expired last year, but Gazprom can book the transit capacity via the pipeline at auctions.
Adding insult to injury, at the last auction on Oct. 18, Gazprom booked some 32 million cubic metres per day, or 35% of total additional capacity offered by the Polish operator Gas System for transit via the Kondratki transit point for November. The news of the far lower booking sent European gas prices surging, although last week’s Putin statement eased concerns modestly. Should flows via Yamal not restore, expect to see new all time highs in European gas prices in the coming days.
Meanwhile, we fail to see why there still remains confusion as to what happens next: On Oct 19, Putin made it explicitly clear what so many had though, signaling that no extra gas would flow to Europe without Nord Stream 2. And yet, even though Russia has all the leverage, Europe continues to delay final certification of the critical NS2 pipeline.
Finally, Russia’s choice to halt gas supplies to Europe comes around the time Joe Biden warned Vladimir Putin not to weaponize natural resources for political purposes, confirms just how much influence
BrandonBiden has on the world arena.Tyler Durden
Sun, 10/31/2021 – 20:35 - Australia Confiscating Bank Accounts, Property, Licenses, & Businesses For Non-Compliance With COVID Fines
Australia Confiscating Bank Accounts, Property, Licenses, & Businesses For Non-Compliance With COVID Fines
Authored by Sundance via The Last Refuge (emphasis ours),
Of all the extreme measures carried out by various states in Australia, the collections and confiscations by the State Penalty and Enforcement Register (SPER) might just be the icing on the cake.
During the lengthy COVID lockdown in the state of Queensland, Australia (Brisbane area), most workers were not permitted to work or earn a living.
Several states stepped in to provide wage subsidies so people could purchase essential products and pay their living expenses. However, during the lockdown if you were caught violating any of the lockdown rules, you were subject to a civil citation, a fine or ticket for your COVID violation.
Get caught too far from home, outside your permitted bubble, and you get a ticket. Get caught spending more than the permitted 1 hour outside, get a ticket. Get caught without a mask, even by yourself – and yep, ticket. Enter a closed quarantine zone (park, venue, etc.) and you get a ticket. Tickets were being handed out by police on the street as well as during random checkpoints on the roadways.
Additionally, people returning to Queensland were put into a system of involuntary quarantine. The costs for that quarantine, mostly hotel rooms, were to be paid by the people being involuntarily captive and not allowed home.
Citizens were required to have their physical location scanned via a QR code on their phone. These checkpoints were to assist in controlling the COVID spread and were used for contact tracing throughout the past two years. However, the checkpoints and gateway compliance scans also registered your physical location; the consequence was an increased ability for police and COVID compliance officers to catch people violating the COVID rules. Ex: If you checked in at the grocery store, they knew how far from home you are, and the police could figure out if you violated your one hour of time outside the home at the next checkpoint.
The result of all this compliance monitoring was thousands of fines, civil citations for violating COVID rules. Thousands of people given thousands of fines that would need to be paid.
Now the state is requiring all of those civil citations get paid, or else. And the enforcement actions to collect these fines from the State Penalty and Enforcement Register are quite extreme. Citizens who have outstanding tickets are finding their driver’s licenses suspended; bank accounts are being frozen and seized; homes and property are are being confiscated, as well as business licenses suspended for outstanding citations.
“Queenslanders who received fines for breaking Covid-19 rules risk having their homes seized and bank accounts frozen in a government crackdown to collect $5.2 million in repayments.” (LINK)
Brisbane Times – “SPER was undertaking “active enforcement” on another 18.4 per cent of fines, worth about $1 million, which a spokesman said “may include garnishing bank accounts or wages, registering charges over property, or suspending driver licences”. The remaining 25.2 per cent of fines were either under investigation or still open to payment without further action being taken.
Outside SPER’s work, Queensland Health took the unusual step of calling in private debt collectors to chase up $5.7 million amounting from 2045 significantly overdue invoices for hotel quarantine. (read more)
Tyler Durden
Sun, 10/31/2021 – 20:10 - Philadelphia Passes "Anti-Driving While Black" Measure That Bans Minor Traffic Stops
Philadelphia Passes “Anti-Driving While Black” Measure That Bans Minor Traffic Stops
Today in “liberal cities are moving one step closer to total lawlessness” news, it was reported that Philadelphia’s City Council has passed a measure that bans officers from pulling over drivers for traffic violations like broken taillights or expired registrations.
The measure, being called an “anti-driving-while-black” law, is being seen by social justice advocates as a “victory for equity”, according to the Delaware Valley Journal.
Councilmember Isaiah Thomas’ Driving Equality bill supposedly seeks “to address the tension between members of the Black community and police by reducing the number of minor traffic stops”.
Thomas wants to redirect police time toward “keeping the community safe” while removing negative interactions that “widen the racial divide”.
We guess the idea of reprimanding officers for pulling people over for no reason, instead of actually having a valid reason, never crossed his mind. Because keeping things “safer” now apparently means you can drive around in a car with busted headlights and no registration. Ah, the sweet smell of progress.
Thomas commented: “To many people who look like me, a traffic stop is a rite of passage – we pick out cars, determine routes, and plan our social interactions around the fact that police will likely pull us over. With this vote, I breathe a sigh of relief that my sons and my friends’ children will grow up in a city where being pulled over is not a rite of passage but a measure of the safety of your driving and vehicle, regardless of the skin color of the driver. That’s why I am grateful to my colleagues for voting to pass my Driving Equality bills.”
NYPD deputy inspector John Hall conducted an analysis of the approach and said: “Experience during the pandemic has revealed that removing police from traffic enforcement leads to more dangerous streets, more disorder, and more crime. Public safety policy decisions and legislation must be informed by data and made with eyes wide open to their consequences.”
Once Mayor Kenney signs the measure into law, it’ll also create a database of all traffic stops.
Thomas concluded: “Data will tell us if we should end more traffic stops or amend how this is enforced. Data will also tell other cities that Philadelphia is leading on this civil rights issue, and it can be replicated. Data and lived experiences showed us the problem, and data will be key to making sure this is done right.”
The bill passed city council 14-2, with the council’s only two Republican members voting against it.
Former Upper Darby Police Superintendent Mike Chitwood, who had also worked as a police officer in Philadelphia, said: “Some of the best arrests that I ever made were based on a headlight out or a turn signal off. I can recall arresting an individual with six handguns in a trunk of a car and masks and rope based on the fact that his rear light wasn’t working.”
Tyler Durden
Sun, 10/31/2021 – 19:45 - Hedge Fund CIO: Our New Reality Will Depend On The Fierce Clash Between Centralized And Decentralized Power
Hedge Fund CIO: Our New Reality Will Depend On The Fierce Clash Between Centralized And Decentralized Power
By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management
“Your devices won’t be the focal point of your attention anymore,” said Mark Zuckerberg in his keynote, shuffling through a computer-generated landscape, renaming his firm Meta. “We’re starting to see a lot of these technologies coming together in the next five or 10 years,” he explained, server farms proliferating across the globe, humming, processor speeds advancing inexorably along parabolic curves.
“A lot of this is going to be mainstream and a lot of us will be creating and inhabiting worlds that are just as detailed and convincing as this one, on a daily basis,” said the founder/architect, extending the epic journey of a firm first built to rank undergrad women’s appearance to one that now intends to construct humanity’s new reality: the Metaverse.
Zuckerberg’s detractors went wild. “Meta as in ‘we are a cancer to democracy metastasizing into a global surveillance and propaganda machine for boosting authoritarian regimes and destroying civil society… for profit!,’” tweeted AOC. Others were less kind. But Meta carried on, making massive capital investments to win an intensifying war for its very existence.
You see, Facebook, like every other organization based upon centralized control – which is to say virtually every institution – is threatened with extinction by a growing army of revolutionary entrepreneurs, developing decentralized alternatives. Incumbents across the most vulnerable industries are sending lobbyists to fortify regulatory moats from an assault by these innovators.
Zuckerberg can hope for no such DC support. A wildly successful decentralized Metaverse would utterly destroy Facebook. So, before he loses his entire empire, he must build a wall around his existing network, and pray his users do not flee Meta’s centralized Metaverse. Meta’s longer-term odds of success are not high.
And for those of us looking for frameworks to understand this emerging reality, the fierce battle between centralized and decentralized power is a focal point. The conflict will affect every industry, institution. And of course, understanding what is likely to become valuable in this new world that few can yet imagine, let alone understand, presents an enormous opportunity.
* * *
Anecdote
“Web 1.0 was flat, static,” said the visionary, unseating the slow-moving incumbents. “Web 2.0 arrived and was dynamic, interactive — it is what we mostly experience today,” added the founder/CEO, lifting his phone from the table, looking at the screen, placing it gently down. “Web 3.0 will be immersive. And we will spend an increasing amount of our lives within the new worlds that it will open.”
I’d zipped into the city for our meeting, on autopilot, handsfree, crazy stop-and-go traffic along the Hudson, software navigating the chaos at 60mph. “In these new worlds, our experiences will be virtual, the currencies we use will naturally be native to those worlds, the assets will be digital.” And he paused, thoughtful, entirely at ease.
“When I started this company, I saw a future where early digital currencies would become increasingly popular, more valuable. And I expected these technologies would eventually prove useful and solve real world problems,” he said. “Even I am surprised by how quickly the latter has come.”
Venture capital is cascading into blockchain companies that are racing to replace the things incumbent institutions presently do; only faster, cheaper, more securely. Some protocols are built to do things we previously considered impossible. Still others do things not previously imagined. These revolutionary pioneers see a world very different from what has been. They have a broadening view of what is possible.
“As this future manifests, all assets will be tokenized — the virtual assets we already see today, the financial assets we have always traded, and many real assets we never even considered tokenizing, exchanging, trading.”
While we will split our time between the virtual and the real, all our possessions will gravitate to the blockchain, tokenized, fractionalized. “And we will supply the most trusted custodial wallets to secure digital assets for everyone in that future.”
Tyler Durden
Sun, 10/31/2021 – 19:20 - Fully-Vaccinated White House PressSec Psaki Tests Positive For COVID
Fully-Vaccinated White House PressSec Psaki Tests Positive For COVID
Just two weeks after defending President Biden’s mask-wearing-mandate violation, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has tested positive for COVID… and she’s a ‘double-masker’…
Having told people to pay attention to the president’s policies and “not overly focus on moments in time” such as being filmed without a mask inside a Washington, D.C., restaurant, Psaki is now the highest-profile White House official to publicly disclose they contracted the virus, raising questions about how the presumably always-mask-wearing-and-always-socially-distanced-and-fully-vaccinated official could have got the virus given the ‘science’.
Psaki opted not to travel with President Biden and other staff members to Europe on Thursday after a member of her household tested positive for the virus, she said in a statement. She last held a press briefing with reporters on Wednesday at the White House.
“While I have not had close contact in person with the President or senior members of the White House staff since Wednesday – and tested negative for four days after that last contact – I am disclosing today’s positive test out of an abundance of transparency,” she said in a statement.
“I last saw the President on Tuesday, when we sat outside more than six-feet apart, and wore masks.”
Psaki said she has mild symptoms “thanks to the vaccine…which has enabled [her] to continue working from home,” and will return to work after a 10-day quarantine “beyond CDC guidance” following a negative test.
So much virtue signaled in one sentence.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 10/31/2021 – 18:55 - I've Been Driving Trucks For 20 Years, I'll Tell You Why America's "Shipping Crisis" Will Not End
I’ve Been Driving Trucks For 20 Years, I’ll Tell You Why America’s “Shipping Crisis” Will Not End
Authored by Ryan Johnson via Medium.com,
I have a simple question for every ‘expert’ who thinks they understand the root causes of the shipping crisis:
Why is there only one crane for every 50–100 trucks at every port in America?
No ‘expert’ will answer this question.
I’m a Class A truck driver with experience in nearly every aspect of freight. My experience in the trucking industry of 20 years tells me that nothing is going to change in the shipping industry.
Let’s start with understanding some things about ports.
Outside of dedicated port trucking companies, most trucking companies won’t touch shipping containers. There is a reason for that.
Think of going to the port as going to WalMart on Black Friday, but imagine only ONE cashier for thousands of customers. Think about the lines. Except at a port, there are at least THREE lines to get a container in or out. The first line is the ‘in’ gate, where hundreds of trucks daily have to pass through 5–10 available gates. The second line is waiting to pick up your container. The third line is for waiting to get out. For each of these lines the wait time is a minimum of an hour, and I’ve waited up to 8 hours in the first line just to get into the port. Some ports are worse than others, but excessive wait times are not uncommon. It’s a rare day when a driver gets in and out in under two hours. By ‘rare day’, I mean maybe a handful of times a year. Ports don’t even begin to have enough workers to keep the ports fluid, and it doesn’t matter where you are, coastal or inland port, union or non-union port, it’s the same everywhere.
Furthermore, I’m fortunate enough to be a Teamster — a union driver — an employee paid by the hour. Most port drivers are ‘independent contractors’, leased onto a carrier who is paying them by the load. Whether their load takes two hours, fourteen hours, or three days to complete, they get paid the same, and they have to pay 90% of their truck operating expenses (the carrier might pay the other 10%, but usually less.) The rates paid to non-union drivers for shipping container transport are usually extremely low. In a majority of cases, these drivers don’t come close to my union wages. They pay for all their own repairs and fuel, and all truck related expenses. I honestly don’t understand how many of them can even afford to show up for work. There’s no guarantee of ANY wage (not even minimum wage), and in many cases, these drivers make far below minimum wage. In some cases they work 70 hour weeks and still end up owing money to their carrier.
So when the coastal ports started getting clogged up last spring due to the impacts of COVID on business everywhere, drivers started refusing to show up. Congestion got so bad that instead of being able to do three loads a day, they could only do one. They took a 2/3 pay cut and most of these drivers were working 12 hours a day or more. While carriers were charging increased pandemic shipping rates, none of those rate increases went to the driver wages. Many drivers simply quit. However, while the pickup rate for containers severely decreased, they were still being offloaded from the boats. And it’s only gotten worse.
Earlier this summer, both BNSF and Union Pacific Railways shut down their container yards in the Chicago area for a week for inbound containers. These are some of the busiest ports in the country. They had miles upon miles of stack (container) trains waiting to get in to be unloaded. According to BNSF, containers were sitting in the port 1/3 longer than usual, and they simply ran out of space to put them until some of the ones already on the ground had been picked up. Though they did reopen the area ports, they are still over capacity. Stack trains are still sitting loaded, all over the country, waiting to get into a port to unload. And they have to be unloaded, there is a finite number of railcars. Equipment shortages are a large part of this problem.
One of these critical shortages is the container chassis.
A container chassis is the trailer the container sits on. Cranes will load these in port. Chassis are typically container company provided, as trucking companies generally don’t have their own chassis units. They are essential for container trucking. While there are some privately owned chassis, there aren’t enough of those to begin to address the backlog of containers today, and now drivers are sitting around for hours, sometimes days, waiting for chassis.
The impact of the container crisis now hitting residencies in proximity to trucking companies. Containers are being pulled out of the port and dropped anywhere the drivers can find because the trucking company lots are full. Ports are desperate to get containers out so they can unload the new containers coming in by boat. When this happens there is no plan to deliver this freight yet, they are literally just making room for the next ship at the port. This won’t last long, as this just compounds the shortage of chassis. Ports will eventually find themselves unable to move containers out of the port until sitting containers are delivered, emptied, returned, or taken to a storage lot (either loaded or empty) and taken off the chassis there so the chassis can be put back into use. The priority is not delivery, the priority is just to clear the port enough to unload the next boat.
What happens when a container does get to a warehouse?
A large portion of international containers must be hand unloaded because the products are not on pallets. It takes a working crew a considerable amount of time to do this, and warehouse work is usually low wage. A lot of it is actually only temp staffed. Many full time warehouse workers got laid off when the pandemic started, and didn’t come back. So warehouses, like everybody else, are chronically short staffed.
When the port trucker gets to the warehouse, they have to wait for a door (you’ve probably seen warehouse buildings with a bank of roll-up doors for trucks on one side of the building.) The warehouses are behind schedule, sometimes by weeks. After maybe a 2 hour wait, the driver gets a door and drops the container — but now often has to pick up an empty, and goes back to the port to wait in line all over again to drop off the empty.
At the warehouse, the delivered freight is unloaded, and it is usually separated and bound to pallets, then shipped out in much smaller quantities to final destination. A container that had a couple dozen pallets of goods on it will go out on multiple trailers to multiple different destinations a few pallets at a time.
From personal experience, what used to take me 20–30 minutes to pick up at a warehouse can now take three to four hours. This slowdown is warehouse management related: very few warehouses are open 24 hours, and even if they are, many are so short staffed it doesn’t make much difference, they are so far behind schedule. It means that as a freight driver, I cannot pick up as much freight in a day as I used to, and since I can’t get as much freight on my truck, the whole supply chain is backed up. Freight simply isn’t moving.
It’s important to understand what the cost implications are for consumers with this lack of supply in the supply chain. It’s pure supply and demand economics. Consider volume shipping customers who primarily use ‘general freight’, which is the lowest cost shipping and typically travels in a ‘space available’ fashion. They have usually been able to get their freight moved from origination to delivery within two weeks. Think about how you get your packages from Amazon. Even without paying for Prime, you usually get your stuff in a week. The majority of freight travels at this low cost, ‘no guarantee of delivery date’ way, and for the most part it’s been fine for both shippers and consumers. Those days are coming to an end.
People who want their deliveries in a reasonable time are going to have to start paying premium rates. There will be levels of priority, and each increase in rate premium essentially jumps that freight ahead of all the freight with lower or no premium rates. Unless the lack of shipping infrastructure is resolved, things will back up in a cascading effect to the point where if your products are going general freight, you might wait a month or two for delivery. It’s already starting. If you use truck shipping in any way, you’ve no doubt started to see the delays. Think about what’s going to happen to holiday season shipping.
What is going to compel the shippers and carriers to invest in the needed infrastructure? The owners of these companies can theoretically not change anything and their business will still be at full capacity because of the backlog of containers. The backlog of containers doesn’t hurt them. It hurts anyone paying shipping costs — that is, manufacturers selling products and consumers buying products. But it doesn’t hurt the owners of the transportation business — in fact the laws of supply and demand mean that they are actually going to make more money through higher rates, without changing a thing. They don’t have to improve or add infrastructure (because it’s costly), and they don’t have to pay their workers more (warehouse workers, crane operators, truckers).
The ‘experts’ want to say we can do things like open the ports 24/7, and this problem will be over in a couple weeks. They are blowing smoke, and they know it. Getting a container out of the port, as slow and aggravating as it is, is really the easy part, if you can find a truck and chassis to haul it. But every truck driver in America can’t operate 24/7, even if the government suspends Hours Of Service Regulations (federal regulations determining how many hours a week we can work/drive), we still need to sleep sometime. There are also restrictions on which trucks can go into a port. They have to be approved, have RFID tags, port registered, and the drivers have to have at least a TWIC card (Transportation Worker Identification Credential from the federal Transportation Security Administration). Some ports have additional requirements. As I have already said, most trucking companies won’t touch shipping containers with a 100 foot pole. What we have is a system with a limited amount of trucks and qualified drivers, many of whom are already working 14 hours a day (legally, the maximum they can), and now the supposed fix is to have them work 24 hours a day, every day, and not stop until the backlog is cleared. It’s not going to happen. It is not physically possible. There is no “cavalry” coming. No trucking companies are going to pay to register their trucks to haul containers for something that is supposedly so “short term,” because these same companies can get higher rate loads outside the ports. There is no extra capacity to be had, and it makes NO difference anyway, because If you can’t get a container unloaded at a warehouse, having drivers work 24/7/365 solves nothing.
What it will truly take to fix this problem is to run EVERYTHING 24/7: ports (both coastal and domestic), trucks, and warehouses. We need tens of thousands more chassis, and a much greater capacity in trucking.
Before the pandemic, through the pandemic, and really for the whole history of the freight industry at all levels, owners make their money by having low labor costs — that is, low wages and bare minimum staffing. Many supply chain workers are paid minimum wages, no benefits, and there’s a high rate of turnover because the physical conditions can be brutal (there aren’t even bathrooms for truckers waiting hours at ports because the port owners won’t pay for them. The truckers aren’t port employees and port owners are only legally required to pay for bathroom facilities for their employees. This is a nationwide problem). For the whole supply chain to function efficiently every point has to be working at an equal capacity. Any point that fails bottlenecks the whole system. Right now, it’s ALL failing spectacularly TOGETHER, but fixing one piece won’t do anything. It ALL needs to be fixed, and at the same time.
How do you convince truckers to work when their pay isn’t guaranteed, even to the point where they lose money?
Nobody is compelling the transportation industries to make the needed changes to their infrastructure. There are no laws compelling them to hire the needed workers, or pay them a living wage, or improve working conditions. And nobody is compelling them to buy more container chassis units, more cranes, or more storage space. This is for an industry that literally every business in the world is reliant on in some way or another.
My prediction is that nothing is going to change and the shipping crisis is only going to get worse. Nobody in the supply chain wants to pay to solve the problem. They literally just won’t pay to solve the problem. At the point we are at now, things are so backed up that the backups THEMSELVES are causing container companies, ports, warehouses, and trucking companies to charge massive rate increases for doing literally NOTHING. Container companies have already decreased the maximum allowable times before containers have to be back to the port, and if the congestion is so bad that you can’t get the container back into the port when it is due, the container company can charge massive late fees. The ports themselves will start charging massive storage fees for not getting containers out on time — storage charges alone can run into thousands of dollars a day. Warehouses can charge massive premiums for their services, and so can trucking companies. Chronic understaffing has led to this problem, but it is allowing these same companies to charge ten times more for regular services. Since they’re not paying the workers any more than they did last year or five years ago, the whole industry sits back and cashes in on the mess it created. In fact, the more things are backed up, the more every point of the supply chain cashes in. There is literally NO incentive to change, even if it means consumers have to do holiday shopping in July and pay triple for shipping.
This is the new normal. All brought to you by the ‘experts’ running our supply chains.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 10/31/2021 – 18:30 - Zillow Caught Holding The Bag As 93% Of Phoenix 'Flipping' Portfolio Listed At Loss
Zillow Caught Holding The Bag As 93% Of Phoenix ‘Flipping’ Portfolio Listed At Loss
Two weeks ago we reported that Zillow’s electronic house flipping operation had been underperforming – as the real estate company had been buying houses at inflated prices and flipping them for a loss.
In Phoenix, Arizona – Zillow’s second-largest portfolio after Atlanta – things are worse than we thought. According to an analysis by Insider, 93% of the homes Zillow bought to flip are now listed at less than what they paid.
Zillow’s iBuyer division – also known as Zillow Offers, uses artificial ‘intelligence’ to set target prices for homes, and lets sellers receive an almost immediate offer on their property, almost entirely online. Now, it appears Zillow’s AI-driven wager was dead wrong.
Insider reviewed all the homes for sale by Zillow in the Phoenix metropolitan area as of October 27. Out of 224 homes, 208 — or 92.9% — were priced below what Zillow paid. The potential losses highlight the risks of the iBuyer business, which aims to buy and resell properties for a profit in a roller-coaster market.
After purchasing 5,661 homes across 25 metropolitan areas from Austin to Tucson since the beginning of 2021, Zillow announced on October 17 that it would stop buying homes for the remainder of 2021. Chief Operating Officer Jeremy Wacksman said the pause was because of “an operational backlog for renovations and closings” that he blamed on “a labor- and supply-constrained economy inside a competitive real estate market.” -Insider
What’s more, while most of the Zillow sales were first listed at more than they paid – eventually receiving price cuts that brought them into the red, 36.5% of properties were listed for less than the company first paid. Just 16 homes were listed above Zillow’s purchase price – and all 16 were listed within the last two weeks, meaning they have yet to experience meaningful price cuts.
In short, Zillow is having issues clearing out its existing inventory and just needs it moved. As Insider notes, if the company sold all of it’s Phoenix homes right now at their current list prices, it would lose $6.3 million dollars. Right now, their median loss per home in the area is nearly $29,000.
Given that the Case-Schiller index indicates Phoenix real estate is still on fire, this may simply boil down to Zillow’s out-of-control ‘AI’ getting off on outbidding plebs in a greedy bet on unlimited growth.
Launched in 2017, Zillow’s iBuying arm uses a wide array of real-estate data with the goal of quickly and efficiently acquiring properties to flip for a profit. The program has vacuumed up properties across the country to flip, only to be met with fierce competition from services such as Redfin, Offerpad and Opendoor. And according to iBuying analyst Mike DelPrete, Zillow’s competitors aren’t having the same problems – with Opendoor’s median home priced $4,400 above what they paid (which, quite frankly, is also pretty terrible).
Zillow reports earnings on Nov. 2, so might be an interesting call to check out to say the least.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 10/31/2021 – 18:05 - 13 Years After Its 'Birth', Bitcoin Adoption Continues To Accelerate
13 Years After Its ‘Birth’, Bitcoin Adoption Continues To Accelerate
The 13th birthday of the Bitcoin white paper has crept up just as the world continues to deal with a global pandemic, inflation fears, an astounding memecoin mania trend and growing institutional adoption of the cryptocurrency space.
image courtesy of CoinTelegraph
As CoinTelegraph’s Francesco Rodrigues details, on October 31, 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin white paper to a cryptography mailing list hosted by Metzdow. The Metzdow mailing list was run by a group of cypherpunks and was filled with ideas meant to create a form of digital currency: some of these have even been cited in the Bitcoin white paper.
Satoshi’s white paper came in a message titled “Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper,” in which Nakamoto explained that his digital currency is fully peer-to-peer (P2P) and requires no trusted third party for a transaction to occur. Through a peer-to-peer network, Bitcoin solved the double-spending problem. Bitcoin also allowed network participants to remain anonymous and was secured through a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus algorithm.
At the time, the white paper wasn’t received the way people would expect it to be, knowing what they know today. Only a handful of people saw Nakamoto’s email and replied with their thoughts and concerns surrounding Bitcoin.
But as Jacques Chirac writes at Bitcoin Magazine, the Bitcoin network has come to dominate and even define the cryptocurrency space, spawning a legion of altcoin followers and representing an alternative to fiat government currencies such as the U.S. dollar and the Euro, and to metal currencies such as gold and silver coins.
Global cryptocurrency usage has increased by 880% in the last year, particularly in Vietnam, India, Pakistan, and other developing countries. The 2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index, titled “Geography of Cryptocurrency,” compared countries’ cryptocurrency adoption based on three primary parameters: on-chain retail value transferred, on-chain cryptocurrency value received, and peer-to-peer exchange trade volumes
According to specialists from these nations, many people utilize peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchanges as their main on-ramp into cryptocurrencies frequently because they do not have access to centralized exchanges. Significant currency depreciation in many developing countries leads individuals to buy cryptocurrencies on peer-to-peer platforms to protect their investment value.
International transactions are also prevalent in these areas, whether for individual remittances or business use cases like buying products to import and sell. The quantity of national currency that people may move out of the country is limited. Although China was ranked fourth and the United States was ranked sixth in last year’s survey, their positions have dropped to 13th and eighth, respectively.
What Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Bitcoin?
Advantages:
- Bitcoin users have comprehensive control over their reserves.
Traditional fiat currencies are responsive to several restrictions and hazards. Banks, for example, are flashed to economic booms and busts. As has happened in the past, these circumstances may sometimes result in bank runs and crashes. This implies that consumers do not have complete control over their funds.
- There are no costs associated with Bitcoin transactions.
Bitcoin users are not subjected to the invocation of conventional banking costs associated with fiat currencies. While fiat currency exchanges impose so-called “maker” and “taker” fees, as well as occasional deposit and withdrawal fees, Bitcoin users are not subject to these fees. This adds, amongst other things, no account sustaining or minimum balance fees, no overdraft costs, and no returned deposit penalties.
- For international payments, Bitcoin transactions offer minimal transaction costs.
Fees and currency charges are expected in standard wire transfers and international transactions. Transacting via the Bitcoin network is typically cheaper than bank transfers since there are no intermediate organizations or governments involved. This may be an essential benefit for tourists. Furthermore, bitcoin transfers are instantaneous, bypassing the hassle of usual permission methods and delivery times.
- Bitcoin transactions are entirely safe.
Bitcoin is not physical money. As a result, robbers will be unable to physically steal it. Hackers may steal a person’s cryptocurrency if they have access to the wallet’s private keys. However, stealing bitcoin is theoretically impossible with adequate protection and industry-standard practices. While there have been many other allegations of cryptocurrency exchange hacks, bitcoin transactions have remained unaffected. In conclusion, transactions offered out between two (or more) addresses are protected.
Disadvantages:
- Bitcoin is not yet accepted across the nation
Bitcoin is still only accepted by a limited number of internet businesses. As a result, relying only on bitcoin as a currency is near impossible. It’s also possible that governments may compel firms to stop accepting bitcoin in order to monitor consumers’ transactions.
- Wallets can be misplaced
One’s bitcoin is dramatically “lost” if a hard drive fails or a virus corrupts data, and the wallet file is damaged. There is nothing that can get the money back. These coins will remain orphaned in the system. This has the potential to bankrupt a wealthy bitcoin investor in a matter of seconds, with no means of replacement. The investor’s coins will be enduringly orphaned as well.
- There is no buyer protection.
When things are purchased with bitcoin, and the vendor fails to deliver the goods, there is no way to reverse the transaction. The problem can be approached by utilizing a third-party escrow service such as ClearCoin. However, escrow services would then take on the role of banks, making bitcoin more like conventional currencies.
- Technical flaws that aren’t known
The Bitcoin system may have vulnerabilities that have yet to be discovered. Because this is a relatively new method, if bitcoin were extensively accepted and a vulnerability was found, it might result in enormous riches for the exploiter at the cost of the Bitcoin economy.
How Is Bitcoin Used In Other Counties?
Since its commencement in 2009, bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies that followed have been fraught with contention and controversies. While bitcoin has been extensively attacked for its volatility, use in illicit activities, and the amount of energy required to mine it, some people, especially in developing countries, view it with great hope amidst economic storms.
However, as many individuals turn to bitcoin as an investment, these problems have materialized in a slew of new limitations on how they may be used. The authoritative position of bitcoin varies significantly from nation to nation, with specific relationships still being established or changing often. While most governments do not make it unlawful to use bitcoin, its position as a payment method or a commodity differs, with different regulatory consequences.
Some nations have imposed restrictions on how bitcoin may be used, with banks prohibiting their clients from transacting in cryptocurrencies. Other countries have explicitly outlawed the usage of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, imposing stiff fines on anybody who transacts in them. These are the nations where bitcoin and the state have a tense relationship. Despite this, it appears that the future may hold more countries continuing to look to bitcoin.
This is a guest post by Jacques Chirac. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 10/31/2021 – 17:40 - Iran Blames Israel & US For Cyberattack That Crippled Nationwide Fuel Network
Iran Blames Israel & US For Cyberattack That Crippled Nationwide Fuel Network
Starting Tuesday Iran’s gas station network saw many thousands of stations go offline as Iranians across the country were unable to use government-electronic cards for government subsidized gas due to a massive cyberattack on the online system that allows payment processing.
The network was reportedly down for at least 12 hours, with some gas stations being disabled for days – and almost 1,000 still disabled into the weekend, sparking widespread anger as long lines formed and fuel was urgently sold at greatly marked-up cash prices. Amid an ongoing Iranian investigation, a top Iranian general is the earliest to lay direct blame on Israel and America for the crippling cyberattack.
Gas shortages & high prices have impacted multiple Middle East countries, via Reuters. “From our point of view, this attack has definitely been carried out by the Americans and the Zionists,” said Brig. Gen. Gholam Reza Jalali, who serves chief of the Civil Defense Organization of Iran head.
He was quoted in Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency as saying further that “Serious infrastructural cyber warfare has started.” He urged, “We should take it seriously and rectify our areas of weakness.”
“We are still unable to say forensically, but analytically I believe it was carried out by the Zionist Regime, the Americans and their agents,” Jalali said in the state TV in an interview of the ongoing investigation. The influential general explained that this fresh cyberattack resembles to prior ones where authorities concluded Israeli and US covert involvement:
Tuesday’s attack “technically” resembles two previous incidents whose perpetrators “were unquestionably our enemies, namely the United States and the Zionist regime”, the Revolutionary Guards’ Gholamreza Jalali said.
“We have analysed two incidents, the railway accident and the Shahid Rajaei port accident, and we found that they were similar,” Jalali, who heads a civil defense unit responsible for cyber activity, told state television late Saturday.
As of Saturday, the AFP reports that “Around 3,200 of the country’s 4,300 service stations have since been reconnected to the central distribution system, the National Oil Products Distribution Company said, quoted Saturday by state news agency IRNA.”
Iran-linked hackers leak data from Israeli LGBT dating site (Revenge for Israeli hacking of Iranian gas stations?) https://t.co/2c4ZpLgKhW https://t.co/G5skRqlpFT
— Jim Clancy (@ClancyReports) October 31, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Neither Washington nor Tel Aviv have yet to address the new Iranian charges, which in the past have tended to go unanswered. There’s also the possibility of well-funded Iranian opposition and dissident groups, namely the MEK, or “People’s Mujahedin of Iran” – which has itself been known to work with Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. It also has support from American politicians, with former Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday speaking at an MEK conference in D.C.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 10/31/2021 – 17:15
Digest powered by RSS Digest
Saving...
